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Why Politics Fail

excerpt from The Left, the Right, and the State by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. :

The logic of the market is predicated on the pervasive and glorious inequality of man. No two people have the same scales of values, talents, or ambitions. It is this radical inequality, and the freedom to choose our own lot in life, that makes possible the division of labor and exchange. Through money and contracts, markets allow us to settle differences to our mutual advantage. The result—and here is why people call the market miraculous—is a vast, productive system of international cooperation that meets an incomprehensibly huge range of human needs, and finds a special role for everyone to participate in building prosperity.

Now, to politics. The system of voting is designed to replicate the market’s participatory features. In fact, it is a perverse distortion of the market system. In markets, you get the goods you pay for. If you don’t and there’s been a violation of contract, you have legal recourse. In voting, people are not actually purchasing anything but the politician’s word, which is not only legally worthless; he has every incentive to lie to produce the desired result.

Politics take no account of individuals. You and I are merely tiny specks on the vast blob called “the American people,” and what this blob “thinks” is only relevant insofar as it accords with a political agenda advantageous to the state and its friends.

You think you are voting for tax cuts. Instead you get secret tax increases and perpetual increases in spending. You think you are voting for smaller government. Instead you get ever more government intrusion. This is because it is not the voters who are managing the system. It is well-organized interest groups who feed at the trough managed and owned by the state. Thus there is a vast gulf that separates the average voter from the politician’s real day-to-day interests.

The spectacle of elections grows more absurd every year. We are asked to cast ballots for people we do not know because they make promises they are under no obligation to keep. What’s even worse, the voting gesture is pointless on the margin. The chances that any one vote (meaning your vote) will actually have an impact are so infinitesimally small as to be meaningless.

In markets, entrepreneurial talent means the ability to anticipate and serve the needs of the buying public. In politics, success means the ability to manipulate public opinion so that enough fools (so regarded by politicians) reaffirm the politician’s power and glory. It takes special talents to do this—talents not cultivated in good families.

If American politics were characterized solely by voting and the products of voting, the system would be loathsome enough. And yet the corruption runs deeper. The real power behind Leviathan is wielded by a vast, unelected army of bureaucrats who fancy themselves specialists in the pseudoscience of public policy. In their minds, the only role for the citizenry, treated as a homogenous blob, is to conform or suffer the consequences. Gone are the cooperation, peace, and genuine diversity of markets. Instead, we experience brute force.

Intellectuals specialize in dreaming up grandiose tasks for government that would be doomed to fail even if perfectly implemented. And yet the most obvious criticism of all government schemes is that they must all be mediated by this corrupt system called politics.

How different is this system from the one envisioned by people like Patrick Henry and George Mason? They hoped to erect a wall of separation between society and government to protect the people from being manipulated by cunning political forces. Indeed, the best of the American revolutionaries hoped for a society free of politics, a society free of any visible signs of government. Albert Jay Nock was right to characterize the state, democratic or not, as a parasite on society. Like a plague bacillus, its only successes are from its own point of view.

The Coming Non-Intervention Revolution

by Ron Paul – Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity:

As we see each new administration, regardless of claimed ideological or political differences, pursuing the same destructive policies abroad and trampling our civil liberties at home, we must now face the key issues of our time. The issues of war or peace, republic or empire, liberty at home or the encroaching police state, can no longer be ignored. We find ourselves at the edge of a precipice, where it is obvious that the failed policies of the past cannot be repackaged under a new name to solve our crisis today.

Many still believe each four years that if only their candidate – with the newly-minted and freshly-printed slogans – is elected, we will finally be led to a new springtime in America, to peaceful and prosperous days ahead. But regardless of party, with only cosmetic differences the same policies are being pursued.

Those disgusted by the wars pursued by the Bush Administration, based on lies and manipulation, eagerly waved signs welcoming “change” and voted for new management. But the new manager turned out to be just as bad as the previous one, and in many cases even worse.

The festering wound called Guantanamo Bay has not been closed even as most of its dehumanized prisoners have been cleared for release. Those left there, most of whom not found guilty of anything, are resorting to secret hunger strikes in the hopes of perishing in peace rather than being forced to endure the misery.

The current administration has taken its predecessor’s flirtation with the use of drones to kill anonymously anywhere it chooses and turned it into the cornerstone of US foreign policy.

In Pakistan alone, this administration has killed nearly four thousand people, many of them civilians, with drone strikes. By some estimates, including a recent study by Stanford University, as many as 50 civilians are killed by drones for every terrorist. The administration uses “signatures” to determine who to kill, but these behavior patterns are not at all defined and most often encompass the normal day-to-day activities of farmers and others in Pakistan and elsewhere.

When the administration was forced recently to answer the question of whether it believed it had the legal right to kill Americans on American soil by drone strike, it did not, contrary to press coverage, deny that “right.” Instead, it merely reassured us that it would not kill any American at home by drone who was not considered a “combatant.” And who determines that? Under the precedent set by the previous Bush Administration, it is claimed the president has that imperial privilege.

Just a couple of years ago, Congress passed and the president signed a military spending authorization bill, the NDAA for 2012, which told the president that he has the right to indefinitely detain anyone, even Americans on US soil, indefinitely and without trial if he determines they have provided any sort of material support for terrorist groups or associated forces. What does “material” and “associated” mean? They won’t tell us.

Congress has allowed itself to be made irrelevant, behaving like children while deferring to the president the important decisions it is required to make by the Constitution. On Iraq, Congress left it to the president to decide what to do. On Libya, when in 2011 the president launched an illegal war under false pretenses, Congress did not bother to make a sound. As the president commits the US military to acts of war — covert and overt — against Iran, Syria, Mali, and so on, Congress watches meekly on the sidelines.

There are exceptions, of course, including many Members I have worked closely with over the years in attempt to win our colleagues back over to the side of the Constitution. Many of these friends and former colleagues continue this struggle from inside and they should be commended and supported. I am afraid they are at present still a small minority, largely ignored by House leadership of both parties. But their ranks are growing.

The framers of the Constitution viewed Congress not only as a co-equal branch, but as the first among equals — the people’s branch of government. The people’s branch has nearly lost all relevance today. No wonder poll after poll shows that the American people are disgusted with the whole process. According to the most recent Rasmussen survey, only eight percent of Americans believe Congress is doing a good job, and 53 percent of those surveyed do not believe either party really represents the American people.

We need something new.

We need a hard look at the key issues of our time: the future of freedom, the future of the human race, and of the United States. Neither the Republican nor the Democrat party are pro-peace. They are merely partisan. How many of our pro-peace allies during the Bush administration have disappeared now that a Democrat is in office pursuing the same policies? Also, see how many of the Bush-era hawks have questioned “Obama’s wars” only for petty partisan reasons. It is about political advantage rather than principle. But this is all coming to an end. It cannot be sustained. Every day more and more come over to our camp, the non-interventionists.

At the hands of the warmongers millions have died for nothing. Iraq, Korea, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, Venezuela, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and so on. How can we even know the full extent?

According to the US Special Operations Forces commander, Adm. William H. McRaven, testifying before the Senate Armed Services emerging threats subcommittee earlier this month, “On any day of the year you will find special operations forces [in] somewhere between 70 and 90 countries around the world.”

Why? To what end? And most importantly, where is the authorization? On whose permission does the US Special Forces Command conduct war in 70 to 90 countries at any given time? Are there stacks of hidden declarations of war somewhere that no American knows about? The constitution gives the president no power at all to make war on any given day in 70 to 90 countries, to use secret forces to undermine domestic political currents in favor of movements and politicians that the US elites judge to be “in line” with their interests. Again it is the sign of a nation that has lost its way.

It is time for us to stand up for peace, a peace that is intricately connected to justice, shared human values, and prosperity. A peace that leaves us safer than the empty lies of the warmongers. A peace that leaves our economic future with some glimmer of hope, that leaves our next generations with some glimmer of hope. A peace that frees up the economic resources that can prevent our children from being slaves to the impoverishing imperial ambitions of those directing our current foreign policy.

We are the real patriots. We believe in the United States. We believe the time is now to advance our issues as they have never been advanced before. Above all, we are the optimists. We believe in a brighter future.

The Cold War, as we now know, was itself largely hyped up by beneficiaries of the military build-up, but at the very least we should have expected at the end of the thousands of missiles pointed at us some sort of peace dividend. Instead, thanks to those whose careers and fortunes depended in some manner on the military industrial complex, we stumbled from the end of the war on communism to the war to control the world. This war has failed.

This is the agenda that we are going to advance. This is why I have decided to found my own peace institute that seeks friends and allies beyond all political, party, and ideological lines. We have a great battle of ideas ahead of us. It is time for all like-minded individuals, regardless of political, ideological, or other orientation to join this battle of ideas. We are ready to provide guidance.

I feel so strongly about this issue, the issue of war and peace at home and abroad, that I have for the first time given my name to an institute.

We do not have to agree on every single issue. We should tolerate those views that we may otherwise find objectionable — as long as they do not contradict our main shared values: an end to the American empire overseas and the assault on our civil liberties at home. At the end of my 2008 presidential run I gathered together the candidates of the “minor” political parties to see whether we could find some common ground, to see whether there might be some momentum to push forward a new kind of program beyond the domination of the two major parties. The joint statement we came up with then can very well serve as a guideline for our shared mission to restore peace and liberty to this country. To secure a better future for coming generations.

The statement reads:

We Agree

Foreign Policy: The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with removal of all our soldiers from the region. We must initiate the return of our soldiers from around the world, including Korea, Japan, Europe and the entire Middle East. We must cease the war propaganda, threats of a blockade and plans for attacks on Iran, nor should we re-ignite the cold war with Russia over Georgia. We must be willing to talk to all countries and offer friendship and trade and travel to all who are willing. We must take off the table the threat of a nuclear first strike against all nations.

Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders.

The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation.

The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their crimes and frauds.

This is an historic moment. The era of the neo-conservative control over our foreign policy is passing. Those pushing authoritarianism at home are being challenged and rejected. The American people are turning away from a foreign policy of empire because they understand that they cannot afford it, that it does not make us safer but rather the opposite; that the price of empire abroad is a police state at home, and that throughout history all empires fall and fall in a catastrophic way. We can avoid this terrible fate if we stand up together.

Please, join us. Support our efforts. Become involved in our mission. Peace and prosperity.

Article originally posted at The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

The Majesty of Childhood

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Majesty of Childhood

January 29, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $1,993 today. Gold is down to $1,271 per ounce. Oil is back down to $44 per barrel. Bitcoin has drifted to $225 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 1.75% today.

Systemic risk in the global economy seems to be growing. The Swiss National Bank recently announced a target interest rate range of -1.25% to -0.25%. The Gnomes of Zurich must have gone into hiding. Now Singapore has announced its intent to pursue a form of easing (money-printing) in order to slow the appreciation of the Singapore dollar. No one seems to want a currency that maintains purchasing power anymore – welcome to fiat bizarro world! It would be wise to have at least 10% of your capital in physical gold and silver bullion at this point.

Moving on…

Childhood is a magical experience full of awe, wonder, excitement, and purity. Children have no paychecks to earn or mortgage payments to make. They have no investment portfolios to monitor or insurance policies to structure. They may find it to be pretty, but children could not care less about what’s happening in the gold market. With no degrees, certifications, specializations, or political experience to speak of children are completely tuned out to any implication of status; they seem to understand innately that all people are endowed with individual rights that should not be violated. Children naturally expect to be treated with honesty and dignity which is why they so often use phrases like “But you said…” or “But that’s not fair…”.

Free from these trappings, children are able to live wholly in the moment. Several Eastern philosophies hold up that very state – living wholly in the present – as the highest ideal and many hours are devoted to meditation, yoga, and other techniques designed to train the mind to be still in the present. Children are able to perfectly achieve this present mindfulness without expending any effort or energy whatsoever. This is why children will enthusiastically collect pebbles and sea shells. Adults deem these objects worthless but children are able to appreciate them for their own natural beauty and uniqueness.

Children are almost entirely self-referential until we train them to submit to arbitrary rules and restrictions. Children gain fulfillment and satisfaction from their own accomplishments, no matter how minor, with little need for external incentives and motivations. I suspect this is what Jesus of Nazareth meant when he said “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The truth is all children are born with an inner brilliance and an indomitable will. Children are natural-born learners and their thirst for understanding is unquenchable. Childhood curiosity is unmatched as children want to know the ‘why’ for everything. A child’s mental activity is through the roof!

As we discussed last month in our entry about raising children in the modern world, modern society extinguishes curiosity and subverts individual will by institutionalizing learning and imposing harsh external expectations upon children. Simply put, hierarchy is not natural to children. By enforcing a strict hierarchal structure chock full of arbitrary rules and regulations, modern schools drown the majesty of childhood in wave after wave of contradictory authoritarianism.

On the one hand we talk endlessly about freedom and independence but then we herd our children into compulsory schools that regiment their entire day with mandatory classes and their evening with mindless homework. How can the child be free and independent if he has no time for his own interests? We tell our children that every individual is special but then we tell them they must raise their hand and ask for permission to go to the restroom. That doesn’t make the kid feel particularly special. We encourage our children to play together in cooperation but then we punish them if they try to communicate with their neighbor in the classroom. What’s the kid to make of this?

Of course we justify all of this by saying the children need to learn to follow the rules and obey authority. We never make the distinction between natural rules such as “do not steal” and arbitrary rules such as “do not go to the bathroom without a hall pass”. Likewise we never make the distinction between “respect your parents” and “do not question your teachers”. This breeds a passive populace that will unquestioningly submit to all manner of arbitrary rules, regulations, licenses, restrictions, mandates, and taxes in adulthood as long as someone in “authority” issues them. Then you end up with dishonest money and a parasitic society.

I just can’t help but wonder… what if individuals with infinite potential were not automatically plugged in to institutionalized systems of compulsory education? What if more children were left free to learn in their own way on their own schedule? What if the majesty of childhood was not crushed by a regimented schedule and arbitrary rules as soon as the child reached a particular age? What if, instead of learning to hide their brilliance and subvert their will, children learned to be self-governing and self-driven?

Until the morrow,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the paradigm shift underway please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Why We Don’t Yet Live in the “World of Tomorrow”

By Paul Rosenberg, Freemansperspective.com

The following is a quote from a digital currency mailing list, posted at some time in the late 90s or early 2000s:

Consider that up to say 1970, people invented and developed Major Shit left, right and center. Jets, spacecraft, fiber, chips, laser… plastic… satellites… it goes on and on.

In contrast, the world’s done Absolutely Nothing for a good 20 years – at best, refinement. (“TV now has OVER 100 channels! and MORE PIXELS.”)

Indeed we presently live in a time of sort of… fantasy inventions. “Nanotech!” “Robots!” etc — all fantastic on paper, but totally nonexistent.

However flamboyant, this statement is true. Since 1970, there have been very few primary inventions. What we do have are mere improvements.

The Laws of Physics Are Old

Physics has gone almost nowhere since the 1960s. Here’s a short list of developments in physics:

Gravity: The laws were defined by Galileo and Newton in the 17thcentury.

Planetary motion: Defined by Kepler in 1609 and 1619.

Mechanics: The base laws were defined by Newton in the 17th century. Other specific laws were understood as far back as ancient times.

Gasses: Boyle defined his law of gasses in 1662.

Hydraulics: The laws and uses were developed between the 17th and 19th centuries.

Electromagnetism: James Clerk Maxwell defined these laws in 1865.

Relativity: Galileo defined the first laws of relativity in the 17th century; then Einstein defined new ones in 1905 and 1915.

Quantum mechanics: Einstein expanded upon the work of Max Planck and defined the quantum effect in 1905.

Atomic theory: The modern model of the atom was clarified by Neils Bohr in 1913.

Superconductors: Superconductivity was discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1911 and clarified by Fritz and Heinz London in 1935.

Quantum electrodynamics: Defined by Feynman, Tomonaga, and Schwinger in about 1962.

And what has physics done since then? Not a lot. Most visibly, physicists argue about theories that require twenty six dimensions and smash subatomic particles together.

In other words, physics has turned into a major yawn. Even the few exciting developments we have seen, such as cold fusion and high temperature superconductors, have gone nowhere. And exciting inventions like 3D printing, public cryptography, and cryptocurrencies have not only come from outsiders, but have been attacked by institutions.

Consider the major inventions that erupted between 1870 and 1970: railroads, telegraph, telephones, electricity, radio, TV, airplanes, cars, rockets, spacecraft, plastics, fiber optics, etc., etc., etc.

In the forty three years since – nearly half that time-span – what did we get?

That’s right: louder speakers, more pixels, and smaller screens.

So… either science has been hobbled or we’ve already discovered almost everything.

The Prison of Science

Since I don’t for a moment believe that we’ve discovered all that can be known, the obvious conclusion is that physics is being held in a sort of stasis.

My argument has been this:

Institutions are oppositional to individual will, and individual will is the only thing that creates breakthroughs in science.

Albert Einstein agrees with me, by the way. See this:

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

And this:

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

And this:

Great spirits have always been violently oppressed by mediocre minds.

Within an institution, a scientist must either please the authorities or see his work jettisoned. And scientific grants always have to please authorities.

So, who are these “authorities”? They would certainly include government bureaucrats, but the authorities that really matter here are older scientists who have given themselves over to institutional politics. These are the more common oppressors of new and different ideas.

There’s an old joke that reflects this:

Q: How does physics progress?

A: One funeral at a time.

The oppressors of new scientific theories are entrenched in scientific institutions. From there, they either allow or disallow almost every research project. And anyone who is not part of those institutions is ridiculed, excluded, and ignored.

It was farm boys, outsiders, and self-educated people who invented radio, television, the airplane, the electric light, the telegraph, the phonograph, the automobile, radar, and much more.

The creations of institutional science have been considerably less impressive. And those advances generally required the inventors to suffer along the way. Young Albert Einstein, after all, was rejected by all the institutions of his time. He made his great discoveries while working as a mere patent clerk.

God only knows how many wonderful things have been lost to institutional politics.

All of this is not because of “certain bad people” – institutional power turns good people into bad people. (Ask a grad student.)

Is There an Answer?

Sure there is! The same thing that worked in the 19th century: the separation of science and institution.

If you believe the line coming from today’s universities, you’d think that nothing scientific could exist without them. But to believe that, you’ll have to pretend that the previous, non-institutional era never happened.

But it did happen, and the pre-institution era of science produced far more basic discoveries than the institutional era.

We may have been indoctrinated by these institutions, but that has nothing to do with truth.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

The Power in Paradoxical Wisdom

submitted by jwithrow.

There is a certain power that one stumbles upon once they accept the “paradoxical wisdom” concept.

This power is not physical in nature. It is not like money power or political power which must be grabbed by men (or women) of ambition. It is a power only found when one is not seeking it; it is not something to be sought after and possessed. For this reason it is a power that is not corrupting and it is not fleeting. The power inherent in paradoxical wisdom is one of peace and serenity.

It is the understanding that there is something greater and more important than money, status, or worldly power. It is the understanding that each one of us are so much more than what we appear to be on the surface and that each one of us is here in this moment for a very specific reason; we are not irresponsible little people that are here by chance.

There is an inner calmness that develops once one comes to the realization that he (or she) does not know. The trivial occurrences of the day become completely irrelevant.

Those who have not yet found this power worry and fret over small mishaps or social popularity or what have you. But those who have found the inner peace care little for any of these things.

This is why those who possess calmness of mind and spirit cannot be gossiped about or ridiculed. They are not very interested in playing the worldly game of ego, power, or status and so insults do not bother them in the slightest. This makes it very unsatisfying and a bit embarrassing for the one doing the insulting; insulting another without receiving a reaction is like playing a game of catch with one’s self.

The power contained within paradoxical wisdom allows one to maximize his (or her) productive energy. He no longer wastes energy worrying about trivial events. He no longer wastes energy worrying about physical appearance or fashion. He no longer wastes energy worrying about how he is perceived by others. He no longer wastes energy playing the power game.

As it turns out, we tend to waste quite a bit of energy just in perceived self-defense or in attempts to justify our thoughts and actions to others. This wasted energy can be applied in a much more positive and creative way once the need for self-defense and justification fades away.

The power found within the paradoxical wisdom concept stems from acceptance.

Once one understands that he does not have all of the answers then it becomes acceptable for him (or her) to be fallible and make mistakes. And it becomes acceptable for him to stray from the popular path in search of knowledge and wisdom. And perhaps most importantly, he no longer needs to justify his thoughts or actions to others and he no longer feels as though others should justify their own thoughts or actions to him.

He is free.

The Secret Appeal of Politics

By Paul Rosenberg, Freemansperspective.com

The Internet is full of stories about politicians acting badly and doing the opposite of what they promised. Talk radio is full of the same things, all day, every day. Even around office water coolers, almost everyone will admit that politicians are liars and thieves.

Given all of this, it’s rather bizarre that people still believe and obey the bums. If we knew such things about a neighbor, would we continue to take them seriously?

Yet, for some reason, politicians get a permanent pass on anything stupid they do.

The first reason for this is simply that most people have been bamboozled. They were taught that government is necessary and that without it, we’d all be ignorant savages, eating whatever few berries and roots we could scrounge… that without government nothing would be built, nothing invented, and nothing taught.

That’s all propaganda, of course, paid for by the people it praises. But, it’s what we were all taught and it’s hard for people to let it go, no matter how stupid it is.

The second reason is that people are afraid. We all know why.

None of that, however, is what I want to cover today. Instead, I want to look at the subtle reasons why people can’t let go of “politics.” These reasons are very powerful, but they lie beneath the surface and are harder to identify than self-serving, government-funded BS.

Reason #1: I Can Blame Anyone but Me

Somehow, people all across the West have become pathologically afraid of blame. It probably began as a corrosive fear of hell: If I’m to blame for anything, I’ll go to hell, and that must be avoided.

But be that as it may, this fear of blame allows political parties to provide a highly desirable service: They help you assign all blame to others. If you like the Red party, you can always affix blame to the Blues and not to yourself. If you’re in the Blue party, you can lay all blame onto the Reds.

It’s actually an elegant scam. The Blue v. Red show lets everyone avoid taking any blame onto themselves, while the big machine keeps right on running.

This fear of blame is ridiculous, of course: We’ve all made mistakes. What matters is correcting them and not repeating them. But if we pretend we never make mistakes, nothing gets fixed and the problems continue.

This neurotic avoidance of blame puts politicians in wonderful position – they don’t actually have to solve anything, and any blame is deflected to their evil opposition.

Reason #2: It Makes Me Feel Brave at No Expense

Politics lets us pretend that we’re fixing problems at no expense, save talking. Actually doing something is not required. Politics empowers our mere words to generate powerful results.

At least that’s what people want to believe. It’s the easy way out. You never have to get up and act. You never have to take a real risk. No blood, no sweat, no tears.

This is just another scam, of course: The politicians continue do what they want, and the people keep right on believing, even though their words seldom generate any real results.

All they need to do is keep you in the game. So long as you keep hoping that your words will affect the future, they can do whatever they please.

The alternative would be taking responsibility onto yourself and acting on your own. Gain would require pain… precisely the thing that people want to avoid.

So, instead, they keep believing that politics will magically turn complaints into results, and they remain tied into the system, no matter how badly it fails them.

Reason #3: It Makes Me Feel Noble at No Expense

Politics lets you pour charity onto the targets of your choice, without any personal expense. The magical money pot in the capital city dispenses it, and you feel no pain.

It doesn’t matter what your target of choice is, by the way. For some, it’s “the less fortunate,” to others, it’s people on another continent. It really doesn’t matter, aside from the fact that it makes you feel good to help people and that you never have to put your hand into your own pocket.

Again, this is clearly a scam: The money comes from ourselves (in ways we don’t think about), from others (those super-rich people), or, primarily these days, from generations yet unborn in the form of state debt.

But, those are things that can be ignored, and politicians are always quick to help us ignore them.

Paul Rosenberg

The Economy Can Never Fully Recover as Long as This Remains…

By Paul Rosenberg, Freemansperspective.com

When I was a young man, the older men I admired were the independent businessmen. Being a corporate suit issuing orders to underlings never appealed to me, but being a successful man who controlled his own life and business… that did.

Perhaps as a result, most of my friends are independent business people of one sort or another. Not long ago, I had a notable conversation with one of them, during which he said:

You know, Paul, business used to be fun. I’d take my children around and show them what we were doing, and explain the differences we’d make.

I waited just a beat as he winced and then continued:

Now, I don’t want to drag my kids into my business. Every time I move, there are regulations, permissions, forms to file. It takes up most of my time, for nothing. Business isn’t fun anymore. If I could find something else, I’d get out.

And this is a man who has been in his business since childhood, who loves to tell stories about it, and who used to enjoy his work immensely. If this guy is looking for the exit, the problem is dire.

It’s pretty obvious why

I have limited faith in government statistics, but there are a few informative ones on this subject:

The US Small Business Administration (SBA) recently reported that the annual cost of complying with government regulations is more than one trillion dollars per year and has been since 2005.

It goes on to report that big businesses (500+ employees), pay about $7,550 per employee to comply with the regulations. Small businesses, on the other hand (up to 20 employees) pay about $10,600 for every person they employ. And this is just one reason why small, independent businesses are being swallowed up by giant corporations.

Also bear in mind that this is just the cost of compliance with federal regulations. States also impose regulations on businesses. So do most of the county and city governments, especially large city governments.

New rules are produced constantly, and the cost of compliance rises constantly. In the US (and many other places), the cost of doing business has long since become prohibitive.

The Work-Arounds

Clever folks always find ways to get around this insanity, of course. But those ways are extra work and probably help relatively few people.

#1: They get rid of their employees

They find niches in their fields that allow them to escape the endless paperwork, penalties, and senselessly wasted time that comes with being an employer. (If you’ve ever had employees, you know what I mean.)

And what of the workers? Well, some get hired by the few related-industry employers that remain, while others have to take a mind-numbing mid-level corporate job just to pay the bills or get insurance. The rest are living on food stamps, disability, or a dozen other welfare programs.

#2: They go offshore

If your business is not resident where the regulators are, they usually can’t say anything about it.

Not many business people have moved abroad, but lots of them have set up offshore companies and are conducting business on the Internet. These people get their lives back… if they can find a way to make it work.

That is the dirty little secret of offshore companies, by the way: It’s not about escaping taxes; it’s about escaping all that ridiculous, insulting, pointless paperwork. No more spending days crunching numbers at tax time, no filing new reports every time you do something. You just take care of your customers and deliver good product. (Which ought to be enough.)

#3: They pay politicians for protection

Why would anyone donate thousands of dollars to a politician unless they expected to get something in return?

Big businesses pay politicians so that they can make a phone call to get problems that arise fixed. Small businesses can’t afford that, and most small business owners have moral problems with bribery.

Legit Is Dead

Unfortunately, the old “American way” of working hard, conducting honest business, and succeeding is gone, dead, and buried. It may still happen from time to time, but infrequently and off the beaten path.

Not long ago, I found this sign posted on a streetlight in Chicago:

The sign is right – the old “legit” way of doing business is dead. If you want to get ahead these days, you either try to play a game that is rigged against you, you pay politicians to bend the rules for you, or you avoid the situation entirely.

It seems that the best and brightest – the would-be drivers of the economy – are choosing the last option.

What does that say about where things are going?

Paul Rosenberg

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out – A Modern Interpretation by Paul Rosenberg

By Paul Rosenberg, FreemansPerspective.com

This was a big phrase in the 1960s, as young people turned away from
the corporate conformity of the 1950s and decided that they wanted more
out of life than being an adequately-fed cog in a big machine.

Let’s be honest and admit that the modern corporate script involves
selling your own wishes and dreams for paychecks. I know that a lot of us have played along with it because of necessity, but this is not a way of life to cling to, it’s a way of life to escape.

You are meant to live your life. Yes, I know it can seem hard, but
it’s the only life that’s really worth living. You have to give meaning
to your life, and you’ll never get it by following the televised script and hoping for pats on the back from the people who are playing along with you.

This life you have is precious. Human beings are engines of creation;
we are able to imagine and to turn our imaginations into reality. And we
are capable of supercharging our creative abilities by sharing our lives
and loves with other people. We are astonishingly capable creatures.

Don’t waste all your life’s abilities in a corporate cubicle. You’ve
already seen how that goes: Work excessive hours, go home tired, watch
TV, sleep, and start over. Your kids end up in mini corporate worlds
called “schools,” where they are taught to sit, be quiet, obey, and turn
off their internal desires and loves. If you play that game you’ll miss
most of your life in the process, as well as most of your children’s
lives.

Once you get some corporate inertia going, it is all too easy to get
sucked into it permanently. Don’t let that happen to you.

So, here’s my modern (and slightly adjusted) interpretation –
Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out:

Tune In

Wake up and see the world as it is. Turn off the
talking heads on TV and get to know the real world. Stop spending all
your brain cycles on celebrities, sports heroes and gossip hounds – get
to know your neighbor and the old woman who lives around the corner,
strike up a friendship with someone on the other side of the world. Travel. Spend your time with real people; get to know them, and reveal yourself to them. It only seems weird because the people who programmed you didn’t want you to think freely.

Do you think I am being dramatic by referring to “the people who
programmed you”? If so, read this:

Education should aim at destroying free will so that
after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished.

That was from the highly esteemed Bertrand Russel, by the way, and
I’ve got plenty more of them. Take this seriously, because your
programmers have been.

Tune in to yourself rather than your programming: What do you really
want? Most people can list a dozen things that bother them, but not a
single thing that they really want. This is a problem. Find out what you
want. What do you love? What do you want to work for?

Do you remember all those times in the Bible where Jesus berates
people for being “hypocrites”? Well, the real word he used was actors –
as in stage actors. And whether you are religious or not, this is
crucial: Stop acting in someone else’s play. Take off all the masks and
find yourself.

Turn On

Start doing what you love. Don’t wait for someone else, do it
yourself. Start helping your friends and neighbors, spend serious time
with your children – not at a game or a party, but just you and them,
talking. Find out what they love. Tell them what you love, what you are
proud of, what you regret. Tell them you love them. Tell them things you
don’t tell your friends. Let them know you.

Start living, not merely existing. DO the things you feel an urge to
do. And don’t fall into the usual trap of “what if I make a mistake?”
That’s simply fear-based conditioning. Resist it. Do what you love, and
in so doing, you will turn yourself on.

Are you going to go through your whole life and never follow your own
wishes, always sacrificing them to the tyranny of other peoples’
opinions? Please don’t do that to yourself – you’ll suffer greatly for
it when you’re old.

Screw all the expectations and turn on – act on your own will.

Drop Out

Stop wasting your time and energy on governments and arguments and
politics. Drop out of their mindset and start reclaiming all those
wasted hours. Lying politicians are simply not worth your devotion. Drop
the endless party fights and stop arguing about them. Politics is ugly,
and politics on the brain makes us ugly.

Stop paying attention to the hundreds of ads you see every day – they
are scientifically designed to grab your thoughts. Turn away. Stop
buying trendy things, and definitely stop buying things for the purpose
of impressing other people.

Stop trying to fit in, and stop living according to other people’s
expectations. Let them call you weird. Let them talk about you. Stop
caring about it. If they were real friends, they wouldn’t treat you like
that. So if they are willing to call you names, you’re better off
dropping them now.

Don’t fight the system – that just keeps all of your energy and
attention focused on them. Forsake the system and start creating a
better life for yourself, the people you love and the people you
respect. Stop giving all your life’s energy to a barbaric system of
force and manipulation.

Let the system go; all of it. Move on and let it rot where it sits.

But We Need A Plan!

No, you don’t. You need a life!

Let go of the plan addiction. Life is organic, not mechanical.

First of all, you need to identify what you want to create with the
precious life you’ve been given. Not what you want to stop, but what you
want to make.

If you’ve never been told to do this before it may seem hard, but you
can do it if you try.

Don’t sit and wait. Stop talking and start doing.

ACT! NOW!

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the
outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the
author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our
complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Visit his site to get your free copy.]

Presidents’ Day Quotes

submitted by jwithrow.

For your reading pleasure, here is a compilation of pertinent quotes from the first four American Presidents in honor of Presidents’ Day.

George Washington:

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
“The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.”
“Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.”
“It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.”
“Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.”
“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.”
“Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.”

John Adams:

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
“All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”
“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
“Power always thinks… that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.”
“Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”
“Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.”
“Fear is the foundation of most governments.”
“Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.”

Thomas Jefferson:

“If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.”
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
“Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.”
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”
“The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

James Madison:

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
“Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.”
“In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.”

Avoiding the Identity Trap

submitted by jwithrow.

The identity trap is the belief that you need to conform to what others think that you should be. It is when you feel the need to speak or act a certain way because other people think that you should speak or act that way. It is when you participate in an event or join an organization because others expect you to do so.

While these other people who expect you to conform to certain expectations are typically well-intentioned, you are doing yourself a disservice if you allow yourself to be pressured into the identity trap. Your life will not be harmonious if you are not true to your own inner self.

People, often subconsciously, do not see others as individuals but rather they see others as members of a particular group. They then assume that the other person holds all of the associated group’s beliefs and traits and thus they expect the other person to speak and act accordingly. But everyone is a unique individual and groups are comprised of individuals.

Individuals have a responsibility to themselves to do what they think is right at all times. Individuals have a responsibility to stay true to their beliefs and principles. Individuals do not have a responsibility to put on a façade because other people expect them to be something other than themselves. Falling into and remaining stuck in the identity trap is an impediment to your personal freedom. You can never be free if you must pretend to be something that you are not.

Harry Browne, in How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World, laid out four specific principles to recognize in order to avoid the identity trap. They are as follows:

1. You are a unique individual — different from all other human beings. No one else has the exact same nature that you have; no one else reacts to things in exactly the way you do. No one else sees the world exactly as you do. No one can dictate what your identity should be; you are the best qualified person to discover what it is.

2. Each individual is acting from his own knowledge in ways he believes will bring him happiness. He acts to produce the consequences he thinks will make him feel better.

3. You have to treat things and people in accordance with their own identities in order to get what you want from them. You don’t expect a stone to be a fish. And it’s just as unrealistic to expect one person to act as someone else does. You don’t control the identities of people, but you can control how you deal with them.

4. You view the world subjectively — colored by your own experience, interpretation, and limits of perception. It isn’t essential that you know the final truth about everything in the world; and you don’t have the resources to discover it.

Avoid the identity trap and realize your true individual potential.