Comic originally from Anarchy In Your Head.

760 KFMB AM is a talk radio station hosting such conservative luminaries as Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. Today, below the Wiener Dog racing and ads for Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally is a fun little poll that asks listeners:

During a time of war, should we register as many practicing Muslims as we can find in a national database? No – it’s an invasion of privacy. Yes- gun owners have to, why not Muslims?

Currently, 70% of those polled are in favor of forced registration for American Muslims. Granted, this is not a representative sampling of the general population, but it none the less contributes to a disturbing trend of national opinion about Islam.

Jenn Chou is the National Anti-establishment Examiner and a member of CopBlock, a decentralized project of writers and activists dedicated to holding rogue cops accountable by filming their behavior and publishing it online. Jenn writes:

“Forced registration is exactly what the Nazis did to the Jewish population of Germany. The Nazis did not kill 6 million Jewish people overnight and go from being perfectly amicable one day to burning them in ovens the next. It started with small steps. Read More“

But one need not look so far as Germany. Right here in American Census data was used to round up the Japanese during WWII. In fact, this year the US Census Bureau sent representatives to the events of numerous Islamic organizations to sooth concerns Muslims had about submitting their personal data to a government so openly hostile to them. At one event Steven Tupolo from the US Census Bureau assured me that by law the US Census Bureau does not share personal data with any other agency. That it is compiled for statistical purposes only. But when I asked if they couldn’t just change the law he said, “Sure, Congress has the right to change the law whenever.” Not a lot of assurance there. I personally think Muslims would be better served to side with Republicans and Libertarians against the US Census and it’s lack of Constitutional basis.

The fact is the government already has as much information on Muslims as they want without a national database. The Bay Area CAIR chapter reports that the FBI visits at least one Bay Area Muslim per week, and that’s just the cases reported to them. Jenn is absolutely correct that whatever rights violations the state cooks up will occur in small steps. Like the myth that you can cook a frog alive if you place it cold water and increase the temperature gradually. Free societies always descend into authoritarianism by a slow fair-seeming incrementalism.  As Sinclair Lewis put it, “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross.”

I’ll tell you one thing my dear reader, if they ever demand that Muslims register on a national database, they’ll have to prove that I’m Muslim in front of 12 of my peers. I for one will not comply.

What you can do in your everyday life to knock down these pillars of sand Big Brother erects in his (dis)honor.

We get better treatment by those who actually care about our satisfaction, from the people that work at bagging our groceries than we do from our grossly mis-named “public servants.” Most folks complain under their breath if at all, but now the mess government has accrued has become way too big to sweep under the rug. Big Brother has irked everyone and in a big way. It has become glaringly illegitimate to everyone.

Uncle Sham was not content to just devalue all our money and order us to smile and be “good citizens” while he smacked us around. He was not satisfied snooping in on our phones and emails, snatching our property, and ordering us around.

No good people, he had to take it up a notch and pile numerous insults onto the ever growing heap of injuries done to you and me. I feel the tipping point will be that piece of plastic in your wallet when you go to your bank’s ATM and it tells you “sorry pal, your worthless money got swiped from you.” Wait in line at IndyMac or WaMu if you like, but you’re going to be real disappointed when the teller informs you that not only was your account cleaned out by two-bit charlatans with ill-intent, but the real kick in the head is that you’re going to be billed for this fiasco.

Mr. and Mrs. America (and presumably all the ships at sea) are finally in a spot where, if Libertarians care to educate them of the facts, they can have just as much open and useful criticism for government meddling in their lives, as average Libertarians have done so all these years.

From there the finger can finally be pointed in the direction that our lapdog media has refused to have the backbone to tell us: at Government itself. We may readily let people know in a way that can be easily digested by average Americans, that what we’ve been telling them all along is exactly on target: Government is illegitimate. Just how do you go about making government illegitimate? When you break it down, it really just means letting ordinary people see what is mostly obvious to them.

I like a good joke, it helps break the tension and is great for allowing folks to feel easy in the presence of bad news. Russians “toppled” plenty of statues of Lenin, Marx, Stalin and other fatheads and despots with a handy joke. They exposed their dictators and wannabe tyrants with humor and the ridicule they deserved.

Leviathan bites us all deeper than many of us realize because it has abandoned its only legitimate task of defending our rights and properties and has instead gone out of its way to do the opposite of its “well defined mission” and steal those same liberties and our property.

I find that even in my everyday activities at the store when counting out (what passes for) money at the checkout, I can plant a seed in the minds of the clerks. “I went to a public school so I don’t know how to count, but I think that I gave you the right amount.”

Sure, people will be instructed to blame capitalism for America’s woes, but people have been had too often in way too short of a time. I have a keen sense that people will connect the dots and make up their own minds. Traditional news outlets have been losing their grip on people’s minds for some time now.

If the president did anything to help the situation (by accident of course) he showed us the filthy cold underbelly of big government. He rubbed our noses in it and told us that if we were “Good Americans” who did no wrongdoings we need not fear the onerous Patriot Act and its vile mission to scoop up citizens to feed the savage meat grinder of the U.S. “Justice” System.

There are other things we can do to thumb our nose at government. Form a small group of people who share your concern. You really need at least 4 or 5 members just to keep from being perceived as a bunch of “loners”. Contact your local media and call a press conference (free publicity for your group). Have a certificate, and add a cheap frame printed awarding best public servant (one who does most to work him/herself out of a job). And of course don’t forget the worst ones awarded titles of “rudest,” “most dishonest,” “most clueless,” etc…

While it’s still legal to do so, educate your friends, casual acquaintances and the like. Try strangers on the street if you’re feeling especially friendly and show people by example how to make public employees look like total schmucks at every possible opportunity.

This is our land, we belong here and keep their bellies full, not to mention paying their union dues and allowing their utilities to continue flowing without interruption. They should be eternally grateful to us for that, not mistreat us. We’re keeping these pampered layabouts employed when, if they were actually paid for their “real value” to us, the whole gang of jack-booted thugs would be rummaging through dumpsters for scraps thrown out by the genuinely productive populace.

Since the taxes used to pay them are extorted from us under implied threat of force, a picture of an armed moocher shouldn’t be too difficult to paint in the minds of the everyday throng to fill in the blanks of a petty despot or his vile underlings.

Don’t waste too much of your time trying to convince those incapable of learning the truth, instead move on to the next. Street arguments are for suckers. Some people are just too averse to looking at what is ugly or seemingly inconsequential to them. When some wild eyed bureaucrat goes ape on him or her they’ll remember your chat.

Look at it in terms of letting as many people in on what is actually happening to them. Have fun with it and share with the masses that ridicule and bad public relations are exactly what these government employees both fear and deserve.

When government stays out of yours and others lives, you are freer, to the degree of just how much you are able to keep them at bay. Good luck to you on your mission, my friends.

The recent decision by the City of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania to require a Business Privilege License (cost $300) of blogs and that the blogs be taxed on any profits has generated a well deserved outcry from free marketers across the country.  Many have invoked Chief Justice John Marshall’s famous words, “The power to tax involves the power to destroy.” They are right, this will be the end of independent blogging in Philadelphia and around the world when this spreads across countries.

The tax is actually the least of the threats to blogging the city is creating. The major threat is the licensing. Once the precedent is established that blogs can be licensed the government’s control of the blogosphere will grow in small increments until it can shut us all down by simply requiring and then denying said license. Simply charging a high licensing fee will close the majority. There’s no doubt in this libertarian’s mind the government would love nothing more than to have the Internet as limited and controlled as it has television and radio. In other words, they will apply the corporate media model to it. All these independent bloggers have been a great source of anxiety for our rulers. Why the masses are actually getting some truth! This is a tremendous threat to their power.  Much better for them if there are only a few corporate sources of information.

Does this sound far fetched? Let us consider a little history in other media namely television and radio. Back in the bad old days there where only three major television networks operating nationally. There were some local stations too, of course. Radio was and still is owned by large corporate entities. Now cable and satellite television have expanded the number of channels available, but the change has not affected the government’s control of the media. All need a license to operate. Just as important they can be easily bought off with advertising. The government controlled the flow of information to the people. It is perfect example of fascism with nominally private corporations under the government’s control and doing their bidding.

Enter the internet. Almost completely unregulated it is liberty at its best.  By the dawn of the twenty-first century people were getting information and opinions that could be hidden from them before. People are networking and communicating with like-minded people from around the globe. Anyone with intelligence, a computer, and internet access can blog successfully. Independently shot videos of all manner of things the government doesn’t want exposed can be disseminated easily and at no cost. Governments and corporations are profoundly threatened by this new freedom to communicate and trade independently. To them blogging is a menace that must be stopped!

This author very much doubts that the Obama administration will be suing Philadelphia to stop their taxing and licensing scheme like they sued Arizona over their immigration law.  It’s all up to us to stop this tyranny before the internet goes the way of television and radio. To this end I ask everyone to join the boycott of the City of Philadelphia until they come to their senses and leave the bloggers alone. This travesty must be stopped here before it spreads. Please show your support at our Facebook page “Boycott Philadelphia Until the Bloggers Are Free!“.

Any discussion of the draft should begin with the 13th amendment from yee olde US Constitution:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Yet “involuntary servitude” is precisely what’s coming next to this “free” society. This time it comes to us in sheep’s skin. On July 15th Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel took a break from dodging allegations of ethics violations to introduce the Universal National Service Act, which was referred to the House Armed Service Subcommittee. To be clear, there can never be universal national service unless it is mandatory. Mandatory service is involuntary servitude by definition. In other words, if Rangel gets his way, the American people will become slaves of the government.

On the House floor Rangel said the legislation would, “reinstate the draft and make it permanent during time of war” promising that everyone “whether they’re men or women, whether they’re straight or gay” would have the “opportunity” to defend this country at the president’s whim.

It makes perfect sense that the state would need a fresh herd of soft bodies to catch hard bullets on foreign soil when it’s conducting multiple undeclared wars with no end in sight. But this bill goes beyond the “selective service” that Nixon abolished. Women were not subject to the draft during the Vietnam War, and this new bill has no provision for a college deferment. If this bill passes even conscientious objectors will be forced into noncombatant service, or national civilian service. The stated purpose of the bill is as follows:

“To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.”

Not surprisingly Rangel himself is well over 42, but if his bill passes virtually any adult under 42 could be pulled away from their civilian life and be sentenced to two years of forced labor for the president. Basically, if the government needs the expertise you possess, they simply conscript you against your will into a government bureaucracy. If you disobey you go to jail. If you resist you will be punished. For that reason many opponents of the legislation have dubbed it “The National Slavery Bill.”

This is being portrayed as part of a democratic agenda while Obama is in office, which has caused fear and controversy on the right, but its supporters on the left fail to recognize that when the next republican president is elected the power falls in his hands. What authoritarian sociopath wouldn’t want a near limitless supply of conscripted American labor?

This whole campaign began with a bi-partisan summit on September 11th, 2009. During the Presidential race both Obama and McCain colluded with bi-partisan corporate sponsors with the goal “to set America on a trajectory to become a nation of universal national service by 2020.” This is a bi-partisan effort to steal you from your own life and your own goals and put you to work on their projects.

Advocates argue that involuntary servitude is the best way to keep the government and its war machine accountable to the public. They reason that if everyone is forced to serve against their will the anti-war sentiment will intensify. Undoubtedly it would, but what sense does it make to solve the problem of an unaccountable government by giving the government more power over the people? Public sentiment is already against the war. The protests after the invasion of Iraq were the largest in U.S. history. Obama was elected as the peace candidate. Yet the wars continue and escalate. Intensifying public opinion when the political class already ignores public opinion makes no sense. What happens when anti-war protests get so out of hand they are forced to draft people to police them?

Others have argued that involuntary servitude would build character and promote good citizenship, but that completely ignores that it is involuntary. For many people joining the Boy Scouts builds character. That doesn’t make it appropriate to force people into the Boy Scouts against their will. If you did force someone to join the Boy Scouts you would likely find that they are less enthusiastic, less cooperative, and less productive than those participating by choice.

The issue is the threat of force.

Advocates of involuntary servitude obfuscate their objectives using the rhetoric of volunteerism, but it’s not volunteering, and it’s not an opportunity, if you have no choice. The difference between volunteering to serve and serving against your will is identical to the difference between giving charity and being robbed. Upon closer reading the only thing voluntary about it is that your servitude need not necessarily be in the military. They will create other “opportunities” in other bureaucracies you can serve against your will.

Actually volunteering for a noble cause is a righteous act and should be encouraged, but being forced to work or face jail is nothing short of slavery.

Originally published at GonzoTimes.com

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

— Letter From Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.

The radical is seen often by the moderate in a negative light. The moderate is content with the status quo.  Often moderates are contest as long as things stay relatively calm and undisturbed. The moderate often gives lip service to injustice and the ills of society agreeing with truth but remaining unwilling to oppose the system. The political arena calls for this in the form of bipartisan or just getting along. All you have to do is embrace the evil so the other guy will give you a little of the good.

Why would the state need to even discredit the Anarchist if those who hear the truth anarchists preach will do nothing but accept the state? The greatest tool the state has is the average citizen lives a life of moderate complacency for fear of ‘rocking the boat’ or drastic change.

A life of little conflict with assurance not much will be disturbed is often more important to people than to see wrongs turned right. The greater danger is those who hear the truth but will not act upon it or oppose the what is for what ought to be. The state is not my greatest opposition as an Anarchist, but the moderate who will hear but not oppose the state.  This extends to the current race issue also. Too many are complacent in listening to the prejudice arguments against migrants and Muslims all the while stating that something is wrong but never reaching the point they are willing to stand against the wrong. The bigot, islamaphobe and racist have made their stance clear. They only ask you to not oppose them.

In cases of sexual abuse the perpetrator is the easiest to side with. The victim actually asks you to look at the evil and do something or confront it. The abuser or oppressor is content with you just looking the other way and not making any noise. You don’t have to stand up for the evil and victimization as long as you do not do anything to stop it.

A group of activists calling themselves Fort Hood Disobeys recently tried to block the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to Iraq from Fort Hood. The activists were labeled anti war protestors by another media outlet, which is okay by me. It’s about time we got some action on the anti war protesting front. It’s about time real people started to once again voice their concern in a more pertinent way than simply begging politicians, who obviously couldn’t care less, to end these expensive and deadly occupations. One can only hope that this example of civil disobedience is followed up by more incidents and greater disobedience from those who were so boisterous when George Bush was in office but have remained so silent since Barack Obama became president.

Of course this action was not covered for the most part by the corporate mainstream media, at least not that I saw. I read about it on an Internet news source, which seems to be the only place where one can find real and significant news these days. You won’t see this story on FOX or CNN or any of the corporate networks because, with very few exceptions, they no longer seem interested in covering the news. They are more interested in making the news. They are more interested in diverting attention away from what is important and toward fluff items of little significance. God forbid the populous should learn that there are still people out there who care enough about ending wars of aggression to actually do something about it.

I commend these individuals for their bravery in standing up to the US military. This action, in my mind, harkens back to an incident in 1989 where a young Chinese man stood in front of tanks in an effort to avoid bloodshed in Tiananmen Square. There, one man showed us that at least the spirit of liberty lives on. He showed us that the actions of a few, or even an individual, can ignite a fire in the hearts of millions, especially if the cause is just. Of course, his actions were broadcast and propagandized worldwide because it seemed appropriate at the time to do so. Things are a bit different in this situation. Big government and big corporations are profiting from this war and they wouldn’t want the populous to believe their wars were anything but just.

Did I mention that most of those protesting were ex military? These are the people who are most against these wars. Those who think that war protestors are only peaceniks who don’t understand the reasoning behind wars are deluding themselves. War protestors and pro peace activists understand all too well what war is about. It’s not about keeping America safe. It’s not about protecting the innocent. It’s not about bringing democracy to the poor, uneducated masses of some third world nation. It’s not even about revenge for some convoluted terrorist attack that took place nine years ago. It’s about money. It’s about power. It’s about building an empire. It’s about controlling people and natural resources. It’s about sacrificing the little people for the benefit of the elite.

There are those detractors who question the wisdom of so few protesting in such a seemingly futile fashion. There are those who will claim that nothing was accomplished, that the deployment they tried to stop went on anyway. Yet it is the few that can have the greatest affect. It is the few speaking out that help the many understand an alternative viewpoint. This is especially true when the few have experienced something that the many haven’t. Something was accomplished, even if the effects don’t show up immediately. Those in charge now know that some people care. Those in charge now know there are those who are not simply going to roll over and obey. Those in charge now know there are some ex military personnel who are not going to merely keep silent and get on with their lives while others are sent to kill and oppress in a far off land for a faceless, uncaring elite. This is but a small pebble landing in a lake that leads to big ripples. The only thing that evil needs to succeed is for good people to do nothing.

There are other detractors who will question the tactics of these civilly disobedient activists. They may believe that protesting through proper channels is the better way to bring about meaningful change. They may advocate voting in anti war candidates or writing to congressmen. While I don’t necessarily disagree with those methods, in fact I encourage them, it seems to me that they haven’t been very effective so far. Still, even a little effort is better than none.

Barack Obama, for instance, was catapulted into office at least in part because he made promises to stop the unethical occupation going on in Iraq. We haven’t seen that happen. We still have troops stationed there and I’ve heard talk about keeping them there forever, just like we’ve done with Germany, Japan and South Korea. He was elected because he intimated he would change the way government goes about its business, that he would bring more transparency and even reverse some of the mistaken policies of the Bush administration. So far, he has kept none of his promises that I can think of. He is nothing but a typical politician, eloquent with his words, quick to promise the electorate what they want, but unable or unwilling to follow through with those promises.

This type of flip flopping, of promising one thing and doing another is an age old political maneuver. It seems to me that it’s not necessarily the politicians themselves that are the problem, it’s the system. As long as they think they can get away with it, they will continue making promises they can’t or won’t keep. As long as they aren’t held accountable for their deviate actions, they will continue to act like the political animals they are.

As for writing your congressman, need I remind you of the bailouts of 2008? Those bailouts were passed despite ten of thousands of letters and emails against them from congressional constituents. Both Barack Obama and John McCain rushed back to the senate from their campaign trails to vote for those bailouts despite popular opposition to the bills. Who were they representing? Certainly not the common folk. This type of behavior continues as evidenced with the continuing bailouts and the unpopular health care bill that coerces individuals with threatening punishments if they don’t buy the state mandated health care insurance. The demand to repeal such unconstitutional laws and roll back the federal government is being ignored. So long as we continue to obey and pay our taxes they will continue to ignore popular sentiment, intrude upon your personal life and business, and empower themselves to the point where your voice is silenced and only the powerful elite oligarchs and their interests matter.

We have been left with few other alternatives. Only civil disobedience seems to work to bring about positive change. Certainly the other methods remain viable, but only as a measure of how unpopular certain policies have become. There must be those willing to get out there and protest. There must be those willing to partake in civil disobedience and who refuse to go along with the program. That is how Gandhi helped win independence for India. That is how the civil rights movement in America in the 60s succeeded. That is a big reason why the Vietnam occupation was ended. I applaud those who took part in this important action and I hope to see in the near future even more support for their efforts.

My archived articles are available at szandorblestman.com. Please visit there to help support me and my efforts. I also have an ebook available entitled “The Ouijiers” by Matthew Wayne.

Original Photoshop Image
Originally Posted at Examiner.com

On the website of the United State Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) is a document titled, “Learn About the United States: Quick Civics Lessons for the Natural….” It is intended to prepare immigrants to answer 100 civics questions, 10 of which will be on the actual test, 6 of which must be answered correctly to pass. Native born Americans undergo 14 years of indoctrination, so to bring immigrants up to speed the government subjects them to a simplified, highly propagandized version of American history. As a result, many immigrants enter American society with a false sense of utopianism only to be disappointed by the rude awakening of actual life in America.

As a public service, this will serve a guide to the top ten misrepresentations that appear in this document.

1) The United States has a long history of welcoming immigrants.
Anti-immigrant sentiment goes all the way back in US history. Benjamin Franklin wrote that German immigrants were too stupid to learn English, and that their “swarthy complexion” would dilute “the pure white people” who settled colonial Pennsylvania. Anti-Catholic rhetoric also goes back to the colonial period, but it reached its peak in the 1840s when huge numbers of Irish immigrants were accused of dual loyalty to the Pope, and conspiratorial ambitions to spread medieval theocracy. Chinese, Italian and Polish immigrants were all opposed by American labor unions who feared losing jobs and lower wages from the flood of low skilled workers in the labor market. Every immigrant population that has come to America has been met with fear and hate.

2) The United States signed treaties with American Indian tribes to move them to reservations.
While technically true in some cases, this ignores a long and violent history of persecution and genocide against the Native Americans. Policies of “Indian Removal” began almost the moment Columbus set foot in the New World including mass hangings, intentional infection with small pox, and the deliberate destruction of flora and fauna used for food. The systematic extermination of buffalo resulted in wide scale starvation. The Removal Act of 1830 forced the relocation of tens of thousands of Native Americans Westward, often resulting in long death marches. Reservations were created by the Indian Appropriations Act of 1851. Tribes were scattered from their ancestral homes and concentrated into small parcels of land. Children were taken from their families, stripped of their way of life and forced into manual labor. Clergy were stationed on reservations to teach Christianity. Even by conservative estimates, the Native American population has been reduced 95% from what it was prior to European contact.

3) The Constitution is the “supreme law of the land.” Federal powers are restricted to those described in the Constitution.
Recently, when asked about the Constitutionality of Obama’s healthcare bill Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn told Judge Andrew Napolitano, “most of what we do in Washington is not authorized by the Constitution.” A rare moment of honesty. The fact is most of the laws on the books do not stand up to Constitutional rigor and there is no golden age of Constitutionally limited government in our past. The federal government is, and has always been, exactly as large as it can get away with being. George Bush started a war without a formal declaration. Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the Japanese internment camps. Woodrow Wilson established the Federal Reserve. Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. John Adams made it a crime to criticize government officials. As Lysander Spooner put it, the Constitution has either authorized tyranny, or has been powerless to prevent it.

4) The Civil War was fought to abolish slavery.
Most Northerners did not oppose slavery, in fact Lincoln explicitly supported slavery in his first inaugural address. Many Southerners favored staying in the Union because slavery was Constitutionally protected, while the volatility of a new Confederacy made it unclear whether slavery would continue. Lincoln was a political novice whose campaign was bankrolled by Northern industrialists. They aimed to hike taxes on the South to subsidize industry in the North. Southern states felt bullied by the Northern majority and withdrew from the Union democratically. The war cry of the North was not “free the slaves” but “preserve the Union.” The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in Confederate states, not in the North. Lincoln called it a “war measure.” It allowed free slaves to join the Union Army. Together with a draft, another form of slavery, this gave him the manpower to win the war. The 13th Amendment, which abolished chattel slavery, was supported by a majority of the Southern states. Every other country in the New World ended slavery without violence, with the exception of the Haitian Revolution, which was a slave revolt, not a civil war. The Civil War was essentially a very bloody tax revolt followed by a brilliant PR campaign.

5) The federal government has the power to print money
The US Treasury does not print money. In 1913 the monopoly power to print money was granted to the Federal Reserve which was devised by a cartel of international bankers, not by Congress. The name itself is a fraud. The Federal Reserve is not federal. It’s a private bank no more federal than Federal Express. The Federal Reserve is also not a reserve. There is no gold. There is no silver. They print a baseless paper note. Its only value is derived from public confidence in its purchasing power… which is declining. In reality a dollar is not a measure of value, but a measure of the National debt owed to the Federal Reserve. It is a central bank, which was bitterly opposed by the drafters of the Constitution. The founders recognized the importance of honest currency. Article I, Section 10 states, “No State shall… make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.”

6) President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” rescued America from the Great Depression.
The New Deal is cheered by policy makers to this day, but economists now argue that it actually prolonged the Great Depression, and disproportionately hurt the poor. The upper class insiders actually profited immensely by loading up on debt during the boom of the 1920s, anticipating the crash, and then paying off their loans after inflation had devalued the currency. Meanwhile federal taxes tripled, primarily excise taxes levied on everyday things like chewing gum, soft drinks, phone service, and electricity. The financial burden of the New Deal programs fell disproportionately on the lower class that they purported to help. While a few jobs were created by direct spending, a greater number of jobs were destroyed by excessive taxing. Further, the majority of the spending did not go to the poorest of the poor, who were already overwhelmingly Democratic voters, but instead went to swing states, trying to buy political support for Roosevelt’s reelection.

7) The “rule of law” means that our leaders must obey the law. No person is above the law.
When George Bush’s daughter was charged with underage drinking the comment from the White House was that they wanted to keep it a family matter. Yet, a less connected child would likely serve jail time. The Obama administration is full of tax cheats. Dick Cheney shoots a hunting buddy in the face and nothing happens. Al Gore is accused or sexually assaulting a masseuse and nothing happens. Soldiers torture. Police speed and park illegally. Well connected bankers rip off the tax payer for billions. Justice is for sale. The “rule of law” is a nice idea for fairy tales but in reality laws are written by men, interpreted by men, implemented by men, and broken by men. There is no way to escape the rule of men… corrupt, flawed, power hungry men.

8 ) The economic system of the United States is Capitalism.
The economy may have been something resembling capitalism at one time, but it’s not anymore. Capitalism is essentially a system of private property rights where goods are voluntarily exchanged in a free market. In the American system licenses, permits, patents and regulations are all coercive elements that hinder the free exchange of goods. Some call it a “mixed economy” meaning it contains elements of both a free market and a centrally planned economy. A more accurate term would be “corporatism.” Big corporations cartelize to pool influence and collude with the government to monopolize industries and legislate competition out of the market. A corporation is a legal fiction. A file drawer someplace, regarded by the state as a legal entity distinct from its members. They enjoy a special relationship with the state in which members enjoy “limited liability” which means they are not fully accountable for the damages caused by their decisions. That is the very definition of fascism, the material success of capitalism colluded with the legal immunity of statism.

9) The President commands the armed forces, but only Congress has the power to declare war.
Congress has not declared war since 1941 when America entered WWII. The Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, the Iraq War and now the ongoing War on Terror have all been undeclared unconstitutional wars. The framers of the Constitution denied the President the power to declare war to prevent the formation of a standing army which they understood would be detrimental to American liberty. In fact, Article I, Section 8 limits war funding to no longer than two years. Today we have exactly what the framers feared, and the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us against. Basically it works like this. Huge corporations get lucrative government contracts to produce military equipment. If there is no war, there is no need for those contracts, so they have huge lobbying budgets to make sure we are in perpetual conflict. Congress is then put in the impossible position of “representing” people who are against the war, while taking huge sums of money from the corporations that support it. So they are more than happy to abdicate their responsibility to the President.

10) The government works for the people. In the United States the authority to govern comes from the consent of the people, who are the highest power.
The Declaration of Independence states that, “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” A recent Rasmussen poll of voters nationwide found that 61% said they don’t believe the government has the necessary consent described in the Declaration of Independence. 70% believed that government and corporations collude in ways that hurt the people. Obama told the Military Times editorial board that, “what essentially sets a nation-state apart (from the private sector), is a monopoly on violence.” The power of the government doesn’t come from the consent of the governed, it comes from the barrel of the gun. It comes from the militarization of police, and the largest military in human history. Think you’re the highest power? Just try not paying your taxes.

The gay marriage debate is playing out in California. There, the majority of people have spoken. They don’t believe that gay people should be allowed to be married. They think that marriage should be defined as one man and one woman. They think that the state should not be allowed to sanction any other kind of union. I think this is a great example of why our founding fathers had such disdain for democracy. This is a great example of how the democratic process can lead to tyranny or mob rule. This is a great example of the difference between a republic and a democracy, why our founders decided to make this nation a republic, and why even republics fail miserably when it comes to representing the masses.

Let me say for the record that I couldn’t care less whether two males, two females, or groups of people either mixed or not want to marry. It’s none of my business, just like who I want to marry or whether or not anyone even ever wants to marry me is none of anyone else’s business. Better than that, it is not the state’s business. What does the state care who I am living with? I don’t need permission from the state to fall in love with someone, or to make vows to them in front of our families, friends and/or the god of our choice. But the state has managed to force itself into the most intimate aspects of our lives and most of us simply allow it to take control. They whimper and cry one way or another, either that they are “unable” to marry and obtain all the goodies the state grants those unions, or that their sensibilities have been offended. This is nothing more than a collectivist scheme, in my opinion. It is yet another brilliant way to pit one group against another.

The answer, of course, is to get the state completely out of the marriage business. Let the churches decide who they will marry. Let the marketplace determine how marriages will be conducted. Let individuals decide for themselves how they want to go about making vows of love and entering into life partnerships with others. There is no reason for a coercive institution to steal money from all and then exercise prejudice against one group in favor of another. There is no reason to get people all riled up because government is always going to be unfair to one group or another.

But that’s not what we have in this nation of ours. We don’t have free and independent people simply running their lives as they see fit. We have a bunch of serfs running around asking their master’s permission to do the simplest of tasks. We have a bunch of “citizens” who have become so dependent on government mandates that they can’t make any decisions for themselves without first checking to see if they would be violating some code or statute. If I was a gay man in love with another man, I certainly wouldn’t care what the state had to say about it. If I wanted to marry, I’d draw up a contract, find someone or some church who could do the ceremony, and then move on with my life. What should I care who else would recognize the marriage? As long as it was recognized between myself and my partner, that should be all that matters.

Yet people seem to want the majority to go along with them. They seem to want everyone to think and act as they do. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we are all in the minority at some time or another. We all have ideas and thoughts and little quirks that others would think are strange or abnormal. There is a reason we should realize that if we want to live free, we need to let others live free. When you give someone the power to criminalize the activities of others that cause no harm to anyone else, eventually they are going to criminalize a victimless activity that you want to engage in. That’s why the rights of the smallest minority, the individual, need to be honored.

There is a morality issue here. Some may think I’m talking about the act of having sexual relations with a member of the same sex. Some have claimed that homosexuality is immoral because it’s an affront to God. They claim that on the authority of some old tome written thousands of years ago by fallible men. That is not what I’m talking about. If sexual activity between consenting adults of the same sex is an affront to God, then let God take care of it. He is, after all, the supreme, all powerful being. He has no need for your interdiction. He and those involved with the activity can sort things out at the appropriate time. If you want to intercede in the lives of those people and force them to stop having sex with each other and to act like a “normal” heterosexual, then likely it is because their activities are an affront to you personally and have nothing to do with God. I won’t even go into the psychological implications of such desires.

In the end, whatever decision is made, Whether the courts or the people prevail, there are going to be people who feel they are losers. In a society where the state is left out of marriage, there would be no goodies, no privileges, for those who were married. There would simply be the respect for individual rights. No one would be looking into the personal lives of others where it didn’t affect them personally. No one would care what others did in their personal lives as long as no harm was being done to others. In a world where the state is not involved in marriage, everyone wins. The contracts would be drawn up between two (or more) people and those people would be expected to honor their contract with each other. It would be the business of those people, and no one else. This is what a free society would teach us all. This is not the lesson we have learned from the failed experiment in democracy known as proposition 8.

My archived articles are available at szandorblestman.com. Please visit there to help support me and my efforts. I also have an ebook available entitled “The Ouijiers” by Matthew Wayne.

Originally posted at GonzoTimes.com

The Government does not hate you. The Government does not like you. It is indifferent. The Government is not an entity with feelings, remorse, ethics or conscious. It is a collective of individuals working according to rigid flawed guidelines. The government is not an individual therefore the government as a whole has no rights whatsoever. People can have rights, this corporate entity called the United States has no rights. It functions to take rights and to oppress. There are often individuals within the government who wish to ‘do good’ but overall that is impossible. The nature of government prohibits any good for the very means of which the state reaches its ends is immoral.

Individuals who work within the government or are employed by the government may have rights, but no more than any other individual. This makes the actions of many of the states employees criminal by the very nature of their jobs. Marines and Soldiers often engage in murder and invasion. They justify this by stating that the non-individual ‘the state’ is responsible. What is the state? It is nothing more than these individuals acting in a criminal manner to assert force and control over other human beings. If a gangster claims they have the right to murder because the gang they belong to calls for this murder, do we accept that as a justified?

Police by the nature of their job simply defend the will of the state with force. They partake in what would be seen outside of the context of the state as extortion, theft, murder, assault and kidnapping on a daily basis. This is simply justified by stating ‘they were just doing their job.’ Even the youngest elementary school child is taught this is wrong. “Would you jump off a bridge if Jimmy told you to?” We learn that just because someone tells us to do something it is not justified. Somehow statist apologetics seem to defy those simple ethics.

These people who have committed crimes against humanity under the titles the government provides them would still exist in a system without government. The aim of eliminating government can be seen as an aim to end the unethical nature of the state. By eliminating the crux of the state which is the power of the Police and Military that uses force to obtain it’s will and command over others. The average person sees these as necessities for order. To bring up alternatives for order in a more ethical manner tends to bring up doomsday scenarios and a debate that compares anarchism to a certain utopia they have even failed to obtain through their force. As an anarchist I do not seek utopia, but to reject a system that is every bit as criminal as what it claims to oppose. I seek to oppose hierarchy, power over others and oppression. To claim that we must accept oppression on one level to avoid oppression on another level is inaccurate. This returns to the statist mindset that in order to end crime we must also partake in those crimes under the title of ‘Police.’ I am not asking for oppression or crime on any level, rather pointing at how we accept it on one level for a ‘greater good’ justified by ‘the will of the people’ or the ‘divine rights of kings.’

If you have faith in these people to keep order and to find solutions with coercion why then do you not believe that this order can not be found outside of criminal means?

Those in the state that seek to keep order are just people. Individual human beings preforming a job under a misguided ethic. Once we have eliminated the hierarchy and oppression of the state it will still be people or individuals in non-coercive entities and through voluntary means providing similar services. There is a misunderstanding that somehow order is only found with these people if the state exists. The only tool for order is often seen as the state. This is partially because the state has educated us to believe such. Individuals have a difficult time perceiving a system outside of the systems that they have always known.

I am not one to say that a Dispute Resolution Organization (DRO) or Voluntary Contractual Arrangements are the definitive answer. In a truly non-coercive system we would see all and more. We would see amalgams of these as well as other concepts for protection defense and order. To state that we must choose one is the flaw of the statist. I n a truly liberated society I am not forced to choose between Mutualism, Anarcho-Syndicalism and Anarcho Capitalism, but I am free to join in the systems of order I find most effective or appropriate. To cling to only one is the way of the state. This keeps the flaws of the system choose also with no option and no way out.

Society like the government is not an individual or an entity with rights to supersede the rights of the individual. Society however is a reality. We may each be individuals with rights but we often find we are interdependent. This interdependence creates society, markets, syndicates and all forms of interaction. To say that one solution is sufficient for all needs is to oversimplify reality. To embrace anarchism is to embrace the reality that there is no one perfect way to interact and to embrace that there are flaws in systems. To embrace the state is to embrace one way that is believed to be the only solution and to enforce that belief and way upon others.

The expectations of statists for anarchism are far above that which they have achieved with statism. It is the statist who will ask for a solution to a problem and when given one they are restricted to the statist idea that this is the only solution. They will then ask impossible tasks that they have even failed to find effective solutions for. One example is defense. The statist sees the state as the only solution. When one looks at anarchist solutions we see many options. The anarchist will often start with prevention and move to other solutions from there. The statist is limited to the government they grant a monopoly over the industry of aggression.

In closing I will state that to reject the state is not to stand in opposition to order or to ignore problems that exist, but to embrace the reality that there is no one way that will be the answer to all. We embrace that fact that people can bring solutions and that they should not be disregarded because they do not lead to utopia.