common law Archives - Zenconomics

The Self-Referential Awakening – Heeding the Warrior’s Call

submitted by jwithrow.
Click here to get the Journal of a Wayward Philosopher by Email

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Self-Referential Awakening – Heeding the Warrior’s Call

January 4, 2016
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Friday at $2,044. Gold closed at $1,060 per ounce. Crude Oil closed at $37.07 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.27%. Bitcoin is trading around $431 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

Happy New Year! As I touched on in my last journal entry, I expect 2016 to be a very interesting year in the financial markets. Credit has been expanding and interest rates have been falling for more than three decades now, but 2016 may be the year those trends reverse.

The “authorities” will fight such a trend reversal with everything they have, but Mr. Market will eventually assert himself. Trees don’t grow to the sky, as they say. For a more detailed look at the prominent macroeconomic trends of our time, as well as how to position your finances accordingly, please see our online course Finance for Freedom: Master Your Finances in 30 Days.

Moving from finance to philosophy…

Socrates: Everyone wants to tell you what to do and what’s good for you. They don’t want you to find your own answers, they want you to believe theirs.

Dan: Let me guess, and you want me to believe yours.

Socrates: No, I want you to stop gathering information from the outside and start gathering it from the inside.

Continue reading “The Self-Referential Awakening – Heeding the Warrior’s Call”

Decentralization and Spontaneous Order

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Decentralization and Spontaneous Order

November 25, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,084. Gold closed at $1,074 per ounce. Oil closed at $42.87 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.25%. Bitcoin is trading around $324 per BTC today.

Not much action in the markets this week as Wall Street humanoids are gearing up for the big holiday on Thursday. Only the high-frequency trading machines remain to trade back-and-forth with one another for a few days. Despite this calm, I get the sense that a big move is brewing…

Also worth mentioning, I appeared on the SovereignBTC podcast with host John Bush last week. We had a blast talking about many of the topics I often muse on here in the Journal. If you would like to listen to the interview, you can find it at the LTB Network here.

Dear Journal,

“That was really sweet what you wrote about Madison…” wife Rachel said after reading my previous journal entry. “But the only thing you said about me was that I wouldn’t read past a certain point!”

“Well did you read past that paragraph?”, I asked with a wry grin on my face.

“No, that’s as far as I got…”

My last entry discussed the potential for the family unit to act as a sovereign institution in light of the burgeoning Great Reset, much to the benefit of both the sovereign family and the local community. The underlying theme of that entry, and of many recent journal entries, has been decentralization.

I seek to offer my unfiltered perspective when I sit down to write these journal entries, and I only write them when motivated to do so for that reason. That’s why the Journal follows no set schedule whatsoever, though I try my best to post a weekly entry. Sometimes when I re-read my unfiltered entries, however, I get the feeling that readers may come away with a more negative sentiment then I intend to convey. Continue reading “Decentralization and Spontaneous Order”

The Rule of Law

submitted by jwithrow.

The Rule of Law is rooted in British common law that dates back to the Middle Ages and it is the foundation of Western civilization. It is the underlying legal/ethical code of conduct that enabled western civilization to thrive.

The Rule of Law can be condensed into two fundamental laws:

1) Do all that you have agreed to do and nothing that you have agreed not to do.
2) Do not encroach upon other persons or their property.

The first law forms the basis of all contract law and the second law forms the basis of criminal law. These laws are simple and intuitive and history shows that a society dedicated to these laws is able to achieve prosperity.

Unfortunately, the Rule of Law has been subverted by the rule of legislation in our society today. There are now hundreds of thousands of petty laws on the books accompanied by millions of pages of legal mumbo-jumbo in supporting documents. Much of this legislation actually violates the Rule of Law as it encroaches upon personal liberty and property rights. Further, these petty laws are enforced at the discretion of the political class; politicians and insiders are largely exempt from abiding by their own legislation.

There was a time in America when grade schools taught common law and history lessons focused almost exclusively on common law principles. Sadly, this is no longer the case as the public educational system now teaches children to never question the validity of legal mandates and regulations, no matter how petty.

Fortunately, the Internet Reformation seems to be setting brushfires of liberty in the mind’s of men once again. These are certainly interesting times we are living in.

“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” – Tacitus

“Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.” – Lin Yutang

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws” – Plato