Category Archives: History

Is Mexico Going to Back the Peso up with Silver?

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A silver backed peso has been talked about for a few years but now maybe things are heating up again.  Mexico has vast silver mining capacity compared to many other countries and a silver backed peso could give Mexico a huge economic advantage.  In fact, any country backing their currency up with a precious metal would have a large economic strategic advantage because of the rampant devaluations going on around the world by each currency’s respective government (or central bank).  A precious metal backed currency would be a safe harbor.  The U.S. dollar used to be the safe harbor for the world because of the size and health of the American economy, and the America’s superpower status.  Today, things have changed, U.S. government has gone from the world’s greatest lender to the world greatest debtor.   The U.S. government is trillions in debt and is seen as totally corrupt not only by many of its own citizens but from people around the world.  The last 20 years have seen boom after boom created through monetary inflation.  Each boom has resulted in a bust that has destroyed trillions in capital through the misallocation of resources through Federal Reserve manipulation of interest rates.  This has not only affected our economy, but it has affected the economies around the world as well.  Now, America’s major export is cheap dollars sent around the world to buy goods that American’s would not be able to afford in a real world economy.    The U.S. dollar is artificially demanded because of its role as the world’s reserve currency and its petrodollar status.  Now things a changing, the tide is turning.  There is no way out. The economic day of reckoning is coming.  The U.S. Federal Government has no way to pay off its debt and its future liabilities. Governments around the world know this.  No government wants to be the first country to pull out of the dollar but no country wants to be the last either. Mexico wants out.  Mexico has a way, a silver Peso.   Will Mexico’s banking interests allow this to happen?  Will the U.S. government?  I remain doubtful, I think it will come from the east.  Either Russia or China, but who knows.

 

 

Are GMOs Killing You?

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Dr Mercola thinks so.  So does Mr Corbett in the video below.  I avoid GMOs myself and try to eat organic whenever I can which is almost always for me now.  Modern corn and wheat are bad enough for human health but when GMOs are even worse.  I used to think that GMOs were about increasing yields but it seems like a large part of genetic modification is made so that plants will secrete their own insecticide. Basically these plants are designed to produce their own poison.  But don’t worry I am sure that our wise regulators in the Federal Government are keeping a close eye on these GMO companies.

 

The Occult History of the Third Reich

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This is a fascinating documentary on the occult origins of the Swastika and the Arian mythology. It also touches upon the secret Thule society that was behind the Nazi party.  After watching this I think it is impossible to understand the Nazi movement without understanding its occult origins and the secret Thule society.

 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=XVB0FRz3_cM

The philosophy underlining both the left and the right

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Today in America, most people divide the political spectrum into two sides, liberals and conservatives.  Though both appear to be opposite philosophies on their face, they are in fact two sides of the same coin.  Both terms have changed over time and too truly understand their meaning; we have to look back in history to understand them. 

 

The easiest way I find in understanding what these terms mean is what they are not.  I would consider myself a liberal in the classical sense and also the true sense of the word.  The modern use for the term liberal is perversely warped.  I often use the term “politically liberal” or “progressive” to differentiate myself from the modern term.  I rarely use the term “liberal” to describe my opposition (the modern left) because this is a false use of the word.  Both in the United States and Britain people use the term “liberal” to define the progressive tradition that started in the beginning of the 20th century.  However the rest of Europe still uses the term liberal in the old sense, the true sense of the word.  In Germany, mainland Europe, and especially in Scandinavian countries liberal means a person that believes in maximum liberty for the individual in the tradition of the Enlightenment.  This is no longer true in the United States where political liberals believe in wide and expansive state power.  There are a number of reasons for this but in short, the progressive movement in theU.S. and Britain used the term liberal because it had such wide attraction in the minds of the masses, while the more statist peoples of Europe and especially Germany never cared much the classical liberal tradition in the first place. Germans were largely against the English Enlightenment, and openly desired state power.  Germans would openly claim titles of socialist, communist, and fascist because there was no stigma attached to these terms as there were in the U.S. and Britain.  Thus, in English speaking countries, progressives and other socialists co-opted the term liberal because only by twisting language and hiding their true ideology could they get there ideas put into place in freedom loving countries such as these United States.  The Fabian socialists and Council of Foreign Relations are two very important examples of how two groups are willing to openly deceive the public to push their statist ideology.  The true meaning of the word liberal means openness and freedom, this is why the term “liberal thinker” means an open minded thinker, a liberal economy means an open and free economy as opposed to the political “liberals” who want a regulated economy.  The only true liberals in theUnited States today are now called “libertarians” or “classical liberals” in popular culture but in academic writing they are often still referred to as just plain “liberals.”

 

Conservatives seem, at first glance, easier to define. Conservatives basically want to preserve the American way of life and the traditions that “make this country great”.  At closer examination this seems more than a little confusing considering there has been over 200 years of history with many conflicting ideologies.  Some would say it is an unfair analogy but almost all conservatives would reject slavery as a political philosophy and yet it is an early tradition of this country.  What about the rise of statism in the 20th century in the form of the progressive era and the New Deal?  These are certainly are not representative of economic freedom but most modern conservatives endorse the likes of Theodore Rosevelt and FDR.  Newt Gringrich even called FDR the greatest person of the 20th century.  Whether he is or is not, it is very revealing or at least should be very revealing when modern conservatives and modern political liberals idealize the same political figures.  Is conservatism a simple cultural reaction to the 1960’s or does it stand for some concrete ideals?  From their statements its seems like conservatives hold a grab bag of many different ideas without any philosophical underpinning at all except maybe for the vague idea of “American Greatness”.  Conservatives in the modern day generally accept massive amount of military spending and warfare around the world which originated in the progressive tradition of TR and Woodrow Wilson.  They also accept many ideas that at one time were considered socialist such as public schools, central banking, food/drug regulation, and tariffs along with other types of economic intervention.  It is more accurate to label today’s mainstream conservatives as Neo-conservatives to differentiate them from some of the old conservatives that opposed the New Deal and foreign interventionism.  The old conservatives are usually called paleo-conservatives or the “old right”.  The best examples of the right would be Robert Taft and Howard Buffet and to a lesser degree Pat Buchnan might be considered good example of the old right today (except for his economic policies). For most people today the term Neo-conservative and conservative are synonymous because the neo-conservatives are by the most dominant national media.  We will seek to differentiate between the Neo-conservatives and libertarians.

 

So what separates libertarians or “true liberals” from conservatives and political liberals/progressives?  Let’s start by defining libertarian philosophy in general.  Libertarians generally believe in natural law, that human beings have natural rights that are bestowed upon them by a creator or by nature itself.  Libertarians generally believe that men and women are sovereign beings and are entitled to the rights that this implies.  Libertarians also generally believe in the non-aggression principal, the idea that no other human being, or even a government, can initiate violence against an other human being, violence can only be used in self defense.  Libertarians believe that man is capable of reason and can use this tool to navigate the world effectively.  Libertarians believe that man’s own happiness is his own journey that requires the most freedom possible so that he can reach his goals.  In general, libertarians want people to be unshackled from institutions that keep people from reaching their ultimate potential and unleash them so they can achieve whatever they want in life.  In this way, libertarians could be considered humanists.  Libertarians believe that power should flow from the individual from the bottom up and power should not flow from the top down from the state.

 Conservatives and progressives have no such underlying philosophy.  If they have any philosophy at all it is the exact opposite; that power should flow from the top down.  Many readers that label themselves liberal or conservative would say no and think that such a statement is ridiculous. The political liberal would say that “I believe in democracy, and this is bottom up” and the conservative would say that they “believe in the constitution, so how could I believe in top down power?”   I will concede that many on the modern left and right sincerely believe that they are for bottom up sovereignty but when looking at their actually philosophy this simply is not true.  Furthermore, both progressive and neo-conservative ideologies have conflicts built into them that make each incapable of delivering the priorities that each ideology values the most. 

 

Progressives and Neo-conservatives are both for Top-down power

 Let’s start with the progressive.  They may believe that democracy is bottom up but this is not true.  Yes, a democracy can change who holds the reigns of power but it does not change the nature of power in relation it the individual, it is still top down.  Democracy can easily be just as evil or as diabolical as the most tyrannical government. In a complete democracy 51% can vote to murder the other 49% and this is completely legal. Democracy does not guarantee any sort of justice in society, as even Hitler was democratically elected.  Democracy is only bottom up for the majority voters (which usually is a minority of the population because of the large amount of people that are not allowed or choose not to vote.)  Jim Crow Laws for example were put in place in the South under democratically elected state legislators; racial minorities had no power whatsoever.  Obviously democracy can lead to some pretty ugly things and a strong case can be made that democracy is actually a regressionary state for a free society as stated here and here.

Only natural law has offered a bulwark against tyranny, democracy on the other hand is just tyranny of the majority.  To the extent that Western Society remains free and prosperous is because of the natural law tradition that is deeply rooted in Western culture. This truth directly contradicts mistaken belief that we owe our prosperity and freedom to democracy. Democracy is not the guarantee of rights at all and is often used for just the opposite.

 

The Neo-conservative

 

Now let us look at the neo-conservative, they certainly reference the American Constitution but modern conservatives/ neo-conservatives have little philosophically in common with the underlying philosophical principals the document.  When examining mainstream conservatives political positions, it becomes very hard to take most modern conservative’s references to the constitution as anything but empty and hollow.  This is because the modern conservatives are much closer to the 20th century nationalist/fascist state, best exemplified by fascistItaly.  

For some warning lights are going off and would strongly object to such phrasing of modern conservatives as fascists.  I agree that most people use this term to unfairly discredit their opposition but this is not the case here. In addition, most people use the term “fascist” as an empty attack against political enemies, especially the left in referring to the right, this is not my intention.  When I refer to the term fascist, I do not refer to death camps or the bloody evil side of fascism of WWII, I refer to the fascism as the economic system and the philosophical system that supports it.  Death camps can be a symptom of fascism but it is not a defining characteristic.    Many “conservatives” would strike back saying that “the fascists where socialists and we are for capitalism, so how can we be fascists?”  Well, most conservatives are socialists in some degree but the importance here is that fascism is not the traditional view of socialism where the state owns the means of production.  The fascist style of socialism is where all private property is owned by the citizens but the state retains power over all private property and can direct how citizens use it.  Most modern conservatives believe in a moderate level of government intervention that falls into this category of fascist but not to the level state ownership of property that would cross the line into outright socialism. 

 

Though the economic similarities are important, the true similarities to fascism and neo-conservatism are at philosophical level.  Both believe in “national greatness” and the warfare state as a means to achieving such greatness.  I would put these priorities at one and two on the neo-con list.  Nothing else comes close and if any other ideas come into conflict with the before listed two ideas, such as natural rights, capitalism, or rule of law, they must give way because, for the neo-conservative, national greatness is the only priority that truly matters.  When considering that this is the prism that conservatives use to look at the universe, it is much easier to understand how their praise of the American Constitution is empty and hallow.  The neo-conservative’s high regard for the Constitution is not about what the actual document states or the principals of natural law undergirding it, it is merely an extension of their national greatness philosophy that worships the founding of their “Great Power” that they just happened to be born into.  Similar to how the Romans venerated their founding by Romulus and Remus or how the Germans idealized Bismarck, or any other number of martial nations revere their founders, the Neo-conservative veneration of the Constitution and the founding fathers is the same type of national adoration.  This can be seen time and time again when supposed conservatives in congress and the executive branch trample all over the Constitution while supposed conservatives in the media give them a pass.  The best example of this is probably the Patriot Act.  This act completely shreds the fourth amendment and the most basic natural rights that human beings possess.  If modern conservatives cared at all about the constitution or our “founding”, they would realize that this kind of power, the ability for agents of the state to write their own search warrants, is the exactly the kind of power the King of England claimed for himself and his agents.  We fought a revolution against this kind of abuse of power but modern neo-conservatives prostate themselves before the executive branch as it tramples over their rights.  There is nothing American about letting an executive have such power whether he is a king across an ocean or our own commander and chief. Conversely, for the neo-conservative, any constitutional transgression in the name of the warfare state is not only acceptable but somehow bizarrely patriotic.  The founder of the National Review and probably the most well known neo-conservative thinker in the 20th century, William Buckley, expressly accepted totalitarian bureaucracy at home was necessary to fight communism abroad.  This idea goes squarely against Jefferson’s statement that “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”  The modern Neo-conservative thinkers do not fall far from Buckley’s ideological tree if one considers how neo-cons support things like warrantless wire-tapping, the Soviet style national ID card, drone strikes on American citizens and a host of other vile constitutional transgressions. Many Neo-conservatives claim that the left “hates America” and some might but blind love of America is actuality just love of the nation state.  Only libertarians understand the liberty has made us great and to the extent we lose sight of that, the less great we become.  Only libertarians truly understand the philosophical principles the constitution sets forth, whereas the neo-conservatives revere the constitution largely in an abstract way and only take it seriously when it is convenient for their political leaders.

 

 

Internal Contradictions in the Left

 

 

For the sake of brevity, let us look at just one other underlying problem with modern leftist thought. Many on the modern left sincerely want the betterment of their fellow man, but the tool they wish to achieve this, primarily the welfare state, not only harms the general welfare but also sets the stage for an authoritarian government.

 

There are six major problems with the welfare state.

 

1.  The federal government’s success with welfare has been almost a complete failure in the 20th century.  Not only have poverty rates have not gone down but it has created a huge amount of dependency.  This government created dependency is the worst kind of evil and those on the government dole are the victims. Government bureaucrats are sort of like drug pushers, the drug is government assistance.  The most important human spiritual need is to be able to be self-sufficient.   To take this away from a person is a huge blow against a human’s self esteem.  For a man or a woman to look at their children and encourage them to make the most of themselves while at the same time being on government assistance must be a very hard thing to do.  When a person is on such assistance, it is hard to break out of it.  The more time out of the work force, the harder it is to go back both from a self motivational point of view because the job market is competitive and looks suspiciously on long term unemployment.  There is no doubt that some people need a helping hand once in a while but this has been done very adequately by private charities throughout American history.  In the past, private charities have been much more effective at providing assistance to individuals without out creating dependence while the government has created even more inner city problems with such programs.  Government welfare programs create dependence while the free market actually gives the disadvantaged a leg up.

 

2.  Politicians do not create welfare programs because they care about people but because they want to secure voting blocks.  People may think this is cynical but politicians have routinely demonstrated that they only care about getting re-elected.  Ever legislative move they make is towards those ends.  Their may be a few exceptions but overall this is the case.  Just look at the insider trading that goes on in Congress and the bills that come out of that den of thieves.  The recent Health Care legislation is a good example.  Any true progressive knows that this bill hugely favors the health insurance industry because it forces people to buy health insurance.  The supposed “liberals” in Washington did not care, they would rather have lobbyists write the health care bill than push for the more progressive “single payer” plan.  The same is for welfare, politicians do not care if it actually helps people, they are simply trying to expand their voting blocks.  To think otherwise is naïve, for more on this from a honest historian and a true progressive that is not affraid to buck leftist taboo read “A Renegade History of the United States.”

 

3.  The biggest receiver of welfare is not the poor but the rich.  Any kind of government assistance that the poor receive is mere crumbs compared to what the rich receive.  This is because the rich always game the system, they have the money to lobby and affect legislation that benefits them.  Even during FDR’s New Deal, the rich became even wealthier, while the poor suffered.  There are many reasons for this but our monetary, economic, tax, and legal system have been created to benefit the rich.  Newly printed money goes to the rich first because they are invested in banks and Wall Street where the newly printed cash arrives first.  The economic system benefits the rich because the laws supposedly made to “benefit” society or protect people from unfair business practices are actually laws the rich lobby for to raise the compliance cost on small business competition  This leads to government protected private monopolies that rich benefit from because small business can no longer compete.  The tax system encourages huge corporations because transactions inside a company are not taxed while all transactions between companies are.  This means that larger companies can avoid much of the costs that smaller companies have because most of their transactions are internal.   “Taxing the rich” also fails because their capital is mobile and hard for IRS agents to track.  It is much easier and much more common for IRS agents to go after the moderately wealthy small business owner because he does not have the resources to protect himself.  The legal system benefits the rich because its complexity is very expensive to navigate leaving much of the middle class exposed but the rich safe because they have much more money to invest in legal services. The larger the government the more rich the rich become. 

 

4.  Welfare programs end in disaster for the very people they are trying to help while the rich get richer. The housing programs that were supposed to help the poor is a great example.  The home ownership program for the poor was designed to get everyone in a home.  What ended up happening was that much of the poor and middle class defaulted on their loans while the rich made tons of money investing in home loan industry.  The rich got bailed out while the poor were kicked out on the street.  Even programs designed to help the poor usually make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

 

5.  The nature of bureaucracies incentivizes the people that supposed to cure poverty to instead keep a high poverty rate.  Government bureaucrats need to keep the poverty rate high so that they remain employed. If nobody needed their services their own jobs would disappear.  Some government workers might sincerely want people to attain a higher station in life but the system itself encourages them to allow dependency to happen.   When good intentions and grinding bureaucratic systems have conflicting priorities it is usually the system that wins because the individual gets worn down. 

 

6.  What happens when the well-fair system truly collapses as it most assuredly will?  Well, Gary North has some input on that but for most on the left, this prospect is simply unimaginable so they will not even consider it.  Unfortunately for the welfare statists and especially the millions of people dependent on the immoral system they created, the end is coming in the next decade.

 

 

If the left truly wants the betterment of their fellow human beings, it is time they start considering new ways of achieving it.  It is time they look at what libertarians have been offering.

 

Internal Contradictions of the Right

 

Modern Neo-conservatives have just as many contradictions as the left, if not more.  Conservatives like Mark Levin rail against left statists but the modern right is just as statist in different ways.  For the Neo-conservatives, there is no such thing a military budget that is too large.  In their minds, America can never be too many divisions, too many alliances/military obligations, or boots in too many countries.  The American military establishment is to be revered without question.   There is no country to small that we should not invade. There is no threat that is too small to ignore.  Any third rate dictator is a potential Adolf Hitler that could cause a world war.  It is strange how the glorification of the warfare state originated with socialists like Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson but modern conservatives accept without question.  Roosevelt swelled with pride as he saw American battle ships sail out to sea just as neo-cons today swell with pride as B2 bombers drop their payload on whoever is the latest backwater enemy of America.  The socialist Wilson claimed to make the world “safe for democracy” and today the neo-cons under George Bush have picked up the progressive banner of have American men and women fighting and dying all around the world in the hopes that others can be so blessed with democracy.  True conservatives have been tricked by the neo-con establishment and should take a serious look at their priorities.  If we can’t centrally plan Detroit out of poverty, what makes people think that we can centrally plan a country with a culture that is a thousand years old like Afghanistan out of poverty?  Such contradictions seem to escape Neo-conservatives, they criticize political enemies for trying to nation build in the Balkans and Somalia but when they get into power they put a foreign policy of nation building into overdrive. 

Maybe the United States should engage in maneuver and Special Forces type warfare around the globe instead of getting bogged down in two backwards countries that don’t give a wit about “democracy” or a better life for their country?  Maybe such large scale occupations can cause blowback that will lead further American deaths?  These questions are not even allowed on the table, let alone debate for your patriotic Neo-conservative.  For your average conservative, America has used just the right amount of American power in our political conflicts not one battalion too many or too few and a good citizen should never question it.  Fortunately, many in the armed forces have done just that, to include Lt Col Davis, whose article in Armed forces journal and his full report that can be read on PDF should have made the neo-conservatives question the Afghan conflict.  Unfortunately, the modern intellectual leaders of the conservative movement are unfazed and are already looking to the next war in Iran.  

 

Conclusion

The modern conservative and liberal ideologies are two sides of the same coin.  Both wish to use the state to shape the world as they see fit.  Their goals may be somewhat different but their methods are the same.  Both never question the legitimacy of state power.  Both wish to use the leviathan state for their own ends.  Both fundamentally believe that power comes from the top down.  Both forget that true sovereignty rests in the individual not the collective. 

The modern intellectual class has kept the peoples’ minds imprisoned with this false left-right paradigm. They provide the intellectual cover for the welfare-warfare state that destroys the American middle class in more ways that can be named. They are like the priests of the middle ages guarding the feudal system with intellectual cover of the “Divine Right of Kings”.  The serfs believed that there fate was inevitable and that their misery and servitude were simply the nature of the universe.  Even worse, the priests said that God demanded such misery from them.  For them, there was no other way that they can imagine.  Let us not make the same mistake.  

 

Luke

 

 

Marxism, Fringe or Mainstream?

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Do you believe in Marxism?  Most people would say no but, they should think more deeply about this.  The communist manifesto had ten planks that were totally revolutionary and a complete contradiction to the ideas of liberty.  Well many of the planks of the Communist Manifesto are part of society today and enjoy wide support from the public.  Let us consider what planks have been enacted by American society and why they benefit the communist ideal.

1. One plank was that society needed a central bank.  I think that there are many reasons that Karl Marx supported a central Bank. A central bank allows the state to be in complete control of society’s wealth.  A free monetary system puts money in the hands of the people.  A central bank allows society’s elites to control all wealth. Communism needs such centralization of wealth to operate.

Also, having a central bank, by making credit cheap, would shorten time preferences in society and over time would change the cultural values of society.  Jeffery Tucker talks about how an inflationary society leads to social decay and destroys traditional institutions.  For communism to rise, it was critical that the old Bourgeoisie values be overthrown.  Inflation creates a society that benefits the risk taker over the saver.  The impact on society becomes evident as those with a more present orientated outlook in life start to have more success than those who have longer termed, more prudent outlooks on life.  The respect for what is lasting and true is thrown out while rampant materialism becomes the norm.  Marx knew that a materialistic consumer society, with its old social institutions, such as churches, overturned would be ripe for communism.  With social power weakened, the state becomes supreme.  Marx needed a powerful state to enact his ideals.

2.  Public Schooling.  Though public schooling seems like a beneficial social investment, people should pause to think about why the communists were so supportive of it as well.  After a little thought, the communist reason should be obvious.  Marx wanted to control the minds of society.  He needed them inculcated with proletariat ideology. You might be thinking that, “well yeah, so what?”  We are not communists, we are not teaching communist ideology to our children.  Our education system is as objective as possible.  I would contend that many philosophical ideas of the communists have tacitly embedded themselves into the American curriculum.  Teachers may not be teaching communism directly or even knowingly but, proletariat/bourgeoisie class struggle is pervasive throughout our history books.  In every history textbook, labor is subject to rampant abuse throughout American history and it is only the American state that intervenes to prevent abuse by the industrialists.  The whole idea of “exploitation of labor” was an unknown concept before Marx. People were thought of as individuals not classes.  Wage rates were considered simple contracts between an employer and an employee.  This all changed after Marx, it was now thought that labor was simply given near substance level wages just to increase the profits of the capital owning class.   This idea still persists today, even though it has become patently absurd when one can look around and see how the working class has improved their condition over the last one hundred years, even as this completely contradicts Marxist ideology which states that the working class will stay in poverty forever.  I could also go into the economics about how supply and demand functions in labor markets the same way as other markets but, you can read it here and here if you want to know more.  Simply put, public schools are the brain child of Marx and our public schools today teach Marxist class structure whether in the traditional labor class vs capitalistic class or in the new versions of Marxist class struggle of racial minorities vs racial majorities or the female sex vs the exploitative male sex.  These ideas are all Marxist in origin.  Whether they are true or not is a topic for another time but, their roots in Marxism are not debatable.

3.  A progressive income tax.  Once again the idea of the progressive income tax was one of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto!  This was one of the ideas that was so revolutionary at the time that Marx did not put his name on the Communist Manifesto until years after it was published.  I find it interesting that those today who want to go to a flat tax are the radicals but, those who support a Marx’s progressive income tax are just good citizens.  Is it any wonder that society is in such decay?  I guess people think that the progressive income tax exists in the name of equality but, is this really true?  Karl Marx certainly preached equality but, did he really mean it?  I would contend that he did not.  For one, it is estimated the Marx made a very good living from his writings, some estimates being 80 times that of the average German family at the time with no indication that he ever gave any substantial amount to alleviate suffering of the poor around him.  He was mostly a drinker and an ideal philosophizer.  I think that Marx’s hypocrisy was evident in many ways, one being that he took large amounts of money from businessmen, the very bourgeoisie that he railed against.  For more on Karl Marx “the man”, here is a presentation by Gary North.  From all of Marx’s hypocritical behavior, I don’t think it is unscholarly not to take Marx’s motives at his word.  I think Marx simply wanted to play on the most unsavory of human emotions, mainly greed and envy.  He knew that his society would need a new managerial class to rule and an intellectual class to defend the rulers.  He simply wanted to uproot the traditional land owning classes and replace them with the kind of class of his own liking. To be honest, I think this is the deep unspoken motive of many of the intellectual supporters of socialism/communism.  They want a society that will give them power and a steady income through the state.  After all, how can you take such people seriously when study after study has shown that most of them spend such little time or money helping those that are poorer than them.  I think they would rather spend their time like Karl Marx did, idly drinking coffee or martinis at there local trendy establishment rather than actually going out and helping the underclass that they claim to care for so much.  Then, as today, the idea of equality of wealth and the progressive income tax in particular were simply tools that Marx wanted to use to destroy the Old Order.

So is America philosophically communist?  I think the answer is no.  Deep feelings of individualism and natural rights still permeate society to such a wide degree that true communism/socialism has failed to take hold.  But this does not mean that communist ideology has not made tremendous inroads into American culture.  Something to think about the next time you send your kid to mandatory schooling, pay your income taxes, or buy an item with a Federal Reserve note.

Why liberals should be against Gun Control

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This is because gun control laws arose from white middle class fears of black people.  Conservatives actually wrote the first gun control laws.  Read this article from Reason magizine about gun control, it “turns on its head the modern liberal’s conceit that those who side with gun control necessarily side with the people.”

Personally I have always been confused why liberals favor gun control so much.  It should be obvious that minorities are often members of the population that are most vulnerable to violance of racist majorities to include law enforcement.  Blacks time and time again throughout American history have been able to defend themselves against the likes of the KKK because of the universal right to bear arms.  More than this, the right to self defense is a civil right.  How can someone support “civil rights” but not support gun ownership?

A true liberal should be in favor of gun rights.  So should a true constitutionalist.  Only a person with no ideology at all can favor the curtailment of gun rights because there is no philosophical school of thought that can justify gun confiscation other than total authoritarianism.

Who is Howard Buffett?

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Howard Buffet was a man of the Old Right.  He was a Congressman from Omaha, Nebraska in the middle of the 20th century.  He was firmly opposed to government inflation.  He passionately wanted to restore the dollar’s redeem-ability in gold.  He was for free markets and opposed to foreign adventurism.  He was Warren Buffett’s father and one of the greatest representatives of the 20th century.  To understand how the ideas of conservatism changed from the middle of the 20th century to today, Howard Buffet is a great example of what “conservatism” was and what it may be again.

 

Sometimes it is interesting how life and history bring out connections that a person never expected.   Howard Buffet graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1925.  He also attended Dundee Presbyterian Church, which is a couple of blocks away from my house and is still a beautiful building today.  He was personal friends with the greatest economist of the 20th century, Murray Rothbard, whose works I still find enjoyable and relevant today, even for being decades old.  He was also friends with “Mr. Republican”, Robert Taft, who is almost universally considered one of the top three most influential Senators of the century, and who I also look to for inspiration.  Howard Buffet was considered as the “conservative firebrand” of his time, though most conservatives today would find many of his ideas very different from their own.

 

Conservatives today would find many of Buffet’s ideas strange, quirky, or maybe even isolationist.  This is unfortunate because Buffet’s ideas were mainstream conservatism at the time and still represent true conservatism in its real form as opposed to today’s Neo-conservatism which passes for generic “conservatism” with the general public.   Howard Buffet believed in a firm gold standard and understood that true liberty could not exist without it.   Buffet pointed out that the first thing that dictators such as Mao, Stalin, and Hitler do is to end the gold standard in their respective countries.  This should make any citizen hesitate when considering whether the state should control the money supply or whether it should be independently held by the people.  Howard Buffet’s prediction in the 1950s in which the gold window would collapse were finally proven correct in 1971.  Whether a complete monetary break down happens remains to be seen but, the United States seems to be getting closer every day.  Howard Buffet also pointed out that a gold standard is the only real restraint on government largesse and that scraping the gold standard would lead to runaway deficits financed by inflation.  Most importantly, Howard Buffet understood how a gold standard was important to human liberty as the right to bear arms.  Without the gold standard, man is a slave to the whims of bureaucrats and the banking interests.

 

Howard Buffet was opposed to the Korean War and was “convinced that the United States was largely responsible for the eruption of conflict in Korea”.  Such a statement today would likely draw boos at a republican convention today but, this was the widely held view of most conservative republicans at the time.  Howard Buffet was wise to understand the limits of government intervention at home and abroad.  He correctly looked at the Korean War as an extension of Wilsonian progressivism in the Pacific.  He pointed out correctly that wars such as this also bring about tyranny and socialism back home.   Howard Buffet pointed out that

 

            “Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home. Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns. Persuasion and example are the methods taught be the Carpenter of Nazareth, and if we believe in Christianity we should try to advance our ideals by his methods. We cannot practice might and force abroad and retain freedom at home. We cannot talk world cooperation and practice power politics.”

 

For today’s Neo-conservatives, this talk would be political heresy.  No country is too small to intervene militarily.  Howard Buffet also raised a similar view on the Vietnam War that the socialist Lyndon Johnson dragged us into, “When the American government conscripts a boy to go 10,000 miles to the jungles of Asia without a declaration of war by Congress (as required by the Constitution) what freedom is safe at home? Surely, profits of U.S. Steel or your private property are not more sacred than a young man’s right to life.”  Once again, this would make modern Conservatives cringe:  “Surely it is irresponsible to bring up who is making profits during such a noble crusade?  As far as the constitution goes, we can’t let a dreary old thing like that keep us from carpet bombing a bunch of savages in Cambodia!”  Though maybe strange today, Howard Buffet’s view on war is what conservatism really means.  The constitution is the highest law of the land and should be obeyed.  There is no quicker way to enslave free men at home than to conscript them and send them by force to wars of political convenience abroad.   There is nothing American about conscription, it is a throwback to the European idea that the state owns every citizens’ life and can dispense with it at will.  As Milton Friedman pointed out, and as the wars today demonstrate, there is no real need for conscription, it is simply a way to force people into a life threatening job at below market wage rates.

 

For conservatives to understand what conservatism really means, they should look into the history of the conservative movement.  They might be surprised to find that the leaders of conservativism in the last eighty years are very different from most fraudulent politicians that claim the title “conservative” today.  They might even find people like Howard Buffet staring back at them through the pages of history gently reminding us of the true meaning of the constitution.

 

Backdoor Martial Law?

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Just recently the United Sates senate passed a bill that would allow the military to detain any American citizen indefinitely anywhere in the world, including the United States, without presenting any charges.  You read this correctly.  The United States military can pluck anyone off the street at will if the president does not veto this bill.  So far a wide array of government organizations have come out against this to include the Pentagon and the FBI but, the 60 senators voted for this bill anyway.  Many people thought that after the killing of enemy number one, Osama Bin-laden, that such Orwellian legislation would no longer be passed but, I guess this is not the case.   We truly live in bizarre times, such legislation is almost unbelievable! Then again, the state of society today would have almost been unbelievable 20 years ago.  We really do live in a fantastic age.

 

I don’t think I should have to go into how monstrous this legislation is.  It should be obvious to anyone that this totally uproots the constitution and the hundreds of years of precedent not to use the military to police the civilian population.  Instead of focusing on this law that is obviously immoral, I think it would be better to focus on how we got here.

 

To most lovers of liberty that understand the constitution and the law, this bill is unlikely to surprise them.  The eroding of the constitution has been happening for a very long time and no one really seems to care.  Children are not taught about natural law in schools and have no idea what it truly means to have a “right.”  Most people take their freedoms for granted and never expect the institutions that they have grown to respect to betray them.  They are taught that governments are the protectors of liberty but, in reality it is liberty’s major enemy. It can be seen throughout history.  When populations are forced into serf like existence, it is usually by their own government, not a foreign power.  To expect our country to be somehow unique in all of history in this regard is comfortingly naïve but, is not true, especially when one takes a hard look at our own history thus far.  The Federal government deported congressmen in the civil war and used union troops to intimidate Supreme Court justices in the middle of the night.  Woodrow Wilson also locked up thousands of people that wrote articles or spoke critically about our involvement in World War I and the draft.  FDR locked up thousands of Japanese without charge while allowing German Americans to live unmolested.  Though the American people are naturally good human beings, the American government, like any government, often has little qualms about crushing individual liberty if it thinks that it can get away with it.  I think part of this is the kind of people that are attracted to government positions.  They are not the kind of people that want to work or serve the public but, they want to shape society into their ideal image.  They truly think that people are too dumb to rule themselves and must be forced to behave in ways that conform to its rulers ideals.

 

Another reason that we are here today is because the government over the last hundred years has entered into every sphere of human activity.   Slowly the public has become desensitized to government involvement in even the most personal activities.  If the government says who you can marry and what you can put into your body, regulate every single economic activity under the sun, and take a cut of every monetary transaction, is it so hard to believe that the government might treat us as their property?  If I can’t decide what to put into my own body, is it truly mine?   Once you claim that the government has the right to protect you from yourself and violate property rights in every area, it is hard to make the argument that you are still your own person and are entitled to any right whatsoever.

 

For over a hundred years the American government has also been in charge of education and for over a hundred years the old studies of philosophy, law, and natural rights have given way to simple accreditation instead of learning.   The nonsensical idea of appreciating cultural diversity instead of embracing natural law is now the style of education.  The public simply does not have the cognitive tools to deal with such assaults on liberty because reason is no longer taught.  Children are told what to think, not how to think.  Docile consumers are much better than a free thinking public that understands the rule of law.

 

In more recent times the loss of liberty and the flagrant violations of the constitution have accelerated.  The Patriot Act allows roving wire taps and the FBI to search a person’s house without a Judge’s authorization.  The TSA is ruthless in sexually abusing old ladies, house wives, and children, while taking pornographic pictures of them.  SPC Manning was held for almost a year with no charges being filed.  The president has ordered the assassination of an American citizen, an act which also resulted in the death of a sixteen year old, who was an American citizen as well, with no authorization whatsoever.  This recent bill is the next logical step of a government that is slowly ratcheting up its police powers.  It simply codifies into law what the government has been doing anyway.  Hopefully this law is a wakeup call to people telling them where this country is headed.  But for those that love liberty, this bill is shocking only in degree, not in kind.

 

If there ever was anything to the slippery slope argument, this bill is it.  I generally don’t like using the slippery slope argument because the incredulity of most people usually just results in them rolling their eyes.  But this is a glaring example of how totally true the argument is.  If you let the government kill citizens overseas with no charges, one day they will grant themselves the power to lock up citizens at home without charges.  Predator drones flying over cities might not disturb some people but, in a few years they might by flying up to people’s windows looking to make sure that you are not doing anything in your house that the government deems a crime.  With the list of non-violent nanny state crimes growing everyday, this is truly a scary thought. This is the natural way governments work and when the government starts routinely flying drones up to people’s windows, it is likely most people won’t really care that much, even though we would find it outrageous today.  People would have also found the idea of a President assassinating American citizens outrageous during Reagan’s day but, the people today barely raise an eyebrow.  We have been headed down this slippery slope for a long time now and I don’t like to think about what the bottom looks like. But if history is any guide, it will be pretty darn scary.  Let’s hope we never get there.

 

Liberty is never taken all at once.  It takes years, often decades until one day people start waking up and realizing they are no longer free and have not been for a long time.

Maybe a decade or two from now Americans might wake up thinking the same thing.  Maybe liberty is truly the greatest under-appreciated gift in the history of the world.  Maybe the constitution’s greatest hour of danger is now.

The Hope and Optimism of the 19th Century

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I have always been amazed at the confidence that mankind has had in itself throughout the 19th century.  Everyone looked to the future with hope.  They knew all the way down to their bones that life would be better for their children than it was for them.  I remember reading old news papers for history papers and being so interested in how optimistic they were.   At the end of the 19th century and at the turn of the 20th century, all the newspapers in the country wrote about how amazing the inventions were and how much progress had taken place in the last century.  People were amazed by technology and wrote how someday soon human beings would invent the “Aeroplane” and reach the heavens for the first time in history.  Human ingenuity seemed limitless.  All the problems of the world seemed solvable (it is interesting to compare this to the yawn that modern civilization let out when we passed into the 21st Century with much greater technology.)

It was an era of peace throughout civilization with only small skirmishes happening every so often on the periphery.  There was not a major war between any of the European powers for almost a century.  For the first time in history a middle class rose up and was able to live at and above a bare subsistence level.  They were able to buy things that used to be reserved for the kings of old. The most popular books at the time were about the immigrant from Europe coming over to America to work in a factory and eventually becoming a Titan of the industry.  These were not just stories either, this stuff actually happened.  It was thought that a resourceful individual could accomplish anything with ingenuity, hard work, and a little luck.  No longer did people have to be born with noble blood to become influential in the world.  No longer did people feel that their destinies were somehow manipulated by powers outside their control.  Politics was more like a spectator sport because bureaucrats had such little power to influence people in any significant manner.

How collectivist philosophy eventual brought it all down is a sad story for another day but, here is a good video on what it was like before.

How Inflation Destroyed the Roman Empire

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There were many reasons the Roman Empire fell but, inflation and government spending were huge parts.  Government stimulus programs and public works became common then as they are today.  People today underestimate the complexity of the Roman Empire but, their bureaucracy was almost as large as ours today.  Aqueducts were often created to give people employment just like “The Community Reinvestment Act” seeks to do today.  I find this interesting on many different levels.  For one, Rome’s policies were very similar to ours today.  They even had similar names like jobs bill and community reinvestment act.    There is a book written in the 1940s called the “New Deal in Old Rome” that compares Roman governance in the later Empire to New Deal programs.  The parallels are almost bizarre.

Then, just like today, government bureaucracy and spending were only part of the problem, the much bigger problem was inflation.  Inflation was rampant and brought the Empire to its knees.  The rates of inflation increased over time at a similar rate to that at which the United States is currently.

 

What is really staggering is that the Roman Empire’s fiscal transgressions are nothing compared to the modern United States’.  Rome had to dilute its coins by recalling them every few years and watering them down with other metals, while the U.S. can simply print bills of credit to infinity with no checks in place at all.  Nero would be envious indeed of the American State’s monetary power.  Rome also centralized everything into its capital city and attempted to regulate its provinces from afar but, again this is nothing compared to the centralization that Washington DC has been able to accomplish.  For all the corruption that infected the Roman government, it is tame compared to the corruption of the American Political Class. Here is a brief presentation on Roman Inflation.

This one is a bit longer.