The terrorist “watch list” is now over a million names long.  This is your government’s list of people to watch, in the name of protecting you.  With 300 million people in the US, this means that the government has deemed one of every three hundred people a potential danger.

Government watch lists are always justified in the interest of protecting the people, but always turn out to be lists that target the people.  Ultimately, they are lists of the enemies of government itself, as the government begins to view the people as a threat to its authority.  See also the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, a piece of legislation passed in the House that will specifically target free speech on the Internet as a potential threat to government.

How far will it go before the people say enough is enough?  Frankly, it doesn’t look good.  It appears as though the populace is willing to trade any amount of liberty for safety, despite being advised against it by the founders.  Of course, these are “different times” we live in…

If you’re one of the 1 in 300 people on the terrorist watch list, the first thing you can expect is to encounter a lot of difficulty should you choose to travel by air.  And even if you’re not on the list, they’re dreaming up a new bracelet for you to wear if you want to travel by air, stepping up the attack on your right to travel unencumbered a notch.  This bracelet will not only keep all of your personal information and make you trackable wherever you go, it will contain a stun feature that will knock you out - that’s right - render you unconscious at the push of a button.

Note that “terrorism expert” Neil Livingstone cited in the Raw Story article advises us that flying is not a right, it’s a privilege.  This is the method of the state, to claim that rights are not inherent in the individual, but are granted to us by the government in the form of privileges.

This is the exact opposite of the American System, as designed.  The people have rights that precede government, rights we understand to be self-evident.  Government establishes nor grants any rights to the people.  The people are sovereign.  The people established the government, and granted the government limited powers to protect their rights, not to grant them privileges.

All of this does not bode well for the future of the airline industry.  Personally, my interest in flying is diminishing with every new encroachment on my liberty.  Maybe ten hours in the car won’t be so bad after all.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Federal Reserve System (the US Government’s unconstitutional central bank) destroys wealth through the inflation tax, it is the enabler of empire and the warmongering aspirations of the imperial government.

Consider this:  Without the ability to create money out of thin air, a government must finance a war via taxation.  The cost of the Iraq adventure is now at about $20,000 per US household.  If George W. Bush and the lapdog congress had to appeal to the American people to pony up $20K each for this war, how many do you think would have willingly opened their pocketbook?

Of course, government regularly forces taxation on the people without their approval, but there is a practical limit to how much they will take.  It brings about revolution when it goes too far - a scenario government would prefer to avoid.

The Federal Reserve is the engine that runs the Military Industrial Complex.  Billions of “off budget” dollars are funneled to the favored manufacturers of the war machine, and their powerful lobby that pushes our government toward intervention.

A nation should be at peace by default.  War should be conducted only when necessary and just to respond to an attack, or to prepare for an eminent attack.  And when you fight a war, as we did in the American Revolution, it should break the bank.  It should drain all the nations resources, and everyone should feel the pain.  War should be painful and taxing.

Instead, war with fiat money, courtesy of the Federal Reserve, seems painless to the masses who willingly follow government propaganda.  We don’t feel its effects until years later, and when we do the government can blame it on everything but government.  Market failures, greedy capitalists, “irrational exuberance,” and (currently) speculators are blamed for all our woes.

War is funded with inflation.  Inflation must always be paid for with recession.  It is inevitable that we should experience financial crisis as a result of our current military adventurism in Iraq.

Without the ability to fund wars with printed money, government would be “chained down” by the constraints that Thomas Jefferson envisioned.

The more I study the dynamics of US interventionism and imperialism in the middle east, the more I understand: Israel is evil.

This is to say nothing of the Israeli people, and has nothing to do with anti-semitism. As an individualist, I do not view people simply as members of groups, so this is not an entry about Jews. It is about the state of Israel, its government. One should make clear the distinction because it is both incorrect and unjust to characterize a people based on the actions of their government.

The Israeli government is a client state to the empire, and it is the tail that wags the dog. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is by far and large the most powerful foreign policy lobby in Washington, rivaling even the AARP and the NRA in its influence - and you’re paying for it.

Even though Israel ranks as the sixteenth most wealthy nation in the world, the US Government sends billions annually in foreign aid and military weaponry, courtesy of the American taxpayer. Fully one-third of all unconstitutional US foreign aid goes to the state of Israel. And what do we get in return?

The Israeli government uses the money to spy on us, and pushes our government to use its military machine to fight their wars. And for all of this, our government officials pledge the lives of Americans to “protect” Israel for centuries to come, the epitome of an “entangling alliance” that Jefferson and Washington warned us about.

There is substantial evidence that Israeli spies had information that may have prevented the 9/11 attacks, but did not share the information with US intelligence agencies. Israel is pushing hard for a US-led war against Iran, supplying fraudulent information in the form of “smoking laptops” to make the case for war. Israel demands that Iran - a signatory to the Nonproliferation Treaty - does not have the right to pursue peaceful use of nuclear research while they, a non-participant in the NPT, possess hundreds of nuclear weapons.

The state of Israel is a creation of western governments, displacing others from their homeland. And where Israel was once viewed as acting defensively in the face of hostility directed toward them, it is clear that they have for decades been an aggressive force in the region.

As Michael Scheuer said, the nation of Israel is not worth the life of one American, and John McCain doesn’t have any authority to pledge the lives of Americans to protect it.

I like the libertarian principle of non-aggression. What it says, essentially, is live and let live. Don’t commit aggression against another’s person or property - and this is key - don’t use the force of government to commit aggression in your name. A great introduction to the principle of non-aggression can be found in Chapter 1 of Dr. Mary Ruwart’s book Healing our World, available for free online.

In my college years, I used to work nights as a bar bouncer to help keep up with school and living expenses. We bouncers had a term for the guys who came in to the bar, got drunk, and caused trouble - we called it “Budweiser muscle.” Through careful study of behavior over the years, I learned that the guys who got aggressive, those who talked the biggest talk and stirred up the most trouble were the weakest. They were always eager to get others involved in their fight.

I see the same dynamic at work with those who zealously support government and its aggressive wars. They tend to be belligerent nationalists, buying into the war propaganda and talking tough while their government is off killing people.  They allow the government and the media to dehumanize the individuals who are the target of government aggression, so they don’t think twice about their killing.

There is a difference between one who is fit for freedom, as Eric Hoffer said, and one who is not. Those unfit for freedom do not have respect for the rights of others, and will use aggressive force (whether by themselves or through their government) to infringe upon others. Those fit for freedom understand and practice live and let live where there are differences.

The US is the most powerful nation in the history of earth, and our government is the playground bully menacing the small and weak all over the world.  Third-rate nations with no capacity to threaten the United States are portrayed as dangerous and a threat to the US, to justify an attack upon them.

Government attracts people unfit for freedom to its ranks, people who do not respect the individual rights of others and will use the force of government to push their beliefs on others, even if it means “cracking a few eggs to make an omelet” - killing off a few for the “better” of the whole.  They impose their ambitions on their own constituents with some restriction, just enough to keep themselves in office - but they impose their ambitions on people of other lands with wanton disregard for human liberty and aggression on a massive scale.

Being a government employee does not give one the right to commit acts of aggression against sovereign individuals, it doesn’t matter whether you’re just “following orders” or not. The simple fact is that those in military service are not protecting our freedom as the propaganda cries, but instead are carrying out the misdeeds of a murderous, imperialistic lot of criminals in government.

I believe in peaceful interaction with others, following the doctrine of win/win or no play. If two parties engage in mutually beneficial exchange, it’s a win/win relationship. If they’re just too different from one another, live and let live - go separate ways, no play. But when one party commits an act of aggression against another, I believe in responding to that aggression with a greater degree of force than that posed by the aggressor.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a position of strength, in fact, the best way to keep aggression away is to boldly and confidently portray strength, to be used in self-defense.  But if you’re using your great strength as an aggressor, those subject to aggression will retaliate.  A terrorist attack is just such a retaliation.  As long as the US Government is manipulating, controlling, and killing people around the world, expect more hatred toward the US, and more terrorist attacks as a result.

Neocon columnist / TV talking head Michelle Malkin is insane. Not only is she insane, she is a dangerous propagandist.

She recently railed against Rachael Ray, the foodie, for wearing a scarf in a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial that she claims supports jihadists because of its checkered pattern. In a disgraceful act of kowtowing, Dunkin’ Donuts is pulling the ad. See the writeup at Antiwar.com here.

This reminds me of McCarthyism in the 40s and 50s, promoting constant fear among the populace by looking for bogeymen around every corner, perpetuating the government’s expansion and assault on freedom. This is what the mainstream media is selling us.

Terr’ists! Let’s Hang Em!

.

.

.

.

.

I don’t mean here, specifically, at Ultimate Minority - but here, in your web browser.

There was a time when if you said you read something on the Internet, it was scoffed at. Even today, it’s a knee-jerk reaction by those indoctrinated into the mainstream media as the source of all that is going on in the world.

Television news, radio and newspapers are dinosaurs on their way to extinction, at least in their current form. They no longer do their job, posing the tough questions and exposing government wrongdoings. Instead, todays mainstream media is nothing more than than a government propaganda horn and a source of sick, twisted entertainment posing as “news.”

We should be offended when Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and American Idol get big coverage on the TV news, and then a five-second note is thrown in that five soldiers were killed in Iraq yesterday. We should be outraged that Pentagon war propagandists are briefed by the war department, then paraded on TV news as expert analysts.

The very fabric of our society is destroyed by the nightly Murder and Mayhem Report broadcast into our homes. Murder, rape, and pillage have always been exceptional events in any populace, but now they’re happening every day, every minute, everywhere because they’re in your living room. People are afraid to let their kids go out and play, because their reality is shaped by what happened thousands of miles away. Bad things have always happened, the world will never be 100% safe, but the risks of living life seem so much more extreme when we’re bombarded with the images every evening.

The Internet is the free media today. Do some research and find sites that give you the news you’re looking for. If you want real information about war, visit antiwar.com where you’ll find some of the world’s top war correspondents addressing the real issues and exposing the truth. These are seasoned veteran reporters who have a difficult time telling the real story in the mainstream media.

You can listen to streaming audio of radio shows hosted by true patriots - those committed to the ideas of freedom, liberty, and the constitution like Charles Goyette, Scott Horton, and Michael Badnarik - not establishment mouthpieces like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.

Yes, there are a ton of different opinions and perspectives on the Internet - how do you know who to believe? That is the essence of news and opinion! They should be many and varied, and you should read discriminately. Check more sources! This is how you find opinions that represent your own perspective, and continually challenge them. There’s not a dimes worth of difference between the opinions dished out in the mainstream media, so it is intellectually lazy to lap up the slop they’re feeding.

Government regulation of the media through the FCC, under the guise of protecting us, has destroyed the free media. Huge conglomerates control the broadcast outlets, many owned by the same companies that build tanks and bombs for the governments wars.

The Internet has emerged as the new media, the only true free market of ideas. Watch for government to try and gain control over the Internet as a media source, and mind you, it’ll all be done in the name of protecting you, such as the fascist Net Neutrality push that already has a ton of netizens duped into thinking it’ll “protect” them from paying more, or any legislation aimed at protecting our children. Fight government control, know your sources, and turn off the idiot box.

Everyone should have a basic understanding of economics - it is the most vital school of social theory. Those ignorant of economic principle are easily duped and manipulated by politicians and demagogues (or do I repeat myself?)

As an MBA, I have several years of economics in my educational background. It was a topic of interest for me in the early years. We started with “micro” economics, learning the basic principles of supply and demand - not bad stuff. But after a cursory study of these principles, we quickly moved into “macro” economics. At this point, the study became much more abstract and mathematical. I remember sitting by a pool in Memphis, studying my econ text, trying dutifully to understand exactly how government deficit spending benefited the economy. I never did get it.

It turns out, there was a reason I never got it - it’s all crap.

If there was one good thing I learned from graduate school, it was that I had a lot to learn after finishing it. As Dr. Deming said, business schools do not teach proper theory, they teach the status quo - they teach the perpetuation of our decline.

See, it turns out that there are two major schools of economics - free market (Austrian) economics, and socialist (Keynesian) economics. If I had to sum them up for you in brief, it would go like this:

In the early years of economic thought, governments and economists were always at odds. Economists told governments no all to often; no, taxes are bad. No, deficit spending is bad. No, debt is not good for the economy. No, central banking is not a good idea. No, central planning does not work… Along came John Maynard Keynes, and suddenly governments not only no longer shunned economists, they hired and subsidized hordes of them. These economists advised that taxes were good, deficit spending stimulates the economy, central banking smooths the problems inherent in free markets, and central economic planning is valid and necessary.

It is important to understand that Keynesian economics did not displace the classical, Austrian school of economics by disproving anything the classical school held - it simply moved into a position of style and acceptance. When academics receive funding from government, it is beneficial to promote the school that the government wishes to advance.

One of the great failures of the Keynesian paradigm is in its view of the business cycle. We all hear about economic booms and busts (aka recessions, depressions, slowdowns, etc.) In Keynesian theory, booms and busts are inherent flaws in the market, and government economists, bankers, and central planners all have a role in smoothing the business cycle to protect us from the “excesses” of the free market.

Interestingly enough, the business cycle is created by central economic planning, manipulation of the money supply, and government spending. It all started to turn around when the Keynesians could not explain stagflation, a concurrent rise in unemployment and price inflation. Austrian Business Cycle Theory was able to provide a clear explanation - it all had to do with manipulation of, and intervention in the market by government. Yes, there is variation in a free market economy. Sometimes things are up, sometimes they are down. But the variation tends to be more local, more industry specific, while the economy as a whole maintains relative stability. Only through government manipulation (via central banking, primarily) does an entire economy make mass movements from boom to bust.

A core tenet of the American System, as established, is that central planning does not work. Free people engaging in voluntary exchange create markets and build wealth. Those who would seek government positions do not believe in free markets, they believe in central planning and control. It is only natural that they would support an anti-free market, pro-government school of economics. It is time that we reject socialist economics and all of its falsehoods, and educate ourselves on the virtues of economic freedom.

If you find yourself - or have found yourself - wanting to understand economics, and especially if you were turned off to the study from what you read, I recommend that you immerse yourself in the Austrian school. It’s non-mathematical and intuitive. You can get a ton of free media at the Mises Institute web site.

Your right to travel unencumbered is one of your natural rights - inalienable, independent of where you live or where you were born.

It seems that the right to travel unencumbered is always one of the first rights to be violated by governments. It starts subtly enough - how long after the invention of the automobile did governments step in and say you can’t operate the vehicle without paying them to license it, and that you must pay further fees to license yourself? I remember being taught in high school that driving is a privilege, not a right. How did we come to accept the premise that our means to travel from home to work is a privilege granted by government? Government grants no rights, no privileges. Its only function is to recognize and protect rights.

One could map the violation of the right to travel on a continuum from a free republic to a police state. It first shows up as permits and licenses, moves into heavy inspection and personal screening to remind us that the state can harass us at any time, and finally manifests itself as a requirement that we show our papers lest we be jailed.

The Real ID act went into effect earlier this month, unnoticed or unknown to many. It requires that we all carry a national ID card, and that we’re all in the government database. Further, it is planned that the Real ID will hold an RFID chip, so that our movement can be tracked at any point. No one seems to care. Many a reader will bristle at this post, upset that I have the audacity to challenge such important government action designed to protect us from terrorists, keep out illegal aliens, etc. The reality is that a national ID card will do nothing to make us safer, it will only make us less free. Giving up liberty for safety is always a no-win proposition.

Check out the video of motorist Abby Newman. She was pulled over for no reason, so that the police could check her license and registration, a clear instance of unlawful search and seizure. Abby has the temerity to question the agent of the state, and winds up handcuffed and off to jail.

We accept these searches under the guise of protecting us: Protecting us from drunk drivers, protecting us from ourselves neglecting seat belt use, etc. The state spends our tax dollars to threaten us with television and radio commercials, reminding us that we are under its monitoring and control. This is only a conditioning step, it will get much worse.

In time, you will show your identification to move from point A to point B with greater frequency. You will submit to deeper and more intrusive searches by the state, and you’ll be tracked wherever you go. And when it comes time to round you up for your ethnicity or beliefs, you’ll be easier to find and convict of wrongdoing.

Your neighbors will figure you must be guilty of something if the government is taking you in, resting comfortably at first - later with less ease - that they’re not coming for them.

These pictures are from our October 2006 visit to Washington DC. This is the Washington that you don’t see on TV. (You can click on these pictures to see a full-size version.)

As you approach the Capitol building, everything looks normal enough:

Now look at the second picture. There are barricades on each level of steps, an armed guard tower at the top, and machine-gun toting guards standing on the steps. You can only see one in this pic, but there’s another one on the other side.

In the third picture, we see a zoom on the guard with the automatic rifle:

Does it look like you’re welcome in the building that houses your representatives? Would you dare take a walk up these steps?

Doesn’t this look like something you might see in the former Soviet Union? A full five years after the terrorist attacks, and the place is in lockdown. It’s not just the capitol building, all of DC is one giant security zone. This is what a “war on terrorism” looks like on the home front. Stay back, you’re a threat.

.

…In a true free market economy with sound money.

I’m writing this entry to challenge a paradigm, to show that so many things we accept as the “way things are” just aren’t so.

The “reality” we have come to know is based on constantly rising prices and the need for constantly rising wages to keep up with the cost of living. These are not realities of the free market - they are a product of fiat money and inflation, creations of government.

When governments can print money at will, creating it out of thin air, their natural incentive is to produce as much as possible to fund the growth of government. When the money supply increases, its value decreases and it is able to command fewer goods in the market place. This leaves us all in the position of constantly trying to earn more money to keep up with the loss in its value - value that is being stolen from us to pay for more and bigger government.

Humans are very adaptive, and we adjust our lifestyles from generation to generation to meet changing circumstances, often without thinking about how or why the circumstances have changed. What once was a single income earning society has become a dual income earning society, with both parents working full time to provide a standard of living that was once provided by a single breadwinner. A college education used to set one apart from the crowd, now it’s simply a prerequisite to get a job. The gap between the haves and have-nots is widening, the middle class is being wiped out.

Few people save, because saving is a constant race to find investments that post gains at a rate exceeding the rate of losses in the value in our money. Much of this is beyond the capacity of the average wage earner. There was a time when a bank savings account, and the interest it compounded, was a good idea. Today, money sitting in a bank savings account is losing value to inflation. If the loss in the value of money isn’t readily apparent to you, try this inflation calculator. Perhaps you can remember the price of something you purchased 10 or 20 years ago - look it up and see what it would cost in today’s dollar.

In contrast, consider a true free market economy based on the gold standard. In such an economy, there would be a limited supply of money available. New gold added to the money supply via mining would be relatively insignificant in the frame of an entire economy.

Since money (gold) is nothing more than a good exchanged for other goods, the limited supply will increase its value as the free market creates more and more goods available for exchange, all competing for a share of the existing pool of money. Established goods become more competitive as producers employ advanced technologies, making it cheaper to produce the good and thus, profitable to exchange for less gold.

Lower prices for consumer goods equals a higher standard of living for consumers. As technologies advance and efficiencies are improved, wage earners are able to command more luxury items with their disposable income. They will need less money for the basics, as the cost of food, housing, and transportation fall. Absent a government-imposed minimum wage, suppliers of simple products such as fast food may provide more value, while the employees of such enterprises require less compensation to enjoy a share of the “good life” provided by the ever expanding, cost-of-living-reducing free market.

Savings increase in value, even without gaining interest! If the purchasing power of money increases over time, then a quantity of gold saved today will only increase in value for the future. Yes, it is possible that storing money in a buried jar is a good idea. Parents who save their wealth, earned in times of lower value, may pass it on to their children, increasing family wealth from generation to generation.

The hallmark of free markets, capitalism, and the American system (as established) is the rise of the middle class. Unlike ever before, more and more people were able to enjoy luxuries previously available only to the elites. Let us not confuse a higher standard of living with a higher wage. In fact, in a free market economy with sound money, each generation may enjoy a higher standard of living with lower wages than the previous.

keep looking »

Recently Written

• Are You on the List?
• War and the Federal Reserve
• Israel is Evil
• Non-Aggression and Government Muscle
• Donut Terrorism
• Get Your News Here
• The Two Schools of Economics
• May I See Your Papers Please?
• Your Capitol Building
• Falling Wages are a Good Thing
• Upside Down Government
• Occupation from the Perspective of the Occupied
• $10 Gas? Why?
• Wind Wanglers
• The World’s Largest Organism
• Michigan’s Great Hope - Defense Contracts
• The Utopian Industrial Complex
• Burning Questions: What’s So Funny?
• Global Farce
• Farmland Facism
• Deming and Rothbard
• Rothbard on Video
• Fiat Money
• Burning Question: When Will We Learn?
• Corporatists on the Propaganda Horn
• What is Money?
• A Vote of Your Conscience is Never Wasted
• North American Union: North American Merger?
• War is the Health of the State - A Personal Evolution Pt 3
• Logins / Comments are up
• Today’s Recommended Listening
• Today’s Recommended Viewing
• War is the Health of the State - A Personal Evolution Pt 2
• Three Ways To Get Better Numbers
• Corporatism
• Today’s Recommended Viewing
• This Will Get A Lot Worse. It Will Not Get Better.
• Do You Own Your Property?
• Today’s Recommended Listening
• Patriotism is the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

Categories

• Burning Questions
• Business and Management
• Economics
• Government
  • Corporatism
  • Environment
  • Socialism
• Liberty
• Recommended Listening
• Recommended Viewing
• Site News
• War

Archives

• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008

Links

• Antiwar.com
• LewRockwell.com
• Mises Institute
• Red State Eclectic
• W. Edwards Deming Institute

Admin

• Register
• Log in
• Wordpress
• XHTML

Search