Harry Browne's Journal

This Journal provides random thoughts on news items and other issues. There won't be new postings every day, but most weeks there should be three or four new entries. This isn't an interactive blog where you can post your thoughts. However, you can email me — and if your email seems to be of general interest, I might respond in this Journal. I can't provide a personal answer, because I don't have the time to do many things I'd like to do.

October 29, 2004

Kerry & Vietnam: John Kerry participated in the Vietnam War, while the Chicken Hawks in the Bush administration did not. Kerry and his supporters have tried to make hay from this difference. But experience in battle doesn't qualify someone to be President of the United States. Even heroism in war isn't a qualification, because sometimes what we're told was heroism was actually just a reckless act that happened to turn out okay. And whatever the reason for a heroic act, toughness is not only not a qualification for the presidency, it is much more likely to be a danger.

The only reason to look favorably upon a candidate's combat experience is the hope that the candidate has a much better understanding than his opponent about the real nature of war. When you've seen your buddy lying in the mud with his guts falling out of his stomach, you tend to lose the illusion that war is a glorious enterprise, and you begin to think that no national goal can be worth this carnage.

John Kerry, for all his medals and Purple Hearts, unfortunately doesn't seem to have acquired that attitude. He knows that Americans are dying almost daily in Iraq, and yet he's talking about "winning" in Iraq. He's perfectly willing to continue sacrificing American youths (as well as many times as many Iraqis) simply to avoid looking like a wimp.

While I find it hard to believe that anyone in the world could be a worse President than George W. Bush, I'm almost equally afraid of a John Kerry presidency. And the difference between them is not sufficient to tempt me to cast a dishonest vote for someone I don't respect.

As always, it's either vote Libertarian or don't vote at all.

Is the press liberal?: For so long as I can remember, I've been aware of liberal bias in the press. Or what I thought was liberal bias. My file room has folders full of examples of liberal tilting in the media. So does my computer.

But, as that great humanitarian George Bush is fond of saying, 9/11 changed everything.

And he should know. Because from 9/11 onward, the media have demonstrated an overwhelming bias in favor of George Bush.

You don't think so? Just stop and think. All discussions about Afghanistan, Iraq, or the so-called War on Terror in the media rely on certain premises about what is and what isn't. And those premises derive almost entirely from what government officials have said. In this respect, George Bush has enjoyed a free ride from the media.

Did George Bush say that Jose Padilla (locked away in prison with no attorney, charged with no crime, no rights whatsoever) is a "bad guy"? Then Jose Padilla is a bad guy.

Does George Bush say that the United States military brought peace and freedom to Afghanistan? Then the Afghans are now a free people.

Does George Bush say that the world is a safer place with Hussein out of power? Then all discussions of Iraq must allow for that "fact."

When the United States began its invasion of Iraq in March 2003, did you notice that virtually every TV report on the war had the caption "Operation Iraqi Freedom" displayed across the bottom of the screen? Where did that phrase come from? Did the media executives get together and agree on it? No, of course not. That's the phrase the Bush administration chose for the operation. And so no TV network used the phrase "The War in Iraq" or "The Invasion of Iraq" or "America at War." Instead, we were all conditioned to believe that this was an operation to bring freedom to Iraqis — just as the Bush administration wanted.

Conservative flaks are up in arms about the CBS plan to reveal this Sunday the missing explosives in Iraq, saying that this is proof that CBS wants to swing the election to Kerry at the last moment. But could it be that CBS was simply holding the story until everyone there was sure it was correct and couldn't boomerang on CBS — as the Bush National Guard story did?

Conservatives also complain that there are too many negative press reports about Iraq. But could it be that what's happening in Iraq is negative? How many times can journalists report that President Bush said today that "Freedom is on the march" or "We're winning in Iraq"?

Some polls indicate that there are far more Democrats than Republicans among reporters and journalists. Maybe so. But so long as they get 90% of their information from the government, and so long as there's a Republican in the White House, their coverage is going to be slanted in favor of the Republican President.

When the Democrats controlled Congress, they received favorable coverage in the press — and it seemed as though the slant was toward the Democrats. Now that the Republicans control both the White House and Congress, and are pushing big-government programs, they are getting favorable coverage. Yes, the President is criticized, but more often for what he doesn't do — rather than for what he has done.

The press is biased — not toward Democrats or Republicans — but toward big government, because most reporters are by nature social reformers and because most of the important news they report about government has been filtered through the government itself.

October 26, 2004

World Safety: George Bush has abandoned the campaign contention that John Kerry flip-flops on the issues. Instead, Bush now says just the opposite — that Kerry votes on the same side (the liberal side), no matter what the issue. Would you call Bush's change on this a flip-flop?

The Bush campaign is also congratulating itself on the "elections" in Iraq next month, as well as the elections just completed in Afghanistan. It's probably just a coincidence that the U.S.-backed candidate won the Afghan Presidency (just like the Communists always seemed to win the elections in Eastern Europe). And it's also probably just a coincidence that the Iraqi elections come after the U.S. election — so that when the Shiites win the elections and transform Hussein's secular state into another Fundamentalist Islamic nation, similar to Iran, it will be too late to contradict Bush's campaign rhetoric that "freedom is on the march."

But Bush's #1 mantra, which he repeats endlessly and tiresomely is that "America and the world are safer with Saddam Hussein gone." However, this is just as much a lie as Bush's allegations about Hussein's dangerous weapons,  mobile laboratories, aluminum tubes, unmanned aircraft that could carry WMDs to America's east coast, ballistic missiles that could threaten the whole Middle East, uranium purchases in Africa, Al-Qaeda training camps in Iraq, and Hussein kicking the UN inspectors out of Iraq.

The world is not a safer place. George Bush's arrogant, heavy-handed invasions of two countries have undoubtedly caused the recruitment not only of thousands of more terrorists, but also millions more supporters of terrorism around the world. I'd hardly call that making the world a safer place.

Libertarians for Bush: Here is an amalgamation of two emails I've received. . . .

At least four celebrity libertarians that I know of, at least some of whom are Libertarian Party members, have issued statements of support for the reelection of George Bush. They urge libertarians to vote for Bush, instead of voting Libertarian. I know you don't agree with them, but I do.

While too many libertarians keep their heads in the sand, George Bush has stood up to terrorists and is taking steps to fight them.

There has been throughout history, and continues uninterrupted today, hordes of people who need no more excuse than their own bloodthirsty and genocidal impulses to aggress on others. Think about the sort of being that enjoys slowly sawing off the head of someone else. Think of Hitler's concentration camps and gas chambers. Think of Stalin's gulags. Think of Mao's mass starvation. Think of Pol Pot's killing fields. Did they do these things because they had legitimate grievances?

 I don't know. Do the people inside America — who kidnap, torture, and kill other people — have legitimate grievances? Should we start bombing New York? Chicago? Washington, D.C.? — to get rid of the thugs inside America?

What I do know is that there always has been and always will be thugs in the world. Mostly those thugs are feared and condemned by respectable people. But when millions of people — well-meaning, relatively decent people — give their support to those thugs — as they did with Hitler and as they are today with the terrorists — you know that there are legitimate grievances that allow the thugs to command the respect of others. To whatever extent you dismiss those grievances, you multiply the support given to the thugs. What the thugs are doing is wrong — just as it was wrong to commit the acts that created the legitimate grievances.

There are two possible courses of action available to America — and I sincerely hope you will think long and hard about these two possibilities:

Choice #1: You can try to stamp out the thugs, which is impossible, if the history of the world is any guide whatsoever. That means that the so-called War on Terror will continue for the rest of our lives. And for the rest of our lives we will be subjected to humiliating searches at airports, to our email being monitored, to warrantless searches and seizures, to wire-tapping. And what we must put up with today is just the beginning, because every time there's another terrorist act (anywhere in the world, such as the Chechen attack in Russia), the invasions into our lives will be expanded and expanded and expanded.

Choice #2: You can change American foreign policy.

Stop the U.S. government from invading other countries.

Stop the U.S. government from supporting dozens of dictators around the world.

Stop the U.S. government from having the world's largest national offense, but absolutely no national defense.

Stop the U.S. government from telling other countries "you're either with us or against us."

Stop the U.S. government from meddling in the affairs of other countries.

Stop the U.S. government from stationing troops in 702 bases in foreign countries.

Stop the U.S. government from bribing foreign governments with your tax money.

This won't bring peace to the whole world (and neither will choice #1). But it will bring relative peace to America, and allow it to once again be a nation of liberty — proud of the Bill of Rights and the freedoms Americans enjoy, rather than obsessed with security.

Do you really want to live in an expanding police state for the rest of your life?

Dumb Libertarians: Here's the email of the day . . .

Dear Harry Brownshirt:

Islam is the least "libertarian" of all the major religions of the world. The suppression of Islam is the promotion of freedom. I would have thought that would be obvious to any honest libertarian, but what the f***, it turns out I was wrong.

I was also wrong when I thought that libertarians would understand that Communism was inately anti-libertarian, just like Islam. I was horribly mistaken about that one, too.

I sure am wrong a lot, especially about the brains I supposed libertarians had.

This certainly is the Age of Enlightenment, when sophisticated, witty discourse reigns. Thomas Jefferson would really be in his element these days.

October 24, 2004

The Supreme Court: A recent email received:

You're wrong, of course [about not voting Republican or Democratic].  The next president will get 3-4 supreme court appointments and we must not have Lani Guinier or Barney Frank or Lanny Davis — or Angela Davis. 

You're so right. Vote Republican and get someone like David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Earl Warren, or Arlen Specter.

Martha Stewart one last time - Part II: Another email received . . .

Actually, it doesn't. The reference you cited is a Securities & Exchange Commission regulation, subject to civil penalties, not a law passed by Congress. I can understand that you would assume this is a law, but it isn't. In the Securities & Exchange Act, Congress authorized the SEC to fight fraud in the securities business, nothing else. Consequently, the SEC is empowered to act as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner regarding a host of activities that the SEC claims constitute fraudulent acts — even such a fraudulent activity as filing your brokerage registration renewal two days late. This, of course, is contrary to the separation of powers carefully constructed in the U.S. Constitution. But who pays attention to that these days?

Even the power that the SEC supposedly had to bring civil action against Martha Stewart wasn't exercised. She was hauled into court by an ambitious prosecuting attorney, who learned well from Rudolf Giuliani that prosecuting securities fraud (and thereby appealing to anyone who has lost money in stocks) elevates one's career.

For a longer explanation of the legal thicket of insider-trading, see "Wanted for Outsider Trading" by James Ostrowski.

Martha Stewart one last time - Part III: And still another email received . . .

I still don't understand how you can say that insider trading has no victim. Person A has stock that is making money, and Person B would like to have some of this stock. Person A does not want to sell the stock until they are informed by Person C that the next day the stock will be worthless. Person A sells to Person B. Doesn't this constitute fraud if Person A knew ahead of time the stock would be worth less?

If Person A owns a car and sells it to Person B without revealing that Person C (his mechanic) has just told him the transmission is about to fall out, Person A is being fraudulent if he represents the car as being in sound condition. But that's because the car in question is a single item, not an exact duplicate of any other car in existence.

Shares of stock are quite different, however. There are millions of shares of ImClone common stock in circulation — and every share is just like every other share. Person B wanted to buy the stock, and would have bought the stock whether or not Person A (Martha Stewart) decided to sell. By putting her stock up for sale and increasing the number of shares available for sale that day, Martha Stewart enabled Person B to buy his stock at a slightly cheaper price than if Stewart had decided not to sell.

Would Person B have been better off if Stewart hadn't sold? He still would have lost money as the price dropped when the FDA announcement was made. The only difference was that he would have lost a little more money if Stewart hadn't nudged the price slightly downward by offering her stock for sale.

So who was the victim?

Too many investors assume that they have a right to have the stock exchanges operate in a particular way — as though you had a right to tell General Motors what kind of cars to produce.

The only right you should have — and the only right you need — is the right not to buy something if you’re not sure it's safe and will achieve the promised result. If you try to enlarge that right into a power to demand that others run their business affairs to suit you, the government will have to enforce it for you (unless you have your own private Mafia).

And you know what happens when someone shows up at your door saying, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."

What happens is that the help you wanted is buried under a stack of new regulations and compulsions designed to enhance the fortunes of those with the most political influence — who will never be you or I.

October 22, 2004

Fighting communism, part II: Yesterday I received the following email:

I don't know much about the intervention in Turkey. I will be researching it for my forthcoming book on American wars.

However, I'm quite familiar with the situation in Greece. It was considerably different from the way it's normally described. American intervention there established the "Truman Doctrine," which today neo-conservatives delight in citing as a precedent for their proposals to have America police the world. Thus there is a great incentive to perpetuate the myth that Harry Truman's bold intervention prevented a Communist takeover of Greece at the end of World War II.

In fact, however, there was absolutely no danger of such a Communist takeover. Near the end of the war Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed that each of their three countries would have postwar control over whichever countries it liberated from the Nazis. This gave the Soviets a free hand in Eastern Europe, and it gave the British a free hand in Greece, among other places. The Soviets kept their word and stayed completely out of the Greek Civil War — intervening only at the end to order the Greek Communist Party to give up the battle.

The Greek Communist Party was actually only a small part of the Popular Front that opposed the ruling Greek government. That government was extremely oppressive — squashing civil liberties, assassinating opponents, and rigging what few elections were allowed to take place. The British tried to help the Greek government ward off the rebellion, but their resources were exhausted from the World War. So the Americans stepped in and provided arms and ammunition (but not troops) to the Greek government, and that was sufficient to end the rebellion eventually.

The Greek Civil War (as it was called) was a never a struggle between the forces of freedom and Communism. It was simply a rebellion against an oppressive government (which is not to say that a rebel victory would have made Greece any more of a free country). The U.S. government intervened, as it did in so many purely local disputes, for reasons other than that of fighting communism.

What, then, was the real reason the U.S. intervened?

Mainly, the alleged need to combat Communism in Greece gave President Truman the clout to hike the military budget significantly, to impose restrictions on the American people, and to clamp down on alleged communists inside the U.S. government. In the same way, from 1945 through 1950 all military intelligence indicated that the Soviets were too weak to consider invading Western Europe, but administration officials continually went before Congress and claimed that increased American military might was necessary to stop the Soviets from overrunning the continent. They dropped that claim only when the Korean War began and provided a more visible excuse to expand the U.S. government.

From 1945 through 1991, virtually every dispute between a pro-American dictator and his local opposition was depicted as a titanic struggle to preserve freedom by preventing Communists from taking over another country. It worked well, and so today our politicians depict every terrorist or guerrilla attack anywhere in the world as an attempt by Al-Qaeda to advance its plans to destroy American civilization. The Transportation Security Agency has cited the Chechen attack in the Russian city of Beslan (one more battle in a decades-old conflict) as a reason to make life even more uncomfortable and humiliating for U.S. airline passengers.

And during the Cold War, we were told that we had to fight the Communists in Greece (or Korea or Guatemala) so that we wouldn't have to fight them in New York or Los Angeles — just as today we're told that Americans are fighting in Iraq so that we won't have to fight in Seattle or Aspen.

This is not to say that the Communists were peace-loving agrarian reformers. They weren't. But they also were not the constant, imminent danger that our politicians made them out to be. However, we'll leave that issue for another time.

The story of how our government manipulated the situation in Greece in order to gain bigger budgets and greater control over Americans is important because it is being duplicated today — as our government uses any eruption anywhere in the world as an excuse to expand its dominance over our lives.

And the irony is that today's war-mongers are citing the Greek conflict as evidence that America can triumph over its enemies if it will only act boldly and ruthlessly. In fact, the more "boldly" America acts, the more enemies it creates — in the 1940s and today.

The more things change . . . 

October 19, 2004

Fighting communism: I received the following email:

A friend of mine read your article "Can America Bring Peace to the World?" [in which you said that the U.S. government has always failed to deliver on the promises made when entering a war, including entering the Cold War]. He said you failed to mention that American intervention stopped the Communists from taking over Greece and Turkey in 1946. He also said that North Korea and South Korea today are not in similar situations. South Korea is the next Japan and North Korea is in the pits. What say you, Harry Browne?

Your friend didn't go far enough. He should have mentioned other Cold War triumphs of the U.S. government — such as overthrowing the democratic government of Iran and imposing the tyrannical Shah in 1953; helping the Indonesian dictator Suharto as he slaughtered at least 250,000 Indonesians and then at least 150,000 East Timorese, and continuing to train Indonesian thugs on into the 1990s; installing and protecting dictators throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa — all in the name of protecting innocent people from tyranny.

As for South and North Korea, the U.S. government fought for the dictatorial regime of Syngman Rhee in the Korean War. As it turns out, South Korea eventually discarded the shackles of oppressive government while North Korea has yet to do so. But that hardly justifies the price Americans paid for going to war to support a dictator — 33,651 American soldiers dead, an escalation of the federal budget, civil liberties ignored, rationing, and much else. Not only did the Korean War not free subjugated people, it added 150 million Americans to the ranks of the subjugated.

October 18, 2004

Just back from another trip. Thankfully, there will be little more air travel in October and November. I'll have new Journal entries tomorrow.

October 11, 2004

Fool me a thousand times, shame on me: I respectfully request that you read my article about the then-coming Iraqi War, "America, Meet Your Leaders," which was published on September 19, 2002. I'm not asking you to read it so that I can say, "I told you so" — but rather to remind you that Operation Iraqi Freedom was just one of a succession of wars that America entered on false assumptions, that war is only one of many subjects that politicians lie about, and that lying is only one of the many sins politicians commit.

Government is not our salvation; it is force. And being force, it automatically attracts the worst elements of society to it. If we're foolish enough to put our faith in those elements, shame on us.

Martha Stewart one last time: I recently received the following email:

Unfortunately, the news coverage has given many people the wrong impression of what happened in the Martha Stewart case.

In the first place, the law does not say that insider trading is a crime. And she wasn't indicted for insider trading. She was convicted of lying (1) to federal investigators about insider trading and (2) to the shareholders of her own company when she announced that she was innocent of insider trading. She also was convicted of conspiracy to lie about insider trading by making up a lie with her broker, Peter Bacanovic. Thus she was convicted on three counts of lying about something that isn't a crime and that she wasn't charged with doing.

If the government can't charge her with insider trading, what difference does it make whether she lied about insider trading?

And, incidentally, if simple lying were a crime, we'd all be in prison. Lying under oath is called perjury. Lying to a federal official when not under oath is certainly no worse than a federal official lying to you — which happens far more often.

All Martha Stewart's alleged offenses were lumped together under the heading of "obstruction of justice." What justice — when no crime against anyone was being charged?

Even if you believe that Martha Stewart should go to prison for lying about something that wasn't a crime, you don't even know that she was lying. All you know is that a broker's assistant, Douglas Faneuil, was originally charged with being part of the conspiracy — only to have the charges dropped when he agreed to testify that Martha Stewart lied. Why would you believe him and not Martha Stewart?

I have no idea whether Martha Stewart lied. Neither do you, and neither did the judge or the jury. But what difference does it make if she did?

You say, "She became too arrogant in continuing to deny her mistake." I hope you never get convicted for something you didn't do — because the judge will probably increase your sentence for being so arrogant as to express no remorse over a crime you didn't commit.

October 9, 2004

The Debate: It always amazes me that two people like George Bush and John Kerry can accuse each other of being dangerous to America — but then shake hands, smile at each other, and whisper private jokes to each other at the beginning and end of a debate. It makes it very hard to believe anything they say. (So what else is new?)

Sean Hannity said that George Bush won the election Friday night by devastating John Kerry in the debate. Sort of like Bush's victory over Iraq in May 2003.

Hannity may actually believe Bush was a clear winner. The nice thing about a debate is that everyone wins, because everyone believes that his man touched on the relevant points while his opponent was mouthing irrelevancies.

Jobs: John Kerry said in the debate that 1.6 million jobs had been lost during the reign of King George II. But FactCheck.org pointed out that this is true only if you just count private sector jobs. The total of jobs lost is actually only 821,000, because during the past four years about 800,000 new government jobs have been created under our
free-enterprise, limited-government President.

Another voice in favor of killing: In the debate John Kerry added his endorsement to the sanctions on Iraq that liberals in general have been praising this past week [see October 7, below]. He must believe that killing 500,000 innocent Iraqis was an effective enterprise.

Health care: In the debate John Kerry said, "I have a plan to let you buy into the same health care senators and congressmen give themselves." In other words, every American should get the same good health care that members of Congress get.

How good is that? [asked a voice from the rear]

I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you:  In 1994, 84-year-old Congressman William Natcher (D-Ky.) had been in Bethesda Naval Hospital for several weeks — apparently suffering from exhaustion. He had set a Congressional record by not missing a single roll call in Congress for 18,401 votes in a row. And so he left the hospital frequently to go to the House floor and keep his record intact.

On Wednesday, March 2, 1994, it was a little harder than usual to get out of bed and toddle over to the Capitol. But he had some help. He was wheeled into the House chamber on a hospital gurney, with oxygen and intravenous-feeding tubes attached to his nose. He was accompanied by four hospital attendants.

Just imagine: if John Kerry is elected, you're going to get health care as good as Congressman Natcher got. That means that when you aren't feeling well, four hospital attendants will accompany you to your office.

But is this really the kind of health care we can all expect? Maybe not. After all, your job isn't as important as that of Rep. Natcher. He had pork to barrel, logs to roll, and scratches to back. All you do is provide a valuable service to your customers or your employer.

Of course, the real question isn't whether we'll get health care as good as the royalty get. We all know we won't. A more serious question would be whether the President and Congress will be forced to get their medical care from the same health-care Soviets they want to herd us into. Will the aristocrats be burdened by the same price controls, rationing, lack of second opinions, and standardized insurance package they want to force on us?

But, then, I guess we know the answer to that one, too.

The whole issue wouldn't be so serious if it weren't obvious that some form of socialized medicine is on the way. And the coming health-care system (no matter which party designs it) is going to cause some people to die prematurely from lack of proper care. Even today, with the best medical system in the world (though handicapped by enormous government interference), people are dying. With socialized medicine, it can only get worse.

So, when I am King, I won't worry so much about who has health insurance. Instead, I will simply impose a law doing away with death itself.

However, as with all other laws, Congress will be exempt.

October 7, 2004

Killing is effective: By now you've heard that the Duelfer Report has established (as David Kay's report did earlier) that there were no WMDs in Iraq, and that Iraq posed no threat to the United States.

Unfortunately, in their zeal to bring down George Bush, the liberals are seizing upon the report as proof that the 12-year sanctions against Iraq "worked." A New York Times editorial today said, "The report shows that the international sanctions that Mr. Bush dismissed and demeaned before the war — and still does — were astonishingly effective."

They certainly were effective. The sanctions killed 500,000 men, women, and children. Of course, they didn't kill Saddam Hussein, or members of the Republican Guard, or the dreaded Feyadeen — just plain civilian men, women, and children who have never been a threat to the United States.

Those who believe government is there to do one's bidding just can't imagine any solution to any problem that doesn't involve using the force of government. But by any standard of non-violence, even George Bush's brutalizing of Iraq has not been nearly so cruel as the 12 years of sanctions that deprived Iraqis of the food and medicines needed for survival.

Wouldn't it be nice if one of the two major parties would put forth a candidate who doesn't believe in killing as a solution to social problems?

(Sorry, I nodded off and was dreaming.)

George Bush's I-dentity problems: Is it only me — or is anyone else sick of hearing George Bush overuse the word "I"?

"As Commander-in-Chief I have had to make the tough decisions . . ."
"As the leader of this country, I have to . . . "
"I want to lead this country for four more years."
"My leadership . . ."
"I know where I want to take this country."

And I know where I want to take George Bush.

But that's another story.

October 4, 2004

My apologies for the gap in Journal entries. I was away from home for most of September. Fortunately, I'll be at home for most of this and next month, and so I hope to get into the Journal many thoughts that have occurred to me.

In the meantime, a new article has been posted, "Can America Bring Peace to the World?"
 

September 2004 Journal         November 2004 Journal