Perfect! Thanks.Originally Posted by Cabal
Reply With Quote
Site Information
About Us
- RonPaulForums.com is an independent grassroots outfit not officially connected to Ron Paul but dedicated to his mission. For more information see our Mission Statement.
Perfect! Thanks.
Crony Capitalism, From Sea to Shining Sea
Ryan McMaken on the transcontinental railroad scam.
By Ryan McMaken
Mises.org
March 11, 2014
When Barack Obama used the transcontinental railroads as an example of the wonderful things that can be accomplished with grandiose government programs, he was attacked for mistakenly referring to the railroads as “intercontinental.” Notably, he was attacked by approximately no one for talking up a government program that in reality should be best remembered as a pioneering feat in government corruption, corporate welfare, and immense waste.
Although not related in quite the heroic terms it once was, the trans*continental railroads retain their place as one of the great alleged suc*cess stories of nineteenth-century America. According to the popular myths, the same myths now exploited by the president, and challenged by no one, the railroads, these supposedly great monuments to the ingenuity of American industrialists, united East and West by bringing together the economies of the West coast and the East coast. This government program then set the stage for the massive economic growth and national greatness that would occur in the United States during the early twentieth century.
And yet, few claims about the necessity or success of the transcontinental railroads are true. While none would argue that transcontinentals would not become economically feasible in the private market at some point, during the 1860s, as the first transcontinentals took shape, there was no economic justification. This is why the first transcontinentals were all creatures, not of capitalism or the private markets, but of government. There simply were not enough people, capital, manufactured goods, or crops between Missouri and the West coast to support a private-sector railroad.
As creatures of government and of taxpayer-funded schemes to subsidize the railroads and their wealthy owners through cheap loans and outright subsidies, the railroads quickly became scandal-ridden, wasteful, and contemptuous of the public they were supposed to serve.
This tale is told in grim detail in historian Richard White’s 2011 tome on the transcontinental railroads, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America, which exposes the near-utter disconnect between the railroads and the true geography of the markets in the mid-nineteenth century.
While it has been long-assumed that the West coast benefited immensely from the transcontinentals that connected the West coast to eastern markets, in fact the overland railroads made little difference. The West coast already had its own economy founded on exports to Europe and Asia, and Californians and Oregonians obtained all the goods they needed by sea. Indeed, for years after their completion, the railroads of the West coast were unable to effectively compete with the steamship operators (many of them also subsidized by Congress) that provided cheaper transportation of goods. Naturally then, this situation degenerated into a political competition between railroads and steamship companies seeking more favorable treatment from the federal government.
In general, however, the economy of the West coast turned to the more efficient and more competitive sea carriers. By the 1860s, the sea carriers were already taking advantage of well-developed trade with the Panama Railroad across Central America, completed in 1855, that was providing true transcontinental shipping at a much lower price over a much shorter overland route.
In spite of massive subsidies and free lands equal in size to New England, the lack of overland trade made it difficult for the railroads to turn a profit, and after a series of bankruptcies, bailouts, and other schemes, railroad owners like Leland Stanford, Thomas Durant, and Jay Gould managed to make a lot of money manipulating federal largesse, but many others, including families and ranchers who followed the flood of money and capital west during the boom, but who found themselves as paupers on the western plains after the bust, were ruined by the railroad’s bubble economy.
With the signing of the first bill to create the transcontinentals in 1862, it was already known that there was no economic justification for the railroads, which is why they were, according to White, “justified on the grounds of military necessity.” Lacking any privately funded-entrepreneurs willing to build a road through more than a thousand miles of territory uninhabited by whites, the 1862 Railroad Act created the Union Pacific, making it the first federally-created corporation since the Bank of the United States. Legal and economic shenanigans ensued, and it would not be until the 1890s that anyone built a privately-funded railroad, the Great Northern Railway.
Indeed, by the 1890s, global progress in technology and technique had greatly reduced the cost of constructing railroads. The benefits of waiting for the private sector to construct railroads when costs and consumer demand made them feasible could have been enormous. The costs of notwaiting were indeed huge. The transcontinentals set the stage for the corruption and corporate capitalism that now defines the Gilded Age in the minds of many. While much of the American economy of that era was characterized by very free markets, the railroad markets west of Missouri were anything but. In the end, the railroads constituted a huge transfer of wealth from taxpayers, Indians, Mexicans, and more efficient enterprises who found themselves competing with these subsidized behemoths.
It was the same old story of using the state to socialize costs while privatizing profits. As one opposition Congressman declared in response to the Railroad Bill, the enterprise was “substantially a proposition to build this road … on Government credit without making [the railroads] the property of the Government when built. If there be profit, the corporations may take it; if there be loss, the Government must bear it.”
Even if presented with this information today, many Americans, both left and right, are likely to just shrug and make the consequentialist argument that the railroads were “worth it” because without them, “America” (whatever that means to the one making the argument) wouldn’t be as “great” (another perfectly malleable term) without the transcontinentals being built by the U.S. government. This enormously presumptuous statement, however, completely ignores the opportunity cost of constructing and financing the railroads in that fashion. What else could have been funded with the resources that went to the railroads during the decades following the American Civil War? We’ll never know.
Yet even during the 1870s and 80s, when it became apparent to many that the railroads were a gargantuan waste of money, and most of the railroad companies were in bankruptcy, the railroad’s supporters claimed that it had all been a great idea because, although the railroads were bankrupt, the railroads themselves were still there, and were now presumed to be an immutable part of the landscape forever available for future Americans. Even that argument held no water, of course, because it turns out that railroads require an enormous amount of upkeep and maintenance. This was especially true of the first transcontinentals which were poorly and cheaply constructed, and which required rebuilding in many places. The railroads were in fact huge white elephants that in many cases could only be maintained with cheap government financing and other forms of corporate welfare.
Interestingly, White, in his conclusions in Railroaded, appears somewhat dismayed at the chaos that reigned among the railroad companies and within the so-called markets that connected the railroads to the farmers, ranchers, and miners who used the railroads for shipping. Lacking the insights of the Austrian School, White fails to see the booms, busts, and waste of the transcontinentals as the natural outcome of a government-dominated market divorced from a functioning consumer market or price system. White’s understanding of economics remains mired in neo-classical assumptions using buzzwords like “competition” and “efficiency” as the most important aspects of markets. In this, White is very much like his nineteenth-century subjects who, we learn from White, were themselves stuck in non-Austrian economic thinking that so often concludes that when markets appear to be broken, they can be fixed by government-mandated competition and government-determined prices that are said to be more “efficient.” The central role of the consumer, so well understood by Austrians, was often ignored by even the most consistent free-marketeer of that time and place.
I’m forced to forgive White for his ignorance of economics, however, for he has done a great service in providing us with such detailed and unvarnished documentation of the crony capitalist world of the transcontinental railroads. Although he’s likely a complete stranger to the works of Bastiat, White concludes that the unseen cost of the transcontinentals is one of the great ignored realities of the railroads. Those who dogmatically defend the government’s transcontinentals, White asserts, need to “escape” thinking that assumes the “inevitability of the present.” Yes, it’s a fact that the government-financed railroads were built, and yes, it’s a fact that American standards of living increased greatly in the decades that followed. The assumed connection between those two events, however, is on far shakier ground, and the assumption that it was right to tax and defraud millions of American taxpayers to make the enormous boondoggle a reality, is on the shakiest ground of all.
You guys still can't accept sourced denotative meanings of words in philosophical discussion...3 of you totally ignored evidence you were wrong about the meaning of the word "aggression" in philosophical and other scientific discussions. I can't continue a conversation with people in denial, so this debate is over, clearly. I'm sorry we couldn't agree on an objective meaning sourced from multiple credible and oft-used encyclopedias. I'm sorry you guys look to reference guides like dictionaries as pillars of definitive truth on the meanings of terms. I guess by that logic, "anarchy" must mean chaos to all 3 of you (and for at least 1 of you, I know that isn't true). You can't have it both ways. Either "anarchy" is "chaos", not a society organized according to the principles and ethics of anarchism (a philosophy which aims to create the least coercive world possible, or abolish coercion completely) AND "aggression" doesn't mean both retaliatory and initiated actions, OR "anarchy" is a society via the philosophy of anarchism, and "aggression" means what encyclopedias generally say it means - both self defense and initiations of aggression. It's one or the other.
I'll take encyclopedia meanings over dictionary meanings anytime when in philosophical and scientific discussions (which is what this was supposed to be).
And no, aggression is not synonymous with coercion...and I flatly proved this.
^Minimalist state socialism (minarchy) taken to its logical conclusions; communism.
Friend, you say you have a problem with "Non-aggression principle" which turns out to be your problem not with the principle but with your definition of the word "aggression." It's like you saying: "I have a problem with 2+2=4" but then turns out it's because you defined "+" to mean "division." Do you see a problem here?
I say it again, you do NOT have a problem with non-aggression principle, you have a problem with your misunderstanding of non-aggression principle which came about because of your erroneous, self-contradictory, and non-standard definition of the word "aggression."
To properly disagree with a principle you must first understand the principle as it was intended, not try to redefine its key terms.
With the same non-logic you can say "cat is not an animal, because I define 'animal' to mean 'chair'."
Definitions are important. Without them communication is impossible.
Last edited by Foundation_Of_Liberty; 03-19-2014 at 06:22 PM.
Cops (enforcers of the law) are far from “heroic” . . . but what about firemen?
Are they “heroes”?
People are taught – pressured – to regard them as such. It has become an almost religious fetish – very much like cop worship. But the image and the reality are two very different things – in both cases.
Like cops, firemen rely on force. And when someone can legally use force to get their way, they tend to become arrogant, entitled and increasingly contemptuous of those whom they “serve.”
Does this sound, er . . . familiar?
You are probably forced to pay for fire “services” in your community. Just as you are forced to “help” pay for law enforcement, even if you yourself feel no need for either service and would rather opt-out, if that choice were available to you. But of course, you have no such choice. And because you (and others) are forced to pay, there is no check on what is spent. The formerly small-scale local all-volunteer FD becomes professional – with salaried full-time firefighters who have contracts guaranteeing them large salaries and, of course, benefits. Multiple ladder trucks and other such vehicles appear – the costs shuffled onto the backs of the taxpayers in the area – who no longer have much, if any, say as regards the need for all this elaborate (and often, over-the-top) equipment. Since appearances must be maintained, all this elaborate, over-the-top equipment is often sent out en masse to cat-in-a-tree calls, with much show of emergency lights, special costumes, cones being set up and traffic stopped in its tracks.
The FD becomes another services-at-gunpoint bureaucracy – and the primary mission of any bureaucracy is to preserve and perpetuate itself, expanding itself if possible. The fighting of fires becomes of secondary or even tertiary importance.
Firemen do more than merely fight fires, too.
They also write and enforce fire codes – bureaucratic edicts dictating to a private business owner how many customers he may serve in “his” (in quotes to emphasis the irony) establishment. If the owner balks, the fire hero will summon other heroes – heroes with guns – to enforce compliance. Whether a building is a “fire hazard” – as defined by a fire hero – is not the issue. The issue is whether the building is private property – and whether the fire hero – or any other hero – has any right to impose his standards on the putative owner of the private property. If it is in fact his property, isn’t it up to him to gauge risk – and assume responsibility for same? Whence – how? – did it become the prerogative of Fire Fuhrers to overlord private property?
Firemen have also been known to prevent actual heroics. For instance, there was a case recently where a man was forcibly restrained by firemen and prevented from attempting to save his child, who was trapped inside a burning house. Ryan Miller was Tazered for “disobeying the orders of fire officials” who decided on his behalf that the life of his three-year-old stepson was not worth attempting to save. When Ryan ignored them, ” the fire chief then made the call to have Ryan handcuffed and taken to the police station” . . (see news story here).
Whether the man’s actions put him at risk of being hurt or even killed is beside the point. No, it is precisely the point. The man’s life was his to risk for the sake of his child, if he wished to accept that risk. The firemen at the scene – whose own children were safe in their beds – understandably did not wish to risk being burned alive to save someone else’s child (which would have been heroic). But how dare they prevent – forcibly prevent – a free man (sic) from attempting to save his own child?
Or his cat, for that matter.
The same arrogance that characterizes cop also suffuses the mindset of Hose Heroes. They know best – and it is our duty to step out of the way, defer to them, and do as ordered.
Or – and this is key – else.
If these fire fuhrers restricted themselves to offering help there would be no problem. But they do not confine themselves to merely offering.
They now insist.
Who does that remind you of?
And what does it tell you about the nature of their “services”?
When you are no longer free to say, “no thanks” to any service, then it is not a service but a racket. Whether it does some good is beside the point. The essential cretinhood of mobsters like Lucky Luciano – and more recently, Pablo Escobar - is not transformed into something benevolent because they occasionally helped out a deserving neighborhood kid. Just as occasionally catching an actual criminal (someone who has harmed another human being) in no way washes away the sin of abusing people over manufacturered “crimes” such as possessing an arbitrarily illegalized substance or verboten tool (such as a “high capacity” rifle magazine). Just as occasionally putting out a fire doesn’t make amends for shuttering a business on the basis of a “code violation” and violently assaulting a man for attempting to rescue his child from a blaze.
It all comes down to you’ve gotta have it – and do as we tell you . . . or else.
There is no legitimate reason for community fire services to exist on other than a voluntary/free-exchange basis. Just like dairy farms or restaurants or any another other provider of an ostensibly valuable service.
If a service is objectively valuable to people, they shouldn’t have to be forced to support it. They’ll do so freely – because it’s worth it to them. Starbucks does not need guns or threats to get people to buy Tall Bold coffees – even at $2 a pop.
When people are forced to buy in, it’s a clue that the service is not really valuable – much less “essential” (as fire and cop shops are often characterized).
And when people are threatened with violence without having done violence to anyone else first, then what we’re dealing with is tyrannical.
Read more here: http://ericpetersautos.com/2014/03/17/hose-heroes/
Libertarianism is nothing more or less than the law of justice and Liberty.
...
Libertarianism is concerned with the use of violence in society. That is all. It is not anything else. It is not feminism. It is not egalitarianism (except in a functional sense: everyone equally lacks the authority to aggress against anyone else). It has nothing to say about aesthetics. It has nothing to say about religion or race or nationality or sexual orientation. It has nothing to do with left-wing campaigns against “white privilege,” unless that privilege is state-supplied.
Let me repeat: the only “privilege” that matters to a libertarian qua libertarian is the kind that comes from the barrel of the state’s gun. Disagree with this statement if you like, but in that case you will have to substitute some word other than libertarian to describe your philosophy.
Libertarians are of course free to concern themselves with issues like feminism and egalitarianism. But their interest in those issues has nothing to do with, and is not required by or a necessary feature of, their libertarianism. Accordingly, they may not impose these preferences on other libertarians, or portray themselves as fuller, more consistent, or more complete libertarians. We have seen enough of our words twisted and appropriated by others. We do not mean to let them have libertarian.
As Rothbard put it:
There are libertarians who are indeed hedonists and devotees of alternative lifestyles, and that there are also libertarians who are firm adherents of “bourgeois” conventional or religious morality. There are libertarian libertines and there are libertarians who cleave firmly to the disciplines of natural or religious law. There are other libertarians who have no moral theory at all apart from the imperative of non-violation of rights. That is because libertarianism per se has no general or personal moral theory.
Libertarianism does not offer a way of life; it offers liberty, so that each person is free to adopt and act upon his own values and moral principles. Libertarians agree with Lord Acton that “liberty is the highest political end” – not necessarily the highest end on everyone’s personal scale of values.
Libertarians are unsuited to the thought-control business. It’s difficult enough trying to persuade people to adopt views dramatically opposed to what they have been taught throughout their lives. If we can persuade them of the nonaggression principle, we should be delighted. There is no need to complicate things by arbitrarily imposing a slate of regime-approved opinions on top of the core teaching of our philosophy.
Libertarianism is a beautiful and elegant edifice of thought and practice. It begins with and logically builds upon the principle of self-ownership. In the society it calls for, no one may initiate physical force against anyone else. What this says about the libertarian’s view of moral enormities ranging from slavery to war should be obvious, but the libertarian commitment to freedom extends well beyond the clear and obvious scourges of mankind.
Our position is not merely that the state [legalized aggressive violence] is a moral evil, but that human liberty is a tremendous moral good. Human beings ought to interact with each other on the basis of reason – their distinguishing characteristic – rather than with hangmen and guns. And when they do so, the results, by a welcome happenstance, are rising living standards, an explosion in creativity and technological advance, and peace. Even in the world’s partially capitalist societies, hundreds of millions if not billions of people have been liberated from the miserable, soul-crushing conditions of hand-to-mouth existence in exchange for far more meaningful and fulfilling lives.
Libertarianism, in other words, in its pure and undiluted form, is intellectually rigorous, morally consistent, and altogether exciting and thrilling. It need not and should not be fused with any extraneous ideology. This can lead only to confusion, and to watering down the central moral claims, and the overall appeal, of the message of liberty.
Read more: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/03/l...m-is-and-isnt/
Last edited by Foundation_Of_Liberty; 04-01-2014 at 12:15 PM.
What Is a Country, Anyway?
Secession and the Crimea
By Larry LaBorde
Silver Trading Company
April 3, 2014
It seems that the last thing the internet needs right now is another story on the Crimea but this is an older story.
Doug Casey once said he thought there should be 7 billion independent countries in the world – one for every human being on the planet. Just what is a country? The first thing that comes to mind is a group of people with a common culture that live in the same place that voluntarily band together for their mutual benefit. Sounds about right. However, how can 300+ million people in the US have a common culture? Can we even say that we all live in the “same” place? We are arguing about if we even speak the same language and can talk to each other in English. Cultural wars tear at the very fabric of our society. Some claimed that NAFTA was an effort to join the US, Canada and Mexico into a super government. Is this going in the right direction? Should countries be bigger to form super powers so that they can project vast military power around the world for the sake of controlling others? That seems to be the trend in the last 100 years or so.
Even in the United States, which was formerly known as the united States (lower case u), national power has trumped State sovereignty over the last 150 years. After the War of Independence, England signed 13 separate peace treaties with the colonies. The War Between the States was literally a war between independent sovereign states. Visit the battlefields and you will see monuments that were erected to honor individual State armies. The war was fought with separate State armies under a unified command much like the UN today. Each State had its own officers and chain of command. They fought as individual armies and orders from the unified command were given and went down the chain of command in each State army. At the beginning of the war General Lee was offered command of the united States unified command but turned it down because he could not fight against his native State of Virginia. He considered himself a citizen of Virginia first. So very different from today where individual states are mere political subdivisions of the United States Government. Before the 17th amendment to the constitution Senators were appointed by the State governors to serve as the governor’s ambassadors to Washington. Senators served at the pleasure of the governor and could be recalled. The 17thamendment weakened the power of the individual State governors.
It seems that the Crimea voted overwhelmingly to secede from the Ukraine. The big question is, “Can they do that?”. It is indeed a big question. It is the same question that is on the tip of millions of tongues around the world. In Europe there are dozens of major secession movements and hundreds of smaller ones. In the UK, Scotland is voting to break free soon. Will they be allowed to go peacefully? In Spain the Catalonia region with its different culture wants to be self-governing. In Turkey the Kurds want their right to self-determination. Venice wants to break away from Italy. Across the Atlantic in Canada the Quebec region has wanted independence for years. In the United States there are several current movements for independence. In Texas, which was a sovereign country prior to joining the union, there is a growing movement to secede. In New Hampshire the freestate project has been slowly gaining momentum for a few years. In Alaska, Sarah Palin’s husband has been active in their independence organization. In Colorado there is currently a push for several counties to break away and form their own state. California is just a matter of time. There is also a movement to form a new country out of Washington State, Oregon and BC. The list goes on and on.
What is the correct size for a country? Why is Costa Rica or Switzerland a good size and Texas or California is not?
Is it the business of Washington DC to hold onto a state such as Texas that wants to leave? Better yet, is it the business of Washington DC to order the Crimea not to leave the Ukraine on the other side of the world? Perhaps it is time to remove the log from our own eye before attempting to remove the speck from our brother’s eye. Oftentimes it is so much easier to fix someone else than to take a hard look at our own situation.
What really holds us together as a country? Some say the main glue that has subverted the individual State sovereignty is federal revenue sharing – money. If so, what happens when the checks from Washington DC stop coming? Or if the checks continue to come but they no longer buy anything? How long would it take more prosperous states to unhitch their wagons from a culture they no longer felt they were a part of anymore?
If you think countries are forever or that borders never change go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY9-rXxhyb0 for a few minutes and watch the old world change before your eyes.
What is our US culture that holds us together? Is it a belief in God? Is it a common language? Is it a belief in rugged individualism and self-determination? A belief that we can create a better life for our self and our family if we work hard and do the right thing? It seems that these beliefs are rapidly polarizing the country. Are we a Godly nation that believes in common law based on the Ten Commandments anymore? Or does whatever the majority happen to vote upon become the new law regardless of our rights? Do we have a sense of shared values? Do we have a national moral compass? Do we have morals at all? Are we givers or takers? Do we look within and to God for solutions or do we look to the State? Is one world government the answer or is it something smaller and more representative. If so, how much smaller?
Is the State the servant of the people (who have banded together for mutual benefit) or just “raw force” required to keep the peace between different cultures like Tito did in Yugoslavia for decades after WWII? What is a country? It is a serious question that requires serious thought. Once the bribes from Washington DC stop how long will ours survive? Will we be allowed to peacefully organize according to culture and beliefs in smaller groups or will the answer be raw power and force? Heaven help us all (all 7 billion of us).
Reprinted with permission from Silver Trading Company.
The Best of Larry LaBorde
Larry LaBorde [send him mail] sells precious metals at the Silver Trading Company, LLC.. Worried about storage issues? Ask us and maybe we can help.
Copyright © 2014 Silver Trading Company LLC.
I have no problem with the definition, as I quoted sources (encyclopedias) to back up the definition I gave. The problem is you won't accept the sourced denotative meaning of the word. You insist on using only a popular colloquial meaning. That's fine, but don't act like I'm the one with problem when we were trying to have a debate about ethics, which requires we define words correctly (that's how philosophy debates work...we define words using sources that aren't just people that agree with us, but that are widely accepted academic materials).Friend, you say you have a problem with "Non-aggression principle" which turns out to be your problem not with the principle but with your definition of the word "aggression."
It's like the debate I'm having in another thread with someone who refuses to accept minarchism is minimalist statism. They want to pretend the word "minarchy" isn't a form of statism. Well, I sourced half a dozen sources that said otherwise. But I have no real hope they will admit they are wrong there either. Some people are wed to their colloquialisms and the cover it provides them for their cognitive dissonance.
But whatever, carry on.
^Minimalist state socialism (minarchy) taken to its logical conclusions; communism.
I agree with your definition of minarchism as statism. Good one.
As for your definition of aggression, it is self-contradictory, and you were unable to show the precise difference between your definition of aggression and coercion. They are almost indistinguishable, which seriously muddies the water.
Our definitions of aggression are NOT merely "colloquial," but are widely accepted and widely understood definitions found in the most reputable dictionaries of the last 200 years.
Therefore it is our, non-self-contradictory definition that will stand.
Good luck, and thanks for your input.
Los Angeles, CA—I have a deep and unending love for Europe especially, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria and of course Switzerland. The culture, art and elegance of Europe are only matched by their terrific and productive people.
The 18 months I spent in Aschaffenburg, Germany in my youth serving as an Army medical corpsman as part of my compulsory military service was nothing less than pure joy for me.
Many of my European friends don’t understand my position on gun freedom. Some perhaps think somehow I’m perhaps violent because I own, carry and shoot guns. For me guns insure that there is less violence at least within my eyesight. My gun is a tool that serves as deterrence rather than a danger.
As a Chicago cop and as a private investigator my gun has saved many lives including my own. Criminals for the most part are cowards and they nearly always have ended their assaults, robberies, home invasions and such the second they saw my gun. I’ve arrested hundreds of criminals for crimes like murder, rape and robbery without violence because I had a gun.
Police are given guns because it has been proven that lives are saved as a result. If that was not the case they’d all be disarmed.
My European friends must remember their own past to understand the future. Between 1933-1945 Europe was on fire because of the political ambitions of Fascist and Nazi politicians. Tens of millions of good people were needlessly killed. Few families were spared from lost husbands, sons and brothers. They helplessly watched the destruction of their homes and businesses. That massive heartbreak and misery today is only a sad memory.
Since the beginning of time the leaders of nations have turned violent against their own populations killing millions. Politicians are often deadlier that all the criminals in the world. These are the same politicians that falsely lie to their people promising better public safety through bans on weapons. Sooner or later every government goes bad.
I shudder as my own presidents Bush and Obama have allowed the tyrannical privacy invasion by our spying as revealed by brave heroes risking all such as Assanage, Snowden and Manning. Why are we spying on our fellow Americans and European friends without warrants and court orders? We have become a criminal nation that routinely breaks the law! Why can’t we seem to stop this behavior?
Ambitious politicians like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini could not survive without first spying upon and disarming the honorable people of their nations. The more dangerous politicians are, the larger the bodyguard army they must maintain. Armed honorable people are always very dangerous to criminal politicians.
The amount of murders by common criminals can’t begin to compare to that of politicians. Politicians always begin with lots of smiles and handshakes. They make lots of promises of hope, prosperity and peace. After a trusting population hands them the power too many of them quickly change into tyrants.
This is simply about politicians empowering themselves to simply plunder the property of their own population. What always follows are informants, secret police, torture and murder under color of law soon replaces Liberty and Freedom.
One European nation has avoided this kind of disaster. Switzerland has managed to prevent ambitious politicians from gaining too mush power. A Swiss president for example serves for only a single two-year term. Political corruption is much more difficult to survive this way.
The Swiss people have the real power. It’s in the form a fully automatic military rifle and stockpile of ammunition required by law in virtually every home. Switzerland has a real Minuteman style defense system. Because of this you have not, nor will ever see masses of Swiss refugees moving about like frightened and starving sheep.
The Swiss stay out of efforts to colonize or otherwise invade other nations. They’ve become trusted to protect much of the world wealth in their banks.
In recent years the Swiss too have been poisoned with propaganda into ending gun freedom. This through the lies of the world’s politicians that know guns will control their own rogue behavior.
Every sane, sober and law-abiding man and woman on earth has a duty to train with and bear arms for the safety of their families, community and nation.
Those clever politicians that demand gun bans for “public safety” are always up to no good. Gun bans are the needed tools of Nazis, Communists and other Fascists.
I believe like the late and very wise, Anne Frank that most all people have good hearts. We must believe in and trust each other. If we do that we will never let another tyrant lead us into another government-sponsored bloodbath.
Please think about what I have written here and spread it around. This is why I believe that plenty of guns in the hands of the well-behaved masses are the best way to insure public safety.
Read more: http://www.crimefilenews.com/2014/04...ave-grave.html
How does this apply to the land?A just owner of a property is either:
i) the first user of it, or
ii) the recipient of it from the previous owner via voluntary gift, bequest or sale.
Specifically, who was the first user?
As I see it the first user of any given plot of land is all but impossible to determine.
And does the land speculator who does nothing with the land except own it - does he qualify in any sense as a "user"?
Do not these problems lead to the conclusion that the land must be regarded as belonging equally to all?
Last edited by febo; 04-15-2014 at 02:14 PM.
Do you agree that life depends on land, sea and air?All men hold equal Just Claims to Life.
Does it not follow that libertarianism MUST also declare that "All men hold equal Just Claims to land sea and air"?.
You need proof of being the first user. The one who has such proof should be considered the first user, until an earlier claim could be conclusively proven.
The "user" requirement applies only to the first owner. Subsequent owners receive it via voluntary gift, bequest or sale.
No it does not, no more than a watch found in the woods should be regarded as belonging equally to all. It belongs to the one who can prove ownership as described above. If the previous owner cannot be found, then the first one with a valid proof of the earliest use becomes the owner, until an earlier valid claim can be proven.
Last edited by Foundation_Of_Liberty; 04-16-2014 at 08:39 PM.
Why then stop with land, sea and air? Life also depends on food, transportation, housing and infinity of other things. Why then not proclaim "equal claims" to EVERYTHING?
All men have a right to THEIR property, not the property of others.
...
"libertarianism is really just the promotion of liberty, the non-aggression principle and the self-ownership of the individual. As Lew Rockwell wrote, libertarianism “begins with and logically builds upon the principle of self-ownership. In the society it calls for, no one may initiate physical force against anyone else.” And in my view, the advocacy of liberty and non-aggression naturally goes with the philosophy of individualism. Individualism goes hand-in-hand with the concept of self-ownership. The individual owns one’s own life, including one’s person, one’s labor and one’s justly-acquired property."
...
"In a truly free, libertarian society, there would be no medical racket protected by a State, and there would be no medical licensure or regulations. The licensure only protects bad doctors in the same way that teachers’ tenure protects bad teachers. In a libertarian society the good doctors would advance based on the word of consumers, not government bureaucrats. Also in a libertarian society, any drug or supplement maker would have the freedom to produce and sell a product on a totally free and open market as long as no actual fraud is committed. And consumers would be free to purchase whatever they want, and that’s it. No compulsory doctor’s prescription, no federal or state government agents worrying about whether someone is using a drug not approved by a bureaucrat, and so on.
And no “illegal drugs,” only “no aggression.” And that’s it. Freedom is not complicated.
And those are just a few examples."
Read more: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/04/s...ertarian-tent/
What's So Bad About Nazis?
Answer:
Aggressive violence,
in other words,
Violation of Private Property,
which is violation of Justice and Liberty
and the definition of Evil.
Last edited by Foundation_Of_Liberty; 04-26-2014 at 06:34 PM.
Five Stupid Complaints About Freedom
Gun Registration: Evil, or Just Stupid?
Yes, but to enforce the principle of private property a principal to enforce preceded the actual principal upheld.
And what about the principle of having your life unthreatened so private property can be enjoyed?
The meaningful practice of the principle has requisite principles.
Under the 1787 constitution there is the prime principal ability to alter or abolish government abusive to the principle of private property that is codified as Article V.
The intent of the Declatation of Indepence is that the right to alter or abolish be present to enforce the requisite of life needed to enjoy the liberty and principle of private property.
As "the people are the rightful masters of the congress and the courts, the prime intended purpose of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights is to assure information vital to survival is shared and understood.as well as all needed actions to alter or abolish abusive government and enforcement of the principle of private property.
Last edited by Christopher A. Brown; 04-26-2014 at 11:32 PM.
Not really. Private Property are the first words in that sentence. And secondly, It is not my task to define again every word in the language. You have to start somewhere. I start where the meaning is self-evident. Call it an axiom, if you will.
If you read the first principle carefully where it defines property, you will see that your life is a fundamental part of your Private Property, and a key part of your self-ownership, from whence all ownership derives.
The Original Constitution was inspired but flawed. It allowed for, and failed to forbid, any and all aggressive violence (aggressive violence being the very definition of evil and injustice), especially in the form of public taxation of Private Property, which taxation is nothing more than violation of Private Property, legalized plunder, institutionalized evil and injustice.
Hence I proposed 5 amendments to fix these glaring errors in the Original Constitution to square it perfectly with the Non-Aggression Principle, which is the definition of Justice and Liberty.
Last edited by Foundation_Of_Liberty; 04-27-2014 at 09:16 AM.
True, but those are consequential principles that derive from the initial, in this case by direct implication.
freedomisobvious.blogspot.com
There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.
It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.
Our words make us the ghosts that we are.
Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.
If you could magically change one belief in the minds of all people in present societies, what would it be and why?
Hoppe: I agree in this with my principal teacher, mentor, and master Murray Rothbard. I would only want people to recognize matters for what they truly are. I would want them to recognize taxes as robbery, politicians as thieves, and the entire state apparatus and bureaucracy as a protection racket, a Mafia-like enterprise, only far bigger and more dangerous. In short: I would want them to hate the State. If everyone believed and did this, then, as É. de la Boétie has shown, all power of the state would almost instantly vanish.
Read more here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/05/h...ibertarianism/
Please note that Hoppe's opposition to state is justified because of the definition of the word "state" that he uses.
There, however, exists a definition of a just state, that does not violate the NAP. Hans does not write about that.
For more information, please see:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4887540
Thank the Troops...?
Lew Rockwell: The Future of Freedom
Brian Wilson talks to Lew Rockwell about principles of Liberty.
It seems that my recent article, No Room for Statism in the Libertarian Tent, and my recent blog post, The Libertarianism Debate Continues, have touched a nerve with some people. One emailer felt that I was arrogant and simplistic, and on a “high horse” in my perhaps harsh evaluation of “minarchists” or “minimal state,” limited-government libertarians and my promotion of uncompromisingly principled libertarianism.
In my blog post, I wrote, ” if you support a State to exist to rule over my life, my person, my property, my labor and my contracts, and whose agents or employees are empowered to use threats and coercion against me if I don’t obey their rules regarding what they think I should do with my life, my person and property, and my labor and contracts (rules which go beyond ‘don’t aggress, don’t violate other people’s persons or property,’ etc.), then I find it very difficult to say that you are a libertarian.” I don’t see that as “simplistic” or “arrogant,” but merely clarifying the difference between actual libertarianism and statism.
All libertarianism is is the promotion of the non-aggression principle. Don’t initiate aggression. It involves self-ownership. I own my life, and you own your life.
But, as soon as you institute a “State,” an organization whose agents assume control over a particular territory and over the lives of the people within the territory, no matter how “limited” that State organization, what about those people within that territory who disagree with that organization’s control or monopoly of various “services,” or its method of collecting payments for such “services”? Such a method for such a scheme is contract-less and coerced. Right there you have abandoned the non-aggression principle, no?
So do you really want to empower that coercive government and its agents to have that kind of control over everyone in the territory even those who don’t consent to those State agents’ authority and control? And what, as long as 51% of the population voted for that system which rules over everyone including the other 49%, that’s okay? And the majority-elected rulers have the power to enforce their will on the minority with aggression, coercion and violence? That’s an acceptable “libertarian” view of society?
Obviously, with such a “limited government” that involves coercion and the use of aggression to enforce the will of the rulers or the majority, it is still a rejection of the non-aggression principle.
So really, because of the absence of a voluntary contract between the State’s agents and those over whom this State apparatus rules, and because of the empowerment of a group of people to make demands on those who do not consent to its rule and to use deadly force if dissenters resist such a rule, what we have here, as Murray Rothbard pointed out, is nothing more than a criminal enterprise. A racket.
Even a “limited government” is still an institution in which dissenters who might prefer to use private services (such as for security) may not do so because such alternative choices will not be recognized by the official “law” of the society, which isn’t really “law” at all, but a racket. Therefore, this “limited government” thing is really phony-baloney, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
So in the meantime, according to some who are minimal-State libertarians or who are anarcho-capitalists but feel that gradualism from current “Big Government” to liberty is the way to go, I ask you: Right now, when I’m walking down the street and this empowered government police officer wants to stop me and question me for no reason, and I’m minding my own business and he doesn’t suspect me of anything, and I say, “Would you mind leaving me alone, I’d like to go on my way,” and he doesn’t like that and wants to grab me and prevent me from going on my way even though he has no reason to suspect me of anything, what do you say then? We should keep this scheme of government monopoly in place? But only temporarily until we can convince more authoritarian sheeple to please let us have our freedom, dignity and peace? So according to your “limited government” system, if I try to defend myself against this gangster who has no moral authority to stop me, then I’m the criminal, and not the aforementioned neanderthal. No thanks.
And also, there are self-described “libertarians” who want to reform the local government police, reform the NSA, or reform Medicare or Social Security. Yet those schemes are all immoral and unjust monopolies, ponzi schemes and criminal rackets. You can’t reform a criminal racket, can you?
“Limited government” still involves the institutionalization of aggression as the official, legal means to enforce the will of the rulers and their enforcers, to push the will of the majority onto the minority, and it creates a two-tier system in which there is one set of laws for the rulers and their enforcers and another set of laws for everyone else. That’s hardly a libertarian way of life, in my view.
So reforming a criminal enterprise isn’t just merely rearranging the deck chairs. A criminal enterprise that enslaves and imprisons innocents can’t be a “limited” one. And an organization which uses only “minimal aggression” initiated against people can never be just.
I know, a lot of people have been brainwashed to accept the State and its monopolies and territorial control as a given. They are indoctrinated through 12 years of government-controlled schooling to idolize and be loyal and obedient to the State and not question its legitimacy.
The fact that so many amongst the population are so brainwashed to not question the State’s legitimacy is why honest persuasion on the justness and goodness and peace of liberty and libertarianism can better help to break through that indoctrination. Certainly the political process and elections (“We’ll elect that ’libertarian’ to office and he’ll shrink the size and intrusiveness of government, that’s for sure,” etc. etc. etc.) have not worked thus far. And that is because the inherent nature of the State is to always grow, become more powerful and intrusive, and never shrink. Instead of wasting time and money attempting to reform the criminal racket, it needs to be abolished, root and branch. More and more people are beginning to wake up to that and accept that fact.
Libertarians, stick to your guns in the cause of liberty. One helpful hint is to read Rothbard, Rockwell, and Hoppe. The future of libertarianism and liberty really depends on being uncompromising and 100% principled.
The Best of Scott Lazarowitz
Scott Lazarowitz [send him mail] is a writer and cartoonist,visit his blog .
Copyright © 2014 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Previous article by Scott Lazarowitz: In That Libertarian Tent
...
I am a libertarian. I subscribe to the non-aggression principle that says, in the words of Murray Rothbard: “The only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit except invade the person or property of another.” I am concerned with actions; I am not concerned with thoughts: I am concerned only with the negative consequences of thoughts. I believe that the non-aggression principle extends to government. Libertarians should therefore oppose or otherwise seek to limit the domestic and foreign meddling and intervention of governments, which are the greatest violators of the non-aggression principle.
I am a libertarian. I believe in the golden rule. I believe in live and let live. I believe that a person should be free to do anything he wants, as long as his conduct is peaceful. I believe that vices are not crimes.
I am a libertarian. Our enemy is the state. Our enemy is not religion, corporations, institutions, foundations, or organizations. These only have power to do us harm because of their connection with the state. And since war is the health of the state, the state’s military, wars, and foreign interventions must be opposed root and branch.
I am a libertarian. I believe in laissez faire. Anyone should be free to engage in any economic activity without license, permission, prohibition, or interference from the state. The government should not intervene in the economy in any way. Free trade agreements, educational vouchers, privatizing Social Security, etc., are not the least bit libertarian ideas.
I am a libertarian. The best government is no government. That government that governs least is the next best government. Government, as Voltaire said, at its best state is a necessary evil and at its worst state is an intolerable one. The best thing any government could do would be to simply leave us alone.
I am a libertarian. Taxation is government theft. The government doesn’t have a claim to a certain percentage of one’s income. The tax code doesn’t need to be simplified, shortened, fairer, or less intrusive. The tax rates don’t need to be made lower, flatter, fairer, equal, or less progressive. The income tax doesn’t need more or larger deductions, loopholes, shelters, credits, or exemptions. The whole rotten system needs to be abolished. People have the right to keep what they earn and decide for themselves what to do with their money: spend it, waste it, squander it, donate it, bequeath it, hoard it, invest it, burn it, gamble it.
I am a libertarian. I am not a libertine. I am not a hedonist. I am not a moral relativist. I am not a devotee of some alternative lifestyle. I am not a revolutionary. I am not a nihilist. I neither wish to associate nor aggress against those who are. I believe in the absolute freedom of association and discrimination.
I am a libertarian.
Read more: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/05/l...a-libertarian/
Note: The word "State" as it is used here means an entity that claims a "right" to engage in aggressive violence. Under that definition it is correct to say that State is the enemy of all humanity and of all that is good, because aggressive violence is the definition of EVIL and injustice.
There is, however a different definition of the word "state" as public property and its just government. Such institution does not violate the Non-Aggression Principle, and therefore has a right to exist. Such just state corresponds to the Third fundamental principle of liberty as described in the top post.
Last edited by Foundation_Of_Liberty; 05-06-2014 at 05:11 PM.
Posting Permissions
Connect With Us