Home » Posts tagged 'statists'
Tag Archives: statists
Peddling the Corruption of Liberty
Peddling the Corruption of Liberty
Liberty’s Detractors
Ever since the idea of individual liberty has achieved some measure of credibility over the world, those who would be unseated by its limited triumph had to find some way to discredit it or trump it somehow. One way was to re-christen servitude, to make it appear like an even more important kind of liberty than what individual liberty, properly understood, amounts to.
Puppets and puppeteers…
Photo credit: Kikkerdirk / Fotolia
When a human being is free in the most important, political sense, he or she is sovereign. This means he or she governs his or her own life—others must refrain from intruding on this life, plain and simple. That life may be fortunate or not, rich or not, beautiful or not, and many other things or not, but what matters is that that life is no one else’s to mess with. One gets to run it, no one else does.
Now this is a very uncomfortable idea for all those folks who see all kinds of benefits from running other people’s lives. But they cannot champion this now in so many words, what with individual liberty having gained solid standing, so the only way to remedy matters for them is to claim that their oppression brings even greater freedom to people than the respect and protection of individual liberty.
The Ruse of “Positive” Freedoms
So, we have the kind of “freedoms” propounded by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the freedoms now dubbed “positive.” These freedoms do not get rid of those who would use you, interfere with you, invade your life, rob, kill, or assault you but promise, to the contrary, to take good care of you without your having to do much by invading others, by violating their individual liberties.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
You’ve Been Warned – Calls for Mandatory “National Service” for Americans Aged 18-28 Has Begun
You’ve Been Warned – Calls for Mandatory “National Service” for Americans Aged 18-28 Has Begun
CHAPTER ONE
War is a Racket
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
– From Major General Smedley Butler’s War is a Rackett
This is one of the most important articles I will write all year. The statists are coming for your kids, and the conditioning has already begun.
Last night, I came across one of the most horrifying articles I have ever read, which is saying a lot. Before I get into it, take a look at the title and the tagline:
If you think the title is bad, wait until you read the article. What becomes evident is that this grotesque concept of forced “national service” is being actively discussed at the highest levels of government. What Ron Fournier is doing in his National Journal article is conditioning the public to accept something that is completely unacceptable.
Before we get to that, who is Ron Fournier? National Journal provides a bio:
Ron Fournier is the Senior Political Columnist and Editorial Director of National Journal. Prior to joining NJ, he worked at the Associated Press for 20 years, most recently as Washington Bureau Chief. A Detroit native, Fournier began his career in Arkansas, first with the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record and then with the Arkansas Democrat and the AP, where he covered the state legislature and Gov. Bill Clinton.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Collectivists Hate Individuality, Tribalism And ‘Fast And Furious 7′?
Collectivists Hate Individuality, Tribalism And ‘Fast And Furious 7′?
Sometimes in the liberty movement — with discussions of potential collapse, war, revolution, social destabilization, etc. — it is easy to get so caught up in the peripheral conflict between the elites and the citizenry that we forget what the whole thing is really about. That is to say, we tend to overlook the very core of the conflict that is shaping our epoch.
Some would say that it is a simple matter of good versus evil. I don’t necessarily disagree, but good and evil are not defined methodologies; rather, they are inherent archetypes — facts born in the minds and hearts of all men. It’s a gift of comprehension from something greater than ourselves. They are felt, rather than defined, and attempts by institutions (religious, scientific, legal or otherwise) to force morality away from intuitive reason and into a realm of artificial hierarchical and mathematical standards tend to lead only to even more imbalance, destruction, innocent deaths and general immorality.
There have been many nightmare regimes throughout history that have claimed to understand and obey moral “laws” and standards while at the same time having no personal or spiritual connection to those standards. In other words, some of the most heinous acts of immorality are often stamped with the approval of supposedly moral social and governmental institutions.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 6 – Solutions
One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 6 – Solutions
All problems, all crises, have at least one solution, if not many solutions. There is no such thing as an unwinnable scenario. Some may not be smart enough or courageous enough to see it, but the solution is always there, waiting to be discovered. The only fight that cannot be won is the fight in which the enemy makes all the rules and we foolishly abide by those rules. Life is not a game of chess, and a man can choose to be more than a pawn anytime he has the guts to do so.
In the past, I have likened the liberty movement to a rebellion against not just tyrants but the game itself – a group of people willing to walk away from the chess board and make their own rules. I stand by that assertion. However, simply walking away is not enough; we must also be willing to take actions that will destroy the game entirely.
In order to accomplish this task, any rebellion against corruption of power must be self-critical – more self-critical of its own weaknesses than opposing propagandists could ever be. Most of our problems as a society are being caused by a relatively small number of elitists, but we will never be able to undo these problems without understanding our weaknesses as much as the enemy’s weaknesses. In this final installment of my six-part series, I will talk about REALsolutions to the inevitable economic implosion in front of us, but I will also discuss the shortcomings of the liberty movement as an obstacle to the success of those solutions.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Europe’s Greek Showdown: The Sum Of All Statist Errors
Europe’s Greek Showdown: The Sum Of All Statist Errors
The politicians of Europe are plunging into a form of ideological fratricide as they battle over Greece. And “fratricide” is precisely the right descriptor because in this battle there are no white hats or black hits—-just statists.
Accordingly, all the combatants—the German, Greek and other national politicians and the apparatchiks of Brussels and Frankfurt—- are fundamentally on the wrong path, albeit for different reasons. Yet by collectively indulging in the sum of all statist errors they may ultimately do a service. Namely, discredit and destroy the whole bailout state and central bank driven financialization model that threatens political democracy and capitalist prosperity in Europe——and the rest of the world, too.
The most difficult case is that of the German fiscal disciplinarians. Praise be to Angela Merkel and her resolute opposition to Keynesian fiscal profligacy and her stiff-lipped resistance to the relentless demands for “more stimulus” from the likes Summers, Geithner, Lew, the IMF and the pundits of the FT, among countless others. At least the Germans recognize that if the EU nations are going devote 49% of GDP to state spending, including nearly a quarter of national income to social transfers, as was the case in 2014, then they bloody well can’t borrow it.
Notwithstanding the alleged German led austerity regime, however, that’s exactly what they are doing. Germany has managed to swim against the surging tide of EU public debt, lowering its leverage ratio from 80% to 76% of GDP in the last four years. Yet the overall debt ratio for the EU-19 has continued to soar—meaning that the rest of the EU drifts ever closer to fiscal disaster.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
