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March 18th, 2014 | #1 |
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The Libertarian Lens: The Nature of the State
The Night of the Long Knives: Feinstein and “the Merkel Effect”
Charles Burris This week the heroic NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden accused the unctuous Senator Dianne Feinstein of hypocrisy for complaining about alleged CIA spying on U.S. senators while tolerating government spying on private citizens. Snowden described this as “the Merkel Effect.” Yet ultimately all States rest on hypocrisy and myth. From ancient Sumer to the present, all governments have been composed of elites. All states originate in conquest and exploitation, and as elite oligarchies, exercise a monopoly of crime over their subjects through war and taxation, indoctrination and propaganda, and the conscription of resources and persons. All states or regimes are characterized by the brutal struggle for power in its diverse open and concealed forms by competing elites. The most significant political division to be observed in such internecine warfare is that between the rulers and the ruled, the “ins” and the “outs,” the elite and the non-elite. The primary object of every government ruling elite is survival — masquerading under the rubric of “national security” — the jealous maintenance of its power, prestige, opulence and privilege against all potential rivals. All governments, no matter how ruthless and despotic (or seemingly benevolent and just), rest upon the “engineering of consent” of the gullible majority, largely by propaganda beamed at the populace by the rulers and their craven apologists in the complacent and compliant news media. The rule of the elite is based on force or fraud. This force may be hidden or threatened, and the fraud sustained by a political formula, usually expressed as a generally accepted state religion, ideology, or series of myths. But it is the physical force of the gun that lay behind it all. And it is at your mind that every government gun is aimed. |
March 18th, 2014 | #2 |
Ole' Cyber Crusher
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Utter rubbish
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March 18th, 2014 | #3 |
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So the tea party has been hijacked by neocons, as we all know.
But now libertarianism has been hijacked by anarchists? |
March 18th, 2014 | #4 | |||||||||||||||
Ole' Cyber Crusher
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Oh, yeah, let's not forget the old one about war and taxation being 'crimes' after the absolute truth of Libertarian ethics. Quote:
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The predictable, and predictably dull, Linderian reply will no doubt follow. S.P.
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March 18th, 2014 | #5 |
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March 18th, 2014 | #6 | |
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So I dealt with the title, it's not libertarianism. |
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March 20th, 2014 | #7 |
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March 20th, 2014 | #8 | |
Diversity = White Genocide
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Modern states compare unfavorably to gangs of robbers. Robbers in white countries don't try to exterminate the majority population. Every Jew controlled modern state is doing just that. |
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March 20th, 2014 | #9 |
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re: The Scum Rises to the Top
Thomas DiLorenzo Mike, your comment reminds me of what my old friend and co-author Jim Bennett called his ”Septic Tank Theory of Government”: The big chunks rise to the top. It’s also reminiscent of chapter ten of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, entitled “‘Why the Worst Rise to the Top.” The more pervasive “government planning” becomes, said Hayek, the greater the “opportunities” in government for the brutal and the unscrupulous, for it takes brutality and amorality to enforce the coercion that is necessary in a “planned” utopia, whether it is called communism, socialism, fascism, or the more pleasant-sounding “social justice,” “progressivism,” or “democracy.” Try not paying for all the CRAP the government claims that you want and they will send armed men to apprehend you and will force you to live in a government cage for many years. |
March 20th, 2014 | #10 | ||||||
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Last edited by Alex Linder; March 20th, 2014 at 06:48 PM. |
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March 20th, 2014 | #11 |
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Why Bad Men Rule
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe One of the most widely accepted propositions among political economists is the following: Every monopoly is bad from the viewpoint of consumers. Monopoly is understood in its classical sense to be an exclusive privilege granted to a single producer of a commodity or service, i.e., as the absence of free entry into a particular line of production. In other words, only one agency, A, may produce a given good, x. Any such monopolist is bad for consumers because, shielded from potential new entrants into his area of production, the price of the monopolist's product x will be higher and the quality of x lower than otherwise. This elementary truth has frequently been invoked as an argument in favor of democratic government as opposed to classical, monarchical or princely government. This is because under democracy entry into the governmental apparatus is free — anyone can become prime minister or president — whereas under monarchy it is restricted to the king and his heir. However, this argument in favor of democracy is fatally flawed. Free entry is not always good. Free entry and competition in the production of goods is good, but free competition in the production of bads is not. Free entry into the business of torturing and killing innocents, or free competition in counterfeiting or swindling, for instance, is not good; it is worse than bad. So what sort of "business" is government? Answer: it is not a customary producer of goods sold to voluntary consumers. Rather, it is a "business" engaged in theft and expropriation — by means of taxes and counterfeiting — and the fencing of stolen goods. Hence, free entry into government does not improve something good. Indeed, it makes matters worse than bad, i.e., it improves evil. Since man is as man is, in every society people who covet others' property exist. Some people are more afflicted by this sentiment than others, but individuals usually learn not to act on such feelings or even feel ashamed for entertaining them. Generally only a few individuals are unable to successfully suppress their desire for others' property, and they are treated as criminals by their fellow men and repressed by the threat of physical punishment. Under princely government, only one single person — the prince — can legally act on the desire for another man's property, and it is this which makes him a potential danger and a "bad." However, a prince is restricted in his redistributive desires because all members of society have learned to regard the taking and redistributing of another man's property as shameful and immoral. Accordingly, they watch a prince's every action with utmost suspicion. In distinct contrast, by opening entry into government, anyone is permitted to freely express his desire for others' property. What formerly was regarded as immoral and accordingly was suppressed is now considered a legitimate sentiment. Everyone may openly covet everyone else's property in the name of democracy; and everyone may act on this desire for another's property, provided that he finds entrance into government. Hence, under democracy everyone becomes a threat. Consequently, under democratic conditions the popular though immoral and anti-social desire for another man's property is systematically strengthened. Every demand is legitimate if it is proclaimed publicly under the special protection of "freedom of speech." Everything can be said and claimed, and everything is up for grabs. Not even the seemingly most secure private property right is exempt from redistributive demands. Worse, subject to mass elections, those members of society with little or no inhibitions against taking another man's property, that is, habitual a-moralists who are most talented in assembling majorities from a multitude of morally uninhibited and mutually incompatible popular demands (efficient demagogues) will tend to gain entrance in and rise to the top of government. Hence, a bad situation becomes even worse. Historically, the selection of a prince was through the accident of his noble birth, and his only personal qualification was typically his upbringing as a future prince and preserver of the dynasty, its status, and its possessions. This did not assure that a prince would not be bad and dangerous, of course. However, it is worth remembering that any prince who failed in his primary duty of preserving the dynasty — who ruined the country, caused civil unrest, turmoil and strife, or otherwise endangered the position of the dynasty — faced the immediate risk either of being neutralized or assassinated by another member of his own family. In any case, however, even if the accident of birth and his upbringing did not preclude that a prince might be bad and dangerous, at the same time the accident of a noble birth and a princely education also did not preclude that he might be a harmless dilettante or even a good and moral person. In contrast, the selection of government rulers by means of popular elections makes it nearly impossible that a good or harmless person could ever rise to the top. Prime ministers and presidents are selected for their proven efficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues. Thus, democracy virtually assures that only bad and dangerous men will ever rise to the top of government. Indeed, as a result of free political competition and selection, those who rise will become increasingly bad and dangerous individuals, yet as temporary and interchangeable caretakers they will only rarely be assassinated. One can do no better than quote H.L. Mencken in this connection. "Politicians," he notes with his characteristic wit, "seldom if ever get [into public office] by merit alone, at least in democratic states. Sometimes, to be sure, it happens, but only by a kind of miracle. They are chosen normally for quite different reasons, the chief of which is simply their power to impress and enchant the intellectually underprivileged….Will any of them venture to tell the plain truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the situation of the country, foreign or domestic? Will any of them refrain from promises that he knows he can't fulfill — that no human being could fulfill? Will any of them utter a word, however obvious, that will alarm or alienate any of the huge pack of morons who cluster at the public trough, wallowing in the pap that grows thinner and thinner, hoping against hope? Answer: may be for a few weeks at the start…. But not after the issue is fairly joined, and the struggle is on in earnest…. They will all promise every man, woman and child in the country whatever he, she or it wants. They'll all be roving the land looking for chances to make the rich poor, to remedy the irremediable, to succor the unsuccorable, to unscramble the unscrambleable, to dephlogisticate the undephlogisticable. They will all be curing warts by saying words over them, and paying off the national debt with money no one will have to earn. When one of them demonstrates that twice two is five, another will prove that it is six, six and a half, ten, twenty, n. In brief, they will divest themselves from their character as sensible, candid and truthful men, and simply become candidates for office, bent only on collaring votes. They will all know by then, even supposing that some of them don't know it now, that votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense, and they will apply themselves to the job with a hearty yo-heave-ho. Most of them, before the uproar is over, will actually convince themselves. The winner will be whoever promises the most with the least probability of delivering anything." November 8, 2004 Hans-Hermann Hoppe [send him mail], whom Lew Rockwell calls "an international treasure," is senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and editor of The Journal of Libertarian Studies. Democracy: The God That Failed is his eighth book. Visit his website. http://archive.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe13.html |
March 22nd, 2014 | #12 | ||
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The Failure Of Fusionism In The Libertarian-Traditionalist Debate: Frank Meyer's Equivocation Of The Two Freedoms Quote:
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