Tag Archives: Liberty Movement

Opinion

Free College: Honest Proposal or PR Move to Marginalize the Liberty Movement?

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At quick glance, much of the American public erupted with accolades over the gift of free college, while others voiced swift protest.  Proposed on Friday, January 9th, the Obama administration announced an $80 billion dollar program to provide “free” tuition for United States students to attend community college.

While 25% of these funds would be required for individual states to fund over 10 years and Forbes figures pointing to a monumental 538% increase in the cost of higher education since 1985,  we could crunch numbers and debate figures until the Oakland Raiders win a Super Bowl.

The big question here is not if this proposal is “good” or “bad,” not what the final costs will be and certainly not if education is important  (all these and other side notes will dominate the narrative).

The real question that needs to be asked is:  “Does Obama truly think this will pass, and if not, what does he, his administration, and their party gain by its proposal?”

The answer might shed light on nothing more than a massive PR campaign that is three-fold:  Bolster the story of a benevolent yet marked man who couldn’t possibly get good things passed due to obstructionist conservatives, place pressure on “moderate conservatives” to support the initiative for fear of losing power, and most important, paint Liberty Movement representatives as the most egregious bunch this country has ever seen.

Think about how this could possibly play out.  At face value, the administration doesn’t have the numbers.  After the 2014 election, the Senate tips 54-44 to the Republican Party, the House tips 246-188 with the same leaning.  By quick measure, this proposal would most likely be DOA.

However, this is a win-win scenario for the administration on every front.  While many potentials exist, we can break it down in two ways; it passes or it fails.  Either way, this is a brilliant piece of PR.

The spin:

THE PROPOSAL PASSES:

Victory for the little guy

Moderate conservatives are now seeing it our way, they finally saw the light

We must move forward, this is only the beginning

 

THE PROPOSAL FAILS:

Some sensible conservatives were with us, now let’s name names of those who were not

2016 mainstream media bait  (picture the messaging)

Liberty Movement Representatives

  • are out of touch
  • do not support education
  • are against the poor
  • will obstruct good intention at all cost
  • are controlled by lobbyists
  • want anything but what is good for our children
  • are nothing more than radicals bent on destroying opportunity for those who need it most
  • (we could fill pages)

Is this a set up with victory assured regardless of the outcome?  Who has most to gain?

While the United States borrows 46 cents on every dollar spent and is burdened with a national debt surpassing $18 trillion dollars, we are needless to say, tight on cash.  Truth be told, that does not matter.  Free market solutions do not matter.  The fact that nothing is “free” will not matter either.  What will matter is perception and political opportunity, especially at the cost of the Liberty Movement.   Win and you win, lose and you win by default by spinning a manufactured crisis.

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

Rahm Emanuel

Interviews

Exclusive Interview: Stark360 PAC to Air Pro-Hemingway Commercials

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Benswann.com’s Joshua Cook interviews Stark360 PAC’s Aaron Day to discuss current news in the liberty movement. Day gave an update on how he is helping gubernatorial candidate Andrew Hemingway and a new website, AnyBodyButBrown.org, which exposes Scott Brown’s progressive voting record. Watch Pro-Hemingway ads here.

Listen below:

 

Opinion, US

D.I.N.K.s Should Pay Higher Taxes?

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Today’s political pundits come up with strategies to shift the tax burden to certain groups instead of suggesting the obvious: lower the tax burden for all by shrinking the size of government.

Slate.com’s blogger

“Who should pay more? Nonparents who earn more than the median household income, just a shade above $51,000. By shifting the tax burden from parents to nonparents, we will help give America’s children a better start in life, and we will help correct a simple injustice.”

Wait, What? Simple injustice? Really?

Basically, Salam is singling out D.I.N.K.s (Double Income No Kids) to punish them.

My wife and I used to be D.I.N.K.s and it was great. Sales people loved us too. Because they knew we had money. I remember when we would tell the appliance salesman that we had no kids and saw his face light up as he pushed us toward a more expensive flatscreen T.V.

This is what people like Salam need to know: stealing from people via taxation is morally repugnant and it’s bad for the economy too. Taking away more money from D.I.N.K.s to waste on government programs will hurt the economy and hurt the salesman trying to sell me that new flatscreen. D.I.N.K.s are spenders. They are an important demographic and part of the engine that makes the American economy thrive.

I really hate even subjecting the Benswann.com readers to this type of thinking. The lack of knowledge of basic economics is shocking, but this is what the Liberty movement is fighting against.

This story reminds me of a quote from Frédéric Bastiat which is so true even today, “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”

Well, hopefully we can can change this mindset through the new media and through the great leaders in the Liberty movement.

Here are some of the leaders who woke me up from my dogmatic slumber: Ben Swann, Ron Paul, Tom Delorenzo, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods, and Dr. Jon Boulet who first introduced me to Austrian economics. There are many more as well. I recently heard Jeffrey Tucker give a speech that was fascinating regarding how markets and innovation side step government regulation.

The challenge is getting these leader’s messages out to more people and break through the noise. We need more messaging that advances economic freedom and personal liberty, not the message of government control and the confiscation of property.

I for one wish people like Salam would leave me and my wallet alone. I’m taxed enough already.

Please comment in the section below.

Politics, Swann TV, US

Using Child Porn To Take Down The Liberty Movement? (Video)

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Dan Johnson of the group P.A.N.D.A (People Against the NDAA) talks with Ben Swann about the child pornography sent to him via a Tormail account.  The email, which claimed to have come from Stewart Rhodes (founder and national director of Oathkeepers), actually contained 6 PDFs with graphic child pornography.

“Our IT tech estimates it took about 8 to 9 hours to put this [email] together…something this technologically sophisticated.  It was specifically designed, number one, to be found; and number two, to implicate Stewart Rhodes in sending me the email and to implicate me in having the email on my computer,” says Johnson, who spoke to Swann via Skype.

Most interestingly, Johnson received this email only a few weeks after Luke Rudkowski (We Are Change) and Madison Rupert (End The Lie) also received emails from a purported “whistleblower.”  Those emails also contained child pornography.

Explains Johnson, “If I didnʼt have any IT background, I would think that deleting the file actually deletes the file.  It doesnʼt really delete the file; it just deletes the markers where the file is supposed to be.  So the file would still be on my computer and I wouldnʼt know it.  So if I were to be raided at any point because someone were to say ʻI think Dan has child ornography on his computerʼ then someone would come in, they would open the computer, they would look at it. I would obviously have no idea it was there. They would take the computer and what would happen from there, I am not really sure.  It is about 5 years in prison for each image.”

Johnson goes on to point out that in both his case and in Rudkowskiʼs case, the images were not opened or downloaded (watch the interview to understand how that happened).  Since receiving the email Johnson has contacted police and shared the email.  Unfortunately, the email in both cases was sent from a Tormail account, which is designed to be untraceable.

So why these four men?  Why would they be targeted?  Johnson attempts to answer that question here: