DOWNTOWN PRESCOTT SEPTEMBER 16-18FREE ADMISSION! The Arizona “Best Fest” is a series of festivals, in each of Arizona’s Territorial Capitols that will present our diverse and vibrant culture, honor the past, and celebrate our future, feature our military, pay tribute to our state with a dignitary salute and highlight performances by many well known Arizona Entertainers. The “Best of Arizona” will truly be emphasized with the “Local First” involvement of the many: wineries, micro breweries, locally renowned restaurants, top chefs, foods, arts and merchandise crafted right here in Arizona. The Centennial Commission will be working with existing festivals and events throughout the state requesting they bring their “best” to this “once in a lifetime” series of Centennial festivals that when combined, will create the largest and most educational festival in our state’s history.

BigDawg Spotlight On: American Folk Blues Artist James Kole 
by Lisa Mei Norton

James Kole's "Liberty Tree" appearing on the Liberty Juice Blog.

Both “socialism” and “fascism” involve the issue of property rights. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Observe the difference in those two theories: socialism negates private property rights altogether, and advocates “the vesting of ownership and control” in the community as a whole, i.e., in the state; fascism leaves ownership in the hands of private individuals, but transfers control of the property to the government.

Ownership without control is a contradiction in terms: it means “property,” without the right to use it or to dispose of it. It means that the citizens retain the responsibility of holding property, without any of its advantages, while the government acquires all the advantages without any of the responsibility.

In this respect, socialism is the more honest of the two theories. I say “more honest,” not“better”—because, in practice, there is no difference between them: both come from the same collectivist-statist principle, both negate individual rights and subordinate the individual to the collective, both deliver the livelihood and the lives of the citizens into the power of an omnipotent government—and the differences between them are only a matter of time, degree, and superficial detail, such as the choice of slogans by which the rulers delude their enslaved subjects.

“The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus,” 
Ayn Rand.

"By idealistically venerating the founding fathers, the tea party avoids the kind of cynical pragmatism that reigned in Richard Nixon’s era. By steering clear of religiously divisive “social issues,” the tea party avoids the kind of attack on the Constitution’s separation of church and state that characterized Ronald Reagan’s era. And by stressing that both major political parties are guilty of expanding government power without apparent limit, the tea party breaks with the neoconservative, big-government Republicanism that held sway in George W. Bush’s era."

Read the full article HERE
By Thomas A. Bowden / January 21, 2011