Freedom Is Obvious

The Question of Police

2011-12-30T18:26:00.000-08:00

The concept of "police" is an odd one that has been with us but a mere 130 years, give or take. I call it odd because police really have no readily justifiable place in a free society. That police might exist in nations such as Great Britain, NAZI Germany, Stalin's Russia, or Mao's China should not be terribly surprising, for these are all variants of the authoritarian model to which the architects of the American system can be said to have been resolutely set against replicating in the newborn renegade republic.

One may ask why the notion is not fit for free nations. After all, this is all anyone who now lives has ever known. And long before police, we in the USA have had the local sheriffs, so what is the big deal? Police, after all, are there "to protect and serve".

The harm arises along several lines. One of the greatest causes of concern being that police are virtually unaccountable to the citizens to whom they swore an oath of service respectful of their rights. Sheriffs, on the other hand, are elected and serve at the pleasure of the electorate and may be impeached when their conduct steps beyond the bounds of their duly constituted powers.

Another of the profoundly dangerous ways in which the people have come to great harm in their liberties and rights can be found in the quantum shift in the nature of the role police play. While never quite legitimate in any event, the initial primary role of police was that ofpeace keeper rather than as law enforcer. This role, however, began changing during alcohol prohibition, took something of a breather thereafter, and then resumed in the late 1960s, taking larger strides as it steadily shifted away from its originally intended pupose. Since 9/11 the role of police as absolute and unchallengeable enforcers of arbitrary and capricious law has been growing frightfully in its degree and increasingly draconian timbre. In like manner, the penalties and risks to the citizen who asserts his inalienable rights against immoral and criminal police action now often prove potentially and sometimes immediately life threatening.

What is the difference between being a keeper of the peace and a law enforcer? Passive v. active duty. Go back in time and we find the stereotypical beat cop doing his thing and largely minding his own business until such time as an actual call for help or witnessing of a crime occurred. With the exception of large and hopelessly corrupt cities such as Chicago, there were virtually no such things as bands of cops busting down the doors of peaceable citizens. Even in places like Chicago such questionable actions were only taken with warrants issued more or less on probable cause and most often under proper service. So even if Ma Jones in Littletown USA was in fact cooking up some bathtub gin, she was almost certainly safe from police intrusion so long as she did not carelessly disclose her activities. Life went on and people enjoyed something much closer to actual freedom than do we now.

Today we have no peace officers, but rather law enforcement personnel. Their role is fundamentally different and very much at odds with human freedom in that it is not a passive role, but active. Police no longer stand vigilantly, paying attention for signs of actual wrongdoing while respecting the sanctity of their fellows to whom they swore an oath of faithful service and respect - and make no mistake, swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution is precisely an oath to one's fellow citizens. Today, police actively seek ways to intrusively observe, ferret out, and even entrap people engaging in behavior for which arrest may be affected, property confiscated, and hopefully charges made, even if those charges do not ultimately stick.

Also note that the pretexts for arrest and even murder of citizens, which is to say "the law", are invalid at least as often as otherwise. The vast and overwhelming majority of statutes currently on the books have falsely criminalized behaviors that have no relationship to actual, demonstrable crime. The prohibition on possession of certain chemical compounds or botanical substances is not a crime, nor is possession of explosives or firearms. The employment of the services of prostitutes can in no reasonable way be established as crime. At one time, the commission of homosexual acts could earn one a prison term, as could the mere possession of gold bouillon. The list of things that people cannot do or must do is practically endless and police often make use of this vast litany of humanly untrackable prohibitions and mandates as the pretexts for establishing just cause in their furtively positive efforts to find a given individual guilty of something.

Seeking guilt is not the same as protecting from harm. They are, in fact, diametric opposites and this radical alteration in mindset from protector to hunter-killer altered the way in which police view everyone else. In the past, police generally regarded the citizen as their fellow and as an ally to be protected and from whom he might solicit help in a time of need. Today, police view the citizen as a potentially deadly adversary to be mistrusted, feared, and dispatched if their behavior is taken as uncooperative, much less threatening. This is why today we have police shooting children and household pets with continually rising and profoundly disturbing frequency.

Adding insult to injury, police are very rarely called to account for their actions because the standard of judging such actions requires only that they "felt" threatened. Police routinely lie to get what they want and to avoid accountability for criminal behavior. All the more worrisome, prosecutors appear to be content to accept them at their word with no further investigation.

The notion of peace-keeper is itself sufficiently fraught with problems to render it of questionable moral validity. The contemporary role of police as law enforcement hunter-killers is nothing less than the moral moral and functional equivalent of the German gestapo, and this is no exaggeration. When one analyzes the powers and actions of that infamous and scurrilous mob, comparing it with what we have today in America the only real difference is that the police today are notably more bloodthirsty than were their German forebears.

In the 1970s anyone suggesting that police would devolve as they have would have been locked in a padded cell and heavily dosed with anti-psychotic drugs. Nobody would have accepted this as even remotely possible. Today, it is widely accepted as perfectly normal, or at least as unavoidable.

The question this all raises is how to respond. Ask yourself whether this is what you want and if not, what are you prepared to do to help stop it? Make not the error of ignoring the fact that these circumstances lie very near the heart of your ability to exercise the birthright of your liberty.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

Some Clarification on the Nature of Money

2011-11-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

Money is a greatly misunderstood thing, despite the fact that people use it every day. There are many competing theories and opinions regarding money. I will not address these philosophical issues here, but wish only to discuss a few characteristics of money systems that people should know and understand. In the course of my studies I have encountered many commonly held opinions about money the bases of which appear greatly mistaken. There are those who believe, for example, that a return to so-called "honest money" is what we need to bring economies back to good health. As far as such a statement goes I may be able to agree, but they are not sufficient as they fail to define terms. To that some answer with calls for a return to the "gold standard" as if that alone were a sufficient remedy. My goal here is to clarify some of the commonly held misconceptions relating to the basics of money systems. To that end I reproduce here a response I wrote in another forum to a member calling for the collapse of the economic system. In the course of that response I endeavored to clarify a few aspects about monetary systems that many people appear not to understand well, if at all. My responses are the non-boxed passages of text.

Originally Posted by
[Occupy Wall Street] as a whole, is going to destroy the global economy, and [the protesters] don't even care..

Originally Posted by

I hope so. The global economy is a lie as it is anyway.Verily and forsooth do you need to dispense with this opinion, for it is based in sheer and utter madness.

On the whole I would call this close enough to truth on one hand. On the other, however, the lives of billions of people depend on that lie. To hope for the sudden dissolution of this unspeakably corrupt and rigged system of economic empire is to hope for the deaths of perhaps as many has half of those people, perhaps even more. You cannot just tear down this house of cards. It must be taken down piecemeal and at a rate such that the market is sustained so that people do not starve, freeze, and die of disease and violence. Seriously, you and all who think like you had better get clued on this because your families and friends stand to be among those meeting their makers in exquisitely unpleasant ways if this system comes down in a flash-cut.

I fully agree with you that the lie must be put to rest, but in a controlled fashion and not at the velocity that only violent revolution and natural catastrophe provide. Hoping for collapse is likely suicidal and I strongly recommend you think about that very carefully and re-task those hopes to something that is not likely to end up with yourself either dead or dying.

What do you think re-introducing the gold standard would do?

It depends largely on how it would be reintroduced. But yes, even so someone would be taking it in the neck in some way and degree. It is a sore corner into which the money-masters have painted us all. This table could, however, be turned on them with enough determination, support, and a smart strategy backed with an incredibly well contrived plan of action. I am not very optimistic that this has much chance of occurring.

But you know what? it'd be worth it. After the correction took place, prices would drop and the national and world economy would get back on a sure footing as the dollar came to a stable legitimate worth.

After the correction, I would give your chances of being alive not much better than 50%.

In the long run you and your children would have less dollar bills, but each bill would be worth much more and having more buying power.

This may or may not prove the case because the truth will be predicated on how the monetary system were implemented and administered in the wake of such a correction, assuming those of us left were not living in the fifth century. But even if we assume the best happens, which is not really so very likely given a cursory peek at the human record on such matters, what you claim is still irrelevant because the key question upon which "wealth" turns is purchasing power. If I have 1/10 as many dollars but my dollars are worth 10 times more, my net position is not improved and may well be actually worse, depending on how pricing follows the changes in currency. But in the best scenario, I am as wealthy after as I was before. The ONLY way I improve my lot, all else equal (e.g. pricing is perfectly synced with the monetary correction), is if my purchasing power increases. For example, if I have 1/10 as many dollars but each is worth, say, 11 times as much, then I have experienced a ten percent gain in purchasing power in general terms.

But that is not necessarily good news because in that case presumably the same may be said for everyone else. If purchasing rises by ten percent, then prices will rise as demand outstrips supply. The factor that stands to be our salvation here is if spending does NOT rise in proportion to the nominal rise in wealth that such a correction represents. That is, the nominal rise in wealth will strengthen and stabilize the broader economy if people take that incremental rise in wealth and SAVE IT.

The true reason that our fiat currency system has failed is PRECISELY because we SPEND all the money we "print". There isNOTHING wrong with fiat money per sé. The problems arise from mismanagement of such money systems, which reduces them toMERE CURRENCY SYSTEMS. Were the dollar competently and honestly administered, it would be an utterly fabulous store of wealth, at least under nominal living conditions (asteroid doesn't strike earth and so forth). This is what people do not understand about money, even many of those in these forums. The purpose of money is to act as a wealth sink. Its precise form, e.g. coin and paper, are nothing more than mediums of exchange. So long as the amount of that medium accurately reflects the real value it is supposed to represent from one day to another, used toilet paper could serve the purpose. The reason gold has been successful is that it CANNOT BE COUNTERFEITED save by the most difficult means (e.g. tungsten salting). The reason the fiat dollar has been a failure in terms of the stated role of money as a store of value is that the ratio of money units (dollars) to the units of real value represented keeps climbing and this is due almost entirely to the endless pyramiding of newly borrowed funds that has been used to finance our unwillingness to do without. Government funds a billion different programs that produce zero or less return, not to mention endless warring which represents the ultimate example of the glazier's fallacy. Banks have borrowed endlessly to provide, propagate, and perpetuate economically unsound financial instruments (e.g. most derivatives, as well as the various "bubbles") via the conduits of the various investing operations. They provide the means to investment companies to in turn provide to end customers every manner of snake oil and other stupidity that springs forth in the wakes of market fits of spontaneous and unbridled avarice.

It is not, therefore, the fiat money system per sé, that causes the problems we see, but rather our corruption as people and as nations. Rome had a stable gold standard as was also found in Byzantium, yet those systems came crashing down in the end. Was it because gold was not a good standard? No. It was due SOLELY to human corruption that lead to the debasement of the monies until they became nothing more than hollow currencies. The ONLY difference between material standards (e.g. gold) and pure fiat monies is that the latter makes it easier to debase the store of value because there is no material manipulation required, not even a printing press today, but only a ledger entry. THAT is the root of the money problem and NOT the standard on which a given money is based. Any monetary system can be corrupted, as has been demonstrated apodictically on innumerable occasions throughout the history of human economic affairs. End corrupt and inept management and ANY money system will serve well.

The government couldn't afford international illegal wars and expansive policing powers.

Sure they could. They would just have to work a lot harder for them. In time, however, you would perhaps prove correct because debasement is readily detected where an open and accessible material standard is used, in which case the only remaining question would be whether people would tolerate the perfidy. Sadly, the human record there provides nothing much in the way of good promise for future possibilities. I would suggest, however, that such a standard would be completely closed to the public. So here we see that a gold standard is not enough to better guarantee honest money. That money must of necessity be CONVERTIBLE ON DEMAND. It is the issue of convertibility that is is a necessary element in sound money based on precious metals. Without it, there is nothing to prevent bad things from going on behind closed doors.

2011-09-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

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I recently happened upon a question posed to a group of us that asked:

"What I fail to understand is that if there is no personal reincarnation, thus no Karmic retribution or reward, and without the promise of Heaven or the threat of Hell, what does it matter to me in the long run to behave ethically during this lifetime?"

A good question indeed and one I have discussed with others at some length. What is implied by the question is the position of the nihilist, which essentially contends that there is nothing but the here and now; there is no other life for a given individual and there is nothing more to our makeup other than this apparent flesh. If that is indeed true, what reason would there be for me not to kill my neighbor and have my way with his rather fetching daughter?

What purpose would ethics serve in such a reality? What incentive? None that I can see. In the world of the pure materialist, nihilism becomes the unavoidable conclusion. With that there is no reason I should not kill and screw my way through life, taking what I want and destroying that which gets in my way.

One might even accept this as a possible truth, were it not for one thing: it goes against the force of LIFE itself a force that is absolutely universal in all living things found on this world of ours. No sane and rational man can deny the force of life - the will to continue itself against all countervailing factors. This suggests something either beyond meat or inherent to it, though I am doubtful of the latter in the sense that that is all there is to it. Either way, however, the universal desire of life to continue and propagate itself lies in diametric opposition to the unavoidable result of nihilism, which is the utter destruction of all human life until the last man is left standing, alone, dick in hand and thumb up butt because there is nobody left to rape, rob, beat, or murder.

The very fact that all things want to live implies the right to defend those lives. This right to defend one's claim to life, equal to the claims of all others, leads to the basic principles of just and proper human behavior which underpin all ethics and drive all ethical considerations.

The reason that ethics exist and are legitimate is rooted in the purest pragmatism: we all want to live and none wish to have their claims (rights) to life violated. Most of us also hold the means of defending those rights, i.e. the inborn ability to devise or otherwise acquire the means of destroying those who trespass against the birthright to endeavor to continue one's existence. Because peaceable coexistence is, for the most part, the best way of attaining the goal of passing from one day into the next unfettered by the trespasses of others, it follows that the adoption of and the adherence to a system of ethics that enables and encourages "proper" behavior is itself just and proper. It is pragmatism itself.

That so stern a drive is placed upon the continuance of life from within one's very fabric points to something far greater than flesh alone, for it begs the question of source. It does not seem logically consistent in even the smallest measure to conclude that life = meat and nothing beyond that. The notion that we come into the world, grow, live, die, and were at all turns nothing more than the sum of the atoms that made up our bodies seems as ridiculous as the assumptions that the materialist/socialist mindset uses to justify vomiting forth such obviously self-contradicting nonsense.

In fact, the very question as captioned above reveals the inherently nihilistic nature of the socialist/materialist/communist philosophies and their attendant political positions. The inherent nihilism of those positions lies in diametric opposition to the "moral" talking points such as "class struggle" and so forth. These are the inconsistencies that the materialist tyrant conveniently ignores as he rants and spews forth his litany of trite, tired, boring, and clapped-out one-size-fits-all drivel. If life is so strongly inhered with the will to continue and propagate, one must ask "whence originates such single minded drive?" Inanimate atoms?

It is the contradiction of this sort that needs to be discovered by each individual through adept analysis (with perhaps some help in some cases) and exposed by courageous hearts so that it may at least be said that the world has been offered a greater truth. As to whether they will choose it, that is a question for another day.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

The Paradoxical Nature of Human Freedom

2011-09-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

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A paradox of human life is that in order to have peaceful and free living, one must be prepared for war; not just with arms but with attitude, knowledge, and the will to become a frightful enemy in the face of trespass. This keeps people polite, hands to selves. It is as things must be, for the passive and timid tend to become the slaves of the tyrant, or fertilizer for his next year's crop. The twentieth century alone demonstrated this in the most stark and non-equivocating fashion.

Despite the butchery of hundreds of millions of innocents within but the handful of years we call the "twentieth century" and despite the enslavement of nearly everyone else, a great proportion of humanity (particularly in the United States where people are supposed to know better - shame on them) remains insistent upon denying the characteristics and qualities that constitute the necessary attitudes and preparations for becoming and remaining free of tyrants and all other oppressions.

Consider the massively bloodthirsty collectivists for the "greater good" under the tyrannies of the Soviet Union and China; the unapologetic and rapaciously murderous parties of the various blood feuds of Africa and even parts of Europe (!!); the endlessly bloody and numerous "revolutions" of the countless banana republics of the tropical Americas and the Caribbean; the leaden and hopelessly grey and oppressive tyrannies of the now-openly socialistic Europe and especially Great Britain; or the far more subtle and candy-coated tyrannies of the USA and Canada. That so large a proportion of the world's people still refuse to accept the truth of what is required to achieve and maintain their freedom begs the question of just how deep must a psychosis be to support such bald-faced denial of that which stares one unflinchingly in the eyes? How willfully and defiantly ignorant must one choose to be in order to maintain such slavish devotion to remaining passive in the face of so-called "states", (AKA "governments") raiding, raping, and murdering their ways across their lives with apparent impunity?

While being peaceful in one's habits, endeavors, and desires, one must be prepared for, and willing to become as warlike as any power-mad dictator in order to defend what is rightfully his when the trespass of others threatens. To reject the absolute need of proper preparedness in defense of self, family and community against the predations of others while at the same time espousing one's desire to remain free constitutes an irreconcilably irrational and self-contradicting position. It is to flirt, dance, and ultimately invite destruction and suicide to one's door. This is not indicative of sound intellectual processes or, more likely, of intellect at all, particularly in the face of human history, which serves up a nauseating and practically endless litany of examples of tyrants running roughshod over peaceable people, taking what they want and killing those their fancy and whim may capriciously dictate.

Why is this acceptable? Ask yourself why is it that people do not strike down the tyrants as they rise? Why is it that in the very few cases where they do, the victors almost universally become the new tyrants? It has happened even in the United States, with its apparently ever growing police-state aspirations.

When one steps back from the current circumstances and widens their gaze across a far broader expanse of human existence, it becomes ever more difficult to hold an opinion that the race is destined for nothing better than sheer and unvarnished doom.

What, then, is the solution? Is there one? I am not sure, but if even one exists I suspect that it revolves around much smaller population centers where like-minded, freedom loving individuals come together in proper preparation for liberty such that the prospect for third parties of interfering with them becomes highly unattractive. At this point I can think of no better ways to address this plague of one man presuming to master another and under which the human race has suffered at ever increasing rates for thousands of years.

I pity the children.

A Commonly Overlooked Risk To The Willing Slave

2011-03-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

Having just read a blog on RightsWriter.com about the looming shellacking the USA stands to take resulting from Obama's fawning and obsequious apology to Guatemala for experiments conducted on some of their citizens in the 1940s, the specter of an additional problem with the choice to be a willing slave arose.

There is no doubt that US administrations have been bad actors - very bad in many cases. To this point the moral arguments may go back and forth based in the various theoretic foundations and assumptions. So-called "hawks" on the one hand will often argue the usual claptrap of manifest destiny, often disguised under thin veils of more modern sounding rhetorical composition. The so-called "doves" respond with their typically weak-wrist reasoning of bunnies and light, thereby assassinating what credibility they may ever have held. Both sides hold elements in which they are correct and that are otherwise.

What each side of the moral argument aisle appear to miss is one of the practical risks of our little intrigues: popular culpability. The United States is, at least technically speaking, a representative government. That means that everything our elected officials and their agents do is technically representative of our wishes. Forget about repudiations, because in courts of law those have a long history of failure where very serious supporting evidence is absent. Bear also in mind that courts are run by nothing better than other, utterly fallible human beings whose integrity cannot always be counted upon to prevail when one may need and want it most.

The result of Obama's ill-considered apology has been threats of litigation by Guatemalans who have caught the scent of an opportunity for a free ride on the gravy train. In such a case the only immediate danger might appear to be that the taxpayer will be called upon once again to pay for the sins of administrations past. However, further consideration reveals how this somewhat innocuous appearing result opens doors to risks of a far greater magnitude and gravity.

Because we are a representative government, one of the stipulations of the implied contract between the people and that government is that the latter acts with the consent of the former. This, of course, may be effectively argued against when a government acts extraordinarily and beyond the limits of its delegated powers and moral rectitude, or covertly. But what about when it does so on an ongoing basis, the people being generally aware of such behavior, yet taking no substantive action to put an end to it? Where this can be established, so can be demonstrated the consent of the governed and with it the establishment of equal partnership in the actions of those directly involved. In other words, we share equal culpability for the illegal, immoral, and criminal actions undertaken by those elected official and the agents we directly or otherwise employ when they act with our knowledge and tolerance. In this case, tolerance is minimally tantamount to acceptance and in some cases may even be established as outright agreement.

By knowingly tolerating the criminal activity of government officials, employees, and agents, in the international arena, we assume equal responsibility for the results of their actions as if they were our own because, in fact, they are. Those agents act on our behalves and we know about it. We may be able to claim innocence for the crimes committed in the 1940s where awareness of the utterly criminal our government was in so many facets was generally and very effectively kept from the people. That justification becomes vanishingly thin when we consider the contemporary situation.

Ever since the truth about Watergate broke, public awareness of the corrupt nature of government in general, and the US government in particular, has grown with every passing day. This has become especially so as the internet has grown ubiquitous.

The scandals have been endless, implicating presidents, cabinets members, congressmen, captains of industry, and position holders at just about any level and office of government one may care to name. Unless one has been living in a cave atop a wilderness mountain, there is precious little credible basis for claiming ignorance of the truth. Given this, the question that most prominently arises is: "if you knew, why did you not act to stop it?" This was the essence of many of the questions posed to the defendants at Nurnberg - the questions that, having not been adequately answered in most cases, lead to multiple executions for "crimes against humanity". Indeed, an entire nation had its feet held to the fire for many decades thereafter and to this very day bears the marks of those times upon itself and shall continue to do so for a good time to come.

If the great superpower that was Germany could be held as a nation to account for its general complicity in the actions and policies that lead to the nearly universal destruction of an entire continent and the murder of tens of millions of people, what in principle precludes the same circumstance from befalling the good people of the United States?

We now live in a time of ever increasing "globalization", which translates into ever decreasing levels of national sovereignty, further implying an ever weakening ability to defend against charges brought by international tribunals. Thus far the only thing that has saved us from being held accountable has been our superior military strength. That notwithstanding and the questions of right and wrong aside, the facts are that with every new administration since Bill Clinton (at the very least), we have seen our sovereignty whittled away as each successive president has been more than happy to put his signature to agreements that further dissolve and dilute the meaning of "The United States Of America" and that place us further under the rule of foreign powers. This is REALITY. It is fact that cannot be controverted by mere verbal claims to the contrary. Piecemeal are we being dissolved in the concentrated acidic solution of globalist "unification" and hegemony.

This slow, yet now accelerating sublimation of our nation into the fabric of the greater whole opens vistas of possibilities that most people have failed to so much as imagine, much less consider with care. As our sovereignty dissolves, so goes our power as a nation, and with that our ability to stand alone, freely, and immune to the results of the crimes that we have tolerated in our elected representatives and their hired agents. As that ability and power falls below a threshold, there is nothing in principle that prevents foreign parties from raising the issues of the "sins" of our past, real or contrived, and holding us accountable.

If perchance this can be done successfully, the American people as a whole may then be held accountable for the actions of our manifold administrations; many of those actions being heinously criminal in nature, often involving acts of mass murder on scales that would have brought proud tears to the eyes of the likes of Stalin and Mao. It would be an "international" body calling the shots in such cases, thereby rendering the ways in which we might be held to account potentially limitless. The international "community" has demonstrated in spades that its rules and regulations are formulated not on the basis of a sound and principled moral foundation, but rather on the bankrupt and capricious emotionalism so very reminiscent of the great socialist movements of the twentieth century.

It is clear that the rest of the world does not share the principled view of governance held in the USA. Europe has been long- and well-trained to accept the capricious and arbitrary changes of the rules of the games, so long as they are labeled as being "for the greater good". Who, other than Americans, routinely question the actions of government? Few, if any.

Americans do not, however, do enough to check the actions of their government, most particularly and significantly in the arena of foreign affairs where administrations have indulged in all manner of intrigue and outright criminal action including murder by the millions, the destruction of national economies, "scientific research" on the unwitting subjects of foreign nations, and a whole litany of other equally heinous criminal enterprises. We can legitimately claim ignorance of those undertaken in decades far past, but of the past forty years our excuses become precariously untenable, most especially those of the past twenty and the torrents of information with which the internet has provided us.

We as individuals and as a nation in America have no viable excuses for the tolerance of governmental corruption that we display in 2011. This truth poses particular threats to our sovereignty and liberty where our foreign policy is concerned. We can no longer naively claim that government is warring here or stealing there without our knowledge or that it is morally justifiable for the good of the nation. Such claims are wholly non-credible at every level and in every manner imaginable.

We know all too well what is going on, yet we sit idly back and let is all happen, most often justifying it under the similarly bankrupt claim that there is nothing we can do - that there is no choice. There is always a choice. That we choose by default is not just a shame upon us - it is a threat and a risk that we now face very directly and imminently as the world around us solidifies into a single, universal political mass. As our government continues to rob, plunder, and murder its way across the face of the planet in the context of an ever strengthening trend toward a world government and the dissolution of nations as sovereign entities, our knowing complicity through the consent implicit in our tolerance heaps equal measures of guilt upon us in the eyes of the world.

So long as out military might enables us to continue, we might choose to do so. But when that might is no longer sufficient to ward off the judgments of foreign powers, whether they be right or wrong, we then stand to be called to account for that which have tolerated. Innocence becomes irrelevant if the authorities and powers over us judge otherwise. It should also be noted that while the "international community" may be wholly antagonistic to the notion of national sovereignty, there is precious little doubt that they will use the issue as a lever to accomplish their ends against the American people if it proves useful.

In short order we shall see the end result of this Guatemalan attempt at shaking us down. If it meets with success for the plaintiffs, you may rest your money on the expectation that more will follow, particularly if there shall be left a wake of apologies from our esteemed leaders moving forward upon which other such parties might use to good advantage.

If we continue on this death march toward the utter dissolution of our nation, the sky will become the limit for foreign looters of every stripe. As Americans continue to resist, those limits will rise arbitrarily until either we capitulate into a new status as bald-faced chattel, or we take up our arms and fight these invasions to the bitter end. Either way the results stand to be terrible. Is this what we want? Why allow things to come to such a pass when today there still remains abundant opportunity to reverse this deplorable situation? Do not, however, conflate abundance of opportunity with that of time, for the latter is in short supply as the former rapidly evaporates before our eyes.

What shall we think if international suits against the American people for the crimes of its government become an accepted standard of remedy by not only the so-called "international community", but our own government? If we hand that much of ourselves over the the global authority, what does anyone think will be the result when we lose in those courts of questionable character and with whom no appeals shall be forthcoming? What will befall us when the amounts of the arbitrarily determined reparations far outstrip our ability as a nation to pony up? The answer is abundantly clear to any student of history and of human nature: the pound of flesh will be taken through collateral means. Perhaps they will "forgive" a crushing debt incurred as the result of international litigation if the people of the United States agree that they never really held any right to keep and bear arms and to surrender all their holdings.

Or perhaps we will be offered forgiveness in exchange for the acknowledgement that the concept of private property is invalid and always has been. Perhaps it will be offered in exchange for some other fundamental right with the explicitly expressed agreement that such a right never really existed in the first place. Desperate people will often make poor decisions when finding themselves between a rock and a hard place.

If perchance the Americans were to demonstrate an unfortunate level of pluck in response to these formally legitimized extortions, there are always military options on the table. Let it not come to anyone's surprise if the first waves of troops turned out to be wearing the uniforms of the American armed forces, including police. The enemy is inside the gates and we put many of them there via the ballot box. Let there be no illusions in our minds about that.

We are being very purposely painted into a corner and the avenues of escape shrink with every passing day. Given all of this, we may then see the nature of the threats posed to us - of the likely results of the more fundamental problem of our tolerance of a criminal cadre in government and of the devolution of our sovereignty as individuals and as a nation to the status of modern day serfdom.

What, then, is the solution?

The practical solution is to remove ourselves from all international intrigues and treaties, bar none, and as a people begin to clean the American house and keep it that way, making our displeasure and intolerance unequivocally clear to all who assume the mantle of the public trust. This is most critically important on the international front. Our foreign policy is an unmitigated disaster of criminal activity that has exposed each and every American citizen to potentially grave harms that threaten our posterity far beyond the foreseeable future.

Culturally and practically speaking, our salvation requires we become a warrior nation where our politics are concerned - ever vigilant and active in the battle between what is right and decent and those who seek to betray the trust of the people, usurp and arrogate to themselves power to which they have no moral claim, trespass upon our sacred liberties and their attendant rights, and dissolve our nation into the undifferentiated mass of the globalist mob.

The time is upon us - right here and right now - to choose. What are we to be? A nation of willing slaves placing ourselves squarely in the cross hairs of the international looters, or one of warriors for our personal liberties, national sovereignty, and principled morality in how we live amongst each other and with other nations? Bear in mind that as the willing slaves of our masters we share in the guilt of those who trespass against our international neighbors and we thereby expose ourselves to the dangers that such trespass risks. As our sovereignty piecemeal fails, we may be called upon to bear the selfsame accountability for the direct actions of those in command and would therefore be in no way immune to the consequences. Is this not enough to spur us to choose the life of the warrior over that of the willing, lazy, and cowardly boot licker?

Forewarned is fore-armed

2011-03-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

What is the greatest danger, the greatest threat to liberty?

We, the human race, are the most dangerous threat to our liberty. We are the only threat to it. Nothing else threatens it. Nothing else can protect it. In this, humanity is its own worst enemy and, barring materially superior third party intervention, we are our only saviors.

Very few people want liberty - real freedom. What they call "freedom" I call slavery. Pretty slavery - the slavery of the gilt cage - the slavery falsely or ignorantly accepted as freedom by the man too timid, too lazy, or too frightened to go for the real thing. The slavery accepted by the grasping poltroon who wants something for nothing , feeling he is owed this and that and is willing to sell his soul to have it. The willing slave who all the while fools himself into believing it is all somehow just and proper to live at the expense of others. The slavery of the man too dishonest to acknowledge his own status as a thief, all the while happy to have someone else do his stealing for him, most often in the name of phony baloney ideals with noble sounding names such as "social justice", "the greater good" and "equality".

But there are those who want real freedom - a tiny cadre of mainly like-minded individuals who not only understand what it is to be truly free without turning one's back on civility and moral principle, but are willing to do what it takes to achieve it and keep it. How can such people survive the mindless, lumbering juggernaut of rank, unvarnished and small-minded mediocrity, of legitimized theft, force, and violence? What do they do? That is the $64 question for which certainty appears to evade many on a grand scale. One thing, however, is certain: at the bottom of it all, at the level of brass tacks, lies brute force. The ability and the willingness to destroy all comers who would violate our sacred and inborn freedom. This must be the underpinning, the very cornerstone of existence for all freedom loving individuals, regardless of their personal feelings on the matter. The reason for this is eminently practical: without the power and the will to visit grievous harm and utter destruction upon those who would subdue you, their slaves shall you become.

It is in the nature of men, whether nobly intended or maliciously so, to subdue those whose behaviors and beliefs are not sufficiently aligned with their own notions of a proper order of things; to force their compliance; to command them for the sake of command. It is an age-old saw that has never changed in all of the history of human empire, nor is it likely to change in even the distant future.

We are what we are, and we behave as we tend to. The statistical approach is the only sound one where such issues concern themselves - judging humanity based on the general tendencies of the greater populations. In this, humanity is uncommonly predictable and presents the intelligent man with everything he needs to know about the nature of the beast.

Because of the nature of the vulgar mob, the free man must gird himself against the advances of the mindless, soulless, colorless wad of dull, yet eminently dangerous humanity whose constituents hold freedom with naught but the deepest hatred. The free man is the willing slave's perceived nemesis, for the free man's courage and aspiration set a standard of attitude and action toward which the volunteer-bondsman refuses to commit himself. The free man must, therefore, be eliminated as the most sore reminder of the cowardice, lassitude, and utter lack of faith in self that is so obviously engendered in the very fabric of the mind of the serf who accepts and even welcomes his bondage.

The free man is hated by the willing drudge because of his bold willingness to embrace that which demands in return for the greatest gift of all but a single price to which the happy peon refuses to accede and assent: personal responsibility. Those reminders of his own unwillingness to be anything but the least a man might fills the slave with a raging and envy-spiked hatred for those who dare what he will not. For the willing slave there is no fate sufficiently degrading and destructive for such superior men. The superior man, the free man must be wiped from the earth as if he had never existed.

The liberty-minded man, knowing the context of the world in which he lives as such, cannot in all good reason proceed on any other basis but to make of himself the most formidable and merciless foe of the vulgar - of the eager subservient whose only goal in life is to lick the boots of his master under the self-imposed delusion that he is free, all the while resolutely cowering from the truth that he lives at the whim and deign of his superior and is , in fact, worth less than the match with which his master would light him ablaze.

Know ye then this and make thy choice in accord with that for which thou truly wisheth. Thine actions will reveal the sort of man thou art to the world and by the same shall the superior men separate themselves from, and stand above the rest.

What say ye then? What sort of man shalt thou choose to be?

Human Comfort: Challenge And Opportunity For Liberty Advocates

2011-02-06T11:27:00.000-08:00

People want comfort.

Generally speaking, they will attach themselves to whatever it may be that makes them comfortable. Different people derive that comfort in different ways. Some find it in food, others in drugs and alcohol, while a few wear rubber underwear while being spanked. Paradoxically, others are comfortable often or even only while in a state of some form of discomfort. There are many dimensions to comfort and this is well enough represented in Maslow's hierarchy.

Emotional comfort may stem from relationships, religion, politics, etc., the latter being one of the big sources. In that context, people choose the political views that offer them the best fit for comfort in accord with their needs and desires. This often translates into truth-be-damned adherence to a set of belief, as is most often the case with religion, to cite another example. Comfort is, for many people, far and away more important to them than is truth . This is readily verifiable by observing how their behavior comports itself with respect to their statements regarding the place that truth occupies in their lives. One will often find that those who claim truth as ultimately significant often behave in ways that betray the claim as false to greater or lesser degrees. It may be also observed that the greater the claim of truth's significance is, the greater that degree of falsehood. If the truth threatens their comfort, they often reject it out of hand. In many cases, they will become violent and even kill to protect themselves from truths that threaten their comfort sufficiently.

When some fundamental aspect of a person's comfort is perceived as being seriously threatened, almost anything is possible in the way of a reaction. This can be readily observed in the areas of religion and personal relationships. The screaming believer, so thoroughly convinced that his "faith" is the absolute and only truth in existence will actively reject any evidence contradicting those beliefs, no matter how undeniably the facts may establish the falsehood of his belief system. Press the issue with sufficient force of logic and persistence and you may find yourself sporting a radiating shiner.

Consider the housewife whose husband stands accused of molesting their children. Perhaps as often as not the spouse will stand by her man and remain in utter, stoic denial regardless of the fact that irrefutable evidence has been presented, proving the charges without any room for reasonable doubt. Because their comfort is so heavily vested in their relationships, to acknowledge the facts present a truth too terrible to accept, and so they hide in the comfort of their fantasies.

And so it is with political beliefs, which in many ways occupy analogous positions to those of the religious in the belief systems of people and the comfort they provide. This fact assumes particular significance when one attempts to engage in the act of altering the most closely held political beliefs of others. It is, therefore, something that must be recognized and understood by those holding dear the truths of personal liberty. Many, and perhaps even most, people fail to understand what freedom actually is. They mistake what I call "pretty slavery" for freedom and regard actual freedom as a state of chaotic and dangerous insanity - of brute anarchy where there are no rules save that of the jungle such that those with the most power rule over the rest without mercy. What they fail to see is that this precisely describes our current system to a 'T'.

The challenge, then, is to make this apparent to them, and the only way to do this with any hope of success is to discover and understand the relevant factors of comfort as they apply to those in question. One of the fundamental requirements in the method for bringing such people around to the ways of true freedom is the need to be able to identify and understand a given individual's comfort with respect to his objections to liberty. One must understand what makes such people tick - what it is that attracts them to whatever flavor of pretty slavery it is to which they cling. Without this information it is at best very difficult to change anothers' point of view, given the near-religious fervor with which some hold such opinions.

Once one has the basic understanding of the others' comfort in hand, and assuming the person to be convinced is an intelligent, honest, open-minded individual of nominal mental health, addressing and assuaging the threats to his comfort regarding his attachment to slavery becomes the first step toward the elimination of this objections to real freedom. Getting one to recognize that his version of slavery is not freedom is an uphill battle at best. If you are going to engage in such efforts, best that you proceed as well equipped as possible because you will likely have your work cut out.

Comfort is of central importance to all humanity, regardless of the fact that it takes on such wildly varying forms between individuals. We all have those things that "make us tick". Comfort is very much a two-edged sword that has both helped us and harmed us. Understanding the form comfort takes in any given person is central to understanding him and key in helping you determine what approach to take with them in your efforts to illuminate them to the beauty and virtues of freedom.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

About that "War on Cops"....

2011-02-05T14:20:00.000-08:00

A worthwhile article about the current state of police affairs in America.

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2011/01/about-that-war-on-cops.html

The more things change...

2011-01-01T14:24:00.000-08:00

What follows is an excellent article by Albert Jay Nock. There is, however, a very sad aspect to it. which is that it was written in 1936. Setting that fact aside, along with the reference to FDR and the "imbecilities" that issued from his administration, the article could have been written about early twentyfirst century America. It is not a terribly flattering article to the "greatest generation" and the one or two prior to it, but Nock hits the nail dead center, and hard. Truth can be very unflattering and in this case someone beat it with the Ugly stick. It is a read well worth the effort.

This article was found at mises.org, and excellent source of material for the liberty-minded individual.

Happy New Year, and may 2011 be safe, happy, and prosperous for all.

[This article originally appeared in the American Mercury in March 1936. An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Donna Orlando, is available for download.]

I believe that when the historian looks back on the last 20 years of American life, the thing that will puzzle him most is the amount of self-inflicted punishment that Americans seem able to stand. They take it squarely on the chin at the slightest provocation and do not even wait for the count before they are back for more.
True, they have always been good at it. For instance, once on a time they were comparatively a free people, regulating a large portion of their lives to suit themselves. They had a great deal of freedom as compared with other peoples of the world.

But apparently they could not rest until they threw their freedom away. They made a present of it to their own politicians, who have made them sweat for their gullibility ever since. They put their liberties in the hands of a praetorian guard made up exactly on the old Roman model, and not only never got them back, but as long as that praetorian guard of professional politicians lives and thrives — which will be quite a while if its numbers keep on increasing at the present rate — they never will.

But though Americans have always known how to make the old-time Flagellants look like amateurs at the business of scourging themselves, it is only in the last 20 years that they have really shown what they can do. The plagues of Egypt, the flies, frogs, hail, locusts, murrain, boils, and blains are as nothing by comparison with the curses they have brought down on themselves in that time, all of their own free will and accord. They diddled themselves into a war to make the world safe for democracy — and look at democracy now!

They took on the war debts and financed the "reconstruction" of Europe — and now they are holding the bag. They fell for the "new economics" of blessed memory and took a handsome fling at jazz-and-paper in the 1920s. They went in strong for Prohibition; and then, even before they came out from under that nightmare, they threw themselves body and soul into the fantastic imbecilities of the New Deal.

What a spectacle! There is no use, none in the world, of pretending that the praetorian guard dragooned, cajoled, or humbugged the people of this country into taking up with all this appalling nonsense, and at the same time pretending that the country is a republic in which the people are sovereign. You cannot have it both ways. If the professional politicians, who are known of all men to be pliant mountebanks when they are not time-serving scoundrels, and are usually both — if these have power to herd the people headlong into such bizarre rascalities and follies against their will and judgment, then the country is not a republic but an oligarchy built on an imperial model, and its people are not citizens, but subjects.

If, on the other hand, it is a republic and the people are sovereign, then the misfeasances of the professional politicians run straight back to the people who elected them. When Golden Rule Jones was mayor of Toledo, a man wrote him for help, saying that whisky had been his ruin. Jones answered his letter, saying, "I do not believe whisky has been your ruin. I believe it was the whisky that you drank."

The reader may take his choice between these alternatives. No matter which of the two is right, the fact remains that the individual citizen, or subject, has lost the best that was in him. Whether he surrendered it or whether he let it be confiscated is not what I am so much concerned with at the moment — although the question is important enough and ought to be ventilated — as I am with the fact that it is gone.

Not only his liberty is gone but something much more valuable: his belief in liberty and his love of it, his power of quick and effective resentment against any tampering with the principle of liberty by anybody. This is as much as to say that his self-respect, dignity, his sense of what is due to him as a human being, has gone, and that is exactly what I mean to say. It has gone into the keeping of persons most notoriously unworthy of such a trust, or of any trust; persons capable of deliberately conniving — and who do connive — at the temporary ruin of their country for political purposes.

I say this with respect to no particular party or faction, for however many nominally there may be of these, there are never actually more than two. As Mr. Jefferson said,

The nest of office being too small for them all to cuddle into at once, the contest is eternal which shall crowd the other out. For this purpose they are divided into two parties, the Ins and the Outs.

In the last conversation I had with the late Brand Whitlock, a few months before his death, we spoke of the remarkably rapid dwindling of the sense of self-respect in America, and he asked me if I remembered how thoroughly the country was worked up by a little incident that took place only 25 years before. I remembered it well, because we had happened to be together at the time, and we had commented on the wholesome general resentment that the outrage provoked.

State prohibition was in force then, and somewhere down south a posse of state officials boarded a train and slashed open the suitcase of a through passenger who had stood on his rights and refused to unlock it. That incident went the length and breadth of the land, and was talked about in good plain language, not by a few doctrinaires, but by Tom, Dick, and Harry on the streets.

Yet, as Mr. Whitlock said, in the America of 25 years later, such a thing would not even be news, and nowhere would there be a breath of indignation against it. Mr. Whitlock died, as an honorable man would wish to do, before he could see the upshot of most of the policies that the people of Prohibitionist and post-Prohibitionist America have inflicted on themselves in the name of good government. Many of us, indeed, appear or pretend not to see it even now.

I think, for instance, that no one has adequately remarked the ease and naturalness of the transition from Prohibition to the New Deal. Someone may have done it, but if so it has escaped me. There is a complete parallel between them. They are alike in their inception. They are alike in their professed intention. As for their fundamental principle, they are so far alike that the one is a mere expansion of the other. They are alike in respect of the quality of the people who support them, alike in respect of the kind of apologists they attract to their service, and, finally, they are alike in their effect upon the spirit and character of the nation.

Alike in their origin, both were brought about by a coup d'état, the work of a determined minority at a time when the country was writhing in one of its recurrent spasms of discreditable and senseless funk — or, I should rather say, when it had passed beyond its norm of imbecile apathy and gone into the stage of vociferous idiocy. Not long ago I had a letter from a French friend who remarked that "quand les Américains se mettent à être nerveux, ils dépassent tout commentaire,"[1] which is indeed true, so I imagine that what I have just said is perhaps the best one can do by way of describing the country's state of mind.

Prohibition came when we were "making a business of being nervous" about the great cause of righteousness that we were defending against the furious Goth and fiery Hun. The New Deal came when we were making a business of being nervous about the depression; that is, nervous about having to pay collectively the due and just penalty of our collective ignorance, carelessness, and culpable greed.

Prohibition and the New Deal are alike in their professed intention, if one may put it so, to "do us for our own good." Both assumed the guise of disinterested benevolence towards the body politic. In the one case we were adjudged incapable of setting up an adequate social defense against the seductions of vicious rum-sellers; in the other, of defending ourselves against injuries wrought by malefactors of great wealth; therefore the State would obligingly come forward and take the job off our hands.

"Both were brought about by a coup d'état, the work of a determined minority at a time when the country was writhing in one of its recurrent spasms of discreditable and senseless funk." In the case of Prohibition we can now see what those professions amounted to, and we are beginning to see what they amount to in the case of the New Deal; and in either case we see nothing but what we might have seen at the outset — and what some of us did see — by a brief glance at the kind of people engaged in promoting both these nostrums, and a briefer glance at their record. We see now that the promotion of Prohibition was purely professional, and there is nothing to prevent our seeing that so was the promotion of the New Deal.

In 1932, the local politicians and the political hangers-on who together make up the "machine" — and of whom there are more in America than there were lice in Egypt in Moses's day — saw a great starving time ahead of them, and when the New Deal was broached, they fell upon it with yells of joy, as one who comes upon an oasis of date palms in a trackless desert. Their dearth was miraculously turned into plenty. Faced with a dead stoppage of their machine from lack of money to keep it going, they suddenly found themselves with more money in their hands than they had ever imagined there was in the world.

Prohibition and the New Deal are alike in their fundamental principle, which is the principle of coercion. Prohibition proposed to make the nation sober by force majeure, and incidentally to charge a thundering brokerage for doing the job. It said to us, "This is all for your own good, and you ought to fall in line cheerfully, but if you do not fall in, we will make you."

The New Deal proposes a redistribution of wealth and is charging a brokerage that makes the Janissaries of the Anti-Saloon League look like pickpockets at a county fair. The national headquarters of the New Deal has a slush fund of something over $4 billion to blow in between now and next November [1937], and about 700,000 devoted heelers on the job of seeing that it is spent where it will bring the best results. All this, we are told, is for our own good, and we ought to appreciate it, but whether we appreciate it or not, we must take it.
The two enterprises are alike also in respect of the quality of the people who support it. There are some statistics available on this. About four years ago — in November 1931, to be exact — Mr. Henry L.
Mencken published in this magazine the results of an elaborate statistical study that he had been making, in collaboration with Mr. Charles Angoff, in order to determine the relative cultural standing of the 48 states. He tabulated his findings in the form of a list of the states, arranged in the order of their approach to civilization, and he has stated publicly that his table has never been successfully challenged.

In 1932 Mr. Mencken compared his table with the returns of the Literary Digest's poll on Prohibition, and found that they fitted precisely. Nearly all the states that turned in heavy majorities against Prohibition stood high on his table, and nearly all that supported it stood low. In the Baltimore Evening Sun of January 13, 1936, he made a similar comparison with the Digest's poll on the New Deal, and got a similar result. The more nearly civilized states are against it, and the more uncivilized states are for it. He says,

In the five most civilized of American states, according to the Angoff-Mencken table, the percentage of voters voting for the New Deal is but 32.32; in the five least civilized states it is 67.68, or more than double… Of the states giving the New Deal less than 30% of their votes (seven in number) all are among the first twenty-two; of those giving it more than 70% (two in number) both are among the last three. Of those giving it less than 35% (thirteen in number) all are among the first twenty-eight; of those giving it more than 65% (four in number) all are clumped together at the bottom. Finally, of those giving it less than 40% (twenty-two in number) all are among the first thirty-three; and of those giving it more than 60% (eight in number) all are among the last eleven.

From this it may be seen that, precisely like Prohibition, the New Deal, as Mr. Mencken concludes,

makes its most powerful appeal, not to the intelligent and enlightened moiety of the American people, but to the ignorant and credulous. It is, in truth, demagogy pure and simple, quackery undiluted. … The states that show a majority for it, including the anomalous Utah, are exactly the states that inflicted the Eighteenth Amendment on us, and most of them are still dry. Also they are the states whose people still believe by large majorities that William Jennings Bryan was a profounder scientist than Darwin, that any man who pays his debts is an enemy to society, and that a horsehair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.

As for its moral effect upon the nation, the New Deal simply carries on Prohibition's work of making corruption and hypocrisy respectable. Both enterprises are bureaucratic, both are coercive, and, as Mr. Jefferson said, the moral effect of coercion is "to make one-half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

And what has Prohibition had to show by way of offset? Simply nothing. What has the New Deal to show, so far? Can anybody point to a single one of its policies that has really worked? I know of none. No recovery in business is due to it. It has as many unemployed on its hands as it ever had and as many derelicts. Its agricultural policy is said to have worked, but, as the Supreme Court observed, that simply amounted to the expropriation of money from one group for the benefit of another. In other words, it amounted to larceny, and official larceny always works. The unofficial practitioners of that art who are now in Sing Sing were simply at a disadvantage.
Prohibition and the New Deal, in short, breed straight back to the incredible appetite of the American people for self-inflicted punishment. One wonders how long they can take it and how hard; and above all, one wonders, when the New Deal has gone the way of Prohibition, what more dismal and depraving form of self-torture they will turn to next.

The Canon Of Individual Sovereignty

2010-12-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

.

Greetings once again.

In the essay titled "What Is Freedom?", mention is made of a small set of foundational principles upon which all free living amongst each other is based. I wrote that sharing a common political basis does not entail a morbid lockstep mentality wherein people are forced to live a one-size-fits-all life. Quite the contrary, all that is required is the acceptance and practice of a very small set of fundamental propositions that allow for expansively broad avenues of choice in how one may live. Likewise, those principles impose vanishingly few restrictions that all reasonable people will recognize as rational and obvious.

Our goal here shall be to enumerate those principles and elaborate upon them in some detail in order to paint what will hopefully be a clear, complete, rational, and truthful picture of the foundations of Freedom and Personal Liberty. This set constitutes what I call the "Canon of Individual Sovereignty" and is comprised of three Cadinal Principles which, were people to live by them, the universe of human affairs would find itself vastly improved.

The one assumption that may be said to underpin these principles is that of equal claims to life, what most people would refer to as "equal rights". This supposition, when considered carefully, is the only one of this sort that makes any sense, particularly when viewed in contrast to its negation, which would assert that people do not have equal right, which is to say equal claims, to life. The assertion of inequality means that the claim to life is different for some people in relation to others. Such an assertion leads to quite a shopping list of very thorny questions whose answers either do not exist or are painfully unsatisfying. For example, if our claims to life are not equal, in what ways are they not? Whose claims are greater? Even if one set of claims is not "greater" than another in any objective sense, they are still different. Given such a difference, who decides who enjoys one set and not another? Upon what basis is the determination made, and who establishes the standard of judgment? As the typically unsatisfying answers to such questions are made by those supporting such a position, new questions arise endlessly.

The results of rejecting the assumption of equal claim are inelegant, arbitrary, and so very obviously false as to merit no further consideration. Yet, the exercise of raising and answering such questions in demonstration of these truths is indispensable as a device whereby one learns through first hand experience, rather than on blind faith and rote.

Compare that with the opposite proposition, that all people hold equal claims to life. The litany of problem-laden questions never arises, which is one of several indicators that this is, in fact, the correct and sufficient case.

Behold, then, the Canon.

The Canon Of Individual Sovereignty

The natural and self evident status of each Individual Man is that of a Sovereign Being. This truth is particularly important where questions and considerations of the Individual’s existence with and about his Fellows arise, for if he is alone, there is no other to trespass upon him. Man’s sovereign status derives directly from a single fundamental postulate that is at once elegant and intuitively obvious such that little analytical consideration is required in divining its truth value. Once accepted, this single assumption leads promptly and axiomatically, to the Body of Principles that apodictically demonstrate and enshrine the complete basis by which One arrives at a more complete Truth. This assumption is the Cardinal Postulate and it states:

   0. All men hold equal Just Claims to Life.

It serves well to note the reference to “Just” Claims. Whereas, Men may endeavor to confabulate all manner of arbitrary claims upon Life that are of an ill-reasoned and therefore unjust and illegitimate nature that at times borders on the idiotic, there exists a small set of Claims to Life that are just and proper, and are shared equally by all People. A Just Claim, being a Right, the equal Just Claims to Life shared be All are otherwise referred to as their Equal Rights.

From the Cardinal Postulate follow the Cardinal Principles of Just Claim:

   1. Each Individual holds sole and absolute Title to his Life

This is the Principle of Self Ownership. No man may own or exercise ownership rights over another.

   2. The absolute right to think and act in accord with one's Will

This is the Principle of Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Action.

   3. The right to acquire, keep, and dispose of Property

The Principle of Private Property

The Cardinal Prohibition, the single restriction by which All must abide states:

   -1 No One may initiate force against, or otherwise trespass upon Others

The Principle of Non-Aggression.

Thus Endeth the Canon.

What Does It All Mean?

In short, it means that free people are entitled to live as they please, free from interference from anyone, especially members of that often villainous mob we refer to as "government". Furthermore, it means that no free man is to be governed in any way whatsoever. So long as one causes no material harm to others, they are free to do whatever they wish, even if the doing brings harm to oneself. Freedom of action under will, coupled with the single responsibility not to trespass against others; that is what it means to be truly free.

Governance is only for those who refuse to govern themselves in accord with the basic principles of freedom. Governance should come into play ONLY after a violation of someone's rights has occurred or while it is occurring. Instead, we have government interfering with our choices on a daily basis. It reaches far into our lives, yet so few appear either to notice or they simply accept it as proper for whatever the reason.

Freedom is exhilarating and scary as hell all at once. It allows for perfect freedom of choice but holds each of us accountable for those we make. The question facing us today is whether we want real freedom or the gilt cage of pretty slavery, living at the pleasure and deign of others as we lie to ourselves, calling it "freedom". Each and every one of us must make the decision as to what it is we really want. Each of us will make it, whether explicitly or by default. The question there for each of us is how shall we be heard, by standing tall and making our wills known with strength and clarity of spirit and purpose, or by skulking in the shadows in avoidance of even that much responsibility for ourselves?

What shall it be for you? What legacy is it that you wish to leave your grandchildren and their posterity? Freedom is strength and slavery is weakness, yet today pretty slavery is peddled by those in power as freedom. But if you read the good works of people dedicated to the ideas of true freedom, including those found here, you will have no excuse for choosing ignorantly. My only admonition to you is the warning to take all due care considering your choice and be very circumspect of that for which you wish because there are no free lunches anywhere in this world to be had. They do not exist, and therefore you are behooved to regard with great suspicion men bearing gifts. Everything has its price and no matter how you may try to avoid paying, pay you shall. The only question there is what, exactly, are you buying?

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

Right To Education

2010-08-08T15:23:00.000-07:00

A poster on the Ron Paul Forums asked the following questions regarding a recent Right To Education law passed in India and against which many of the schools have issued complaints. The law basically says that even private schools shall now be required to reserve 25% of their space for local (read poor) students and shall not be able to do any screening for admissions; nor will the schools be able to exercise any disciplinary action over such students, according to the article that was quoted, though no cite was given. There are, however, plenty of pages on the issue, this being one of them.

The following captions the original post along with my responses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by prmd142

Hi, I'm an Indian and a regular reader of this forum. I'd like input from you (not as Americans - I know nonintervention and stuff, but as libertarians) on this issue.

Where I stand:
How can the government interfere with how private schools are run! As if government run public schools were not pathetic enough. Is this what democracy means? There is a huge population (in other words, large number of votes) in India which is poor or worse. Government guarantees them admission to private schools with no strings attached in return for votes. There is no political party which will stand up against right to education bill, coz who doesn't want to come to power! The debate between parties is never whether right to education is right or wrong but how should it be implemented. The working middle class will now have to pay for these people's so called 'right' to education. Is there any way the middle class can protest when they do not have as many votes.

India, like most of the rest of the civilized world, is headed for disaster precisely because of this sort of thinking and its attendant behavior. Mark my words on this.

I would also point out that "right to education" does NOT equate to the right to be provided with an education. It only means a right to access as one's means may allow. So if you come from a poor household and have not the means to send your children for an education, you are shit out of luck. That is another ugly little truth about the seemingly cruel nature of life, but its unpleasant face makes it no less true. Furthermore, just because that truth may strike one as cruel and unfair, it does not follow that it is indeed so. Going further still, it is not within the right of one person to impose his will upon another simply because he perceives some injustice. That is the root of all the social evils of the world - a mob forcing its will upon the rest because they believe that it is for the greater good. Since when does initiated force and robbery serve the good, and where is it established that the "greater good", assuming it can even be determined, is the arbiter of the legitimacy of "state" monopolized force?

Quote:

Can the will of the majority overrule the basic rights of others?

Depends on the basis of your question. In terms of moral principle, no. In terms of actual practice, of course, because most people are morally bankrupt and are therefore willing to apply illegitimate force upon others or tolerate third party application of such force. This is especially true if the outcome benefits them at the expense of others, which is to say that many people are more than happy to accept "free" gifts.

Furthermore, the answer depends in part on the political system in question. In failed states such as the Soviet Union, the central government could do whatever it wanted to whomever it wanted any time it wanted for any reason it wanted to the degree it wanted and by the means it wanted or at least by that which it could get away. Arbitrary rule, which lies at the very core of the definition of "democracy", is the cornerstone of tyranny. That the rule may be by majority rather than some vanishingly small minority adds no legitimacy; nor does it alter the fact that it is tyranny of the purest form. It is, in fact, tyranny of the highest caliber attainable because the fact of the majority will masks it ever so effectively and otherwise renders it resistant to question because it is the "will of the people". This grand nonsense carries with it great persuasive power in large part because for most people the fallacy is too subtle for them to comprehend, much less to identify. Add to this the shrieking that results in the wake of any questioning of the legitimacy of mob-imposed despotism and one finds that such systems tend to be very capable of maintaining that particular status quo. The fatal factor in such systems appears invariable to lie in economics.

Is India a democracy? The USA is not. It is a constitutionally limited republic, which is supposed to mean that no matter how large a majority may be, they cannot in principle violate the rights of even a one-man minority. At least we have principle on our side.

Quote:

If no, then why is democracy so popular?

Because people are, generally speaking, terminally ignorant of what "democracy" is, due in large part to the endless campaigns of propagandized deceit to which they are subjected by those in "government" and whose stolid and unwavering support the media provide. They are told that democracy is rule "by the people", rather than the king or dictator. The key factor of arbitrary and capricious will of the majority in violation of the natural rights of the minority is never brought up, and thereby the great mass of political consumers, unable or unwilling to think critically on an analytical basis, are rendered content with, and proud of the fact that "they" rule the nation.

Quote:

Is there no political system which will protect rights at any cost?

Sure, but such systems depend almost exclusively on the moral fabric of the population. There is no formal system that can do as you ask without the active participation and material support of the people under which such a system ostensibly operates. One may draft the most perfect constitution imaginable but if nobody will abide by its principles and the dictates that follow therefrom, it is effectively nonexistent. Tribal cultures existed for thousands of years wherein the right of each individual was never to be questioned. It is the advent of that abstraction called "the state" in any of its many forms including the ancient monarchies and theocracies, that bore human freedom away on the winds of destruction into the hands of slavery, perdition, disease, and misery. Once the first individual or group thereof convinced the rest that he or they stood above the them, Pandora's box was effectively pried opened and the world would never be the same. At that moment the days of humanity's natural and proper state of individual freedom became numbered. Welcome to the paradise of "civilization".

American Conservative Talk Media

2010-08-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

Once again I forward a response I made to a query in another forum. For posterity.

Originally Posted by Howard_Roark

I don't really know what to make of Alex Jones. On one hand he is a libertarian and a very well-spoken advocate of a lot of libertarian principles. On the other, he seems to be a deranged raving conspiracy theorist who is spreading paranoia and is totally out of touch with reality.

Nor do I much of the time. Alex Jones says many things with which I agree. He speaks some profound truths, then he gets all sounding like a good candidate for the rubber room. He is part of the MSM [edit: Main Stream Media], much as he may rail against it, so I do not trust him on that basis alone. Nobody gets into mainline slots like that without "approval". He may be personally genuine on some level - maybe even on all, but he is then being "handled". He may be on to some very significant truths - it seems this way in some cases. But his raving discredits him and I find it difficult to believe that a man with so large an audience would not be intelligent enough to realize how he compromises his credibility with these modes of expression. Less believable still is that he has nobody on his staff that recognizes this and advises him to get his feet on the ground.

One other point I believe is key here is that I believe "they" believe (and perhaps rightly) that the truths Alex Jones puts out there, as well as all his libertarian posturing, poses no threat to their hegemony. Those like Jones in fact provide great benefit to the elite in that it reinforces the mistaken perception that there is some shred of freedom remaining to us and that these beacons of truth (in the minds of some) offer proof that there is hope for our freedom. Depending on the end game in mind, this may be the perfect thing for the elite because it keeps people always in "it's coming soon" mode in their thoughts.

Ever listen to Beck? That ninny raves on and on about how "its coming". What a load of shit. It ain't coming folks - it's here. Now. Right now, this very minute. If he were to say that, to speak this truth, would it not demand immediate action on our part to save ourselves from the destruction that is upon us? Action is what they do not want, but rather material indolence. Let the proles think all they want if they must, just so long as they lift no finger. I believe these shows ensure just this because they lead people to believe that someone is doing something.

Let us not be gratuitously kind to ourselves - Americans are some of the politically laziest and most stupid people in the world. And do not let the seemingly big number of clued-in people in places such as this forum deceive you into thinking it is otherwise. I have lived all over these United States and it has been my habit to have very broad social circles. My acquaintances range from rocket scientists and true geniuses to street whores, criminals, housewives in curlers, and the homeless. I have sampled a very broad cross section of the American population. There are all kinds of very intelligent and well clued-in people here [USA]. For each one of those, I would estimate there must be close to 50 completely clueless ones. That is the sad truth of my experiences with folks over the last 30 years.

We have come to believe all manner of inexcusably unacceptable bullshit. On top of that, we have fallen into the terminally bad habit of wanting someone else to do our dirty work for us - to wit, our "representative" government and state-run schools where we have placed our balls in the hands of complete strangers, fooling ourselves into believing that they will serve our best interests while we pursue more important issues, like that next line on the mirror. We have fucked ourselves more royally than most people could possibly believe and even fewer would be able to accept. Were they to, they would simply implode - they would go catatonic and would sit in one place until starvation took them. Yes, it really is that bad and we should stop fooling ourselves.... but I digress.

While I'm on it, Beck is really so full of shit, but he is fairly subtly so and I can well see how most people would miss the problems with many of the things he says or that his statements presuppose. His rants sound like patriotic libertarian material, but if you listen and carefully analyze what he really says, he sounds to me like a screaming statist. The same with Neil Boortz, Hannity, etc. The only ones who don't seem completely full of shit are the guys on Freedom Talk Live (and they fuck up routinely in terms of reasoning) and Phil Valentine (though I have not been listening to him long enough yet to get a good feel for who he really is). There is also another guy to whom I have listened only twice... Joe somethingorother... he seemed pretty cool, but it is difficult to say on one or two hearings.

Jones and the others may be examples of the age old game of mixing truth with distortions in order to paint convincing but highly misleading pictures. That is what I most strongly believe about these figures. Part of the evidence that leads me to this suspicion lies in what they do not say. I see no convincing arguments from them about how the Fed must be dissolved, as well as the IRS (though IRS gets far more airplay than the Fed). How about dismantling the public school system? Another sacred cow they don't touch. These prime targets for our wrath and demand are ignored. Again I find it difficult to accept that nobody on their staffs are aware of these issues. I must, therefore, conclude that these issues are being purposely ignored, which means the people in question are either not what they appear or they are simply too stupid to be otherwise trusted.

One needs to be very circumspect in evaluating such public figures. Oh, and while we're at it, the intro to Beck's radio slot refers to his show as the fusion of information and ENTERTAINMENT. Now folks, call me crazy (I've been called worse), but that smacks of rubbing the truth in the noses of people too stupid to figure out that they are being taken down the garden path. Beck is just that - he is an entertainer. IMO anyone taking him seriously in a holistic sense is making a very grave mistake.

A Missing Link In Normative Government

2010-07-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

For many, the term "normative" may be foreign, yet they almost certainly know that to which it refers. When we speak normatively, we speak of what we believe ought to be, usually in terms of some ideal we employ as a standard of judgment. "People ought not murder each other" is a normative statement. In contrast, a positive statement is one of pure observation of what is. "People sometimes murder each other" is one example of such a statement.

When we speak normatively about "government", we are asserting our opinions about how it ought to be in terms of its structure, granted powers, and the behavior of those holding governmental positions, particularly where elected officials are concerned. There has been much written about this over the centuries, some of which has been very insightful. Despite the volume of work that has been produced on theories of government, governmental designs, and the large body of commentary on official behavior handed down to us through the ages, humanity has done an appallingly poor job of learning from the mistakes it has made in specifying those designs and responding to the endless litanies of documented governmental failure and abuse that almost universally characterizes the behavior of government officials in the modern nation-state. A significant error of these architects and chroniclers has largely lain in their substantial failure to establish complete and correct normative models and standards by which governments should be designed and implemented, and the behaviors of their operating officials judged and punished where appropriate.

For the past several centuries the various forms and instances of human government of the type we currently refer to as "the state" have proven themselves failures without notable exception. Here, the term "state" is effectively synonymous with "empire" in the sense that, as was the case in the days of antiquity, governance is based upon the threat and application of force to compel behavior. The main difference between then and more modern times (say, the past 500 years) is that the concepts of individual human rights had not yet been well developed and widely accepted. Therefore, there was no standard by which rulers could have been widely judged as having acted beyond morally justifiable limits. In some sense it could be argued that this lack of knowledge excuses the rulers of old, for they often knew nothing else but the standard of absolute authority and in most cases, tyranny, that the presumption of divine authority conferred, fostered, and served to reinforce.

The advent of the penning of documents such as the Magna Carta, as well as that of the European Renaissance with the attendant rise of "science" and the manifold revolutions in human thought brought an end to the era of excusable ignorance by rulers, at least on that continent and later in the New World. Despite this, the everyday reality of the governed man changed with deplorable paucity. The single and relatively shining exception to this general condition lay in the establishment of the United States of America, where the form of governance that was established signified a radical and quantum departure from all previous forms, wherein the fundamental assumptions laid in diametric opposition to those of the governments of virtually every other nation-state on the planet at the time. But even that significant alteration in the design of human governance has proven inadequate to the task to which it had been set based on the understandings held by the Founders regarding the individual and his place in the scheme of human affairs. The Constitution of the United States, a work of significant creative genius, suffers from a litany of readily discernible flaws, some of which fall into the category of those discussed here.

Two complementary characteristics which governments of "state" commonly share are the grossly inadequate specification of proper sanctions to be imposed upon those officials who wantonly or negligently violate the rights of others in the discharge of their official duties, and their enforcement. This discussion shall deal with the former only, the latter being left perhaps for another day. By the close of the eighteenth century, human history had provided oceans of examples of the endlessly recurring problems relating to the behavior of persons who had assumed mantles of power over the people of nations throughout the millennia. As bright and presumably forthright as the Founders were, and as great a feat of creative genius as was their new Constitution, replete with its revolutionary view of governance and the primacy of the individual over "the state", they nevertheless failed to sufficiently take heed of the lessons of history when considering the normative basis for designing their new conferedation. Some may balk at this assertion or even take offense at it, but the outcome of their efforts as embodied in the manifold troubles the nation now faces establishes it as a truth that is in part attributable to their architectural shortcomings and missteps.

Modern state governments, regardless of their particular form, all share certain characteristics to a greater or lesser degree. Before going any further, we should become clear on what "government" is, that we may continue on with clarity and precision, which are the necessary elements required for a sufficient and proper understanding of the concept. "Government" is nothing more than a set of conceptual conventions that are either agreed upon by a group of individuals, are forced by one group upon another, or a combination of the two. There is no material reality to "government" just as in the case with "the state". There are only those individuals who work alone or in concert with others to operate according to the dictates of "government" as they exist on paper (usually expressed as "law"), and often to the degree and manner to which they can get away with interpreting or otherwise ignoring those dictates to suit their personal and group objectives even when the actions taken pursuant to those interpretations violate the spirit of the law and, more importantly, the rights of the individual. This is a fundamental aspect of government that must be paid its due respect and be fully grasped by anyone interested in the truth about "states", their attendant "governments", and the consequences of these modes of official individual behavior.

One of the universally present characteristics of modern government is the establishment of at least two classes of citizen: civilians and governors, which in practice readily translates directly into "slaves and masters" of various types and degrees, all idealistic language of rights and righteousness to the contrary notwithstanding. This stratification establishes those who are in charge and those who are to toe their lines. While the lines in question are often seemingly reasonable in theory, in practice they are usually expressions of pure barbarism and tyranny. Respect for the rights of the individual exists mainly on paper and in practice only where it is either convenient to the masters or where the slaves wield sufficient power to force the issue in their rightful favor.

There is, however, a circumstance relating to the structure of such governments that stands out most prominently, yet receives next to no sensible attention by those who would implement a new government or by those over whom such governments ostensibly preside, the greater truth being that in reality that they rule. This circumstance centers upon the most notable absence of the lack of meaningful designs, implementations, and enforcement of a body of well-structured and complete specifications of standards of behavior of government officials and the suitable forms and degrees of punishment for those who fail to uphold those standards, either through intent or through negligence. Part of the reason for this appears to stem from the basic set of perceptions that most people seem to hold with respect to "government". One of the false presumptions is that government actually exists in and of itself, a belief that is demonstrably and provably false in much the same way as is the case with "the state". What this presumption serves to do is create a false sense of substance in the mind of the individual holding and accepting it. Note that such an individual need not necessarily like it or agree with it, but most often regards it as an immutable fact to which one must resign himself because there is no getting around it. How ironic it is to find that in such cases the jailer need build no prisons, for each inmate has done it for him, the work being of the utmost quality.

With such a false presumption underpinning the perceptions and belief systems of the individual, the power of those assuming authority over him is enhanced immeasurably. The set of false inferences and conclusions that follow from the acceptance of, and belief in this single, innocuous looking, yet devastatingly powerful psychological device is large, somewhat varying between individuals, and universally debilitating. For example, accepting "the state" and "the government" as actual, extant entities with material realities of their own lends a credibility to these grand lies in precisely the manner of Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message". The significance of this cannot be overstated, nor can the importance of dispelling these lies and bringing the light of truth to those who suffer from this particularly destructive form of psychological derangement. That we give credibility at all to "the government" as anything other than a group (or mob) of individuals acting in accord with some interpretation of a set of what are probably arbitrarily enacted dictates is tantamount to pulling the trigger of a gun pointed at our own heads. We doom ourselves by this method on the belief that there is no choice.

If we dispense with the belief in the material reality of government and state, what remains? Groups of people telling other groups of people what to do or not do, most often based on the arbitrarily constructed mandates enacted by some other group of individuals and for which the executives reserve the right to violate the natural rights of the individual up to and including taking his life away through acts of brutal violence.

Dispensing with these false beliefs alters one's apprehension of the truth dramatically and in so doing many new truths follow most naturally from the resulting altered state of awareness. The relevance here is that one of the truths which becomes evident is the centrally important need for a set of cleary specified, complete, and correct rules that define the standards of behavior for individual public officials in their capacities as agents of "government", and the penalties for failing to comply with them in full measure. When one realizes that all government officials are nothing more than ordinary people discharging ordinary duties in service to their fellow citizens, the tacit mystique of super-human "state" and "government" authority instantly dissipates into the ether and reveals itself as the false nonsense that it actually is. Being so freed, one is then able to properly regard such people and their roles - to see and understand that such people have been vested in the sacred trust of their fellow citizens and that violation of that trust constitutes the paramount of all possible criminal acts.

That being the case, reason then demands that such people be held to a higher standard of behavior in the discharge of those duties in service to their fellow citizens and that when one violates the trust, the penalties must therefore be harsh and without mercy or pity such that all other agents of the public good are given the most stern warning against trespassing upon the rights of their fellows either through intent or negligence. More than any other citizen, the feet of the government official must be held to the fire that the standards of behavior fuel in order that they should quake with fear at the prospect of willfully or negligently causing harm to those to whom they take an oath to serve and whose rights they swear to protect.

Where are these standards to be found? In the United States Code? If they are there, they are not made in any way apparent to the "ordinary" citizen, either in the letter and spirit of the law, or in its application against those who trespass upon their fellows. Yet when the "civilian" so trespasses, he is most often called rapidly to account for his actions and, barring sufficient defense, made to pay the price in prison. How is it that we allow the likes of the police to brutalize us with impunity? We are assaulted in the media with an endless barage of tales of government officials committing the most heinous crimes against us while rarely being called upon to account for their actions, and even more rarely being made to atone for their actions with prison time and economic restitution. If this situation does not merit close attention and a demand for substantive correction, then which one does?

The normative specification of governemtal structure and function needs to be more perfectly completed by adding the full set of strict rules defining proper action as well as that for rightly punishing those who violate the rights of peaceable citizens who act within the boundaries of those rights. If government exists to serve "the people", then why is it that they invariably subjugate and otherwise trespass against them? Why are they not placed and kept on severely foreshortened leashes such that anyone acting in the capacity of a government official will not be even remotely amenable to paying the price of violating their fellows? This is the normative mode of thinking that must be established in the minds of men such that tolerance of what has proven to be the typically hubris-loaded and contempt-logged behavior of government officials falls to zero. All violations of one's rights by others must be viewed and dealt with in such a manner and degree that people, regardless of their stations in life, will be utterly dissuaded from considering such acts as even the most remote possibility. And when this comes to pass, non-governmental people will also come to respect their public servants more fully. On the balance, the results will produce greater freedom and prosperity for all.

2010-07-23T12:15:00.000-07:00

This a response I gave to the statement someone posted on another site:

"Once again the state reveals its true nature."

No. Individuals reveal their true nature when empowered by the fictional entity called "the state" to which most people surrender their sovereignty, freedom, and rights. There is no such thing as "the state", for it has no material reality of its own. "The state" is nothing more than an idea, the lines of which most people toe in mindless obedience and which are nothing greater than the machinations of other individuals, whether working alone or in concert to attain some goal at the expense of others.

"The state" is the King's new clothes. That's right kiddies, the king is naked as a buck and has been from day one. There has never once existed any naturally inherent and self-extant authority in the hands of any king or "state". The only authority that has ever existed is that to which the mindless, unthinking mass of ignorant and lazy humanity has acceded or that the swords of those calling themselves "the state" have taken by brute and criminal force. It is all a shell game - a great steaming pile of festering lies and outright threats against your very lives.

What if "the state" were replaced by the old Italian Mafia? What would be different? Nothing but the label - but were it the Mafia, people would be more likely to identify it for what it is: a mob of thugs assuming power and authority by the threat and application of force against the rest pursuant to whatever goals might be at hand. So why, then, are so many people so utterly and terminally blind that they cannot come to the same realization when "Mafia" is erased and "the state" written in its place?

"The state" is the modern replacement and equivalent of "god" from the days when that mob calling itself "the church" ruled men. As unavoidable change made itself felt in the world such that even the repressive hand of the nearly omnipotent church could not prevent it - as "science" and invention revealed even unto the ignorant certain readily demonstrable truths that brought the unquestionable into question, those in power were threatened with the loss of position and therefore needed a new gimmick - a new lie that, just as "god" had served them for so long, would also serve. The main requirement would be that it possess the character of being unquestionable, thereby rendering it practically unassailable. "The state" became that lie and for the past 500 +/- years it has increasingly done just that. "The state" became the new "god", only far more impregnable, far more credible, and the people fell for it, hook line, and sinker as they continue to do to this very day.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "THE STATE" save that which floats about within the confines of peoples' skulls. If you doubt this, then prove me wrong. Demonstrate the existence of "the state". Show that upon which a man may place his hand and say "this is the state, yes". Try it. I dare each and every one of you to try. If I had any money, I would post a reward - a large one too - for anyone demonstrating the material reality of "the state".

Better start harvesting the clues quickly folks, because time is now pretty short and it is precisely in these small and most often overlooked details that the greater truths slip past us. We are now at a threshold and once crossed, chances are next to zero that we will be able to make it back in our lifetime. Think about that awhile - do you really want to spend the rest of your life in a world even Orwell couldn't have dreamt up? That is precisely where we are heading - we're, in fact, at the doorstep, knocking to be let in. Consider all this carefully before deciding what you will do or not do.

If you want liberty, you have to get your heads out of your shorts and get back to the very bottom-most basics of sense and sensibility. Without that, you are all wasting your time. Drop the bad habits and start thinking for once about what it is you are really saying. Question your most basic assumptions and modes of expression. Chances are you will find plenty to correct if your intent and analytical abilities are there. Otherwise, fess up and stop wasting your time so you can return to the important things in life, like net.porn, the toot, and fast foods. Life is short.

The BELL: A Practical Philosophy For Abiding Liberty

2010-06-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

Consider humanity in the context of its history. Consider the utterly consistent uniformity and predictability of the patterns of political thinking and action - of those universal cycles of decay following what is usually a period of relative prosperity and peace - what we often call a "golden age". Every formal empire, every state has fallen; not a one has lasted. Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Egypt, Athens, Rome, the dynasties of China, and so forth have all come to ignominious ends. These results, more commonly than not, have followed more from the progression of these predictable patterns in human thought and behavior than from external threats. In most cases we are able to discern a very clear pattern of degenerative change in the minds, and hence the acts, of both the governed and the governors such that a nation's fall into self-annihilation becomes a readily predictable event.

It is the change of mind that makes this fall not only possible, but inevitable, for any given mode of living cannot be sustained if the baseline standards for that mode are not maintained. Those standards exist in but one place: mind. They exist within us, but unlike books, we are ephemeral beings whose accumulated knowledge of lifetimes vanishes unless it is passed on to subsequent generations through training and education, which in turn is often affected through various traditions. This is one of the reasons we have books, yet those physical repositories are not sufficient for the preservation of standards of thought and behavior that preserve one's way of life. The correlative factors of attitude and practice (habit) are equally essential and serve as mutually reinforcing elements with education and training. Each supports the others.

Though many people possess an inborn sense of liberty, without explicit training in that mindset and what the concept means in a broad and complete fashion, it becomes a long shot that any given individual will cultivate an ability to articulate and assert that sense into a practically applicable and sustainable way of life. It is even less likely that a group of such individuals will come to such realizations and capabilities, and it is furthest from likelihood that a nation will do so, as history bears out in a sickeningly endless litany of failed states wherein human misery and death have been the rule and where peace and prosperity have been the rarest of exceptions.

We see that training is one of the keys to an explicit knowledge of liberty, which is most likely to lead to an attitudinal bent and the corresponding will toward the same. The problem here is not the establishment of such training, for that is an academic exercise. Rather, it is one of the maintenance of that habit and the will to perpetuate the drive to liberty for all people such that it spans the generations unabated, and in fact takes on ever stronger cementation within the nation's fabric through the minds and daily deeds of each subsequent generation regardless of the material conditions in which they find themselves, whether in wealth or poverty, ease or hardship, for they are morally wealthy, healthy, and strong in any event.

It is that failure to maintain such a drive that has resulted in the obliteration of empire upon empire, state upon state. This becomes the inevitable conclusion when the waning of that drive is coupled with the inversely proportional strength of the drive and ability of certain groups of individuals to band together and declare themselves masters over the rest, after which their greed for booty and the mad lust for control drives them to plunder and murder their way through the ages for as long as they are able.

Humanity's problem, then, with respect to the long term maintenance of personal liberty and thereby the free and prosperous nation, is summarized in the question of how does one best ensure that successive generations will know what we know and live what we live at the most basic levels far into the future - that they will know of, understand, and choose liberty over slavery in a dance of perpetual and deliberate choice through time? The only solution that seems viable is the approach employed by the abidingly successful religions, for they appear to be the singular sort of cultural institution that has been successful in spanning generations. There is, however, the question of choosing the set of beliefs and this very problem has been a root cause of, or at least served as the justification for, waging war since time immemorial.

A possible answer to this dilemma of need versus too many and often violently conflicting and seemingly arbitrary choices of belief is the adoption of a universal secular "religion" (acutally quasi-religion) we shall call the "Bell". Bells have a long history as clarions of good and welcomed tidings, as well as the sentinel's alert to danger. It is therefore fitting that we tie the concepts, practices, and habits of individual freedom and rights to this icon of all that is good and worthy of our value. Such a "religion" would stand apart from theologies in that it is not a religion at all in the traditional sense, but more a mindset that enjoins, encourages, and guides us in treating and applying the principles and issues of personal liberty in a manner analogously to that of the world's abiding religions. It departs from traditional religion in that all of its tenets and practices derive through reason rather than being arbitrarily posited as articles of faith. These tenets would axiomatically and apodictically follow from the acceptance of the single baseline premise that all human beings are created as equals. If one accepts this as true, then the whole of the body of moral law that follows from it does so in a most self-evident and irrefutable manner. This corpus of axiomatic principles constitutes the philosophical nucleus of The Bell and forms the foundational basis from which the practical elements of this belief system derive.

An advantage of this approach is that the Bell need not conflict in any way whatsoever with standing religious traditions as the latter are based in articles of personal faith and the former in unbreakable reason. The only circumstance wherein conflict may arise is when some given tenet of a theology implies or even explicitly demands the initiation of force against people in order to impose some condition upon them against their assent, an intolerable and unallowable act according to the precepts of the Bell. One example of this might be a belief in "compulsory charity" (clearly an oxymoron, but some folks will not let that get in the way of fine tyranny) wherein it is assumed that force may be justifiably employed to compel someone to "give" to some other, ostensibly "more needy", party. Humanity already has far too much of this going on, so the adoption of a universal secular quai-religion such as the Bell could only serve to improve this circumstance.

On the other side of that coin, adoption of the Bell may be attractive to many people of the various faiths because the more universally accepted and practiced it is, the stronger are the assurances that individuals and communities will be free to observe their respective faiths without interference.

The Bell may be said to be the universally applicable and secularly derived practical religion of Liberty, and in this sense it is a true religion in that it is based on the faith in the truth of reason and the freedom that derives from it. It is the most fundamental set of beliefs we may adopt because it provides the basis for the possibility of the practice of other systems of belief without the need to murder each other to prove points or to usurp. It sweeps away all monopolies of belief and with them the ready ability to justify the initiation of force against peaceable and rightfully acting citizens because the population at large will be sufficiently imbued with an attitude of absolute and unbending intolerance of anyone attempting to interfere with the rightful actions of others by virtue of the proper knowledge of our rights and the single basic obligation we each hold to each other: respecting the sovereignty of every man.

Imagine a nation where those who attempt to so much as hint of trespassing upon the rights of men are met with broad, vigorous, and unequivocal condemnation. Imagine people who respond with irresistable material non-equivocation against a usurper such that others with similar notions, no matter how vauge or well intended, are given endless pause to reconsider the prudence of their thoughts. The concepts and principles comprising the Bell would serve as the primary foundational standard by which all human interaction would be based. Any act not in accord with those principles fails to meet the broad and lenient standard and is therefore prohibited in accordance with the pricniples in question and the dictates that derive from them. The Bell forms the absolute moral basis for determining the legitimacy of human behavior. They are few, simple, and universally derived through pure reason and based on the single premise that all men are created as equals.

In a future post, the structure and elements of the Bell shall be derived and from that beginning we will work our way through the chain of higher-level derivations to what hopefully will prove to be a complete and correct body of principle upon which humanity may base and judge their lives as well as those of others.

Until then, please accept my best wishes.

The "State"

2010-03-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

Today's entry shall focus upon “the state”. But as has been the habit thus far, let us first consult the dictionary for the relevant definitions of the term. These from a contemporary online source:
state: - noun

1. a politically unified people occupying a definite territory; nation.

2. (sometimes initial capital letter) any of the bodies politic which together make up a federal union, as in the

United States of America

3. the body politic as organized for civil rule and government (distinguished from church).

And perhaps more significantly, from the John Uoft dictionary of 1785:

8. Civil power, not ecclesiastical

9. A republick ; a government not monarchical.

"They feared nothing from a state so narrow in compass of land, and so weak, that the strength of their armies has ever been made up of foreign troops.C

16. The principal persons in the government

17. Joined with another word, it signifies publick.

a."I am no courtier, nor versed in state affairs: my life hath rather been contemplative than active" - Bacon

b."Council! What’s that? A pack of bearded slaves, the scavengers that sweep state nuisances and are the greatest."

c."I am accused of reflecting upon great states-folks." - Swift

For completeness sake, let us include definitions of “republick” and “publick” from the same 1785 dictionary:

Republick - noun

1. Commonwealth. State in which the power is lodged in more than one.

2. Common interest; the publick.

Publick – noun

1.The general body of mankind or of a state or nation; the people.

Notice that in every definition the term “state” refers to either an abstract concept or to individual people. In not a single case does “state” refer to anything that stands on its own or with a reality apart from that of individual human beings. As we shall see, this point holds a singular and central significance regarding the truth about “the state” and should be understood and borne in mind by all people interested in freedom and personal liberty.

Given the preceding definitions, it shall be the goal to demonstrate that current notions of “the state,” as commonly held by people and employed by those wielding political power, is a pure, yet very dangerous fiction that has been foisted upon the people and has served mainly to diminish personal freedom and the prosperity of the individual, his communities, and the nation as a whole. No doubt some readers will already be looking askance at the very notion of labeling “the state” in such a manner, but as Voltaire once observed:

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”

It may have served better to use the term “the ignorant” in place of “fools”, but delicacy was not always Voltaire's strong suit,. In any event, if one is to accept a condition of existence imposed upon them by others whose moral authority to do so is questionable or absent, it should at least be done with a proper recognition of that which is being accepted, why, what the results are, and by whom or what it is being asked, or more likely, imposed.

There is also the quote attributed to Frederic Bastiat, who keenly observed:

“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”

Such sage observations, once substantially common opinion, have largely fallen away from the awareness of the great body of those we call “the people”. We shall come to see why in short order.

Freedom and servitude are not the same things; they are in fact diametric opposites and should never be confused. This is where Voltaire's acerbically couched observation reveals one of the saddest truths about human behavior: people will often accept a “dog” as a “fish” and deadly poison as vital sustenance at the command of any perceived authority for the sake of fooling themselves into believing something which, were they not to accept it, would by reason dictate their refusal. Rebellion against even the most absurd demands of “the state” is generally regarded as too fening or inconvenient to undertake. The attendant conflict of conscience is usually too much for individuals to tolerate, causing them to respond by receding into various states of self imposed deception, which serve as lubricants and cushions, enabling them to accept that which would otherwise be clearly unacceptable, were truth and reason allowed to run their course.

Cowardice and lassitude are not, however, the sole causes for accepting a situation that might otherwise be resisted. Good old fashioned ignorance, often instituted through the instrument of misinformation and miseducation, is perhaps the most common basis. It can hardly be claimed that the American people are mainly cowards or lazy. Quite the contrary, they are on the whole very courageous and industrious people, as well as warm, kind, friendly, and generous; all these almost to a fault in many cases. And yet, most Americans live in a state of servile bondage imposed upon them by “the state”. Not only do these people accept such artificially imposed circumstance, many of them revere it, to use Voltaire's characterization, and would defend those who have imposed it upon them even unto their own deaths to preserve that to which they have acceded and to which huge emotional and psychological investments have often been made.

When considered from a distance, such seemingly absurd behavior quickly leads one to ask, “why?” Why would a person or population, any person or population, accept conditions imposed upon them that were in any way detrimental to their personal welfare, happiness, and general quality of life by their peers? One answer, as noted in the previous paragraph, is cowardice and lassitude, but as stated above, the more common cause is ignorance or miseducation, often the product of intentional acts of deception by those in whose interest it stands to ensure a compliant populace. If one does not know that their water is laced with poison, what reason do they have not to drink it down eagerly when they thirst?

This leads the honest man to the need for a close and careful examination of the causes of such misapprehensions of truth, which are great in number and would require many large volumes to address sufficiently. The purpose here, however, is to focus on one of the centrally significant instruments of misinformation used by the culprits who would ultimately see to the subjugation of every human being on the planet while labeling it far less unattractively.

In order to set the scene properly, we must first make explicit a tidbit of truth that many people sense only tacitly:

The interests of those exercising political power are most often in conflict with those over whom the power is exercised.

Such conflicts are not always diametric. The interests in question, in fact, most often lay at some minimally opposing angle to each other such that the collision between them is perceived by the governed as insufficiently significant to warrant exerting effort against it save, perhaps, some initial complaining, after which the point is usually ceded to the governors. This is most carefully orchestrated so as not to arouse the strong and possibly violent dissent of the governed. At the very least, in

America

it is arranged and executed in order to best guarantee reelection to office for as many cycles as possible.

Equally significant, such action is not necessarily the product of deep, dark conspiracies where the explicit intention is to subjugate and destroy. Rather, it is most likely the product of those well-intentioned persons who are so steadfast in their certainty that what they know is best for all, that they are therefore morally authorized to force their designs of universal salvation, order, and progress upon the people, usually exempting themselves at the same time. Furthermore, they do so with the material ability at their disposal, as well as the willingness to destroy those who pose credible opposition to them.

Bearing in mind this conflict of interest between those governing and the governed, the demand and expectation that people do as the rulers command, no matter how absurd, comes under some scrutiny particularly when labels such as “governor” and “governed” are used, which connote no inherent differences between the classes, save arbitrarily defined relative positioning that connotes no inherent authority of the one over the other. Even relatively uninterested people understand that “governors” are human beings just as they are, sensing no inherent station of superior moral authority. Average people understand that there is no well-reasoned basis for one standing above another with regard to the authority to command people, especially where violations of the latter's civil rights are in question. This truth poses very real practical problems to those who wish to rule without the inconveniences of notions such as equality, civil rights, due process, and limitations on their power. Such problems require eminently practical solutions and the ruling elite have devised one that, as we shall soon see, works fabulously well for them.

In ages past, the solution to the highly inconvenient notion of personal “equality” (a staple concept in tribal life, by the way) was to sell the masses on the notion of a “divine” ruler. The notion of the divinity of a human as separate and superior to all others incorporates as part of its very fabric the idea that such a person is inherently superior to the others and thereby entitled to what practically amounts to unlimited authority. Such persons were magically endowed with characteristics above and beyond that of all other men so as to confer to them superior rights and thereby the absolute and unquestionable authority to command and dispose.

This concept worked well enough for thousands of years whereby the lives of countless persons were corralled and most often delivered into the hands of misery and destruction in accord with the whims of a select few. History abundantly illustrates that the stewardship of the interests of the governed has most often been carried forward in eminently questionable fashion, judging by the overwhelming body of examples of the caprice and crimes of small numbers of people whose tenures as “divine” rulers produced, as a rule, endless bloodshed, poverty, suffering, and general misery for those over whom they exercised power.

A major hitch for the ruling classes came with the Renaissance, which may be argued to have inevitably led to the “discovery” of the scientific method, which in turn paved the way for technological advances in thought, method, and material, which further began to expose the “divine right of kings” for the utter fraud that it is. Later, the “Enlightenment” saw quantum advances in human thought, further exposing the fraud of divine rule under which countless people had suffered and ignominiously died for thousands of years.

Initially, rulers attempted to retain their deep investment in the institutions of divine rule through threats and applications of force in the face of the ironclad results of proper science, but in time it became clear that the tide was turning away from their favor and the futility of their efforts became apparent. The rulers slowly began to realize that another approach was required if their hegemony was to be preserved. To what better solution could they have arrived than to co-opt the very science that threatened their positions and make it work for them rather than against? This is precisely what was done and one of the single greatest advances in despotic rule came as the result of this adaptive shift: the concept of “the state”.

Though morally neutral in character, the notion of “the state” lends itself at least equally well to the establishment and maintenance of tyranny as it does to free living. The neutrality of the concept, having been altered in a subtle and fundamental way, enabled it to be used so as to most fully serve the purposes of despotic rule. This key shift came when the concept was (largely tacitly) imbued with the characteristic of a material reality of its own. One may have to think about that awhile and with some care before its significance becomes apparent. The truth about “the state” is that it exists in one place and manner only, as a concept within the confines of the human brain. That is it. There is absolutely no other reality to its existence.
One may be tempted to protest, pointing to a city such as Washington DC and proclaim that “the state” holds abundant material reality. Yet those people would be sadly and gravely mistaken in that they misidentify buildings, equipment, badges, titles, and words written on paper, etc. as “the state” rather than as nothing more than a collection of material items, ideas, and agreements gathered together and employed as instruments for the purposes of discharging certain functions of governance.

“What is the difference?” one may ask. The difference is fundamental because in accepting an implicit, unsubstantiated assertion of the material reality of “the state”, one then positions themselves only a fraction of a step away from accepting other equally false and even more absurd and dangerous characteristics as part and parcel of it. For example, people speak of “states rights” as if “the state” were a person imbued by birth with civil rights. “States” are ideas with no inherent material reality. How can an idea have rights? It would be sooner acceptable that one's kitchen sink had rights, for at least one can reach out and touch it. Yet people have been taught to accept the insubstantial reality of “the state”, albeit tacitly, as a living entity possessing not only a material existence separate and apart from the people, but also opinions, feelings, interests, plans, possessions, and most significantly, rights just as do individual human beings. But who can touch “the state”? Upon what can a man lay his hands and say “this is the state” and not be in absolute, wholesale error?

To anyone in disagreement, the challenge may be made: demonstrate the absolute material reality of “the state” such that it is placed before the world for all behold and lay hands upon. Demonstrate the existence of “the state” as separate and apart from the people whose very existences convey that of “the state” to succeeding generations. Demonstrate the seat of the so-called “interests, desires, and the rights of “the state”. Demonstrate where “the state” exists unto itself apart from the existence of the very individuals who make up “the people”. Is it not the apex of irony that those whose very existence lends “the state” its only claim to exist are the ones against whom its power and authority are turned to the erosion and destruction of their rights, freedoms, prosperity and even their lives? Anyone demonstrating a separate and standalone reality of “the state” will be the first to have done so in the history of humankind.

If reason and truth have thus far failed to convince, then try a thought experiment where one waves his magic wand and for some period of time, perhaps 1day, every human being on the planet, save the waver, disappears as if they had never existed. Where, then, shall he find “the state”? Nowhere. Why? Because “the state” never existed in the first place, save as an idea that provided the conceptual framework upon which a set of behavioral conventions was hung, and according to which people would comport themselves pursuant to notions deemed beneficial to each and every individual living under its duly constituted authority. And be clear that such granted power and authority can only be considered as “duly constituted” when every it serves every individual citizen equally and only while fully respecting and demurring to their inherent rights.

In a free society, the set of conventions we call “the state” is granted but the smallest handful of narrowly specified powers pursuant to the legitimate roles they are to fulfill in service to all the citizens. Those roles of universal benefit to the people include the guarantee and enforcement of respect for individual civil rights[i] the administration of justice, the promotion of the general welfare[ii], the common defense, and the enforcement of contracts. Beyond this small set there is precious little else that could be offered in the way of “services” that would in fact serve every citizen or to which anyone could reasonably claim entitlement. Therefore, one is by virtue of their inborn rights and the attendant status as an equal with their fellow citizens, entitled to have their rights guaranteed and protected by one means or another. We have chosen law and a duly constituted authority of “the state” to so guarantee and protect those rights. One is not, however, entitled to having “the state” provide them with a yacht, should the citizen desire one. The citizen is, however, entitled to acquire that yacht as the legitimate application of his talents and abilities will allow, without interference from any third party. Our nation is rife with interference by “the state” in the private affairs of the citizens and it must be stopped if our freedoms mean anything to us.

Let it be understood that nearly all “state” enforcement power ultimately boils down to the ability to take the lives of citizens with impunity. This fact cannot be overstated and it should be considered carefully until it is fully understood. For those not seeing it, consider any trivial situation where an individual wholly refuses to cooperate the state. The example of a parking ticket may prove illuminating. A citizen is issued a parking ticket, which he refuses to pay for some reason. Eventually a bench warrant is issued and he is arrested during a traffic stop. The citizen’s continued refusal to “cooperate” will ultimately result in the application of physical force. Further refusal will see an escalation in violence that, if continued, ultimately results in the death of the citizen. Death for a parking ticket? That is the universal logical conclusion underlying the position of the authority of “the state”, and in no case will that citizen's death have been about the parking ticket, which is an incidental triviality. The citizen will have been murdered by a "government" goon squad under the imprimatur of "the state" because he refused to obey even the most trivial command. The message there is clear: thou shalt not disobey the state lest thy destruction be visited upon thee.

In the 1936 science fiction classic “Things To Come”, the character known as “The Boss” openly reveals the fraudulent, corrupt, and violent sham-nature of “the state” as commonly practiced around the world. When pressing Dr. Harding after his refusal to cooperate in the manufacture of fuel and poison gas for the “air force”, The Boss lays it out on the table most unequivocally when he says:

“The Combatant State is your father and your mother, your only protector, the totality of your interests. No discipline can be stern enough for the man who denies that by word or deed.”

Later in the same scene he declares:

“You are conscripted. You are under my orders now and under no others in the world. I am the master here! I am the State.”

In another exchange, this time with the protagonist, John Cabal, The Boss asks:

“What Government are you under?”

To which Cabal responds:

“Common sense. Call us Airmen if you like. We just run ourselves.”

That last bit about “just run[ing] ourselves” is the single greatest affront and outrage any man could commit in the eyes of “the state”, for it suggests the position of central importance they occupy may be something less than people believe it to be. That, of course, cannot be tolerated in any way or measure, necessitating that the notion and all others even remotely like it be eliminated from the thoughts of the people such that in their minds they constitute cardinal sacrilege and heresy. The one thing above all others of which the state must convince everyone is that without it, they are lost.

And so we see the truth about “the state” as commonly practiced - the grandest shell game ever contrived and set into motion - that it is nothing more than a person or mob acting under the charade of a mere word, whose purported authority renders them immune from accountability for their actions regardless of whether they are moral or corrupt and whose envelope of powers is almost universally expandable to allow for the wholesale violation of human rights. The only reason this turns out to be the case is because enough people buy into the lie of the material “state”, possessing morally superior authority over its very creators. Those who give life to “the state”on the presumption that it will serve their best interests at all times consent to its operation even when it involves their own destruction, that of their progeny, and of posterity in general. There is absolutely no reasoned justification that any “state” should be empowered to rob, beat, imprison, persecute, murder, or otherwise violate the rights of “its” citizens. There is no rational basis for the agents of such crimes not to be held accountable as criminals, whether those who issued the orders, or those who participated in their execution.

Yet, so many people either believe that the crimes of “the state” are morally acceptable, necessary expedients to some “greater good”, or simply unavoidable. Such belief can only be characterized as the apex of folly and insanity, as well as intellectual dishonesty and lassitude, particularly for those people who claim to believe in the concept of equality among people. For them, it is so much more the flight from truth and reason, so much more violent a contradiction in, and a nonsequitur of, logic and justice to claim the belief while idly accepting the crimes of a select few who flash the imprimatur of “the state” while lifting the peoples’ wallets, cutting their throats, or throwing them into prison cells. If we are all equal, then on what morally legitimate and properly reasoned basis does one arbitrarily-constituted group of individuals come together and impose restrictions and mandates that violate the rights of others, employing violence to force compliance? Equality and the violation of natural rights cannot coexist in even the smallest measure. Something has to give, and most often it is human rights that do so.

Another example of how the concept of “the state” is falsely bestowed with human characteristics may be drawn from legislative bodies, the courts, and prosecutors' offices who so often speak of the “interests”, and most absurdly the “dignity” and “rights”(!) of “the state” as if it worked in an office and went home at night to its wife and children. Preposterous! The only material reality even remotely related to “the state” is the collection commonly called “the people”. If anything materially existing could be called “the state”, it is each and every individual person, just as we are “the government”, another entity whose material reality has been falsely forwarded by those in power and accepted by an electorate largely ignorant on, or otherwise disinterested in the point. We are the closest thing to material reality that “the state” shall ever possess and “we” do not exist as a mono-bloc, sentient entity, but only as a collection of individual persons who have come freely together to act in common in certain narrowly defined and strictly limited ways while always retaining our rights to dissolve those associations and covenants with equal freedom. Not a single one of us may claim the moral right to violate the rights of our fellows, yet that is precisely what we do when we allow "the state" to act as such an instrument of violation and denial. Consider carefully, then, where that leaves the guilt laying.

As long as one believes that “the state” actually exists separately and in material reality, possessing human, or rather superhuman characteristics entitling it to govern at its pleasure rather than our own and most often according to whim rather than within the limits of powers granted it by individual human beings and pursuant to respect for the natural law, there is little possibility of being able to limit “the state”, much less fundamentally alter its conceptual structure, far less still to dissolve it. That group of people claiming to represent “the state” will always respond with chicanery and violence to protect, maintain, and if possible expand their powers to rule.

What we have demonstrated here is that “the state” is in no way real beyond its status as a concept. References by individuals to “the state”, specifically its human-like or even superhuman qualities, characteristics, and most ridiculously its “rights” as cited by those in positions of power and others to justify the violation and denial of individual rights, are without exception made in grave error. We now see that as a concept, “the state” provides nothing more than a framework within which people go about their daily lives. This framework is important to free living, but it is not materially real and therefore carries with it no moral authority to deny or disparage the natural rights of men. The framework and its trappings, in order to be just and morally legitimate, must fully respect and defer to the rights of the individual in all ways and cases; anything other than this is corrupt by definition. The conventions of “the state” are supposed to provide us with behavioral guidelines pursuant to the ostensible goal of coexistence while remaining free to live our individual lives according to the dictates of our consciences, even when our choices are potentially self-destructive and stupid.

In other words, the purpose of accepting and complying with these conventions is to serve the individual citizen and not to rule him, especially in violation and denial of his rights as a freeman. “The state” derives its limited powers from the consent of the individual persons that comprise the body of “the people” and as such cannot legitimately exercise powers beyond those limits. Yet “the state” routinely assumes and exercises power far beyond its grant. “The state” continually trespasses upon the private property of the inalienable rights of the individual with ever greater claims of entitlement to act. People, in the main, sit idly by and allow ever deepening incursions onto the property of their individual civil rights, effectively ceding those rights to those who have no authority to trespass upon them. This is due in large part to the misguided acceptance of the bald-faced and wholly absurd lie that “the state” is an actual entity possessing superhuman characteristics including rights that entitle it to engage in all manner of arbitrary and immoral acts.

It will better serve the people of the United States if they acquire truthful knowledge about “the state” as we have begun uncovering it here. Develop and cultivate the mental habit of always bearing the truth in mind and never accepting or otherwise falling for the implied assertion that “the state” possesses a separate reality that stands on its own, apart from humanity; apart from you.

It will further help the cause of personal freedom to openly challenge all the tacitly assumed characteristics of “the state”, especially those that imply sentient qualities such as “dignity”, “interests”, and especially “rights”. Challenge law makers, administrators, and so-called “enforcers” at every level and opportunity and apply your own power of force to compel them to explain themselves when you see their actions to be unjust and in violation of rights and of reason. Force them to demonstrate how law and their actions comport themselves in full and uncompromising compliance with the natural rights of men and, secondarily, the Constitution, accepting no “double-speak” responses.

Cultivate your own powers of reason and hone them with others of a similar mind, developing your views and arguments such that the opinions, arguments, and justifications of those who would and do violate inborn rights embarrassingly dissipate before the world’s eyes when placed under the withering lights of truth and reason. Be upon them relentlessly until either such time as they comply with what is morally correct, resign their offices, or unwisely go on the offensive against you; but never allow them even the slightest quarter to avoid you, ignore you, or serve up to you anything but well reasoned whole-truth in their responses to your rightful demands, for it is you whom they serve and not the other way around.

As dangerous as coming under the ire of “the state” may seem, there is safety in numbers and no matter how hubris-filled a given agency or agent may be or how willing they may be to bring you to harm, they will by no means be able to harm large bodies of citizens without incurring a significant risk of harm to themselves. People must learn and cultivate new habits to actively, smartly, courageously, fiercely, and tirelessly hold all government personnel and their agents fully and strictly accountable for their actions and opinions in discharging their duties of service to “the people”. Such actions and opinions must fully accord with, respect, defer, and demur to the Natural Rights of men, which is the centrally prime element of legitimacy to which any person donning the mantle of government may lay claim to legitimacy in their discharge of office.

Make their offensive behavior a risk-laden proposition for them, fraught with danger and high cost. If they are willing to apply unjust and possibly even lethal force in the violation of yours or your neighbor’s inborn rights, you must be ready to respond accordingly and without hesitation, equivocation, quarter, or mercy, for such people commit or threaten acts of war against the rights of man and this must never be tolerated in the least measure.

Raise up the interests of your neighbors’ rights equally with your own, because to idly suffer the violation of one man’s natural rights and liberties is to give tacit assent to have one's own violated. You need not agree with what your neighbor does, but you should be very interested in his right to do it. S. G. Tallentyre summed up Voltaire’s attitude on this very point:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Voltaire well understood that where rights are concerned, your fellows’ interests are indeed your own and yours, theirs. Bear in mind that the violation of any right for any reason is always arbitrary no matter how the targets are chosen and justified, and no matter how “reasonable” they may seem on the surface. Given this, when one accepts the violation of anyone’s rights for any reason whatsoever, he opens the door for the destruction of his own. This is a truth that cannot be escaped and it will be wise for all people to carefully consider it.

Call all government personnel to account for their actions and reject all justifications that assert “the state” and “the law” empower them to act criminally in violation of human rights. Corner them such that they are unable to retreat into those false defenses and force the light of truth and reason upon them before the eyes of the widest community possible, exposing their crimes for all to witness. Demand this accountability of all government employees from the local dog catcher all the way up the ladder to the President of the

United States

. Demand it with the authority of the employer over the employee, the citizen over the civil servant, and be prepared to take necessary material action against those who evade, avoid, or ignore the moral and lawful mandate of Natural Law.

Finally, be aware that the lies about “the state” as being materially real and possessing the attributes of a living and sentient being are similarly posited with respect to other conceptual entities including “government”, “the law”, and “society”. For example, how often does one hear “society has the right to…”? Like “the state”, “society” possesses no rights whatsoever, nor does “government”, nor “the law”. “Society” is nothing more than a word labeling a collection of individual human beings living in some proximity to each other and perhaps holding some agreed-upon association with each other. It has no rights, fears, desires, interests, plans, possessions, mind, opinions, soul, or authority as such. It only has its members, and those only by the consent of each individual.

Until the day comes that people disabuse themselves of these brazenly asserted and dangerously false notions, they will continue to accept the ever mounting assaults upon their rights. Unless this circumstance changes, the day will come when one's ability to exercise his in-born rights shall have been extinguished from the earth in favor of the assumed and arbitrary powers of a small group of other, merely mortal human beings as they disparage the rest, all the while hiding like the Great Oz behind the curtain of that fiction we call “the state”.

[i] The only kind there are.

[ii] Not provision of

Principles of Tyranny

2009-11-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

An essay by Jon Roland on tyranny. I had planned just such an essay, but since Mr. Roland has already carried out the deed, and to good effect, it is posted here for your information. One point he makes that I have made to people again and again over the years and which bears constant repetition, is that tyranny does not always bear a menacing face. It does, in fact, more often take on the countenance of the benefactor - the kindly and loving father figure who seeks to act only after the better interests of all.

Huge proportions of the population have, through various means, been conditioned to recognize the tyrant only when bearing a very narrowly specific set of outward characteristics. The Hitlers and Stalins of the world may be readily recognizable (then again, they may not), but those who come to us smiling and promising are the most dangerous sorts and the most difficult to see for what they really are. This is why an strong and complete grasp of principles are so vitally important. If one is in sufficient possession of the principles of liberty, knowing when the smiling face is so much as approaching a line will enable them to be alert to it. Without them, the people sleep soundly as the thieves rob them.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

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Principles of Tyranny
by Jon Roland

Definition of Tyranny

Tyranny is usually thought of as cruel and oppressive, and it often is, but the original definition of the term was rule by persons who lack legitimacy, whether they be malign or benevolent. Historically, benign tyrannies have tended to be insecure, and to try to maintain their power by becoming increasingly oppressive. Therefore, rule that initially seems benign is inherently dangerous, and the only security is to maintain legitimacy -- an unbroken accountability to the people through the framework of a written constitution that provides for election of key officials and the division of powers among branches and officials in a way that avoids concentration of powers in the hands of a few persons who might then abuse those powers.

Tyranny is an important phenomenon that operates by principles by which it can be recognized in its early emerging stages, and, if the people are vigilant, prepared, and committed to liberty, countered before it becomes entrenched.

The Psychology of Tyranny

Perhaps one of the things that most distinguishes those with a fascist mentality from most other persons is how they react in situations that engender feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Both kinds of people will tend to seek to increase their power, that is, their control over the
outcome of events, but those with a fascist mindset tend to overestimate the amount of influence over outcomes that it is possible to attain. This leads to behavior that often brings them to positions of leadership or authority, especially if most other persons in their society tend to underestimate the influence over outcomes they can attain, and are inclined to yield to those
who project confidence in what they can do and promise more than anyone can deliver.

This process is aided by a common susceptibility which might be called the rooster syndrome, from the old saying, "They give credit to the rooster crowing for the rising of the sun." It arises from the tendency of people guided more by hope or fear than intelligence to overestimate the power of their leaders and attribute to them outcomes, either good or bad, to which the leaders contributed little if anything, and perhaps even acted to prevent or reduce. This comes from the inability of most persons to understand complex dynamic systems and their long-term behavior, which leads people to attribute effects to proximate preceding events instead of actual
long-term causes.

The emergence of tyranny therefore begins with challenges to a group, develops into general feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, and falls into a pattern in which some individuals assume the role of "father" to the others, who willingly submit to becoming dependent "children" of such
persons if only they are reassured that a more favorable outcome will be realized. This pattern of co-dependency is pathological, and generally results in decision making of poor quality that makes the situation even worse, but, because the pattern is pathological, instead of abandoning it, the co-dependents repeat their inappropriate behavior to produce a vicious spiral that, if not interrupted, can lead to total breakdown of the group and the worst of the available outcomes.

In psychiatry, this syndrome is often discussed as an "authoritarian personality disorder". In common parlance, as being a "control freak".

The Logic of Tyranny

In Orwell's classic fable, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the protagonist Winston Smith makes a key statement:

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."

Following the trial of the surviving Branch Davidians in San Antonio, Texas, in March, 1994, in which a misinstructed jury acquitted all the defendants of the main crimes with which they were charged, but convicted them of the enhancements of using firearms in the commission of a crime, the federal judge, Walter F. Smith, first dismissed the charges, correctly, on the grounds that it is logically impossible to be guilty of an enhancement if one is innocent of the crime. However, under apparent political pressure, he subsequently reversed his own ruling and sentenced the defendants to maximum terms as though they had been convicted of the main crimes, offering the comment, "The law doesn't have to be logical."

No. The law does have to be logical. Otherwise it is not law. It is arbitrary rule by force.

Now by "logical" what is meant is two-valued logic, which is sometimes also called Boolean, Aristotelian or Euclidean logic. In other words, a system of propositions within which a statement and its negation cannot both be true or valid. One of the two must be false or invalid. The two possible values are true and false, and every meaningful proposition can be assigned one or
the other value.

A system of law is a body of prescriptive, as opposed to descriptive, propositions, that support the making of decisions, and therefore its logic must be two-valued. It is a fundamental principle of law that like cases must be decided alike, and this means according to propositions that exclude their contradictions.

It is also a fundamental principle of logic that any system of propositions that accepts both a statement and its negation as valid, that is, which accepts a contradiction, accepts all contradictions, and provides no basis for deciding among them. If decisions are made, they are not made on the basis of the propositions, but are arbitrary, and that is the definition of the rule of men, as opposed to the rule of law.

So what Winston Smith is saying is that freedom means being able to distinguish between a true proposition and a false one, and what his nemesis O'Brien therefore does to crush him is make him accept that "2 + 2 = 5", which cannot be true if the logic is Aristotelian. O'Brien represents the logic of arbitrary power, a "logic" we might call Orwellian, although Orwell, whose real name was Eric Blair, was strongly opposed to it.

The Methodology of Tyranny

The methods used to overthrow a constitutional order and establish a tyranny are well-known. However, despite this awareness, it is surprising how those who have no intention of perpetrating a tyranny can slip into these methods and bring about a tyranny despite their best intentions. Tyranny does not have to be deliberate. Tyrants can fool themselves as thoroughly as they fool everyone else.

Control of public information and opinion
It begins with withholding information, and leads to putting out false or misleading information. A government can develop ministries of propaganda under many guises. They typically call
it "public information" or "marketing".

Vote fraud used to prevent the election of reformers
It doesn't matter which of the two major party candidates are elected if no real reformer can get nominated, and when news services start knowing the outcomes of elections before it is possible for them to know, then the votes are not being honestly counted.

Undue official influence on trials and juries
Nonrandom selection of jury panels, exclusion of those opposed to the law, exclusion of the jury from hearing argument on the law, exclusion of private prosecutors from access to the grand
jury, and prevention of parties and their counsels from making effective arguments or challenging the government.

Usurpation of undelegated powers
This is usually done with popular support for solving some problem, or to redistribute wealth to the advantage of the supporters of the dominant faction, but it soon leads to the deprivation of rights of minorities and individuals.

Seeking a government monopoly on the capability and use of armed force
The first signs are efforts to register or restrict the possession and use of firearms, initially under the guise of "protecting" the public, which, when it actually results in increased crime, provides a basis for further disarmament efforts affecting more people and more weapons.

Militarization of law enforcement
Declaring a "war on crime" that becomes a war on civil liberties. Preparation of military forces for internal policing duties.

Infiltration and subversion of citizen groups that could be forces for reform
Internal spying and surveillance is the beginning. A sign is false prosecutions of their leaders.

Suppression of investigators and whistleblowers
When people who try to uncover high level wrongdoing are threatened, that is a sign the system is not only riddled with corruption, but that the corruption has passed the threshold into
active tyranny.

Use of the law for competition suppression
It begins with the dominant faction winning support by paying off their supporters and suppressing their supporters' competitors, but leads to public officials themselves engaging in illegal activities and using the law to suppress independent competitors. A good example of this is narcotics trafficking.

Subversion of internal checks and balances
This involves the appointment to key positions of persons who can be controlled by their sponsors, and who are then induced to do illegal things. The worst way in which this occurs is in the appointment of judges that will go along with unconstitutional acts by the other branches.

Creation of a class of officials who are above the law
This is indicated by dismissal of charges for wrongdoing against persons who are "following orders".

Increasing dependency of the people on government
The classic approach to domination of the people is to first take everything they have away from them, then make them compliant with the demands of the rulers to get anything back
again.

Increasing public ignorance of their civic duties and reluctance to perform them
When the people avoid doing things like voting and serving in militias and juries, tyranny is not far behind.

Use of staged events to produce popular support
Acts of terrorism, blamed on political opponents, followed immediately with well-prepared proposals for increased powers and budgets for suppressive agencies. Sometimes called a
Reichstag plot.

Conversion of rights into privileges
Requiring licenses and permits for doing things that the government does not have the delegated power to restrict, except by due process in which the burden of proof is on the petitioner.

Political correctness
Many if not most people are susceptible to being recruited to engage in repressive actions against disfavored views or behaviors, and led to pave the way for the dominance of tyrannical government.

Avoiding Tyranny

The first step is always to detect tendencies toward tyranny and suppress them before they go too far or become too firmly established. The people must never acquiesce in any violation of the Constitution. Failure to take corrective action early will only mean that more severe measures will have to be taken later, perhaps with the loss of life and the disruption of the society in ways from which recovery may take centuries.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Langauge And Freedom

2009-11-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

Language and Freedom

Numerous personalities of note have made the connection between freedom and education. Specifically, it has been observed that a well-educated populace is a most basic and necessary condition for maintaining a state of freedom. Thomas Jefferson put it well when he wrote:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

In a related, though broader sense, Thomas Paine wrote:

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”

From these two quotes, we derive two of the important prerequisites in order for freedom to survive the attacks that it invariably must endure: a well-educated people and the determination to keep them that way.

What, one may ask, does this have to do with language? In a word, everything.

Without language, we would have no thoughts beyond those of the base instinctual variety. Without language, our thoughts would be wholly unarticulated. Language is the instrument by which humans beings conceptualize the world. Were we unable to draw and understand concepts, our capabilities as intellects would be somewhere at the level of chickens. Nearly everything we know as human beings exists in our minds as concepts. Therefore, language serves as the means by which we know and make sense of virtually every aspect of the world around us. Language is the very basis of our understandings of just about everything we know and ever will know. Equally importantly, language serves as the basis for the ways in which we know those things. Without language, we would be incapable of doing much more than eat, sleep, eliminate, engage in sex, and run away from danger. One’s thoughts form their reality, and the basis of all thought existing above the level of midbrain impulse is language. For all practical purposes, without language, there are no thoughts such as we commonly know them today.

Consider what human life would be like without language. What, for example, would people be able to do when they became hungry? At best, they would mill about in search of food in a haphazard fashion, unable to convey ideas to others because there would be no ideas. The instruments of language and the framework they provide for allowing concepts to exist and people to understand them would be absent. Human beings would perceive the world in a wholly different fashion and that manner would severely restrict their options for taking action in their environments. The manner in which people would be handicapped in this respect would be similar to the way in which a person who was blind from birth would not be able to conceptualize colors. Without the experience of perceiving color, the brain has no way of knowing what it is. We may say the same of thought and its attendant structural foundation, language.

Without language, those same people would not be able to coordinate food-gathering efforts or to engage in mutually beneficial collective action of any sort. In the case of defending the familial- or tribal-unit, instinct would almost certainly cause them to gather because of the unarticulated feelings from their midbrains would drive them to act, much as the sexual urge would drive them to copulation. There would be a complete absence of rational thought, where in its stead only primitive urges would drive all actions.

In the same case of community defense, consider how severely handicapped people without language would be from the standpoint of keeping guard and warning of danger. Once again, instinct would perhaps provide the drive to maintain vigil, which might consist of everyone sleeping with one eye open every night. Ignoring the poor state of rest in which they might find themselves, consider the practical disadvantages of an absence of language and rational thought for these people where the common defense would be concerned. Imagine that everyone is asleep, save one “sentry”, and he spies a known threat closing on them. What could he do to warn the others? Short of screaming and flailing wildly to arouse his companions, it would seem that anything useful to the defense of the clan would be beyond their reach. Supposing he does just that, those so rudely awakened would know only that there was danger. There would be no way of informing them as to the nature of the threat; what sort of creatures, from what direction, how many, etc. All they would know was that they were in danger, which we may all agree might not be enough information to be of any real help in some situations.

Consider the way of identifying similar threats. The language deprived clan sees one of their own taken by a spotted cat. That direct experience enables the survivors to identify the next spotted cat as a threat to their lives. But what of a striped cat? We take it for granted that a large cat is going to be a threat no matter what its markings, but these people have no concept of “cat” as a category because they are incapable of categorizing anything for lack of the intellectual tools that language provides. There would be no ability to abstract “cat” from “spotted cat”. Therefore, that striped cat would take those poor primitive beings completely unawares as he came along and ate one of them. What would they do when they encountered a bear?

Compare that situation with one where language, thought, and a sufficient body of relevant concepts were available to that tribe. First, there could be a sentry because through the instruments of thought and its linguistic foundation, the primitive men would be able to work out the idea that having a handful of their fellows keeping watch as the rest slept would be beneficial to the state of restfulness of the community. When a sentry discovered the approaching threat, there would now be open to him a range of responses, each appropriate to a different set of circumstances. If he discovered the threat while it was still far distant, a sentry could quietly arouse his fellows and apprise them in detail of what he had discovered. This might provide the option of quietly slipping away undetected, rather than reacting in a manner that would only serve to alert the potential enemy of their presence and location. And when that striped cat showed up, the people would immediately be able to identify “cat” and therefore realize the danger and take action before anyone was eaten.

From these simple examples, we can readily see that language and what it brings to the table of human consciousness changes the quality of life from the most rudimentary levels all the way up to the most abstruse concepts. Without language, our worlds would be far smaller and vastly more meager, not to mention a whole lot more dangerous. Language establishes the very basis of virtually everything we do by enabling us to acquire, store, abstract, and build upon information and knowledge. Without language there would be no knowledge.

Language provides us with the following capabilities:

To conceptualize
To abstract from specific experiences to generalized concepts
To assign meaning through concepts
To apply conceptual generalizations to specific and often new cases
To communicate meaning and intention to others
To know given things in different ways
To think rationally

There are many other abilities for which language acts as a vehicle, but most of those arise through the agency of those listed above. The fact that one can consider that list and come up with additional capabilities based on it is yet another way in which language serves us from the depths of our minds.

This leads us directly to the idea of proper and improper uses of language, whether through intent or ignorance. Remembering that language is the foundational basis for rational, conceptual thought and that our thoughts form our realities, it then follows that the soundness of our thoughts is at least partly dependent on the soundness of our skills in using language. Strong language skills are a fundamental prerequisite for sound capabilities in reasoned thought. That is, one cannot think in a well-reasoned and orderly manner if their language skills are not sufficiently developed. Freedom, therefore, depends on language for its very existence and survival.

In the absence of strongly educated, independently thinking people who are strongly habituated to powerful critical reasoning, we can neither realize nor maintain the concept and practice of living freely as a nation nor even as individuals. Without adept language skills, the quality of our critical reasoning habits and our attitudes regarding our freedoms are meaningless because without those skills, our abilities to employ those habits and attitudes will be ineffectual. Without that ability, we stand impotent to determine whether any given proposition will serve liberty or hinder it.

The ignorant misuse and malicious abuse of language has been the cause of endless mischief where liberty is concerned. One of the most troublesome areas lies in the abuse of the very meanings of words themselves. Many people are fond of excusing the abuse of language, citing the “fact” that languages “evolve”. They may indeed evolve, but that does not mean that it is a good thing in all cases. There are countless examples of how such evolution causes far more harm than good. Consider this quote:

“The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now.”

- SC v. US, 199 U.S. 437, 448

This, from a Supreme Court decision, indirectly acknowledges the vital importance that the proper use and maintenance of language holds for us all. There are, however, those who assert that a the Constitution is a living document, and therefore changes its meaning as times change. If the meaning of our Constitution alters in time with superficial alterations of context, then in actuality the document means nothing at all for it is subject to arbitrary interpretation by whoever it is that happens to be assuming positions of power at a given time. It further implies that fundamental principals that people live by also mean nothing, as their “meanings” may alter with time and fashion. Proponents of the “living document” notion have used this fallacious, yet emotionally compelling fiction to convince people that the Constitution no longer means what it says. While it has not always been successful, that this notion has ever succeeded constitutes convincing evidence that the language skills of many Americans are probably lacking in a potentially fatal manner and degree. Fatal, at the very least, to our freedom.

We may demonstrate the wholly unsound nature of this point of view with a simple example based on our murder laws. It is safe to say that the vast and overwhelming majority of Americans agree that laws prohibiting murder are in fact constitutionally sound. Imagine, then, a defendant pleading not guilty to a charge of murder and basing his defense on the position that his act was in fact legal because “times have changed” and the applicable laws no longer mean what they once did. How many presumably sane and rational people would accept such a defense? Yet this is the very argument that some use to justify the usurpation of power by government and the infringement of rights of the people. Such people will argue that government may now assume this power or that because “times have changed” – the old “necessity” trick. Legislators often use the same argument to justify the legislative abrogation of civil rights. In virtually every case one can find that abuses of language that skew reason and hide its flaws lie at the foot of such efforts.

Regardless of the issue at hand, such arguments tend to carry with them heavily flawed reasoning. They do, however, also carry with them very strong emotional force that is almost universally couched in the misuse of language. Many people, at times a majority, who are the targets of such arguments, are unable to analyze them due to the lack of strong language skills that stands at the root of the cascade of their other deficiencies, all contributing to an inability to refute even the most egregiously obvious attempts to violate the sovereignty of the individual.

Consider the Second Amendment to the US Constitution which states:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

This simple and eminently clear sentence has been grossly misinterpreted that it almost defies credulity. This is especially so by those who oppose the notion of a right to keep and bear arms. Why is this so? Poor language skills and the redefinition of terms are the main culprits. A common misinterpretation, stemming from a singular lack of grammar skills, asserts that the enumerated right is collective rather than individual. One “fact” they employ in support of the claim is that the first clause, also called the “prefatory” clause (A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state), places a restriction upon the second clause (the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed). In other words, they claim that the Amendment is saying that the right to keep and bear arms is collective rather than individual and that this right is therefore reserved to “the people” and exercisable only through the militia, which many assert to be the National Guard with equal error. Therefore, according to this “interpretation”, only those in the National Guard have the right to keep and bear arms. Notice also that a “right” seems to appear to one’s possession, as if by magic when they join the National Guard and disappears with equal mystery when they leave. What of the other armed forces that are not the National Guard?

A simple example to expose the flawed linguistic understanding that underpins the collectivist interpretation might read:

“A well-educated electorate being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.”

How many of the collectivist adherents would interpret this statement to mean that only well-educated people had the right to own and read books? Most likely, none would, and yet they advocate this ridiculous notion where the Second Amendment is concerned and many others fall for it because they simply do not possess the basic language skills that would enable them to know the true meaning of the Amendment.

How about this, for the benefit of those fans of the First Amendment:

“An open and candid Congress being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to hold and express opinions shall not be infringed.”

Is there any reasonable chance of interpreting this to mean that only senators and representatives are entitled to free speech?

Another equally significant example involves the Congress’ use of the so-called “commerce clause” to make an end-run around their constitutionally limited powers to interfere with the affairs of the citizens. Once again, the lack of sufficient language skills has enabled Congress to enact entire bodies of unconstitutional legislation, and to have them upheld by the courts. One illustrative tidbit relating to these centers on the very definition of “commerce”, which today we take it to mean trade – all sorts of trade, in fact. Back when the commerce clause was penned, “commerce” had a different and very specific meaning, which was trade over the oceans and as affected by ship. Its original, mercantilist intent was to nationalize state imposts on foreign trade. Some desired this for two reasons, the first being that the federal government was in sore need of revenues to pay the debts it incurred in financing the war of independence and the second was to minimize precious specie movements out of the country by restricting foreign trade. For anyone finding this definition non-credible, one may find original research into the issue here [1].

Applying the meaning of “commerce” as employed by the framers of the Constitution at the time of its ratification, the legitimacy of all such acts based on the commerce clause come immediately into question. This may not seem very consequential until we begin to consider how many people have served long and hard prison sentences because of convictions under such unconstitutional laws.

If we cannot make proper use of language even to the point of possessing the real meanings of words, how will we be able to realize freedom for a moment, much less maintain it across the generations? If an iron will does not bind us to endow ourselves with strong skills in language and the other arts that they allow for, the hope for free living is as dead as yesterday’s news.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

[1] http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/calvinjohnson/PandasThumb.pdf

Degrees of Freedom

2009-11-15T10:55:00.000-08:00

Just How Free Are You?

There are those persons and institutions that believe they hold the moral authority to abridge the freedoms of others. Where so-called “legitimate” government bodies are concerned, they back that belief with the means and the will to threaten and apply various types and measures of force upon the governed pursuant to the capricious dictates of law that violates the individual right to be free. Underlying this mentality of entitlement there is a notion of "degrees of freedom". We will analyze this notion that some claim the necessity for which grants them the moral and/or the legal authority to infringe upon the freedom of others.

Some definitions are in order before we proceed:

slave – noun

1. a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person

slavery - noun

1. the condition of a slave; bondage
2. a state of subjection like that of a slave

subject – noun

1. One who or that which is under the power, control, influence, observation, or action of some other person or thing, especially a person who owes allegiance to a ruler, government, etc.

freeman – noun

1. one who enjoys liberty, or who is not subject to the will of another
2. one who is not in slavery or bondage

bondage – noun

1. slavery or involuntary servitude
2. restraint of a person’s liberty by compulsion
3. serfdom

serf - noun

1. a slave
2. any person who is oppressed or without freedom

chattel - noun

1. law: a movable article of personal property
2. a slave

abject – adjective

1. sunk to a low condition: applied to persons or things

utter – noun

1. situated at or beyond the limits of something
2. complete; total
3. absolute; unconditional; unqualified;

subjugation - verb

1. to bring under complete control or subjection; conquer; master
2. to make submissive or subservient; enslave

citizen - noun

1. a native or inhabitant, especially a freeman or burgess of a town or city

2. a member of a state or nation, especially one with a republican form of government, who owes allegiance to it by birth or naturalization and is entitled to full civil rights

Note the second definition under “slavery”: a state of subjugation like that of a slave, the use of which indicates “similarity”, in turn indicating that one need not be an abject slave in order to live under conditions of slavery, thereby denoting degree. Furthermore, the term “abject slave” indicates the degree to which one is a slave, in this case the worst possible condition. Other terms that we may use interchangeably with “slave” include bondman, bondservant, and serf.

Consider “serf”; it equates with “slave” as well as denoting any person who is oppressed or without freedom. Once again, the concept of degree applies because oppression need not be absolute in order to be present. We commonly accept that oppression exists in degrees. One may say the same of “subject”. Degree follows axiomatically from these terms due to their very nature. One person ruling over another such that the other’s role is that of a serf, slave, or subject directly implies the ruler’s power of caprice and his discretion to dispose of the other as he sees fit in some degree, which is not always absolute. It is, in fact, rarely absolute, for even kings were often bounded in what they were legitimately empowered to do with their subjects, though most often those limits were broad enough to render them effectively limitless. The point is that kings and other governments exercise varying degrees of illegitimate and unjustifiable power over their respective people as a rule, particularly if we accept the premise that we are all equal and free.

The Fallacy of “Degrees of Freedom”

Those who justify the circumscription and denial of the freedom of others will often raise the argument that "one cannot do anything they want", implying that this is what the concept of "freedom" represents. One commonly offered remark is that one cannot go around killing people just because they want to; therefore we are not completely free." This position and its attendant reasoning demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of what freedom really connotes as it relates to the personal state of liberty of the individual, and by extension, a nation. A corollary of this point of view is the concept of "degrees of freedom". Let us begin by stating unequivocally that there is no such thing as "degrees of individual freedom". One is free or one is not; there is nothing in between. This implies that one is either a freeman or a slave.

There are those who object to the use of the terms “slave” and “slavery” when discussing issues of personal liberty on the grounds that the words are simply too strong and therefore misleading and inappropriate. They further argue that this is especially so today, an age where slavery has been “eliminated” from the world. To this, they will add that use of such terms in the context of the people of “free world” (USA, Europe, etc.) is absurd on its face. For such people it appears that their understanding of the term relates solely to the archetype of the manacled abject slave, betraying their belief that slavery does not exist in degrees, but is an all or nothing proposition and that "freedom" exists and is therefore "allowed" in degrees. In fact, such objections most often stem from a precisely reversed understanding of this very aspect of the terms “freedom” and “slavery” in the all too commonly held false beliefs that freedom exists in degrees and slavery does not.

Freedom never exists in degrees, while slavery always does, over a very broad continuum. The "best" forms of slavery therefore, may appear as freedom to those for whom the state of subjugation is more severe. Understandably, such people may observe the conditions of less restricted people and wish for their “freedom”, not quite realizing that what they wish for is actually a similar cage, only with more gilding and perhaps a bit roomier. For those living under the comparatively enviable circumstances, their chains often rest lightly upon them and the perceived benefits of their subjugation, mild as they may be, provide little or no motivation to strive for actual freedom. Real freedom is, in fact, anathema to the way such people appear to view life. They view actual freedom as something reckless, dangerous, antisocial, and therefore something to avoid assiduously and with vehemence; something to be eliminated. Many who live in their gilt cages are more than happy with the restrictions placed upon them, at least so long as the gilding does not start to peel. It is their right to agree to such conditions for themselves. What of the rest of us? An oft-forwarded justification for imposing interference upon those who do not agree is the fallaciously employed doctrine of "fairness", which holds that what applies to one must apply to all. In such cases, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Let us then answer the question as to why there can be no degrees of freedom. The answer is straightforward: "degrees of freedom" implies an arbitrary, therefore capricious, and therefore unpredictable third party control over one's prerogatives. If freedom exists in degrees, it follows that someone is making the determination of which beliefs and behaviors the "authority" in question shall allow, a direct contradiction of the definition of "personal freedom". It also begs the question: Who is this third party and by what moral authority do they assume the right or the power over others to thwart them arbitrarily? Clearly, they are not arguing for what axiomatically flows from the very definition of freedom; the actions of legislators at every level of government rocketed past that boundary long ago. Such people seek nothing less than ever-greater degrees of subjugation of the individual's freedom pursuant to a purpose, fair or foul. Rarely will they admit to such goals, most often arguing that their actions constitute that which is ‘best”, rather than an act of war against the individual in the name of some inorganic justification. A litany of equally fallacious justifications usually accompanies such arguments and usually fall into categories that include:

1. The greatest good for the greatest number must be served

· Ex.: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his congress shove the welfare state down the throats of a proud and self-sufficient American people.

· Ex.: The Soviet Union under Stalin murders tens of millions of its own people to “protect the people from counter-revolutionaries”

· Ex.: Adolph Hitler exterminates millions of people and destroys nearly the entire European continent pursuant to his goal of the 1000 year Reich of which his people were to be the masters.

· Ex.: China, under helmsman Mao, purged and “reeducated” tens of millions of his own people during the “cultural” revolution. The Chinese government destroyed much of ancient Chinese architecture and art in an apoplectic fit of serving the greatest good for the greatest number.

· Ex.: The Khmer Rouge engaged in a massive “social engineering” program wherein they murdered approximately 1.5 million Cambodians through torture, execution, forced labor, and starvation, all for the good of "the people".

· Ex.: Fidel Castro seized Cuba, nationalized everything for the good of one and all, resulting in a nation still living in 1959, short on food, medicines, and … freedom

· Ex.: The long-standing attempts at firearms prohibition on the presumption that removal of the guns from the hands of the citizens will make for a safer society, the ostensible goal of which makes right the denial and abridgement of the constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

· Ex.: The Volstead Act passed on the basis that alcohol consumption was to be prohibited for the good of “society”.

· The litany of such historical events appears to have no discernible end. There is always someone out there claiming he has the solution for all human woes and that those who succeed must be subdued and suborned for the benefit of the rest. The implication here is that someone’s opinion of how the world should be supersedes the inborn and natural rights of people.

2. It is for your own good

· A variation on the point, above.

· Ex.: The outlawing of possession and use of illicit drugs such as marijuana and heroin, even when such possession and use affects none but the users.

· Ex.: The long standing attempts at firearms prohibition where one much loved argument in favor of it has been the claim that one is “43 times more likely to be shot with their gun than to be saved by it.”

· Ex. Prohibition of gambling. Prohibited, except of course in approved government monitored facilities where the taxman is most likely to get his pound of flesh.

· There are those ostensibly well-meaning souls out there who presume to know what is best for you and will save you from yourself no matter how stridently you may object. Such people will go so far as to see you go to prison for your own good, the Constitution and your freedom be damned.

3. One owes it to “society” to accept the transgression

· Ex.: Prohibition of tobacco smoking in public places. The City of Philadelphia adopted such stringent public anti-smoking laws that it was once observed that apparently the only place where it was still legal to smoke in public was the middle of two lane and larger roads, on the yellow line.

· Ex.: Property taxes – you owe it to society to subsidize the educations of your neighbor’s children in perpetuity. If you fail to pay for any reason, your friendly county sheriff will forcibly remove your private property (i.e. your home) from you, at gunpoint if necessary, and auction it off for the outstanding sum. If you resist, you will arrested and possibly tried and jailed. If you really resist, "law" enforcement may even kill you.

· Ex.: Times are tough and we all must make sacrifices; therefore, you are no longer entitled to do, own, or act upon X. We in the United States hear presidents make this claim now and again, particularly when the freedoms they are demanding we abdicate are particularly important to us.

· For some, being “free” apparently means you owe something to somebody just because they occupy space. This is a central pillar of all forced-collectivist philosophies.

4. An emergency condition exists and we must give up some rights

· Ex. We are at war and must give up some of our rights. Do not worry though; you will get them back when the war is over.

· Ex. For fifty years, the US government bilked US taxpayers because of the never-ending threat the Soviet Union posed to our security.

· Ex. “National security” becomes the catch all imprimatur by which government arrogated to themselves an ever-growing litany of powers.

· Ex. 9/11/2001 – the war on terror begins, showing no potential for seeing an end. One of the earliest babies born of this disaster was the USA PATRIOT act, the provisions of which every American is behooved to read. PATRIOT II was so bizarrely and overtly extreme that even the US Congress had to say no to it. Never fear, though, for congress incorporated most of the provisions of PATRIOT II in some form into other legislation.

· Need to maintain extraordinary power for an extraordinary period? Just concoct an extraordinarily severe emergency that is never resolved and you are good to go.

5. It is only "fair"

· If it applies to one, it must apply to all.

6. It is the will of "the people"

· Perhaps the lamest excuse of them all.

When such schemes are forced upon a person, he is no longer free, but a slave or a subject to a greater or lesser degree. Note how in such cases, force or its threat universally serve as the means by which governments of all sorts thrust such transgressions against individual freedom upon the people. In most cases, legislators never even bother to consult the citizens on such matters, regardless of the fact that they are supposed to be public servants and not anyone's masters.

When one accepts the notion of “degrees of freedom”, they have rejected, perhaps unwittingly, actual freedom in favor of some degree of slavery. Some appear to be largely unaware of what it is they are choosing. Many seem to believe that slavery is freedom and freedom some dangerous horror to be stamped out, along with all its proponents. These people constitute the most eloquent vindication of George Orwell, who is perhaps spinning like a lathe in his grave. Recall the definition of personal freedom as we developed it here: the prerogative to choose any action one wishes, within their means, as long as it does not constitute a violation of the freedom of others. This definition is unequivocal and the prerogatives it allows for are expansively broad and the restrictions vanishingly small, yet few people are aware of it and of those, fewer still, accept it. Given the definition, who can look at even the great United States and conclude that their people are free?

If they are not free, then they are slaves, or subjects - but subjects of whom? Certainly, the question cannot be "subjects of what?” for how can an inanimate object or a materially insubstantial concept hold dominion over us? Who is it, then, that holds moral supremacy over the rest such that they may dictate what shall be allowed? By what standard are they superior to the rest such that they may claim moral authority over everyone else? These are the questions each and every human being on the planet should be asking themselves and each other. Each of us should question with healthy skepticism the standard assumptions and suppositions upon which the arguments for third party interference rest, always asking, "Who says?" and "By what standard is this so?"

The lesson here is simple: freedom is monotonic, i.e., you are free or you are not. There are no variations on the meaning of the term or the condition that it represents. If you are not free, then at the very best, you are a subject and not a citizen, for the latter implies a free man whereas the former implies one subject to the opinions and whims of another. If we agree to the notion of “equality” as commonly used in this context, then how can one man act as the master of another? Is that not the very definition of slavery? Is slavery not one of the things our cultural values have taught us to despise, reject, and act against with venom and single-minded determination? How is it, then, that we tolerate such intrusion and theft; such violation? Why do we tolerate the intolerable? What is it about our ways of thinking that have brought us to this unfortunate state of being? Why do we not act to reclaim that which was born to us and stolen from us through force and fraud by those who would presume to be our masters? How can it be justified? How do you justify it? What are your reasons? What are your excuses? Finally, ask yourself how you will feel if one day you wake up to find that the most precious thing you ever possessed is now far gone, never to return.

Please take the time to consider the ideas and questions here and discuss them with others. Is your freedom not worth this much?

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

The Nature of Human Beings in the Context of Political Power

2009-11-10T16:43:00.001-08:00

Power and Human Nature

We cannot properly appreciate, understand, and act upon our discussions of personal freedom without a basic understanding of several related factors that allow us to ascribe a more complete, correct, and proper meaning to it. One of the most important considerations is a correct and sufficient practical understanding of human nature in the context of power. For the purposes of this essay, we will further confine the discussion to that of political power. Be aware, however, that this short study of the principles of human behavior in the context of political power yields a fringe benefit that the knowledge gained is useful to the understanding human action no matter what brand of power may be under consideration. It is therefore of value in regarding a broader spectrum of personal and institutional power issues.

To begin, we must define the terms “power”, “politics”, and “political”. Consulting the dictionary once again, we find the following:

Power –noun

1. ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something.

Politics – noun

1. the activities and affairs involved in managing a state or a government.

2. social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power

Political – adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or concerned with politics.

With these definitions in hand, we are now prepared to discuss the topic of political power from the standpoints of those who have it and those who do not. It is of little use to discuss the one without the other, as they are two sides of the same coin.

What, then, is political power? Given our definitions, we can state that it is two things. The first, perhaps “naïve” definition is that it is the ability to act or accomplish goals pertaining to managing a government. It is naïve because it does not take into account other significant and commonly found elements associated with the term. An auxiliary definition that goes hand in hand with the first and puts a somewhat finer point to it would be the capability to gain, cultivate, and maintain the means of accomplishing political goals through intrigue and other instruments. Note the specification of “intrigue”, a term whose definition will become useful at this point:

Intrigue – noun

1. the use of underhand machinations or deceitful stratagems.

Armed with this additional definition, the term “political power” takes on a meaning that strongly agrees with that to which governments, politicians, groups, and individuals treat us on a daily and seemingly unlimited basis: people and groups making use of force, deceit, and other dishonest or otherwise immoral means in pursuit of gains toward some set of goals. In most cases the goals in question, even if only partially met, result in further infringement and denial of our rights, which are nothing more than enumerations of some of the elements that comprise our freedom. Later we will explore the notion of human- or civil rights in some detail in the hope of bringing that concept into greater clarity. That will be, however, a discussion for another day, for it merits our full attention and devotion.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who covet political power and those who do not. Most people covet some form of political power. Parents, for example, covet power over their children. Without it, chaos would reign, and in some households, it does. Very often members of personal relationships covet and exercise political power over their partners. It can take many forms, none of which we will discuss here. It is, however, important to be aware that our discussion of political power does not confine itself solely to governmental sorts, but applies to all forms where two or more people are concerned. This fact should prove useful as a tool with which one may better protect their personal freedoms from usurpation by third parties, whether a boyfriend, an acquaintance, a boss, or anyone attempting to violate one’s rights regardless of the manner or degree.

For the sake of this discussion, let us pay special attention to the case of political power as it applies to broad social applications such as government. This narrowed focus is necessary because while it is perhaps desirable for people to be free from unwanted interpersonal interferences, it is essential they be free in terms of unwanted institutional interference. Here, “institutional” refers to large institutions such as governments as well as corporations and other groups that often apply force in order to coerce people into doing their bidding. In this sense, an institution need not be necessarily formal; any group acting to exercise power over others we will consider an “institution” simply for the sake of easing the conversation.

The reason for making the distinction between those who covet political power in our narrowly focused sense and those who do not is that they comprise two sides of the same coin. Therefore, a complete understanding of the one is not possible without understanding the other. With all of this in mind, let us now examine the basic characteristics of human behavior where issues of political power are concerned.

Human Nature in the Context of Political Power

There is an oft-misquoted phrase attributed to Lord Acton from a letter to Bishop Marshall written in 1887. Lord Acton wrote:

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

This famous and almost universally misquoted statement is, in a word, a great steaming pile, the author’s presumed good intentions notwithstanding. Asserting that “power” corrupts is akin to advocates of so-called “gun control” asserting, “Guns kill”. Neither assertion has so much as the smallest shred of truth in it. They are, in fact, two examples of bald-faced falsehoods, sometimes offered as outright lies by those who know better, and perhaps more often are nothing more than harmful memes that people blindly repeat. Such statements, however, often carry with them a great preponderance of emotionally compelling, if wholly fallacious, logical energy. Given what we “know” about power, Lord Acton’s assertion seems intuitively obvious and true – perhaps even axiomatic for some. This is due to the subtle nature of the basic assumptions the very topic commonly engenders, the fallacious nature of which readily twists the unwary into believing things that are simply not true, and an examination of which readily exposes as obviously – axiomatically – false.

Here is a quote from Rorschach that provides another perspective. It states:

“It's not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to dogs. It's us. Only us.”

In this quote, we find the truth. Power does not corrupt. People do, and only people. In this sense, the nature of power is that it is absolutely and incontrovertibly neutral. It is nothing more or less than a means by which the corruption of a human being, which was there in the first place, may come into bloom. Power is not the problem, but rather human behavior in its presence. The attribution of human qualities and capabilities to inanimate things such as power, guns, and drugs, is a problem of huge proportions, the extent and significance of which few people appear to be even faintly aware. We shall devote considerable effort to expose, clarify, and correct this greatly flawed habit of thinking and in so doing provide yet another implement for our toolbox of understanding.

The general characteristics of human behavior in the context of political power include the following:

1. Holders of political power always act to maintain current levels or to increase them, never relinquishing except by force, when presented with an otherwise more attractive alternative, or a combination of these.

2. Increases in power enable holders to amplify and act upon some or all of their outwardly apparent personal characteristics, plans, and desires, this being the nearly universal result of acquisition.

3. Increases in power enable holders such that previously latent personal characteristics tend to become apparent, regardless of whether he, or anyone else, desires it.

4. Those holding political power will often resort to any means available to them and with which they feel they can get away to maintain, increase, and exercise it according to their desires.

5. Holders treat political power as a zero-sum game.

6. Applications of political power most often serves to further diminish or deny individual freedoms, good intentions or otherwise notwithstanding.

Rare is the person who will relinquish power, once acquired. In this sense, power is analogous to a strong drug that users will avoid surrendering even to the point of personal destruction and death. The fate of Benito Mussolini is one example of this. For those attracted to such power, usually little will dissuade them from pursuing and using it.

When endowed with power, people will use its enabling aspect to fulfill and realize those desires and characteristics that may have otherwise remained latent. History provides us with countless such stories, as has Hollywood, about the simple and unassuming protagonists who, after acquiring some form of power, often by some twist of fate, become monsters. Nikolai Yezhov, a Soviet minister during the 1930s is a good example of this. Though he was repellent even prior to his climb up the ladders of power, the true horror of what he was came to realization only as the result of the power Stalin placed in his hands. Schools should heavily emphasize examples such as these in civics, social studies, and history classes.

Very often, characteristics that were once latent become highly, and in some cases alarmingly and even dangerously apparent when a given individual acquires a certain level of power. Just as the lenses of power distort formerly apparent characteristics, they often expose previously latent characteristics as well, often to the misfortune of others. In this sense, power is like a nutrient in that it feeds whatever happens to be present. Throw fertilizer down and weed as well as grass and flowers will grow. If a saint exists within, the presence of power will only make him more saintly. However, if a saint turns to a monster, one may rest well assured that the saint was never real. Alcohol consumption has a similar effect wherein the behavior one witnesses in a person who drinks to excess is that of the real person. Thus is the case with power such that people who go off the rails are often referred to as “drunk with power”.

Because power reveals the true person and perhaps because the sorts of personalities that power attracts are usually rotten at a fundamental level, those who acquire power will most often use any means to grow it and exercise it to the greatest extent possible. Those who hold power and covet more are most often utter pragmatists, which is to say that the only principles by which they live are those dictated by their goals and the determination to achieve them no matter what it takes so long as they are able to get away with it. Note that “getting caught” no longer even matters in many cases because so very often those caught at something are never called upon to account for their actions. A good example of this was the affair between President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Congress had no business asking the President about his dealings with miss Lewinsky. It was a private affair. However, they did ask, and instead of telling them to mind their own business, President Clinton lied to them. Congress caught the President with his pants down, so to speak, lying to them under oath, yet never held him accountable for it. We could write several volumes on the long litany of similar examples from the last twenty years alone.

We could argue the precise nature of the game of politics as being zero-sum or not. The nature of the game is, however, irrelevant to the practice. What counts is the fact that those exercising such power treat it as zero-sum. In other words, the only way that one seeker of political power believes he may succeed in acquiring more is to take it from others because the pool of available power is fixed. Pragmatic considerations by competent holders of power will drive tolerance levels to the lowest possible value such that one’s position is not threatened, but no lower.

The written history of the human race presents an enormous body of examples of the results of the use of political power. We can readily see that such applications of power constitute de facto abuse by those in nominal control of a population. This has overwhelmingly resulted in the wholesale destruction of personal freedom for countless numbers of people, often including those who put that power to work. What many in power fail to see is that the prison they build around those they ostensibly control, they build around themselves as well in many cases.

A centrally critical point to be understood about those who wield political power is that its misuse is not always the result of cabals of conspirators in hidden places, scheming on how to foist the next great evil upon the world. Indeed it is likely that in many cases such abuse is the result of well meaning sorts who believe that they have the answers for everyone – what I refer to as the “one size fits all mentality”, another topic for pointed discussion someday. Such people are often idealists who are hell bent for leather to see their vision of utopia realized for all. Such people are usually so certain they are right that the hubris driving their certainty blinds them to reason and shuts them off to any possibility that they may in fact be on the wrong path. These are some of the most dangerous people in the world, behooving all lovers of liberty to learn how to recognize and fight them, preferably by ensuring they never make it into a position of power in the first place.

These behaviors tend to hold in varying degrees when we consider any form of personal power. They speak directly of human nature, as is readily observable in practice.

The bottom line is that people covet power of many forms, acquire it as they are able and motivated, and exercise it to the degree they choose or to that which the hard limits dictate. This applies to all forms of power and it is not necessarily a bad thing. Observe children as they grow and learn new skills. They revel in the newly discovered powers that learning and practice lend them. Power manifests perhaps most often in ways we might all agree are good, such as going to work and providing for one’s family. However, the so-called “negative” aspect of power, though it constitutes a distinct minority proportion of the practice, represents a concentration of capability that most often precipitates great harms upon people with but small applications.

Take the building of a skyscraper as an example. The towers of the World Trade Center required years to erect and represented a huge investment in energy in the accomplishment, which we may look upon as the application of power in pursuit of a positive goal. Consider just how much energy and time their erection required and compare it with how little was required to bring them crashing down. In many cases and in many ways the application of destructive (negative) power accomplishes far more per unit than does the constructive. Entropy can be like that.

One might conversationally say that a little bit of evil goes a long way, which in turn goes a long way toward making clear the nature of political power as those wielding it have overwhelmingly tended to throughout human history. Overall, the exercise of political power has overwhelmingly resulted in incalculable suffering, death, and destruction of the natural and man made worlds. In virtually every case, excepting that of outright military assault, the fun begins with a campaign of ever-tighter circumscription of personal freedom. At least as often as otherwise, well-intentioned politicians or political groups, poisoned with the hubris of their absolute certainty, impose these campaigns upon the rest of us for our “own good”. In the other cases, the intentions are not so kindly.

Why people covet the acquisition and exercise of political power is a question whose answers are beyond the scope of this essay. In a sense, the reasons are irrelevant to the practical question of how we as individuals should respond to the reality. What is relevant is the knowledge that some people want it, seek it, get it, and apply it, usually to the detriment of others. That is the reality of that side of the power coin.

What, then, is the truth about the other side? Those who do not seek political power tend to be complacent with regard to its exercise by others, almost regardless of how it may affect them. A superficial survey of the history of US culture reveals that there was a time when the people would have met the sorts of license that politicians and government agents routinely take today with the rights of the citizens with immediate and unequivocal opposition, possibly spilling into physical violence. The great material abundance that the 20^th century has provided, appears to have lulled us into a fantasy existence where convenience has nurtured a certain lassitude with respect to our will to guard our liberties. It has become more interesting and convenient for many to concern themselves with who won the game last night, which color BMW to get, or whether their latté is up to standard than to actively keep their political representatives on a very short leash. For such people, it appears that the conveniences of believing either that their elected officials are indeed seeing to their better interests or that there is nothing they can do in the other case is more important than dealing with politicians running amok in a head-on manner.

Unlike the near-irrelevance of the reasons why some people covet power, understanding the reasons why people allow other people trample on their rights is of central importance and should become a primary topic of discussion amongst those interested in recouping their liberty and maintaining watch it. Though a thorough discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this essay, it is useful to mention that education and attitude are the two main causes. If people are unaware of what their freedom really is and why it should be centrally important to them, one cannot expect them to stand vigilantly and strongly against those who approach it. If their attitudes about those proposing to circumscribe their liberty are laissez-faire, it is equally unreasonable to expect them to respond appropriately. Therefore, we should all be actively advocating the seemingly tired old saw about the significance and importance of education with great vigor and determination. Without a broadly based change of heart and knowledge by people, freedom is doomed to extinction.

Does anyone here recall classes in civics and social studies? It appears that civics class has gone the way of the dodo and heaven only knows what schools are offer in social studies classes these days, if even those are still on the standard curricula. It is most interesting to note how our schools vigorously indoctrinate our children with an absolutist form of relativism, yet they ignore the crucial task imparting an in-depth practical knowledge of government, its structure, functions, and purposes. Likewise, schools appear not to teach our children what it means to be a “good citizen” any longer. How many children would be able to give a precise and complete account of what it means to be free? How many would be able to describe what the legitimate roles of government are? The answer to those questions appears to be “frighteningly few”. Until we force the issue of relevant education and restore these critical elements of the standard knowledge base, we will continue to suffer from the current scourges of ignorance and improper attitudes. If we do not teach the importance of freedom to our children, they will not regard it as such.

The central lesson of our political history as it relates to freedom of the individual is that regardless of intentions, the unwanted interference of one human or group thereof in the affairs of others is universally damaging to the welfare of all. Given this, the welfare of humanity is most faithfully served when people learn the lesson of the Golden Rule, live by it, and in so doing become utterly intolerant of those who seek to gain, grow, and apply political power such that it denies, diminishes, abridges, disparages, or otherwise infringes upon the liberties of the individual. Any lesser position with respect to the applications of political power is tantamount to a surrender to tyranny. If we, the people, fail to enforce the mandates of liberty on our own behalves, we have nobody to blame but ourselves as our freedom wings away in the hands of those who would have us toe a line of subjugation and slavery. Let us be clear that there are but two states for human beings, one in which they live and the other in which they merely exist. To the former we ascribe the appellation of “freedom” and to the latter, “slavery”. There is nothing in between, all cleverly and possibly obliquely pedantic philosophical arguments to the contrary notwithstanding.

Each one of us has the choice to make of whether we wish to live or to do nothing more than exist. One may choose boldly, intelligently, confidently, and actively for life and all that real living has to offer. Otherwise, he may choose meekly, uncertainly, ignorantly due to lack of knowledge, or irresponsibly through the default of avoidance in favor of mere existence. Take five or ten minutes to sit alone in a room and ask yourself the question of what shall it be for you in the context of considering what is it that you would really like from life for yourself and the people for whom you care. What do you really believe about how things must be? How did you come to believe it? Could you be wrong? Could you have been deceived, bearing in mind the nature of people in power as we have examined it here? There is so much nonsense asserted about how people must act that you must examine all offerings of truth with a skeptical eye, including what you read here. No matter on which side of the so-called “political fence” you may find yourself, there are heaps of lies, fallacies, and poorly formed opinions about how “it must be”. Social liberals go on endlessly with their wholesale lies about social obligations, the debts we owe our communities, and a whole raft of other nonsense. Likewise, many conservatives would have us believe things about liberty that are simply untrue and are in fact frauds equal to their liberal counterparts. We could go down the list and find perhaps not a single group free of the guilt of selling lies, distortions, fallacies, and other forms of false and misleading information. This is the greater truth of human behavior where political power is concerned and it is a sad one.

Remember that choice we must all make. We will each make it one way or another, by an act of will or by default. There is no escaping it. The answer you give will affect your life profoundly and possibly for all your days, so be careful in deciding what it is you choose. To that I ask, “what shall it be?”

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

What is "Freedom"?

2009-11-07T11:18:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a word that people throw about an awful lot, especially in the United States of America. Yet few people seem to have any real idea what freedom actually is. Without knowing what it is, how can one proclaim that they are free, as so many seem to do? To do so under such conditions is meaningless. To this, many people will cite relativist doctrine in an attempt to justify the assertion that any notion of "freedom" and "liberty" is a matter of opinion, and is therefore a fluid thing. In a strict, pedantically metaphysical sense, which some often disingenuously employ to nefarious ends, such people may have arguable points. I am not, however, interested in such practically unproductive pursuits. In my opinion, they have at best, zero value in terms of everyday living and are often very damaging to real lives in the real world. Freedom as it exists or could exist in the everyday lives of people is what is of interest here. Freedom for you and for everyone.

Thomas Jefferson described it with an admirable succinctness when he said:

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

I have spent a lot of time thinking about and discussing the common, yet commonly misunderstood concept of what it means to be “free”. During those years I have worked diligently on coming to what I believe is a sound and correct understanding of personal liberty. The works of many people, in writing and in deed, have influenced the development of my opinions about liberty. I have made what I believe to be a judicious use of the various examples that history and personal works provide us in judging the merits of differing political philosophies, each engendering differing notions and degrees of what it means to be "free". I have made my best and most honest effort to consider widely varying philosophies and the manifold historical events that have embodied those ideas in practice with an open mind.

The works of authors such as Ayn Rand, Adolph Hitler, Spinoza, Lao Tzu, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Kant, Goethe, and John Uri Lloyd, as well as the anonymous works of ancient Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and many others have all contributed to my understanding of humanity and its politics. So, too, has my study of the history of humanity in its many dimensions from art to religion, politics, and sex, with just about everything in between.

I have named this blog "Freedom Is Obvious" because personal, individual freedom is the obvious and natural state of human existence, any other condition being morbid and destructive of healthful life. It is my hope that these thoughts will find some marginal use for people and that it may at least spark some new energy in peoples' minds such that they will take the ball and run with it. Political thought is now hopelessly stale, and it appears that so many people are stuck in any one of a small number of standardized political ruts, apparently unaware of the fact and are, therefore, unable to consider alternatives.

Given the generally unfavorable results of world politics with a special emphasis on those of the United States throughout the past several decades, it seems clear to me that something new is needed if freedom is to survive the attacks placed upon it and that grow in intensity, viciousness, and brazenness on what seems a daily basis today. Those holding power throughout the world, well intentioned and otherwise, have not demonstrated themselves as friends of freedom. At least not for the little people. Their ignorance or malice is of such a timbre and degree that everything they do appears only to diminish freedom, which necessarily diminishes welfare. In coming to this opinion, I have assiduously disregarded the things they say in favor of closely observing the things that they do and how well the walk tracks with the talk - another habit I would advise people to adopt with strong discipline and vigor. Every day those in power or those seeking it treat us to an endless torrent of frenetic hyperbole. If one consults memory, we find that the same things are repeated ceaselessly, usually in the form of promises for "change", something for nothing, or, ironically, greater freedom. When we compare all those noises with what actually occurs, even the less astute among us take pause to wonder what, precisely, is going on.

Recall the old definition of insanity: doing the same things repeatedly and expecting different results. This is precisely what the world has been doing - the same old political tricks yielding the same rotten results. Can you recall a single year in your entire lifetime when politicians on the campaign trail have not promised "change", or something for nothing? I cannot. Do you remember the campaign slogan that stated: "ask yourself this, are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Well, ask yourself that very question, only go back at least 30 years or more in your memories or your research. I will bet that most of you would have to answer "no".

If people want better lives, – free lives - they have to make it that way. While this may be only narrowly possible in many nations, the people of the United States have no excuse for not wholly engaging those in power with an informed and implacable will that bends the politicians to their wills and not the other way around. Politicians are looking out for #1, which as a group have amply demonstrated this every day for the past several thousands of years. Most of the time their personal and political interests do not coincide with those of liberty for all. It seems to me that a lot of people are discouraged and strongly pessimistic because of this. To those people I bid you despair not. There is hope, but only if we as a people work on it, smartly, coherently, tirelessly, and with no tolerance or mercy for those who would endeavor to diminish our liberty.

Consider how well sitting idly by has worked out for us, expecting our better interests to be served by largely unknown third parties whose fealty to the citizens is questionable at best. Also consider how well the political activism of most citizens has worked out for us. Overall, I would rate it all as a dismal failure where freedom and prosperity are considered. Therefore, we must do something different. Just getting involved is not enough. We must do so in a new way - in a smarter way - in an effective way that delivers on the promises - a way that actually produces the results that we want. I submit to you that the solutions are all staring us squarely in our faces and that the way is eminently simple. Putting them into practice will probably not be easy, but in my opinion, we can call off the endlessly frenetic search for complicated and elusive solutions because they have a long history of universal failure. Recall that definition of insanity.

If people want to restore to themselves their freedom and prosperity, they must come together as like-minded citizens. What, however, does that mean? It does not mean that we all think the exact same way on all the issues. It does not imply a forced collectivist hive mentality where all march in stern lockstep according to the dictates of the Fearless Leader or some ill- or arbitrarily-defined body of moral or political mandates. What it does mean is that we think precisely alike on a very small set of basic propositions that comprises the fundamental skeletal structure of our common stream of political thought. These principles set the context within which all people go about their daily lives. Please read that again. The context defines the metes and bounds of our choices and I assert unequivocally that those limits are expansively broad; the restrictions vanishingly few, and that all derive from a strictly rational and well-reasoned basis.

What we need in order to reestablish the United States as the great and free nation that was once the envy of the world, for example, is for people to come to agreement on a very small handful of principles and then to plan and act in accordance with them, leaving all other considerations aside. We do not have to agree on all details of how to live, which is one of the great advantages of life in a truly free nation. People may come and go as they choose and not feel hindered by the oppressive compulsion to correct the ways of others who have committed no crimes, nor be equally oppressed by their fellows. Live. Let live. Learn the basics of what freedom and liberty are and strive for a nation that is based on that and absolutely nothing else.

That is my hope for America. While still a great nation, we have far separated ourselves from what we once were and what I believe we could and should be. Take heart in knowing that these things are not broken beyond repair, yet. Take heed, however, that they are rapidly approaching that point of no return. We are still fully capable of recovering that which those in power have taken from us through the faulty reasoning of misguided good intentions and malice. Recovery cannot and will not happen without widespread, vigorous, and smart participation by the people.

We must excise the apathy and ignorance that has grown in our nation like a cancer if the restoration of personal freedom and prosperity be the goals. It will require the guts to face the failings of ourselves as individuals, as communities, as businesses, and as a nation. It will require the willingness to learn new ways of seeing old things - ways that were once common but have now become rare and often distorted such that our forebears would scarcely recognize them. It will require the determination to hold steady to a course of action and allow neither trivial issues nor promises of token fortunes to divert our will or lull us into further complacency by the paid representatives of those who wish us to remain quiescent on our couches, consuming their goods and not rocking the boat.

To this end, let us now embark upon the journey at the beginning. I hope you will find it interesting enough and of sufficient value to at least get you reading and talking about these ideas. With some small luck and determination, perhaps you will be inspired enough to set a course for your political life, embark upon it, and stay actively with it for many decades to come. I cannot overstate how important this is if liberty is not to be stamped out in the foreseeable future.

Remedial Freedom Lesson #1

In order to discuss freedom, that is to say personal freedom, as opposed to other senses of the word, it is important to begin at the beginning and define our terms. Few people appear to be in the habit of taking this simple step before engaging in exchanges of a non-trivial nature. This failing has lead to many problems in our world and it is my intention not to follow suit. So, let us start by putting a definite meaning to the terms "freedom" and "liberty, which I use interchangeably here.

Consulting the dictionary, or in this case dictionary.com, we come to several definitions of "freedom" as appropriate to my purposes including the following:

Freedom - noun

Personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery

Exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

Civil liberty, as opposed to subjection to an arbitrary or despotic government.

The right to frequent, enjoy, or use at will - and finally...

The power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-determination.

All these definitions share the common notion that a state of personal freedom is characterized by the absence of unwanted forces applied so as to thwart or in any way diminish an individual's choice of action . These definitions carry with them a considerable body of implications that may not be immediately obvious to anyone who has not given these ideas a lot of thought. I will therefore elucidate upon these implications in order to make clear what freedom is and equally importantly, what it is not. Let us begin with the latter.

What Freedom Is Not

The first thing I would like to make clear about personal freedom is what it is not. It is not the liberty or right to do anything you please at any time, to or with anyone or anything. In other words, freedom is bounded, meaning there is a limitation on our prerogatives as individuals and as groups for taking action. The limitation to which I refer is that nobody is entitled to impose their beliefs, desires, or demands upon others without consent. We will look at this more closely in short order because there is more to it, but for now let that bit sink in without arguing against it just yet if you are so inclined.

A common response to the assertion that freedom is in some ways bounded is the claim that if one is not free to do anything one wishes at any time, then one is not actually free. Such theoretical nonsense holds little to no value for practical living. It in fact may prove highly deleterious when foolishly misguided people attempt to set into practice laws and policies that are based on such a flawed belief. It has been something of amazing for me to witness the volume of people who mistakenly believe that the definition of freedom means the prerogative to do anything one wants. Because there are laws against acts such as murder and robbery, laws that proscribe such behavior and with which most such people agree, many will assert that we are therefore not entitled to be free - that the right does not exist.

In other words they assert that acceptance of any boundary conditions on freedom is inherently arbitrary and therefore implies that they may be arbitrarily altered at any time as deemed necessary. Wow. The problem here, if I may repeat that which bears repetition, lies in a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be “free”, not to mention a serious need for remedial lessons in logic and reason.

The truth runs more like this: we live in the real world, which is full of other human beings. Therefore, freedom is bounded because if we are each and all free to live in accordance with the dictates of our consciences, it strictly follows that it is improper for one person to impose his choices upon those who do not welcome them because it interferes with those persons' freedoms. In short, to be free is nevertheless to be bounded by this single axiomatic corollary whose basis lies in the equal claims of all people to be at liberty.

This seemingly paradoxical aspect of freedom, therefore, places certain restrictions not upon one's own freedom per sé, but rather upon one’s right to step beyond the boundaries that equal claims draws around us, prohibiting each from violating the freedom of others. In other words, the prerogative to violate the freedom of another lays beyond the metes and bounds of individual freedom by the very definition of the term itself. If we are each free to act as we will, it follows we are not free to act against the freedom of others. This is a fundamental and centrally important concept to the idea of living freely, so read it several thousands of times over if you have to. Without a full and clear apprehension of this single principle, there is little hope of properly understanding what is required for securing, enjoying, and maintaining a state of personal freedom.

Acts that deny, diminish, abridge, disparage, or in any way infringe upon the liberty of others non-consensually lie beyond the moral prerogatives of the individual, groups thereof, and perhaps most importantly government. Such acts are, therefore, what we commonly call crimes. Crimes are prohibited behaviors, usually punishable by laws or otherwise sanctioned through institutionalized systems of ethics.

Thus far, we see that personal freedom is characterized by this fundamental contradiction - to be free is to be bounded by an axiomatic moral prohibition on violating the rights of others. That we are bounded in this manner is not up for much discussion as it is the self-evident consequence of the very definition of freedom as it applies to all people. What is up for discussion and which shall prove most critical to the practical applications for living as free people, is the question of what the properly reasoned metes and bounds are.

Those questions we will address by and by, but here I will repeat myself by reasserting without equivocation that the avenues of choice for free people are expansively broad and the restrictions vanishingly few and narrow. I further contend that the answers to the question of what the metes and bounds should be are mainly rather simple and intuitively obvious when laboring under the assumption of equal liberty for all people. Living by them, however, is not necessarily always easy. Never confuse simple with easy. Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to do.

So What, Then, Is Freedom?

Now that we have an idea of what freedom is not, all that remains is to determine what it is. Simply put, freedom is the prerogative to choose any action one wishes, within their means, as long as it does not constitute a violation of the freedom of others. By "means" here I refer to material means. For example, if one wishes to carry a gun for a lawful purpose, they are entitled to do so provided they may also lawfully provide for themselves the means, which is to say the gun and, presumably, the ammunition. The right to carry a gun does not imply the entitlement of being provided with one at the expense of another. This is a common logical error upon which much of the philosophy of the welfare mentality is based. It is a horrific flaw that has wreaked incalculable damage upon countless millions of people worldwide.

While people are generally quite fond of proclaiming the virtues of freedom, their private definitions of what it means to be free appear to suffer greatly from the universally fatal character of hypocrisy. Fatal, that is, to their credibility as honest and intelligent beings. For example, so-called “social liberals” speak of freedom as frequently and as fervently as anyone, yet they are more than willing to apply whatever force they deem necessary to force their personal political views upon each and every one of us regardless of consent. They do so quite paradoxically, nonsensically, irrationally, and non-credibly, asserting that such applications of force make us all “more free” or otherwise better off for any one of a number of trite, tired, and wholly fallacious reasons.

In case anyone of a liberal bent is feeling picked upon, banish the thought, for there is plenty of blame to go around. Another example might come from the cadres of ultra-fundamentalist conservative Christians who similarly proclaim the virtues of freedom so long as it carries the Christian imprimatur, deeply engraved upon on its forehead. One specific case could be the question of “decency”. In general, what some liberals may consider wholly acceptable in terms of decency, those of the Christian right often find abominable and would impose by force their political views upon even those who do not give their consent.

Who is right and who is wrong? They both are. They are each right in holding their personal opinions on the question, to which each is entitled by virtue of the very freedom they claim, yet seek to deny in others, often "for their own good". They are both wrong for attempting to force those opinions down the throats of those who neither share in, nor welcome them. That, my dear readers, sums up the core problem of humanity as it has existed since our earliest written history.

The litany of such issues includes abortion, birth control, sexual orientation, gay marriage, pornography, drug use, prostitution, smoking, liquor, gambling, and a whole host of others of which we are all, no doubt, well familiar.

This leads directly to the question of what may and what may not be proscribed behaviors, either by law or through personal interactions. Once again, the answer is quite simple: any act that denies, abridges, disparages, diminishes, or otherwise infringes upon the rights of others is proscribed behavior. Sadly, in the real world things are rarely this black and white. Therefore, we find certain areas of murkiness even in the actinic light of this radiant principle. While the principle holds strongly in most cases, a few gray areas can be troublesome. We must therefore address them, at least initially.

Direct Vs. Indirect Means of Violating Individual Freedom

The violation of a freedom is always a direct consequence of some action. The methods used to violate individual liberty is not, however, always direct and obvious. If I take a stick and bang you over the head with it, I have used a direct, which is to say an immediately obvious method to violate your autonomy – your freedom – your rights. If, however, I give 25 cents to Joey over there who then at my behest and payment takes a stick and bangs you over the head, I have still violated your freedom, this time using an indirect method or an agent. We now know the two main avenues by which one person or group violates the rights of others. You no longer have any excuse to allow those who claim, “I never laid a hand on him” or "this new law does nothing to limit free speech" to fool you. If you have trouble remembering this, just bear in mind the old line by George Carlin: “If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.” It is all the same.

Imagine next, if you will, that The US Congress enacts a bill that retroactively taxes all ammunition for all firearms at $1 trillion per round. You may pay the tax or surrender the ammunition to the “authorities”. Each violation of this new law will earn the guilty party 20 years to life in a federal penitentiary, and the law is vigorously enforced in the most draconian fashion imaginable, making for strong motivation to comply. Does such a law violate the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, assuming people are free to keep and carry their pistols, rifles, and shotguns anywhere and everywhere they please, public or private? The answer is yes, though through indirect means.

In such a case the Second Amendment right has been violated through the agency of exorbitant taxation placed upon ammunition, making it effectively unobtainable on a legal basis by anyone, save trillionaires. For those who may find this example absurd in its fabric, recall that one Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan introduced and danced for all he was worth to gain passage of just such a bill. The only difference was that the tax would have started at $130 per box for handgun ammunition, which was a tidy sum in 1979 and would in fact have placed ammunition out of reach for many millions of Americans, some of whom may have needed it most.

Use of the indirect method to violate the freedoms of people is perhaps the most common and insidious means by which mobs of people commonly called "government" perpetrate such crimes against others. There are literally tens of thousands of laws on the books that make end runs around the freedoms protected by the Constitution in such oblique and obtuse fashions as that demonstrated in the above example. One of the most egregious examples of this is Congress’ use of the so-called “Commerce Clause” of the Constitution to arrogate powers to itself and abridge the rights of the people.

One reasonably concise and accurate way of considering the concept of freedom that may help one maintain a proper perspective is the good old Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In other words, live and let live. Free people are free to live by the dictates of their consciences up to the point that their choices interfere with the freedom of others.

Direct methods of infringements upon freedom are usually far more readily identifiable and therefore fought against. Indirect attacks can be very oblique, their grotesquely twisted logic often holding an emotional appeal for some of those upon whom the violations have been foisted or who otherwise stand to benefit. Most often indirect attack very effectively conceal the violations they carry, much as rats carried bubonic plague to the cities of Europe. Where even the indirect attack is unable to adequately conceal the outright violation of the rights of people, those seeking the imposition will provide false, yet emotionally compelling reasons to justify it.

Likewise, laws based on such hopelessly but subtly flawed reasoning will often pass muster with judges of lesser caliber because they fail to recognize the flaws and fallacies. Irrational appeal and subtle twists of fallacious logic notwithstanding, such laws still constitute violations of our civil rights – of our inborn freedoms. As such we should not tolerate them in any form or in any measure, however slight or insignificant they may seem, for these were the precise means by which our freedoms have thus far been whittled away by usurpers.

That particular method used to be referred to as “salami politics”, whereby freedoms were removed a thin and seemingly insignificant slice at a time. Bear also in mind that my use of “usurper” does not necessarily mean cadres of evil, crazy-eyed sociopaths. More often than not our freedom has been abridged by those well intended persons and groups who are convinced they know what is best for each and every one of us, regardless whether we want it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and such intentions most often bear the mask of hopelessly misguided benevolence.

That thought leads us to the notion of tolerance. Many sources, the mass media in particular, ceaselessly rail on about the virtues of tolerance. While I agree with it in certain, specific principle and in much of practice, even tolerance has its limits. Not everything is tolerable. For example, would you tolerate your neighbor having sex with your 3-year-old son? Didn’t think so. That example alone demonstrates beyond doubt that not all things are rightly amenable to our tolerance.

Why, then, are so many people willing to tolerate violations of their rights? Ignorance, complacency, and a lack of proper attitudes and skills for detecting and defeating those who would trample on our rights are the main reasons. Are violations of one’s freedoms, either singly or collectively, ever tolerable? The only correct answer to that is a resounding NO! Under no circumstance whatsoever is anyone justified in violating the freedom of another, not even in “emergencies”, national or otherwise. That we have tolerated the piecemeal obliteration of so much of our freedom is a profound shame on all the people of the world, especially those of the United States.

Finally, allow me to mention an important aspect of the concept of freedom, and in fact of many of life's issues in general. Freedom must always be considered within a context. What, you may ask, is that context? Nothing more and nothing less than human life. The context of free human life, which is the basis of the Golden Rule, sets the standard of behavior for all people, which is the practical product resulting from the metes and bounds that arise naturally in the philosophical discussion, above. Yes, true freedom, through the context of humans living amongst humans, imposes a standard of action upon each one of us: live as you wish, but afford the same opportunity to others. It is that plain and it is that simple.

You are entitled to freedom from being murdered, raped, robbed, beaten, or violated in any manner. Likewise, onus rests with you to refrain from so acting upon others by virtue of the same entitlement bearing upon them. In the end, those who understand what freedom really is know that courtesy, respect, and mindfulness of the rights of others lie at its very core. In practice, it is the courtesy and respect to allow others to live their lives and to hold their personal opinions as they see fit without fear of retribution. Mindfullness rests in never forgetting that everyone enjoys the same freedoms as you do.

Even if all people were to live by this central pillar of liberty, there would still be conflicts of interest. That cannot be denied because people are people. However, consider how many fewer such conflicts there would be, how much less friction between people when the burden of having to impose one person's or group's sets of beliefs and "values" is absent. I can barely overstate the significance of this notion. It would change everything, and for the better in virtually every case. As far as I have ever been able to ascertain in all my musings and conversations with hundreds of smart people over the years, the possible downside byproducts of living truly free lives are so few and generally so uncommonly realized, as to be essentially nonexistent.

I contend that the answers to such problems as we face today will be best arrived upon when we are all empowered through the prerogatives that fully realized inborn freedom allows. Within the metes and bounds and in compliance with the universal standard of behavior, more freedom is never a bad thing.

As we continue down this path, we will explore the ways in which our freedoms are violated on a daily basis by others, expose the rotten reasoning used to justify it, and will consider how life might be were such unwanted interferences no longer tolerated. In addition we will look at how we may change our current political realities such that life for everyone would be better overall. Far better.

Until then, please accept my best wishes.