Re: POLITICS protestors considered suspected terrorists

[Guest guest]

,

> For the sake of brevity, I have broken my response into several posts.

Ok, I'll try to respond as I get the chances to.

> Probably your best bet is get a copy of the third edition of

> Ruwart's, _Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression_.

Thanks. I don't know when I'll be able to read it, but I suppose I'll

have to hold off most comments on this section till I do.

> In addition there is plenty of material by Bruce Benson,

> http://mises.org/story/2542:

>

> In fact, our modern reliance on government to make law and establish

> order is not the historical norm. Public police forces were not

> imposed on the populace until the middle of the nineteenth century in

> the United States and Great Britain, for instance, and then only in

> the face of considerable citizen resistance.[2] Crime victims played

> the prosecutors' role in England until almost the turn of the century,

> and they did not yield to public prosecution without a struggle.[3]

> The foundation of commercial law was developed by the European

> merchant community and enforced through merchant courts.[4]

>

> To this day, international trade is " governed " to a large extent by

> merchants, as they make, arbitrate, and enforce their own law; and in

> the United States, at least 75 percent of commercial disputes are

> settled through private arbitration or mediation with decisions based

> on business custom and practice (customary commercial law).[5]

> Arbitration services, particularly for commercial disputes, have been

> increasingly used for some time, but the last few years have witnessed

> the development of a new industry — private for-profit courts

> competing with public courts for a wide spectrum of civil disputes.[6]

> Furthermore, there are now over twice as many private police as public

> police in the United States, as citizens hire more and more watchmen,

> guards, and highly trained security experts.

Well most of that makes quite a bit of sense. Of course Christians

are prohibited Biblically and canonically from taking disputes between

themsleves to secular courts, so by settling them within church

communities, or, when necessary, the church hierarchy, which are

networks to which one voluntarily belongs, one is engaging in private

dispute settlement.

And standard argument on these issues is the case of fire departments,

where in America before municipal fire departments, different firms

would fight over the right to put out a fire, which was a violent

disaster.

This is really a bogus argument because all that is needed is a

contractual arrangement between a person and the fire department.

I think the influence of private militaries, however, has probably

generally been quite bad. But in these cases they are used as

mercenaries. The history of private security guards is much better.

What is really bad, however, is the current use of private militaries

contracted by the government. What this really means is that the

United States is degenerating into a third world country run by thugs

with a paramilitary system like Colombia. The worst part about it is

it greatly expands the government's ability to engage in " plausible

deniability " by contracting out some oppressive action to a private

third party and denying any involvement. However, the idea of

mercenaries that fight aggressive wars or soldiers that oppress the

domestic population is, of course, contrary to libertarian principles.

Nevertheless, it is not exactly clear to me what would stop one firm

from aggressing against another in an anarchical system. I think the

general tendency would be for firms to collude with each other, which

would generally result in either a government or some mafia-type

pseudo-government.

> There is other material, like Rothbard's, For A New Liberty

> (http://mises.org/rothbard/newliberty11.asp), which is helpful, and

> stuff from others, but I would start with Ruwart.

Ok, thanks.

[snip]

>> However, the price index still went down consistently through the

>> period of monarchial governments, indicating that inflation of the

>> currency was not a powerful force and that rising productivity of the

>> market was.

> The ability of a society to overcome the theft of its own government

> is remarkable indeed. Nonetheless, it does not change the basic nature

> of inflation as a form of theft by government. It is one of the most

> insidious forms of theft, devaluing the money supply, because it

> happens invisibly without any direct confrontation by the government.

> So the 100 gold coins I have in my safe are really 80% gold and 20%

> copper, although they look like 100% (or whatever percent agreed to)

> on the surface.

>

> So the $100 in my pocket is only worth $90 tomorrow. The government

> just took $10 from me and I didn't even know it. Monetary policy is

> sooooooo important to a stable society, cuz when those societies go

> bad, it is usually the gov't' sins in this area that open the door to

> the collapsing of a civilization. It is not the only thing for sure,

> but it usually plays a very big role.

I agree with everything you said, but the point remains that inflation

is vastly, vastly, vastly worse under privately owned central banks

than under government-issued currency systems. I read most of Hans

Hermann-Hoppe's book a few years ago, and in retrospect, I think one

of his major flaws is that he attributes this to democracy. It isn't,

really -- it is attributable to private monopoly on the currency.

Hoppe seems to think it is because people who are elected for a few

years do not care about how they leave the government when they exit

it, whereas a king owns it and passes it on to his children. This is

silly for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that

private corporations owned by a handful of banking dynasties own and

control the central banks, not elected officials.

>> So it would seem that, while not ideal, a state monopoly

>> of money constitutionally restricted to a commodity standard, ideally

>> with a constitutional prohibition of debasement, is vastly superior to

>> a government-granted monopoly given to a private cartel with the

>> specific privilege of inflating at will and with no commodity

>> standard. At least for the duration that the government obeys its own

>> constitution.

> Can you identify a nation-state that has ever limited itself to what

> you describe above?

No, but can you identify a single libertarian anarchical society that

limited itself to such, without eventually developing a state?

There is nothing self-restraining about a minimalist government, but

there is nothing self-restraining about a libertarian society. If it

is within the realm of human nature to collude, and collusion is best

served by taking advantage of government, then the colluders will

always form governments.

> Aren't you arguing that is what the US once had?

> So it seems the operative sentence in the above paragraph is the last

> one:

> " At least for the duration that the government obeys its own constitution. "

>

> And then what? Heroic attempts to reign in the wayward state and limit

> its power once again?

Anything can only be maintained with vigilance. That would be true

with or without a state.

> There is no demonstrated success of such ever happening. The idea of a

> government checking itself with a document of which it is the final

> arbiter of its meaning is absurd, in my opinion. Having the state set

> itself up as the arbiter of justice in its own cause is a violation of

> one of the basic juridical principles of arriving at a just decision.

> Clearly that grand experiment in limited government has been a

> colossal failure.

Well of course it is. However I was listening to a law expert

recently who was saying that it is a complete fabrication that the

supreme court is the highest court in the land and the highest court

is actually a civilian jury authorized under the seventh amendment. I

didn't thoroughly understand the argument so I'll have to look more

into it later, but it is quite possible that the advocats of the Bill

of Rights, who I think were in many cases anti-federalists, intended

the people and not the government to be the ones who would restrain

the government to its constitution.

Naturally that didn't work either, because of the propaganda used by

the social management technicians. These have been, in part,

governments, but I think they have in much larger part been the

central bankers and the industrial monopolists they financed, who have

been the main pushers of big government in our era.

> Simply put, the idea of using state power to reduce state power is a

> theory, nothing else.

I'm not sure what that means. Something being a theory does not make

it untrue or unsupported.

> There have been lots of magnificently talented people - men and women

> - over the last 300 years or so who have spent lots of time and money

> trying to make this happen, but it has never worked. I repeat, it has

> never worked.

So where is your example of a perpetual anarchical society that has worked?

[snip]

> I have heard people argue that it took 20 years for the Goldwater

> movement to achieve success with the election of Reagan, and

> therefore the ians will only succeed if they have a long term view

> and keep working at the grass roots level to " recapture " the

> Republican party.

[snip]

> I mean really, what a funky analogy. Is that all we have to look

> forward to, another Reagan type? Outside of his rhetoric he was

> a DISASTER. The size of government and its sway over every aspect of

> lives grew under Reagan just as has under nearly everyone since the

> introduction of the imperial presidency by King Lincoln.

After reading most of _The Rise of the Fourth Reich_ by Jim Marrs, I

am tentatively convinced that Bush held much more power during the

Reagan Administration than did Reagan.

Here is a lengthy excerpt:

" During the 1980 presidential campaigns, Reagan verbally atacked the

nineteen Trilaterals in the administration and vowed to

investigate the group if elected. While competing against H.

W. Bush for the nomination, Reagan lambasted Bush's membership in both

the Trilateral Commission and the CFR and pledged not to give Bush a

position in a Reagan government.

" Yet during the Republican National Convention, a strange series of

events took place. with Reagan secured as the presidential candidate,

there was a contentoious fight to see who would be vice president. In

midweek, national media commentators suddenly began talking about a

'dream ticket' to be composed of President Reagan and Vice

President (the former president) Gerald Ford. It was even suggested

that since Ford had been president, he should choose half of the

Reagan cabinet.

" Faced with the prospect of a split presidency, Reagan rushed to the

convention floor late at night and announced, 'I know that I am

breaking with precedent to come here tonight and I assure you at this

late hour I'm not going to give you my acceptance address tonight . .

.. But in watching at the hotel the television , and seeing the rumors

that were going around and the gossip that was taking place here . . .

let me as simply as I can straighten out and bring this to a

conclusion. It is tru that a number of Republican leaders . . . felt

that a rpoper ticket would have included the former president of the

United State,s Gerald Ford, as second place on the ticket . . . I then

believed that because of all the talk and how something might be

growing through the night that it was time for me to advance the

scheudle a little bit . . . I have asked and I am recommending to this

convention that tomorrow when the session reconvenes that Bush

be nominated for vice president.

" For one brief moment, the power of those who control the corporate

mass media was revealed. Reagan never again uttered a word against

the globalist groups such as the Trilaterl Commission and the Council

on Foreign Relations. Following his election, Reagan's 59-member

transition team was composed of 28 CFR members, 10 members of the

elite Bilderberg Group, and at least 10 members of the Trilateral

Commission. He even appointed prominent CFR embers to three of the

nation's most sensitive offices -- Secretary of State Haig,

Secretary of Defens eCaspar Weinberger, and Secretary of the Treasurey

Regan. Additionally, he named Bush's campaign manager A.

Baker III, who then served as a chairman of the Regan-Bush campaign

committee, as his chief of staff. Baker is a fourth-generation member

of a family long connected to Rockfeller oil interests.

[ . . . ]

" Then, just wo months after taking office in 1981, President Reagan

was shot by would-be assassin W. Hinckley, who exhibited the

symptoms of brainwashing and whose brother had scheduled dinner with

Neil Bush the very day Reagan was shot. For many weeks, while many

Americans prayed for Reagan's recovery, the son of [Nazi-supporter]

Prescott Bush ran the nation.

" Bush had exerted his influence to have Haig appointed

secretary of state, and only days before the attempted assassination

of Reagan had named [ranking CFR member] Haig to head a special

emergency preparedness committee.

[...]

" Was it sheer coincidence that Hinckley's brother had scheduled dinner

with Bush's son Neil the very night Reagan was shot, or that

Hinckley's father, a Texas oil man, and H.W. Bush were longtime

friends?

[...]

" Hinckley was whisked off to Quantico Marine Base, then sent for

psychiatric evaluation at Fort Butner, South Carolina, which

[researcher ]Judge described as 'the first mind-control

experimentation prison in the country.' All this time, Hinckley was

under military control, not civilian. He was eventually brought to

court and declared not guilty by reason of insanity for the

assassination attempt. "

Now Bush, of course, has long-time connections to the globalists, the

secret societies, and the CIA, especially the Dulles faction of the

CIA, who oversaw the importation of hundreds of committed Nazis and

the exploitation of their rocket science and mind control research.

Of course his father Prescott Bush and Prescott's father-in-law

Herbert were big Hitler supporters, the former being prosecuted

under the Trading with the Enemey Act, and they were on the board of

Union Banking Corporation, which the Dulles brothers were the lawyers

for. Somehow it all comes back to the bankers. And the Bush's are

Skull and Bones members, which may or may not have carried the

Illuminati hidden within it when it was tansferred here from Germany

in the 1800s.

So, it's quite possible that Reagan was just dishonest about his

liking for small government, but after reading the above I find it at

least as plausible that he was almost immediately manipulated by the

Bush/Dulles/Nazi/globalist faction of the Republican party into

serving their ends, with a number of subtle threats that culminated in

an attempt on his life, after which he probably got the message.

changed his act a little bit after his assassination attempt too.

And of course JFK, who ordered the printing of $4.2 billion in US

Treasury Notes not borrowed from the Federal Reserve and threatened to

disband the CIA in 1963 didn't make it alive passed November. But

Lyndon and his " masters of infinity, " Nixon, the Bushes, and

Clintons seemed to make it by without anyone trying to kill them, and

they happen to have the globalist connections, and with the exception

of the Clintons perhaps, the fascist ones too. ( had them too,

but, though for some reason it isn't mentioned in this book, he did a

major cleaning house of the CIA.)

> For me, the hope of the Ron " movement " will be those who get a

> taste of liberty, follow it to its logical conclusions, realize that

> electoral politics is a poor place to bring about change and thus a

> huge waste of time and energy, and come to understand that political

> secession and personal secession are the only movements that have led

> to an advance in freedom when it comes to government.

Those are not the only ways. In England, for example, during the

development of classical liberalism, there was a case where the king

struck something like 600 laws off the books overnight.

Chris

[Guest guest]

On 8/9/08, Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

>> For me, the hope of the Ron " movement " will be those who get a

>> taste of liberty, follow it to its logical conclusions, realize that

>> electoral politics is a poor place to bring about change and thus a

>> huge waste of time and energy, and come to understand that political

>> secession and personal secession are the only movements that have led

>> to an advance in freedom when it comes to government.

>

> Those are not the only ways. In England, for example, during the

> development of classical liberalism, there was a case where the king

> struck something like 600 laws off the books overnight.

I should also point out -- and you might agree -- that some of the

founders believed in the right to secession and it, of course, clearly

implied by the Declaration of Independence, which states that

governments obtain their justification from the consent of the

governed.

Chris

[Guest guest]

,

> Rather than debate original intent, which is really my point anyway

> (that originalism is not cut and dry - another example being whether

> the original constitution was pro or anti-slavery) let me give you a

> succinct view of what I think constitutionalism is all about:

>

> The practical difficulty with our government has been, that most of

> those who have administered it, have taken it for granted that the

> Constitution, as it is written, was a thing of no importance; that it

> neither said what it meant, nor meant what it said; that it was gotten

> up by swindlers, (as many of its authors doubtless were), who said a

> great many good things, which they did not mean, and meant a great

> many bad things, which they dared not say; that these men, under the

> false pretence of a government resting on the consent of the whole

> people, designed to entrap them into a government of a part; who

> should be powerful and fraudulent enough to cheat the weaker portion

> out of all the good things that were said, but not meant, and subject

> them to all the bad things that were meant, but not said.

>

> And most of those who have administered the government, have assumed

> that all these swindling intentions were to be carried into effect, in

> the place of the written Constitution.

[snip]

> But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this

> much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as

> we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it

> is unfit to exist.

Well that was very well said. The constitution obvoiusly isn't

effective in enforcing itself. I don't think it's useless, though.

It can be a good educational tool.

Chris

[Guest guest]

> I think the influence of private militaries, however, has probably

> generally been quite bad. But in these cases they are used as

> mercenaries. The history of private security guards is much better.

Could be. But these discussions don't work if we start with the

assumption that the current system is impervious to critique, at least

in relation to any alternatives, which most of these kind of

discussions do. A private law force would lead to most people

thinking, " oh my god, that is unthinkable. What horrors! What

violations of rights would occur! What abuses in the system! Oh my

god! "

And then we look at the current system and what do we see?

Unbelievable horrors, incredible abuses, and a trampling of rights and

lives. We have to ask ourselves which system is likely to produce the

better outcome. Even better is to start from ground zero and build

each system from the ground up, as if we were a brand new civilization

starting from scratch looking for a way to best defend ourselves. I

won't do that here but it is an eyeopener because it puts into bold

relief the relevant issues for everyone to see.

Sufficient for this brief analysis is the fact that if one does a

relative comparison of private militaries to modern militaries, the

private militaries look like angels compared to what we have today.

The history of private militaries, while far from perfect, is far

better than the mass destruction and the profligate taking of innocent

lives as a matter of course that happens among nation-states in an

atmosphere of total war.

There is nothing that comes even close to the state caused destruction

of Dresden, Hiroshima, and its logical analogues throughout human

history.

Old style wars were usually understood as a battle between

***armies*** not a war on an entire state and its population.

The old fashioned libertarian international law of the 18th and 19th

centuries clearly laid this out with the " laws of war " and the " laws

of neutral rights. " These laws by the way have their roots in the

Mosaic law which also made clear what could and could not be done

during war (like not destroying property or involving non-combatants).

The point was to prevent the violation of the rights of the citizens

of the countries involved. People largely went about their business -

trading, even visiting with people from the other warring country -

without any worry that they would become involved in the

conflagration.

" The fundamental principle of this code was that hostilities between

civilized peoples must be limited to the armed forces actually

engaged...It drew a distinction between combatants and non-combatants

by laying down that the sole business of the combatants is to fight

each other and, consequently, non combatants must be excluded from the

scope of military operations.

(Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P. Veale)

Of course nothing of the sort exists today.

> What is really bad, however, is the current use of private militaries

> contracted by the government. What this really means is that the

> United States is degenerating into a third world country run by thugs

> with a paramilitary system like Colombia. The worst part about it is

> it greatly expands the government's ability to engage in " plausible

> deniability " by contracting out some oppressive action to a private

> third party and denying any involvement. However, the idea of

> mercenaries that fight aggressive wars or soldiers that oppress the

> domestic population is, of course, contrary to libertarian principles.

There isn't really any difference in my mind between today's

militaries and the hiring of private militaries in the service of

today's gov'ts. At that point they simply become an arm of the

particular nation-state in question.

> Nevertheless, it is not exactly clear to me what would stop one firm

> from aggressing against another in an anarchical system. I think the

> general tendency would be for firms to collude with each other, which

> would generally result in either a government or some mafia-type

> pseudo-government.

Actually I think the general tendency would be for firms **not** to

collude with one another. Why should they? War and violence is

expensive. Firms would want to keep costs down and the best way to do

that is pursuing peaceful measures. Sure they could try to settle

disputes violently, but then the premiums to their customers would

dramatically go up and said customers would seek out a different

agency.

And say a few firms did try and collude, they would then have to face

the wrath of other firms who do not buy into their aggressive

takeover, and the people themselves who would not buy into it. It is

one thing when you have a captive set of customers you can't lose

(like the gov't coercion of taxes) and a printing press or its

equivalent, then you don't bear directly the costs of your attempted

collusion. But it is another thing when you have to bear the entire

cost yourself, as would any protective agency. I think the tendency

would be away from collusion and toward providing a competitive

peaceful service(s) in the marketplace.

And this in fact is what history shows.

> I agree with everything you said, but the point remains that inflation

> is vastly, vastly, vastly worse under privately owned central banks

> than under government-issued currency systems.

Yes but I'm not arguing for either. Inflation is theft, period. An

enforced monopoly, either state or private, which legally requires you

to use " monopoly " money, is unwarranted and criminal.

>>> So it would seem that, while not ideal, a state monopoly

>>> of money constitutionally restricted to a commodity standard, ideally

>>> with a constitutional prohibition of debasement, is vastly superior to

>>> a government-granted monopoly given to a private cartel with the

>>> specific privilege of inflating at will and with no commodity

>>> standard. At least for the duration that the government obeys its own

>>> constitution.

>

>> Can you identify a nation-state that has ever limited itself to what

>> you describe above?

>

> No, but can you identify a single libertarian anarchical society that

> limited itself to such, without eventually developing a state?

An anarchical society by definition would not have a **state**

mandated " limited " monopoly on anything, including money.

>> " At least for the duration that the government obeys its own constitution. "

>>

>> And then what? Heroic attempts to reign in the wayward state and limit

>> its power once again?

>

> Anything can only be maintained with vigilance. That would be true

> with or without a state.

Well no actually. A state of the sort you seem to envision requires an

altruistic vision by people willing to give up their time and energy

to see that things remain as they think they should. As I noted in

another post, constitutions don't limit governments, gov'ts simply

find a way to interpret them in such a manner as to break the

limitations, all the while saying they are constitutional.

On the other hand, there are built in market checks and balances (not

the phony ones that Jefferson complained about in the US Constitution

as not being able to check anything) in an anarchical system that

would tend toward keeping peaceable society in effect without taking

on a state.

>> There is no demonstrated success of such ever happening. The idea of a

>> government checking itself with a document of which it is the final

>> arbiter of its meaning is absurd, in my opinion. Having the state set

>> itself up as the arbiter of justice in its own cause is a violation of

>> one of the basic juridical principles of arriving at a just decision.

>> Clearly that grand experiment in limited government has been a

>> colossal failure.

>

> Well of course it is. However I was listening to a law expert

> recently who was saying that it is a complete fabrication that the

> supreme court is the highest court in the land and the highest court

> is actually a civilian jury authorized under the seventh amendment. I

> didn't thoroughly understand the argument so I'll have to look more

> into it later, but it is quite possible that the advocats of the Bill

> of Rights, who I think were in many cases anti-federalists, intended

> the people and not the government to be the ones who would restrain

> the government to its constitution.

I think that law professor is right regarding the Supreme Court. There

seems to be a lot of precedent demonstrating that the historical view

is the Supreme Court's decisions apply to the case in question, and

nothing else.

I hadn't heard the seventh amendment/civilian jury part but by my

reckoning I'm not even sure in a truly free society that juries would

be much in use.

Nonetheless, your point only confirms my point, that governments

routinely work their way around any constitutional limitations.

> Naturally that didn't work either, because of the propaganda used by

> the social management technicians. These have been, in part,

> governments, but I think they have in much larger part been the

> central bankers and the industrial monopolists they financed, who have

> been the main pushers of big government in our era.

Well given that ubiquity of big governments throughout the ages, I'm

not sure it matters either way.

>> Simply put, the idea of using state power to reduce state power is a

>> theory, nothing else.

>

> I'm not sure what that means. Something being a theory does not make

> it untrue or unsupported.

Okay, simply put, the idea of using state power to reduce state power

doesn't work.

>> There have been lots of magnificently talented people - men and women

>> - over the last 300 years or so who have spent lots of time and money

>> trying to make this happen, but it has never worked. I repeat, it has

>> never worked.

>

> So where is your example of a perpetual anarchical society that has worked?

I'm not sure what you mean by perpetual, since societies come and go,

gov't run or otherwise, but here you go:

For over a millennium:

Stateless Societies: Ancient Ireland

http://www.mises.org//journals/lf/1971/1971_04.pdf

The next link is one that Suze was really excited about when I posted

it a few years back, which in my mind was a sign of things to come :-)

Now I can't find that particular post but even in this message from

February of 2004 you can see the handwriting on the wall:

/message/42300

Keeping the above in mind, her recent embrace of libertarianism

reminds me of a scene from _The Crown Affair_, where after a

night of partying, etc., that led back to his home, the next morning

Rene Russo (who is a private investigator out to bring in Pierce

Brosnan for theft of her client's painting) and Brosnan are having

breakfast out on the terrace. Pierce's butler brings out this green

gloppy nasty looking drink that Rene normally drinks to start her day.

She looks at the drink and then over at Pierce and says:

Rene: You didn't just run out and get that, did you?

Pierce (glancing briefly up from the newspaper to look at the drink

but not at her): No

Rene: Damn, I hate it when I'm a foregone conclusion

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programming <weg>

Privatization, Viking Style: Model or Misfortune?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/long1.html

Same info without the critique of Diamond:

The Decline and Fall of Private Law in Iceland

http://www.libertariannation.org/a/f13l1.html

>> I mean really, what a funky analogy. Is that all we have to look

>> forward to, another Reagan type? Outside of his rhetoric he was

>> a DISASTER. The size of government and its sway over every aspect of

>> lives grew under Reagan just as has under nearly everyone since the

>> introduction of the imperial presidency by King Lincoln.

>

> After reading most of _The Rise of the Fourth Reich_ by Jim Marrs, I

> am tentatively convinced that Bush held much more power during the

> Reagan Administration than did Reagan.

>

> Here is a lengthy excerpt:

<snip>

> So, it's quite possible that Reagan was just dishonest about his

> liking for small government, but after reading the above I find it at

> least as plausible that he was almost immediately manipulated by the

> Bush/Dulles/Nazi/globalist faction of the Republican party into

> serving their ends, with a number of subtle threats that culminated in

> an attempt on his life, after which he probably got the message.

>

> changed his act a little bit after his assassination attempt too.

>

> And of course JFK, who ordered the printing of $4.2 billion in US

> Treasury Notes not borrowed from the Federal Reserve and threatened to

> disband the CIA in 1963 didn't make it alive passed November. But

> Lyndon and his " masters of infinity, " Nixon, the Bushes, and

> Clintons seemed to make it by without anyone trying to kill them, and

> they happen to have the globalist connections, and with the exception

> of the Clintons perhaps, the fascist ones too. ( had them too,

> but, though for some reason it isn't mentioned in this book, he did a

> major cleaning house of the CIA.)

Thanks for that lengthy excerpt, quite interesting. Still it just

further proves my point, we have nothing to look forward to in the

electoral process, I don't care who is in office.

>> For me, the hope of the Ron " movement " will be those who get a

>> taste of liberty, follow it to its logical conclusions, realize that

>> electoral politics is a poor place to bring about change and thus a

>> huge waste of time and energy, and come to understand that political

>> secession and personal secession are the only movements that have led

>> to an advance in freedom when it comes to government.

>

> Those are not the only ways. In England, for example, during the

> development of classical liberalism, there was a case where the king

> struck something like 600 laws off the books overnight.

Did that represent an advance in freedom, or just a tooling around the

margins? If you lopped off 600 laws from the American law books you

would be barely swatting a gnat. Has England ever really been devoid

of an overweening state?

--

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.

Love the people who treat you right.

Forget about the ones who don't.

Believe everything happens for a reason.

If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands.

If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said life would be easy.

They just promised it would be worth it.

[Guest guest]

> I should also point out -- and you might agree -- that some of the

> founders believed in the right to secession and it, of course, clearly

> implied by the Declaration of Independence, which states that

> governments obtain their justification from the consent of the

> governed.

Yup, and such was taught in the military academies right up until the

time of the civil war.

This is a funny story about what a discussion between the governor of

s state and the President of the US might look like if said state

wanted to secede from the union. You may have seen it.

Good Morning, Mr. President.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/buppert/buppert11.html

--

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.

Love the people who treat you right.

Forget about the ones who don't.

Believe everything happens for a reason.

If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands.

If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said life would be easy.

They just promised it would be worth it.

[Guest guest]

>> But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this

>> much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as

>> we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it

>> is unfit to exist.

>

> Well that was very well said. The constitution obvoiusly isn't

> effective in enforcing itself. I don't think it's useless, though.

> It can be a good educational tool.

Yup, as Woods mentions, as a great rhetorical bludgeon to show

people how governments go astray and never limit themselves. He also

points out that Hoppe noted that he had never seen a constitution

(thus far) that didn't enhance and consolidate state power.

Woods book, _Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American

Liberty from World War I to W. Bush:

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Constitution-American-Liberty/dp/0307405753

--

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.

Love the people who treat you right.

Forget about the ones who don't.

Believe everything happens for a reason.

If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands.

If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said life would be easy.

They just promised it would be worth it.