from National Expositor

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has delivered a riveting “State of The Republic” address on his Campaign for Liberty website, orating his thoughts on where the U.S. stands as a nation and what the future holds.

Paul warns that if the country continues along the course it is on, we will witness a three stage slide into social and political chaos, beginning with the current financial crisis, a coming dollar crisis, and culminating in mass unrest.

In a Campaign for Liberty update, Congressman and Dr. Ron Paul (R-TX) discusses the impacts on monetary policy that recent events will have.  He also talks about the U.S. Dollar and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

by Larken Rose

The “Campaign for Liberty” is about to have a huge event in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in just a couple of weeks. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll be there (as a spectator), but I know I won’t be speaking there.

Being faced with the tyrannical monstrosity that now resides in Washington, a lot of pro-freedom folks are talking about how everyone who loves liberty should do whatever it takes to “get along” and to “work together” toward our common goals. The question is, what ARE those supposed common goals?

Let me start by saying that I have a lot of respect for people like Ron Paul, Andrew Napolitano, Adam Kokesh, and many others, for their vocal opposition to tyranny. And it’s great to see so many people, with the numbers growing every day, aware enough of what is going on that they want to do something about it. But what is it that “C4L” (Campaign for Liberty) is actually doing? I hate to be a stick in the mud, but can we pause the comradery and excitement long enough to ask what the game plan is? What is the end goal of all the time and effort being put into things such as C4L?

I know people will get mad at me for saying this, but most of the effort is, by its very nature, doomed to fail. The reason for this is quite simple: any effort to take over “the system,” in order to make it be pro-freedom, is utterly pointless. Not only is it impossible for “government” to be used to support freedom, but playing the tyrants’ games, by supporting this or that candidate, or pushing for this or that legislation, only LEGITIMIZES the notion that politicians have some divine right to rule.

In fact, it’s one of the most brilliant tyrant tricks of all times, and I discuss it in my first book, “How To Be a Successful Tyrant.”  If the tyrant builds into his regime the ILLUSION that the peasants have some say in the matter, some recourse within the tyrant’s own “system,” by which they can beg for freedom and justice, they will rarely actually resist. They will instead waste all of their time and effort trying to influence a system of control that is made entirely of the tyrants, by the tyrants, and for the tyrants.

A lot of liberty-minded people “run for office” with the best of intentions, when what they should be doing is running FROM “office” as fast as they possibly can. What they fail to understand is that the problem is not the particular lying crook that happens to currently occupy that office; THE PROBLEM IS THE OFFICE ITSELF.  Every “election” is nothing but a ritual designed to legitimize a ruling class, to make it look like the master somehow has the “consent” of his victims, or somehow “represents” them. It’s nothing but a show, designed to redirect any discontent among the peasants into completely ineffectual and fruitless endeavors (voting and lobbying). In other words, it offers the slaves a means of “redress” that never accomplishes anything, but gives them an outlet for their displeasure with the masters, so they don’t resort to actual resistance.

Even if it were possible to take over the system (and it isn’t), you can’t achieve freedom by BECOMING the ruler; you can only achieve freedom by tearing down the entire notion that the Divine Right of Politicians is valid to begin with. To put it another way, you can’t show your support for the concept of unalienable rights by ASKING THE TYRANTS to let you do something. Playing that game implicitly acknowledges that you DO NOT HAVE any unalienable rights, because it implies that you need “legal” PERMISSION to do something. (My Fourth of July rant*, which has caused quite a stir, touched on that point.)

In short, the entire concept of a “Libertarian Party” is a contradiction. The principle of non-aggression is absolutely incompatible with any “government,” no matter how small and “limited” you try to make it. The very premise that some group has the right to enact and enforce “laws” on the rest of us is logically incompatible with self-ownership and individual rights.  And by running for office, or voting, or begging your congressman to vote for or against some piece of “legislation,” you are CONDONING the notion of a ruling class, and REINFORCING the myth that such pseudo-religious political rituals are in any way legitimate, and that they can actually bestow upon anyone–even a good guy–the right to rule. In other words, instead of trying to tear down the authoritarian superstitions that allow for tyranny, most supposedly pro-freedom folk are trying to co-op it, in the hopes of somehow using the power cult as a tool for freedom.

Sorry, but it can’t be done. We all know how hard it is for someone who likes freedom to compete with the collectivist liars. Ron Paul showed just how hard the establishment will work to protect its power from outsiders. But even when a miracle occurs, and “limited government” folk get into office, what good does it do? Do we all remember the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” where a bunch of libertarian-leaning conservatives got into Congress? Remember all their promises to shut down a bunch of bureaucracies, slash taxes and dramatically reduce regulation and oppression? And what was the result? “Government” grew, freedom shrank.

I even believe that some of the people who ran in 1994 meant what they said (while others were just exploiting the anti-socialist fervor of the day). But they quickly learned that the show put on for the cameras is NOT how things actually work in Washington, and that reducing government power is something the system CANNOT be used for.

I hope that no one is still so silly to believe that the United States government is even trying to “represent” us. Like every other “government,” it is nothing more than a control machine, that cares about its subjects as much as a butcher cares about cows.  It’s not that there is some miscommunication, or that a good idea was spoiled with some “corruption”; it’s that the entire system exists for one purpose: the subjugation of mankind. As such, the only people it will ever serve are those who love to dominate their fellow man. (This reminds me a lot of the “One Ring” in The Lord of the Rings. Any attempt to use it for good is doomed to backfire.)

How much of history consists of the downtrodden masses desperately trying to get THEIR guy onto the throne? And how often does it work? Hardly ever. And even when it DOES work–when the people DO manage to replace the current tyrant with their own guy–then what happens? He becomes the NEW tyrant, even if he’s not trying to. (As an example, I believe that Ronald Reagan actually believed in limited government, and yet the system STILL found a way to turn his presidency into an expanding “government,” by way of the military and the immoral “war on drugs.”)

Government is not your friend. It never will be. It cannot be. You can’t co-op a system of extortion and oppression and use it as a tool for freedom. There can’t be such thing as a good slave-master.  As long as the slaves invest their time and effort begging the slave-master to be nice, or trying to appoint a new slave-master, they will STILL BE SLAVES. Only when the slaves stop THINKING like slaves, and realize they don’t NEED the master’s permission to be free, can they be free in mind. And if their minds are never free, their bodies will never be, either.

I will keep saying that, and conservatives and Libertarians will keep criticizing me for it. And they will keep demonstrating, with all their well-intentioned, Herculean efforts, that “authority” cannot be used as a tool for freedom.

Instead of continually trying to get freedom “legalized,” those who value individual liberty should be working to come up with ways to outwit, escape, resist or defeat the tentacles of “government.”  Yes, I mean they should be figuring out ways to be free, despite the fact that freedom is, and always has been, “illegal.”

by Karen Kwiatkowski

The immediate and obvious answer to this question might be “Yes, of course there is.” An anti-liberty mindset would explain our wars — at home on freedoms we like to think were sanctified in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, and abroad on other people and other countries who do not quickly enough bend to our great will.

The anti-liberty mindset would also explain how Americans quietly bear government taxation that consumes over half of what they make each hour, and each year. At this point, logic tells us that no future generation will be able to pay the obligations taken on by our government. But an anti-liberty mindset certainly explains why Americans tend to believe that our children somehow will be willing to try!

If a natural and predominant anti-liberty mindset exists in 21st century America, notwithstanding this country’s 19th century groundbreaking role in everyman over every government, then the libertarian movement, whether as a unique political party, as green shoots in mainstream politics, and even as a social networking opportunity is doomed.

There are many signs of an entrenched anti-liberty mindset — and Will Grigg’sfascinating reports of everyday police action against individuals in this country communicate largely that most people still side with the police. Most who watch the ubiquitous cop or military shows on TV, whether dramatically posed or reality postured, tend to cheer for the state over the individual. A recent annual Harris poll asking for the “most respected” occupations found that of jobs with highest prestige in the eyes of the “people” are nearly all government enforcers. The only occupation with over 60% in the “highest prestige” category was that of firefighter, the one-third of firefighters who are employed full-time as firefighters working for local government. Over 50% of poll respondents believed that scientists, doctors, nurses, military officers and teachers were positions of highest prestige. Given the flow of federal and state dollars into these occupations, all may be considered government jobs of a similar sort. Police officers and clergy rated 40% for most prestige. Garnering less than a 40% rating for “highest prestige” in descending order, were the generally market-based private professions of engineering, farming, architecture, elected members of Congress, law, business leadership, athletics, journalism, union leadership, entertainment, banking, acting, stockbroking, accounting, and real estate.

Charles Burris recently shared a report paid for by those in authority that examined whether public school discipline practices “foster the public good.” The report itself was not surprising. My several years of teaching in a public high school left me amazed at the prison-like atmosphere, minute-by-minute demands for submission and conformity, and an underlying sense of institutional threat. That experience confirmed to me that public school is not, and was never, about creating learners or thinkers, but instead an attempt to develop automatons unpracticed in independence, and consequently unable to effectively question authority. What was interesting in this 2009 report was the underlying theme that chronic troublemakers in school should be removed into — dare I say — some sort of educational internment camps.

Lastly, we have the recent non-story of employee allegations under oath that Erik Prince, former CEO of Xe, nee Blackwater, arranged for and threatened murder of both Americans and non-combatants in the several wars in which Xe/Blackwater is supporting overseas. One would expect that a scandal of this nature might be treated with the same frenzy as the Bernie Madoff situation — but of course, these allegations are one of many reports that directly challenge the cherished idea of military service as a prestigious occupation and government killing as a moral endeavor.

It seems to me that the anti-liberty mindset is the most serious challenge facing America today — even beyond the ongoing catastrophe of our fiat-money system that continues to enable the corporate state. The fiat-money system will eventually crash the state — but we will still be battling the anti-liberty mindset in the smoking ruins.

However, the anti-liberty mindset may be itself vulnerable to collapse. The cycle of state growth is corruption, overreach, terror, and eventual collapse. In spite of admonitions to respect police and law enforcement, more and more people see these state agents as tax collectors, felons in uniform and pigs, no offense intended to the four legged variety. In terms of protection, we utilize private security systems that we pay for — no one today expects a policeman to actually be there when a crime is committed, or even to arrive until long after the assailant has fled. We get more crime solving on TV shows and books than we do in real life, where as a rule, no forensics are done and no sustained investigations materialize.

In spite of our purported respect for teachers, we really do not respect them at all. Instead, we have developed a well-deserved cross-generational contempt for teachers in government institutional settings. In the age of the Internet and online encyclopedias, where one is a click away from learning how to do nearly anything, and the great writings that may interest us are instantly accessible — we have teachers who wish instead for us to sit quietly and complete badly formulated true/false questions from even more badly written eight-pound textbooks. Confirming this is a recent story in national newspaper insert called “American Profile.” The second youngest person who actually remembered an exceptional teacher was a 39-year-old woman — and the teacher she remembers is currently her boss! The youngest was an 18-year-old college student who lauded her second grade teacher for “inspiring curiosity” and “being kind.” She must have had more recent teachers, but likely none who could be accused of inspiring either curiosity or humanity.

Finally, in spite of our ostensible regard for those who serve the state as members of the military, the long-term trends bear out that it is less respect we have for these people than it is fear and dislike of them. America has already evolved a Praetorian class, with a volunteer military made up of people groomed socially, genetically, and geographically to serve the state, and who are socially, economically and geographically unwelcome in most communities after their service. Most military retirees who identify as such, cluster in certain state supported locations near atrocious domestic military bases and expensive government health care. The mentally and physically wounded from our wars are kept unseen, unheard, often heavily medicated and out of journalistic view. Those others who truly integrate into civil society do so without reference to their military service, and keep it thankfully buried like any other mistake that is in the past.

Is there a natural anti-liberty mindset? No, there is not. Children want to ask questions, to explore, to experiment, and to think. People truly want charity, or as that word is also understood, kindness and love. In such an environment, liberty flourishes. But there is an artificial anti-liberty mindset promoted incessantly by all things state, and by all things political. It can be rejected, combated, and I hope, destroyed. The first step is to recognize that the anti-liberty mindset is not natural — in spite of the state’s sustained and subtle messages to the contrary.