Posts tagged libertarianism
Conspiracies and How to Defeat Them
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From the remarkable Jeffrey Tucker at Laissez Faire Books, LFB.org
Conspiracies and How to Defeat Them
Someone asked me the other day if I believe in conspiracies. Well, sure. Here’s one. It is called the political system. It is nothing if not a giant conspiracy to rob, trick and subjugate the population.
People participate in the hope of making our lives better, or at least curbing the damage government does. Yet look at the results: exactly the opposite. No matter who is selected as temporary front men to “reform” the system, the regime thrives and the population withers.
It should be obvious by now that reform doesn’t happen by drawing ever more people into the ranks of the oppressor class. But somehow, people keep getting pulled in. What’s more, the regime is fully aware of this, even if the population is not. So, yes, I would call it a conspiracy.
The word conspiracy comes from the Latin roots con and spiro, meaning to breathe together. It implies a shared interest and an understanding between people that doesn’t always need to be openly stated. In the normal use of the term, the purpose of a conspiracy is always negative or destructive — a deceptive plot to do something bad.
This is why the government is always accusing other people of conspiring — terrorists cells, armed resistance at home and abroad, rebellious and plotting sectors of society — but exempts itself completely. The regime regards itself as unimpeachably fantastic, never destructive, never nefarious. Therefore, it is incapable of conspiracy.
It all depends on how you look at it. You don’t have to work yourself into a fever over the Bilderbergers or the Trilateralists to see real conspiracy. Take a look at any government bureaucracy. Everyone there knows the goal: more power, more money and less work. The bureaucratic class “breathes together” toward the same nefarious goal of making itself safer and richer, while making normal life difficult for those who are subject to its dictates. And it all comes at the expense of everyone else
The more dependencies government creates, the more people it can convince to go along with the conspiracy, and the better off it is. This is why Frederic Bastiat once described the political system as follows: “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”
Great speech by Jason Lewis
0Although I’ve never heard of him until today, this is excellent. Nailing topics from personal responsibility, perseverance and the “Paleo/primal” diet to his journey into Libertarianism, Jason’s story of success from an extremely dysfunctional family life (the son of a drug addict stripper mother and bi-polar war-scarred Veteran father to two-degree holding banking Vice President) is deeply inspirational and did a lot to reframe some of my current perceptions.
Maybe it will do the same for you.
OPINION: Ron Paul driving Republicans’ White House campaign
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By Juan Williams, author and political analyst for Fox News Channel.
Here’s a news bulletin — it is becoming increasingly clear that we are living in a time when Republican politics are being shaped by a 75-year-old, 12-term Texas congressman with a son in the Senate. And incredibly, it is no longer out of the realm of possibility that this outcast of the GOP establishment may win the party’s presidential nomination.
If you have not been paying attention, it is time to look around and realize that we are living in the political age of Rep. Ron Paul.
A CNN/Opinion Research poll released late last week shows Paul faring the best against President Obama of any potential Republican candidate. He trails the president by only 7 points, 52-45 percent, in a head-to-head matchup. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee trails by 8 points, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney down 11 points to Obama.
In February, Paul won the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Action Conference for the second straight year.
Last Thursday, the day of the first GOP debate, one of Paul’s fabulously-labeled “money bombs” exploded with the announcement of $1 million in contributions for the Paul campaign.
The Tea Party, which drove the GOP to claim a majority of the House in the mid-term elections, grew largely out of the ashes of his 2008 presidential campaign, which emphasized limited government and a return to constitutional principles. Since then, the Tea Party has bullied the Republican leadership in the House to force budget cuts at the risk of shutting down the government and collectively become the most persistent critic of the Obama presidency on financial regulatory reform and health care.
The roots of all of this are in the libertarian mind of Rep. Paul.