Thursday, October 27, 2011

Imagine

"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man." ~ Bertrand Russell

Over at fellow blogger Marshall Art's place, a comment thread is steadily growing over what would seem to most reasonable, logical people to be a logical, common sense measure that would insure only eligible, legally registered voters would, in fact, be able to vote in elections.

Art (and I agree) has posited that a simple and nearly effortless requirement of presenting a legal photo ID would help prevent voter fraud.

Apparently, some of Art's resident Liberal's argument against this is a rather illogical supposition that the requirement of Photo ID's would somehow intimidate and/or discourage those legal voters who want to vote from doing so.

I say "apparently" because the whole thing seems rather cut and dried to me. I fail to see any logic in allowing just anyone who wants to show up and vote to do so without asking any proof beyond their word, that they are legally registered and eligible.

Incidentally, recently I noticed a television ad for Wal-Mart which states that shoppers are no longer required to show proof that some other retail outlet in town is offering items at lower prices than Walmart in order to get Wal-Mart to "match the price". Formerly, if a shopper wanted Wal-Mart to match the price of some other retail outlet, they were required to bring in an advertisement which proved the other outlet was indeed selling the item at a lower price.

Now, all they have to do is state that the item is being offered at a lower price than Wal-Mart to get a lower price.

No proof is required.

Apparently, Wal-Mart doesn't consider the possibility that some unscrupulous shoppers might actually lie about lower prices just to get a lower price from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart employees are expected to simply take the shopper's word for it. If one doesn't see a potential disaster in that practice, one would have to be incredibly naive.

This is the exact same reason that not requiring proof of eligibility to vote is a horrifically bad idea.

Perhaps, in the 1950's we could be safe in assuming we could trust someone's word, but that era has long since passed.

Admittedly, it's unfortunate that we have regressed to the point that we can no longer trust our neighbors, and I wish it were not so, but the fact is, we can't. And, that is why we need to require proof of eligibility.

My own resident Liberal, Jim, according to his comments, doesn't seem to believe any ineligible people would even consider trying to commit voter fraud. I find this thinking naive at best, and dangerous at worst. The idea that you can trust people, especially people who have a vested interest in pivotal issues that directly affect election outcomes, to refrain from attempting voter fraud, is unbelievably naive.

So, I offer this example of why requiring proof of voter eligibility is crucial to preventing voter fraud:
Hey, we're eligible. I promise!

Imagine I'm an illegal alien, and imagine I have been following the "illegal immigration debate" and I want full amnesty for my 1,000 or so brothers, sisters, mothers, mothers-in-law, fathers, fathers-in-law, uncles, aunts, cousins, and my friends and their friends so they can enter this country and take advantage of all those free hand-outs that the legal U.S. Citizens pay for with their taxes extracted from their hard earned money.

And, imagine me (as an illegal alien) being able to vote for every politician who has promised to grant amnesty to anyone who wants to immigrate to this country regardless of criminal history and/or highly contagious medical conditions, etc, because there is no way to ascertain whether or not I am legally eligible to vote.

So now, with no requirement to insure ineligible people don't vote, I and my 1000's of illegal alien relatives and friends, who share the same vested interest in the outcome of the election as I do, have effectively defeated the candidate who would have enforced the immigration laws, and installed a pro-illegal alien candidate in office.

Is this what the Liberals really want for our country?

It is my opinion that unbridled and unchecked amnesty for illegal aliens would quickly cause the degeneration of this country into third world status. Not to mention the drug cartels and Islamic Jihad terrorists flowing unstopped into our country, and wreaking their own brand of havoc.

All because of simply removing all requirements to show proof of eligibility to vote.

Can anyone think of an easier way to accomplish this task?

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

On Second Thought... I Like Robin Hood's Example

He stole from the rich and gave to the poor, right? In a sense, true... but in actuality Robin Hood and his band of merry men stole from corrupt government officials and clergy. which makes me question, yet again, the quality of education in this country. The Occupy Wall Street crowd are calling for a 'Robin Hood Tax,' on bankers, financiers, and the über rich; i.e.,  Capitalists, and, believe it or not, the Pope himself is throwing his weight behind that call.

Obviously then the biggest problem with all this is that the OWS crowd AND the pope have it all wrong. Robin Hood didn't steal from capitalists... he didn't steal from crofters, brewers, millers, etc. He stole from nobility which, you might as well say, governed the country, and that rather poorly.

If you steal from capitalists, the capitalists will simply hide their monies and refuse to invest in more innovation, and decide to just sit on what they have. Why be a producer if the government is simply going to steal it?

The lack of critical thought in leftist media and the OWS, in this regard, is astounding. OWS has misplaced their ire, and leftist media (government controlled) are egging them on, anything to divert attention to the truth, that it is government which is to blame for our present woes. OWS and has fallen over its own ignorance and can't get up. On top of which economic ignoramuses like our current president and his 'economic team,' have bungled what was already a fragile economy to begin with. OWS should be protesting in front of the White House and Congress... not Wall Street. But then OWS doesn't want accountability in government, they want handouts, and they want Capitalists to fess up with their fruit of their labor. Wall Street didn't create these 'bubbles'... government-- namely, the Fed --did.

Do you want to solve the problem of market 'bubbles' and instability? I can assure, the president is incapable of doing it, no matter how many bills he threatens and cajoles republicans to pass-- democrats don't want his bill either! But do you really want to solve the problem of market bubbles and instability? How about these suggestions just for starters...

  • Eliminate the Fed. It is because of the Fed that bubbles exist at all
  • Return to some sort of standard for the dollar. Yes, it'll hurt for a while, but before Nixon took us off the gold standard our currency was stable
  • Remove as much regulation and government oversight as possible on business. We need to see lawmakers seizing on the floor of congress, and retching on their fine silk suits before saying 'enough is enough'
  • Begin tapping and extracting our own resources of oil and natural gas; this will create hundreds of thousands of jobs
  • Eliminate the death tax
  • Bring corporate taxes down to 10-15%
  • Reduce the capital gains tax to zero for a period of years
These alone won't get us out of the mess we're in, anytime soon. It's going to get much worse before it gets better no matter how deep we cut government out of free enterprise, and the taxpayer's wallets, but at least this way there is hope of saving the country. What I mean by that is, should America lose it's reserve currency status, America will lose more than government, or any number of empty political promises can ever hope to correct. America, as a preeminent nation, as a leader in the world, will be relegated to 2nd class nation.

America will cease to be great if we lose our reserve currency status. Think things are tough now? Prices on just about everything will increase 25-40%, almost overnight. Without the ability to continue to print money to buy ourselves out of crises after crises (as we're doing now), the cost of just about everything will skyrocket. You think there's unrest now? Imagine what will happen when average Americans have to choose between eating and paying their mortgage, or basic utilities, or gas for their vehicles. Riots on Wall Street? No, riots on Main Street.

If America loses it's reserve currency status, there will be a run on the banks. And the government, in an effort to save what it can will close all markets, and banks. Pensions and social security checks will likely stop as well. What happens when the government food stamp program stops? Riots on Main Street? No, riots on YOUR street. Desperate people resorting to desperate acts. And law enforcement unable to be everywhere at once. Government may even impose martial law. Think it can't happen? You're a fool if you think so.

In light of this, therefore, I propose a Robin Hood Tax on the American government... by kicking it's sorry ass out of the economy altogether (where it has no business being), and forcing it (at gunpoint if necessary) to live within its means. by doing this we just may... may, mind you... save this country from economic destruction in the process, and save untold lives.

It's time for another revolution in this country. Everyone else seems to be throwing their own 'tea parties'... perhaps it's time we had a real tea party of our own, here and now, before our government literally kills tens of thousands of Americans through their reckless fiscal policies that will, if left unchecked, doom thousands of Americans to the loss of the very basic of services; without which most Americans wouldn't know how to survive.

Don't let the government kill you! Join Robin's merry band of men today and together we can bring down the evil Price John (government) and that dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham (the Fed). By doing so we just may be able to save the kingdom for our long absent King Richard....... wherever and whoever he turns out to be.

Monday, October 24, 2011

NATO & Obama: Making the Middleast LESS Safe

While Dem's, and the Left in general, boast and thump their chests over Obama's "victory" in Libya, the new provisionary government is implementing Sharia Law. We didn't know who the rebels were before we became their partner in the killing of Muammar Gaddafi, but we do now. This wasn't Saddam Hussein receiving his just punishment after a lengthy and fair (as fair as one could expect) trial. No. This was the former leader of the nation gunned down in the street. Shades of Nicolai Ceausescu anyone? But Gaddafi wasn't even accorded the show trial Ceausescu was.

Obama. I hate to say it (though I've said it over and over again), is the worst excuse for a U.S. President in living memory-- not even Carter was this bad. Yet in spite of this, almost everyone on the Left is touting his foreign policy successes... but what successes? Apologizing to the world, with every official visit to every rogue or friendly nation he arrogantly sets foot in, for being the object of their hatred and despisement. These nations, according to Obama, some run by dictators, are better in his eyes than the nation he purports to lead. He leads from behind! we've heard it said, but what kind of victory did he win in Libya, beside a cowardly one?

In short, what Obama has achieved in 'leading from behind' in Libya is the advancement of Sharia law on the world stage. Thank you, Mr. President.Welcome, women of Libya, to the 9th century.

Our president has publicly snubbed, humiliated, and thrown under the bus, our greatest ally in the middle east; namely, Israel. Yet he has coddled, befriended, and apologized to the Arab nations, Israel's enemies. And this new turn of events in Libya? the implementation of Sharia? This makes the middle east less safe. Especially Israel. Where have all the shoulder fired missiles gone to? Some have made their way to Gaza. How? The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Libya borders Egypt, Egypt borders Gaza, Gaza fires missiles into Israel on a daily basis.

Tunis has fallen... revolution... who knows what form of government will eventually be installed.

Egypt has fallen... revolution... we know, at least, that the Muslim Brotherhood is more sympathetic to Sharia, than to anything else. The Muslim Brotherhood has already made menacing overtures toward Israel, and is supplying Gaza.

Libya has fallen... Civil War... we don't even know who the rebels are, but we do know they're implementing elements of Sharia.

All of this makes the middle east less safe (despite these players being African nations). Syria is experiencing unrest. As is Jordan. Yemen. Iraq. Algeria. While there is nothing to say these nations would not have seen turmoil, revolution, and civil war had Obama been a stronger leader, but neither is there any evidence to suggest his weakness didn't embolden these nations... Obama's speech in Cairo was a fine example of appeasement, abasement, acquiescence... and incitement. He said to Mubarak: you must leave! To Gaddafi: you must go! Yet nothing to Syria's Hafez al-Assad. He had the nerve to chastise Israel, but hadn't the stones to give Syria the same.

He's a coward. And the poorest excuse for a president in American history. November 6, 2012 can't come soon enough.



Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Why Liberalism Must Be Defeated in the Classroom


...ONE reason, at least... Economics.


"Mainstream economists and the financial press are usually Keynesian. This means that they like to hide the true cause of economic problems. Their explanations, therefore, are ones that try to show how the tail can wag the dog. But these fallacious explanations have been around so long and are so widely taught that most people who do not know real economics -- including most of these same Keynesians -- easily believe these improbable explanations."

Kel Kelly,
Author of, The Case for Legalizing Capitalism
                      [downloadable as a PDF file]

Because most Americans under 35 don't understand the basics of economics-- it's ignorance by design. Education, therefore, needs to be reformed and true sciences taught. Ask yourself why the U.S. is ranked 25th in Mathematics world-wide, and 17th in Science.(December 2010)

Here's a question to consider: keeping with the theme of one of my more recent posts, Is it within a fascist state's best interest to keep it's populace ignorant of how the world really works?

I believe that answer is, Yes. Why else has this nation spent so much time and money rearing generations of poorly educated children? Children grow into taxpayers, and an ignorant tax-base is more easily managed than an enlightened one.

How is the hubris of today's educators any different than Galileo's persecutors? Aside from the religious angle? None whatsoever. Today's educators are entrenched in philosophies that, for the most part, are doing more harm than good. Which is why liberalism- for that is the culprit in the sad state of enlightenment in this country -must be defeated in the classroom first, if we're ever to defeat it in the public square.

The answer to all this mayhem is a better educated populace, and less interference in public management by government. In short: we need to kill the fascist state, and restore the republic. When 47% of America pays no personal income tax, when government expects it's populace to accept the ridiculous notion that increased spending will reduce deficits... and half the population believes it! ...something is terribly wrong in academia.

Remember that final scene in Animal Farm? We're already there.

It's time to drag the pigs away from the table, and make bacon.

Laissez Faire ... there's your jobs bills, folks.

It's called free enterprise...

Capitalism made legal once more.

Learning to Levitate Above a World of Bad Ideas

"These right-wingers hate government so much," bellowed the Rev. Sharpton, "that they don't want any government at all!"

Our mother smirked and jabbed an accusing finger at us. We'd reluctantly sat at the dinner table, something we usually try to avoid during our visits because MSNBC is always blaring in our mother's household at dinnertime.

We hadn't realized that right-wingers had become quite so anarchist as the Rev. Sharpton had just declared.

The Rev. Al had just gotten through talking to Barney Frank about what Americans really want from their government.

"They want jobs," he said. "The want infrastructure. They want government programs."

Barney Frank enthusiastically agreed. I'm sure the millions upon millions viewing the exchange that evening agreed as well. Add to that another hundred million more throughout the land...

The thrust is that when all else fails, we just need the government to do the spending. The government knows best where to invest. The government is wiser and more far-seeing than the fickle markets. Just ask the Soviets!

Mind you, the government has no money of its own...only that which it takes, on pain of imprisonment, from its subjects who make their money in the private sector.

The government has no way of measuring demand or success. Its motives are political, not market-driven. The very polls and votes that inform it come from a demos eager to decide how other peoples' money ought to be spent....And that decision is usually for the "rich" to pay for everyone else.

In today's feature article, we call upon the spirit of Murray N. Rothbard to provide an explanation of why the public sector should not be considered on equal footing with the private sector.


Gary Gibson, Whiskey & Gunpowder
October 5, 2011


We have heard a great deal of the “public sector,” and solemn discussions abound through the land on whether or not the public sector should be increased vis-a-vis the “private sector.” The very terminology is redolent of pure science, and indeed, it emerges from the supposedly scientific, if rather grubby, world of “national income statistics.” But the concept is hardly wertfrei; in fact, it is fraught with grave and questionable implications.

In the first place, we may ask, “public sector” of what? Of something called the “national product.” But note the hidden assumptions: that the national product is something like a pie, consisting of several “sectors,” and that these sectors, public and private alike, are added to make the product of the economy as a whole. In this way, the assumption is smuggled into the analysis that the public and private sectors are equally productive, equally important and on an equal footing altogether, and that “our” deciding on the proportions of public to private sector is about as innocuous as any individual’s decision on whether to eat cake or ice cream. The State is considered to be an amiable service agency, somewhat akin to the corner grocer, or rather, to the neighborhood lodge, in which “we” get together to decide how much “our government” should do for (or to) us. Even those neoclassical economists who tend to favor the free market and free society often regard the State as a generally inefficient, but still amiable, organ of social service, mechanically registering “our” values and decisions.

One would not think it difficult for scholars and laymen alike to grasp the fact that government is not like the Rotarians or the Elks, that it differs profoundly from all other organs and institutions in society, namely, that it lives and acquires its revenues by coercion and not by voluntary payment. The late Joseph Schumpeter was never more astute than when he wrote, “The theory which construes taxes on the analogy of club dues or of the purchase of the services of, say, a doctor only proves how far removed this part of the social sciences is from scientific habits of mind.”

Apart from the public sector, what constitutes the productivity of the “private sector” of the economy? The productivity of the private sector does not stem from the fact that people are rushing around doing “something,” anything, with their resources; it consists in the fact that they are using these resources to satisfy the needs and desires of the consumers. Businessmen and other producers direct their energies, on the free market, to producing those products that will be most rewarded by the consumers, and the sale of these products may, therefore, roughly “measure” the importance that the consumers place upon them. If millions of people bend their energies to producing horses-and-buggies, they will, in this day and age, not be able to sell them, and hence, the productivity of their output will be virtually zero. On the other hand, if a few million dollars are spent in a given year on Product X, then statisticians may well judge that these millions constitute the productive output of the X-part of the “private sector” of the economy.

One of the most important features of our economic resources is their scarcity: land, labor and capital-goods factors are all scarce, and may all be put to various possible uses. The free market uses them “productively” because the producers are guided, on the market, to produce what the consumers most need: automobiles, for example, rather than buggies. Therefore, while the statistics of the total output of the private sector seem to be a mere adding of numbers, or counting units of output, the measures of output actually involve the important qualitative decision of considering as “product” what the consumers are willing to buy. A million automobiles, sold on the market, are productive because the consumers so considered them; a million buggies, remaining unsold, would not have been “product” because the consumers would have passed them by.

Suppose now that into this idyll of free exchange enters the long arm of government. The government, for some reasons of its own, decides to ban automobiles altogether (perhaps because the many tailfins offend the aesthetic sensibilities of the rulers) and to compel the auto companies to produce the equivalent in buggies instead. Under such a strict regimen, the consumers would be, in a sense, compelled to purchase buggies, because no cars would be permitted. However, in this case, the statistician would surely be purblind if he blithely and simply recorded the buggies as being just as “productive” as the previous automobiles. To call them equally productive would be a mockery; in fact, given plausible conditions, the “national product” totals might not even show a statistical decline, when they had actually fallen drastically.

And yet the highly touted “public sector” is in even worse straits than the buggies of our hypothetical example. For most of the resources consumed by the maw of government have not even been seen, much less used, by the consumers, who were at least allowed to ride in their buggies. In the private sector, a firm’s productivity is gauged by how much the consumers voluntarily spend on its product. But in the public sector, the government’s “productivity” is measured — mirabile dictu — by how much it spends! Early in their construction of national-product statistics, the statisticians were confronted with the fact that the government, unique among individuals and firms, could not have its activities gauged by the voluntary payments of the public — because there were little or none of such payments. Assuming, without any proof, that government must be as productive as anything else, they then settled upon its expenditures as a gauge of its productivity. In this way, not only are government expenditures just as useful as private, but all the government needs to do in order to increase its “productivity” is to add a large chunk to its bureaucracy. Hire more bureaucrats and see the productivity of the public sector rise! Here, indeed, is an easy and happy form of social magic for our bemused citizens.

The truth is exactly the reverse of the common assumptions. Far from adding cozily to the private sector, the public sector can only feed off the private sector; it necessarily lives parasitically upon the private economy. But this means that the productive resources of society — far from satisfying the wants of consumers — are now directed, by compulsion, away from these wants and needs. The consumers are deliberately thwarted, and the resources of the economy diverted from them to those activities desired by the parasitic bureaucracy and politicians. In many cases, the private consumers obtain nothing at all, except perhaps propaganda beamed to them at their own expense. In other cases, the consumers receive something far down on their list of priorities — like the buggies of our example. In either case, it becomes evident that the “public sector” is actually anti-productive — that it subtracts from, rather than adds to, the private sector of the economy. For the public sector lives by continuous attack on the very criterion that is used to gauge productivity: the voluntary purchases of consumers.

We may gauge the fiscal impact of government on the private sector by subtracting government expenditures from the national product. For government payments to its own bureaucracy are hardly additions to production; and government absorption of economic resources takes them out of the productive sphere. This gauge, of course, is only fiscal; it does not begin to measure the anti-productive impact of various government regulations, which cripple production and exchange in other ways than absorbing resources. It also does not dispose of numerous other fallacies of the national product statistics. But at least it removes such common myths as the idea that the productive output of the American economy increased during World War II. Subtract the government deficit instead of add it, and we see that the real productivity of the economy declined, as we would rationally expect during a war.

But how is it that only government agencies clamor for more money and denounce the citizens for reluctance to supply more? Why do we never have the private-enterprise equivalents of traffic jams (which occur on government streets), mismanaged schools, water shortages and so on? The reason is that private firms acquire the money that they deserve from two sources: voluntary payment for the services by consumers, and voluntary investment by investors in expectation of consumer demand.

If there is an increased demand for a privately owned good, consumers pay more for the product, and investors invest more in its supply, thus, “clearing the market” to everyone’s satisfaction. If there is an increased demand for a publicly owned good (water, streets, subway and so on), all we hear is annoyance at the consumer for wasting precious resources, coupled with annoyance at the taxpayer for balking at a higher tax load.

Enterprise makes it its business to court the consumer and to satisfy his most urgent demands; government agencies denounce the consumer as a troublesome user of their resources. Only a government, for example, would look fondly upon the prohibition of private cars as a “solution” for the problem of congested streets. Government’s numerous “free” services, moreover, create permanent excess demand over supply and therefore permanent “shortages” of the product. Government, in short, acquiring its revenue by coerced confiscation rather than by voluntary investment and consumption, is not and cannot be run like a business. Its inherent gross inefficiencies, the impossibility for it to clear the market, will insure its being a mare’s nest of trouble on the economic scene.

In former times, the inherent mismanagement of government was generally considered a good argument for keeping as many things as possible out of government hands. After all, when one has invested in a losing proposition, one tries to refrain from pouring good money after bad.

Most economists have two basic arguments on behalf of the public sector, which we may only consider very briefly here. One is the problem of “external benefits.” A and B often benefit, it is held, if they can force C into doing something. Much can be said in criticism of this doctrine, but suffice it to say here that any argument proclaiming the right and goodness of, say, three neighbors, who yearn to form a string quartet, forcing a fourth neighbor at bayonet point to learn and play the viola, is hardly deserving of sober comment.

The second argument is more substantial: Stripped of technical jargon, it states that some essential services simply cannot be supplied by the private sphere, and that, therefore, government supply of these services is necessary. And yet every single one of the services supplied by government has been, in the past, successfully furnished by private enterprise. The bland assertion that private citizens cannot possibly supply these goods is never bolstered, in the works of these economists, by any proof whatsoever. How is it, for example, that economists, so often given to pragmatic or utilitarian solutions, do not call for social “experiments” in this direction? Why must political experiments always be in the direction of more government? Why not give the free market a county or even a state or two, and see what it can accomplish?


Regards,

Murray N. Rothbard

Friday, October 7, 2011

We're All fascists Now

How Fascism Kills the American Dream
Whiskey & Gunpowder
October 7, 2011


President Barack "Infrastructure Jobs" Obama is mad as hell. Says the prez...
"I think it's fair to say that I have gone out of my way in every instance -- sometimes at my own political peril and to the frustration of Democrats -- to work with Republicans to find common ground to move this country forward.
"Each time, what we've seen is games-playing, a preference to try to score political points, rather than actually get something done on the part of the other side."

According to The Associated Press, President Obama "challenged Republicans...to explain to the American people why they oppose his plan to create jobs and rebuild U.S. highways, bridges and schools as an ‘insurance policy' against a return to recession."
Ahem. Allow us to quote our friend Lew Rockwell by way of answering...

"There was stimulus one and stimulus two, both of which are so discredited that stimulus three will have to adopt a new name. Let's call it the American Jobs Act.

"With a prime-time speech, Obama argued in favor of this program with some of the most asinine economic analysis I've ever heard. He mused about how is it that people are unemployed at a time when schools, bridges and infrastructure need repairing. He ordered that supply and demand come together to match up needed work with jobs.

"Hello? The schools, bridges and infrastructure that Obama refers to are all built and maintained by the state. That's why they are falling apart. And the reason that people don't have jobs is because the state has made it too expensive to hire them. It's not complicated. To sit around and dream of other scenarios is no different from wishing that water flowed uphill or that rocks would float in the air. It amounts to a denial of reality.

"Still, Obama went on, invoking the old fascistic longing for national greatness. ‘Building a world-class transportation system,' he said, ‘is part of what made us an economic superpower.' Then he asked, ‘We're going to sit back and watch China build newer airports and faster railroads?"

"Well, the answer to that question is yes. And you know what? It doesn't hurt a single American for a person in China to travel on a faster railroad than we do. To claim otherwise is an incitement to nationalist hysteria.

"As for the rest of this program, Obama promised yet another long list of spending projects. Let's just mention the reality: No government in the history of the world has spent as much, borrowed as much and created as much fake money as the United States. If the United States doesn't qualify as a fascist state in this sense, no government ever has.

"None of this would be possible but for the role of the Federal Reserve, the great lender to the world. This institution is absolutely critical to U.S. fiscal policy. There is no way that the national debt could increase at a rate of $4 billion per day without this institution.

"Under a gold standard, all of this maniacal spending would come to an end. And if U.S. debt were priced on the market with a default premium, we would be looking at a rating far less than A+."

Lew has a way of getting to the heart of the problem. It's the central bank monopolizing and debasing the money supply. It's the assumption that government interference in the economy is a good thing...and that the government knows where best to spend the money it either steals, borrows or, essentially, creates when it borrows from the central bank.

In today's feature article, Lew Rockwell shows us how close these poisonous assumptions have come to killing off the American Dream. Keep reading for more, and then stay tuned for the Parting Shot to see what you can do to make sure the Dream doesn't end for you...

Whiskey & Gunpowder
by Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr.

October 7, 2011
Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A.



Fascism Kills the American Dream


Everyone knows that the term fascist is a pejorative, often used to describe any political position a speaker doesn't like. There isn't anyone around who is willing to stand up and say, "I'm a fascist; I think fascism is a great social and economic system."

But I submit that if they were honest, the vast majority of politicians, intellectuals and political activists would have to say just that.

Fascism is the system of government that cartelizes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts the police state as the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals and makes the executive state the unlimited master of society.

This describes mainstream politics in America today. And not just in America. It's true in Europe, too. It is so much part of the mainstream that it is hardly noticed anymore.

It is true that fascism has no overarching theoretical apparatus. There is no grand theorist like Marx. That makes it no less real and distinct as a social, economic and political system. Fascism also thrives as a distinct style of social and economic management. And it is as much or more of a threat to civilization than full-blown socialism.

This is because its traits are so much a part of life -- and have been for so long -- that they are nearly invisible to us.

If fascism is invisible to us, it is truly the silent killer. It fastens a huge, violent, lumbering state on the free market that drains its capital and productivity like a deadly parasite on a host. This is why the fascist state has been called the vampire economy. It sucks the economic life out of a nation and brings about a slow death of a once-thriving economy.

Let me just provide a recent example.


The Decline

The papers last week were filled with the first sets of data from the 2010 U.S. Census. The headline story concerned the huge increase in the poverty rate. It is the largest increase in 20 years, and now up to 15%.

But most people hear this and dismiss it, probably for good reason. The poor in this country are not poor by any historical standard. They have cell phones, cable TV, cars, lots of food and plenty of disposable income. What's more, there is no such thing as a fixed class called the poor. People come and go, depending on age and life circumstances. Plus, in American politics, when you hear kvetching about the poor, everyone knows what you're supposed to do: Hand the government your wallet.

Buried in the report is another fact that has much more profound significance. It concerns median household income in real terms.

What the data have revealed is devastating. Since 1999, median household income has fallen 7.1%. Since 1989, median family income is largely flat. And since 1973 and the end of the gold standard, it has hardly risen at all. The great wealth-generating machine that was once America is failing.

No longer can one generation expect to live a better life than the previous one. The fascist economic model has killed what was once called the American Dream. And the truth is, of course, even worse than the statistic reveals. You have to consider how many incomes exist within a single household to make up the total income. After World War II, the single-income family became the norm. Then the money was destroyed, and American savings were wiped out, and the capital base of the economy was devastated.

It was at this point that households began to struggle to stay above water. The year 1985 was the turning point. This was the year that it became more common than not for a household to have two incomes, rather than one. Mothers entered the work force to keep family income floating.

The intellectuals cheered this trend, as if it represented liberation, shouting hosannas that all women everywhere are now added to the tax rolls as valuable contributors to the state's coffers. The real cause is the rise of fiat money that depreciated the currency, robbed savings and shoved people into the work force as taxpayers.

This story is not told in the data alone. You have to look at the demographics to discover it.

This huge demographic shift, essentially, bought the American household another 20 years of seeming prosperity, though it is hard to call it that, since there was no longer any choice about the matter. If you wanted to keep living the dream, the household could no longer get by on a single income.

But this huge shift was merely an escape hatch. It bought 20 years of slight increases before the income trend flattened again. Over the last decade, we are back to falling. Today, median family income is only slightly above where it was when Nixon wrecked the dollar, put on price and wage controls, created the EPA and the whole apparatus of the parasitic welfare-warfare state came to be entrenched and made universal.

Yes, this is fascism, and we are paying the price. The dream is being destroyed.

The talk in Washington about reform, whether from Democrats or Republicans, is like a bad joke. They talk of small changes, small cuts, commissions they will establish, curbs they will make in 10 years. It is all white noise. None of this will fix the problem. Not even close.

The problem is more fundamental. It is the quality of the money. It is the very existence of 10,000 regulatory agencies. It is the whole assumption that you have to pay the state for the privilege to work. It is the presumption that the government must manage every aspect of the capitalist economic order. In short, it is the total state that is the problem, and the suffering and decline will continue so long as the total state exists.

Regards,

Lew Rockwell

Monday, October 3, 2011

Assassination of the U.S. Constitution

I don't say he didn't deserve to die... we all do, and toward that end we are all traveling... but, whether you like it or not, Anwar al-Awlaki was a U.S. citizen denied due process... assassinated by his government.

If the U.S. government can force its citizens to buy a product it does not want or face fines and penalties, then we have ceased to be a republic governed by rule of law. If the U.S. government can target and obliterate any specific individual via hellfire missile (or by any means), then we have ceased to be a republic governed by rule of law.

I do not lament the passing of al-Awlaki, but I do lament the passing of America.

It is the height of hypocrisy for an administration to criticize its predecessors for violating the constitution in the defense of this nation after the events of 9/11, and then violate the very same document by telling every American it has to buy medical insurance of face financial penalties... by trying, convicting, and executing an American citizen without due process.

I used to fear someone would target and kill our president; that would be a great disaster for this nation. But now I see that my fear was misplaced. I should have feared for America.