Walter Williams writes a short, perfect essay titled “Who owns us?” Here’s a substantial part of it:

I am my private property and you are yours. If we accept the notion that people own themselves, then it’s easy to discover what forms of conduct are moral and immoral.

Immoral acts are those that violate self-ownership. Murder, rape, assault and slavery are immoral because those acts violate private property. So is theft, broadly defined as taking the rightful property of one person and giving it to another.

If it is your belief that people do not belong to themselves, they are in whole or in part the property of the U.S. Congress, or people are owned by God, who has placed the U.S. Congress in charge of managing them, then all of my observations are simply nonsense.

Let’s look at some congressional actions in light of self-ownership. Do farmers and businessmen have a right to congressional handouts? Does a person have a right to congressional handouts for housing, food and medical care?

First, let’s ask: Where does Congress get handout money? …

The only way for Congress to give one American one dollar is to first, through the tax code, take that dollar from some other American. It must forcibly use one American to serve another American.

Forcibly using one person to serve another is one way to describe slavery. As such, it violates self-ownership.

Government immorality isn’t restricted only to forcing one person to serve another. Some regulations such as forcing motorists to wear seat belts violate self-ownership. If one owns himself, he has the right to take chances with his own life.

Some people argue that if you’re not wearing a seat belt, have an accident and become a vegetable, you’ll become a burden on society. That’s not a problem of liberty and self-ownership. It’s a problem of socialism, where through the tax code one person is forcibly used to care for another.

These examples are among thousands of government actions that violate the principles of self-ownership. Some might argue that Congress forcing us to help one another and forcing us to take care of ourselves are good ideas.

But my question to you is: When congressmen and presidents take their oaths of office, is that oath to uphold and defend good ideas or the U.S. Constitution?

When the principles of self-ownership are taken into account, two-thirds to three-quarters of what Congress does violate those principles to one degree or another as well as the Constitution to which they’ve sworn to uphold and defend. …

If we accept the value of self-ownership, it is clear that most of what Congress does is clearly immoral.

Read all of it here,

It’s simply true.

It’s a libertarian conservative’s delight.

Obama finds the job of being president too hard, hands over to Bill Clinton, and bolts home to Mother Michelle.

From a first-hand account:

Here’s what I saw. I saw a current president who has never looked less interested in doing his job. I also saw a former president who never lost interest in doing that job. Obama’s demeanor and body language suggested that he’d rather be anywhere but where he was, and then he followed through and actually bolted for the door. Clinton’s demeanor was that of a passionate wonk trying to sell a policy he actually cared about, that he thought would be good for the country. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t even his own policy that he was selling.

I saw a president who … ceded his job to his predecessor. …

It was far and away the weirdest presidential press briefing I’ve ever seen. Where Obama goes from here is anyone’s guess.

Update: Real Clear Politics has a video of the spectacle. Obama actually interrupts Clinton delivering an answer, to say his bit about keeping the first lady waiting, before hitting the exit. Clinton says, “I don’t want to make her mad, just go” and waves POTUS on his way …

Most commentators on this incident have interpreted it as a tacit admission by Obama that he cannot defend the tax agreement he reached with congressional Republicans.

It is that, but we wonder if it isn’t also the most vivid sign yet that Obama cannot cope emotionally or intellectually with the job he was elected to do as president.

Is he in the early stages of mental derangement?

The Nobel Peace Prize has been so thoroughly debased that it could be considered a positive insult for a person who deserves honor to be awarded it.

What decent man or woman would want to be in this company?

• Yasser Arafat, the grandfather of Islamic terrorism
• Al Gore, who promotes the lie of manmade global warming for personal gain
• Kofi Annan, who presided over the UN-Iraq food-for-oil scandal
• Jimmy Carter – enough said
• Rigoberta Manchu, another prize liar
• Sean MacBride, Chief of Staff of the IRA,  also awarded the Lenin Peace Prize
• Barack Obama, a leftist community organizer from Chicago

All of these have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

There have a been a few, a small minority, of  worthy laureates since the Second World War. Martin Luther King was one, Aung San Suu Kyi who continues to oppose the oppressive regime of Myanmar (Burma) is another. Amazing that the Norwegian committee could very occasionally get it right!

And now again – the committee has actually chosen to reward a worthy recipient: Professor Liu Xiaobo, who at great personal risk has opposed the Communist regime of China, and is therefore being punished with imprisonment.

He is a writer who has dared to call for democracy to replace communist one-party rule in his country. He participated in the Tiananmen Square protests. He has committed no violent acts and has harmed nobody.

China is outraged that he is being honored, and has pressed other countries to boycott the award ceremony, where Liu Xiaobo will be present only in effigy, his face seen in a portrait on his otherwise empty chair. No members of his family have been allowed to travel to Oslo to receive the prize on his behalf. His wife, Liu Xia, is being held incommunicado.

The New York Times reports:

China has been incensed by Mr. Liu’s award …   and the government has been waging an offensive to rebrand the prize as a Western ploy to undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power. …

Chinese officials [are] saying supporters of Mr. Liu are fundamentally opposed to China’s development and trying to interfere in the country’s politics and legal system.

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told reporters: “I would like to say to those at the Nobel committee, they are orchestrating an anti-China farce by themselves.”

“We are not changing because of interference by a few clowns and we will not change our path,” she said …

Eighteen countries will obey China and boycott the event.

Nineteen governments have said their ambassadors will not attend a ceremony this week awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese dissident, the Norwegian prize committee said on Tuesday … reflecting the strong pressure exerted by Beijing to boycott the event.

Those 19 countries are: China itself, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq , Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco.

Look at it, this list of countries who will do Communist China’s bidding. How disappointing to see Colombia on the list. And why is Serbia doing this? Or the Philippines? Or Egypt? Or Ukraine? And why Iraq and Afghanistan, countries for which so much American blood has been spilled to bring them the opportunity of freedom?

However, 44 countries will be sending a representative.

Invitations to the ceremony are routinely sent only to those 65 countries with embassies in Oslo, Mr. [Geir] Lundestad [the committee’s secretary] said  …  Those who accepted included “all the western countries” along with representatives from other countries including India, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea and Japan, he said.

There’s at least one surprise on that list too: South Africa.

If it makes Liu Xiaobo’s name better known throughout the world, and his cause better appreciated, the prize, this time, has been well awarded.

But the only historically important fact about the Nobel Prize for Peace, demonstrating how valueless it has become as a result of the usual perversity and moral blindness of the Norwegian judges, is that it was not awarded to Ronald Reagan who, along with Margaret Thatcher, was chiefly responsible for bringing the Cold War – the terror that hung over the whole world for 45 years – to a quiet end. And that it did go to Mikhail Gorbachev, freedom’s defeated enemy.

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We have a proposal to make that is sure to be greeted with universal approbation.

We start from the principle – not quite universally conceded – that the state should not be an agent for the redistribution of wealth. Which is to say, government should not be the provider of welfare.

But, we acknowledge, there will always be some people who cannot provide for themselves and have no one else willing and able to provide for them.

Then we ask: is there some institution other than the state that could manage their support?

We propose that the churches be charged with the responsibility. It would be splendidly consistent with their declared principles. They could collect money from the tens of millions of people who believe they have a duty to care for their less fortunate neighbors and compatriots.

As giving voluntarily is truer to the social consciences and religious precepts of these good people than having it extracted from them by government, with what delight they’ll seize the opportunity!

With the ample funds that will pour in from liberals, progressives, socialists and Christians, the churches will establish shelters for the homeless and clinics for the sick; feed, clothe and equip the helplessly dependent. They’ll be able to do it lavishly. Material want will be abolished.

They’ll take great pride and pleasure in doing it. Have they not been preaching charity for millennia? There they are, well established, thousands of them; organized, tax-exempted, self-dedicated to moral ends. This is clearly the use they must be put to. They’re a perfect fit for it.

Once the churches have permanently taken over all welfare provision, government can shrink, taxes come down, the defense budget be enlarged, and everyone will be happy.

Sparta: The government disciplined the citizenry to make every single man, woman and child healthy and strong. Kept them thinking alike too, soberly and politically correctly. Crowds could move perfectly in unison. Life was – well, spartan. Cold water, spare diet, low salt, lots of tasteless fiber, no alcohol, constant exercise …

And what came out of Sparta? Can you think of anything?

Athens: Mess and muddle, personal choices, private pursuits, idiosyncrasies, imagination, success and failure, high aspiration and low, virtue and vice, argument, a compost heap of ideas, fierce competition, lots of laughter, feasting, gaming, wine-quaffing …

And what came out of Athens? Science, philosophy, poetry, drama, art and craft and engines, in sum most of the ideas that launched Europe’s greatness. Start a list of the great Athenian names and works and inventions and it will soon run over the page.

Nothing new has emerged, or ever can, from a collective. Socialism kills the spirit and enervates the mind. It is static. It etherizes the will. It is soporifically boring. A collectivized society is a doomed society. There is no renewal, no advance in it. Socialism is a slow, generalized death.

Freedom is the source, the well, the fountain of all discovery, invention, innovation – all that can be called genuine “progress”.

The freedom we need is not the natural state of man. Nobody is free in a state of anarchy any more than in a tyranny. Freedom is a product of civilization. It must be protected by the rule of law, so that everyone’s freedom is limited only by everyone else’s.

To stay free, watch out for those who would force you to do all manner of things “for your own good”, and never let them have power over you.

A warning too late? In a recent article, David Limbaugh points out that under the would-be dictatorship of Barack Obama, America is being Spartanized, though he doesn’t use that analogy. Here’s part of what he says:

I cannot be the only one who feels as if every new day brings a new assault on this nation and its people by this administration. Indeed, many people I know say they can’t even watch the news anymore because it’s so depressing. And it is.

Some of these assaults occur under the radar, and others are right out in the open. As an example of the former, last week, President Obama issued an executive order “Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council,” which will focus on “lifestyle behavior modification (including smoking cessation, proper nutrition, appropriate exercise, mental health, behavioral health, substance-use disorder, and domestic violence screenings).” It will even recommend changes in federal policy to reduce “sedentary behavior.” …

The socialized medicine nightmare is already beginning. Many of us warned that Obamacare would serve as an all-purpose justification for government intervention in every aspect of our lives. Have we become so far removed from our founding principles that we don’t grasp the perniciousness of such government encroachments into our private lives and personal liberties?

You must read the executive order: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-establishing-national-prevention-health-promotion-and-public-health. Then you’ll understand that the council and “Advisory Group” it establishes will not be merely advisory. The provisions of this “order” underscore the disturbing extent to which Obama and his band of authoritarians intend to control our lives.

The “Advisory Group,” in consultation with the council, must submit, by March 23, 2011, a “national strategy” to “set specific goals and objectives for improving the health of the United States through federally supported prevention, health promotion, and public health programs, consistent with ongoing goal setting efforts conducted by specific agencies.” …

Will we tolerate any manner of government control over the most minute aspects of our lives under the rationale that we have to improve our lifestyles to get healthier … ? Does liberty mean nothing to us anymore? …

Lifestyle behavior modification is none of the government’s business, but it is even less the prerogative of a renegade, unaccountable executive acting outside the law through unconstitutional executive orders. On that point, by the way, please check out Section 3G, which provides that the council will “carry out such other activities as are determined appropriate by the President.” No limitations, just whatever this omniscient president determines is appropriate.

Read it all here.

This video is from Answering Muslims. It includes an imaginary picture of a mosque-dominated New York, circulated by Muslims in America soon after 3,000 people were killed by Muslims on 9/11.

On the proposal that a mosque be built near the site of the World Trade Center, destroyed by Islamic terrorists on 9/11 in the name of their religion, ABC News reported on May 25, 2010:

In a heated, four hour meeting tonight, Community Board 1, which represents the area of lower Manhattan that includes Ground Zero, voted 29-1 in favor of the proposal. There were 10 abstentions. …

The board’s 12-member Financial District committee unanimously voted in favor of the plan earlier this month.

“If I can’t be profound, at least I can be unintelligible.”

That has been the guiding principle of intellectuals on the left, those doughty champions of the masses – note well the crowds of them in Western universities – for at least a hundred years.

Here’s an example of it being followed, not by an academic but a religious obscurantist:

The rule of law is thus not the enshrining of priority for the universal/abstract dimension of social existence but the establishing of a space accessible to everyone in which it is possible to affirm and defend a commitment to human dignity as such, independent of membership in any specific human community or tradition, so that when specific communities or traditions are in danger of claiming finality for their own boundaries of practice and understanding, they are reminded that they have to come to terms with the actuality of human diversity – and that the only way of doing this is to acknowledge the category of ‘human dignity as such’ – a non-negotiable assumption that each agent (with his or her historical and social affiliations) could be expected to have a voice in the shaping of some common project for the well-being and order of a human group.

Thus spake Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in a recent lecture.

And here, by way of contrast, is a quotation from a genuinely profound thinker, Thomas Sowell. The passage comes from his new book, Intellectuals and Society, and is as clear as a polished pane of glass:

There can be no dependable framework of law where judges are free to impose as law their own individual notions of what is fair, compassionate or in accord with social justice.

We found the whole book a pleasure to read.

For those who love words and enjoy exploring dictionaries, a slowly emerging Dictionary of Old English holds priceless treasure. It is coming out of the University of Toronto, which has been granted some $1.8 million to compile it.

Ammon Shea – a snapper up, it would appear, of unconsidered trifles, who is “currently writing a book on the telephone book” – lifts out a few examples for our wonder and delight:

The Dictionary of Old English has so far cataloged and defined all of the words between A and G. This represents greater progress than it might seem, since Old English has only twenty-two letters…

While it is true that this is a dead language, it has died so recently (at least compared with the dinosaurs whose fossils are perennially alluring) that the corpse is still warm.

You can see the roots and traces of our language, evident even in the words that did not quite survive until the present day. Bealofus (liable to sin) did not last into our vocabulary, having been pushed out by the upstart and Latinate peccable (we apparently do not need more than a single word for this concept). But the bealoful of yesteryear became the baleful of today, and so even though bealofus lost the evolutionary battle it still tickles the familiar to see it there.

Much has been said about how our modern English language has drawn its highbrow vocabulary, the words to describe fancy or fanciful things, from the snooty French conquerors. Likewise, the base and basic elements of our language have come from Old English, which supplied the everyday words. To my mind, we may add to these everyday words many of those that are larcenous and violent (although violent and everyday may well have been one and the same), with specimens such as cyricbryce (the act of breaking into a church) and what seems to me to be a delightful superfluity of words for breaking bones, bruising, assaulting, warring against, and otherwise doing grievous harm.

Browsing through a small section of the alphabet, I happened across gederednes, derian, gederian, gederod, deriendlic, deriendnes, derung, gedeþed, and gedigan, all of which are words that have to do with injuring, harming, or killing (with the exception of the last word, which means ‘to survive’). But lest you come away with the idea that the speakers of this language were linguistically brutish, I would draw your attention to a word that appears shortly after all of these bruising terms: digollice.

Digollice is one of those words of which any language should be proud. It is elegant yet robust, clear yet multi-faceted—a description that perhaps sounds like that of an overpriced wine, but which is apt nonetheless. Among the meanings of this single word are the following: in a manner intended to avoid public attention, stealthily or furtively, in a manner that is unnoticed, with a lack of ostentation, in hiding, secluded in monastic life, spoken in a low or soft voice, spoken with circumspection or restraint, whispering slander, relating to secret thoughts of inward affliction, obscure or requiring interpretation, and a handful of others that I’ll let you find on your own.

Small wonder that a language that is capable of producing such delicate shades of meaning as are found in digollice has evolved into the gloriously descriptive mess that is English today.

We are all expert speakers of our own language, and whether we recognize it or not, the words and meanings laid out so carefully in the Dictionary of Old English are far more innately familiar to us than are the fossilized tibia or femur of some long extinct life-form. These words are the bone structure of the language that we speak and breathe today.

Find yourself a library that has a subscription to the Dictionary of Old English, take a spell of time and wander about through this fascinating precursor to your language. Take a look at the Old English word for ‘go’ (gan), and see how much of this language from a foreign century reminds you of your own in ways you can’t quite wrap your mind around. Allow yourself to forget that you don’t speak or truly understand what you are reading, and you’ll be surprised and delighted at how much of it seeps in.