Issue 2

9/23/2015
Editor: Will Porter

"A government big

enough to give you
everything you
want, is strong
enough to take

everything you
have."
Thomas Jefferson

The Abolitionist
The Young Americans for Liberty Campus Newsletter

Congress Considers Formally Admitting

Defeat in Cannabis Legalization Dispute
By Ryan McMaken
A Colorado Congresswoman has introduced legislation to exempt Colorado (and
presumably other states with legalized recreational cannabis) from federal drug
controls on cannabis. Diana DeGette (D-Denver) has revived legislation that is
essentially identical to 2012 legislation that would "protect" legal cannabis in
Colorado from future executive branch action.
The bill enjoys bipartisan support among Colorado members of Congress, although
multiple Republican presidential candidates who apparently want to lose
Colorado's likely-essential 8 electoral votes in the general election have repeatedly
promised to crack down on law-abiding Coloradans. The argument among drug
warriors like Chris Christie is that federal agents should be sent in to push
Coloradans around because they don't respect the so-called "rule of law," which is
code for "unquestioning deference to federal power."
So, the local delegation is looking to protect the state from federal meddling under
the next administration.
Of course, no such legislation would exist at all if the state had not first gone ahead
and voted to ignore federal law and legalize recreational cannabis. Efforts in
Congress to lessen federal Drug War power are a direct consequence of state-level
disobedience to acts of Congress. In other words, state-level nullification has put
cannabis legalization on the table for the first time in decades in a way that would
not have been possible had the locals followed the advice of the "rule of law" crowd. In
reality, there is no lack of "rule of law" in Colorado. It's just the rule of Colorado law.
The first time DeGette ran the legislation, it never received a committee hearing.
Since then, though, two more states have voted to nullify federal cannabis laws, so
now Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado have now all taken the step.
As the movement grows, the success of such legislation will become increasingly
likely. This is especially true if California finally votes to legalize, as becomes more
likely with each passing election cycle. (According to some polls, 55 percent of
Californians now support legalization, and a new ballot initiative is being prepared.)

[This article originally appeared on Mises.org September 22, 2015.]

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

About YAL :

Young Americans for Liberty

(YAL) is a chapter-based
organization dedicated to
spreading the ideas of
human liberty, free trade,
and peaceful foreign policy.

US Plans Escalation of ISIS War in Syria,

Will Lower Vetting Requirements

With over 600 chapters and

204,000 activists nationwide,
YAL is one of the fastestgrowing pro-liberty
organizations in the country.

Not that Centcom officials would even publicly admit it (or allow it in their reports),
but the war against ISIS isnt going so well in Iraq. Months of effort at retaking
Ramadi hasnt even gotten the city surrounded, and ISIS seems more entrenched
than ever. Administration officials, at least, seem to be conceding that point, and are
looking to shift their war focus away from Iraq and toward Syria.

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provide relevant news and
commentary on the issues
most important to YAL,
libertarians, and anyone
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world affairs.

Its hard to imagine it, but US officials see Syria as a more promising territory, even
though they trained 54 troops, sent them into Syria, and had them quickly turn into
four or five. Theyre citing the comparative success of the Kurdish YPG in fighting
ISIS there as proof of this, and are looking to escalate their backing for them.

By Jason Ditz

This has been proposed more than a few times, however, and usually gets shot down
by Turkey, which considers the YPG a terrorist organization and doesnt want them
getting any stronger either. The US is desperate for gains, however, and may be less
and less worried about where they come from.
One official quoted by the Washington Post suggested that the vetting process may
be getting the axe too, restricting it to a few top commanders, saying the focus right
now is getting them some [expletive] bullets, and who them is is becoming less of
a concern.
Ironically, ISIS was awash in weapons in no small part because the CIA was
throwing arms at Syria early in the civil war without worrying about where they
ended up. The US seems to have given up on the objections that this strategy didnt
work last time, for lack of any better ideas.

[This article originally appeared on Antiwar.com September 21, 2015.]

Remaking the World in Greater Israels Image

By Dan Sanchez
However they want to address the issue, most people are horrified at the refugee
crisis now besetting Europe, with its scenes of chaos, conflict, and desperation. Yet in
Israel, at least one high official sees in it not horror, but hope. As Rania Khalek has
reported:

Dore Gold, director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, expressed optimism that
the refugee influx will shift Europe to the right, making it more sympathetic to
Israels security justification for its ongoing colonization of Palestine.
Israel always faced the problem in the past that its national security perspective was
completely out of sync with how Europeans were viewing the emergence of the

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

European community and the borderless world that was emerging, the Americanborn hardliner told The Jerusalem Post.
In the European models that existed 25 or 30 years ago, it is kind of difficult to hear
an Israeli argument. But now things may be beginning to change a little, posited
Gold.
The European perspective is beginning to sound a little bit more like Israels
perspective on security issues, compared to what it was in the past.
This is hardly the first time a top Israeli politician reveled in the great misfortune of
an ally, hoping it will engender tighter identification with Israel. Immediately after
the 9/11 attacks, The New York Times reported the following:

Asked tonight what the attack meant for relations between the United States and
Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, replied, Its very good.
Then he edited himself: Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate
sympathy. He predicted that the attack would strengthen the bond between our two
peoples, because weve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United
States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.
Sharing Israels perspective seems to have a self-reinforcing quality. The US
response to the 9/11 attacks that Netanyahu welcomed14 years of widespread,
non-stop war and intervention in the Muslim worldis what caused the European
refugee crisis that Dore Gold welcomes today.
(Note that throughout this essay, by Israel I mean the government and not its
Jewish subjects. Any anti-Semites reading this looking for support for their bigotry
can go jump in a lake.)
Like Israel (and often through Israel), the US has long projected colonialism and
militarism upon countless Muslims, whether through direct force,
powers have proxy wars, clandestine subversion, or puppet dictators.

Western
been subverting,
bombing, invading,
and occupying
Muslim countries
non-stop since 9/11
(Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Syria, Yemen,
Somalia, Pakistan,
etc.). . .

Like Israel, the US suffered terroristic blowback as a consequence.

Like Israel, the US responded with massive, indiscriminate violence
and conquest, compounding the original problem of colonialist
militarism, and leading to further blowback.
European governments have participated in that violence, and now
they are also partaking in the blowback as waves of war refugees
wash up on their shores.
As a result, scenes are now playing out in Europe very similar to
everyday life in Greater Israel (Israel proper plus the Occupied
Territories in Palestine): crowds of unarmed Muslim men, women,
and children being chased, beaten, rounded up, herded, penned, and
cage-fed like animals.

It is a vicious cycle and a cycle of viciousness. The more we adopt Israels perspective,
the more we adopt its policies. The more we adopt its policies, the more we adopt its
problems. The more we adopt its problems, the more we adopt its perspective. And
around we go.
The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

YAL Group Schedule:

9/29/2015 Tabling session.
10:00am-4:00pm in Student
Center.
9/30/2015 General meeting
and end-of-the-month film
screening (Citzenfour ).
4:00pm-6:00pm in LA 161.
10/2/2015 General
meeting. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.
10/6/2015 Tabling
session.10:00am-4:00pm in
Student Center.
10/7/2015 General meeting
and What is Bitcoin
presentation by David
Nieman. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.

Of course Israel has done far more than passively serve as a model for US policy. By
leading the drive toward a war on Iraq, its neocons and Israel Lobby actively grafted
Israels foreign policy onto America. The long propaganda campaign diverted the
post-9/11 rage and hysteria into a catastrophic war on an Israeli strategic rival that
had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to American security.
On top of those killed, the Iraq War displaced millions, many of whom fled to Syria.
There they joined hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who themselves,
their parents, or grandparents were driven from their homes long ago by Israel
directly.
Unfortunately for them, Syria is also hated by Israel. So, Israel-firsters in
Washington have since helped make Syrian regime-change official US policy. In
pursuit of that policy, the government has fomented and armed a rebellion that has
plummeted Syria into a devastating civil war.
Actually, it would be more apt to call it an invasion than a rebellion or civil war, as
the leading rebels are predominantly international Sunni jihadists, like ISIS and
Jabhat al-Nusra, which is a branch of Al Qaeda.

10/14/2015 General
meeting. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.

That is how completely Israel-firsterism has hijacked the post-9/11 American

rampage. In the latest stage of that rampage, the US has taken the side of Al Qaeda,
the perpetrators of the very attacks that triggered the rampage in the first place, in
order to overthrow yet another regional rival of Israel. This goes beyond sympathy
to enthrallment.

10/17/2015 Civil Liberties

Graveyard build. 12:00pm2:00pm (location TBD).

As a result, displaced millions are pouring out of Syria (including many originally
from Iraq and Palestine). And these comprise a huge part of the refugees pouring into
Europe.

10/20/2015 Civil Liberties

Graveyard event. 10:00am4:00pm in Student Center.

Western powers have been subverting, bombing, invading, and occupying Muslim
countries non-stop since 9/11 (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia,
Pakistan, etc.), just as Israel has long subverted, bombed, invaded, and occupied
Palestine, Lebanon, and more.

10/21/2015 General
meeting. 4:00-5:30 in LA
161.
10/24/2015 Students for
Liberty Ohio Regional
Conference.
10/28/2015 General
meeting and end-of-themonth film screening
(1984 ). 4:00pm-6:30pm in
LA 161.
[Note: This schedule is subject to
change.]

And now in Europe, governments are caging displaced Muslims and contemplating
tyrannical measures to maintain security and demographic purity, just as Israel
has done to the Muslims it has displaced within its own jurisdiction since its
inception.
Moreover, the ultra-nationalism and Islamophobia that has afflicted Israel especially
since 2009 is now on the rise throughout the West, stoked in Europe by the refugee
influx and in America by the atrocity films of ISIS: that spawn of the Iraq War.
Western governments have always been imperialist, and the Israeli government has
always been a colonial appendage of the West extending into the Middle East. This
was true even before its founding, when its paramilitary precursor trained under the
wing of the British Empire. But now the tail is wagging the dog, and the Western
imperial core is being radicalized by the demands of its militant frontier outpost.
The Washington-led West is becoming ever more like an occupying Global Israel,
forever paranoid, exclusivist, imperious, and warlike. And it is turning the Muslim

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

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world from Mali to Pakistan into an occupied Global Palestine, its people forever
bombed, corralled, and at times driven to desperate violence.
War is remaking the world in Greater Israels own ugly image. It is therefore no
wonder that homicidal racist colonialists like Benjamin Netanyahu and Dore Gold
feel more comfortable in the brutal new world they helped create.

[This article originally appeared on Antiwar.com September 22, 2015.]

Will Porter YAL Chapter
President for WCC and
Abolitionist editor:

Students Celebrate Free Speech at WCC

Cell 248-464-0564 (Call or text)

By Will Porter

Email WKP.AnCap@Gmail.com
Twitter @WKPAnCap

Last week, our group held an event for Constitution Day in the Student Center. With
your helpdespite some minor issues with Student Development and Activities
(SDA)our Free Speech Wall was a great success!
A big thanks to everyone who participated; we couldnt have done it without you! We
hope to generate the same level of enthusiasm with future events and activities,
check out our Group Schedule on p.4 of this issue for details.
With our fall leadership transition behind us, we look forward to a busy semester of
activism and interaction with students at WCC. Cheers!

The end result of our "Free Speech Wall" Photo by Adam Vale

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty