The Spying Scandal!

This is another case of blame the black guy, an ancient tradition in the USA, where when something goes wrong, a person of some African heritage is accused of the problem.  At present the blame is being switched to Moslems, but that won't hold, blame the black guy will return.  But in any event, we have a Moslem president of some African heritage, so, well, perfect.  O! And a black guy for AG, too...

I have no sympathy for Pres. Obama since he had to know that his election was about setting himself up to take the blame for Bush policies, and to advance programs that would suit Pres. Hillary that she could enjoy but blame on the black guy.  Eight years of Stepin Fetchit, then unimaginable riches thereafter.  If you do not believe this, you have no idea who you are up against.  (And what, you would not take the deal?)

Blaming Pres. Obama for the ubiquitous spying is rather silly.  The United States Postal Service was originally formed by Ben Franklin, and became a cabinet level office in 1792... yes, Seventeen Ninety Two.    What is so important about delivering the mail that the government has to do it?  Well, since all communication back then was by mail, and all periodicals were delivered by mail, by making a government monopoly on mail the Federal Govt could spy on every American.  Folks, this stuff goes back to 1792!  And we are just getting around to realizing it?  And we blame the black guy for Ben Franklin's innovation?  We Americans are a whimsical bunch!

To this day periodicals get a massively subsidized rate.  How come?  To wipe out any competition in delivery, so all periodicals go through the USPS.  Since all distribution goes through the USPS, the USPS has inspectors that can read anything written.   To get these low rates, the publisher has to prove they have paid subscribers.  How do they prove that?  They provide the USPS with their subscribers list.  So the govt always knew who was reading Newsweek and Anarchy Today magazines. School catalogs get cheap rates, which allows the govt to track who is teaching what.

Of course, the USPS can and does stop anything the govt does not like from getting delivered.  This also has a chilling effect on what gets published.

Once America learned to create credit from nothing, the powers-that-be could start misallocating resources to actually producing content for Newsweek and Anarchy Today magazines.  And so now most content in most periodicals is no more than tweets from a govt office upon which a "reporter" slaps a by-line.

On the other hand, the rules, as usual, provide a system to be gamed.  The New Yorker gets the cheapest mailing rates by including "goings on in New York" the coming week for a magazine mailed all over USA at news rates.  To this day I benefit on super cheap media rates shipping my books.  One reason the USPS is going broke is because it loses money shipping my books, and Amazon's too.

What the internet has done is before the govt only knew you were reading Anarchy Today, they did not know what you think about what you read, now they know what you think.  Your blog posts, tweets, facebook and emails self-report to the State.

Young Zuckerberg and Brin claim they know none of this, which of course is sheer nonsense.  They went to the same Johns Hopkins youth camp where future leaders are groomed to take over the commanding heights.  Both Google and Facebook are USA intelligence gathering assets which is why China does not allow them and Europe keeps suing both so through "discovery" they can figure out what Uncle Sam is up to.

Yes, Uncle Sam has a record of everything you ever did on the web.  But we knew that back in 1988.  It has been repeated a million times.  Now it is a scandal?

No, you are not being targeted with someone watching you.  But yes, absolutely every moment in your life is being recorded one way or another.  Why?  Because they can, and it is inexpensive with the infrastructure in place, and if and when the State needs to target you, they can and will find more than enough facts on you to destroy you.  No of us can withstand full disclosure.

And for this reason, there are no judges, congressmen, generals or anyone else who can stand up to the "powers-that-be."  Yes, there are no more plane wrecks or lone gunmen to worry about, just the Petraues exposure things.  Just as good as as bullet, but without the conspiracy industry.  No doubt about it, he was banging the other officer, the other man's wife.  End of his military life.

This is nothing new either.  We all think that police officers back each other up out of honor and sacrifice or whatever.  No, cops back each other up because almost all cops maintain files on some other cops, one way or another.  Like us, they have all done something wrong.   Other cops look the other way if only to have something on other cops.  If one cop turns on another, others will go down.  This is why no where in USA is there independent citizen review board of police action.  A citizen review board might rule justly and send a cop to prison.  He won't go without taking six others.  Hong Kong has a version, the ICAC, which focusses on anyone in any office.  It works pretty well.

People are ticked off.  That is the dangerous part, for if it gets violent, it will only get worse.  There is a way out, and that is independent truth commissions.  Something like the ailing Nelson Mandella put in place.  Where anyone who confesses a crime is immune from prosecution for that crime.

But to do that we'd have to end the experiment of the United States, just like the South African system ended.  Rough going, that.  That is not going to happen.  Opium is the religion of the masses, and they are not going to give up their daily fix of facebook.  To those for whom reality is a crutch because they cannot handle religion, well, you are in a fine mess:  government is chaos and there is no god. Ouch! For me, I will go to Mass today and beg God to deliver me, yet fear His just punishment.

Update:

A hero speaks....

He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

Well, if the Chinese get him, he'll never be heard from again, if the US gets him he'll never be heard from again...    I doubt Iceland can protect him...  and Hong Kong cannot as long as there is a US Consulate there...  but I understand completely, since the daughters of Afghani villagers are not safe from the USMilitary my daughters are no safe.  I don't want to live under that regime either.  I won't kill to change anything...  but God's patience with USA is not approval.

Second Update:

O dear, the leakmeister Snowden was, like me, a Ron Paul supporter.  I learned as a Ron Paul delegate to the Washington State Convention in 2008 that all violence in USA originates and proceeds from the political parties themselves.  The election fraud was rampant and open.  It has been no surprise as we learn these last few weeks that the government employees themselves participate in the fraud efforts, something I understood in the early 1990s when AOL and Compuserve IRC rooms were stuffed with government employees killing time.  It also became clear the Microsoft's fortunes were tied to the growth of government.

Truth commissions.  They help the guilty too, who want freedom from their crimes.

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Anarchy & Religion

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That is the first amendment to the constitution.  The amendment was thought necessary because when the convention was convened, the basic law a mess.  When asked what form of government was established, Franklin replied “a republic, if you can keep it...”

Immediately Hamilton and others had begun to strangle baby freedom  in the crib, So in alarm the Bill of Rights passed in 1791 in defense of freedom.  I would argue it did no good.

But it is instructive that freedom of religion is the first of four freedoms addressed in the first amendment.

The problem with the european model that was to be corrected by the american model was after the struggle between divine right of kings and divine right of pope ended with the divine right of the state, if the state was Lutheran, you were lutheran.  If Catholic, you were catholic.  if you disagreed,  life would be dicey.

That was to end in USA.  But If there is no state in which to invest a common set of standards, then whencesoever does one derive a common standard?

The deists, many of whom had a romantic understanding of eastern religion, arrived at the idea that since all religions had a common ethical foundation, then freedom of religion would provide that very common set of standards. And for those who fail to appreciate ghost stories, rational thought also brings one to the same conclusion:  lying stealing killing and so on are wrong, and to be spurned.  We could have unity by embracing diversity.

The anarchists detest hierarchy...  to be sure, hierarchy is to be spurned, since submitting to false authority denies the rest of us the good of your freedom and the creativity inhibited by submission to false authority.   

The worst kind of false authority is master over slave.  WE can arrive at slavery as a good by rational means, and slavery is forbidden in revelation (thou shalt not steal, the truth shall set you free, and to be a follower of Jesus you must give away all things, and the rich lad undoubtedly had slaves.)

We have noted that slavery has been a feature of all cultures and societies since the dawn of man.  It took 1800 years before some people began to think of eliminating it, as an imperative in light or revelation.

Similarly, it may take another 1800 years before those same Christians begin to think of eliminating the state, as an imperative in light of revelation.

In the meantime, the laity must get busy.  We abhor false hierarchy, which is immediately discerned by whether or not the organization is voluntary.  Obligatory submission is slavery lite, and to be abhorred.

There is government in skiing, and government in international letters off credit, and in the law merchant, all emerging from practice and none in relation to the state.  

It is a simple matter of fact that in life the important matters are not under the purview of the state: love, food, taste and friends. And when anarchists get together to play baseball, someone emerges as a leader, the rules of the game are obeyed, and government occurs.   This happens at all place and all times, only to be interfered with by state action.  The key is voluntary association.  

Being rational beings, anarchists are very suspicious of the claims of the religious.

But we cannot expect people to refuse to respond to the religion to which they are called in deference to a lower order activity, such as the state.  Especially those who recognize their weakness and in their pain draw liberally from the opiate of the masses.  To deny anyone to self-medicate is to place oneself in authority and defy the voluntary principle.

The american adventure in achieving unity by embracing diversity yields the result of no state, yet a common ethical foundation.   

Anarchy assures people are free to act on their conscience.  Even the rational will agree the conscience is a pupil, not a tutor, and it is like a compass which must be calibrated before it can offer correct direction.  Religion may propose standards, but like the state never Impose. the largest religion in the world, Catholicism, is a purely voluntary organization, as is Islam, Buddhism Hindus and so on.  States are not voluntary, and back their demands with violence.

A popular controversy is “gay marriage”    Setting aside the fact it crowds out the space where thinking people would ask “Is this war in Afghanistan just?” the “gay marriage “ debate is over state definitions, and being obligated to behave according to “public policy”  that flows therefrom.  With freedom of religion, each religion would define marriage for its members, making the state pronouncements on “gay marriage’ as impertinent as Jewish pronouncements on “goy marriage.”

As with all human endeavor, the cop in society is all the rest of society.  We cannot, in good conscience allow our power and will aggregated by the state in order that it fight our battles for us.  That "getting the king to fight our battles for us" is the end sought in 1 Samuel 8.  That leaves us with the involuntary servitude and submission, something abhorred in religion and reason.

The “cop” in life is all other members of a community, and their sanctions can run from rebuke to excommunication.  That may seem ineffective in the context of religion, but a killer will find his life short in anarchy.  With the state, the killer is kept alive and a constant threat.

Emma Goldman said society gets the criminals it deserves.  Too true. especially when it votes them into office.

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Poor People's Tax

Before lotteries hit washington state, two politicians went to jail for discussing it.  Then the lotteries came.  A study was done to find out who bought tickets.  It showed the poor, minority and uneducated were the big buyers.  Ooooops... so another company was hired to study it, and guess what, they found it was actually rich white people who were buying the tickets.  Whew!

So comes a study that we all already knew, it is poor, uneducated minorities who buy the tickets, and they do so because it offers "the only chance for radical change." 

No one told them about self employment.

This is how it works:  discourage a group, flood its community with welfare money, drugs and lottery, and let gravity do its work.  It is genocide.

Newstimes.com

There is a reason religions forbid lotteries and lassitude, it kills.

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Blame The Jews

No one in polite society actually says "Jews" but when the financial crisis is discussed and perpetrators criticized ... it is Goldman Sachs, Greenspan, Bernanke, Geitner, Blankfein, Cohn, Paulson, Summers, Rubin, not to mention Madoff, and so on.

And to be sure any article that allows comments certainly features plenty of blaming of the Jews.

What?  Rockefeller, Gates and Buffet had nothing to do with what is going on?  Jews control the financial world by means of a vast conspiracy?  Really?  Hasn't that been always said?  If so, how come in every other time in history economic crises turn out very badly for the Jews? How does it turn out badly for them if they are in charge? Or is this time it is different?

When Michael Lewis wrote Liar's Poker to explain just how wicked the practices were on Wall Street and the utter abuse of the USA investor, he hoped to effect some change and improvement by his expose.  He was perplexed to get an overwhelming number of letters from the best and brightest at Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Yale... Christians all, inquiring as to how they could get such jobs themselves.

Getting Jews to do tax-farming has a long tradition in the West.  A Jewish face on oppression makes life easier for a Prince.

Mustn't be naive and think no Jew would so jeopardize other Jews. Just like the Irish and the Turks and the Japanese and the Bantus any other group, there are always those who will sell their own tribe down the river for fame, prestige and fortune.  And there are plenty of Jews who will gladly front the desires of the wicked capitalists who do not want to take the blame when the exploitation comes crashing down.  Where would Warren Buffet be without his Jewish bankers doing his bidding?

If it is to be different this time, how about we do not blame the Jews this time?  Let's see how the patterns and practices of capitalism are inherently evil, and reorder our patterns and practices to inhibit the concentration of power that motivates the powers that be?  Let's prove USA is exceptional.

The English threw the Jews out for 400 years (they were the first to mark Jews with a yellow star) and they had the exact same problems without the Jews.  It ain't the Jews that are the problem, it is the ideas.  And the ideas aren't Jewish, they are human.  And it is not unique to Judaism that Jews sell Jews down the river.  We all do it.  Time to admit it and withdraw our consent to be governed by the state, and engage in voluntary association.

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Church And State

We tend in USA to affirm the separation of Church and State yet argue as to the dividing lines.  It is really an argument of Church vs State, and who has supremacy, or at least supremacy in what areas.  The Catholic Church has a history of testing the limits of church vs state in many places and times over the last two millennia.  For about half that time the status quo of today would be unacceptable to the Church.  It is acceptable, on the surface today, only because the Church can say nothing about it.  So far there has been no enduring model of Church and State polity.  That arrangement is up for grabs at any time.

In the debate of Church vs. State the Church claimed ultimate arbiter status.  Via the experience with kings, the church's claim to divine right was arrogated by states unto themselves, and now we have the unstable truce wherein the state sees itself with in essence divine right, and the church teaching the state is an inferior entity to both church and family.  Lesson: don't make any claim for yourself that you do not want your enemies to make for themselves.

Reading Will Durant on the Reformation, one might get the sense that real argument was over real estate, or in essence, rents.  The church had grown so rich in property and income that Kings and Nobles coveted the Church's holdings.  Both Henry VIII and the Lutherans saw themselves as Catholics (and still do) just not beholden to a Roman pretense of primus inter pares.  This gets tricky, since Popes, Henry VIII and Luther, while fighting each other, also executed protestants.

While these "catholics" abused each other, they made alliances and combinations among themselves, with Protestants and occasionally Moslem leaders to either hold or expand their territory.

The Church clearly lost its moral voice as it became a great landowner, and now as it is reduced to museums and libraries on a Roman hilltop, it enjoys a moral authority that comes with poverty, something the Dalai Lama enjoys now that he is homeless.

Out of all of these various combinations the Church is still looking for a proper balance and role in the world.  Satan tempted Jesus with all temporal power, and since Satan could not fool Jesus, it  demonstrates Satan was offering something he could deliver.  In spite of this, the Church keeps seeking a place in the world. The recent announcement that the church likes the idea of a super-bank (and consequentially a one world government) is an example of how the game is played: the inevitable is the ideal.  If we are to have a one world government, the Church wants a place at the table.  The idea is although the Church may meet with Satan in the desert, it will not give in to temptation.  The Church is entertaining change, since the current polity is not working out so well for the Church.  Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Of all the combinations and cultures and pressures of organizing society in the Reformation it seems that the best combination came about in the Kingdom of Scotland, at least inasmuch as their kings can own no property, and the freedom of conscience and other beneficial aspects came together written in a survey of economics by Adam Smith, a moral philosopher.  It is those ideas that animated the theories of opportunists at various spots on the globe, in particular the American colonies and the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong.

So much of what America was is well preserved in the political-economy of hong Kong: no standing army, less than half the people pay taxes of any sort and almost no one pays the top rate of 16%, money is issued by private companies, toleration of race and creed is legendary and easy since opportunity is unlimited. Charities provide the social safety net, and are sufficiently subscribed.

What happened?  Because Hong Kong is a free market, it is exceptionally difficult to amass exceptional wealth.  Hong Kong does have five times the billionaires per capita than the USA, but no where near the poverty since anyone who wants work can get it, especially there are no restrictions on starting your own business.  There is the problem, the USA government prefers big business by crushing small business.

Note the earlier comment that private companies issue the currency. One especially harmful advantage government affords big business gets in USA is banking.  Money is controlled in a way that generates too big to fail, limiting opportunity, expanding the division between rich and poor and makes war exceptionally easy.

A highlight of Hong Kong is the religious tolerance.  There is no power, government or church, to enforce any preferences.  And since all religion is voluntary (as opposed to the Reformation where real estate defined religious belief) there is no religious conflict in Hong Kong.

What is playing out in USA sure looks like a replay of the reformation, and we are in the phase just before the "religious wars" break out.  The religion of the Tea Party is war, and the religion of the Occupy Wall Street is welfare.  They both claim to represent the real America.  Occupy Wall Street will claim they are defending USA's original fairness, neglecting to recall the accommodation of slavery at our founding, and with our prisons presently redolent of Soul, how little progress our black brothers have made in the Welfare state. The Tea Party claims our military protects our freedoms and extends our mission, ignoring that the founding fathers expressly abjured standing military because soldiers in uniform militate against freedom. Military and freedom are enemies. A pox on both of their houses.  Between these analogously Lutheran and Protestant views stands the Federal Government playing the role of Roman Church, professing both welfare and warfare, both faith and works.

The Reformation was essentially about economic reform, and that is were we are.  It is astonishing to read the Reformation history, as laid out by Durant, and observe how closely the patterns can be laid upon our modern saga.

Within all of the wars and executions and so on, there were pockets of freedom and tolerance and peace and prosperity.  Wish that historians spent more time studying and writing on those pockets of peace and prosperity rather than the bloody failures.

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The "Debates"

I wish we really had debates, where pro and con was forensically argued, instead of opportunities for people to say "I am for good things and against bad things."  If we had debates, pro and con, it would have been Ron Paul vs. Newt Gingrich, and America might have learned something.

But Ron Paul, a dissenting voice, got 86 seconds to speak.  Jon Huntsman actually did a better job of articulating why torture is wrong, although Ron Paul had the better facts.

The debates showed the world that the Republicans are for unprovoked attack and torture in foreign policy, and bribery before all else.  The idea of zero based foreign aid (I like it, as long as it stays at zero) until foreign powers tell us what they can do for USA means anyone who takes USA money is a traitor to his own country.  Well, it is true now, but it has cover.  I guess republicans are into transparency.

There was Bachman, Paul, Cain and Perry who are Protestants, Gingrich and Santorum are Catholics, and Huntsman and Romney are Mormons.  100% of the Catholic candidates endorse pre-emptive war, murder and torture as foreign policy, in spite of the fact that all three are expressly condemned actively by church teaching.  Santorum, the "pro-life" Catholic, was particularly hopeful that we do far more torture and murder than to which we admit. Perhaps one reason Gingrich converted to Catholicism was because one can claim to be a Catholic and at the same time reject its teaching, without fear of contradiction at the immediate level (Rome is high above and far away, and scandal is a local bishop's problem.  Or no problem, apparently.) The protestants did better, with 25% (Ron Paul) decrying crime as foreign policy, and Mormons better yet at 50% (Huntsman) decrying crime as foreign policy.  Of course these statistics are not reliable, but the debates are silly too.  What is clear is if you are decent and go into politics, you will not get heard.

Local bishops will sometimes timorously step forward and caution a Catholic candidate who promotes abortion, which always causes harm and never does any good, but never step forward to caution a candidate on torture, pre-emptive war and murder, which always causes harm and never does any good.

500 years ago the Catholic Church was not a voluntary organization, today it is.  As a voluntary organization, it is safer to be around.  But voluntary goes both ways, people are free to join, people are free to disassociate, and the Church is free to say "mustn't darken our doorway."

There was a point when Jesus lost most of his followers.  Voluntary organizations that speak the truth run that risk.

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Drudge headlines...

Historic October Snowstorm...
East Coast Power Outages Top 3 Million...
Out For Days...
31" in NH, 25" in MA, 19" in NJ, 17" in CT...
Amarillo, Texas receives record breaking snow...

Farrakhan 4 days ago... preaching Jesus to Baptists, and making prophecies, starting a minute six, at particular 7:20...

Now 700 Club Pat Roberts advising a man to divorce his wife if she gets sick...  I am not making this up...

Which one is more Christian?

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Martin Luther

The History of the Church has been one of a pas de deux with the state, and a series of accommodations with a view to temporal peace and prosperity.  Most often, the formula is quite wrong.  At times the Church has the upper hand, at times the state.  If and when there is a time and place approaching a proper balance, say present day Hong Kong, it goes unnoticed.  People like to read the racy stuff,  as with daily news, for history, if it bleeds, it leads.

We seem to be in a time of change, but where the church was once abusive, now it is reversed, the state is abusive.  Here is Luther talking of the Church hierarchy, but it could be an citizen of the west today speaking of the government heirarchy.:

What good are they, except to live in lust from the sweat and labor of others and to impede the word of God? They are afraid of physical rebellion and do not care about spiritual destruction. Are they not intelligent, honest people! If they accepted God's word and sought the life of the soul, God would be with them, since he is a God of peace. Then there would be no fear of rebellion. But if they refuse to hear God's word and rather rage and rave with banning, burning, killing, and all evil, what could be better for them than to encounter a strong rebellion which exterminates them from the world? One could only laugh if it did happen, as the divine wisdom says, Proverbs 1[:25-27], "You have hated my punishment and misused my teaching; therefore I will laugh at your calamity and I will mock you when disaster strikes you."

Now recall, Luther was speaking of and to the Church at its height of temporal power, his life was in danger, from various leaders if not the Pope.

The Pope replies directly to Luther, Pope Adrian VI (1522-1523), 

We know well that for many years things deserving of abhorrence have gathered around the Holy See; sacred things have been misused, ordinances transgressed, so that in everything there has been a change for the worse. Thus it is not surprising that the malady has crept down from the head to the members, from the Popes to the hierarchy.

We shall use all diligence to reform before all things the Roman Curia, whence, perhaps, all these evils have had their origin. Thus healing will begin at the source of sickness. We deem this to be all the more our duty, as the whole world is longing for reform.

It took a few hundred years for the church to be divested of temporal power, but it seems that the catholic church is about where Jesus would want it, reduced to a hilltop in rome consisting of a few museums in a anarchic totally voluntary state.

It takes time to get into trouble, and it takes time to get out of it.

For all of Luther’s talk of murdering bishops and leveling monasteries, when it got down to specific acts of violence, he had this to say:

The mad mob does not ask how it could be better, only that it be different. And when it then becomes worse, it must change again. Thus they get bees for flies, and at last hornets for bees.

I would add those who lead the mob do not really want change, they only want to be in charge.  those to be overthrown spot the leaders, and in some measure cooperate to share power, that is give the impression of change with a change of faces, if not regime.

We are no where near the crises that Luther and the powers-that-be of his time faced.  The welfare check is keeping a lid on things.  We are seeing both inflation and deflation, both properly defined as monetary events, occurring in asset specific categories.  these means are extending the problem and will result in a faster, worse dislocation.  I say yikes!

Get self-employed, it is the best harbor in the coming storm. have something to trade.

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