CNN poll: government is a threat to its citizens

March 1, 3:55 PMLibertarian News ExaminerGarry Reed

News & Commentary from the liberterrain…

“Government is not reason, it is not
eloquence, it is force.” –  George
Washington (Wikimedia Commons)

Friday CNN released a poll that discovered that fifty-six percent of people “think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.”

The poll breaks down the numbers by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

What’s most interesting, however, is the instant blame game that appears in the website’s public comment section (300 comments at this writing).

Apparently, the idea that government is an “immediate threat” is less important to most people than spinning the news to fit each individual commentator’s preconceived political and social perspective.

If you were impressed by the triple and quad spins in the Olympic figure skating competitions they’re nothing compared to these political spins.

  Power tends to corrupt, and absolute
  power corrupts absolutely.” – Lord
  Acton (Wikimedia Commons)

Let’s blame it on the Democrats: “The healthcare summit showed the arrogance and disconnect of politicians who sit upon gilded thrones.”

Or, let’s blame it all on the Republicans who: “started the Patriot Act, NCLB, wire tapping, spending like drunks, increasing our deficit, started two wars and have generally been incompetent while pushing ‘smaller government.'”

Thereby ignoring the long held libertarian observation that Republicans and Democrats are merely two wings of the one-party system, neither of which pushes “smaller government.”

But forget intramural squabbling. Blame it on: “Most Americans are too brainwashed by corporate propaganda to see that unfettered global capitalism is the root cause of most of their problems.”

“Political power grows out of the
barrel of a gun.” – Mao Tse-tung
(Wikimedia Commons)

This spin neatly ignores the fact that there’s no such thing as “unfettered global capitalism,” (capitalism being the result of free people freely trading in a free society) but there is most certainly a highly-fettered global corporatism (corporatism being the result of contrived, subsidized, cartelized, politicized commercial extensions of governments everywhere – called “mercantilism” in the nineteenth century but “public/private partnership” today).

But there are still many others to blame, from: “It’s the socialists” to “we are living under a communist government” to “the Bush/Cheney fascist dictatorship” to “the libertards that degrade and demean the TEA party.”

There is the occasional cogent comment: “I think the number is higher. The IRS are looking to purchase shotguns.”

And even a comment that all libertarians can agree with: “The 44% that does not think the government is a threat to citizens rights must be employed by the government or receiving entitlements from the government.”

Unfortunately, a search of all 300 comments never turns up the one word that offers the best solution: “libertarian.”  

 

The New Fascists: Part 1 – A Political Primer

The New Fascists: Part 1 – A Political Primer
Posted By James Hudnall On February 11, 2010 (8:41 am) In History, Politics

“My dear brothers, never forget, when you hear the progress of enlightenment vaunted, that the devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist!”

Charles Baudelaire, Le Joueur généreux, February 7, 1864

Forget everything you think you know about politics. It is probably wrong.

There is no left or right. Communist, Socialist, Liberal, Conservative, Progressive, Democrat, Republican, those are all meaningless terms. They are used to confuse people so they miss the point. The most important point about politics there is. There are only two schools of political thought and they have predictable results. All the names and labels for them are just smoke and mirrors.

Political ideology is designed by elites to trick the masses into doing what they want. Each side tells you something designed to get your emotions going so they can play you. They get you to agree to give them more power, money and control over your lives by telling you some kind of story.

We need to put that vicious cycle to an end. It’s time to understand what their real goals are. But to free your mind, you need to be educated first. Only by seeing the road ahead can you avoid tripping on stones or falling off cliffs.

There are only two real political choices to make. And it has nothing to do with parties. It has to do with core beliefs. You are for one side or another. These sides are diametrically opposed. The best way I can describe the two choices is, freedom or slavery. That is what it boils down to. And the slave in question is you.

Do you want to be a slave or a free person? It’s your choice.

I’m sure some of you reading this have your guard up now. So take a deep breath and walk with me for a second. I am going to open your eyes.

There are only two forms of government. Every kind of government is a branch or variation of one of the two forms. All the side issues, are just window dressing because the root form of government determines a lot of crucial matters that effect everything else.

The first form has many branches and is called many by names. It is common. It is the oldest form. It is, in fact, ancient. It has many names because so many of those names have fallen into disrepute. So they keep re-branding it and try to sell it in a different package. But no matter what name it takes, it still leads to the same end result.

The second form has very few branches and is rarer than any precious stone. It is something many people want but few have had. The believers in the first form are always trying to destroy this second form. They lie about it. Try to corrupt and subvert it. Because they know it will always be more popular with the people if they knew they had a choice. So the second form must always be defended from the predators from the first, because it is precious. I like to refer to each system as the minus and plus system. But we’ll call them BG or LG here. Big Government or Limited Government.

Those who believe in BG go by many names, and many of these believers don’t even know that they’re supporting the same goals as people they think are bad. But they have been tricked into selling out their own freedoms to enrich someone elses. All BG systems lead to the same result. I classify this as a minus system because it’s negative. The end result of a BG system is bad for most involved.

The BG system is designed to feed all resources to a few at the top. All else are diminished in power and wealth. But the citizens are told that they must support the government and its rules in order to receive some kind of “benefits.” In order to get the treats the government doles out, you have to give up your freedoms and your property. It sells the idea of some glorious future that is never attained and only gets worse over time. But it always maintains that it will lead to some kind of paradise.

It never does. It usually leads to some kind of hell. But it always finds people to subscribe to its ideas who become fanatical in defense of it, no matter how much the system abuses them. And it deludes many others into wanting it because it preys on their human nature, the very thing that destroys it in the end.

The LG or Limited Government system is the best system for human freedom. As a result it has been very rare in human history. Where it has been allowed to flourish, human beings have flourished. But those who believe in BG are always trying to corrupt and destroy LG societies. This is because LG denies ultimate power to those who seek it. An LG system is more fair because you get what you put in. You have the ability to advance to any level as long as you don’t abuse the success that you have made or use it against others.

Before we explore how each system works, we need to understand the mindset of the people who believe in either system. I once did a cartoon illustrating the philosophies in the form of two Greek Philosophers, Aristotle and Plato. Each philosopher created the groundwork for understanding these schools of thought.

LG (Plus) believers are Aristotlian. They are like engineers. If something is proven to work, then they believe in it. They are not opposed to experimentation, but only if it involves proven principles. Ideas that are demonstrated to fail are rejected. They understand that human beings are flawed creatures. Humans are born hungry and spend their lives seeking to fulfill those hungers. In science terms, humans are driven by genetic hard wiring. It is part of their nature. In religious terms, humans are born with “original sin”. We can’t radically change who we are and remain human. We can only seek to improve ourselves through discipline, education, reason and morality.

LG believers understand that humans are often given to a lust for power because we all want some kind of control. LG societies are designed to limit governance so the state can never become tyrannical. It realizes that human nature is a constant so you have to develop a system that works within its framework, and keeps its basic problems in check. That way a politician’s greed is limited by what they are allowed to do by laws. The less interference a government has in human affairs, the more free the people are to progress on their own and flourish. LG believers are for individual rights. They believe a perfect society may not be possible, but it can be best achieved by respect for others rights and liberties. They believe in a social contract and the rule of law. They want people to be free in order to live their life without interference, as long as they respect other’s rights. The LG is there to enable the society to function and keep the peace, but it is no t there to dominate or dictate how one should live.

BG (Minus) believers are Platonic. They posit that there’s an ideal form of society somewhere in the future, a utopia populated by an idealized form of humanity. This can only be achieved by forcing people to change through rules, laws and governance. It wraps itself in good intentions, but it ignores human nature, believing people can be changed by rules. Making the public follow orders will correct their bad behavior as the state sees it. It does not believe it can be tyrannical because BG systems are always sure they’re correct, not matter what happens. Dissenters are ridiculed or punished. No matter how many mistakes a BG society makes or disasters it causes, it does not admit its fault. BG believers preach dependence on the state. It denies individual empowerment or freedom and instead promotes group think. It pushes the group over the individual to keep people in check. It does not want leaders so much as followers. Its leaders are usually the hungriest for power that make their way to the top by gaming the system.

BG societies are constantly creating diversions to keep the public focused on policies it wants to sell. So it often creates “crises” of some kind that the people are supposed to rally around. In order to get them to give up more freedom or personal wealth, it often uses scare tactics. Threats of invasion, threats of nature, etc. The elites in a BG system always live vastly better than those at the bottom, but it always promises some kind of “equality” that never exists in reality. And because the BG system is large and complex it relies on bureaucracies to manage them. But because bureaucracies are made of humans, human nature always corrupts these systems. A bureaucracy becomes inefficient and corrupt in direct proportion to its size. The larger, the less effective, the more corrupt.

BG systems usually lead to economic collapse and stagnation. Usually with dire consequences for millions of people. That is why citizens in BG societies often yearn to go to LG societies. Many of them risk their lives to escape from BG societies that hold them captive. Because in worst case scenarios, BG systems imprison their citizens. They are all, to some extent, anti-freedom. It’s a matter of degree.

In contemporary American terms, the common names for BG and LG is “progressive” or “conservative”. Those terms have been used misleadingly by the media and others, so I avoided them. In part two I will do side by side comparison of the two systems performed in history. And I will explain the title of this series.

Article taken from Big Journalism – http://bigjournalism.com
URL to article: http://bigjournalism.com/jhudnall/2010/02/11/the-new-fascists-part-1-a-political-primer/

 

Ron Paul: Government is too big to succeed

Ron Paul: Government is too big to succeed
Posted By Ron Paul On January 20, 2010 (7:55 am) In Featured, Voices and Choices

Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off their first round of hearings on the causes of the economic meltdown on Wall Street. The commission is being compared to the the Pecora Commission launched in 1932 to investigate the causes of the Great Depression. The Pecora commission is beloved by those who believe the solution to every problem is more laws because it was used to justify a number of new laws, including Glass-Steagall.

Of course, none of those laws addressed the real causes of the Great Depression. It was the introduction of unsound monetary policy and central economic planning pursued by the Federal Reserve that really threw everything off balance. The Fed was founded in 1913 to stabilize the economy and prevent a recurrence of the short-lived Panic of 1907, but instead it promptly produced the Great Depression which lasted more than 15 years.

The Pecora Commission was stacked with big government sympathizers who blamed the free market and the gold standard without question, and without any consideration of government interference in the economy. This panel is no different. Never will they contemplate how government steered us into this crisis, and what perverse incentives can be removed or repealed so that the market will function more smoothly. Never will they discuss how investment should come from savings, not debt. Never will it occur to them that fiat money, artificially low interest rates and the whole Federal Reserve System might be unwise and unstable, not to mention unconstitutional. The answer will always be more government regulation and oversight. It is predictable that this government panel will eventually come to the firm conclusion that government needs to be bigger, and that the market is just too free.

How sad is this when exactly the opposite is true?

It is big government that gives out tax breaks to engineer behavior, often creating large pockets of malinvestments. It is government that created the FDIC and the Fed as lender of last resort which all encourages moral hazard. It is big government that gives bureaucrats the ability to bail out cronies with taxpayer dollars while screaming that the economic sky is falling if they don’t. It is big government that every year adds new layers to the already labyrinthine regulatory code that smaller businesses can’t keep up with while simultaneously preventing new businesses from emerging. It is big government that misdirects economic productivity into bankrupt businesses that they consider to be too big to fail.

If this panel was serious about understanding the root of the problem, as they claim to be, they would have people testify who understand the crisis and saw it coming. To my knowledge, none of them have received a phone call. The problem is those people would say too many things the government panel would find inconvenient. They would point fingers at too many of the state’s anointed. They would recommend getting government out of the way of the free market and getting back to simply protecting contracts and punishing fraud. But the biggest fraud is perpetrated by the Federal Reserve. No one on this panel takes that viewpoint seriously. Instead, they will be asking people who are still scratching their heads at how they could have missed the housing bubble what new regulations they can put in place to prevent future bubbles. Thus, I don’t expect much real wisdom to come out of this current investigation.