I watched a show called "Freedom Watch" with Judge Andrew Napolitano not long ago. He was discussing the recent release of documents by an organization known as Wikileaks. I'm sure most of you know the story, but for those who may not, Wikileaks was given over 90,000 documents detailing questionable activities undertaken by American forces while conducting the occupation of Afghanistan. It has exposed war crimes and shows the world just how callous the military is when it come to human life and how cruel the occupation has become. Our military, filled with well intentioned men and women, has been turned into a mechanism that systematically destroys innocent lives in attempts to alleviate perceived threats that aren't even necessarily real.
Judge Napolitano had a man on his show by the name Wayne Simmons. Mr. Simmons is an ex CIA agent. The judge had others on his show that spoke in favor of Wikileaks, but I'd like to address some of the things Mr. Simmons said.
Mr. Simmons was very much against what Wikileaks did. He went so far as to call them a terrorist organization. Now, I don't know what definition he uses for terrorism, but I obviously use a different definition. So did Judge Napolitano, he used a legal definiation, and he as much as said so on the show. To me, a terrorist organization would be a group that tries to terrify a civilian population in order to affect political change in a designated area. Such a group would be prone to partake in violent acts in order to intensify the terror. It seems to me that the militaries of all nations would be perfect examples of such organizations.
Mr. Simmons suggested that the director of Wikileaks be labeled a traitor, even though Mr. Julian Assange, the director of Wikileaks who also appeared on the show, is not a citizen of the United States of America. He is an Australian. That didn't seem to matter to Mr. Simmons. I guess he believes that anyone in the world should be subject to the laws of the United States. As if it wasn't bad enough that the citizens of these United States have to endure unconstitutional laws. Judging from the tone of Mr. Simmons' voice as he spoke, I would guess that he wants Mr. Assange dead. I wouldn't put it past him to shoot the assassin's bullet himself.
Mr. Simmons may have good intentions. He may be truly trying to protect the well being of the people of the United States. He may actually believe that what he is advocating is vital to national security. He may believe that he is fighting for the principles which are held dear in the hearts of many Americans. I somehow doubt it. Mr. Simmons seems far too clever not to understand that what he is advocating does not protect the people of the United States of America, it protects the federal government of the United States of America and the bureaucrats conducting operations in foreign lands. He seems intelligent enough to realize that the federal government at the top levels is populated by collectivists. He should know that there is a globalist agenda at work here. He should realize, as Major General Smedley Butler did back in the early part of last century, that when he was in the CIA he was working for a group of multi-national corporations and that they are the ones benefiting from these undeclared wars and occupations. Of course, if he does know such things, it would make sense that he doesn't want the truth well known as he hides behind nationalism to help realize the agenda of global collectivism.
Of course, I could be wrong. It could be that he truly is well intentioned. He truly could be so naive to believe he's protecting the people of the United States. If that's the case, I believe he is extremely misguided and maybe also a bit misinformed.
He started by stating something about the founding fathers being worried about treason and putting protections against such treason in the federal constitution that they wrote. He seems to conveniently forget that Thomas Jefferson once advocated a revolution every twenty years or so to make sure that the people stay involved in the maintenance of their freedom. He also has taken such words out of context with the times in which they were written. Our founding fathers were concerned with the British taking back their rule. They were concerned with foreign powers retaking the mantle of government in the new world. As far as domestic affairs went, they were supposed to leave it up to state governments to regulate their people. In the early years, when they passed laws such as the "Alien and Sedition Acts," the laws backfired as the people recognized that these laws protected only those with power and violated the natural rights of individuals, rights that the federal government was supposed to protect. In those days, such things mattered and those who helped pass such laws were quickly voted out of office and lost the power they'd had.
He went on to say that people die in wars. Yes they do. All kinds of people. Innocent and guilty people. Men, women and children. Old and young. Combatants and non combatants. This is the best reason I can think of to avoid them unless absolutely necessary because some foreign power is actually invading your lands. Then, you know the people dying are only those who have come over to usurp your power and wealth.
Another basic error Mr. Simmons made, in my humble opinion, was to call these actions war. They are not war. War is, in my opinion, the deployment of the militaries of two opposing factions in order to gain control and power over the peoples of a given land mass. The United States military is not being opposed by any national military organizations. Our forces have crushed any such organizations in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have, in effect, won any war that might have been fought there. We are now occupiers. The indigenous peoples are fighting to protect their homes, farms and their way of life. We are trying to force our way of life upon them, even if it kills them.
When asked what he thought about a Supreme Court decision to uphold the right of the press to print documents in the Pentagon Papers case of the early 1970s he called it a misguided decision. He obviously thinks freedom of the press and freedom of speech are misguided concepts. He obviously wishes to keep the American citizenry in the dark about how our military conducts the "wars" we pay for. He obviously believes in censorship and not a free press. Such thought processes, if adopted unilaterally, would quickly result in frightening authoritarian tyranny beyond anything yet imagined. If he believes such power would not be abused then he truly is more naive than any ex CIA operative should be.
Mr. Simmons doesn't believe the American public should be aware of how these actions are being conducted except through our "representatives." I don't know about you, but I don't feel I've been represented in ages. In fact, I don't believe I've ever been represented in Washington, DC. How can I be when only one of two major parties ever hold any power and both parties are fundamentally flawed? How can I be when both parties want to restrict my freedoms in one way or anther? I don't believe anyone should have to pay for wars and occupations which they find immoral. I don't believe we should be forced to pay taxes by a coercive centralized government which doesn't hesitate to throw tax protestors in jail and will kill them if they resist. I certainly don't think we should be forced to pay taxes without proper representation in the halls of government and that representation is not forthcoming.
Wayne Simmons seems to believe that he and people like him who are in power can protect the nation better than anyone else through secretive means. He accuses others of trying to be all knowing and deciding what to release. But he and his ilk are actually the ones who do that. He believes only the elite few should know the facts, and they should decide how to deliver those facts to the public. That is how censorship starts. That is how propaganda is able to gain a foothold in the public consciousness. When the facts are available to everyone, that is when each and every one of us can decide for himself what the truth is. That is when we'll be able to determine what is truth and what is propaganda.
Wikileaks did us all a service, in my opinion, when they published the papers they just published. They did what the mainstream press should have been doing all along. They should not be hiding these facts from the American people. They should not be censoring pictures of the death and destruction that is going on in our name. They should not be hiding the death counts and hiding the cruel realities of war from the American populous. They should not be hiding the real damage caused by the weapons used and pictures of innocents who suffer as a result. They do so because they think such exposure would create an outcry from the American people, and they are likely right. They do so because they want to maintain support for unpopular military actions.
Censorship is anathema to the principles upon which our nation was built, particularly government censorship. It prevents the populous from being informed. It keeps the ugly truth from the common folk so they can't denounce it. The people who believe as Wayne Simmons does, that it is okay to keep such information hidden, are the real dangers to our way of life. They are the ones who stand against the principles our nation was founded upon. They are the ones who are misguided, even if they have good intentions. Our founding fathers realized the importance of freedom, but that lesson has not weathered well over the ages. The political storms of the past have eroded these ideas at their base. It is up to us to rebuild these ideas of liberty and demand they be honored by those in power. It is up to us to praise those who deliver the truth and condemn those who would hide it from us.
The world is changing. People seem to be finding their own worth again. They are longing for knowledge and truth. Certainly, those in power will try to hide that truth if they believe it will hurt their causes or their agendas. It seems that throughout history whenever there was a force so powerful that it threatened mankind, a new way of disseminating the truth emerged. Let us all resist any attempt to censor the Internet as the power elite step up their efforts to hide the truth. Let us applaud and support Wikileaks and any organization dedicated to exposing the truth for all to see.
Please remember to visit my website, szandorblestman.com. There, you can find a link to help support my efforts. I also have an ebook available entitled "The Ouijiers" which you can purchase. It is a horror fiction novel written under the pen name Matthew Wayne.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Old New World Order Goal, World Empire
The New World Order is not new. It is actually controlled by very old, very wealthy families. It is likely at least partially the brainchild of European royalty that should have faded into the sunset a long time ago, along with their central banking agents. Somehow, these royal families have managed to keep their wealth and their political influence in spite of decades, even centuries, of various political movements that should have cast them down and made them pariahs of the human race. Somehow they have managed to escape the wrath of the common folk in spite of wars and revolutions that should have targeted them and their agents.
Through all this they have not changed their ways. Through all this they have maintained their world view. Through all this they have remained arrogant, uncaring and aloof with an uncanny and almost inhuman lack of empathy and emotion. Throughout history they have kept their eyes on their ultimate goal and nurtured their belief that they are divinely chosen to rule over man rather than passively allowed to do so by the masses. It makes one almost feel sorry for them that they can be so deluded.
The dream of world dominance has infected the minds of the ruling class for centuries, if not millennia. One might wonder if this in and of itself has caused some kind of permanent damage to the intelligence and the psyches of those who have descended from the genetics of the elite. One might believe that world domination is a normal objective for all human beings if one considers how often one might hear the phrase "If I ran the world..," but these childlike musings soon give way to reality and most of us are likely to be satisfied with just running our own lives as best we can. Most of us likely just want to become the best humans we can possibly become. Many times this means just leaving others to their own means and letting them make their own mistakes. This is a lesson the ruling class just seems unable to learn. Indeed, this is the same mistake they've made throughout the ages, that they feel they are better able to run the lives of others and they have the right to force others, by whatever means possible, to bow to their will and accept their laws. They are apparently more concerned with growing their wealth and influence rather than becoming better human beings.
These people would like to remain in the shadows. They would like to stay hidden. I think this is because they know what they're doing is wrong. Somewhere, deep in their subconscious, despite their own thinking that they're being benevolent, they know their behavior is not right. Otherwise, they'd conduct their activities with honesty and in the open, even flaunt them and publicize them for all to see. Instead they sneak around, deceive and even deny when confronted. When they do admit to their nefarious deeds, they do so in such a way as to keep the masses mostly in the dark and leave it to the few who really pay attention to dig up the dirt on them.
The key to their scheme seems to be centralization. The ruling class would have us believe that one world government is the answer to the modern problems mankind faces. They would like us to believe that a one world government would put an end to war, poverty, homelessness, starvation, all kinds of maladies, even natural and manmade disasters. They would like us to believe these things because they would like us to support their centralization efforts. They would like there to be a populist movement to create the one world government so that it looks like it isn't their idea. What they don't want us to figure out is that a one world government would not be safeguarding the rights of the individual. It would not even really be democratic or even a representative democracy. It would be a collectivist scheme establishing a corporate aristocracy or some other kind of authoritarian hierarchy meant to control the entire world. Such a system could very well become the worst tyranny this world has ever seen.
These are people who believe not only that they should run everything, but that they own everything. This includes you. They seem to believe that you exist for the sole purpose of serving them. The only thing a one world government would do is put another layer of bureaucracy atop already overly bloated systems. It would simply add more taxes to already overly burdened populations. They evidently feel they own that portion of your labor. They feel they have the right to steal your money to fund their projects. They want you to believe they have your best interests in mind, that they are providing you with the society in which you operate, but in practice reality is quite a bit different than the utopia these control freaks believe they can build.
These people only manage to take opportunity away from you. They take your money and make laws in order to try to legitimize a worldwide system which benefits mostly the interests of their selves, their friends and their families. They wish to keep competition to a minimum and force government sanctioned monopolies upon us to maximize their profits while minimizing the quality of goods and services provided. They are trying to build an infrastructure based on spying and fear that will prevent people from interacting with each other in manners that threaten their power base.
There are dangerous times ahead. With the existing financial crises and looming disasters, it will be tempting to accept solutions to problems presented to us by those who care nothing for the betterment of humanity and everything for their own personal aggrandizement. We should all be very suspicious of globalization in whatever iteration, whatever the excuse. We should all remain quite cautious when our national governments wish to merge or cooperate with multi national and worldwide organizations. Only those at the top of the heap benefit from such maneuvers and they never take care of the problems they claim they will fix. Indeed, it seems more often then not those same problems become exacerbated. We will do well to remember history, question authority and remain diligent in demanding respect for individual rights.
The world elite have never been closer to realizing their goal. Yet even as they can see the brass ring within their grasp, their chances to grab it are slipping away. The European Union is in trouble. There is dissent amongst its members. The proposed Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America has been exposed as the fraudulent control scheme that it is. Even the separate states in the United States of America have begun to exercise more of their autonomy and are challenging the rule of their centralized federal government. The problems that have been created by greater centralization cannot be solved by more of the same. Collectivism in all its forms will always fail, for it attempts to hold down the human spirit.
A few hundred years ago, people started fleeing from Europe to try to escape the tyranny of monarchs and find independence amongst like minded people in a new world. Those people quickly learned they could prosper very well without the burdens of a huge centralized government. They came to understand, in fact, that they were better off taking care of themselves and their own. They quickly built a nation predicated on the ideas of liberty and the rights of the individual. This nation quickly became perhaps the most prosperous nation to ever exist. People flocked to its shores simply because they wanted the opportunity to become the best they could. The power elite, seeing that they were losing their serfs, likely felt threatened and began making plans to bring back those they had lost into the fold. They could ill afford to let these ideas of freedom and self determination infect the commoners, for then they might become less significant to the rest of humanity.
One would have thought that creating such a nation would eventually lead to smaller and smaller government. One would have thought that government would have become less burdensome and more localized as prosperity grew. But somewhere along the line the nation took a wrong turn. Somehow government continued to grow and become more burdensome as it restricted the people from conducting their lives as they would see fit. Somehow it came to be that the populous began to expect government to mother, coddle and protect them, and so they sacrificed their personal liberties in the hopes of obtaining some measure of security to be provided by others. Once the formally freest nation in the world has become completely corrupted and socialized, the beacon of freedom is turned off, and the rest of the world falls in line.
We can ill afford to remain blissfully ignorant anymore. Whether you believe there is a new world order or not, it is painfully obvious that there is a power elite moving to create a global paradigm restricting personal freedom and competition. This attempt at big world government should be resisted in whatever peaceful manner is necessary, be it through exposing them, civil disobedience, refusing to go along with their mandates, or even through the systems they have set up. Simply stop supporting their efforts and they will fail.
They will continue to try to lie, deceive, misinform, bribe and even create problems so that they can offer solutions. It is time the human race recognized their corrupt nature and the reality of what they are trying to accomplish. It is time for us to stop being fooled by their propaganda and to start decentralizing and localizing power. It is time to once again respect the rights of the smallest minority, the individual. In that way, we can evolve into the human beings we were meant to be.
Please remember to visit szandorblestman.com. There you will find a link to help support me and my efforts. You can also purchase my ebook "The Ouijiers" which will also help support me. You can read the first two chapters for free.
Through all this they have not changed their ways. Through all this they have maintained their world view. Through all this they have remained arrogant, uncaring and aloof with an uncanny and almost inhuman lack of empathy and emotion. Throughout history they have kept their eyes on their ultimate goal and nurtured their belief that they are divinely chosen to rule over man rather than passively allowed to do so by the masses. It makes one almost feel sorry for them that they can be so deluded.
The dream of world dominance has infected the minds of the ruling class for centuries, if not millennia. One might wonder if this in and of itself has caused some kind of permanent damage to the intelligence and the psyches of those who have descended from the genetics of the elite. One might believe that world domination is a normal objective for all human beings if one considers how often one might hear the phrase "If I ran the world..," but these childlike musings soon give way to reality and most of us are likely to be satisfied with just running our own lives as best we can. Most of us likely just want to become the best humans we can possibly become. Many times this means just leaving others to their own means and letting them make their own mistakes. This is a lesson the ruling class just seems unable to learn. Indeed, this is the same mistake they've made throughout the ages, that they feel they are better able to run the lives of others and they have the right to force others, by whatever means possible, to bow to their will and accept their laws. They are apparently more concerned with growing their wealth and influence rather than becoming better human beings.
These people would like to remain in the shadows. They would like to stay hidden. I think this is because they know what they're doing is wrong. Somewhere, deep in their subconscious, despite their own thinking that they're being benevolent, they know their behavior is not right. Otherwise, they'd conduct their activities with honesty and in the open, even flaunt them and publicize them for all to see. Instead they sneak around, deceive and even deny when confronted. When they do admit to their nefarious deeds, they do so in such a way as to keep the masses mostly in the dark and leave it to the few who really pay attention to dig up the dirt on them.
The key to their scheme seems to be centralization. The ruling class would have us believe that one world government is the answer to the modern problems mankind faces. They would like us to believe that a one world government would put an end to war, poverty, homelessness, starvation, all kinds of maladies, even natural and manmade disasters. They would like us to believe these things because they would like us to support their centralization efforts. They would like there to be a populist movement to create the one world government so that it looks like it isn't their idea. What they don't want us to figure out is that a one world government would not be safeguarding the rights of the individual. It would not even really be democratic or even a representative democracy. It would be a collectivist scheme establishing a corporate aristocracy or some other kind of authoritarian hierarchy meant to control the entire world. Such a system could very well become the worst tyranny this world has ever seen.
These are people who believe not only that they should run everything, but that they own everything. This includes you. They seem to believe that you exist for the sole purpose of serving them. The only thing a one world government would do is put another layer of bureaucracy atop already overly bloated systems. It would simply add more taxes to already overly burdened populations. They evidently feel they own that portion of your labor. They feel they have the right to steal your money to fund their projects. They want you to believe they have your best interests in mind, that they are providing you with the society in which you operate, but in practice reality is quite a bit different than the utopia these control freaks believe they can build.
These people only manage to take opportunity away from you. They take your money and make laws in order to try to legitimize a worldwide system which benefits mostly the interests of their selves, their friends and their families. They wish to keep competition to a minimum and force government sanctioned monopolies upon us to maximize their profits while minimizing the quality of goods and services provided. They are trying to build an infrastructure based on spying and fear that will prevent people from interacting with each other in manners that threaten their power base.
There are dangerous times ahead. With the existing financial crises and looming disasters, it will be tempting to accept solutions to problems presented to us by those who care nothing for the betterment of humanity and everything for their own personal aggrandizement. We should all be very suspicious of globalization in whatever iteration, whatever the excuse. We should all remain quite cautious when our national governments wish to merge or cooperate with multi national and worldwide organizations. Only those at the top of the heap benefit from such maneuvers and they never take care of the problems they claim they will fix. Indeed, it seems more often then not those same problems become exacerbated. We will do well to remember history, question authority and remain diligent in demanding respect for individual rights.
The world elite have never been closer to realizing their goal. Yet even as they can see the brass ring within their grasp, their chances to grab it are slipping away. The European Union is in trouble. There is dissent amongst its members. The proposed Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America has been exposed as the fraudulent control scheme that it is. Even the separate states in the United States of America have begun to exercise more of their autonomy and are challenging the rule of their centralized federal government. The problems that have been created by greater centralization cannot be solved by more of the same. Collectivism in all its forms will always fail, for it attempts to hold down the human spirit.
A few hundred years ago, people started fleeing from Europe to try to escape the tyranny of monarchs and find independence amongst like minded people in a new world. Those people quickly learned they could prosper very well without the burdens of a huge centralized government. They came to understand, in fact, that they were better off taking care of themselves and their own. They quickly built a nation predicated on the ideas of liberty and the rights of the individual. This nation quickly became perhaps the most prosperous nation to ever exist. People flocked to its shores simply because they wanted the opportunity to become the best they could. The power elite, seeing that they were losing their serfs, likely felt threatened and began making plans to bring back those they had lost into the fold. They could ill afford to let these ideas of freedom and self determination infect the commoners, for then they might become less significant to the rest of humanity.
One would have thought that creating such a nation would eventually lead to smaller and smaller government. One would have thought that government would have become less burdensome and more localized as prosperity grew. But somewhere along the line the nation took a wrong turn. Somehow government continued to grow and become more burdensome as it restricted the people from conducting their lives as they would see fit. Somehow it came to be that the populous began to expect government to mother, coddle and protect them, and so they sacrificed their personal liberties in the hopes of obtaining some measure of security to be provided by others. Once the formally freest nation in the world has become completely corrupted and socialized, the beacon of freedom is turned off, and the rest of the world falls in line.
We can ill afford to remain blissfully ignorant anymore. Whether you believe there is a new world order or not, it is painfully obvious that there is a power elite moving to create a global paradigm restricting personal freedom and competition. This attempt at big world government should be resisted in whatever peaceful manner is necessary, be it through exposing them, civil disobedience, refusing to go along with their mandates, or even through the systems they have set up. Simply stop supporting their efforts and they will fail.
They will continue to try to lie, deceive, misinform, bribe and even create problems so that they can offer solutions. It is time the human race recognized their corrupt nature and the reality of what they are trying to accomplish. It is time for us to stop being fooled by their propaganda and to start decentralizing and localizing power. It is time to once again respect the rights of the smallest minority, the individual. In that way, we can evolve into the human beings we were meant to be.
Please remember to visit szandorblestman.com. There you will find a link to help support me and my efforts. You can also purchase my ebook "The Ouijiers" which will also help support me. You can read the first two chapters for free.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Time to Stop Listening to the Corporate Ph.D. Economists
Well, at least some of them. I read an article lately in which some Economics Ph.D. tried to convince me (and anyone else who reading his essay) that economics was really, really complicated. A gentleman named Kartik Athreya penned an essay entitled "Economics is Hard. Don't Let Bloggers Tell You Otherwise." Of course, bloggers should also ignore the fact that he works for the Federal Reserve system. I'm sure this hasn't affected his objectivity in any way, shape or form. After all, he does state that the views expressed in his essay are his own and do not reflect the views of the Federal Reserve. We should just believe that, right? We can trust him because he has a Ph.D.
So, Mr. Athreya opines, though not in so many words, that there's lots of people buying lots of things in lots of ways and that's what makes macroeconomics so complicated. Hmm. Of course I paraphrase to try to simplify so we less than intelligent beings can comprehend. Isn't that what we bloggers, or at least some of us, are best at, simplifying? Perhaps Mr. Athreya has not considered that maybe macroeconomics appears to be so complicated because that is what those with Ph.D.s in economics are paid to do, to make things seem complicated. That is how they justify their existence. Of course, I could be wrong. After all, I am just a lowly blogger.
Let's examine a little more closely what it means to have a Ph.D. Now, I don't mean to sound like someone who comes down on all Ph.D.s, indeed I know some who are not only very intelligent but very nice and personable, but the tone this particular one took sticks in my craw. And it's not just him, but there are quite a few of his ilk who seem to have come to the conclusion that those of us who don't hold the vaunted Ph.D. simply do not know enough to run our lives, or to form our own opinions, or to add any kind of insight into any conversation or debate, or to do anything about anything we haven't been formally educated in. They hold themselves superior to the uneducated not taking into account another's life experiences or his ability to reason. They carry no respect for us poor, stupid common folk. It's academic chauvinism.
That aside, the quality of one's formal education is only as good as the quality of one's teachers. The quality of those teachers can only be as good as what will be allowed by the formal educational system itself. In this case, the Ph.D.s that have been developed over the past several decades have come out of a system that is not so much an educational system as it is an indoctrination system. The public schools of this country have become a bastion of propaganda and socialism, teaching children more about political and social correctness than about critical thinking. Many economists that have earned Ph.D.s have likely learned much about the Keynesian economic system but not much about the Austrian system. Either that, or the Keynesian system has likely been praised by their professors while the Austrian system has likely been demonized.
It doesn't take much to discover, when one takes a close and objective look at things, that the Keynesian system of economics leads to more power, control and money in the hands of an elite few, mostly central bankers and central planners, while the Austrian system leads to more power, control and money in the hands of the common folk who can then vote with their dollars in terms of who survives in the marketplace and who fails. Is it any wonder someone with a Ph.D. in economics would defend the current Keynesian system of central banking? Especially if he works within that same system. Is it any wonder that when one is confronted with a thoughtful, honest, objective presentation in favor of less regulations and a more free market they might become defensive and start attacking the messenger?
The truth can hurt. As I see it, the truth is that the Ph.D.s and Keynesian economists haven't prevented our nation, and in fact the world, from falling into depression. They haven't prevented massive unemployment. They haven't prevented the boom/bust cycle from taking place. They haven't stabilized the economy as they were supposed to. Indeed, they have caused these things. They have created the conditions that have made these things possible. They can point fingers all they want and make the claim that the economy is just too darn complicated, but that's because they don't want to look at themselves in the mirror and admit they were wrong.
It seems inevitable that one of them would come out and tell you to ignore the bloggers. They simply don't want everyone blaming them. They don't want everyone blaming the system itself and attempting to dismantle the monopoly that has treated them so well for so long in favor of a system that will make them less influential and relevant. They want you to forget that the Federal Reserve system was sold to the American people on the promise that it would end the boom/bust cycle, depressions, massive unemployment and stabilize the economy. We haven't forgotten, at least I haven't, history hasn't forgotten, and the Federal Reserve system has failed. It needs to be held accountable, no matter how many Ph.D.s say otherwise.
The idea should be to keep the economy as stable as possible. The idea shouldn't be to try to grow the economy so much. It seems to me that if the economy grows too much, it is inevitable that it is going to shrink. It seems that the system favors those who have the most money and the most influence over our government.
The economy is about trading goods and services. There should be no "too big to fail" corporations. If a corporation is failing in the marketplace it is because either people don't want to use their goods or services, or bad business decisions were made. In either case, those corporations should have to pay the price and either adapt, or go out of business. That's what would happen in a free market, Austrian type economic system. It is the Keynesians and their central banking, central planning schemes that allow for government to have the means to bail out failing enterprises. They have convoluted and obfuscated in order to make economics, and specifically macroeconomics, seem too complicated to understand so that they could continue their schemes and market manipulations, so that they can continue to benefit, and to try to keep the rest of us, we under educated common folk, from figuring out what's really going on.
The common folk need to start ignoring the corporate Ph.D.s and the Keynesian economists. They have done nothing but lead us down the path of economic destruction. They have done so for decades. They promote systems that have proven to fail again and again. They do so in order to benefit themselves and become part of the elite class. Economics is not so much a natural science as it is a pseudoscience like psychology. It is not based so much on natural law as it is on manmade law. It does not study nature's processes so much as it studies human interactions. One does not need a degree of any kind in the subject in order to understand it, or even to understand macroeconomics, one just needs to be a little more involved and observant.
When push comes to shove, it seems to me that those involved in the system give advice to help maintain the power of the system. Their decisions are based more on political realities rather than scientific fact. Competition and the free market are the natural enemies of monopolies, whether business or government, central banking and central planning. It is natural for authoritarians, control freaks and those who wish to gain power to demonize free markets, sound money and anything else that might challenge their establishment. It is natural for those involved to delude themselves into thinking they are actually doing good and to adapt an elitist, snobbish attitude to justify their obviously harmful actions. After all, they are only human, like everyone else. They simply wish to be more relevant than anyone else, which is their nature I suppose.
Please remember you can support me by visiting szandorblestman.com. There, you can press the donate button or you can purchase my ebook. It is a horror novel written under the pen name Matthew Wayne and entitled "The Ouijiers."
So, Mr. Athreya opines, though not in so many words, that there's lots of people buying lots of things in lots of ways and that's what makes macroeconomics so complicated. Hmm. Of course I paraphrase to try to simplify so we less than intelligent beings can comprehend. Isn't that what we bloggers, or at least some of us, are best at, simplifying? Perhaps Mr. Athreya has not considered that maybe macroeconomics appears to be so complicated because that is what those with Ph.D.s in economics are paid to do, to make things seem complicated. That is how they justify their existence. Of course, I could be wrong. After all, I am just a lowly blogger.
Let's examine a little more closely what it means to have a Ph.D. Now, I don't mean to sound like someone who comes down on all Ph.D.s, indeed I know some who are not only very intelligent but very nice and personable, but the tone this particular one took sticks in my craw. And it's not just him, but there are quite a few of his ilk who seem to have come to the conclusion that those of us who don't hold the vaunted Ph.D. simply do not know enough to run our lives, or to form our own opinions, or to add any kind of insight into any conversation or debate, or to do anything about anything we haven't been formally educated in. They hold themselves superior to the uneducated not taking into account another's life experiences or his ability to reason. They carry no respect for us poor, stupid common folk. It's academic chauvinism.
That aside, the quality of one's formal education is only as good as the quality of one's teachers. The quality of those teachers can only be as good as what will be allowed by the formal educational system itself. In this case, the Ph.D.s that have been developed over the past several decades have come out of a system that is not so much an educational system as it is an indoctrination system. The public schools of this country have become a bastion of propaganda and socialism, teaching children more about political and social correctness than about critical thinking. Many economists that have earned Ph.D.s have likely learned much about the Keynesian economic system but not much about the Austrian system. Either that, or the Keynesian system has likely been praised by their professors while the Austrian system has likely been demonized.
It doesn't take much to discover, when one takes a close and objective look at things, that the Keynesian system of economics leads to more power, control and money in the hands of an elite few, mostly central bankers and central planners, while the Austrian system leads to more power, control and money in the hands of the common folk who can then vote with their dollars in terms of who survives in the marketplace and who fails. Is it any wonder someone with a Ph.D. in economics would defend the current Keynesian system of central banking? Especially if he works within that same system. Is it any wonder that when one is confronted with a thoughtful, honest, objective presentation in favor of less regulations and a more free market they might become defensive and start attacking the messenger?
The truth can hurt. As I see it, the truth is that the Ph.D.s and Keynesian economists haven't prevented our nation, and in fact the world, from falling into depression. They haven't prevented massive unemployment. They haven't prevented the boom/bust cycle from taking place. They haven't stabilized the economy as they were supposed to. Indeed, they have caused these things. They have created the conditions that have made these things possible. They can point fingers all they want and make the claim that the economy is just too darn complicated, but that's because they don't want to look at themselves in the mirror and admit they were wrong.
It seems inevitable that one of them would come out and tell you to ignore the bloggers. They simply don't want everyone blaming them. They don't want everyone blaming the system itself and attempting to dismantle the monopoly that has treated them so well for so long in favor of a system that will make them less influential and relevant. They want you to forget that the Federal Reserve system was sold to the American people on the promise that it would end the boom/bust cycle, depressions, massive unemployment and stabilize the economy. We haven't forgotten, at least I haven't, history hasn't forgotten, and the Federal Reserve system has failed. It needs to be held accountable, no matter how many Ph.D.s say otherwise.
The idea should be to keep the economy as stable as possible. The idea shouldn't be to try to grow the economy so much. It seems to me that if the economy grows too much, it is inevitable that it is going to shrink. It seems that the system favors those who have the most money and the most influence over our government.
The economy is about trading goods and services. There should be no "too big to fail" corporations. If a corporation is failing in the marketplace it is because either people don't want to use their goods or services, or bad business decisions were made. In either case, those corporations should have to pay the price and either adapt, or go out of business. That's what would happen in a free market, Austrian type economic system. It is the Keynesians and their central banking, central planning schemes that allow for government to have the means to bail out failing enterprises. They have convoluted and obfuscated in order to make economics, and specifically macroeconomics, seem too complicated to understand so that they could continue their schemes and market manipulations, so that they can continue to benefit, and to try to keep the rest of us, we under educated common folk, from figuring out what's really going on.
The common folk need to start ignoring the corporate Ph.D.s and the Keynesian economists. They have done nothing but lead us down the path of economic destruction. They have done so for decades. They promote systems that have proven to fail again and again. They do so in order to benefit themselves and become part of the elite class. Economics is not so much a natural science as it is a pseudoscience like psychology. It is not based so much on natural law as it is on manmade law. It does not study nature's processes so much as it studies human interactions. One does not need a degree of any kind in the subject in order to understand it, or even to understand macroeconomics, one just needs to be a little more involved and observant.
When push comes to shove, it seems to me that those involved in the system give advice to help maintain the power of the system. Their decisions are based more on political realities rather than scientific fact. Competition and the free market are the natural enemies of monopolies, whether business or government, central banking and central planning. It is natural for authoritarians, control freaks and those who wish to gain power to demonize free markets, sound money and anything else that might challenge their establishment. It is natural for those involved to delude themselves into thinking they are actually doing good and to adapt an elitist, snobbish attitude to justify their obviously harmful actions. After all, they are only human, like everyone else. They simply wish to be more relevant than anyone else, which is their nature I suppose.
Please remember you can support me by visiting szandorblestman.com. There, you can press the donate button or you can purchase my ebook. It is a horror novel written under the pen name Matthew Wayne and entitled "The Ouijiers."
Monday, July 19, 2010
Feeding the too Big to Succeed
In 1996 I quit smoking, cold turkey. Not long after this accomplishment, I managed to put on about forty pounds. It has yet to disappear. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I’m glad I quit smoking. It was a nasty habit I wished I had never picked up and I wasn’t going to let cigarettes rule my life. I’m not sure, but food certainly tastes better now and I think quitting smoking might have decreased my metabolism. It really doesn’t matter, it was a fair trade. Besides, if I was simply a little more disciplined, watched my diet and did more exercise, I’m fairly certain I could lose the extra weight. In the long run, however, I really don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I’m not super huge, just a little hefty, with a little pooch around the tummy. I doubt I’d be mistaken for a beached whale if I went to the seashore.
Sometimes, however, a person might really let himself go. There could be various reasons for this, but sometimes people just can’t help themselves. Perhaps some are successful at quitting smoking like I was, and others were maybe successful at business and find an appetite they didn’t know they had. Whatever the reason, their success leads to growth they didn’t expect. In extreme cases, it can be taken to grotesque proportions.
When I think of too big to fail, I think in proportions of Gilbert Grape’s mom. I think in terms of the thousand pound man laying in his bed unable to move. He has become so big that he is hardly able to function. He has to depend on others to bring him food and do the things he used to do for himself. If he doesn’t do something about his weight he is destined for an early grave. In one way he has reached the pinnacle of human potential, and yet in so many others he has utterly failed. In many ways, this is comparable to many of the business institutions we see today and the governments that support them.
There could be a concern with these large people that many would not see as a problem. They have people who love them. They have people who love them so much, in fact, that they can't imagine life without them. They don't know what they'd do without them. These people might do anything for their loved one, including breaking laws, stealing, sneaking about and doing whatever it takes to feed these behemoths and keep them alive. They would ignore the advice of others and perhaps even directly defy them to keep their beloved happy. In general, people often act funny, loose common sense and do things they wouldn't normally do when they feel one that they love is threatened.
The same is likely true with these behemoth banks and corporations that government has bailed out over the last couple of years. Government officials are likely tied into these corporations so tightly that they can't imagine what their lives would be like without them. Hence, the too big to fail meme. They can't imagine life without these corporations because it would mean they would lose out on their major campaign contributors. They would have to start seeking other ways to fund their campaigns and keep their offices. They might even have to start listening to the concerns of their constituents. Heaven forbid, they might have to start doing what is right rather than what will benefit them. They don't seem to be able to see themselves working that hard.
What the political class doesn't seem to realize is that these institutions aren't too big to fail, they are too big to succeed. The banks and corporations that were bailed out aren't going to change their ways. They don't have to. With the government's help, they have become or are quickly becoming monopoly powers. They will simply lay around lazily on their couches or beds, too fat to move, and the political elite will continue to feed them until they grow so huge that the floor beneath them collapses. That is not the recipe for success, that is the recipe for utter failure. The only way these institutions won't fail is if they are forced to stand up on their own feet to fend for themselves and find their own food. If free market competition is encouraged than perhaps these banking and other corporate behemoths will start exercising, shed some of their weight, and began making healthier, more economically sound decisions.
The political and power elite love their Federal Reserve above all others. This institution is, without a doubt, the biggest of the "too big to succeed." It has become so over bloated because it has the monopoly, like all central banks, of creating money. It has the force of law behind its money creation ponzi scheme. One doing business in this nation must accept fiat notes in exchange for goods according to legal tender laws. This institution has been fed by the laws of this nation to the point where in can hardly move, let alone get up off the couch and stand on its own.
Recently, another in a series of very unpopular laws has been passed by this congress that evidently has some sort of death wish, or at least is doing its very best to awaken the sleeping masses and force them to do something to disempower the power elite. First there was the bailouts of the super wealthy "to big to fail" banks and corporations, then the unhealthy health care bill to prop up an insurance industry that should have folded and given way to a more adept market oriented system, and now we have the immoral, unethical and unconstitutional Federal Reserve Empowerment Act, I mean the recently passed financial reform bill, to add to the list of recent congressional debacles.
It's not enough that the political elite keep feeding this behemoth that threatens to break through the floor of the economy, they love it so much that they have to bring it cake and ice cream and all manners of fattening sweetness to ensure that when it does finally crack the floor upon which it sits it does so in a manner guaranteed to crack the foundations of the house it has built around itself. They even took out Ron Paul's wildly popular and highly supported audit provision of the bill, the only healthy component in the mix. They may or may not have included some sort of audit, but no one really cares about such a worthless and fruitless gesture that is insultingly pandering to the common folk who the political elite think so poorly of.
It has become more than obvious that the political elite believe the common folk are stupid. They believe the common folk are not paying attention. Yet it was the common folks who opposed the bailouts. It was the common folks who opposed the health care bill. It was the common folks who supported and demanded government transparency and an audit of the fed. The common folk are far more intelligent and far more involved than the political and power elite give them credit for. The common folk can see what's happening and they don't appreciate that their wealth is being spent on overstuffed corporations who can't even get up to feed themselves. They are paying attention and they are getting increasingly angry. Sooner or later, something's going to break, and I can only hope the collapse happens in a peaceful, measured manner rather than with the too big to succeed kicking and screaming as they are suddenly torn asunder.
As evidence to the failing establishment, the mainstream media continues to loose viewers, listeners and readers. Independent alternative media continues to gain popularity as they bring the populace more honest reporting and objective opinion. It is up to you to support these independent outlets as we do not have the billions that the established corporate media has. Though the ball has started rolling and I am now receiving the support of a few, I still need help. I do offer a product for sale, an ebook that the corporate controlled publishers wouldn't touch. "The Ouijiers" is a horror novel available at this link. Please visit szandorblestman.com and click on the ad for the book. The first two chapters are available for free. It you aren't interested in horror novels, you can still support my efforts by clicking on the donate button. Donations are greatly appreciated. Hopefully together we can get these behemoths that have been coddled for too long by the power and political elite to get up and start moving. Hopefully we can encourage them to shed the fat and allow for competition that will make them healthier and help create a more stable economy and a more free and peaceful society.
Sometimes, however, a person might really let himself go. There could be various reasons for this, but sometimes people just can’t help themselves. Perhaps some are successful at quitting smoking like I was, and others were maybe successful at business and find an appetite they didn’t know they had. Whatever the reason, their success leads to growth they didn’t expect. In extreme cases, it can be taken to grotesque proportions.
When I think of too big to fail, I think in proportions of Gilbert Grape’s mom. I think in terms of the thousand pound man laying in his bed unable to move. He has become so big that he is hardly able to function. He has to depend on others to bring him food and do the things he used to do for himself. If he doesn’t do something about his weight he is destined for an early grave. In one way he has reached the pinnacle of human potential, and yet in so many others he has utterly failed. In many ways, this is comparable to many of the business institutions we see today and the governments that support them.
There could be a concern with these large people that many would not see as a problem. They have people who love them. They have people who love them so much, in fact, that they can't imagine life without them. They don't know what they'd do without them. These people might do anything for their loved one, including breaking laws, stealing, sneaking about and doing whatever it takes to feed these behemoths and keep them alive. They would ignore the advice of others and perhaps even directly defy them to keep their beloved happy. In general, people often act funny, loose common sense and do things they wouldn't normally do when they feel one that they love is threatened.
The same is likely true with these behemoth banks and corporations that government has bailed out over the last couple of years. Government officials are likely tied into these corporations so tightly that they can't imagine what their lives would be like without them. Hence, the too big to fail meme. They can't imagine life without these corporations because it would mean they would lose out on their major campaign contributors. They would have to start seeking other ways to fund their campaigns and keep their offices. They might even have to start listening to the concerns of their constituents. Heaven forbid, they might have to start doing what is right rather than what will benefit them. They don't seem to be able to see themselves working that hard.
What the political class doesn't seem to realize is that these institutions aren't too big to fail, they are too big to succeed. The banks and corporations that were bailed out aren't going to change their ways. They don't have to. With the government's help, they have become or are quickly becoming monopoly powers. They will simply lay around lazily on their couches or beds, too fat to move, and the political elite will continue to feed them until they grow so huge that the floor beneath them collapses. That is not the recipe for success, that is the recipe for utter failure. The only way these institutions won't fail is if they are forced to stand up on their own feet to fend for themselves and find their own food. If free market competition is encouraged than perhaps these banking and other corporate behemoths will start exercising, shed some of their weight, and began making healthier, more economically sound decisions.
The political and power elite love their Federal Reserve above all others. This institution is, without a doubt, the biggest of the "too big to succeed." It has become so over bloated because it has the monopoly, like all central banks, of creating money. It has the force of law behind its money creation ponzi scheme. One doing business in this nation must accept fiat notes in exchange for goods according to legal tender laws. This institution has been fed by the laws of this nation to the point where in can hardly move, let alone get up off the couch and stand on its own.
Recently, another in a series of very unpopular laws has been passed by this congress that evidently has some sort of death wish, or at least is doing its very best to awaken the sleeping masses and force them to do something to disempower the power elite. First there was the bailouts of the super wealthy "to big to fail" banks and corporations, then the unhealthy health care bill to prop up an insurance industry that should have folded and given way to a more adept market oriented system, and now we have the immoral, unethical and unconstitutional Federal Reserve Empowerment Act, I mean the recently passed financial reform bill, to add to the list of recent congressional debacles.
It's not enough that the political elite keep feeding this behemoth that threatens to break through the floor of the economy, they love it so much that they have to bring it cake and ice cream and all manners of fattening sweetness to ensure that when it does finally crack the floor upon which it sits it does so in a manner guaranteed to crack the foundations of the house it has built around itself. They even took out Ron Paul's wildly popular and highly supported audit provision of the bill, the only healthy component in the mix. They may or may not have included some sort of audit, but no one really cares about such a worthless and fruitless gesture that is insultingly pandering to the common folk who the political elite think so poorly of.
It has become more than obvious that the political elite believe the common folk are stupid. They believe the common folk are not paying attention. Yet it was the common folks who opposed the bailouts. It was the common folks who opposed the health care bill. It was the common folks who supported and demanded government transparency and an audit of the fed. The common folk are far more intelligent and far more involved than the political and power elite give them credit for. The common folk can see what's happening and they don't appreciate that their wealth is being spent on overstuffed corporations who can't even get up to feed themselves. They are paying attention and they are getting increasingly angry. Sooner or later, something's going to break, and I can only hope the collapse happens in a peaceful, measured manner rather than with the too big to succeed kicking and screaming as they are suddenly torn asunder.
As evidence to the failing establishment, the mainstream media continues to loose viewers, listeners and readers. Independent alternative media continues to gain popularity as they bring the populace more honest reporting and objective opinion. It is up to you to support these independent outlets as we do not have the billions that the established corporate media has. Though the ball has started rolling and I am now receiving the support of a few, I still need help. I do offer a product for sale, an ebook that the corporate controlled publishers wouldn't touch. "The Ouijiers" is a horror novel available at this link. Please visit szandorblestman.com and click on the ad for the book. The first two chapters are available for free. It you aren't interested in horror novels, you can still support my efforts by clicking on the donate button. Donations are greatly appreciated. Hopefully together we can get these behemoths that have been coddled for too long by the power and political elite to get up and start moving. Hopefully we can encourage them to shed the fat and allow for competition that will make them healthier and help create a more stable economy and a more free and peaceful society.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Modern Political Prisoners in America
When I was growing up, I learned in school that one of the reasons the United States of America was better than the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was because we didn't hold political prisoners in our jails. That was something the bad, bad communists did. That was something that was done in communist countries to keep dissidents in line and to silence them. Such a thing could never be done in America. I don't know if this is still taught in the schools, but if it is then I believe our children are being grossly misinformed. The United States of America has become the leading nation when it comes to jailing its citizens, and the vast majority of them have been jailed for non violent crimes. We are, in effect, being jailed by the political class for disobeying rules they have deigned necessary, not for actions that have harmed another human being or his property. Most of those jailed are, in effect, political prisoners.
The federal government of the United States of America has declared war on its own civilians and the majority of those spending time in jail are prisoners of that war. They call this war many things, the war on drugs and the war on terror being the most prevalent, but it is really a war fought against people in order to try to keep a concept hidden from the public consciousness. That concept is the concept of freedom, the concept that individuals own their own bodies, their own labor, their own property and best know how to run their own lives.
The power elite and their political puppets use such emotionally charged terms as "war" to elicit specific responses from the populace. They want people to believe that anyone with a differing or divergent point of view from that of the establishment is a bad person. They want people to believe that anyone with a difference of opinion is a menace to society and a threat to all that is good and just. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the people who are spending time in prison are not only ordinary non violent folk who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, they are likely kind, loving individuals with family and friends who care for them and miss them dearly. Many of them were likely hard working, productive members of society until they were caught or reported breaking one of the multitude of "laws" created by control freaks who seem to see us common folk as cash cows meant to be milked for their benefit.
This war has spilled across the borders of the United States and is affecting the population worldwide. The DEA seems to think it has the right to enforce the laws of the United States in whatever country it deems necessary. I don't know that the DEA has the right to do this, but it certainly has the power thanks to your tax dollars. A good example of this is the case of Marc Emery. Mr. Emery is a Canadian. He was simply selling marijuana seeds. This is a practice that is not illegal in Canada. Yet it is illegal in the US, though hardly ever enforced. Mr. Emery was set up by the DEA in a sting operation in which he sold seed across the border. The DEA then used its power as a federal agency of the United States to coerce the federal Canadian government into extraditing Mr. Emery to the United States.
Mr. Emery's business harmed no one. It only maybe hurt the feelings of a few bureaucrats who felt perhaps Mr. Emery's opinions were becoming too popular. You see, Marc Emery not only sold marijuana seeds, he ran a magazine named Cannabis Culture and used the money to fund marijuana legalization activism worldwide. He believes, as I do, that everyone owns their own bodies and can determine for themselves which substances to use and which to avoid. He would likely still be free if he had just pocketed his profits rather than using them to promote his marijuana legalization efforts. It appears as if Marc Emery was targeted not for his illegal activity, but for his political activism. And they had to use an unethical sting setup to make it look legitimate.
The same is true of tax protestors. People fighting the unethical, unconstitutional income tax have been forced into prison despite the obvious unpopularity of this theft. Even though the vast majority of the populace seems to be brainwashed into thinking the federal income tax is legitimate, the arguments against it are intriguing and compelling on both legal and moral grounds. Ed and Elaine Brown were two such protestors who wished to make such arguments during their trail. The federal judge presiding over their trail denied them the opportunity to make over thirty such arguments in their defense. As a result, they realized the court system was rigged in favor of the state and refused to take part in it any longer.
Ed, a contractor, and Elaine, a dentist, gathered together such a following that the Feds determined that the only way to get to them would be to unethically infiltrate their supporters. It appears as if the Feds are worried about their image and don't want to be thought of by the general public as the violent agency they are. They want people to forget such incidents as Waco and Ruby Ridge, but a leopard cannot change its spots. Ed and Elaine Brown were productive members of society until the Feds put them in unproductive prison cells.
People such as Ed and Elaine Brown and Wesley Snipes aren't in jail because they didn't pay their taxes, they're in jail because they refused to obey. They refused to knuckle under to the coercion and threats of the federal government and decided to exercise their rights. They refused to cower in fear before the political gang that runs this nation and decided to show them for what they are, a violent gang of thugs who believe they own us and a portion of our labor. These are arguments the authoritarian power mongers don't want to hear because they're true, and the truth is sometimes hard to face. They would rather do harm to those who have never harmed another than face the reality that they are greedy failures in a coercive monopoly funded by theft and unable to compete in a legitimate marketplace.
What happens when the practices used by the policing agencies are used against them? Barry Cooper is a good example to look at. A former narcotics officer, he created a sting operation to catch the police breaking the law and disobeying the constitution. His police training served him well as he had learned to setup drug dealers. He filmed the police breaking their own laws and streamed it to the web in such a way so that their guilt could not be denied. This angered the cops. As a result, Barry Cooper and his family have been harassed by authorities ever since. Candi, his wife, lost custody of her eight year old son. They have both been arrested and charged with filing a false police report. They await trial on said charges. It seems what's good for the goose is not good for the gander. It seems that the police can setup and harass ordinary folk to catch them breaking laws, but when ordinary folk do the same to the police, the ordinary folk better watch out.
The system is plagued with unfairness. It is set up so that those with authority aren't burdened with any personal responsibility for their decisions. They are not held accountable for their actions even when such actions harm others or are financially unsound. It takes those who rail against it and make honest, sensible arguments and silences them by removing them to cold prison cells. We might not have the cruel and unforgiving gulags the Russians had under communist rule in the last century, but we have prisons populated with political prisoners who don't even know they are political prisoners. Our government has interrupted and ruined the lives of millions for its political power, expediency and agenda.
The war against the people needs to end. The federal government needs to step aside. The common folk need to reestablish their lust for freedom. The bureaucrats need to start respecting the rights of the individual once again. The federal government needs to be recognized for the monstrous mechanism of tyranny it has become. Hopefully, the cogs inside that mechanism will start refusing to allow it to run smoothly. We should be allowed to spend our money as we see fit, to smoke what we want to smoke, to say what we wish to say, and to live our lives as we wish to live them without fear of government intrusion and imprisonment. The disobedience of a few have shown us the ugly truth. The disobedience of many will help set us free.
The federal government of the United States of America has declared war on its own civilians and the majority of those spending time in jail are prisoners of that war. They call this war many things, the war on drugs and the war on terror being the most prevalent, but it is really a war fought against people in order to try to keep a concept hidden from the public consciousness. That concept is the concept of freedom, the concept that individuals own their own bodies, their own labor, their own property and best know how to run their own lives.
The power elite and their political puppets use such emotionally charged terms as "war" to elicit specific responses from the populace. They want people to believe that anyone with a differing or divergent point of view from that of the establishment is a bad person. They want people to believe that anyone with a difference of opinion is a menace to society and a threat to all that is good and just. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the people who are spending time in prison are not only ordinary non violent folk who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, they are likely kind, loving individuals with family and friends who care for them and miss them dearly. Many of them were likely hard working, productive members of society until they were caught or reported breaking one of the multitude of "laws" created by control freaks who seem to see us common folk as cash cows meant to be milked for their benefit.
This war has spilled across the borders of the United States and is affecting the population worldwide. The DEA seems to think it has the right to enforce the laws of the United States in whatever country it deems necessary. I don't know that the DEA has the right to do this, but it certainly has the power thanks to your tax dollars. A good example of this is the case of Marc Emery. Mr. Emery is a Canadian. He was simply selling marijuana seeds. This is a practice that is not illegal in Canada. Yet it is illegal in the US, though hardly ever enforced. Mr. Emery was set up by the DEA in a sting operation in which he sold seed across the border. The DEA then used its power as a federal agency of the United States to coerce the federal Canadian government into extraditing Mr. Emery to the United States.
Mr. Emery's business harmed no one. It only maybe hurt the feelings of a few bureaucrats who felt perhaps Mr. Emery's opinions were becoming too popular. You see, Marc Emery not only sold marijuana seeds, he ran a magazine named Cannabis Culture and used the money to fund marijuana legalization activism worldwide. He believes, as I do, that everyone owns their own bodies and can determine for themselves which substances to use and which to avoid. He would likely still be free if he had just pocketed his profits rather than using them to promote his marijuana legalization efforts. It appears as if Marc Emery was targeted not for his illegal activity, but for his political activism. And they had to use an unethical sting setup to make it look legitimate.
The same is true of tax protestors. People fighting the unethical, unconstitutional income tax have been forced into prison despite the obvious unpopularity of this theft. Even though the vast majority of the populace seems to be brainwashed into thinking the federal income tax is legitimate, the arguments against it are intriguing and compelling on both legal and moral grounds. Ed and Elaine Brown were two such protestors who wished to make such arguments during their trail. The federal judge presiding over their trail denied them the opportunity to make over thirty such arguments in their defense. As a result, they realized the court system was rigged in favor of the state and refused to take part in it any longer.
Ed, a contractor, and Elaine, a dentist, gathered together such a following that the Feds determined that the only way to get to them would be to unethically infiltrate their supporters. It appears as if the Feds are worried about their image and don't want to be thought of by the general public as the violent agency they are. They want people to forget such incidents as Waco and Ruby Ridge, but a leopard cannot change its spots. Ed and Elaine Brown were productive members of society until the Feds put them in unproductive prison cells.
People such as Ed and Elaine Brown and Wesley Snipes aren't in jail because they didn't pay their taxes, they're in jail because they refused to obey. They refused to knuckle under to the coercion and threats of the federal government and decided to exercise their rights. They refused to cower in fear before the political gang that runs this nation and decided to show them for what they are, a violent gang of thugs who believe they own us and a portion of our labor. These are arguments the authoritarian power mongers don't want to hear because they're true, and the truth is sometimes hard to face. They would rather do harm to those who have never harmed another than face the reality that they are greedy failures in a coercive monopoly funded by theft and unable to compete in a legitimate marketplace.
What happens when the practices used by the policing agencies are used against them? Barry Cooper is a good example to look at. A former narcotics officer, he created a sting operation to catch the police breaking the law and disobeying the constitution. His police training served him well as he had learned to setup drug dealers. He filmed the police breaking their own laws and streamed it to the web in such a way so that their guilt could not be denied. This angered the cops. As a result, Barry Cooper and his family have been harassed by authorities ever since. Candi, his wife, lost custody of her eight year old son. They have both been arrested and charged with filing a false police report. They await trial on said charges. It seems what's good for the goose is not good for the gander. It seems that the police can setup and harass ordinary folk to catch them breaking laws, but when ordinary folk do the same to the police, the ordinary folk better watch out.
The system is plagued with unfairness. It is set up so that those with authority aren't burdened with any personal responsibility for their decisions. They are not held accountable for their actions even when such actions harm others or are financially unsound. It takes those who rail against it and make honest, sensible arguments and silences them by removing them to cold prison cells. We might not have the cruel and unforgiving gulags the Russians had under communist rule in the last century, but we have prisons populated with political prisoners who don't even know they are political prisoners. Our government has interrupted and ruined the lives of millions for its political power, expediency and agenda.
The war against the people needs to end. The federal government needs to step aside. The common folk need to reestablish their lust for freedom. The bureaucrats need to start respecting the rights of the individual once again. The federal government needs to be recognized for the monstrous mechanism of tyranny it has become. Hopefully, the cogs inside that mechanism will start refusing to allow it to run smoothly. We should be allowed to spend our money as we see fit, to smoke what we want to smoke, to say what we wish to say, and to live our lives as we wish to live them without fear of government intrusion and imprisonment. The disobedience of a few have shown us the ugly truth. The disobedience of many will help set us free.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
A Week of Living Free at Porcfest
Home is where the heart is. That's what I've heard. I think that perhaps one can't fully understand that old saying until he loses his heart to a place. I have recently discovered this on a personal basis when I was able to spend a week camping in New Hampshire at the Porcupine Freedom Festival put on by the Free State Project. After my experiences there, I would say that New Hampshire has captured my heart. Certainly New Hampshire is a beautiful state, but nice scenery can be found in every state, even right here in Illinois. The inhabitants are what really make a place exceptional, and the people of New Hampshire and the participants of the Free State Project are exceptional people who exude the welcoming feeling one expects when arriving home.
One might ask, "What exactly makes the Free State Project participants so exceptional?" This is a legitimate question and one that might be a little difficult to put into words. I could write about attitude, but there's more to it than that. I could write about acceptance and belonging, but that also wouldn't cover it all. In fact, a combination of these things wouldn't adequately answer the question. There's something more here, something hard to put one's finger on, something that needs to be experienced rather than discussed. The best description I can think of is to call it "heart," but that also doesn't seem to cut it.
FSP participants are the doers of the world. They don't simply complain about the way the world works, they do something about it. And they don't just write letters and beg their politicians to do something for them. While there is nothing wrong with this kind of participation in our system, it is not enough for many of these New Hampshire activists to simply voice their opposition to a law and depend on their representatives to do something. They will take action themselves. They will show up at the state house for important votes. Most importantly, they will say "no" and refuse to obey bad laws. Some will put their bodies and their property on the line in search for greater freedom, just like the founders of this nation did.
This is what freedom is about. It is the attitude that we should be able to decide for ourselves how to behave, so long as another individual is not harmed nor his property damaged. It is the attitude of respect to others that they know how to best live their lives rather than the attitude that there is higher power that knows best and should be forced upon everyone. FSP participants understand that in order to live freely, they must allow others to live freely as well. They understand that one should allow others the freedom to make their own mistakes so that they can learn. These are people who welcome you and wish you the best, but they also will allow you to live your life as you see fit regardless of how they may feel about the mistakes you might be making.
This doesn't mean the people of the FSP are mean or don't care about others. Indeed, they are likely some of the most generous people you'll ever meet. They are likely to give generously to any charity they find worthy and have displayed their generosity when supporting the very activists who risk arrest by their civil disobedience protesting victimless "crimes" that harm no one. FSP participants are forgiving and will likely be there to pick one up after a mistake, confident that one who makes a mistake will have learned a lesson from it. The difference is, they don't believe in one size fits all solutions to problems. They don't believe in being forced to give to an institution that has proven itself to be a failure time and again. They think they should be able to decide where their charitable funds would be put to the best use. They believe, for the most part, in a voluntary society where human interaction takes place without the threat of force. They welcome anyone who shares this point of view.
Of course, I don't speak for all people involved with the FSP. In fact, I speak only for myself and my personal impressions. Anyone who might be interested in experiencing for themselves what the Free State Project is about should visit their website, look into their movement and make arrangements to come to one of their events. They hold the Liberty Forum in March and Porcfest, which I recommend, in June. This really is a movement that needs to be experienced to be fully understood. Should you go to one of the aforementioned events and/or should you decide to sign up to become a Free State Project participant, please mention my name when doing so. I'd love to win a golden porcupine as one who has influenced three others to sign up.
When I left New Hampshire to come back to Illinois, I didn't feel as one whose vacation had come to an end. I felt as if I was leaving home. I felt as one who is saying good bye to his friends and family to go live in a strange and foreign land. Although I was returning to a place where I have people around me who care about and support me, I felt like I was leaving behind my kindred spirits. Maybe that's the best way to describe the feeling I got from the FSP participants. They have heart and spirit. It shines with an inner light unlike anything I've ever experienced, a beacon in this ever increasing tyranny, and beckons me home. A week there was hardly enough. Hopefully I will one day go back to stay.
One might ask, "What exactly makes the Free State Project participants so exceptional?" This is a legitimate question and one that might be a little difficult to put into words. I could write about attitude, but there's more to it than that. I could write about acceptance and belonging, but that also wouldn't cover it all. In fact, a combination of these things wouldn't adequately answer the question. There's something more here, something hard to put one's finger on, something that needs to be experienced rather than discussed. The best description I can think of is to call it "heart," but that also doesn't seem to cut it.
FSP participants are the doers of the world. They don't simply complain about the way the world works, they do something about it. And they don't just write letters and beg their politicians to do something for them. While there is nothing wrong with this kind of participation in our system, it is not enough for many of these New Hampshire activists to simply voice their opposition to a law and depend on their representatives to do something. They will take action themselves. They will show up at the state house for important votes. Most importantly, they will say "no" and refuse to obey bad laws. Some will put their bodies and their property on the line in search for greater freedom, just like the founders of this nation did.
This is what freedom is about. It is the attitude that we should be able to decide for ourselves how to behave, so long as another individual is not harmed nor his property damaged. It is the attitude of respect to others that they know how to best live their lives rather than the attitude that there is higher power that knows best and should be forced upon everyone. FSP participants understand that in order to live freely, they must allow others to live freely as well. They understand that one should allow others the freedom to make their own mistakes so that they can learn. These are people who welcome you and wish you the best, but they also will allow you to live your life as you see fit regardless of how they may feel about the mistakes you might be making.
This doesn't mean the people of the FSP are mean or don't care about others. Indeed, they are likely some of the most generous people you'll ever meet. They are likely to give generously to any charity they find worthy and have displayed their generosity when supporting the very activists who risk arrest by their civil disobedience protesting victimless "crimes" that harm no one. FSP participants are forgiving and will likely be there to pick one up after a mistake, confident that one who makes a mistake will have learned a lesson from it. The difference is, they don't believe in one size fits all solutions to problems. They don't believe in being forced to give to an institution that has proven itself to be a failure time and again. They think they should be able to decide where their charitable funds would be put to the best use. They believe, for the most part, in a voluntary society where human interaction takes place without the threat of force. They welcome anyone who shares this point of view.
Of course, I don't speak for all people involved with the FSP. In fact, I speak only for myself and my personal impressions. Anyone who might be interested in experiencing for themselves what the Free State Project is about should visit their website, look into their movement and make arrangements to come to one of their events. They hold the Liberty Forum in March and Porcfest, which I recommend, in June. This really is a movement that needs to be experienced to be fully understood. Should you go to one of the aforementioned events and/or should you decide to sign up to become a Free State Project participant, please mention my name when doing so. I'd love to win a golden porcupine as one who has influenced three others to sign up.
When I left New Hampshire to come back to Illinois, I didn't feel as one whose vacation had come to an end. I felt as if I was leaving home. I felt as one who is saying good bye to his friends and family to go live in a strange and foreign land. Although I was returning to a place where I have people around me who care about and support me, I felt like I was leaving behind my kindred spirits. Maybe that's the best way to describe the feeling I got from the FSP participants. They have heart and spirit. It shines with an inner light unlike anything I've ever experienced, a beacon in this ever increasing tyranny, and beckons me home. A week there was hardly enough. Hopefully I will one day go back to stay.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Requiem for the Unemployed
I'm in some serious trouble, folks. You see, as many of you know, I've been out of work since January 2009. I've looked for work, but it is more difficult for me to find work as a fifty year old man than it might be for a young twenty year old buck. I've looked for work, but it's tough to find a job even when the hardest requirements are the ability to say "Welcome to Walmart" or "Would you like fries with that?" So, I've tried to make writing my work, tried to make money writing these little opinion articles. So far, I've made nothing. Now it seems that the emergency unemployment funds have been held up by the loving members of congress that claim to care so much for their constituents. It seems that some have determined in their infinite wisdom that the source of our financial troubles is all the unemployed running around taking money from the system and that a good place to start cutting their uncontrolled spending would be unemployment compensation.
The house has passed an emergency funding bill and hopefully the senate will follow suit, but I've been reading some people making a big deal out of this and calling it bad legislation. Normally, I would agree with them. I would have preferred to have paid into a private unemployment insurance system where those running it could be held accountable should they fail, but that wasn't an option I had. My employers and I were forced to pay into this system in the form of taxes. This was supposed to be a system meant to protect people from economic downturns until they could get back on their feet. This is a program that has failed miserably, just like every other government program.
But this unemployment situation has become a political football. Suddenly certain politicians are crying about adding a few billion to the deficit. Suddenly the unemployed are too much of a burden to support. Yes, the deficit has ballooned to unsustainable levels and yes the federal government needs to cut spending. I just don't think they should start by cutting benefits to the unemployed who have paid into the system for so long.
First of all, this system we operate under has come about in large measure due to government restrictions and regulations. It is in no way, shape or form what a free market is supposed to look like. The very fact that you have to get permission (permits), meet certain government obligations and pay for the "privilege" of operating a business (taxes, fees and fines) shows that we are not operating in a free market. That is a subject that books have been written about, so I will only touch upon it here. In any case, the fact that this system is so heavily influenced by government control makes it the responsibility of government to take care of those financially harmed when the system collapses, much as I hate to say that. It seems to me that there are more sensible places where the federal government can cut spending rather than abandoning the unemployed. The political elite need to start taking responsibility for the wreckage they have caused.
What expenses could be cut to help reduce spending and the deficit? How about ending foreign aid? Why give money to foreigners when we can't take care of our own? How about withdrawing our troops from foreign lands? How about we bring an end to these unpopular and illegal occupations in the Middle East that benefit large corporations and do nothing for the common folk? Why is it okay to spend trillions on killing brown people overseas but spending a few billion on keeping the unemployed from ending up homeless on the streets raises so many eyebrows? The wars haven't helped the economy, they've bankrupted the United States Empire. They will continue to do so as long as we keep them up. It is time to proclaim victory and just get out. It is time to stop spending on destruction and start investing in more productive endeavors.
Another place the federal government could cut their spending would be the Department of Education. How many billions have been wasted on this failed bureaucracy? What was wrong with letting states, counties and local communities run and finance their own educational systems? When I was young and that was the case the United States of America was rated among the best nations when it came to education. Since the feds have insisted upon having their say the quality of education in this nation has declined significantly.
Better yet, why not divorce education from the public sector completely. Let each parent pay for the education of their children and we'll soon see just how much the market believes should be spent on education. As it stands right now, home schoolers are the best and brightest and repeatedly outscore public school children on tests. That's because home schoolers are usually actually educated and taught to think rather than indoctrinated and taught to obey. I'm even certain that under such a system churches, charities and community organizations would help poorer children and provide them with a better education than the public sector currently does. Too long we've depended on government for our services and for too long we've accepted failure and allowed it to continue. This needs to stop. We need to show that we can do a better job than they can and should be allowed to compete.
I wouldn't want to end this paper without mentioning the bailouts. We common folk screamed "NO!" while they were considering them and the political and elite classes did not listen. The banks and the Wall Street elite, with the help and support of their political friends, stole hundreds of billions, some say even trillions, from the public coffers. They then removed that money from the economy causing the failure and downsizing of many businesses in the private sector. I myself was downsized only a few months after the first bailout in 2008. Why is it okay for these businesses worth trillions to be bailed out while hard working common folk get shafted when their jobs are lost in an economy that is failing due to the practices of those very businesses? Why do CEOs and other high powered executives get their billions in bonuses and get to keep their mansions, yachts and privileged life styles while common folk worry about whether they'll even be able to feed their families in the coming weeks?
We know where the fault lies. We know that the central banks and their huge corporate "too big to fail" cronies have connived to monopolize business and influence the federal government for their own corrupt purposes. We know that the big government control freaks have allowed their judgment to become clouded by power and money and all the privileges that come with such things. We know our politicians have lost their principles, that they are corrupted and corruptible. We know they have given up on doing what's right for mankind and that they insist on doing everything they can to increase their power and feed their egos. It is time to point the finger directly where it belongs, at big government and the big businesses that support big government. These are the entities that have failed epically. These are the entities that should pay for their mistakes, not the common folk who in many cases don't even realize that they've been played.
The unemployed are on their way to becoming the sacrificial lambs of the power elite. They are about to be shoved under the bus and trampled under foot in the name of political expediency and correctness. Millions of men and women will soon be hung out to dry simply because they don't have the political power or clout of the mega rich that inhabit Wall Street or the web spinning spiders crouched in their plush central banking offices ready to strike. Unfortunately, I am one of those who will go under the bus should this happen. Perhaps we will get a slight reprieve, hopefully, perhaps not, but sooner or later we will be forced to have to fend for ourselves. Big government has once again shown its indignation toward the little folk and I fear for the fate the central planners have in store for us.
I have personally, however, taken steps to try to improve my financial situation. Due to these circumstances, I have decided to release a book I wrote under the name Matthew Wayne a few years back. It is entitled "The Ouijiers" and is available now as an ebook at Ipic publishing. I could not afford to wait for some editor in some posh New York office to discover what a good writer I am. I can not trust the corporate publishing industry to even understand what good writing looks like. You, my readers, are already aware of my word crafting skills. You can help support me and my writing by purchasing a copy of "The Ouijiers" at the discounted price of $7.95. If you do not like horror or simply do not wish to purchase a copy but would still like to support me and my efforts to spread the message of freedom, I am still taking donations at szandorblestman.com. I thank you all for the kindness and support you have shown over the last few years. I wish you peace and good fortune.
Szandor
The house has passed an emergency funding bill and hopefully the senate will follow suit, but I've been reading some people making a big deal out of this and calling it bad legislation. Normally, I would agree with them. I would have preferred to have paid into a private unemployment insurance system where those running it could be held accountable should they fail, but that wasn't an option I had. My employers and I were forced to pay into this system in the form of taxes. This was supposed to be a system meant to protect people from economic downturns until they could get back on their feet. This is a program that has failed miserably, just like every other government program.
But this unemployment situation has become a political football. Suddenly certain politicians are crying about adding a few billion to the deficit. Suddenly the unemployed are too much of a burden to support. Yes, the deficit has ballooned to unsustainable levels and yes the federal government needs to cut spending. I just don't think they should start by cutting benefits to the unemployed who have paid into the system for so long.
First of all, this system we operate under has come about in large measure due to government restrictions and regulations. It is in no way, shape or form what a free market is supposed to look like. The very fact that you have to get permission (permits), meet certain government obligations and pay for the "privilege" of operating a business (taxes, fees and fines) shows that we are not operating in a free market. That is a subject that books have been written about, so I will only touch upon it here. In any case, the fact that this system is so heavily influenced by government control makes it the responsibility of government to take care of those financially harmed when the system collapses, much as I hate to say that. It seems to me that there are more sensible places where the federal government can cut spending rather than abandoning the unemployed. The political elite need to start taking responsibility for the wreckage they have caused.
What expenses could be cut to help reduce spending and the deficit? How about ending foreign aid? Why give money to foreigners when we can't take care of our own? How about withdrawing our troops from foreign lands? How about we bring an end to these unpopular and illegal occupations in the Middle East that benefit large corporations and do nothing for the common folk? Why is it okay to spend trillions on killing brown people overseas but spending a few billion on keeping the unemployed from ending up homeless on the streets raises so many eyebrows? The wars haven't helped the economy, they've bankrupted the United States Empire. They will continue to do so as long as we keep them up. It is time to proclaim victory and just get out. It is time to stop spending on destruction and start investing in more productive endeavors.
Another place the federal government could cut their spending would be the Department of Education. How many billions have been wasted on this failed bureaucracy? What was wrong with letting states, counties and local communities run and finance their own educational systems? When I was young and that was the case the United States of America was rated among the best nations when it came to education. Since the feds have insisted upon having their say the quality of education in this nation has declined significantly.
Better yet, why not divorce education from the public sector completely. Let each parent pay for the education of their children and we'll soon see just how much the market believes should be spent on education. As it stands right now, home schoolers are the best and brightest and repeatedly outscore public school children on tests. That's because home schoolers are usually actually educated and taught to think rather than indoctrinated and taught to obey. I'm even certain that under such a system churches, charities and community organizations would help poorer children and provide them with a better education than the public sector currently does. Too long we've depended on government for our services and for too long we've accepted failure and allowed it to continue. This needs to stop. We need to show that we can do a better job than they can and should be allowed to compete.
I wouldn't want to end this paper without mentioning the bailouts. We common folk screamed "NO!" while they were considering them and the political and elite classes did not listen. The banks and the Wall Street elite, with the help and support of their political friends, stole hundreds of billions, some say even trillions, from the public coffers. They then removed that money from the economy causing the failure and downsizing of many businesses in the private sector. I myself was downsized only a few months after the first bailout in 2008. Why is it okay for these businesses worth trillions to be bailed out while hard working common folk get shafted when their jobs are lost in an economy that is failing due to the practices of those very businesses? Why do CEOs and other high powered executives get their billions in bonuses and get to keep their mansions, yachts and privileged life styles while common folk worry about whether they'll even be able to feed their families in the coming weeks?
We know where the fault lies. We know that the central banks and their huge corporate "too big to fail" cronies have connived to monopolize business and influence the federal government for their own corrupt purposes. We know that the big government control freaks have allowed their judgment to become clouded by power and money and all the privileges that come with such things. We know our politicians have lost their principles, that they are corrupted and corruptible. We know they have given up on doing what's right for mankind and that they insist on doing everything they can to increase their power and feed their egos. It is time to point the finger directly where it belongs, at big government and the big businesses that support big government. These are the entities that have failed epically. These are the entities that should pay for their mistakes, not the common folk who in many cases don't even realize that they've been played.
The unemployed are on their way to becoming the sacrificial lambs of the power elite. They are about to be shoved under the bus and trampled under foot in the name of political expediency and correctness. Millions of men and women will soon be hung out to dry simply because they don't have the political power or clout of the mega rich that inhabit Wall Street or the web spinning spiders crouched in their plush central banking offices ready to strike. Unfortunately, I am one of those who will go under the bus should this happen. Perhaps we will get a slight reprieve, hopefully, perhaps not, but sooner or later we will be forced to have to fend for ourselves. Big government has once again shown its indignation toward the little folk and I fear for the fate the central planners have in store for us.
I have personally, however, taken steps to try to improve my financial situation. Due to these circumstances, I have decided to release a book I wrote under the name Matthew Wayne a few years back. It is entitled "The Ouijiers" and is available now as an ebook at Ipic publishing. I could not afford to wait for some editor in some posh New York office to discover what a good writer I am. I can not trust the corporate publishing industry to even understand what good writing looks like. You, my readers, are already aware of my word crafting skills. You can help support me and my writing by purchasing a copy of "The Ouijiers" at the discounted price of $7.95. If you do not like horror or simply do not wish to purchase a copy but would still like to support me and my efforts to spread the message of freedom, I am still taking donations at szandorblestman.com. I thank you all for the kindness and support you have shown over the last few years. I wish you peace and good fortune.
Szandor
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