EXCELLENT SPEECH!!! "The State is Too Dangerous to Tolerate" by Robert Higgs

[BuddyRey]

I believe this was taped during the recent week-long Mises Media event that was streamed live on YouTube. In case you guys missed it, this is an absolute must-hear!

[Kotin]

[BuddyRey]

Bump!

[helmuth_hubener]

Higgs used to be a minarchist.

[torchbearer]

thanks for the tube.

[BuddyRey]

thanks for the tube.

No problemo!

[BuddyRey]

Higgs used to be a minarchist.

Just goes to show you're never too old to grow and learn from past mistakes.

[Occam's Banana]

@ 27:10 in OP video ...

The debate between statists and anti-statists is in my judgement not evenly matched. Defending the continued existence of the state, despite having absolute certainty of a corresponding continuation of its intrinsic engagement in extortion, robbery, willful destruction of wealth, assault, kidnapping, murder, and countless other crimes, requires that one imagine non-state chaos, disorder, and death on a scale that non-state actors seem completely incapable of causing.

What he said.

[Cabal]

Higgs used to be a minarchist.

Such is the story of most anarchists, in my experience (including myself).

[axiomata]

Be wary of any anarchist that wasn't a minarchist first, he might be of the bomb throwing variety.

[BuddyRey]

Such is the story of most anarchists, in my experience (including myself).

Yeah, I'd think it would be highly uncommon for someone to be a "born anarchist". Not saying they don't exist, but I've never met one - though I would totally envy such a person for all the years of soul-searching and reprogramming they were spared.

[Cabal]

Yeah, I'd think it would be highly uncommon for someone to be a "born anarchist". Not saying they don't exist, but I've never met one - though I would totally envy such a person for all the years of soul-searching and reprogramming they were spared.

Lol, indeed. I don't recall ever meeting one either. I only ever seem to meet die-hard statists, stalled minarchists, or ex-minarchist anarchists.

[Occam's Banana]

@ LRC: http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/...liest-scourge/

Dr. Robert Higgs’ powerful and scathing remarks on the destructive criminality of the State delivered to students at the Mises University reminded me of my February 12, 1990 “Point of View” Op-Ed column for The Tulsa Tribune (circulation 67,000). It is more than quite ironic that it was published on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

GOVERNMENT: THE DEADLIEST SCOURGE

Civilization is based on the fear of violent death. Thus concluded authoritarian political philosopher Thomas Hobbes in his famous Leviathan in 1651, written following the devastation and chaos of the English Civil War. Man’s fate without organized civil government was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” Hobbes concluded.

Yet somberly reflecting upon the untold billions butchered over hundreds of centuries by the systematic slaughter of war, slavery, torture and famine, one must agree with Edmund Burke that, in fact, statism has been mankind’s deadliest scourge.

Burke, founding father of conservatism, in surveying man’s sordid record in his classic, A Vindication of Natural Society, in 1756 observed: “By sure and uncontested principles, the greatest part of the governments on Earth must be concluded to be tyrannies, impostures, violations of the natural rights of mankind, and worse than the most disorderly anarchies.” The cure was worse than the disease.

History has seen the unvarying, wearisome parade of one parasitic government succeeded by another for thousands of years. Is this the price we have paid for civilization?

While we eagerly await the welcome demise of a Nicolae Ceausescu, an Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Ferdinand Marcos or Manuel Noriega, visible rulers are always vulnerable. It is in the hidden, murky political sub-strata where insurgency is born.

Despite their labeling, all governments are oligarchies. All states or regimes are characterized by the brutal struggle for power in its diverse open and concealed forms by competing elites. (Just ask former House Speakers Jim Wright and Jim Barker).

The most significant political division to be observed in such internecine warfare is that between the rulers and the ruled, the “ins” and the “outs,” the elite and the non-elite. The primary object of every government ruling elite is survival — masquerading under the rubric of “national security” — the jealous maintenance of its power, prestige, opulence and privilege against all potential rivals.

This rule is initially based upon naked force and fraud. Later, it is sustained by habituation to subjection and obedience by an elaborate formula propped up with a widely held ideology, religion, or myth.

“The devices — of bread and circuses, of ideological mystification and dependency — that all rulers today use to bamboozle and gull the masses have not substantially changed for centuries,” observed economist and political philosopher Murray N. Rothbard.

All governments, no matter how ruthless and despotic (or seemingly benevolent and just), rest upon this “engineering of consent” of the gullible majority, largely by the propaganda beamed at the populace by the rulers and their intellectual apologists in the complacent and compliant news media.
Governments do not remain in power except by the willing acquiesce and apathetic resignation of their subject peoples.

In 1989, we witnessed an elemental force of destructive fury spontaneously arise to cleanse the Earth of the barbarism of statism and its attendant corruption and predation. This hurricane-like ferocity is freedom, and its contagion is sweeping from continent to continent, nation to nation, person to person.

Freedom has always been the genius of American civilization; indeed, of all civilization. It is time for each of us, as Americans and, more importantly, as human beings, to solemnly renew our civic religious legacy, and swear in our hearts with Thomas Jefferson, “eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

It is time for each of us to be in the vanguard of this worldwide renascence of human liberty in the last decade of the 20th century, joining in solidarity with our brothers and sisters abroad in declaring war upon the state, all governments, as destroyers of rights and plunderers of the common heritage of humanity.

# # #

Charles A. Burris is a writer and political communications research consultant.

[green73]

@ 27:10 in OP video ...



What he said.

I paused at that point, thinking I better remember that. Truly, a great speech overall.

[helmuth_hubener]

We really need to get rid of the State!

How are we going to do it?

[Henry Rogue]

Lol, indeed. I don't recall ever meeting one either. I only ever seem to meet die-hard statists, stalled minarchists, or ex-minarchist anarchists.

It didn't take much to convince me. Achieving a stateless society seems like a daunting goal, but the need for it is apparent.

[osan]

thanks for the tube.

You make that sound so naughty...

[Tod]

We really need to get rid of the State!

How are we going to do it?

It seems to me that it can only be achieved through education, but not everyone has to be on board. Enough people have to be on board, however, to be able to defend themselves against those who would seek to use a state to quash the free. The more there are, the greater the chance of success and the less the chance of bloodshed. Unfortunately, we seem to have quite a ways to go. I wonder what the percentage is of people who consider themselves to be anarchists/voluntaryists?

[euphemia]

I don't do well with video. Is there a transcript somewhere?

[Acala]

Great talk. Compelling.

[helmuth_hubener]

It seems to me that it can only be achieved through education, but not everyone has to be on board. Enough people have to be on board, however, to be able to defend themselves against those who would seek to use a state to quash the free. The more there are, the greater the chance of success and the less the chance of bloodshed. Unfortunately, we seem to have quite a ways to go. I wonder what the percentage is of people who consider themselves to be anarchists/voluntaryists?

Good thoughts; yeah, I think you're right.

My own idea that lately I come back to most often as I ponder a solution is that of a free town or low-population county. I have a thread on it here:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...Town-or-County

There don't seem to be many who are as interested in it as I am. But, that's just based on posts to that one obscure thread. There may be lots of libertarians out there willing to do this, way more than I had ever thought. Hard to say.

I think that having a freedom showcase if you will would serve as a powerful persuasive tool.

[Occam's Banana]

I don't do well with video. Is there a transcript somewhere?

I haven't been able to find one. They should put one out ("they" being the Mises Institute.)

[Tod]

Good thoughts; yeah, I think you're right.

My own idea that lately I come back to most often as I ponder a solution is that of a free town or low-population county. I have a thread on it here:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...Town-or-County

There don't seem to be many who are as interested in it as I am. But, that's just based on posts to that one obscure thread. There may be lots of libertarians out there willing to do this, way more than I had ever thought. Hard to say.

I think that having a freedom showcase if you will would serve as a powerful persuasive tool.

I like your idea and would certainly give it serious consideration if it were in an area in which I wanted to live. I periodically look at land available in New Hampshire with the thought of moving there in the future (not currently in a position to move).

Given the immorality of the State, I really don't understand Keith's claim that it would be wrong to take over an area, especially if the existing system of government is used to dismantle itself. Change is inevitable and no one can expect that the little part of the world around their private property won't.

One thing I'm a little puzzled by with the FSP is that a smaller area within the state wasn't selected as the focal point for initial movers so that town (and then county) could serve as the persuasive tool that you describe. It would also allow for the creation of voluntary solutions to things that the state currently controls (such as muh roads).

[Christian Liberty]

Lol, indeed. I don't recall ever meeting one either. I only ever seem to meet die-hard statists, stalled minarchists, or ex-minarchist anarchists.

Theonomists sort of break that model. And then you have minarchists who just stay minarchist.

We really need to get rid of the State!

How are we going to do it?

I don't know if its possible to get rid of it entirely, though I certainly want to.

[osan]

We really need to get rid of the State!

How are we going to do it?

If it can be at all achieved any longer, methinks violence will be the only route to success, barring a near-extinction reset event.

I base this speculation on the facts I see at hand.

Firstly, Theye want the power of command and obedience.

Secondly, They want it perfectly, which is to say that they want it absolute and guaranteed. In order to do this, Theye must widen the gap in terms of both material and psychological power as vastly as possible in order to render to vanishing the potential for usurpation of their power into other hands.

Thirdly, and pursuant to point the second, Theye have set into place during the past 20 years that which no king in our historical memory has ever dared dream possible, technologies that have broadened that gap to an extent that, so far as I can see, approaches a threshold of non-recoverability.

Fourthly, and pursuant to point the second, during the past century-plus Theye have altered the perceptual landscape of the common man in ways that many of us can but barely conceive. For example, many behaviors that in 1900 would have been viewed as depraved and worthy of the lash or worse are today viewed with the blandness of the bored. A man from that day, having been transported to this time and finding his great-great grand daughter tattooed to her four corners and her pubic hairs shorn away, would undoubtedly beat her in a fit of shock-fueled fear for her very soul, her father having then to peel great-granddad off Janey that she not end up wholly separated of her hide. The point here is that the Meaner, which is to say the average and common man, has been reduced to such a retrograde state of existence that he is neither aware of his frightfully unenviable position as a Perfect Slave¹, nor has he any interest in becoming so. In addition, his current and deplorable condition is such that were the truth to be revealed to him, he would have no interest whatsoever in seeing it altered in any manner or degree.

Fifthly, Theire designs are intergenerational. Theye have been working at this many a year, have devoted those generations to the achievement of unchallengeable global hegemony, and most likely believe themselves entitled to their positions of unquestioned supremacy.

Sixthly, and pursuant to point the fifth, Theye are not likely to assume any unnecessary risks to that position, particularly now that they are this close to sewing things up once and for all, what with the successful emplacement of so much instrumentality to that end.

Seventhly, it should be at least considered the possibility that Theire mental landscapes, too, have been in some manner and degree compromised by the alterations they have brought into the worlds of men. I assert this because in my view it is nearly impossible to so totally alter an environment for the "benefit" of others, and separate oneself from that very climate to such a degree that he remains unaffected by it. The only question remaining, then, is to what degree and in what manner have Theire mental positions been altered. It is not implausible to suggest that Theye have bent their own vision and opinion in ways that endanger themselves as well as the rest. It is not inconceivable that Theye, unawares, have lapsed into a profound insanity that threatens the very existence of all men and perhaps even all significant life on this world.

Eighthly and finally, given the points prior; given the great care, patience, and investment in the various efforts; given the apparently steadfast resolution with which the holy grail of tyrants has been pursued by Theire generations over the ages; and given the strong possibility that Theye have fallen unintentionally into madness, there is no reason to believe that at this late stage of the game Theye would not be willing to sacrifice the life of the entire planet if their coveted positions were to meet with imminent termination.

Given all this, it requires no leap of reason to then directly infer that Theye are not going to go quietly and that the only way they will give up their current standing will be to have it pried from them with great violence. Do not forget that Theye will never do their own actual fighting, but rather will have their loyal stooges at their feet to do the dirty work at their behest, but in the name of "something great" in which said stooges have been cowed into believing. Consider the frightful ease with which the mob is manipulated to virtually any action demanded of them. The single example of the Lusitania's sinking should be all that one needs to satisfy himself of this. The brutishly clever British, avatars nonpareil of human depravity whose viciously presumptuous avarice for power and position needed nothing more than to hang an ocean-going passenger liner as bait for the Germans to bite upon, the resultant death toll so horrifying the isolationist American meaner at that time, that all notions of national neutrality were literally swept aside from sea to shining sea within minutes of the news' arrival.

Consider the resources at Theire disposal - both material and psychological. Any real threat "within the system" is neatly and readily handled with the manifold tools at Theire disposal, ranging from mere propagandizing all the way up to outright terrorism (false flag events, for example) and large-scale open warfare. The combination of these well-honed weapons, comprising the most powerful stick-and-carrot show on the planet, will likely achieve whatever expedience circumstance dictates. That is why even large scale violence is unlikely to dethrone Themme at this stage of the game. But if anything is to have the least hope of success, it is likely just that: mass armed revolt. Knowing human proclivity as I do, I comfortably assert that reason and formal procedures are not going to achieve the goals that are here under consideration: the dismantling of Empire. It simply will not happen that way because the proponents of Empire are utterly implacable. Nothing will persuade Themme and therefore they must be handled in the most materially unequivocal fashion: complete destruction.

This conclusion brings me no joy. It does, in fact, fill me with a sense of overbearing doom because I do not for a moment believe that sufficient numbers of men will see this truth, much less be moved to act as did the Minutemen, who pledged their lives and fortunes, such as they may have been, to the goals of free life for the posterity they so clearly and dearly loved. How many of us will stand before the enemy's rifle fire to that end?

All that said, we have nothing to lose by trying on all fronts, even those that appear of utterly hopeless potential. For if we give up, we are certainly lost. I for one hold no relish for the thought of existing on my knees in bow to a raft of mad and scurrilous bastards for whom I would not insult my feces by applying them there.

As I always repeat, likely to the rolling eyes and pain of my cohorts here, work as best you can toward the goals of reclaimed liberty, but do so with reality in mind. Know ye that if this is to be a real fight, it is likely to be very ugly, very violent, and very dangerous. If these truths frighten you with sufficiency, go home and accept what fate will serve unto thee, for all the wishful thinking in the world will not alter this truth so much as a whit.



1. "Perfect Slave" vis-á-vis, for example, "chattel slave" wherein the latter requires direct expenditures by the owner to maintain the life of the asset in terms of housing, food, health, and quarter-mastery, the costs of which tend to the capricious and prohibitive, the Perfect Slave is saddled with these direct responsibilities to his own slavery, thereby freeing the master of the burden of duty, thereby dramatically lowering his costs.

A perfect slave's closest historical analog would be the serf, the primary difference between them laying in the fact that the former enjoys a grossly circumscribed set of discernible rights in comparison with the latter. This is one of the products of a century's expended effort to rearrange the perceptual landscape such that the outrage now becomes the coveted. That which would once have driven men to bloody and murderous revolt now threatens the same if it is withheld. The slave now demands of his master his rightful demeaning at master's hand because it is familiar to him. What is familiar is comfortable and comfort is that which all men seek, no matter how strangely and incomprehensible the form for one man may appear to another.

[BuddyRey]

^ That was incredibly chilling, foreboding, and emotionally taxing to read, but we all needed it, including me. +rep

I agree, we're reaching a point in the foreseeable future where any type of revolution, let alone a peaceful one, will be virtually impossible. Now that even the U.N. is debating the ethics of employing automatons in warfare, and the overpaid sociopaths at DARPA are busily engineering surveillance drones the size of mosquitoes, our own internal doomsday clocks should probably be set to around 11:55 at the very earliest.

[helmuth_hubener]

^ That was incredibly chilling, foreboding, and emotionally taxing to read, but we all needed it, including me. +rep

I agree, we're reaching a point in the foreseeable future where any type of revolution, let alone a peaceful one, will be virtually impossible. Now that even the U.N. is debating the ethics of employing automatons in warfare, and the overpaid sociopaths at DARPA are busily engineering surveillance drones the size of mosquitoes, our own internal doomsday clocks should probably be set to around 11:55 at the very earliest.

I personally do not think so. I think the state is far more fragile and vulnerable (and stupid) than Osan gives it credit for.

One thought: what percentage of the wealth of the nation is in the state? I would estimate a relatively small percentage: under 25%. Yes, it steals half our income, 40% by GDP as you can see below (but that understates it because gov't spending is then itself counted as part of the GDP!),

but the vast majority of it it burns, much of the rest it flushes down the toilet, and finally the remainder is ground up into tiny confetti pieces and spread evenly over the Pacific Ocean.

So there is relatively little of value that the government owns. It doesn't have overwhelming assets. What it does have, it destroys and wastes prodigiously fast. It has a lot, but not as much as you would think. The private sector has more.

Far more, in fact.

In conflicts, the side with the most assets wins. That means that in some kind of war or conflict between the private sector and the government sector, were such a thing to break out (and it would be a funny kind of war) the private sector would win.

One key, I believe, would be to not engage the state on its own terms. Don't fight the state on its ground in a traditional, imagination-less way. That is: don't just use lots of mindless violence and fight a normal war. Violence is the state's specialty. To a large extent, I believe a fed-up private sector could buy them out (bribe key people to defect) and starve them out in a sort of a distributed, inescapable siege.

[osan]

[QUOTE=helmuth_hubener;5719613]I personally do not think so. I think the state is far more fragile and vulnerable (and stupid) than Osan gives it credit for.[/quot lestte]

Perhaps you misread my words. I made special effort to note the possibility that Theye are deeply insane. But they have at Theire disposal resources you probably cannot imagine. I can imagine at least one because I was involved in its development. All I can say is that if that thing were put to the right hardware and mass produced, we will be in some serious $#@!.

I agree not to overestimate, but better that than to underestimate an enemy. This is Strategy 001 and you will find it in the works of Macchiavelli, von Klausewitz, and Sun Tzu, just to name three of the more popular authors on such matters.

One thought: what percentage of the wealth of the nation is in the state? I would estimate a relatively small percentage: under 25%.

Perhaps, but it depends largely on what is meant by "in the state". That said, to consider 25% as a small percentage is to me bordering on crazy. I would consider 1% of GDP to be larger than I would care to see.

Yes, it steals half our income, 40% by GDP as you can see below (but that understates it because gov't spending is then itself counted as part of the GDP!),

Steals half our income, which no longer even services the interest. The REAL funding is pulled from the Fed's backside as if by magick.

[Government]doesn't have overwhelming assets.

What do you call Theire fleet of nuclear powered carriers and ballistic missile submarines? What do you call the state of Nevada? The list goes on a VERY long way.

The private sector has more.

Subject to confiscation at any time and without due process. See NDAA. PATRIOT, EOs, etc.

Besides, government does not have to claim title to an asset to own it in practical terms. So long as they can control it, an asset is not really the property of the nominal owner.

One key, I believe, would be to not engage the state on its own terms. Don't fight the state on its ground in a traditional, imagination-less way. That is: don't just use lots of mindless violence and fight a normal war. Violence is the state's specialty. To a large extent, I believe a fed-up private sector could buy them out (bribe key people to defect) and starve them out in a sort of a distributed, inescapable siege.

You are dreaming a poor dream.

First of all, the state can starve us out, literally. Cut off the interstates, rail, and air corridors and see how long people last without basic necessities. Hell, just depriving the meaner of toilet paper would make him passing miserable. No food, no water, no fuel... those three alone would see 75% or better capitulation in under a month's time. People would be FREAKING OUT, especially the non-adepts in the cities.

Buy them out? You mismeasure Themme. Theye are cause-oriented, much like the stereotypical suicide bomber. Theye are not for sale. Some of Theire lapdogs certainly are, IMO. But the Cadre is not. Theye will put the issues to rest LONG before anyone begins getting notions such as what you suggest here. These people are MAD, but they are not stupid.

These are not supermen, but they are very clever, single-minded, and utterly ruthless. Their patience, rather than any super power, has lofted them to the apex of power. Theye did their do quietly and with discipline and now hold so much of the world in their hands that prying it loose is going to be quite the trick. Theye have the advantage of numbers on their side: the hundreds of millions of billions of parasites who will back the hand that feeds them for free. How many US welfare ticks do you think will side with "us" when the poo hits? Nary a one because to do so would be to put out their own eyes. Why would you fight against the source of your sustenance? Unless Theye commit an impossibly egregious error, this is never going to happen. We do not have only Themme with whom to contend, but in American the tens of millions of welfare ticks who will happily take up arms against you in exchange for all manner of promises of booty and a life of crack-pipe leisure.

The army at Theire disposal is tens of millions strong. Once those legions are frightened sheet-white and the propaganda machine goes into high gear with the sticks and carrots they so appealingly dangle before the wad of infantile intellects across the land, the rest will be toast if all they plan on is peaceful action. At some point, you have at least to threaten to kill your tyrant and you have to mean it. If he doesn't wise up, you do in fact have to kill him. History is lousy with examples of this and of the consequences of not doing it. Saddam Hussein is a fair to middling example in the wake of our failure to root him out and kill him stone dead after the first gulf war. Like a bad penny, he kept coming back until we finally nabbed him and took care of business.

None of this is to say that what you suggest has no value. It has great value, but it is not sufficient in itself to achieve the presumed objectives. Theye will never sit still for this and if our actions threaten THEIRE children, you had better know in your heart of hearts that they will slaughter us to the man if they can get away with it.

The only real question in my mind is this: at what level of carnage, destruction, and mass murder will the Chain Of Obedience break down? I am sure some smart people somewhere have studied this. Anyone have any thoughts?

What I mean is this: imagine an isolated island of 1000 population. It is a typical empire-based nation-state. "Government" is, let us say, your 25% or 250 strong. Imagine a great civil war as I suggest immediately above and Theye are threatened, therefrom giving orders to "kill 'em all; let Got sort them out" Imagine the fighting force is well armed, numbering 100. They slaughter a bunch... say 500, leaving 500 people on the island of Totalia. The "army" stops because they deem they have killed enough, that the job is done. But the whipmaster orders them to keep going, so they do, if somewhat reticently. Now down to 350, the army is satisfied they have done enough but the master urges them on. At what point will the army, despite being part of Theire "family", so to speak, refuse and perhaps even turn on Themme?

That is a question I am sure many of us would like to know.

[helmuth_hubener]

Just depriving the meaner of toilet paper would make him passing miserable.

Where does toilet paper come from?

[helmuth_hubener]

Where does toilet paper come from?

Since no reply comes, I will give you the answer: from the store, of course! The store is part of the market. The entire supply chain is part of the market.

The market runs things. The market does things. The state is weak. The market is strong. The state is utterly dependent on the market for continued sustenance. The State's hand is weak. It relies on bluff. If the market calls? The market wins.

Period.