This is your last warning

Now, you can't say you weren't warned...

On horns of a dilemma

America was founded as a free Republic, a Republic which, from its' very inception, was under threat by those who favored consolidation. The struggle between those who wanted to preserve subsidiarity and those who wanted to consolidate power in a central government raged in the legislatures and courts between 1789 and 1861.

That which could not be won by seventy years of debate, the tyrant Lincoln won by a brutal war, a war that forced sovereign states who freely withdrew from a free compact to remain, against their wills, in the union. With the Yankee victory and subjugation of the Southern Republics, ultimate consolidation of all power in Washington became inevitable.

There were those, such as Grover Cleveland, who hoped Pandora could be put back in her box.  But the Linconian consolidation had prepared the soil of American governance too well for the poison seeds of so-called Progressivism.  When Progressivism did arrive it arrived with a vengeance, lead by the megalomanic, Teddy Roosevelt, and followed by the social troglodyte utopian, Woodrow Wilson. With these collectivist book ends Progressivism rooted itself in both parties.

Progressivism, in relation to Liberty, is anything but progress. It is a form of socialism, and socialism is a form of political slavery.

The great libertarian, Lysander Spooner put it this way; "...there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure."

With progressivism the poisons of both socialism and fascism infected the once free Republic.  At first the infection did not seem fatal. Their influences even appeared to wane with the so-called end of the Progressive era.  But if they vanished at all, they did so only from public sight. The Constitutional amendments passed in the second decade of the 20th century had already done massive damage, crippling the Republic in countless ways, as well as energizing the enemies of liberty within the wounded Republic.

These influences, therefore, remained well ensconced in government, working insidiously, eventually creating a false left and right that, today, bear the labels  "liberal" and "conservative." But the fact is, neither has any meaningful relationship with the traditional understanding of these two terms. The liberals are any thing but liberal to those who disagree with their policies, and the effects of their time in power clearly show conservatives conserve nothing.  Rather, both ideologies ceaselessly engender government growth and control. As George Wallace was fond of saying, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between them"---referring to the two establishment parties who have had a monopoly on power for over a century and a half now.

As these two evil twins have matured, they have taken over more and more, reducing the states to mere administrative units of the Federal government, intruding increasingly into every aspect of the private lives of citizens, and creating a massive complexity of laws and regulations no human on earth can comprehend.  As a consequence, We the People have become increasingly constrained and discouraged in countless ways. It is not difficult to see that the purpose of the central government has been stood on its' head and made more and more the tool of private and special interests. 

While separation of church and state has taken the form of government suppression of and hostility toward religion (especially Christianity), a movement to separate socialist forces (such as unions and state), or fascist forces (such as corporations and state) cannot be found any where on the radar screen.

As a result of the invasion and growth of the Progressivism, we now find the once great and free Republic on its death bed, with the forces of collectivism beating down the last doors of resistance. While collectivism has always had a bad name in America, things have changed so greatly in the past two decades that the advocates of total government are almost ready to publicly name it and claim it for what it is: Totalitarianism--and to do so with no apologies.

American society is in an intolerable state, housing the irreconcilable visions of individualism and collectivism. Which way it will go remains to be seen, but the one certainty is that things cannot remain as they are.  

The American poet, Robert Lee Frost, prophetically wrote "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

Even as desperate as the situation is, America does have a real choice.  Even at this late date, the road to serfdom is not inevitable. And no, it is not between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. These are not real choices, but flip sides of the same consolidational coin. The only real choice is between the establishment forms of collectivism, the most lethal of which are lead by the collectivist totalitarian, Barack Obama, and the standard bearer for American Liberty, Ron Paul.  

Whether America goes toward some form of imperialist, utopian socialism or returns to the free and peaceful Republic of the Founders, the transition will be painful---very painful.  There will be much unavoidable distress and no one will escape unscathed. A large number will not survive at all if the collectivist route is chosen.  While that may seem an extreme statement, it is not without its' witness in history.

In a fallen world, where men are hypnotically allured by power, man has always had to struggle for  the recognition and exercise of his natural rights--for his freedom. Freedom, historically, is most definitely the road less traveled, the road taken only by those truly hopeful, confident, creative and courageous--those filled with reasonable hope and optimism based upon a single condition: being left alone.

As the unbiased eye surveys the scene across the vast empire of the American union, it is not hard to see it is in great disarray. Destroyers ruling the streets of once great cities are filled with passionate intensity, to borrow a phase from Yeats, while the once productive, the so-called middle class, seems exhausted from the battering, plunder, regulating and pillaging of the Federal government. Government control and oppression have combined to create an atmosphere of  discouragement and exhaustion--a general malaise. Will America go the route of the many, or take the road of freedom--the road less traveled?

Signs are not encouraging for the most part. Already we are beginning to see articles talking about expatriation of citizens in an attempt to escape the plunder of the American Empire. No one wants to escape where there is freedom. No one wants to stay where there is oppression. When citizens begin escaping their homeland and revoking their citizenship you can be sure something grave is in the process of happening--that a trend is being set that is not likely to end well. 

The real question the election of 2012 will answer is, "Have the people of America become so sedated and made so passive by the drug of socialist entitlements and dependency that they have no more will to resist total enslavement to their government masters? Or does enough real courage, confidence and hope still exist in the hearts of Americans that the fires of freedom might reignite and burn brightly on the dark and bloody shores of North America?

Governments, Human Freedom, Racial Hatred and Segregation

Birds of a feather flock together. Because bluebirds prefer to stick together doesn't mean they hate cedar waxwings. The fact that you don't want to live among others who are different from you does not automatically mean you hate them. But that is the knee jerk assumption that the American political left and the Federal government (which are one and the same) want people to conclude.


In South Africa today many are noting that things were better for both whites and blacks during apartheid. If some one said something analogous to that in America regarding segregation, the Orwellian thought Nazis would immediately shout him down as a bigot. They would never give him the shadow of a doubt. They would never, for a single moment, think that maybe the person saying this is doing so because he has the best interest of both races in mind, and his opinion is actually born of examining the evidence, all the evidence, objectively, and is not just the result of some long held bias.


The knee jerk accusation of racial bigotry is the standard attack on whites for resisting government enforced integration. Yet, when blacks freely choose "to flock together" and "rebalkanize" by demanding their own television channels, their own magazines, their own fraternities in colleges, their own student union buildings, and their own dorms, there is no analogous outcry against them. How much sense does that make? Does integration only work one way? Does integration only work when and where and to the degree blacks want to work?


Of all the injustices there are, you'll find the suppression of the free and lawful choices of human beings near the very top of the list--especially when it involves the natural right of freedom of association.


If people freely choose to integrate, nothing should stop them from doing so--with the operative word being "freely." If not, nothing has the right to make them do so--not any individual, or court, or administration, or document--for Freedom of Association is a Natural Right. The very arrogance of the use of force to suppress human freedom and rob the individual of his or her natural rights is, its' self, among the greatest of all human evils.


People instinctively resist force, even if that force is trying to make them do something that may be reasonably considered a good. 


Why would they resist a given good? 


They resist because they know in their hearts that it is profoundly wrong to use an evil means to accomplish a perceive good--especially when that evil means is the suppression of freedom. People want their wills unencumbered, and they instinctively know that the use of force robs them of their free will. And to the degree a man ceases to be free to choose he ceases to be human. Those who take his freedom diminish his humanity by degrees. That is why they resist.


To the degree a government suppresses lawful freedom and natural rights, that society grows despotic, cruel and inhuman. The federal government has done this very thing, and has, as a consequence, grown increasingly despotic, oppressive and controlling. In their arrogance, the leaders of the Federal Government have sought to do what God Himself will not do: take our freedom from us. 


Unlike the Federal government, God respects our created humanity and the freedom intrinsic to it. Grace builds on nature; grace perfects nature. So states an ancient Christian truth. In contrast, governments attack human nature by imposing the inhuman upon humans. In other words, treating We the People as if we are mere inanimate objects, lacking judgement and incapable of self determination---treating us as if  we are fit only to be manipulated as passive objects of the most recent social experiments, bright ideas and arbitrary tinkerings of Dear Leader and his cadre of elite bureaucrats.

Under the aegis of the false philanthropy of "equality," the elites in the Federal government have sought to grow their power and control over the American populace by using dehumanizing means and methods.  The effect has been the very reverse of what was purportedly intended.

The Federal government is playing a dangerous game, heedless of the fact that he who rides the tiger's back ends up in its' stomach.


They apparently failed to learn this one simple lesson from their one time adversaries, the Soviets. Achieving conformity of behavior by threat of force does not change hearts and minds--the very things that must change if race relations or any other kind of relations are to improve in America. 


Relations do need to improve in America--all kinds of relations. But government meddling and the use of force increases anger and resentment, and makes every thing worse. Government force hardens rather than opens hearts, creates a metaphysical balkanization and provokes the just outrage of a people who intuitively know that their natural rights are being suppressed.


The recent Federal policy of "artificially evening the playing field" in an attempt to correct perceived injustices in the past not only fails to help solve America's societal problems, it has made things worse--much worse. 


Such actions on behalf of the Feds do not result in justice, but compound injustice, setting citizens against one another in a legislative zero-sum-game, tearing the domestic fabric of the nation apart. 


The policy makers in Washington would do well to pay heed to Winston Churchill's warning, "If the past sits in judgement of the present, the future will be lost."


Only a people who do not fear the encroachment of a foreign power (government) putting their freedom, their families and their possessions under constant threat of loss can live happily and peacefully among one another, in justice.


Only freedom works.


Can I get an "Amen!"?

Two Economic visions for America and their Consequences

The questions that historians will muse over in future generations is, "How did the richest nation in the world, with the means to sustain its' prosperity for centuries, how did they squander and annihilate their entire wealth and position in the world, doing it in the span of only a few short decades?" Such madness is one of the wonders of the modern world.
And here's their answer they'll come up with--it is so obvious we won't need the distance of history to see it: the causal forces were many that brought the breath taking collapse of the Yankee Empire, but they were all primarily centered around a selfish, self-indulgent, cowardly, greedy, spineless, corrupt, ignorant, power hungry, depraved political class; a blind, and ideological leadership who, as the primary means of staying in power, spoiled and indulged the people with largess from their own money, stolen from them by the leaders in the form of taxes and inflation (the cruelest and most harmful, painful to the poor tax of all: the hidden tax).
The mechanism the politicians used to destroy America is commonly called "misallocation of wealth." Misallocation consumes and destroys wealth.
Proper allocation multiplies wealth.
It's the difference between eating your seed corn and planting it.
Eating your seed corn feeds you today but provides nothing for tomorrow, planting it multiplies it beyond measure.

Let's juxtapose that into the present situation.
Oblamer makes "the rich" pay their "fair share"--whatever the Hell that is.
Oblamer takes that money out of the private sector and misallocates it in order to buy votes from the non-productive.
This is tantamount to eating your seed corn.
What if Oblamer does not take the money, but leaves more and more wealth in the hands of "the rich?"

The rich then take the "seed corn," plant it (investment). It creates jobs for those who would have eaten the seed corn from the master's hand (Oblamer), and they have the dignity of being able to feed themselves, not just once, but for decades through this process of proper allocation of wealth.
The problem with this second scenario (in Oblamer's view) is that it does not secure the politician's power and increase the control of the government over the people. Proper allocation of wealth leaves the people too free, too independent, too confident in their own abilities.

Oblamer's thinking and methodology is the thinking of a slave master (which is what he African ancestors were, and many still are).
His subjects (supporters) are those who have abdicated their God given right to liberty for the security of the slave state.
The welfare, entitlement state is nothing more than institutionalized slavery, concocted to do nothing more than increase government control over the people.

In Oblamer's world of misallocation, wealth really is a zero sum game.
In the world of the entrepreneur and investor wealth is multiplied through growth.
What we are seeing at the moment and have been for some time is the welfare system devouring the seed corn that would have fed every one in the coming years. It will soon be all gone. Then what will we do?
I don't know how I can make this any cleared for your f**ked up collectivists.

Inside Job----an inside job?

I recently saw Inside Job--twice. I probably need to see it a few times more to really solidify my understanding of what exactly is being done (and not done), but I will share a few comments with you from my own perspective.

Now as preamble I want to say in my defense these comments are not knee jerk---nor are they "the Republican response"---for I am NOT a Republican by any stretch of the imagination. I'm writing this review because it is very, very important we rightly understand what happened.

To help you do just that I have a few things for you, dear reader. I believe these videos and talks can give you more real practical understanding and information about what really happened than Inside Job does.

The first thing to consider is the review of Inside Job on Lewrockwell.com by Jeffery Tucker. After seeing Inside Job twice and reading his review I can't see anything he got wrong or spoke of unfairly. He did, however, leave some important things unsaid, and I'll try to mention a few I consider important. Here is the link for the article.

http://blog.mises.org/16038/inside-job-a-look-at-the-heart-of-the-left/

It's a short article but, from my perspective and experience, it is accurate and more than fair.

Secondly, take the time to read David Stockman's speech linked here. http://mises.org/daily/5113/The-End-of-Sound-Money-and-the-Triumph-of-Crony-Capitalism

It is long, but it is excellent. This will help you grasp the real systemic causes of the collapse and who is responsible for what.

The third thing, a talk given by Peter Schiff, is a little over an hour, but it is very good for learning sound economic principles.

Schiff is an Austrian school economist who is a very successful business man, and highly principled. He, Dr. Ron Paul and Tom Woods were forecasting and warning about the collapse for years before it happened, and enduring the mockery of all the "court economists" of the Keynesian school that dominate present day thinking and the media.

This video is mostly of a talk Schiff gave in 2006 forecasting exactly what is going to happen as if he had foreseen it in a vision. And he is forecasting this before the masters of the housing mortgage industry--telling them, in essence, what idiots they are in regard to understanding economics and economic bubbles, and warning them they should short sell much of their holdings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj8rMwdQf6k

This is courage---going into the lion's den and telling him he is about to suffer great loss.

Schiff was right, his detractors were wrong, those who listened to him and acted accordingly did not suffer the losses others did.

It is so well documented that Schiff foresaw all this in detail as to be undeniable by any except, perhaps, the clinically insane.

Yet, Schiff is no mystic.

He simply knows, applies and runs his business on hard money and sound economic principles. Everything he does is rooted in fundamentals.

He knows what is going to happen because he really knows why it is happening, what is wrong and how to correct it. The Keynesians did not---so they missed it.

Yet, despite scores of video that can easily be found on youtube and many other sources showing Schiff repeatedly forecast and explained the roots of the problem that brought about the crash, the makers of Inside Job managed to completely ignore him, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods or any number of others from the Mises Institute that could bring clarity and substance to the matter instead of impotent oblique accusations and innuendo.

Instead, they include an extreme leftist like George Soros, presenting him as if he is a benevolent, harmless grandfatherly figure. But the reality is that Soros is a man who would like to see liberty in America destroyed and totalitarian government officially instituted---a man who was and may still be subject to arrest in England for the role he played in basically destroying the value of the pound sterling.

They deceptively present Soros as innocent, congenial and avuncular, but avoid speaking with his ex-partner in the Quantum Fund, Jim Rogers.(Rogers, like Soros, has made billions in investment, but unlike Soros, is an advocate of Austrian economics. And, by the way, Rogers is not wanted in England for any sort of crime––which is perhaps why he was not interviewed).

I can only conclude they avoided interviewing all the economists and investors who are rooted in Austrian economics (even though they were primarily the ones who were right about virtually every thing) for one reason: they knew the answers and explanations the Austrians would give would not fit the maker's of Inside Job ideological perspective. They were, therefore, avoided COMPLETELY!

They managed to avoid interviewing Tom Woods. Dr. Woods has impeccable credentials and has laid out how the crash all happened in his well written and well researched book, Meltdown. Unfortunately, he is another of those pesky Austrians and so did not get an invite to the party.

Once I considered all the usual leftist suspects that were interviewed as if they were unbiased, authoritative sources, and all good people who were avoided by the makers of Inside Job, I began to ask myself, "Is this really a documentary that is trying to explain and help us understand how it really happened???" The more I thought about it, the more I weighed the evidence, the more I was tempted to ask, "Could it possibly be that Inside Job....is...an inside job?"

**************************************

For those who know little or nothing about the debate between hard money economists with fiat money economists, between the Austrian school and the Keynesians, and how drastically the adoption of Keynesian economics by America and the abandonment of the gold standard in 1972 has affected our wealth, our property and our liberty, Inside Job seems to confirm in shocking and vivid colour the very horrible thing they would like to believe---- the rich are incurably greedy and can only be controlled by endless reams of government regulations and controls enforced by a whole battalion of bureaucrats.

I am convinced this impression the makers of Inside Job want to leave is a false one that misses the point altogether.

Schiff's view, on the other hand, is correct--for he was right year after year when many of those being interviewed in Inside Job were laughing at him on television business programs and saying every thing was going to be great.

They, now, should be on a steady diet of crow pacing an 8 by10 cell. But instead the very ones that caused all this have been promoted to higher and more powerful positions rather than being where they justly belong: prison.

It is not insignificant to note that, to-date, after four years, not a single person has been arrested and tried much less convicted.

************************************

If you're not familiar with the Federal Reserve, its' creation in 1913 and you really don't know what the Fed is, you lack the background needed to make sense of much of what I've said to this point.

Most people, even very smart people, have no idea where our money comes from and how it is "created"---and how it now represents debt not wealth. They also have no idea how the Fed influences and even coerces behavior in the markets--especially investment banking.

I certainly did not, but I do now at least grasp some of the basics---and I most certainly don't consider myself in the class of the "very smart"---or even the reasonably intelligent. So, if I understand it then it can't be all that hard to grasp. The reason most of us don't is because the information is not readily available--you have to dig it out--you have to know where to look. You'll seldom if ever find it in a college class room or a high school text book. You'll never hear it on TV from one of the "court economists."

I was shocked once I found out--I couldn't believe it. I thought it was just conspiracy BS--that's how amazing it really is. But it's true. You can, if you care to, get quickly educated on the basics of what the Fed is, who created it, how it works and why it was desired by both the political and banking class by listening to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_VqX6J93k

If you don't understand this you'll not be able to make ultimate sense of what has happened.

G. Edward Griffin, who speaks in this video, is a warrior for freedom and a brave and courageous man; a man of great and unimpeachable integrity. Hearing this video is learning about the Federal Reserve from the horse's mouth--he wrote the book on it.

In my opinion, understanding the Federal Reserve's relation to the American Economy is the beginning of wisdom...a wisdom that I believe is lacking in the makers of Inside Job--who, it seems to me, are only interested in getting the viewer to do what most of them already want to do: hate the rich and enlarge the power and control of centralized government to a full-blown Soviet-style bureaucracy.

To that I only have two comments in the form of questions.

1. Who is it that assures us that while the rich business men are devils the powerful politicians will be angels?

2. Who will oversee the overseers---and oversee the overseers who oversee the overseers, in a reductio ad absurdum?

Perhaps we should have a nation of mutual spying, where every one oversees every one else?

This would create one of the most powerful conditions for totalitarian governments controlling the people: paranoia.

The Obama administration is carrying on the Bush administration tradition of doing that very thing--and, I think they're doing a better job as they are increasing spying on people on every level and they're getting all set up to use the IRS as the weapon par excellence against enemies and detractors from the policies of the regime.

My sense is the perils of real failure, and real collapse, and real loss that exist in free markets where no bailouts can be expected and none will be given is the best and fairest of all overseers to keep the monsters of human avarice and concupiscence in check. Nothing, of course, will do it perfectly. But these are the best and fairest means I know...and it makes We the People the stars of the Republic, NOT the Investment bankers and the politicians--both of whom tend to be imperialists.

One thing is for sure: the moral hazard created by the government's promise to subsidize private losses suffered by some special entities with public money has encouraged daring and risk taking to the point of madness, rather than put any real check on them or given us any real economic security and stability.

Every time the government meddles or intrudes the results are always counterproductive.

What the Hell is the difference whether we experience the loss of our money and property directly through bank failures or those same losses through the inflation created by government to bailout those very same entities with tax payer monies through borrowing from the Chinese?

At least if we experienced loss directly through bank failure the corrupt entity would have gone down and the market would be cleared for better managed companies. But with bailouts these failing institutions become zombie companies buttressed and sustained by government with borrowed money WE the People must pay back-----these companies get caught in the cold rain and We the People get pneumonia.

Look at it this way, if you were a tight rope walker instead of a CEO, which conditions would tempt you more to perform your most difficult and risky maneuvers on the high wire; with the (tax-payer funded) net, or without the (tax-payer funded) net?

The assurance of the bailout for those "too big to fail" IS nothing more than a classic instance of moral hazard.

A free market economy would not have this. Foolishness and foolhardiness is not greeted with bailouts and promotions in free markets, but failure and loss.

Yet, such an answer to the makers of Inside Job cannot even be found in the furthest reaches of their universe. What we are left with is the endless escalation of the disastrous cycle of bailouts and regulations, while the bankers and politicians promote each other with knowing winks. And this, they seem to strongly imply, is a solution...and it is. But only for the bankers and the politicians.

These are perilous times in every way, and it is important to find out who and where the real villains are. It is important that we understand things to the point that when we hear something or speak of something we know whether what is being talked about is an effect or a cause.

The source of all this folly is not Wall St., but Washington. That is where the cleaning of house must begin, for that is where the power is. Washington power is why lobbyists come there rather than politicians going to Wall St.. Politicians wanted it that way.

What we see from Wall St. is merely the effect. The cause, the source, is Washington and its darling, the Fed--for that is where the power really is.

I never heard it said better than the quote from Willie Stark in All the King's Men. To the assertion that the oil men in Louisiana will stop him from doing what he has proposed Penn Warren has him respond:

"They ain't got the power.

The power is in the hands of the powerless, and they've given it to ME."

Drones of the drones

Why is it that some pathetic people are so impoverished in their souls that they can't feel "whole," that they can't feel like their lives have any worth or meaning, unless they are intruding into the lives of other people and trying to control them by any number of repulsive means: bribery, extortion, coercion, fear mongering, and threats, etc?

These drones represent a horrible new technology--facilitating both more federal military adventurism abroad and unconstitutional surveillance at home with, what was the "Newt's" phrase?..."Plausible deniability?" With the NDAA as legal justification and these drones as the means you might as well find a mirror and kiss your sweet privacy good bye--and maybe even your freedom and your life.But the horrors don't stop there.

Every piece of nightmarish technology America has developed, from the A bomb to these drones, have fallen into the hands of others--and have become tools that can be used against the American citizen. Our government has developed weapons that make one man more lethal than a whole company of soldiers with conventional weapons. Such destructive weapons are evil, I don't give a fiddler's damn whose hands they are in. But it is clear, the very weapons the twisted imaginations of our military have come up with, and spent beaucoup tax $$ to develop, are the very weapons, in the hands of terrorists, that can and will be used to imperil the lives of US citizens.

The point: we have been forced by taxation, whether direct or in the form of the inflation (resulting from the printing of fiat money), to pay for the very weapons that will be used to kill us by the hundreds--maybe even the thousands.Our leaders and our military, far from protecting us and defending us, are the very means by which we are increasingly endangered.And while a terrorist is here using one of our stealth weapons against us, where will our military be? Where it always is: 1500 miles away supporting and defending the investments of the special interests.

Ain't freedom freaking grand!

Southern Slavery compared to Centralized government

The following is my response to an epistle I recently received defending centralized government. Here is the epistle in its entirety:

I don't want to get in a crazy debate, but, I am almost certain that the two guys you quote (Spooner and Livingston), most likely did not have their families subjugated, sold, mutilated for trying to free themselves and treated like just a piece of meat. I am sure, as you said before, that some slave owners may have cared for their subjects, just as I do love and treat my dog very, very well, but to compare taxation and government centralization to slavery is sick -- little different that comparing our Japanese internment camps (super shameful) to the Nazi concentration camps. While they had similar purposes, their methodology and end result were quite different...

for reference, Spooner and Livingston's quotes he cites are as follows:

"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure." – Lysander Spooner (Nineteenth-Century lawyer, abolitionist, entrepreneur)

"A war of coercion was Lincoln's creation and he had to violently subvert the Constitution to carry it out. His purpose? To establish a centralized state."
Donald Livingston, prof. of philosophy, Emory University

Now, here is my response to my friend:

Thank you so much for that thoughtful and well presented response. There is no need to spark a huge, protracted debate. It should suffice to look at the facts as born out by history.

To begin with, I insist there is a vast difference between formal chattel slavery and the de facto slavery that is the result of increasingly centralized government power and its ability to dictate every aspect of our lives, including the power to take, by force, increasing amounts of the fruit of our labor to redistribute as the ruling elites see fit.

Spooner said the difference was one of degree. It is the difference between formally declared total slavery of a certain class and informal, de facto partial slavery of all. I disagree. The difference is more than quantitative. The difference is qualitative, centralized, autocratic government being MUCH worse, and I shall try to prove it here.

Regarding centralized power of government taken to its logical conclusion and slavery taken to its logical conclusion I glean the following from recent history:

Let us first acknowledge that slavery, as an institution, can only exist under the aegis of government power and approval.

Having said that, lets look at the particular form of slavery Messrs. Livingston and Spooner were most familiar with: southern slavery.

The record shows Southern slave owners treated their slaves very well in America.

Why?

Set aside the Christian aspect of American society at that time: Slaves were expensive.

It took over 10 years before a slave owner could break even on his purchase. Considering this fact, a slave owner would be a fool to abuse a slave and do things that tear down his health. According to records left of food purchases and housing, everything indicates most slaves actually had a higher caloric intake than the owners, they worked far fewer hours than the wage slaves in the northern factories trying to keep body and soul together. AND the slave owners took care of the elderly slaves who could not work, and much, much more.

But I'm not here to defend slavery in any way. My only point is when you buy something that is costly you take care of it because it is in your self interest to do so--and the facts of southern slavery bear that out. You can find that from the scientific study of records left regarding southern slavery. It was recorded in a book called Time on the Cross.

But here is my point:

Let's compare Southern slavery, where the historical record reveals slaves were very humanely treated for the most part (especially compared to the dehumanizing factory work in northern sweat shops); let's compare Southern slavery to 20th century totalitarian, centralized government, which you seem to approve.

Again, we don't have to theorize about this, we have well documented facts.

Southern slavery; a largely humane form of institutionalized slavery, where even the non-productive elderly were care for.

20th century totalitarian government; the conservative estimate is over 262,000,000 citizens killed by their own rulers--not to mention the servile misery of the millions that survived the death squads of the ruling elites. (Of course, the 20th century did not end the killing of citizens by their rulers--the killing goes on to this day, with no end in sight. In fact, the 20th century did not begin the killing. The killing of citizens by the modern state began under the autocrat, Lincoln. To this day the US government has killed more of its citizens that all the other countries have in all the wars we've fought combined.)

Let's throw in another stat, just to give a little more depth to the comparison:

20th century wars: around 44,000,000 killed in war.

You do the math.

My calculator figures it this way when I compare the three: Southern slavery is preferred, and a state of war is even better than being a citizen under the iron hand of totalitarian government, because people are obviously safer during war.

Now, as I see it, Southern slavery is very similar to what we have here as national policy dictated by the federal government elites today. And Totalitarian 20th century style centralized, autocratic power is where we're headed, thanks in great part to those who foolishly do not fear handing over all power to government.

Spooner and Livingston both see clearly the logical conclusion of the increasing absolutizing and concentrating of government power, as born out by the actual results of history. Apparently, you were absent the day that was discussed by your history professor. Or maybe he was a Marxist and skipped over those facts.

Finally, let me share this concluding thought for your reflection and serious consideration:

Institutionalized slavery is a bad thing--as almost all Americans recognized even during the time of slavery. Many, north and south, wanted to end it, but could not agree just how to do it. The way we did end if was the worst of all possibilities, except for the solution of extermination.

Extermination was to come later with 20th century totalitarian government which usurped and consolidate all power.

Totalitarians like Marx, Hitler and Mussoliin, did, however, express a great admiration for Lincoln his consolidating power in the Presidency and his abrogation of the Constitution: another historical fact lovers of totalitarian government conveniently forget. But I digress.

Please, now. Focus on this part, for it is the very most important point of all those I've hoped to make in responding to you:

The difference between institutionalized slavery and centralized government is this:

Institutionalized slavery is limited in what it might do to the enslaved by the mores and values of the society in general and the laws of the land in specific. (It is also ended peacefully in the vast number of cases. The war we had in America was an exception, because slavery was just one among many excuses--consolidation was the real reason, as Livingston points out.)

Centralized government does not know these societal or legal limitations, but considers itself above the laws it imposes upon its citizens.

This is the point: one form of slavery is limited and can be ended peacefully. The other is not limited and is almost never ended peacefully. One is limited in its scope, and other is unlimited in it scope. Institutional slavery in a society where the motto is "right is might," eventually brings slavery to an end. The slavery in a modern centralized state where the motto is "might makes right" is unlimited in the means and scope of how it might treat its citizens.

The power of centralized government is limited in what it might do only by the imaginations and character of those who are in power.

Now, many claim that the atrocities we saw in the 20th century by autocratic rule and centralized government can never happen here. They can only say that being oblivious of our present situation.

Right now we have different laws and standards for our ruling elite than for us regular schleps who are part of the great unwashed herd of citizenry. Just look at all the laws broken by the criminal acts of Wall Street elites and government officials that lead to the financial collapse in 2008.

As of this date NOT ONE person has been convicted and sentenced to one day in prison. In fact, many leading government officials that encouraged the destructive policies have actually been promoted, even as they point the finger at all and every thing but themselves.

Our government pisses on the Constitution daily. The leaders constantly disregard it and do as they please.

In terms of civil law, our government does things as policy that would same bring about our arrest, imprisonment---and even execution: Our government bribes, steals, coerces, extorts, oppresses, threatens, invades and even murders its own citizens without due process of law--a flagrant nose-thumbing at the Constitution and the bill of rights and We the People.

Government employees who do these things such as Waco or Ruby Ridge get promotions instead of imprisonment.

A man who does not see this is a man who has drunk the kool aid of big government autocrats so long that he has forgotten what it is to be a free man in a free society.

My conclusion: Some people just have slavery in their blood. My people, from Wales, Ireland and Switzerland--we have fought oppression for fifteen hundred years BEFORE we came to the mountains of southeast Kentucky. We have freedom in our blood---and love our neighbor instead of loving our government.

One final point and I'm done:

We lovers of freedom and liberty are happy to leave the lovers of government alone, and even leave those who love their own slavery alone--The problem is, they won't leave us alone. They cannot. They must conscript us into their army of socialist slavery in order to carry out their collectivist schemes.

So we must fight here, just as we did there. If for no other reason, we fight that we and our children do not join the 262,000,000 souls that have gone before us as yet another statistic of the cruel and absolute power of the state.

tom