Jericho: The Myths of History and the Evolution of Slavery

On the Absurdity of The State

Murray Rothbard

Let us assume... that a sizeable number of people suddenly arrive on Earth, and that they must now consider what sort of social arrangements to live under. One person or group of persons argues as follows (i.e., the typical argument for the State): “If each of us is allowed to remain free in all aspects, and particularly if each of us is allowed to retain weapons and the right of self-defense, then we will all war against each other, and society will be wrecked. Therefore, let us turn over all of our guns and all of our ultimate decision-making power and power to define and enforce our rights to the Jones family over there. The Jones family will guard us from our predatory instincts, keep social peace, and enforce justice.” Is it conceivable that anyone (except perhaps the Jones family itself) would spend one moment considering this clearly absurd scheme? The cry of “who would guard us from the Jones family, especially when we are deprived of our weapons?” would suffice to shout down such a scheme. And yet, given the acquisition of legitimacy from the fact of longevity given the longtime rule of the “Jones family” this is precisely the type of argument to which [supporters of the State] now blindly adhere.¹

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Assume a group of people, aware of the possibility of conflicts between them. Someone then proposes, as a solution to this human problem, that he (or someone) be made the ultimate arbiter in any such case of conflict, including those conflicts in which he is involved. Is this is a deal that you would accept? I am confident that he will be considered either a joker or mentally unstable. Yet this is precisely what all statists propose.²

1. Rothbard, Murray N. "The Inner Contradictions of the State." The Ethics of Liberty. New York: New York Universtiy, 1998. 175. Print.
2. Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. "The Role of Intellectuals and Anti-Intellectual Intellectuals." The Great Fiction. Baltimore: Laissez Faire Books, 2012. 35. Print.

The cycle

How many times till we learn?

1) In an environment of relative freedom, entrepreneurship and trade produces wealth and prosperity.

2) Increased wealth and prosperity leads to increased tax revenue.

3) Increased tax revenue leads to a stronger state.

4) Increased state intervention and restriction cripples economic activity.

5) The state outgrows the economy and eventually collapses from overreach.

6) In an environment of relative freedom...

Just a thought

The same people who complain about corporate personhood seem to have no problem with ascribing personhood to the corporate entity known as the state.

Like a great Colossus...

Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives.

All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you.

Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves?

You sow your crops in order that he may ravage them, you install and furnish your homes to give him goods to pillage; you rear your daughters that he may gratify his lust; you bring up your children in order that he may confer upon them the greatest privilege he knows is to be led into his battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made the servants of his greed and the instruments of his vengeance; you yield your bodies unto hard labor in order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures; you weaken yourselves in order to make him the stronger and the mightier to hold you in check.

From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.

Étienne de La Boétie - Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

The Common Good

By Puck T. Smith


Scene: A city street. A woman in a business suit is standing at a crosswalk waiting for the light to change as light traffic crosses the intersection. Diagonally across the intersection a destitute homeless man is huddled in a disheveled pile of filthy blankets. The are a few other people walking in the area. As she waits a large sedan pulls to the curb nearby. A well dressed man get out of the back seat and approaches her as another man sits at the wheel. 


Well dressed man, approaching the woman: Excuse me, miss.


The woman, looking up at him: Yes?


Well dressed man: Do you see that poor man over there?


Woman: Yes.


Well dressed man: It's a shame.


Woman, moving to cross the street as the light changes: I suppose it is.


Well dressed man, entering the crosswalk with her: Something should be done to help him.


Woman: It is very sad.


Well dressed man: Indeed. To think a society as rich as ours would have people in such wretched conditions.


Woman: Yes, it does say something about us.


Well dressed man, as they step up on the onto the curb from the crosswalk: I glad to hear you say so. I represent an organization dedicated to addressing the problems like these that plague society and we need your help.


Woman: I don't understand.


Well dressed man: Well, we have an important program to improve the situation, but it requires a great deal of money to implement and administer.


Woman: Well, if your asking me for a contribution I'm afraid I just don't have any money to spare.


Well dressed man: Miss, I need $100 from you.


Woman: Well, I don't have it so please excuse me.


She turns to walk away, but the man steps into her path.


Well dressed man: Miss, give me $100.


Woman: I told you, I don't have it. Now get out of my way.


Well dressed man, continuing to block her way: Miss if you don't have the money on you I will be happy to give you a ride to your bank to make a withdrawal. It's for a good cause.


The woman tries to dodge around him, but the car the man had gotten out of pulled up to the curb beside them. The driver opens the rear passenger door from the inside and the man begins to manhandle her into the car. The struggle for a moment and then the man pulls out a large pistol, points it at her face and cocks it. 


Well dressed man: Why are you making this so difficult. Don't resist. Do you hate poor people or something?


The woman screams. A few people nearby look up, but do nothing as he pushes her into car, slams the
slams shut as the car speeds off. The woman is a state near shock. 


Well dressed man: You should not resist, it will only make it worse. Why do you not want to help your fellow man? Have you no compassion?


Woman, with anger and fear in her voice: Where are you taking me?


Well dressed man: To your bank to make a withdrawal.


Woman, with an expression of panic on her face: How do you know what bank I use? Who are you?


Well dressed man: We know a great deal about you. As to who I am, it is not important. Our organization does not draw attention to individual members. Who we are is not important. All we asked it that we judged by our actions and results.


Woman: This is wrong, you have no right to do this to me.


Well dressed man: Miss, it is not a matter of rights, I have the authority.


Woman: What authority?


Well dressed man: I was appointed by the organization's Executive Committee who were duly elected by the members and supporters of our organization. Our General Assembly has authorized them to collect money for the poor and the have given me the responsibility to execute their decision.


Woman: But I had no part in that. I'm not part of your organization and I'm certainly not a supporter.


Well dressed man: Miss, because you have chosen not to participate does not relieve you of your obligations as outlined in the General Assembly's by-laws. Perhaps you'd care to change your mind, pay your share and become a part of the process.


The woman looks at him, speechless. 


After a few minutes, the car pulls over to the curb in front of a branch of the woman's bank. He opens the door and steps to the curb with his pistol still drawn. A few people nearby watch curiously, but none approach. He motions her to get out of the car. She slowly steps out and stands by the car. He motions with the pistol toward the entrance to the bank. Suddenly she kicked him in the crotch with all her might. He doubles over and she runs down the street. 


Well dressed man, raising his pistol, even as he is still bent over: Stop! Don't make me shoot!


She continues running. He steadies his aim and fires the pistol. The bullet hits the woman in the middle of her back. It explodes out the front of her chest in an eruption of blood and tissue. She falls face forward to the ground, dead instantly. 


Well dressed man, pulling himself upright: It's her fault, she made me do it. She should not have resisted the common good.

The National Security State

Fifty [two] years ago, Harry Truman replaced the old republic with a national-security state whose sole purpose is to wage perpetual wars, hot, cold, and tepid.

Exact date of replacement? February 27, 1947.

Place: The White House Cabinet Room.

Cast: Truman, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, a handful of congressional leaders

Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg told Truman that he could have his militarized economy only IF he first "scared the hell out of the American people" that the Russians were coming. Truman obliged. The perpetual war began. Representative government of, by, and for the people is now a faded memory. Only corporate America enjoys representation by the Congress and presidents that it pays for in an arrangement where no one is entirely accountable because those who have bought the government also own the media. Now, with the revolt of the Praetorian Guard at the Pentagon, we are entering a new and dangerous phase. Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all. We honor no treaties. We spurn international courts. We strike unilaterally wherever we choose. We give orders to the United Nations but do not pay our dues...we bomb, invade, subvert other states. Although We the People of the United States are the sole source of legitimate authority in this land, we are no longer represented in Congress Assembled. Our Congress has been hijacked by corporate America and its enforcer, the imperial military machine..." ~Gore Vidal.

Ten Lost Years

Nock: Turning Every Contingency Into A Resource

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." ~ Rahm Emanuel.

. . .many of our people were in hard straits; to some extent, no doubt, through no fault of their own, though it is now clear that in the popular view of their case, as well as in the political view, the line between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor was not distinctly drawn.

Popular feeling ran high at the time, and the prevailing wretchedness was regarded with undiscriminating emotion, as evidence of some general wrong done upon its victims by society at large, rather than as the natural penalty of greed, folly or actual misdoings; which in large part it was.

The State, always instinctively "turning every contingency into a resource" for accelerating the conversion of social power into State power, was quick to take advantage of this state of mind. All that was needed to organize these unfortunates into an invaluable political property was to declare the doctrine that the State owes all its citizens a living; and this was accordingly done.

It immediately precipitated an enormous mass of subsidized voting-power, an enormous resource for strengthening the State at the expense of society

~ Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy The State

Pollution

Excerpted from Practical Anarchy, by Stefan Molyneux.
It presupposes some knowledge of Dispute Resolution Organizations, or DROs.
Emphasis added by me.

POLLUTION
This is perhaps the greatest problem faced by free market theorists. It is worth spending a little time on outlining the worst possible scenario, to see how a voluntary system could solve it. However, it is important to first dispel the notion that the State currently deals effectively with pollution. Firstly, the most polluted land on the planet is State-owned, because States do not profit from retaining the value of their property. Secondly, the distribution of mineral, lumber and drilling rights is directly skewed towards bribery and corruption, because States never sell the land, but rather just the resource rights. A lumber company cannot buy woodlands from the State, just harvesting rights. Thus the State gets a renewable source of income, and can further coerce lumber companies by enforcing re-seeding. This, of course, tends to promote bribery, corruption and the creation of "fly-by-night" lumber companies which strip the land bare, but vanish when it comes time to re-seed. Selling State land to a private company easily solves this problem, because a company that was willing to re-seed would reap the greatest long-term profits from the woodland, and therefore would be able to bid the most for the land.

Also, it should be remembered that, in the realm of air pollution, States created the problem in the first place. In England, when industrial smokestacks first began belching fumes into the orchards of apple farmers, the farmers took the factory-owners to court, citing the common-law tradition of restitution for property damage. Sadly, however, the capitalists had gotten to the State courts first, and had more money to bribe with, employed more voting workers, and contributed more tax revenue than the farmers - and so the farmer's cases were thrown out of court. The judge argued that the "common good" of the factories trumped the "private need" of the farmers. The free market did not fail to solve the problem of air pollution - it was forcibly prevented from doing so because the State was corrupted.

However, it is a sticking point, so it is worth examining in detail how the free market might solve the problem of air pollution. One egregious example often cited is a group of houses downwind from a new factory which is busy night and day coating them in soot.

Now, when a man buys a new house, isn't it important to him to ensure that he will not be coated with someone else's refuse? The need for a clean and safe environment is so strong that it is a clear invitation for enterprising entrepreneurs to sweat bullets figuring out how to provide it.

If a group of homeowners is afraid of pollution, the first thing they will do is buy pollution insurance, which is a natural response to a situation where costs cannot be predicted but consequences are dire.

Let us say that a homeowner named John buys pollution insurance which pays him two million dollars if the air in or around his house becomes polluted. In other words, as long as John's air remains clean, his insurance company makes money.

One day, a plot of land up-wind of John's house comes up for sale. Naturally, his insurance company would be very interested in this, and would monitor the sale. If the purchaser is some private school, all is well (assuming John has not bought noise pollution insurance). If, however, the insurance company discovers that Sally's House of Polluting Paint Production is interested in purchasing the plot of land, it will likely spring into action, taking one of the following courses:

• Buying the land itself, then selling it to a non-polluting buyer;
• Getting assurances from Sally that her company will not pollute;
• Paying Sally to enter into a non-polluting contract.

If, however, someone at the insurance company is asleep at the wheel, and Sally buys the land and puts up her polluting factory, what happens then?

Well, then the insurance company is on the hook for $2M to John (assuming for the moment that only John bought pollution insurance). Thus, it can afford to pay Sally up to $2M to reduce her pollution and still be cash-positive. This payment could take many forms, from the installation of pollution-control equipment to a buy-out to a subsidy for under-production and so on.

If the $2M is not enough to solve the problem, then the insurance company pays John the $2M and he goes and buys a new house in an unpolluted neighbourhood. However, this scenario is highly unlikely, since the insurance company would be unlikely to insure only one single person in a neighbourhood against air pollution.

So, that is the view from John's air-pollution insurance company. What about the view from Sally's House of Polluting Paint Production? She, also, must be covered by a DRO in order to buy land, borrow money and hire employees. How does that DRO view her tendency to pollute?

Pollution brings damage claims against Sally, because pollution is by definition damage to persons or property. Thus Sally's DRO would take a dim view of her pollution, since it would be on the hook for any damage her factory causes. In fact, it would be most unlikely that Sally's DRO would insure her against damages unless she were able to prove that she would be able to operate her factory without harming the property of those around her. And without a DRO, of course, she would be unable to start her factory, borrow money, hire employees etc.

It is important to remember that DROs, much like cell phone companies, only prosper if they cooperate. Sally's DRO only makes money if Sally does not pollute. John's insurer also only makes money if Sally does not pollute. Thus the two companies share a common goal, which fosters cooperation.

Finally, even if John is not insured against air pollution, he can use his and/or Sally's DRO to gain restitution for the damage her pollution is causing to his property. Both Sally and John's DROs would have reciprocity agreements, since John wants to be protected against Sally's actions, and Sally wants to be protected against John's actions. Because of this desire for mutual protection, they would choose DROs which had the widest reciprocity agreements.

Thus, in a truly free market, there are many levels and agencies actively working against pollution. John's insurer will be actively scanning the surroundings looking for polluters it can forestall. Sally will be unable to build her paint factory without proving that she will not pollute. Mutual or independent DROs will resolve any disputes regarding property damage caused by Sally's pollution.

There are other benefits as well, which are almost unsolvable in the current system. Imagine that Sally's smokestacks are so high that her air pollution sails over John's house and lands on Reginald's house, a hundred miles away. Reginald then complains to his DRO/insurer that his property is being damaged. His DRO will examine the air contents and wind currents, then trace the pollution back to its source and resolve the dispute with Sally's DRO. If the air pollution is particularly complicated, then Reginald's DRO will place non-volatile compounds into Sally's smokestacks and follow them to where they land. This can be used in a situation where a number of different factories may be contributing pollutants.

The problem of inter-country air pollution may seem to be a sticky one, but it is easily solvable - even if we accept that countries will still exist. Obviously, a Canadian living along the Canada/US border, for instance, will not choose a DRO which refuses to cover air pollution emanating from the US. Thus the DRO will have to have reciprocity agreements with the DROs across the border. If the US DROs refuse to have reciprocity agreements with the Canadian DROs - inconceivable, since the pollution can go both ways - then the Canadian DRO will simply start a US branch and compete.

The difference is that international DROs actually profit from cooperation, in a way that governments do not. For instance, a State government on the Canada/US border has little motivation to impose pollution costs on local factories, as long as the pollution generally goes north. For DRO's, quite the opposite would be true.

There are so many benefits to the concept of State-less DRO's that they could easily fill volumes. A few can be touched on here, to further highlight the value of the idea.

In a condominium building, ownership is conditional upon certain rules. Even though a man "owns" the property, he cannot throw all-night parties, or keep five large dogs, or operate a brothel. Without the coercive blanket of a central State, the opportunities for a wide variety of communities arise, which will largely eliminate the current social conflicts about the direction of society as a whole.

For instance, some people like guns to be available, while others prefer them to be unavailable. Currently, a battle rages for control of the State so that one group can enforce its will on the other. That's unnecessary. With DRO's, communities can be formed in which guns are either permitted, or not permitted. Marijuana can be approved or forbidden. Half your income can be deducted for various social schemes, or you can keep it all for yourself. Sunday shopping can be allowed, or disallowed. It is completely up to the individual to choose what kind of society he or she wants to live in. The ownership of property in such communities is conditional on following certain rules, and if those rules prove onerous or unpleasant, the owner can sell and move at any time. Another plus is that all these "societies" exist as little laboratories, and can prove or disprove various theories about gun ownership, drug legalization and so on, thus contributing to people's knowledge about the best rules for communities.

One or two problems exist, however, which cannot be spirited away. A person who decides to live "off the grid" - or exist without any DRO representation - can theoretically get away with a lot. However, that is also true in the existing statist system. If a man currently decides to become homeless, he can more or less commit crimes at will - but he also gives up all beneficial and enforceable forms of social cooperation. Thus although DROs may not solve the problem of utter lawlessness, neither does the current system, so all is equal.

The Gun In The Room

At least partially dedicated to softside who cringes at the mention of one of the these guys.

These guys being L. Neil Smith and Stefan Molyneux. To Smith I owe an underlying principle, not for originating it--he didn't--but for distilling it, thusly...

The Zero Aggression Principle (ZAP)
A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else.

Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.

I don't claim to live up to it, but it that to which I aspire in my relationships with others and with the world in general. The idea is living your life without leaving a trail of damage and suffering in your wake.

Some people may reject the notion, but other than dismissing it as idealism, what is the objection? Where is the wrongness of it? I'll entertain any suggestions. But I digress.

L. Neil Smith is also responsible for a beautiful metaphor. In a discussion on gun rights--it always comes down to guns and money with you people--he describes a politician's position on gun control as...

...an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?

As far as I can tell from his writing Smith and I part company on one point. He seem to still be entertaining the notion that a magic piece of paper will ward of the depredations of thugs. For Smith, the X-ray machine, the Vulcan mind-meld, is a tool for making voting simpler. If I thought voting mattered I'd agree.

But, you might ask, what has this to do with Stefan Molyneux? Well, to him I owe the title of this essay and my X-ray machine, my Vulcan mind-meld--perhaps even my Gold Kryptonite--to cut right to the core of what I consider arguments against freedom and in defense of government in the form of a coercive monopoly on violence.

Molyneux also has also identified one the main arguments against a voluntarist, stateless society. He calls it the Argument from Apocalypse...

Basically, the argument goes something like this:

“We’re all gonna DIEEEEEEE!”

It would actually be nice if it were slightly more sophisticated than that, but the reality is that it is not.

The basic argument is that if we accept proposition “X,” civilized society will collapse, children will die in the streets, the old will end up eating each other, and the world will dissolve into an endless and apocalyptic war of all against all.

He points the same argument was used against abolitionists in the past and atheists today.

The futility comes in arguing the details. If I suggest that private roads would be a better way to manage the movement of automobiles than a public monopoly backed up by force the AFA gets trotted out. "Well, what's to stop some rich guy from buying up all the roads in an region and then charging $100 per mile to drive on them?"

The first response is often to dive into the details, especially since you've read all of Walter Block's outstanding work on private roads, but you've already lost the argument because every point you make will be countered with collapsed civilization and dead children. Who could possibly be in favor of that?

Point out that free market medicine would both reduce costs and increase innovation, you can point to Dr. James Brook or Dr. Mary Ruwart, but for God sakes, man, with out the FDA and the AMA old people will be lying dead in the street. Why do you hate my grandma?

The same response will arise at the suggestion that all drugs should be legal, there should be no public schools, that property rights are absolute, any suggestion that absent the threat of prison or death for noncompliance people are perfectly capable of devising their own methods of social organization based on free choice, mutual exchange and individual sovereignty.

What to do? Well, pull out the kryptonite. Point out the gun in the room. As Stephan Molyneux pointed out in the video that crystallized the concept in my mind...

Statist violence always escalates until the violence is visible. Slavery continues until the humanity of the slaves becomes visible. Aggression against women and children will continue until the humanity of women and children becomes visible.

Statist violence always escalates until the violence is visible. If you keep pointing out the gun, it will be lowered.

The argument is not how would we do roads in a free society, but how do we eliminate the violence inherent in a road system based on eminent domain and taxes, on theft? It's not the details of how advertising prices by physicians or allowing pharmacists and nurse practitioners to compete in areas that are now the purview of licensed physician, but in the violence inherent in allowing a government-backed cartel to control the the distribution of a vital social good. First deal with the violence, then we can find solutions to the problems.

The gun is there every time. When you discuss methods of social organization and governance always look for and point out the gun.

Someone may make the assertion that we must have tax funded public schools or the poor will not be educated. A person who truly believed in freedom, as we libertarians claim, could really have no other response than "I agree completely that you believe that, and I applaud your compassion for the poor. You have my full consent to pursuing your goal. You may promote it however you wish and give as much or you time, money and effort as you feel the issue deserves. Perhaps if you are persuasive enough you might get some of my money as well, but in the same way I offer you full latitude to pursue your goals in the way you deem best I ask the same from you. The same freedom to pursue my goals with my time, money and effort."

"But, no," comes the retort, "everyone has to contribute."

"And if they don't?"

"They will be forced."

"By who?"

"The government."

"And you consent to that? You agree that the government should have the ability to force compliance with your ideas of how society should be run? If you consent to it you are just as responsible as the people you empower to be your agents. What you are saying is when push comes to shove, if we disagree, if we arrive at an intractable impasse, you will reach for a gun."

People usually respond with anger if you keep coming back to it. It make a person uncomfortable to recognize their own complicity in the violence. That's OK. That anger will give way to recognition on the part of some, for others it will be that X-ray machine, that Vulcan mind-meld, the Gold Kryptonite.

You will reach a point where you can honestly say there is no point in debating, if I am unconvinced by your arguments you will reach for a gun. That's not a debate, it is not an intellectual exchange, we are not on even ground. You would kill rather than give me the freedom I offer you.

Put down the gun. Then we can talk.

Israel Has No Right To Exist

by Puck T. Smith

DIGG THIS

I have been watching with horror as the current escalation of violence between the government of Israel and Hamas thrusts itself upon the consciousness of the world.   It has prompted me to consider the oft repeated canard about Israel's "right to exist."   Based on the principles that have come to inform my political philosophy I am forced to conclude Israel has no such "right."

Now before you brand me as antisemitic let me explain what I mean.

From my perspective no nation has a "right to exist" because nations do not have rights, they are artificial legal constructs, much like corporations.

At one time the word nation had a valid definition as a group of people who shared a common culture, language, ethnicity and history--among other things--that distinguished them in general from everyone else.   Nation sat at the top of the hierarchy of individual, family, clan and tribe.   With the advent of rapid travel, instant communication, world wide commerce and mass migration that higher level of the hierarchy has lost its meaning.

Nation now refers to a geographical territory enclosed by arbitrary boundaries, usually established by military action, ruled by a government that claims a monopoly on force within that territory.   In most people's minds that government is synonymous with the nation, so much so that a government is able to propagandize that a threat to itself, that is a threat to its monopoly on power, is a threat to the people as a whole.   As a result people have been lead to commit horrible atrocities in defense of their nation when in reality the only threat was to the power and privilege of the people who rule them.   Nations, that is the governments who claim to represent them, do not have rights, they have power, generally usurped from those unfortunate enough to be enclosed within their borders.

People have rights.   Every Israeli, every Palestinian--every person in the world--has the right to life, liberty and lawfully acquired property.   As long as those rights are not respected there will be neither justice nor peace.

The government of Israel unlawfully suppressed the liberty and expropriated the property of a vast number of individual Palestinians.   Until that is addressed those people and their progeny have a legitimate grievance.   On the other hand, Hamas, and before them the PLO, have targeted the lives of individual Israelis who did not participate in the government of Israel's crimes for no other reason than they happen to be in range.   Both governments are concerned only with preserving and expanding their power, neither is concerned with the welfare of the people under their control.   They exploit their suffering for political reasons.   If that were not true Israel would stop encouraging and subsidizing the expansion of settlements on the property of Palestinians, knowing full well it will draw reprisals, and Hamas would stop provoking the wrath of Israel onto innocent Palestinians by targeting innocent Israelis and then hiding in residential neighborhoods.

Neither the Palestinian people nor the Israeli people are to blame.   The blame lies with the amoral elites who rule them and who will stop at nothing to expand their power, privilege and control.

The state of Israel has no "right" to exist, neither does the state of Palestine.   The people who live in the land occupied by those two regimes have every right to live free of the pernicious parasites who will not be happy till the sea is filled with blood.

December 29, 2008

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Puck T. Smith is the nom de plume of a man who wishes to live his life in peace and obscurity while at the same time sharing the insights he has acquired through both suffering and joy in more than half a century of living in this world of terrible tragedy, radiant beauty and dizzying possibilities.

Does Wall Street Have a Death Wish?

Does Wall Street Have a Death Wish?
By Robert Higgs

After several days of violent fluctuations, the world’s stock markets registered a massive increase in share prices on Thursday afternoon and on Friday, September 18 and 19, 2008. Why? As the Associated Press put it, “investors stormed back into the market, relieved that the government plans to restore calm to the financial system by rescuing banks from billions of dollars in bad debt. The Dow Jones industrials rose about 365 points, giving them a massive gain of about 775 over two days.”

The impending measures come close on the heels of a series of wrong-headed actions undertaken by the government, including the bailout/takeover of Fannie, Freddie, and AIG; massive injections of new credit by the Fed and other major central banks; and the SEC’s prohibition of short-selling for almost 800 financial-company stocks. If, as anticipated, the Treasury moves next to assume the rotten paper currently being held by banks and other lenders (presumably mortgages and related securities, for the most part), then it is fair to conclude that the government has given up entirely on the free market and has decided to occupy the wasteland where outright socialism and economic fascism meet.