Our enemy is STILL the state

In The Great Fiction, author Hans-Hermann Hoppe starts where any discussion of government should begin, with the defining attributes of a state. 

Why this approach?  Governments that populate the earth are all states, though there is no good reason they should be.  

What are these attributes, exactly? The most salient feature of a state is its self-appointed monopoly powers.  If it declares it can’t be sued, it can’t be sued.  If it or its agents decide to tax its subjects, it will fleece them.  If it decides to go to war, it will unleash its war machine. If it decides to outlaw market-derived money, which has been gold and silver, and replace it with easily-inflatable fiat currency, everyone must begin accepting the state’s money in trade.  Any violation of these laws is subject to punishment, enforced by the state’s badge-carrying thugs.

Those who constitute the state apparatus are a minority in any society, and thus need to convince the rest of the population that their rule is necessary, just, and inevitable.  For this they engage intellectuals, who otherwise would be at the mercy of the market and would largely remain unemployed.  As Hoppe points out, not just some intellectuals but all of them.

Even intellectuals working in mathematics or the natural sciences, for instance, can obviously think for themselves and so become potentially dangerous. It is thus important that [the state secures] their loyalty.  

Thus, during the 2020 presidential campaign we witnessed a major American popular science magazine, among others, endorsing the candidate for whom the state is foundational to his programs. 

In education as elsewhere, the state becomes a monopolist.  Importantly, education up to a certain level must be compulsory, to teach people to think as subjects of the state.   

Have the intellectuals done their job?  Ask people if they think the institution of the state is necessary, and Hoppe believes 99% of them will say it is.  States have been around so long they seem part of nature, like trees and bees, or floods and earthquakes.  One of the great achievements of the statist intellectuals is never allowing the question of the necessity of the state “to come up for serious discussion.  The state is considered as an unquestionable part of the social fabric.” 

But if it is questioned, Hobbes and his “state of nature” argument apparently wins the day.  According to Thomas Hobbes, without a state life is permanent conflict.  As Hoppe writes,

Everyone claims a right to everything, and this will result in interminable war. There is no way out of this predicament by means of agreements; for who would enforce these agreements? 

The only solution is the establishment of a third independent party, by agreement, to serve as “ultimate judge and enforcer,” what has been called a state.  But as Hoppe argues, there’s no way this arrangement can come about peacefully, because a prior state must exist to enforce it.  

States are conquering parties that have imposed their will on its subjects.  

If A and B now agree on something, their agreements are made binding by an external party [the state]. However, the state itself is not so bound by any outside enforcer. . .  The state is bound by nothing except its own self-accepted and enforced rules, i.e., the constraints that it imposes on itself. Vis-à-vis itself, so to speak, the state is still in a natural state of anarchy characterized by self-rule and enforcement, because there is no higher state, which could bind it. 

State has the guns, market has the goods

As states grow their agents make deals with major market entities.  In today’s world it is quite easy for a state to purchase anything it wants.  With a monopoly money producer in its ranks, it can always borrow what it needs if there is insufficient tax loot available.  And as its debt grows no one cares, except a few Austrian economists.  

Why would a nominally private firm deal with the state?  For legislative or other privileges, in addition to the revenue.  A firm that refuses to deal with the state runs the risk of penalties.  Under state rule, laws are made to be broken, and they’re broken every minute of the day.  As Jeff Thomas writes,

The level of governmental dominance now exists to such a degree that literally everyone is a criminal, whether they know it or not. It’s been estimated that the average American commits about three felonies per day, in addition to many lesser crimes. If, for any reason, the authorities wished to victimize you, they’d find their task quite simple.  (My emphasis)

A cozy and broadening relationship with formerly free-market entities develops, often under the heading of state capitalism.  The entrepreneurial spirit that created companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, and others has been corrupted by state interference. 

In our ongoing Covid environment, pharmaceutical firms, social platforms, and government agencies are working hand-in-hand.  How can a vaccine be granted an EUA if other safe and effective treatments are available?  If, for example, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are safe and effective, as well as cheap and plentiful, the vaccines get put on hold.  Therefore, not merely dis vaccine alternatives, but threaten and arrest those promoting their use.

Hoppe sums up his discussion of the state with a proposed riddle:

Assume a group of people, aware of the possibility of conflicts between them. Someone then proposes, as a solution to this human problem, that he (or someone) be made the ultimate arbiter in any such case of conflict, including those conflicts in which he is involved. Is this is a deal that you would accept? I am confident that he will be considered either a joker or mentally unstable. Yet this is precisely what all statists propose.

 

Links used for this article:

• The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline
• Do Not Consent- Think OUTSIDE the voting booth (Video)
• Scientific American Gives First Presidential Endorsement in 175 Years — to Joe Biden
• Where’s the clamor over our disastrous national debt?
• The Case against Raising the Debt Ceiling
• Defining Liberty
• Covid Jab?
• Why I Am Deleting All Content After 48 Hours
• FBI Arrests CDC Critic Dr. Simone Gold on Monday After She Was Filmed in the US Capitol Walking Around with a Bullhorn — FBI Singled Her Out

If you find value in the author’s articles, please consider purchasing one or more of his products. George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, a novel about a renegade Fed chairman.  He is also a filmmaker whose works include Do Not Consent- Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, Last Day, and Risky Pinch Hitter. 

 

The limited government dilemma

Libertarians call for a free society but few, if any, bother to define what this means or explain how to achieve it.  Is a free society one with a limited government?  If so, how do we keep it limited?  Who gets to define the limitations?  How many people today even want a limited government?  Not many, or libertarianism would be more popular.

The path to this limited government ideal is cleared by unlearning the fallacies government schools have taught us.  But if the unlearning is consistent, the result will be to wipe government as we know it out of the picture altogether.  Not even libertarians want that.  Why else would there be a Libertarian Party?  Someone has to oversee this limited government to make sure it doesn’t meddle unnecessarily in our lives, and libertarians of the Libertarian Party are presumably most fit for the job. 

Libertarians are stuck with an inconsistent premise.  Their sacred nonaggression principle seemingly must coexist with an agency of aggression, allowing some people to dictate to others in the form of laws, orders, or decrees.  

For libertarian authors, this isn’t necessarily a bad deal.  They get to expose the state’s countless evils, and other limited-government libertarians love reading about them, even if it darkens their day.  And it’s not just libertarians who soak it up — regular people, who run their lives on common sense, recognize criminality when they see it without having read Murray Rothbard.  

The situation for libertarians reminds me of eager researchers devoting their lives to finding a cure for cancer.  A cure would be wonderful, but it would also end research funding.  If anarchy is the cure for the state, what would libertarians write about if it’s gone?  (On the issue of cancer research, see Bill Sardi’s We Already Know How to Cure Cancer.)

Suppose, though, that anarchy isn’t the ultimate political horror?  What if “anarchy” serves as cover for a free market and a free society generally?  What is it about the free market that it can provide almost all, but not quite all, of society’s needs?  Is it possible that’s a myth—or worse, a hoax?  

Let’s look at a few examples.

Why can’t free men (and women) decide on their own to institute courts and advertise their benefits to the public?  Why can’t others do the same and attempt to persuade the public their courts are better?  And wouldn’t it be possible that some people would prefer the courts of A over the courts of B?  And couldn’t they contract with others to agree on which courts to use in cases of dispute?  

Who among us would feel safe without a means of protecting ourselves from foreign invaders?  Would this not be an incentive for companies to offer defense services, and knowing they have competition, to open up their operations for public inspection?  

What would happen to the needy under a free market?  Would they be left to perish in a so-called dog-eat-dog world?  Other people, acutely aware of their own vulnerability, have proven to be charitable even in an age when government has grabbed the welfare reins.  In days before the welfare state, charity was the pride of the semi-free society we once had.  

Would income disparity exist under a free market government?  Absolutely, just as disparities exist among people in all areas of life.  But the fortunes made by some would depend largely on their ability to satisfy customers, not on their nonexistent political connections.  Under coercive government Burton Folsom’s political entrepreneurs (the real Robber Barons) thrive at the public’s expense.  

When you hear “anarchy,” think “free market” and remember all the blessings it has brought us — and when you hear “government” think of war, the IRS, its response to 9-11, the war on drugs, Critical Race Theory, the decimation of the dollar, the Deep State, spying, the covid hoax, stolen elections, and the rest of its contributions to our lives.  

Links cited in this article:

• Let’s Reject Foreign Interventionism Entirely - Jacob G. Hornberger
• Anatomy of the State - Murray N. Rothbard
• We Already Know How to Cure Cancer - Bill Sardi
• The Market Failure Myth - D.W. MacKenzie
• The "Dog-Eat-Dog" Delusion - Gary Galles
• The Philanthropic Response to 9/11 (PDF) - Ford Foundation
• Welfare before the Welfare State - Joshua Fulton
• The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America - Burton W. Folsom

George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and The Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty.  He is also a filmmaker whose works include Do Not Consent- Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, Last Day, and Risky Pinch Hitter.

Why do we live under a monopoly when we don't have to?

“there are strong reasons to suppose that civil war would be much less likely in a region dominated by private defense and judicial agencies, rather than by a monopoly State.  Private agencies own the assets at their disposal, whereas politicians (especially in democracies) merely exercise temporary control over the State’s military equipment. . . . In the 1860s, would large scale combat have broken out on anywhere near the same scale if, instead of the two factions controlling hundreds of thousands of conscripts, all military commanders had to hire voluntary mercenaries and pay them a market wage for their services? — Robert P. Murphy, But Wouldn’t Warlords Take Over?

In today’s world we have nothing but coercive governments, and aside from politically-slanted media few people would say our social and economic life is in good shape and getting better.

Where is the evidence for this dim perspective?

Clearly, coercive government is not bad for everyone under its rule.  As one example, roughly half the people don’t pay any income tax, while the heaviest burden falls on relatively few high earners.  Sounds a lot like slave labor since those who create wealth for the benefit of others do so under compulsion.  Only a marginal few think this way, so the racket sails on with the blessing of moral leaders, until it either collapses or Atlas decides he’s had all he can stand.    

But what exactly is the problem with a central government that rules an area with a legal monopoly of violence?  True, the world is ruled by a multitude of bickering and sometimes threatening monopolies, with media struggling to hold the lid on government genocide, but if things work out for Klaus and Bill someday soon they will all be rolled into one big happy monopoly-fest with one Woke military force securing our safety.

But wait a minute — monopoly?  No one likes a monopoly except the monopolist and its close friends.  Any long-standing monopolist will necessarily have a lot of friends, government being the prime example.  But rather than exonerate its malfeasance, it only obscures it.  It also explains why a formal definition of government rarely appears in big media.  If people thought of government as an honest-to-God monopoly with all its documented evils they might infer something is terribly wrong with the world — but government’s grip on education and media keeps that threat a whisper.

Regardless, let’s keep this bad boy

But here’s the odd part: The great majority who see the evil in government don’t want to get rid of it altogether.  Not only do they want to keep it small, but they consider it their ideal political system: Limited government.  It’s like shrinking but not eradicating a cancerous tumor.

What’s their argument for limited government?  It is a belief that free markets are incapable of providing security from domestic and foreign threats, and are incapable of providing a legal system for securing property rights and settling disputes.  And there’s the argument that without coercive government gangs (warlords) would take over, as Robert Murphy addressed.  Free markets have never had a turn at bat, but limited-government advocates somehow insist free markets have built-in deficiencies: Markets deliver the goods, but they don’t answer the call for traditional government services (defense, courts, and police), in their view.

They don’t answer the call because they’ve been forbidden to answer the call.

They also somehow think limited government will stay limited.  They are big on history yet didn’t get the memo: Governments grow, and as they grow they take a great many down with them, through intent and incompetence.  This is anything but a secret.  Any night watchman government that wants to flex its muscles can create a crisis.  Emergencies call for extraordinary measures, and though the emergency might end only some of the measures go away.  Government thus accumulates an inventory of interventionist statutes, such as the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 and The Current Tax Payment Act (withholding tax) signed into law on June 9, 1943.  Free-market economist Milton Friedman had a hand in creating withholding legislation, commenting in his memoirs, 

At the time, we concentrated single-mindedly on promoting the war effort. We gave next to no consideration to any longer-run consequences. It never occurred to me at the time that I was helping to develop machinery that would make possible a government that I would come to criticize severely as too large, too intrusive, too destructive of freedom. Yet, that was precisely what I was doing.

Free markets can provide for all our needs, if only we let them.  

The first step in living under a free market government is to announce you want to.  For more information see my book, Do Not Consent, or watch my YouTube movie of the same name.

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George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and The Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty.  He is also a filmmaker whose works include Do Not Consent- Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, Breaking Free from 2020, Last Day, and Risky Pinch Hitter.

The mother of all counterparty risks

Investors looking for safety consider US treasuries the safest investments possible because they are guaranteed by the US government. If you’re looking to minimize counterparty risk you buy treasuries. 

Though rarely mentioned by investment analysts, the government’s “guarantee” of payment is backed by the guaranteed invasion of coercive taxation.  If a person refuses to pay taxes the government will fine, incarcerate, or murder him.  In buying treasuries, therefore, investors will at least get the nominal value of their investment back at term, but at the price of helping to fund a supreme criminal organization.

Most people of course don’t see the government as organized crime, so they view the purchase of treasuries not only as an investment but an act of patriotism.  They are helping in some small way to sustain this great country we live in.  

Make no mistake, it is still a great country.  But in some small way they are making it less so by feeding the beast.  

Are governments as they exist really criminal in nature?  

How could governments be criminal if most political scientists view them as necessary for the survival of civilization?  How, in other words, could a criminal organization be the necessary foundation of a free society?  It makes no sense.

Thomas Paine, in his blockbuster pamphlet Common Sense, which lit the fuse leading to the American Declaration of Independence, argued that “the race of kings” under which mankind suffered had no honorable origin: 

It is more than probable, that, could we take off the dark covering of antiquity and trace them to their first rise, we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang; whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtlety obtained him the title of chief among plunderers . . .

The conquered country “had a king, and then a form of government; whereas the articles, or charter, of government should be formed first, and men delegated to execute them afterwards.”

Sounds reasonable but how successful has Paine’s recommendation been?  The US started with the Articles of Confederation in 1781 but, due to the nationalists push for a more “energetic” government, were replaced with the US Constitution in 1789 that included taxing powers.  Two years later Alexander “implied-powers” Hamilton succeeded in establishing the First Bank of the United States (BUS), “explicitly rejected by the constitutional convention” and nowhere found in the new government’s charter. 

(For those arguing for the necessity of government in the sense of a powerful central state, note the absence of any such government during the war itself, 1775-1781, which saw colonists, albeit with foreign aid, defeat the contemporary world’s most powerful military.)

The rematch

The US launched a war against Great Britain in 1812 in retaliation for impressing some 15,000 American sailors into the British military since 1793.   It went to war without the inflationary support of the BUS, the charter for which had expired in 1811.  Since wars are fought with massive debt, this was a major problem. Without the aid of the capital-intensive banks of New England, where the war was highly unpopular, the US government

“encouraged an enormous expansion in the number of banks and in bank notes and deposits to purchase the growing war debt. These new and recklessly inflationary banks in the Middle Atlantic, Southern, and Western states, printed enormous quantities of new notes to purchase government bonds. The federal government then used these notes to purchase arms and manufactured goods in New England.”  Rothbard, The Mystery of Banking, epub, p. 350

What was wrong with this arrangement?  Without it, the government would have to rely on high taxes to fund the war.  And that would mean negotiating a truce, since no one wanted taxes increased to pay for the war.  Wars and taxes had been the core reason for declaring independence from the mother country.  Was there to be no escape? 

Apparently not.  By the war’s end the number of bank notes and deposits had increased by 87.2%, while specie support (gold in bank vaults) had declined by 9.4%.  Bank counterfeiting, a deceptive form of taxation, paid for the war.  

But it wasn’t that straightforward.  As the inflated notes piled up, the New England banks demanded redemption in specie from the inflating banks, which they mostly didn’t have.  In August, 1814, governments at the state and federal level allowed the inflationary banks to remain in business while declining their contractual obligation for redemption.  At the same time they were allowed to force their debtors to pay up.

New England bankers, who perhaps thought they were operating in a free market, were victims of counterparty theft.  They got shafted.  It’s little wonder why New England nearly seceded from the union at the Hartford Convention of 1815.  

Keep in mind that under free market capitalism, “the moment a bank cannot pay its notes or deposits in specie, it must declare bankruptcy and close up shop.”  (Rothbard, p. 351)

But the precedent for fraud had been set, and the US government would return to it again and again, especially after the creation of the Federal Reserve System, which has proved indispensable for funding its welfare/warfare programs through dollar destruction. 

While on the topic of the Creature and our forced counterparty risk, let’s not forget how it has kept its part of the bargain to keep the US dollar  sound:

 

Had fractional-reserve banking been regarded as embezzlement, the argument for the FED would dry up.  Banks that counterfeited credit would go out of business.  Before the FED’s dollar arrived ordinary people could save by keeping gold or silver coins under their mattress.  Their money actually appreciated because prices declined.  Gold truly has no counterparty risk unless the government decides to control it.  

But then it’s the criminal government, not gold, that poses the risk.

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George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and The Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty.  He is also a filmmaker whose works include Do Not Consent- Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, Last Day, and Risky Pinch Hitter. 

End the political class

Libertarian pundits are working to keep their jobs, not establish liberty.

They hack at this or that state proposal or criminal act, maybe show how it robs or restricts us, then declare the masses don’t understand, will never understand because of relentless propaganda, and all is lost.  Or maybe the more optimistic will say we have to eliminate this or that part of government, without saying how to do it.  Or they imply we can do it with the right people in office, if we can ever get honest vote counts again.

Most of all there is tacit if not explicit agreement that smaller government is the answer.  Fewer laws mean more liberty, which means more prosperity, more of what might be called happiness.  

They’re talking to a choir.  They’re also talking to an audience that wants to know how to bring about the needed changes.  But for that they only hear the same old same old.

 

Do you need examples?  How many articles have you read about gold being real money and central bank fiat dollars being a subtle form of theft?    Money (including a bought media) being the source of their power, why would they ever surrender their printing press?  How many articles have you come across calling for the president to bring the troops home?  Foreign wars are the Deep State’s gravy train.  Why would they give them up cold turkey?  Perhaps you’ve read writers who call for the elimination of the FBI, DEA, or CIA.  Or calling for restrictions on the IRS or NSA.  Or articles pointing out the wasteful budget of the military.  More recently we read about covid mask mandates maintained in violation of science.  Or how those safe vaccines are killing people of all ages in unprecedented numbers.  Or how those who continue to refuse the shot will be treated like lepers. 

That’s all good work, guys.  The swamp is deep, so there’s no end to material.  I’ve written one or two of those hits myself.  But what’s the point?  Entertainment?  By shining a light on the ugliness to which we give tacit assent?  To prep readers for a return to 1789?

The good old days were bad 

If so, you’re putting readers on a ship that’s destined to return to where the bad stuff started.  You call for small government — really small government, by which you mean a far smaller monopoly state.  Staff it with Ron Paul at every position and it’s smooth sailing from now on.  Aside from the fantasy in believing you’ll achieve it, and that it will fix everything, meaning no more bad laws or bad guys, there is no reason for sober readers to get excited.

The fix is not the same thing but smaller; the fix is eliminate the monopoly.

Ironically, it is pure American in concept.  Americans have always hated monopolies without realizing they’ve been living under them.

A monopoly eliminates competition — by force of law.  Without competition we are at the mercy of the monopolist.  The state is the monopoly backing all other monopolies such as teachers unions and the medical and banking cartels.  Get rid of the monopoly of force and you get rid of all coercive monopolies.  You have government by a market restricted only by individual rights enforced by private police and courts, a truly democratic government of the people.  Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Whatever might still be big but not without the threat of competition.  No government favors, no bailouts. They swim on their own or sink.  Or if they do get help it will be voluntary.  Unlike today’s arrangement, all theft, including legal theft, is a crime under market government.

This means no FED, the creator of the depreciating dollar.

Most people and their kids still walk around masked.  Most people will eventually be vaccinated.  Most people want to stick with what they hope will continue working.  Change it?  No way.  They’ll fall in line because it frightens them to think big.

But there is a way to start a new trend toward a fully free market.  It’s done incrementally.  I’ve discussed it at length in my book and cover the essentials in my YouTube movie, but it starts with getting people to affirm the idea of government by market forces only.  They already live under market forces so it’s nothing new.  They don’t have to march in the streets or campaign for Candace Owens (Farmer).  All a person has to do is say “Aye!” in public, which at the moment amounts to giving a thumbs up for the movie on my YouTube channel.  

But viewers have to vote.  If they like the idea of market government they have to say so with a vote for the movie.  When a critical mass of supporters is reached, momentum and ruinous government fiscal policies will take care of the rest.

Psychologist Nathaniel Branden once remarked that the goal of every conscientious psychotherapist should be to put himself out of business.  If it is our business now to elaborate on the criminality of the political class, it would be a worthy goal for us as well.  

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George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and The Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty.  He is also a filmmaker whose works include Do Not Consent- Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, Breaking Free from 2020, Last Day, and Risky Pinch Hitter.

Priorities and noise

With the political Left in power and the political Right pleading for compromise and counting on the sanctity of the Senate filibuster, the West’s nosedive into oblivion proceeds along a well-traveled path.   In voting it’s who counts the votes that matter, so it is with tax laws: it’s who writes them that dictates whose ox will be gored. 

Political theft in the form of higher taxes on the Haves will help satisfy the envy of the Have-Nots, at least as far as they can figure out.  The Haves at the top of the wealth pyramid have always assisted in the drafting of the stealth laws that supposedly transfer money from their accounts to the pockets of the hapless unfortunates, who consume it greedily with thinning additives from the economic scientists at the Eccles Building.  And this is why, as Gary North has frequently pointed out, the 20/80 Pareto rule never varies by much: “About 20% of the population in every European nation [Vilfredo Paredo studied in 1897] owned 80% of the wealth.  This is a power law. The same pyramid of wealth continues up the pyramid. About 4% (.2 x 20%) own 64% (.8 x 80%) of the wealth. About .8% (.2 x 4%) own 51% (.8 x 64%) of the wealth.”  It was true then, it is true today.  It will still be true after any tax reform legislation.

If Pat Buchanan’s assessment is correct — that Biden’s spending plans represent “a claim on the nation’s wealth equal to 30% of GDP — a figure comparable to FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society,” then we can expect another FDR or LBJ war in the near future, likely with Russia, to distract from the build-back-better that’s throttling the economy.  Of course, if one or both superpowers begins throwing nuclear haymakers, one hypothesis of the Fermi Paradox will have proven itself convincingly — that when “intelligent” life reaches a certain stage it will self-destruct, leaving no one to receive radio signals from Little Green Men.  More precisely, when not-so-intelligent life grabs power, as it has done, it will wipe out everything.  All life, everywhere, on the planet it inhabits.

I have written about a solution to the State-as-necessary viewpoint, calling for a free market without the State, but have yet to make a significant dent in the blinkered conviction that as bad as the State might get, having no State is worse.  

Really?  A kidnapper, thief, counterfeiter, mass murderer, and liar is necessary?  Do you associate voluntarily with such people?  How many market entrepreneurs are hoping for a nuclear showdown with their competitors?

In The Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty I argued that the technological exponential that began with life itself and which Ray Kurzweil masterfully presents favors freedom and free markets.  While the State and its allies are doing everything in their power to turn technology against us, they will eventually fail.  They will fail because of the unsound economic system they’ve created, especially the fiat money contaminating its base.   

Someday, our lives will be in our hands, without overlords.  Don’t tell me you’re old and won’t see it. I’m probably older, and I’m counting on it. 

The year 2020 is notable for unprecedented growth in power over our lives.  From governments, to the medical profession, to your local stores, they all demanded obedience to their mandates of face coverings and distance from others, with exceptions for Leftist rioters.  The hope that a vaccine will set us free has not happened.  We have to set ourselves free by taking care of our health.  

You think the vaccine is the holy grail?  This writer spells it out in well-documented detail: Why I Won't Be Getting the Vaccine.  In his case, he argues that since he’s already had Covid, he’s immune and doesn’t need to be a subject in a shaky vaccine experiment.  

I argue, as do many others, that there many low-risk alternatives to achieving immunity or to restore one’s health in case of infection.  Vitamins, clean food, and daily exercise are my “vaccine.”  Vitamins, especially vitamin D3, vitamin C, vitamin B1 (Thiamine), vitamin K, zinc, zinc ionophores such as hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and quercetin, selenium, and the mineral magnesium are essential aids in maintaining or restoring good health.  

The foregoing links all originate from Mercola.com.  

If you’ve been paying attention you know about the hostility to demonstrably-effective Covid treatments such as HCQ and ivermectin.  With the exception of vitamin D, the hostility is equally intense against vitamin/mineral therapies, so it is difficult to find articles endorsing their use.  Mercola.com is one of the few sources of researched information about vitamins, health, and Covid.  

Or it has been.  The level of hostility against Mercola is such that coming Monday May 3, he will be removing all articles related to vitamin D, C, zinc, and Covid.  Download them while you can.

In this world we need to set priorities.  Can you think of any reason not to make good health your top priority?  I can’t.  Don’t let the State’s perpetual political noise keep you from jogging or working out, or eating right.  You can’t control your life without first taking control of your health.  

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George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and The Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty.  He is also a filmmaker whose works include Do Not Consent- Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, Breaking Free from 2020, Last Day, and Risky Pinch Hitter.

PROLOG to The Flight of the Barbarous Relic

We're told by experts that the Fed is our number one inflation fighter, our protector against economic meltdown. Certainly, any person who cares about our country would accord it only the highest respect. But Preston Mathews wants to destroy the Fed. And he's apparently surrendered everything -- including the woman he loves -- to do so. Who is this renegade who wishes to bring back the dark days of despair, as his critics charge? He's the Fed's top gun, the lord of interest rates . . . the chairman of the Federal Reserve. 

PROLOG

The man approaching him in the August twilight was tall and thick through the chest, though nothing in his movements suggested a threat.  He strolled with a hand slipped casually in his pants pocket, even stopping once to pick up a piece of litter and toss it in a nearby barrel.  He could almost pass for one of D.C.’s tourists taking a late walk through a public park. 

Yet, on seeing him Ricky Sawyer’s stomach churned.  This was no casual meeting taking place.  He had known this moment would come and had dreaded it, and Sawyer was not prone to unnecessary fears.  As he waited under one of the many security lights in the area, the man stopped abruptly in the shadows, kneeled down and retied a running shoe that was properly laced.  Sawyer took the hint and moved all 282 pounds of himself over to join him.

“What’s with the cloak and dagger?” Sawyer asked.

The man stood up.  “I need the favor returned.”

Sawyer chuckled nervously.  “What do you want me to do?  Hack the president’s PC?”

“Nothing that easy, my friend.  I need you to set up a website.  Over time, you’ll be supplied with content.  But I need the site established now, to make sure the name is available.”

“You could go to anyone for a website.”

“Not this one.”

Sawyer hesitated.  ”What’s going on?”

“How much do you remember from Professor Stefanelli’s class?”

“Everything.  Paper versus rock.  Paper won.  We lost.”

“Right.  I want to put an end to paper.  Permanently.”

Sawyer chuckled. “Sounds like you’re going to blow up your office.”

“More along the lines of a crash course in hoax awareness.  That’s why I need your help.”

“Where’s the danger come in?”

“The content.  The power holders won’t like it.”

“There are a lot of things they don’t like.  Why—“

“—I guarantee this will upset them beyond anything you can imagine.  You’ll have to keep a low profile.  Make that no profile.  You’ll have to disappear.”

“Tall order for a whale, chief.”

“Any taller than breaking into the Eccles Building network?”

“No, guess not.”

“I think you’ll be okay.  But listen, this won’t work unless you understand what’s at stake.  Do you?”

Sawyer thought for a moment. “Yeah.  Civilization.  Under paper, little guys like me lose their wealth, liberty, and sometimes their lives, while government grows more bloated, corrupt, and oppressive.”

“And the cause?”

“Paper.  Inflation.”

“What’s inflation done for us historically?”

“According to Professor Stefanelli, without inflation we have no World War I, no Great Depression, no World War II, no Cold War, no Viet Nam, no taxpayer-funded bailouts, no bubbles, no war on terrorism, no Iraq.  Without inflation Cindy Sheehan is just another mom with a son.  Without inflation, instead of endless acres of white crosses marking the battlefield dead, men are left free to live.  Imagine that.  And when those men are geniuses like me or Google founders Page and Brin, the whole world profits.  Without inflation to build up militaries, we might’ve had nuclear power without nuclear bombs.  She also said something to the effect that if inflation were a disease, it would be considered the number one killer of human life.  There was more.  Give me time and I’ll remember it.”

“Do you agree with any of that?”

“Too simplistic.  But then, where would the computer age be without electricity?  Pull the plug and the computers go away.  So it was hard to argue with her.”

“But you did.”

“Of course.  But the truth is, without massive amounts of money the First World War doesn’t go far – four months, according to a writer who was around at the time.  And nothing beats the printing press for producing large amounts of money in a hurry – paper money.  And if World War I is aborted, the rest of the century looks a little brighter.  I would say she’s not far from the truth, at least.”

“Not bad for a hacker.  You talked about inflation but didn’t define it.  Can you?”

“Paper.”

“More precisely . . .”

“I didn’t expect a quiz.  The going definition is a rise in the general price level.”

“Do you accept that definition?”

“No, because you can have inflation without price increases.  Productivity improvements work against rising prices.”

“Any other reason not to accept the definition of inflation as rising prices?”

“Yeah, it obscures the cause.”

“Which is?”

“More paper.  More money.  An increase in the money supply.”

“How is the money supply increased?”

“Through treachery.  First the snap,” Sawyer said, snapping his fingers, “in which the Fed creates money from nothing.  Then the crank,” he continued, rotating his right arm in a cranking motion, “as the banks multiply that amount through credit expansion.  Then the pop” – He slapped his hands – “when the bubble bursts and everyone gets fired.  Sawyer’s theory of the business cycle in three words: snap, crankle, and pop.”

“But isn’t that how prosperity is funded?  By increasing the money supply?”

“No.  That’s how the inflationary boom is started or prolonged.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It is if you’re one of the insiders.  Without it, the military/industrial/ congressional/welfare racket takes a big hit.  Governments would have to rely mostly on taxes to pay their bills.”

“What would that do for war if governments had to pay for it with taxes?”

“Make it an endangered species.”

“So if you’re a government bent on war—“

“Inflation is a sacred cow.”

“And who causes inflation?”

“Who?”

“Yes.”

“I’m looking at him.”

“I think you understand what we’re fighting.”

“I do.”

They shook hands.

“I’ll be in touch,” the man said.

Later that night Sawyer received an email containing a web address only.  After confirming the site didn’t exist he set about to create it, as agreed.

In the weeks that followed, Sawyer would find it difficult to believe their conversation was at all serious.  Nothing had been added to the website, and other than the terse email there had been no contact between them.  The topic they had discussed seemed weird at the time and even more so as time passed.  Perhaps their meeting was a brutal prank, a form of payback for the hack he had pulled.  It seemed like it was.  He began to feel like a fool for trusting him.

But Sawyer was wrong.  The day finally arrived when all doubts were forever removed.

————-

George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and The Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty.  He is also a filmmaker whose works include Do Not Consent- Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, Breaking Free from 2020, Last Day, and Risky Pinch Hitter.