We can think of aspects of this that are ridiculous, the most obvious being the idea of a “100 year” plan to do anything. And we can think of reasons why some aspects of his plan are likely to be objectionable, one of them being Beck’s heavy interest in W. Cleon Skousen’s book, The 5,000 Year Leap, which advances the dangerous idea that the Constitution (and therefore the U.S. government) is divinely inspired.

But how encouraging to have someone (besides Ron Paul and us) promoting an agenda that is explicitly about rolling back the central State. It is also encouraging that Beck recognizes that “education is key.” It’s up to us, though, to ensure that Beck isn’t the only one doing the educating, and that the (likely substantial) errors in his thinking are corrected.

Beck may just be acting opportunistically to advance his career (I think he’s at least partly sincere), but we should be opportunists, too, and reach out to his ever-expanding audience that is interested in liberty. While we’re at it, we should point out that it would not take 100 years to roll back the federal government. How about 30 days?

But how about a discount to non-military people? After all, the tax-feeders already live off the rest of us peaceful folks. The 10% does not even come close to compensating me for the tax/debt/police state that I’ve been subjected to.

Watching the Dallas Cowboys game on TV, I saw at the bottom of the screen and heard announcement, “We salute our men and women in uniform who are watching this game in 177 countries.”!!!

1 .  Why Did Lou Dobbs Quit? by Mark Thornton;

2.   One Nation, Under Surveillance, by Michael Hampton;

3.  Buying a Used Handgun, by Chuck Hawks;

4. World Economy Setting Itself Up for a Bigger Bust, Says Marc Faber, by Ryan Huang;

5. Job Losses Demystified, by Peter Schiff;

6. Jim Rogers:  Buy Gold, Not Miners, by Alix Steel;

7. Get Ready for Much Colder Weather, by Marc Morano;

8. Preparing for the ‘Global Economic Collapse’, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard;

9. Arianna’s Hammer of Heretics,  by David Nathan;

10. Well-Written, Well-Timed:  Charles Goyette’s The Dollar Meltdown, by John Rubino.

BICKERING PARENTS TO GET STATE THERAPY

COUPLES who squabble outside the school gates could be advised to take relationship counselling under a government initiative to stop parents arguing in front of their children. Social workers, teachers and child health visitors will be told to regard dissent in the household as a sign of poor parenting and to direct argumentative couples to special classes to teach them how to behave.

The government is to offer the relationship classes after studying research which showed that children who come from households where parents regularly fight are less likely to achieve. Couples on the verge of splitting up and those who publicly argue will be advised to attend the relationship lessons where they will be taught conflict resolution and how to deal with problems without upsetting their children.

In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials and the surprise opposition of Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had previously been a supporter.

The measure, cosponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), authorizes the Government Accountability Office to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed’s opaque deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions. The Fed has never had a real audit in its history and little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal.

Read the rest.

That slurry of pre-digested Red State Fascist soundbites was regurgitated by John F. McManus, president of the John Birch Society and Publisher of The New American magazine. The JBS and TNA have previously taken the position that the undeclared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are constitutionally illegitimate and morally unsupportable, and that the terror tribunals are an abomination. As president of the JBS, Mr. McManus is the official arbiter of the organization’s ideology.

Ironically, on the same day McManus embraced the Fox “News”/neo-con/war-bot view of the impending KSM trial, The New American published a typically incisive and witty essay by LRC contributor Becky Aker in which she condemned the Hitlerian terror tribunals.

“The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet.”

Something quite amazing happened yesterday in Congress:  the House Finance Committee — in a truly bipartisan and even trans-ideological vote — defied the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, the Democratic leadership, and mainstream Beltway opinion in order to pass an amendment, sponsored by GOP Rep. Ron Paul and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, mandating a genuine and probing audit of the Fed.

Read the rest.

[Thanks Daring Fireball]

So, an institution founded on a threat to jail the parents if they fail to enroll their children is a model of voluntarism.

John McDonogh High has an interesting history. From Wikipedia:

At 10:30 a.m. on April 14, 2003, two men entered the school property via gaps in the fence armed with an AK-47 and a semi-automatic pistol. Immediately after students and faculty entered the school gymnasium, the two men shot at 15-year-old Caveman Williams at least 18 times. Three female students were wounded, and a pregnant senior was trampled by a stampede of students. Jonathan Williams died at the scene and the two perpetrators immediately fled the school campus. The injured recovered.

Here is a fascinating vignette from Reason TV: Whole Foods entrepreneur John Mackey seems to surprise Welch when he tries to explain why he sells products his customers want to buy, even though he doesn’t personally like such products. More important, when asked to list his libertarian influences, he includes Smith, Mill, Hayek, and Mises.

Gillespie interrupts and says, “How did you come across Mises? Because he’s, even today, among a lot of libertarians, he’s fairly obscure. Do you remember how you kind of stumbled across him?

Mackey: “In a lot of ways I think he’s the one that had the biggest impact on me. I loved his work. I just thought he was brilliant when I read him.”

Mackey then says his “awakening” came from reading a lot of libertarian books “voraciously.” He singles out Socialism and Human Action as excellent, and credits Mises for explaining how markets work. He goes on:

“Also, I don’t think von Mises and Hayek and the other Austrian economists have gotten enough credit for…their theory of the business cycle. I really do think we are experiencing…what Austrian business cycle predicts. If you print a lot of money and you send it through the economy you’ll have certain bubbles and those create market distortions and if the bubble’s big enough and it goes on long enough when it pops, it creates great harm in the society. I think that’s what we’re living through right now. That kind of bubble in the stock market and the real estate market.”

Then Gillespie changes the subject. But what’s most telling is he thought Mises was “obscure” among libertarians. If this was once true, and I do not believe it ever was, it’s not anymore. These days, when most people think of libertarianism, I am confident they think of the Mises Institute. Certainly all libertarians have heard of Mises, who is coming to dominate the economic thinking of this generation of libertarians. Good to see that Mackey, unlike some beltway types and neolibertarians, gives proper credit to the great Austrians and their theory of credit expansion.

At some point, the parent made the “mistake” of walking upstairs to look at some of the student-produced artwork. Eventually the teacher arrived and had a “fruitful” discussion with the parent, who left.

Unfortunately, the teacher who had been the parent’s original escort panicked when the visitor couldn’t be found. The administration was notified,  and at around 8:30 a.m. the children were herded into the gym, and lockdown protocols went into effect.

“Police called in the Chesmont Emergency Response Team [ERT], who were training Tuesday in the township, to assist in clearing the building,” reported the Chester County, PA Daily Local. It’s not clear whether the ERT — a paramilitary police unit equipped with Pentagon-issued toys — arrived in their nifty “Peacekeeper” armored vehicle.

The ERT was “assisted by three K-9 officers from North Coventry and Pottstown police departments,” continues the report. “Warwick Child Care locations on East Cedarville Road and Umer Street were both notified about the potential danger and were advised to go into lockdown.” The nearby Owen J. Roberts was also “also alerted to the situation,” but its security team — the slackers! — chose not to impose a lockdown on the student body.

Nor was this the limit of the official over-reaction: “South Hanover Street, between Route 724 and Cedarville Road, was shut down by fire police as officers from area police departments, the state police and the response team surrounded the building. Area residents, while not advised by police that it was necessary to do so, were staying inside their homes and away from the scene as the response team entered the building, guns raised, at about 10:30 a.m.”

Notice that this crack tactical team spent two hours dithering and skulking around the perimeter before entering the school. Had the parent whose innocuous behavior triggered this crackdown been an actual terrorist, he most likely would have finished his killing spree by the time the heroic, battle-ready ERT actually been on the scene.

Remember: Whenever a shooting rampage takes place, all the police are good for is drawing chalk outlines and stringing up the crime scene tape after the victims have been slaughtered.

At 11:14 — more than three hours after this exercise in police state absurdity began — the all-clear was given and the children were permitted to leave the gym.

“Because of our cooperation with the police department here and our safety team that was in place, no children were at risk,” insisted school administrator Dr. James Smock. In fact, the only “risk” the children faced that morning was a result of the school’s over-reaction, which resulted in a potentially dangerous visit by over-anxious, armed tax-feeders in camouflage.

Check out his petition to Bring The Troops Home Now!

As I explain in my book, it’s basic Austrian economics that governments tend to ignore capital expenses in favor of income. Joe, if you want to know where the roof money went, look at the salaries, benefits, pension funds, unions dues, and the huge amount of cash that goes from the taxpayers’ pockets to the teachers to the unions to the liberal Democratic politicians.

It is amazing that a so-called real conservative, a man of the 1994 (fake) Republican Revolution, is now touting the premier socialist institution in American, K-12 government schools.

On the bright side, Regis Philbin just rolled out a drive to raise money for failing Catholic schools.

From the book:

Many government schools are in ancient and decaying buildings which contain numerous environmental time bombs. These include lead, asbestos, mold and indoor air pollution. What you have to understand is that in any government enterprise, capital investment such as new buildings always takes a back seat to spending on income such as wages, benefits and pensions. Thus, the presence of old and unhealthful school buildings is not an accident. It’s the way things are in bureaucracies.

[Thanks to Christopher Kalabus]