Communism in the Workplace

When considering my place of work, it ocurred to me than many politico-economic systems are simultaneously in play and that each of the systems has its own set of merits:

libertarianism (trading/selling): Being a private sector company, the company is almost entirely at the fate of consumers. This requires marketing, pricing, and competitive analysis. This is perhaps the most obvious system in a private company; however, this is not how a company operates internally for most resources. Except in the initial hiring, even salary negotiation is quite limited.

negotiated-resource managerialism: Many items are available by a process that will be familiar to any government beaucrat: budget negotiations. This applies to resources that are owned communally, but subject to restrictions as to its use. It usually applies to company profits. The process by which this resource is allocated is a game called budget negotiation in which every manager compiles requests from his employees and argues for the need for these items in front of competing managers and and overseeing manager, who is usually the CEO. The allocation decision process is a complex one involving the evaluation of the appropriateness, best use, and impact on profitability, of the various requests. Managerialism may be anathema to libertarians, but, ultimately, decisions must be made and goods must be managed at some level. That goods are frequently poorly managed does not, as a libertarian would have it, mean that one can dispense with management all together. In fact, it points to the necessity of good management.

accounted-resource managerialism: Each department owns many items; however, rather than exchanging for those items someone may obtain them by simply giving an account number. The department from which the item is taken receives nothing of value in return. Many items are purchased and transferred from one department to another by a process of requests using account numbers. One would expect that one would get a chat from one's manager should one request an excessive or inappropriate amount of goods from another department. The accounting department simply keeps a record of all of these expenses, so that blame can be allocated to the appropriate department for not meeting the budget.

unaccounted resources (communism): Every large company has certain freely-available and unaccounted resources, such as drinking water, coffee service, paper towels, pens, pencils, paper, servers, hooks, glues, tapes,network cables, etc. One may think of these items as being owned communally. Perhaps this is not pure communism because the ownership only extends to employees of the company. Obviously, this policy leads to greater than normal consumption of these items; however, since these items are low-cost, accounting for these items, which would be required in libertarianism would add additional cost. In this sense, communism is probably the most efficient system for these items.

Former Libertarian

My flirtation with libertarianism is officially over for the following reasons:

1. No matter how well-meaning libertarianism is not stable. The reason for this is that people who contract with security agencies will eventually be controlled by the agencies that they seek to protect them. What is needed is a different type of relationship from one of a service contractor, what is needed is a share in voting institution, but this is democracy. The examples of libertarianism persisiting for long periods of time are few and far between.
2. Libertarianism is one valid system, but as I will show in a later post other institutions are not only valid (more efficient), but omnipresent: direct democracy, representative democracy, service contracting, communism, regulated comunitarianism, etc.
3. Libertarianism goes against most human's inate social tendencies. Many people are naturally subservient, others are natural leaders, others are team-players, others are socializers, others are liars, and a few are libertarian-loners (frequently programmers, and contractors).
4. While the selfishness and competiveness that are characteristic of libertarianism have proven to lead to efficient markets, these characteristics also may lead to alienation of many from society and various forms of sociopathic behavior. Indeed, why should one expect that others will have any consideration for our well-being when the best that can be said for our existence is that we do not interfere in their lives.

Too Much Security is a Bad Thing

The pathological obsession of the United States with its own security following the attack by a small number of individuals on 9/11 has an interesting parallel in the obssesion of the Soviet Union with its own security following the Nazi attack of WWII. The Soviet security obsession was motivated by Russia's long history of being invaded by Western conquerors, such as Napoleon (1812) and Hitler (1941).

Throughout the "cold war" what was viewed by Western Europe and the United states as Soviet expansionism was, from the Russian perspective, mainly the creation of communist-friendly buffer countries, which was supposed to enhance their security. Russian security concern also led to its development of nuclear weapons to defend against attacks by the United States, the slaughter and exiling of political dissidents, and the creation of a massive conventional army.

Although the conquest of Eastern Europe, construction of the Berlin wall, massive police state, and construction of nuclear weapons was not cheap, what would eventually result in the collapse of the iron curtain of seeming Soviet invincibility would be the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union believed that it had may valid reasons for invading:

1. They were alarmed by the political instability in Afghanistan, especially the collapse of the army and the prospect that a disintegrating Afghanistan would threaten its security on its southern border with Pakistan.
2. They were afraid of US influence in the region due to the arming of the Mujahideen by the CIA under Jimmy Carter (what was to become Al Qaeda).
   
3. They felt they needed a communist-friendly buffer state in the South.

(Although the acquisition of a warm water port has often been viewed by advocates of Soviet containment as the reason for the Soviet invasion , most likely this played little role because the Soviets had bigger problems.)

The Soviet Union airlifted thousands of troops into Kabul on December 24, 1979 and Soviet intelligence forces took control of the government and installed Babrak Karmal, a Parchami, as president.

The Soviet economy bled badly during the Afghan war. A war that was "won" by a deadly combination of dedicated Afghan and Pakistani mujahideen, Saudi funding, and US weaponry, especially the US stinger missiles. Finally, the Soviet Union comprehended its mistake and withdrew. The US voluntarily withdrew its influence from the region. Eventually, the Soviet puppet government that the Soviets had installed in Kabul would fall to the Sunni Taliban, who would institute a particularly ruthless form of Sharia law.

Both the Soviet Union and Afghanistan would lose the war for having won the battles. The US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, which invested relatively little, would be the seeming victors. However, the victory would be bittersweet: In a final act of revenge to Pakistan for their support of the war, the Soviets assassinated the Pakistani Prime Minister. The US would also not leave unscathed. It was the very same mujahideen fighterw who fought side-by-side with the CIA armed with Stinger missiles who would eventually mastermind the attacks of 9/11.

If this history, does not remind you of the tragic involvement of the US in Iraq, then I suggest you re-read this.

Currency Value Prediction

The value of the dollar, like all other unbacked (intrinsically worthless) currencies, will continue to fall relative to a basket of commodities and services because the supply of such currencies is dependent on the whims of central banks, whose governing boards being not wholly uninfluenced by their respective federal governments, have a preference for expanding the money supply to make the economy appear to be doing well and the deficit small by inducing spending. This is usually a gradual, but persistent process, which eventually results in the value of unbacked currencies reaching their intrinsic value, i.e., zero. This process is usually very gradual, but it can be very rapid, which is called hyperinflation. Hyperinflation typically happens when governments try to finance previous debt, wars, and generous social programs by printing bills (indirect taxation via inflation), rather than through direct taxation.

To acquire revenue, Republican administrations tend to favor indirect taxation; whereas, Democratic administrations tend to favor direct taxation. Historically, neither Republicans nor Democrats have ever actually produced a net cut in government spending because of the preference of those in power is to increase their power by increasing the size and scope of government. In general, government grows the least and the economy does best when there is gridlock in Washington, resulting from a mixture of Republicans/Democrats in the legislative and executive branches.

Since both US dollars and foreign currencies are inflationary relative to durable commodities, the question becomes which is more inflationary. This is mainly determined by the policies of the central banks of the respective countries, but is also influenced by the extent to which the governments and citizens of those countries are debtors. In other words, how much there is a demand for money. One can think of the banking system as a system that creates and destroys money on demand. They can adjust the demand for money by adjusting the interest rate for a loan. When a loan is taken out, say, to purchase a house, an enormous quantity of money is instantly injected into the economy. This is because only 10% of the money needs to be in the bank as reserves, the rest is simply printed up out of thin air by the federal reserves accounting scheme. As the loan is repaid the money is destroyed again. ->

lowered interest rate / lowered reserve requirement -> increasing demand for loans -> increasing demand for deposits -> higher deposit interest rate -> more bankable deposits -> increasing money supply -> monetary inflation (10x the money supply),
high interest rate -> low bank holdings -> monetary stability

To understand why, consider that Alan Greenspan encouraged a period of enormous inflation in order to avert a recession. He did this by lowering the prime lending rate. Monetary expansion does tend to delay recession, but it only makes the inevitable recession larger and more painful than it would have been had there been no monetary expansion in the first place. Interest rates reached a low of 4.0% in Jun, 2004. When interest rates are lowered this results in almost immediate inflation in the housing market as people rush to finance and re-finance; however, housing is not included in the federal reserve's inflation indices and since this inflation requires several years to trickle down into the rest of the economy, there is a lag in the time the fed responds to the inflation that they created by raising interest rates again. Currently, the rate is at 6.25% and Greenspan will probably continue to raise interest rates for several years.

As rates go up, people stop being able to afford houses and people with variable-rate or interest-only loans can no longer afford the monthly payments on their homes, forcing them to sell. Both the people who stop buying and those who are forced to sell contribute to a depression of housing prices, meaning that people can no longer tap the rising values of their homes to live beyond their means. The US starts to go into recession. Whereas consumers previously were spending beyond their means, they start to save. This backs up inventories and money must be reinvested. This liquidation and reinvestment is expensive, hurting the US economy.

The problem for the dollar is that when banks start collapsing, the federal reserve/government will try to bail them out (creating dollars), rather letting them fail (liquidating dollars). This demonstrates the inevitability of the inflation of intrinsically worthless currencies given the preferences of bureaucrats for delaying the pain of recovery.

That the value of the dollar continues to decline relative to a basket of foreign unpegged currencies is then more a function of how government chooses to finance its profligate spending and the rate of that spending. Below is a chart that gives general recommendations of whether to buy or sell dollars against a diversified basket of foreign unpegged currencies:

Legislative	Executive	Greenspan Thinks Economy Is	Sell Dollars?
Republican	Republican	Weak	STRONG SELL
Republican	Democratic	Weak	HOLD
Democratic	Republican	Weak	BUY
Democratic	Democratic	Weak	SELL
Republican	Republican	Strong	HOLD
Republican	Democratic	Strong	BUY
Democratic	Republican	Strong	STRONG BUY
Democratic	Democratic	Strong

Propaganda Preparations Are Underway Against Iran

Predictably, the neocrazies are running their propaganda machines overtime against the soverign democracy of Iran. Let us look at why an attack against Iraq would be immoral and a bad idea:

1. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has never attacked the US, nor threatened to do so. Nor has Iran had a history of aggression since the Iran-Iraq war was initiated by Iraq. Attacking would violate every international convention in existence. The US would again be an illegal aggressor. Would the rest of the world continue to sit idly buy as we villify innocent nations to pillage their resources, set up puppet regimes, and torture their citizens?
2. After the US illegally attacked Iraq to steal its oil and place a puppet regime in place and canceled foreign contracts of governments that invested in Iraq, China got some sense and realized that the US neocons are the primary threat to world peace and increased trading with Iran. Iran, being flush with cash from the high prices of crude resulting from the US invasion of Iraq was quickly able to boost their defensive military capability.Such Chinese-Iranian trade has resulted in the development of a pipeline, an automotive factory, and upgraded missile systems. The Chinese, not wishing this petroleum resource to also be stolen by the mercantilist neocons, have also made statements suggesting that they would defend Iran if Iran were also attacked by the oil/empire-thirsty neocons.
3. Like Iraq, Iran could be conquered quickly at the cost of tens of thousands of Iranian civilian casualties, especially if the neocrazies choose to use nukes, but holding Iran would be even more difficult and expensive. This would require financial and troop resources the US simply could not muster.
4. The US military is already over-stretched and our economy in ruins (high inflation, sky-rocketing oil prices, increasing personal and national debt) and few are foolish enough to sign up now for Bush's glory. As in Vietnam, a military draft for this highly illegal power grab would result in very large rates of fragging, suicide, drug use, and dissertion.
5. The price of oil would sky rocket even more, since the military would consume more, Iran would destroy much of it, and extraction resources would be in disrepair, and frequently sabotaged.
6. Would the Chinese continue to finance our economy after the neocon empiricists screw them once again?
7. Terrorism would increase once again as it would become more clear that the "war on terror" is a cultural war against Islam, not a war on terror per se.
   

Clearly, if we were to "win" a war against Iran, we would lose once again: morally, financially, and in terms of personal security and liberty.

Iran is not a real democracy?

The neocons are going to try their same trick again with Iran:

1. Create sham evidence, hearsay, and biased defamation against a smaller nation via your thralls in the media: Fox, Clear Channel, ....
2. Give your thralls favors such as special access to stories and FCC protection.
   
3. Persist in the lies until the generally apathetic and incurious public starts to believe you.
4. Set up sham investigators (Chalabi) and reporters to villify your victim whom you agree to install into power as a puppet governor after a sham election.
5. Defame and question the motives of those who question your evidence or rush to war. (Don't forget to impl that they are homosexuals with secret sinister agendas.)
6. Retire to your ranch and enjoy a while you claim that you are struggling and praying to do the right thing.
7. Claim to be a man of peace, but announce with great feigned gravitas that you have no choice but to attack or the US will almost certainly be nuked into the ground (by the nonexistent weapons of mass destrucion), attacked by biological weapons, or sinister drones.
   
8. Bomb the hell out of the country's military and civilian infrastructure.
   
9. Do not apologize for civilian casualties.
10. Invade and declare victory.
11. Don't forget the photo ops with the few smiling imported dissidents who are happy to share power in the new government.
12. Declare victory.
13. Install your puppet dictator and declare martial law.
14. Distribute lucrative security and reconstruction contracts to those who funded your election campaign. (Haliburton,...)
    
15. Hold sham elections in which your candidate is the only one who can possibly win because the other known candidates have been detained.
16. Construct a large permanent military base and consulate.
    
17. Install various propaganda outlets in the newly-conquered country.
    
18. Call terrorists any who take up arms to oppose your blatant invasion and theft.
19. Leave when the puppet regime appears to be pliant and self-sufficient.
    

It is funny that the neocons cannot claim that Iran is not democracy, so they are saying it is not a real democracy, while failing to define how their form of democracy is any less vibrant than our own. What a bunch of hypocritical, belligerent, shameless, psychopaths the neocon lackeys are!
Iran is accused of trying to acquire nuclear weapons without any supporting evidence. The irony is that it would be crazy for Iran not to try to either acquire nuclear weapons or try to hide under the nuclear umbrella of another nation given that our regime has clearly demonstrated its willingness to attack any nation with a thin veil of sham evidence. Who is stupid enough to fall for the same scam thrice?

May the middle east have its nuclear empire to counter the evil US empire under which we are either subjects or lackeys.

CONTEXT - This Week in Arts and Ideas from The Moscow Times

Anyone as cynical and crooked as Jeb Bush has to have his eyes set on the presidency. Why not? His brother was an amateur who got every job he ever had through his family connections.

Furthermore, slavish Republicans would love to keep the dynasty going. (You weren't under the illusion that this was a democracy. Were you?)

RexCurry.net -The Lawyer, Libertarian, Historian & Journalist

RexCurry is an excellent libertarian website that shows the origins of the Pledge of Allegiance in the nazism (German National Socialism) via Edward Bellamy.

Nationalism is almost invariably evil. Nationalism is the most common cause of wars. Socialism is the next greatest evil, giving a centralized government the power to slaughter, regiment, and wage war with reckless disregard for its drones.

Notice in the photos that the boys are dressed as boy scouts and the girls as girl scouts. These are also national socialistic institutions.

We Are Very Good Drivers by Sheila Samples

The eternal war on terrorism is going so well that we have gotten one low-level terrorist and created several hundred more who are willing to blow themselves up to displace our puppet regime in Iraq.

Not to mention that our "shock and awe" bombing campaign of Iraq was clearly an intentional and massive act of terrorism.

America's Mortal Secret

Sept. 11, 2001, left the United States in the grip of an unarticulated need for payback. No one takes a blow like that without wanting to strike out. Stated justifications aside, that need fueled the subsequent American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, which is why it meant so little when those justifications (bin Laden dead-or-alive, WMD, etc.) evaporated. And why it meant so little when the brutalities of American methods were made plain, from torture to hair-trigger checkpoints to ruined cities.

True, Joe American does enjoy revenge (as long as the suffering is not too graphic and the personal cost not too high); however, the desire of Joe American for revenge was manipulated by the neocon administration by repeatedly implying that Saddam Hussein had some sort of connection with Al Qaeda, which in turn had a connection with the 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, democratic hack John Kerry was the candidate least prepared to call Bush on such obvious war propaganda, given his vote to authorize the war, his long-term Washington player status, and his implausible denial that he thought that Bush would actually use such authorization.

I suspect that Washington insiders knew that to leave sanctions in place was criminal (having resulted in the deaths of an estimated 500,000 civilians), but may have felt that they could not politically allow the sanctions to lapse and Iraq to recover with Saddam still in power, despite the fact that UN inspections would have continued, Iraq had disarmed and cooperated with inspectors, and Iraq had been duly chastened by the attack.

For those who doubt that Saddam would have reformed, consider the example of Moamer Kadhafi, who was once an ardent Arab nationalist, but has voiced mounting exasperation with Arab politics in recent years and has reoriented Libyan foreign policy toward Africa, where he maintains close ties with post-apartheid South Africa. He has also disarmed and apologized and given restitution for the Lockerbie bombing.
Militarily he has taken on a defensive posture and supported women's equality. He has also appealed to the kidnappers of US hostage Roy Hallums to spare his life. He has also argued for economic liberalization.

Unfortunately, not all is rosy, but he seems to be trying by releasing hundreds of political prisoners.

Keep the Borders Open (February 2002)

This is no doubt in my mind that closing borders to innocent human beings is one of the greatest evils of our time. Closed borders lead to people justifying cruelty to other humans whose only crime is that they seek to better themselves without harming others. People rhetorically say that they are illegal to justify their inhumanity. But if the government were to pass a law that all blonde people had to move to a desert camp, would one be justified in one's arrogant cruelty to those blondes who who ignored the ruling by saying that they were illegals. These illegals have not certainly not broken any libertarian law, but those who harass them are breaking the libertarian rule that one cannot infringe on the rights of others who do not violate your property rights.

The ridiculous argument that some pseudo-libertarians make, that crossing a border violates someone's property rights, ignores the reality that in any workable society there must be access routes from any available private property. This can either be an easement or a public route. Lack of access to one's property would be a gross violation of individual who wished to use that property. Of course, such public access routes exist at all of the borders, they are called highways. The border patrol's ridiculous assignment is to filter out individuals depending on nothing more than where they were born or to whom they were married.

Furthermore, it is silly to oppose a totalitarian state while being a proponent of totalitarian borders. If a nation becomes oppressive, should the citizens of that nation be condemned to die? How will the lies of the state be refuted if citizens are not free to travel and see the truth? How will one know who is a foreigner, if all citizens and legal residents are not required to carry identification? How will one have a limited state without the massive state apparatus necessary to block the traffic in individuals? How can citizens who misplace their papers avoid be deported by the state?

Proponents of closed borders have always wanted to oppress those who were less fortunate than themselves. They want an un-level playing field, a territorial monopoly, which is enforced by the government and they want you to pay for it twice: In higher prices because of the higher cost of their labor versus immigrant labor and because of the cost of enforcement, which is paid for by your tax dollars.

Who Killed Hariri?

Here are some theories as to who killed Hariri:

1. Islamist extremists who have not forgiven Syria its repression of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 80s;
2. Far-right Christians, anxious to rouse opinion against Syria and expel it from Lebanon and funded by the CIA, seeking to install an airbase;
3. Israel, whose ambition has long been to weaken Syria, sever its strategic alliance with Iran and destroy Hizbullah;
4. Syria as a severe miscalculation (This is the most ludicrous theory, espoused by neocons for self-serving empire building!).
   

Of these theories, the evidence seems to point to the first one:

1. A security camera shows a car bomb with round 660 to 770 pounds of explosives detonated as Hariri's entourage passed.
2. Ahmed Tayseer Abu Adas released a video claiming responsibility.
3. Lebanese authorities did DNA tests on the remains of a body found at the scene to establish they did indeed belonged to Abu Adas.

Further investigations will almost certainly confirm the killer, but do not expect the neocon adminstration to apologize to Syria or even recant their silly theory.

The Global US Empire

Approximately 350,000 U.S. troops (0.12% of the US Population) were stationed around the world in Feb, 2005. About 250,000 were deployed in combat, peacekeeping and counterterrorism operations, and an additional 100,000 in Germany, Japan, Italy and England were serving routine tours of duty. GlobalSecurity calculates that if civilians and dependents are added in, the number is 531,000 (0.18% of the US population and ~ 0.5% of US Population under 10-40 years old). Below is the number of troops stationed abroad by region:

• Iraq: 153,000
  
• Germany: 75,000
• Japan: 47,000
• South Korea: 37,000
• Italy: 13,000
• England: 12,000
• Afghanistan: 11,000
  
• Bosnia and Kosovo: 8,000 (Part of NATO's peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Kosovo.)
• Qatar: 1,600
  
• Djibouti: 1,600 (Support for counterterrorism activities in the Horn of Africa region and monitors the southern entry to the Red Sea.)
• Haiti: 1,600 U.S. Marines as part of a multinational peacekeeping force.
• Philippines: 1,000 (Working with the Philippine military to combat terrorism.)
• Georgia: 75 (Marines training four Georgian battalions in counterterrorism.)
• Yemen: U.S. special operations forces trained 200 Yemeni soldiers in counterterrorism tactics last year.
• Colombia: Clusters of special forces soldiers train Colombian troops to fight leftist guerrillas and police narcotics trafficking.

True Libertarians

As more individuals become disaffected from the major political parties, many have assumed the name libertarian without knowing what it means. Here is a minimum necessary to be considered a libertarian in my mind:

1. You oppose all forced service (slavery), including the draft. Forced service violates one's ownership of one's labor.
   
2. You oppose any regulations on how private-property, including flags, should be displayed or treated, except to limit the effects on other's property. This is a violation of free expression.
3. You oppose all wars that were engaged or initiated for any reason other than for self defense and to satisfy lawful defensive treaties, such as The War to Install a Puppet Regime in Iraq and Make It Friendly to Corporate Donors.
4. You oppose all restrictions on access to pharmaceuticals (drugs), as this never directly affects other individuals.
5. You realize that war is the health of the state and oppose all undeclared wars (police actions): Viet Nam, Cambodia, Korea, Panama, ...
6. You oppose any compromise of civil liberties, such as the Patriot Act.
   
7. As required for honoring our treaties, United Nations approval is a necessary condition for declaring war. The Iraq War II was not honorable because it violated UN resolutions that it claimed to be upholding.
8. You oppose restrictions of trade (unless it is proven that a particular country is employing slave labor).
9. You oppose restrictions on free entry and exit, without probable cause of criminal intent.
10. You oppose militarily-imposed puppet democracy building and allow national self determination.
11. You oppose forcibly disarming other free nations.
12. You support only proportionate retaliatory military responses, or de-escalations, not overwhelming punitive responses.
    
13. You oppose the centralization of the control of lethal force. There should exist a balance of power between competing authorities (branches of the military, coalitions of states, counties, etc) .
    
14. You oppose government sanctioned monopolies, such as:
    currency production
    banking
    medicare/medicaid
    social security
    unemployment insurance
    schooling
    airport security
    airline traffic control
    mail transportation
    sports stadiums
    airport construction
    
15. You oppose government regulation of the free market sector, except as to ensure that the rights of others are not violated.
    
16. You oppose both high government taxation and spending. (GW lowered taxes, but increased spending.)
17. You oppose government deficit spending, because it usurps congressional authority.
    
18. You oppose all government licensing. All licensing should be by private certification boards.
    
19. You oppose forcing individuals to make any statements, including the pledge of allegiance.
20. You oppose regulations on the use of private property.
21. You oppose centralized government licensing.
    
22. You oppose any restrictions on immigration that would not apply to citizens.
    
23. You support the equal right of individuals (not convicted of a felony) to acquire (limited) lethal force without licensing.
    

Competing Power Centers

Political power is wielded either by direct or indirect psychological motivation (carrot) or direct or indirect coercion (stick). Politicians typically apply all of these methods (except direct coercion) to accomplish their goals. Those who have obtained power positions are said to be authorities. In order to psychologically motivate individuals, you must occupy the legitimate position of an authority in a belief system.

In my life, I have encountered the following authorities: parents (who have authority from direct psychic motivation emanating from the care that is provided and direct coercion), Church leaders (who have authority primarily from direct psychic motivation and indirect psychic motivation of one's parents), government officals, police officers, guards, judges, supervisors/managers, etc.

The challenge for freedom loving individuals is to either not buy into the belief systems that confer authority upon authority figures (most effective with moral authority figures such as Church leaders), persuade others of the illegitimacy of the authority figures or the belief systems that establish their power positions, or play off one authoritarian system against another. It is correctly noted that atheist, non-religiously affiliated, or non-devout individuals are the only moral individuals because they make their own moral judgements. In societies with monolithic and intolerant religious organizations (such as the Catholics in Spain), the incumbent religious organization is quite corrupt and militant.

For the divide and conquer strategy to be effective no particular authority ought to have much more power than any other and there should be several competing authorities. The local judicial/police system should check the federal legislative/national guard system. Counties should be turned against states and police should balance the military and the national guard. The UN and states should check the power of the federal government. All attempts to coordinate/centralize these power centers should be fought. Given the current unwieldy power of the fed, individuals should push for state's rights.

What Are We to Make of the Trade Deficit?

This article convincingly argues that a trade deficit like a personal deficit is not necessarily bad. The deficit may in fact result from investors eager to lend to a rapidly developing economy. This is a good thing that helps the developing economy develop even faster than if there existed no trade deficit because a lot of this consumption is for modern tooling, which improves manufacturing efficiency. However, a trade deficit may also result from government consumption, which is seldom for investment and more often for financing aggressive wars (such as the War to Exploit Iraq).

In summary, one should not be overly concerned about a trade deficit per se, but rather, how that money is used. Government will typically squander the funds to finance its expanding empire; whereas, the private sector will tend to invest the funds in improving productivity. Government is like a financially mismanaged, inefficient, and thoroughly corrupt business that never fears bankruptcy because it makes the laws about how much it will steal from the productive economy.

Right to Life is Worthless Without the Right to Die

Here is my bill of euthanasia rights:

1. Every individual capable of articulating their desire has complete control of their property to the extent that the excercise of their right does not infringe upon the rights of others. An individual's physical body is one's most intrinsic possession; therefore, every individual may choose to destroy their body without exception.
2. The right to assist in suicide is not limited to the terminally ill or those in chronic pain. All individuals have this right at any time.
3. No individual can assist in a suicide, without explicit permission to do so from the individual or, when the individual is inarticulate, then it must defer to the wishes of the most immediate family provided that there is not evidence indicating that the immediate family does not have the best interests of the incapacitated individual in mind.
4. If an individual is incapable of expressing a desire, then one only needs to ask who is paying to keep the individual alive and to what contracts they are bound; except to the extent that society has a duty to decrease suffering of inarticulate individuals.
5. No individual, including medical practioners, can be forced against their will to provide any service; therefore, any efforts to actively support another's life cannot be mandated by the courts. No support is required if sufficient payment is not met.

The State as a Parasite

Statists (both establishment Democrats and Republicans) argue about how to maximize government revenue. Keynes taught them that the revenue maximizing level of taxation must be less than 100% (because their host would not survive), but must also be greater than 0% (at which there would be no revenue). This is natural greed. What is less comprehensible is the number of private-sector dupes who offer their suggestions on how the State can maximize the pillage from the productive (non-government) economy.

To the various levels of government, the American people (revenue source) are Holsteins from which the quantity of milk extracted is maximized, but this is not an issue with which a free people in pursuit of happiness should concern themselves. What should concern free people, is how that extraction effects their pursuit of happiness. JFK had it precisely backwards: "Do not ask what you can do for your country (translation: the Federal Government), ask what your government has done for you lately, and whether it is worth the expense. Nor should a free people concern themselves with maximizing the amount of territory over which the host can extract the revenue on which is thrives.

The American people should care about lower tax rates for themselves (for the obvious direct benefit), lower tax rates for corporations (because of the benefit to the economy (lower prices, and higher productive employment)), and lower total tax revenue because that may contribute to less government (The government can survive for long periods by deficit spending, which results in monetary inflation.), which is a parasite concerned only with its own survival and propagation. The State cares about it's host, "the people", only indirectly and in so much as the death of its host would mean the death of itself.

Yes, I realize that a society that is not in a semi-symbiotic relationship with a parasite (government) is more susceptible to infection by other parasites (invasion) because the existing parasite will jealously guard its host; however, the people should realize that such infection may be less detrimental to the host (the people) than the original infection, and the possibilty of reducing or eliminating all parasites (anarchy) should always be kept in mind as an ideal.

SCM | 03.10.05 - 7:50 pm | #

NRO Supports National Socialism

But if it was still okay to have prayer in school, the Pledge of Allegiance, expulsions, non-self-esteem boosting curricula and the rest, a conservative would say, 'Don't touch the public schools. They're working just fine. Let's give them everything they need.

In other words, "conservatives" (of the National Review variety) believe that theft by the state is dandy as long as it supports their personal agenda. If an atheist, Buddhist, or Moslem is forced to pray a Christian prayer in school, that's OK with them. If a pacificist is forced to pledge allegiance to a flag (a symbol of militant nationalism), then that's OK too as long as a nominal "conservative" is calling the shots. If a childless couple is forced to pay for schooling the children on others, neocons believe that is just fine and dandy as long as their children are still in the school and they approve of the curriculum. If the curriculum is harsh and punishments are meted out regularly, then that is great, pacificists be damned. In other words, neocons, unlike libertarians, have no ethics.

What conservatives do believe in is hubristic/chauvinistic nationalism (which they misleadingly call patriotism). Because they are convinced (by fantastic historical distortion) of our moral superiority, they can justify wars of aggression by us against others, while condemning agression by one unallied party against another. Neocons look approvingly as their military slaughters thousands of innocent civilians, but scream in horror when their children die in war. Neocons support unconditonally those who serve their interests as they seek to create a unique national identity, which allows us to criticize and devalue/dehumanize non-Americans. Neocons are reviled by immigrants seeking to reach their shores and contaminate their unique and holy character. Neocons have no particular love or respect for Christianity, which preaches peace and fairness, but they embrace it simply because it is the dominant religion in the United States and, therefore, can be used to create our identity, our national myth. Similarly, neocons have no special love for English grammar, but they push English-only laws simply because it is the predominant language.

True libertarians can be distinguished from conservatives by their humility and objectivity, as opposed to the destructive power of pride. Libertarians are for individual "liberty" or, more precisely, as much liberty as is possible that does not infringe on the property or use of/access to that property of/by others:

Don't like English's hundreds of grammatical rules?
Choose Esperanto.

Don't like Christianity?
Try Buddhism.

Does the Catholic church charge too much for a Baptism?
No problem, become an Evangelical.

You don't want to wave the flag or support our troops in genocide?
No problem, you can wave whatever flag you want.

Libertarians (or at least real libertarians who do not support aggressive posturing or closed borders) allow the freedom for true morality and prosperity to exist. Neo-conservatism is the prescription for endless war.

Hunger for Dictatorship

The invasion of Iraq has put the possibility of the end to American democracy on the table and has empowered groups on the Right that would acquiesce to and in some cases welcome the suppression of core American freedoms. That would be the titanic irony of course, the mother of them all—that a war initiated under the pretense of spreading democracy would lead to its destruction in one of its very birthplaces. But as historians know, history is full of ironies.

If only the paleocons were as eloquent in their promotion of individual freedon as their opposition to American empire.