Category Archives: Politics

Can Ukraine Escape IMF trap?

The documentation is out there to prove up a more reasonable and willing Russia after the USSR collapse. One item among many was Russian participation with NATO in developing a pan-European anti-missile shield. Despite the many insults to Russian pride and sovereignty by the West led by US/NATO implementing Gladio type Operations in Georgia, Ukraine and Chechnya. Putin has tried to be the adult on the global stage currently led by an inept Marxist Community Organizer to no avail. Russia has given concessions to no avail. Russia has tried to deal logically at arms length to no avail. Now, I think the US real agenda is clear for all the see especially Russia. Thus, Russia’s line has hardened and they are forming new alliances which will exclude the US/NATO/IMF and others.   Had the US used a more honest approach with Russia, it is my belief that our relationship would be on much better footing right now and much more cooperative. However, Putin is too smart to show his real anger but I believe this man is really pissed with the US lies, deceptions and the murders of Russian-speaking Ukrainians at the hands of US installed and backed NATO/IMF/EU friendly- forces. So Rather than sucker Russia into cooperation with NATO/IMF/EU, the Brzezinski doctrine of encircling and marginalizing Russia has caused them to scatter or move away from the globalist spider trap. Just watch what the IMF will do to Ukraine now that they have them. Just like a spider … sucks out the juice and tosses the dried carcass. Confirmed by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, key organizations in the Ukraine including the Neo-Nazi party Svoboda were generously supported by Washington: “We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals. … We will continue to promote Ukraine to the future it deserves.” However the US installed terrorist government has now collapsed (like the MB in Egypt)… elections will be held but what will come next? To get the rest of the promised IMF bailout money the Ukraine will have to give up its sovereignty despite whoever may call themselves leader of Ukraine.

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The Geopolitical Chessboard

Looks like the US plan to force Russia into submission by surrounding them with NATO forces may backfire. Russia, China and others are clearly seeing that the US cannot be trusted so they are looking to create a multipolar world to offset US war-mongering which is designed to create an Anglo-American monopolor New World Order. Zbigniew Brzezinski’s geopolitical template may be unraveling and have to be re-cast or discarded. If BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and other countries are able to construct a viable counter balance to US hegemony, perhaps a new geopolitical strategy would be to appropriate this burgeoning counterbalance into the original New World Order. This would give the world the illusion of two world powers when in fact there will only be one system controlling from the top.

The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives

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The Establishment’s favorite whipping boy

Alex-Jones

by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | JULY 29, 2014

Alex Jones is sometimes gruff, emotional and angry and his delivery style, voice and physical presence are not to everyone’s liking or taste. After all he’s not a news-anchor babe or a Madison Ave trained talking head. And he didn’t go to any Ivy League school I am familiar with. He would stick out like a sore thumb at any erudite social gathering with the upper class of the Northeast establishment so he is a pariah, an outcast and just doesn’t belong with the politically well-connected or the shakers and the movers of this country. So what makes Alex so popular and what makes him worth our attention?

Simply, Alex has done his homework and unlike so many of his contemporaries, he documents and can substantiate what he says and what he says matters. Is Alex Jones 100% correct in everything he says? Nope. Should you blindly believe everything he says? Nope, but you should check it out for yourself. So many other news sources are beholden to their corporate masters and do little to no documentation since it is much easier to just repeat what is already on the news wire. Alex does his own investigations, his own research and documents just about everything he says or writes. Why? Because if he didn’t, his very formidable enemies would have him for lunch. So next time you hear a gratuitous swipe at Alex, check the facts and you might discover Alex has been right all along.

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Definitions of different forms of government…

November 28, 2009 at 4:18pm

THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 12/2/1988
From John Galt, Dreams Come Due (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1986)
[pp. 145-6] [Kindly uploaded by Freeman 10602PANC]

In the interest of explaining the way various forms of government function politically and economically, the following examples (based on an old European joke) are presented for your edification:

Socialism You have two cows; there is an election. The new government takes one of your cows through taxes and gives it to your neighbor. The neighbor knows nothing of livestock so his new cow dies.

Communism You have two cows; there is a revolution. The new government confiscates both your cows and gives you a small portion of the milk they produce. Both cows soon die, but the government is able to get powdered milk on credit from a democratic government.

Fascism You have two cows; there is a military coup. The new government confiscates both your cows and sells you part of the milk for ration coupons.

Nazism You have two cows; there is an assassination. The new government confiscates both your cows and shoots you.

New Dealism You have two cows; there is a depression caused by the government, and then an election. The new government buys your cows with currency it has just printed. It then shoots one cow, hires an unemployed person to milk the other cow, and throws the milk away in order to help raise milk prices.

Democracy You have two cows; there is a surplus of milk and prices are low. You appeal to the government to subsidize your milk for the “good” of the country. The government enacts your program, raises taxes on its citizens, and buys your milk at inflated prices. It then stores the milk in rented warehouses until it spoils or they can find a communist government to buy it on credit and at a loss.

Capitalism You have two cows. You sell one cow and buy a bull. There is freedom and prosperity.

Do you see a pattern here?

martinique-206916_640

by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | JUNE 12, 2011

Do you see a pattern here? Believing in the primacy of the state over the individual is a religion in every sense of the word yet spreads undetected into all aspects of our lives. Although Darwin himself was not an atheist, the Darwinian Theory is based on the materialism that man is just a soulless animal or a series of chemical reactions; a cog in a wheel, and thus merely an effect –not cause over effect– converges with the godless belief system in the state over the individual. This epistemology is devoid of any real morality and produces a barren moonscape robbed of meaning or the juice of life. This epistemology contains no external standards which cannot be modified whimsically to fit the fashions or the politics of the day. Their standard is not a standard at all. Not believing in the individual, freewill or individual personal responsibility, the progressive Democrats –which are in fact authoritarians– regularly check themselves into rehab after engaging in socially unacceptable behavior thus taking no real responsibility for their actions as individuals. It is always someone else’s fault. It’s a mental illness, It’s their childhood, it’s big business, it’s society’s fault, its poverty, it’s mom or dad…it’s fill in the blank with anything but the person actually responsible. All they require is some counseling, group therapy, new religion or a magic pill and they will be all better. This aberration in identifying the real culprit frustrates any attempt to take responsibility; break away from the old ways that did not work and to make meaningful changes so that the individual can grow into new healthy and prosperous ways of living. True healing and corrective action can only come after the total destruction of the old faulty assumptions, the old habits and the old ways of thinking that did not work so that a rebuilding of healthy habits that do work can take place on new ground thus provided.

Below is the transcript of Ron Paul’s farewell address to Congress:

Congressman Ron Paul’s Farewell Speech to Congress:

Below is the transcript of Ron Paul’s farewell address to Congress:

November 18, 2012 at 9:30am

 

Farewell to Congress

 

This may well be the last time I speak on the House Floor.  At the end of the year I’ll leave Congress after 23 years in office over a 36 year period.  My goals in 1976 were the same as they are today:  promote peace and prosperity by a strict adherence to the principles of individual liberty.

It was my opinion, that the course the U.S. embarked on in the latter part of the 20th Century would bring us a major financial crisis and engulf us in a foreign policy that would overextend us and undermine our national security.

To achieve the goals I sought, government would have had to shrink in size and scope, reduce spending, change the monetary system, and reject the unsustainable costs of policing the world and expanding the American Empire.

The problems seemed to be overwhelming and impossible to solve, yet from my view point, just following the constraints placed on the federal government by the Constitution would have been a good place to start.

 

How Much Did I Accomplish?

In many ways, according to conventional wisdom, my off-and-on career in Congress, from 1976 to 2012, accomplished very little.  No named legislation, no named federal buildings or highways—thank goodness.  In spite of my efforts, the government has grown exponentially, taxes remain excessive, and the prolific increase of incomprehensible regulations continues.  Wars are constant and pursued without Congressional declaration, deficits rise to the sky, poverty is rampant and dependency on the federal government is now worse than any time in our history.

All this with minimal concerns for the deficits and unfunded liabilities that common sense tells us cannot go on much longer.  A grand, but never mentioned, bipartisan agreement allows for the well-kept secret that keeps the spending going.  One side doesn’t give up one penny on military spending, the other side doesn’t give up one penny on welfare spending, while both sides support the bailouts and subsidies for the banking and  corporate elite.  And the spending continues as the economy weakens and the downward spiral continues.   As the government continues fiddling around, our liberties and our wealth burn in the flames of a foreign policy that makes us less safe.

The major stumbling block to real change in Washington is the total resistance to admitting that the country is broke. This has made compromising, just to agree to increase spending, inevitable since neither side has any intention of cutting spending.

The country and the Congress will remain divisive since there’s no “loot left to divvy up.”

Without this recognition the spenders in Washington will continue the march toward a fiscal cliff much bigger than the one anticipated this coming January.

I have thought a lot about why those of us who believe in liberty, as a solution, have done so poorly in convincing others of its benefits.  If liberty is what we claim it is- the principle that protects all personal, social and economic decisions necessary for maximum prosperity and the best chance for peace- it should be an easy sell.  Yet, history has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled.

 

Authoritarianism vs. Liberty

If authoritarianism leads to poverty and war and less freedom for all individuals and is controlled by rich special interests, the people should be begging for liberty.  There certainly was a strong enough sentiment for more freedom at the time of our founding that motivated those who were willing to fight in the revolution against the powerful British government.

During my time in Congress the appetite for liberty has been quite weak; the understanding of its significance negligible.  Yet the good news is that compared to 1976 when I first came to Congress, the desire for more freedom and less government in 2012 is much greater and growing, especially in grassroots America. Tens of thousands of teenagers and college age students are, with great enthusiasm, welcoming the message of liberty.

I have a few thoughts as to why the people of a country like ours, once the freest and most prosperous, allowed the conditions to deteriorate to the degree that they have.

Freedom, private property, and enforceable voluntary contracts, generate wealth.  In our early history we were very much aware of this.  But in the early part of the 20th century our politicians promoted the notion that the tax and monetary systems had to change if we were to involve ourselves in excessive domestic and military spending. That is why Congress gave us the Federal Reserve and the income tax.  The majority of Americans and many government officials agreed that sacrificing some liberty was necessary to carry out what some claimed to be “progressive” ideas. Pure democracy became acceptable.

They failed to recognized that what they were doing was exactly opposite of what the colonists were seeking when they broke away from the British.

Some complain that my arguments makes no sense, since great wealth and the standard of living improved  for many Americans over the last 100 years, even with these new policies.

But the damage to the market economy, and the currency, has been insidious and steady.  It took a long time to consume our wealth, destroy the currency and undermine productivity and get our financial obligations to a point of no return. Confidence sometimes lasts longer than deserved. Most of our wealth today depends on debt.

The wealth that we enjoyed and seemed to be endless, allowed concern for the principle of a free society to be neglected.  As long as most people believed the material abundance would last forever, worrying about protecting a competitive productive economy and individual liberty seemed unnecessary.

 

The Age of Redistribution

This neglect ushered in an age of redistribution of wealth by government kowtowing to any and all special interests, except for those who just wanted to left alone.  That is why today money in politics far surpasses money currently going into research and development and productive entrepreneurial efforts.

The material benefits became more important than the understanding and promoting the principles of liberty and a free market.  It is good that material abundance is a result of liberty but if materialism is all that we care about, problems are guaranteed.

The crisis arrived because the illusion that wealth and prosperity would last forever has ended. Since it was based on debt and a pretense that debt can be papered over by an out-of-control fiat monetary system, it was doomed to fail.  We have ended up with a system that doesn’t produce enough even to finance the debt and no fundamental understanding of why a free society is crucial to reversing these trends.

If this is not recognized, the recovery will linger for a long time.  Bigger government, more spending, more debt, more poverty for the middle class, and a more intense scramble by the elite special interests will continue.

 

We Need an Intellectual Awakening

Without an intellectual awakening, the turning point will be driven by economic law.  A dollar crisis will bring the current out-of-control system to its knees.

If it’s not accepted that big government, fiat money, ignoring liberty, central economic planning, welfarism, and warfarism caused our crisis we can expect a continuous and dangerous march toward corporatism and even fascism with even more loss of our liberties.  Prosperity for a large middle class though will become an abstract dream.

This continuous move is no different than what we have seen in how our financial crisis of 2008 was handled.  Congress first directed, with bipartisan support, bailouts for the wealthy.  Then it was the Federal Reserve with its endless quantitative easing. If at first it doesn’t succeed try again; QE1, QE2, and QE3 and with no results we try QE indefinitely—that is until it too fails.  There’s a cost to all of this and let me assure you delaying the payment is no longer an option.  The rules of the market will extract its pound of flesh and it won’t be pretty.

The current crisis elicits a lot of pessimism.  And the pessimism adds to less confidence in the future.  The two feed on themselves, making our situation worse.

If the underlying cause of the crisis is not understood we cannot solve our problems. The issues of warfare, welfare, deficits, inflationism, corporatism, bailouts and authoritarianism cannot be ignored.  By only expanding these policies we cannot expect good results.

Everyone claims support for freedom.  But too often it’s for one’s own freedom and not for others.  Too many believe that there must be limits on freedom. They argue that freedom must be directed and managed to achieve fairness and equality thus making it acceptable to curtail, through force, certain liberties.

Some decide what and whose freedoms are to be limited.  These are the politicians whose goal in life is power. Their success depends on gaining support from special interests.

 

No More ‘isms’

The great news is the answer is not to be found in more “isms.”  The answers are to be found in more liberty which cost so much less.  Under these circumstances spending goes down, wealth production goes up, and the quality of life improves.

Just this recognition—especially if we move in this direction—increases optimism which in itself is beneficial.  The follow through with sound policies are required which must be understood and supported by the people.

But there is good evidence that the generation coming of age at the present time is supportive of moving in the direction of more liberty and self-reliance. The more this change in direction and the solutions become known, the quicker will be the return of optimism.

Our job, for those of us who believe that a different system than the  one that we have  had for the  last 100 years, has driven us to this unsustainable crisis, is to be more convincing that there is a wonderful, uncomplicated, and moral system that provides the answers.  We had a taste of it in our early history. We need not give up on the notion of advancing this cause.

It worked, but we allowed our leaders to concentrate on the material abundance that freedom generates, while ignoring freedom itself.  Now we have neither, but the door is open, out of necessity, for an answer.  The answer available is based on the Constitution, individual liberty and prohibiting the use of government force to provide privileges and benefits to all special interests.

After over 100 years we face a society quite different from the one that was intended by the Founders.  In many ways their efforts to protect future generations with the Constitution from this danger has failed.  Skeptics, at the time the Constitution was written in 1787, warned us of today’s possible outcome.  The insidious nature of the erosion of our liberties and the reassurance our great abundance gave us, allowed the process to evolve into the dangerous period in which we now live.

 

Dependency on Government Largesse

Today we face a dependency on government largesse for almost every need.  Our liberties are restricted and government operates outside the rule of law, protecting and rewarding those who buy or coerce government into satisfying their demands. Here are a few examples:

  • Undeclared wars are commonplace.
  • Welfare for the rich and poor is considered an entitlement.
  • The economy is overregulated, overtaxed and grossly distorted by a deeply flawed monetary system.
  • Debt is growing exponentially.
  • The Patriot Act and FISA legislation passed without much debate have resulted in a steady erosion of our 4th Amendment rights.
  • Tragically our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people.
  • The drone warfare we are pursuing worldwide is destined to end badly for us as the hatred builds for innocent lives lost and the international laws flaunted. Once we are financially weakened and militarily challenged, there will be a lot resentment thrown our way.
  • It’s now the law of the land that the military can arrest American citizens, hold them indefinitely, without charges or a trial.
  • Rampant hostility toward free trade is supported by a large number in Washington.
  • Supporters of sanctions, currency manipulation and WTO trade retaliation, call the true free traders “isolationists.”
  • Sanctions are used to punish countries that don’t follow our orders.
  • Bailouts and guarantees for all kinds of misbehavior are routine.
  • Central economic planning through monetary policy, regulations and legislative mandates has been an acceptable policy.

 

Questions

Excessive government has created such a mess it prompts many questions:

  • Why are sick people who use medical marijuana put in prison?
  • Why does the federal government restrict the drinking of raw milk?
  • Why can’t Americans manufacture rope and other products from hemp?
  • Why are Americans not allowed to use gold and silver as legal tender as mandated by the Constitution?
  • Why is Germany concerned enough to consider repatriating their gold held by the FED for her in New York?  Is it that the trust in the U.S. and dollar supremacy beginning to wane?
  • Why do our political leaders believe it’s unnecessary to thoroughly audit our own gold?
  • Why can’t Americans decide which type of light bulbs they can buy?
  • Why is the TSA permitted to abuse the rights of any American traveling by air?
  • Why should there be mandatory sentences—even up to life for crimes without victims—as our drug laws require?
  • Why have we allowed the federal government to regulate commodes in our homes?
  • Why is it political suicide for anyone to criticize AIPAC ?
  • Why haven’t we given up on the drug war since it’s an obvious failure and violates the people’s rights? Has nobody noticed that the authorities can’t even keep drugs out of the prisons? How can making our entire society a prison solve the problem?
  • Why do we sacrifice so much getting needlessly involved in border disputes and civil strife around the world and ignore the root cause of the most deadly border in the world-the one between Mexico and the US?
  • Why does Congress willingly give up its prerogatives to the Executive Branch?
  • Why does changing the party in power never change policy? Could it be that the views of both parties are essentially the same?
  • Why did the big banks, the large corporations, and foreign banks and foreign central banks get bailed out in 2008 and the middle class lost their jobs and their homes?
  • Why do so many in the government and the federal officials believe that creating money out of thin air creates wealth?
  • Why do so many accept the deeply flawed principle that government bureaucrats and politicians can protect us from ourselves without totally destroying the principle of liberty?
  • Why can’t people understand that war always destroys wealth and liberty?
  • Why is there so little concern for the Executive Order that gives the President authority to establish a “kill list,” including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination?
  • Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong.
  • Why is it is claimed that if people won’t  or can’t take care of their own needs, that people in government can do it for them?
  • Why did we ever give the government a safe haven for initiating violence against the people?
  • Why do some members defend free markets, but not civil liberties?
  • Why do some members defend civil liberties but not free markets? Aren’t they the same?
  • Why don’t more defend both economic liberty and personal liberty?
  • Why are there not more individuals who seek to intellectually influence others to bring about positive changes than those who seek power to force others to obey their commands?
  • Why does the use of religion to support a social gospel and preemptive wars, both of which requires authoritarians to use violence, or the threat of violence, go unchallenged? Aggression and forced redistribution of wealth has nothing to do with the teachings of the world great religions.
  • Why do we allow the government and the Federal Reserve to disseminate false information dealing with both economic and  foreign policy?
  • Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority?
  • Why should anyone be surprised that Congress has no credibility, since there’s such a disconnect between what politicians say and what they do?
  • Is there any explanation for all the deception, the unhappiness, the fear of the future, the loss of confidence in our leaders, the distrust, the anger and frustration?   Yes there is, and there’s a way to reverse these attitudes.  The negative perceptions are logical and a consequence of bad policies bringing about our problems.  Identification of the problems and recognizing the cause allow the proper changes to come easy.

 

Trust Yourself, Not the Government

Too many people have for too long placed too much confidence and trust in government and not enough in themselves.  Fortunately, many are now becoming aware of the seriousness of the gross mistakes of the past several decades.  The blame is shared by both political parties.  Many Americans now are demanding to hear the plain truth of things and want the demagoguing to stop.  Without this first step, solutions are impossible.

Seeking the truth and finding the answers in liberty and self-reliance promotes the optimism necessary for restoring prosperity.  The task is not that difficult if politics doesn’t get in the way.

We have allowed ourselves to get into such a mess for various reasons.

Politicians deceive themselves as to how wealth is produced.  Excessive confidence is placed in the judgment of politicians and bureaucrats.  This replaces the confidence in a free society.  Too many in high places of authority became convinced that only they,   armed with arbitrary government power, can bring about fairness, while facilitating wealth production.  This always proves to be a utopian dream and destroys wealth and liberty.  It impoverishes the people and rewards the special interests who end up controlling both political parties.

It’s no surprise then that much of what goes on in Washington is driven by aggressive partisanship and power seeking, with philosophic differences being minor.

 

Economic Ignorance

Economic ignorance is commonplace.  Keynesianism continues to thrive, although today it is facing healthy and enthusiastic rebuttals.  Believers in military Keynesianism and domestic Keynesianism continue to desperately promote their failed policies, as the economy languishes in a deep slumber.

Supporters of all government edicts use humanitarian arguments to justify them.

Humanitarian arguments are always used to justify government mandates related to the economy, monetary policy, foreign policy, and personal liberty.  This is on purpose to make it more difficult to challenge.  But, initiating violence for humanitarian reasons is still violence.  Good intentions are no excuse and are just as harmful as when people use force with bad intentions.  The results are always negative.

The immoral use of force is the source of man’s political problems.  Sadly, many religious groups, secular organizations, and psychopathic authoritarians endorse government initiated force to change the world.  Even when the desired goals are well-intentioned—or especially when well-intentioned—the results are dismal.  The good results sought never materialize.  The new problems created require even more government force as a solution.  The net result is institutionalizing government initiated violence and morally justifying it on humanitarian grounds.

This is the same fundamental reason our government  uses force  for invading other countries at will, central economic planning at home, and the regulation of personal liberty and habits of our citizens.

It is rather strange, that unless one has a criminal mind and no respect for other people and their property, no one claims it’s permissible to go into one’s neighbor’s house and tell them how to behave, what they can eat, smoke and drink or how to spend their money.

Yet, rarely is it asked why it is morally acceptable that a stranger with a badge and a gun can do the same thing in the name of law and order.  Any resistance is met with brute force, fines, taxes, arrests, and even imprisonment. This is done more frequently every day without a proper search warrant.

 

No Government Monopoly over Initiating Violence

Restraining aggressive behavior is one thing, but legalizing a government monopoly for initiating aggression can only lead to exhausting liberty associated with chaos, anger and the breakdown of civil society.  Permitting such authority and expecting saintly behavior from the bureaucrats and the politicians is a pipe dream.  We now have a standing army of armed bureaucrats in the TSA, CIA, FBI, Fish and Wildlife, FEMA, IRS, Corp of Engineers, etc. numbering over 100,000.  Citizens are guilty until proven innocent in the unconstitutional administrative courts.

Government in a free society should have no authority to meddle in social activities or the economic transactions of individuals. Nor should government meddle in the affairs of other nations. All things peaceful, even when controversial, should be permitted.

We must reject the notion of prior restraint in economic activity just we do in the area of free speech and religious liberty. But even in these areas government is starting to use a backdoor approach of political correctness to regulate speech-a dangerous trend. Since 9/11 monitoring speech on the internet is now a problem since warrants are no longer required.

 

The Proliferation of Federal Crimes

The Constitution established four federal crimes.  Today the experts can’t even agree on how many federal crimes are now on the books—they number into the thousands.  No one person can comprehend the enormity of the legal system—especially the tax code.  Due to the ill-advised drug war and the endless federal expansion of the criminal code we have over 6 million people under correctional suspension, more than the Soviets ever had, and more than any other nation today, including China.  I don’t understand the complacency of the Congress and the willingness to continue their obsession with passing more Federal laws.  Mandatory sentencing laws associated with drug laws have compounded our prison problems.

The federal register is now 75,000 pages long and the tax code has 72,000 pages, and expands every year.  When will the people start shouting, “enough is enough,” and demand Congress cease and desist.

 

Achieving Liberty

Liberty can only be achieved when government is denied the aggressive use of force.  If one seeks liberty, a precise type of government is needed.  To achieve it, more than lip service is required.

Two choices are available.

  1. A government designed to protect liberty—a natural right—as its sole objective.  The people are expected to care for themselves and reject the use of any force for interfering with another person’s liberty.  Government is given a strictly limited authority to enforce contracts, property ownership, settle disputes, and defend against foreign aggression.
  2. A government that pretends to protect liberty but is granted power to arbitrarily use force over the people and foreign nations.  Though the grant of power many times is meant to be small and limited, it inevitably metastasizes into an omnipotent political cancer.  This is the problem for which the world has suffered throughout the ages.  Though meant to be limited it nevertheless is a 100% sacrifice of a principle that would-be-tyrants find irresistible.  It is used vigorously—though incrementally and insidiously.  Granting power to government officials always proves the adage that:  “power corrupts.”

Once government gets a limited concession for the use of force to mold people habits and plan the economy, it causes a steady move toward tyrannical government.  Only a revolutionary spirit can reverse the process and deny to the government this arbitrary use of aggression.  There’s no in-between.  Sacrificing a little liberty for imaginary safety always ends badly.

Today’s mess is a result of Americans accepting option #2, even though the Founders attempted to give us Option #1.

The results are not good.  As our liberties have been eroded our wealth has been consumed.  The wealth we see today is based on debt and a foolish willingness on the part of foreigners to take our dollars for goods and services. They then loan them back to us to perpetuate our debt system.  It’s amazing that it has worked for this long but the impasse in Washington, in solving our problems indicate that many are starting to understand the seriousness of the world -wide debt crisis and the dangers we face. The longer this process continues the harsher the outcome will be.

 

The Financial Crisis Is a Moral Crisis

Many are now acknowledging that a financial crisis looms but few understand it’s, in reality, a moral crisis.  It’s the moral crisis that has allowed our liberties to be undermined and permits the exponential growth of illegal government power.  Without a clear understanding of the nature of the crisis it will be difficult to prevent a steady march toward tyranny and the poverty that will accompany it.

Ultimately, the people have to decide which form of government they want; option #1 or option #2.  There is no other choice.  Claiming there is a choice of a “little” tyranny is like describing pregnancy as a “touch of pregnancy.”  It is a myth to believe that a mixture of free markets and government central economic planning is a worthy compromise.  What we see today is a result of that type of thinking.  And the results speak for themselves.

 

A Culture of Violence

American now suffers from a culture of violence.  It’s easy to reject the initiation of violence against one’s neighbor but it’s ironic that the people arbitrarily and freely anoint government officials with monopoly power to initiate violence against the American people—practically at will.

Because it’s the government that initiates force, most people accept it as being legitimate.  Those who exert the force have no sense of guilt.  It is believed by too many that governments are morally justified in initiating force supposedly to “do good.”  They incorrectly believe that this authority has come from the “consent of the people.”  The minority, or victims of government violence never consented to suffer the abuse of government mandates, even when dictated by the majority.  Victims of TSA excesses never consented to this abuse.

This attitude has given us a policy of initiating war to “do good,” as well. It is claimed that war, to prevent war for noble purposes, is justified.  This is similar to what we were once told that:  “destroying a village to save a village” was justified.  It was said by a US Secretary of State that the loss of 500,000 Iraqis, mostly children, in the 1990s, as a result of American bombs and sanctions, was “worth it” to achieve the “good” we brought to the Iraqi people.  And look at the mess that Iraq is in today.

Government use of force to mold social and economic behavior at home and abroad has justified individuals using force on their own terms.  The fact that violence by government is seen as morally justified, is the reason why violence will increase when the big financial crisis hits and becomes a political crisis as well.

First, we recognize that individuals shouldn’t initiate violence, then we give the authority to government.   Eventually, the immoral use of government violence, when things goes badly, will be used to justify an individual’s “right” to do the same thing. Neither the government nor individuals have the moral right to initiate violence against another yet we are moving toward the day when both will claim this authority.  If this cycle is not reversed society will break down.

When needs are pressing, conditions deteriorate and rights become relative to the demands and the whims of the majority.  It’s then not a great leap for individuals to take it upon themselves to use violence to get what they claim is theirs.  As the economy deteriorates and the wealth discrepancies increase—as are already occurring— violence increases as those in need take it in their own hands to get what they believe is theirs.  They will not wait for a government rescue program.

When government officials wield power over others to bail out the special interests, even with disastrous results to the average citizen, they feel no guilt for the harm they do. Those who take us into undeclared wars with many casualties resulting, never lose sleep over the death and destruction their bad decisions caused. They are convinced that what they do is morally justified, and the fact that many suffer   just can’t be helped.

When the street criminals do the same thing, they too have no remorse, believing they are only taking what is rightfully theirs.  All moral standards become relative.  Whether it’s bailouts, privileges, government subsidies or benefits for some from inflating a currency, it’s all part of a process justified by a philosophy of forced redistribution of wealth.  Violence, or a threat of such, is the instrument required and unfortunately is of little concern of most members of Congress.

Some argue it’s only a matter of “fairness” that those in need are cared for. There are two problems with this. First, the principle is used to provide a greater amount of benefits to the rich than the poor. Second, no one seems to be concerned about whether or not it’s fair to those who end up paying for the benefits. The costs are usually placed on the backs of the middle class and are hidden from the public eye. Too many people believe government handouts are free, like printing money out of thin air, and there is no cost. That deception is coming to an end. The bills are coming due and that’s what the economic slowdown is all about.

Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government.  It is the tool for telling the people how to live, what to eat and drink, what to read and how to spend their money.

To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected.  Granting to government even a small amount of force is a dangerous concession.

 

Limiting Government Excesses vs. a Virtuous Moral People

Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed.  The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people.  The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified.

Most politicians and pundits are aware of the problems we face but spend all their time in trying to reform government.  The sad part is that the suggested reforms almost always lead to less freedom and the importance of a virtuous and moral people is either ignored, or not understood. The new reforms serve only to further undermine liberty.  The compounding effect has given us this steady erosion of liberty and the massive expansion of debt.  The real question is: if it is liberty we seek, should most of the emphasis be placed on government reform or trying to understand what “a virtuous and moral people” means and how to promote it. The Constitution has not prevented the people from demanding handouts for both rich and poor in their efforts to reform the government, while ignoring the principles of a free society. All branches of our government today are controlled by individuals who use their power to undermine liberty and enhance the welfare/warfare state-and frequently their own wealth and power.

If the people are unhappy with the government performance it must be recognized that government is merely a reflection of an immoral society that rejected a moral government of constitutional limitations of power and love of freedom.

If this is the problem all the tinkering with thousands of pages of new laws and regulations will do nothing to solve the problem.

It is self-evident that our freedoms have been severely limited and the apparent prosperity we still have, is nothing more than leftover wealth from a previous time.  This fictitious wealth based on debt and benefits from a false trust in our currency and credit, will play havoc with our society when the bills come due.  This means that the full consequence of our lost liberties is yet to be felt.

But that illusion is now ending.  Reversing a downward spiral depends on accepting a new approach.

Expect the rapidly expanding homeschooling movement to play a significant role in the revolutionary reforms needed to build a free society with Constitutional protections. We cannot expect a Federal government controlled school system to provide the intellectual ammunition to combat the dangerous growth of government that threatens our liberties.

The internet will provide the alternative to the government/media complex that controls the news and most political propaganda. This is why it’s essential that the internet remains free of government regulation.

Many of our religious institutions and secular organizations support greater dependency on the state by supporting war, welfare and corporatism and ignore the need for a virtuous people.

I never believed that the world or our country could be made more free by politicians, if the people had no desire for freedom.

Under the current circumstances the most we can hope to achieve in the political process is to use it as a podium to reach the people to alert them of the nature of the crisis and the importance of their need to assume responsibility for themselves, if it is liberty that they truly seek.  Without this, a constitutionally protected free society is impossible.

If this is true, our individual goal in life ought to be for us to seek virtue and excellence and recognize that self-esteem and happiness only comes from using one’s natural ability, in the most productive manner possible, according to one’s own talents.

Productivity and creativity are the true source of personal satisfaction. Freedom, and not dependency, provides the environment needed to achieve these goals. Government cannot do this for us; it only gets in the way. When the government gets involved, the goal becomes a bailout or a subsidy and these cannot provide a sense of  personal achievement.

Achieving legislative power and political influence should not be our goal. Most of the change, if it is to come, will not come from the politicians, but rather from individuals, family, friends, intellectual leaders and our religious institutions.  The solution can only come from rejecting the use of coercion, compulsion, government commands, and aggressive force, to mold social and economic behavior.  Without accepting these restraints, inevitably the consensus will be to allow the government to mandate economic equality and obedience to the politicians who gain power and promote an environment that smothers the freedoms of everyone. It is then that the responsible individuals who seek excellence and self-esteem by being self-reliance and productive, become the true victims.

 

Conclusion                                                                                                                                                    

What are the greatest dangers that the American people face today and impede the goal of a free society? There are five.

1. The continuous attack on our civil liberties which threatens the rule of law and our ability to resist the onrush of tyranny.               

2. Violent anti-Americanism that has engulfed the world. Because the phenomenon of “blow-back” is not understood or denied, our foreign policy is destined to keep us involved in many wars that we have no business being in. National bankruptcy and a greater threat to our national security will result.                                                         

3. The ease in which we go to war, without a declaration by Congress, but accepting international authority from the UN or NATO even for preemptive wars, otherwise known as aggression.                                        

4. A financial political crisis as a consequence of excessive debt, unfunded liabilities, spending, bailouts, and gross discrepancy in wealth distribution going from the middle class to the rich. The danger of central economic planning, by the Federal Reserve must be understood.                                               

 

 5. World government taking over  local and US sovereignty by getting involved in the issues of war, welfare, trade, banking,  a world currency, taxes, property ownership, and private ownership of guns.

 

Happily, there is an answer for these very dangerous trends.                                                     

What a wonderful world it would be if everyone accepted the simple moral premise of rejecting all acts of aggression.  The retort to such a suggestion is always:  it’s too simplistic, too idealistic, impractical, naïve, utopian, dangerous, and unrealistic to strive for such an ideal.

The answer to that is that for thousands of years the acceptance of government force, to rule over the people, at the sacrifice of liberty, was considered moral and the only available option for achieving peace and prosperity.

What could be more utopian than that myth—considering the results especially looking at the state sponsored killing, by nearly every government during the 20th Century, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.  It’s time to reconsider this grant of authority to the state.

No good has ever come from granting monopoly power to the state to use aggression against the people to arbitrarily mold human behavior.  Such power, when left unchecked, becomes the seed of an ugly tyranny.  This method of governance has been adequately tested, and the results are in: reality dictates we try liberty.

The idealism of non-aggression and rejecting all offensive use of force should be tried.  The idealism of government sanctioned violence has been abused throughout history and is the primary source of poverty and war.  The theory of a society being based on individual freedom has been around for a long time.  It’s time to take a bold step and actually permit it by advancing this cause, rather than taking a step backwards as some would like us to do.

Today the principle of habeas corpus, established when King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215, is under attack. There’s every reason to believe that a renewed effort with the use of the internet that we can instead advance the cause of liberty by spreading an uncensored message that will serve to rein in government authority and challenge the obsession with war and welfare.

What I’m talking about is a system of government guided by the moral principles of peace and tolerance.

The Founders were convinced that a free society could not exist without a moral people.  Just writing rules won’t work if the people choose to ignore them.  Today the rule of law written in the Constitution has little meaning for most Americans, especially those who work in Washington DC.

Benjamin Franklin claimed “only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”  John Adams concurred:  “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

A moral people must reject all violence in an effort to mold people’s beliefs or habits.

A society that boos or ridicules the Golden Rule is not a moral society.  All great religions endorse the Golden Rule.  The same moral standards that individuals are required to follow should apply to all government officials.  They cannot be exempt.

The ultimate solution is not in the hands of the government.

The solution falls on each and every individual, with guidance from family, friends and community.

The #1 responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow.  This is of greater importance than working on changing the government; that is secondary to promoting a virtuous society.  If we can achieve this, then the government will change.

It doesn’t mean that political action or holding office has no value. At times it does nudge policy in the right direction. But what is true is that when seeking office is done for personal aggrandizement, money or power, it becomes useless if not harmful. When political action is taken for the right reasons it’s easy to understand why compromise should be avoided. It also becomes clear why progress is best achieved by working with coalitions, which bring people together, without anyone sacrificing his principles.

Political action, to be truly beneficial, must be directed toward changing the hearts and minds of the people, recognizing that it’s the virtue and morality of the people that allow liberty to flourish.

The Constitution or more laws per se, have no value if the people’s attitudes aren’t changed.

To achieve liberty and peace, two powerful human emotions have to be overcome.  Number one is “envy” which leads to hate and class warfare.  Number two is “intolerance” which leads to bigoted and judgmental policies.  These emotions must be replaced with a much better understanding of love, compassion, tolerance and free market economics. Freedom, when understood, brings people together. When tried, freedom is popular.

The problem we have faced over the years has been that economic interventionists are swayed by envy, whereas social interventionists are swayed by intolerance of habits and lifestyles. The misunderstanding that tolerance is an endorsement of certain activities, motivates many to legislate moral standards which should only be set by individuals making their own choices. Both sides use force to deal with these misplaced emotions. Both are authoritarians. Neither endorses voluntarism.  Both views ought to be rejected.

I have come to one firm conviction after these many years of trying to figure out “the plain truth of things.”  The best chance for achieving peace and prosperity, for the maximum number of people world-wide, is to pursue the cause of LIBERTY.

If you find this to be a worthwhile message, spread it throughout the land.

Opus 003: Communism and the Tyranny of Good Intentions:

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | SEPTEMBER 06, 2012

Most of us are familiar with the story of Laissez-faire capitalism and the resulting abuses unleashed during Europe’s Industrial Revolution (1750 to 1850).  To correct these horrific insults to humanity, Karl Marx and his pal Friedrich Engels took it upon themselves to identify the problem and offer a solution…not realizing they would unleash a theoretical construct that would be used to murder, torture and  enslave most of humanity.   Their solution was Communism.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848.  Little did they know that these ideas (hatched in an arm chair in a library) would be used to enslave billions of people and responsible for hundreds of millions of agonizing deaths from starvation and cruelly at the hands of the masters it spawned.  The popular culture in today’s America cannot fathom this since they have not been educated to the evils contained in these well-intentioned ideals still proffered by our Progressive Democrats.

Unfortunately, Marx and most of our fellows today are caught up in labels and thus cannot discern the common elements in man’s inhumanity to man.  Bottom line is that if one man or group of men has unconstrained power over another, there will necessarily be abuse no matter what trendy label happens to suit your needs.

Mr. Marx believed that unconstrained capitalism was evil and it was and remains so today.  He described the class struggles between the haves and the have-nots (Bourgeois and Proletarians).  He also believed that the natural evolution dictates that democracy yields to socialism which in turn yields the final Utopian end state of Communism.  Democracy => Socialism => Communism. You can find this same theology in many of today’s progressives.

Mr. Marx also wrote another book called Das Kapital meant to expose the economic laws of capitalism and how it was the precursor to socialism.

If you’ve ever experienced the mental gymnastics and pain of reading Das Kapital you can appreciate the difficulty Mr. Marx had in explaining central planning of an economy and the socialist mode of production.  You should at least try to read a few chapters to get a sense of its morbid complexity.  What this book and Soviet Central Planning taught me is that central planning of an economy is a fool’s errand and that these decisions should be left in the hands of the individual whose work and toil created the value in the first place.  I think of it as a distribution of power model rather than a distribution of wealth model. When we remove the decision making from the individual who created the value, we create in its place malfeasance, abuse and inefficient allocation or resources not fair allocation as Marx would have us believe.  One example, I remember a friend going to a Russian shoe store to buy a pair of shoes only to find they had only left shoes…no right ones.  This would never happen in a free market, only by way of central control by a ridged, bloated bureaucracy.  Marx also missed the concept of individual motivation and how that impacts supply and demand.  Here again we can turn to our Soviet friends who had very cheap food prices as dictated by the authorities but when you went to the grocery store all the shelves were empty.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need (or needs)” is a slogan popularized by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program.

In the Marxist view, such an arrangement will be made possible by the abundance of goods and services that a developed communist society will produce; the idea is that, with the full development of scientific socialism and unfettered productive forces, there will be enough to satisfy everyone’s needs. Sound familiar?

The old systems of Feudalism, Monarchies and the newer Laissez-faire capitalism were flawed and needed to be replaced with a well-thought out system to provide the most good for the most people.

Feudalism was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labor. Monarchies were based on hereditary and unconstrained capitalism– while demonstrably more efficient– did not protect the masses from the abuse of the powerful.

The world has never known a communist government to date. The Soviet Union was not Communist. It was a centrally controlled government run by the powerful few corporate officers. China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos are the same. The cheat of Communism is that it seduces the masses into the belief that they will get something for nothing. Once the idea of communism takes hold in the minds of the masses, it has been used by the few to seduce the uneducated into slavery. Hugo Chavez’s takeover of Venezuela’s democracy is a recent case in point.

Were Karl Marx and Fredrick Engles evil doods? Nah. They were just a couple of well-intentioned do-gooders out to save the world.

So what’s better than communism?  A free market economy regulated by a government whose power over the individual is constrained by a constitution which places value on individual rights and freedoms.  As Ben Franklin said…”It’s a republic, if you can keep it.”

Opus 002: On Freedom & Tyranny:

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | JULY 23, 2012

Like so many others, it has become clear to me that our federal government no longer seeks to defend and protect individual rights or the founding documents that guarantee these rights. All have sworn an oath to defend and protect these founding principles; yet day after day, this sacred oath is ignored to the detriment of those persons and things sworn to protect. They only seek their own purposes.

“They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

“Experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But this long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism.”

I have meticulously listed my grievances against this increasingly controlling and deceitful government. I have helplessly watched our protector—the judiciary– ignore and bastardize our sacred constitution. They give pass after pass and acquiesce to the executive and legislative branches of government as the rights of the individual are supplanted with the rights of the state.

I have hoped in vein that the fourth estate, i.e. our news media, would somehow rally public opinion against these forces; only to find they too support the increasing power of our federal masters. These are historical times as we find ourselves perched on the razors edge of freedom or tyranny. We are witnessing the rapid destruction of our individual rights, once sustained by our respect and reverence for our founding documents of still visible scribbles on parchment at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. This experiment in the primacy of individual rights 237 years ago created the greatest engine for freedom and prosperity in the history of man. Are we now expected to sit passively by and watch as our treasure is plundered by the Permanent Political Class and their legions of Bureaucrats?

So the question for me is: “Is our government legitimate?” Can a government who has sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies (foreign and domestic), who is now engaged in the wholesale destruction of these same principals …can this government by any reasonable measure be considered legitimate? The answer is clearly no.

Opus 001: On Race & Dignity:

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | March 29, 2012

Like MLK, as far as I’m concerned, the color of one’s skin is not as important as the content of one’s character. However, I am fair skinned and am thus generally envious of those with more color than me so you could say I tend to be slightly prejudiced against my pink brethren and slightly more positive towards those fellows who by no choice of their own are blessed with a darker skin.

Notwithstanding the above, I was raised in an all-white family and played with mostly white kids. I had a few friends who were Hispanic in origin but no black friends. Maybe that was the result of segregation, I just don’t know but I never saw any black people during my youth until we ran track in high school against another school that was almost entirely black.

I don’t recall having any negative opinions of black people and I have no recollection of my mother or father making negative comments towards our black brethren, so you could say I was agnostic on the topic of race; really having no experience on which to base any judgment. I was mostly curious.

After high school, I did have occasion to meet and greet a few blacks but just a few. I recall feeling bad for the blacks since they were slaves –or rather some of their ancestors were– and felt okay with my self-appraisal since I knew I was not prejudiced and had no ill feelings toward any person based on color. I would however go out of my way to be nice and friendly as a sign of respect and some misplaced guilt.

My mother dabbled in genealogy a bit and it is clear from her investigation that neither side of my family owned any slaves in the New World. In the Old World, that might be a different story however. My wife dug a little deeper into my family history and found out that I’m a direct descendent of a few ruthless folks including some Roman Emperors; but since the sins of the father generally carry down only seven generations, I conclude that I’m pretty clear in terms of family karma.

The only reason I divert into this little family history lesson is to establish my bona fides that neither I nor my family have ever owned any slaves in America.

So being white as the driven snow in terms of slavery and even whiter by skin color, I could safely say I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body.

Now, do I like thugs, or anti-social people who want to rob, steal or hurt others? Nope. It doesn’t matter if they are white, black or poky dot, I do not like ignorant, violent people and probably never will in spite of any amount of media propaganda that says it is cool to be cruel. Am I suspicious of people who think they are gangsters or dress and act like a gangster? Yep. (BTW, if your mother drives you to school, you are not a gangster.) So if you dress like a gangster and/or act like a gangster or a thug, I will be suspicious and may not like you. And for the record, I don’t want to see your underwear or your white, brown or black butt crack.

Do I owe the blacks anything more than respect and dignity? Nope. Do they deserve equal protection under the law? Yes.

Since my youth described above, I have joined the work force and am happy to report that I have had two managers who were black: one a woman and one a man. Both were excellent human beings and deserved and received my respect and admiration.

Now just because I am pure in terms of racism, is no excuse for being ignorant of the real issues blacks have faced and continue to face to a lesser extent today in this country. To this end, I read a book called ‘Black Like Me’ which had a profound impact on my view of racism in this country. If you haven’t read this book. Do it. It’s a 188 page diary written in 1959 by a white man who dyed his skin black and traveled anonymously as a black man and wrote about his experiences. It will curl your toe-nails and enlighten your brain and disabuse you of many false premises many whites seem to share including myself. This book allowed me to peer into the true nature and brutality of racism.

What this book taught me is that yes indeed I did have some racial preferences despite my proven purity explained above. Why? Because I realized that I never wanted to be black. I would rather be white. If I were to be black that would be okay but I wouldn’t want to be subjected to what many blacks endured in the 60s or prior. It also taught me that I was not sensitive or even aware of the many lasting deep scars this inflicted on our fellow citizens. ‘Black like me’ was proof positive of the soul-destroying, racial hatred and base prejudice that existed during this time. This realization provoked a deeper understanding and genuine sensitivity to the black man’s plight and exposed to my ignorant brain not just the casual, gossamer understanding of the importance of respect, but much deeper, sapient meaning of the word dignity. For the first time in my life the word dignity had salt to it. It had meaning. I realized that our racism had robbed an entire race of their human dignity with racial slurs, put downs, separate drinking fountains, restrooms, etc.

I turn now to Martin Luther King, Jr. to drive home my point from the very emotional and heart-wrenching perspective of a father. If you have no children, you cannot imagine the injury this causes to a father’s heart.

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]”

16 April 1963

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

…”when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”

So I imagined how one of my children would feel and how I would feel being robbed of my human dignity in front of my children who look up to me and I became profoundly sad. All this became real to me. This experience has helped with my understanding. But does this mean we should further destroy a man’s dignity with a handout and not a hand-up by way of a job? No. Does this mean we should feel guilty? No. Does this mean we should offer up special privileges? No. Does this mean that all men should be treated equally and have equal opportunities? Yes. Does this mean that every man deserves dignity until proven they do not? Yes.

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So for some wise advice on how to help a man when he is down, I turn to one of my favorite writers, old Ben Franklin:

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

Benjamin Franklin died in 1790 at the age of 84. He had bought and sold slaves earlier in his life but wrote the following in 1772…

In an unsigned letter to the London Chronicle, he asked readers whether it was absolutely necessary to sweeten their tea with slave-produced sugar. Could such a “petty pleasure…compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men?”

Later at age 81 Franklin signed a public exhortation that declared “the Creator of the world” made “of one flesh, all the children of men.”

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As a final thought on race, I turn to the US Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”