United Liberty

Are you pro-peace or pro-war? This is a question not only every politician should have to answer but also every American should ask themselves.

Most Americans would answer that question by saying that in their daily lives they are Pro-Peace and as a corollary they would agree that Force should only be used to defend a person’s life or Property. Why is it then when these same Americans, whose daily lives are built upon Peaceful interactions with their fellow human beings vote for politicians who are decidedly Pro-War?

Everyone around the world is just trying to live the best they can. That includes those folks in this country who not only advocate for Collectivism but also advocate for war. In this country the citizens who advocate for war overseas and “Obamacare” at home really believe that this is the best way to better their own lives and the lives of their families.

“To subsist to better one’s condition to bring up a family are not affairs of time, or place, or taste, or opinion, or choice, they are the daily constant and unavoidable concerns of all men at all times and in all countries” Frederic Bastiat

There are only two ways to gain what you desire in this world, that is from free and voluntary exchange or by appropriating it from others by force. Those who are Pro-Peace believe hat the best way for them and everyone else in the world is to improve their lot in life is through peaceful Free Trade. Those who are Pro-War believe in forcibly taking what another has produced by force or as Bastiat called it “spoliation” or “plunder”.

Man can gain by production or by theft. If he produces and voluntarily exchanges with others that is an act of Peace, when he waits for someone else to produce and then steals that production from him, that is an acts of war.  Collectivism is an ideology based upon the plunder of the production of others, whether it is at home or abroad. I would say 99% of the world live their daily lives in Peace with the individuals they come in contract with on a regular basis. Why should the interaction between groups of individuals called “nations” be anything different?

Think about the billions of peaceful transactions that occur on a daily basis. Think about all the products and services that are produced and purchased by others everyday without the threat of force or fraud. The great majority of people on Earth want to trade squarely with people. The Golden Rule is not some supernatural law. It is grounded in simple Human Physics. If an individual wants to thrive in a society the best way to so is to deal “honestly” with the other folks he comes into contact with. If he uses force or fraud with his interactions with others his reputation would suffer and eventually no one would want to trade with him.

But unfortunately the politicians in this world are anything but honest. They lie, steal, cheat and murder on a regular basis.  No other entity on Earth except Government can get away with constantly violating the Natural Rights of individuals.  The question is why do the majority of people accept this unacceptable behavior? It is because the majority of people in this country receive some form of redistributive benefit from government. Couple this redistribution of wealth with the lies of the politicians and war profiteers about the imaginary enemies abroad you begin to see why there is a war at home between tax producers and tax consumers at home and war against other governments abroad. 

If we take Lysander’s Spooner’s definition of War; than anyone who uses force to exact the fruits of the labor of another individual is at war with that individual. That is exactly what the ideology of Collectivism is based upon, the forcible redistribution of wealth from some to benefit others. And it’s always done by force. Whether that redistribution of wealth is done at a barrel of a gun is done on U.S. soil or on the sands of Middle East.

Social Security and Medicare are in essence declarations of war. These programs were sold to the American people shrouded in lies like most of the wars the politicians and war profiteers have dragged this country into.  Americans were told back in the 1930′s that Social Security was needed badly to help out a few Seniors. It was sold as an “old age insurance” that would only help a few. Now the program encompasses every working individual, its been proven to be a Ponzi Scheme and worst of all  you can’t opt out of it. The full force of the Federal Government is used to keep everyone chained to the system.  Current workers are forced to support current retirees.

This is an act of war. It is spoliation. It is the plundering of one generation by another. But the Federal Government is also plundering the future generations by borrowing trillisons of dollars every year from tax payers who haven’t even been born yet.  The National Debt is a war on the FUTURE prosperity, peace and freedom of Americans yet unborn. What is the sad truth is that people will continue to vote for these collectivist who promise to have someone else pay for their current entitlements and allow the war mongering politicians to wage war across the world right up to the point when the Feds come into their homes and put them in physical chains.

In a poll that was done last year, Tea Party members  were asked about the National Debt and what they thought should be done to stop the out of control spending in Washington. They all of course said they wanted to cut federal spending and end the deficits but not surprisingly 65% didn’t want their entitlements – or what could be termed “spoils of war” cut. That is the hook that gets people to continue to vote for Pro-War politicians and keeps the battle between groups of individuals brewing at home.

And it is because of this domestic war waged in which citizen is pitted against citizen, that politicians who support and gin up war overseas are continued to be elected year after year. Political campaigns have even stooped so low as to send out flyers to Seniors saying that if they voted for the other candidate they would lose their  Social Security. So no matter what plans this politican had for wars overseas it mattered not, so long as he didn’t cut seniors Social Security, seniors would vote for him. The same thing is done to garner votes for any program in which the government violently extracts wealth from some and delivers it to the pockets of others. When people become dependent on spoilation they will vote for anyone who will continue the theft in their name.

This is another reason why all the talk about the Federal Government’s Wars Abroad, resting upon the consent of the governed is ridiculous.  So many people gain their sustenance from the federal teat, that they will support any Pro-War candidate even if they themselves are Pro-Peace, as long as the politician doesn’t end their ”Entitlement” or reduce their “piece of the plundered pie.” That is why most people are going to voting for two candidates this November who are indistinguishable in their foreign policy and both will keep the entitlement programs as they currently stand.

(Now there are two Politicians running for President who do have a very different take on Foreign Policy and I would call both of them Pro-Peace, they are former Governor Gary Johnson running on the Libertarian ticket and Ron Paul who is seeking the Republican nomination.)

Currently Mitt Romney and President Obama who are the two men Americans will be voting for to fill the White House are both Pro-War and Collectivists. They believe in redistribution of wealth at home and using the threat of violence and the use of physical violence against the government and the people of other nations who do not submit to their “plans”.  They both believe that the United States Federal Government’s Department of “Peace,” I mean the Department of “War,” I mean to say the Department of Defense has the responsibility for “protecting American interests” overseas and defending our security abroad, and making the world safe for Democracy.” Which in reality means putting into place politicians in governments around the world who will comply with their collectivist schemes which always benefits the few at the expense of the many.

Now you would hope that Mitt Romney who more than likely will be the Republican nominee for president would be opposed to sending troops to die overseas to “protect” American Interests abroad. If that’s your hope than Mitt is not your man. I would advise you to vote for Gary Johnson if your looking for someone who is going to actually cut the military back and direct it to actually defend America, not a select few Americans’interests overseas.

Mitt Romney advocates for an “American Century” in which he tells us “It is only  American power—conceived in the broadest terms—that can provide the foundation for an international system that ensures the security and prosperity of the United States and our friends and allies”  That is classic Collectivist thinking. For those who love Liberty and Peace the only “international system” that can ensure our security and prosperity is FREE TRADE. That is because as Bastiat wrote “Where goods fail to cross borders, troops soon will.”

The “Spontaneous Order” of the Market where free people are free to exchange with one another regardless of their geographical location will be the only “system” to ensure not an “American Century” but a  “Century of Individual Liberty and Prosperity”. A century in which for the next hundred years everyone no matter where they live on Earth lives in Peace and is secure in keeping what he produces so that he can freely trade with others to increase and sustain his life. This is the best chance for the 7 billion people on Earth to have their best oppurtunity for not living the “American Dream” but living their own individual dream and pursuing their own definition of happiness.

The system Mitt Romney proposes to defend and the one our current president defends with the  blood and stolen tax dollars of individuals in the United States, is in fact a system that would not and could not exist without the trillion dollar military budget. The United States military is used to “coerce” other governments around the world to comply with the Central Plans originating out of Washington D.C. This international System he speaks of consists of the the International Banking system and the myriad of multi-national corporations in league with the United States Government who profit from not only war but entering markets that would other wise too hostile to do business in. In order to protect this “International System” Romney plans to continue to soak the tax payers of this country through taxation to fund the military-security-intelligence industrial complex. And continue to allow the Federal Rerserve to devalue the U.S. dollar to allow the U.S. Federal Government to keep borrowing to fund what can’t be stolen through direct taxation.

Both the current president and Mitt Romney fail to realize that this “borrowing forty cents of every dollar the Federal Government spends from the future is the greatest threat our Nation has ever faced. He and the current president fail to heed Admiral Mullen’s warning  when he testified before Congress that  the greatest threat to the people of the United States of America is not  terrorists or a nuclear Iran, or an undpredicatable North Korea or a belligerent Russia or China. He told Congress that the greatest threat to the security of the United States of America is the National Debt, which currently stands at a mind-blowing 15.7 trillion dollars.

If you haven’t yet I highly recommend you Check out this link to Zerohedge to get an idea of what a trillion dollars of hundred-dollar bills looks like. And don’t forget that those trillions of dollars has ended up in someone’s pocket. (FYI they are not ending up in your pockets or mine)

The current resident in the White House is just as enamored with war as his likely challenger Mitt Romney. He like Romney supports even tougher sanctions on Iran and both pledge to keep Iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon. Make no mistake about it, sanctions are an act of war. And because of the seriousness of these actions by our politicians it would seem that your chances of being killed by an Iranian Nuke today must be very high. But in reality the odds of you being killed by a Iranian nuke today is ZERO!!! They don’t have one and it looks like they won’t for years. When they do get the “bomb” do you think the Iranian government is crazy enough to detonate a nuclear bomb inside of another country? They are fully aware of the hell that would be unleashed if they used a nuclear device. Iran would be uninhabitable in less than thirty minutese from a counter nuclear strike.  We heard the same rhetoric during the entire Cold War. But in the end the Soviet Leadership were rational after all. And the Iranians are too. This view is backed up by A former Israeli Mossad official recently came out and said that the leadership of Iran was “rational”.  So let’s not vote for folks who have their finger on the trigger when it comes to Iran. They are simply not an imminent threat. This goes for North Korea as well.

For me Iran’s and North Korea’s military capabilities are summed up best by the scene in Iron Man II, when Tony Stark is testifying before a Senate Subcommittee. Heading the hearing is  Gary Shandling who plays the arrogant pompous power mad senator perfectly. Gary Shandling’s character wants to take the Iron Man Suit from Tony Starck because he fears the technology is being developed by North Korea and Iran. Tony refutes the Senators claims by taking over a display monitor. He hacks into it and shows camera footage of the Iranian and North Korean tests of their versions of the Iron Man suit. The attempts by the weapons researchers of the “Axis of Evil”  are laughable, ineffective, and years away from being a threat to anyone except  those who are performing the tests.  The failed North Korean rocket launch recently is a perfect example of  how the war profiteers (this includes newspapers and tv news channels) along with the politicians create enemies we are supposed to fear.

With our current president’s lust for war you would think his “anti-war” constituents would be up in arms with the wars he is waging overseas. But they are silent  because they and the current president both belong to the left side of the Governmental War Party. As long as he continues to increase the emollients to the masses he can go to war overseas against whom ever he wants to. He sells these “overseas contingencies” and the assassination of individuals overseas as a means of spreading  ”democracy”, or making it safe to deliver “humanitarian aid”. He has taken the U.S. to war against the Libyan government, against rebels in Uganda, funded the insurgency in Syria, killed hundreds of civilians in drone strikes inside of Pakistan and has escalated the unending United States war on drugs in Central and South America. And yet the “anti-war” folks are silent.

Where is Code Pink and the other so-called ”Anti-War” groups?  They were just anti-Bush, or anti-Republican or stated differently, they just wanted their Pro-War President in Office. That is one reason why I don’t like the moniker “Anti-War”. It brings to mind those groups who are only against specific wars and who are not in reality Pro-Peace. Those who advocate for Peace should drop the term anti-war and make the Pro-War lobby debate not why we are “against a particular war” but instead have them argue why they are Anti-Peace.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of the population on Earth want to live free and peacefully. It is only when Politicians and War Profiteers get together and use propaganda and fear coupled with government giveaways do they gain the “support” or “apathy” of the American people toward the wars of aggression overseas. The more Collectivism is embraced at home the more “sedated” the American people will become to the true cost of war overseas.

The Freedom Philosophy or Individualism, or the idea of individual Liberty is all based upon Peaceful principles. As Leonard Read wrote the Freedom Philosophy can be summed up as simply “Anything Peaceful.” Ayn Rand’s definition of a man’s sphere of action in society is that he was free to do what he likes but that he doesn’t have  a right to initiate force against another human being. That is simple. Lysander Spooner wrote that a man need only do three things to live at peace with his neighbor and that is  “Deal with others honestly, hurt no one and give each person their due (he was referring to fulfilling voluntary contracts). He called this the basis of Natural Justice. When governments wage wars overseas they lie, they kill and maim, and they violate This Natural Justice and they do so to benefit the few at the expense of the many..

Our job who love Liberty is to counter the War-Mongering propaganda which we are all  inundated with today with the Pro-Peace Message. I am Pro-Peace. That is my position. I want to live in Peace. I want to see the most people on Earth living Peacefully with one another. Wars in Iraq. Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Uganda and God only knows where else the Guardians of the State are shedding blood, are ginned up by politicians and war profiteers who are not Pro-Peace but Pro-War.

Let us not forget that there was no armament industry in the United States until after WWII. And it wasn’t a standing army, or massive military-intelligence complex that won WWII. It was the factories of the private sector which went from making cars and washing machines to making tanks and machine guns that won the war. It was the wealth created by the Free Market under peaceful conditions that allowed for the “ploughshares” to be turned into “swords” when the “Great Emergency” was fought.

War is terrible. That can not be said enough. But what is almost never spoken of is the blessings of Peace. What happen to “Blessed be the Peace Makers”? Peace is when individuals do not initiate force against another individual. It’s that simple

Being Pro-Peace doesn’t mean Anti-Defense. On the contrary if you are Pro-Peace you are Pro-Self Defense. If you believe that God has endowed you with certain inalienable rights, then you also believe that you have the right to defend your life, liberty and property from those who violently violate those rights. Self defense is a God-given right. The Second Amendment doesn’t grant us the right to bear arms. It is an admonition to the United States government that they shall make no laws infringing upon that right.

Today those in power continue to label those who desire peace as “ignorant” or “callous” by the left and “unpatriotic” and “naive” by the right. It’s funny how the two parties claim to be so different when in reality they both justify the increase of the State’s power because they and their friends benefit from its growth.

As Murray Rothbard wrote “power is acquired to accumulate wealth”. That should not be forgotten. I am Pro-Peace because I am truly amazed at what individuals can accomplish when they are free to pursue their definition of happiness. Man can either trade or steal to sustain his life. If you are Pro-Peace you want to be voluntarily trade with others to improve and increase your life and you want everyone else in the world to do the same. A system of peaceful trade doesn’t require a trillion-dollar budget to “enforce”. It occurs spontaneously when people are secure in their property and are free to trade with others of their choosing.  Your life is not improved by the Politicians and War Profiteers who wage wars against people around the world or at home.  In fact you are less safe, you are less prosperous and you are less free when the State goes to War.