Everyone needs to read this article in Rolling Stone. A true masterpiece of journalism. Also a true shame, and testament to the decrepit state of our mainstream media, that other venues have not run similar exposes.

It actually begins as a very common tale of tyranny. In order to get something done, government instills fear into the populace to make them docile, which Nixon did when he began to label narcotics as public enemy number one.

[Nixon] used the issue to escalate the culture war that pitted Middle Americans against the radicals and the hippies, strengthening penalties for drug dealers and devoting federal funds to bolster prosecutions.

The supposedly small-government Reagan stepped up enforcement:

[Reagan handed] police and prosecutors even greater powers to lock up street dealers, and to devote more resources to stop cocaine’s production at the source, in the Andes.

It was also during Reagan’s administration when mandatory-minimum laws were adopted, forcing huge jail time and penalties even for simple possession.

Under Bush the 1st, spending was upped to 12 billion dollars. Fighter jets and submarines were purchased to fight this “war on drugs”. Does that seem even a little ridiculous to you?

And it’s only gotten worse sense then, with our prison’s overflowing with people who have never committed any violent crimes nor theft. Even though imprisoning dealers and users has done nothing to reduce drugs on the street.

It once again shows that politicians like to ignore simple facts and economics in favor of flexing their muscles in the name of “doing something.” Unfortunately, the people like when they flex their muscles, because it gives us the sense that we’re flexing our muscles too.

But all the drug war does is lower supply, which increases the price, which then makes it more profitable, which then attracts more dealers. So the level always comes back to equilibrium, and government is powerless to stop it.

And Christians should be glad. Why?

Because placing people who have never committed a violent crime in the socialist hellholes we call prisons is not mercy. It’s not even justice.

When rapists and murderers are being released to make room for some kid who got caught smoking marijuana, there is a problem.

When an addict who needs true help is simply thrown in jail to rot, there is a problem.

The truth is that the voluntary, charitable organizations do an efficient job at helping to curb the problem. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous have had enormous success with the tiniest fraction of the budget of the government.

Instead of helping, the government seems to want to do everything in their evil power to ruin lives and to keep people from getting this help. They just want to exert authority for authority’s sake in the name of “order”.

But the drug war needs to stop (since it’s failing anyway). Drugs need to be brought out into the open like alcohol and nicotine, so they can be dealt with honestly and reasonably without the need to waste taxpayer money buying fighter jets and submarines.

And Christian’s should rejoice when it finally does come crashing down spectacularly, as is usually the case when idols, or at least appendages of idols, crumble and fall. If we are placing our faith in government to “save” us from this evil, our faith is misplaced.

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According to a bill that just passed the House of Representatives, thanks to it’s vague language, I could legally be called a terrorist.

Here’s the definition in the bill of something termed “violent radicalization”:

The process of adapting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically-based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.

Ideologically-based violence can be interpreted any number of ways. Is it intellectual violence to other ideologies? Physical violence to people with other ideologies? We just don’t know. It could easily be used to prosecute those who simply disagree with the government. This, coupled with the Patriot Act, could mean rough times.

As we’ve already seen in Alabama, it is possible for libertarians to be labeled as terrorists. Which is funny, because the libertarian ideology is based on the principle of non-aggression, and it’s government officials who act more like terrorists, especially in our actions abroad.

What’s really disturbing is the overwhelming majority who voted for the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. It passed with a vote of 400 to 6. I hope the Senate is a little more reasonable.

You can help them see reason (or, if that’s too hard, threaten them with your non-vote next time election time rolls around…but any kind of threat could be grounds to call you a terrorist under this new bill so…) by contacting your senator and telling them how unnecessary and ridiculous this bill is.

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Did you know that the main inspiration for one of modern Christianity’s foundational assumptions is Plato?

You heard that right.

It isn’t the Bible, Jesus, the early Christians, or even first century Judaism. It was the Greek philosopher Plato. And that certainly doesn’t bode well, because Plato was a complete nutball.

It’s from Plato that we get the idea of the Philosopher-King as the perfect government man could have. In other words, he was an advocate of tyranny and dictatorship. Plato, like most politicians today, thought that nearly everyone (except himself, of course) was a complete and total moron and therefore didn’t know how to take care of himself.

To add to the list of bad ideas, he proposed the idea of fiat currency, saying that the money used by the state should be “of no worth amongst the rest of mankind.” We can see how well funny money is working out for the United States.

He also liked the idea of limiting freedom by outlawing the private ownership of gold and silver. FDR, an enlightened individual himself, took a nice cue from his fellow elitist and decided to enforce similar lunacy almost as soon as he took office.

Plato’s ideas have infected much of our modern era. But what crazy idea of Plato’s has contributed (infected) Christianity?

Our whole concept of heaven.

The idea that this world doesn’t matter, and is ultimately transient. That the only thing of any real eternal significance is our souls that will live on in eternity in some kind of disembodied, postmortem bliss. This current life is only a practice run for the real one after we die. This world is corrupt and horrible.

And since this second life is the better one, a true paradise, death is to be welcomed.

According to Plato, we are all part of the same one being who exists in this other dimension we will return to when we die. We should long to return to this state of being.

This is what most pagans believed before and during the first few centuries AD, based on the teachings and traditions passed down by Plato, Homer, and other writers.

So we must ask ourselves why the Christians were persecuted if they believed essentially the same thing as everybody else. The most likely answer, of course, is that they did not believe as everyone else, but held to drastic, fundamental world-view changing beliefs. And these beliefs had very little to with the “soul”, which is an almost foreign concept (in the way we moderns think about it) throughout the Bible.

As NT Wright so eloquently puts it, to the first-century Jews who made up the majority of the early Christians, such a concept would have made as much sense as a “Cadillac in a camel train.”

On the contrary, the Bible continually stresses the importance and inherent goodness of creation. God made it after all. And while currently it has been corrupted, it will one day be redeemed.

Death is not to be welcomed or colluded with. It it the key enemy of creation, of life itself, the ultimate corrupter.

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The language of Capitalism and business, many say, is money. And this is cause for derision because it is looked at as unsympathetic and ruthless, caring not for the needs of others, but only for profit.

But guess what?

Politicians are even more fluent in this language than they would have you believe. I would argue that it is the only language they understand completely, and therefore their preferred one. Their eyes are always seeking after the almighty dollar.

For instance, take the recent reactions to Ron Paul’s “money-bomb” on November the 5th. Lew Rockwell has written the following:

Since the moneybomb especially, senior congressmen have been chatting Ron up on the floor. Recently, he was asked for the first time to address the republican chiefs of staff who run congressional offices. They had the same questions as the congressmen.

What firm did you hire to raise this money? What strategist planned it for you? What mysterious technology did you use?

Ron Paul has also said in interviews that congressmen are continually coming up to him, asking where in the world all this money is coming from. They have caught wind of the scent.

And is it really any surprise? All of our money is plastered with images of previous politicians, and the tradition goes back thousands of years. Caesar’s image was engraved on the coin that Jesus used to teach his lesson in Matthew 22.

Politicians speak and understand concepts the best when they are presented in the language of money.

You want to know why lobbyists and special interests are so successful in D.C.? Because they know how to speak with the language of politicians: money.

At least many businesses provide critical services in exchange for our hard-earned dollar, without which society would probably collapse. Can you say that about any politician?

What service does a politician provide that cannot be sufficiently performed by a rubber duck? Or perhaps a Drinking Bird, as used by Homer on the Simpsons to repeatedly push a single button over and over again.

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These thieves go by the name of FBI and Secret Service agents.

I learned early yesterday from www.gordonunleashed.com that the Liberty Dollar offices were raided by the feds. They took everything, including 2 tons of gold and silver.

If taking privately owned commodities from a privately owned office is not theft, then our dictionary just plain sucks.

Why did they do this? It seems that no one knows the answer to that question except the mob bosses who ordered the raid.

For those unfamiliar with Liberty Dollar, they run a competing currency backed 100% by gold and silver. This means if you have a Liberty Dollar note, at any time, you can trade that in for a certain amount gold or silver, or you can use it as a method of exchange like you would a Federal Reserve Note (US Dollar).

This means that not only did the feds rob the owners of Liberty Dollar, they also robbed all of the people who had purchased Liberty Dollar notes, as at this point, they cannot trade their notes in to redeem them for what they legally own.

Liberty Dollar was not running an illegal operation, nor were they counterfeiting. In fact, several US Mint and Treasury officials have been on record saying that as long as they did not have “legal tender” printed or stamped on the product, they were just fine.

This is nothing new. Governments have a long history of robbing their people blind, and are particularly inclined to steal anything shiny, such as gold. As recent as April 5th, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6102. It made the possession of gold illegal, and everyone had to give what they had to the Federal government or else be hit with a $10,000 fine and 10 years in prison. Why?

For the “greater good”, of course, as any politician will tell you. All it did, however, was impoverish people even further, helping to extend the Great Depression.

Similarly, in 17th century England, there was a class of people called goldsmiths that would store people’s gold and issue them “goldsmith’s notes”. People could use these to trade a with each other or redeem them for their gold back.

Well, King Charles I, angered at being denied funding for a war he wanted to wage, decided to sack the goldsmiths’ hoards. Years later, his son, Charles II did a similar thing.

And so it happens over and over again.

Isn’t it strange that our government is now acting like the old English Monarchy? Isn’t that what our Founders revolted against?

Considering how weak the dollar is, pretty soon countries will refuse to accept it, and so our thugs in power will no longer be able to fund their own wars. They will need hard commodities to continue their rampages. They will need gold and silver.

Is this just the beginning of something much worse? Time will tell.

But we do know that we shouldn’t be that surprised that government likes to steal. That’s what it does by definition. It’s what it has done all throughout history, and what it will continue to do on into the future.

When will we finally learn to stop putting faith in one of the largest organized criminal and terrorist rackets in existence?

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