There are a great many people in the US who are fed up with the system. They’re fed up with stealing from Peter to pay Paul. They’re fed up with living under the rule of a government which invents its own wars then mercilessly fights an imaginary enemy. They’re fed up with their valuable efforts towards a brighter future seeming to get them nowhere.

These people are leaving me messages in the comments on this blog (Diebold 08, I’m talking to you), on my reddit profile, and in other places as well. They’re asking what they can do next. The answer is to move to the Free State. The answer is to move to New Hampshire.

For many people, the thought of picking up and leaving home to go to a new state where they may not know anyone can be scary. But it’s ok!  I moved to New Hampshire in June knowing only a couple of people but I love it here. There are friendly people who care about liberty and who have big plans for this state. There are people who want to fight within the system and people who want to live entirely outside it. But the most important thing is that the liberty loving people who are natives to New Hampshire are welcoming the liberty loving people who have moved here, and everyone is getting along. The more people who join the Free State Project, the more people we have to fight for our liberties. This is the next step.

New Hampshire is a wonderful state with stunning natural beauty and some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. The Station Diner in Plymouth has some of the most amazing fresh food I’ve ever tasted. The beachfront has cool ocean water and immense blue sky. The North of NH is sparsely populated for the people who want their privacy, and the south has enough industry to make anyone seeking lucrative work drool. This is what’s next. To learn more about the Free State Project, click here.

I’ve heard from people I work with as well as people online, who don’t own weapons, but think it might be a good time to get one ‘just in case’. There is a lot of economic uncertainty today and along with this comes concern about political and social instability. Could America see riots, food shortages, a coup? I hope not, and I try to be optimistic, but these possibilities exist and seem much less remote than they did even six months ago. If you believe that there is a chance that you made need to hunt for food or defend yourself in the case of looting, riots, or martial law, then it would make sense to arm yourself in case any of these things come to pass.

This is really a quick beginners guide to firearms, and with that being said I would encourage anyone who is new to firearms to take some kind of a safety course before using a gun. Like cars, guns can be very useful but they can also be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. Different types of firearms have different applications and ideally a person would have a different firearm for each purpose, but since times are tight and beginners aren’t likely to buy a whole bunch of firearms I’m going to focus on guns that are good “all around” if that’s all you can afford.

Handguns are very practical for self defense because they are small enough to be carried concealed on one’s person and they are easy to wield inside one’s home when there is a strange noise in the middle of the night. However, I would not recommend buying one if you are concerned about social unrest. Presumably there are going to be bad guys with guns that pose a threat to you, and this is a main factor in your decision to buy a gun now. Most gun fights happen at close range, but if the person shooting at you is more than 10-20 yards away they’ll have a distinct advantage with a rifle or shotgun. Most handguns that people carry for protection are also much less practical for hunting than long guns.

So we’ve narrowed  the “all around” gun down to a long gun, but that is still a pretty wide field. In basic terms this group of firearms consists of two categories: rifles & shotguns. Rifles have spiraling grooves in their barrels which are called rifling. They fire single projectiles with each shot and the rifling in their barrels causes the projectile to spiral like a football while in flight. Shotguns usually lack rifling and while they can fire single projectiles know as slugs, they are as a rule less accurate than rifles. The advantage to shotguns is that they can fire multiple projectiles, referred to as shot, at once. Shot varies in size from buckshot which is typically used for hunting deer or self defense down to bird shot which can be used to hunt birds and small game animals.

There are pros and cons to both types of firearms, but I believe that the shotgun is the best multi-use firearm. Buckshot is more than sufficient to stop an attacker, and the fact that the projectiles spread while in flight gives a beginner a better chance of hitting their target with the first shot. This is good news if that target is someone trying to shoot you, or an animal that you’re hoping to have for dinner. If you can only have one gun, then I personally recommend a pump action 12 gauge shotgun. I’m partial to the Mossberg 500 series myself.

This is a personal recommendation, and a general one at that. Shotguns have very limited effectiveness beyond 100 yards, and if you live in an area with a lot of open space, you may want to consider a rifle instead. There is also the fact that most shotguns do not take detachable magazines, although the Saiga is an exception. Having to reload one round at a time is very bad news in the middle of a gun fight. If these issues outweigh the benefits of a shotgun’s versatility for you, then you need to decide which rifle best suits you.

There are a number of rifle calibers to choose from and obviously different cartridges have different purposes. The debate of which chambering is “best” is too extensive to condense into this article, but at the very least it should be a caliber that is likely to be readily available and useful for self defense and hunting. I would recommend a semiautomatic rifle that is fairly compact. The SKS & AK variants are popular with survivalists because of their perceived reliability. My own personal experience with these models has been good but I would also recommend the Ruger Mini-14.

There are a number of “battle rifles” such as the M-1, M-1A, FAL, & CETME. These are great guns, but if you’re a novice with firearms and you can only have one, I don’t recommend them. These guns would be a great choice if your main concern is shooting elk and engine blocks at 300 plus yards, but they aren’t very practical in hunting small game or defending yourself from an attacker who will most likely be in close to you.

If you are considering purchasing a gun, I hope this has been helpful to you. For those who think I’m crazy and managed to read this far, I’d like to point out a couple things. I’m not saying that we’re necessarily headed for the collapse of society, and I am hopeful that in the long run life in the United States and for humanity as a whole will get better. I don’t know if we will see a depression, riots, or martial law in the next several years, and I hope we don’t, but the possibility is real. Even if society as a whole ends up doing fine there are always isolated incidents where it pays to be prepared. Hurricane Katrina and the LA riots are good examples of localized events where law enforcement was powerless to protect people and property for a period of time. You need to arm yourself before an emergency, because once you actually need a gun it’s almost always too late to get one.

Sadly, the US government’s war on drugs has escalated to the point where DEA agents and informants are given free reign to murder innocent people. Even more sadly, you’re not likely to have heard about the story which I’m about to relate if you’ve been living in the United States. No, this story comes to us from The Guardian, a UK newspaper, and it isn’t (possibly can’t be) widely reported in American papers. I’m disheartened that I have to seek foreign media sources to learn about the real state of affairs in my own country, and I’m even more disheartened that “our” government has been allowed to perpetuate this false war on drugs to the point where completely innocent people are being tortured and murdered over plants which, left to their own devices, would grow wild the world over. And so, Luis Padilla, a father, husband, son and law abiding person became only one of the victims of a false war over little plants. His life doesn’t matter, nor does his death, in the eyes of the US government. He’s only Hispanic–not the kind of life we concern ourselves with when fighting a war against plants. We can’t concern ourselves with the lives of Latinos, can we? If we did, the DEA and others would have to admit to the atrocities they’ve committed. And if they were to admit it, public opinion might finally turn against them in their war on plants. No, they tell themselves, we can’t concern ourselves with the lives (and deaths) of Hispanics.

The US media have virtually ignored this story. The Observer is the first newspaper to have spoken to Janet Padilla, and this is the first narrative account to appear in print. The story turns on one extraordinary fact: playing a central role in the House of Death was a US government informant, Guillermo Ramirez Peyro, known as Lalo, who was paid more than $220,000 (£110,000) by US law enforcement bodies to work as a spy inside the Juarez cartel. In August 2003 Lalo bought the quicklime used to dissolve the flesh of the first victim, Mexican lawyer Fernando Reyes, and then helped to kill him; he recorded the murder secretly with a bug supplied by his handlers - agents from the Immigration and Customs Executive (ICE), part of the Department of Homeland Security. That first killing threw the ICE staff in El Paso into a panic. Their informant had helped to commit first-degree murder, and they feared they would have to end his contract and abort the operations for which he was being used. But the Department of Justice told them to proceed.

Lalo’s cartel bosses told him whenever they were planning another killing, using a grisly codeword - carne asada, ‘barbecue’. In the six months after Reyes’s death, they used it on many occasions. Each time, says Lalo, he informed his handlers in ICE. They did not intervene.

The US government is complicit in these murders. The US government is, in fact, entirely responsible. If they hadn’t created an entire war around these little plants, there would be no drug cartels and no mafia style drug murders. There would be no reason for these crimes against humanity to be committed in the first place. There would be mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers released from prison to become productive members of society again. There would be no more horrendous killings related to the illegality of such innocent looking plants. Like the end of alcohol prohibition in the US, the end of drug prohibition would save countless lives and bring the drug trade from the ugly and seedy underworld to the light of day. There would no longer be a “need” for unmarked mass graves. There would no longer be a “need” for a father to be stolen from his children. It isn’t the cartels that are responsible for this. It is the US government that has created, maintained and perpetuated the violence. It is the US government that needs to be punished for its misdeeds.

When Lalo arrived, two cops were already there. He went out to buy the quicklime and duct tape, and when he returned Santillan turned up with Reyes. The policemen jumped on the lawyer, beating him and trying to put duct tape over his mouth. Lalo, wearing his hidden wire supplied by ICE, recorded Reyes’s desperate pleas for mercy. ‘They [the police] asked me to help them get him to the floor,’ reads a statement he made later. ‘They tried to choke him with an extension cord, but this broke and I gave them a plastic bag and they put it on his head and suffocated him.’ Even then, they were not sure Reyes was dead. One of the officers took a shovel ‘and hit him many times on the head’.

Sutton could and should have shut down the case, there and then,’ says Bill Weaver, a law professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has made a detailed study of the affair. ‘He could have told ICE and the lawyers “go with what you have, and let’s try to bring Santillan to justice”. That neither he nor anyone else decided to take that action invites an obvious inference: that because the only people likely to get killed were Mexicans, they thought it didn’t much matter.’

In the days after Reyes’s death, officials in Texas and Washington held a series of meetings. Finally word came back from headquarters - despite the risk that Lalo might become involved with further murders, ICE could continue to use and pay him as an informant. And although Santillan had already been caught on tape directing a merciless killing and might well kill again, no attempt would be made to arrest him.

I’m not speaking from conjecture. There is proof that the US government is directly responsible for many murders and indirectly responsible for many more. These tall green plants, these pretty little poppies, they hold a power over the US government, and the US government in turn holds a power over us. The US government doesn’t care to stop the violence. They don’t care to stop the bloodshed nor the wasteful spending of taxpayer money on a false war against an entirely government created enemy. They don’t care that people are dying so long as those people are Mexicans and black gang members. They don’t care that otherwise innocent people, once productive members of society with jobs and money and families are rotting in prison at the taxpayers’ expense so long as they can maintain their power structure. The US government and all of its drug enforcement agencies are playing a cruel game with society–and society has sat back and let it happen.

But ICE and its allies in the DoJ were covering up their actions, helped by the US media - aside from the Dallas Morning News, not one major newspaper or TV network has covered the story. The first signs came in the response to Gonzalez’s letter to Gaudioso - not from ICE, but from Johnny Sutton.

He reacted not to the discovery of corpses at Calle Parsonieros, but with concern Gonzalez might talk to the media. He communicated his fears to a senior official in Washington - Catherine O’Neil, director of the DoJ’s Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Describing Gonzalez’s letter as ‘inflammatory,’ she passed on Sutton’s fears to the then Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and to Karen Tandy, the head of the DEA, another Texan lawyer.

How long do we allow this to go on? How long do we allow our families to be destroyed and our society to be crushed under the weight of a made up war? How long are we going to take this?

A comment left on my previous entry regarding American transitioning to fascism and how Ron Paul was right all along has inspired me to posit an idea as to why, exactly, government is broken. Many people see government as a nameless, faceless organization which works for the public good due in large part to it’s very inhuman nature. They feel that because the government bureaucracy is inhuman, it isn’t swayed by human needs and emotions and can therefore operate impartially while acting in the best interest of each individual member of society. What many people fail to realize is that although the sheer size of government makes it feel inhuman and impersonal, bureaucrats are human. Bureaucrats are driven by human needs and desires–greed, empathy, boredom.

One bureaucrat may embezzle “government” funds (that’s your money) to buy himself a vacation home, while another may do it to feed starving orphans in Africa. Very different motives may account for the same dishonest action. And because of that illusion of government as an inhuman entity, they don’t feel bad for doing it because they don’t feel as if anyone is getting hurt. If they could see those “government” funds as the hard earned labor you and I, and stop for a moment to realize that by taking that money to use for their own personal desires, they’ve made us their own personal slaves, the system might begin to right itself.

Of course, not all bureaucrats will embezzle funds. Many will simply sway government action (and inaction) through their human nature. They will sway decisions and policy based on their own politics and personal desires. They will waste “government” resources (that’s your resources) because they’re bored with their job and can’t be fired. Perhaps if we stop looking at bureaucracy as an inhuman thing and start looking at it as a conglomerate of human people then we can start to see other ways of solving the problems inherent in government. Government feels like a single uncaring behemoth, but we must learn to see the individuals therein before we will ever fix what’s broken.

While Ron Paul was officially running for President, mainstream media sources largely ignored him with the exception of the occasional jab at his beliefs–the economy isn’t that bad, they said. Government regulation hasn’t ruined anything, they told us. Ron Paul is crazy for believing such things, they wanted us to believe.

Now, however, with an economic downturn in full swing, ordinary people are losing their homes, their retirement savings and soon they’ll likely be losing their jobs as well. Ordinary people are seeing their financial security destroyed by a form of corporate socialism/welfare (fascism for those in the know) that they’ve never witnessed before. Ordinary people are starting to realize that John McCain and Barrack Obama are working for the same people and that when it comes right down to it, they have the same agenda. Ordinary people are realizing that Ron Paul was telling the truth when he said that our foreign and economic policies were destroying our once great nation. And by bailing out giant irresponsible corporations to the tune of near trillions of dollars, the US government has placed the burden of the current economic crises on the backs of the little guys, not on the backs of the wealthy elites where it belongs. This is, my lovelies, fascism. This is what Ron Paul was warning of. This is what he was ridiculed for saying was going to happen. And now that it has happened, ordinary men and women are trembling in fear–if only we had listened when we had the chance!

But now, finally, mainstream media sources are giving Dr. Paul a small fraction of the respect he deserves. His views are being discussed with less skepticism, less biting sarcasm and a small amount of respect for the fact that the man was right all along.

And these men we have running for president, where are they on this? Initially, both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama expressed their tentative approval of the bailout, oops, I mean rescue bill, and then began backtracking when the extent of voter disapproval made itself known. A few days later, they came to agree on the necessity of it, thereby illustrating beyond any lingering doubt that, as Ron Paul puts it, “our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people.”

I find it strangely satisfying that Congressman Paul, the little Texan who was soundly thrashed in his Quixotic quest for the Republican presidential nomination - the man who was laughed at and mocked as a kook when he tried to alert us all to the fragile and unsustainable nature of our money system - is now seen by more and more Americans as the one politician who told us the truth. No wonder the system spit him out.

The plan bulldozed through Congress last week carries with it dire implications about the future of our country. To redistribute income upward as this does means the game is over. We live in an age looking suspiciously like that of other empires in their late periods of decay, and if you don’t know what that portends, it’s probably just as well.

I only wish that Dr. Paul could have been proven right in the eyes of the nation via less detrimental means. Our freedoms, our liberties, or economy and our dreams have been trampled and destroyed by the ruling elite and a government that is so far out of touch with America that they will do anything they choose even when their constituents beg them not to. The rest of the world is decidedly against the American government and by extension the American people–world leaders such as Putin, Sarkozy and that guy from Brazil have been talking crap because our number is finally up. Hugo Chavez had the best quote of all though, saying that America’s economy is like an elephant sinking in a pool. With the world against us and our own government stabbing us in our collective backs, the American people are lucky to have Ron Paul on our side to tell us the truth about what goes on behind closed doors. Dr. Paul gets the last laugh in regards to the governmental insanity in the US. Unfortunately for him, he probably wishes he had been proven wrong.

The big financial news this morning is that the Federal Reserve will buy up short term debt from companies in the commercial paper market. This market is where businesses take out short term loans to fund their day to day expenses. The market for commercial paper had essentially frozen up as a result of the global credit crunch. There is also speculation that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke may announce an interest rate cut down to one percent later today.

Between this news and the opinions of people with fancy graphs, it looks like the stock market may make a short turnaround, however that doesn’t mean that the financial future will be bright. Most of the people who predicted this crisis ahead of time also predicted that the Fed would try to combat it by increasing the money supply which would succeed only temporarily. Inflation is very deceptive because if you had an annual inflation rate of 10%, assuming the stock market remained perfectly flat in real terms, its nominal dollar value should increase by 10%. That’s not real growth, but most people don’t factor inflation into the picture, so things might look better for a while.

I will agree with Ron Paul’s prediction because he has been proven correct up until now. The Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world will print a lot of new money to provide some short term relief, but this will ultimately result in high inflation, a severely weakened dollar, and another economic turndown within the next few years. The Federal Reserve has already injected massive amounts of cash into the markets, so inflation is all but assured, however I am a little bit uncertain about whether even inflation can  prop the markets up enough to provide short term relief.

Put simply we will see more inflation as a result of the Fed printing new money out of thin air, and we may or may not see some short term rally on Wall Street as a result. Remember that even if the Fed does not cut rates today, it has already started to socialize this crisis by reducing the value of the dollars in you wallet.

This election cycle, much ado is being made about the evils of pork barrel spending. Politicians are attempting to appear conscientious and trustworthy by vowing to put an end to pork barrel spending. Unfortunately, all this talk is just a shell game–it’s intended to distract voters from the real issue, which is government spending period.

Look at it this way. The US government appropriates BILLIONS of dollars at a time for war, murder and other unsavory practices. It also carries a debt in the multiple trillions of dollars. In the face of other government spending and debt, pork barrel spending is like dropping a penny on the street. It takes more effort to bend over and pick it up than it’s even worth. The real issue is that the American people continue to allow the US government to engage in wars on terror, drug wars, wars on illiteracy–are you seeing a common theme here? The government makes everything a war because if we’re at war, no expense is too great. Billions and even trillions of dollars in spending are therefore justified. And it’s ok to carry a debt almost as great as the GDP of every nation on the entire planet combined because we’re at war, folks.

It’s time to wake up to the illusion that the politicians are trying to blind us with. Pork barrel spending is a problem, but it is not the problem that deserves most of our attention. Wasteful government spending comes in all shapes and sizes, and pork barrel spending is only the smallest portion of it. In the face of a $10 TRILLION (or so?) national debt, a $5 million dollar add on to a congressional bill is absolutely nothing. Don’t believe me? Compare the national debt and a typical pork barrel add on:

NATIONAL DEBT                   $10,197,487,189,238.78

PORK BARREL                                       $5,000,000.00

Now tell me, dear taxpayer, are you going to fight the easy fight? Or are you going to fight the good fight?

Naomi Wolf is a writer who has been warning Americans to be watchful for the 10 steps governments have historically taken to close a society and transform it into a police state. She is convinced that the bailout bill that has passed marks the beginning of the serious power grabbing stage. She says a coup has taken place. It sounds incredible, but just take the time to watch what she has to say.

I’ve written on this about the US Army unit which been assigned to patrol domestically. I know that no one wants to believe that America is on the road to martial law, but you can watch Congressman Brad Sherman’s comment about the threat of martial law for yourself.

Police states always take hold because the people did not recognize the danger they were in until it was too late. The signs are there, but only a few people recognize them for what they really are. What can you do about this threat to Americans’ liberty? Tell everyone you know and ask them to take action too. There is still time to save the republic, but there is precious little time left. We are one 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina away from the worst case scenario that freedom lovers have feared. Now is not the time for fighting among ourselves. I have to believe that most every American wants to live in a free society. Liberals, Conservatives, & Libertarians all need to come together as “We the People”. Only in that way can we restore constitutional safeguards and the rule of law.

The much maligned financial bailout has passed the US House 263-171. Apparently adding billions more in spending for pork was enough to buy the votes of dozens of congressmen. Who knew that politicians would vote for anything as long as their district got a cut? I have no doubt that most members of congress voted without reading the legislation, because the bill was around 430 pages long last time I heard.

Despite the fact that congressional leaders, the Bush administration, and the Federal Reserve predicted that the bailout was necessary to stave off absolute economic catastrophe, the stock market was less enthused. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 157.47 points or 1.5% by the end of the day. This is especially worrying because the Dow had been up over 200 points when the bill passed.

I expect that the market will probably swing upward for at least a day or two before dropping at an even faster rate when it is realized that the bailout can’t fix the problem. The Federal Reserve is already extending hundreds of billions of dollars worth of new credit to banks and that has not helped. If this bailout fails to rescue the economy, and I believe it will, then let’s hope that congress does not feel the need to throw even more money at the problem. The more congress spends, the more the federal reserve has to print. The more the Fed prints, the less you can buy with your dollars.

This is going to be a rough year.

It seems that everyone feels entitled to something these days, whether it be a big screen tv, a new car every 2 years or “free” healthcare from the government. Case in point–the internets are flush with ideas what to do with billions of “free” government dollars other than bailing corporations out. The most widely published scheme that I’ve seen involves giving the $85 billion AIG bailout money to the taxpayers instead. Nevermind the fact that the AIG money is going to come from…wait for it…the taxpayers in the form of taxes or inflation. The author of this idea proposes that we “bailout” every American citizen over the age of 18 by giving them an equal share of the money which he wrongly computes to equal about $425,000 each. The actual figure (85 billion divided by 200 million) is closer to a whopping $425 each. Get out your calculator and confirm the math if you feel the need.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather just go to work for a few days and earn myself some $425 than to have the government raise my taxes or inflate every single one of my more than $425 dollars so that they can “give” me money that already belongs to me. I also feel the very unsocialist need to point out that all taxpayers are not created equally. While one person may contribute heavily to the tax system and “deserve” the whole $425 and then some, another person may be, basically, a leech on society who deserves an extra $425 like I deserve my own private yacht. It’s so very noble and socialist to agree to give away other people’s money. However, we rarely see socialists agreeing to give away large chunks of their own money. There’s a reason for this. Socialism is inherently unhuman. It’s a great idea to take care of the less fortunate, however, humans are born with an innate sense of selfishness. It ensures our survival. Trying to ignore that is like trying to ignore a bad case of diarrhea–you’ll end up with a stinking mess in your pants either way.

Instead of spending our time thinking up ways to spend the bailout money, we should be thinking of ways to not “need” bailouts in the first place–namely, let the banks fail and the stock market take a hit. That will teach the greediest corporate types a much more serious lesson than bailing them out ever will.