Last weekend, I traveled from Boston to Cleveland and back, by plane. I had a connection in Philadelphia, where I needed to switch planes. The airline I was flying, US AIR, now charges extra for stowed baggage, so I brought my suitcase on the plane with me, in order to save money. You see, I had been charged a 33% tax on my flight (about $50) to pay for all the wonderful things the government would ask me to do, on my peaceful way to see a friend. Fifty dollars buys a lot of food.
I had three pieces of contraband with me - my shaving lotion and aftershave, in my grandfather’s toiletry bag, stuffed into the suitcase itself; and a bottle of bubble bath, which was a gift for a friend, in my knapsack (in a colored bag that the shopowner had packed it in). I REALLY didn’t want this bubble bath to be confiscated (it was nice small-shop stuff), but since its price had been about half of what it would cost to check a bag, simple reason compelled me to risk it.
Check the bag - $30.
Don’t, get caught, and have to buy another one - $15.
Don’t, and not get caught = $0.
Since my plane was leaving in only about 30 minutes, I did not subject the TSA agents to my right not to take off my shoes. My bookbag was flagged for a closer inspection. Here is a transcript of the convo I had, at 5:30 in the morning, with a slightly bedraggled and middle-aged woman, in a ridiculous uniform.
“Sir, I’m going to have to take a peak in this bag.”
“Very well.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you carry this on.”
“Why?”
“Since 2003, bottles over 3.4 ounces aren’t allowed.
“Why?
“The contents might be combined with something else, to produce explosives.”
“It’s bubble bath; it hasn’t even been opened. It’s a present for a friend of mine. Can’t one of your tests verify the truth of my claim?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Well, at least admit that you are assuming guilt on my part, instead of treating me like the peaceful person I am.”
“It’s just the rule.”
“And the rule is that you can use force to take my property, arbitrarily.”
And so on. The most ridiculous argument that this woman used in defense of her behavior was a rhetorical question that she put to me, but which really she should be putting to herself: “Don’t you want to feel safe from terrorists, on the plane?”
No. I don’t want to FEEL safe on the plane. I want to BE safe on the plane. As I stood there, watching her sniff the bar of girly soap I had bought to go with the bubble bath, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she and her accomplices had failed to detect my TWO other bottles, and that therefore, their security plan was not particularly effective in conjuring a feeling of safeness in my bosom. Really, I felt more frustrated with the fact that, instead of having $50 to buy my friend a nice dinner, and a $15 bottle of nice bubble bath, I instead had the pleasure of a morning conversation with someone whose whose job contributes to the consumption of wealth, instead of to its saving and accumulation.
Welcome to the destructionist economy, now entering its final stages.
Here is a video of my speech at the “End the Fed” protest on the 25th. I had been meaning to organize the thoughts I have had on the process by which a person like myself - who had absolutely no interest in monetary policy two years ago - comes to a fuller understanding of what money is, how it works, and what the role of the central bank is in our semi-socialist economy.
Yesterday, I attended my second protest organized by members of “End the Fed” - not one group so much as several affiliated sound-money organizations and activists who have come together under one national slogan. The first nation-wide protest took place on November 22, 2008 - its goal was to raise awareness about how the Federal Reserve is destroying what little is left of our formerly capitalistic system, like a worm hollowing out an apple from the inside. By continually devaluing our money, the Fed is destroying the very foundation upon which all economies are based - a reliable medium of exchange. The Fed’s inflationary policies redistribute wealth from small savers, and people on fixed incomes (the poor and elderly, for example), to politicians and bankers. To make matters worse, the Fed’s attempts to “regulate” the general level of prices, by constantly tinkering with the supply of money (a power that allows it to alter the value of the dollar at will) - results in the business cycle, which puts millions of people through the ringer every few years, during the “bust” phase. But you don’t have to take my word for it - why not read a couple of articles by Keynes and Mises and then see whom YOU believe?
It is a combination of a general ignorance of economics, coupled with an unfounded belief in the power of government to solve economic problems, that has led America to where it is today: at the doorstep of full-blown fascism. Again, don’t take my word for it - learn for yourself what the definition of fascism is, according to the man who invented it; see how the U.S. currently stacks up to the society that this man built for his people, supposedly for their own “good.” There are respected thinkers on both sides of the artificial and self-reinforcing political dichotomy that passes for rational discussion in this country, who will also make this point. Radical feminist liberal Naomi Wolf, for example; and Ron Paul, statesman and revolutionary. After examining the facts, I think most Americans will at least admit that a system of economic fascism is certainly the end that will be achieved if the current trend in our economic life is continued for a few more years.
I gave a speech yesterday about the mental stages I believe many people will pass through on their way to an accurate understanding of what money is and how it works in the false republic we live under. I obviously cannot say how it actually FEELS to be another person, but I remember how I have felt over the past 18 months or so. Here is the text of the speech, in downloadable PDF form. I will post video as soon as it is available.
Revolution is primarily a process of education. Sam Adams, one of our great political philosophers, understood that the great battles of human history are fought not by soldiers – but by teachers; not on deserts, mountains, or city streets – but in the minds of men. All revolutions begin with “an irate, tireless minority” who – by definition – do not submit to the prevailing opinions of society as a whole. It is only through their continual agitation, that small “brush fires” of truth are initially set. It is only by their courageous adherence to principle, that these brushfires are gradually fanned into a blaze of revolutionary sentiment. It is only under the weight of their willingness to defy the status quo, that the “arc of the moral universe” bends slowly, but surely, toward justice. Revolutionaries have faith in themselves because they have faith in something much greater – they know that truth does not become error, even if nobody sees it. New truth is always unseen at first, and new philosophies are always written by men who are – at first – ignored or misunderstood.
Why must it be so? Why doesn’t the majority join quickly with a cause that will benefit them and their children far more than a system that makes them less free, and less human? It is because we were all born in what Plato called an intellectual “cave.” From childhood, we were taught that things – as they are – are things as they MUST be, ought to be, or have always been. And because there was no one there to tell us otherwise, many people have never questioned the reality we inherited, or dreamed of a new reality that we ourselves could create. To the inhabitants of the cave, the truth is nothing but the shadows – for they have never seen the light. So the process of awakening men must inevitably be an arduous one, for most of us are afraid to question the basic assumptions that establish our familiar and comfortable identity. Only as it becomes more and more clear that there is something wrong with the system, will men begin to lose faith in leaders who promise to solve our problems for us. As Jefferson said in the Declaration, “Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, then to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.”
So it is today. After enduring a subtle and pervasive form of oppression for several generations, a majority of American citizens have lost a critical awareness of their position, and have come to accept their present plight as natural. The system of subjugation has faded into the background and become just a pale canvas on which the more shocking daily indignities of life now present themselves. The wars, the bailouts, the torture, the regulations – all these rungs on the ladder of creeping totalitarian control – merely punctuate and obscure a much more deeply ingrained injustice: one that most of us accept only because we take it for granted; one that has allowed our government and its accomplices to pay for the aforementioned and truly insufferable evils. I want you to know that times are changing: We are a tireless minority; we are no longer willing to suffer the insufferable; the brushfires are blazing; and we know that it is our duty to focus the force of the rising revolutionary sentiment onto its proper target. We know what must be eradicated – and it is monopoly control of the money supply. We know in what Form this evil is currently embodied, and therefore what we must abolish: The United States Federal Reserve System. To put it concisely, we must End the Fed.
In order to gain support for our movement, we must educate our fellow citizens about money. We must meet them where they are and ignite a fire of curiosity, or at least give them a sense of how important the monetary issue truly is.
About eighteen months ago, I began educating myself. I had watched the first few presidential debates, and I noticed one man on the stage who spoke differently than the rest. Not only was he willing to break with all the other candidates of his party to take a principled stand against the Iraq war, but he also made an argument that opposition to war must be grounded in opposition to expansive government power in general. As the son of anti-war “liberals,” my curiosity was ignited; when he referred to euphemistic terms for torture as “Newspeak,” implying that a form of Orwellian fascism had already “happened here,” I was listening; and, when he talked about ideas with which I was less familiar – the role of government, the purpose of the Constitution, inflation, sound money, and foreign debt – I realized I had some reading to do. In the fall of 2007, when Dr. Paul began openly making a case for getting rid of the central bank of the United States, I realized that I had no idea what a central bank actually was, and I began to explore the story behind the Federal Reserve.
I realized recently that there were several stages of understanding through which I passed. I can only surmise that most of my fellow travelers inhabit one of these stages at the moment. We must use the recollection of our own path to help guide others down a path of their own.
To begin with, I remember what it was like never to have questioned the government’s control of our money. I am ashamed to say that my tacit support for the system was due purely to my own intellectual laziness. I was also hindered by a general disinterest in economics which, to a humanitarian like me, seemed deplorably technical and not sufficiently concerned with the harsh reality of human suffering. I still believed that the role of government could be to help the unfortunate – and despite all the things I hated about U.S. foreign policy, I still could not imagine that our leaders would pay for the wars through a systematic theft from Americans of the hard-earned fruits of their labor. I had accepted money like cavemen accepted the sun disc – never looking directly at it, and feeling only that it had always been there. I never wondered: where did money come from? Who controls it? Has it always been made out of paper?
In the 2nd stage, I became very aware of just how much I didn’t know, and felt – justifiably – very confused. I began asking more questions of the above sort, and since I was busy with my studies, I resorted to the internet for quick answers to some of my queries. I found several interesting movies that explained the workings of the Federal Reserve and brought to my attention the practice of “fractional reserve banking.” This is the process by which commercial banks create new money out of thin air. I had never heard of this concept, and was astonished and skeptical. The morality of money was beginning to creep into my consciousness. How could the legal right to counterfeit be denied from me, I thought, but not to a special class of privileged men? It just didn’t seem fair. And as I read more about the history of the Fed: about how it was founded on a private island by seven bankers who were addressing each other by fake names; or how the gold backing of our money has been steadily siphoned away since the Fed was founded; or how Fort Knox hasn’t been audited since the 50’s; all these multifarious and evocative details made me feel almost like I might be the victim of a conspiracy.
Now, I am not saying that there isn’t a conspiracy here – in the 3rd stage, this sort of explanation seemed very plausible to me. And who knows? Maybe Paulson and Bernanke and Geithner and all their Wall Street pals really are deliberately engineering another great depression so that they can take over the world – all I’m saying is that there doesn’t HAVE to be any conspiracy. All that would have been necessary for this socialist monetary system to evolve would be for the previous system to have a defect (even an easily repairable one), for that defect to cause problems, for the source of the problems to be misdiagnosed, and for the new system to perpetuate itself despite its own obvious flaws, simply because it provides benefits to those persons who hold the reigns of political and financial power.
One of the other details about the Fed, of which many people are unaware, is its “independent” and therefore quasi-private nature. In fact, much of the anti-Fed literature out there objects to the Fed’s existence on the very grounds that it IS private, and thus not answerable to the “people,” through their elected representatives. Many anti-Fed activists on the left even advocate that, to fix the problem of constant theft of our money and our children’s money, we take control of the money supply away from greedy private bankers and put it back into the hands of the politicians, where it belongs! In the 4th stage, I was fixated on this detail of “private” ownership, and so the “nationalization” argument did have a certain appeal to me – especially because I was also overly focused on the “backing” of the fiat money: on the fact that the debt paper came into existence, technically, by means of a loan from the Federal Reserve to our government. For this reason, I even wrote that the government ought to just create money out of thin air and spend it into existence, as opposed to asking the Fed to create it out of thin air and “loan” it to them, in exchange for U.S. Treasuries that our government clearly does not intend ever to honor. But, as it became clearer to me that BOTH bankers and politicians benefit from the money system they control, and since it is clear that the financial and political elite have extensive interconnections, I eventually realized that reform of the monetary system could not be merely an ostentatious switch of control from one group of bureaucrats to another. In order to prevent abuse of the power to counterfeit, this power must be denied to all. Control over money should belong to no man, nor to any government of men. A “public” monopoly is no better than a “private” monopoly – not in this case. Only by ending all attempts to regulate the money supply, and debunking the economic theory that underpins such foolish attempts, will the scourge of inflation (and its more flamboyant cousin, the business cycle) be abolished. Only in this way will capitalism be given the chance it deserves. We must return to a commodity money, and this time we must make sure that it is not administered by the government.
And so I arrived at the 5th stage. In this stage I learned that the Fed is essentially a cartel like any other. The banking industry, at a certain point in its history, formed a non-competitive “cooperative.” Like any monopoly agreement within an industry, it could only be enforced through the strong arm of government regulation. So, the Fed was created, at the behest of bankers, who were just as powerful a special interest group in 1913 as they are today. The Federal Reserve System allowed the bankers to counterfeit money at higher rates than before, without the risk of failing due to bank runs; and it allowed the politicians to pay for socialist projects and imperial wars that the American people have traditionally opposed. Fiat money allowed the United States to become an empire. Like all empires, ours will come to an end with the destruction of our currency. I now see our government for what it is – a collection of men who are not qualified to run our lives, since no man could claim those qualifications; a crumbling edifice of what once was a great experiment in liberty; a tyranny similar to the one that men like Sam Adams urged their neighbors to oppose.
We must teach our neighbors about money. We must not feel ashamed at trying to help them. We must not feel self-conscious or impatient, for our task is certainly not as hard as it must have been for our ancestors. Harriet Tubman famously said that, though she had freed a thousand slaves, she could have freed a thousand more – if only they had realized they were slaves. We are the Harriet Tubmans of our day. With the help of God and our fellow men, we have broken free from the intellectual chains that bind all men born into a system designed to oppress them. It matters not whether this design is deliberate. Each of us takes our own road to awareness, and it is our duty to wake up those whom we have left behind in our struggle for freedom. If each of us frees a thousand, or a hundred, or ten, or even just one slave – they will surely free another. And when millions of slaves know the truth about our government, it won’t matter which of their unconstitutional laws we choose to ignore – they won’t be able to stop us. When the state cannot enforce its unjust edicts, then the revolution is accomplished.
Here is a short video with footage of the picture-book I mentioned in my post of December 19. I’ve figured out how to create annotations on YouTube, and added a few comments to draw parallels between the events predicted in Hayek’s warning, and those that we are witnessing today.
Hayek’s book was published in the U.S. by the University of Chicago, in September of 1944. At the time, Hayek was living in London, where he emigrated after his native Austria came under the control of Nazi Germany. The work was written for a British audience, and was intended as a warning. He had noticed a trend of government intervention into the British economy that was similar to one he had previously observed in Germany, only about 20 years earlier. He wanted to remind the British public that the Germans were not by nature evil, and that their totalitarian government had emerged gradually, as the inevitable result of the drive for ever-greater centralized control over and “planning” of their economy. He wanted to debunk the commonly-held misperception that fascism was a “reactionary” movement (a response to socialist currents); in fact, as he saw it, the Nazis were merely the particular brand of socialism that won out, due to their more eager willingness to use indiscriminate force and intimidation to impose their views on others. But, as he makes sure to emphasize, ANY centralized collectivist “plan” will eventually require a near-unanimous involvement of the populace; and since this widespread agreement will be impossible to achieve in a free (democratic) society, authoritarian enforcement of the “plan” will be necessary.
Hayek’s book was not received particularly well in England, which had already come under the spell of Keynesian economic theories that called for massive government control over the economy, in the name of “full employment.” His ideas DID gain a following in the United States, however, especially after his book was released in condensed form by Reader’s Digest. The shorter version of the work is still published by the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, and you can download a PDF file if you are interested in reading it. Here is the summary that Hayek wrote for the jacket notes:
Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?
The contention that only the peculiar wickedness of the Germans has produced the Nazi system is likely to become the excuse for forcing on us the very institutions which have produced that wickedness.
Totalitarianism is the new word we have adopted to describe the unexpected but nevertheless inseparable manifestations of what in theory we call socialism.
In a planned system we cannot confine collective action to the tasks on which we agree, but are forced to produce agreement on everything in order that any action can be taken at all.
The more the state ‘plans’ the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice: it must be the freedom of economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably also carries the risk and the responsibility of that right.
What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.
We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes.
We shall all be the gainers if we can create a world fit for small states to live in.
The first need is to free ourselves of that worst form of contemporary obscurantism which tries to persuade us that what we have done in the recent past was all either wise or unavoidable. We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.
The part of Hayek’s argument that I find most persuasive, in light of recent events, is where he reminds us that massive government planning of the economy will inevitably result in the seizure of power by an unaccountable, centralized and authoritarian government, and an increasing degree of irrelevancy on the part of the legislative branch. Also, if you just substitute “imminent financial collapse” for “war” as the initial justification for government intervention into the economy, the parallels with today are striking.
Or does it? Does the act specifically say that the President and the Treasury can use this money, taxpayers’ money, to provide loans to automakers? Let’s see. Well, first of all, the purposes of the act were defined (in the text of the law) as:
to immediately provide authority and facilities that the Secretary of the Treasury can use to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system of the United States; and
to ensure that such authority and such facilities are used in a manner that—
a) protects home values, college funds, retirement accounts, and life savings;
b) preserves homeownership and promotes jobs and economic growth;
c) maximizes overall returns to the taxpayers of the United States; and
d) provides public accountability for the exercise of such authority.
There is nothing in the stated purpose of this bill that in any way calls for money to be spent bailing out the auto industry. Of course, if you were to ask a Bush administration lawyer, he (or she) would probably say that there isn’t anything in the language that specifically prohibits the use of the money for anything the president deems worthy, especially during times of an “emergency,” like the one we’re in now (come to think of it, it seems like we’re ALWAYS in a state of emergency these days - the constant threats of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, financial failure, economic depression, etc).
I will take a closer look at the actual text of the bill over the holidays in Boston. I will learn one of two things. Either:
This act does not provide the authority for the executive branch to use $700 billion of the American citizenry’s money to bail out whichever private company happens to come to Washington for a handout and is able to convince the American people that its continued existence is so crucial to the state of the American economy that it should not be allowed to fail. Oh wait, they don’t have to convince the American people - they already went to Congress to beg for this money, and Congress failed to reach an agreement on the details of this government takeover of the auto industry, this nationalization, as it should be called. That’s why the president had to step in, right? In his own words:
“Unfortunately, despite extensive debate and agreement that we should prevent disorderly bankruptcies in the American auto industry, Congress was unable to get a bill to my desk before adjourning this year.”
“This means the only way to avoid a collapse of the U.S. auto industry is for the executive branch to step in. The American people want the auto companies to succeed, and so do I. So today, I’m announcing that the federal government will grant loans to auto companies under conditions similar to those Congress considered last week.”
So, it appears that poorly-run, bankrupt companies need only convince our spender-in-chief (and his banker buddies who run the debt-monetizing printing presses) that they are worthy of being supported by monies taken from more productive sectors of the economy (if you have a job or run a business, this means you). After all, our benevolent Decider knows what the American people want, without even asking them! Wait a minute, what kind of government is it in which a titular leader uses arbitrary power to make decisions on behalf of the people, without even consulting elected representatives? Let’s see what Stalin thinks:
What else did Bush say? First of all, he clearly states that he is bypassing the Congress in order to enact this bailout. He is essentially admitting, in public, that he is writing law. I will say this again. He is making up law as he goes along. Congress was “unable to get a bill” to his desk, so he’ll just write a bill of his own, that will allow him to disburse money “under conditions similar to those Congress considered.” Under “similar” conditions? Is the president going to decide what these conditions are? Is that his job? I thought that his job was to enforce laws, not write them. Oh well, having a constitutional separation of powers wasn’t that great anyway, right?
Bush cites “extensive agreement.” Please notice that the very reason why he has to back up his decision with a reference to this “agreement” is that it was never put in writing. He can’t point to a piece of legislation and say “this is the passage where my power is legitimized.” What does the Declaration of independence have to say about government power? Oh, yeah:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
Did Bush ask you for your consent? Did he ask Congress for your consent? From whence is he deriving this dictatorial power to determine which businesses fail and which don’t? That is the question I am asking today.
It is possible that HR 1424 does indeed contain vague language that the Decider could point to when asked to justify his actions. But I’m almost certain (and I’ll be able to tell you for sure in a few days) that the language will not mention any specifics, because if so, people like my fellow Ohioan John Boehner would not have voted for such a bill. I am going to take Boehner at his word and believe him when he says that it was never his intent to authorize such behavior on the part of the President. Is it possible that Boehner, and other legislators, might be regretting their decision to vote for what I called an enabling act for the 21st century? Is it possible that they will vow in the future not to pass any more bills that grant broad and arbitrary powers to the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board, and the executive office? I hope so, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Interestingly, the period in which we now find ourselves - in which the people are asking the government to come up with all sorts of big PLANS to solve all of our problems - is eerily similar to previous periods in history. But is it possible to plan an economy while leaving a representative form of government intact? I mentioned my thoughts on this matter in a previous post on the concept of “collectivism.” But why take my word for it? Why not just ask your elected representative, whose power and authority was just usurped. I, for one, hope the legislative branch starts doing its job again. Why bother to continue paying their salaries if they are henceforth going to function as a sort of debating club whose sole purpose is to provide a smokescreen behind which a dictator can issue executive orders?
F.A. Hayek wrote a compelling and highly-readable book outlining the very process we are now witnessing, through which a society transitions from a republican form of government to a totalitarian one. It makes a great stocking stuffer! Ironically, it was received quite well in the United States, and was printed as a picture book in Look magazine, which was later distributed by none other than General Motors, one of the recent bailout recipients! If only the GM executives of today had read this book! Soon, they may wish they had. As Dr. Ron Paul said in a recent statement on the culture of bailouts that has sprung up in recent decades, “The government, after it subsidizes an industry, tends to become a very demanding benefactor.”
As I mentioned in my previous post, the Pentagon has plans to place 20,000 troops in the United States by 2011, ostensibly to help state and local authorities cope with a “domestic catastrophe.” This piece of news, combined with the authority that was recently given to the president (in the National Defense Act of 2007) to ignore the Posse Comitatus Act of 1978 and use the military to quell domestic disturbances and the like (if he arbitrarily deems there to exist a state of “emergency”) should make Americans very queasy.
“The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.”
When you find a point of emphatic agreement between the ACLU and the Cato Institute, supposedly left-wing and right-wing organizations, respectively, you might want to take note.
If martial law or suspension of the Constitution sounds impossible to you, check out President Bush’s National Security Presidential Directive 51, in which it is stated that in a “catastrophic emergency…a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President” will replace regular governmental procedures. Hmm, when was the last time you heard of a temporary dictatorship?
I think it is likely that the U.S. will continue its imperial foreign policy under President Obama. Given this likelihood, I think it almost certain that we will experience another “terrorist attack” over the course of the next few years. I think such an attack would fit nicely into NSPD-51’s definition of an emergency: “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.” Barring that, a stock market crash or failure of the monetary system would probably do just fine.
So, expect to see uniformed military personnel, tanks, and machine guns on a street near you, if not now, then in 2011. They’ll just bring the troops back from Iraq, and set about terrorizing a civilian population that’s a little closer to home.
Domestic military force + arbitrary, unchecked executive power + national emergency = tyrannical police state.
Can you find the time to read Naomi Wolf’s book, in which she outlines the other recent developments that have brought the U.S. closer to a system of authoritarian government? Or, why not just skim this short online summary? I don’t know about you, but I fear any dictator - even a charismatic, warm and fuzzy, hopeful one. People from all over the world have come to the United States to escape dictatorships - to where will we flee?
Naomi Wolf is shaping up to be one of the leaders of the growing anti-fascist movement in the United States. She has a website on which she plugs her latest book, and a blog that she updates fairly regularly. Here is a link to her latest blog post, entitled “The People’s Counter-Coup.” And here is my response to it, which I posted on her facebook page:
Hi Naomi - my only criticism of your latest blog post is that you seem to think that a Democrat president will be less likely to use authoritarian powers than a Republican one. I think it is more likely than not that Obama will NOT restore posse comitatus, will NOT disband the domestic military presence, and will NOT end our imperial policy towards the world. Government almost never gives up a power it has given itself. When new leadership is swept into office, they always believe that they should keep the unconstitutional powers, now that they are in the hands of someone (themselves) who will use them for good instead of evil.
In some ways, having a socialist-leaning president like Obama will make it more likely, not less, that our government’s powers will continue to expand - in response to the worsening economic situation. Obama has made NO MENTION whatsoever of how the Federal Reserve is the cause of this crisis, showing that he either does not understand the situation or does not have the stones to tell Americans the truth. If he follows the lead of FDR, it is entirely possible that he will seek more power for himself - and that he will be given this power precisely BECAUSE of the sentiments, shared by many people like yourself, that he is less likely than Bush to abuse it.
We are still creeping towards fascism. The Republicans and Democrats are unwitting accomplices in this process - the Dems give the government more economic control (which inevitably leads to control over our personal lives) and the Repubs put together the infrastructure for a police state and create the foreign enemies necessary to scare our domestic population into submission. Please, be just as wary of Obama as you were of Bush! The thing that scares me most about Obama is that he IS intelligent and DOES mean well - but he has too much confidence in government’s ability to “fix” the problems, and probably too much confidence in his own abilities as well. You know what they say about the road to hell.
Keep up the good work! And if you have a chance, read “The Road to Serfdom” and one of the books on the Federal Reserve System. During your interview with Lew Rockwell, you mentioned that monetary policy is something you don’t quite understand, and I assure you, it is a fascinating subject, and one that will alter your understanding of the way that many “conservatives” think.
This is a FASCINATING conversation between libertarian Lew Rockwell and progressive Naomi Wolf. Lew explains the rationale behind a few of the libertarian positions that left-wingers find most unpalatable (like opposition to a federal Department of Education, for example); and we learn that Naomi is beginning to see herself as a follower of the founding founders, and attributes part of her change of heart to Ron Paul’s presidential campaign.
We need MORE conversations like this one! Americans who understand the philosophy of liberty need actively to seek out our friends of freedom on the left and EDUCATE them about the Federal Reserve System and other issues about which progressives are generally unaware. Naomi says that she is feeling “increasingly sympathetic” towards the Libertarian “world-view,” since she has become aware that people like Rockwell have a philosophy that is designed specifically to prevent the sort of fascist developments that she has recently become a full-time spokeswoman against.
Naomi says that her “psychological journey” - the process through which she woke up to the American political reality - has been a “painful” one. It is crucial that more Americans undertake this journey! We must be willing to examine our own beliefs and realize not only that have we been deceived - we have been WRONG, intellectually and philosophically. It is hard to do this, since to admit that you are wrong means to admit that you have to change. But if Naomi Wolf can do it, we can too! Soon, maybe, we will see the beginnings of the “trans-partisan army” Naomi is seeking to organize. Lew and Naomi are certainly setting an example for the rest of us, through their show of unity.
Like Lavar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow, “but you don’t have to take my word for it!”
Naomi Wolf interview, Part 1
Rep. Sherman’s remarks
Naomi Wolf interview, Part 2
The Army Times Article: “Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or man-made emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks….They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control…”
Naomi Wolf interview, Part 3
I am afraid too, Naomi. And I wonder if it is already too late.
In an attempt to organize my thoughts with regard to recent events in the United States, I wrote this short “dialogue.” I realized the other night that a true Socratic dialogue would probably take at least 30 minutes to recite, and would therefore not be the best vehicle for these ideas, at least with respect to YouTube videos. It would also require me to read more philosophy than I have time to read, at present. A Socratic dialogue on the issue of collectivism and monetary policy remains a long-term goal of mine, however, and I’d be just as happy if someone else wrote it! I apologize in advance to anyone with degrees in economics, philosophy or theology.
What is collectivism?
Collectivism is the deliberate organization of the labors of society for a definite social goal, generally described as the “common good” (to paraphrase F.A. Hayek’s definition in “The Road to Serfdom”).
Is collectivism compatible with a democratic system of government?
Since every person possesses his own unique set of circumstances, priorities, and moral views – every person will therefore have a different opinion as to what exactly constitutes the “common good.” Each person will make a different determination as to what social goal the labors of all men should be directed. For collectivism to work, however, somehow a general “agreement” must be reached on a specifically defined goal for society, as well as on the specific means of achieving that goal. The means of achieving society’s goal, the “plan,” must be worked out in considerable detail, and must be comprehensive, if it is to have any chance of succeeding. In certain intellectual climates, a general agreement on the necessity of a plan may be reached, but not on the specific details of such a plan.
Democracy is a system in which government action is taken only after a majority consensus has been reached. It will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, especially in a country as demographically diverse as the United States, to come to a majority consensus on a single definition of what constitutes the “common good,” as well as on the specific means of implementing any comprehensive plan. There are simply too many dissimilar interest groups, each with their own set of priorities, for one goal to be agreed upon. The most we can hope for in a democracy is an agreement on a set of common principles (laws) that will (regardless of any person’s particular goals) be to the benefit of every individual, and therefore of any group. This is the restriction on public action inherent in a truly democratic system – government can only enact legislation that is generalized: not tailored to any one person’s or any one group’s particular circumstances, desires, or moral proclivities. Arbitrary power, or that exercised according to personalized needs or particular circumstances (dependent on the “whim” of a man or group of men) is anathema to democracy’s core principles – objectivity and the rule of law.
What system of government, then, is necessary for collectivism to be implemented?
Since a democratic decision-making body (like the U.S. House of Representatives) will find itself inherently unable to achieve the broad consensus necessary to begin implementing any particular collectivist plan, it will be necessary that the responsibility for decision-making rest with a minority – a group small enough that it can agree on the direction in which society as a whole must direct its labors, as well as the means by which society will achieve its supposedly common goal. This minority must be delegated the decision-making ability of the heterogeneously-opinionated majority, members of which will necessarily be denied the opportunity directly to engage in the planning of their own individual affairs. This system of government will, by definition, be some form of authoritarian dictatorship – with one man or a small group of men bearing complete responsibility for the direction of society as a whole, and determining the “common good” based upon their own arbitrary set of priorities. Note that the development of an authoritarian system does not require the abolition of a democratic decision-making body; or even that the decision-making body be completely excluded from the policy-making process; but it will require the decision-making body to agree to confer arbitrary power – the ability to make decisions unrestricted by clearly-delineated principles, but rather based upon vague sets of circumstances and whims – on some other authority. Thus, during the transition from a government based on democratic principles to one based on the primacy of some supposed “common good,” one can expect to see a point at which laws are passed that essentially nullify the “Rule of Law,” conferring legalized arbitrary power to some largely-unaccountable “authority.” In essence, the decision making body abdicates its responsibility, and makes itself superfluous.
What attributes must be present in the “authority” for it to realize a “plan” that will satisfy the rest of society, i.e. the now-passive majority?
Omniscience: Collectivism is, to begin with, the deliberate organization of a society’s economic affairs. In order for any integrated, society-wide plan to succeed, even theoretically, at doing what it sets out to do, the authority will need access to a nearly infinite amount of information about the circumstances, needs, wants, abilities, and inclinations of all the members of the economic system under their control. Even seemingly simple calculations, such as how many pairs of boots are to be produced at a given time, will require access to reams of information, and the additional ability successfully to process it.
Moral Perfection: In order to place the needs of so many varied individuals and interest groups into some universally-accepted pecking order (i.e. to decide whose needs are met, whose aren’t, and whose inclinations receive priority), the authority will have to possess an infallible moral sense. In addition, its code of morality will need to be accepted by its subjects as the only correct code. If it is not accepted as such, there will be many men who will find the authority’s arbitrary decisions to be just that – arbitrary: the result of one man’s or group’s whims, and therefore unworthy of their voluntary compliance.
Omnipotence: In order to put into effect any plan, the authority will need unfettered power to shape society. It will need to control all natural resources, capital, manpower, etc. This requirement becomes especially obvious when one realizes that, since the authority cannot completely eliminate all resistance to its plan (even though it will attempt to do so, by shaping public opinion through propaganda, socialized education, the suppression of dissenting views, the numbing of intellectual discussion by appeals to emotional solidarity, and the cultivation of a lack of self-reliance and personal responsibility amongst the population), it will have to force certain recalcitrant individuals to adhere to its decisions.
I take it as self-evident that no human authority can possess the first two attributes necessary for the successful administration of a collectivist society. The ability to achieve only the 3rd requirement – the unfettered use of coercive power – coupled with a flawed attempt to achieve the first two requirements, is the cause of every collectivist society’s eventual deterioration into violence and totalitarianism. Since it is clear that collectivism cannot achieve the “common good,” the aim which it claims to deliver, it is therefore an inherently contradictory philosophy.
Why, then, do people periodically call for a human authority to lead them that, in order to be successful, must be omniscient, morally perfect, and omnipotent?
They do so in times of calamity, out of ignorance of the true causes of their misfortune, because they are either ignoring or have been denied access to the lessons of history, and because they have forgotten that, philosophically speaking, such an authority already IS leading them, and that they have merely neglected to follow.
Who is this omniscient, morally perfect, and omnipotent authority?
People call him/her/it by many names: Truth, Love, God, etc.
If God has the theoretical ability to implement a perfect collectivist system, an ordering of society that would lead to an actual realization of the “common good,” then why didn’t He or doesn’t He do so?
Just because God possesses each of the attributes necessary to implement a collectivist order in the universe, does not mean that He is willing to do so. Even if, by definition, God is all-knowing and the embodiment of moral perfection, there would still exist some rational beings that rebelled against his plan. So, even He would have to resort to the use of force in order to institute His reign of justice. God would be unwilling to resort to the use of force, though, for the same reason why humans will (eventually) agree to abolish it – because a man who is subjected to force is denied the use of his rational abilities to shape his own destiny. Force destroys free will. Free will is the very thing that defines and elevates human existence. God could create a perfect collectivist order, but if He abrogated free will in order to do so, His order would have no moral value. It would be merely a machine – and the men in it would be merely cogs in the machine.
If God chose NOT to create a collectivist system, what sort of system DID he create?
He created a system whereby rational actors – individuals – are allowed to pursue their own ends, free from direct interference. Instead of forcing us to be like Him, which would negate the whole point of our existence, He is attempting to lead us by example. He willingly refuses to use power unjustly, in the hope that we will eventually do the same. The defining characteristic of His system, therefore, is the principle of non-violence, violence encompassing any use of force (including implied force, deceit as a means of manipulation, and fraud) as a means of abridging the free will of a rational being.
What implications does an adherence to the principal of non-violence have on our choice of a system of societal organization?
Any system of societal organization that uses the principal of non-violence as its starting point will inevitably include several other attributes: a commitment to the rights of the individual; a respect for the Rule of Law; an acknowledgement of every person’s right to his own life, liberty and property; a government whose sole reason for existence is the protection of the above values; and an economic system wherein the individual is free to exercise his free will, engages in contracts and other agreements only voluntarily, and can dispense with his wealth in any way he sees fit (subject to the obvious restriction that he must not violate the rights of any other individual).
What system, in its ideal form, conforms to this set of attributes?
Democratic republicanism and free-market capitalism.
