Tag: Paul Rosenberg

Purity Police

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

If I happen to be near Jay’s bar on a Tuesday afternoon, I try to stop in. That’s when my friends from the cypherpunk days are likely to be there. We always had meetings in Jay’s back room at 6:30 on Tuesdays (though most of us got their earlier). We had Ethernet cables, good Internet connections (for the time), and a private place to talk.

Last Tuesday, I stopped by and sat at the bar to talk to Jay. I don’t actually drink very much, so I ordered my usual, a tonic and lime. Jay’s getting older and slower these days, but he’s still grumpy and kind-hearted at the same time. It’s an odd but endearing mix.

Anyway, as Jay and I discussed our families, I saw a guy from the old days walk in. And honestly, I rather dreaded seeing him. This guy, James, was all-complaint, all the time. After a while, I avoided him. He was smart and very well read, but he always talked about what other people were doing wrong.

But, it had been a lot of years, so I walked over and said hello. I soon found out that James hadn’t really changed.

Instead of running networks and living in an old, dark apartment, he was now working in a finance company and living in the suburbs. He had actually been married for a year or two, but that didn’t work out.

I offered my condolences on the marriage and tried to move toward happy subjects, but I got no farther than mentioning how excited I was about Bitcoin. Before I could start a second sentence, he was telling me about attacks that could be made on Bitcoin, flaws with the mining process and how Satoshi (the original architect) should have written the program.

“Yes,” I said, “a lot of that is true, but the Bitcoin economy includes ten thousand bright, young, motivated people – adaptive people – and that’s a very powerful thing.”

James wasn’t impressed. He went on to describe, in intricate detail, why the philosophy underlying Bitcoin wasn’t quite right. I was ready to write the guy off permanently and leave, when he excused himself and went to the bathroom.

Jay walked over. “The guy talks too much, eh?”

“Yeah, Jay, and always a long list of complaints.”

“Yeah, I see guys like him sometimes. All talk and no do.” James was returning and Jay moved away, wiping the bar. And then I realized what James had made himself: the purity police, a Soviet style political officer.

He could and would tell you where everyone else was missing it, but Jay was right – he was all talk and no do. The truth was, he didn’t have the courage to act. He never took any risks and never acted in the real, physical world.

James substituted talking for doing. And to prove himself potent, he painted himself as a righteous avenger. He appointed himself to the job of certifying who was technically correct, libertarian enough and rational enough.

So, rather than giving this guy a chance to point out everyone’s flaws, I started asking questions about his life: friends, family, and so on.

What I learned was tragic. This guy had alienated nearly everyone in his life, except his now-elderly mother. He was living alone, unhappy in his miserable but stable job. I stopped inquiring. The guy is a downer, but by bringing up the topics, I was causing him pain for no payoff. I said that I needed to go and headed out, waving at Jay as I went.

I thought about James all the way home. This guy had loads of talent. He could have done any number of things and had a rewarding life, but he never did. Instead, he spends his evenings on Internet chat boards, exposing every flaw he can find (or imagine) in other people’s work.

Honestly, I wish I had understood the problem when we were young – I could have pushed him to do things – small things first, then bigger things once he had built up some courage.

Being able to discern right and wrong is important but only as a precursor to action.

Acting changes us in crucial ways, and this guy never tasted that. Instead, he stagnated and became bitter.

Rather than gathering the courage to take a risk and act – for something good, for anything good – James became a political officer, the purity police. And he was ruined by it.

So pick your spot, my friends, and then act. Start small if you want, but break your inertia and take action.

I don’t even mind people acting wrongly at first, because once they’re actually doing something, their direction can be corrected. But the person who never breaks their inertia – who never stands up and acts – he or she degrades.

There is magic in doing. There’s none in endless talking.

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

5 Reasons I Stopped Taking the News Seriously

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

Back in the early 90s, I felt a need to understand politics far better than I had, and I spent a lot of time and effort on it. Along the way – and partly by accident – I learned a few things that put me off broadcast news ever since.

Here are five of those stories.

#1: When a Decrease is Actually an Increase

At one point during this time, there was a furor raised over the funding of school lunches. So, I looked into it carefully.

After delving into the actual numbers, I was horrified to learn that what I heard from all the big-name news outlets was factually incorrect. Every single one of them got it wrong.

So, I called the newsroom of the biggest and most respected news radio station in Chicago (where I was living.) Amazingly, they put me right through. The conversation went like this:

Me: Listen, I have a problem on this school lunch thing. The numbers you guys are using are wrong.

News writer: What do you mean?

Me: You’re reporting a seven percent cut in school lunch funding, but I checked the real numbers – they are going up three percent. The democrats are saying “seven percent cut,” because they want a ten percent increase. This talk about a cut is false: it’s actually an increase, and you guys have to know that.

News writer: Yeah, well… the democrats gave us stuff to use and the republicans didn’t.

I was horrified, but it was, at least, an honest answer. What shocked me most was the fact that they simply didn’t care. This was the flagship news station in Chicago – the one people went to when they wanted to be sure – and they simply didn’t care about accuracy.

#2: To Make Their Voices Sound Better

Not long after this incident, I was listening to the other news station in Chicago (also an old and respected station) and in the credits at the bottom of the hour, I heard, “The news this hour is being written by Sandy ____.”

As it happened, Sandy was an old friend. A few weeks later I called her about it and asked if she enjoyed the work. The conversation went like this:

Sandy: Actually, Paul, I just quit.

Me: I’m sorry, Sandy. It sounded like a fun job. Why did you quit?

Sandy: Well, I was writing the news as accurately as I could, but they were changing it as they read it on the air.

Me: Some kind of political bias?

Sandy (laughing): No, they were changing it to make their voices sound better.

Me: What!?

Sandy: I kid you not, Paul. They thought their voices would sound better if they changed what I wrote, so they did.

Sandy is a person of integrity, so she quit. She was the only one.

#3: Editing Tricks

At one point, I was involved in a human interest story that ran on the big local TV station. I observed all of the filming and talked with the interviewer off-screen as well. (Seemed like a nice guy.)

But when the show finally aired, it had been edited so that people seemed to be saying things they never said or intended to say. The program didn’t present them saying anything horrible, but it was definitely not the truth. To the viewers, however, it looked 100% real.

#4: The “Real” Story

Another time, I had the insider’s view of a story that made the national news via quite a few major news outlets. The giant TV network that covered it (and their famous news anchor) simply got the facts wrong. So did smaller outlets. One newspaper got it right – The National Enquirer!

#5: The Short Term Weatherman

Granted, this one’s just for fun, but it still makes a good point.

Years ago, I was helping in the evenings at a radio station, in a regionally important Midwestern city. At one point the DJ started pushing buttons in an excited way, then turned to me:

DJ (urgently): Paul, stick your hand out the window!

Me: What??

DJ: We lost the satellite feed for the weather report. Stick your hand out the window!

I complied.

DJ: Now, is it warmer or colder than when you got here an hour ago?

Me: I don’t know, D… I think it’s a little warmer.

By the top of the next hour, we had the satellite feed back, and the solemnly reported temperatures for that evening ended up being:

Six o’clock: 66 degrees.

Seven o’clock: 69 degrees.

Eight o’clock: 62 degrees.

Oops!

No Respect

The job of the news media is not to be accurate; their job is to be respected.

All of the expensive suits, the perfect hair, the conservative diction and bearing… it all serves the purpose of gaining respect. Accuracy and fairness would only become factors if they damaged that respect.

Have you ever noticed that there is no competition between news networks involving accuracy? There are no Fact Wars between networks. They spend millions to make people respect their chief news reader, but they don’t point out each other’s factual errors.

So, I don’t respect them or take them seriously. And now you know why.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

The Roman Catholic Church was guilty of many abuses in Europe all through the Middle Ages, and I think the people of Europe had good reason to walk away from it. But as they did, they made a massive error: They didn’t replace it with anything better.

The Church, regardless of its errors and crimes, taught virtues to the people of that continent. Medieval Europe became home to a culture founded largely on some very positive values, and you can’t deny that the Church had a hand in that development.

After all, not everyone involved with the institution was corrupt and abusive (in fact, such villains were the minority). A significant percentage of local priests, monks and nuns were decent, caring people, trying to help the people of their diocese. However many and evil the inquisitors were, the number of kind and decent clergy was higher, and they had their effects.

Europe’s error was that they didn’t just reject the Church; many of them rejected everything that was associated with it. The virtues that the Church taught, however poorly, had given Europe a moral core. Those virtues should have been preserved.

The New Enlightenment

Europeans of the 17th and 18th centuries removed themselves from the mental bondage of the Church, much as the current people of the West are starting to remove themselves from the mental bondage of the state. And this got me to thinking…

Are there things that we, in our disgust for the state, might foolishly throw away, like many Europeans did with their cultural virtues?

Honesty, I couldn’t think of much.

A lot of us, from the Tannehills to Murray Rothbard to myself and many others, have written about justice in the absence of state force. That’s pretty well covered.

Roads and fire protection are simple too, and they’ve been covered as well.

The one thing that I could think of beyond these is a Bill of Rights.

A Great Concept, an Inadequate Term

A lot of people think that a Bill of Rights is a statement from a government, outlining what rights they give the people. But in the better cases – such as the US Bill of Rights – that is false. A good Bill of Rights is a set of restrictive statements, detailing what the people do not permit the government to do.

Now, we all know that our US Bill of Rights is broken every day, but the principle is a good one, and the concept itself can be a useful thing.

So, I propose a Free Man’s Bill of Rights. Not a statement of rights that we expect someone to give us, but a set of rights that we will defend. In other words (take notice):

These are rights that we demand and will defend.

* * * * *

The Rights of Free Men and Women

We hold these as inherent and inalienable human rights:

1. We are free to do whatever we wish, so long as we extend this same right to others.
2. Every individual stands equal to any other person or group. We accept no person or group as inherently superior.
3. No person or group has a right to aggress against us.
4. We hold the right to defend against aggression.
5. Our property is our own, and our will regarding it ought not to be opposed. Any person or group that attempts to counter
6. our will regarding our property is an aggressor.
7. Our sole obligation to others is to do no harm. Cooperation, compassion, and kindness are positive goods that we choose to
8. bring into the world, but so long as we harm no one, we have committed no offense.
9. We claim the freedom to trade, to express ourselves as we wish, to move and think as we wish, and to be free of surveillance.

We will defend these rights, both for ourselves and for others.

* * * * *

Please discuss.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

What the World Would Be Like Without Capitalism

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

Some people say that the search for profit is abusive, heartless, evil, and so on. I’m not particularly in love with profit for its own sake (and I certainly don’t think it justifies abuse), but a reflexive condemnation of profit is deeply ignorant.

The truth is, “profit” killed the ancient abomination of human slavery. To eliminate the ability of people to profit would draw slavery back into the world. And we obviously don’t want that.

Here’s why:

Slavery Was an Economic System

What is not understood is that slavery was the foundation of economics in the old world – such as in Greece and Rome.

Slavery was almost entirely about surplus. (Surrounded by creative justifications, of course.) It was a type of enforced thrift.

An undeveloped man, left to himself, will spend almost all of what he earns. If he does earn some surplus, he’ll likely spend it on luxuries, frivolities, or worse. Until he develops a strong character, little of his surplus will remain for other uses.

A slave, on the other hand, never holds his earnings in his hands and therefore cannot spend them. All surplus is transferred to his or her owner. It was precisely this kind of surplus that made Rome rich.

But then Christian Europe came about. Prior to that, I cannot point to a single ancient culture that forbade the practice; it was seen as normal. So, for Europe to expel the slavery it inherited from Rome was a monumental change.

Europeans replaced slavery – slowly and because of their Christian principles, not because of a conscious plan – by doing these things:

1. Developing personal thrift. This required a strong focus on building up virtues like temperance (self-control) and patience.
2. Replacing the enforced surplus of slavery with profit. That is, by mixing creativity in with their commerce: innovating, inventing, and adapting to get more surplus out of commerce.

Under a new system that was eventually tagged capitalism, thrift and creativity generated surplus, and no human beings had to be enslaved.

A World Without Profit

On the other hand, we have recent examples of what happens when a culture forbids profit: the “socialist paradises” of Stalin’s USSR, Mao’s China, and the enslaved states of Eastern Europe. (Among others.)

These examples are bleak indeed, featuring the enslavement of everyone to a ruling party.

Profit provides an incentive to work, and when it is gone, not only does work suffer, but those who want to get ahead have no honest way to do it. And that drives them either to despair or to crime.

If you eliminate profit – innovative, rewarding commerce – you get slavery. The form of that slavery may vary from one case to another, but it will be slavery of some type.

This result is the same, by the way, whether the elimination of profit occurs via communism (make a profit, we shoot you) or fascism (all profit-making is taken over by friends of the state).

The core issue is surplus:

• If surplus can be gathered by average people via honest means, slavery can be eliminated.
• If average people are not allowed to create and hold their own surplus (surplus being skimmed off to the state and/or state partners), slavery of one sort or another will be the result.

Profit is simply a tool – a way of generating surplus without the enforced thrift of slavery.

You cannot get rid of both slavery and profit. You can eliminate whichever one you wish, but you’ll be stuck with the other.

Profit Rests on Virtues

To live in a civilization that prospers by profit, we need to move beyond gorilla-level instincts like envy. We need to develop self-control, patience, and a focus on more than just material possessions.

It’s a shame that the West has turned away from traditional virtues over recent centuries. If the Church that previously taught these virtues was found to be wanting, we should have replaced it with something better, rather than casting everything aside and pretending that virtues were nothing but superstition.

If we ever lose enough of our virtues, profit will lose its protections, and the ancient way of slavery will return.

What we do matters.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

Have the Atheists Become the Gorillas?

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

Every time I write an article that mentions god – even if used as a descriptive reference to “the gods” – I get insulting and arrogant comments from atheists. And it’s not just me; you can see the same thing all over the Internet.

To put it simply, these people are bullies, striking unbidden with fast, hard blows. It’s not about truth; it’s about dominance.

Not all atheists do this, obviously. I have quite a few atheist friends who are decent, kind people. But an abusive strain of atheism has taken root in recent years, and I think it’s time to confront it.

Here’s the key:

The goal of these bullies is not to find truth or even to defend it; it’s to put down other people – to insult, humiliate and laugh at the fools who believe in any sort of god, even people who use references to god.

These people slash and burn. They labor to destroy, not to build.

I used to have a standing offer: that I would publish any atheist book that did not criticize, but instead told people how atheism would make their lives better. The result? No one ever submitted a manuscript.

The Irony of It All

Last week I wrote an article entitled Are you a Gorilla or a God? In it, I explained that the worst of human behavior is gorilla-like and the best god-like. I went on to explain the gorilla side this way:

Dominant gorillas seek status and the power to control others. The submissive apes seek to pass along their pain to the apes below them.

In response to the article (which mentioned gods!), I received the business end of that atheistic slash and burn. But these people never realized that they were placing themselves precisely into the position I had assigned to the gorillas: slapping and biting smaller animals to make themselves dominant.

A Defense of Atheism

I don’t have a problem with atheism per se. I was actually raised as an atheist, by a mother whose love I never for a moment doubted. And, as I say, I have friends who are atheists. The opinion, by itself, doesn’t bother me.

I think atheism is a valid opinion. I happen to disagree with it, but I disagree with a lot of things – that doesn’t mean I go about to destroy them all. Our goal should be to improve people, not to chop them up.

One essential flaw I find with strident atheism is that no one can know enough to make that pronouncement. Here’s what I mean:

• I think it is 100% fair to say, “I’ve never seen evidence of a God, so I don’t think there is one.”
• What I don’t think is fair, is to say, “I know there is no such thing as God.” This is especially true regarding the Judeo-Christian God, who is said to exist beyond our universe. Until they can look beyond the universe, no one can say for sure.

Some atheists will say that putting God outside of the universe was merely a trick to avoid evidence. But even if it did begin as a trick, the idea stands on its own, and saying, “I know that there is no god at all, anywhere,” is unsound.

But, again, to say, “I see no evidence and don’t think there’s a God” is an entirely fair and rational opinion.

The Unfair Atheist Argument

You’ve all seen the technique: The aggressive atheist picks their spot and pounces with references to the very worst examples of theism, and implies that all believers are that way.

But most believers have no desire at all to burn witches or stone homosexuals. To paint them as being that way is not only unfair; it is abusive.

These atheists will, of course, pull together abstract arguments, saying, “Your book says that, and you say you believe the book, so you defend burning witches.”

The truth, however, is that modern believers want nothing to do with burning witches, inquisitions, or any other horrors. (In fact, they would oppose them strongly.) The atheists know this, of course; they’re just trying to slash and burn.

A kinder, better atheist would say, “You believers really should explain why you no longer accept some of the things written in your book.” That would be honest and helpful.

Can We All Get Along?

Yes, of course we can. Only one thing needs to be absent (on both sides): the desire to injure and dominate.

Atheists and theists can be friends and co-travelers. I’ve spent pleasant hours with evangelists for atheism. We disagreed, we got over it, and we enjoyed each other’s company.

It really comes back to the basic principles that we learned as children: You don’t try to bully them, and they shouldn’t try to bully you. Play nice.

It isn’t that hard.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

History is Written for the Suckers

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

It’s often said that history is written by the victors. I don’t think that is entirely true, but I can definitely tell you who history is written for, and that’s the suckers.

I’m referring to the history books people are forced to read in schools, by the way, not to serious and specialized history books. (The kind that almost no one reads.)

What brought up this subject was a comment I stumbled upon this morning, in a Wikipedia article about the origins of banking:

Wealth was deposited and kept in temples; in treasuries, where safety was afforded by the will of the gods.

I’ve actually studied ancient Mesopotamia, and I don’t for a minute believe that the guys who looted their local farmers believed it was protected by the gods. If they did, they wouldn’t have kept it in the most secure building in their kingdom, surrounded by thick walls and isolated from approach!

That line – that five thousand year old line – was created for the suckers, the people who gave the thugs their money but wanted to feel noble about it. And it’s still working! The ruler is automatically afforded every benefit of the doubt, at all times and in all ways.

History – at 3000 BC and even now – is written for the suckers: the people who maintain that eternal benefit of the doubt.

A Day at the British Museum

Let me explain how this works:

Several years ago, as I was completing a book on history called Production Versus Plunder, I visited the British Museum in London. There were some particular artifacts I wanted to see again, and I wanted to walk around and consider all the museum’s pieces of history: to see if there was anything important that I had overlooked or misrepresented.

On the second floor, where the most ancient artifacts are displayed, I found a sign entitled The First Cities. The text on this sign expressed the definitive mythology of ancient history, as it is now taught worldwide. It read:

This required organization and administration… With expansion came social differentiation and the development of an appropriate bureaucratic infrastructure, required to initiate and oversee the necessary public building programs.

This text was written for suckers, and it is simply false. Among other things, organization followed the creation of civilization, and public building programs came long, long after. (We covered a massive refutation of this sign in FMP #37.)

Signs like this on museum walls are written to justify the rulership of their place and time, to make it seem like the ultimate and inevitable end of human development. (Museums are nearly always suck-ups to their local ruler.)

I Could Go On

I have stories about other museums (and others about textbooks), but they’re not important just now. What is important is this base fact: The history you learned through approved channels was mainly propaganda. Its purpose was to hold you as a docile, obedient cog in their machine… a sucker.

I’ll close with two relevant quotes. The first from journalist H. L. Mencken:

The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda – a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make ‘good’ citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens.

And another from educator John Taylor Gatto:

The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.

Remember that no one – no person, no group – is entitled to a permanent benefit of the doubt. That is mere servility, and it is inappropriate for any thinking being.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

Are You a Gorilla or a God?

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

Humanity stands about halfway between gorillas and gods. The great question that looms over us, is this: “Which will we incorporate into our lives? Gorilla things or God things?”

The choice is ours. Yes, various choices are thrust upon us all our lives, accompanied with various levels of intimidation and threat, but at some point, all of us find ourselves able to choose freely. And it is then that we go in one direction or the other. We are able to change directions of course, but every time we choose, we move a step in one direction or the other.

What We Are

Please understand that I am not endorsing any specific theories here – religious, scientific, or otherwise. I’m merely describing the situation in which humanity finds itself. We are halfway between gorillas and gods: The worst things we do are gorilla-like, and the best things we do are god-like. Either direction is open to us.

Strange as it may seem, we are a lot like apes. Our bodies are built in the same ways, our body chemistry is nearly identical, and the worst aspects of human nature are essentially the same as the worst aspects of primate behavior.

We are also a lot like gods. We transcend entropy; we create. We can touch the soul in others, and the best aspects of human nature are essentially the same as the best characteristics attributed to the gods.

This is not what we can be; this is what we are. What we become in the future depends on whether we choose gorilla things or god things, here and now.

What Are Gorilla and God Things?

Gorilla things are those which operate on a dominant/submissive model. Hierarchy (high-level individuals controlling lower-level individuals) is the blueprint of the gorilla world. Dominant gorillas seek status and the power to control others. The submissive apes seek to pass along their pain to the apes below them (females, juveniles, etc.) and to avoid punishment. They are servile toward the dominants and cruel toward those they are able to dominate. Females trade sex for favors.

God things operate on a creative model. Blessing is the blueprint of the god world: distributing love, honesty, courage, kindness, blessing, awe, gratitude, and respect into the world and to other humans.

Gorilla things are these:

• The desire to rule.
• The desire to show superiority and status.
• Servility.
• Avoidance of responsibility.
• Reflexive criticism of anything new.
• Abuse of the weak or the outsider (women, children, Gypsies, Jews, immigrants, homosexuals, etc.).

God things are these:

• Producing things that preserve or enhance life.
• Invention and creativity.
• Expressing gratitude and appreciation.
• Experiencing awe and transcendence.
• Adaptability and openness.
• Improving yourself and others.

The Two Wolves

You’ve probably heard the old story of the two wolves: A young boy becomes angry and violent, and then feels guilty about his violence. He goes to his grandfather for advice. The old man says, “You have two wolves inside you: one of them is nice, the other is dangerous, and they’re fighting inside of you.”

The boy then asks his grandfather, “Which one will win?” The old man replies, wisely, “Whichever one you feed.”

In the same way, humanity becomes like gorillas or gods depending on whether we put gorilla things or god things into our lives.

I’m not going to tell you this is always easy, but the difficulty hardly matters: Somehow, we’ve been given a choice between becoming gorillas or becoming gods. No other creatures in this world have been given such a choice.

Bring god things into your life, and reject gorilla things. It doesn’t matter if these things are hard – you are defining your own nature between two wildly different options, every day.

Leave gorilla stuff to the gorillas.

Building god stuff into your life is your job, my job, everyone’s job.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

How Many Lives the Government “Eats” Each Year

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

I like to look at things from an outsider’s viewpoint – to notice things that most people pass over. And I usually find these things more or less by accident. For example, take a quick look at this formula:

This looks like physics or economics, but I actually ran across it in a legal case. As it turns out, this is the formula to determine the monetary value of your life.

That may sound crazy, but it’s absolutely true.

Officially termed “the monetary value of human capital,” this calculation is used every day in courts of law to help determine various awards – typically when someone is injured and prevented from working.

What struck me as interesting is that this formula could also be used in other ways… like for government for example.

Government is the biggest business on the planet – by far. (We examined how in FMP #32.) And government functions with money.

So, I decided to use arithmetic to determine the cost of government – not measured in dollars, but in human lives.

Think of this as a currency conversion: dollars-to-lives, rather than the usual dollars-to-euros or dollars-to-yen.

And, again, this is not a new trick; it’s done every day in courtrooms across the globe.

The Numbers

The figures I’m using come from the US government (mostly the Census), between the years 2008 and 2010. (Spending is for 2010.) Everything shown below is plain old math, not fancy statistical analysis.

Here are the necessary figures:

Average per capita income: $39,138

Average number of working years: 40

Per capita lifetime income (income times years) = $1.5655 million

Total US government spending: $3.55 trillion

So, dividing total government spending by average lifetime earnings, we arrive at the following:

Government spending consumes the lives of 2.27 million people, annually.

Properly, we should say, “The US government consumes the entire life earnings of 2.27 million people, every year.”

It may seem a bit dramatic to express the numbers this way, but these are real numbers, and they reflect the situation accurately.

These figures, of course, are only for the national government. State and municipal governments consume plenty as well. In all likelihood, total government consumption in the US is somewhere between 3 and 5 million lives per year.

If these numbers seem impossible to you, run them yourself. It’s not hard.

The plain truth is that, every year, government in the United States consumes the entire lifetime efforts of several million human beings.

Talk of so-many trillions, percentages of GDP, quintiles, and age brackets are confusing. This is the simple truth:

Several million lives are sacrificed every year to feed the US Leviathan.

Perhaps a motivated statistician could find some fault with my numbers, but still, there they are. And if my amateurish calculations are off by 10%, should we really feel better, knowing that only 2.043 million of us are sacrificed to Leviathan every year?

The next time you hear confusing talk from a politician, think of these numbers. Millions of lives are being drained dry – cradle to grave – every year, to keep their beast fed. That cannot honestly be denied.

What Does This Mean?

It is for you to decide what this means.

I suspect that you’re rather horrified, which sets you up for a classic choice on how to deal with this new idea:

• Fight (“That’s wrong!”),
• Flight/Evasion (“That’s a conspiracy theory!”), or
• Freeze (“I don’t understand”).

And note that I am making no comment here on the quality of government spending – you can make that determination for yourself – I am merely stating its cost.

You’ll have to decide what you think about this. If you’re unsure, look up the numbers and run them for yourself. That will give you a better understanding.

The Non-Monetary Value of Life

Human lives, of course, have far more than simple monetary value. The most important things in life are not measured in dollars.

That, however, only makes the damage worse.

Why worse? Because we are limited, physical beings. When we’re sick, or sleeping, or far away, or falling-down tired, those “more valuable than money” things seldom show up.

When people are forced to work double shifts to pay the government, their energy for the things that transcend monetary value is sucked away.

Most working Americans go from morning till night. Even when they go on vacation, they are really only recovering from their workload – getting back to even.

That means that most of the super-monetary value of their lives is lost; they have no time and energy left over to do the more important things.

Leviathan Has a Cost

Governments always present themselves to people as saviors, but everything they do is paid for with money. And the ultimate source of all that money is the people who are supposedly being saved.

In order to pay that price in the United States (others are similar), the entire earnings of several million lives are required every year.

No, three million people are not beheaded in the town square, but that many lives are spent every year – by people paying half their life, every year, for their entire working lives.

Leviathan eats several million lives per year, and no matter how we spin it, the numbers remain.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

Why Obamacare Will Not Conquer American Culture

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

It’s become quite obvious that, politically, Obamacare has conquered America. (It now has the power of law.) However, it will eventually fail. In fact, it’s failing already because of something that transcends politics – our ingrained culture.

I had a conversation yesterday with a very astute European friend. While discussing the differences between Europeans and Americans, he said:

On the scale of a whole society, Americans change slower, Europeans change faster. But individually, Americans change faster, and Europeans slower.

And he is quite right about this. Europeans change in groups, but Americans very seldom do. And even when they do, those changes seldom last.

He went on:

This gives Americans an advantage: they can try many more solutions before choosing. But if a society-wide change is imposed on them, it may never find mass adoption; the majority will resist it, and wait it out.

Obamacare is one of these society-wide European-style solutions, shoved down the throats of American culture. Confused by politics (which is, more or less, the purpose of politics), most Americans haven’t known what to think about it, so they are waiting to see what happens.

At the moment, what they see is very bad and while they may hope it works itself out, we know it won’t for one simple reason: Americans expect to choose, and to change their choice whenever they want.

Americans expect to choose a product this year, but to change to a different one next year, when something better comes along. This is deeper than the noise and clamor of politics – it is ingrained in our culture.

Obamacare transgresses the American cultural norms, and will therefore fail – sooner or later, in one way or another.

Why Obamacare Is Much Like A Viking Invasion

In the early Middle Ages, the Vikings wrought havoc on the British Isles. They plundered wherever they wished, extorted astonishing amounts of silver from the kings of England, and never suffered a serious defeat. They conquered, clearly and definitely.

But a funny thing happened to the Vikings over time – they became Englishmen.

The Vikings started as a wild band of pagan destroyers and thieves, and ended up, in a fairly short span, as Christian British farmers.

Why did they make this change? Because the English way of life – English culture – was far more attractive than a life of frozen oceans, killing, and drunkenness.

The Vikings conquered militarily, but they were defeated culturally.

The same thing is happening to Obamacare in America: It conquered politically, but it will fail culturally.

Culture trumps conquest, whether it be the conquest of arms or the conquest of politics.

Obamacare will fail because Americans expect to choose, and to change their choice when they want.

When Americans want a different doctor or hospital, they expect to get it. If they don’t, they’ll break the rules: either they’ll bribe people to get what they want, pay for political favors to get what they want, go to the black market to get what they want, or start taking over hospital administration offices. (I fear that there may be a few shootings too.)

American culture expects choices; it is built for individual changes, not collective changes. This is in the DNA of the culture, and no matter which political gang controls the levers of rulership, the culture will not simply follow.

Whether in one way or many, sooner or later, Obamacare will fail. American culture is not dead yet.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

The Economy Can Never Fully Recover as Long as This Remains…

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

When I was a young man, the older men I admired were the independent businessmen. Being a corporate suit issuing orders to underlings never appealed to me, but being a successful man who controlled his own life and business… that did.

Perhaps as a result, most of my friends are independent business people of one sort or another. Not long ago, I had a notable conversation with one of them, during which he said:

You know, Paul, business used to be fun. I’d take my children around and show them what we were doing, and explain the differences we’d make.

I waited just a beat as he winced and then continued:

Now, I don’t want to drag my kids into my business. Every time I move, there are regulations, permissions, forms to file. It takes up most of my time, for nothing. Business isn’t fun anymore. If I could find something else, I’d get out.

And this is a man who has been in his business since childhood, who loves to tell stories about it, and who used to enjoy his work immensely. If this guy is looking for the exit, the problem is dire.

It’s pretty obvious why

I have limited faith in government statistics, but there are a few informative ones on this subject:

The US Small Business Administration (SBA) recently reported that the annual cost of complying with government regulations is more than one trillion dollars per year and has been since 2005.

It goes on to report that big businesses (500+ employees), pay about $7,550 per employee to comply with the regulations. Small businesses, on the other hand (up to 20 employees) pay about $10,600 for every person they employ. And this is just one reason why small, independent businesses are being swallowed up by giant corporations.

Also bear in mind that this is just the cost of compliance with federal regulations. States also impose regulations on businesses. So do most of the county and city governments, especially large city governments.

New rules are produced constantly, and the cost of compliance rises constantly. In the US (and many other places), the cost of doing business has long since become prohibitive.

The Work-Arounds

Clever folks always find ways to get around this insanity, of course. But those ways are extra work and probably help relatively few people.

#1: They get rid of their employees

They find niches in their fields that allow them to escape the endless paperwork, penalties, and senselessly wasted time that comes with being an employer. (If you’ve ever had employees, you know what I mean.)

And what of the workers? Well, some get hired by the few related-industry employers that remain, while others have to take a mind-numbing mid-level corporate job just to pay the bills or get insurance. The rest are living on food stamps, disability, or a dozen other welfare programs.

#2: They go offshore

If your business is not resident where the regulators are, they usually can’t say anything about it.

Not many business people have moved abroad, but lots of them have set up offshore companies and are conducting business on the Internet. These people get their lives back… if they can find a way to make it work.

That is the dirty little secret of offshore companies, by the way: It’s not about escaping taxes; it’s about escaping all that ridiculous, insulting, pointless paperwork. No more spending days crunching numbers at tax time, no filing new reports every time you do something. You just take care of your customers and deliver good product. (Which ought to be enough.)

#3: They pay politicians for protection

Why would anyone donate thousands of dollars to a politician unless they expected to get something in return?

Big businesses pay politicians so that they can make a phone call to get problems that arise fixed. Small businesses can’t afford that, and most small business owners have moral problems with bribery.

Legit Is Dead

Unfortunately, the old “American way” of working hard, conducting honest business, and succeeding is gone, dead, and buried. It may still happen from time to time, but infrequently and off the beaten path.

Not long ago, I found this sign posted on a streetlight in Chicago:

The sign is right – the old “legit” way of doing business is dead. If you want to get ahead these days, you either try to play a game that is rigged against you, you pay politicians to bend the rules for you, or you avoid the situation entirely.

It seems that the best and brightest – the would-be drivers of the economy – are choosing the last option.

What does that say about where things are going?

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

Is Bitcoin More Dangerous than “Cartel Money”?

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

I’m going to use a couple of passages from the Bible (the original set of moral standards for our Western civilization), followed by an examination of both Bitcoin and cartel money, to see how they hold up in comparison.

As for my use of the term “cartel money,” it’s the best short description I know for the dollars, euros, yen (and so on) that we use in our daily commerce. They are produced by secretive and monopolistic groups of private banks. That rather precisely matches the definition of cartel.

Principle #1: For wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

I think by now we have all heard the big accusation against Bitcoin – that it is used for “money laundering” – made especially by the money cartels (the European Central Bank first).

First off, that doesn’t make sense to me. A currency is supposed to be neutral – that is its purpose. So, accusing a currency of money laundering is like jailing a knife for murder. But, that’s not precisely the point we’re addressing here.

Rather, the question is: do the cartels do the same thing that they condemn?

You bet they do!

Read this story on HSBC. Then read this one on Wachovia. These banks laundered hundreds of billions of dollars – knowingly – for violent drug lords. And it gets worse: No one from either bank went to jail. Neither bank was shut down. Neither bank suffered more than a minor fine.

So, how much of a concern can money laundering really be to the cartels and their politician partners? Clearly none, or very close to none.

And, since the cartels accuse Bitcoin of being used for bad things, let’s be clear about the situation: Every mafioso on the planet uses cartel money. So do all the drug smugglers, terrorists, and pornographers.

Does Bitcoin accuse the money cartels? Nope. Bitcoin has no official operators to speak for it at all.

It is true that many Bitcoin users accuse the cartels of being manipulators, but, at least for now, there is no Bitcoin cartel that is even capable of manipulating the currency.

So, round one goes to Bitcoin: The cartels very clearly condemn themselves, and Bitcoin clearly does not.

Principle #2: Everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light.

When Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto posted his Bitcoin paper in 2008, he laid everything open for all to see. Then he wrote the Bitcoin program and left it “open source,” so anyone could see the programming.

The process of creating cartel money, on the other hand, is mostly hidden, purposely confused, and isn’t even taught to most Econ majors. And if you think that’s just my opinion, here’s one from the esteemed economist John Kenneth Galbraith:

The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.

The argument is made, of course, that the process of creating dollars, etc. is very complicated, and that people don’t understand it because of that.

I don’t think that’s true, but even so, let’s compare it to Bitcoin: Making bitcoins is also complex, but Bitcoin enthusiasts have been working night and day to explain their new currency and how it works. I’ve seen them cornering people at birthday parties, trying to make them understand.

Round two goes to Bitcoin also. Bitcoin wants to be seen and known, and the cartels surely do not.

It all comes down to the reason “why.”

Satoshi Nakamoto began the original Bitcoin document by saying that he wanted to, “allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.” He goes on to say that he was creating,

an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.

In other words, Satoshi wanted to remove the necessity of one man ruling another in the area of money. Furthermore, he did it, then went away.

As for the motives of the cartel, we can’t really tell. The visible heads of the Federal Reserve are certainly not the owners of the Federal Reserve, and the US government refuses to reveal the names of the owners.

Perhaps the closest real examination of their motives comes from a renowned professor who worked for them for a few years. Professor Carroll Quigley of Georgetown – and a major influence on none other than Bill Clinton, wrote this in his book Tragedy & Hope:

The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank… sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent rewards in the business world.

So, was Quigley right? I have no solid proof that he is, but he would be an awfully hard witness to impeach. One substantiation that comes to mind is a recent comment by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. In the midst of a political fight, he complained, “The banks own the Senate.”

That’s not really proof either, but it is interesting.

You can make up your own mind on the banks, but Satoshi’s motives are fairly well beyond question.

I think it is clear that from a moral standpoint, Bitcoin is far, far better than cartel money. (As are silver and gold.)

So, the next time you hear someone calling Bitcoin dangerous and evil, don’t let them get away with it!

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

The Road to Hell is Paved… With Fear

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

One of the cool things about the Bible is that it contains some very interesting passages that no one seems to read.

Understand, please, that I’m neither promoting a literal interpretation of the Bible nor giving you a sermon. I’m just pointing out a fascinating fact that most everyone seems to have missed, religious folks included.

In this case, I’m referring to a passage that comes at the very end of the book, where a list is given, itemizing the kinds of people who will be condemned to “the second death.”

Who would you expect to stand at the top of the list? Murders? Idolators? Maybe adulterers?

Nope, none of those. The first people heading off to destruction are “the fearful.”

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

Not what you expected?

You can look it up if you like. That’s from Revelation 21:8 (King James Version). And I even checked the original Greek: fearful is the right translation.

Fear as a Tool of Damnation

I’m not going to get into theological engineering here, but yes, this would mean that the promoters of fear are sending people to hell.

And, considering that we live in a fear-based culture, that’s an interesting thought indeed.

Now, if you want to be truly bold, think about this: Who is it that currently promotes fear?

We know the answer, of course. The people who live on fear are the majesties of the age: politicians being chief among them but followed by the entire ‘law enforcement‘ complex, military and intelligence organizations, television news-readers, religious bosses, newspaper operators, and, increasingly, anyone who wants something and has access to the public stage.

If the Bible is correct, people who profit from fear are profiting from the destruction (nay, the damnation!) of their fellow men and women.

Religion Isn’t Necessary, of Course

The conclusion that fear is the enemy of mankind doesn’t require religion, of course. We can reach the same conclusion just by recognizing that fear (and especially the chemicals associated with fear) damage our health.

Literally, people who make you fear are making you sick. (We covered this in issue #38 of Free-Man’s Perspective)

Beyond that, it is clear that fear is the number one tool of manipulators. If you want to get large numbers of men and women to do your will, scare them. Every tyrant in history has known this and used this technique.

What To Do About It

First of all, start paying attention to your feelings and notice when things make you afraid. Stop your thinking and pay attention to the whole fear process. If you do, you can deal with most of these attacks quickly, rather than leaving an indistinct fear to roll around the back of your mind all day.

Second, start analyzing the words that convey fear to you. Are they really true? Is the response the fear merchants deliver to you really the only course of action? The hard part of doing this is that the words come too fast; by the time you’re ready to analyze one statement, another one is halfway complete. Analyzing them in writing is far easier, or getting a live speaker to slow down and go one phrase at a time.

Third, start discounting the people who consistently throw fear at you. If that’s all they have, they’re not worth paying attention to. Turn off the TV; excuse yourself from the conversation; walk away. You don’t have to take it.

Finally, start pointing out these things to other people. They may be defensive at first, but isn’t that worth facing, to clear the minds of your friends and family? Why should they suffer under the lash of fear all their lives?

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

What You Need to Know About Microsoft’s Spying Ways

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

I had a conversation the other day with the best and most knowledgeable computer guy I know. After discussing privacy threats, he made this statement:

Everybody buying a Windows computer today is a traitor to humanity.

Now, this is a very technically oriented guy, and he quickly agreed with me that most people don’t have a clue about such things. Still, the primary point stands: Whenever any of us buys a Microsoft product, we are supporting the tools of our own slavery.

Here’s the problem:

Because people keep buying Windows, computer manufacturers are forced to buy and provide “Licensed for Windows” products. And those products include a lot of bad things. As I’ve pointed out before, Microsoft cooperates massively with the NSA to provide them with records of your thoughts and actions. But the problem my friend referred to was something else… something called TPM,

Trusted Platform Module.

It’s a little chip in your computer that is, in my friend’s words, “way evil.”

Microsoft’s goal (with Apple following in their footsteps, by the way) is to kill the general purpose computer. Combining this Trusted Platform Module with Windows provides something that Microsoft and their government pals have been after for a number of years: something called Digital Hygiene.

If that sounds slightly Nazi-ish to you, I’m glad, because it is.

Digital Hygiene means that unless Microsoft approves of all the software on your computer – or any number of other factors, to be determined in the future – your Internet access will be instantly cut-off.

Here’s what Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Trustworthy Computing was quoted as saying (by multiple sources, at a conference in Berlin) in 2010:

Infected computers should be quarantined from the Internet, and PCs should have to prove themselves clean with a digital health certificate in order to access the Internet.

Now they are doing it, and my friend is right to raise an alarm.

More and more computers cannot run anything except a “signed” operating system – signed by Microsoft or the hardware manufacturer. In other words, if they haven’t given the A-OK that what you’re using is as it should be, you get cut off. Moreover, the “we certify it or what you bought won’t work” extends to every program you run.

This is already inside any computer that is sold as “Ready for Windows 8.” When you install Windows 8, these capabilities are automatically activated.

Once that’s done, you will need major computer skills to wipe it off your machine and install something better.

What this all means is that, in the not too distant future – if you use a Windows machine – you might be limited to a small selection of pre-approved, pre-sanitized, privacy-questionable programs.

And I can almost guarantee all the tools we use now to protect ourselves from the reach of digital snoops will be blocked too, leaving us naked and vulnerable.

But there is a solution.

Buy a Linux machine. Not only will it protect you against the above, but it’ll be cheaper, and doesn’t have all the problems that Windows does (e.g., the blue screen of death).

Here’s how to get started:

• Buy an older model computer with an AMD processor. They’re cheaper and still offer WAY more power than you’re likely to need. Just be sure to ask if the thing comes with “vPro,” “CompuTrace,” or a “TPM chip.” If it has any of these, don’t buy it!
• Install Linux Mint on it; a user-friendly version of the program.

Most likely, unless you’re technically minded, you’ll need to enlist the help of your local independent computer retailer. Do so – they will be a great resource as you shift to a non-Microsoft world.

Remember, Microsoft is a traitor to their customers, relying upon their ignorance to keep the game going.

Don’t be their zombies!

Source: Edward SnowdenPaul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

By: Paul Rosenberg

The Armenian Genocide was a systematic extermination that occurred during World War One, mostly in 1915. The killers were Ottoman Turks: agents and soldiers of that government, as well as eager civilians.

The slaughter took place in two phases. First was the wholesale killing of able-bodied Armenian males through massacre and forced labor. Afterward came the deportation of women, children, the elderly and the infirm, on death marches into the Syrian Desert.

All told, perhaps 1.5 million people were killed. The vast majority of these were Armenians, but the Turks also killed large numbers of Assyrian Christians, Greeks, and other minority groups. In many ways – including that of medical experiments on victims – the Armenian Genocide was the direct forerunner of the Nazi Genocide against the Jews.

Here is one miniscule part of the slaughter – a photo taken by an American diplomat, to which he added a commentary:

Source: Wikipedia

“Scenes like this were common all over the Armenian provinces, in the spring and summer months of 1915. Death in its several forms—massacre, starvation, exhaustion—destroyed the larger part of the refugees. The Turkish policy was that of extermination under the guise of deportation.”

The Test

The test, believe it or not, is whether people will acknowledge this as a genocide or not.

We live, as I have complained many times, in an age where institutions not only reign over money and lands, but also over men’s minds. And, as it turns out, Armenia is not big enough or threatening enough to matter. And so, the institutional line – world-over and even in some shocking places – has been that “we don’t talk about it.”

The Turkish government, desperate to protect its image, has battled long and hard to explain it all away, and to prevent the word “genocide” from being used. Many, many institutions – tossing aside truth for political expediency – have parroted the Turkish line.

A Turkish official, tormenting starving Armenian children with a piece of bread. (Wikipedia)

The Two Biggest Flunkees

Not everyone has flunked the test. Several European nations have made official statements on the Armenian Genocide, as have a few nations on every continent.
Wikipedia lists 22 nations in all (out of 200).

What I want to focus on here, however, are the two big failures… places that are supposedly dedicated to an ancient philosophy that would instantly and irrevocably condemn the Armenian Genocide as a top-tier evil.

The first failure is the United States.

In an article I wrote earlier this year, I told how my editor (I was then writing for a major publisher) was made to change history textbooks to cut coverage of this story down to just a couple of paragraphs. The US State Department told him to do so because “we need to keep the Turks happy.” My editor’s bosses sided with the government – as people with government contracts nearly always do. Thus the truth, again, became a casualty to institutions.

The one US President to use the word “genocide” was Ronald Reagan, in a speech he made on April 22, 1981. The current US President, Barack Obama, used the word while a candidate for the presidency, but has repetitively refused to use it since. Again, truth dies where institutions reign.

It is of some interest that Reagan, who was a plebeian – not of the elite – was the one exception. Whatever the man’s virtues or vices, he was far less an institution man than presidents of more recent years.

The second flunkee is Israel. That the victims of the signature genocide would fail to recognize the one just before theirs is nothing short of tragic.

Certainly many Israeli and Jewish groups do acknowledge the Armenian Genocide (such as the Union for Reform Judaism), but the Knesset (the Israeli legislature) decided that recognition of this as a genocide would jeopardize relations with the Turks and the Azerbaijanis.

The reason I call this “tragic” is that by refusing to say “genocide,” the ruling Israeli institution turned its back on the great principle that the Hebrews gifted to the world several millennia ago: The enthroning of justice above rulership.

While many individual Israelis are good and decent people, the rulership of the Israeli state has turned away from the original Jewish principle.

Never Forget

As Adolf Hitler was starting his aggression against the Poles, the London Times quoted him as saying this:

Go, kill without mercy. After all, who remembers the Armenians?

For the sake of decency and for the sake of the future, remember the Armenians.

Also remember that justice stands above institutions and rulers.

Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]

Silk Road Died, Bitcoin Crashed. So why am I so happy?

By Paul Rosenberg, FreemansPerspective.com

You may have heard that Silk Road – the truly free online market – was taken down today, by the FBI. In response, the price of Bitcoin crashed 24%.

Yet here I am – just a few hours later, feeling very optimistic. Why? Because the philosophy of freedom just showed itself to be massively stronger than statism and its “don’t think, just obey” philosophy.

Here’s What Happened

As I was finishing my lunch, I saw a story posted on the takedown/crash. I did a bit of checking and conversed with a friend, and then hustled over to a place I know where crypto-anarchists hang out online.

These guys were already talking about replacing Silk Road, and doing a better job of it.

Forget about the drugs aspect of this – I don’t care for drugs and neither do the people I listened in on – they just want to build free markets.

Contrast that to a financial site, where I found a couple of Bitcoin haters, a Fed trying to supercharge as much fear as he/she could, and several people trying to buy Bitcoin at its lows, or lamenting that they were out of extra cash to buy right away.

But here’s the interesting part: In the face of an orchestrated attack (and you can be sure that the Feds arranged the day’s events for maximum fear – that’s what they do), even these people, within minutes, were walking forward, not backward.

A Better Philosophy Wins Out

Arguably, the greatest triumph of a new philosophy has to be that of the early Christians (of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries AD), they simply would not be stopped, no matter what was thrown at them.

And why wouldn’t they turn back? Because the Roman way was ridiculous and barbaric. Their gods were vile, vain, sometimes stupid and often cruel. Who wants to worship that? These Christians – whatever their faults or virtues – had found a God who loved them, who wished to help and enlighten them, who said they were meant to be free and prosperous.

Which way would you choose?

The Romans persecuted them and sometimes killed them, but they would not be turned around. These people chose the better philosophy, and in the end, they won.

Today, I saw the same thing, wrapped in modern circumstances.

Freedom-minded people are not stopping, are not abandoning their views. And why should they? Shall we go back to the idiocy and self-contradictory life of worshiping the state? Of pretending that robbery is somehow – magically – not robbery when the government does it?

Our minds have been removed from the state’s intimidation and conditioning. Shall we go back to believing lies and repeating vapid slogans for the rest of our lives?

There are real reasons why individuals move from bondage to liberty, but very seldom the reverse.

The Bottom Line Facts

At the end of all the discussions, all the fears, all the questions, all of the explaining to newbs and concerned friends, stand these facts:

Our philosophy is better than theirs. We offer men and women truth, understanding, compassion (the real kind), and strong, direct relationships. The state offers punishment, fear, an occasional promise of plunder, and intrusion into every relationship in your life.

Our people are better than theirs. Not because we were born better, but because finding and living according to truth produces better people than blind obedience and fear of the lash.

We are not quitting. We can’t. We won’t.

Yes, there may be bruises and even blood along the way, but like the first Christians, our people do not turn back – they continue regardless.

We’ve come out of the state’s cultivated darkness, and we are moving into more and more light. Why would we want to go back to where we were? Even if we tried to do it, could we really stick with it? Could our minds really fit back into their old restraints?

This is why freedom will win, my friends: The genie is out of the bottle, and the Internet has spread the message to the four corners of the Earth. It’s a better message. It produces better people.

And in the end, we will win.

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]