The Case Against Santa Claus

bmiller — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:43:58 -0600

Who in their right mind could possibly find fault with the myth of Santa Claus?

I believe Santa Claus is evil. In fact, I blame Santa Claus for the mess we are in today. The idea of a jolly fat man delivering gifts to the good children of the world lays the neural foundation in which the totalitarian government/banking elite use to control the masses today. The idea of Santa Claus retards a child’s ability to grasp a rational world, separates the child from parent through lies, and makes the child’s mind ready-made to accept other myth’s concerning religion and government. It is the pattern by which all those in authority use to control the lives of individuals.

“Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.” — Voltaire

Lets breakdown the whole Santa Claus deal.

Children pray to a strange fat man who lives in the North Pole for presents to appear on Christmas Eve.
This omnipotent being watches every child on Earth throughout the year.
Then Santa Claus passes arbitrary judgement of the child’s behavior, which lands the child on the “naughty or nice” list, which in turn determines if presents will magically arrive under the tree.
Then in one night Santa travels around the world in a sleigh being pulled by flying reindeer full of toys manufactured by elves around the world. He then does hundreds of millions of break-ins and leaves presents. While in each house he eats the offering of milk and cookies.

This is insane. Kid’s believe anything you tell them. Why fill their head with this destructive lie?

I was in the toy section at Wal-Mart the other day when I heard a two-year old exclaim “Mommy I want that.” The mother’s reply was that the child should ask Santa for it. The parent then explains that she must be “good” so that she can receive the toy she desires. Not only is the parent advocating for the child to pray to a god for gifts, she is also teaching the child the pattern of submission to authority that prepares her to submit to the banking/government/big business cartel in adulthood.

It also conditions children in later years to give up any thought of privacy. Children go from Santa spying on them to God watching everything they do, to government doing the same thing. Today, we see the result of this. Red light cameras, Spy satellites and drones threaten to constantly monitor every inch of the surface of the Earth, and not many people seem to care. Every email you send is being logged and stored by the NSA, again no one cares. A new $2 billion dollar data center is being built in Utah to house this data. That’s not a conspiracy theory. That is a fact. The only reason they collect this is so they can determine who needs to be on the naughty or nice list.

And you don’t want to be on the government’s “naughty” list. That’s called the President’s kill list. And you will die if you are on it.

No only does the Santa Claus myth condition children to be submissive to authority, foster the belief that they are entitled to the production of others, and accept 24/7 surveillance by an omnipotent power, it also destroys or retards a child’s ability to see the world in a rational manner. I believe that is the greatest crime against humanity and every parent perpetrates it. If you can’t accurately see how life works how can you possibly be successful in life?

“Man has to discover how to tell what is true or false and how to correct his own errors; he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge, he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic, to direct his thinking. Nature gives him no automatic guarantee of the efficacy of his mental effort.” — Ayn Rand.

Why do we want to keep kid’s from understanding how the world works?

The answer is simple. It’s all about control. The parents gain submission from the children, the retailers gain submission with the parents, and the bankers benefit from every dollar borrowed to sustain this massive myth. And politician’s gain power by acting as Santa Claus to adults.

Let me ask you this: Why do all the malls have men dressed up as Santa? Is it to benefit you kid? Or is it to keep the mass of men and women producing the new cogs for the political/banker machine? Is it to maintain their innocence or to groom children to become adults who embrace ignorance? Is it to demonstrate the goodwill of a god or produce individuals who are comfortable with being spied on 24/7? Is it to get children to “behave” or is it to create adults who willingly submit to their omnipotent god which as they become older becomes government?

The whole holiday deal is set up to control the population. It is meant to syphon your dollars out of your pocket, it’s meant to instill submissive traits that last throughout your lifetime, it’s a conditioning event that create neural pathways which the ruling elite use to steer your thoughts.

Let’s celebrate ourselves, our loved ones this year. Let’s celebrate our ability to mix our labor with the factors of nature to create anything our imagination’s can conjure. Let’s celebrate your individual and family accomplishments. Let’s celebrate the knowledge that we’ve gained, the loved we gave and received this year. Let’s celebrate the fact that the sun still rises. That’s what the Romans did with the holiday Saturnalia. That’s the holiday the early church leaders replaced with Jesus’ birthday. It had some crazy elements, but also some with real value. The reason we have lights on Christmas trees dates from this Roman holiday. Candles were lit to symbolize the quest for truth and knowledge. I hope that more and more parents will teach their children to do that this holiday season.

The lies from authority don’t stop at childhood. They perpetuate on. We are told that government can protect us. That’s a lie. We are told the Federal Reserve is here to keep unemployment low and prices stable. That is a lie. The Federal Reserve system is a money creating machine meant to syphon the wealth of the world from the masses into the hands of a very few. We are told the military is around the world protecting us. That is a lie. The men and women dying and killing around the world in your name are doing so to protect the banking interests and the other beneficiaries of the central banking system around the world.

All these lies are predicated on a public not being able to see the world rationally. And that all begins with the so-called innocent lie of Santa Claus. If we want to be free we must bring into the light all the lies. I want to know. That’s it. I want to know the truth. Children are desperate to know how the world works when they are small. They are little need machines that are totally dependent on the their parents. The whole goal of childhood is to become independent of them. Not teaching children at an early age how much labor and life goes into the purchase of Christmas gifts marked “From Santa” keeps them from understanding how the world truly works.

The Santa Claus lie is a pattern that other people in power use to keep the majority of people in chains. Like Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The knowledgable will always rule the ignorant.” As individuals our job is to not be subjected by our own ignorance. Ending the Santa Claus lie will go a long way in raising a new generation who will critically look at the Lies from the banking-government-big business cabal.

No Reservations vs. Cocaine Wars: Dominican Republic

bmiller — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:14:42 -0500

Do you want more freedom or more tyranny in your life? That is the question which smacked me in the face when I was switching between two channels on Monday Night. I was enjoying Tony Bourdain’s No Reservations on the Travel Channel and in between commercials, I was switching between that and NatGeo, which was showing Cocaine Wars. Both shows were filmed in the Dominican Republic, which the locals refer to as “the D.R.”

The more I watched the two shows the more I began to think about how when individuals freely exchange with each other, both parties win, but when government is involved in a transaction only the government wins. Tony Bourdain is the greatest Ambassador the United States has ever had. The DEA is not. They use force to steal, arrest and kill people all over the world. That is the concept behind Cocaine Wars. Now If you haven’t watched No Reservations before it is a simple concept as well, except without the killing and the stealing. Tony, a former chef goes around the world, meets interesting people and samples the food their countries have to offer. It is a celebration of life, where individuals are producing in order for others to consume, all voluntarily I might add. They are not doing this because of altruism for others but because of their own rational self-interest. There is a huge difference between what happens when the DEA shows up at your establishment versus what occurs when the No Reservation crew shows up at your place.

The Dominican Republic looks like a great place to relax and enjoy the sun and local delicacies. Tony sampled pork skin fried in lard, fried salami (a D.R. breakfast staple), and the D.R.’s national dish “sancocho” which all look tasty. He met great people who were glad to show him the best places to drink, the best beaches and share a drink with him. His show is a celebration of life and freedom. What Nat Geo was showing in contrast was the total opposite.

On Monday night, NatGeo was showing Cocaine Wars. On this particular episode, several DEA agents were followed arresting individuals and confiscating property on the streets and beaches of the Dominican Republic. I knew the DEA were in a lot of countries but it struck me as unbelievable to see an American DEA agent leading a bust on a suspected money-launderer who ran a clothing shop that in a foreign country. But there it was on prime-time television. The DEA unfortunately has a presence in over 50 countries and so this is happening all over the world.

In this episode of Cocaine Wars, a money-launderer was busted who owned a clothing store. The actual crime of money laundering is no crime at all. If it weren’t for the confiscatory tax code and the war on plants and processed plant extracts , this crime would not exist. That being said, the DEA searched the clothing store and the adjacent factory and found a cash hoard. Next the DEA and the D.R. counterparts confiscated the cell phones of all the store employees, took the cash and the owner back to the DEA’s Dominican Republic HQ. There they began counting their haul. It was a disgusting dichotomy, the DEA agents counting the stack of cash on the table like little kids counting their Halloween candy, while the store owner sat next to them in a metal folding chair, dejected, handcuffed, and contemplating how she was going to endure the next ten years in a Dominican prison. The total take of the DEA was over $500,000 in cash. They could barely contain themselves.

Then came news that the supplier who was laundering money with the clothing store owner was going to send a boat to drop a load of cocaine at a nearby beach. Other DEA agents geared up and with local cops and soldiers went to make a bust on the beach. They caught two fat Venezuelans from the drug delivery boat and a ton of cocaine. The DEA agents rallied around the bails of cocaine. They were like a pack of hyenas surrounding a fresh zebra kill. Yipping and high fives all around. Meanwhile the two guys from the boat had lost their shoes and tried unsuccessfully to escape by walking on the ragged coral. So they sat their handcuffed, tired and thirsty with bleeding feet while the “looters” celebrated and boasted about how they always get the “bad guys.”

The DEA and Tony Bourdain had two totally different impacts in the Dominican Republic. One spread oppression and looted. While the other voluntarily exchanged with others to the betterment of everyone involved. The DEA used helicopters to track the boat to the beach bust. Tony Bourdain took a helicopter to a remote beach and ate grilled lobster. The DEA shut down a local clothing store where they actually manufactured the clothing on site and put who knows how many people out of work. Tony ate delicious food and gave millions of viewers a virtual trip to the D.R. Everyone benefits with No Reservations — Tony benefits, I as a viewer benefit, the purveyors in the show benefit, Travel Channel benefits, and those who buy ads during his show benefit. This is the free market. Now the question must be asked — “Who benefits from all the money and drugs confiscated by the DEA and who benefits from their Billion dollar budget?” I’ll give you a hint it’s not you and me.

Freedom of exchange is the most successful and peaceful way to live. Governments have expended billions trying to destroy this right and the people (at least a majority of them) clamor for them to do it. Why do so many people want to give government more power, when it always uses this power to oppress the very people who grant it that power? It’s because, as Albert Jay Nock wrote in his 1935 book, Our Enemy the State:

Americans are now ”conditioned to the new increments of State power, and they tend to take the process of continuous accumulation as quite in order. All the State’s institutional voices unite in confirming this tendency, they unite in exhibiting the progressive conversion of social power into State power as something not only quite in order, but even as wholesome and necessary for the public good.”

Conservatives as well as Liberals love the drug war. Richard Nixon signed into law the Controlled Substance Act in 1970. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush expanded the drug war. And if you think Obama has gone easy on drugs because he smoked marijuana and did a little blow in college — think again. If you don’t believe me look at the DEA’s website to see that business is booming. That is always bad news for us.

After you get done with that and you have a horrible taste in your mouth, go to Travel Channel’s site and check out Tony’s visit to the Dominican Republic for a true taste of Freedom.

I believe that we need more No Reservation shows and less Cocaine Wars. Just think if the drug war was over and there would be no shows like this to aggrandize the agents of the state. Billions of taxpayer dollars could return back to the productive sector and who knows what awesome travel/food shows would emerge.

Brand Differentiation: Red Bull vs. NASA

bmiller — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:02:46 -0500

On Sunday Oct 14th, “Fearless” Felix Baumgartner set world records for skydiving when he leaped from an altitude of 128,000 feet. What makes this even more amazing than him becoming the world’s fastest unassisted human being, traveling at over 884 mph at one point in his free fall, is that the endeavor was a completely private enterprise. It was a Red Bull energy drink publicity stunt to the edge of space. The entire purpose of the event was to further differentiate the brand of Red Bull from the other energy drinks on the market.

Red Bull has a history of these kind of “stunts” but this one by far is the most impressive. It got me to thinking about how NASA and the entire “space race,” which was really one big PR stunt. The two competing brands for world market share were NASA and the Soviet space program who were selling their country’s brand of Statism around the world.

NASA and the equivalent Soviet space program were trying to “sell” their government’s ideology through “publicity stunts” in space. When we look at the space program in this manner it clarifies the difference between what Red Bull accomplished this week and what NASA has done in the past. One of them is a champion of privately-owned capital and profit seeking while the other is an inevitable example of what happens when government steals from the productive and collectivizes that property.

Red Bull has made its founders billionaires. NASA has had its budget cut repeatedly and is being relegated to the history books. Red Bull’s founder’s created an entire market for energy drinks that will soon be worth 52 billion dollars. NASA is relying on the Russians to ferry astronauts to the ISS. The founders of Red Bull were told by a research firm that the product would fail, they now sell 4 billion cans a year. Because of privately-held capital and Mateschitz’s vision Red Bull now owns an F1 team, two soccer teams, a NASCAR team and a hangar full of restored vintage planes. While NASA has retired its costly and deadly space shuttle and which are now collecting dust in museums.

That is appropriate if you think about it. That is where government programs should go, to the dust bin of history. They are inefficient and waste valuable resources. Socialism, as Mises wrote will always fails because it lacks the pricing mechanism, stated differently socialist systems lack the ability to calculate economically. That is the difference between the success of Red Bull and the failure of NASA and all other government programs.

Today we hear so much about how the free market and profit-seeking is destroying the “economy.” But those love liberty know that is false. As the United States government collectivizes more and more individual wealth in this country it is destroying the free market. There are some bright spots still and that is why I love the story of Red Bull and the other private companies that are charting a new era of freedom in space.

A perfect example of this is the LunarX prize. That is a prize offered to the first private non-governmental entity that can successfully launch, land, and operate a robot on the lunar surface. When the prize was first conceived NASA was going to be the sponsor. But due to budget cut backs they backed out. Google became the main sponsor and upped the prize money from $20 million to $30 million. It also opened the competion to all individuals regardless of what country they lived in and created bonus challenges. The most intersting bonus challengs awards an extra million dollars to the compnay that whose robot takes pictures of the Apollo 11 site and beams them back to earth. Private enterprise always trumps state enterprise.

The private space industry is growing everyday while the space programs of the world are faltering or completely failed. There will be in the next five years an explosion of private space travel, while government space programs will have to buy time like anyone else on the privately owned rockets and space stations. Armadillo Aerospace, Bigelow Aerospace and Virgin Atlantic all see space as a huge opportunity that government planners could never fathom. In other words some of the richest men in the world are investing billions of dollars into privately owned space travel and space stations. Why? Because just like Red Bull they are doing so for profit. Now their business models are very different from Red Bull but upshot is the same, going to Space makes economic sense to them. They see profit in the stars.

I hope that the amazing feat of Fearless Felix and Red Bull will spark people to ponder the difference between privately-owned vs. collectively-owned capital. We can have more Red Bull’s amazing marketing trips to the edge of space, Virgin Galactics Space Tours, Bigeolow Private Space Stations or we can have more mothballed space shuttles. The choice is ours. Diffusion of knowledge within a society as Hayek wrote, can only be efficiently utilized if people are free to trade their knowledge and products and services which it creates, freely with each other.

When the state steps in and its central planners tell you that they know how best to spend your money, think of Red Bull and Fearless Felix. And think about the harmony that the spontaneous order of the free market facilitates versus the limitations and failures of government space programs.

The Red Bull stratos jump is a victory for not only Felix Baumgartner and Red Bull but also for the free market. It is an amazing story that an energy drink company from Austria can mount a manned mission to the edge of space and land him safely home. That is incredible. In twenty years from now instead of the NASA logo or any other government logo on the side of rockets there will be logos of companies and even individuals. It will be private companies like Chevy, Ford and Toyota do now in NASCAR, with all their associated sponsorships competing to take people and cargo into space. And I have a feeling Red Bull will continue to be a key player in getting people to the stars. And it will not be for the reason of ”national pride” or “collective security” but for “brand differentiation and profit”

Capital in the hands of private individuals is the superior way to live as human beings. Being able to trade and keep the profits from the products and services created by private capital leads to amazing inventions and betters everyone’s life. This is demonstrated by the successful track records of the entrepreneurs who are leading the privatization of space travel. Men like Dietrech Mateschitz co-founder of Red Bull and the Stratos jump; Robert Bigelow, a hotel chain owner now designer and manufacturer of private space stations with his Bigelow AeroSpace company who currently has two prototypes orbiting earth; Richard Branson, aviation and telecom mogul with his Virgin Galactic and private space tours, Peter Thiel, founder of Pay Pal and investor in Space X which recently delivered cargo to the ISS; Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and StratoLaunch which won the Ansari X Prize in 2004; and John Carmack Founder of id Games and Armadillo Aerospace who is building lower cost reusable rockets. These men all prove that privately-owned space flight is another example of how individual liberty is always superior to collective coercion.

Ayn Rand would have been very proud of Felix Baumgartner and Dietrich Mateschitz of Red Bull. This is her summation of her philosophy circa 1936:

” To make my life a reason unto itself. I know what I want up to the age of two hundred. Know what you want in life and go after it. I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up these possibilities…”

Government Made Disasters – Red Cross in Spain Taking Donations for Spainards

bmiller — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:15:00 -0500

Has a hurricane, tsunami, or flood hit Spain that I’m not aware of? If not then why is the Spanish Red Cross collecting money to help their fellow country man?

The Red Cross is out soliciting donations around Spain because people are beginning to starve. How can that happen in a first-world nation? Has there been a famine caused by drought, locust or some other biblical plague? No. There hasn’t been a famine in Europe since laissez-faire capitalism hit its shores.

Has there been a war that has disrupted the economy? No, Spain’s last real war was the Spanish Civil War back in the 1930′s.

Has there been a massive outbreak of disease forcing millions to be unable to not work? Well sort of. Its not a physical disease but rather a mental “disorder” that is causing massive physical effects for the people of Spain today.

The reason why so many people in Spain are needing ”assistance” is because of the ideology the majority of the Spanish have embraced over the decades. Spain and the other “PIIGS” — Portugal, Ireland, and Italy — are suffering the effects of what happens when Individuals embrace the ideas of collectivism and elect politicians who put those ideas into action.

I’m not saying that the bankers, politicians, and pundit apologists didn’t orchestrate this collapse. They were front and center. But when individuals forget they have a God-given right only to their own life, liberty and property they suffer the effects of the violation of the natural laws.

Right now the Red Cross in Spain is going around the country soliciting donations for those, according to Bloomberg Business, who “are hurt by the economy and government austerity measures.” But the article did not dig into why the economy is in shambles in the first place.

Spain is the case study for how collectivism fails even when its shrouded in ”democracy”. It was on the forefront of the green economy movement and gover the last decade has seen massive government intervention into every aspect of the economy. Just four years ago American politicians were pointing to Spain as the model for how to turn an economy around. Those politicians may want to rethink that now.

Spokesman Jose Javier Sanchez Espinosa for the Spanish Red Cross laid out the current ”Utopian State” of Spain today:

“25 percent of children are living under the poverty level and old people now have their children and their grandchildren depending on their pensions,” he said.

“Spain is in its second recession in three years, and has near 25 percent unemployment”

Spain is in bad shape. The reason why is simple. The people of Spain like the people here have traded liberty for security and now they have less and less of both.

It reminds me of the story of the farmer who wanted to catch some wild hogs on his property and domesticate them. The wild hogs were wary and proud creatures who regarded the farmer with great suspicion because of the stories they heard of the animals being caged and slaughtered on the farm. They valued their independence living in the forest only by their brain and their brawn. Sure the forest was dangerous and nothing was guaranteed but he wild hogs were crafty, strong, and self-reliant; that was until they discovered how tasty free farmer corn could be.

The farmer was cunning and patient. He knew he could never get all the wild hogs into a pen by force. So instead of the stick he used the carrot or more accurately, free corn. He began putting corn out in a small clearing next to the forest. At first the wild hogs were leery but soon one by one they began to eat the corn. After a few days of laying out the corn the farmer put up some fence. Not too close to the corn but close enough that the wild hogs noticed it when they ate. They rationalized it away. They told themselves “Hey, I’m still free I can come and go as I please and this corn is mighty tasty.”

Now as days passed the wild hogs continued to eat the free corn and the farmer began putting up more and more of the fence. The wild hogs didn’t mind at all and became more and more accustomed to it. As the second side of the corral was completed the wild hogs told themselves, “I’m not worried I can still come and go as I please and this corn is so tasty.” They even didn’t mind seeing the farmer because they knew that he was the one brining them the corn. After a few weeks of this the wild hogs now didn’t even notice the fence at all, it was just part of the landscape. That was until the farmer put in the last of the fencing, installed a gate and locked it shut. That was the day the wild hogs became very aware of the fence and that they could no longer come and go as they pleased.

But the farmer assured them that the fence was there for their protection. They were safe in the pen from the wolves that lurked in the forest and they no longer had to go out searching for food in the forest. So the hogs calmed down and settled into a routine of sitting around each day waiting for the farmer to bring the free corn.

Over time the farmer began cutting the rations back and the pigs after a while noticed and began to protest. But what could the pigs do? The farmer simply ignored their pleas. They were trapped. They could no longer escape. They now were no longer the wild hogs who lived free in the forest by their brains and their brawn. Their muscles had atrophied and their power to reason was gone. No longer were they strong enough to push the fence over or smart enough to work the gate. The once proud wild hogs were now nothing more than trapped domesticated pigs.

The people of Spain, Italy, Ireland and Greece are all beginning to feel the “restricted rations of corn” from their government farmers. The crazy thing is that those who are calling for austerity are the one’s who have fattened themselves the most by using the central banking system and the ability of government to tax through force. The PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) don’t have a chance. The farmers today, the central bankers, politicians, and pundits, are all trying to pen up as many people as possible so that they ensure that their supply of corn is never shut off.

The people were not forced into these pens by the pointing of guns. They were domesticated little by little over the years by the desire for a steady diet of free corn. The majority of people around the world clamor to be taken care of. People naturally want to do other things besides work. Work is strenuous, hard and requires people to use their God-given ability to reason. None of that is easy. Mises like to called this natural human tendency the “disutility of labor.” Everyone he wrote would rather do something else besides work. Fortunately (yes, I’m being sarcastic), there are philosophers and politicians who take advantage of this human tendency with concocted theories of “collectivism” which gladly relieve the masses of their need to reason and place the responsibility of their lives in the hands of the government farmers.

The observable results of the collectivist philosophy in action are always the same. It is not something new. In the last century collectivist governments have killed over 170 million of their own citizens. A lot of these were “non-comliant” pigs who were agitating the other pigs in the pen and others were “undesirable pigs” who were starved to death either by design or simply through bureaucratic neglect. When your life is in the hands of the central planners — aka: the government farmers, they decide who lives and who dies.

It is sad. This is not some abstract debate about the theory and practice of governing. This is about millions of people beginning to starve to death in a first-world nation. That is startling. I think more people should be outraged at this because the same ideology that penned up the people in the PIIGS is running rampant through the hearts and minds of Americans today.

A lot of people in America are beginning to notice the government fencing in their lives. Unfortunately, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are not talking about taking down these fences, they are in fact talking about making them higher and stronger. Make no mistake about it, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, ObamaCare, and tax deductions are all fences designed to keep you in the centrally-planned pen. Instead of demanding to hear about how these fences should be taken down, the only thing most Americans want to hear is who among the government farmers will be giving them the biggest ration of corn.

AP and CNN: Government Bullets are Good

bmiller — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:15:12 -0500

Let me put everyone at ease over the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) recent purchase of 174,000 rounds of pistol ammo. According to the AP and CNN they are merely for training and normal police work of the 259 agents of the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General’s Office.

I’m glad the official propaganda arm (a.k.a. the AP and CNN) of the U.S. federal government has put to rest the crazy conspiracy theory that the Feds are preparing for civil unrest.

I feel better already don’t you? Unfortunately, the fact remains that the United States government has purchased or plans to purchase 1.4 billion rounds of ammo to be used not overseas but inside the U.S. That is not a conspiracy!!!

The CNN article and the AP article both highlight the State’s version of the SSA purchase as “normal.” In both stories they quote the Social Security Administration.

“These investigators have full law enforcement authority, including executing search warrants and making arrests,” the agency said in an August post. “Our investigators are similar to your state or local police officers. They use traditional investigative techniques, and they are armed when on official duty.”

Hollow point bullets are standard-issue items for many police agencies, the Social Security Administration said. The bullets expand when they hit a target and can help prevent injuries to bystanders from bullets passing through a body, according to police.

Investigators “use this ammunition during their mandatory quarterly firearms qualifications and other training sessions, to ensure agent and public safety,” the administration added.

Then the AP further goes on to support the State’s version by quoting two Law Enforcement types:

“For practice ammunition, they do not have to be hollow-points, but hollow-points are the normal police round used for duty ammunition due to their ability to stop when they hit an object as opposed to going through it and striking more objects,” said William J. Muldoon, president of the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training.

“Six hundred rounds per year for training, qualification and I would assume to carry on duty is not out of line at all,” said John W. Worden, director of the University of Missouri’s Law Enforcement Training Institute. “Hollow points are carried by law enforcement all over the country and are probably the preferred type of ammo no matter what caliber.”

And the CNN story instead of quoting police, quote a A Left-Wing Professor who supports the expansive growth of Government. “This is just the latest in a long history of uniquely American anti-government conspiracy theories, said Kathryn Olmsted, a University of California at Davis history professor and author of “Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories in American Democracy.”

That another one would surface in the midst of a contentious election cycle and continued unease over the nation’s financial future is not all that surprising, Olmsted said Tuesday. But this one, she said, seems particularly tenuous. “It strikes me as one of the more extreme conspiracy theories,” Olmsted said. “I’m surprised it has any traction.”

The AP and CNN maybe reporting the truth about the SSA purchase. But what they are not reporting is the reason why the SSA needs bullets to begin with. Even if these rounds are just for target practice and normal federal police work, it is still a huge problem. That’s because up until the Progressive-era an armed federal police force of any kind was unthinkable and believed to be unconstitutional. But with the income tax and prohibition the power of the State increased and with it the need to have more heavily armed guardians to enforce the confiscatory and liberty killing laws became necessary.

And why does the State need bullets? It’s because it steals property from individuals and other people want to steal it from them. If the State didn’t force you into the Social Security system, which is the largest Ponzi scheme on Earth, by withholding 6.2% (even though they’ve given us a temporary reprieve) and also steal another 6.2% from your employer every two weeks, they wouldn’t need armed agents. (Incidentally if anyone thinks this is a voluntary program try to opt out. If you do the SSA will tell you to talk to the IRS because they are the enforcement agency for the program.)

Now, I would like to ask Condi Rice and all the other conservatives how in light of this fact they can continue to say that we live in the freest nation on Earth? Now all of this Stolen Property known as Social Security is a huge pot that other criminals will naturally target. But the State being the biggest gang on the block doesn’t want anyone else to get a piece of the action so they have armed federal agents to ensure that they have complete control of the stolen loot.

Like my brother said, once one freedom is given up another five go with it. That is how it is with Social Security, the income tax, and every other government intervention into your life. A Police State is growing in this Country in leaps and bounds because the intervention of Government into our lives is growing. That is not a coincidence!!! The SSA purchase of 174,000 rounds just highlights this FACT. Think of the phrase from the SSA “These investigators have full law enforcement authority, including executing search warrants and making arrests”.

To me that is scary. How many agencies of the Federal Government have that power now? The IRS, TSA, Homeland Security and the SSA just to mention a few. Then you have the DEA, the BATF and FBI. As the imperial bureaucracies grow so will the size of the departments who guard them. The recent 1.4 billion rounds of ammo purchase or ordered that is intended for use inside of the United States by the federal government is a fact.

No amount of white washing by the AP or CNN will change that. In the past the hippies would have been up in arms about such a purchase. But the progressive/collectivists are in power and they want to remain in power. Unfortunately, history is full of the accounts of what governments do with power.

What the AP and CNN fail to report that in the 20th century Communist governments killed over 170 million of their own citizens by hanging, boiling them alive, burning them alive, burying them alive, beating them to death, starving them to death and by shooting them, not with marshmallows or with teddy bears, but with BULLETS!!! That is not a conspiracy theory. That is the truth.

That statistic is frightening in and of itself but the counter side to that is that “democratic governments” around the world have killed tens of millions of people as well during the 20th century and were directly responsible for allowing Stalin, Mao and Hitler to take power. As collectivism grows so does the need to enforce these artificial freedom killing policies against individuals whether it’s in democratic or communist countries. This is always done by the State through armed agents.

As Albert J Nock wrote the struggle is always between “Society and the State.” Society is the peaceful voluntary interactions between individuals and the State is the coercive predatory plundering entity that seeks to control and kill. Now why wouldn’t the AP and CNN be on the side of society?

The CNN article takes the idea even one step further with the quotes from Olmsted. On one hand the Social Security Administration and DHS purchases of ammo isn’t nefarious at all and at the same time these purchase are some how justified because of all the conspiracy nut cases out there. George Orwell himself would have been amazed at that logic.

If the reporters wanted to actually hold government accountable they would seek to uncover the truth about the State. And in particular how an armed Federal Police Force was anathema to the founding of this fading Republic and that taxation is really theft.

Here are some links to the stories and the SSA’s official website – so you can judge for yourself.

Unfortunately the reporters for the AP and CNN aren’t interested in uncovering the truth. They are only interested in ingratiating themselves to those in power and helping to propagate the growing Police State.

The Myth of Private Property in America and the Faux Free Market

bmiller — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:20:47 -0500

Private property is at the heart of the free market, which Murray Rothbard described as the “field of exchange of title of ownership between individuals.”

Today, almost no one talks about private property in America any longer. This used to be the defining aspect of the American Ideal. That individuals were able to acquire, control and dispose of property as they saw fit without the coercive hand of government. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer American’s believe in that fundamental idea.

The “No Trespassing” sign that people put up in their yards is exactly what the idea of private property is all about. It is the fact that this land, your property, your person are private. That means they do not belong to the “collective,” they are not “communal property” to be used or dispersed by some benevolent despot, gang of “voters” or enlightened cadre of professors and politicians.

The motto “Don’t Tread on Me” is simply a “No Trespassing” sign. I would like to see “No Trespassing” signs become the hallmark of the Freedom Movement because if you can not own property, then you can not live free.

Private property is about self-ownership and, as Ludwig von Mises wrote, ”Control denotes ownership.” If you can dispose of something than you are its effective owner. In America today, how much “private property” do any of us truly own?

The government today uses three main ways to reduce your “control” over your property. That is through taxation – the outright seizure of your property; through inflation, which is the devaluation of your money (one half of every transaction you enter into); and through regulation, in which your control of your property and person are greatly reduced and in a lot of cases totally usurped by the state.

Right now, the federal government owns about 30% of the land in the United States. The federal government, through the Bureau of Land Management (which sounds like a Department in Communist Russia), controls 32% of known oil reserves, 35% of the natural gas, and 37% of coal that is produced today off of “public lands” in the United States. It is also estimated that 68% of all undiscovered oil reserves and 74% of undiscovered natural gas deposits are located on “collectively-held land”. How can there exist a “free market” in land and energy when the government has a respective market share of 30% and 35% currently and a virtual monopoly on these commodities in the future? This is the outright ownership by government. It doesn’t include the four million miles of roads in the US, the schools, the hospitals, the airports, the historic monuments, the federal office buildings, the dams, Tennessee Valley Authority, and the other collectively-owned acres in the US at the state, county and city level.

Now, the federal government you would think would not have any say in how the other property that is privately held is utilized because we’ve all been told there is a free market in America. You would be wrong. Entire agencies exist to “control” what goes on “privately” held land. The biggest example is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In their eyes there is not private property. Recently, the agency even tried to list every ditch on privately-owned property as navigable waterways which would have expanded their control over million more acres of private property.

Local Governments exercise a different kind of “ownership” on the rest of the so-called privately-held land in America. They do this through zoning laws and regulations, and property taxes. And it is by the levying and collection of property taxes that effectively ends the myth of privately-held land in America. This is a clear example of how the state, in which I include all levels of government, views yourself and your property. You are just a tax number and so is your property. In essence, property taxes are rent paid to the state. If you don’t pay the state will remove you from said property and sell it to cover the taxes on it. This is another example of how we operate within a “faux free market” in America today.

Another mess where property rights are being violated and the “free market” no longer exists is in the healthcare industry. Over 60% of the health care dollars spent in the US are government dollars, which are the confiscated property of individuals or groups of individuals. And then the government inefficiently spends these dollars within a cartelized insurance, hospital, doctor and pharmaceutical industries. Again the faux free market at work. DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius said in testimony that the private market of health care was in a death spiral. She is correct, but she didn’t explain why. It’s not because of the “free market” in health care, it’s because government health care has all but killed the free market.

The mortgage mess is at the heart of another example of the destruction of private property and the “faux free market” at work. In the United States today, over 95% of all mortgages are backed or owned by the federal government. That industry like health care has been already effectively “nationalized.” Anyone who believes the “free market” created the mess we are in is either dishonest or ignorant.

None of this would be possible without the income tax and the Federal Reserve. Today through the income tax, Americans have been conditioned to view their income not as property. Through the withholding we have been accustomed to allowing our “real” property of today which we have a right to control and dispose of as we wish to be; forcibly exchanged for ephemeral promises of politicians for Social Security and Medicare in our old age. We have been conditioned to believe income is not property, that taxes are not theft, and that plunder is somehow to our benefit.

It is not only through direct taxation that the politicians steal our property but it’s also through inflation. When the Federal Reserve prints dollars or adds zeroes to Bank Deposits at the Fed they are destroying the value of your property, your money. It is destroying how much you can exchange each dollar for. That is why prices rise. It is done so that the federal government can continue to spend to increase the of the welfare/warfare state. They have to do this otherwise in order to cover the $3.7 Trillion budget, of which forty percent is borrowed money, they would have to directly tax individuals an additional trillion dollars a year!!! Even though most Americans don’t feel the chains around their necks now, they would soon feel the tug of an extra trillion dollars confiscated from them every year.

Neither Obama nor Romney talk of property rights in this country. One side may give lip service to the free market but never talks about your fundamental natural right to self-ownership and ownership of your justly acquired property. That is because what these two men are vying for is control over the state; which can only continue to exist if you relinquish your right to total self-ownership and to allow your property to be plundered at will by politicians.

Private property begins with self-ownership. If you don’t own yourself than who does? If you can’t determine how best to dispose of your time who will? The same goes for your Property.

In order to live individuals need property. How to acquire that property is the question. Either that property can be acquired by force or through production and voluntary exchange. Today unfortunately through the ballot box, taxation and inflation more and more Americans are receiving stolen property. That is the problem today. The problem today is not that we need more “jobs” in this country. The problem is that we need to restore to every Individual his/her God-given right of self-ownership and God-given right to the fruits of his/her labor.

Only when individuals are free to make their own choices in their life, determine what they want, and then proceed to attempt to get what they desire through production and voluntary exchange will we truly operate within an environment known as the ”FREE MARKET.” The free market is predicated on private property and until the government ceases to coercively interject itself into every single transaction conducted in this country everyone who blames the “free market” for the mess we are in must instead place the blame where it truly belongs.

I’ve been told by a lot of conservatives and even some libertarians that if I don’t vote for Romney I’m “voting for Obama.” Why should I have to compromise my principles? Why shouldn’t those people who feel they have to vote for the right-statism of Republicans have to tell them that their platform is driving votes away. Doesn’t it make more sense that Romney and the Republicans are the ones who have abandoned principle? Why should I join them? That doesn’t make any sense. Those who believe that a vote for a third-party candidate – like Gary Johnson, for example — is a vote for Obama have disregarded the entire idea of the sanctity of private property and individual liberty. If we don’t have principles to guide our decisions we are only left with expediency and that is exactly how we got into this mess in the first place.

All the Republicans have to do to get my vote is talk about the sanctity of self-ownership and my God-given right to keep and dispose of my justly acquired property as I see fit. That’s it. Then they may get my vote. This supposed political choice we have is the epitome of the “faux free market” we suffer under today in America. You have only two crappy choices, neither of which are determined by the free and voluntary choices of individuals. The whole idea is crazy. Your life and property and liberty are at stake and you are supposed to roll over to the “least evil” political corporation.

The Republican Corporation I’m supposed to vote for to secure my life, liberty and property are they themselves collectivists. Listen to the language of their platform:

”We recognize and honor the courageous effort of those who bear the burden of parenting alone, even as we believe that marriage the union of one man and one woman must be upheld as the natural standard, the goal to stand for, encourage, and promote through laws governing marriage” Do you still believe you own yourself?

I’m not gay but if the Republicans are willing to govern marriage in this way they will do it in others as well. Wait, they already have done that with drug prohibition, prostitution prohibition, and the prohibition of gambling. If you can not choose to live as you wish when you are not violating the self-ownership or property rights of another there is no need for being governed, which always means to be limited. It all boils down to the fact in their eyes we do not own our person or the choices in our lives.

And the Bureau of Land Management govern public lands like the oil rich areas in Alaska the same way the politicians govern our lives: ” In addition to carefully considering what is fact and what is opinion, everyone involved in making decisions about ANWR and energy in general will need (backed by the barrel of a gun) to seek innovative approaches and work collaboratively to find alternatives that can be accepted by all.”

The “Innovative” solution and the one that could be accepted by all is to allow individuals to truly own themselves, their choices and to have all land privately held in America. Not more arrogance of politicians and bureaucrats who have no business owning property in America or owning the decisions we should be making for ourselves.

I hope that this post will spark folks to see every debate being bantered about by politicians, pundits, professors and priests is all about the fight between self-ownership and collective ownership. If you own yourself you need no external “governance” or “limiting.” Experience and the pain of failure are all you need to help steer you to make better life choices.

Morality has always been about property rights and will continue to be so. Only the “morality of liberty” will ensure that no one violates your right to your life, liberty and property. The Democrats and Republican Political Corporations have a different morality. They believe they have a right to take everything from you, including your life if enough of the “voters” are behind them.

In the end the question is, ”Whose property are you?” Does your life choices belong to the Republican Political Corporation? Or does it belong to the Democratic Political Corporation? When it’s placed in those terms no one on Earth would allow Apple or Coke’s board to determine how they should live. Sure they use advertising which is a whole other blog post to influence your behavior but its only those two “political for profit corporations that use the force of government to violate your person, property and liberty on a daily basis.

The extinguishing of the free market is as much a function of the Republican Political Corporation as it is the work of the Democratic Political Corporation. And as Lew Rockwell said the sooner that most Americans believe we all will be better off if we lived without the state, the sooner we can get back to being free to become the individuals we are capable of becoming.

You own yourself and the product of your labor. You yourself is the beginning of your private property. Your privacy is an extension of that fundamental right to yourself. Your income is your property. Social Security is a scam. The Federal Reserve needs to go. The IRS should be ended tomorrow. From the principle of “self-ownership” all other natural rights of property exist.

“…(Government) has placed the collective force in the service of those who wish to traffic without risk and without scruple in the persons and liberty and property of others, it has converted plunder into a right that it may protect it and turn lawful defense into a crime.” - Frederic Bastiat

Elton John Loves Conservatives but Hates Their Kids

bmiller — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:02:22 -0500

Does Elton John Hate the kids of conservatives? If he praises the actions of “compassionate conservatives” then I think he does.

‘We’ve seen George W. Bush and conservative American politicians pledge tens of billions to save the lives of Africans with HIV. Think of all the love. Think of where we’d be without it, nowhere, that’s where. We’d be nowhere at all,’ John said at the International AIDS conference in Washington on Monday.”

I like Elton John. I want him and everyone else to be able to marry whomever they want. I want him to be free to write more great hits like “Sad Songs” and “Tiny Dancer.” I’m a fan. But what I am not a fan of is his collectivist Ideas of praising “compassionate conservatives” for using the force of government to steal property from some, in order to give it to others. More government always leads to less freedom, for Elton John, for individuals in America and around the world.

Elton exclaims “think of all the love” that the actions of the conservative politicians produced, but is taxation and redistribution an act of love?

When property is stolen from “taxpayers” in the form of taxes, they suffer and so do their children. Having children at all for the productive class is an economic decision and taxation and inflation are key drivers in that decision. In effect when government steals money from a mother and father they are being deprived by force of their resources, which they can spend on their offspring which in effective limits how many children they have. This reduces the “Love” an individual can show to themselves, their living children and the children they choose not to have due to economic reasons.

Stealing money from one to give to another isn’t an act of love, either from whom it’s stolen from or to whom its bestowed upon. Think about the corruption these “billions of love dollars” will perpetuate in Africa and here at home. Where is this money going to? Who benefits? I bet it is going to benefit the politicians and their cronies more than any AIDS infected individual in Africa. The drug companies win, the NGO’s win, and the local corrupt chieftains in America and Africa win as well.

Instead of advocating for more government, I wish Elton and others would be advocating for protecting the natural rights of every individual, whether they are gay, straight, live in Africa or America or have AIDS or not. Everyone on Earth has a right to their life, liberty and property. No one has a right to take away anyone’s life, liberty or property even if it is to “help” someone else.

The planners in Washington who think they can spend your money better than you can never miss an opportunity to do so. This is just such an opportunity. If individuals want to give to charity that is their business. It is no business of government to do so.

Elton John doesn’t hate the kids of conservatives but by praising and putting his stamp of approval on conservative politicians redistributing the wealth of others, limits the life and “love” of individuals from whom the tax dollars are stolen from. It is a violation of their God-given natural rights. If it’s okay to take money to help AIDS infected individuals then why shouldn’t the government confiscate all taxpayer income and allow politicians to dole the stolen wealth out to the ”needy”?

A lot of people who have a cause turn to government for help. But government has no money of its own. It steals what it has from those who provide a service or product that others voluntarily purchase, whether that be the service of a bank teller or a master song writer producing a heart wrenching “Sad Song”.

Property should only be taken from someone who earned it on the free market through voluntary exchange as a recourse to satisfy a victim after that individual committed a crime. I have committed no crime against any African who contracted AIDS. Why should the government steal money from me that I work for to give to them? That is the crux of the matter. No one has a prior lien on my earnings, no matter how much they are in need.

“Whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. (or Individual with AIDS). The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: ‘No.’ Altruism says: ‘Yes.’” - Ayn Rand

The misery and poverty of billions of people around the world is terrible. But having the government steal money from taxpayers and then dole it out to the “needy” is not the answer. What keeps people in poverty is government and specifically the authoritarian collectivist Ideas upon which it is based. They are the same ideas that Elton John is unwittingly supporting when he praises and in effect advocates for more of the same government actions that perpetuate poverty and misery here and around the world.

Individual liberty, private property, and the idea that the Individual is sovereign instead of the “collective” has raised the living standard of billions and saved the lives of billions as well. What Elton and others who advocate for collectivism forget is that the wealth that is stolen from productive individuals was created not because of government but because of the voluntary exchanges of the free market. More freedom equals more wealth and because of that more people will be helped. Voluntary charity is huge in this country and would increase in direct proportion to the decrease in Government theft (taxation).

Taxation is theft and not an act of love. Love is a personal act and by its very nature can only be voluntary, or it is not Love. It is the willing sacrifice of yourself for another because you want to enjoy the life of that individual. Love is not force, it is the opposite of force. Government is force and as such is the opposite of love. If a thief steals a hundred dollars from you and gives it to someone who “needs” it, does that change the fact that the theft took place? Aren’t you still out the hundred dollars? . Taxation for “good” is still theft.

These “humanitarian highwaymen” of the government who steal from you to “help others” remember do so at the barrel of a gun. Just try not paying your share of helping someone over seas. The friendly “humanitarians” at the IRS will begin a dialogue with you that has the full force of government behind it. And if you persist in not “paying your humanitarian share” they will come and seize it, and they will do so like the highwaymen of old with a gun. And just like the highwaymen of old they will not hesitate to kill you if you persist in not giving up your property in a timely manner.

All government humanitarianism is based upon this model. Give up the loot or give up your life. This is why so many go to the government for the support of their cause. There isn’t a better armed “highwayman” in the world.

I think Elton and most people who look to government to help their cause are trying to do good even though they don’t consciously understand that taxation is theft, and in essence armed robbery. I hope that those like Elton instead of advocating for more government theft will advocate for less, because the more Freedom people have the more prosperous they are the more they are able to help themselves and others.

“The solution to the social problem lies in Liberty.” - Frederic Bastiat

Image courtesy of Fanpop

Do Conservatives Secretly Hope ObamaCare Will Stick?

bmiller — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 12:10:21 -0500

Who were the conservatives in the colonies during the Revolution? They were those loyal to the Crown. They were those who supported the status quo because of the state privileges that they received. Unfortunately, today’s conservatives do the exact same thing.

The fight today isn’t between conservatives who are interested in individual liberty and liberals who are interested in socialism. Neither party are interested in more freedom for you. They are interested in power and money. The both revel in the sovereignty of the state and the subjugation of the individual. That is no different then the attitude that King George had in regards to his “subjects” in the American colonies before the Revolution.

The Revolution of 1776 was the opposite of conservatism. It was a revolution of thought and reason in which the individual was sovereign and government was the servant. Like Judge Andew Napolitano used to say on Freedom Watch, “Does the government work for us or do we work for the government?” That is a fundamental question that the history of conservatives in this country have gotten wrong.

The victories of the collectivists in this country are never rolled back. The New Deal by FDR and the “war on poverty” by Johnson which are typically expounded by the conservative intelligentsia as the reason why we are living in an increasingly collectivist society have been cemented into America. If you want more freedom in this country today your best bet you are told is to support Republicans. But are they the party of liberty like they claim?

Why is it that after 1960′s the conservatives no longer desired to rollback Social Security or the other major programs of the New Deal? Why is it in less than fifty years from the expansion of welfare under Johnson did Conservatives create Medicare Part D, which added adding massively to the deficit, debt and collectivist growth of the state?

If Republicans were truly the party of liberty why is it that even when Ronald Reagan — the paragon of conservatism — was in the White House, the national debt continued to grow?

Without conservatives tacit and outright support of the collectivist programs there would be no Medicare, Social Security or ObamaCare today. As Murray Rothbard wrote, conservatives only pay lip service to the principles of Liberty and are only interested in the “socialism they can control.” They are the “loyalists” of today.

ObamaCare today could easily be called fifty years from now “ConservativeCare.” Because after the people get used to the hand outs and the false security of the smooth hand of government conservatives will not in any way shape or form take it away. In fact, they will do everything to keep it place like they do with Social Security and Medicare today. That is the definition of conserving.

Today, the outrage over ObamaCare is pathetic in the House and Senate. That is because everyone in Washington, with few exceptions, desires power. And the way they gain that power is through the power of taxation and inflation. The more government that exists the more they can tax and the more they can inflate, which benefits those who are close to the Levers of power while the rest of us suffer.

The whole idea that there is some ideological battle being waged in Washington between conservatives and liberals is ludicrous.

Why is it that no matter who is in office the debt grows? Why is that government grows when anyone is in control of the Congress? Why is it that overwhelming majority of Americans want to keep Social Security and Medicare? It’s because the conservative core of America likes the security of Government. That’s why they don’t support any cust to the trillion dollar imperialist war budget. And in a telling poll a few years ago over 65 percent of Tea Party folks in a poll said they wanted to cut the budget, but not to cut Social Security and Medicare. Maybe John Roberts is giving Americans, conservative and liberal alike, what they want?

It’s ludicrous when I hear Rush Limbaugh or other conservatives say they are trying to “conserve” the American institutions and traditions that made this country great. The simple concept that made prosperity possible in this country is liberty and the lack of covernment to interfere with that liberty. It’s not the “ordered liberty” that conservatives crave. It’s the ”Invisible Hand” that for over a hundred years laid the foundation of prosperity of this society which is now unfortunately increasingly crumbling under our feet.

This crumbling free market Infrastructure in America today is the true infrastructure crisis we face. The roads and bridges are just a system of the true disease.

Conservatives help “conserve” and “concretize” the collectivist programs for which the left pushes. This is tyranny, plain and simple. Conservatives coat the current collectivism in terms of the Revolution but in fact are doing nothing more than supporting the state and destroying individual liberty and the prospects of a better life for most Americans.

Conservatives and liberals are all part of the “One Government Party.” One party pushes forward increasing the power of the state while the other flaps its gums about the “unconstitutionality” of that increase but never repeals any of the “evil socialist laws.” In fact, once it becomes law the conservatives fight to keep it because people like free stuff and don’t typically vote for people who take away their free stuff. Look at the income tax, The Federal Reserve System, Social Security, ObamaCare and the $3.729 trillion federal budget.

Conservatives are hypocrites if they say they want to repeal ObamaCare and do not in the same breath say that Social Security and Medicare should go as well.

Let us not forget it was a conservative administration in 1913 that ushered in the income tax. And how many conservatives seek to get rid of the Federal Reserve System? Both of these are anathema to the ideas Revolution of 1776 and indivdidual liberty. Without these two collectivist lynch pins the welfare state would not exist and the perpetual war for “peace” policy that began under Teddy Roosevelt and has been furthered by every President since, including Ronald Reagan, could not exist.

Conservatives only conserve the status quo and allow those who have benefited from the system to continue to use the system for their benefit. The only time conservatives battle with liberals is when their cronies don’t get enough of the taxpayer pie.

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are no different. They both have ZERO intention of shrinking the debt. They both will sign off on spending increases. They both will increase the size and scope of government and limit your freedom. Romney is, at best, a place holder for where we are today. He will, at worse, grow the government; but only slightly slower than Obama. Both believe as King George did back in 1776 that individuals are merely subjects.

The principles are what matter. Either you believe in Individualism where every individual has a God-given right to their life liberty and property or you don’t. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both believe that you don’t have any inalienable rights and that the state administering the collective will grants you the rights you have and can take them away at anytime.

Maybe John Roberts is right? He wrote that the individual mandate of ObamaCare is a tax. He sees that this is just an extension of the principle on which Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are based upon. Maybe his take is that if the people want this, then let them have it. Who is he to prevent the “ignorant masses” from destroying themselves? Or maybe he thinks that conservatives when they get into office will be able to “manage” this huge new bureaucracy and be able to dole out even more taxpayer dollars to their own cronies. Either way he was not basing his opinon on the Ideas of the Revolution. He was simply helping to conserve the principles of collectivism.

Until there is a fundamental move from conservatism back principles of individualism, of which the Revolution of 1776 were based upon, this country will continue to slide down the road to serfdom. Conservatism is just a “governor” which only slows down the rate of speed at which we travel down the road to serfdom. Make no mistake, their destination is the same as the progressives, liberals and socialists, for you, which is more government control over your lives and less individual liberty.

I hope that all conservatives will drop the idea of “conserving” the current mess and join with libertarians, who seek a peaceful revolution to overthrow the current status quo.

I agree with Frank Chodorov, who defined what kind of revolution we need:

And by “revolution” I mean the return to the people of that sovereignty which our tradition assumes them to have. I mean the return to them of the power which government confiscated by way of the Sixteenth Amendment.

If Conservatives wanted to conserve the ideals of the revolution repealing the Sixteenth Amendment would be a good start. But let us not forget that its only libertarians who are so bold as to propose that today. All conservatives want to do is “simplify the tax code.” Stated differently they want to “conserve the tax code,” which means conserving the power of the State over the subjected individual.

If you call yourself a conservative and believe in the principles of liberty I urge you to drop that label and not support anyone based upon that label. Look at the fundamental principle behind what people are peddling. It’s always a matter of the individual vs. the state. That is the only ideological fight we have.

D-Day: Heroic Crusade or Pyrrhic Victory

bmiller — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:02:13 -0500

Was D-Day the beginning of a heroic crusade to “Free Europe” or was it a pyrrhic victory for the United States? Did the collectivism that grew at home during World War II help save our liberty or destroy it?

Today marks the 68th anniversary of the invasion of fortress Europe by Allied forces, better known as “D-Day.” On that day 156,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. Over 4,000 of them were killed and another 6,000 were wounded. On the German side it is estimated that 4,000-9,000 German soldiers were killed and wounded. Over 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing during the fight. But that is just the beginning of the story of the Battle of Normandy.

Today, twenty-seven war cemeteries hold the remains of over 110,000 dead from both sides: 77,866 German, 9386 American, 17,769 British, 5002 Canadian and 650 Poles. Between 15,000 and 20,000 French civilians were killed, mainly as a result of Allied bombing. Thousands more fled their homes to escape the fighting.

The men who died on those beaches deserve to be commended. If you want an accurate picture of what happened on those bloody beaches you should definitely watch Saving Private Ryan. It is an incredible movie that shows in gruesome detail the horrors of war and how bodies, minds and lives are shattered by it. Today there will be plenty of pundits speaking of how “America saved Europe” and how D-Day demonstrates what a nation can accomplish when it pulls together for a common cause. But when we look at a single battle, like the Battle of Normandy, we fail to see the big picture of why the war was actually fought and what was accomplished by all the bloodshed.

While soldiers were dying overseas the United States government was growing exponentially at home. The New Deal had been solidified and the American people were becoming more and more accepting of government control over their daily lives. John T Flynn called this growing intervention of the Feds into the private sector as “the good fascism” as opposed to “the bad fascism of the Nazis.” This growing central planning of individual’s lives by the bureaucrats in Washington and the growing alliance of Big Government and Big Business was not considered by most Americas to be the “bad Fascism of the Nazis.” But what is ironic is that at the core of what the soldiers were fighting and dying to eradicate on the beaches of Normandy, was actually growing at home with every ship built, with every ration cared issued and with every soldier drafted.

When an individual is “drafted” to go to war he is no longer a free man. He is a killing tool of the ruling class. He has no more free will, he must go to where they tell him and kill who they tell him kill or he will be imprisoned or killed. The draft, plain and simple, is a form of slavery. Daniel Webster spoke out against the first proposed draft in the U.S. for the war of 1812:

“Nor is it, Sir, for the defense of his own house & home, that he who is the subject of military draft is to perform the task allotted to him. You will put him upon a service equally foreign to his interests & abhorrent to his feelings. With his aid you are to push your purposes of conquest. The battles which he is to fight are the battles of invasion; battles which he detests perhaps & abhors, less from the danger & the death that gathers over them, & the blood with which they drench the plain, than from the principles in which they have their origin..”

He argued that if a man’s life and property are at stake he will defend it. There is no need to “draft” him. It is only in wars of aggression and conquest does a government resort to conscription. And it’s not only the soldiers who are conscripted by the State during war.

Under the aegis of war the State takes control of all “vital resource” and “rations” them out to the populace. The U.S. Office of Price Administration (OPA) in 1942 froze prices in the U.S. on practically all everyday goods and rationed gas, food, shoes, tires and most items individuals needed or wanted to buy. It was done so everyone got their fair share. This type of “collectivist” thinking has pervaded American political thought ever since. It is during times of war Individualism is suppressed and the collective is raised above all. The individual must give up his freedom to the government’s central planners so they will ensure that “everyone gets their fair share”.

I don’t like the term “fair share” but let’s examine using their terminology of the time to see who really received their “fair share” during WWII. Did the boys who died on the beaches of Normandy or those unfortunate souls on the Bataan Death March get their fair share? Did all the wives, sisters, and moms who would never see their loved ones again get their fair share? Did the hundreds of thousands of wounded men who came home after the war ended get their fair share? Did the masses of individuals at home who lost almost all control over their daily lives for four years get their fair share?

The politicians, the bureaucrats, the bankers, all manner of manufacturers who sold to the government, and the merchants of death got more than their “fair share.” They stayed at home and made huge profits while others suffered imeasurable physical and emotional pain. How many of the politicians and bankers and merchants of death were shot and killed on the beaches of Normandy or were marched to death in the jungles of the Philippines? Like Smedley Butler, a two-time Medal of Honor winner, wrote “War is a Racket.” And that is exactly why it is waged.

Today we live in an ever-increasing collectivist society at home and the American government’s foreign policy abroad can only be described as Imperialistic. Did the men on D-Day die so that the U.S. government could accrue 16 trillion in debt? Did the men die on D-Day so that Amish folks and others can’t buy unpasteurized milk? Did the men die on the beaches of Normandy so that the U.S. government can oust any Middle Eastern leader it wants to? Did the men did on D-Day so that over 50% of your income today is stolen from you at the point of a gun? Did the men die on the beaches of Normandy so that you have to live in fear that the Small Arms treaty being considered in the U.N. will deny your God-given right to “bear arms”? Did the men on D-Day die so that the U.S. dollar would be destroyed by the printing presses of the Federal Reserve? Did the men on D-Day die so that the U.S. military could have 900 military installations around the world? Did the men die on the beaches of Normandy so the U.S. President could compile a secret kill list of individuals including U.S. citizens and assassinate them anywhere around the world at will? Did the men on D-Day die so the U.S. Government would “abandon the free enterprise system to save it”?

WWII set the stage for the Leviathan that we are suffering under today. The Last Great War was fought not to make the world safe for individual liberty or even for democracy. It was waged to benefit the bankers, the war profiteers, and the politicians. While the soldiers and their families paid the horrific price in blood on the battle field and broken hearts at home. And we are still today paying for those war profits from WWII. That debt has never been paid off. When we honor those who have fallen let us not forget that it is always politicians who start the wars and it is always the citizens, who generation after generation pay the price.

As Ayn Rand wrote either a Society is based upon the principles ofc ollectivism or that of Individualism. This country was founded on the principles of Individualism. That is a belief that every person has the inalienable right to their life, liberty and property and that no man or group of men have the right to take it away. Fascism, communism, socialism, and crony capitalism are all forms of collectivism. And Its basic tenet is that man has no rights ; that his work, his body, and his personality belong to the group, the group can do with him what it pleases, for the sake of whatever it decides is in its best interest. And that is exactly what happened in WWII to the soldiers sent to Europe and the Pacific and to the citizenry at home.

WWII did not make us any freer. It only ended up enslaving us even more to the federal government. FDR wanted WWII, in particular to benefit the Rockefeller in the Pacific and Morgans in Europe. FDR knew that the attacks on Pearl Harbor were going to happen, he forced the Japanese to attack and welcomed it. The Battle for Normandy occurred mainly because the banking houses wanted to protect their investments overseas. That is not something that will be taught in school and it wasn’t something Ronald Reagan spoke about during his famous speech on the beeches of Normandy.

All governments will use ever pretext especially war to further impoverish, maim, kill and enslave individuals under their dominion. That is why I advocate for the elimination of the State as we know it and to live in what is commonly called and an anarcho-capitalist society. This type of society is based upon the principles of individualism, natural justice and voluntary contracts. Every function that is handled by government today including defense would be provided on the free market. Only then would we see an end to perpetual war.

The baby today is freedom. The fire is the American government consuming everything in its path. Now is the time to turn back the tide of collectivism at home, return individual liberty back to America and peaceful trade with the rest of the world.

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present.” -
William Loyd Garrison

Remember This on Memorial Day…

bmiller — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:00:59 -0500

Memorial Day is a holiday that most Americans take for granted. They enjoy the unofficial start of summer by making their first pilgrimage to the beach or by celebrating in the backyard with a barbecue. It is a joyous occasion where people relax, eat, drink, soak up the sun and hang out with friends. But the majority of Americans don’t even realize why they have the day off from work.

A few Americans actually follow the spirit of the federal holiday and remember those who have died “defending” their freedom in wars waged by the U.S. Government. Unfortunately, the list who have died fighting and dying at the behest of politicians is still growing longer everyday. Those names of the dead and maimed are continually added to the over 1.3 million who’ve already died and to the other 1.5 million who have been wounded fighting under the banner of Old Glory.

But does any citizen really understand why the 2.8 million fellow Americans were killed or wounded fighting in wars waged by the U.S. Government? Most people believe that all the wars the U.S. has fought have been to make the “world (including the U.S. homeland) safe for Democracy? But when you delve deeper beyond the patriotic propaganda of why the wars were truly waged in the past and continue to be waged in the present you begin to find a disturbing pattern of why the United States Government goes to war. We should all remember on this Memorial Day that the wars that the United States of America has waged, have been waged not to protect our freedom but to enrich a very few at the expense of the very many.

Today in the United States, the military and intelligence budget stands at over a trillion dollars. That is something that should not be forgotten on this Memorial Day. Who profits from that defense Budget and who pays for it? In Smedley Butler’s classic Anti-War booklet, War is a Racket, he explains exactly who pays for this horrendous bill.

The bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic Instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back breaking taxation for generations and generations to come.

Now you would think that statement could have been written to describe the last decade of the War on Terror. In fact, it could have been written about any time throughout the history of the United States. He could have been describing the Indian Wars, the Banana Wars, the Spanish-American War, the War of Annexation of the Philipines, the Great War, or about WWII, Korea, Vietnam or the modern-day War on Terror and current Wars against the Dictators. The same pattern of aggressive iImperialistic warfare unfortunately spans the History of the Untied States of America. And these wars were not waged to protect “the home front”. It was waged to line the pockets of politicians and their friends.

Smedley Butler wrote War is a Racket in 1930 in response to WWI. One hundred seventeen thousand American service men died and another two hundred thousand were wounded in the Great War. Were they killed and maimed in order to make the World safe for Democracy? No. According to Smedley Butler the main reason why the U.S. got involved in the war was so that Great Britain and France would pay back their war debt. Those killed and wounded during the “War to end all Wars” did so to ensure the repayment of some $5 to $6 billion the allies owed to various U.S. banks, arms manufacturers and other war profiteers. Today how much blood are U.S. service men giving on the battlefield to pad the balance sheets of defense contractors and banks today?

Even before WWI the United States military and especially the U.S. Marines were used in many wars around the world to ensure huge profits for certain corporations. Smedley Butler (two time medal of honor winner) describes his experience while serving in the Corps:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Smedley Butler says that he was a “gangster for Capitalism”. I believe he was not describing free market capitalism but what we call today “crony capitalism” or what some in Iceland call “Devil’s Socialism”. That is when big government and big business get together and ensure that some corporations enjoy the gains while the public shoulders the cost. War is the epitome of the practice of privatizing the gains while socializing the losses. War is the greatest example of how crony capitalism benefits the very few at the expense to the many. Too bad not many remember that the wars of the past and those of the present follow this same horrific pattern.

The U.S. military unfortunately continues on spreading the Imperialism of Washington throughout the world with its 900 military installations, 11 aircraft carrier strike groups, and over two hundred thousand U.S. military personnel on foreign soil round the world. This does not lead to an increased “peace” but only increased pain for some and increased profit for others. And as John T Flynn wrote after WWII that U.S. military presence overseas can be used as a pretext for the next war.

We have managed to acquire bases around the world…There is no part of the world where trouble can break out where we do not have bases of some sort in which if we wish to use the pretension we can claim that our own interests are menaced. Thus menaced they (the bases) must remain when the war is over…a continuing argument in the hands of imperialists for a vast naval establishment and a huge army ready to attack anywhere or to resist an attack from all the enemies we shall be obliged to have. Because always the most powerful argument for a huge army maintained for economic reasons is that we have enemies. We must have enemies.

Today the United States Government continues its policy of “perpetual war” against “its” enemies. But what we must remember on this Memorial Day is that the United States Government wages wars to benefit the very few at the expense of the very many. Let us remember that we pay the price for the trillion dollar military industrial complex with higher inflation and higher taxation. We also suffer at home with a continual erosion of our natural rights to the ever increasing aggressiveness of the “police state,” put in place to kow the public and to protect the federal government’s growing power. And lets remember the over 6,000 who’ve died and another 40,000 who’ve been wounded during the “War on Terror.” They and their families have paid the steepest price of all defending the interests of a few at the expense of everyone else.

If you want to support the troops demand that the wars for profit end. And the only way to do that is to severely cut the military budget and force the Defense Department to only “defend” American land, sea and air. When you turn off the spigot of war spending, close the military bases around the world and keep our military close to home, we will find that the supposed enemies of the United States of America will dry up over night.

I think it was Garet Garrett a member of the “Old Right” who wrote back in the 1940′s in the midst of WWII that “[t]here are no longer citizens in the world only subjects.” When we accept increased militarism at home and the inevitable imperialism that follows abroad, we will continue to be “subjects” to the state and young Americans will continue to be sent to fight and die in foreign countries to benefit big government, bankers, and their friends.

We should remember on this Memorial Day that the wars waged by the United States Government instead of making the world safe for Democracy, American wars have been fought as Nock wrote to “make the world safe for U.S. investments, privileges and markets”. That is not something anyone should be ordered to die protecting.

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