Want to know why Republicans – especially Republican “conservatives” – are getting zero traction politically as well as philosophically against the “liberals” they claim to oppose? Why they are a spent force?
It is because they’re hypocrites. Pots calling the kettles black.
You cannot – to cite just one example of their intellectual-ethical disconnect – denounce welfare . . while defending Social Security. Because they’re both the same thing: The taking by force of one man’s property (his money – and if that’s not handed over, then his physical property will be taken and transmuted into money) in order to hand it over to some other person. That is the essence of the thing. It’s irrelevant whether the beneficiary of the largesse seems to you to be worthy – as “good Republicans” view the flag-waving oldsters on the dole who “paid in” to the system (but who were merely taxed in their turn and who now wish to prey on others to recoup their losses). What’s relevant – the only relevant thing – is, simply: Do you support use of government threats and violence to take other people’s property for your (or someone else’s) benefit for any reason? If you do, then you cannot object to other people’s advocacy of the same thing for their own reasons.
Not, at any rate, without being an obvious hypocrite. A Babbitt. A Grifter – who denies he is a grifter. Which is to say, the most odious sort of grifter. The one who brays about his morality – while denouncing others for being (as he styles it) immoral.
Which is exactly – and rightly – how Republicans (especially “conservative” ones) are viewed by liberal Democrats. To their credit, they – the Democrats – at least have a twisted type of honesty on their side.
They are openly for transfers-at-gunpoint.
Republicans are, too – of course. They merely regard those favored by Democrats as illegitimate. Republican support for the use of force to obtain the property of others is “different” . . . somehow.
The how is hard to puzzle out.
Either it is – or isn’t – acceptable to take from Smith to give to Jones. To make an exception – any exception – is to surrender the field. No, worse. It is to embrace the enemy.
To be like him.
And that’s exactly what Republicans are – and why this country continues to descend ever deeper into the morass of redistributionist collectivism. Tweedle Dee – and Tweedledum. Is it not madness to expect a prison to cease the practice of executing prisoners by periodically giving the inmates the opportunity to vote for a warden who favors lethal injection as opposed to the gas chamber?
The only way to effectively challenge wealth transfer at gunpoint is to challenge the idea of it – as opposed to one or another particular transfer-at-gunpoint.
This, Republicans – and most notoriously, Republican “conservatives” – have manifestly failed to do. They defend the transfer-at-gunpoint programs they favor. Which they view as ethically acceptable.
Which is why Republican conservatism is a failed ideology. Because it is not an ideology at all. It is merely a watered-down (and hypocritical) version of the ideology espoused by its supposed opposite, the “liberal” Democrats.
They are birds of a feather. Opposing sides of the same Janus. They argue like hyenas over the spoils. Not about the idea of taking spoils at all.
This is why the Tea Party is a bad joke. Why there’s no debate about “the issues” – at the national level at least; and usually, at the local level, too. The basic premise – redistribution at gunpoint – is never challenged. Only the degree of the redistribution – or its object. Which is why this country – its people – will continue to practice a form of cannibalism that becomes more and more rapacious, since the “needs” upon which this cannibalism are based are limitless in principle – and increase exponentially with each election cycle – while the resources available to satisfy these needs are limited. And the incentive to produce the resources to be divvied up naturally declines with each passing year. It is inevitable that a critical mass of people will eventually shrug – or simply join the ranks of the looters.
Which in fact is exactly what’s happening. Half the country is on the take , in one way or another.
Looting will eventually become a matter of literal survival. But only a temporary one. Because soon enough, there will be no one and nothing left to loot.
And neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have a solution – because they are both the source of the problem. And if you support either of them, then so are you.
If that statement made you mad, read no further. There’s no point. I cannot reach you – ideas cannot reach you. You are on one side – and I am on the other. No bridge can exist between us. In fact, I intend to burn the bridge. I want to leave you on the other side of a chasm so wide that you no longer have any physical power over me.
Here is how I will do so, beginning with one of the wealth transfers at gunpoint so favored by “good Republicans” – Social Security:
I don’t want any.
Even though I have been forced to “contribute” for 25 years. Even though I am “entitled” – under your system of wealth transfer – to my “fair share.”
Because I refuse to be a thief – or the beneficiary of thievery. 
You and your ilk will continue to forcibly take my money in order to pay for your “benefits.” There is nothing I can do – yet – about that. I know, also, that I will never recover the mountain of my money already taken by threat of violence over the past several decades of my working life. It is long gone, transferred by violence to people I don’t even know.
But what makes me different – and what I hope will make others who read this and decide to follow my example different – is that I know I’ve been robbed and that my having been robbed does not justify my robbing others in turn. I will break the cycle. I want no part of stolen goods. Keep your “benefits.”
I will keep my self-respect.
And by doing so, deny you yours.
I will force you to come to terms with what you are – a looter.
Perhaps it will make you uncomfortable. Perhaps it will not. But I will have the satisfaction of knowing what I am not – and knowing what you are.
The same goes for everything that’s of a piece.
I will not demand that taxes be imposed on you in order to “help” my children. If I produced them; they are my obligation – and one else is obligated to provide funds to assist me in raising them. 
My health care is my business. Yours is yours.
I will not “ask” that government subsidize my business – or bail me out when it fails. Because I know that any such assistance I receive will come as the result of extortion and threats levied at people who owe me nothing except the goodwill that ought to exist among civilized men.
I will never seek to use force to compel other people to do what I may think is in their best interests. Even if it actually is in their best interests. Instead, I will hew strictly to the principle of leaving them alone – unless – and until – they have done me an actual harm.
I will never stick my hand in your pockets – or my nose in your affairs – and only ask the same from you in return.
I don’t give a hoot who you marry, or what you put into your body – or how you elect to live. So long as you don’t expect me to pay for it – and don’t cause me (or anyone else) a provable physical harm as a result of what you do – have at it.
And go in peace.
No more special privileges; no more theft-by-ballot. No more anything – except respect for the equal and inalienable rights of every man to be free to pursue happiness as he sees it.
An ideal which many Americans once believed in.
And which, in time, they may once believe in again.
Throw it in the Woods?
Social security retirement is not an entitlement because it is based on payments made from wages earned, and there is no such qualification for entitlements. Social security disability is an entitlement. Why did I receive this as a pop-up advertisement?
Hi Bill,
It’s not an entitlement – but it is a wealth transfer program. It may be based on money stolen (correct language; unless you handed over your money voluntarily) but the money – your money – is gone. In order to give you money now, fresh money must be stolen from other people.
It is intergenerational parasitism – enforced at gunpoint.
That is blaming me for the government’s parasitism when, if I could have, and I couldn’t have, put the money into an investment that would pay vastly more than it does. Everything any government does is done at the point of a gun and constitutes a wealth transfer program, being what those who fall on the left-right spectrum between communism and fascism have always done. No money was taken from anyone because no money has circulated in the United States in my lifetime (circa 1954). I haven’t seen any really fresh currency lately, since they are trying to wean us off of it, onto virtual payments.
Hi Bill,
I agree – it sucks. I have to pay 15 percent right off the top of everything I earn. If I had all the SS money stolen from me over my life so far, I would not have to ask for reader support to keep the web site going!
But let me present you with a very analogous moral question:
You are the victim of a mugging; someone stole your wallet at gunpoint, leaving you with nothing. Does the fact that you were robbed entitle you to rob the next guy who comes along to make up for your loss?
How is Social Security different?
In order to pay benefits to current recipients, funds must be extracted by force from other people. It’s ugly – but it’s the facts, yes?
What the creeps who run the government have done is impoverish workers to keep the old dependent and by impoverishing the workers, make them dependent in their turn.
I would gladly forfeit any claim to future benefits – and accept the loss of all the money stolen from me to date – in exchange for not having to “contribute” one more dime to Social Security, going forward.
The federal courts ruled that FICA is a tax and social security a welfare program that exist at the whim of congress. Anything else is a political lie.
I like the article and sentiment, but this is a decision everyone has to make on their own in the context of their own circumstances. The better your economic conditions, the easier it is to make such a pledge. One could just as easily make an argument against using the roads; they too were paid for with stolen money. However, I don’t see anyone moving to the Yukon or getting a helicopter to avoid using them. Nor is anyone a bad libertarian/anarchist for not doing so. We all have a tolerance for a certain amount of tyranny as evidenced by the fact that we haven’t done so. It doesn’t mean the government’s coercion isn’t real or that it’s just, it doesn’t mean our principles are wrong. It just means we all have to make practical decisions on a case by case basis.
Eric can pick social security as the place he draws his line, however people can make the case against him as a looter for driving on the government roads. And there is a case to be made for bringing the system down by the one guaranteed means that has worked in the past: force it to live up to its promises, which we all know can’t be fulfilled. My approach is to understand that everyone will have different issues and breaking points for when they have to put principle aside and feed their families. We were not born into libertarian paradise, we can’t act as if we live in one. I personally believe you should oppose all new restrictions and wealth transfers while you can, but once they get into place then tax the system to the maximum so it collapses faster.
All governments rely on the consent of the governed, however implicit and barely present, for their continued existence. Teaching principles of liberty and standing on them is one way to remove that consent. Another way is to take the pool of people who see themselves as net beneficiaries of government largess and to subject them to the fullest extent of its depravity so they see themselves as government victims. The more people who see themselves as victims of the state, the more who may be willing to try a different path. And I’m afraid that is likely the only way some people will learn.
Hi NC,
I’d argue there’s a qualitative difference between SS “contributions” – which cannot be avoided – and motor fuels taxes – which can be.
Or, put another way: I do pay to use the roads. They operate on a pay-as-you-drive basis, with each person getting something – by choice – for his money.
SS, on the other hand, is both coercive (you cannot say no) as well as theft. The money taken from you does not go to provide for a service that benefits you. It benefits another person at your expense.
I agree with you that we’re all a part of the problem because we’re all enmeshed in this diabolical system.
But the only way I see to ending it is to reject the idea behind it.
Across the board – without exceptions.
“What about the roads?”
“You’re a hypocrite, libertarian if you use roads!”
Yes, NuclearCannoli, let’s trot out this tired old thing. Here’s why these are BS arguments.
1) Government roads are a monopoly that exists because of government’s monopoly on legal violence. So there isn’t a choice except to impoverish one’s self. Another fallacy argument against libertarianism, that I’ve dealt with before.
2) Road taxation is actually fairly decently done comparatively speaking. Road funds are typically where government goes to raid money for other things. In other words, road users pay for what they use. Under government monopoly of course the funds get raided for non-road things, checkpoints, and much more. While more costly and lower quality and politically apportioned because it is government, they are user fees. That political apportionment means that passenger car users subsidize the trucking industry. Furthermore Eric, like myself, has multiple vehicles of which can only be driven one at a time. The result is paying much more than what is used compared to the typical motorist and vastly subsidizing the typical transit loving statist.
If you want to get the most bang for your buck, and conserve your most precious, irreplaceable asset…your TIME…you can always buy Tom Baugh’s book titled Starving The Monkeys and pass them out to all the looters that do indeed totally surround you…and who will gleefully watch and/or participate in the neighbors-robbing-neighbors-back-and-forth-endlessly looterfest.
If you don’t have the resources to buy the books then just print out some business cards with “www.starvingthemonkeys.com” on them to pass out, put under windshield wipers, slip under doors, etc.
Be creative.
Be devious.
Be mischievous.
Have fun.
Enjoy.
Throw. It. In. The. Woods.
Peace.
Out.
.
Serf – a man with no means of production or limited knowledge of reality.
Libertarian Quiz. True or false.
1)America was founded by the London Corporation in Virginia in 1607. Later related offspring include the City of London Corporation and the Virginia Corporation.
2)Prior to the creation of America, in 1600, the tidewaters of Virginia were ruled by about 15,000 Algonquian-speaking Indians. They farmed in small villages during the summer and, during the winter, traveled deep into the forests to hunt deer and gather nuts. They also dove for oysters, fished for sturgeon, and waded into the freshwater marshes to gather the carbohydrate rich tuckahoe plants. They accumulated wealth and held power through tribute. Some chiefs ruled as much as 1/3 of the territory of present day Virginia. For money they used deer skins, pearl and shell beads, corn, and copper; all of which were widely redistributed in advanced systems of commerce. Major decisions required approval of councilmen. Life and death decisions such as war required the approval of native priests.
3)Virginia, the first state, was initially larger than the current 48 contiguous states, most subsequent states were carved out of this original state.
4)The first world war was fought between 1754 and 1763 and involved the major powers of Europe, North & Central America, West African coast, India, and the Philippines. The war began with the Battle of Jumonville Glen in May 1754, when Virginia militiamen under the command of George Washington ambushed a French patrol.
5)Socialism is evil because it involves collectivism and centralized violence. Capitalism is good because mass production of identical goods is more efficient than other means of production. The producers of these goods form collectives and use centralized violence to eradicate hunters, gatherers, fishermen, herders, farmers, religious societies, and hereditary clans, and other competitors, even so, the socialists legitimate complaints claims against this class destruction should be dismissed, because the socialists exercise of their right to retaliatory violence against the people who are making all our stuff might make impoverish us and make us face the reality that we are pathetic button pushers and big box consumer patsies.
6)Greater Jamestown was founded in the year 800 by Native-Americans who introduced domesticated plants in Virginia coastal area. Permanent Native-American villages were established in Virginia area by the year 1200.
7)In 1586 many crops engineered by the Powhatan Confederacy that ruled Greater Jamestown including the potato and tobacco were brought to England and were directly responsible for much of the crown’s expansion of wealth and power.
8)In 1587 Virginia Dare, John White’s grandchild, was born in Roanoke, the first white English child to be born in America. She was a survivor of White’s failed Lost Colony founded in 1585 on Roanoke Island.
9)In 1606 America and advertising rose to eventual world hegemony to together. One of the first worldwide products heavily marketed was the mythical product of America itself. The Virginia Company’s recruitment effort for its new colony was one of the first concerted and sustained advertising campaigns in the history of the world. The out-of-place, out-of-work “gentlemen” in overpopulated England were a pack of lies about the bountiful land and riches to be had in the New World. The sucker class rose to prominence and there was a kind of natural selection at play the ruined the great mass of rubes willing to believe in advertising.
10)From 1618-22 Jamestown grew from 400 to 1,400 residents. Then 500 were killed by Indian attacks. Then 500 died from plague brought from England. With a year these 400 were replenished to number over 4,500 residents. Due mainly to the never ending boatloads of “suckers born every minute” eager to claim their easily obtainable American riches.
11)In 1624, the corporate charter of Jamestown was dissolved by force and it was annexed as a royal province. It actually increase freedom generally, since prior to the dissolution, Jamestown had devolved into a brutal military style dictatorship.
12)In 1651 the first Indian Reservation was created near Richmond, VA by the now dominant expat Europeans.
13)In 1665 tobacco was produced in such abundance that the world price was only a penny per pound.
14)In 1670 Virginia’s labor force consisted primarily of white indentured servants(slaves really) and a few convict laborers. A few Virginia Indians worked for pay as servants, more often, they too were enslaved. The ratio of white and Indian slaves to black African slaves was four to one.
15)By 1690 the ratio reversed and there were now four times as many enslaved Africans as white slaves and servants in Virginia. Black laborers were considered superior to white laborers until 1705, when the slave codes were written and imposed on the economy. All races lived in small integrated villages. Some blacks lived as free men and even owned slaves of their own.
16)The Old Dominion’s vast boundaries delineate a territory whose history includes the beginning of the American experience. Virginia can be compared to an American pie that has been sliced and sustained millions during its over 400 year old period of growth, transformation, and evolution.
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/boundaries/boundaryk.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_colonization_of_the_Americas#Economic_immigrants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Company
Answer key: All answers are true except #5. Capitalism and Libertarianism ideally are merely ideas which must compete honestly with all other ideas. Both may soon become extinct, if the rise of China and India continues without these two classes considering why these competing systems are marginally outperforming them.
This piece is so well written- it really hit me. I’ve always thought SS was a huge scam that people my age (26) would never benefit from. However, after reading this and really thinking about it, I do not think I will collect either. You really are right in principle on this one. Why deal with a thieving middleman??
As a person who cares about morals and principles, I do feel guilty about my job as public high school government/econ teacher. It’s really sad that my student’s parents have to pay for my salary at gunpoint. Even sadder I have to reveal to students that their parents have guns to their heads in order to pay me. I’m currently working on a long-term escape plan because I do want sleep easy at night knowing I’m not part of “the system.” I will be showing this website to my students for sure.
Thanks, Brittany –
It encourages me that people your age seem to get it more than people my age. Which is interesting, given that people my age grew up with more liberty and so should be notice (and be angrier about) the loss of liberty that’s occurred during the past ten or so years. Yet, I find that it’s often people who were just kids – high school age or younger – circa 2001, who seem to understand just how bad things are. And more importantly, how bad they’ll get if trends continue.
Good to have you with us!
Don’t Worry Be Hempy
http://rehashedfashion.com/?p=507
The lack of rational public discussion of our societies principles and commonly held morals is likely the number one cause of America’s accelerating descent and decline.
Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality overcomes everything
http://rehashedfashion.com/?p=257
Questions R Good
As long as you are able to awaken the children to the chains that are already being shackled upon them…perhaps you should continue to remain in that target-rich environment. Sooner or later someone is going to snitch on you and you will at best lose your job or at worst be involved in a fatal “accident”
3 minutes on the coming Econopocalypse – Ron Paul / Jim Rogers
A psychopath can kill a lot of individuals. A sociopath leader can kill millions. The econopath is a global killer. As we speak, he is busy strangling the life out of the civil society billions of people depend on for their survival.
It doesn’t matter whether capitalism or socialism or whatever else is the best system. Their hands are all drenched in blood, and at the root of them all is state coercion and sanctioned class genocide. Even worse, is they are recently all hijacked by virulent econopaths, and all systems are corrupted and dying from parasite infestation, and all work against civilization, not for civilization.
Imagine even socialists, but non-econopath ones, took over the USSA, and began work on building a new nationwide system of high speed hyperloops to every neighborhood and city in America. Full employment for everyone who wanted to work on the project of high speed, low pollution transit, to the exclusion to all other demands of the market.
Even under this skewed system, having people work for something that is a net common good under central planning would be a vast improvement over the current thugocracy and faux free market we’re all currently enslaved under.
The People’s Hyperloop
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57598374-1/the-peoples-hyperloop-redditors-rally-for-musks-vision/
Redditors rally around Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Vision:
A new Subreddit is organizing an effort to put a Hyperloop on the California ballot. “It will be our generation’s Hoover Dam,” one enthusiastic Redditor says.
http://www.reddit.com/r/hyperloop/top/
Very well stated Eric. Government is nothing more than redistribution accomplished by force at gunpoint. Nothing more.
At least Democrats ADMIT they want to take what’s yours and give it to others. Republicans will not admit that.
It seems that the same spirit moved over at the American Thinker as well as here Eric:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/rule_of_the_republicrats.html
It’s becoming increasingly more difficult for the cartel to hide what they’re really doing, even from the unwashed masses. We need to push harder than ever for a return to decentralization, self determination and minimal gun-vernment. Our state politicians seem to “get it” more and more these days. Which is not to say that they aren’t just as self interested as the federal parasites. It’s just that at the state level they are subject to more up close and personal social pressure and able to do less harm due to fewer resources to work with.
“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for, as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”
H. L. Mencken –
Dear lx,
That’s especially harsh, since Republicans weren’t nearly as bad back in Mencken’s day as they are now!
LOL.
Eric, I understand your argument here, although I’ll point out that it could easily be argued that for a libertarian to take social security, financial aid (Which I’m taking, despite believing it should be abolished) exc. is that we’re “stealing” from the looters themselves, rather than looting from rightful property owners.
Hi David,
For me, the most important thing is simply not having anything to do with it. To be free of any charge that I’m a hypocrite. If it’s not mine, I don’t want it. Especially if it’s been taken by force from someone else and is being “given” to me by the agency that used violence to obtain it.
Hi, Eric,
This is about as good as it gets. I probably couldn’t have said it better.
I used to be one of those Conservative Republicans. I used to believe in Peace through Strength and all that other pro-war jazz. I am still very conservative in how I live my life, but I’m not a Republican any more. I think I stopped being one about the same time that Jim Nicholson admitted the Republicans aren’t really for limited government or words to that effect.
The more I was exposed to Libertarian thinking, especially the Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist version, I have gone completely over to that viewpoint. I probably hold onto some Republican viewpoints, such as emotional support for the modern state of Israel (though a good dose of amillenialist theology may cure that someday) and loathing of state-sponsored killing of the unborn, I vow never to use the State to advance my causes.
In that respect, I could never be a Democrat, either. As you mentioned, they are the flip side of the same coin, an integral part of the Statist mentality. They have differences in nuance that appeal to certain types of people, but, in the end, they believe, as do the Republicans, that the State has the right to take your property by force to give it to others, whether they are the “rich” or the “poor”.
Great piece, as usual. I can’t help but feel pessimistic these days, but maybe we can win if we can convince enough others who are willing to listen.
“Either it is – or isn’t – acceptable to take from Smith to give to Jones.”
See this is why I can’t be a Republican and vote for Democrats instead. (LOL)
Kid prays to Obama
Obama Youth — Junior Fraternity Regiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mvP0ArKIGY
I never thought this day would happen, I won’t have to worry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI
Thanks for the courage to come out and say what really needs to be said, and understood Eric!!!!!!!! “We are all benifit corrupted!!Even those who claim to know the constitution ect.
My wife is a phisical therapist and finally figured out what I was
trying to explain years ago about how that by taking medicare payments was stealing from are neighbors.The bells rangs off in her head and she decided to
jump on the white horse and no longer take the blood money.
She explained to her clients that she would no longer take gov-co-sub/blood money.But that they would be able to get treatments for there children
at half the money(125.00 to 60.00)and get ten times the care,because she would no longer be restricted by goverment.Only two out of thirty would do it.
I recall more and more reading somewhere that one of the top goals of the communists in the 20th century was to gain control of one or both of the political parties in the US. They succeeded wildly, with wholesale enthusiastic control of the Democrats, and owning the leadership of the RNC. In this way they have been able to implement everything they desired while hamstringing conservatives and libertarians from reversing the damage.
Live free rings hollow. The surveillance state is everywhere and the states law enforcers are what they have been in every society through history, richly rewarded mercenaries doing the whole bidding of the tyrants.
Be sure to put some nice keywords in all of your correspondence like plutonium, heroin, militia, Allah, Jesus. Make the system grind through a ton of crap for every molecule they are looking for.
We simply have to hang tough. Spread the good word of liberty. Carry your choice of weapons. And when eventually pushed into a corner, take a deep breath and do the right thing.
Freedom!
“I recall more and more reading somewhere that one of the top goals of the communists in the 20th century was to gain control of one or both of the political parties in the US.”
Likewise I remember doing a paper back in College (early 80’s) for a Poli-Sci class that as of the 1950’s everything on the 1933 Communist Party Agenda had been effectively passed into Law.
This crap has only snowballed over the last 30 years and so we are now the USSA!
Just a note:
“I will force you to come to terms with what you are – a looter.”
Traditional penalty for looting: Shooting Death. IE, “Shot for looting.”
i retired early to cease contributing to what i know is evil.
i do take my social security as my part in producing one more cut on the beast among us. sooner, or later, it matters not which, the beast will fall, weakened by thousands of cuts, never to get up again.
in essence, i quit being a ‘giver’ and became a ‘taker’. there is no will to do what is right, so the next best solution, national bankruptcy, must be embraced and all done to bring this about.
I keeping thinking of this map:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/assets/2013/08/NeoAmerica.jpg
I wonder how close it is to how things will turn out?
…And when?
“I keeping thinking of this map” – Yeesh, I know it’s early in the morning, but… is that why writers use editors?
I KEEP thinking of this map:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/assets/2013/08/NeoAmerica.jpg
[Note to self: I think maybe I’ll stick to making comments in the evening.]
Eric, I have an alternate idea… with regard to SS checks. I agree that the money that was stolen from you is gone. You’re a victim. I am too. I understand that the money stolen from me has been squandered and that the future checks they plan to send to me will also be stolen loot. Rather than sending it back to the thieves, I think it wise to return the stolen loot to people currently being robbed. In doing this, I expect to get the victims to SEE what is going on. Perhaps there will be a tinge of honor stoked within them and they will do likewise when they come across stolen loot.
*YAWN*, everyone already knows this, it’s time to DO something to change things.
Mark,
Pledging not to accept – or demand – property taken from someone else is doing something.
Unfortunately, most people are doing the opposite.
Right now, wait, prepare, survive. The vast majority of people are ignorant, dependent or both. Bleed the beast. Take all government benefits possible, pay the minimum possible tax, work for cash, down size. The system will not be defeated from the outside, it must be destroyed from within. Socialist used the Constitution to destroy federalism and limited government, now we must use the welfare state to destroy socialism.
Evangelize the libertarian model to family and friends. Become involved through social networks and political groups such as local tea parties. Refer people to websites such as Mises, Lew Rockwell and Eric’s. There will be a crisis, an opportunity for change. Education, preparation and patience are the keys.
I loved everything you said, but unfortunately I disagree with:
” Take all government benefits possible,”
The only problem with taking benefits of any kind from the government, is that it has a way of magically supressing a man’s self value. I think Napoleon said it right when he said “The hand that gives is above the hand that takes”. Its also a pychological war of righteousness, once one accepts any money of the state he also looks like a hypocrite and is automatically discredited in the eyes of observers. This is what the state knows is how to provide sweet nectar of the ethelene glycol they feed to the souls of otherwise moral participants. I think Eric is right about GenX, we have accepted that indeed SS credits are a write off (sunk cost). We don’t expect anything in return for our contribution except that the system when it fails will liberate many younger generations from the same premise.
I’ve went a step and pledge of my own in further deciding not to take any money out of SS benefits if they do exist when I’m a senior. I absolutely detest the system and by taking any benefit it somehow legitimizes its existence, I decline.
I know how easy it is for us to lower our immune system, when money is offered to us and we feel that somehow that we are just evening the score. A couple of years ago I owned a corporation that had made big returns doing contracting, when I quit that line of work and before starting my own enterprise of entrepeneurship even I considered that I should collect unemployment benefits that I paid into the the last 20 years of working. But my wife correctly pointed out that if I indeed tried to collect them that they would rot my soul and my own self value. There is no free money when its tied to the government, it is always at an extreme cost even to the receiver. Actually as I’ve founded a very successful enterprise independent of political scumbags. I’ve came to realize that money is suprisingly easy to earn independently (without corporate scumbag managers or government mirror) that there
is actually no reason why anyone should accept illicit money. And honest day’s wage is much more abundant and always leads to greater riches.
HR
“money is suprisingly easy to earn independently ”
Too true, Hot Rod.
“And honest day’s wage is much more abundant and always leads to greater riches.”
Exactly correct. Abundance has a set of principles that one must adhere to in order to allow abundance into one’s life.
I’ll surrender the moral high ground to you regarding the taking of government benefits. But, I don’t want a moral victory over the government elites and their corporate cronies, I want to defeat them politically and expose their corruption and dishonesty. I want to win the future for our children and grandchildren, to give them a clean slate with opportunities for freedom and success. To do that the welfare/warfare gangster state must fall and the quickest way to achieve that goal is to intellectually withdraw consent and to financially bleed and starve the government beast.
I don’t think there’s a moral high ground here.
Humanity seems to need these wars every once in a while – the Elites never learn, the Individuals never learn, and the sheep don’t care. 😉
Why worry about exposing their corruption, dishonesty, and blatant hypocrisy? Most people don’t care…
Better to remove the problems. The sheep will bleat, of course. They always do. But WE have the chance to be agents of change, of reform – to turn their order of stunted growth and stagnation on itself, which is good in and of itself – but it doesn’t create the sort of change the world needs.
But let’s face facts: THEY have a plan. WE are part of it, whether we willingly go along or not. They’ve planned for some of us to tune out, or drop out – that’s part of the plan, too….
Why do you suppose that is? Why is THEIR plan “GOOD” for the sheep – as opposed to… Jeseus’s? Or maybe Lucifer’s? Let’s review a quote from an agent of chaos, see HIS little plan…
“Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don’t have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. you know what I am, Harvey? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught one. I just DO things. I’m a wrench in the gears. I HATE plans. Yours, theirs, everyone’s. Maroni has plans, Gordon has plans. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I am not a schemer. I show schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So when I say that what happened to you and your girlfriend wasn’t personal, you know I’M telling the truth”*Gives Dent Gun*”It’s a schemer who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best-I took your plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple bullets. Nobody panics when the expected people got killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds!! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I AM AN AGENT OF CHAOS. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey. It’s fair”
MY plan is to make others leave me alone. To REMOVE the braces on brains, emove the pre-determination. Can’t FORCE growth – but I CAN work to foster independent thought, to give people the CHANCE to wake up and BE ALIVE. In so doing, _I_ have a better life. And so do COUNTELSS others, who are part of “THE PLAN” otherwise – part of the alcoholics, the druggies, the losers – playing with their old cars, their bitter clinging to guns and bibles, and all they are is a DRAG on the System… The SYSTEM, where everyone has a “career” (job), works for 8-12 hours, breaks a few laws here and there, gets caught now and then, pays thousands in fines and premiums and maybe does a stint in prison for something (WE GOT YOU NOW, SUCKER!)…
You tell me: Who is the real tyrant? Who is the real problem? I just want people to have a chance to LIVE. If they WANT to be in the Herd, or the Pen – they CAN be. But they don’t HAVE to be.
On the other hand, THEY want us ALL to be tagged, milked and fleeced, and put down and recycled when no longer productive.
Why am I somehow the Devil?
Maybe I am… Lucifer, the “Light Bringer”… the Morning Star.
Mark Edward – Sadly “everyone” does not already know this. Those of us in the Libertarian / Anarcho-Capitalist camp know the truth or at least some of it and seek it out. But the average Joe Sixpack or Teresa Treehugger still believes that there is a significant difference between the two major parties. I have a coworker that is such a dyed in the wool “Democrat” that no matter how overwhelming the evidence that the two parties never deviate from the same overall plan and clearly work together, he always comes back with something like “Yeah, but at least the Democrats are genuinely concerned about the people…” You cannot reach him. He is a true believer. Men like Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, Peter Hendrickson, Julian Assange and Andrew Breitbart, along with many others, have taken direct action to change things. And each has proven the theory that no good deed goes unpunished. The raw, unvarnished truth isn’t very popular and never has been.
Whenever some bratty scumbag parasite claims to be a “Liberal”, they are actually making the claim that they own everyone else and their earnings. Liberals are terrorists and not 1 in 100 can figure that out. Pretty much all Statists are terrorists.
Eric, the arguments you put forward are the same as what mine have been for over twenty years. Problem is, they will largely fail on and fail upon existent pairs of deaf ears now, and similiar deaf ears of the future. I fear that only a complete economic collapse, and not this drip by drip chinese water torture currently practiced against the middle and lower classes, will have the desired effect of the oppressed throwing off their chains and demanding that socialist-redistributionist Ponzi schemes be halted. That time will come when the federal government adimits it has no money.
Since our fiat money system is nothing but debt disguised as a circulating national currency, one would be inclined to think that the govemment has no real need to raise tax dollars at all, since the Federal Reserve solely determines the amount and quantity of U.S. money in circulation. In other words, why just not print more into circulation? . The only real cost falls upon a government that has total control over monetary expansionism.
If Libertarians ever want to spend half a chance on bringing around a divided electorate, they have their work well cut out in front of them;.
I agree, Trevor.
And I vacillate between cautious optimism (signs of people awakening, especially the young) and absolute despair (based on my view of human nature, which is seemingly confirmed every day).
The nightmare scenario is we reach a point analogous to Russia in the early 1900s – with huge swaths of the population reduced to the state of ignorant, desperately poor proles – who will welcome a dictatorship along the lines of the Soviet Union.
I read a biography of Georgi Zhukov. Though at the pinnacle of Soviet society – a Marshall of the Soviet Union – he led a pretty impoverished life. Modest apartment – allowed him by the state. Shitty car. An average middle class American of pre-2008 lived a life of ease and opulence in comparison. But to Zhukov – whose family was peasant and dirt poor – the communist state had immeasurably improved his life.
He remained an ardent communist all his life.
It’s already starting.
A book of face graphic has been circulating calling for Obama to by pass congress with executive orders. In other words be a strong leader who gets things done…. like make the trains run on time.
Eric, there is a good book. “Keeping Faith with the Party” – Communist Believers Return from the Gulag. It is interviews with those who still “believe”, even after being politically imprisoned. Basically they blame themselves.
With the mugger it is obvious that the money returned from the wallet is yours. But isn’t that why it’s a bad analogy?
What if a mugger takes your wallet with no refund and the two of you cross paths some years later whereon he knocks over the head some random stranger and takes some bills out of THAT guy’s wallet and hands them to you. Do you take them? And keep them? Because they’re yours?
Interesting point, Commenter, on the orchestrated rise of a third party. I will try to keep it in mind.
I agree with you, Gruhn.
I have empathy for the people now dependent on SS – and also those who’ve had so much of their money taken from them at gunpoint by the government.
However, like you, I cannot justify accepting that which isn’t mine – and don’t want to try to rationalize it.
I also think it is psychologically corrosive to partake of any government “benefits” that are a matter of free choice. We pretty much have to use government roads. But SS “benefits”? To a great extent, only if you spent a lifetime assuming they would form the basis of your retirement, or a major element thereof. My Generation (Generation X) has been aware since we were teenagers that SS was both a Ponzi scheme and inevitably insolvent. I therefore have looked at everything taken from me since I was a 17-year-old working at McDonald’s to the present day as a write-off. Gone – forever.
The broader point, though, is that political opposition to the transfer state cannot work without opposing transfer payments – all of them.
If one accepts, say, SS, then one is powerless in the face of an opponent who calls you full of shit for denouncing welfare – or the GM bailout.
This is why I believe in compensation from government assets.
For instance, not too far from me the federal government owns some lake front property. A nice sized house lot should have a market value sufficient to compensate me for social security takings. A B2 bomber probably has a decent resale value too…. even the bone yard junk could have enough market value to compensate me. Perhaps a piece of Yellowstone park? There are many ways the federal government can compensate me without stealing from someone else.
“There are many ways the federal government can compensate me without stealing from someone else.”
Yep. I would consider it just compensation if they’d just leave me the fuck alone.
The Democrats and Republicans have been taking turns looting the treasury to buy votes and reward cronies for 150 years. They talk slightly different games, but the welfare/warfare state always expands regardless of which party controls the government. I don’t begrudge payments to those who take social security or who legitimately need welfare, we are all victims of government corruption. The system will fall of it’s own weight soon enough.
Although there must be an economic reckoning soon, I do believe there is reason for optimism. Massive default of government obligations will provide the opportunity to break government control. The lies of empty government promises will be exposed and new government lies no longer believed. That will be the opportunity for real change and the time of greatest danger.
“The Democrats and Republicans have been taking turns looting the treasury to buy votes and reward cronies for 150 years.”
True enough, but now they don’t have to buy votes. They simply count on their corrupt system of announcing the vote totals they need and use all the loot to reward themselves and their cronies.
The problem is the vast majority of Americans believe they’ve paid into the system and it is their money, with no idea that most take out far more than they ever put in. I, for one, have never expected to realize my contributions to this corrupt system.
The “Final Solution” will occur when we have a hard reset, a calamity as horrific as it is inevitable. It’s coming.
The vast majority of americans believe social security has a trust fund. It’s what they have been told by elected office holders and the mainstream media since the 1930s. Telling people that it is actually a welfare program covered by taxes causes them to react badly. If online that is then that’s followed by the exercise of proving it to them with the relevant info.
Another home run, Eric.
As I’ve said before, this cold, hard piece of reality will be a bone in the throat to people of a certain age who cannot swallow the fact that absolutely EVERY “fact” they’ve ever known is a lie. The State’s indoctrinaria have done their jobs too well, removing every last vestige of reason and critical thought from both “education” and public debate.
Expect the brainstemmers who’ve staked their all on the current system to double down on the stupidity and violence as the system continues to collapse.
liberranter, your comment reminded me of this bit (did the rest of you read it too?) Prey vs. skimming predators:
http://www.freemansperspective.com/rulership/
Hi Eric,
I am quite sympathetic to your argument in this article. There is a wrinkle here though as the US further sovietizes. The ACA states that everyone must have health insurance or pay a tax penalty. I want to highlight something that is occurring at the lower end of the income scale.
Imagine a family of 4 that whose income falls below the expanded medicaid “eligibility” threshold of ~$31,000 per year. As these folks go to the exchanges to see what coverage is available for them (because their old plan is now illegal or their employer jettisoned health coverage), they will discover that they now qualify for medicaid. The quirk in the law is that if you qualify for medicaid, you are not eligible to receive any subsidies for “private”, “affordable” insurance. We all know that health insurance premiums are ridiculous and not set by any kind of competitive market and so are unaffordable to people of lesser means. So, if this family rejects medicaid, they must pay the overinflated, non-subsidized, “private” premium. More than likely, this is impossible. The alternative is to pay the tax and have no health insurance.
The government is telling the working class poor that they MUST take the government cheese…….or else. This is how soviet we have become. Taking the cheese under threat of violence.
C, you are right on. They will also be forced into housing and food stamps, or die of taxes and starvation. It is the new scientific plantation slavery, of chosen corporate massa’s and everyone else as owned n*%ga’s. Total police state control. As Orwell said – you will come to love Brother.
Yep, that’s the other quirk (feature) of law. A sort of “But Wait! There’s more!” part of the government infomercial.
Millions of people are going to discover that under the law, if they apply for one public benefit (medicaid), then they must apply for ALL public benefits. That includes cash assistance, housing assistance, utility assistance, child care assistance, and food stamps.
The government, through the ACA, is going to collectivize millions of americans into government dependency……..or else.
Eric’s argument is moot, unfortunately.
Here is a perfect example. My 64 year old broke cousin needs expensive asthma medicine she cannot afford. So the State of California gives her MediCal medical benefits to pay for it. Unfortunately if she owns a car valued over $1,700.00, or gets a job that pays over $700.00 a month, or acquires any assets over $2,000.00 she looses ALL benefits immediately. No sliding scale, it just disappears. Now why would very well-fed government lawmakers dream up such a system of theft from the productive to pay for permanent enslavement? There is no other answer comrade.
Indeed, Gary.
The other thing this ingeniously evil system does is foster hatred. The Haves hate the Have-Nots for their endless claims of entitlement at gunpoint. The Have-Nots hate the Haves because they’ve reduced to a state of animalism such that they only see (and feel) their “needs” – and will use whatever means available to satisfy them.
The medical care cartel seems to be designed to impoverish and enslave. The extreme high prices of insurance purchased outside an employer combined with Obamacare is locking us into corporate employment. It’s company town style enslavement through dependency and “contract”. (in quotes because it’s not a voluntary contract with government)
Hi C,
Unfortunately, you’re probably right.
The situation could still be corrected – peacefully. All it would take is a little manning up.
But this country is overflowing with poltroons and Babbits. People who just don’t care.
Even something as simple and relatively painless as refusing to fly unless one absolutely must (for work or emergencies, etc.) until the Blue Goon Squad is done away with – is too much inconvenience for most people.
Foreswear government “benefits”?
“Their” Social Security? The government make-work project that benefits them?
Forget about it.
If I were younger, I’d leave.
But, I’m stuck. I will have to ride out the storm.
I expect it will not end well. I think there is a better than good chance every person who isn’t a prole will end up like the Kulaks.
Two things, Eric:
“The situation could still be corrected – peacefully. All it would take is a little manning up.
But this country is overflowing with poltroons and
BabbitsRabbits. People who just don’t care.”1 – Babbits is an obvious mis-spelling of Rabbits, so I fixed it for ya. 😉 (Yes, I know you didn’t typo it, but it sets up #2.)
2 – Cull those Rabbits, return to roots of being a Predator, not Prey – and you’ll do better, and so will the nation (Tribe). Tolerate not the weak and infirm.
And so EVERYONE is clear on that: It means I WOULDN’T BE HERE.
I do not want others to tolerate my weakness, and I refuse to tolerate theirs. We cannot be fugitives from Darwin’s law, and still have a strong species. “Idiocracy” wasn’t meant as prophecy any more than “1984” was a “how-to” manual. (And unfortunately, “Atlas Shrugged” isn’t a “how-to” either.)
Maybe John Galt had it right. Stay on the lowest rung of the system while you and your friends build a free society.
Maybe Hamilton (and Hume) were right after all. The mob is incapable of exercising self-restraint and thus, requires the guiding hand of authority.
And our role? To be the among those who wield authority over the mob.
“you don’t become completely free by just avoiding to be a slave; you also need to avoid becoming a master.*”
“*versions of this point have been discovered & repeated throughout history – the last convincing one by montaigne.”
– from taleb’s book of aphorisms, “the bed of procrustes”
“the mob…our role…” nets out to contending mobs, doesn’t it? two ours – rr – a railroad that never arrives at “yours”…being “railroaded”…the transcontinental political project of/by yankee generals, politicians & financiers (that’s in reverse order) that included genocide / bison-cide…or maybe arrr!arrrr! piracy (what’s the difference, really?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjFjD11zOCM
☻
Love to leave as well, but where to go? The countries that hold economic appeal all hate guns. And, the countries that are gun friendly have little rule of law or economic prosperity. If you have found a country that is like America (not the united state), please share/write an article about it.
Right now Chile is a great country, except for the idiot gun control there. Other S. American countries seem nice, but aren’t much different. With the exception of Honduras, which strikes me as more of a middle eastern warhole, though their gun politics are preferred. A shame that this even needs to be discussed, but if you could I’m sure we’d be interested in the read!
What if the mob really needs authority….
If the good people who didn’t want authority would have it, the current system or any sort of authority based system could work mostly kinda ok…. but that never happens and never will happen, so such a system leads to all the economic horrors and of course the physical horrors of war, occupation, police state, etc.
EricB, I was reminded of your comment when I saw this blog title: Detroit: “There is No Government Here”
A line from it,”“For all intents and purposes, there is no government here,” said Willerer, 43, checking the greens and other crops he is growing on an acre off Rosa Parks Boulevard, across from an abandoned house with broken windows. “If something were to happen, we have to handle that ourselves.””…
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/detroit-there-is-no-government-here/
I don’t know about you, but I’m Very tempted. And it’s a heck of lot closer than Chile. (I’d go to Chile if I had the funds. But this seems doable.)
Having seen what happens with Chicago’s Ghetto settlers I am not so sure how the frontier of Detroit is going to work out.
While the government in detroit is dysfunctional it officially still exists. Every law. Every power. Every tax.
I wonder how many people who rebuilt neighborhoods in Chicago still live in them after the property taxes skyrocketed. I suppose it could still be less than they’d have to pay to move elsewhere but the reward for rebuilding is to pay government.
If the city of detroit government really downsizes by repealing all sorts of laws, regs, taxes, and so forth then maybe it might be worth the risk. Unlike most places to ‘escape’ to, I can actually be employed in my field around there.
Seems to me it’s more about, can they enforce the laws there and collect the taxes? Like some say it is in Mexico, the law is just a suggestion no one pays much attention to.
But yeah, the income stream is important.
At the same time, I’d rather be free and poor, than well off and a total serf or slave.
But again, at the same time, opportunity is where you find it. As mentioned in this relevant article:
Four Principles of Libertarian Travel
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/08/lila-rajiva/four-principles-of-libertarian-travel/
If you like that, you might find useful perspectives in these three:
The Other Side of the Mountain
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/06/lila-rajiva/sometimes-the-grass-is-greener/
Flight AND Fight
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/06/lila-rajiva/flight-and-fight/
Time To Run?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/06/lila-rajiva/time-to-run/
Anyway, tonite I hope to dream of Detroit: “There is No Government Here”
“There is No Government Here”
“There is No Government Here”
Does seem like we’re headed for “Judge Dredd” type future.
Funny how every time someone wants to build a Utopia, it’s built on bodies.
Jean – The Utopia is really there for the elite. Josef Stalin watched Hollywood movies, enjoyed fine dining and luxury accomodations whilst standing on a mountain of bodies. It doesn’t matter to the king of the hill that the hill is built from bodies as long as he’s the one on top of it.
Boothe – I know.
Makes me think the Spartan / Warrior / Ahroun concept is a great one. Get the corpses in your youth, enjoy the strength, power, etc when young – and IF there’s a Tomorrow, you’ll still be powerful, capable, and well-armed, and able to enjoy what you want, residing in your little fief, built on bodies…
Ugly even to me, but if the foo shits…
Once the lower classes are forced in the total system as you suggest – the question then arises as to what ends?
Perhaps forced sterilization or other more sinister and immediate results? I don’t know much about the Eugenics movement, but seems to be right up their ally from what I do understand…add UN Agenda 21goals and, well, not to far from the truth perhaps?
And from what i’ve read, that penalty increases each year, too.
So, year 1: “Fine” is $100 (or somethign like.)
Year 2: $200
Year 3: $400.
Year 4″ $800. (It’s some similar progression, might even be steeper – don’t recall offhand, coffee isn’t clearing the fog of my brain yet today.)
but very quickly, it’s, “What’s the point?”
Of note, I need to go looking – but the Supreme Court ruled in effect, that any money we keep from our paychecks is actually a gift from Congress, not our earnings. In other words, the Congress could tax us at 100% and it would be legal.
So I’ll ask again: Why isn’t anyone dead yet? Why no shooting? Why are all the good, honest people sitting on their hands, instead of holding accountable every politician and bureaucrat they can find?
(Answer is, because they ARE good, honest people – who cannot fathom that the SOBs aren’t doing this due to incompetence, accident, misguided good intentions. Their good hearts never allow their rational mind to see that this is all “by design”, that the ultimate intent is to enslave us all, and the only rational response to this subtle, encroaching slave state is massive violence – of a type good people can’t actually perform. These people must become what they hate. The old concept of Rattlesnake – Gadsden-Culpepper – doesn’t work. Some of us have been rattling for over a decade; for some reason, TPTB don’t fear us, and we just keep rattling…
since Empty barrels make the most noise, we’re seen as nothing BUT noise.
Because we are, on the whole, good, honest people…. [and have been trained to be ever more so for a few decades via TV and movies.])
I think the film was “Hard Target” – the protagonist cut the rattles off a rattlesnake, then used it in ambush of his pursuers.
Time to stop rattling… In fact, the time for action was LONG ago.
RE: “good, honest people”
Have you ever read, The Moon is Down?
http://home.earthlink.net/~attwoods/moon1.html
It’s short.
Seems to indirectly explain much. Imho.
“Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is about the closest I’ve ever come, I’m afraid.
And I won’t have time to read it at work – but I think I see the direction it is taking, from reading Chapter 1. 😉
The problem is, the Rabbits always out number the Coyotes / Hyenas / Gnolls. (ref: Gnoll Credo).
And those Rabbits believe THEY know best, because they eat the grass, which grows back… So, everything will be fine, as soon as the coyote learns to eat grass.
It’s RENEWABLE, they say.
The Rabbits don’t realize, the farmer (like the coyotes) sees the Rabbits as a renewable resource, too.
The Coyotes – when referring to Government – are just the counterpart to the farmer. Whether Pigs or Humans, there is no difference.
As Coyotes, referring to US? We WISH there were fewer Rabbits. We feel claustrophobic, with so many Rabbits trying to rule our lives. And if we step outside our assigned “Predator-safe zone” (Usually a cubicle), we get slapped around by a farmer with a gun. (Whether he uses the gun or not depends on our luck that day.)
We are realizing we’ve been taught to live on our knees – and we struggle to stand.
We realize our fangs and claws may not individually match the might of the Farmer’s gun – but there are thousands of us to one of him. And there are ways to increase our chances of survival, too.
The farmer thinks that by increasing his gun’s capacities, he will cow us.
We’re getting beyond the point of caring, though – and that will be dangerous.
Better to “die biting the throat” than to die in our own squallor, when the Government (Farmer) decides our usefulness is done. “Welcome to Retirement. Since you have nothing left to give, we have a gift for you: Chew this pill carefully, and you will have no worries for the rest of your life.” And in 30 seconds or so, when the cyanide has done its job, we are no longer eligible for medicaire, medicaid, social security, et al – and we are disposed of in whatever way the Farmer decides, whether it’s Silent Hill or Soylent Green.
Wait until the tech allows for implantable computers, controlling our emotions. Wireless feeds to control serotonin and dopamine in the brain? Or to ensure we buy the “right” products, with the income we are “allowed” to keep? Imagine if, as we’ve discussed here, a car tracks your driving, and the signs ensure you receive speeding tickets or such.
Now, a little burst of Adrenaline as you pass through the town limits – and your foot goes down on the gas, and BINGO, town revenue is up…
100 years ago, there was no powered flight.
50 years ago (?), space travel was impossible, the realm of FICTION, not even Science Fiction.
30 years ago, cloning was an impossibility.
20 years ago, no cell phones.
10 years ago, no internet.
Today? My cell phone has more processing power than what was used to put men on the moon. It has more power than computers that took up ROOMS. It can also be used to track and surveil me without my knowledge, and permission to do so is actually included in the user contracts. So when I accept service, even if I never GET service – the phone company, NSA, Google, etc can track where I go, who I am near, what I say and type, and even make me “salivate at the sound of a bell” (Text notification, email update, phone call ring tone).
Who is to say that the immunizations we are given as children aren’t now focusing on breeding out “undesirable” traits? Things like independence, intelligence, impulse control, logic, reasoning, future-orientation, resource hoarding, long-term memory…
Who knows what else? Btu increase impulse-control issues; increase aggressiveness; increase current-time focus / immediate gratification; increase dopamine addiction / dopamine receptors…
You get the idea. Make a pliable workforce.
I’m a performance engineer – not a luddite – but I see where this WILL lead, if we don’t put our feet down now. (Not a collective foot, either.)
At the point where chips can be directly implanted into humans… We’re THERE, BTW. Just, can’t yet make the chip interface directly with the biology, it still needs outside processing. If the chips can be implanted and interact with our biology, we WILL become organic machines, and if we wait until humans have a “watershed moment” – we’ll wait forever.
We’ve been waiting for decades already.
And of note: the Germans at Dachau were “good, honest citizens” too. Morality is just another lie. (I know I’ll make enemies with that – but it speaks for itself, you can see things quite clearly when you keep in mind the situational ethics of the human animal. Why pretend we are what we are not? Be honest about it, and when there is a need – say, when the social contract has been violated endlessly, “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security” – then it’s time to respond in kind, we cannot be bound [hog-tied] by the social contract while our enemy beats us with impunity. Take. The Gloves. OFF.)
As to “The Moon is down”: Will read and respond when possible. Should be a good read.
” if we don’t put our feet down now. (Not a collective foot, either.) ”
Exactly, the whole thing is built on a premise that the averages have to be woken up. That Joe, Jill, Sally, Jim have to be on our side to have freedom. However, we know from reality that Netwonian physics, relativity, all mathematical theoroms, etc were not founded upon the majority waking up to them? Truth eventually becomes self apparent even to the doddling idiots who always just move in any direction of the least resistance. I view the averages as a bit of a Brownian motion, bumping back and forth seemingly without direction, but in a pipe they can actually still be moving in an average direction. The invisible hand of Adam Smith market place, is only invisible to the average doddling idiot. To the makers of enterprise there is nothing invisible about it at all. It starts with the innovator saying hey I need X and nobody has X, I’ll make X and then see if anyone else wants X. Or if X already exists then the innovator might see a way to make it cheaper or better giving him a natural monoply to make more/better for less. To the doddering average consumer it just appears that the “market” has “invisibly” produces a “miracle”. Everything is therefore by individuals, but the most important hand is connected to those with acumen, patiences, purpose where nothing is invisible but rather dedicated by effort. That person is the producer of society. He is a minority. He always was a minority, there is nothing that has changed in the last decade to this fact as compared to the last 1000 years of humanity. The producer can and will change anything he so puts his mind to. Nor does he need violence to acheive the end results, only purpose of his mind and his effort and time.
Regards,
HR
Productive results not only don’t need violence, that violence is in fact the opposite of productive should be stated. Its sad that so many people believe the myth that our revolution required men with guns to defeat men with guns over there. Violence may at first hand seemed to have founded “our freedoms” in the revolutionary war. But look at what that one seed planted has reaped in the years afterward in this nation. The civil war and the world wars and all the little skirmishes of the U.S. thereafter. How many men have died and how many cities have been razed simply because the other side felt they were like the patriots starting the motherland of a free nation? Once one equates violence with positive results the outcome is increasingly used until “might makes right” is finally assumed by the idiots (masses). That people incorrectly assume that because you were outgunned that you are in fact not as righteous, because we all know that if the founders were both gunned and successful that meant righteousness.
Now you might not think that simply, but unfortunately the majority of idiots do think like that. And that single seed that the “revolutionary war” gave us “our freedoms”. Means that violence is justified and productive for some causes (same seed sowed), when in fact violence is never justified nor productive. And I’m not saying that self defense of the individual is violence or one defending himself from organized mobs or bad individuals, but rather when large groups of goons descend on one another in columns or worse on innocents then you can always say that is in fact this is counterproductive and a loss of industry, production, creation, virtue, and freedom. Hollywood has created a lie in propagating that some wars are valid and violence is good when done by the good guys. Violence is destruction period. Violence is immoral so it can be nothing else but destruction(s). We need to try something different this time then in the moment calling for people to start shooting each other, and that is because this freedom movement is righteous and productive. Done right and future generations will marvel at you.
Had a good reply; IE did something weird (yes, I use Internet Exploder at work, in a FINANCE-based business, of all places!)
However: I don’t claim moral high gorund, nor do I claim that violence is good. I only claim it is an effective deterrent against those who pretend what they are doing is NOT violence, because they only “pass the laws” that their “consitutents” want.
Most people who would use this particular hammer would, in fact, search for their own power as a result.
I have a history of being hammered; I therefore demand the largest hammer available, and I do not fear using it, freely, excessively, even – but once the field is cleared, I can go home and be left the f*ck alone.
I don’t want leadership, I don’t want people kissing my @$$, I don’t want fame – I just want to be able to conduct my life WITHOUT a million people telling me how I should conduct MY business, and what I should willingly give to the public till in order to conduct that business.
I read the Declaration of Independence today. Noted that our government is guilty of EVERY ONE of the grievances listed. Noted on another forum, where someone was talking about the Declaration and how Abraham Lincoln used it as the foudnation of his political thought, that – in the First Inaugural Address they had quoted – he CONTRADICTED the right of a people to rebel and form their own government.
(See http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130805/08323124067/lawmakers-issued-license-plates-that-make-them-invisible-to-traffic-cams-parking-tickets.shtml#c666)
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”
I add the bold here. Since Lincoln was such an ardent supporter of the Declaration, he… Used force to quash a revolution that was made up of states who had decided they must be seperate from the over-reaching FedGov of the time.
“The Moon is Down” (Finished reading it – great when the boss isn’t here, I even got a day’s worth of work done first) was great from that perspective – it did show how these people will respond to any given situation: more force, more brutality, more viciousness, more death.
That is how their indoctrinated mind works, and it inevitably leads back to their “moral crusade” to tell US what is in our own best interests, even if they don’t know us, or what our interests (good, bad, indifferent) might be.
This is where I WILL sell out the long game, I WILL endorse a “violent plan, executed immediately” rather than a perfect plan in two weeks. (Parody of a Patton quote, IIRC. He wrote of a good plan, executed immediately, trumping a perfect plan in a few weeks.)
“The People” isn’t who this plan is aimed at; rather, it is aimed at those who are intentionally making (similar) bad (short-sighted) decisions, so we can make them think twice about just selling us out, yet again.
That short-term $10 mil gain is kind of trivial if there’s an ultralight or glider dropping sticks of dynamite on your summer home once a month…
Especially if it’s summer, and you’re AT HOME… 😉
At the very least, should it happen to two or three of the “movers and shakers,” they might resign from the game.
That’s an improvement…
I’ll let others work out the long-term plan. They must also be aware, however, that the SAME THING will happen to their perfect plan: It will eventually be overrun or overtaken by the STOOPID people, who will see the same thing: Might makes Right.
It WILL happen, over, and Over, and OVER AGAIN… Humans must escape this earth to evolve any further, and our ersatz “betters” don’t want THAT to happen…
There’s no profit in independence. No profit in cures. No profit in peace. Better to foster addictions, market symptom-blockers, and profit off war.
Since we MUST buy auto (and health) insurance – how long before we MUST also buy a specific car, or MUST buy specific housing, or food, or health care “Options” (Like, “unplug me if I’m vegetative” clauses.)
Without a violent reponse now and again, how does the mule know it’s going the wrong direction?
That’s their view of us. Morally reprehensible, but we’re long past the time SOMEONE should’ve lit a back-fire to contain the problem. The sheep just want to be taken care of….
Wish I could be that naive and simple, but some things weren’t in the cards – so let the sheep have their illusions, and make the wolves worry at night, and all will be well in the long run. The most noble aspirations (NAACP comes to mind) will be corrupted soon enough, once someone realizes how to monetize and profit from it.
History will take care of the details.
there is profit in independence, cures, peace. but profit is slippery. volatile. moves. can’t be counted on to just keep filling the same hands. rents are what these you describe wanted, got. they love the smell of stability in the morning…you know that gasoline smell…smells like victory to ’em.
100 years ago, there was powered flight, both lighter and heavier than air – there were even regular commercial passenger flights on Zeppelins within Germany. 50 years ago, space travel was not only possible, there had already been men in space as well as unmanned satellites (and the practical possibility had been clear since at least the V2 war rocket nearly 70 years ago). And I was using the internet well over 10 years ago.
Internet? Been using it since late 1989.
All you people who didn’t know the joys of gopher and anonymous ftp and usenet 😉
BAH! Tried to check the dates in my head, I came up a bit short.
They say memory is the first thing to go… I can’t remember the second… 😉
As to my meanings WRT powered flight – just checked, and Wright Brothers were 1903. I thought it was after 1913. (Forgot Zeppelins. Dumbass. 😛 )
I probably was off by about a decade on EACH DATE. Very depressing. (And first Zeppelin flight is listed as 1900, so even more than a decade there, and the patents existed before THAT.)
And Yuri was 1961, so – 50 years = 1963, should’ve been 52 years. 😉
So, OK – i’ll need to do more fact checking before posting. But I DO need to do my actual job, sometimes! 😉
I would say you are still off on space flight, not only because Sputnik 1 was well before Yuri Gagarin but also because the criterion you were using was whether it was realistic as opposed to fiction, not whether it had actually happened. And by 1943 – twenty years before your chosen date – people knew for sure that the 1920s ambitions of the early rocketeers could deliver access to space using their methods, because the V2 work had already got far enough to show that by then. It was a Prince Henry the Navigator thing, not a Christopher Columbus thing.
The IRS fine for not having health insurance is quite far below the yearly cost of health insurance. Anyone who wants to scam the system can pay their fine to the IRS (or have it deducted from their refund) then when sick go to the ER for free medical care (since it is illegal to turn them away) or sign up for health insurance (since you can’t be rejected for a pre-existing condition).
I think that this is still possible but probably won’t be long before the loophole is closed if it hasn’t been closed already.
Watch for the rise of a third party by 2016. Those in power are planning for it. The sheep will follow that new “master” as well. Independent thinking has been “schooled” out of us, and most will follow the culture they are given. I offer Dancing with the Stars, Justin Bieber, the less-is-more Green Movement and all major media entertainment themes. All methodically planned for you by your betters. Anything to prevent an understanding what is really happening to them. Now where did I park my 55 Chevy?
When the system that is “allows” a third party then you know the fix is already in. I say it’s long past time for secession/revolution, and you can probably guess that the powers that be will yell like howler monkeys over any “ideas” about that. Ironic given that they seem more than willing to instigate and support revolutions and uprisings amongst the wee folk all around the globe just not here.
In those other places there is profit….
Here, it’s a little close to home.
Republicans are just Democrats that haven’t gotten out of first gear, same direction but different speed. It’s been that way since the 20’s (check out the floor speeches of Congressman Louis T. McFadden in the 30’s). At least more of the sheep are waking up.
Hi Gary,
Yup – only, I think they’re worse because they’re deluded – and (or) dishonest. It’s their prattling on about “our freedoms” – while systematically taking them away – that drives me up the wall.
Yup Eric. It’s all a kabuki dance to keep riots from happening. At least until they pull the great economic hand grenade pin. As Yoda says – watch the derivative markets.
Eric, I understand the sentiments. At least liberals are honest about the fact that they favor big government and social engineering. Whereas conservatives like to pretend that they favor limited government, personal freedom and self-reliance, but then happily ramp up the police state, surveillance state and wars of aggression when in office. In addition to being authoritarian police statists, most conservatives are also welfare statists. They would just prefer that more of the benefits go to groups such as seniors, farmers and veterans, rather than inner-city minorities, welfare mothers etc. Many conservatives are in denial of the fact that their core principle or guiding belief is not personal freedom but order, tradition and authority.
But liberals are at least as deluded and hypocritical. They pretend to favor civil liberties and human rights, only to look the other way when Obama ramps up the surveillance/security state even more so than under Bush.
Dear Gary,
“same direction but different speed”
Well put.
To show how far we’ve fallen over time, consider this statement by a card-carrying liberal from the sixties.
“The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”
— former Vice President Hubert Humphrey
http://commongunsense.net/2011/01/hubert-humphrey-in-1960/
See the PDF
The Freedom Feens just did a couple of shows that focus on the hypocrisy of both parties. These guys are smart and funny. Definitely worth listening to:
Republicans are Samuel Adams before an election, and Alexander Hamilton after an election – live radio archive
Democrats are John F. Kennedy before an election, and John McCain after an election – live Feens radio archive
Dear lberns,
The two titles pretty much tell the story!
There’s an expression in Chinese that deals with precisely this opportunistic mindset
換了位置就換了腦袋
Huan le wei zi jiu huan le nao dai
Once one is in a different position, one changes one’s mind
Another reason government can never really work. The temptation to rationalize one’s own abuse of power once one has seized it is simply too great.
When I talk to statists, depending on who I’m talking to, I’m often accused of being on Team A/B. I turnaround, tell them they can take their false dichotomy and shove it up their state worshiping authoritarian collectivist control freak asses. And, that to me, the only difference between Team A and Team B is in degree, not kind. Both want to hold the state’s guns. Both just want to load it with their bullets.
That’s because you are dealing with mental retards.
Ray,
Really….
Who else is there to play with these days in Amerikastan?
I’ve long ago tossed aside the left/right, liberal/conservative illusion. There’s only Team THEM, government and it’s foot soldiers, and Team US, we who recognize the scam, and nothing else.
Well said, Eric. The Republicans could have begun dismantling all of this crap when they had control of the government under Bush the Dumber. Instead they gave us prescription drug benefits and No Child Left Behind. With conservatives like that, who needs liberals?
I’m convinced the best course of action is to ridicule the state at all times and in all places, and encourage everybody you know to do the same. When we start to see the crowd booing, mocking, and laughing their asses off when hired killers in silly government costumes reverently strut their brightly-colored scraps of cloth in the local parade, then we’ll know we’re getting somewhere.
“Any doubt about the future of the United States and the direction the country was heading was quickly eliminated in the election of 2012. Most of us were hoping the first four years of the Obama administration was a fluke in American history. That his election was only possible because of a childlike naivety on the part of an ignorant electorate. That the voting public, temporarily star-struck, opted to vote with their emotions and not their heads. And that after four years of the worst economic performance of any president since FDR, people would wake up, grow up, realize the error of their ways, and vote like mature adults the next time around.
Unfortunately most of us were wrong.
With the election of 2012 the American people have made it very clear which path they wish to take the United States down – socialism. Whether cognizant of this fact or completely ignorant about it, it doesn’t matter, people voted the way they did. They could still be fawning over President Obama like a teenage girl or Chris Matthews. They could be the typical voter who votes for socialism because it sounds “nice.” They could be the galactically ignorant soccer mom who believes no amount of other people’s money is too good for her children. Or they could be fully informed socialists knowing damn well what they’re doing confiscating other people’s money. The reason why doesn’t matter, all that matters “is what is.” ” – Clarey, Aaron. Preface. “Enjoy the Decline”
Maybe needing a job to vote wasn’t such a terrible idea.
It sickens me, to observe how people think, the collectivism mentality that is. I was reading online, about how when the Affordable Care Act goes into affect, that the state of Florida’s health premiums will rise by ~35%. Most of this cost increase will be borne by young males. One of the comments on this article was: “Time to pay your fair share.” referring to poor 20 somethings, with kids. Comment had 53 likes and 4 dislikes.
People should be responsible for their kids, I agree with that, but this “fair share” mentality…
This is the way people think and this is the future. People aren’t for the classic American dream anymore, the PURSUIT of happiness. They’d rather everyone miserable than some happy… but I guess misery makes them happy. So they’re just adjusting their ‘interpretation’ of the classic American dream.
People now are nationalistic, collectivist-ic (is that a word?), and socialistic. I know, as you guys have taught me, that these are all one in the same.
Obama won with the help of massive voter fraud. But the point still remains, he would not have been in a competitive position at all if the nation had not changed significantly. In the past a socialist president presiding over an economy in that state would have suffered a landslide defeat.
It certainly didn’t help that Republicans nominated Romney/McCain in 2012/2008. They nominated ridiculously RINO Republicans to compete. And in 2012 they decapitated the only true small government candidate by throwing the media blackout on Ron Paul and stealing and mauling his delegates on the RNC convention floor. The RNC deserves all the derision I can throw at them, but since I can’t steer much money away from them, they really don’t care.
And before McSame, there was The Chimp – who more than any single individual is responsible for the flowering police state as well as the economic destruction of the economy.
Damn straight. What torques my jaw are all the comments I’ve heard for decades about how “Bush inherited Clintons mistakes” and other rot-gut excuses. Then I got to hear how Obama inherited Bush’s mistakes and the cycle continues. The fuckers are one and the same.
I should say past decade…. though through the decades the excuses are the same while the talking sock-puppet liars simply rotate through.
Obama was (s)elected Sock Puppet-in-Chief long before Election 2008 was a thought in anyone’s head. You can also bet that his successor has already been (s)elected for 2016 – assuming,that is, that TPTB don’t decide to end the whole (s)election charade and impose tyranny by direct force.
No. Democracy is very important to the terrorist scum who claim to own us. It makes for a world of obedient slaves more so than their counterfeit money racket. Combine the two, and they own everyone.
” I was reading online, about how when the Affordable Care Act goes into affect, that the state of Florida’s health premiums will rise by ~35%. Most of this cost increase will be borne by young males. One of the comments on this article was: “Time to pay your fair share.” referring to poor 20 somethings, with kids. Comment had 53 likes and 4 dislikes.”
Sheesh. I don’t know how forcing the young to subsidise the health care of the old constitutes “pay your fair share”. And how is it fair that today’s older generations who were not forced to take out insurance to subsidise the old when they were younger should now expect today’s young to be forced into the same insurance pool to subsidise them?
Dear Nick,
A good point. Worth factoring in to the moral equation.
It’s a dilemma. People who were coerced into paying in are not wrong to consider it restitution by accepting payouts.
But a problem arises. Both Peter and Paul were robbed. Now Peter has a chance to get restitution. But if he takes it, there may not be any left for Paul’s restitution. What to do?
I’m not sure I know the answer.
I do know that GOVERNMENT and those clovers and sheeple who advocate such robbery created the problem in the first place.
Same (loathsome) principle as the one behind Social Security: Make the old dependent on the young; impoverish the young so that when they’re old, they’ll be even more dependent.
With government cashing in on the lot.
Government is just the armed muscle of the crime cartel. All of the stolen money( taxes) is transfered mostly to large corporations and banks; who are the real criminals in all this. The citizens are not the government, even if they support the government. They are stupid, ignorant, and clovers, but they are also victims in the same manner as you. They have been conned into believing that they can get something for nothing because all of the leaders of all institutions tell them they can.
You live in a cesspool and you will get shit on you no matter what you do. I think that if you can get some of your stolen money back from the thieves, then that is what you should do as an obligation to yourself and your family.
My sentiments exactly. It is not fair at all. It’s hypocritical. The mentality is disgusting. I’m glad you agreed.
It’s called blind selfishness after being conditioned to accept it as normal. My folks and theirs never had to pay the exhorbinant tax rates and fees that saddle me today. They actually could save and build for the future.
Unfortunately the ball was rolling downhill LONG before 2012. It just became more visible when they appointed the great teleprompter in chief..
Yup.
Republican worship of The Chimp – who more than any modern president ramped up the police state and dismantled what was left of the Constitutional Republic and replaced it with a vicious species of corporatism – being Exhibit A.
remember the chimp’s words re the Constitution: ‘it’s just a goddamned piece of paper.’
yeah, R’s are soooooo much better than D’s (a delusion in the minds of those who support the R’s, the D’s suffering under the same delusion in their support).
Eric, et al,
As bad as the Bush 2 junta was, it was simply a continuation of awful tyranny that began in 1789, accelerated in 1861, 1913 and during all the years of FDR. Reagan was an abomination, despite the love he receives from the usual suspects. WRT SS, what many people forget is that during the Clinton years, the budget was “balanced” by diverting SS payments into the general fund. This whole charade is going to implode soon enough. With Obamacare coming next year, a lot of people of all ages are in for a rude awakening. In any case, ALL governments are based on state slavery of “citizens”. If you doubt this, undertake a little thought experiment. First, find somebody who advocates lots of collectivist programs (right wing or left wing does not matter). Ask them if a good definition of slavery = the case where an individual human being is owned by another party. If he or she agrees to that operational definition, then stipulate that freedom is the opposite of slavery and therefore = self-ownership. If said party agrees to those two operational definitions, then it follows that every government stipulates that it has the legitimate power to enslave it’s “citizens” by the very nature of its existence. WRT the U.S.A., I know of no “citizen” who agreed to this…it’s simply considered an implicit contract. This is why I agree with Spooner in his principles laid out in No Treason, the Constitution of No Authority. That social contract is a fiction. Back to your discussion…sorry for the diversion…..
just so. the con-stitution was a trojan golden calf. the bill of rights was taxidermy. idol creation, worship. moses got a substitute play going – mises still wanders the desert.
Hey Brandon,
As a young guy today, you’re in a particularly shitty position. When I was in my 20s and building my career – and my finances – I was able to say “no thanks” to preposterously expensive – for a young, healthy single guy – “health insurance.” Instead of having a couple hundred bucks deducted from my paycheck every month, I was able to take that money and save it/invest it. Over time, this amounted to thousands of dollars – which in turn helped me to be in a position to buy my my first house, which was only doable because I had the down payment. Which I had – because I wasn’t forced to buy the insurance mafia’s “product” – which I rationally calculated was something I could do without.
Most young people don’t have health insurance for the same reason they don’t have life insurance: It’s a stupid thing to spend money on at that point in your life.
You’re young, you’re in good health. The odds of needing more than over the counter cold medicine during your 20s are extremely low.
You might break a leg. But even something like that it very unlikely, in terms of probabilities. And if you have saved some money, you’ll be able to pay for such things with cash, if they do happen.
Insurance is a con. For most people, most of the time, it’s a terrible waste of money.
When it is made mandatory at gunpoint, it’s something worse than just a con.
The best thing a 20 something could do for their country and own future would be to sick your middle finger high enough in the air so Washington can see it. Drag out that old Constitution and Bill of Rights then shove it up their ass. IMHO from an old guy.
Forcing us to support a “private” industry is most certainly a con/crime. Just like the bailouts. All wealth redistribution is the same. I will have to adapt… still going to try my best to stay out of the healthcare system.
I’m curious though, if the universal health care will cover cosmetic surgeries?
Brandonjin – I’m particularly interested in whether the new heathcare / eugenics program will cover plexi-ectomies. Most voters, welfare recipients, flag wavers and other true believers are in dire need of this surgery. This is the surgical procedure where one has a clear polycarbonate window installed in their abdominal wall so they can see where they’re going with their head up their…
LOL. I should have read your whole comment before trying to research what a “plexiectomy” was. Doesn’t sound too far-fetched though.
Hi again Eric, et al,
The whole medical/insurance/big pharma complex could not thrive in a free market and that’s why coercion is required in order for those dung pushers to exist. The best advice anyone of any age could receive and take to heart is to take responsibility for his or her own health. For me as an individual, that means mostly flushing the conventional wisdom down the toilet and avoiding things like statin drugs, the standard american diet and processed food….and not asking my fellow humans to subsidize my choices. As always, YMMV and OALA, EHOATAS.
it could, would, thrive. it just couldn’t be consolidated, locked into an iron fist…which is the opposite of thriving, actually. flexner is the name at the top of the plan to amputate free market flexibility from medicine.
“flexnerian inflexibility” rings, just like “the liberty bell” did….
I think what happened in the election of 2012 was the electorate voting for the politician’s intentions, rather than the politician’s results. That certainly is nothing new.
Great article. A lot of crucial points that need to preached and practiced as well.
A minor correction is needed in 3rd paragraph –
“That is the essence of thing.” – probably should be –
That is the essence of things – or That is the essence of the thing.
Another correction:
If I produced them; they are my obligation – and one else is obligated to provide funds to assist me in raising them.
should be
If I produced them; they are my obligation – and no one else is obligated to provide funds to assist me in raising them.
(it’s the 10th paragraph from the end)
– A Christian who pledges his allegiance to a kleptocracy is no Christian at all. That would be like saying, I voted for Jesus to be killed more mercifully by hanging. Choosing the lesser of two evils in not a safe moral harbor, Americans who vote and accept the spoils of this evil kleptocracy should expect to find themselves burning in Hell in the afterlife. The only moral act is the resistance and rejection of evil.
Another correction
Choosing the lesser of two evils in not a safe moral harbor,
Should be: Choosing the lesser of two evils is not a safe moral harbor,
Gotcha 😉
twoshay!
California approved gun safe
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=34a_1317870586
I have often thought that in most developed nations the role of the so-called ‘right’ of politics is to merely shadow or support the ‘left’. The powers that be favor big government and statist authoritarianism because it is the ultimate monopoly. But a certain proportion of the population simply cannot swallow the leftist cool-aid unadulterated. So they have to be offered some kind of slightly more palatable alternative, but one that will not really upset the existing power structures and vested interests. The right therefore offers a slightly more palatable version of a similar product, but one that really just gets you to the same destination of serfdom and tyranny via a different route.
Looking at a lot of the silly tactical mistakes that conservatives make and how often they hand power to the left, it is hard not to believe sometimes that this is an orchestrated plot and they are not deliberately sinking their own ships.
Nick that’s precisely correct. You’ve intuited their actual plan.
Sometime when you have a spare week or two, read Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope–all 1200 pages of it. He was a Georgetown historian whom the “Elite” trusted in their inner circle, and was given access to their archives.
The false Left/Right paradigm was designed as a safety valve; every four years the marks–that’s us–could “throw the bums out”. They’d introduce issues of no importance to their plan; divisive issues of gender orientation, race, meaningless political distinctions meant to divide and divert.
But their overall agenda–statism–would march on unfettered.
And here we are; authoritarianism in all its splendor.
Dear Nick, meth,
I used to discount “conspiracy theories.”
Over time however, I’ve come to the realization that many “conspiracy theories” are not “conspiracy theories” but “conspiracy facts.”
I used to assume that the creeping NWO was merely a symptom of an informal “conspiracy of shared values” that motivated independent but congruent actions.
Now, with more info about Bilderberg and other global elite “summits,” I’ve been forced to rethink my former assumptions.
Yes Virginia, there are such things as “conspiracies.” It’s not even necessary to use the ominous sounding term.
Call them by more innocuous name. Plans and planners, rather than conspiracies and conspirators. Doesn’t change the facts, which are just as ominous either way.
Hemlock by any other name, would kill just as quickly.
Hi Bevin,
In re “conspiracy” –
The typical person equates truth with “that which has been said is so by the mainstream media and by official historical hagiographies.”
Put another way: Truth can be suppressed by dint of numbers. If “most people” haven’t “heard of” something – for example, an alternative theory about the collapse of WTC7 or the crash of TWA 800 – then whatever a “few people” believe to the contrary – regardless of evidence – is obviously not true.
It is a “conspiracy” theory.
Dear Eric,
Right you are!
The Sheeple never clear their minds and examine the raw evidence. They never start over with a clean slate. Their idea of a reality check is to check with the Joneses.
I’ve read many an editorial like that on “democratic Taiwan.” They essentially argue that “since we live in a democracy, sound policy must be determined by consulting mainstream opinion.”
Talk about shameless pandering to “consensus reality.” Talk about your “Emperor’s New Clothes.”
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. most people flatter themselves. They assume they are independent thinkers. They assume that “Had I had lived in antiquity, I would have been among the free-thinking iconoclasts, not a conformist member of the herd.”
WRONG!!!
The fact that they parrot the CW today, confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt, that had they lived in the past, they would have been among those demanding that witches be burned at the stake.
The only people living today, who might have been free-thinking iconoclasts in the past, are the tiny minority of hardcore libertarians who have the guts in today’s political environment to thumb their noses at mainstream CW.
The fact is most of today’s “intellechwals” would be exactly like the unregenerate hacks at the National Review who persecuted Joe Sobran.
Dear Nick, meth,
Thinking back, it was all right under our noses all the time.
It was a giant jigsaw puzzle, lying on the floor in front of us. We, I, merely failed to put enough of the pieces together to get an inkling of the larger picture “hidden in plain sight.”
9/11 for me, a former architect, was a turning point.
I belatedly realized that “Hey, wait just one cotton-picking minute! Structurally and architecturally, the three WTC towers could not possibly have collapsed the way they did from building fires! What the hell was I thinking?”
This happened to many architects and engineers.
To wit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrjcXOJIWw0
There’s another (and IMO perfectly valid) train of thought on this: vote for the most socialist SOB, take as many benefits as you can, and stop contributing to drive the entire fragile structure over the brink; push the gas to the floor, so to speak. After all, you’re just stealing stolen goods. Otherwise this thing’ll linger long past our lifetime.
After 30 working years of being a parasite host, it’s becoming more and more tempting to move to rural Alabama (already have the property), get a mobile home, raise food, and work part time at WalMart. And collect welfare, unemployment, and medical care.
Dear Michael,
Yeah. That’s why Larken Rose “endorsed” Mitt Romney. He was thinking along the same lines.
Bring the whole corrupt edifice down ASAP, instead of letting better people help it survive longer.
Sort of like with Taggart Transcontinental in Atlas Shrugged. Francisco D’anconia had to sell Dagny Taggart on the idea of letting it all go.
Great points, Eric , about Republicans, Democrats, and the Tea Party. I was a Republican for 25 years before I woke up to the realities in politics back in ’08. The Republicans pushing through bailouts in the fall of ’08 slapped me wide awake.
Eric, I think you should reconsider your position on taking Social Security benefits. Ron Paul takes his, with the thought that one less dollar in Washington’s hands is one less dollar available for wars abroad on others and at home on citizens. We all drive on roads built with funds taken from you, me, and other taxpayers. Sure, unlike accepting Social Security benefits, it is impossible to ‘decline’ to use public roads. But, I think bleeding the system is worthwhile. And, so is throwing a monkey wrench in the works: I always opt for the pat down when flying, instead of going through the Chertoff scanners. And, I am now putting ‘terrorist’ words like ‘pressure cooker’ in post-scripts to my e-mails, to add to the NSA’s e-mail inbox requiring further analysis/human intervention.
Just food for thought, sir!
Dear John,
A pretty convincing argument for taking back what one was forced to pay in can be made on the following basis:
1. One must openly oppose SS as a matter of principle.
2. When taking SS payments, one must stipulate that one is only taking back what one was coerced into paying in, that one considers it restitution, not an “entitlement.”
3. One must cease taking them once the amount one has received matches what one was coerced into paying in.
Ayn Rand argued more or less this way. She argued that the paradox was that those who oppose it have a moral right to it, whereas paradoxically those who advocate it do not. She argued that the paradox was not of the Objectivists’ making.
As I see it, suppose a mugger took your wallet at gunpoint, but paused, took out some of the bills and gave them back to you. Would you refuse to take them, on principle? I wouldn’t.
Also, the SS system is evil. If libertarians who oppose it refuse restitution, the system will survive longer. Taking the payments will bring the system down faster. It will make fewer resources available for other evils, including the IRS, the ATF, the NSA.
I think Eric’s position is valid, but I’m not sure it’s the ONLY morally justifiable stance.
3. One must cease taking them once the amount one has received matches what one was coerced into paying in.
What is this amount? Numerical devalued dollars? Dollars adjusted for inflation? Dollars adjusted for inflation plus statutory interest? It’s pretty much moot to me, I’ll have to be the world’s oldest man to break even in devalued numerical dollars the way the math is going now.
Dear Brent,
Just addressing the moral principles.
How would one calculate it? God only knows.
@ Bevin
Assumption: Social security is an unfunded liability, and it now exists only as a kind of Ponzi scheme. (Those currently receiving SS payments receive them out of the funds of those who are currently paying in to the SS system. We face a larger proportion of recipients to payers in the immediate future, so we term it an unfunded liability, a mere euphemism for a Ponzi scheme.)
With that said, how does taking your piece and no more become morally acceptable? If my assumption is the correct one, your share was paid to someone else long ago. So demanding your piece is pointless because it is in reality a mixture of many other peoples’ pieces. Your mugger example makes no sense in the context of your argument. Of course, everyone would take their money back if they could. But reality is much different. Test this scenario: You and another man are both trying to retrieve your separately-owned stolen properties from the same thief; but during the process you discover that your property was pawned to pay the thief’s bookie for a previous gambling debt, but the other man’s property was found in full at the thief’s lair. Since your stolen property is now gone, do you have a legal or moral right to demand that the other man pay you ‘your share’ out of his recovered property? Extend the number of people who found their property to fifty; do you have a legal or moral right to demand anything from them, even if that means their ‘contribution’ to your loss is very small. The problem distills to this question: should another man be forced to liquidate his own assets to pay for another man’s losses, which is exactly the point Mr. Peters made in his article. The problem with government payments is that you’re assured that your recovered ‘share’ is most certainly the stolen property of other men; so what you assert to be a solution is not a moral or a logical one, but violence you allow until you get your share back, which if extended to everyone is violence in perpetuity. I don’t see that as a morally viable option.
“When taking SS payments, one must stipulate that one is only taking back what one was coerced into paying in, that one considers it restitution, not an “entitlement.” ”
taking back from who?
this mugger does not give you back a few of your scrip, he gives you a few of someone else’ scrip. like madoff did. taking it, continuing to take it, after madoff has been exposed, is beyond enablement – its conspiracy. good fences make good neighbors, but good fences – of stolen property – are never good neighbors…and when there are too many of that ilk, as now, all that fencing goes to creation of corral enclosures of milk & meat bovines. and, having your property stolen is not “paying in”, ever; beware the euphemistic slope.
as for busting the QE (e stands for extortion) massive digit generator…remoras are symbiots (alliterative license), not patriots…only Barnes can kill Barnes (as charlie sheen seems to have been busily doing to charlie sheen…); the correct course for elias & chris types is awol & non-participation (but central propaganda’s central casting & central plotting would be hard pressed to make box office with that…).
John – Although your argument has merit and as of yet, I am not faced with the choice of privation or going on the dole, I agree with Eric. We all to often try to sit on the fence. But the fence actually has a razor’s edge to it. There is no grey area, no middle ground. Your are either a liar or not. You are either a thief or not. You are either on the dole, albeit a previously looted dole receiver in many cases, or not. If there is any way possible that I can avoid “collecting” socialist security I will avoid it…despite all that has been looted from me since 1976.
With respect to roads, at least here in Missour-ah anyway, that money comes from the “gas tax” (and by extension diesel fuel as well). I can avoid that tax, if I want to, by bicycling, riding a draft animal or even riding “Shank’s mare” (walking). Avoidable taxes are the least noxious. I could even go so far as to set up a wood gasifier in the bed of my old “pick-em up truck” and “drive” without incurring the excise. I do not out of convenience, but it yet remains the most Jeffersonian of taxes IMHO, because I could avoid if I so desire.
Now, Eric’s declaration of this false dichotomy most of us see as “partisan politics” in modern Amerika is spot on. As Joshua pointed out, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” When “your” elected representatives dine at the same restaurants, send their kids to the same private schools (Sidwell Friends comes to mind), belong to the same country clubs and civic organizations and frequent the same coat rooms, they are indeed of the same house; Demoplican or Republicrat designations notwithstanding. From their perspective it is truly a system of “Just Us” not justice. And we are their cash cows. It is time to get creative and cut off as much of the teat and the meat as we can to them, in any way that we can. Strive to starve the beast, not to feed it with our consent and participation. Pay cash. Sell a car for $5000? Sell it for two and charge the buyer $3000 for delivery and put that on the title. There isn’t a darned thing they can do about it. Resist at every turn. That’s the real “American way.” Think about it.
Like you i held my nose and tried to influence the Republicrats. I recently joined the RLC http://www.rlc.org/principles The link is to the princeples. I have been enriched by my association with them and now have a chapter in the Repub’s of about 20 like minded PCO’s and citizens and we are exerting our influence.
Hitting the nail on the head: Government IS violence, always has been, always will be.
Here’s an example of what’s wrong:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130805/08323124067/lawmakers-issued-license-plates-that-make-them-invisible-to-traffic-cams-parking-tickets.shtml
Typical. I knew a guy locally(RIP)with an old Nam marine buddy who was the head of the DPS in this region of the state. He did what he wanted since every time he was charged with anything he was let go and the trooper was warned off. When he drove the same vehicle for any length of time he didn’t get stopped regardless of his transgressions…..which were many. Never hurts to be above the law.