I prefer to respond to reader comments in a separate post. This way, I have more formatting options. As a separate post, I have more time to read and review the response. Some people read the RSS feed, which doesn't include comments, and some people might not go back to reread posts for the comments.
I'm still amused by the things people Google search. I have many more pages now, so more searches match my blog. For example, someone was searching for "suing federal reserve as a monopoly". I thought that was interesting. Even though the Federal Reserve is a monopoly and a price-fixing cartel, you won't find relief through the legal system. The Federal Reserve is a massive criminal organization, but what they are doing is perfectly legal. With all the money, it's very easy to buy up all the politicians and get them to write whatever laws you want! If you don't like the Federal Reserve, your only option is to switch to an alternate monetary system and stop paying taxes.
In Google Analytics, the type of visit I like the best is the "direct traffic". That means that someone has my blog bookmarked and is directly visiting it.
I am still shocked by which posts are be popular. I thought my post on The 9/11 Truth Movement would be more popular, but I guess that's already old news to most people.
A whole bunch of people Google searched for "Who's the richest man in the world?", or a variant thereof, and found my blog. I thought it was some sort of school assignment, but the results weren't geographically concentrated. I wonder if any of them found my answer useful?
Below, the anonymous poster says I should promote my blog on "askmen.com". According to Google Analytics, my blog is now being discussed on "stormfront.org", which is a white nationalist organization site. I don't know whether I should be honored or offended. Looking around, they have some good topics. Maybe I should make some posts and save my responses for here also! For example, they had a discussion thread highlighting the weaknesses of the educational system. I disagree with their analysis: The educational system isn't biased against whites. The educational system is biased against everyone!
This is annoying. I can't find the specific thread on "stormfront.org" where my blog was mentioned. It always shows up as "showthread.php" in Google Analytics. When I try to search, the forum searching facility is inadequate.
On sites like "stormfront.org", the posters there have glimpsed parts of the truth, but they're hung up on their race-based stereotypes. The economic and political system isn't unfairly biased against white people. The economic and political system is unfairly biased against everyone! Maybe I've made all the progress I can on "Ron Paul Forums" and should see what the posters on "stormfront.org" are like?
After much searching, I found the post on "stormfront.org" that was promoting my blog.
If you're promoting my blog on other forums, I'd appreciate it if you let me know the exact location. This way, if there are any interesting comments, I could post also.
In Reader Mail #4b - Who Needs the Government, an Anonymous reader says:
I read your response to my comments about Catholicism, usury etc.
I think you were a little harsh in your response, calling me a 'dumb ass', but hey I will not hold it against you. :-) I think you misunderstood my comments, I know I was not very clear, I am usually in a rush and do not want to prolong my comments un-necessarily.
When I said there would be social breakdown, I meant if there was a collapse of the economy "wall street crash" style. Supermarkets would empty, food, water, electricity supply would stop..looters and thugs who are armed would roam the streets etc.
Sure it can happen that the state dies and people manage to develop a alternative anarchist way...but the people would have to be independent enough to do so, not dumbed down by 'The State' and its compulsory Schooling system for decades. I think many people would have no idea how to cope with the collapse of their nanny State.
The Muslims I linked, in my last comment say that Islamic Banking is a trojan horse, designed by bankers, to involve and integrate Muslims into the State. Islam is government without State. No standing armies and no taxation, except for the Zakat for Muslims and the Jizya for non Muslims which are distributed according to known and defined categories. And these are very low.
History moves in cycles, there is no progress or Hegelian dialectic, all attempts to 'fix' a static system are doomed and only undertaken by the State. Societies and individuals like all natural phenomena grow, become prosperous, decay and become corrupt. A anarchist system would not last forever, just as a State system would not, they grow, become corrupt decay, die or rejuvenate along different lines.
I think you should promote your blog on askmen.com forums...I have been posting your link there with regard to indebtedness etc, some people think getting in debt, paying mortgages etc. is 'normal' and unavoidable. 'dumb asses' as you would say.
I don't feel guilty about calling an anonymous poster a "dumbass". I've had quite a few people say the exact same thing to me: A monopolistic government is absolutely needed and people would be unable to survive without it. If those are your assumptions, then there's no point in debating you and you're wasting my time. I'm not going to argue axioms with people. My argument is: "It might be possible to have a stable society without a monopolistic government. Let's perform an experiment."
A "wall street style" crash isn't that likely. The Federal Reserve always has a credible weapon for fighting hyperdeflation: it can print more money! For hyperinflation, the Federal Reserve can jack up interest rates and use The Compound Interest Paradox to suck surplus money out of the economy. The only way the system completely breaks is if people switch to alternate monetary system and start refusing to pay taxes.
The educational system has intentionally dumbed down people so they would be dependent on the government. It's kind of a contradiction. People have to be smart enough to do their jobs, but not so smart that they are aware of the flaws in the economic and political system. Fortunately, I think it's only necessary for the smartest 1% of the people to get started on a new economic system, and then they could bring the average person along with them.
I don't see how you claim Islam is an anarchist religion. Christianity and Islam are both slave religions, as far as I can tell. I didn't see anything interesting on those links you sent me. All the governments that call themselves "Islamic" are dictatorships just like all the others.
I'm not convinced that an anarchist system would be unstable. Once you convince enough people that a monopolistic government is evil, and make sure they remember, a new government would not be established again. Previously, anarchist societies were destroyed by invaders. If you have a society where most people are hostile to the idea of government, and enough people own a gun, it might be stable.
I don't need to promote my blog on "askmen.com", if you are posting it there. I noticed from Google Analytics that someone was mentioning my blog on askmen.com. However, I tried a forum search and could not find the specific post. My regular audience is around 50+ people now, and some of them seem to be mentioning my blog elsewhere. I sometimes directly promote it on the forums I visit, which are primarily Ron Paul forums now.
I've been thinking about ways to reach a wider audience. I've been thinking of converting the content from my blog into a standup comedy routine. I'm not interested in wasting my time getting a PhD, and university professors don't have academic freedom anyway. I don't have access to a TV station, although giving performances and putting them on YouTube might work.
In The Book of the Banker, the same Anomyous reader says:
Fractional Reserve Banking is based on lies, no other business would be allowed to sell goods they do not own or posses...it would be fraud.
Some anarchists say government without state, and property is theft.
I think they define the state as everything regulatory and otherwise which controls and takes the wealth of the individuals and society.
Government without state is where some generally accepted rules are applied not top down, but by the people themselves and they turn to a leader for arbitration and judgment. The leader makes sure no corruption sets in and the people abide by their self-chosen rules and way of life. For instance in a free market, someone is selling faulty good before they escape with the money. So some regulation is necessary, inspectors making sure the market is not corrupted.
I think primitive societies like the Celts were 'anarchist' with the absence of a centralized state power to regulate them, until the Romans and other States invaded.
Fractional Reserve banking is not, by itself, evil. That's a common misconception. It's the conspiracy between banks and government that is evil. When taxes can only be paid via bank-issued money, the banks have a monopoly/oligopoly. In a truly free market, fractional reserve banking is an honest business. In a truly free market, fractional reserve banking legitimately expands the money supply, if the volume of metal is insufficient for trade. This argument is really complicated, and I'm planning a full post on it later.
I disagree with the statement "Property is theft." Private property was a great invention and has led to great advances. The right of contract enforcement was also a great invention. The problem is that the government has an abusive monopoly on property rights and enforcement of contracts.
After researching this issue, I have noticed that there are several different flavors of anarchism. The flavor I like is called agorism. In agorism, individual property rights are respected, and individuals have a right to form contracts. Agorists recognize that the problem is the government's abusive monopoly.
There is one point that is confused with "Property is theft." This is "almost all property is not legitimately owned". Many American farmers had their farms stolen from them during the Great Depression; they could not repay their mortgages when the Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates and crashed the money supply. This confiscated land was mostly sold to large corporate farms. Almost all property and wealth, in the present, is stolen property. However, you have to start somewhere. The agorist says that, after the government collapses, the current occupants of the land become the legitimate owners. On an industrial farm, it would become owned by the people who work there. A factory would become owned by its workers. The telecommunications equipment would become owned by the people who repair it.
For example, suppose someone borrows from a bank via the Federal Reserve to buy an apartment building. They have received a massive government interest rate subsidy. Is their claim to own the apartment building legitimate? Whose ownership claim is more legitimate, the person who received a massive government subsidy, or the people currently living there?
Most current property ownership claims are not legitimate. However, that does not mean that private property itself is a bad invention. When the government collapses, all claims of property ownership will need to be sorted out.
Nobody in the USA owns any property at all. It is all owned by the government, because property taxes (i.e. rent) must be paid or your land will be stolen.
In a truly free market, you might be reluctant to buy from a complete stranger. When you go into a store to buy something, there is some assurance that the store will still be there in the future, in case there is a problem with your product. In a truly free market, there will be buyer protection associations, that will highlight who are the trustworthy sellers. In fact, after the government collapses, you will have *MORE* protections against faulty products than in the present. For example, in the current economic system, this woman bought shoes that injured her, and she was left with no recourse (warning: that link is very offensive).
For example, suppose someone bought a lead-painted toy from China. The US-based company selling it denies responsibility. What valid claim would you have under the current system? The current system fails to protect buyers. Consider another example. The FDA is a "captured regulator". The FDA represents the interests of drug companies more so than the interests of the average person. If a drug turns out to be harmful, the drug companies say "the drug must be safe because the FDA approved it". Under the current system, individual states are not allowed to place restrictions on drugs beyond the FDA's. Individual states are not allowed to process lawsuits for damages due to harmful drugs, because that is interpreted as usurping the FDA's power.
I found an interesting link on a stable anarchist society in Iceland. It fell apart when they were invaded and forcibly converted to Christianity. Once taxes to the church were compulsory, that eliminated all the free market competition that kept the system stable. The Archive of Libertarian Nation has many interesting articles.
In Voting Libertarian is Pointless, the same Anonymous reader says:
I agree all forms of tax are theft. However how would you defend this claim, if 99% vote for it? "Democracies" are programed to accept 'majority vote' which gives 'power' to representatives of the people.
btw I have been reading Herbert Spencer The Man versus The State and am pleasantly surprised by his ideas. I was led to believe he was a crusty Social Darwinist and Malthusian before I started to read this book. I think he makes some great arguments against The State and majority rule.
You do not have the right to steal from me. By voting, you cannot authorize someone else to steal from me. Even if 99% or 99.9% of the population votes for a compulsory tax, that does not make it valid.
Of course, if 99.9% of the people were conspiring against you, it would be very hard to defend yourself. In practice, in the current system, a handful of people are stealing from everyone else. They cover up the theft through layers of bureaucracy. Heavy propaganda and defective education keeps everyone complacent.
Ideally, it would be nice to find a group of people willing to mutually defend themselves against taxation. It could be a group of people living together self-sufficiently, with the ability to use force to defend themselves from invasion. However, that is impractical at this time, because the red market's resources are too great. A more attractive method is for a group of people to trade in secret. They trade with each other, using a fair monetary system, and don't report their transactions to the government for taxation, regulation, and confiscation.
Nowadays, I tend to only read books that are available for free online.
On the Ron Paul Forum, someone asked:
What is the free market perspective on public television and libraries?
In a free market, there would be private libraries. You would pay a membership fee. For example, it doesn't really pay to keep a book after you've finished reading it. If you belonged to a private library, you could buy a book and then sell it to the library when you're finished with it.
In the present, there are some private libraries that cater to specialized interests. However, the existence of public libraries minimizes the demand for private libraries.
If you take the extreme viewpoint that intellectual property has no legitimacy at all, private electronic libraries could make many books widely available cheaply.
Public television, with funding paid by the government, is not "truly free". Government funding comes with censorship and restrictions. A truly free broadcasting model would be pay-per-view broadcasts over the Internet, sort of like YouTube.
The problem is that all broadcast television has a government-endorsed monopoly.
In Slave Rally September 15, a clueless anonymous poster says:
So this blog entry is not a waste of your time?
I'm trying to prevent other people from wasting their time.
The only solution that works is the "agorist revolution" solution. You should develop your own private fair monetary system. You should do work and not report it to the government for taxation, confiscation, and regulation. That's the only solution that hurts the bad guys.
It's your patriotic duty to avoid paying taxes as much as possible. It's your patriotic duty to use a fair monetary system as much as possible. You should refuse to support an illegitimate government.
In 2006, the Democrats were elected to Congress with the expectation they would stop the Iraq war. They didn't do that.
Voting is a waste of time. Political activism and protests is a waste of time. A protest is worse than a waste of time, because it makes you feel like you're accomplishing something when you're really accomplishing nothing.
The Iraq war has been a massive loot and pillage operation. Politically-connected private military contractors have made a fortune. I don't see how someone could pay income taxes and use Federal Reserve Points to support such a war.
In case you've forgotten, real money is gold or silver or barter credits.
The people who think they control the government aren't interested in the average person. They're only interested in lining their pockets. You have to accept that the current economic and political system isn't working, and it's time to try something else.
When you hold a political protest or rally, you're playing by the rules of the current defective political system. The correct answer is that the current political system has no legitimacy or usefulness.
Does anyone out there know if the September 15 Slave Rally received any mainstream media coverage?
In Ron Paul Doublecross Prediction, an anonymous poster says:
revolutions never work even if you are right. They usually cause chaos, terror and murder.
It is possible to have a nonviolent revolution. For example, the fall of the Soviet Union was a nonviolent revolt. The USA is also a communist nation, so it's possible that its collapse could also be nonviolent.
Most revolts are organized by a group of people who want themselves to be the new red market. In previous revolts, people didn't want to completely eliminate government. They want themselves to be declared the new government.
Also, I'm advocating for a nonviolent economic revolt. People should start ignoring the government as much as possible. Once the grey market economy becomes large enough, the government would just collapse under its own incompetence. There might be some violence from the former red market workers, when they see they are losing their monopoly. In such a case, it would be acceptable to use violence to defend yourself. However, I suspect that most government policemen will walk off their job once it's obvious they aren't going to get paid.
A nonviolent economic revolt is a possibility. That's the only type of resistance that has a legitimate chance of succeeding. Once you've realized the fundamental structural flaws in the current economic and political system, you'll see that's the only course of action worth pursuing.
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