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Written by Sid Davis
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 Millions of potential voters, especially younger ones, respect Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s Libertarian ideals. It’s easy to understand why. He has the aura of a political outsider, and the mainstream press has declined to discuss exactly what Libertarianism is, beyond some vague whitewash involving the word “liberty.” All would-be Libertarians would be well-served to take a few moments and think about what they are being asked to accept—not liberty, but tyranny in liberty’s clothing.
Ron Paul tries to sell the idea that there is one firm definition of the word “liberty.” But liberty for one person is tyranny for another. To understand this conflict, consider an example regarding Paul’s stance against civil rights. Imagine that Libertarianism becomes the law of the land. Once that law is passed it becomes the mandate of the state to enforce it. Let’s say there is a restaurant, and the owner doesn’t want to serve a certain type of person. Let’s say green people. And let’s say the restaurant has a sign that makes this clear. No green people. As a Libertarian, that is now the restaurant owner’s right, and that right is backed by the power of the state.
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Written by Sid Davis
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 One day in the future, historians will publish a book—or transmit a digital file, more likely—about the decline and fall of the United States of America. This history might point to any number of fatal causes. It might talk about how the country fiscally starved as its richest citizens paid fewer and fewer taxes, or it might discuss the trillions spent on costly wars to seize oil from other nations. But most likely this future book or file, if it’s well researched, will conclude that the United States failed because of the corrupting power of corporate money.
Examples of this corruption will be plentiful, but if the future historians are asked to select a primary culprit, or at least a piece of the puzzle that encapsulates the misfortune of the fallen empire, they’ll probably point to the corruption of American courts that brought about rulings placing corporate rights above those of people. They’ll explain that via two-hundred-plus years of litigation—from Dartmouth College v. Woodward to Citizen’s United—corporations fought for and were finally bequeathed a fully human status that was known at the time as “corporate personhood.”
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Written by Sid Davis
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 The old saying about there being two types of people in the world can apply to almost anything, but increasingly it applies to belief in human-caused global warming. Either you buy it or you don’t. Lately, the buyers are dwindling in number due to a pushback against climate science on a number of fronts, and by the scientists’ human failings being exploited by a well-organized corporate opposition. Part of the success with this pushback is due to the fact that global warming itself seems difficult to understand. But as Albert Einstein once said about his Theory of General Relativity, really anyone can understand it if it’s explained the right way.
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Written by Sid Davis
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 As the banking economy accelerates into high gear thanks to the trillions of taxpayer dollars handed over without actual taxpayers having a say in the matter, executives in the industry are once again paying billions in bonuses and proceeding with business as usual. Not only has economic amnesia taken hold of the bankers and allowed them to forget the near-collapse they caused, but they have fought tooth and nail against any sort of meaningful reform to their destructive system. And as sure as the sun rises in the east, before long they will be clamoring for more deregulation of the sort that created the mess in the first place.
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Written by Sid Davis
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 Republicans were rebuked by the electorate on November 4th, but we can still see them out there in the woods, huddled around a fire, making plans to storm Castle Potomac again. Although their coded racist attacks failed to vanquish Barack Obama, they have successfully used the technique for decades, and they aren’t about to abandon it now—even immediately post-election. And in fact, while we’ve been busy congratulating ourselves on Obama’s upcoming presidency, a shiny new reconfiguration of the same old coded Republican racism has already been unveiled by hacks like Rush Limbaugh, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, and a rabid bat swarm of noxious rightwing bloggers.
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