There are lots of reasons why terrorism happens. Suicide terrorism is discussed in depth in Robert Pape’s excellent book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.

After compiling the most complete database of suicide terrorism over the past few decades, Pape identifies the most common source of suicide terrorism as a perceived imposition on a land, a perceived encroachment on one’s land.

In the world we live in where many view themselves as part of a nation, part of a tribe, a part of reality is that borderlands will always produce conflict. Resources are finite, land included, so encroaching on another’s land may understandably lead to violence.

That this encroachment is the most common cause of suicide terrorism is the well-studied, impartial observation of Pape’s.  With the entire country discussion terrorism, Pape’s Dying to Win deserves a re-reading. In the days ahead, the media machine will throw talking points at you whether you read and watch the news or receive it through secondary or tertiary sources. Talking-points will mindlessly fill the discussions of virtually everyone you know.

No matter what comes out in the news about the Boston bombings, the fact remains – encroaching on the land of others is the key cause of suicide terrorism.

With American bases all over the world and our insistence in taking sides in tiny skirmishes like whether North Ossetia-Alania (a place we know nothing about) should have a different relationship with Chechens (a group of people we know nothing about) than Russians (a county we know next to nothing about), we must expect problems to come home.  When we interfere in the business of others, we are engaging in the exact behavior known to generate suicide terror attacks. We must not be surprised when 1 plus 1 ends up equaling 2.

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none,” has long been wise foreign policy advice to prevent killing in the streets of America.

Instead, we choose winners and losers abroad, support the oppression of losers, and in a futile aim to protect ourselves we go so far as to support oppression at home. Oppression of Americans on American soil is a band aid, spoken of as a way to alleviate the root cause, but which fails because we still feed the root cause. That root cause is our insistence in pursuing a worldwide interventionist foreign policy. In doing so, we pick winners and losers and support the oppression of the losers, sometimes very violently so.

“Why would the US ever be subject to a terrorist attack?” many will ask this week. The cause is easy to point to – we interfere in the world and pick sides in centuries old conflicts along borders, between nations. Sometimes we aid sides with money, weapons, and soldiers.

No one in Boston gave a damn about Chechnya until the morning of April 19, 2013 when the current Boston bombing suspects were fingered as Chechens. While it’s nice to expand your mind by learning about the rest of the world, it’s best to mind your own business and to stay out of the conflicts of others. If the choice were to have never picked a side in Chechnya or to have lived through the bombings the same way again, my guess is that most Bostonians would, in retrospect, choose the peaceful, non-interventionist policy.

“But some of us are ‘Experts’ in the field,” you may contend. It’s good to recognize that just because you’ve read books and may even have written books on the geo-political history of other parts of the world, that gives you little foundation, as an outsider, to interfere in that place. You’d get mad too if someone ignorant from far away came with a gun and pretended to have all the answers for you.

In the weeks ahead, some ‘experts’ will call for a crackdown on immigration. Others will call for stricter internal checkpoints. Some  will call for aid to Chechens. Some will call for aid to Russians. Some will call for bombing Chechnya. Some, unable to distinguish the difference between Chechnya and Russia will call for bombings of Russia. Some will call for the bombing of a Muslim nation (since Chechens tend to be Muslim) and insist that there is a cultural clash.

No matter what is spun in the media this week, I know there is a cultural clash. It’s the clash between Americans who don’t like our intrusive presence in the world and don’t want to suffer its effect, versus those who are status quo on our interventionist foreign policy. The data shows that less intervention is the answer to avoid terrorist retaliation on American soil.

The exact opposite suggestions will be made on the news. We will be told we need more international interfering to protect us, when the facts point out that we actually need to mind our own business to make us safer. Our intervention, our meddling endangers us.

Boston is 5,300 miles from Grozny, Chechnya. Today distances are short. America, once on an island, now shares borders with every country in the world. We have a presence in those countries. With much greater ease, a stone thrown across that border can affect the average American. In that new world we can stop getting people to want to throw stones at us or we can all wear heavy armor all day. Regardless of whatever poor media coverage takes place on the Boston bombings, Pape’s well-established insight will be the advice I turn to.

In the days and weeks ahead, the media, almost certainly will seek to make you forget the simple wisdom of Robert Pape, Thomas Jefferson, and others, and will encourage you to wear heavier more burdensome armor in your day-to-day life.

Regardless of what we learn in the days ahead, make the tough decision this week. Reject the armor. Instead, address the root cause of why anyone would want to throw a stone.

It occurred to me after hearing the various sides of the story from Walter Block's Tampa speech dealing with the virtues of evictionism that Walter Block is a misunderstood seeker of the truth. He was booed by fellow Ron Paul supporters for presenting an alternative to the present political status quo. How painful it must be for a misunderstood seeker of the truth to be so quickly judged by the small percentage of people who one would think would be quickest to give him the benefit of the doubt. To the contrary, it seems to me that Walter Block is not bothered by this. He offers encouraging advice for those who would like to aspire to the same — for those who aspire to speak the truth as honestly and as audibly as they can. I had the opportunity recently to ask Dr. Block a few questions about the importance of speaking the truth even when those around you don't seem to want to hear it.

A.S.: Professor Block, you write books, author articles, and give lectures that allow people to characterize you as a gadfly. You've told me in the past that you consider the word gadfly to be a compliment. How would you define that term?

W.B.: A gadfly is someone who questions received opinion.

A.S.: By your definition of gadfly, it sounds like essentially anyone can be a gadfly by simply asking a few tough questions now and then.

W.B.: Well asking is important. But so is answering.

A.S.: Why do you think it is important for members of society to aspire to be gadflies, to question those received opinions?

W.B.: Questioning the status quo is a necessary condition for improving it.

A.S.: Should a gadfly want to speak the truth even when it feels like no one wants to hear what he has to say?

W.B.: The truth shall set you free. So, yes. Although, I suppose, there are exceptions. For example, when asked by a burglar where the jewels are or making someone miserable by telling them they'll soon die.

A.S.: Can a gadfly inspire change in society?

W.B.: Sure. Socrates. Gandhi. Mises. Ron Paul. Ayn Rand. Murray Rothbard.

A.S.: Why do you think it is more natural for some people to unquestioningly receive opinions rather than to develop their own?

W.B.: Human diversity. People are not homogeneous.

A.S.: How does it feel being in the tenuous position of speaking to the 10% of the population that you'd expect to be open-minded about some of your perspective — an evictionist perspective for example — and instead of being heard, you were booed?

W.B.: It felt like a challenge. I wish I had met it better. I should have said, is libertarianism 100% perfect? Of course not. Therefore, it needs improvement. How can it ever improve, if challenges to it cannot be even articulated?

A.S.: How do you find your moral compass? How do you know when you are speaking the truth? Whose opinions do you value? Under what circumstances, and based on whose opinion, would you say to yourself "I have made a mistake in my writing"?

W.B.: Murray Rothbard is my guiding light. I certainly value his opinion (although there is not a 100% congruity between our two views). If I think I'm wrong, I'll publicly admit it. There are several of my scholarly publications where I have admitted error in a previous publication. It only hurts for a little while. If we want to seek the truth, we have to not allow our ego to get in the way. I don't always have to be right. I've made errors. The best thing to do is to acknowledge them, apologize for them, and move on.

A.S.: Popularity can be weak and can be waning. Do you ever find yourself compelled by the desire to be popular? Does it hurt whenever any of your views are considered unpopular?

W.B.: Yes, I'd like to be popular, but not if it means compromising with libertarianism, or Austrianism, or the truth. Of course it hurts when my views are denigrated; but it is a "good" hurt. I feel that I am carrying the message of Murray Rothbard, and it is an honor to do so.

A.S.: What role do you think marketing should play to someone who seeks to tell the truth?

W.B.: I'm pro-marketing. I only wish I could do it better, more eloquently, give better examples. But, all I can do is my best. I always try hard, real hard.

A.S.: If evictionism had a different name, would it be more widely accepted instead of quickly misunderstood?

W.B.: I'm open to better names. Any suggestions. I just don't want to call it "golf," or "apple pie" or something like that which is a bit fraudulent. A suggestion I'm thinking about is "pre birth adoption." But I still think evictionism is more accurate.

A.S.: Should a seeker of the truth such as yourself care that any of his ideas might be quickly misunderstood by some?

W.B.: Yes, I care. I don't want to be misunderstood. In my lectures, my teaching, my writings, I try to be as clear as possible, so as to obviate misunderstanding. But, people misunderstand. They think that in extolling the virtues of the free enterprise system, you are pushing greed, that you hate the poor, etc.

A.S.: What advice do you have for someone who is timid about writing about what he considers true out of a fear that someone might dislike what he has to say?

W.B.: Read Michael Edelstein's book Three Minute Therapy; available on Amazon.

A.S.: Should it matter to a challenging scholar, to a gadfly, that he is booed? Should he want to be booed?

W.B.: No one really wants to be booed, I think, unless he is a masochist, which I am not. I'd prefer not to be booed, and shouted down. I'd prefer that people calmly, politely, stated why they disagreed with me. How else are we going to get that proverbial one millionth of an inch closer to the Truth?

A.S.: You seem to be referencing Kierkegaard with this one millionth of an inch language. As Kierkegaard wrote of the search for God as insatiable by nature, do you consider the search for the truth to be insatiable? Will the seeker of truth never feel satisfied?

W.B.: There will always be scarcity. That's the precondition for economics. We'll always want more than what we have. Of everything. Including the truth

A.S.: Thank you, Professor Block.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer from Chicago. He is the author of Somewhere Between Bratislava and DC and How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012. He writes about Central European Culture at 52inSk.com. During his day, Stevo helps investors locate promising Manhattan real estate — one of the most aggressive investment environments in the world.

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At 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, Mitt Romney became the GOP nominee for President.

At about the same time, 5:15 p.m., I watched a man involved with Ron Paul's Louisiana victory box up phones at an outpost of the Ron Paul Revolution — a place from which some of the dispersed grassroots campaigns were run. Boxing up those phones marked the end of the 2012 phone-banking effort in that remote location. A room that I had seen abuzz with volunteer activity for months from early morning until whatever hour it is that Hawaiians start to no longer accept political phone calls was now being packed into a few small boxes and being shipped away. A few small boxes of equipment, a few hundred dollars to keep the lights on, and a dream for freer times ahead filled rooms like that across the country night-after-night. Tuesday that was all packed up.

The next night Ron Paul's son would show support for Mitt Romney at the RNC. There would be a video played about Ron Paul there, a similar video about the grandeur of George W. and H.W. Bush was also played. Just like the RNC would love to mothball the embarrassing details of the Bushes' time in DC, they would like to see the same done for Ron Paul and the idealism of his time in DC. The campaign had come to an end and in just a short time his career in DC would come to an end as well.

All at once, it felt like a death knell for the Ron Paul Revolution.

Luckily, the RNC, can't fit Ron Paul's career neatly into a little box to be shipped away.

Earlier that day, a man who'd never spoken about politics with me Googled me. He commented later "I bet you were really disappointed with how that whole Ron Paul thing turned out — how the Republicans treated him — weren't you?"

No.

"No," was my answer. Ron Paul pushed forward the liberty movement in a way that it otherwise would not have been pushed forward. He inspired talented people from around the country; he inspired them to interact, to collaborate, to train together, and work together; he inspired some of them to travel great distances; he created a framework for greater interaction to happen among liberty-minded folks.

A Discussion

As a result, a discussion took place and continues to take place. It is not the same great debate I had hoped for 10 months ago; it's still a discussion in the right direction. Ron Paul 2012 has solidified a movement that Ron Paul 2008 could not have solidified in the same way.

That discussion among Ron Paul supporters starts with a sentence like this "How can you and I collaborate to make ourselves more effective together than we are separately?" That discussion was repeated ad infinitum over the past year of Ron Paul's campaign.

Saying Goodbye to the Movement?

Tuesday was a day of saying goodbye to Ron Paul 2012 as I knew it, Wednesday felt like the same — Rand Paul, George W., H.W. Barbara, and Laura Bush, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, Condoleezza Rice, John McCain, and Paul Ryan all spoke in a single broadcast to a national audience about electing Mitt Romney.

Is the Ron Paul Revolution over? Far from it. It's ready for the next chapter.

I am eager to see what will happen next, yet I realize that good things may take time. Persistence is needed to fell a mighty oak. That the stubborn Ron Paulers persist in the absence of the motivational Ron Paul candidacy will be the true test. With that persistence, Ron Paul's movement will be an engine for growth; it will be a virtual Silicon Valley for political and for the more important non-political activity.

As we move forward with Ron Paul's Revolution, I focus on the themes of books like The Market for Liberty and The Sovereign Individual — books that put politics into perspective. Politics is one way to effect change. The number of non-political opportunities to effect change are uncountable.

Is the Ron Paul Revolution over? I have a phone book full of people who believe in the same ideas as I do about freedom, just as intensely as I do, and who are so very talented and resourceful. Why would I suddenly stop collaborating with those people just because a few suits in Tampa and some loser newspaper reporters who never understood it to begin with now claim that the Ron Paul Revolution has come to an end? If I were the only person with a phonebook full of people like that, amazing things would still come out of Ron Paul's movement simply because of the work that I will bring people together to do. More importantly, there are 10,000 other people similar to me — young in spirit, battle-tested, eager to see greater freedom, with a phone book full of contacts who will eagerly work alongside each other.

Precisely because of that, precisely because Ron Paul brought likeminded people together, his effect on the world will be immeasurable large. Most of that will have little to do with politics. Even the day Ron Paul's revolution marches into DC it'll be clear how insignificant politics will be to pursuits of greater freedom. Politics is just one option out of a limitless number of ways to bring change.

Ron Paul 2016

2016 will be a benchmark for the movement — a time to reflect on how far we'll have come in four years. How far we'll have come when we get together again for a reunion then and refocus some of our efforts on politics – that national distraction that pulls us away from the realities of our own lives every four years. Maybe it will be a Ron Paul candidacy in four years. Maybe it will be another worthwhile candidate. Something tells me that Washington DC has not heard the last from the Ron Paul Revolution.

At that 2016 reunion, something will be clear to anyone who was involved in 2012, 2008, and perhaps even earlier — because a guy from Texas decided to run for president in 2012, an endeavor that most observers will call a failed attempt, because of that, the lives of many people who rally around his message will never be the same.

Is the Ron Paul Revolution over? Nope. The Ron Paul Revolution has already grown so large as to be unquantifiable.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] helps people buy, sell, rent, and invest in Manhattan real estate in New York City — one of the premier real estate markets in the world for real estate investors.

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I straddle two cities — Chicago and Bratislava. It was hard for me not to notice the iconic photos from both cities three weeks back. I know the world wasn’t exactly watching Bratislava, since, well, it’s just lil ole Bratislava, but I was surely watching it. Nor was the whole world watching Chicago the way I was. Sure, it got some play in the media, but it wasn’t like the whole world was talking about how important Chicago was just because many thousands of protesters faced off against thousands of police officers. A relatively small segment of society was watching.

Fascinated, I took note of how people in each city reacted differently to the police and how seriously the police took themselves in both situations.

In Chicago — people took the police seriously and the police took themselves seriously.

In Bratislava — no one took the police seriously and the police didn’t really take themselves that seriously.

You can make all kinds of “Yes, but…” statements that mitigate this distinction — such as “Yes, but the Slovaks didn’t want to destroy property,” or “Yes, but the Slovaks are peaceful people” or “Yes, but the the black brigade made very bold threats.” That doesn’t change the fact that this distinction is noticeable and valid.

Americans are increasingly coming to respect their increasingly authoritarian government. The mere fact that I would bother to write in these pages about the tyranny of the TSA tells me that I, instead of laughing at them for the buffoons they are, take seriously the threat of an increasingly authoritarian state on my liberties.

Slovaks, on the other hand are becoming increasingly free with their distance from communism and increasingly disrespectful of governmental authority. Disrespect of the most prominent symbol of government authority could be seen three weeks ago in Bratislava — on Obchodna Street. I can’t imagine a scene like this fifty years ago in Slovakia, nor even ten years ago in Slovakia. Slovakia is a rapidly changing society.

I worry that the same can be said about my own homeland, about America. However, in a different direction than Slovakia. In America, that healthy disrespect for the police seems to be waning. Change in America does not worry me at all. It’s the direction of that change that concerns me. Police and government should be disrespected. That’s part of being a free people — disrespecting those entities that possess the power to make you less free. By maintaining that disrespect, you largely deny anyone the power to make you less free.

While protesters in America took the police very seriously in Chicago during the 2012 NATO summit in May, revelers in Slovakia barely took the police seriously at all. The capital city saw Slovak youth blocking the path of trams and laying down on the hoods of police cars. I know how tame that will sound to a Greek soccer fan or an American NATO activist, but that’s relatively wild for a Slovak. No matter how stern-faced the police are in the video of that happening below, I can promise they laughed inside. It would take a de-Slovakifying (if such a medical procedure were to exist) for a Slovak police officer to take himself 100% seriously. It’s simply part of the nature of any Slovak to laugh at the authority of the government.

That’s why so many Slovaks are scofflaws when no one is looking, why so many Slovak go out of their way to avoid paying a little, some, or any of their taxes, why so many Slovaks laugh at authority, and why so few Slovaks turn out for elections (especially the foolish E.U. parliamentary elections to which Slovakia, for the second election in a row, which also means every E.U. parliamentary election Slovakia has had, had the lowest turnout percentage of voters from any E.U. country). That last point is something I am thrilled about, because while all the world seems to take the European Union seriously, some part of each Slovak realizes that the E.U. is just another government run by fallible people waiting to fail. I don’t say that to be pessimistic, but rather to be realistic about the nature of governments. All governments fail, which means that no government need be worshiped as if it were an eternal entity. Slovaks tend to understand that concept well.

Twenty-five years ago being a smartass to a police officer could earn you a trip to the police station where you might “accidentally” fall down the stairs badly. That’s no longer the case. The police know it and a lot of Slovaks know it. This video below tells me that some segment of Slovak society has moved far beyond communism — even if that segment is simply drunken 19 year old male hockey fans living in Bratislava, it remains telling that a group of Slovaks in a joyous mood behaved this way — not only in public, but in the presence of and in blatant disrespect for a police officer.

The video makes me smile because it is shows youth having fun. But more importantly it shows a significant step post-communism. This is Slovakia, where people have a healthy disrespect of the police, even in the face of a police officer. But today, that disrespect has passed from rolled eyes and comments made around the dinner table, into the public sphere. I know that some level of disrespect of authority is something I admire. I like seeing that experiment taking place — a culture testing its boundaries.

On the left side of the Atlantic, on the left side of Lake Michigan, another group of people were busy testing a different boundary. They were busy allowing an increasingly militarized urban police force to use them for live training. Arguably the protesters were doing the same with the police. What I disliked was how seriously each side took themselves. To some extent the police rightly considered some of the protesters a bunch of bozos. The protesters, wrongly, did not seem to think the same of the police. A wise commenter on this site some months ago encouraged this jovial view of a growing authoritarian state when he called the TSA the Keystone Kop operation that it is. Like any Keystone Kop operation it should be laughed at. Authority is claimed. Respect is given.

The Chicago Police claimed authority. The protesters entered into that game with the police, thereby giving the police respect. As much as I appreciate individuals who I know on both sides of the protest, I am saddened by the misuse of respect.

That’s what I meant earlier by writing: “That’s part of being a free people — disrespecting those entities that possess the power to make you less free. By maintaining that disrespect, you largely deny anyone the power to make you less free.” By giving respect, you legitimize authority that a person claims for himself. You might change the physical landscape around you a little bit with that gift of respect, but you change the psychological landscape in which you live so much more. In the mind, it would seem, a person can be free even in an unfree society.

Perhaps that kept Hungarian poet Gyorgy Faludy free in mind as he wrote poems in his own blood on toilet paper in prison. Perhaps it kept Czech dissidents like Vaclav Havel free in mind. I believe it is a large part of what makes Slovaks feel so free at times — a history of what historians call oppression through which they spent lots of time laughing at what historians call oppressors. It’s hard to oppress someone who laughs at you every time you turn around.

Slovaks have some of their own cultural orthodoxy, but they love to challenge everyone else’s cultural orthodoxy. That challenging of one’s cultural orthodoxy can be good training for someone from outside of Slovakia. Love of a king, and by extension — love of a government, is not part of that Slovak cultural orthodoxy. As a t-shirt sold at a Slovak restaurant reads “1,100 years without a king makes the heart free.” It does make the heart free. You aren’t accepting for yourself respect for the claimed authority of a king, just because he calls himself a member of your tribe. It’s easy to trick a person into feeling respect by convincing that person of ownership. An example of that might go something like this “I am your king; I am one of you, so it’s okay to respect me,” or ” I am your government; you can feel like you can change me any time you want, so it’s okay to respect me.” There’s a lot of fallacy wrapped up in that claim of ownership, however. Who really owns a king? Who really owns a government? Is it ever “we the people,” whatever that statement really means? How easily can a government be changed?

Americans elected a President in 2008 on a platform of change then saw little change. Americans elected a Congress on a platform of change in 2010 then saw little change. Those highly touted elections might be little more than pressure valves. Those elections are ways to feel some ownership over government. If you can superficially change the appearance of the government, you can feel like you’ve changed the government. Refuse to cede respect and those pressure valves are much less necessary. Laugh loud and good at “your” government and you will be automatically a step freer than you were five minutes earlier, because you will have changed the psychological terrain in which you perceive yourself.

Slovaks laugh good at their government each day. For the first time, I am seeing Slovaks laugh loud at their government as well.

This article first appeared at 52 Weeks in Slovakia.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer from Chicago.

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There seems to be a new trend in the libertarian movement — "going paleo" is how it is commonly referenced. Usually it means cutting out the sugars and grains in accordance with what researchers believe was the human diet for most of our history. These are foods, with which, according to the theory, the human body is therefore more comfortable. This diet takes on many forms, but as far as I can tell they all talk about reducing the amount of heavily processed carbohydrates and fats in the diet and in other ways seeking to eat foods that are more natural. There are several factors that have come together that has made this a popular diet among libertarians I've met. 

Mismatchers

There’s a segment of society that is contrarian by nature. They will automatically challenge everything that they are told is received wisdom. These are people who almost always swim against the stream and tend to feel more comfortable in the role of opposition. Libertarians tend to be composed disproportionately of these people.

Taking that into consideration, it would only make sense that the medical establishment would say “You must eat a diet low in fats, especially saturated fats” and many libertarians would respond resoundingly “No!” Instead of simply denouncing all health advice, going paleo offers another structured path, while diverging from the government pronouncements on diet and nutrition.

Anti-State

There's an anti-state/anti-government trend in libertarianism that doesn't just advocate for smaller government, but totally rejects the legitimacy of government. Accordingly, it totally rejects the legitimacy of anything the government has to say about health.

Realizing the prevalence of special interests in seeking special favor and status from government, libertarians tend to reject advice of government because it is typically not the impartial advice that we are often told it to be, but is rather very biased advice that comes from whoever the highest bidder is or from lobbyists who have some other type of non-financial influence. Lobbyists get government to take controversial opinions and declare those opinions unquestionable truth.

Taking into account these tendencies to let lobbyists create policy, it’s no wonder libertarians tend to challenge government-praised "improvements" in life rather than blindly accepting them. Vaccines, fluoridated drinking water, the carbohydrate-heavy food pyramid, or amalgam fillings are just a few aspects of conventional wisdom that many libertarians have yet to be convinced of.

While some may feel that libertarians tend to be too critical of government, even sometimes erring on the side of caution by blaming government even for problems with which government has nothing to do, libertarians tend to be incredibly astute observers of when government has failed in its duty to the governed. This duty of government doing good by people (beyond bare bones protections on life, liberty, and property) is a widely perceived notion that libertarians love to smash. Accordingly when three decades of the Department of Education correlates positively with three decades of lower test scores, something in the libertarian cringes (and probably rejoices a little too!) at the failure of government.

When the lobbyist-created and government-praised food pyramid of healthy eating coincides with higher rates of obesity, libertarians are quick to take note of the correlation.

When the government is insisting that people follow a broken diet and other healthcare pronouncements, it should surprise no one when many, many libertarians are among the early pioneers to say "I want to try something else, because it's clear the government model is not working." 

National Campaigns

The purpose of running a campaign is to win office. That, I believe, has been and remains the goal of Ron Paul 2012. Many added benefits come about from an independent thinker like Ron Paul running nationally. One of those benefits is that the proverbial pot gets stirred.

During a vigorous national campaign like the one Ron Paul is running, libertarians and libertarian-leaning folks from all over the country end up meeting each other and talking. Those who would never have talked to each other under any other circumstances suddenly find themselves having an engaging discussion that goes far beyond the usual formalities that often take place when two strangers meet and exchange a few words for the first time. Social circles change and expand, Facebook friend lists grow, the informal non-media channels that libertarians use to pass along information develop and are strengthened.

Because of Ron Paul 2012 some ten or twenty thousand libertarians met people for the first time who looked at the free campaign pizza being offered to them and refused to eat it because they were paleo. Hear that enough and you start asking questions about this lifestyle and maybe even start trying this paleo thing out for yourself. There’s no way to quantify how effective Ron Paul 2012 was in stirring the pot of ideas among libertarians. One small, symbolic example is its impact on diet. There are dozens of other impacts in dialogue that came about. 

LewRockwell

While popular lore speaks of Lew Rockwell as a vegetarian, his website encourages a specific form of the paleo diet – Mark Sisson’s Primal Diet, which seems to be the ultimate bloody meat eater's guilt free diet. As long as you keep it within some set parameters of the meats being relatively well-raised, there’s not much you should shy away from in this diet – loads of fat, including a super high daily intake of saturated fats if you'd like that, and heck eating fresh lard, fresh butter, lots of fresh meats is all encouraged — even eating offal is encouraged if that's your scene. None of that is a problem.

At the same time energy levels rise and the pounds fall away, blood pressure and bad cholesterol drop, and common illnesses become less of a problem, sometimes even entirely disappearing – as is often pointed out on Fridays at Sisson’s website Mark's Daily Apple.  This is all despite eating some of the things we’ve been told are bad for us — which is, again, lots and lots of red meat, saturated fats, and overall increased dietary fats. Sisson goes much further and presents an overall plan for wellness that he crafts out of his theories about how Grok the fictional everyman of cavemen may have lived. 

Rockwell also regularly features work by the contrarian and well-read Dr. Joseph Mercola. Taken together Mercola and Sisson form a paleo tour de force, but my guess is that neither one of them knows the other, making the harmony and occasional discordance of their views even more enjoyable to observe, especially since one is a practicing doctor and the other is simply well-read and in great physical condition.

Mercola probably wouldn’t call himself something catchy and trendy like “paleo,” but he and Sisson share a lot of the same values – meat can be good, eat natural whole foods, stay away from sugar, stay away from Frankenstein oils and foods, and go easy on the carbs. Their ideas have much overlap. 

The Disappearance 

As Ron Paul’s campaign progresses, I’m hearing the same thing said more and more “look at all the weight you lost” or “what happened to you, did you go paleo or something?” Decades ago doctors knew that high fat, high protein, low carb diets could drastically reduce weight and heal many ailments. It was once a standard treatment for epilepsy. Today with natural food becoming increasingly easier to come by in all corners of the U.S. that diet is starting to feel a whole lot healthier and intuitive. If canned spinach were all you could get 9 months out of the year, a diet high in vegetables wouldn’t sound all that appetizing to you. However, lots of affordable, fresh, high quality produce and meats are increasingly becoming the norm year round all over the U.S.

Interestingly, libertarians have come upon this method of eating that seems foolproof and nutritious to many people who try it. It's an equation that proves consistent and enjoyable results for anyone disciplined enough to make the change. This seems so much to be the case that I wonder if we are looking at the end of the fat libertarian. The only question remains therefore – is there enough discipline in the individual to follow a diet of this nature? Perhaps this offers some enterprising young Austrian an opportunity for a real-world study of rational behavior in humans. 

As the rest of society seems to increasingly lose grips of what is taking place around them, I increasingly see libertarians preparing themselves and becoming increasingly well-positioned in society. I've seen this happening as members of the liberty movement grow more nicely groomed, well dressed, and poised, slender and fit, politically active, likely to use the Internet to learn, courageous enough to take risks, skilled at marksmanship, positioned to be in good condition no matter how strong or weak fiat currencies are, well-travelled and knowledgeable about the world. When I hear about the popularity of the primal diet and many others success-generating trends among libertarians, I recognize that what was once a movement largely populated by social misfits is becoming a training ground for success in life.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer who remains on the campaign trail for Ron Paul, because he recognizes the importance of that support. He is the author of How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012.

The Best of Allan Stevo

A common complaint in the liberty movement is that the media is no help. For numerous reasons that's an ideal situation for us.

The Media Offers No Help

There are plenty of media sources that censor Ron Paul. We can react to that in a variety of ways. The reasons media sources do not mention Ron Paul are numerous. The goals of not mentioning him are few and include — 1. Discouraging his supporters and 2. Distracting his supporters.

They underestimate the ardent Ron Paul supporters if they think a supporter will get discouraged by Ron Paul's 89 seconds of time in a CBS debate. They underestimate us if they think a lack of mainstream media mention will get us down. They underestimate us if they think they will discourage us by acknowledging Ron Paul only when it looks like there's an opportunity to discredit him. The media utterly fails at discouraging Ron Paul supporters, because largely they don't understand the passion for freedom that Ron Paul supporters have. If you don't "get" freedom, you're going to have a hard time "getting" Ron Paul's supporters.

What the media succeeds at is the second goal. Ron Paul supporters can get easily distracted. Ron Paul supporters flood comments sections, chat rooms, and Facebook fan pages and make a big show of the latest outrage on the internet. But NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Only one thing matters in a campaign and that is winning. Some will say Ron Paul runs to preach the message of freedom, that he runs for the sake of debate, that he runs to inspire the future generations. There are lots of better ways to do that than spending very long hours campaigning. The reason to run a campaign is singular — to win. All the rest can be nice secondary bonuses, but when the Republican National Convention convenes in late August 2012 in Tampa, Florida, the only thing we want is to see Ron Paul with the nomination. Without that, the campaign is lost. That's all there is to it.

The way to beat every journalist and political analyst who laughs at Ron Paul and his supporters for their quaint notions of freedom is to win the GOP nomination.

A Media Myth

Here's a funny thing about the media — they think they matter. Every Ron Paul supporter bringing 10 friends (And as you're reading this, I hope you're making a list of who those 10 supporters will be!) to the polls with him renders the mainstream media meaningless. Bring 10 friends and it won't matter what the media says. Some will say it hasn't mattered for a while, and I don't think that's really true, but today the mainstream media can, for the first time, be made worthless in a presidential election. We can nullify them.

We can make every smug journalist from Tallahassee to Kauai spit out his coffee morning-after-morning after reading on the internet about Ron Paul's blazing success in the primaries the day before. You and I realize that interpersonal online connections matter, and that the mainstream media has in many ways stopped mattering. We will activate the networks we've spent years building, and we will use those networks to win the GOP nomination and then the U.S. presidency.

We Don't Need The Old Media and We Shouldn't Want Their Help

There are lies that can be told about every candidate. There are truths that can be spun to make every candidate appear ugly and to make it easier for any candidate to lose. When those attacks on Ron Paul begin, they will run rampant through the mainstream media with ease. When that happens, we will be grateful that we long ago gave up on the mainstream media and focused on building our own channels of communication instead of allowing the media to be the "communicator" of ideas for us.

The media had little to do with making Ron Paul popular — after all the people who learned enough about Ron Paul to want to vote for him did not learn about Ron Paul from the mainstream media — and therefore it would follow the media can do little to make Ron Paul unpopular. The members of our movement have generally learned not to pay the media much attention. While it has taken us a great deal of work to build these interpersonal networks that sidestep the media, it allows our movement to be much stronger, much more independent in its thoughts, and less prone to being influenced by the mainstream media.

To put a twist on a common political adage "A mainstream media strong enough to give you everything you want, is a mainstream media strong enough to take everything you have."

I have a friend who is a commodities broker that tells me "the markets love gridlock." They love when Washington can't make up its mind.

Well, I tell him, then Ron Paul is the candidate he wants, because neither the Republican nor the Democratic establishment will be excited to see him as president. Ron Paul and the insiders aren't going to agree on a darn thing.

You see, anyone who appreciates Ron Paul (me included) is going to have a lot of work cut out for him if he wants to see a Paul administration accomplish anything legislatively. January 20, 2013 is Inauguration Day. That's the day we can march into DC alongside President-elect Ron Paul, but DC will not want us there. If we leave Ron Paul in DC alone with the wolves, nothing will be accomplished legislatively, and even if we don't leave him alone with the wolves, it's still unlikely that much will happen legislatively.

And that's okay. That's no problem. The system was set up that was — to be slow, to be full of "red tape." You see the red tape was built into the federal system to bind the hands of the government. It was not meant to bind the hands of anyone else. The more slowly moving and powerless government was, the less of a chance it had of destabilizing the people that permitted that government to exist. Making it slow moving would help ensure that government would be long lasting, because no one would care enough about it to want to overthrow it.

Finishing An Important Project

Have you ever worked full speed at a project, obsessively, over a long period of time, to finally accomplish the goal with resounding success only to wake up the next morning not knowing what to do?

Yup.

Me to.

It's a common phenomena. That's a great opportunity to give yourself some time to take a vacation, shore up your duties, take care of other responsibilities, recharge your batteries, rebuild your resources, and plan for your next step. It's a great time to stop and think.

Two decades after the Cold War, that war that NATO survived and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact did not survive, we have yet to determine what our priorities are in terms of foreign policy. And who can think clearly as we continue full speed ahead, without a vacation in which we can pause and reflect on the role of our foreign policy in a post-Cold War world.

A decade after the September 11 attacks, we have yet to figure out what our priorities are. Is it to engage in costly nation-building in the country that housed some of the terrorists that planned an attacked on us (Afghanistan)? Is it to take loads of lobbying money from the country where 15 of the 19 hijackers were from (Saudi Arabia)? Is it to bipartisanally bomb, probe, and annoy every country on the Neo-Con hitlist (Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan)? Our foreign policy, to make an understatement, feels sort of unfocussed.

Two years after the passage of Obamacare, we have yet to figure out a way to talk about our major crisis in healthcare in a reasonable way. And there is undoubtedly a crisis; almost everyone on all sides agrees with that. We have yet to figure out how to talk about higher education. We have yet to talk reasonably about the housing market. All of these areas of life are being held at artificially high prices, essentially making involvement in them increasingly unlikely for many Americans without some sort of outside assistance.

In the middle of an economic crisis of epic proportion, we have yet to take a look at what kind of long-term policy might be sensible to solving the problem we are in the midst of. And our discussions on all of these issues seem incapable of going beyond mere 9 second media talking points and "I gotcha!!" one line zingers. We can do better than that.

We are running willy-nilly. And I might even wonder if the special interest groups in America like seeing Americans running willy-nilly. Fifteen years ago, the fictional movie Wag the Dog expressed that concern — the concern that vast groups of people might be manipulated for political gain.

Ron Paul Slows It Down

Ron Paul in the Oval Office slows all of that down. Under a Ron Paul presidency, journalists might continue business as usual and ask on camera: "Should the next bank bailout be $1.25 trillion or $1.28 trillion? There is a divisive fight in Washington about just that. Republican supporters of the $1.25 trillion relief bill are saying tax-and-spend Democrats are being fiscally irresponsible, while Democratic supporters of the $1.28 trillion relief bill are saying Republicans risk lowballing the solution and undermining the long-term success of the Rescue America's Happiness Act. Let's turn to our correspondent on Capitol Hill to ask u2018What are the congressional Democrats and Republicans saying about the next bailout to the banks?'" They can encourage that kind of false, narrowly framed debate, just like they are encouraging that kind of debate now. Ultimately, however, that debate won't matter under a Ron Paul presidency. It doesn't matter, because either party's bailout is getting vetoed.

Legislation is so often presented as if a quick response is necessary and correspondingly, we get conned into having these heated debates over a $1.25 trillion or $1.28 trillion bailout, when many Americans don't think a bailout is a good idea at all.

What are congressional Republicans and Democrats saying about legislation to eliminate steroids in baseball, to regulate the cost of healthcare, or offer free birth control, none of which are mentioned in the U.S. Constitution? It doesn't matter. It's getting vetoed.

What are Republican and Democratic insiders saying about extending the Patriot Act, expanding the War on Drugs, or placing sanctions on some distant country? It doesn't matter. It's getting vetoed.

How are the Democrats and Republicans on the Hill responding to the latest outcry from the media on injury bounties in the NFL, the punditry's insistence for indefinite detention, or the demand that the Federal Reserve Bank be protected behind a veil of secrecy to ensure its independence? Guess what. It doesn't matter. It's getting vetoed.

These are all significant issues that I'm happy Americans are debating, because it allows us opportunities to think and to hear new ideas. It's just not likely that those ideas will be acted on during a Ron Paul presidency. Either that, or Ron Paul will achieve unprecedented levels of bipartisan cooperation as Congress overrides his vetoes, which could happen, but would be a tough task.

Thinking of the Future

Ron Paul will be the gridlock president. Ron Paul will be the president that stops the midnight secret legislation. Ron Paul will be the president of anti-anti-Constitutional legislation. Some people won't like that, but I know a lot of Americans for a long time into the future will love it. My generation and the generations after me will be grateful that America in the year 2012 decided to spend 4 years having a discussion about the course of our country.

We'll be grateful that Americans decided to have that discussion rather than running around the world like a former Cold Warrior trained to kill whoever the bogeyman is, uneasy when he's not geared up to kill a bogeyman. Uneasy when he's with himself in a room, where it's quiet and he needs to hear his own thoughts. And hopefully in that moment, we won't hear our own vacuousness. Because that will feel scary. We need a minute to rest, to re-establish a working relationship between the government and the people, to pause and think instead of being knee-jerk in our long-term planning.

Time won't end in 2012. Time to prepare for the future. Time for Ron Paul, the debate his presidency will inspire, and the calming gridlock that will come of that.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer from Chicago — author of LewRockwell.com's #1 Best Selling book for the month of February, the recently released How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012, a book on how Ron Paul supporters can secure the GOP nomination and with certainty deliver a presidential win for Ron Paul in 2012.

The Best of Allan Stevo

I sat through a sometimes boring and very often disappointing GOP convention last Saturday in Clark County, Nevada.

I heard numerous delegates proclaim that the income tax was necessary and that it was just "really weird" to want to get rid of it.

I heard lots of jeering and booing during discussions on social issues. It descended into uncivil personal attacks and got ugly.

I heard many platitude-filled, inconsistent speeches. During one speech, many delegates lukewarmly cheered a Republican elected official when he contradictorily proclaimed "I am a low tax, reasonable regulation, free market capitalist." Somehow I accurately predicted that the next sentence out of his mouth would not be "Free markets regulate themselves — now that's reasonable regulation."

I didn't really like most of what happened at that county convention.

However, there were fantastic shining moments too — like watching Ron Paul supporters 1. showing up so well organized that they wrestled control of the county party from the insiders, 2. playing fun parliamentary tricks with Roberts Rules of Order, and 3. cutting their teeth for the future contests ahead. The meeting was boot camp for the next generation of the state's liberty activists.

But one moment stood out above all. In Reagan's big tent Republican Party there was one issue that was unanimously supported. I really do mean unanimously. Not a single hand was raised to vote in opposition, not a jeer rang out through the quiet ballroom, not a hiss, nothing. And believe me when I say that these people really knew how to voice their displeasure. Nothing but utter unanimity on a particular issue, and it's all thanks to the obstetrician representing the 14th Congressional District of Texas.

Anyone who's been to such a convention and then watched the succeeding elections take place knows that few politicians care about party platforms, but platforms are nonetheless contentiously battled over. Those battles are a sign of what's on the minds of activists in a party.

A sentence calling "for a full and public audit of the Federal Reserve Bank" passed through the platform committee. Some 2,000 people were in the room as the lunch break ended making them eligible to vote. I always thought a random collection of 2,000 people couldn't unanimously agree on anything. All other issue spoken of up until that point in the day certainly showed how unlikely it was that 2,000 people would agree. Calling for a full and public audit of the Fed, they could agree on.

Four years ago saying "audit the Fed" relegated you to the corner of the Republican tent next to Truthers and just a step below Birthers. You were just lumped into the group of people marginalized for a desire to have grievances redressed. "Go along to get along" was de rigueur and demanding that grievances be redressed, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment, was considered unpatriotic and strange. No more. Redressal of grievances seems to be coming back into vogue.

Ron Paul has started a return to sanity — that all aspects of governmental or quasi-governmental units should be audited and not allowed to run unfettered. Reining in the Fed has long been a key plank in Ron Paul's personal platform. The step after transparent auditing is talking about how and what to cut. Audit the Fed is a start, a no-brainer, and I wonder if anyone other than me noticed what happened — Ron Paul's key plank passed, and not a single objection could be heard.

The Fed is more significant than we realize. The Fed must be understood. The Fed is not to be trusted. In fact, the Fed, it's control over the money supply and interest rates, in a system of fractional reserve banking are to blame for the booms and busts of the business cycle. Those sentences logically follow one another as a person investigates the central bank. Three of those four, once considered strange to speak about in polite company have become acceptable.

They've perhaps even become "common sense," so common sense that you'd now appear like an idiot to the masses to publicly stand against an audit of the Fed. America is changing. I was lucky enough to be there to see one example of that change occurring, such an important example. We've come a long way from freshman congressman Ron Paul being called before a Senate committee for daring to be the lone vote against the funding of the IMF.

The groupthink of statism as "common sense" and its seemingly unconquerable march forward has shifted. Two hundred years from now there will be many bodies of writing looking at when that shift occurred and mine might be among the primary sources referenced — arguing that that shift occurred in Las Vegas at the Orleans on March 10, 2012.

No more fitting scene could be found for such a moment – in this far off outpost of the Austrian school — the Las Vegas desert that Murray Rothbard called home when the East Coast academicians would not have him.

We are baby steps away from hearing popular criticism of the Fed with its control of the money supply and interest rates in a fractional reserve system of banking — the foundational stones of Austrian Business Cycle Theory's explanation of booms and busts.

We are baby steps away from hearing that debate had among credible participants on a level playing field. That debate would include an Austrian view and some flavor of Keynsian view. Both sides expected to prove themselves, both given a fair shot at explaining their views of how the world works and the role of the Federal Reserve Bank in that process. We are baby steps away from that debate.

We are baby steps away from the masses looking to the remnant for a different explanation of the cause and correction of the booms and busts than that offered by the current prevailing orthodoxy.

Ludwig von Mises, welcome to the mainstream of American politics.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer from Chicago — author of LewRockwell.com's #1 Best Selling book for the month of February, the recently released How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012, a book on how Ron Paul supporters can secure the GOP nomination and with certainty deliver a presidential win for Ron Paul in 2012.

The Best of Allan Stevo

There's a 30-minute long YouTube sensation that's gotten more than 70 million views in just a few days. The stated goals of the expertly produced Kony 2012 is to make an African warlord a household name and to keep U.S. military advisors in Uganda.

Because ideas presented in the documentary are stated as "something we can all agree on," I find it important to step forward and say that I do not in the slightest agree with the idea of US military advisors in Uganda. In fact, I think that the work being done by Kony 2012 director Jason Russell and a number of organizations and activists on this topic is flat wrong.

Kony 2012 has a "power-to-the-people" feel to it and calls for action that is humanitarian in nature, making it ideal in convincing naïve, well-intentioned people about the justness of having foreign troops in Uganda.

However, my years of political involvement have shown me that people must not be judged on what they say, but on what they do. As well-intentioned as they are couched, Russell's actions move us toward American military involvement in Uganda under popular pressure and under a veneer of justice. This is not an admirable goal and the talking points are familiar ones.

In fact, his techniques are so familiar that the maker of this film sounds like a neo-conservative, especially from September 10, 2001 until W's mission accomplished speech on May 1, 2003.

I'm not going to spend time addressing the valid concerns that Uganda has oil reserves coveted by American interests, that US interests wants to beat China to Africa's resources and are looking for ways to have more of a military presence, that Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army might not be the threat they once were, that the crimes mentioned in Kony 2012 are an issue of the past and not ongoing, that Kony is believed to no longer be in Uganda, or that a tremendous amount of criticism has come out among Ugandans and other Africans against Kony 2012 and Kony 2012-type thinking. All of that can easily be found by a person approaching this video with a critical mind and an Internet connection.

Instead I will address more fundamental issues that are as pertinent today as they are in any other conflict and in assessing any other piece of pro-war propaganda meant to impassion. These are seven familiar techniques used by the neo-conservatives then and the neo-liberal Kony 2012 filmmakers today:

It'll Be Easy

The makers of the film inform us that intervention in Uganda will be easy. However, we all know that a warlord doesn't get to be a warlord because it's easy to kill him. We've heard before that wars are easy. I remember how Iraq part II was supposed to be a cakewalk. If Americans understood that we were agreeing to 10+ years in Afghanistan, a post 9/11 assault on the Taliban and occupation would have been a harder sell. I'm not sure that Americans today would support a war in Vietnam with our 20/20 hindsight about the conflict. War isn't easy. That can be easy to forget.

Are we to imagine that Joseph Kony doesn't have a single general willing to follow in his footsteps? Will the brainwashed and abused child soldiers welcome us with open arms? Both of those concepts make this "easy" fight more complex and these questions don't even begin to scratch the surface. I'm not convinced that this will be easy. How poor of a memory does someone need to have to be IN THE MIDDLE of a war and to forget that military conflict is never guaranteed to be easy.

Calling hard things easy is nothing new. Door-to-door salesmen came up with a name for this technique — "the foot in the door technique." It's a technique that has surely been around as long as interpersonal communication has existed. "C'mon, it won't be as hard as you think" is the gist of it. Sometimes that's true. When it comes to war, that's generally a lie.

He Has No Friends

"[Kony] is not supported by anyone," we are told in Kony 2012. Presumably everyone is Joseph Kony's enemy. He has no friends. Everyone in the region is against him. Well, then it should be easy for him to be killed or captured without US assistance right? If US assistance is needed, this claim sounds hard to believe.

There Won't Be Unintended Consequences

If the unintended consequences were apparent to the warmonger, then the modifier "unintended" would not be needed. Causing problems and then coming along later saying "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that" isn't responsible. It's even less responsible to screw up another country with one of our interventions and to pretend that we could not possibly have imagined that there might be unintended consequences. Ultimately, Americans can just get in planes and leave Uganda if we screw things up. Ugandans, on the other hand, are stuck there. We have no way of predicting what our intervention will do to their homeland. This Ugandan writer, Javie Ssozi, even goes so far as to suggest that the movement could cause Kony to fight back, which could mean abducting more children to secure his position and go on the offensive in now peaceful Northern Uganda.

Take Up the White Man's Burden

This is an ugly and seldom questioned aspect of every war America involves itself in. People who are so devoid of racism in all other aspects of their lives can so easily buy into this concept written about by Rudyard Kipling in 1899 when the US invaded the Philippines.

Essentially, it's the burden of the "advanced" white man to bring a better life to the "less advanced" non-whites. Put a twist on that and we have a version of Manifest Destiny — it is the duty of the advanced Americans — God's chosen people — to ride to Africa and help; their lands will be better off under our control than in their current state.

It's so blindly arrogant to look at our lives and to say that our lives are better than the lives of people who we do not know in a place far away. In the event that you've never slept under the roofs of poor families in third world countries, I should share with you that people smile all over the world and quite enjoy their lives. My experience has been that even in the face of much adversity and even extreme poverty, the good people I've encountered would rather be left alone by America than ever lay eyes on an American soldier and the inevitable war zone that surrounds him. Many people the world over are happy without America's help even if their lives (like the lives of all human beings) are imperfect.

Attack Anti-War Ideology

Anti-war views can be ideological and inflexible. Some who are antiwar guard against others coming along and tearing away at the firm ideas of being against war. Common attacks to antiwar views propose moral questions intended to ruin the resolve of someone who is antiwar For example, the unlikely event of ticking time bomb scenarios are used in this way to try to erode at a person's peaceful values.

In case Obama's presidency (the antiwar vote of 2008) hasn't done enough to undermine the antiwar movement, Russell, who probably hates the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is calling for new military intervention. That's probably because he's flexible on the role war should play as a tool and encourages others to be more flexible. A war advocated by Dick Cheney to increase American military and corporate influence in the Middle East might be lousy, but if it's advocated by someone I like for reasons I like then it's suddenly grand to kill people. Is a bloody war, a bloody women-and-children-killing, community-destroying, body-maiming, soil-polluting war, with unpredictable additional consequences okay if it's done for humanitarian reasons and has a really cool marketing campaign?

Simplistic Thinking

Even a child can see right and wrong. The director demonstrates this by allowing us to watch as he tells his son about Joseph Kony. It can be hard to understand right and wrong from the other side of the globe. From my experience of years living abroad, it would surprise me if even 1% of people living outside of the US have the vaguest sense of what life is like in America.

At the same time, we Americans have no idea what life is like in Uganda. An American expert living and studying in Uganda for 20 years might be able to really give a solid estimate of all kinds of facets of life in Uganda provided that you considered him trustworthy. Six weeks in wartime Iraq, six weeks in wartime Afghanistan, six weeks in wartime Vietnam and even a soldier who is far removed from the day-to-day life of the average person in those countries can tell you that it's a lot more complicated of a situation than anyone at home realizes. He may not be able to describe the differences, but he recognizes that vast complexities exist.

Almost 20 years after the first invasion of Iraq, it's still asking too much to expect an American to explain the difference between Sunni and Shia in the land that we've been occupying, let alone make an educated argument for taking sides in an armed conflict. Can any of us really be expected to discern what constitutes just and unjust in the context of Uganda's internal politics? Yet in the example of Kony 2012, that's exactly what we're being called on to do, each one of us individually is being asked to step forward and to argue on behalf of military intervention in Uganda — a country that few of us know much about. As discerning thinkers seek to make themselves knowledgeable about Uganda, the more we learn about Uganda the less we'll see we understand. Just like our own country and any other country, the internal matters are complex, often more complex than most outsiders realize.

Ignoring the Hypocrisy of It All

America's the cleanest country out there, right? It's an example of perfection, right? Forget that there are American citizens who would like to see our last two presidents, Henry Kissinger, and many others indicted by the same war crime tribunal that has indicted Joseph Kony.

The following, from Glenn Greenwald, is such a good accounting of some of President Obama's horrific behavior that I like to reference it regularly:

"President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.

"He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He's brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the US as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world's most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.

"Most of all, America's National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journalu2018s Michael Hirsh just christened "Obama's Romance with the CIA." He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed "a vast drone/killing operation," all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama's steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called "Top Secret America" has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the "austerity" measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America's middle and lower classes."

You see, if you weren't American and watched American news perhaps twice a year, then maybe you would say "Wow, I can't understand why Obama isn't being tried as a war criminal yet. All those people he kills in other countries, you'd think his people would want him tried as a war criminal. If some outsider would just swoop in and deliver him to the Hague, everything would be better." Thank goodness other countries don't cluelessly get involved in our internal affairs — what a mess that would be.

I don't want to determine guilt or innocence by comparing Obama to Kony, but aren't we the American voter, the American taxpayer infinitely more responsible for going after Obama than Kony? Obama is our murderer. We enable him. Kony is someone else's murderer. It may be convenient to ignore Obama's crimes and go after Kony. Is it just though, to be concerned with the speck in the Ugandan eye, while ignoring the log in our own?

Invading another country about which we know little while essentially ignoring the faults of our own is the wrong step for an America interested in justice.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer from Chicago — author of LewRockwell.com's #1 Best Selling book for the month of February, the recently released How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012, a book on how Ron Paul supporters can secure the GOP nomination and with certainty deliver a presidential win for Ron Paul in 2012.

The Best of Allan Stevo

Conservative Americans DO NOT WANT Mitt Romney. That's pretty darn obvious. He spends a fortune trying to convince voters, gets a generous amount of media time to express his message, and still can't seem to inspire the Republican base, even when he's running against the likes of crooked party hacks Santorum and Gingrich, or against that other guy — the Congressman from Texas who seldom gets mentioned in the media. Against opponents like that, the out-of-touch punditry have long expected that Super Tuesday 2012 would be the coronation of Mitt Romney.

In the era of the Tea Party, Mitt Romney is simply too big of a statist and is too inconsistent with his views to sew up the nomination or the presidency. Does he like gun control (as past action has shown) or does he like the Second Amendment (as his current rhetoric is demonstrating)? Does he want national healthcare (as past action has shown) or is he against government healthcare (as his current rhetoric is mostly demonstrating)? Is he against the concept of the free market (as past action has shown) or is he in favor of a free market (as his current rhetoric is occasionally demonstrating)?

Republicans clearly do not want Mitt Romney as a president, but we're still only 8 weeks into this 8 month long nominating contest and perhaps they'll take a liking to the number two man in the delegate count — Ron Paul when they come to realize what a chance they have at choosing a principled candidate who can succeed at winning the White House. He has the second largest fundraising apparatus of the candidates, has the largest volunteer army, appeals to the swing voter, appeals to the youth, appeals to activists, gives the angry ex-Obama voters on the left a safe home, attracts independents, Greens, and Democrats, grows the party, and has a record of winning 12 elections in the conservative south, all of which nearly ensure that his nomination would bring about a Republican win in November.

The Adversarial VP

"But why," you might ask, "would Ron Paul want Mitt Romney, a soon-to-be washed up politician, as his running mate?" Well, because Ron Paul, a fan of the wisdom of the founding fathers, might appreciate the pre-1804 thinking of having a man who is his biggest opponent as his vice president. The idea was encouraged in the U.S. Constitution Article 1, section 2 before it was altered by the 12th Amendment. Jefferson, for example, was the vice president to Adams. Boy did those two not get along. They had some fundamental differences of opinion.

Mitt Romney is a saboteur within the Republican Party — a man who pretends to be conservative, while so effectively being a statist. He would leave our country spread thin and defenseless by entering into another war and impoverishing our country for the sake of pumping up our national ego and, more importantly, his own ego. Mitt Romney would swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution that he would not uphold. He would continue the horrible Bush record of deficit spending, bigger government, and high federal tax rates. He would continue the dismantling of our civil liberties and economic liberties. He would support more huge bailouts. He would not stand against the Federal Reserve Bank.

Candidate Romney, described above, is almost the opposite of Ron Paul who is strong on national defense, strong on veterans, strong on the economy, tough on government spending and taxation, a strong adherent to the wisdom of constitutional government.

As you read this, Mitt Romney might be sitting somewhere looking over the Super Tuesday returns, saying to himself "Ron Paul's so into the Constitution that he might follow in this tradition of the adversarial vice president that the founding father's began." I doubt Ron Paul's thinking that, but Mitt Romney when listening to Ron Paul speak about Mises and Keynes in those pre-debate green room discussions probably says to himself repeatedly "Is it time to ask him yet?" Because Ron Paul is starting to look like Mitt Romney's last hope — Romney either becomes VP to Paul, riding the septuagenarian's coattails for a term before running again himself, or Romney never again gets a chance to become the president.

Unelectable Mitt

The elections of 1976, 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 have shown that an uninspiring and merely tolerable candidate like Romney fares poorly in general elections, especially when paired against a candidate who knows how to inspire his base.

It's time for leaders in the Republican Party to face the facts and to start asking Mitt Romney this important question — if the Republican voters don't actually want him and if he is likely to be unelectable, would Mitt Romney be willing to step down and throw his support behind Ron Paul in hopes that Ron Paul would consider having Mitt Romney serve as the 48th vice president of the U.S.?

Mitt Romney understands that such a move would help bring unity to a splintered party, and that a Ron Paul candidacy would flank Obama on the wars and civil liberties in the run-up to the election, would eliminate the divisive talk on social issues, and would give Republicans the best chance at a win. It's time for Mitt Romney to make that phone call to Ron Paul and to tell him that in exchange for being Paul's vice presidential choice, Ron Paul will get Mitt Romney's full support.

I'm not sure Ron Paul will accept the offer, but it's a good place to begin the discussion.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer from Chicago — author of LewRockwell.com's #1 Best Selling book for the month of February, the recently released How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012, a book on how Ron Paul supporters can secure the GOP nomination and with certainty deliver a presidential win for Ron Paul in 2012.

The Best of Allan Stevo

It's long been understood in U.S. politics that the one who wins an election is the one who has the power to treat Americans like total garbage while enriching his buddies. On the other hand, the one who wins the election could do something entirely different from what presidents for years have done. The one who wins the election could wind up being a guiding figure as we Americans tear down the system that is slowly enslaving us. That's what we hope for. That's what we work for. If we work tirelessly and effectively, that's what we'll achieve.

I write this not for the folks who are opposed to political participation, but for those who recognize the importance of political participation. Working half-heartedly or ineffectively in these times that so matter is simply not enough, because victory is so close for a candidate who is so threatening to the forces that oppose freedom.

What Ron Paul threatens to do is to take the free meal ticket from many men and women who currently depend on government's corrupt corporate "welfare" in order to live well. There are lots of people who need Ron Paul to lose, because they see that their livelihoods depend on it. Simply sharing links on Facebook and getting into online debates will do little to make Ron Paul president; in fact, the powers that be would love to see Ron Paul's proponents stay online "where they belong" or just coming outside every once in a while to wave signs. Those actions are entirely ineffective in winning a campaign. Do them and you are just as bad as any neo-con — because you have a chance to effectively fight for liberty, yet you do nothing. Your silence, your comfortable obeisance in your day-to-day life, only strengthens the existing system. You spend your day strengthening that system, just like a neo-con. In fact, I'd say you're even worse than a neo-con, because a neo-con doesn't get it. A neo-con isn't wasting the opportunities to destroy the shackles, because he doesn't feel the shackles. You who feel those shackles, yet do nothing effective in response to them — you are villains in this story.

The first day this spring when Ron Paul loses an online poll is the day that I know the movement has refocused its attention on something better — winning a race instead of acting like we've already won a race. Rejoicing about our strength and our numbers is exactly that — acting like we've won a race. We have no reason for gloating, yet so many Ron Paul supporters gloat. We have not won the race.

We can do this. We can win this election. America is ready for us to step up and lead. If we don't, if we can't capture the nomination and then the presidency, well, we are losers. We are pathetic. We had the most beautiful possible chance in our hands — a peaceful revolution — and we blew it. I'm 32 years old. I know that in the next 12 months, the people of this age will earn one of two titles that will be applied to us 40 years from now — either we become "the greatest generation" or we become "the ineffective screw-ups that doomed America even though they clearly saw the future." We'll get other chances, but this will likely be the easiest, most comfortable method of change.

Ben Novak, in a letter written to Ron Paul supporters in April of 2008, pointed out some very important issues — the old media has stopped reliably delivering truthful coverage; the internet exposes that; as the American people aren't stupid, this situation will eventually lead to great outcry from the American people; Ron Paul is positioned, and has been positioning himself for decades to be exactly where he is at this moment in history, to be a leader capable of correcting the course in America. I'll let Novak speak for himself:

"I like to think (but do not really know) that this is the way Ron Paul understands the situation. As the old saying goes, u2018Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.' Well, RP has the idea, and he has the wisdom and the patience to wait till its time has come. So far, he has beautifully positioned himself for when that time comes. He has waged his campaign to take the word out to the people. Only a few heard, but they have seen for themselves how the MSM works. Ron Paul has earned their trust. He is the only one who has come through this campaign more trusted than he entered it. One out of twenty voters already knows and trusts him.

"That means when the wind of truth begins to blow, each one of those one-in-twenty Ron Paul supporters need only bring the facts to nine or ten people to create a majority in the whole country. And when the jolts and shocks of reality hit and break through the web of obfuscation and lies of the MSM, people will be looking for real facts and truth. And Ron Paul supporters will already be armed to give it to them.

"And it may come sooner than expected. All the things Ron Paul said about the economy are coming true in spades — with credit collapses, falling dollars, rising oil prices, and recession (perhaps soon to become “Depression”), and most of all, spreading wars and endless quagmires."

Think about Novak's observation — 1 in 20 voters trusted Ron Paul in 2008. If those one in twenty each find 9 or 10 friends to bring to the polling place on the morning of the primaries, we win the nomination. Part of the good news is that more than 1 in 20 voters trust Ron Paul today. Maybe it's 2 in 20 or 3 in 20. We don't know. There is someone out there who does know. And while our movement is good at fundraising, good at being heard, good at winning straw polls, there's no room for resting on our laurels right now, because the truth of the matter is ugly. Here comes the most important thing I have to tell you. It's that defeat is just around the corner, waiting for you and me to sit idle.

The Numbers

The numbers that Ron Paul has today aren't going to cut it. That's the fact of the matter. If you are reading this right now, you need to personally deliver 10 votes for Ron Paul on election day. You need to personally bring in 10 voters who otherwise wouldn't have voted for Ron Paul. If you bring in a minimum of 10 voters and thousands of other Ron Paul supporters bring in a minimum of 10 voters, Ron Paul wins. One vote doesn't cut it and seven votes won't cut it. You bring in 10 voters, you motivate the people around you to bring in 10 voters, you make sure those 10 voters show up to vote for Ron Paul on the morning of the primaries and Ron Paul wins this nomination.

You don't do that and Ron Paul loses. Ron Paul becomes the greatest candidate who never became president.

In 2008, on the Eve of the New Hampshire primary I was talking to Fox News commentator Frank Luntz, the author of "The Contract with America," the man that freedom lovers despise for his Goebbels-ian ways. He bet me $1,000 that he could call Ron Paul's percentage. He knew Ron Paul wouldn't see 20%, because Frank Luntz knew the available polling data, and he knew what the good data was saying. He confidently stretched out his hand to me to offer the $1,000 wager. I refused to accept the bet and shake Frank Luntz's hand, and with his confidence Frank Luntz quieted me down for a few minutes.

I could tell that Frank Luntz didn't really want to say that to me, because he didn't want to hurt my feelings with that certainty. I think somewhere in him, he appreciated my devotion to the principles of freedom. In time, I would come to realize that Frank Luntz was right. Ron Paul supporters were out shouting and waving signs; we were the most populous on the streets, the loudest, the most excited, and we definitely had the biggest signs.

However, when it came down to what mattered in an election, we didn't deliver what was needed for our candidate of choice. We lost because we didn't deliver. I spent weeks in New Hampshire in 2008 campaigning for Ron Paul. To this day, I don't know if I brought in even 10 votes for Ron Paul in all of those phone calls I made for him in the Live Free or Die State, all of those hours of hearing what was on the minds of voters and asking for a vote for my candidate. I didn't personally follow up; I didn't personally get those voters into the polling place on election day. I wasn't the one following through, so I have no idea how, or if, that follow-through happened. You see, no matter how many people you "convert" to Ron Paul's ideas of freedom — something plenty of Ron Paul supporters brag about — if you don't get them to vote for Ron Paul on election day, you've accomplished little toward winning a race.

This year, I'll bring in many multiples of that. I won't be talking to strangers; I'll be talking to my social precinct. I'll be reaching out to the people around me.

In elections, you don't get into a fight that you don't have a big enough stick to win. You get into fights to win. You pick the fights that you have a darn good chance of winning. Ron Paul isn't travelling the country, sleeping in hotels, getting battered by the media because he doesn't want to be the president. He's doing this because he knows he can win. You get out and get those 10 votes, Ron Paul wins. You get 10 Ron Paul supporters around you to go out and get 10 votes each, Ron Paul wins. You get 10 pro-peace voters to register Republican and to vote for Ron Paul, Ron Paul wins.

Victory rests in our hands today. With hard work and focus each one of us can deliver those 10 votes. Will you deliver 10 votes for Ron Paul or will you be one of the others, that segment of Ron Paul supporters that will long deserve the scorn of friends and opponents alike?

This text is excerpted from the newly-released How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer from Chicago. He's the author of several books and numerous essays dealing with issues of liberty.

The Best of Allan Stevo

America is a place where neighbors rarely speak openly about politics, and when they do, it is usually only to repeat media sound bites. An Obama / Paul race will change that. Two differing ideologies will Clash. One for greater individual freedom. The other for more government. This competition of ideas will not occur with other Republican candidates, since they are ideologically aligned with President Obama when it comes to the power of the individual over the power of the state. Inevitably, debates will take place between the two candidates. Discussions in the new media will take place on the candidates. And most importantly, neighbors will discuss these two ideologies with each other. Because the differences between them are so significant these two candidates will compel us to move beyond the media sound bites and really examine our beliefs about the idea of America and the direction we should take as a nation. We can make that debate happen.

Many proponents of the statist ideology will work hard to see to it that the champions of freedom are denied a candidate in the general election who expresses those viewpoints. As usual, America's political class will try to limit debate so that only statist viewpoints are widely expressed and only candidates with statist viewpoints are included on the ballot in November. This year is very different. It is possible and likely that Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination and that great contest of ideas will take place. Instead of Americans being forced to choose between two statists of different flavors ("the lesser of two evils"), they will be able to decide between an advocate of statism and an advocate of freedom.

President Obama is very charismatic and energizes large groups of people with his charm. Congressman Paul, too, energizes large groups of people, but with his relentless pursuit of the truth and his insistence on communicating that truth. These two men will face off and provide America with two different choices for what the future holds. America will have the opportunity to decisively choose which of those paths take. Never in my life have I been able to experience America the way America will look come autumn of 2012 as economic conditions worsen and Americans look to two very different philosophies to explain the cause and correction of the nation's problems.

It's the Intellectual Revolution that Matters Most

Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul informs us that election day is but a punctuation mark on the debates of society, a punctuation mark on the active participation of the citizenry. Historian Murray Rothbard points out that the American Revolution took place at least a decade prior to 1776. The shooting war from 1776 onward was but a bloody rebellion that came about because the British government refused to recognize that the colonies had forged a new society. What happens in the hearts and minds is what matters. While winning the election will be the goal of these two political campaigns, what all of us Americans should want above all else is to see this "Great Debate" when Paul and Obama run against each other. I fully expect that Paul will win the nomination, will go on to win the presidency, will make important policy changes, and will lead necessary legislative changes while in office, but it will be that discussion that will change history. However much he changes the face of government, inspiring this Great Debate will be Paul's most significant impact on America.

When I speak of this Great Debate, I refer not to any specific debate or series of debates between the candidates. I refer instead to the necessary discussion of ideas that takes place between the two campaigns in this election, and especially to the discussion of ideas that will take place in the new media, among neighbors, and in many other forums when these two very different candidates square off.

Ron Paul and Barrack Obama are the Ideal Candidates

There are few people as qualified to represent the sides of the debate. Obama is the charismatic figurehead of the political establishment that calls for greater statism and corporatism. This establishment crosses party lines and includes the vast majority of federal politicians. He is the figurehead of what pollster Scott Rasmussen identifies as the American political class — a group of less than 10% of Americans who identify with the government on at least two of the following three questions:

1. Whose judgment do you trust more: that of the American people or American political leaders?
2. Has the federal government become its own special interest group?
3. Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers?

President Obama, a man whose time in office has aptly demonstrated his belief that the federal government can solve life's problems by force of mandate, is qualified to represent the American political class in an election.

Ron Paul has spent approximately 40 years establishing himself as the most qualified person to represent freedom — he is well mannered, well read, knowledgeable of the workings of the halls of power, and an adherent to constitutional and pro-freedom values. He regularly finds himself in direct opposition to the ideas of the political class. He is unique among the Republican candidates in flatly speaking out against the statism and corporatism of the political establishment. It is imperative to that establishment that Paul not be allowed to win the presidency and nearly as important that his voice not even be heard. The political establishment does not want the American people to examine their beliefs, forced to think, forced to choose, forced to be exposed to a debate that is so powerful and expansive that neighbors and strangers will reach out to each other to discuss the issues of the day. The establishment is terrified by the potential of that debate. They realize that merely opening the channels of communication between friends and neighbors is enough to bring drastic and lasting change.

I know that debate will happen.

Both you and I know how important that debate is. After all, it's the debates — the shifting intellectual environment — that made the American Revolution what it was. The act of taking up arms wasn't the important part. Some piece of each one of us understands how important that debate is; that's why we are active in the freedom movement. Let's face it — both you and I have more relaxing and more comfortable things to do than win the day for Ron Paul. For example, instead of spending my time with the people I love the most, I am writing this to you. I am writing this book because I know that the small percentage of Americans who make up the political establishment can be overcome by the rest of the population. I write this because I know that you personally can so successfully appeal to the sense of reason of so many other Americans. Are we not better served by an Obama / Paul race in November than by another contest of Statist vs. Statist? Isn't it good for the nation to debate the questions that will arise from these two very different candidates meeting? I'm suspect of anyone who doesn't think that debate is a good idea.

u2018Freedom Isn't Free' Gets Misused Often

I am active in the liberty movement, and I write this because I know the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. I imagine the reason that you are reading this right now is because you know the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. "Freedom isn't free" is popularly used to explain why America should start wars around the world, and why those wars should be unquestioningly supported by the citizenry. However, "freedom isn't free" more accurately is just a more concise way to say "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." "Freedom isn't free" means that we should always question, we should always challenge anyone who would limit our freedom. "Freedom isn't free" comes down to a basic reality — only those who will force others to allow them to be free will actually be allowed to be free. Some may dislike the fact that freedom requires constant vigilance and struggle, but dislike of the truth does not make the truth any less true.

I believe, dear reader, you realize that freedom is costly; otherwise it's unlikely that you'd spend your time reading about the arduous work of bringing greater freedom to America.

You are sacrificing by reading this. Instead of spending your time with the people you love most or engaging in a host of other more relaxing activities, you are giving me the chance to share my plan for making the Great Debate happen. Maybe better than referring to it as "sacrificing," is pointing out that it is more of an investment. The work you and I put in today in the freedom movement may pay dividends today and may pay dividends for many years to come. Do the wrong work and there will be no dividends. Do the right work for freedom and the dividends will be clear.

We are communicating through this writing because we want to invest in the future of America. We can invest time and effort today to reap benefits in the future. We want to work efficiently, because we all know that our personal resources (time, money, and energy) are limited. Many of us probably also know the feeling of ineffective work. Some who read this may even know the disappointment of what may feel like decades of ineffective work on behalf of freedom.

The Liberty Movement Is Succeeding

If we zoom the camera out, we see that America is in the midst of a great change; the false claims for change from the 2008 election have been rejected; it is the liberty movement that has created a foundation for the change that is taking place. The calls for freedom are loud and widespread. No matter how high the establishment media raises its volume, it can't talk over those voices. As strong and secure as the established voices may seem, the American political class is terrified at the change it sees taking place in America, which is precisely why they ignore us. Our challenge to them is formidable, and we have everything in order to see the first great political victory of our movement. We overestimate their strength when we think otherwise. Now is the time to push even harder, because our efforts are so close to bearing fruit.

My book How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012 is my call to the freedom movement — how to be as effective as possible, both personally and as a movement. If we agree on common goals — getting Ron Paul the Republican nomination, getting Ron Paul into the Oval Office, and severely limiting the power of the federal government once he is in the Oval Office, then this is the most effective, publicly available road map to that goal. We must work quickly. So many opportunities are available today that will be gone in a few months. Today is the day to begin this important work. Wait three months and the road map becomes obsolete. Get to work on this plan today and the road map becomes effective, the road map becomes true, the road map becomes our way to make the Great Debate happen, and the road map becomes the path to the White House on inauguration day, January 20, 2013.

The text in this post is excerpted from the newly-released How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012.

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer from Chicago. He's the author of several books and numerous essays dealing with issues of liberty.

The Best of Allan Stevo

This is one of those movies that makes me feel sort of heartless because as everyone else in the packed theater "ooohs" and "aaaaahs" I'm seething with anger at what a bunch of idiots I'm surrounded by. Kitsch is enough to drive some people into unquestioning adoration of a scene. Kitsch isn't enough to make me ignore the fact that the underlying message of what is happening around me is entirely twisted.

That makes me at least a little ashamed for my emotions and leaves me with the conclusion that Steven Spielberg is either really twisted or has made the movie The War Horse in order to make fun of Americans. Two months back, I watched it in the theater. It was two days after Christmas, everyone around me probably had their bellies still full of food from the yuletide feasts — in that situation I'm supposed to be even more likely to like mushy movies. But I wasn't sold on this one.

For the sake of argument, I'm going to give Spielberg the benefit of the doubt and assume for the next 700 words that Spielberg made The War Horse in order to make fun of Americans. He too realized that after a decade of war, crap like this makes an American "ooh" and "aaaah."

I've never felt so bad for being a human before

At least that's what I think Spielberg was trying to make me feel. I am supposed to feel some kind of terrible collective racist guilt (as in the "human race") for the horse who is treated cruelly. All the while, people are dying in that movie. World War I is the backdrop for much of the film. You could make the argument that ultimately, a soldier chooses to go to war and ultimately a beast has no choice. However, the scene where a human fourteen-year-old deserter is shot sort of removes that theory. Shooting teenage deserters was presented by the filmmaker as less of a tear-jerker than a stupid horse running through barbed wire.

This movie desensitizes the viewer to human suffering

I felt surrounded by ninnies in this movie theater. The American government is fighting umpteen wars around the world where innocents are having ordnance dropped on them at the orders of our Commander-in-Chief, killing parents, scarring children, maiming people for life, and we are supposed to watch this "anti-war" movie that cajoles us into downplaying the loss of human life? Contrary to what Spielberg may have intended, the great collective guilt I felt sitting in that theater was not "Humans can be so cruel to animals" but instead was "How can I justify spending 2 hours watching this film instead of campaigning for Ron Paul, the single anti-war candidate, or doing something, anything in opposition to the wars." I justified it as family time, but the watching of nonsense with my family is some pretty lame family time. Time is of the essence — Ron Paul doesn't get the nomination in August, doesn't get elected in November and the U.S. will continue the wars for four more years or until the money runs out (whichever comes first).

The people who watched this movie and felt bad for the horse seemed to think nothing of the horrors of war. It's a movie that makes a fool of people for their twisted morals. Is it really possible that I sat in a packed house of 500 people and heard gasps with every threat against an animal, but heard nothing with every death of a human? This movie was filled with human misery that was intended to be entirely tangential to the story. Was Speilberg seamlessly stringing his audience along, like so many manipulative moviemakers are able to do, using techniques that only a movie maker would notice? Or, are we Americans really so freakin out of touch with the value of human life that we gasp at pain for a creature while thinking nothing of the death of another human?

Death is not sad; WWI and its successors are

Listen, death's not sad. WWI is sad. That the U.S., this last 95 years, has continued making the same mistakes of warmongering and seeking bogeymen abroad is much, much sadder. Gigantic wars fought between gigantic states controlled by sociopaths does not need to happen. Death needs to happen. One is very sad, the other happens.

The moral standard of this film

Showing kindness or cruelty for a horse is the basis for how the characters are judged morally in this film. The director intended the most emotionally evocative moment of the film to be when the horse runs through barbed wire instead of jumping over the barbed wire — a mild gasp could be heard from the audience in all directions.

In response, a British soldier defies orders by walking into no man's land to cut the horse out of the barbed wire. He intelligently waves a white flag the whole time. A German comes from the safety of his trenches to join him as both armies watch on, not firing a single shot as the two evil enemies set aside their differences to rescue this innocent horse.

"You speak good English," the British soldier informs the German.

"I speak English well," the German responds.

"Remarkable horse," one of them says.

But I don't recall anyone telling a person he's remarkable through the whole film.

"Miraculous horse," is also said about this creature, the star of the film.

Later in the film killing the injured horse to put it out of its misery drew more protests from the audience than killing a 14-year-old boy for deserting. The threatened killing of the horse was also more played up by the director than any killing of any human, the 14-year-old deserter and his brother, included.

At the end of the film, the father (who fought in the Boer Wars and is still physically and psychologically scarred a generation later) and the son (freshly home from the trenches of the "Great" War) — both of them injured for following their government into some god-awful war to kill and maim others — hug. The camera hangs over them, these wounded obedient murderers. But at least they were never cruel to an animal. The screen goes black.

The audience clapped at the end.

Then the words "Steven Spielberg" appeared on the screen, and everyone began moving as the house lights came up.

"That was a good story," I heard someone say.

"A Christmas story," responded another.

Peace on earth good will toward men?

Allan Stevo [send him mail] is a writer from Chicago currently pounding the pavement for Ron Paul. Stevo is the author of How to Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012, a newly released book that draws a plan for how Ron Paul's grassroots supporters can, one precinct at a time, very effectively win the nomination and the presidency for Ron Paul.

I don't trust
the Tea Party. I'm distrustful of new movements and remember how
for eight years of Bush II, people who once had smaller government
views suddenly abandoned those views in blind devotion of the president.
I realize that it's easy to believe in freedom for just a few years.
My distrust is aided by the fact that the idea of freedom is a momentarily
politically expedient idea to some.

Today it is
a political expedient for some Republicans — a temporary means to
an end. The banner of "freedom" is currently serving as
a vague, and therefore effective, uniting statement among the opposition
now that there is a Democratic president in power. One day when
there is again a Republican president, it is likely that freedom,
liberty, or some rhetoric having to do with the Constitution will
be the vague political expedient used to unite those that oppose
that president.

Each time a
new president is elected, the opposition freedom movement crumbles
as the party votaries step in line. The hangers-on often follow
the power. To some, any president is distasteful. For those who
desire to be around power, however, a powerful president from his
or her own party is less distasteful than a powerful president from
the other party. After eight or more years away from the teat of
power, some will take any opportunity to make their way back into
the presence of the most powerful people in the world.

The exodus
away from ideals and towards power that follows an election is repeated
almost cyclically. Having a memory is my main "impediment."
It's the main reason that I'm not able to think highly of the Tea
Party movement. I recognize a man must not be judged based on
his words, but instead on his actions. Therefore, I see recent Johnny-come-latelies
to "freedom" as untested. If the Tea Party movement lasts
a few election cycles, I'll start to take an interest in them.

Until then,
I'm going to simply enjoy watching the political mayhem that takes
place in the upcoming months. In a stable society the drama of political
shifts can be amusing to watch. That the two parties believe in
virtually the same ideas does not detract from the entertainment,
because the media doesn't seem willing to admit that, nor do some
Americans, which will make for good manufactured drama. I'm not
saying that it's my job to test anyone and offer a stamp of approval,
but it's good for everyone involved to recognize that freedom is
commonly a temporary alluring idea that is often forced to take
the backseat to pursuits of power, or influence, or even just a
feeling of being in the "in crowd."

No matter how
we try to avoid being pulled into a desire to be on the winning
team, it's sometimes hard to recognize changes in ourselves. I watched
a good friend turn into a Bush II devotee a few years back, and
who has amazingly lost all recollection of the rage he had for the
former president. He was in the Army (on reserve) and angry that
a moron had started a war and that that moron regularly used loose
political language to talk about that war. The man was a Protestant
pastor, proficient in Arabic and well-studied in Islam. He privately
preached the idiocy of Bush to me for nine months. Six years later,
we got together again and he told me "George Bush is the best
thing since sliced bread." Neither he nor his wife could remember
any other opinion ever having come from his mouth. This story is
not unique.

I've also watched
beloved peace activists turn into Obama devotees, forgetting that
they once despised anyone who would not preach and act in the most
peaceful of ways. I remember specifically the weekend when Obama's
pro-war policy became news. For most of 2008, it only took about
3 clicks and 5 minutes of reading on Obama's campaign website to
see that he had officially zero interest in pulling troops out of
the Middle East. They were there to stay. Maybe not 140,000 troops
in Iraq for all time, but he'd keep them somewhere in the Middle
East. Of course, he had many, many supporters who did not actually
know what his stated policies were, nor even what his Senate voting
record was like. Some of his supporters were proud peaceniks. Then,
over a weekend in the fall of 2008, McCain was, as usual, saying
that we must stay the course in Iraq and Obama started saying that
the U.S. must stay the course in Afghanistan. His peacenik supporters
had loved the man, not the policies, but they never realized that.
Once the weekend was over they continued to love the man, not the
policies. They were no longer peaceniks.

Sometimes we
take ourselves too seriously, which is not that great of a thing
when we also tend to be very forgetful of our past beliefs and behaviors.
That aspect of human behavior leads me to not take the Tea Party
too seriously.

Scott Rasmussen
— listening to the heart of the movement?

Regardless
of the name put on the movement, whether it be Tea Party, or the
Pink British Scones, the principles at the heart of the movement
are meaningful to me. In the Wall Street Journal earlier
this year, pollster Scott Rasmussen claimed to be able to use three
questions to identify a person as a member of the "political
class" as opposed to a member of the "mainstream public."
Those who identify with the government on two or more of the following
questions are defined by Rasmussen as a member of the political
class.

1. Whose judgment
   do you trust more: that of the American people or American political
   leaders?
2. Has the
   federal government become its own special interest group?
3. Do government
   and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers?

These questions
show a clear bias. Rasmussen claims that it is a bias that is growing
in the U.S. "The major division in this country," says
Rasmussen "is no longer between parties but between political
elites and the people."

Rasmussen claims
that less than 10% of Americans are part of the political class.
About the Tea Party, Rasmussen commented. "Americans don't
want to be governed from the left or the right. They want, like
the Founding Fathers, to largely govern themselves with Washington
in a supporting — but not dominant — role. The Tea Party movement
is today's updated expression of that sentiment."

"The political
class overwhelmingly supported the bailouts of the financial and
auto industries, the health-care bill, and the Justice Department's
decision to sue Arizona over its new immigration law. Those in the
mainstream public just as intensely opposed those moves," stated
Rasmussen.

You know the
political elites that Rasmussen is talking about. You recognize
them. You know how they react to the newest government solutions
for improving our lives. They are the type of people who like to
wear shackles binding their wrists because it makes them feel secure.

"Elites"
is a word that makes people unhappy at present. That's an area of
contempt that I'd like to spend a few minutes looking at.

Some Elites
Should Be Loved and Admired

"Who are
the elites and why are they so bad?" is a question that occurs
to me when I hear raging tirades against these elites. As far as
I can tell, the elites are those who believe that people should
be controlled and not left to their own decisions. This puts them
in a dastardly category of "those deserving of raging tirades."

Believers in
democracy think that the majority should be allowed to abuse minorities
in society. They belong in that category. So do proponents of socialism,
communism, fascism, Nazism, who believe that the state is justified
in interfering in the lives of others. They all belong in the same
boat because they don't acknowledge the full spectrum of rights
that free individuals have.

Whether or
not there are people spouting off raging tirades against you, it's
good to be elite. Not the kind of elite that Rasmussen talks about,
however. Being elite shows that you have talent. Some people try
to surround themselves exclusively with the elites of their respective
fields. Being elite shows you've done something right and know how
to repeat it. By being among elites, and learning from their successes
and failures, maybe you too can one day be considered elite.

Michael Jordan
was a great basketball player. He'll be remembered for a long time.
John Paxson, Jordan's Chicago Bulls teammate, won't be remembered
by anyone in 40 years when my generation dies off. Jordan is the
elite. We want to be elite. We want our children to be elite. Because
we hope the best for our friends, we even want the people around
us to be more elite. We want this according to Webster's definition
of the word – "The choice part or segment; esp: a socially
superior group."

In anything
that we do, if we had a choice between effortlessly being elite
or effortlessly being mediocre – most of us would choose to be effortlessly
elite. It's not only good to be elite, it's great to be elite,
and it's desired to be elite.

The type of
elite that Rasmussen speaks of is one who uses his superior social
status to attempt to control others. Rasmussen's elites are not
the Michael Jordans of the world who are trying to win games and
sell you shoes. These are people like Mark Kirk, Michael Jordan's
Lake Forest, Illinois congressman who wants to force you to carry
chipped ID cards, wants to force you to fund lots of foreign escapades,
wants to force you to obediently goose step in whichever direction
the state points.

Michael Jordan
is one kind of elite — the overly-hyped American success story of
a person who achieves a long sought after goal through hard work
and determination despite years of failure. Through much sweat elites
like MJ built themselves each a pair of wings. These are the flying
elites who want nothing but a chance to be left alone and succeed.
Watch them and be inspired.

Mark Kirk is
a different kind of elite. He's the kind who has also likely experienced
years of failure, but his successes rely on successfully forcing
you to follow his will. This is not the great American success.
This is the classic slithering elite. Watch your ankles for them;
watch your legs when you walk through tall grass. Only by crawling
up your leg against your will will they be able to get themselves
out of the mud. Keeping the slithering elites at bay and making
room for the winged elites to succeed is the role of government.

When government
is used to help the slithering elites attack the winged elites,
the law is perverted as the French parliamentarian Frederic Bastiat
wrote in the early 1800's.

A gray area
between the two

Surely, there
is a gray area between the two definitions. Who can, with certainty,
say where influence ends and control begins? Where does force begin?
Some might use the convenient artificial distinction that where
your choice ends and begins is where the line is to be drawn. I
agree with that definition for simplicity sake. However, I recognize
a few of the shortcomings that it brings.

So much energy
is invested into studying the mind and the ways to manipulate it.
In a world where the power of suggestion is widely understood
and utilized to almost uncontrollably bombard each person with hundreds
of messages a day, it is hard to always know what it is that you
really want and when it's an invasive voice seemingly in your head,
but actually from outside, whispering to you "drink up, you're
thirsty and need a Coke."

Drawing a clear
line is hard to do, but is also unnecessary when attempting to distinguish
a slithering elite (Mark Kirk) from a winged elite (Michael Jordan).
It is especially clear when one of them is a congressman. One wants
to be left alone in order to succeed. Sometimes he wants to convince
you through sales campaigns. The other, with the force of government,
wants to force you to bend to his will.

The slithering
elite that Rasmussen seeks to identify is understandably a topic
that draws rage. It's unfortunate that we use such an admirable
word — "elite" — to describe both Michael Jordan and Mark
Kirk. The winged elite are not the problem when the slithering elite
get out of hand. As Rasmussen points out – Democrat and Republican
have ceased to be meaningful distinctions. Both groups are filled
with the slithering elite. (Rasmussen's "political class"
and "mainstream public" seem to be good monikers for the
division that many have intuitively noticed.)

Will those
who seek to control us be shown the door?

Some will say
that the Tea Party's success can measured on Election Day, which
means the key question is – Will those who seek to control us be
shown the door on Election Day?

And my answer
to that key question is – No, I doubt it. It's more likely that
they will continue to control us just like some of the communist
parties of central and eastern Europe controlled their societies
for five decades last century – with their single digit percentage
party membership. But Rasmussen's data gives me a good feeling by
informing me that more people are getting keen to the idea that
DC is not run in our interest.

For right now,
I simply see the Tea Party as a safety valve in our system. People
use the Tea Party as a way to let off steam. If it lasts through
a few bi-partisan movements (BM) of power, then I'll start taking
this whole talk of freedom that comes from them a bit more seriously.
Until then, it's free entertainment.

Allan
Stevo [send him mail]
is
a writer from Chicago who just pledged $100 to see the Keynesian
Krugman and Austrian Murphy debate. For the rest of the month of
November, every dollar spent at www.AllanStevo.com
will be pledged through "the point" to the New York City
Food Bank. Click here
to learn more.

"Whoever
comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple."

Where's this
quote come from? A jihadist manual on terror? One of the Surahs
of the Koran? Maybe Mao's little red book? Was it spoken by the
terrorist prophet himself, Mohammed? No, it comes from the Gospel
of Luke.

It was read
to millions of Christians a few Sundays ago in churches around the
world. I wonder how many people in the pews heard it and thought
"Wow, that really wouldn't sound too good as a sound-bite in
the media of the Muslim world" (or in atheist media, or even
secular media for that matter). In the same way that lines from
the Quran are taken out of context, lines from the Bible can also
be taken out of context.

Do Christians
hate life?

Christians
that I know personally do not behave as if they hate life. As an
industrialized country with such a high level of church attendance,
the U.S. is a statistical anomaly. Many Americans identify themselves
as Christian, 78% according to this
Gallup poll. We are by multiple measures a Christian country.

This Christian
country of ours has a very high illegal murder rate, especially
when compared to other industrialized countries. Preventing those
murders is an issue of much contention. This Christian country of
ours also has a very high rate of "legal" extraterritorial
murder in undeclared war zones all over the world. Those murders
are not so difficult to avoid. For example, if an American soldier
is not outside of the U.S., that American soldier will not be able
to shoot or be shot by anyone outside of the U.S. In reality, despite
my loved ones showing no outward signs of hating life, the argument
can be made that Christian Americans do hate life based on the behavior
of the society in which we live. We Americans tacitly agree to extraterritorial
"legal" murders.

Murder is the
ending of life. Surely a case can be made for Christians, at least
American Christians, not realizing the gravity of life. I'm unable
to argue that life is "hated" as opposed to "disliked"
or even worse, simply not appreciated. Or maybe it's just the value
of other people's lives that is the problem. I suspect an American
does tend to recognize the importance of his or her own life.

I know quite
a few people who call themselves Christians and quite a few who
aren't Christians and I don't see a clear hatred of life among the
one group more than the other. At its surface, those people I know
don't seem to have very effectively followed Jesus' command to "hate…life
itself."

It's a strongly
worded statement written in the Bible that doesn't look good as
a sound-bite taken out of context, away from the centuries of schools
of Biblical scholarship that exists and that many of us now read
the Bible through. Perhaps it's intellectually lazy of a person
to try to do the same thing with the Quran and to speak like some
kind of Quranic scholar because he knows a few ideas from the Quran
that he read in USA Today. I supposed in general we all know
better than to trust self-proclaimed authorities. However, the fact
that a single person watches the network news or buys a major newspaper
indicates that there are many people who are comfortable with putting
faith in those self-proclaimed authorities.

On Sept 19,
again Christians heard another confusing verse. It can quite effectively
be taken out of context when one imagines the corporatist American
government, like a greedy octopus, slithering around the world taking
things by force. "And I tell you, make friends for yourselves
by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome
you into the eternal homes." ~ Luke 16:9

Christians
agree that Jesus actually said that.

This upcoming
Sunday, the many Christian churches that use the Revised Common
Lectionary will hear a reading from the book of Genesis where the
patriarch Jacob wrestles with God. During this reading, God changes
the unfortunately named Jacob's name to "Israel." Jacob,
one of the patriarchs to which Judaism and Christianity trace their
faith, literally means "he who grasps the heal." Figuratively,
this name has an even worse meaning: "He who deceives."
Israel, his new and improved name, means: "he struggles with
God."

To me, there
can be a beauty in a faith that lets you struggle with God. At the
same time, it's easy to take this out of context. To struggle with
God is to be opposed to God, to challenge the Almighty and His ways.
This presents a rather unflattering talking point about Israel.
The word Israel, the name of the most problematic state in the Middle
East, was chosen by leaders of that country as a way to present
itself to the world — "struggle with God." For the billions
of people out there who believe in a God that's about the worst
name you can come up with for a country.

Let me just
restate all that in a nine-second talking point about Judeo-Christian
culture:

Jacob means
"he who deceives"; Israel means "struggles with God";
Jesus commands his followers to be dishonest and to hate life. Are
these the professed values of a good people? What more does one
need to know distrust Christians and Jews?

Do these facts
make me not want to go to church? No, they just make me realize
how important it is to never trust the media about anything. Nine-second
sound-bites are alluring and deceptive. Just like my religious proclivities
seem very strange to others when taken out of context, the religious,
political, athletic, emotional, and physical proclivities of nearly
any person seem strange when taken out of context. For shock value,
the hate mongers of American society love taking religion out of
context, as long as Christianity's not that religion.

Filter the
Media

On all
topics there is an agenda. Base your understanding of situations
on your relationship with people. Use the media to try to challenge
yourself and to seek out differing perspectives. Never let your
own experience be overshadowed by the words you read from some unknown
journalist. I've sat down with enough respected journalists
to realize that they are not as critically questioning and decent
as their readers seem to believe.

Slovak-Hungarian
Hatred?

In Slovakia
Hungarians are said to be hated. There's a long history in which
Hungarians (Magyars) controlled the land known today as Slovakia.
That history spanned a good thousand years and had some very ugly
moments, akin to a soft genocide, that sought to snuff out the existence
of Slovaks.

It is said
that Slovaks hate Hungarians. I can attest that some do.

However, when
I am invited to visit a Slovak family that has Hungarian neighbors,
I recognize that relations between Slovak and Hungarian neighbors
tend to be quite hospitable. Just as hospitable as with any other
neighbor.

The media and
the whispers of popular culture, especially around election time,
are quick to tell ugly stories about how bad those ethnic relations
are. This no doubt actually influences some relationships. However,
experience in the intimate relationships of a handful of diverse
people tells me that the media is likely incorrect in this matter.
I choose only to speak from my own experience on this topic, which
also has its shortcomings, but is far more honest than pretending
myself an expert just because I've read lots of work from some far-off
journalists.

When it comes
to neighbors, my Slovak acquaintances tend to be quite welcoming
to the Hungarian minority that still live in Slovakia. Forced language
is a sign of oppression. The Hungarian authorities used to force
Hungarian language on Slovaks and understandably that period in
history still impassions many Slovaks today. Freely spoken language,
on the other hand, is a way to build a bridge into a friendship.
I often hear Slovaks throw around a few Hungarian phrases with their
Hungarian neighbors. Such relationships are in the best interest
of neighbors.

Good relations
are not in the best interest of those who 1. want to sell papers,
2. are filled with hate, and/or 3. have no other issues on which
to win an election.

The nationalist
parties of Slovakia and Hungary don't like these amicable relationships
among Slovaks and Hungarians. They like to poke at the very real
wounds of the past. The more they can get people to foremost remember
those wounds, the more they can get their audience to forget that
these are living breathing people they are asking them to hate and
to mistreat, the more votes, the more media time, the more influence,
the more money there is for those nationalist parties. They have
a formula and they wield it effectively.

A political
consultant by the name of Mike Rothfeld, linked
to here, gives a great speech on political participation that
I saw at the Leadership Institute in Arlington, VA. In his speech,
Rothfeld makes a request of his audience: Whenever you listen
to a speech, whenever you read a newspaper, whenever you are watching
TV, or even just talking face-to-face and see someone trying to
get you to believe something, you've got to ask yourself u2018How does
it benefit this person if I believe what he's saying?' Cui bono?
In whose interest? Is the old concept that he restates. We all know
that people don't often exert great effort just for the heck of
it. Receiving communication through the media, from some person
you don't know intimately, let alone have never met face to face,
makes the answering of that question considerably harder.

The Effective
Stereotype of the Muslim

Are all Muslims
secretly terrorist time-bombs waiting to go off? I don't know, I
can't answer that one for you, but I can tell you that it's a pretty
effective line — repeated ad infinitum in the media. In that little
idea of the Muslim terrorist time-bomb, you are told 1. You cannot
trust a Muslim, 2. It's worthless to get close to a Muslim, 3. the
closer you are to a Muslim, the more in danger you are, 4. Muslims
are unreliable and may try to kill you at any time, 5. Be on your
guard around Muslims, 6. Muslims live to kill, and especially to
kill you, and of course 7. A Muslim sleeper cell may become active
and detonate itself and those around them at any time and without
notice.

If you buy
into this, you involve yourself in some self-fulfilling prophecies.
You can't really believe numbers one through seven above without
eliminating the possibility of a friendship with a Muslim. Muslim
terrorists do kill Americans. It's true. But from the perspective
of a non-American Muslim in the year 2010 things must look very
different than from that of an American Christian. As far as I can
tell Muslims are a very forgiving people. After all, there are many
Muslims who have, for some reason, not risen up against the United
States, despite the very aggressive action taken by out American
government seemingly randomly against Muslim civilians.

Muslims seem
so forgiving that I am somehow still able to travel the world and
find a man or woman who does not think America is running a Jihad
on Islam. American behavior — 1.4 million Iraqi Muslim civilian
casualties over the last seven years according to Just
Foreign Policy — is enough to leave me thinking that our Christian
nation does not value Muslim lives. Once again, that is in Iraq
alone, and in the last seven years alone. Expanding the focus would
make America's treatment of Muslims appear much worse.

Political rhetoric
might be expected to tell a different story. It might be the way
that Americans offer a soothing smile to the Muslim world on television
as the soldiers ransack the countryside roughing people up. Under
Bush, even the political rhetoric made America look like a nation
that does not value Muslim lives. George Bush in
this video addressing the media unscripted on Sept 16, 2001
referred to the pending war as a "crusade." Here
he is addressing U.S. troops in February 2002 from a script
again using the same language. Those who learned something in World
History know that "crusade" is literally a battle fought
under the cross of Jesus, and effectively took place in the past
to take land and treasures from the Holy Land where Muslims, Jews,
and even Christians lived. Many Christian, Jews, and especially
Muslims were killed by European invaders. Despite the treatment,
despite the language, I'm able to find decent and welcoming Muslims.
Reality doesn't match the rhetoric of the media.

Make Your
Own Choices

Do you genuinely
hate your Pakistani neighbor that you've gotten to know well? Fine.
I'm not going to try to talk you out of building a nice tall wall
between your family and his. At least you're being more intellectually
honest than a person who ignores reality.

One example
of a person who ignores reality might be the proverbial bleeding
heart liberal who seems to infinitely ignore the bomb being built
next door. He doesn't seem to be in touch with the fact that people
do actually do real bad things. Another example might be the Huntington-preaching/thumping/wielding
conservative who has never spoken with/met/known a Muslim. She may
have a hard time acknowledging that human beings are capable of
behaving like individuals. Neither of such persons seem to take
the time to know or understand his or her neighbor. Both are blinded
by significant intellectual biases that the media seeks to convey.

Overwhelmingly,
the mainstream media can't be trusted to report anything to us with
authority. Which is a good realization, because in all honesty few
sources should be trusted as authorities. A thinking person
should analyze multiple sources on every issue, trying to derive
multiple perspectives before coming to any conclusions. Grandma
can be trusted as an authority on baking delicious pies and breads,
but not on immigration laws. Dad can be a trusted authority on fixing
the furnace and on whatever it is he does best, but not on campaign
finance reform. You know that the people closest to you have certain
talents in some areas and have little more than unstudied opinions
in other areas. At least that much due diligence ought to be done
before you decide to trust an unknown out there in the media.

In the year
2010, using exclusively mainstream media sources to find those multiple
perspectives is likely to leave you with a big bowl of thoughtless
— but generally appetizing and surprisingly pleasant to swallow
— mush in front of you.

Allan
Stevo [send him mail]
is the author of Somewhere between Bratislava and
DC, available for free download at www.allanstevo.com.
He is working on his next book.

Blago shouldn't
just walk; he should sue the government for defaming his character.
He went free on 23 of 24 counts. The one count that he didn't go
free on, shouldn't even be a law: he was found guilty of lying to
the FBI. That lame law did not require a wiretap to find him guilty.
Nor did it require the very public desecration of a man's name.
Chicago politicians are quite capable of desecrating their own names
without the help of the federal government. The job of the federal
prosecutor is to work hard to let courts and verdicts find a man
guilty or innocent.

The federal
government — 1. failed to build a winning case 2. failed to build
a credible case 3. failed to go after any corrupt Chicago politician
of significance. All three of which make me question the value of
the FBI and the need for its existence. On top of that, it is worth
noting that once the prosecution rested with their case, Blagojevich's
team was so certain that they had not proven the case that Blagojevich
did not even put on a defense. He did not defend himself in a federal
criminal case and still had a hung jury. Part of the FBI's mission,
found here, is to
"uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States."
If you can't win a corruption case in Chicago, you're doing something
wrong. That leaves me with the feeling that the FBI and the Department
of Justice have deeper trouble than Blago. The FBI's latest
dustup with Wikipedia over the FBI logo shows how out of touch
with reality the FBI is. Maybe it's time to try a new approach.

As the laws
stand, you can't lie to the FBI, or else you'll go to jail. Specifically
Blago was convicted of telling two lies: 1. That he maintains a
firewall between state business and politics and 2. That he does
not track, or want to know, who contributes to him or how much.
These can be found here,
on page 69 of the federal indictment against Blagojevich. Blago
will go to prison simply because he said those things. The law assumes
an allegiance to the God-like superiority of the State over the
people by saying that lying to the FBI is not allowed. I think lying's
a bad thing to do, but thankfully, all things that I think are bad
are not illegal.

While we are
not allowed to lie to the great couriers of justice, the FBI, they
are allowed to do things to us that would be considered indecent
among the common people. The FBI can wiretap your home phone lines,
record your phone conversations, and play them publicly for all
to hear, even when playing them is irrelevant to any criminal proceeding.
They can break into your office while you're not there and your
staff is away, using locksmithing equipment for jimmying locks.
Once in your offices they can plant bugs and put you under surveillance.
They can do worse things, as well; those things didn't get mentioned
during the Blago trial. It's odd that we willingly cede our rights
to a government that so ineffectively uses those powers to protect
us. We don't require much in return.

Allowing the
FBI to behave in such a way assumes an allegiance to the God-like
goodness of the FBI. No person that is not entirely good and trustworthy
should be able to invade private space. He or she might end up doing
bad things with what is learned in that private space. The thing
is, no one is pure. People do bad things. Even government does bad
things, because government is not a theory, but is a group of real
people, which means that government makes mistakes, sometimes really
big ones. Despite all this, our laws tell us that the great State
must never be lied to, and the great State must never be denied
secret entrance to your most private places. To deny the great State
that authority will put you at risk of very public embarrassment,
expensive legal bills, jail time, loss of sacred honor, liberty,
and even life. Strangely, some very good people do not realize that
the great State is not God, yet they treat it like a deity, like
the greatest deity, because even God offers us free will.

That breaking
and entering and planting bugs stuff is not from some action film
that I once watched about the FBI. It's from reality, or at least
as much reality as was allowed out in federal court this summer
during the Blagojevich trial. The FBI broke into the Friends of
Blagojevich campaign office to plant bugs in two rooms, planted
a camera outside and began observing what was happening there. Or,
as gently stated in the criminal complaint, which can be found here,
"On the morning of October 22, 2008, the FBI began intercepting
oral communications in those rooms." Information collected
during the surveillance of those rooms and the Blagojevich family's
tapped home phone line was played publicly, making people cringe
in embarrassment over their governor. Then after the shock wore
off, many attentive people who heard the tapes were left with a
sort of "So what? Is being skuzzy illegal?" and "Aren't
there bigger fish that also need frying?"

The definitions
of privacy and the role of government seem to be upside-down in
this day. Government keeps secrets from the governed. Individuals
can be tormented, prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned for releasing
them. Sadly, WikiLeaks will likely become a good example of this.
Government discloses our secrets. We may not legally hide from their
pursuit of our secrets, no matter how innocent we are. It's as if
the new standard is for government to be as secretive as possible,
but to expect for the governed to be without privacy. Common sense
would dictate a contrary situation: that government has no right
being secretive and individuals have unimpeachable privacy.

There's a meaningful
distinction in privacy as it relates to Blagojevich — is discussion
about state business really a private matter? I am inclined to say
that it should not be private. Greater transparency and less power
in the hands of government would likely make for a better government.
However, that must be evenly applied. A law that is randomly applied
to punish only a small number of people is not a just law. Anything
Blagojevich is subject to, every politician should be subject to.
That is currently not the case, since the private phone calls of
the rest of the country's wheeling and dealing politicians are not
being played on the evening news. One of the disservices of this
case is that other politicians are not being held to the same standard
as Blagojevich.

Trying to affect
public opinion is not enough of a reason to warrant breaking and
entering and bugging an innocent man's office. There's something
wrong with the fact the government did that. Destroying a man's
reputation is not the goal of our criminal system. Finding a man
guilty or not guilty is. The guilty are then punished and separated
from society. Even though Blago was not convicted on 23 of the 24
counts, Blago really looks very guilty to the great masses that
unquestioningly digest spoonful after spoonful of whatever stewed
and mashed baby food the media feeds them. And the people who pull
the levers of power in Chicago and at the highest levels of our
country are in contrast made to look like great citizens, when they
are likely more deserving of shackles than the former governor.

The FBI failed
to effectively use these powers to build a case against Blagojevich.
Without the power to wiretap, the outcome of this case would have
been the same — Blago found guilty of lying to the FBI. The exception
would have been that his private phone calls would have remained
private.

Am I defending
the rights of a dirty Chicago politician to have private phone calls?
Yes, I am. Every human has rights and by protecting them from
government intrusion, I protect myself. The more government
is trained to recognize the displeasure that comes from violating
a person's rights, the less likely that violation is to occur. Standing
up for the rights of the unpopular Blago, simultaneously is defense
for the rights of every other person. Maybe a federal government
with less power to punish with impunity would be more judicious
in deciding who it brings to court.

There are many
out there who feel pushed around by the employees of the federal
government. I know because about 30 of them wrote me last week after
this
"Free Blago" essay was published on LRC. It made me
feel sick to read some of their personal accounts of the way government
pushes people around and to reflect on how so few people care until
they are the ones being pushed around. If you and I care about others
today, we are less likely to have to care about ourselves being
pushed around by the government tomorrow.

Blagojevich
should sue the ineffective federal prosecutor for going out of his
way to defame him. By standing up for his own rights, Blago will
be standing up for the rights of others as well. The smoking gun
of the trial will be some late night chuckle between a Bush appointee
and an Obama appointee where one tells the other "Well, if
we don't convict him, at least his name will be too dirty for him
to ever hold a decent job again." That won't be the good part
of the trial though. The good part of the trial will be digging
around to find that comment.

The main
reason I'd like to see Blagojevich sue the federal government is
because there's a chance he might end up with a judge who will permit
him to conduct wide-ranging discovery.

Many civil
cases begin as a theory; then the judge tells the defense to give
the plaintiff all the information he or she needs on specific issues.
That's a way that a plaintiff can find additional evidence to support
his or her theory. This process is called discovery.

In discovery,
I'd like to see Blago go into the details of who decided that he'd
get visited from the FBI at 6:15 a.m. instead of 9 a.m.? Who decided
to bring Blago's brother Robert Blagojevich into the trial as a
bargaining chip? How were the dirty tricks planned and who was behind
the planning of those dirty tricks? Who in Mayor Daley's circle
knew before the fact that Blago would be arrested? Who in State
Representative Madigan's circle kept an eye on the case and was
there whenever a little influence was needed to keep secrets buried?
What role did Mike Madigan's daughter, the Illinois Attorney General,
Lisa Madigan play in all of this? When was Madigan responsible for
pulling strings in this case? How did prosecutors decide that Congressman
Jesse Jackson Jr. would go free? Who decided that Jackson's Indian
(dots, not feathers) powerbrokers would go free? What was Obama's
role in this trial and what level of control did the White House
have over the content of the arguments and the direction of the
case? What made Obama so confident that he should negotiate with
Blago about the Senate seat that he had occupied? Had he done similar
backroom deals with him before? What kind of culture existed among
these other men that allowed Blagojevich to feel comfortable bargaining
over a Senate seat? I'd love to see some of those unanswered questions
answered publicly, on the record, and under oath.

But, of course,
that won't happen. No, because Blagojevich did exactly what he was
supposed to do. He didn't sell out Daley, he didn't sell out Madigan,
he didn't sell out his father-in-law, and most importantly he didn't
sell out Obama. Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass put it quite
well in an article chronicling who the winners were in Blago's (a.k.a.
"Dead Meat" in Kass's parlance) decision to not put on
a defense. Below is an excerpt from that article:

President
Barack Obama

Big winner.
Picture the leader of the free world, walking the family dog,
Bo, on the White House lawn, the plastic bag in the pocket, like
some perfect TV dad.

He hears
the news that Blagojevich has rested his case and won’t testify
or call any witnesses.

And that’s
when — in my purely fictional mental tableau of the president
waiting for Bo to do business on the lawn — Obama fishes into
his pocket for a smoke and lights up.

Our president
takes a big drag, exhales with a satisfied sigh. Ahhhhh.

Why is our
president satisfied?

Because with
Blago cutting short his defense, Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of
staff, won’t be called as a defense witness to talk about how
the Obama White House transcended the old broken politics of the
past by haggling with Blago over the Obama Senate seat.

As a lawyer,
Obama would know that without a defense case, there’s no way that
the president’s old real estate fairy, Tony Rezko, would come
up as a prosecution rebuttal witness.

“My man,”
he says, thinking of Dead Meat, as he looks to the west, toward
Chicago, blowing smoke through that famous smile.

“My man.”

Then he and
Rahm enjoy some celebratory mojitos in the Rose Garden and toast
Blago again.

Chicago's political
class is thrilled by the Blago verdict. Not because Blago got off
with a conviction on only one count, but because Blago got convicted.
That means everyone can look back at the trial to say that justice
had really been done and can state far and wide: "Chicago has
been cleaned up by President Obama, who always had a feeling that
there were dirty deals going down among the other Chicago politicians."
With the results of the trial, Chicago's political class has been
reminded that they have the power to lie and cheat with impunity,
while scapegoats get jail time. This is exactly the kind of federal
government they want — the kind that selectively applies the laws.
Are you an influential Chicago politician? Well, at least until
you start to fall from grace, you can be assured impunity.

I would love
to see Blagojevich sue the government. Seldom do you hear truthful
statements from the government. Seldom do people speak truthful
statements about how our government functions. Once in a while little
bits and pieces can be caught that accurately depict the way government
works. In a courtroom, those bits and pieces tend to be more common.
The journalists (read stenographers) who are present in court won't
pass along enough of the good stuff to their readers, but if you
happen to be in a courtroom, especially when a politician, a mobster,
or an influence peddler takes the stand, you are treated to some
real pearls of wisdom on how our system works. In my dreams Blagojevich
sues and Richard Daley, Mike Madigan, Rahm Emmanuel, and Barack
Obama end up getting dragged into court to take the stand. Wouldn't
that be something, a trial where some of the most powerful politicians
in Chicago and in the U.S. are taken into court and forced to talk
about their execution of their official duties under oath. In a
freer country, it wouldn't just be a dream.

Allan
Stevo [send him mail]
is the author of Somewhere
Between Bratislava and DC
and is working on his next book. He's been active in Chicago political
campaigns since childhood.

How ashamed
all Americans should be today, but especially all Illinoisans. Former
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been convicted based on a
specious law. Justice is said to have been done.

If the federal
government can't uphold law and order, what value does it create?
Without fulfilling that task, what possible reason does the FBI
have for existing? It was supposed to be the case of the year: a
governor caught trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat.

This case was
publicly presented as open and shut. But when the time came to present
a case before the jury, it clearly was not open and shut. It made
for great talking points: strange, unpronounceable Slavic-named
governor of a corrupt place, with an unusually pretty coif of hair,
tries to sell the Senate seat of the most pristine President these
united states have seen since Lincoln. Obama's a saint; this other
guy's a creep. It's hope and change part two — the media dress rehearsal
for the 2010 elections. In the media it sounded perfect to the many
unquestioning votaries of the status quo out there who trust anything
a government or newspaper (which are very often saying the same
thing) has to say.

But, among
people who don't confuse truth with the words of the government
as delivered through "journalists" (read: glorified stenographers),
the Blago trial looked a little more complex. A bunch of crooks
went free in Chicago to continue their business as usual, while
a member of their political class was on trial, as if convicting
him would clean up the whole state of Illinois.

On a scale
of one to 24, one (or 4 %) is about how much I liked the government's
case against Blago. So, the fact that the jurors coincidentally
only convicted Rod Blagojevich on 1/24th of the counts
makes sense. What if you were 1/24 successful at your job? What
would your boss think of that?

Who is the
boss of a federal prosecutor anyway? Perhaps it's the Attorney General
of the U.S. Or maybe the President of the U.S. is his boss. An argument
could be made that it's the U.S. Congress, as they are the ones
who are in charge of the government's purse strings. However, I
tend to think that the person who's in charge is the person, or
people, who pays the bills. That relationship between bread-giver
and boss is not at all times apparent to the executives of a company,
organization, non-profit, or government. However, if the person
who pays the bills stops paying the bills, that relationship immediately
becomes more clear to the entire organization. For the bill-payers
and debt-guaranteers of the U.S. government (a.k.a. the U.S. taxpayers),
the prosecution was about 1/24th successful. Had 23 crooked
politicians been on trial alongside Blago and forever been marked
as felons, then we might be getting somewhere. As the verdict currently
stands, the American taxpayer has received virtually no benefit
from this trial.

From another
perspective (that of "the management") the federal prosecutors
were 100% successful — Blago's been convicted of a felony, his name's
been destroyed, Obama's been mostly left out of it, so have Daley
and Madigan. The fall guy has been put to rout, now the talking
heads can go out and feel honest when they say either 1. Blago got
what was coming to him, and justice has been served, Illinois is
a better place or 2. Blago got off lucky, but a warning has been
sent to all politicians in the future, that this federal government
will not tolerate their Chicago-style misbehavior.

What horrible
crime was Blago convicted of anyway? He was found guilty of lying
to the FBI. Compared to the scandalous charges that were brought
against him, compared to the over the top statements made to the
media by the federal prosecutor, compared to the statements made
by the scoundrel that we all heard on the tapes, compared to all
that, lying to the FBI is basically a non-issue. A real anti-climactic
letdown. If we lived in a freer country, the media might even resolutely
question why a person is not allowed to lie to the FBI. Do we have
some sort of ethical obligation to tell the truth to an outlandishly
truthless government? No, we don't. The prohibition against lying
to the FBI exists, not because it's right, but because it can exist.
Like many other laws in this day and age, "might makes right"
seems to be the moral basis for its existence.

While I disagree
with quite a few of Blagojevich's political views (disagreements
that everyone from President Obama to John Stewart do not have),
I agree very strongly with a bit of wisdom he offered in a press
conference. Even a good talking point from a post-trial Teflon politician
can have truth at its source: the federal government will continue
to spend money going after Blagojevich while the taxpayers that
fund their activities are weathering economic troubles.

After being
found guilty on one of 24 counts, Blagojevich told gathered reporters
“We have a prosecutor who has wasted and wanted to spend tens of
millions of dollars of taxpayer money to take me away from my family
and my home.” Blago's attorney Sam Adam Jr. added “Why are we spending
$25 to $30 million on a retrial when they couldn’t prove it the
first time?”  Great point. Of course I'd appreciate such points
from politicians even more if they weren't made out of sheer self-interest.

Why is it Blago
they are going after while the other big names are going free? Blago's
a convicted felon, which means he can't run for a number of offices
or hold a plethora of other jobs any longer. He's going to do time
on this unjust FBI law. All things considered, the federal government
should probably be pretty pleased with themselves for even getting
a conviction on 1 out of 24 of the counts in the lame case they
brought forward.

Blago has been
convicted on a specious law, and justice has not been done. Justice
is seeing a criminal convicted on a legitimate law and do real time
because of it. Justice is seeing jail time for every crooked politician
who breaks the law.

Honestly, what
kind of return are we, the people of Illinois, and we the federal
taxpayer going to get out of this Blago trial round two? We'll just
have to end up paying for him to do more jail time. There won't
be much of a deterrent effect — politicians will still feel that
they are above the law, especially the more powerful Illinois politicians
who so expertly skirted the law without mention by federal prosecutors
while Blagojevich remained the center of attention. The second,
and heaven forbid, the third time the government tries Blagojevich,
there will only be diminishing returns.

The people
of Illinois and the people of the U.S. should be ashamed of what
happened in the Blagojevich trial. They should be ashamed that they
pay the paychecks of people who went on the air to tell us justice
has been served. They should be ashamed that the trial against Blago
will continue towards round two, while Chicago continues to operate
according to business as usual.

Cui bono? Not
ours.

Allan
Stevo [send him mail]
is
a writer working on his next book. He's worked on Chicagoland political
campaigns since childhood.

In 2008, I
campaigned for a presidential candidate who opposed U.S. taxpayer-funded
foreign aid programs. In response to my choice of candidate, a Peace
Corps Niger alumna, a good friend, asked skeptically "Well,
what does he have to say about Africa?" To which I could only
reply, with some contempt, "What could any U.S. President possibly
have to say to any African about sustainable living? There've been
people living on that continent since history began."

We've grown
so accustomed to the belief in American exceptionalism and are so
enamored with the perceived omnipotence of our democratically elected
leaders that we've bought into the belief that the American President
with the full force of the U.S. Government behind him is capable
of solving each one of the world's problems. Never mind whether
or not the American President should be involved in the internal
affairs of African countries, that's beside the point. What we've
come to believe is that he or she actually can solve Africa's problems.
It's simply a matter of whether or not he decides to dedicate his
resources to such an effort.

Dambisa Moyo
— whose credentials read: Goldman, World Bank, Oxford Ph.D. in Economics,
Harvard Masters from the Kennedy School of Government, born to and
raised by African parents in Lusaka, Zambia — has a skeptical view
of foreign aid. In her book Dead
Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way for Africa,
Moyo pleads with Western voters to put an end to the disastrous
cycle of foreign aid in which Africa is stuck.

Aid has helped
make the poor poorer, has made growth slower, has caused life expectancy
to stagnate (in some cases regressing back to 1950's levels), has
hurt literacy rates, and has created an atmosphere of dependency
at all levels of society Moyo argues. As a way to illustrate the
failure of such a heavy reliance on foreign aid, she points out
"Just 30 years ago Malawi, Burundi, Burkina Faso were economically
ahead of China on a per capita income basis."

What is it
that makes Africa such a broken place, while the rest of the developing
world is so full of success stories? It's the foreign aid, Moyo
writes. Take Africa off the foreign welfare, and watch her flourish.
No more grants, no more low-interest World Bank loans, and definitely
no more free mosquito nets. Just let Africa prove herself. To back
up her theory, Moyo shows the Western reader the benefits that China
has brought to the continent with its dollars aimed at investment.
The West wants to bring aid to soothe its guilty post-colonial feelings.
"Morality — Western, liberal, guilt-tripped morality — seeped
into the development equation," writes Moyo. Some of the Western
aid even comes with judgmental strings attached and a plethora of
administrative hoops to jump through. China, conversely, comes with
clear intentions – make money, extract the oil and minerals,
generate trade partners, and build goodwill that will last through
the 21st century. Sixty years of Western help and some
$1 trillion of foreign aid has achieved little in Africa. Throwing
more money at the same problems with the same solutions in place
is not likely to achieve a different end. Moyo proposes solutions
with high praise for the Chinese, who she quite clearly points out,
are in Africa purely for their own good.

In the 154-page
(excluding notes) book, which at times serves as a primer on foreign
aid, Moyo starts us off post–World War II, with the dreaded
Bretton Woods system of international monetary order. John Maynard
Keynes and Harry Dexter White (US Secretary of State) lead the discussions
on the founding of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank), and the
International Trade Organization (which never received U.S. Congressional
approval and was de facto replaced by GATT, until WTO was adopted).

Moyo takes
us through the implementation of the Marshall Plan, in post-WWII
Europe, and tells us how its mechanisms were rolled over for use
in implementing foreign aid in Africa. Originally, the specific
purpose of these organizations was reconstruction, not development,
writes Moyo. But the World Bank and IMF would eventually become
central actors in the area development. Like many other government
programs, once the World Bank and IMF were created, they didn't
just disappear after their stated mission was accomplished. The
IMF and World Bank took on new missions and turned their focus to
Africa, where they sought to outspend the USSR in hopes of making
new friends in African governments.

Moyo points
out three significant ways that the Marshall Plan differed from
the African foreign aid that followed:

1. It was
   small (a maximum of 2.5–3% of GDP for the life of the program
   v. 15% of GDP for Africa)
2. It worked
   in already developed channels and systems in government and civil
   society
3. It was
   for a brief period of time (five years v. much of Africa having
   received aid for the last 50 years, causing governments to view
   the aid as virtually permanent).

While Moyo
is a fan of the Marshall Plan and views it as a successful foreign
aid project, she is quick to point out that little critical attention
has been paid to the drawbacks of the plan: "The idea that
the Marshall Plan is hailed as a success has remained, to a large
extent, unquestioned." For this, Moyo is to be commended, because
even when it leads the reader to question her point of view, Moyo
still makes it a point to address opposing arguments. It gives one
the feeling that he is reading an author concerned not with her
own argument or even assuaging some committee, but instead an author
concerned with arriving at the truth.

She tells a
story of decades of over-influential Western central planners (from
Keynes to Milton Friedman). Reading the many horror stories reminds
one of the axiom: "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts
absolutely." Western academicians probably should never have
been permitted the influence over Africa that they were allowed
to hold. Decade after decade, new methods of foreign aid are introduced,
each relying on the same foundation of dependency on the West. As
academic fads go in and out of style, Africa becomes the testing
ground for them. Fundamentally, they are the same dependency inducing
ideas with a new label, a new face.

At the same
time, the aid brings with it an obsession with democracy, a governmental
form that took European nations hundreds of year to grow into. That
system, which was allowed time to grow into place in the West, is
being shoe-horned into Africa. She attacks the holy cow of democracy
and accepts that she might actually prefer a benevolent dictator
because at least a benevolent dictator can and has brought about
some of the promises that democracy has failed to provide: "…each
of these dictators, [China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore,
Taiwan, Thailand, Pinochet's Chile, Fujimori's Peru], whatever their
faults (and there were many), was able to ensure some semblance
of property rights, functioning institutions, growth promoting economic
policies…and an investment climate that buttressed growth — the
things democracy promises to do. This is not to say that Pinochet's
Chile was a great place to live, it does however, demonstrate that
democracy is not the only route to economic triumph." A careful
reader will notice the theme of property rights subtly mentioned
in the book over and again. Property rights are a simple concept
that many Westerners lightly take for granted while touting the
benefits of short-term assistance.

As she analyzes
problematic situations in the foreign aide equation, Moyo does not
leave entertainers off without blame. We all know who they are.
She blames Bono and other rock stars for silencing all meaningful
debate. She criticizes Hollywood for being unthinkingly destructive
with their influence. "We were just trying to help" is
the kind of thinking that Moyo stands ready to denounce. Step back,
try something different, please. She tells us. And if you won't
do that, then just stop trying to help. "Were aid simply innocuous
— just not doing what it claimed it would do — this book would not
have been written. The problem is that aid is not benign — it's
malignant. No longer part of the potential solution, it's part of
the problem — in fact aid is the problem." Moyo tells
how a well-intentioned Hollywood-inspired private donation of a
million mosquito nets from America will, overnight, turn 150 people
into beggars by inundating the local market for mosquito nets, thereby
driving down demand and running a local producer of mosquito nets
out of business. This forces his employees and their families to
beg for food. Within five years, those million mosquito nets will
be in useless tatters, and there will have been no added economic
infrastructure developed to replace those mosquito nets.

What we are
left with is a Rube Goldberg machine of foreign aid, as if it were
built by a doctor whose modus operandi was to prescribed a cure
and after realizing that he'd erred, instead of taking a patient
off of the original medicine just kept adding treatment upon treatment
to deal with the additional problems caused by the original cure
and each successive treatment. As long as no other doctors see the
patient, the patient and her family will perceive the doctor as
hard working and brilliant. But in reality, an oppressive leviathan
of treatment is slowly killing the patient.

Moyo calls
for a different course from this point on, a course similar to the
one the Chinese seem be taking in Africa — investing. She wants
the goodwill to end, and wants the West to invest in Africa, ready
to put trust in its people and hire them as workers, ready to trade
with its businessmen, ready to mine her for her mineral wealth.
She spends half the book making quite the convincing argument for
how Westerners might be able to make a great deal of money investing
in Africa.

If looking
at this from a Marxist-influenced perspective everything Moyo is
calling for could also be referred to as "exploitation."
Exploit Africa, exploit her workers, exploit her natural resources.
Do it. Once you're done, Africa will be a continent of strong, developed
nations. Stop being guilty about Africa, and making her into nothing
but a welfare queen. Yes, this is an African woman begging bleeding
heart Westerners to stop seeing Africa through the soft bigotry
of low expectations.

This book is
the most damning argument against foreign altruism that I've ever
read. She asks us to please stop doing good just for the sake of
doing good. You only hurt people with that attitude, and you only
benefit yourself and nurture your own ego. Well-intentioned meddling
is still meddling.

Moyo closes
with a fitting African proverb:

The best
time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.
The
second-best time is now.

Allan
Stevo [send him mail]
is
a writer who spent several years serving as a missionary overseas.

This past week,
I sat in on closing arguments at the Blago trial, and couldn't help
but think that the government attorney, Christopher Niewoehner was
a tool of the Chicago political machine as he spoke. I wondered
if Niewoehner ever feels that way. That came in a most pronounced
way while Niewoehner was reading the definition of bribery to the
jurors.

“The governor
of the state of Illinois cannot exchange taking some state action
for some personal benefit like money or a campaign contribution.
You do — that’s a bribe.”

If he's not
a tool of the machine, then where are the other Chicago politicians?
What he mentioned as a crime is allowed to go on day-in-and-day-out
in Chicago. Only a tool would get involved in their dirty political
infighting while letting the rest of them walk the streets.

LAME TRIAL

Two years ago
I would've said Blago was a scoundrel like any other in Chicago.
A political hack. A dirty fellow from inside the machine. I have
no doubt that Blagojevich is guilty of all kinds of dirty things.
But then, he got dragged through the mud while many other dirty
politicians (both Republican and Democrat) were left clean. Obama,
Daley, Kjellander, Madigan, Madigan (not a typo, just a family dynasty
in the making), Jackson. Where are those guys?

As he was dragged
through the mud, people all over Chicago listened to the news each
night to hear the government bring a conspiracy case against Blagojevich.

And people
all over Chicago, every night, said to themselves "so what?"

A guy who hates
Blago said to me the other day "If I'm on that jury, Blago
walks."

Sure, he's
being tried for a whole slew of crimes, but when all was said and
done, the prosecuting attorney even pointed out in closing arguments:
“The law doesn’t require you to be a successful crook, it just requires
you to be a crook." Really? Is that the best you can do? The
case comes across like it's a conspiracy case, attempting to prove
that Blago conspired to do bad, instead of actually doing bad. Growing
up in Chicago, you always hear whispers of the crimes that really
happen, not just the crimes that politicians wanted to commit.

Despite having
the guy's phone tapped, and his office bugged, the best the government
could do was drag out a bunch of embarrassing conversations (something
everyone in the world has had), show that Blago was a real creep,
and make the guy look bad. It seems as if the goal was to make the
guy look bad instead of proving that he'd done something wrong.

Trying to sell
a Senate seat for a million dollars? Yeah. Real dirty. Sleezy. Scummy.
The kind of stuff I expect in Chicago. The kind of stuff a guy should
go to jail for. You know what though, why can't the government prove
that it actually happened, instead of just proving that the governor
and his brother just thought about making it happen? Why isn't Jesse
Jackson Jr. on trial for trying to get that Senate seat for a million
bucks? Or $6 million, as was revealed during the trial. Why isn't
Obama on trial for trying to finesse the Senate appointment for
his benefit? I don't know, I guess those crimes aren't illegal.
I guess the two of them weren't acting under color of office as
Blago was said to have been doing. Is that supposed to make me feel
better? Did not all three of them behave in the same way — trying
to manipulate our government for their personal benefit?

In the courtroom,
I heard the defendant's attorney argue that he did get money from
vendors the state did business with, but he got the money after
official business was completed, which is entirely legal. I heard
the federal government argue the same, with the exception that they
argued that Blago made it clear to the donors that official favors
were connected to the campaign contribution. Is there anyone out
there, who honestly believes that campaign contributions do not
have an influence on an elected official? How could a government
attorney actually try to argue that every politician who gets money
from a government vendor is somehow clean, but that Blago is dirty?
It seems like a very fine line to argue without thinking yourself
a little less than genuine. Of course, the government doesn't need
to argue that exact point. It only needs to argue that Blago is
dirty and illegally so. The people of Chicago meanwhile are discussing
that point, a point of comparison. Why is Blago the only one on
trial?

OTHER PARTS
OF THE U.S.

While people
all over Chicago watched the news and said "so what?"
people all over the U.S. watched the news about Blagojevich and
laughed. They laughed at Blagojevich, and they laughed at the people
who elected him. Evidently, in their heads, if a guy is accused
of a crime, that's the same as a guy actually having committed a
crime. The jokes are everywhere, and rightfully so, but it also
goes beyond jokes. Everyone's suddenly got an expert opinion about
what a creep Blago is. The thing is, he's but the tip of the iceberg.
If he's such a louse, why isn't there more than a sham trial taking
place? If he's such a bad guy, why wasn't his impeachment anything
but a kangaroo court. This is not to say that there aren't Chicagoans
who want Blago behind bars yesterday. It's just that people believe
in the myth of a clean politician emerging from Chicago's political
culture more pervasively the farther you get from the place. Correspondingly,
the idea that Blago's a single bad apple seems easier for people
to believe the farther you get from Chicago.

Two days of
closing arguments showed me the government's lack of a case. That's
supposed to be the time that everything gets tied together for the
jury. Maybe they've proven Blagojevich had dirty thoughts and shared
them with his brother, but the fact that that's all they could get
him on speaks volumes to what a failure the prosecution is. It's
sort of like federal court in Chicago putting Capone in jail for
tax evasion, because he couldn't get caught on a slew of other things
that federal investigators believed he'd done. If closing argument
is any indicator, had I sat in on the other seven weeks of the trial,
I would have kept waiting, I would have been left waiting for the
evidence. Instead, I waited for the evidence from the anti-Blagojevich
local media and all I got was irrelevant stuff that makes a guy
look like a creep. It's not illegal to be a creep.

FAILURE
OF THE GOVERNMENT

Not only is
my federal government big, burdensome, and inefficient, they can't
even walk into a town like Chicago and nail the corrupt kingpins
for being corrupt. Instead, they have a show trial, of one politician,
and they go home for the day. What a lame federal government. What
other powers do we need to grant them in order to be able to put
the bad guys in jail? Is wiretapping and bugging offices not enough?
Do they need video cameras in every room, recording devices under
ever potted plant? Or maybe if we, as a nation, decide to wave a
few other constitutional amendments, they'll suddenly get good at
their jobs.

I went to court
expecting a case. What I got was a boring lecture on what a federal
attorney thought Blagojevich was probably thinking over the course
of a few weeks back in 2008. I look forward to hearing what the
12 Angry Men will have to say about the case after the jury hands
down a verdict.

CONCLUSION

The people
of Illinois deserve a real investigation into the State's corruption.
The people of Illinois are not getting that. They are getting a
sham trial. Instead of seeing the whole political class investigated
and brought to court, we get one guy, as if this is supposed to
assuage us. I reject this show trial. I want justice. It is not
justice to put up one politician as a sacrificial lamb. It's injustice.
In Chicago, it's still business as usual. How can a federal attorney
look at himself in the mirror in the morning when he has to go to
work and prosecute a case like this? It's a case based on the timing
of when a politician asked for money for political favors (something
virtually all of them do). Is Governor Blagojevich any worse than
the others just because he was the one they pulled into court to
prove what he'd done was wrong? No. The whole system's dirty — from
the Chicago politician in the Oval Office, all the way down to the
aldermen and ward bosses. To add insult to all of this, I have to
pay 1/300,000,000 of the salary and benefits of a staff of federal
attorneys who will tell me that justice is being served. A law that
randomly punishes a person based on a tiny breath of distinction
between legal and illegal is an immoral law. Somehow the people
I meet from outside of Chicago, just aren't getting the fact that
this trial's a sham and that regardless of the outcome, justice
will not have been served.

Allan
Stevo [send him mail]
was
a candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in the 10th Congressional
District of Illinois and has been involved in Chicago politics since
childhood. He is a writer.

The message
of Avatar is a message echoed in 3
Cups of Tea, a book lauded across the political spectrum,
about a focused and determined American who went abroad to build
schools. It's the compelling true story of a former mountain climber
overcoming great adversity (especially among the "locals")
to do well for his fellow man. As the book tells us, Greg Mortenson
has essentially dedicated his life to this work. Fascinating story.
However, the saddest aspect of the book, something that leaves the
book's theme on rocky foundation, is Mortenson's rationale for doing
this. He offers no questioning process of the positives and negatives
of his "footprint." No, like many meddling Americans abroad,
there is no handling of this issue. What is my goal? What good do
I bring? What bad do I bring? A good question in the style of Hazlitt:
How will this affect everyone and what will that effect be over
a long period of time? How will my footprints left, my shadow cast,
my encouragement and my influence that I open the door to, how will
that affect the people there — these people being the people I am
to "help." What is the definition of help? Who should
I be seeking to help? And will the people I seek to help maybe just
be better off if I stay home on the couch watching TV?

Mortenson looks
at the positive impacts, he looks at negative impacts on his own
life, and addresses his own shortcomings. In the book, he does not
evaluate how he might negatively affect his target villages. Since
this issue is not dealt with, it entirely undermines the rest of
the book. It entirely undermines the whole argument of the book.
Because this is what Greg Mortenson has dedicated his life to, it
entirely undermines what we are to understand is the purpose of
his life.

If my neighbor,
Chase, decides to spend the next 30 years digging a tunnel by hand
that stretches from his house to downtown, are we to believe the
tunnel is a good idea just because he is working hard at it and
has decided to dedicate his life to it? No. I'm going to be concerned
about the foundations of my previously solid house falling into
this tunnel that he is digging under it. As if it were relevant,
you may ask "Well, why is he building the tunnel?" And
he might answer you, "To allow children to walk to school safely
when it is snowing, to allow elderly people to not slip on ice,
to allow people accidentally locked out of their houses a warm place
to sleep for the night, to give people without a house a warm place
to sleep for the night." These all sound like great reasons
for building a tunnel. They do not, however, address the real damage
that might be done to my house and the other 300 houses that he
will have to dig under between here and downtown, houses that may
be put at risk.

If you cut
seven slits into a hotdog just right, it'll look sort of like a
little pink octopus with it's eight plump legs once it's boiled.
But it sure ain't an octopus. No matter what Chase tells me about
how great that tunnel is, it doesn't get around the fact that he
plans to use a shovel to dig a tunnel under my house. No matter
how much good you can accomplish with all of your hard work, if
you do not realistically address the bad, then once again, maybe
it's best for you to just stay at home on the couch and let people
go about their lives.

Now I entirely
understand that it's frustrating to look at an apathetic person
who has great potential and to think "It's a shame that person's
not more engaged. He could do great things if only he tried."
In this aspect, I appreciate Mortenson's encouraging message: "Get
out there in the world and just do something." Just do something,
anything is a message of the book. Go all over the world and just
help. Just do something.

However, action
is not the key. Simply acting is not the reason to act. The message
needs more modifying — act with purpose.

It's often
assumed uncritically that a penny sent abroad is a penny used for
good. An hour spent volunteering abroad is also assumed to be an
hour used for good.

Acting with
purpose adds a different dimension to ones actions. Don't just go
out and interfere with the ways of life people know and have established
with good reason. Sometimes the locals are best left alone. People's
ways of life are established through countless millions of instances
of what my 3rd grade math teacher called "guess
and check." You think something might work, so you try it.
If it works you repeat it, if it doesn't work then you try something
else. What ends up happening is the creation of a way of living
that is sustainable over a lifetime and eventually over generations.
Even if such ways of living make absolutely no sense to an outsider,
it is important to remember that they are the ways that have proven
to work for that individual, who, incidentally, spends every day
of his life in his own shoes. No outsider will ever be forced to
walk in the shoes of a local, so no outsider can know what is really
happening in the life of that local. It's that individual who is
best prepared to make decisions that affect his own life.

While I do
not consider the following to be a valid theological viewpoint,
I do think it is an important viewpoint to keep in mind when one
attempts a project that affects the lives of others: "The path
to hell is paved with good intentions."

"But I
was just trying to help" loses its validity in personal relationships
sometime around the adolescent years of the speaker. It therefore
doesn't seem right that we let mature adults use that excuse in
their business dealings, whether those be for-profit business dealings
or non-profit business dealings, as in the case of Mortenson. Instead
of praising his book as the feel-good book of the year, instead
of cherishing this man for really getting out there and doing something,
we should be calling him out for not acting with purpose. Such self-criticism
is lacking in 3 Cups of Tea.

In the same
way, it doesn't make sense that we allow entire departments full
of government employees to use that same excuse: "But I was
just trying to help." They are, after all, grown adults who
wouldn't be able to use such an excuse in their personal lives to
explain failure. It's an excuse we wouldn't allow from teenagers.
Yet we allow those public servants to use it to explain away the
failures, misfeasance, and blowback of intrusive government policies
in areas spanning from emergency management to foreign policy. Anyone
who accepts that kind of excuse encourages repetition of the same
mediocrity that led to the initial failure, along with the reappearance
of its strange bed-fellow: self-assuredness in government intrusion.

"The path
to hell is paved with good intentions" is a phrase meant to
awaken the conscience, to put a person on alert. In response to
complaints from the locals, an American missionary in Slovakia regularly
pointed out to me the rationale behind so many of his tricks that
he used to get his way: "It's easier to ask forgiveness than
to ask permission." Easier. Easier indeed. Easier for the person
kicking through the waters of life eager to find purpose in his
own life, so eager that he travels the world looking for someone,
anyone to help. Not easier for the person whose way of life he has
just trampled.

Which brings
us to the central point of the movie Avatar: Diplomacy is
better than war. Pretending that diplomacy and war are the only
two options is foolish. It's like McCain campaigning on the importance
of a troop surge in Iraq and Obama campaigning on an entirely different
and radical foreign policy — a troop surge in Afghanistan. Despite
the striking similarities of those two policies, in the autumn of
2008, it was never hard to find someone who would argue aggressively
for the necessity of one policy over the other.

Saying "diplomacy
is better than war" is the same sort of "better-of-two-evils"
kind of approach, that seems to be missing its modifier. A modifier
would turn the sentence into something like: "If the US were
destroyed tomorrow by a nuclear catastrophe and the remaining million
Americans had to leave the US immediately or risk their own survival
and not one single country in the world was opening its doors to
those Americans, and the solution is either a few hours of diplomacy
or a few years of war, then diplomacy is better than war."
In the movie Avatar, we are given a modifier that goes something
like this: "When someone else has a mineral that you really
want (called "unobtainium" in this case) and you really
want it from them even though it will destroy their way of life,
diplomacy is better than war."

The distinction
between these two arguments is the idea of want versus need. All
members of western culture are at some place along a continuum in
understanding the differences in those two terms. More contact with
reality brings more contact with the distinction. The distinction
says much about how one lives his life.

On the first
day of Econ 102 at the University of Illinois, Fred Gottheil taught
me, along with an auditorium of 1,199 other freshman "The basis
of economics is that supply is finite, but human demand is infinite."
To put it in the words of a pop culture icon: "You can't always
get what you want." That's reality.

In Avatar,
governments don't need to abide by reality; they just need to decide
if they will either seize property through diplomacy backed by the
threat of force or if they will simply seize property through force.
That's fine for a movie. What's problematic about the movie is that
those two options sound similar to the two popular possibilities
for US foreign policy as portrayed in US media. The existence of
other options seems so seldom considered. That view of reality can
be boiled down to the phrase "might makes right." It is
important to remember that such a view of dealing with others does
not often prove a long-term success and can be detrimental over
the long term when it can create resentment and if that resentment
is acted upon, eventually blowback.

Towards the
beginning of Avatar we hear some complaints that the exclusively
American-accented invaders have about the locals. The locals appreciate
their own way of life and reject the way of life presented by the
invaders: "We try to give them medicine, education, roads and
no, they like mud." We learn early in the movie that the reason
the locals need to be moved is because they live on a plot of land
with a great deal of mineral wealth: "Their village is on the
biggest unobtainium mine in 200 klicks." And that means "Either
the carrot or the stick, but they'll have to move in three months."
Three months is how long the good guys (the diplomats/spies) have
to get the locals moving before the bad guys (the military) come
get the locals.

And so begins
the conflict. The evil invading military commander, who answers
to the evil invading corporate executive will kill all the locals
if, in the next three months, the kind invading covertly disguised
spies do not infiltrate the locals and convince them to leave the
special place in which they've lived for time eternal. Yes, the
bad guys and good guys do have the same goals: chase the locals
from their land, turn the land over to a corporation, mine their
land. One side wants to do it with a show of force (G.W. Bush style
foreign policy) the other wants to smile at you as he coaxes you
from your land and eventually shows you force (Barrack Obama style
foreign policy).

We are supposed
to sit in the theater for three hours believing that there is enough
of a substantive difference between these two groups of invaders
to create three hours of interesting and believable conflict. Why
not? After all, we spent 24 months in a presidential election cycle
convincing ourselves that the proposed foreign policy plans had
substantive differences.

Just as with
the presidential cycle, the interests of the locals who stand in
our way are rarely mentioned with any substance. They are either
bystanders or obstacles to be moved by diplomacy or force. At no
place in the movie does there seem to be even the hint of a third
option. This demonstrates a disconnect with the reality of need
versus want and brings us back to the unmodified idea "diplomacy
is better than war."

Sure, I agree,
diplomacy is better than war. Even better is to leave other people
alone, not push them around when they've done nothing to you, let
them keep theirs with the understanding that they will let you keep
yours. It's a lesson taught to many of us early, that somehow increasingly
evades as we get older: "mind your own business."

At the base
of this concern of mine is a foreign policy establishment that argues
over whether diplomacy is better or war is better. In fact there
is a much broader range of creative options that are never allowed
into the discussion. And these arguments somehow make their way
as accepted truth to Hollywood, where the supposed engine of American
creative arts gets involved in the same embarrassingly oversimplified
discussion that happens within the DC beltway. It's an updated version
of America's manifest destiny of centuries past. Not only will we
claim the land west of us inhabited by the non-white, non-European
heathens, heck all the land everywhere is ours too. We'll just come
to claim it when the time is right.

I'm grateful
that Avatar's director made good use of the available 3D
technology, because it allowed me to overlook the ridiculous, "let's-do-whatever-we-want-in-the-whole-continent
hemisphere western world communist
world third world world
solar system galaxy-because-we-can" plot for
an entire three hours. Additionally, I'm glad that 3 Cups of
Tea had a good "the man who wouldn't take no for an answer
motivational story" along with neat cultural anecdotes about
Pakistan to make up for the hours I spent waiting for the "let's-do-whatever-we-want-in-the-whole-continent
hemisphere western world communist
world third world-because-we-can" plot to justify
itself.

Yes, Greg Mortenson
says he didn't take government money, he says he didn't cooperate
with the Pentagon, he says he isn't CIA, this is all great. I guess
it makes him better than all the people who do take that money to
do things to people they wouldn't talk about in polite company.
Avatar goes a step further than the book, because Avatar
delves into the sinister. In both of these pop cultural defenses
for an oversimplified foreign policy, what I so sorely missed was
the justification for why the action taken is okay. I missed the
conscience. Conscience – that thing that collective ways of looking
at the world seem to drain from individuals.

Allan
Stevo [send him mail]
is the author of Somewhere
between Bratislava and DC.
He is working on his next book. His website is www.allanstevo.com.

In the year
2010 if you step into a train in Slovakia, it is likely a train
built 30 years ago. A train that squeaks and is so noisy that the
gentle rocking won't work you to sleep. Each window opens, or is
at least supposed to open. The seats often stick to your skin on
hot days and chill your clothed skin with a hard vinyl on cold days.
Still upholstered with the original materials of 30 years ago and
mended with duct tape-like material here and there. If the lights
work they are harsh, but can be switched off in each six- or eight-passenger
compartment, each coupé, as the Europeans are fond of calling
them. The toilets have ages of wear on them that are indecipherable
from filthiness. When you flush, a trap door in the toilet opens
to reveal the sound, sight, and draft of the tracks below. There
is no pretense of there being a storage tank on this train.

This train
is the superior train in Slovakia, a train you are lucky to be on
if you have the opportunity. Every passenger on that train can control
the temperature, the level of draft that reaches him or her, the
amount of light, out of politeness by first asking the six other
people in the coupé if they wouldn't mind and then opening
or closing a window, door, drapes, hanging a head or arm out into
the breeze, switching on the heat or air-conditioning, turning the
lights on or off. This is the communist built train that surprisingly
exemplifies and recognizes the freedom of the individual, a responsibility
to people immediately around him, the ability to change things immediately
around him.

When walking
out on the street or on the sidewalk, you can never be certain of
who sees you. In a coupé, you can make it more private. You
can actually close a curtain if you don't want passengers walking
by to be able to look into your coupé. You can close other
curtains if you don't want to be stared at by people standing on
the platform as your train sits at a station. You can even lock
the door. Yes, you can lock the door to your coupé built
during the days of the intrusive seemingly omnipresent communist
government. Sometimes the conductor will use his key to open it
when coming for tickets. Sometimes he or she will just knock and
wait patiently for you to open it.

Some trains
are crowded, others are not. On some lines, at certain times of
the day, even when just riding second class, you can quite literally
read a book in peace and quiet, entirely on your own, not a person
in sight or earshot. Even on pretty full trains if you're travelling
with a bigger group of friends, you can get a coupé or two
to yourselves. If you are with family, travelling four or five in
a group, often other passengers will allow you a coupé to
yourselves, especially with little kids in tow.

And in contrast,
we have another type of train in Slovakia — new and shiny. It sometimes
even smells new, fresh out of the factories of the Western democracies.
It's at times a hand-me-down from a country of the West, fallen
below Western standards, but of high standards for a post-communist
country, so it's often a welcome hand-me-down. This is the inferior
type of train that you can step onto in Slovakia.

It's created
with a love for sameness and for identical behavior and wants throughout
a community. A train created in one of the Western democracies.
A train that doesn't let you open a window. If everything's working
properly, a train where every room, every car, every seat has the
identical temperature, the identical amount of fresh air.

Of course,
everyone is able to put on a sweater or take one off, but beyond
that very limited option you have on this train no greater control
over yourself and your surroundings. Nor does any other passenger.
In that respect it is equal. Nor, would it seem, does anyone else
on board have that ability, as you would learn from an attempt to
change the atmosphere on the train on those 43 degree days in late
September when someone left the air-conditioning on or those 87
degree days in April when someone forgot to turn down the heat.

You can always
ask the conductor to turn down the air-conditioning in September.
He might even do that for you. Or there's a list of surprisingly
familiar options to anyone who's gone to an overseer (aka public
servant, aka government employee) and begged for something.

He might tells
you "yes," and not do it. He might tell you "no"
and walk away. He might tell you he can't because he's not allowed
to. It's "the rules" that it must be at that temperature
and the person/people who make/s the rules is/are not even on the
train, nor do/es he/she/they have a phone number, but "will
get in touch with you promptly if you send him/her/them a letter
to an address that I can provide for you."

Or he just
doesn't know how to turn down the A.C. It's outside of his pay grade
and in a need-to-know world, it's not his business. In the end,
in order to ensure some modicum of comfort, and to stop your travelling
partners from shivering, you are likely to have to open a window
on that chilly September day in order to warm up the air conditioned
train. Or in April to cool down that superheated train. Except the
windows simply don't open. They're all bolted shut.

On these trains
there are no barriers separating compartments. There are no compartments.
Entire trains composed of entirely undivided train cars. Everyone
can see and hear everyone else. Sure, there are plush seats, big
windows, the things around you feel new and a little cleaner. It's
well-lit, consistently well-lit regardless of how light or dark
it is outside.

If you happen
to find a car that has a coupé, it will be a coupé
with entirely glass walls. No hiding behind curtains or locked doors
in there. No momentary privacy. No small groups. No isolated family
units. This is the train of the Western democracies.

On this "up
to Western standards" train, you can't even do one of the most
beautiful things there is to do in Slovakia: to open the window
any of the four seasons and to take in the fresh air as you run
through the countryside, along rivers, past mountains dotted with
castles, at 90 miles an hour, allowing Slovakia to whip through
your hair.

No, on this
up-to-Western-standards train you can't do that, but you can view
your country through tinted windows, to see a green-hued or maybe
a blued-hued or brown-hued or gray-hued Slovakia.

Perhaps a color
of window designed in a country that does not have its own colors.
For here, in a country like this, with such a rich palate of rural
colors, clear is the preferable color of the glass manufactured.
And why is the glass tinted? Because the designer/design committee1
didn't trust you to look away when the sun shone, to cover your
eyes from the UV rays. It might be dangerous for you if you act
irresponsibly, so all people get the same tinted view.

It's one of
the paradoxes one encounters in skirting the border between East
and West. In repressive regimes you find these surprising ways that
individual freedom pokes out. It seems there will always be people
with a desire to not have every aspect of life centrally controlled.
The design of the communist-era Slovak train being but one small
example in a constant flood of them, a constant flood of them that
are apparent to the keen observer. A constant flood of ways that
people (most often quietly) allowed for the individual, himself,
herself, or another, to be the boss of oneself in some aspect of
life.

And that same
paradox is true as you move West of that border. You see things
you would never see East (especially pre-EU-acquisition of the central
European post-communist nations aka "Eastern Europe");
the train being but one small example. In nations that are, relatively-speaking,
considered to be some of the freest countries in the world, you
can find a virtually endless supply, really virtually endless to
the keen observer, of ways of controlling other people. It's fascinating
how it always seems to be there, this underlying idea of "I
know what's good for you, better than you know what's good for you."
Behind political faades of freedom, you always find this in places
you don't expect to find it. Not the idea of "individuals choose
for themselves," but the idea of "I will choose for myself,
and for you as well."

Just as a sense
of decreased political freedom in the US has brought out a sense
of rebelliousness in me, I wonder if a guise of increased political
freedom brings a willingness to tolerate less freedom, a willingness
to tolerate more central planning where one worker, or more often
a committee decides for all with limited avenues of recourse.

"1,000
years without a king makes the heart free" reads a Slovak t-shirt.
But I wonder if it's really years of those failed (usually foreign)
repressive regimes that made so many Slovaks so beautifully apolitical.
So apolitical that not once, but twice they had the worst voter
turnout in EU elections for any EU member state. Politicians simply
don't have the fertile soil here for widespread voluntary political
hero worship.

In 2004, W.
visited the Slovak capital of Bratislava to give a well-attended
public speech. In an image captured by many cameras, a group of
approximately 10 Slovak thirty-somethings were engaging in the uncharacteristically
Slovak act of holding placards with George and Laura Bush's photos
on them and showing fervent vocal support. Cheering, jumping, clapping,
chanting. They weren't in the easy-to-enter VIP section, but were
suspiciously in the "everyone else" section. Shocked by
what I was seeing I asked a few of them which of Bush's policies
they liked most. The answer was something like "WE LOVE GEORGE
BUSH!!!" I tried again, to which I received a substanceless
answer. So the third time, I pulled one person off to the side,
tried again, and she said to me "Don't tell anyone, but we
work for the Prime Minister. We have to be here today doing this."

The lack of
widespread voluntary hero worship seems to allow for this tremendous
distrust of government. Seldom can individual politicians be mentioned
at a table full of people without someone at the table laughing
aloud about the politician. Frequently what follows is the latest
joke going around about that politician.

In a country
where government has so consistently failed the people, it's an
attitude one should expect. (After all, if failure is marked by
instability, the last century saw six different officially acknowledged
currency changes with four different officially acknowledged implosions
of government in Slovakia. Any person on the street of a certain
age can tell you that.) Freedom might be more precious to a Slovak
who knows his government failed him than to an Austrian who believes
in his government. To a Czech more than a Frenchman.

It seems we
notice our freedom most when that precious freedom feels most keenly
threatened. But what is it that brings out the central planner in
men, that moves one to force his will on others, and more importantly
that allows us to acquiesce to the planning of the minutia of our
lives by fiat? Is it the veil of political freedom? If we believe
we are free, will we consent to anything? If we simply feel
free, will we consent to even more?

Notes

1. Footnote
   to designer/design committee: While a designer and design
   committee are vastly different entities in that one is a collection
   and the other an individual, in all likelihood, any one person
   allowed to make decisions for a government funded train is so
   infused with some form of groupthink, some type of orthodoxy2,
   that the above distinction is rendered moot. The individual designer
   is certain to act with the same fears and lack of originality
   of the design committee.
2. Footnote
   to orthodoxy: According to Webster's
   Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, the English word "orthodoxy"
   comes to the English through Latin from the original Greek orthodoxos
   composed of "orth" meaning "correct" and "doxa"
   meaning "opinion." Even the origins of the word are
   paradoxically inline with orthodoxy in that it describes an opinion,
   which is usually something that is subjective, as objective truth.
   The root after all, uses the word "correct," a word
   that indicates objective truth. Orthodoxy — the correct opinion.

Allan
Stevo [send him mail]
is the author of Somewhere
between Bratislava and DC.
He is working on his next book.