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.

***

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!

Who’s the boss?

Elections are a lot like wearing a face mask for protection against a virus.  Both are harmful but they do relieve anxiety, at least for some.

The similarities persist: There is shame in not voting as there is shame in not wearing a mask.  Voting has turned a country of rugged individuals into a country of serfs. Wearing a mask has become the perfect attire for serfs, as it keeps them compliant and fearful.  

Compliant, fearful people don’t make good boss material.

Who needs to be your boss?  The only one qualified for the job: You. 

Does that induce uneasiness?  Are you reluctant to get out of bed in the morning while others advance progress in quantum computing?  Does an accomplished lady such as Dr. Simone Gold, who holds both a medical and law degree, and who fights established authorities for what she believes is right, frighten you?  Are you willing to surrender boss-ship to some talking head on TV?  That would be a mistake.

Go ahead and learn from others, as Dr. Gold and billions of others have done, but restrict decisions about your life to the one who owns your life.  If you turn those over to someone else — might as well put on a mask and wait for your next orders.

“Man is a being of volitional consciousness,” an immigrant, long famous, once wrote.  

 “Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron—without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.

    “But to think is an act of choice. . . .”

Don’t believe it?  Better make sure you’re stocked up on masks.  And if you live in South Dakota you must be miserable having to live under your ruthless governor, Kristi Noem.  But keep your attention on the State’s media mouths — CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, NY Times, PBS —.  They’ll provide the direction they want you to take.  

Big companies have organization charts.  They start with the CEO and board of directors and proceed downward.  Clearly, one can recognize who the boss is — the CEO.  He calls the shots, pending board approval.  He’s in charge.  Maybe you work for a company where the CEO is way above you in rank.  Don’t you wish you could be a CEO?

You are — regarding your life.  Or you could be if you assume the responsibility of being human.  This is not to say we act independently of others.  The CEO of a successful company recognizes his or her true bosses — the customers they serve.  Fail to serve them, and the company is doomed.  Steve Jobs learned this the hard way when he foisted the insanely-great original Macintosh on the world without a knowledge of what users needed — but he did learn and eventually saved the company.

In today’s world we have governments that have the power to tell us what to do.   This is wrong.  We need a government that recognizes our need to be in charge of our lives.  Is the coronavirus a new threat?  You decide — then act.  Wear a mask?  You decide — then act.  Put restrictions on your business?  You decide — then act.  Decisions such as those require knowledge.  You can choose to acquire that knowledge or take the word of who you believe are experts.  However you do it, you are deciding, then acting, for better or worse.  

Only a society free from coercive interference can provide the conditions needed to live in this manner.

And this means a stateless free market.  To cast your “vote” for a free market, please go here.

***

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 one lockdown that’s killing us all

In the 1930s, first Hoover then Roosevelt tried to fix the economy that would have fixed itself if it had been left alone, which was the lesson decidedly not learned from the depression of 1920-21 and the Panics of the 19th century.  If it had been left to recover on its own from federal reserve meddling, there might have been a chance the meddler would have been shut down.

But really, there was no chance.  Anyone who understands the FED’s purpose — keeping the biggest banks solvent through counterfeiting — knows repealing the law that established it was not a thinkable option, given the corrupt powers that supported it.  

So the FED, supercharged after FDR made owning gold coins a felony, remained on the scene and advanced its career as an untouchable counterfeiter, creating a legacy of inflation, a policy indispensable to a welfare/warfare/surveillance state.  Big, suffocating government doesn’t thrive on direct theft (legislated taxation) alone.     

State growth also creates connections with individuals and organizations not formally a part of the State apparatus.  It has a name: Crony capitalism. Since the State deals with others by force and thrives within its sphere of influence by bestowing favors, there are always people seeking privileges, such as protection from competition, tax breaks, or monetary outlays (bailouts).  In return, the State receives support in the form of political endorsements, election donations, votes, and marginalizing the views of those opposed to State policies or the State itself. 

Any crisis arriving on the scene, whether State-caused or natural, is subject to State handling.  People expect the State to “Do something,” and it does.  Today, the State is doing plenty about the coronavirus, and no surprise, it is creating a social catastrophe.

What hath the State wrought?

It’s a challenge to document 2020’s outburst of tyranny when so many levels of government are contributing to the mayhem, but here are a few:

(1)  States ordering “non-essential” businesses to close, while letting “essential” businesses remain open.  If a business weren’t essential it wouldn’t be doing business.  Fortunately, some business owners are at least defying the orders. 

(2) With so many small businesses shut down and employees furloughed or fired, the federal government turned to its counterfeiter to ease their pain — short term relief only, of course.  Most Americans aren’t complaining, but they will when they’re greeted with “monumental tax increases” that could eventually wipe out the middle class.  But the CARES act is rarely presented in such truthful terms.  Instead, the government with its astronomical debt somehow found $2.2 trillion in its back pocket it had apparently forgotten about, so the Treasury (not the FED) passed it out to the people, including thousands of foreign workers living overseas.  Money is truly no object when it’s controlled by the government and its printing press sidekick.  

(3)  Stay-at-home orders for everyone, even after the virus has shown an affinity for the elderly with existing medical problems and almost no concern for healthy people under 30.  Lockdowns prevent herd immunity and delay recovery.  People jailed in their homes get depressed, divorced, commit suicide, abuse spouses and children, drink too much, and fail to care for other health issues.  They also tend to stay unemployed if they can’t work from home.  The State knows all this.

(4) Mask confusion.  State health authorities saying early on that masks aren’t needed for everyday activities then reversing themselves. Studies and demonstrations showing the futility of masks, along with their numerous downsides, have yet to remove the mandates.  

(5)  Making people afraid to get too close to one another.  We must keep at least six feet apart (unless you’re rioting for a leftist cause).  States have tried hard to outlaw hugs.  We can find ludicrous though often creative ways some people circumvent normal hugging.

(6)  Outlawing or restricting outdoor recreational activities.  Remember the video of the cop chasing a lone jogger off the beach?  Or the young mother who was tasered and arrested for not wearing a mask while watching her middle school son play football? 

(7)  Hobbling professional sports.  Fake fans in the seats, along with crowd noises lifted from a video game.  No tailgating.  Announcers and commentators broadcasting remotely or spread far apart.  NFL commissioner Roger Goodell fining two head coaches $100,000 apiece for not wearing masks properly on the sidelines.  And also fining their teams $250,000 apiece.

(8)  Canceling the NCAA basketball tournaments for both men and women.  At first canceling, then allowing under restrictions, the college football season.  Two major conferences have yet to begin play.  TV viewers are seeing cheerleaders with masks strapped to their faces cheering from the stands or from the sidelines, with gaping holes in the bleachers where fans normally sit.  Meanwhile, amid all the PC caution, the players engage in a rough contact sport on the field. But even under duress the free market comes through: 

At LSU last week, fans were able to purchase a cut out of themselves to be placed in the stands where 82,000 empty seats looked on. The cost? $50.

 Depressing, but it’s a choice and a way for the school to recover a bit of lost revenue.   

(9)  Criminally, the suppression and in some cases outlawing of a demonstrably effective treatment for SARS-CoV-2, hydroxychloroquine.  The government has never before “restricted physicians from prescribing an FDA approved medication,” according to America’s Frontline Doctors.

Santa Monica cardiologist Dr. Dan Wohlgelernter said during a June 18 interview:

This is an FDA approved drug for 65 years; it’s generic, cheap, widely available. We give it to pregnant women, to breastfeeding women, to elderly patients, to patients who are immune-compromised…

Initially, the FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for HCQ, and CQ but then later revoked it.  During the brief period under the EUA the “strategic national stockpile” amassed 63 million doses of HCQ.  Mylan and Novartis donated millions of doses to the stockpile, with Bayer kicking in another two million doses of CQ.  Trump called it a game-changer on March 21 and that changed the game.  On June 15 the FDA revoked EUA, saying: 

Specifically, FDA has determined that CQ and HCQ are unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized uses in the EUA.  Additionally, in light of ongoing serious cardiac adverse events and other serious side effects, the known and potential benefits of CQ and HCQ no longer outweigh the known and potential risks for the authorized use.  This warrants revocation of the EUA for HCQ and CQ for the treatment of COVID-19.

Most states had already placed restrictions for its use as a prophylactic and by limiting prescriptions to two weeks with no refills.  

Twenty-year emergency room physician Dr. Simone Gold was fired for appearing in a video in which she advocated HCQ for use against COVID-19.  The video, which went viral, was removed from social media.  Her employer threatened to fire her colleagues if she didn’t go quietly.  

An ongoing evaluation of HCQ called HCQTrial, done anonymously by PhD researchers and scientists under the name @CovidAnalysis (to avoid another “Simone Gold” incident), presents findings for countries that do or do not use HCQ.  As the chart shows, early treatment makes a big difference, and countries using HCQ show far lower mortality rates.  

I’ll let the reader decide whether the war on HCQ is at all related to the Left’s war on Trump and the lucrative revenue stream from government sponsorship of a rushed-to-market vaccine.

(10)  If the State is concerned with our health, why aren’t their spokespeople urging us to boost our immune systems?  That’s our first line of defense against any infectious disease, along with common sense.  Why aren’t they now, in October, urging us to load up on vitamins D3, K2, and C especially, along with zinc?  Why aren’t they classifying HCQ as an OTC drug as it is in many countries, to be used as a prophylactic?  

Conclusion

In most circles the fact of government’s necessity is never mentioned but always assumed.  Thus, the push for reforms, to get better people in positions of authority, to pass needed legislation on top of the mountains that already exist.  Always — work within the system.  Don’t rock the boat.  Our foundations are still solid.  Rarely does anyone call into question the need for government-as-we-know-it — the State.

Does the State’s virus management give you confidence it’s acting in your best interest?  For me, it’s like something out of Orwell or Nazi Germany.

Without the State there would be chaos, we’re told.  What do we have today, if not chaos?  I haven’t even mentioned the riots going on, where people defending themselves are charged with serious crimes. The rioters hate the police, and seeing the police stand down, peaceful people now fear for their lives and load up on guns.

And now we’re being hit with black lives matter and only black lives matter.  It is no longer a fringe movement.  It exists virtually unchallenged.  No one, no matter their race, can live long under that slogan.

We already have a government we can live with.  It’s called the free market but it’s been sabotaged by the State.  It’s locked down, meaning not allowed to operate.  We need to set it free.

I’ve written a short book about it and produced a 10-minute video explaining it.  

If you, thoughtful reader, want a stateless free market you must tell the world you want it.  At the end of the video I ask you to vote by giving the video a thumbs up or down.  I urge you to give it a thumbs up.  Without your affirmation the stateless free market will forever remain a fantasy and today’s nightmare will only get worse.

***

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! 

Not too much freedom, please!

I’m feeling grateful today and hope you are too.

I’ve heard it said that the problem with atheists is when they feel grateful they have no one to thank.  Or as it usually written, no One to thank.  That may be true in the case of a hand grenade landing at your feet that turns out to be a dud, but for other situations I can name names and state specifically why I’m grateful.

Oh, you want me to name a few?  At the outset I feel like Leonard Read attempting to explain how a pencil is made.  It can’t be done except in a sketchy way — too many contributors.  But I said “a few,” so I’m going to eliminate a billion or two and focus on my own experience, where it starts with family and certain friends.  Outside that circle, I am especially grateful to Lew Rockwell for making the works of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, among many others, available for the effort to read them.  Visit Mises.org and discover the countless treasures for yourself, and explore the vast library of articles at LewRockwell.com.  In a world dominated by statist crackpots of all stripes imagine where freedom would be without Lew and his ever-expanding influence.  To paraphrase a line from Johnny Depp’s character in Don Juan DeMarco, we can breathe in Lew’s world. 

I am grateful for all this but also bothered by what I consider a failing of most freedom fighters. 

Give them freedom, but not too much 

The problem is this: No matter how destructive the State might get, these libertarians do not call for its abolition.  They want a State held to a constitution, with the constitution serving as a limit on its power.  The problem, they insist, is the State’s transgression of its charter.  Without specifying how, they want the State reduced to the point where it does no more than defend individual rights.  The fact that no state has ever done this, that it forever seeks more power not less, doesn’t discourage them.  To them the State per se is not the problem, it is the State’s size or range of what it can legally do.  They want a small state that stays that way.

Even if that could be achieved not everyone who lived under its jurisdiction would be happy.  There will always be complaints and the temptation is great to use the small State in an attempt to assuage them.  And for that the State will need to expand — more taxes, more regulations, more agencies, a cheaper dollar.  

And what happens when the next crisis arrives?  Will people deal with it themselves or call on the small State for help?  As Robert Higgs has documented, the leviathan State is heavily indebted to crises for its expansion.

It should be abundantly clear that the State can’t protect us from life’s hazards, that given the lockdowns and other mandates of the current panic, the State and its corrupt media have made matters infinitely worse.  It’s only the free market that’s keeping us alive.

Brothers 

Give a neocon and libertarian a box to check if they believe the State is necessary and both will immediately mark it.  The free market can create every kind of imaginable and unimaginable wonder, but somehow it is viewed as fragile.  It cannot protect itself, it can’t stand on its own feet.  It cannot protect you and me and our families from viruses, bombs, thieves, and murderers. For that we need an anti-market force, a monopoly, to keep us safe.  

Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand works “miracles” in a free market, but only in a free market.  Add the State to the mix — add a central bank, taxes, corruption, regulations, welfare, confusion, surveillance, war, bureaucracy, and propaganda — and everything goes to hell.  Hope?  The State has grown so corrupt and people so dependent on it that many libertarians are resigned to waiting for its collapse, rather that try to abolish it.  

Conclusion

If your political goal is a small State you won’t get it.  Or if you do, it won’t stay small.  

Don’t handicap the free market with the imposition of a State.  Make a 100% free market your goal.  Abolish the State.  

I’ve created a video and posted it on YouTube so you can “vote” for a free market by giving a thumbs up to the video.  Imagine if this eventually takes off and greatly exceeds the number of votes the State collects for the winner of its election.  Could the State safely ignore the results?  

I don’t think so.  But you need to watch the video and vote, or it won’t happen.   

Do Not Consent - Think OUTSIDE the voting booth

A serious shortage of testosterone

I wondered how a tough prisoner kept in isolation for the past year might react if he was released and transported to a street corner on the outskirts of a major American city — say, near Lenox Square in Atlanta — without prepping from the prison bureaucrats that had kept him confined.   

So I made one up.  No name, just an incorrigible prisoner.  Here’s my take on how he might react:

You know what he would see — people going about with their faces bandaged from the bridge of their nose to their chins.  Was this another anthrax thing, like what happened after the Twin Towers, only on a bigger scale?  Was it just this city?  The air seemed okay to him.  In fact it seemed great, being outside prison walls.  He had been breathing all his life without covering his face.  Neither did his jailers cover up when they shoved food at him.  You took your chances.  That’s life.

But this!

The more he looked the more he couldn’t buy what he saw.  Some of the masks were stylish, like it was part of their regular dress.  Designer masks, for God’s sake.  They’re making a fashion statement.  

Something’s missing.  What doesn’t he know?

He checked himself.  People don’t look like him.  He looked decent enough, he thought, but his eyes gave him away.  They were hard, like his life.  Whaddya expect?  That’s how you survived in his lousy world.  His jailers had tried to humiliate him, to make him crawl, to keep his trap shut, and when that bombed they put him in the hole.  That’ll teach him.  We’re in charge here and he’s gonna believe it.  They were on top because they had the numbers, he was only one stooge.  They had been bowing all their miserable lives and now they wanted to return the favor to their captives.  He was going to learn to obey, by God.  He was going to learn to say “Yes, sir!” and mean it.  

They might as well try to reform a rock.  To him it wasn’t a choice.  It was an animal reaction — push him, he pushed back, a lot harder, until they knocked him down.  Like an animal.  He knew the odds but didn’t care.  He had fought the odds all his life.  He would smack one or two before getting laid out from some fat screw’s club.  Sure, he made it worse but so what?  They were mugs getting their kicks beating the crap out of him.  He wasn’t gonna let it go without a fight.  Even as the blows rained down, he took solace that he had it over their chicken-shit lives.  They might kill him, but it’ll be the only time he goes.  They croaked with every breath they took like the pissant cowards they were.

Turned out they couldn’t kill him, not the regular way, so they let him out, a real shock.  But something wasn’t right, seeing all these half-faces.  If he was the screaming type he would’ve screamed.  He almost did.  Was this the screws’s doing, to make him lose his mind? 

“Hey, lady,” he says to a mummified stranger who had stopped to cross the street.   “What’s with . . . y’know?” 

She glares at him.  The light changes in her favor, and she slides in with other masked wonders to cross the street.

“Hey, man,” he says to a guy about to cross, “tell me about the masks.”

He starts off without replying, so he grabs him by the arm.  The guy barks through his muffler, “It’s the latest fashion, a-hole!  What else?”  Then rips his arm loose and leaves.

That’s what he thought he said.  Couldn’t be sure.  If he had been sure he might’ve continued the conversation along different lines.  

This was mass sickness.  How could this happen?

He needed information.  He started to walk not knowing where he would find it.  He came to a CVS.  Why the hell not?  He went inside where a voice politely mumbled something about wearing a mask or leave.

He turned and saw the short young woman who had just spoken gazing at him, her face tightly wrapped.  “It’s store policy,” she said.  

“Why?!” 

“To keep us all safe.  What else?”

“Safe from what?”

“Are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m not?  What’s going on?!  Everyone’s hiding their faces!”

She answered carefully.  “No, they’re protecting their faces.  If you’re carrying the virus you might breathe on them and infect them too, if they’re not wearing a mask.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The COVID virus!  Ever hear of that?  It’s only been in the news for six months!”

“Never heard of it.”

“Well, now you have, and it’s been real scary, and you’re going to have to leave or put on a mask.”

“What’s special about this COVID thing?”

“It’s killing people.”

“That’s what viruses do.  So why the masks?”

“The old and sick are especially vulnerable.”

“Do I look old or sick?  You don’t.  Why are you wearing a mask?”

“Because it’s store policy.  Look, I’m only doing what I’m told.  Don’t make such a fuss.”

“Don’t make a fuss, don’t make a fuss.  This is crazy.  And you know it!”

“Just leave, please.”

“Ever hear of someone getting kicked out of prison?  Naw, never happens.  Well, it happened to me.  Couldn’t figure out why, but I’m beginning to catch on.  They couldn’t kill me there, so they figured they could kill me out here, by turning my dumb ass loose without a mask.”  He laughed.  “But it ain’t working.  It’s the other way around.  You guys are killing yourselves, not me.”

Then he added:  “Get with it, kid, they’re gonna keep you masked until you put up a fight.”

“It’s store policy.  I need the job.  Now, please leave.”

He left.  No mask, just a smile.

Trump, Biden, or the free market

The title of this article suggests we have a choice between three candidates.  

And we do.

But where do we find the free market on the ballot?  Ballots contain the names of people.  The free market is not a person, it is many persons, starting with you and me.  We who try to make a living through voluntary exchanges constitute, on a state election ballot, an unrepresented force in deciding who will be in charge of our lives.  

If we’re not on an “official” ballot, how can we ever get representation? 

By announcing it.

Why assume the state’s elections are the only elections that matter? Let’s have one of our own -- and make it never-ending.  Let’s give voice to that which we truly need to survive and prosper, the free market. 

I am saying the free market is our government — you, me, and the millions of other participants — and that which announces itself as our government is a criminal gang, an intruder feeding on our lifeblood and keeping the free market from working to our benefit.

With enough voices, we will be heard.  With enough voices the intruder might go away permanently.

The free market doesn’t need special-occasion elections like the one coming up.  It holds elections constantly, night and day, every day, through the decisions of consumers to buy or refrain from buying certain products or services.  

Try this quiz

What entity comes to mind with these words and phrases: war, war destruction, war dead & wounded, bombs, civilian casualties and displacements, war propaganda, The Big Lie, PTSD, poverty, conscription, foreign intervention, WMDs, “intelligence” operations, revolution, secession, civil war, assassinations, printing press money, inflation, hyperinflation, astronomical debt, economic crises, massive unemployment, lockdowns, mandates, masks, income taxes, sales taxes, estate taxes, property taxes, taxes called “contributions,” hidden taxes, taxes and more taxes, and more taxes after those, totalitarianism, executive orders, bad schooling, expensive schooling, trillion-dollar student debt, dumbed-down students, dumbed-down electorate, “never let a crisis go to waste,” servile media, all-pervasive corruption.

If your answer is “the State,” then we agree.  

The State’s sordid and destructive history is explained by its very nature: a supremely powerful monopoly able to impose its agenda on the rest of the country.  Its interventionist policies, both domestic and abroad, create crises that allow it to circumvent written law, urged on by the media outcry of “Do something!”

The State is the ultimate cartel (it forcibly prohibits competitors) and is the source of supportive cartels — such as the Federal Reserve.  The FED is legally allowed to print whatever quantity of dollars it wishes, usually through the scheme of “purchasing” the State’s debt, with taxpayers unknowingly held responsible for that debt.

A nice racket, the State.  And the nearly unanimous view is we need it.

Open competition, on the other hand, is a hallmark of the free market.  Money would be the result of market choices, subject to market forces.  Attempts to form cartels without the support of the State would invariably fail. (See Gabriel Kolko’s The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916; see also Murray Rothbard’s The Progressive Era.)    

Neither major party supports the free market — these days not even with lip service.  The free market doesn’t need supporting, because it doesn’t need the State.  

The free market personified

If the free market were a person in today’s world it would champion the abolition of the taxing authority.  Without a taxing authority there would be no taxes.  Without taxes there would be no theft by taxation.  People would keep the money they earned and decide for themselves what to do with it.

Without a taxing authority there would be no elections, no wars for banking and corporate aggrandizement — no more political “heroes” like Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt.  

Without a taxing authority there would be no politically-appointed bankers trying to direct the economy with a printing press. 

Without a taxing authority there would be no State.  

The State has a constant need to redirect voter attention because of its crises, and there’s no better distraction than a war.  Since it controls the MSM, getting the public behind another foreign invasion is a task it is supremely able to undertake.  (Trailer, Wag the Dog).  With the right propaganda, uncritical Americans will support our troops as they roll into some country few knew existed much less could find on a map.  Better for the State to get hit by a handful of antiwar protestors than incur the wrath of investors and breadwinners, if the economy is tanking.   It’s a job that has to be done — not State “deciders” but the poor bastards they send overseas to get it done.  Deciders are too important to risk their necks.  They run the country, not you and me who are expendable.

If the current system of government strikes you as suicidal and insane, and getting worse the more you think about it, then it’s time to think about a radically different approach. 

Seeing Americans walking around masked leads me to suspect that freedom has become a dirty word, but the day will come when a few people, then more, then almost everyone will rip them from their faces — and the sudden onrush of freedom they had been duped from experiencing will be a monumental deliverance.  They might organize mask bonfires with fireworks to celebrate. They might even question the need for the State itself, the elite that kept them masked to keep them obedient.

They might be willing to try a radically different approach — one they’re thoroughly familiar with that’s been available all along: The free market.

It’s difficult to acquire an understanding of free markets in today’s Left-dominated culture.  But you can’t support free markets if you don’t understand them.  For this purpose I’m pleased to recommend an engaging introduction to free market economics: Michael Dahlen’s Free Market Economics: A Primer.  A great follow-up to Dahlen’s eBook is Lew Rockwell’s The Free Market Reader, a collection of essays available free at Mises.org.  Lessons for the Young Economist, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism, and Chaos Theory by Robert P. Murphy will further expand your understanding. 

And for those who are curious about government by the free market only, see my 10-minute YouTube video here — and don’t forget to vote when you’re done!  

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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. 

Why I want Big Government and you should too!

The deafening silence of the mainstream media over the CDC’s admission that only 6% of COVID patients died of COVID-only is hardly shocking.  They seem on-board with everything that brings this country to complete destruction — a terrorized and submissive population being a crucial element — and they will not allow facts to stand in the way.  

But there is silence on another issue that is even worse.  

Most likely you’re reading this on some digital device — smartphone, tablet, or computer.  You know in a general sense where your device came from: The free market.  The same could be said about uncountable numbers of other things that didn’t exist in nature as such, but were painstakingly and ingeniously derived from nature and marketed for consumer satisfaction.  A simple pencil is one such commodity. 

The free market serves the consumer — you and me.  Consumers are the “real bosses” in the capitalist system, as Mises expressed it.  But of course you knew that.

Are there limitations to the free market?  Do consumers have needs or desires that the free market cannot fulfill in principle?  Sure, it can produce a pencil, though no one knows exactly how, but can it protect consumers from fraud, theft, murder, and foreign invasion, for example, and do so at an affordable price?  Robert P. Murphy thinks it can.  Edward Stringham, arguing for private governance, blames overly pessimistic views of removing state predation for hiding “the unseen beauty that underpins markets.” 

Can the free market provide sound money? Put another way, can sound money arise from something other than trade, such as from the heads of 12 unelected bureaucrats in control of a legal counterfeiting racket? The question almost answers itself, but if you need help consult Rothbard: 

. . . if we wish to eliminate government invasion of person and property, we have no more important task than to explore the ways and means of a free market in money.

Can the free market protect you from disease or make you well when protection breaks down?  Though we do a myriad of things to prolong our life and improve our health, we will eventually graduate beyond our biological bodies, according to futurist Ray Kurzweil, as we approach the technological Singularity.  

Before the middle of this century, the growth rates of our technology—which will be indistinguishable from ourselves—will be so steep as to appear essentially vertical. From a strictly mathematical perspective, the growth rates will still be finite but so extreme that the changes they bring about will appear to rupture the fabric of human history. That, at least, will be the perspective of unenhanced biological humanity.

The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality. If you wonder what will remain unequivocally human in such a world, it’s simply this quality: ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations.

Is this Singularity inevitable?  Unless we “repeal capitalism and every vestige of economic competition,” it is, according to Kurzweil.

This and much more is discussed in great detail in his seminal The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.  For those wondering whether I’m quoting an unreliable source, consider that most of his predictions to date have proven either fully correct or essentially correct.  For more about the accuracy of his predictions and the exponential thesis underlying his methodology, see "How My Predictions Are Faring" and “The dawn of the singularity, a visual timeline of Ray Kurzweil’s predictions.”

Can the free market protect you from domestic invasion?  Can it safeguard your life and property from state-directed hordes of armed thugs?  Here the answer is no.  The State, with its monopoly on legal violence, makes this impossible.  

Most people, I would say, think of the State in all its forms (local, state, and federal) as their government.  We should not think this way, given what the unhampered market can do.  We need to view the free market as our true government, one that has been violated by an intruder, the State.  Thus, if the State can be removed, the full power of freedom will prevail.  We will have, in a real sense, a Big Government consisting of a fully free market.  

How do we remove the State?  We start by declaring our goal is the free market, without the State.  If enough people cast their vote for a free market, instead of State rulers, we will be heard.  We will make a difference.

To this end I’ve produced a 10-minute movie calling on viewers to vote for a free market if they agree with the ideas it presents.  It’s a simple thumbs-up on YouTube.  For those who have already seen it and didn’t vote, please indicate your support (or not) by voting.  This is a chance to make your vote count, at least in the long run, but possibly, given today’s chaos, not so long.  
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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 latest work discusses the possibility of a free market government, Do Not Consent: Think OUTSIDE the voting Booth.