Tag: slavery

Senate Joins House in Proposal for ‘Automatic’ Draft Registration

Contrary to earlier reports, the U.S. Senate has joined the House of Representatives in moving toward a foolhardy attempt to ‘automatically’ register all draft-eligible U.S. citizens and residents for a possible military draft, by extracting and aggregating information obtained from other Federal agencies.

The proposal for “automatic” draft registration is among several previously-undisclosed provisions related to Selective Service in the newly-release version of the National Defense [sic] Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025 approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and to be considered by the full Senate.

The 1,197-page SASC proposal for this year’s NDAA was approved by the committee in closed session last month, and only a summary was released. At the time, a spokesperson for the SASC told me that if “automatic” Selective Service registration had been included in the bill, it would have been included in the summary. That proves to have been incorrect: The proposal for “automatic” draft registration was included in the SASC version of the bill, but not in the summary.

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Americans Are More Likely To Go to War With the Government Than Submit to the Draft

In a national poll last month Americans were asked if they believed a new civil war was likely to happen within their lifetime. The establishment media was shocked to report that 47% of the population said yes. Those of us in the liberty media were not so surprised; I believe according to the evidence that we were already a short step away from civil war in 2021-2022.

There were A LOT of guys (millions) getting ready for the possibility of vaccine passport enforcement. Gun ownership in the US hit record highs during that time period and conservative/patriot groups saw a spike in public interest. As it turned out, the “conspiracy theorists” were right all along, there really was an organized agenda to eliminate constitutional protections…

If we had allowed the vax passport policy to take hold, our liberties would have been officially erased forever. Economic freedoms would be abolished. Access to the jobs market and trade would be impossible for anyone refusing the vaccine. Real-time tracking of the population along with a social credit system would have become the norm using mandatory cell phone apps. After that, America would essentially turn into a Chinese-style concentration camp.

A lot of people woke up during that period and realized that an attempt at a totalitarian state in the US was not only possible, it was happening right in front of them. Luckily, anti-mandate conservatives were loud enough and the majority of red states passed legislation to block lockdowns and vax passport efforts. The Biden Administration, the CDC, the WHO and globalist groups like the WEF abruptly backed away from their draconian programs and gave up on the mandates by the end of 2022.  And to anyone who actually believes the CDC numbers on total vaccinations are accurate, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you…

That said, the same people are still in power today and those people are looking for another avenue to institute sweeping controls on the populace. One tried and true method for them to achieve that goal is to start a global war and then use the inevitable chaos and fear to bring in authoritarian measures. In other words, WWIII might be Plan B.

The signs of this plan are everywhere, but perhaps most disconcerting is the growing discussion among western nations about military conscription (the draft).

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‘We’d rather die than enlist’: Haredi Jews vow to defy conscription

On Sunday evening, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated in Jerusalem against last week’s landmark High Court ruling, which mandates the conscription of Haredi youth into the Israeli army. The largest anti-draft rally in a decade united several Haredi factions, whose adherents carried signs that read “We will not enlist in an enemy army,” “We would rather live as Jews than die as Zionists,” “To jail and not to the army,” “Zionism uses Jews as human shields,” and other critical slogans in Hebrew and English. 

Protesters attacked cars transporting two Haredi political leaders, burned garbage cans, and tried to rip fences and traffic signs out of the ground. Police attempted to forcibly disperse them using mounted officers, batons, and a water cannon loaded with “skunk” — though many of the remaining demonstrators, including young children, jubilantly endured powerful jets of the foul-smelling liquid. A handful of protesters were arrested.

Since the Israeli state was founded, the ultra-Orthodox have been exempt from mandatory military service — yet this policy has long been a controversial political and legal issue. With Haredi men devoting their lives to Torah study, the community sees conscription as an attack on their way of life. For the more staunchly anti-Zionist sects, which have spearheaded the recent protests, serving in the Israeli army is incompatible with their view of the state as illegitimate for having been established before the return of the messiah. 

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A War Draft Today Can’t Work. Let Us Count the Ways.

Two proposals that would radically alter the current system for registering Americans for a future draft were introduced recently in Congress without any hearings or debate.

They raise practical issues about whether any draft today would even be possible.

As part of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, the House voted this month to make registration with the Selective Service System of all draft-eligible men ages 18-26 “automatic.” In addition, the version of the NDAA on its way to the Senate floor would expand draft registration to include young women now, too.

Debate about the draft has typically been framed around whether the U.S. “needs” a draft. Debate about women and the draft has been framed around whether women “should” be required to register. But the bigger question we face is three fold: will women sign up voluntarily (if in fact registration is not “automatic”), is “automatic” registration based on other databases feasible, and can registration or a draft – for men and/or women – even be enforced.

When I was invited to testify before the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS) in 2019, I told them that “any proposal that includes a compulsory element is a naïve fantasy unless it includes a credible enforcement plan and budget… Women will be more likely to resist being forced into the military than men have been, and more people will support them in their resistance.”

Antiwar feminists have long identified militarism and war with patriarchy, and women have been an important part of movements against the draft even when only men were being drafted. At its national convention in 2022, the National Organization for Women adopted a resolution which “calls for an end to mandatory Selective Service registration” and supports the Selective Service Repeal Act of 2021.

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The Draft Should Have Stayed Dead, Yet Here We Are Again

In an era where global tensions simmer and the machinery of war looms large, the concept of the military draft, or conscription, stands in stark contradiction to the ideals of personal freedom and liberty.

The draft coerces individuals into military service, often in contentious or widely opposed conflicts. This practice not only infringes individual rights but also exemplifies governmental overreach, especially in a society that cherishes personal freedoms.

The Ron Paul Institute, ever-principled in its advocacy for peace and civil liberties, recently highlighted concerns around NATO’s escalations and the U.S.’s disturbing moves to expand draft policies. As noted in an insightful piece by Caitlin Johnstone, the draft is increasingly seen not as a necessity but as a tool for governments to bolster their war efforts without public consent. This expansion of the draft, including proposals to include women and automate registration, forebodes a grave encroachment on personal freedoms.

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Mission Creep: How the Police State Acclimates Us to Being Modern-Day Slaves

“In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can present grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless, we have a tyranny without a tyrant.” ― Hannah Arendt, On Violence

Like the proverbial boiling frogs, the government has been gradually acclimating us to the specter of a police state for years now: Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality.

This is how you prepare a populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

You don’t scare them by making dramatic changes. Rather, you acclimate them slowly to their prison walls. Persuade the citizenry that their prison walls are merely intended to keep them safe and danger out. Desensitize them to violence, acclimate them to a military presence in their communities, and persuade them that only a militarized government can alter the seemingly hopeless trajectory of the nation.

It’s happening already.

Yet we’re not just being acclimated to the trappings of a police state. We’re also being bullied into silence and subservience in the face of outright injustice and heavy-handed political correctness, while simultaneously being groomed into accepting government tyranny, corruption and bureaucratic ineptitude as societal norms.

What exactly is going on?

Whatever it is, this—the racial hypersensitivity without racial justice, the kowtowing to politically correct bullies with no regard for anyone else’s free speech rights, the violent blowback after years of government-sanctioned brutality, the mob mindset that is overwhelming the rights of the individual, the oppressive glowering of the Nanny State, the seemingly righteous indignation full of sound and fury that in the end signifies nothing, the partisan divide that grows more impassable with every passing day—is not leading us anywhere good.

Certainly, it’s not leading to more freedom.

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The Problem with Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth. One hundred fifty-nine years ago, on June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Texas and declared that all slaves in the state were free. The following year, in 1866, residents of the town where Granger had issued the order celebrated the anniversary as “Jubilee Day.” Eventually, the name changed to Juneteenth, and in 1979, it became a Texas state holiday. Then, in 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill designating Juneteenth as a federal holiday.

The West’s abolition of chattel slavery was one of the greatest victories for liberty in our civilization’s history. Using an anniversary like today to celebrate the achievement and reflect on why it was necessary in the first place—or how it could have come about better—should be a rare point of unity in today’s politically fractured America.

But in the years since Biden signed the so-called Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, the holiday has become increasingly co-opted by progressives in media, academia, and politics as a way to push for radical policies like collective reparations or the exclusion of white people from celebrations.

Because of that, most of the rhetoric we see from those promoting Juneteenth sidesteps the actual issue of slavery. They do so because adherents of modern progressivism do not actually believe in self-ownership, the antithesis of slavery.

Only libertarians have a consistent commitment to self-ownership. We believe that nobody has the right to another’s labor. Nobody can justly claim ownership over another’s body or the fruits of their labor. Progressives do not believe this.

Modern American progressivism can be defined by its commitment to what are called positive rights. Where negative rights entail an obligation not to do something, like murder or steal, positive rights refer to the supposed right to be provided with something, like education or healthcare. When backed by the force of law, positive rights produce a legal system where electing not to use your labor toward some specific end is tantamount to a rights violation—which, therefore, warrants the use of force to compel that labor involuntarily.

These days, the coercion underlying progressive programs is shifted from the service provider to the working professionals taxed to pay for them. The average American works the equivalent of thirty-eight days a year exclusively to fund government programs. For the top 1 percent of income earners, the average is sixty-five days. The only problem progressives have with this violent expropriation of wealth through taxation is that there’s not enough of it.

It is ironic that Americans are forced to work to fund a paid day off for federal employees to celebrate the end of involuntary labor. Much more absurd, however, is that much of our taxed income these days is—with the enthusiastic support of the progressive establishment—being sent to the Ukrainian government, which is quite literally enslaving young men and forcing them to fight against the Russians.

And, although it is not active at the moment, the House of Representatives recently passed a bill to automatically register young men for the draft with little to no pushback from progressives.

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Oakland Reparations Committee Demands $5 Million Just To Write Plan

A ‘reparations panel’ for Alameda County, whose largest city is Oakland, has demanded $5 million to come up with a plan for reparations over racism, and say it will take them two years to do it.

According to NPR affiliate KQED, the 15-member commission was assembled in March of 2023 to ‘study anti-black racism’ and come up with a plan to compensate allegedly harmed residents. We should note, the commission was supposed to have completed its work by this July. Instead, as KQED notes, “it has hardly started.” (plus the $5 million thing)

Nate Miley, president of the Board of Supervisors and author of the resolution that created the Reparations Commission, blamed the pandemic and a months-long recall process of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, which is set for a vote this November.

“I didn’t think it would take as long to get people appointed,” Miley told the outlet. “We do want to have a sense of urgency, and that’s why I was kind of looking at a year and a half, but maybe I might have been a bit ambitious.”

The committee was the combination of two resolutions by the Board of Supervisors from 2011 and 2020. The first apologized for slavery and racial segregation, while the second vowed to examine the role that Alameda county played in perpetuating discrimination against black residents, and then come up with a plan to show them the money.

“We are trying not to recreate the wheel,” said Debra Gore-Mann, president and CEO of Oakland racial justice organization the Greenlining Institute, who asked supervisors for a dedicated staff to complete their work, and a new deadline of June 30, 2026. Oh, and the $5 million.

The commission also asked for a budget of about $5 million, dwarfing the initial budget allocation of approximately $51,000. The requested budget would support research, public outreach and community listening sessions over the next two years. Commission members currently receive a $50 stipend for each meeting they attend. -KQED

“I think $5 million is a hefty amount of funding,” said Miley, who noted that the county’s budget deficit is projected to reach between $70 million and $100 million this year – and that even getting the board to respond and other support requests could take months.

Last year, Milley suggested that reparations was not a top priority.

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Military Draft Coming? House Passes Measure To Automatically Register Men For Selective Service

The House of Representatives on Friday approved its version of the annual defense policy bill, effectively clearing the $883.7 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to move forward in a 217-199 vote which largely fell along party lines. Only three Republicans opposed it.

A number of ‘controversial’ amendments are part of it, setting up a further fight with Democrats as it moves forward, including a measure empowering the National Guard to crack down on the southern border.

But among the most interesting aspects to the bill for Fiscal Year 2025 is an amendment to the NDAA which automatically registers all draft-age male U.S. residents with the Selective Service System.

This means that all able-bodied males in the country age 18-26 could potentially be drafted in the scenario of a future war declaration by Congress. The selection would be based on information from Federal databases.

While there has been a Selective Service program in effect for decades, it has long previously only been voluntary, but this new amendment will make registration automatic. The merely ‘voluntary’ system had been in effect since 1980 – but critics have said that leaving it up for young men to decide for themselves whether to register has resulted in a weak and ineffective system with not enough numbers.

According to more background for this new Congressional push: 

The automatic draft registration proposal was instigated by the Selective Service System (SSS) as part of its annual budget request to Congress, introduced by Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), “wholeheartedly” endorsed by HASC Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), and approved by voice vote of the full committee without audible opposition. The text of Rep. Houlahan’s proposal can be read here. Her office’s press release on the proposal can be read here.

Rep. Houlahan had been one of the leading advocates of proposals in previous years to expand draft registration to women as well as men. Her latest proposal for automatic registration of men only for a military draft indicates that she is more deeply committed to militarization than to any purported feminism.

There’s been a rising number of military papers and reports calling for the reinstatement of a more robust draft system of late, especially in relation to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

For example, last year the US Army War College’s academic journal included a highly disturbing essay on what lessons the US military should take away from the continuing war in Ukraine.

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Senate Armed Services Committee Proposes Mandatory Draft Registration for Women in FY25 Defense Policy Bill

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) has proposed to include a provision in the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that mandates draft registration for women.

Under the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), not only will men aged 18 to 26 be automatically registered for selective service, but an amendment also proposes mandatory draft registration for women.

Please note that the version of the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed by the House of Representatives is distinct from the version advanced by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In May, the FY25 NDAA received strong bipartisan support as it was approved by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC). The vote was overwhelmingly in favor, passing 57 to 1.

On Friday, the House of Representatives approved its version of the bill to automatically register men aged 18 to 26 for selective service.

This automatic draft registration system would replace the existing system from 1980, which allows young men the freedom to decide whether or not to sign up for the draft.

The new legislation was introduced by Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), a former Air Force officer, and was endorsed by HASC Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.).

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