Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Principle

Posted on April 17, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

BY GEORGE REISMAN | MAR 27, 2023

Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)

This article is excerpted from chapter 20 “Toward The Establishment of Laissez-Faire Capitalism” from George Reisman’s Capitalism: A Treatise On Economics (1996). See the Amazon.com author’s page for additional titles by Dr. Reisman.

The privatization of property is the most fundamental aspect of a procapitalist political program. In addition, its discussion is well suited to illustrate strategy and tactics applicable to the pursuit of all aspects of a procapitalist political program.

Privatization would ultimately require the sale of all government-owned lands and natural resources (with such limited exceptions as the sites of military bases, police stations, and courthouses), which presently include the greater part of the territory of many of the Western states and almost all of the territory of Alaska. It would entail the sale of TVA and all other public-power facilities, the sale of Amtrak and Conrail, the post office, the public schools, universities, and hospitals, the national parks, and the public highway system. It would also entail the establishment of the airwaves as private property and of private property rights under the sea and in outer space.

Those of us who work to establish capitalism must always be aware that the privatization of all of these things is part of our ultimate goal and we must be sure that all new adherents we gain fully understand and support the whole program of privatization, as well as all the other essential aspects of our program. No secret must ever be made of the full, long-range program and its goal of complete laissez-faire capitalism.

In the present situation, I believe that the most important aspect of privatization to concentrate on is that of the federal government’s vast landholdings, in particular where oil, coal, and timber are concerned. Closely connected with this should be the urging of the extension of private ownership to undersea mining operations. These aspects would make it possible to link the campaign for privatization with an assault on the environmental movement, which has replaced socialism as the leading threat to material civilization. Such linkage would provide the opportunity to reestablish the rightful connection between capitalism, on the one side, and science, technology, economic progress, and the supreme value of human life on earth, on the other side. This connection has been concealed for many years because of socialism’s usurpation of the mantle of progressivism. Linkage of the campaign for privatization with an assault on the environmental movement would be instrumental in reestablishing capitalism in the minds of the public as the system of progress and improvement advocated by men of reason, and the opposition to capitalism as the manifestation of ignorance, fear, and superstition. A further major aspect of the linkage should be a continual hammering away at the appalling state of contemporary education and the ignorance of its graduates, including almost all of today’s politicians, government officials, and journalists. The environmentalist and socialist opposition to capitalism should be portrayed as exactly what it is–a movement to return the world to the Dark Ages and a system of feudal privilege. Privatization of education, of course, should be urged as an essential aspect of the rebirth of education.

Other, narrower campaigns for privatization that might profitably be conducted early on would be ones for the privatization of the post office, the airwaves, and the New York City subway system. Postal service and cellular-telephone channels are already private to varying degrees. In these two cases, privatization would merely be a matter of carrying forward something that already exists to an important extent.

The New York City subway system would be a good candidate for an early privatization campaign, because it should be relatively easy to explain how the establishment of private ownership would create an incentive for the subway’s management to want to attract customers and thus to improve the cleanliness, safety, and efficiency of the system. Such a campaign would represent our going on the offensive in the country’s leading bastion of collectivism and making large numbers of collectivists aware that the comfort of their daily lives depended on the acceptance of the principle of private ownership of the means of production.

Each of these individual campaigns would, of course, have to be focused on its own particular set of concretes. But if, at the same time, they were also based on the principle of the economic superiority and moral rightness of private ownership, the cumulative effect would be to tend to establish that principle as correct in the public’s mind. Thus, provided they were conducted in the name of our basic principles and used as the opportunity for explaining those principles, success in such lesser projects would help in someday putting us in a position in which we could accomplish the objective of privatization completely.

We should certainly not expect that we would quickly win any of the campaigns for privatization, even the least among them. On the contrary, for a very long time we would almost certainly lose them all, over and over again. Indeed, we should expect for some time to be written off as cranks and even ridiculed for our views. Nevertheless, if we fight every concrete issue on the basis of correct abstract, general principles, our efforts will never be wasted. We will be successful even though we fail to win our particular objective of the moment. We will be successful because we will have propounded and helped to spread our principles. As a result, we will have gained new adherents, who will have been attracted to our principles. In addition, those who waged the campaign will have become more skilled in the defense of their principles. Thus, we will have gained the basis for conducting campaigns over the same issue, and over a wide variety of other issues, on a stronger foundation in the future. We will be embarked upon a policy of progress in intellectual influence analogous to the process of capital accumulation and economic progress.

If we are successful in making continual progress in our intellectual influence, we cannot fail ultimately to possess major intellectual influence and therefore correspondingly major political influence. To achieve the most rapid possible success, our objective should be to accomplish in terms of intellectual influence the kind of rate of progress achieved economically by Japan and other contemporary East Asian countries that began in the most humble material conditions. If we could succeed in that, then even though we may begin today in the most humble conditions in terms of size and influence, within a matter of decades we would become a major intellectual force.

As part of the same point, I want to stress that a major feature of every political activity we engage in is that it must provide easy opportunities for any new supporters it attracts to become exposed to our entire philosophy. The individual campaigns, such as the ones I have just described, must not only be waged on the basis of the appropriate abstract principles, but they must also provide ready exposure to the main books and publications of our philosophy. This does not mean that handing out copies of Human Action or Atlas Shrugged is the first or most prominent thing we do in such a campaign, but it does mean that we are very interested in making every receptive individual we meet aware of the existence of these books and in getting him to read them and the rest of our essential literature.

Copyright 1996 George Reisman. All rights reserved. The encyclopedic Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics is a required reference for every Capitalist’s library. Reisman’s treatise is now available in two volumes: Volume I (focuses on microeconomic issues) and Volume II (focuses on macroeconomic issues).

* * *

Copyright 1996 George Reisman. All rights reserved. The encyclopedic Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics is a required reference for every Capitalist’s library. Reisman’s treatise is now available in two volumes: Volume I (focuses on microeconomic issues) and Volume II (focuses on macroeconomic issues).

Articles in this Series

Toward the Establishment of Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 1 of 10)
Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)
The Freedom of Production and Trade Under Capitalism (Part 3 of 10)
Capitalism and the Abolition of the Welfare State (Part 4 of 10)
Abolition of Income and Inheritance Taxes Under Capitalism (Part 5 of 10)
Establishment of Gold as Money (Part 6 of 10)
A Pro-Capitalist Foreign Policy (Part 7 of 10)
Separation of State from Education, Science, and Religion (Part 8 of 10)
A General Campaign at the Local Level for Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 9 of 10)
The Outlook for the Future of Capitalism (Part 10 of 10)

FEEL FREE TO SHARE

GEORGE REISMAN

George Reisman, Ph.D., is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics and the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. See his Amazon.com author’s page for additional titles by him. Visit his website capitalism.net and his blog atGeorgeReismansBlog.blogspot.com. Watch his YouTube videos and follow @GGReisman on Twitter.

POLITICS

CAPITALISM REVIEW

Voice of Capitalism

Our weekly email newsletter.

Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)

The privatization of property is the most fundamental aspect of a procapitalist political program

California Gasoline Price Gouging Bill Does Not Address Root Problem

California’s gasoline prices are higher than the rest of the country because of the state’s taxes and regulations.

Capitalism and The Exploitation of Third World Countries

To then accuse capitalism of causing the poverty — while in the very act of eradicating it — is to commit both a historical error and a profound injustice.

Victor Davis Hanson: The Biden 10-Step Plan for Global Chaos

Posted on April 16, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

Editor’s Note: Victor Davis Hanson has questions. Some of the answers are a bit interventionist for me, but the overall message is sound. Why? Because it’s clear the Biden-Harris regime is intending to take down the United States of America. For those who still need convincing, it’s easier to see it when you look at the situation as a whole rather than looking to each individual “mistake” and thinking that it’s due to “incompetence.”

The biggest mistake we could make as America First patriots is to assume the Biden-Harris regime is failing. By our standards, they are failing miserably. But if their goal is the destruction of our nation, which I believe it is, then their track-record so far is stellar.

Being a Democrat with bad policies is common. But when EVERYTHING an administration does takes us in the wrong direction, we have to question their motives. I believe they are working on behalf of the globalist elite cabal to bring for the “Liberal World Order.” To do that, they need the United States to drop to the level of the rest of the world… or disappear completely. With that said, here’s the article by Victor Davis Hanson:

Why is French President Emmanuel Macron cozying up to China while trashing his oldest ally, the United States?
Why is there suddenly talk of discarding the dollar as the global currency?
Why are Japan and India shrugging that they cannot follow the United States’ lead in boycotting Russian oil?
Why is the president of Brazil traveling to China to pursue what he calls a “beautiful relationship”?
Why is Israel suddenly facing attacks from its enemies in all directions?
What happened to Turkey? Why is it threatening fellow NATO member Greece? Is it still a NATO ally, a mere neutral, or a de facto enemy?
Why are there suddenly nonstop Chinese threats toward Taiwan?
Why did Saudi Arabia conclude a new pact with Iran, its former archenemy?
Why was Egypt secretly planning to send rockets to Russia to be used in Ukraine, according to leaked Pentagon papers?
Since when did the Russians talk nonstop about the potential use of a tactical nuclear weapon?
Why is Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bragging that millions of Mexicans have entered the United States, most of them illegally? And why is he interfering in U.S. elections by urging his expatriates to vote for Democrats?
Why and how, in just two years, have confused and often incoherent President Joe Biden and his team created such global chaos?

Let us answer by listing 10 ways by which America lost all deterrence:

1) Biden abruptly pulled all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. He left behind to the Taliban hundreds of Americans and thousands of pro-American Afghans. Biden abandoned billions of dollars in U.S. equipment, the largest air base in central Asia—recently retrofitted at a cost of $300 million—and a $1 billion embassy. Our government called such a debacle a success. The world disagreed and saw only humiliation.

2) The Biden administration allowed a Chinese high-altitude spy balloon to traverse the continental United States, spying on key American military installations. The Chinese were defiant when caught and offered no apologies. In response, the Pentagon and the administration simply lied about the extent that China had surveilled top-secret sites.

3) In March 2021, at an Anchorage, Alaska mini-summit, Chinese diplomats unleashed a relentless barrage at their stunned and mostly silent American counterparts. They lectured the timid Biden administration diplomats about American toxicity and hypocrisy. And they have defiantly refused to explain why and how their virology lab birthed the COVID-19 virus that has killed tens of millions worldwide.

4) In June 2021, in response to Russian cyber-attacks against the United States, Biden meekly asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to at least make off-limits certain critical American infrastructure.

5) When asked what he would do if Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden replied that the reaction would depend on whether the Russians conducted a “minor incursion.”

6) Between 2021 and 2022, Biden serially insulted and bragged that he would not meet Muhammad bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and one of our oldest and most valuable allies in the Middle East.

7) For much of 2021, the Biden administration made it known that it was eager and ready to offer concessions to re-enter the dangerous Iran nuclear deal—at a time when Iran has joined China and Russia in a new geostrategic partnership.

8) Almost immediately upon inauguration, the administration moved the United States away from Israel, restored financial aid to radical Palestinians, and both publicly and privately alienated the current Netanyahu government.

9) In serial fashion, Biden stopped all construction on the border wall and opened the border. During the 2019 Democratic presidential primary, Biden made it known that illegal aliens were welcome to enter the United States—some 6-7 million did. He reinstated “catch and release.” And he did nothing about the Mexican cartel importation of fentanyl that has recently killed over 100,000 Americans per year.

10) In the last two years, the Pentagon has embarked on a woke agenda. The army is short by 15,000 in its annual recruitment quota. The defense budget has not kept up with inflation. One of the greatest intelligence leaks in U.S. history just occurred from the Pentagon.

The Pentagon refused to admit culpability and misled the country about Afghanistan and the Chinese spy balloon flight. The current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called his Chinese communist counterpart and head of the People’s Liberation Army to advise him that the U.S. military would warn the Chinese if it determined an order from its commander-in-chief, former President Donald Trump, was inappropriate.

This list of these self-inflicted disasters could be easily expanded.

But the examples explain well enough why our emboldened enemies do not fear us, our triangulating allies judge us unreliable, and calculating neutrals assume America is in descent and too dangerous to join.

Yet without America, the result is a new Chinese order in which, to quote the historian Thucydides, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

View Comments (9)Search

Libertarians on the New Multipolar World: Why the U.S. Must Change

Posted on April 16, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

In my previous column, I discussed the views of what I dubbed as the “Hot-headed” faction of the “Anti-China Party” in the U.S., who believe that the conflict in Ukraine is hindering Washington from focusing on China. Meanwhile, as you may recall, the “Hot-headed” faction supports leaving the defense of Ukraine and Europe more broadly to European powers. I also mentioned that the “Hot-headed” faction is skeptical of European assistance in the event of a U.S.-China conflict.

The arguments put forth by the “Emergency” faction are also voiced by American Libertarians. However, unlike the “Hot-headed” faction, Libertarians do not want the U.S. to engage in foreign wars based on these arguments. According to Libertarians, who base their beliefs on the principles of the founding fathers of the U.S., the U.S. should not go out searching for monsters to destroy by venturing into foreign lands and seas.

Libertarians also believe that the U.S. should limit its defense spending and military aid to other countries. Senator Rand Paul is the strongest voice for Libertarianism in the U.S. Congress. Libertarians clash with strict Trump supporters on the issue of ending “endless wars.” They are also highly contentious with Neoconservatives and Globalists. According to Libertarians, neither “Ukraine” nor “Taiwan” are of any concern to U.S. national security. Libertarians, who emphasize that the U.S. is engaged in a “proxy war” with Russia in Ukraine, see the escalation of the conflict as too risky for the U.S. Libertarians, who argue that giving Ukraine the green light for NATO membership provokes Russia, believe that the U.S. must accept its role in starting the war, begin talks with Russia, and push Kyiv towards peace.

While strongly criticizing the occupation of Ukraine, Libertarians argue that American policymakers should approach this issue not as a global moral crusade, but as a European security issue. According to Libertarians, U.S. “Cold War/Atlanticist” policies have led Europeans to be lax about European security and defense. Washington should change its policy to force Europe to take the initiative.

According to Libertarians, warning that the Biden administration’s policy of weakening Russia will make Moscow more dependent on Beijing, the U.S. should not risk a nuclear war with Russia. The ultimate goal of the U.S. should be to integrate a peaceful Russia into the international system.

Libertarians also hold similar views on Taiwan and China. They emphasize that a conflict with China would drag East Asia into war, which would then continue to escalate, cause a global economic crisis, and even endanger Americans in their own country. Libertarians support Taiwan’s right to self-determination, but this support does not require the U.S. to risk a war with a nuclear power like China. According to libertarians, Taiwan is crucial enough for Beijing to take any risk. However, being more than 12,000 kilometers away from the US, Taiwan is not important for America’s security and direct defense. The libertarians point out that China’s acquisition of Taiwan will not make U.S. territories more vulnerable.

Yeni Safak

Totalitarianism through Your Local Bank

Posted on April 12, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

The federal government and the IRS are reportedly ordering banks to call and ask “customers” about their personal business. “Why did you withdraw that much? When are you planning to withdraw money again? What are you doing with the money?”

No rational business would ever do this to their customers. In a free, unregulated market it would be impossible. But when the government uses its power to instill monopoly control on all of the banks, then this is what happens.

It’s the beginning of what’s called social credit.

Communist China already has social credit. Totalitarian regimes have always done this kind of thing; but modern technology combined with government control of the banking industry, has raised it to a new level. I believe it’s already starting in America.

We all know what a credit score is for purposes of taking out loans, buying a house or buying a car. If you have a credit score of 700-800 or higher, it’s a reflection of the fact you pay your debts and are in pretty good shape, financially.

A social credit score is when an entity or agency seeks to evaluate the decisions you’re making; the values you hold; and your political, religious or otherwise philosophical kinds of attitudes and viewpoints. The agency (i.e. the government, either directly or acting through a “private” though highly regulated business, like a bank) scores you based on what IT considers to be desirable or undesirable.

These are none of the government’s business. But I believe it’s what’s behind the banks now doing this, since the banks would never be doing this without the pressure or consent of the federal government, who regulates nearly everything that a bank does.

I don’t wish to call out banks for this. I don’t wish to blame this on capitalism, profit or “greed” because those are not the offenders here. Like I said, in a free market this could never happen, not for long and not without your being able to easily find a bank who didn’t pry into your business like this.

The problem in America today is that the government, especially the federal government, is wildly and — in my view — irredeemably out of control. It’s beyond repair. The governors, mayors, “President” and permanent, one-party bureaucrats are drunk with the psychological equivalent of LSD, cocaine or heroin. The more they get, the more they abuse it. And the more horrible they become.

Protect yourself. Defend yourself. Dissent and passively resist wherever, whenever possible. Try to educate people in your families or lives who are still voting for these totalitarian sociopaths to stop doing so. It’s not an issue of left versus right; Republican vs. Democrat. It’s an issue of tyranny versus freedom.

Under the free republic that most of us still kind of assume we live under, the government is accountable to the people. The government is a means to the end of protecting the rights of the people — to their private property, to the values they choose to raise their children with, to their rights to freedom of speech, due process and to owning weapons of self-defense. NONE of these rights are honored or respected by today’s tyrants.

Government, increasingly, is acting like a criminal itself. You and I define criminals as fraudsters, thieves, rapists and killers. Increasingly, our government is acting and speaking like the criminal himself. And as for REAL criminals — they’re letting them go. Crime is rampant in big cities run exclusively by left-wing tyrants whose district attorneys are openly sending criminals back into the public while arresting or intimidating people who show up at a peaceful rally to see President Donald Trump, or who question that transgenderism is really a thing, or whether children should be given surgery (without parental consent) to alter their genitalia before they’re legally permitted to vote, join the military or have a cocktail.

It’s hard to imagine anything more sinister than today’s federal government (and many state governments) unless you start to conjure up images of 9/11 terrorists who in a similar (though temporary) way brought civilization to a halt. These Democratic Communists (and their RINO accomplices) are like terrorists with unlimited power, power that those 9/11 terrorists could only dream of holding.

Once you grasp this fact, you’ll have no problem when your bank starts calling you, at the behest of the IRS or other federal agencies, to find out what you’re spending your money on, and why.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

What Happens to a Country that Loses its Mind

Posted on April 11, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

To see biological males win “woman of the year” awards and others compete against women in sports, and at least one paid to promote sports bras, it’s obvious the American mind has slipped a few gears. But our current troubles are about more than celebrating what is clearly a mental illness that needs to be treated. We have lost our way almost entirely across the board.

The locus of our insanity, one could argue, is Washington, D.C. The federal government developed a habit long ago of spending beyond its means. But the foolishness has reached new levels.

The federal debt is heading to $31.7 trillion like a freight train at full throttle with no brakes. Spending is outpacing revenue by more than $1.5 trillion. Social Security is headed for collapse sooner than its appointed guardians had expected, but the collective vision among our “leaders” on the Potomac doesn’t go beyond the next election. So nothing is done.

Despite the obvious problems, the Democrats want to tax higher and spend more. The supply of vacuity seems endless.

Washington is also at the axis of weaponized government. Free speech is being crushed, dissent from the left’s political agenda is considered an imprisonable offense, and court rulings are to be ignored if they offend progressive sensibilities (yes, we know, two words that don’t belong together). The Democrats see the IRS not as just a revenue collector but also as a truncheon with which to discipline those who refuse to live under their boots. Parents who grouse at school board meetings? They are of course terrorists who must be watched.

It’s no coincidence that we’re living in riotous times. The damage seems to build with every news cycle. But to listen to the Democrats and their communications department, also known as the mainstream media, the only riot in U.S. history was on Jan. 6, 2021. In their twisted minds, rampaging, killing, burning, and looting in the name of George Floyd, or some imagined resistance to fascism, are just benign elements of mostly peaceful protests. Democrats have even contributed money to bail out the “protesters.”….

Issues and Insights

David Stockman on Imperial Washington: the New Global Menace

Posted on April 11, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

There is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington — not Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or the rubble of what remains of Raqqa. Imperial Washington has become a global menace owing to what didn’t happen in 1991 (when the USSR collapsed). At that crucial inflection point, Bush the Elder should have declared “mission accomplished” and parachuted into the great Ramstein Air Base in Germany to begin the demobilization of America’s war machine.

So doing, he could have slashed the Pentagon budget from $600 billion to $250 billion (2015 $); demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; reduced the United States’ standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s.

Unfortunately, George H. W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even middling intelligence.

He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who singlehandedly blew the peace when, in the very year the 77-Years’ War ended with the demise of the Soviet Union, he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the gluttonous emir of Kuwait. But that was none of George Bush’s or America’s business.

Furthermore, George H. W. Bush should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and their neocon pack of jackals to come to power — even if he eventually denounced them in his doddering old age.

Alas, upon his death, Bush the Elder was deified, not vilified, by the mainstream press and the bipartisan duopoly. And that tells you all you need to know about why Washington is ensnared in its Forever Wars and is the very reason there is still no peace on earth.

Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in 1991, Washington opened the gates to an unnecessary confrontation with Islam and nurtured the rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today save for forces unleashed by George H. W. Bush’s petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein.

Why are We so Afraid ?

Posted on April 10, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

A reader wrote on my Facebook thread that I’m so interesting and say the things everything is thinking about, but are afraid to say.

I appreciate that!

But it also gets me thinking: Why are we all so afraid?

Why do people have to worry about losing business, or losing you’re job, if you’re not woke and crazy and Communist, and if you don’t want the government to take people’s guns, you don’t want the government to restrict people’s speech, take away their heat/ac, their gas stoves, their cars and their ability to make a living if they don’t take an experimental vaccine financed by the government through a billion dollar company with absolutely no product liability?

Why are WE — the ones who dare to think or perhaps say this is all wrong and crazy — always the ones ashamed? Always the ones on the defensive?

Should the people who advocate these crazy things be on the defensive — NOT the people who cherish liberty, freedom, individual rights, and the real Constitution, not the phone one being imposed by the Biden regime and blue state governors/mayors, and Soros-appointed totalitarian attorneys?

I don’t understand how it got to this point. Why isn’t there at least a debate?

I’m not saying you need to write a blog or go on the radio or television. That’s a personal choice. I’m not saying you have to go out of your way to annoy people. I’m not even saying you have to do anything, if you don’t want to, or if you really can’t.

But I am saying, please: don’t be afraid. And don’t be ashamed. Refuse to participate in the madness. Refuse to go along to get along. Within your family, in your neighborhood, in your community. People have gone mad — but it’s really just a minority who have gone mad. The rest are simply afraid, and feel like they have to pretend to go along with the madness even if they know it’s madness.

Stretch your willingness NOT to comply as far as you possibly can. This is the thing that totalitarians and control freaks cannot stand. They loathe independence because they fear it, because they don’t have it, and they’re envious of it. This is why these leftists who want you to conform are in such a rage all the time, constantly making threats and calling you names. They’re screaming their own insecurity.

We don’t live at the permission of anyone. The government exists with OUR permission. That includes you and I, whether we’re the quiet majority or whether we’re a minority. Either way, all individuals have rights, and — as Ayn Rand used to say — the tiniest minority on earth is the individual.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

The Moral and Psychological Status of the American Republic

Posted on April 9, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

Peter Fithian: “Corruption on this level would not be possible without a galactically stupid, misinformed citizenry.”

************

“Woke”: (adj.) definition: “A state of awareness only achieved by those dumb enough to find injustice in everything except their own behavior.”

************

The IRS didn’t need more funding. It needs DEFUNDING. End the income tax, most other taxes and eliminate most of the federal government as we know it. Will this happen? Not a chance. In one form or another, big, lawless government will soon come knocking on most people’s doors. And by the time most Americans realize they have made a terrible mistake, it will be too late.

************

Old school leftists/Democrats aimed to hurt the country. They shared power with old school Republicans who hoped to contain the damage. Today’s leftists aim to annihilate not just the country, but all of Western civilization, calling it “progress.” Hard, radical leftists are solidly in charge of government, schools, education, media, corporations and culture. There are no more moderate leftists, not in power. Even many Republicans, at the national level, have joined forces with the hardest leftists. Aside from Alito and Clarence Thomas, most of the Supreme Court has largely abandoned the Constitution. They’re upholding the destruction of women’s sports, for example; and they positively will not address evidence of election fraud.Viewed in light of these absolutely factual, observable developments, things like Trump’s arrest and indictment with bizarre, incoherent charges make total sense. If the explicit, unblinking purpose of nearly every government and cultural authority is to destroy America, then surely Trump had to go.

************

Justin Jones, one of the three Democrat Tennessee legislators who helped incite a mob to storm the capitol building has been officially expelled from the body for his actions.

Democrats in the minority in Tennessee hope to use mob violence with probably Soros hired losers to shut down the state government until gun confiscation is enacted. Republicans in control actually held one of the legislators responsible for his actions. This is how a government is supposed to work. The exact opposite of what’s happening at the federal level, which is why–I maintain–the federal government is unsustainable on its present course.

P.S. Legislators who encourage thugs and terrorists should be arrested, tried and convicted.

************

The Entire Green Movement: Making Earth Uninhabitable for Man.

The Government is Fomenting Mass Hysteria

Posted on April 7, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

by John W. Whitehead

April 6, 2023

“This country has been having a nationwide nervous breakdown since 9/11. A nation of people suddenly broke, the market economy goes to shit, and they’re threatened on every side by an unknown, sinister enemy. But I don’t think fear is a very effective way of dealing with things—of responding to reality. Fear is just another word for ignorance.”—Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalistAmericans should beware of letting others—whether they be television news hosts, political commentators or media corporations—do their thinking for them.
[Click to Tweet]

We have become guinea pigs in a ruthlessly calculated, carefully orchestrated, chillingly cold-blooded experiment in how to control a population and advance a political agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.

This is mind-control in its most sinister form.

With alarming regularity, the nation is being subjected to a spate of violence that terrorizes the public, destabilizes the country, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

Take this latest shooting in Nashville, Tenn.

The 28-year-old shooter (a clearly troubled transgender individual in possession of several military-style weapons) opened fire in a Christian elementary school, killing three children and three adults.

Already, fingers are being pointed and battle lines are being drawn.

Those who want safety at all costs are clamoring for more gun control measures (if not at an outright ban on assault weapons for non-military, non-police personnel), widespread mental health screening of the general population, more threat assessments and behavioral sensing warnings, more CCTV cameras with facial recognition capabilities, more “See Something, Say Something” programs aimed at turning Americans into snitches and spies, more metal detectors and whole-body imaging devices at soft targets, more roaming squads of militarized police empowered to do random bag searches, more fusion centers to centralize and disseminate information to law enforcement agencies, and more surveillance of what Americans say and do, where they go, what they buy and how they spend their time.

This is all part of the Deep State’s master plan.

Ask yourselves: why are we being bombarded with crises, distractions, fake news and reality TV politics? We’re being conditioned like lab mice to subsist on a steady diet of bread-and-circus politics and an endless spate of crises.

Caught up in this “crisis of the now,” the average person has a hard time keeping up with and remembering all of the “events,” manufactured or otherwise, which occur like clockwork in order to keep us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from reality.

As investigative journalist Mike Adams points out:

“This psychological bombardment is waged primarily via the mainstream media which assaults the viewer by the hour with images of violence, war, emotions and conflict. Because the human nervous system is hard wired to focus on immediate threats accompanied by depictions of violence, mainstream media viewers have their attention and mental resources funneled into the never-ending ‘crisis of the NOW’ from which they can never have the mental breathing room to apply logic, reason or historical context.”

Professor Jacques Ellul studied this phenomenon of overwhelming news, short memories and the use of propaganda to advance hidden agendas. “One thought drives away another; old facts are chased by new ones,” wrote Ellul.

All the while, the government continues to amass more power and authority over the citizenry.

When we’re being bombarded with wall-to-wall news coverage and news cycles that change every few days, it’s difficult to stay focused on one thing—namely, holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law—and the powers-that-be understand this.

Yet as John Lennon reminds us, “nothing is real,” especially not in the world of politics.

In other words, it’s all fake, i.e., manufactured, i.e., manipulated to distort reality.

Much like the fabricated universe in Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show, in which a man’s life is the basis for an elaborately staged television show aimed at selling products and procuring ratings, the political scene in the United States has devolved over the years into a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population.

This is the magic of the reality TV programming that passes for politics today.

As long as we are distracted, entertained, occasionally outraged, always polarized but largely uninvolved and content to remain in the viewer’s seat, we’ll never manage to present a unified front against tyranny (or government corruption and ineptitude) in any form.

The more that is beamed at us, the more inclined we are to settle back in our comfy recliners and become passive viewers rather than active participants as unsettling, frightening events unfold.

Reality and fiction merge as everything around us becomes entertainment fodder.

We don’t even have to change the channel when the subject matter becomes too monotonous. That’s taken care of for us by the programmers (the corporate media).

“Living is easy with eyes closed,” says Lennon, and that’s exactly what reality TV that masquerades as American politics programs the citizenry to do: navigate the world with their eyes shut.

As long as we’re viewers, we’ll never be doers.

Studies suggest that the more reality TV people watch—and I would posit that it’s all reality TV, entertainment news included—the more difficult it becomes to distinguish between what is real and what is carefully crafted farce.

“We the people” are watching a lot of TV.

On average, Americans spend five hours a day watching television. By the time we reach age 65, we’re watching more than 50 hours of television a week, and that number increases as we get older. And reality TV programming consistently captures the largest percentage of TV watchers every season by an almost 2-1 ratio.

This doesn’t bode well for a citizenry able to sift through masterfully-produced propaganda in order to think critically about the issues of the day, whether it’s fake news peddled by government agencies or foreign entities.

Those who watch reality shows tend to view what they see as the “norm.” Thus, those who watch shows characterized by lying, aggression and meanness not only come to see such behavior as acceptable and entertaining but also mimic the medium.

This holds true whether the reality programming is about the antics of celebrities in the White House, in the board room, or in the bedroom.

It’s a phenomenon called “humilitainment.”

A term coined by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker, “humilitainment” refers to the tendency for viewers to take pleasure in someone else’s humiliation, suffering and pain.

“Humilitainment” largely explains not only why American TV watchers are so fixated on reality TV programming but how American citizens, largely insulated from what is really happening in the world around them by layers of technology, entertainment, and other distractions, are being programmed to accept the brutality, surveillance and dehumanizing treatment of the American police state as things happening to other people.

The ramifications for the future of civic engagement, political discourse and self-government are incredibly depressing and demoralizing.

This is what happens when an entire nation—bombarded by reality TV programming, government propaganda and entertainment news—becomes systematically desensitized and acclimated to the trappings of a government that operates by fiat and speaks in a language of force.

Ultimately, the reality shows, the entertainment news, the surveillance society, the militarized police, and the political spectacles have one common objective: to keep us divided, distracted, imprisoned, and incapable of taking an active role in the business of self-government.

Look behind the political spectacles, the reality TV theatrics, the sleight-of-hand distractions and diversions, and the stomach-churning, nail-biting drama, and you will find there is a method to the madness.

How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.

In totalitarian regimes—a.k.a. police states—where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and cannot be used.

In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.

Even when the motives behind this rigidly calibrated reorientation of societal language appear well-intentioned—discouraging racism, condemning violence, denouncing discrimination and hatred—inevitably, the end result is the same: intolerance, indoctrination, infantilism, the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run counter to the cultural elite.

Labelling something as “fake news” is a masterful way of dismissing truth that may run counter to the ruling power’s own narrative.

As George Orwell recognized, “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Orwell understood only too well the power of language to manipulate the masses. In Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish “thoughtcrimes.”

In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the Ministry of Peace deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation), the Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda). The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Orwell’s Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary.

Where we stand now is at the juncture of Oldspeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where only that which is “safe” and “accepted” by the majority is permitted).

Truth is often lost when we fail to distinguish between opinion and fact, and that is the danger we now face as a society. Anyone who relies exclusively on television/cable news hosts and political commentators for actual knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake.

Unfortunately, since Americans have by and large become non-readers, television has become their prime source of so-called “news.” This reliance on TV news has given rise to such popular news personalities who draw in vast audiences that virtually hang on their every word.

In our media age, these are the new powers-that-be.

Yet while these personalities often dispense the news like preachers used to dispense religion, with power and certainty, they are little more than conduits for propaganda and advertisements delivered in the guise of entertainment and news.

Given the preponderance of news-as-entertainment programming, it’s no wonder that viewers have largely lost the ability to think critically and analytically and differentiate between truth and propaganda, especially when delivered by way of fake news criers and politicians.

The bottom line is simply this: Americans should beware of letting others—whether they be television news hosts, political commentators or media corporations—do their thinking for them.

A populace that cannot think for themselves is a populace with its backs to the walls: mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield, and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s time to change the channel, tune out the reality TV show, and push back against the real menace of the police state.

If not, if we continue to sit back and lose ourselves in political programming, we will remain a captive audience to a farce that grows more absurd by the minute.

This article was originally published at The Rutherford Institute.

Category: Free Society

This post was written by: John W. Whitehead

John W. Whitehead is a constitutional attorney, author, and founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. This article is a revised version of a piece that originally appeared on the Rutherford Institute website, http://www.rutherford.org, and is reprinted by permission.

The Moral and Psychological Status of the American People

Posted on April 7, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

Peter Fithian: “Corruption on this level would not be possible without a galactically stupid, misinformed citizenry.”

************

“Woke”: (adj.) definition: “A state of awareness only achieved by those dumb enough to find injustice in everything except their own behavior.”

************

Justin Jones, one of the three Democrat Tennessee legislators who helped incite a mob to storm the capitol building has been officially expelled from the body for his actions.

P.S. Legislators who encourage thugs and terrorists should be arrested, tried and convicted.

************

The Entire Green Movement: Making Earth Uninhabitable for Man.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE

Keeper of the Flame of the Enlightenment

Category Archives: Politics

Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Principle

Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)

POLITICS

CAPITALISM REVIEW

Voice of Capitalism

Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)

California Gasoline Price Gouging Bill Does Not Address Root Problem

Capitalism and The Exploitation of Third World Countries

Victor Davis Hanson: The Biden 10-Step Plan for Global Chaos

Featured Posts

Libertarians on the New Multipolar World: Why the U.S. Must Change

Totalitarianism through Your Local Bank

What Happens to a Country that Loses its Mind

David Stockman on Imperial Washington: the New Global Menace

Why are We so Afraid ?

The Moral and Psychological Status of the American Republic

The Government is Fomenting Mass Hysteria

The Moral and Psychological Status of the American People