Save the Election!

In my recent posts I’ve advocated government by the free market — not anarchism — which is the market minus the state.  Can it work?  Let’s find out.  The current government model is sinking rapidly into the sewer, as the fraudulent election and other dark measures await us in the near future.  Free market government strikes me as plausible given that the market can already meet any human need or desire if allowed to do so.  As for defense, police, and the courts, those infamous monopolies of the state, there is every likelihood that the market could infinitely improve the state’s record.  It certainly could do no worse.

Attaining free market government begins by raising your hand.  Let the world know you want it.  You vote, in other words, for a stateless free market.  Here’s one way you can do it.

Step two, for us here in the US, is to fight like mad for a fair 2020 presidential election.  

We could throw our hands up and let the state die from lies, debt, and corruption, and then attempt to establish a free market from the smoldering ruins.  The problem there is we would likely be part of those ruins.  Most people don’t have access to a Galt’s Gulch.

Another consideration is the great unknown if the Democrats capture the White House. Some sober-sounding analysts are not worried because there isn’t the budget for more liberty-crushing legislation, besides which if just one Republican wins a Senate seat in Georgia on January 5 we will have lovely gridlock, at least in theory.  (As we’re reminded over and over, RINOs are indistinguishable from Democrats when it comes to lying for the Establishment.) 

But this is overlooking the purpose of the Democrat plan.  It would be nice to steal the Georgia election but it isn’t necessary.  Biden could lock the country down with an Executive Order until it’s impossible to make a living.  Bring some troops home to quell the riots.  Re-education camps for some, more violent means for others.  He’s not a dictator, he and his female co-conspirator are Time’s Person of the Year, he’s acting courageously, he’s trying to save as many of us as he can from the terrible covid.  Think it wouldn’t work or he wouldn’t do it?  He’s already got a compliant mask-wearing populace waiting to be told what to do.  He would simply be acting on a memo from on high because crushing the US economy is part of the Great Socialist Reset.

But there’s a threat lingering in the wings that could upset these plans.  Given the extent of Establishment corruption and cowardice, it’s a long shot but Trump could still win.  And he should win.  There is a way to recalculate the election fast based on legitimate votes, and it doesn’t require an advanced degree in computer science, forensics, or statistics to understand it.  It’s rightfully being promoted as neither pro-Trump nor pro-Biden but as a quick and clear means to identify and count the legitimate votes.  The science is low-tech, which means it will take enormous evasion for a judge to dismiss it.  

Here’s a video explaining how it works.

Aside from this, though I’m not a lawyer I believe a case can be made that any election using electronic voting machines that include in its user manual a feature allowing an operator to “manually type-in the election results” should be rendered null and void on the grounds that it opens the door to fraudulent tabulation.  (See Section 3.5.1.2 Manual Entry, p. 118.)  

Save the election, and don’t forget to vote — for the free market.

A coup masquerading as safety measures

The devil is our undoing, the ultimate liar who preys on our weaknesses and takes many forms.  

While I don’t believe this literally, there is plenty of metaphorical evidence to support it.

Jon Rappoport's article on Lew Rockwell is a case in point: The reality behind 2020 is a nightmare, a visit from the devil on a kind and naive people. 

"COVID-19 is essentially an intelligence-agency type covert op.

"The short-term goal is wrecking economies. The long-term goal is taking the population into a new world of technocratic control."

I wish I could regard him as a nutcase but he has too much data on his side.  How do you wreck an economy quickly?  We've seen it -- strike terror into the people with a virus scare to get them pleading for help, give them help by mandating masks in defiance of science, tell them to stay home to stop the spread in defiance of science -- but give them "science" that affirms government decisions.  Get the corrupt media and tech behind the movement to control what people hear, read, or view.  Attack contrarian views as misinformation, disinformation, lies, conspiracy theory, or wrong then suppress them.  Fire doctors who want to use a cheap and demonstrably safe and effective remedy for the virus.  Downplay or ignore the breathtaking increase in government debt arising from the first stimulus. And most of all get rid of Trump, an intruder who threatens globalist plans, any way they can.  

So far state COVID responses have achieved amazing results -- decimating small businesses, creating millions more government dependents, telling them celebrations must be limited, ruining the football season by prohibiting or limiting fan attendance and disrupting schedules with the flawed RT-PCR test, pushing the Masters into November, closing schools or forcing those in attendance to social distance and wear masks at all times, on and on and on.  

Push-back has been minimal or nonexistent.  Even in "open" Georgia where I live I find it extremely rare to see someone without a mask when I go shopping.  They couldn’t hurt me more if they hit me with a club.  Liberty lovers always thought 1984 or Brave New World was arriving slowly, and it was until it wasn't.  

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. 

“Two ways” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

 -- Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, Scribner’s Sons, p. 136

We are facing a coup masquerading as safety measures.  By seeking protection from the State we are becoming prisoners of the state.  Prisoners are obedient and take orders -- or else. How will people find the will to resist? 

“When did you grow a backbone?”

“Didn’t know I had one until it was do or die.”

Trump wavered on these matters.  Biden won't.  He will be ordered to encourage or mandate across-the-board lockdowns and the wearing of masks.  He won't need a budget.  He won't need to consult with Congress.  He will be destroying the last remnants of freedom.  It sounds suicidal, and it is.  He will have the media and other voices supporting him, including "experts" who swear the destruction of the economy is regrettable but necessary to save millions of lives from this horrible virus that the CDC and other government institutions have yet to isolate, which is consistent with the finding that total deaths have not risen in 2020 while deaths from the leading causes have declined to the same extent as reported deaths from COVID.  The media in keeping with form will keep the death count inflated and in our faces — they will tell whatever lies are needed.  Kids will grow up thinking masks and distancing and taking crippling orders from government are part of being a responsible adult, while they see elite hypocrisy everywhere they turn.  The free market and the black market will be one and the same.   

Trump might stall this effort.  Biden and the forces behind him will consummate it.  This is why rigging the election for a Biden win was mandatory.  How would the establishment get away with it?  Many ways, including computers that stole votes from Trump and gave them to Biden.  How convenient that Dominion voting machines included a weighted race feature in its documentation, perhaps as a key selling point to corrupt governments. Meanwhile, AG Barr says there's no evidence of widespread fraud.

That the steal is being done in plain sight should prompt us to think seriously about the kind of government we need.

How strong is your back?

Long as I remember,

The rain been coming' down.

Clouds of myst'ry pourin'

Confusion on the ground.

Good men through the ages

Tryin' to find the sun.

And I wonder,

Still I wonder

Who'll stop the rain.

-- John Fogerty

Go Judy!

Dr. Judy Shelton may someday find a seat on the FED’s Board of Governors, but I wonder why she would want it.  She would be sitting among members for whom dishonesty is their profession, whose job is to keep the public confused and looking the other way while counterfeiting the monopoly monetary unit known as the American dollar, a process that draws wealth from those of modest means and awards it to the fat cats who attempt to rule us. 

And make no mistake, she fully understands this.

With competition from the threat of canceling Thanksgiving and Christmas, along with the possibility of being locked indoors for the coming year, I don’t suppose one in ten thousand have even heard of Ms. Shelton or who would give a hoot if they had.  Politicians and the media ring the public’s ears with “cases” and Trump rather than monetary matters and their connection to a darkening future. 

The few who have heard of Judy Shelton have been told her ideas are wacky and dangerous — and they are, to those who benefit from institutionalized fraud.  And what makes her a threat to our overlords?

Comments such as this:

. . . the vision of providing a solid monetary foundation for global free trade was shattered by Nixon’s decision to suspend gold convertibility of the dollar.  

And these:

Inflation is the enemy of capitalism, chiseling away at the foundation of free markets and the laws of supply and demand. It distorts price signals, making retailers look like profiteers and deceiving workers into thinking their wages have gone up. It pushes families into higher income tax brackets without increasing their real consumption opportunities. 

And from the same article,

Inflation makes suckers out of savers.

The FED and a market gold coin standard are polar opposites.  Fortunately for statists, we had a government gold coin standard that FDR criminalized with an Executive Order.  The key to every statist scheme is the money to fund it, and because it can’t be summoned into existence by bureaucrats, gold (and its “hoarding” by the public) was declared recovery enemy number one after FDR took office.

(I’m using the popular word “government” to denote the State.  In today’s narratives the two are used interchangeably, but they shouldn’t be. Our government, the State, is the Rothbardian criminal gang writ large.  In my book Do Not Consent and its movie I argue that the free market provides all the government we need, without coercion.)

Judy Shelton is loathed and feared by our masters, but our masters have brought us to the edge of extinction.  Fortunately, she is far from alone in her support of honest (voluntarily-derived) money.  I offer the following for your consideration:  

“The excellence of the gold standard is to be seen in the fact that it renders the determination of the monetary unit’s purchasing power independent of governments and political parties.” - Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 416

“When one studies the history of money, one cannot help wondering why people should have put up for so long with governments exercising an exclusive power over 2,000 years that was regularly used to exploit and defraud them.” -  Friedrich A. Hayek, Down with Legal Tender

“Inflation is simply a means to transfer wealth from anyone who has savings in a particular currency to anyone who has debt in the same currency.  With hyperinflation, the value of savings gets completely wiped out and the burden of debt is removed.”  - Peter D. Schiff and Andrew J. Schiff, How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, p. 220. 

“The Fed's low-interest policy not only encourages spending and borrowing, it discourages the one thing that best helps people raise themselves into higher economic classes — saving.” - Mark Thornton, The Fed’s War on the Middle Class 

“Funding government through taxation is never enough because the victims might retaliate. What's needed is what we have: the arcane subterfuge of a cloistered cartel. What's needed is a central bank quietly mulcting the masses while it feeds the world's power-holders.” - George F. Smith, “Government’s Perennial Enemy”

"The one thing that the globalization of central banking has succeeded in doing is synchronizing disaster." - Gold: The Anti-Bubble

“Counterfeiting is universally condemned by civil governments. . . Why do governments do this? Because they are all counterfeiters, and they deeply resent an invasion of their turf. Laws against counterfeiting in today's world are a form of gang warfare.” - Gary North, What Is Money? Part 2: Precious Metal Coinage 

“The degree of barbarism that [WWI] produced could not have been accomplished had a gold standard been in force. The public would have stripped the banks of the public’s gold. The governments would have had to come to terms with the enemy. It was the abandonment of the gold standard that made modern barbarism affordable.” - Gary North, The Gold Wars, p. 23 

“When economists call for boosting ‘aggregate demand,’ they do not spell out what this really means. It means forcibly overriding the voluntary decisions of consumers and savers, violating their property rights and their freedom of association in order to realize the national government's economic ambitions.” - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.  

“What the costs of mining produce for society is a restrained state. . .  That such a restraint might be available for the few millions spent in mining gold and silver out of the ground represents the greatest potential economic and political bargain in the history of man.” - Gary North, The Gold Wars 

“If a domestic money consists of a commodity, a pure gold standard or cowrie bead standard, the principles of monetary policy are very simple. There aren’t any. The commodity money takes care of itself.” - Milton Friedman, quoted by Joseph Salerno, Money, Sound and Unsound, p. 366

Unlike natural (voluntary) money production that is regulated by the market forces of profit and loss, inflation is always an imposed increase of the money supply. -  Jorg Guido Hulsmann (paraphrasing) 

Commodity monies have built-in insurance against inflation. -  Jorg Guido Hulsmann (paraphrasing)

"Inflation is not just an extension of the money supply. The crucial point is that it extends the money supply through a violation of property rights. Inflation provides not just gains; it provides illegitimate gains. Its alleged benefits are not really different from the benefits of robbery and fraud." - Jörg Guido Hülsmann, The Ethics of Money Production, p. 100

“The return to gold does not depend on the fulfillment of some material condition. It is an ideological problem. It presupposes only one thing: the abandonment of the illusion that increasing the quantity of money creates prosperity.” -- Ludwig von Mises, “Gold versus Paper”

“Everything possible is done to prevent the fraud of the monetary system from being exposed to the masses who suffer from it.” Ron Paul, Feb. 15, 2006.

 

What if life could get really better?

A good many people are conducting What-if scenarios about the outcome of Election 2020, drawn irresistibly to salvation by politics as moths are to flames.  According to many, including President Trump, if Biden wins it’s the end of America as we know it — really, this time for sure, because the tidal wave of corruption and evil his election will release cannot be undone politically.  

Biden - Harris policies will temporarily favor the have-nots whose numbers have increased dramatically since the lockdowns and thus will be entrenched until the government’s checks bounce.  And then the have-nots will truly not have.  Do you think a Republican Senate would have the guts to oppose a Biden basic income package?  If Trump hangs on for a second term, we have at most a four-year grace period to decide how to achieve freedom in our lives.

Freedom?  What presidential candidate talks of creating a free society?  The Libertarian Party candidate?  It can’t be done politically.  A libertarian political party is a contradiction in terms.  If libertarians stand for anything it’s the Non-Aggression Principle.  If they ever win a presidential election the winning candidate could only take office if every adult American voted for him or her, otherwise a victory would mean forcing some people to be free.  And immediately upon taking office they would have to dissolve the State, their one and only plank of their party platform. 

If you have a hard time picturing this happening you’re not alone.

So, what should people do if they want to be free from state coercion?

Start by telling yourself you want to be free from state coercion.  Go ahead and say it, I’ll wait. 

If you don’t admit that freedom is what you want, you won’t know what it is you’re after.

Is it scary to contemplate life without the Great God State?  Can a state-free economic system provide everything we need?  What if it could?  What about other concerns, such as virus threats?  Don’t we need a state to tell us what to do?

What if we don’t?

What if the State is unnecessary for governing a free society?

What if the State is incompatible with a free society?

What if the State’s elections, regardless of the candidates, make a free society impossible?

What if, as Murray Rothbard has written, the government we have, called a State, is nothing more than a criminal gang, regardless of which party is in power? 

What if the estimated $14 billion spent on getting politicians elected in 2020 could instead be invested by the owners of the money to provide capital for economic growth?

What if people were free to judge for themselves whether a virus was a threat to their health?

Aside from property owners, what if no one had the power to enforce mandates of any kind, including lockdowns and masks?

What if a free society, which is based on property rights, includes the necessary incentives to govern itself?

What if a free society is the best means of defending the country from foreign attack?

State control of money and banking

What if a free society provides a safe medium of exchange?

What if the government we have criminalizes the market’s choice of money, which has historically been gold and silver coins, so that it can expand control over our lives?

What if the government we have criminalizes society’s choice of money so that it can reward preferred constituencies through central bank inflation?

What if central banks cannot exist in a free market but require government support for their operation?

What if “government support” amounts to prohibiting through force any competition to the central bank or the money it issues?

What if peace and prosperity are the hallmarks of a market-selected money, as shown in the last half of the 19th century?

What if the 19th century Robber Baron episode was a result of government favors rather than an indictment of the free market?

What if war, debt, and money devaluation are the hallmarks of the central bank’s fiat money?

What if banking crises result from the practice of fractional reserve banking?

What if fractional reserve banking satisfies the definition of embezzlement but is not regarded as such legally?

What if banks that practiced fractional reserve banking could be criminally prosecuted?

What if banks that practiced fractional reserve banking turned to the government to establish a central bank for protection?

State control of education

What if the government takes control of the country’s educational institutions?

What if people are taught from day one that their government exists to defend their natural rights as human beings?

What if events unfavorable to government are vetted or excluded from its recorded history?

What if adults accept the idea that government-as-we-know-it is a naturally evolving social phenomenon that strives to serve our best interests?

What if the closed-door Constitutional Convention was not a step in the direction of freedom but a revolt against freedom?

What if the Constitution provides for the expansion of government power through ambiguous clauses that the government itself interprets?

What if “emergencies” render the Constitution null and void with the rationale that it is not a suicide pact?

What if government-as-we-know-it evolved from a raiding party on a peaceful society?  What if the raiding party used their superior force to settle among the conquered and institute a protection racket?  What if the protection racket is known today under more acceptable labels such as “the nation” or “our country”?

What if Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Money, and other Big Influences derive their power from favors bestowed by the State? 

In conclusion

What if enough people make known their wish for a state-free existence?What if they make known the inestimable advantages of a state-free society?  What if, as a result of these, the State begins to weaken through attrition in its ranks?

What if the people under control of a weakening State demand the State dissolve itself completely, perhaps by refusing to pay taxes? 

What if people surrender victimhood and begin to take full responsibility for their lives?

George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including Do Not Consent: Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, 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 latest work bears the same title as his most recent book, Do Not Consent. PLEASE WATCH IT AND VOTE!

The case against pessimism

There is a lot woe-is-us going on based on the alleged omnipotence of evil and the propagandized status of most Americans.  Even Wall Street is expecting a Blue Wave in November, we’re told, as the votes of 538 individuals called electors will officially determine which party occupies the White House.  Though electors pledge to support a specific presidential or vice presidential candidate, “faithless electors” have turned up 165 times in American history, most recently in 2016.  You remember that election, don’t you?  

A faithless elector is one who breaks his pledge.  In 2016, according to Wikipedia, 

a movement dubbed the Hamilton Electors co-founded by Micheal Baca of Colorado and Bret Chiafalo of Washington . . . attempted to find 37 Republican electors willing to vote for a different Republican in an effort to deny Donald Trump a majority in the Electoral College and force a contingent election in the House of Representatives. [Of the ten members who attempted to break their pledge] three of these votes were invalidated under the faithless elector laws of their respective states, and the elector either subsequently voted for the pledged candidate or was replaced by someone who did. . . 2016 was the first election in over a hundred years in which multiple electors worked to alter the result of the election.  Electors were subjected to public pressure, including death threats. [Emphasis added]

With the vitriol against Trump at least as high now as it was then, a corrupt Electoral College vote may be Democratic Plan B for evicting him. 

I think most people sense that something corrupt is in the works, whether it’s the College or something else.  And they are not wrong.  But this is nothing new, nor is it a case of black vs. white.  It’s bipartisan. 

The State has convinced its subjects that theft through taxation and inflation is necessary for the operation of government. The Wave, if it’s blue, will seize more of their wealth and distribute it in such a way that it appears only the fat cats are being robbed while the rest are being fed, clothed, educated, and everything else people used to work for.  Thanks to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), the sky is now the legitimate limit for government spending.  And the public loves it.  The public loves free money, has always loved free money and eagerly awaits the steady flow of more free money.  If they understood it better they would love the FED, the government-licensed counterfeiter, the creator of free money.  They especially love free money at the expense of the fat cats. 

Clearly, since Trump and Pelosi both agree on the necessity of free money, MMT is not unique to the Blue Wave.  Neither Red nor Blue need fear voter rejection for supporting it — quite the contrary.  This is not to say there won’t be serious repercussions.  Try as they might, politicians and their home-bred economists will never triumph over reality. 

But if it’s not money, why are so many people afraid of what lies ahead?

The coming nightmare is one in which Friends of the Street Thugs will be calling the shots from atop the pyramid of power.  Law and order will be in the hands of those who despise it.  It will be open season on deplorables for the next four years, after which they will exist as an endangered species. 

The Blue leader, whoever it turns out to be, will look far left to assign key administrative posts, with the caveat that the military remain untouchable.  Following the Keynesian prescription for economic calamity, they’ll need the war machine ready for a major confrontation when the free money stops buying things and the media are urging people to demand someone who talks funny to blame.  

As the military has no trouble finding boogeymen to justify its budget, so public health officials will keep the public half-faced with corona enemies.  Suppression of rebuttals on social media will accelerate.  Even some non-traditional culture will be wiped out — one possibility being the recently-surging homeschooling movement.  An obedient citizen is a state-educated citizen.   Can’t have deplorables teaching their kids, which they will try to do anyway.  Thus, can’t have deplorables.

Such is the Blob rolling our way. 

We've been through worse

Should we lose any sleep over this?  No.

Think about it: The country has been through much worse.  Not us, personally, but Americans during the Civil War and the two world wars.  For those who need briefing on the Civil War see Thomas DiLorenzo’s excellent work.  One result of Lincoln’s war was the death of federalism — the states became second-class members of the great unity called the United States, not these United States.  Later, Woodrow Wilson proved to be an effective conman by running on the slogan “he kept us out of war” in 1916, then after being re-elected pleaded for Congress to send American boys overseas to murder and be murdered so Morgan’s investments wouldn’t go sour.  Preceding the Armistice of November 11, 1918 the Influenza Pandemic arrived in April that killed more people than the war-- between 20 and 40 million people.  Other estimates are higher.  Unlike today’s corona scare the flu took its heaviest toll on the young.   

The death rate for 15 to 34-year-olds of influenza and pneumonia were 20 times higher in 1918 than in previous years (Taubenberger). People were struck with illness on the street and died rapid deaths. One anecdote shared of 1918 was of four women playing bridge together late into the night. Overnight, three of the women died from influenza (Hoagg). Others told stories of people on their way to work suddenly developing the flu and dying within hours (Henig).  (source)

And for the survivors the pain was only beginning.  First the Crash of 1929 that the FED was created to avoid but in fact caused, then Hoover’s meddling, then FDR’s New Deal created the dark decade of the Thirties, followed by the inferno of another world war, heir to the first one and much worse in terms of casualties and destruction. From WW II emerged the National Security Act that created the National Security State, a hallmark of totalitarian regimes found right here in “free” America.  And we were soon off on another war, this one Cold though interrupted by hot ones in Korea and Vietnam.  

After all that and much more — 9/11, the Bush lies justifying foreign invasions, the Great Recession (see an excellent video on this) — we’re still standing. 

Unlike Americans during the regimes of Lincoln, Wilson, FDR and others, people today have the exponentially-increasing power of information technology working for them.  They can swallow the propaganda of the media and political hacks or they can search and find other information outlets.  Nor are they passive receivers of information.  They can post their thoughts and findings in a blog or video and help shape a narrative that fits with reality.  People the world over are far less hopeless today in the onslaught of propaganda, and the result is the chipping away of State legitimacy.  Undermining State legitimacy boosts liberty, a condition we cannot live without.  Labeling views that oppose the State-MSM narrative as conspiracy theories has become laughable.  It’s the State and its partners that are conspiring against the rest of us, the latest evidence being the blown-up corona pandemic.  The State, in short, is killing us.

But if the State is a killer, what do we do for government?

Look around.  We’ve had it for a long time — it’s called the free market.  If you need help understanding it, see my latest book and let Libby and Justin explain it to you in my 10-minute video.   

*****

George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including Do Not Consent: Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, 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 latest work bears the same title as his most recent book, Do Not Consent. PLEASE WATCH IT AND VOTE!

Why do we continue to venerate the State?

“The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes”

Attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ask almost any American adult: “Is government necessary?” and you’ll likely get an answer in the affirmative, perhaps with some qualifiers.  The fundamental idea that government is necessary for the functioning of any society is axiomatic in the sense that it’s taken for granted.  Without it, we’re told, all hell breaks loose and civilization is doomed.  This is why we are trained from an early age to pledge our allegiance to the State, in our case the United States of America.  It is the people in the nation’s capital, sometimes adhering to the wisdom of our Founders, that keeps us from sinking into barbarism, as they pass laws and issue decrees to keep us safe, healthy, and prosperous.

Government might be evil, as Thomas Paine argued, but it’s still necessary, unless it becomes intolerably evil, in which case a new government is needed.  It’s on that premise —- that some government is necessary — that we stake our lives and the lives of our loved ones.  

What kind of government do we have and what kind do we want?

With these questions in mind let’s take a look at some recent issues.

Ron Paul reports that the federal government is considering a law to force the federal reserve to combat racism with monetary policy.  The FED, in undertaking this responsibility, will keep counterfeiting American dollars and diluting lending standards to improve the lot of the poor, who are often people of color.  But counterfeiting dollars only helps first recipients of those dollars, not the poor.  Furthermore, granting loans to people while considering only their race is sentencing them to “ruinous debt.”  In addition to the other problems with federal reserve counterfeiting — depreciating the currency, creating the business cycle, funding the welfare-warfare state, making the money supply dependent on FED bureaucrats — the mandate to help the poor through federal reserve policy is an act of cruel deception.

The Audit the Fed bill, otherwise known as H.R. 24: Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2019, has a 4% chance of being enacted according to Skopos Labs.  A NYC-based company founded by computer scientist John Nay and two law professors, Skopos Labs uses “machine learning and natural language processing” to help “identify which [bills] are likely to emerge, or not, into the light of real-world impact.” The 4%-chance outlook is typical for most of the thousands of bills introduced.  

Any bill that threatens to drive a dagger into the heart of the FED will be defeated.  The power elite who benefit from FED policies will never allow a peasant revolt, although they’ll go through a pantomime of democratic deliberation to give the appearance of serious consideration.  

A Brookings Institution writer noted in 2015, 

If backers of the “audit the Fed” movement want to get rid of the agency, they should say so, and let that debate begin. If it does, central banks will win. No modern country operates without one, and it is inconceivable that the United States would prefer to have no central bank . . .

For those who understand central banking and its consequences (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and even here — for starters), it is quite conceivable.  A bill such as HR 24, though likely doomed to fail, might raise public awareness of the FED as a government-created monopoly counterfeiter.

Narrative control by way of deception

Paul Craig Roberts tells us that “Over the course of our history we Americans have been deceived about many things for the sake of political agendas.”  He then lists some of the better-known government scams of the 21st century: “September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and the Talliban, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, the endless lies about Gadaffi and Libya, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Russiagate, Impeachgate, Russian bounties to the Tallian to kill American soldiers, the lies about China, Somalia, and now the Covid Deception.”

Read his article for details of the Covid Deception — the widespread adoption of medically useless and often harmful masks, the move to outlaw cash, hospitals incentivized to code all deaths as Covid deaths, the war on cheap but proven-effective Covid remedies and prophylactics . . . the “bought-and-paid-for Western media” with its constant headlines of impending doom when the bug’s lethality is little different from the seasonal flu. 

Meanwhile, journalist John Pilger witnesses the extradition trial of journalist Julian Assange at London’s Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, with US media conspicuously absent.  Assange’s crime?  Truth-telling, the kind that exposed government criminality by way of Wikileaks files.  Writes Pilger:

The lead prosecutor, James Lewis QC, ex SAS and currently Chief Justice of the Falklands, by and large gets what he wants, notably up to four hours to denigrate expert witnesses, while the defence’s examination is guillotined at half an hour. I have no doubt, had there been a jury, his freedom would be assured. . . .

However, the defence has succeeded in demonstrating the extent to which Assange sought to protect and redact names in the files released by WikiLeaks and that no credible evidence existed of individuals harmed by the leaks. The great whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg said that Assange had personally redacted 15,000 files. 

 

Other than natural events like hurricanes and earthquakes, it is difficult to find social problems that don’t have government meddling as their root cause.  And if we recall Katrina, even natural disasters aren’t exempt from gross government incompetence (FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers).   

Diagraming our choices

Recently, Vasko Kohlmayer delineated what he considers the correct political spectrum: 

He writes:

In this paradigm, the spectrum is delineated by the degree of statism intended and aspired to by various political actors and ideologies. Thus, on the extreme left you have statist totalitarians while on the opposite side you have non-statists and state minimalists.

Oddly, there is nothing in the diagram that shows the possibility of society without a state (“non-statists”).  If I were to use such a schematic I would amend it to show No State to the right of Minimal State.  But even that is unsatisfying.  The US originally had a minimalist State under the Articles, but it soon headed left with the establishment of the Constitution.   

As the State grows in power it is called upon to grow even more.  Albert Jay Nock notes in Our Enemy, the State, 

State power has an unbroken record of inability to do anything efficiently, economically, disinterestedly or honestly; yet when the slightest dissatisfaction arises over any exercise of social power [people acting voluntarily], the aid of the agent least qualified to give aid is immediately called for.

The State is clearly appealing to certain individuals.  With its ability to tax and inflate, and offer legal privileges to certain industries, it is well-qualified to establish a plutocracy wherein the super-rich milk the political system.  

If all government is evil to some extent, why not get rid of it?  Why keep it around to grow into a monster in fine clothes, as it always does?  

The answer is, not all government is evil.  

The kind of government that imposes itself as a monopoly of force over a designated territory — commonly called a State — is the evil kind because its coercive nature is a violation of your liberty.  And mine.  What we and every other country on earth have is government-by-State.  

Coercive monopolies are damaging, and the State is literally the mother of all coercive monopolies.  It creates subordinate monopolies (such as the FED by way of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913) as favors to select groups (big bankers in the FED’s case) in return for their support.  Is there any doubt the FED and its printing press support the State?

But what do we have without a State?  

Answer: It’s obvious.  Government by the free market.  

Free markets have already proven their excellence in providing every other human want or need.  What is there to prevent them from performing the task of protecting us from aggression?  

Answer: Only the monopoly power of the State.

Another answer: The lack of courage on the part of the public and political experts.

As Judge Napolitano suggests, “What if when government fails to protect inalienable rights, we simply ignore it?”

I develop the idea of free market government here and here.

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George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including Do Not Consent: Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, 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 latest work bears the same title as his most recent book, Do Not Consent. PLEASE WATCH IT AND VOTE!