Libera Voce

The Politics of Panic

So as we move through these difficult times of our lives, we need to be of a more positive and composed mentality, or as best expressed by Mark Twain, another of my favorite Americans, “I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

“Security without liberty is called prison.” Benjamin Franklin

My favorite Founder, the author of the above quotation, is perhaps the least appreciated, despite being regarded as the “First American”. He was a man of many talents, not the least of which as a political writer, influencing many colonials against British policies. His sage words about security in regards to liberty are relevant for our time, and the circumstances of our current dilemma with the pandemic.

Our politicians in this dilemma have failed the critical test of leadership by promoting panic rather than composure. Whether that is so because they themselves lack the fortitude to lead rather than compel, or perhaps because they have a more sinister agenda can be debated, but ultimately the draconian dictates practiced as measures for security prove Franklin’s adage.

While we are bombarded daily in the news, as mass media thrives on the negative and promotes a right think mentality, there is good old Ben again wisely advising that “If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.” So let us think and practice some composure, which requires a look at the data, most of which is readily available to all of us.

We need to understand some basic data about COVID19. It is unquestionably a dangerous virus as manifested by about 290K deaths in the US as of today. Given that the vaccine has just been approved, even with aggressive production and distribution, projections for the death toll to reach 400K by Q2 of 2021 are plausible.

However, compare this with the CDC’s original forecasts of the death toll here in the US based on the March 16, 2020 projections from the Imperial College London’s report for 2.2 million deaths in the United States, upon which the CDC based its recommendations for lockdowns, among other measures. True, we need to put our trust in science more than politics, but when these scientists miss by a factor of more than 500%, they should not be surprised that our trust has been understandably shaken; they become suspect to the point of appearing more political than scientific. Any death is concerning, but from a policy viewpoint both the projection and reaction to it are empirically irrational.

Add to this the reports from many doctors regarding the protocols to determine the cause of death in the reported mortality; often it’s reported as “COVID related”, meaning it was a comorbidity to other causes, or even worse reported as a COVID death if pathology determines the person was infected with COVID at the time of death even if that wasn’t the cause. Why would a hospital do that? One incentive for doing so is increased government funding under the practice of back-stopping hospitals stressed with caseloads. Ever hear of unintended consequences?

Clearly hygienic protocols such as masks and hand washing are effective; anyone who questions that is likewise irrational. Given that this virus is now known to be airborne, the efficacy of social distancing is suspect. Note that indoor activity requires the facility to have adequate ventilation filtration and air exchange as a result of this realization about how the virus can spread. These protocols are simple common sense and should not be politicized either; compulsion again is a poor policy as it engenders negative reactions contrary to intent. Good move by President Elect Biden for backing off the mask mandate, showing his realization of this time proven phenomenon.

It is informative to put this disease in a comparative context, so a look at the CDC’s report on the causes of death in the US gives us a better appreciation for what we are dealing with. The latest data is for 2018 as the 2019 data is still being vetted. It is appreciated that the CDC is being careful about this and taking the time to get it right, although their reaction to the COVID projections lacked that discipline. Here are the categorical death totals:

Heart disease: 655,381

Cancer: 599,274

Accidents (unintentional injuries): 167,127

Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 159,486

Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 147,810

Alzheimer’s disease: 122,019

Diabetes: 84,946

Influenza and Pneumonia: 59,120

Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 51,386

Intentional self-harm (suicide): 48,344

Please note that there are two critical categories not included in the above that the CDC also records, and that is death from alcohol and drug abuse; for alcohol they estimate about 95K/year, and for drugs more than 67K/year. These numbers are not included in the suicides or accidents noted above, although why they occurred could be related to either.

I added COVID19 deaths, without exception to comorbidity, to the above in making some comparative contextual observations. Also please note that while tobacco smoking is the cause for about 480K deaths per year, they are accounted for in the diseases noted above, like cancer and cardiovascular. What stands out here is that approximately 62% of all these deaths are caused by those very diseases, and the majority of those manifest themselves in the senior population, making them that much more susceptible, i.e. at risk to CIVID19, influenza and pneumonia. Now compare the fact that when we include COVID19 in all the death data, it accounts for about 11%, truly awful, but compared to the big killers, fractional.

What is also telling is that the overall death rate has been fairly consistent over the last decade, so it will be informative to look at the 2020 and 2021 statistics to put COVID19 in a context that hopefully will be more informative than what we have currently.

What is also noteworthy is that the non-disease related deaths due to suicides, alcohol and drug abuse (although I would consider those to be psychological and mental disorders) are about equal to COVID19. This is an important consideration as the economic consequences of lockdowns will likely increase those numbers.

While we are told that there is a “second wave” the data does not necessarily support the recent spikes as anything other than just that. What it shows is that testing has increased astronomically, while the death rate has fallen precipitously. That should surprise no one if they understand that the more you test, the more you will find, and as positivity increases, and protocol treatments improve survivability, the mortality rate falls. Setting arbitrary parameters for lockdowns without a rational consideration of the data is counterproductive. For instance, Governor Cuomo of NYS recently mandated closing indoor dining in NYC (like outdoor dining in winter is a reasonable option) due to recent spikes in positivity testing. Restaurants were found to be a 1.3% contributor to the spike, whereas family gatherings (like Thanksgiving and the Holiday Season) were 76% contributors. Strange that he did this considering his admonitions to Mayor De Blasio about how schools are the safest place for kids to be, so keep them open. Clearly the Governor needs some math and logic lessons, not to mention better consistency and stronger composure; shoot-ready-aim is not good leadership.

According to the CDC’s records of the seasonal influenza, a virus that has survived and evolved for as long as mankind can recall, we get some interesting takeaways. The first seasonal influenza vaccine was made available in the US in 1930. It did not have an overwhelming reception as few opted in until 1945 when it became broadly accepted. It would be interesting to know why just after the war that happened. Some have theorized, maybe correctly, that it was because it was the beginning of the Baby Boom.

The flu vaccine has had varying success, but never more than about 68% efficacy, often less, but certainly not up to the 95% reported for the COVID19 vaccine. Excluding the Spanish Flu of 1918 and just looking at the seasonal flu from 1930 to now, the mortality rate is usually in the 60K range, with a high of 116K in 1957, and 100K in 1967; if we ignore those highs, looking at the 90 year period during which we had a flu vaccine, that’s about 5M deaths from seasonal influenza. COVID19 isn’t going away because we have a vaccine, and like the seasonal flu, the virus will, as has already been seen, mutate requiring constant updates to the vaccine; but still, 95% efficacy is a lot better than 68%.

If locking down the economy is the answer to dealing with contagious diseases, then you can make the case that we should have been locking down the economy every winter; even considering the coming winter with even more deaths, the logic for lockdowns fails. Locking down an economy put 30 million people out of work; that’s just not economic stress, that’s increased stress on the health of the entire population. While we have a vaccine starting mid-December for essential workers such as healthcare, those over 65 years old and those at risk due to chronic illnesses, it will not be significantly distributed to the majority of Americans until Q2 of 2021; are we to lockdown until then?

Despite government efforts to counter the effects of shuttering an economy, neither stimulus nor QE have provided a long range solution to even reach the time frame for vaccine viability. Defaults and bankruptcies are at an all-time high and growing. Many small businesses, which account for the majority of US employment, will likely never recover, and many are already gone.

The massive monetary inflation of the US dollar to provide easy credit, i.e. debt, puts it in imminent and understandable danger of losing reserve currency status, a loss of a trading advantage that will further exacerbate its purchasing power; why we are told that will not cause inflation is bizarre. The government’s proposition that stimulus, proverbial helicopter money, will provide growth is at best disingenuous; in reality it’s welfare for Wall Street. It is not a coincidence that as the likelihood of a second tranche fades, the indices fall, which should inform even the financially challenged what this scheme is all about.

Further, consider the thinking behind lockdowns that COVID19 is “contagious/harmful enough”; at best that is a vague, non-scientific phrase. More telling against lockdowns is that the survival rate according to the CDC for those 69 years old and younger is 98.5%, which is even higher the efficacy of the vaccine. For those older than 69, the survival rate falls to 86.6% mostly due to the decline in resiliency and/or the onset of other ailments.

I understand that there are those that have doubts about a vaccine that was developed in under a year and whose developers negotiated liability immunity while promoting it as safe, clearly a contradiction. While I support getting the vaccine, it is a personal choice. If you force someone to do it against their will while granting immunity to big pharma against any negative side effects, you are creating the very reason for people to be suspicious of it.

What Just happened?

While the minority opinion can be considered one made in good faith, it was indefensible constitutionally.

On 11/25/20, the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, decided for The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York in their suit against Governor Cuomo regarding restrictions in places of worship based on the First Amendment rights regarding freedom of religion.

It was as reported a rather bitter split with some telling statements made among the justices, but there are some statements that standout that I find relevant to the issue of the case, those by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Gorsuch.

First, there is the curious opinion by Chief Justice Roberts. His dissenting opinion in opposition to the majority was ambiguous. He apparently found it necessary to defend the minority opinion based on his belief that the majority voiced harsh criticism of that. He also noted that the lower court ruling was still pending which would indicate that a Supreme Court ruling was not yet required. Further, as Governor Cuomo had just previously lifted the restrictions, this in his opinion made a ruling moot, at least for the time being.

How awkward for the Chief Justice to find himself in such a position. Was it not the decision of the Supreme Court to hear the case? Yes, by what is called the “Rule of Four”, at least four of the nine justices agreed to hear the case and issued a writ of certiorari compelling the lower court to submit the case to them. Why do that and then as Chief Justice cast doubts on the court’s proceeding with the case?

That the Governor lifted the restrictions, at least for the time being, doesn’t change the fact that those restrictions were at issue with the Constitution and therefore relevant to what the Supreme Court actually is there for.

As to his defense of the minority opinion, why was that even necessary as all he had to do was provide an opinion in support of it, not to act as if he were defending those who found in favor of the Governor’s restrictions; at least those three other Justices did their job with conviction, something the Chief Justice appears reluctant to do.

Too often Roberts has found it necessary to be more like an apologists than a judge, as he did with the ACA ruling regarding the mandate, manipulating words to provide cover for it under the pretext of a tax versus a penalty; thankfully that sham has been debunked even by Congress itself, the very basis of a defense for the remainder of ACA to continue under the severability doctrine. These kinds of actions diminish the office of the Chief Justice from the seat of high jurisprudence to a disingenuous role of political manipulation.

Then we have Justice Gorsuch who was the most outspoken of the majority and made two clear and thankfully unequivocal statements. Firstly we have “Even if the Constitution has taken a holiday during this pandemic, it cannot become a sabbatical. Rather than apply a nonbinding and expired concurrence, courts must resume applying the Free Exercise Clause.”; and then “We may not shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack. Things never go well when we do.”

The first statement makes clear that even during emergencies the Constitution can’t be suspended, and with the second, allowing attacks on the Constitution is always dangerous. In summary, rights are not something government allows the people, but what the government may not violate even in an emergency.

Now make no mistake, Roberts clearly dissented from the majority opinion, but did so with an obvious attempt to leave the door open with his obfuscation that things may change. What he was defending as “harsh” was the fact that the majority opinion left no doubt that rights that are regulated is an oxymoronic position contrary to what the Constitution says, specifically the First Amendment. While the minority opinion can be considered one made in good faith, it was indefensible constitutionally.

So what just happened? Well, there have been times when the Supreme Court did not always rule constitutionally, and often have appeared as if legislating from the bench. If the appointment of Justice Barrett, a well-known originalist, means that the court is now strengthened in its support of the constitution, it is a welcome development that we can only hope will continue in the future.

So Where Are We?

At last, no more endless analyses of the inevitable, with every morning’s news update showing another percentage point closer to a decision; it’s like ground hog day in journalism. It’s done, Joe Biden wins and Trump is out, even if he doesn’t know or admit it; so goes the greater of two evils. Now all we have to do is bear four years of what hopefully is the lesser of two evils. So where are we?

Is this really what we are celebrating in the streets about? Did we actually vote out a president we didn’t want in order to get a president we didn’t want? Did I actually see crowds without masks, packed together and sharing bottles of champagne? Where are the Fauci fanatics? What exactly are we celebrating? In a way it is understandable; four years of the egregious behavior of a delusional authoritarian is at an end, but what are we getting now?

Still, good riddance to the “reality” (there’s an oxymoron somewhere in that) show host, and let’s hope that what we now have is just not something that looks better than Trump but actually is. We sorely need that, but my suspicion is we may not get it. Biden is like a pain killer; numbs but doesn’t cure. So while you’re numb, what happens?

Biden, if nothing else, is a clever politician that has found a way to stay in the game for 50 years. Assuming he means what he says about his mandate for cooperation with a reach across the aisle, especially if the Senate Republican, that will be a disappointment to the AOC camp of progressives more interested in some sort of purge. An administration forced to fight two fronts, one being the Republicans, the other a faction in their own party, will mean more gridlock, although at least that will mean the government will do less harm.

As far as Biden’s vows to fight COVID more aggressively, he recently stepped in a little problem he may not easily get off his shoe; he had discussed mandatory lock-downs, but was advised that doing so could enrage Americans more than gain him any support. While a V shape recovery is unlikely as we will have a slow slog out of this mess, further restrictions on Americans being able to have a livelihood will only fuel a deepening resentment that could mean a mid-term flip in the House. So Biden back-peddles and calls it a presidential “urging”; that may have a hollow ring to it, but better that than some draconian dictate. Again, Biden is a survivor and he understands that a 3.4% edge in the popular vote that just managed to flip some key states is hardly mandate territory.

So it all comes down to the Senate. North Carolina and Alaska have provided two more Republican Senators; if Georgia provides one more Republican senator in the January runoffs, Biden will not have a Democratic Senate. However, while the Washington Post ran a very good article showing how the numbers add up in favor of both Republicans, we’re talking about a state that flipped Democratic, which hasn’t happened since 1992, so nothing is a given; if both runoffs go Democratic, we’ll have a split, but with Harris you get the tie-breaker going Democratic, but that also makes for a chaotic situation.

The Georgia senate run-offs have become so critical that you have Schumer of NY calling for a migration of Democrats to Georgia before the December 7^th cut-off date to register to vote in order to stack the outcome, something the Georgia constitution does not permit. How is it that the Democrats rage against Trump calling the presidential election fraudulent but then advocate fraud?

The news now is more about the vaccine than voting, and it has been good news, although the famous Greenspan “irrational exuberance” seems to be back in the markets. The talk about more stimulus will likely play a lot but with unemployment falling, the likelihood of a vaccine next year, a surging market, irrational as it may be, more helicopter money may not happen, or at least be a lot less than Madame Pelosi wants.

Biden is proceeding with his transition team, and well he should as there is likely little to come from the Trump challenges. True, a state judge has found that the Pennsylvania Secretary of State violated the law with the voting extensions, and some other irregularities have been noted, but likely there’s not enough to change that state’s outcome, or even if there were, that alone will not give Trump a win.

Biden will have little fuel to fire up his thinning edge in the House now that it’s apparent that SCOTUS looks like it’s going with the severability doctrine that will keep the ACA in place, sans the mandate. The abortion issue is likely to become a back page as the mood in the court is to avoid challenging precedent. The same goes for gun control, another issue with little play politically.

What’s increasingly becoming more of an issue is stimulus, and its hangover problem with debt, something we have so much of already that the dollar is falling daily against other major currencies to the point that it may lose its reserve status. In fact, what Biden is facing is something every president dreads – empty pockets and a dead locked Congress. With all that he promised during the campaign regarding huge spending programs, it is increasingly likely he will be a very frustrated president given that the Fed has nearly exhausted its abilities monetarily (other than dangerously exposing itself with QE purchases of more corporate debt), the burden for more stimulus lies with fiscal machinations at a time where only taxation and printing presses are at his disposal. The former adds to a midterm issue, and the latter to potential Carter like stagflation.

So we seem to be exactly where our enemies would want us, broke, weak, disoriented and disunited; that situation may very well present Biden with some international crises. Hopefully, he will not play into the call for some stupid military adventure like Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq; the last thing this country needs is to get involved in some foreign intervention that would bleed an already hemorrhaging nation.

What we need is leadership away from the bungling of the past and a return to the principles of our Republic, relieving Americans of the burdens of a warfare and welfare state that has jeopardized the future prosperity of our children and grandchildren. The problem is we needed this years ago, but we can’t change the past. Will Joe Biden be the leader to get us back to having a future? We will soon find out.

Being Yourself

Free speech is the expression of being you, the ability to express your beliefs and aspirations. Now consider what we are being told about being “woke”, a phrase that holds much to be wary of. According to that proposition you apparently are asleep socially and politically, and therefore not really a valid being unless you adhere to what you are told by those that profess to know what existential meaning is; should you deviate from that, you will be canceled; hence the term “cancel culture”.

A critical definition of being “woke” is the act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue. The dictionary definition of pretentious is even more to the point; it is an adjective describing someone attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than they actually possess.

Understanding meaning is essential to knowledge as without understanding there is no knowledge; if that makes sense to you, you are not “woke” and much the better for that. When just being yourself you don’t need a social crutch to help support or limit you, which is the essence of being an individual and capable of independent thought.

The whole point of being an individual is that you’re not just another nothing in some awful collectivist nightmare of non-being; how have we as a society lost that concept? It did not happen overnight, it was a slow but steading erosion of the respect for the individual, a concept called liberty.

Consider the current social stigma free expression may inflame in the polarized world in which we live, especially in this country’s institutions of higher learning where suppression of free expression is so accepted; it seems the more elitist the school, the more prevalent this phenomenon, which then appears to inform the behavior of so many of our other institutions. It is not surprising then to also see a rise in alcohol and drug abuse, depression and suicide among the younger generations. According to the founder of existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard, “The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”

There was a very good reason why the New England states, the birthplace of the American Revolution, insisted on the Bill of Rights being incorporated in to the US Constitution, and the first having to do with various forms of free expression such as religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. Thankfully we have those, especially considering what Alexis de Tocqueville observed about American society during his tour of 1831, specifically that “I know of no country in which, for the most part, independence of thought and true freedom of expression are so diminished as in America. In America, the majority traces a tremendous circle around thought.”

Given the tremendous social upheaval of post McCarthyism America resulting in ever more respect for free expression, it is disturbing to see such a medieval back sliding to the conformity of ideas, and an ostracization of those that don’t comply. Imagine what the “woke” would have to contend with given personalities like Lenny Bruce!

What is it that the “woke” fear about free expression? How can we have a civil discourse in America without that? The definition of civil discourse is engagement in conversation intended to enhance understanding. The most important requirement for civil discourse is respect for the existential right of everyone to express their own individual thoughts on any subject and therefore does not represent a threat to anyone else’s beliefs. By definition, civil discourse avoids physical hostility as it requires consideration for other ideas.

To take the position that silencing someone because what they have to say is objectionable, and therefore represents a threat or violence against you, is to take the position of every dictator throughout history. One of my favorite quotes about liberty in regards to free speech is from George Orwell, who said “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

The benefits of free speech and the attenuation of civil discourse are philosophically known as a heuristic, a technique that enables someone to discover or learn something for themselves. The benefits to society should be apparent to everyone, especially anyone who claims to be an educated and enlightened person. It will lead to a more objective understanding of ideas divorced from the oppression of feelings that could be harmful to us and others as that may lead to actions detrimental to our wellbeing.

Based on this, psychologically it would be fair to say that being “woke” is actually a contradiction in terms relative to its current meaning as actually that represents a suppression of awareness in regards to others, a lack of empathy, perception of reality and an inability to objectively observe and consider anything outside of yourself; sounds dangerously similar to narcissism.

Politically and sociologically it is corrosive, creating a them-and-us conflict, the very essence of polarization. If you are not only unwilling to listen to another viewpoint, but willing to suppress it, how would you ever be able to understand it and therefore be able to judge its worth or have a meaningful discussion about it?

I’m sure we have all heard of the famous quote attributed to Voltaire regarding free speech that says “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Maybe the “woke” will wake up and catch up on centuries of the Enlightenment.

Suspension of Belief

“…a choice between the lesser of two evils is still evil.”

Consider for a moment what the real differences are between the two major presidential candidates, ignoring for the moment their personalities and underlying character, and just what they represent politically. That can be difficult given that Trump is such a narcissistic sociopath and Biden lacking in any principle other than how to play political gamesmanship; in fact it’s not difficult, but useless as they both represent egregious authoritarianism.

By all accounts, this coming election is remarkable for a variety of reasons, perhaps the most compelling being the projected turnout. One of the highest turnouts in presidential elections was in 1860 at 81.2%, with Lincoln versus, well a host of others, the complexity of the ticket too much for this post to cover. The highest turn-out to date was in 1876 at 81.8% with Hayes versus Tilden; it was also the most contentious election so far resulting in the Compromise of 1877, with the Democrats conceding the election to Hayes in return for an end to Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops from the South; it was a time when black lives truly didn’t matter, it was all about winning – sound familiar?

Given the huge turn-out so far for the 2020 election with the mail-in option, the likelihood that the count will be more difficult to execute is a given, which will substantially delay the results, and will only add to the contentiousness. Another factor will be Trump’s apparent refusal to unequivocally accept the results should he loose, posing an existential threat to the constitutional imperative regarding the civil transfer of power.

We also have issues with the contentious environment of a pandemic, rioting, vandalism, economic suppression, unemployment, runaway debt, trade wars, seemingly endless military interventionism, cultural tribalism, scandal and investigations, all adding to a polarization obviating civil discourse and creating violent conflicts, and all during an election year; yet all we are offered is the lesser of two evils.

However, the most telling issue, especially considering the turn-out projections, is the lack of belief in the candidates. True, there are zealots for both Trump and Biden, but the apparent environment is one of acceptance of a choice of the lesser of two evils. If belief means trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something, it is sorely lacking in this election. On the Democratic side, we have a sad lost soul who seems to be influenced by whomever he last spoke to, and on the Republican side a delusional snake oil salesman whose only principle is to do and get whatever he wants at any cost, and always with other people’s money.

The American voters should not look at this situation and believe they are obligated in any way to choose the lesser of two evils; they should vote for someone else or abstain. Either will provide them the dignity of avoiding giving their consent for one of these two clowns to disgrace the office of the President of the United States any further. Yes, one will win anyway, but we should show some level of self-esteem and respect for our right to vote by not supporting either.

Then we have all the noise about election meddling by Russia, but Russia has always meddled with foreign elections, and has been doing what they call “active measures” for centuries and are very good at it. Social media is just the current tool at their disposal, and what they grasp, even more than current democratic societies do, is that ideas, true or false, when disseminated among the intellectually weak are more powerful than guns; it does not matter to them who wins an election as the distrust of the process is more important than the results.

Neither should we be fooled by doctrinal claims, like Trump espousing capitalism. As Justin Amash observed “For a person who claims to oppose socialism, President Trump spent a lot of time in his SOTU address touting central planning, federal intervention in nonfederal matters, and a big-government spending spree—policies that threaten our rights and undermine our long-term prosperity.” Nor should we be fooled by Biden’s proposed policies as anything more than socialist tax and spend programs with almost heart felt pleads about equality mean he has our liberty in mind.

It is a certainty that one of these two pretenders will be elected, but the reality is that a choice between the lesser of two evils is still evil. True liberty does not mean equality but free will; while that can be chaotic, you either accept that or accept authoritarianism. Trump and Biden are simply two sides of the same counterfeit coin, just different personas. The situation of having to choose between the two reminds me of what F.A. Harper said in 1949 regarding liberty that “It is of little importance whether a dictator gained his power by accident of birth, by force, or by the vote of the people.”

As to which alternative is better, i.e. voting for someone else or abstaining, it depends on what your political convictions are. If you want to vote third party, there are fourteen such candidates on presidential ballots, one with access to all electoral votes, some with half, some with just a few, but you have a wide range to choose from; also consider what message a third party vote will send depending on which of the two major candidate suffers the most in lost votes that were cast for others.

If you want to express your displeasure with a process that provides for only two likely contenders as a choice of the lesser of two evils, then abstain; remember, voting is not an obligation but a right, and also a message, and abstaining is still a message that you reject the premise of choosing the lesser of two evils.

It’s also important to note that no third party was allowed to participate in the debates on the pretext of meaningless qualification requirements, and more likely out of concern that the debates could actually provide meaningful content. The Commission on Presidential Debates is jointly sponsored by the Democratic and Republican political parties since 1987 when they took over from the League of Women Voters in a contentious coup critically denounced for its secretive “memorandum of understanding” that would decide which candidates could participate in the debates, which individuals would be panelists and what questions could be asked. The League rejected these demands and released a statement saying that it was withdrawing support for the debates because “the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter.” That was such a prescient statement of the obvious corruption of the vital role of debates in the electoral process, a shameful suppression of free speech that even Russian meddling would be hard put to effect.

Then there is the question that if a third party candidate were elected, could they be an effective president? The answer to that is difficult as there’s little if any chance of that happening, but if it did, Congress would still be a majority of the corrupt duopoly of Republicans and Democrats who would be so adverse that such a president would be unable to get anything done; on the other hand, at least we would be better off without the government doing more harm.

As the Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen recently said “Some people say it’s too dangerous to vote for anyone but a Republican or Democrat this year, but I ask isn’t this of all years the time you don’t want to repeat the behavior that has gotten us to this dangerous place?” Yes, it is!

Bubbles, Bangles and Boondoggles

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

Bubbles

Since my previous blog “Bubble Economy” on 11/13/19, that bubble has grown even more ominous as we are soon to exceed $30T in our national debt. Does any rational person believe that the US will ever be able to repay such an egregious debt?

US Bonds, which used to be held in high regard by other sovereign states, principally Japan and China who at one time held 18% of US debt, are selling off by the billions. Fear that they would be holding the bag in the event of default is rising; it is not an irrational fear. To counter that lack of confidence the Federal Reserve bought huge amounts of US bonds with equally huge amounts of newly printed money from the UST; more air in that bubble.

With bonds, as interest rates fall prices rise, so with the lowest rates in history better to dump at a high since the yield is so pathetic. But then where to go for yield? Try the stock market, fed by such easy credit its valuations are pushing up prices beyond fundamental levels. However, given that the easy credit is fed by debt, where will that lead?

Well, we’ve seen that movie before; it will lead to where it did in 1929, 2007 and….well hard to say, but sooner than anyone will want. It may start on headline news, an algorithm gone wrong (or right), increased defaults and bankruptcies, all the above; inevitably such outsized debt, annually now larger than our GNP, will be called in and that will be ugly.

So why haven’t we as a nation learned from the past? Why do we make the same mistakes over and over again? An interesting comment of such behavior I recently read was from Thomas King, an American Indian writing about failed US policies regarding the native peoples of America, who wrote that “For an individual, one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again in the same way and expecting different results. For a government, such behavior is called policy.”

Bangles

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political philosopher who wrote “On Democracy in America” after touring the country in 1831. His observations influenced much of written American history and political science in this country, and were comparatively critical of French democracy. He found that the republican structure and constitution of the US was a reason for its success. However, he was critical of much of its social structure like slavery, religious zealotry, the social suppression of free expression, and the political tendencies to affect the outcome of elections legislatively; on this last item he wrote “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

Well it didn’t take long for that to happen; stimulus anyone? Like any bangle or trinket, such as the $24 worth of glass beads that bought Manhattan, it’s meant to allure us into thinking it’s actually something of value that will improve our lives, while actually buying them, defended as a means to protect us from ourselves by waving the pandemic flag in our face. It’s a way for us to willingly sell ourselves out to the very crooks that locked us down for our own good and destroyed our means of livelihood.

Like an opioid, it has dulled common sense to the point that we actually have a situation where the US government now represents 70% of our GNP; but there is no product involved, unless you call debt a product. Yet, that is exactly what is being sold to the American electorate by both presidential candidates. In fact, despite resistance in his own party, Trump actually supports another stimulus in excess of what Biden proposes. Remember, this is the guy that has lived off other people’s money his whole life so this should not surprise anyone.

What has become obvious is that this election is on the auction block, will go to the highest bidder, and the account will be drawn from the pockets of the American people.

Boondoggles

Interesting word, first coined by a boy scout in 1927 to describe a uniform decoration; it later came to mean something of no value. It was often ascribed to government programs during the New Deal era wasteful or pointless but carried on anyway due to policy or political motivations. We have this today in so many government programs too numerous to cover. Let’s just take something we have all participated in, whether we like it or not; I’m talking about Social Security.

There are many misconceptions about the original law establishing Social Security, like it was initially voluntary; it was discussed as a voluntary annuity, but enacted as mandatory. It is true that benefits were not to be taxed, but that was amended in 1983. FICA deductions were supposed to be limited to the first $3K of income at 1%, but the limit and rate were constantly increased.

But why should there be a mandatory investment in an annuity that has no guarantee of return on investment like common annuities you can get from any financial institution, which have a guaranteed benefit and fixed rate? Answer is there shouldn’t be, but again this is defended as a means to protect us from ourselves, the panacea of all tyrannies.

Per the Trustees Report of last year, the Social Security Trust would go bankrupt by 2035. However, as it is a legislated entitlement, it must be funded, but with what? I once read an article in Forbes about the Madoff scandal wherein they gave a pretty good idea of exactly what a Ponzi Scheme is: “A Ponzi Scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned through legitimate sources.”

Now consider the plight of those “new investors”; they are anyone who is subject to FICA withholdings and who will not be 62, the earliest age you can claim benefits, by 2035. Essentially, if you were born after 1973, you are paying into a soon to be bankrupt annuity. Would you voluntarily do that? The same goes for Medicare and Medicaid, both funded by FICA withholdings and deductions from Social Security benefits.

Again, it is a legislated entitlement, so it must be funded. However, it is no longer a sustainable trust as its liabilities exceed its revenues, so that means more taxes, more debt, or a combination of both. The Ponzi scheme collapsed and the angel investors to the rescue are….well you.

Now consider the ACA; it too was at first mandatory, but that mandate was deemed illegal, and its survival all together is likely to depend on Supreme Court review. If it were simply a network to provide information to acquire insurance it would at least have a viable legitimacy, but again, as with Social Security, voluntary is not how governments are prone to act. Choice is not an option when seeking the greater good.

End Game

While history has taught us innumerable times that you can’t spend your way out of debt, it is a lesson ignored. The most famous of those who proposed such madness was John Maynard Keynes. When Keynes was confronted with the failure of his ideas of endless spending and consumption as unsustainable in the long run and that they would prevent the markets from functioning properly, especially in recoveries, he cynically quipped that “In the long run, we will all be dead.”

When Trump was given a brief on America’s growing debt crisis in 2017 by the few remaining fiscally responsible members of his own party, his response was “Yeah, but I won’t be here.” The fact that this puts the futures of our children and grandchildren in jeopardy is irrelevant to narcissistic sociopaths like Trump and Keynes. The immediate need of those in power is to keep that power, and the means includes bribing the public with the public’s money.

Welcome to the United States of Debt.

Remember Hyde?

The metaphorical question is will we have the same ending?

Secrecy has a purpose now just as it did in 1910. The reasons vary, but conspiracy is top of the list. On November 20 of that year America’s leading financiers met on JP Morgan’s Jekyll Island estate off the Georgia coast. The secrecy was so complete that en route these men wouldn’t even use their surnames.

The agenda was to create a central bank. The reason for secrecy was threefold: one, Americans showed an historical distrust of central banks, and two, the public’s and Congress’s wariness regarding these financial manipulators, and three, two of the attendants were from government; the attendance by Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and from Treasury, Assistant Secretary Abram Piatt Andrew Jr., gave an appearance of collusion.

The reasons they would provide their supporters in promoting acceptance was to avoid the economic chaos such as the recent Bank Panic of 1907 by establishing a central bank capable of providing liquidity in times of tight credit and lack of depositor confidence.

This was a disingenuous proposition since the panic was caused by a prior reckless expansion of credit for questionable ventures that ended badly, leading to failed banks and brokerages. The panic caused by those failures rapidly spread, freezing credit and causing depositor runs on banks. With the help of JP Morgan and his allies, liquidity was restored, but actually by those that caused the unsustainable credit expansion in the first place with dangerous fractional banking, a process of actually increasing the money supply without even the need to issue more currency.

In essence, this was a scheme to provide the banking system with a means to physically expand the money supply in order to maintain fractional banking and avoid the burden of the banks themselves having to capitalize their overextended credit. The product of this nine day meeting became known as the Aldrich Plan; it proposed establishment of a central bank called the National Reserve Association, with currency power, nationwide branches and a board of directors. The board would be bankers, but the US Treasury would be included. There was no provision in the plan for effective oversight.

When the plan saw the light of day as subsequently proposed by Aldrich to Congress, it was strongly opposed by a majority who saw how it would empower banks, expanding the influence of Wall Street financiers. What followed were three years of intense negotiating, a classic example of cronyism in which various congressional leaders somehow found their way to a mutually beneficial agreement with the banking industry and eventually passed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and sent it to Woodrow Wilson to sign. Although he did so quickly, he later stated that “I have unwittingly ruined my country.” How prescient a statement from such an unfortunate man who regretted much of what he did.

To give such power to the very source of the problem was indeed a tragic mistake. The ability to expand credit at the stroke of a pen, or now a stroke of the keyboard, is a financier’s dream. To enable Wall Street the ability to control markets that should be under no control other than the natural and spontaneous activity of those that produce the goods and services of the economy, what we call Main Street, is a manipulation against liberty of huge economic proportions. Herein lies the very cause of what we now call income inequality, a system of cronyism, not capitalism, yet bizarrely the latter is blamed for its own destruction by the former.

The original stated purpose of the Federal Reserve as the nation’s central bank was to have a safe yet flexible but more stable monetary and financial system. The fact that these goals were inherently contradictory was a concern to its critics, but their voices were lost in the euphoria of getting the ability to control and manipulate the medium of exchange, the life blood of a modern economy.

The mandate was adjusted overtime, principally in 1977 to “…promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long term interest rates.” While on paper, the Federal Reserve was to be independent from the government, it was a symbiotic relationship. In order to work as planned, the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve had to by necessity coordinate policy and operations in order to effectively operate under this mandate. Within the Federal Reserve there was the Federal Open Market Committee, the public voice of the Federal Reserve, whose periodic “Beige Book” detailed the Fed’s “forward guidance”, a euphemism for a planned economy. Americans love euphemisms, especially in order to avoid the toxic word socialism, even though in reality it’s what they got.

What this cabal of Jekyll created was a Hyde transformation of a free market economy to the monstrous evil of a planned economy to serve the self-gratification of the power elite. The metaphorical question is will we have the same ending?

How to Kill a Republic

The US Constitution is not what governs the people, but what governs those who govern the people.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” C. S. Lewis

There are two political systems that are often confused and assumed to mean the same thing; Democracy and Republic. To compound that problem in the US, the two main political parties have adopted these words as their political labels.

There have been many Republics and Democracies in history, and while they share some similarities, it is the differences that matter more. In a Republic, there are immutable rights established meant to assure liberty. In a Democracy the majority has limitless power over the minority. This is the essential and existential difference wherein one political system protects rights, and the other subjects them to political mandate.

In The Declaration of Independence man’s rights are stated first, and then that a government is created to secure those rights. Jefferson based much of what he wrote on the political treatises of John Locke regarding the equality of all men and their fundamental and inalienable natural rights of life, liberty, and property. Locke also stated that while these are the natural rights of man, nature did not provide the means to create laws to establish and secure those rights, nor to protect them or to adjudicate disputes among men arising from them; Locke stated that this was the purpose of government.

We are all familiar with the process through which we arrived at our constitution, starting with the Articles of Confederation, which proved inadequate to the task; it only provided for a Congress consisting of State representatives, which exercised all functions of the national government, empowered to pass, execute and adjudicate laws; there was no separation of powers or checks-and-balances, not a very good system for the preservation of liberty.

The Constitutional Convention was called to amend the Articles of Confederation to address these problems; however, the delegates choose instead to create what we know as the US Constitution. The concept of three branches of government and their separation of powers was derived from the French political philosopher Montesquieu, and used by John Adams in composing the Massachusetts state constitution, which formed the basis for the same in the US Constitution.

As John Adams wrote “The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society depend so much upon an upright and skillful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that.” This is another essential element of a Republic, providing not only a separation of powers but a system of checks-and-balances.

The proposed new Constitution was eventually ratified by the required majority of nine of the thirteen states in 1788 but only after the Massachusetts Compromise was adopted which required the inclusion of expressed rights, which were eventually adopted in 1791 as the first ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights.

Now having said all this, what is not always appreciated is that the US Constitution is not what governs the people of the United States of America. The US is not a Democracy but a Republic, and its constitution is a document intended to preserve the rights of the people by creating a government to do so. The US Constitution is not what governs the people, but what governs those who govern the people.

In a Democracy, one’s liberties can be mandated out of existence as happened to Socrates in Athens. Deemed a threat for his moral positions that might doesn’t make right, he was sentenced to death. On the other hand, even in an oligarchy as the ancient Rome Republic was, outspoken critics such as Cato and Cicero were not subject to the mob as was Socrates, although both eventually fell in harm’s way when that Republic fell with them; lessons learned….maybe.

What the Founders understood and wanted was to assure that liberty is not something government can exercise power over, but something it has no power to control. Much is often said about what the Founders intended, which at best is assumptive even though they left ample writings regarding this, but what is definitive is what the constitution says. There will always be interpretations, but the meaning of the words in the constitution is that of the time in which it was written, just as the meaning of the words of an amendment to the constitution is that of the time in which it was written.

The failure of the constitution to address slavery, a word that it didn’t even contain until 1865, was not only a moral failure on the part of the Founders, but created circumstances that nearly destroyed the Republic. That failure does not diminish its value as a protection of liberty, as it was for the Civil Rights Movement and remains so today.

Proposals that rights need to be “regulated” are presented as safeguards, when in fact they are a subterfuge to diminish rights; to propose such things is to expand power, but acceptance is an admission that the burden of liberty is too much to bear, the ultimate surrender of self. Such proposals are often incremental or peripheral, eroding liberty away over time and at the edges; unfortunately there are those that seem content to accept them like poisons that make them least sick, seldom questioning why they should take poison at all.

We often hear that in life we need to be prepared to compromise, to negotiate for an outcome that enables a mutually beneficial result. This is a valid practice in a transactional process such as business and in the settlement of civil disputes, but not regarding the rights of individuals, no matter how small a minority, and there’s no smaller a minority than the individual.

There is no guarantee in a Republic, no matter how clear and strong its constitutional foundation, against corruption. Often in political science we see comparative analyses between the US Republic and the Roman Republic. In some respects this is a valid thesis as the Roman Republic was also formed by a revolt against monarchy, had a written constitution, and a representative system of government. Unfortunately the US Republic has shown that it also has, like the Roman Republic, tendencies to oligarchy and ochlocracy, which have also led to a warfare and welfare state. We can only hope that the process will redirect away from the ultimate decent to totalitarianism as was the case with Rome.

There is another less known political phenomenon, not actually a system in the same sense as discussed above, but accurately descriptive called Kleptocracy, which is a government of corrupt leaders that use their power to exploit a nation’s people and resources for their personal wealth and political power. It’s closely allied with Democracy in that it can manipulate majority rule to this purpose. To do so with a Republic, you first need to insinuate Democracy into the fabric of a Republic’s institutions.

This corruption must come from within as this method is not overt as that would appear treasonous as if supporting a foreign agenda. It must also be incremental so as not to appear radical, and evolutionary as if it were a natural progression of development, replacing what is now deemed no longer valid or applicable to current circumstances.

In reality it is not that circumstances have changed so much as people’s perceptions, and they are easier to influence than the immutable principles of liberty. The slogans used to do so have varied over time, the current one being social justice, best described by Fredric Hayek as “The idea of social justice is that the state should treat different people unequally in order to make them equal.” Contrary to that is the idea of liberty in which true justice does not allow some people to have rights that are created by denying other people their rights, in essence the rule of law.

The US Judicial Branch of government as John Adams stated is a separate and independent institution, the guardians of liberty against any acts of the other branches contrary to the constitution; members take an oath, similar to all those in government to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;…” It is not an ambiguous oath, and it does not allow for interpretations as to what the constitution is but as it is. Regarding rights, thankfully the first ten amendments were added despite early objections as to their need based on the Constitution’s expressed powers. There was a sense of foresight in that based on the Founders’ experience with power and its tendency to corrupt, and their aversion to democracy’s tendency for mob rule over the rule of law.

It is clear from the construction of government under the constitution that the Founders did not find democracy accommodative to liberty, but a corruption to rule by the will of the people as a threat to liberty. Therefore, the government created was constrained or limited in its powers in order to best protect against violations of the rights of individuals.

With the growing emphasis on the popular vote, elections today appear more as a poll taken on policy than a process of representative selection. The principle of democracy suggests that collective decisions according to the will of the majority are now more relevant than the principles of liberty found in the constitution, which is the basis of our Republic.

The two major political parties in the US have abandoned the principles of our constitution in a dangerous polarization war for power. What we have as a choice in the upcoming election is Allende ala Biden versus Peron ala Trump, two versions of the same disease putting our Republic on life support, and providing the prognosis for a future with the lesser of two evils; essentially, pick your poison.

The Welfare State

The indebtedness of a nation is an impoverishment if its people, not a manifestation of justice.

“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” Frederic Bastiat, 19^th C French economist.

Every new law to create yet another entitlement is the result of some fabricated right at the expense of another’s rights. Rights are not a zero sum game, some transactional exercise, but are those things that define what it means to own oneself.

What is taking all of what someone produces with their own labor called? The answer is slavery. What do you call taking a portion of what someone produces with their own labor? Would that be proportional slavery? If you say no, you have a paradox; at what point is the proportion taken not slavery? Whether legalized by a dictator’s decree or a democratic mandate, taking reduces people to slavery, making them chattel of the state.

While no one overtly proposes slavery as a means to create welfare, there are those that propose taking the fruits of another’s labor in order to provide for the “common good”, an ambiguous term that reduces people to a collective entity that must be protected from, well themselves. This patronizing concept is another example of power lust, a twin to the Warfare State and just as insidious.

It does not matter what altruistic goal is proposed, the eventual outcome has always proven the same as over time the Welfare State will evolve into a dystopia we know as totalitarianism; this is the empirical lesson of history, and cloaking it in terms of invented rights will not prevent the conclusion. Taking under such disingenuous systems like Democratic Socialism is justified under the pretense that you have a say in the matter, which is a delusion and another case of democracy not being a safeguard for liberty.

Consider the popular platitude called “social justice” as a justification for the Welfare State. My concept of justice is that I keep what I earn, and you do the same; if that is not so, then how much of what I earn is yours, and why is that called justice? If taking the fruits of one’s labor without their consent is not theft, then it would follow that all thieves have to do is form a government to legalize it….wait a minute….OK, I get it.

Often the misconception of such rights evolves from the misunderstanding of opportunity; it is true for example that those born into a rich family have an advantage in opportunities, but that does not represent an injustice any more than a speedier runner in a track meet. No one who is blessed with an accident of birth in wealth or speed should ever be punished for their good fortune as such is luck in life. Likewise those that have had success in pursuing an opportunity are no less entitled to their rights than those that have failed; opportunity does not guarantee success, only risk.

These are seemingly axiomatic realities, yet they are dismissed by advocates for the Welfare State because they represent obstacles for the “common good”. Should you remind them that liberty includes the right to the pursuit of happiness, they will denounce you as selfish as that’s just another example of capitalist oppression. Should you counter with the argument that it’s the entrepreneur who takes the risk, creates the jobs, bears the costs of failure and if successful creates the wealth that grows the economy, you will be told that you are an outdated reactionary as that economic system is no longer functional because in government we have the means to grow the economy without the risk of failure. Should you point out to them that this has never worked, be prepared to be shouted down as an enemy of progress and equality. What caused this Bizzaro World of a new American culture?

The apparent enemy of this twisted phenomenon is liberty because it’s only a guarantee of equality before the law; in all other things liberty provides for each individual the right to exercise their free will. In truth that can result in a chaotic situation as there is no guarantee that people will choose what we may objectively judge to be the right choice for them, only that they are the only ones who have the right to choose what they judge to be in their own interests.

The alternative is to not allow them liberty and make their choices for them; the fact that this is the essence of slavery is lost in the pursuit of this equality in all things, creating rights for every aspect of life. To do this requires the force of law, and the enemies of liberty are united in that agenda; doing so ignores the fact that if force is required to promote your ideal, then there is an inherent and fatal flaw with that ideal as compulsion is not compassion, it’s authoritarianism.

It has been argued that the constitution mandates welfare based on its stated purpose. The reference made is actually in the preamble, which the Supreme Court correctly made clear is not an independent source of rights, and further that “general welfare” means the good of all citizens, and not an open-ended mandate for Congress, and that the only good that applies to all citizens is freedom, and that government’s proper role is the protection of that freedom.

So how then to fund the government for these protections of freedom without a taking of the fruits of one’s labor? As the Constitution actually forbade direct income taxes (except during crises such as the Civil War, but then suspended) prior to the 16^th Amendment, the US utilized tariffs, sales taxes, customs duties, excise taxes, land sales, and fees with which it managed to do so. Except in times of war, the US balanced its budget up to 1901, but ran in the red nearly every year since. The indebtedness of a nation is an impoverishment if its people, not a manifestation of justice.

The Warfare State

“…to get power you need a crisis…”

“Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Indeed, it is a part of the general patterns of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war.”

Can you guess the author of the above quote? While it’s insightful to know who said this, he would agree I’m sure that it’s more important to understand the message; to understand that we need to work backwards, starting with the phrase regarding the fear of peace. Why would anyone fear peace, especially the leaders of our country?

Power is the currency of politicians who are not exactly working to the benefit of their constituents but for their own advancement. For them, crisis is not a problem, it’s an opportunity. Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s Chief-of-Staff, once advised “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Can you imagine in the absence of any crisis what such politicians would do? You don’t need imagination, just observation – they would create one.

This phenomenon is not something new; try the Spanish American War, followed soon thereafter by US entry into the Great War, which in effect was the cause of WWII, which led to the Korean War, then the Viet Nam War, then the Iraqi Wars, and the never ending Afghanistan War. Wars are expensive, so little wonder that Ron Paul once observed that “It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.” If you’re politicians playing this bloody game, you need a big bank, and so the Federal Reserve is there for you.

The author of the opening quote was Five Star General Douglas McArthur, who served in all the above wars through to and including the Korean War. He was one of only five generals to ever rise to the rank of General of the Army, clearly a man we can rely on to know what he’s talking about.

So how did a republic devolve into a statist organism capable of manipulating such a carefully crafted balance of power, designed to prevent the realization of such a distorted vision of purpose from peaceful productivity to a war machine? It was an evolutionary process, so it did take time. It can be argued that the root of this evil was sown in the immoral neglect allowing slavery to continue despite our revolution against tyranny, eventually leading to the ultimate crisis of the Civil War, out of which ashes emerged a different nation whose political structure was tragically altered toward more centralized power, ironically the key development for statism to repress the very liberty for which the war was fought.

In his famous 1952 article entitled “The Rise of Empire” Garet Garrett, American journalist, outlined what he called the “Hallmarks of Empire”, summarized as the dominance of executive power, subordination of domestic policy to foreign policy, ascendancy of the military, development of foreign satellite or proxy regimes, and vaunting and fear.

While the above have become obvious in our current politics it is the last that illustrates the tragic end game of The Warfare State. It’s about a nation whose leaders spun and sold the illusion of a manifest destiny but now finds itself a victim of its own misguided policy, having become the world’s policeman at the expense of its own liberty, security and economic wellbeing.

While it was not inevitable that our Republic would descend into imperialism, it is obvious that it has. Until Americans realize that Statism thrives on war, whereas a truly free country thrives on peace and prosperity, we are doomed to endless wars. These wars are sold to us like Crusades where sold to Christian Europe to free the Holy Land, when in fact it was all about looting and pillage; now it’s really about things like oil, preservation of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, spreading democracy, throw in an occasional humanitarian cause, nation building, catering to despotic allies…….any interventionist cause and fabricated crisis that provides the opportunity to grab more power.

Interventionism is bred into both of our major political parties although their methods at times differ as some work toward the Welfare State to harvest their power, a topic for another post; regardless of their labels and methods these politicians are the same, so to get power you need a crisis, and if there isn’t one create it, if there is one don’t let it go to waste.

If that sounds like gang talk, well it is; listen to a Polish lawyer, author, and political philosopher who went through the pain of living under such a gang and working for the liberation from one of the biggest imperial powers in Europe known as the USSR. “What makes the difference between a gang and a state is the belief that there is a difference between a gang and a state.” Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski