Thomas Paine, Common Sense (R. Bell, Philadelphia, 1776) Front Cover..Man knows no master save HEAVEN, Or those whom Choice and common Good ordain.
Frederic Bastiat, The Law (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, 1850) p. 2.Life, liberty and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforhand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense (R. Bell, Philadelphia, 1776) Introduction.Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides.
Reinhold Niebuhr, Andrew J. (INT) Bacevich, The Irony of American History (University of Chicago Press, 2008) p. 21.Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all His laws.
Dear Sirs, In view of what seems to be happening internationally with banks at the moment, I was wondering if you could advise me. If one of my checks is returned marked “Insufficient Funds,” how do I know whether that refers to me or to you?
SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You are forced by Obama to give one to your neighbor.
COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and rations your milk.
FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.
NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.
BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both because they might damage a turtle habitat. They take one away to study it’s environmental impact, pay seven people to milk the other (six lean on overpriced shovels while one does the work), and then throw the milk away…
In “Common Sense Revisited” the author describes the difference between surrogate power and indigenous power. Very briefly defined as follows, Indigenous power is the power we have from our creator; it is the only true source of power on earth. It cannot be taken away from us. We can, however, voluntarily give up some of our power to surrogates like corporations, governments, unions, partnerships, etc. These surrogate entities only have power that can be taken back at any time by individuals that the surrogates serve.
These entities do things for us, they are our servants. As long as they follow the contracts, constitutions, by-laws, or partnership agreements we put in place than everything is fine. However, the people who have been running our surrogates seem to have a natural tendency to assume more power than expressed in the original written agreements. That is why problems have arisen.
The philosophy of collectivism in all of its forms; communism, fascism, socialism, etc. is based on a falsehood. All forms of collectivism use propaganda, fear, greed, force, intimidation, and all forms of deceit to make the people believe that the state has indigenous power when it does not, and never can have, indigenous power.
When people are awake, educated, and fully conscious and empowered than they do not allow this illusory power to control them. The author of this article below entitled “This too shall pass” does a great job of explaining the current state of affairs. I suggest keeping this concept of indigenous vs. surrogate power in mind while reading this article. The best solutions to all problems in society always come from a bottom up structure where the individuals have the maximum amount of individual freedom. This kind of structure is diametrically opposed to all forms of collectivism.
My final comment on the following piece is that all of us who believe in freedom need to be solution focused. That is another reason why I like this piece because it gives a concrete example of a proven freedom based solution. When reading this article you can substitute bottom-up, or freedom based, for libertarian, they all refer to the same basic concept.
Read Bill Butler’s article here.
Truth, Freedom, Love, and Peace will triumph because of fundamental laws of nature.
I have been finding that there is one issue, the evil nature of our current monetary system, that brings people from different political perspectives together. This provides us with a tremendous opportunity to create a consensus among a huge number of people and then focus that political power to take a very specific action. Eliminating the Fed is going to take some major work and major education, but passing the following two bills that have been introduced in Congress would be a big step in the right direction. Please call your congressman and ask them to cosponsor these bills. Tell all of your friends to do this and get the word out.
The two bills are the “Honest Money Act” (HR 2756), and the “Free Competition in Currency Act” (HR 4683). You can go to this website http://www.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/85 to find out about these bills and send your congressman a message. The education on this issue is critical so tell your friends to read these two books on line for free:
What Has Government Done to Our Money? (available free at http://mises.org/rothbard/rothmoney.pdf)
The Case for Gold, by Ron Paul (available free at http://www.mises.org/books/caseforgold.pdf)
Of all the things we can do to put our country in tune with fundamental principles of natural law there is nothing more important than getting the monetary system fixed. Let’s create a groundswell of support for these two bills and we will have taken a major step toward restoring the heart of America.
The words that best described the nation’s original foreign policy and the policy that should be pursued now were spoken by Thomas Jefferson during his first Inaugural Address in 1801: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”
Unfortunately, this is not the policy that has been followed in the last century.
Ever since the proponents of surrogate power took over the country, the government has grown in excess of constitutional boundaries on all levels. The nation is now involved militarily all over the world. Defense spending, added to all of the unconstitutional domestic programs, has bankrupt the country and made its people much more fearful and vulnerable to attacks.
As Douglas MacArthur said many decades ago, “Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war, hysteria, and an incessant propaganda of fear.”