The statement of a passionate defender of liberty? No. Unfortunately it’s from the exact opposite perspective: Robert Mugabe, whose dictatorial regime has destroyed the livelihood of tens of millions of Zimbabweans, who, to further buttress his open defiance to world leaders calling for him to step down, added that “Zimbabwe is mine.”

Mugabe is an easy target for other world leaders to attack. He’s clearly evil. But to stop with him would miss the larger issue - that he was only allowed to quite literally make hell on earth for tens of millions of people because so much power and authority was concentrated in one office, in one person. The picture below shows the stark contrast of the average North Korean to that of Kim Jong-Il (who uses “legitimate” governmental force to his advantage and to the detriment of North Koreans), but it could just as easily juxtapose Mugabe with Zimbabweans.

Mugabe should be ousted, there’s no question about that. But , as we noted o a previous rant, if we’re truly serious about preventing other Mugabe’s from taking power in Zimbabwe or other countries, the solution is to lessen the scope of government.

For more on this, check out the Politics Hurt overview on Bureaucrash Social.

Like many of us, crasher Morgan Ashcom, a former colleague of mine from my days at the Institute for Humane Studies and a good friend, is actively working to spread liberty. Only his medium is not a book, scholarly paper, or microphone, but the lens of his camera.

Through his project, Beyond the Ivory Tower, which he describes as “a labor of love,” he’s working to “show the human side of these great contemporary thinkers.” Thinkers like Walter Williams, Pete Leeson (pictured below), Randy Barnett  and Loren Lomasky, whom he has already captured in film. Morgan hopes to soon photograph David Schmidtz and is seeking donations to help cover his expenses.

Bureaucrash so believes in this project that we just donated some money to help Morgan. Yet, he’s still just a bit short of reaching his goal. If you’re interested in this project at all, please take a moment to read Morgan’s related post and consider giving what you can (he’s set-up a ChipIn account tied to PayPal) - even $5 or $10 will go a long way when added to contributions from other crashers.

Morgan is a very talented photographer who thinks outside the box. This project is a way for us freedom-fighters to help introduce the ideas of liberty to others in an area where our perspective is often absent.

For more of Morgan’s work, check out Morgan Ashcom Photography and a post I made a couple months back on my personal blog about a piece of art I purchased from Morgan.

Well, maybe not quite yet, but there’s potential.

As you’re likely aware, Bureaucrash recently launched a new line of awesome hoodies. Yesterday Contraband Czarina Meg Patrick and I spent the whole day catching up on orders, including a bunch of hoodies. For those of you keeping score, thus far, the best-selling hoodies have been (in order):

Don’t Tread On Me
Communism Kills tied with Enjoy Capitalism
Freedom: My Anti-Gov
Anarcho-Capitalism tied with We’re #1
Johnny Freedom tied with Stop Statism

I thought I’d model the Don’t Tread on Me hoodie to show just how badass they are (hopefully seeing me in it doesn’t decrease sales).

As you can see, all hoodies have a logo on the front, text on the right sleeve, and Bureaucrash.com logo along the seem on the back.

Big props go to Graphic Guru Dan Wilk for his quick turnaround in taking this project from conception to reality and to Meg for putting up with me and my metal all day:) And thanks to everyone who has ordered a hoodie (or t-shirt) as it’s definitely one way to introduce the ideas of liberty to others, start a conversation and maybe even cause some folks to think for themselves about the role of government and individual rights.

Just when you think Bush has done all he can to cement his administration as being one of the worst in history he ups the ante. His latest folly: giving taxpayer money to failing auto companies. While he admitted that “government has the responsibility not to undermine the private enterprise system” his actions do exactly that. On a massive scale.

While we all want the economy to continue chugging along - creating wealth, lifting people’s standards of living, etc., Bush’s actions (and those of Congress with the earlier bailout to Wall Street) will only deepen and lengthen extent of the problem. Because, quite simply, it’s impossible for one individual (Bush) or group of “experts” (i.e. an advisory panel or Congress) to run a complex economy - to know know the constantly changing preferences of hundreds of millions of individual and the various inputs in each industry. (Recall the fall of the USSR which concentrated decision-making power for entire industries with one person or group. See any parallels here?)

Some of the most ridiculous statements by Bush:

[A]utomakers must meet conditions that experts agree are necessary for long-term viability . . . If a company fails to come up with a viable plan by March 31st, it would be required to repay its federal loans.

Pay back the federal loans with what?! It’s clear they’re not producing a good that consumers voluntarily give of their money to obtain, so the companies have resorted to using the force of government to take consumer money. As we’ve previously stated, if auto companies lacked the innovation to stay competitive absent of taxpayer handouts, then what incentive do they have under the new arrangement?

Also,

Bush later noted that failure to hand over taxpayer dollars to these companies “could send our suffering economy into a deeper and longer recession.” But many economists and historians would state just the opposite - that propping up failing companies will misallocate funds that could better be used elsewhere.

For more on this, check out the Enjoy Capitalism and Stop Rentseeking! overviews on Bureaucrash Social and check out the video below, which shows CEI Sam Kazman’s principled stance against the auto bailout.

As calls from the heads of the Big Three auto companies for government intervention of the economy continue, Chrysler today announced that it’s idling its factories for at least a month. Responding to accusations that the company has taken such drastic measures to pressure Congress to allocate funding to prop up their companies, a Chrysler spokeswoman stated that:

This is really a response to what we’re seeing in the marketplace. . . . We run plants when we have orders. We don’t run plants when we don’t have orders.

What?! So she’s admitting that Chrysler is not producing a product that consumers want to buy and at the same time approaching Congress with a bowed head and an outstretched hand?

If Chrysler (and GM and Ford) was unresponsive to consumer preferences for years when no thought of a bailout was on the table what makes them or those in Congress believe that an infusion of taxpayer dollars into Chrysler’s bank account would light a fire under them to become more innovative?

The U.S. government has no business supporting businesses. It’s not Constitutional nor does it make market sense. If a business is doomed to fail it’s because they didn’t provide a good or service people thought worth buying, and not even the U.S. Congress can change the laws of economics.

For more on this, check out the Enjoy Capitalism and Stop Rentseeking! overviews on Bureaucrash Social.

Gary Ridgway, better known as the Green River Killer, is convicted of killing 48 women (though he claims the true number is closer to 90). Almost without exception Ridgway targeted prostitutes, believing he was helping law enforcement/society. Fortunately Ridgway was caught and incarcerated. On the fifth anniversary of his conviction, sex workers and their allies, led by the folks at Sex Workers Outreach Project, took to cities across the world demanding that their rights be respected by government.

The fact is that regardless of what people think about sex workers they are not going away anytime soon. And laws that ban their activities (as is the case in most of the U.S.) only places those engaged in sex work in the underground economy, which means it’s difficult if not impossible for them to have the same protections under the law as other workers have (and pay taxes, etc.), which makes them much more likely to be victimized.

Think about it this way: If a man assaults a colleague at an office job, chances are that he’ll be held accountable - fired, sued, maybe even do some jail time. But if that same man assaults a sex worker after work (or, as Ridgway did, kill sex workers), it’s  much less likely under the current system that the sex worker can have their grievances remedied. The injuries are the same. The only difference is that the government has deemed one profession “legal” and the other “illegal”

Those present at the rally relied heavily on the idea of self-ownership. That, so long as the actions they engage in are consensual, they should not be illegal and should be stigma-free (at least for those enforcing the law). Makes sense.

Bureaucrash was on the scene at the DC rally and we put together this short video: My Ass Is My Own!, which you can watch below or over at Bureaucrash Social.

For more, check out the Who Owns You? overview on Bureaucrash Social.

Update: This video was posted on the blog, BoundNotGagged.com.

Yesterday Chris mentioned the pending release of a movie centered on Che. As I’ve previously stated, while there aren’t a lot of folks around making the case of communism, many people do (unbeknownst, I hope) advocate many of the tenants of that doctrine. Things like redistribution of wealth and State oversight of the economy, both of which lead to gross violations of individual rights, and as we saw in the 20th Century, “rationale” for mass executions by governments.

Yesterday our good friend Peter Jaworski (aka crasher Jaws) wrote about this issue on the Western Standard and linked not only Bureaucrash’s Che-adorned garb (thanks!) but to Reason.TV’s new video,Killer Chic: Hollywood’s Sick Love Affair with Che Guevera.

It’s great to see so many individuals and organizations working to communicate the very real harm that has stemmed from communist policies and will again stem from them (or any policies that place government above individuals).

Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have bad consequences. Let’s work to counter the bad ideas of collectivism. If you live in the LA area, why not join crashers as they impart on movie-goers the real implications of Che, which his supporters are all-too-willing to ignore. And if you live elsewhere, why not get a group together to do the same at screenings near you?

For more on this, check out the Communism Kills overview on Bureaucrash Social. And if you’re so inclined, why not pick up a “Communism Kills” t-shirt or hoodie (the latter of which accurately notes that “Che was a murdering bastard” on the sleeve).

As we recently touched on, Rahm Emanuel, selected by Obama to be his chief-of-staff,is not a friend of freedom fighters. Well, Emanuel hasn’t even stepped into office and already there are growing calls for him to resign the position “after it was revealed that he had been captured on court-approved wire-taps discussing the names of candidates for Obama’s Senate seat.”

This incident - Gov. Blagojevich’s brazen corruption - has Republicans circling like vultures over a wounded animal, especially as the investigation targets those even closer to Obama. But this only distracts us from the real issue - that those who hold these offices have so much power and clout in the first place. This incident isn’t uncommon. What makes it different is that it’s come to light. Blagojevich had obviously burned too many bridges and those around him ousted him. It’s that simple.

So, while those involved in this incident should be held accountable, it’s not the the be all, end all. The important thing is for each of us, as individuals, to realize that we don’t need someone to “lead” us. We own ourselves and the money we earn, and as long as we don’t harm others, we should be free to act.The solution is to shrink government.

For more on this, check out our Politics Hurt overview on Bureaucrash Social.

According to the new Che Guevara Movie Trailer the most important quality for a revolutionary to have is the love of humanity, justice, and truth. This “heroic” description of Che the man however falls short of any historical accuracy of him as a murderer, a radical marxist, and advocate of an extreme form of communism that has resulted in over 100 million deaths in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Asia.

It is ironic that in our country, one with a considerable amount of freedom, Che Guevara is idolized by ignorant teenagers and wanna be middle-class revolutionaries. Little do they know Guevara executed political prisoners, murdered whole families, and even wanted to go so far as to ban rock and roll and jazz music. Che the pop icon is a far cry from Che the murderous extremist.

Crashers are planning to protest in Los Angeles on opening night of this naive and offensive film. I would encourage all crashers in the Southern California area to attend this protest to make sure our outrage as loud as possible as Hollywood continues to perpetuates the “Che Myth”.

Interested crashers should link up with the Los Angeles for Liberty group on Bureaucrash Social. Also, be sure to check out the protest website mentioned above for more details. And remember, real rebels don’t advocate for a tyrannical, centralized state authority.

Anyone that knows me knows I’m into metal. But I do make some exceptions - for good blues and zydeco and for Major Maker, a two-person band (including singer-songwriter Lindy, an activist, crasher and close friend of Bureaucrash and the Institute for Liberal Studies).

I want to put Major Maker on your radar not just because they’re awesome but because today is the release of their latest cd Funky Lady, which one reviewer on their iTunes page stated was a “great album - clever songwriting, fun raw-pop sound, funks riffs, great beats and inspired vocals.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Check out Major Maker’s MySpace page then head over to iTunes to pick up their new cd (and their past couple cd’s as well). Hell, you could get a large chunk of your holiday shopping done there.

Want more? Here’s Xaq Fixx’s Podcrash interview with Lindy from a few months ago and you can hear Lindy playing live on the video Fountainhead of Freedom: LSS.