The Attacks Mean They're Getting Nervous
Are the sheep waking up from their stupor? I ask because there seems to be an uptick in members of the mainstream media taking on the question of libertarianism.
Jon Stewart loves the idea of "good government". And it seems that more and more he turns his semitically handsome face and razor wit toward mocking those who think that all government is bad and that life gets better when there is less of it. The media in general — of course — portrays anyone with any anti-state sentiment as an absolute crank who is always seconds away from icing a pig. But it seems that lately they're turning their attention more to these "cranks".
This week I got my dose of antagonizing, pro-state propaganda via Salon.com who ran an article titled "The Question That Libertarians Just Can't Answer." That question was why among the 200-plus nations on the planet, none of them had tried libertarianism as a way to organize society?
Ha.
Ha!
The whole moral and philosophical center of libertarianism is that no one can organize anyone else's life. The Salon writer spent a lifetime being propagandized by the state and simply cannot think in terms of non-aggression anymore than I can think in terms of Russian or Cantonese. He is in a very real sense brain damaged, the way victims of early childhood abuse are. He can't understand a world in which people aren't "organized" by a gang of thugs in nice clothes who have the consent of the brainwashed majority to initiate violence.
Beyond not grasping the non-aggression principle at the center of (anarcho) libertarianism though, why does no nation operate along libertarian lines? Because humanity is still in the grips of the stone age habit of making right by initiating aggression. Because the benefits accrue to those who lie, counterfeit, steal and murder. The political class is descended from the same brutes who were most willing to subjugate and rape to get the resources and pass on their genes. And these same brutes still invest a lot of those stolen resources into propagandizing and brainwashing their victims from childhood to make them more manageable as adults. So the victims write articles like the one in question from Salon.com or offer hearty, unthinking agreement for that nonsense when they read it.
At the same time, however, the very fact that libertarianism is getting this negative attention is perhaps indicative. Sure the attention from the mainstream is expectedly mocking and illogical propagandizing to support the economy-killing slavery that persists in every statist tax farm on the planet. But the fact that it's being addressed at all indicates that the status quo is feeling a little threatened. Meanwhile libertarianism is becoming so cool that all the poseur kids want in on the word. So you have Christian conservative Glenn Beck along with run-of-the-mill big welfare state liberal Bill Maher looking to squeeze their big government feet into the libertarian glass slipper like a pair of ugly stepsisters.
So maybe something is going on. Maybe the state knows that a failure of the democratic welfare model will be its last shot at legitimacy. I mean, the state has moved from tribalism to various forms of force-backed monarchy to various forms of representative mob rule. And humanity has done its best when the force of the state was least effective. The Salon author failed to realize that early America iteslf — with the very notable exceptions of black African slavery and disenfranchisement of white women — was an extremely libertarian endeavor. Early government in colonial and post-colonial America was so weak, unfunded and ineffective that it was almost a beautiful anarchy…which allowed for the greatest economic progress that the world had ever seen until then. (That's why a "minimal" government is so dangerous; it allows great wealth to be amassed which the minimal state then uses to grow into the biggest, baddest, most dangerous state you can imagine. This isn't conjecture; it's the story of the US.)
Freedom has the curious effect of midwifing progress, overall wealth and an increase in standards of living. The welfare statism that grew up in the West after the US's glimmering slice of minimal government has drained what wealth that freedom fostered in the first place. And people — with the help of the internet, the information work-around to the state's chokehold on information — are starting to catch on to the con of statism. Most of them are too brainwashed/damaged to catch on fully. Ever. But the younger folks seem to be catching on to the fact that the state IS aggression and this centralized, concentrated aggression is at the root of all the other aggression and chaos in world. The wars, obviously, but also the poverty, the selling of future generations into debt slavery, the expensive injustice of prohibitions, the rising costs and decreasing standards of living. It's getting too obvious that the aggression and violence just doesn't work. And the internet is making it too hard to blame freedom anymore.
Regards,
Gary Gibson
Editor, The Dollar Vigilante
Before we get to the Week in Review, we’d like to tell you about what was in this week’s TDV Dispatch, one of our subscriber-only publications that looks for better ways for you to survive the disintegration of the USSA, and updates our subscribers on investments and opportunity.
This week I kicked things off with a look at Japan’s failing and flailing Abenomics. In Jeff Berwick’s “Vigilante’s View”, our Editor-in-Chief reimagined Horace Greeley’s “Go West, young man” declaration as a mode of considering where you should look for freedom. Ed Bugos brought investors up to speed in his always engaging “Review and Outlook”, while Jeff took us on a quick tour around the globe in “Other News from TEOTMSAWKI”. Our Expat Report featured an interview with Jan van Vliet, who has happily relocated to Acapulco (why haven’t you?) and finally our profile took a definitively non-Spielbergian look at Dishonest Abe Lincoln, in Abe’s own words.
Here’s what we wrote about this week…
MONDAY, June 3
Jeff Berwick discusses the indoctrination system’s love of government.
“If you still can't understand the dire need to get the small wonderful people (kids) in your life out of public and even government-approved private school, this should drive it home.
A Canadian reader sent along a copy of a recent letter to parents from a public indoctrination camp teacher on a pop quiz to be given at a Canadian government-approved and licensed school. This is an actual, direct copy with real names removed to protect the guilty.”
TUESDAY, June 4
Why You Shouldn't Read About Paul Krugman While Drinking
Gary Gibson on every idiot’s favourite economist.
“Have you ever been at a bar or some other public place and had to overhear some goober talking nonsense that wasn't just offensive but also aggressively stupid? We've all been there: listening to some idiot spout off on something that we know to be patently, embarrassingly wrong. We've all fought the urge to shut such idiots up with sudden, naked violence (because such violence would clearly be wrong). I found myself in just such a situation as I wrote the blog at my neighborhood bar earlier.”
Wednesday, June 5
Redmond Weissenberger on O’Bomber and his O’bombing.
"Amid varying scandals in late May, President Obama gave a speech on foreign policy at the National Defense University (it's a dismaying sign when a university is dedicated to teaching the art of global war) highlighting his administration's goals when it comes to international conduct. Among flashing cameras and his handy teleprompter, Obama stressed the War on Terror will "come to an end at some point". He finally acknowledged his administration is responsible for the murder of four American citizens without due process – one of which was a sixteen year-old who committed no crime other than having a radicalized father. To top it off, the President assured the public he was going to enact strict measures so the vast killing authority he granted himself would not be abused by future Oval Office holders.”
THURSDAY, June 6
Jeff Berwick has an in-depth look at Chile and Venezuela.
" Nothing shows the difference that a local governing style has on an area such as South America like the current difference between Venezuela and Chile. It is almost becoming as obvious as the difference between North Korea and South Korea.
After attempting a coup, Hugo Chavez was democratically elected president of Venezuela in 1998. In Chile, The Communist Revolution came shortly after the 1964 elections. The rise of communism ended the reputation of Chile as South America's most stable state and one of the oldest democracies in the Americas alongside the United States, which had been a point of pride for the Chilean middle class. Despite frustrations with the wealthy and the institutional elite during the early 1960s, by the middle of the 1970s the powerful Chilean middle class had grown even more sour on the Communist Party and the country's poor economy, which had been strong prior to 1958.”
FRIDAY, June 7
Feedback Friday – May 31st, 2013
In this week’s Feedback Friday: Back in the USSR, gold prices, land ownership, and a time and sex analogy.
SATURDAY, June 8
The Weekend Vigilante June 8th, 2013
Jeff Berwick’s weekly address touches on Disneyland, life in the USSA, and some upcoming appearances.
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