by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Dear Glenn,

First of all, congratulations on deciding to become a community organizer for the cause of liberty and prosperity, as reported all over the media recently. You will be a stark contrast to the Marxist in the White House who boasts of his “community organizing” efforts for the exact opposite cause, ACORN-style socialism as defined by its “People’s Platform.” (His nationalization of banks, General Motors, and possibly health care, and his administration’s bombastic, anti-capitalist rhetoric, reminds me a lot of Lenin’s first months in power.)

Glenn, I’m writing to offer a few suggestions with regard to your upcoming community organizing efforts, which I’m sure will attract huge media attention and could potentially be very influential. First, you really need to “man up” those “Five Pledges” of yours, especially Pledges 1 and 2. There you say you are in favor of a balanced budget, and that government should not increase the financial burden on taxpayers “during difficult economic times.”

I certainly agree with the last part of this statement. Raising taxes during a depression is exactly the opposite of what even a central-planning Keynesian would advocate. This only highlights the fact that Obama is not a Keynesian central planner, as Democratic presidents usually are (and most Republicans as well), but a central planner of the Marxian variety. Marxists want to destroy the existing economic system, creating a social catastrophe that they hope will allow them to foment a revolution and consolidate their political power. Keynesians are merely neo-mercantilists who use Keynesian ideology to pull the wool over the public’s eyes with regard to their policy of perpetual political plunder under the guise of a perpetual quest for prosperity.

But come on, Glenn, don’t fall for that Big Government propaganda line about the alleged virtues of a balanced budget. What the government establishment means by budgetary balance is a devotion to endless tax increases to fund all of their pie-in-the-sky special-interest spending programs. According to this propaganda line a doubling, tripling, or quadrupling of government spending, and the consequent shrinking of private-sector prosperity, is perfectly fine as long as taxes are also doubled, tripled, or quadrupled at the same time. Americans already pay more in taxes than medieval serfs did, so what’s so good about waiting for “good economic times” to be plundered and robbed even more?

I notice that you frequently display a picture of Thomas Jefferson on the television screen during your Fox News Channel program. You would do well to dump those first two pledges and, in their place, adopt what Mr. Jefferson said in his first inaugural address:

[A] wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government . . .

Saying that government “shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned” means there should be no taxes on earnings. If you’re serious about calling yourself a Jeffersonian, Glenn, you would advocate the total elimination of income taxation (for starters), and not potentially endless increases of it “during good times.” You should also abandon that Pledge #3 about “energy independence.” Such rhetoric is just another protectionist smokescreen, no different from those who insist that we must free ourselves of foreign beef, tomatoes, cars, etc. Isolating ourselves from the international division of labor is a good recipe for economic disaster.

Your pledge #5 is also highly problematic. You say, “I believe the United States of America is the greatest country on earth and therefore will not apologize for policies or actions which have served to free more and feed more people around the world than any other nation on the planet.” The problem with this is that you equate “the United States of America” with the federal government. I think your confusion stems for a misunderstanding of the difference between nationalism and patriotism. A nationalist, as my old friend Clyde Wilson has said, is someone who promotes the aggrandizement of the state in all its “glory.” A patriot, in sharp contrast, is someone who simply loves his country and its people.

Your statement is way too nationalistic. It seems to be a version of the neocon propaganda line that “We saved Europe from the Nazis in World War II, therefore, every successive military intervention, no matter how misguided, and no matter how many innocent foreigners are murdered, is justified. The rest of the world should just shut up.” This is what the neocons at the Claremont Institute and the American Enterprise Institute would call “statesmanship,” but “arrogant, imperialistic propaganda” would be more accurate.

Good luck with the Washington, D.C. rally that you’re planning for next August at the Lincoln Memorial. One more suggestion: Hold the rally at the Jefferson Memorial instead. Lincoln was a tyrant who waged total war on his own citizens, orchestrating the murder of some 350,000 of them, including 50,000 Southern civilians. Jefferson was the founding generation’s champion of liberty. In his first inaugural address Lincoln first made an ironclad defense of slavery, including a promise to support its enshrinement in the U.S. Constitution, while threatening “bloodshed” and“invasion” over tax collection. He said it was his “duty to collect the duties and imposts,” and“beyond that there will not be an invasion of any state.” The tariff on imports had just been doubled two days earlier. “Pay Up or Die” was his message.

Contrast this, Glenn, with what Thomas Jefferson said in his first inaugural address: “If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” This could not possibly be more different from Lincoln’s “Do As I Say Or Die”commandment. After all, secession or “separation” from the British Empire is how America was created. Secession was “the” principle of the American Revolution according to George Washington’s Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering. Since the theme of your television program on the Fox News Channel is “Refounding America,” I think you should highlight and discuss the right of secession and its virtues on your program every single day. It is probably the only real hope that we have to escape Obammunism.

If you’re not convinced, consider this: In a January 29, 1804 letter to Dr. Joseph Priestly, Jefferson wrote that“Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants as those of the eastern . . . and did I now foresee a separation [i.e., secession] at some future day, yet I should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern . . .” In an August 12, 1803 letter to his friend John Breckenridge on the subject of the New England Federalists, who were at that time threatening to secede from the union, Jefferson said that if there were a “separation” then “God bless them both [North and South] & keep them in the union if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better.”

As you can see, Glenn, Lincoln was in many ways the anti-Jefferson, which is to say, an enemy of liberty. Consider Mr. Jefferson’s most famous publication, The Declaration of Independence. In that document the states are said to be “free and independent.” Lincoln disagreed and waged total war on the Southern states to “prove” himself right. They were not free and independent, he insisted, despite the clear language of the Declaration and of all the other founding documents on this matter.

In his “Train of Abuses” condemnation of the King of Great Britain Jefferson said “He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly…” Lincoln imprisoned members of the Maryland legislature, deported a Democratic congressman, and imposed military rule on parts of the South that became conquered territory during the war. This is no different from what King George III did.

“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone,” Jefferson wrote. By suspending habeas corpus and imprisoning tens of thousands of Northern citizens without any due process, Lincoln made his will the law of the land, just as King George III had done.

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance,” said Jefferson in the Declaration. Myriad new bureaucracies, including an internal revenue bureaucracy, were created to run the occupied states during the war, and all states after the war.

“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.” This is exactly what Lincoln did by suspending the writ of habeas corpus and ordering the mass arrest of thousands of political dissenters in the North during the war.

“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.” The legislatures of the Southern states did not invite a federal invasion, as required by the “insurrection clause” of the U.S. Constitution in cases of insurrections, which did not exist anyway in 1861. The Party of Lincoln kept standing armies in the South for a decade after the war while the states were ruled as military dictatorships under the direction of the Republican Party.

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws . . .” Lincoln ignored the Constitution completely. Nowhere is a president given the constitutional authority to invade his own country, suspend habeas corpus, wage war without consent of Congress, deport congressmen, shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers, etc., etc.

“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.” Lincoln blockaded Southern ports during the war, and was a lifelong protectionist of the worst kind. His party imposed average tariffs in the 50 percent range for almost half a century after the war.

“For imposing taxes on us without consent.” The South did not consent to paying a doubled import tariff. Lincoln kept the promise that he made in his first inaugural address and launched a military invasion of the entire South to force them to pay “his” duties and imposts.

“For depriving us in many cases, of the right of Trial by jury.” How else could one describe Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus?

“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coast, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies, of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny.” Well, Southerners certainly weren’t“protected” by Lincoln’s invasion of their country; Southern ports were blockaded and Southern ships were sunk; entire Southern towns were burned to the ground by the Union Army under Sherman and others; the lives of some 350,000 Southerners were snuffed out; hundreds of thousands of European mercenaries were paid to wage war on American citizens by the Lincoln regime. “Death, desolation and tyranny” is a perfect description of the Lincoln administration.

Glenn, I know that you have praised Lincoln for “persevering” in his mass murder of fellow citizens from the Southern states until he finally “prevailed.” This of course is an essential part of the neocon/Lincoln Cult party line. It has been repeated endlessly on your own Fox News Channel by all those neocons who keep telling us that we should never, ever, withdraw our military from the Middle East until “the job is finished” (which would probably be long after we are both dead, if ever). But did you know that all other countries of the world that ended slavery in the 19th century, the British, Dutch, Spaniards, French, Danes, Swedes – all did sopeacefully without a war? And did you know that slavery was also ended peacefully in all of the Northern states, including New York where slavery still existed in the early 1850s? (See the book, Slavery in New York.) I highly recommend that you read Jim Powell’s excellent book, Greatest Emancipations: How the West Ended Slavery,which describes in great detail how the rest of the world ended slavery peacefully instead of using slaves as political pawns in a war that was not about them but was a struggle for political power, as all wars are.

This calls into question the fairy tale about Lincoln and emancipation that all Lincoln Cultists repeat endlessly. The war was all a part of some grand strategy to free the slaves, they tell us. But what kind of “statesman” would ignore all of world history including the history of his own country (in the Northern states) with regard to how slavery was ended and plunge his country into the bloodiest war in human history up to that point? Is this “grand strategy” that caused the death of almost 700,000 Americans and maimed several times that number for life a praiseworthy one?

Glenn, if you are upset about the Fed and its showering of corporate welfare on Wall Street banksters and myriad other fat-cat corporations, you should also know that Lincoln spent his entire adult life championing the “American System” of Alexander Hamilton, which was the only policy plank of the Whig Party that Lincoln belonged to for more than twenty years before becoming a Republican. The “American System,” which was really the corrupt British mercantilist system designed for America, involved a central bank that would print money to finance corporate welfare for railroad corporations and others, along with high, protectionist tariffs which are also, of course, a form of corporate welfare. It was Lincoln’s National Currency Acts that resurrected central banking in America and led to the creation of the Fed. No member of the old Whig Party was a more forceful proponent of central banking – a bank run by politicians out of the nation’s capital – than Abraham Lincoln was.

What Lincoln’s Whig Party (which morphed into the Republican Party after the Whig Party imploded in the early 1850s) stood for was perfectly described by the famous playwright and law partner of Clarence Darrow, Edgar Lee Masters of Illinois, in his book, Lincoln the Man. It was a “political system which doles favors to the strong in order to win and to keep their adherence to the government. [It] offered shelter to devious schemes and corrupt enterprises . . . [and] a people taxed to make profits for enterprises that cannot stand alone . . . . Its principles were plunder and nothing else.”

In light of this, I think it would be an absurd farce to hold a rally protesting the Fed, corporate welfare, bailouts, Big Government, etc. at the Lincoln Memorial. Thomas Jefferson opposed every one of these policies, as did his political heirs, the big majority of whom were Democrats and neither Whigs nor Republicans. Hold the rally at the Jefferson Memorial. Best of luck to you.

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.