This is the text of a talk I delivered to the Albuquerque, NM, West Stake singles branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Don't expect hard corps historiography; I was talking to intelligent young people, not to professors.
I would speak to you tonight on the hand of God in the coming forth of the United States of America. My life has made me more qualified to speak on historical things than on Scriptural things, so we shall all be witness to the work of The Spirit in guiding me. It is my testimony to you that any inadequacy tonight is due to my insensitivity to His promptings.
Just so y’all understand where this is coming from, I am an American, first, last, and always – unabashedly so – unapologetically so – lock and load, come and take it if you think you can so.
Why should we consider the matter of the Scriptural context of the founding of this nation? Because we are being challenged daily on the legitimacy of our nation. We see challenges to our right to our own institutions – including our religion – to our right to stand as equals among the nations of the earth – indeed, to our very right to live. We see challenges to the legitimacy and even the decency of those who founded this nation – and not just the Founding Fathers, but the farmers and shopkeepers and tradesmen who built her up out of mud and wood and iron. We’d better have a pretty good idea of whence we came and why. Our sense of rectitude will be put to every test imaginable, and to some we mercifully cannot imagine.
L. Tom Perry, in the June, 1976 Ensign – “The United States represents the major source of human and financial resources that go into the expansion of the Lord’s work throughout the world. It is very essential that America remain strong in order that the Church can continue to support the Lord’s work in all corners of the earth. It’s true that Saints in other nations are beginning to come to the point where they can be “independent” in the sense that they can supply their own leadership and resources—but there are few nations in the world where the Saints are of sufficient numbers and have available means to be able to support even among themselves the expansion of the Church in a very significant manner.
“In addition to that central idea we have a basic religious message, a unique message to tell the world—and that is that God’s hand was in the founding of America. America is the cradle of the Church. We know that the great reformation of centuries ago was God-inspired. The rediscovery of America by Columbus was God-inspired. The founding of this land with a form of government that would permit the gospel to be restored and be established was God-inspired. This is a great message. A message of fulfilled prophecy. A message that God lives—that he is in our lives, that he is involved in the shaping of history in ways that many people do not know. I tell you, this is great news! The Lord himself said that he raised up “wise men” for the purpose of founding the United States’ constitutional government, a form of government that has been modeled and patterned after all over the world because it provides the kind of freedom, agency, and opportunity our Father’s children need in order for them to grow, mature, and develop.”
There were many prophesies of the discovery and development of the New World.
Nephi had a vision of Columbus: “And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.” (1 Ne. 13:12.)
And of the Pilgrims: “And I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations.” (1 Ne. 13:18–19.)
There are many Scriptural references to the fact that the New World was a choice land, given to The Lord’s chosen people, but only on condition of their continued righteousness: : “Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things which we have written.” (Ether 2:12)
The Book of Mormon, quoting Jesus as he spoke here in America, reads:
“This land shall be a land of liberty … and there shall be no kings upon [it]. …
“… For I, the Lord, the king of heaven, will be their king, and I will be a light unto them forever, that hear my words. …
“… For it is a choice land, saith God … wherefore I will have all men that dwell thereon that they shall worship me.” (2 Ne. 10:11, 14, 19.)
Lehi, the patriarch of the colony divinely led to America in 600 b.c., prophesied that “there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord” (2 Ne. 1:6).
The Old Testament offers this oblique prophecy, which applies to us this day, as well:
“And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
“And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of” (Gen. 28:13–15).
We know that we were created with a level of agency, “In His Own image.” Because of that gift, it is right and just that we be allowed exercise of it. Only through the freedom to use our God-given minds and creative faculties can we be fully human. This is a critical point! Freedom must include both intellectual and physical freedom! To be free to learn and think, but not free to act on what we’ve learned is an obscene contradiction; it would reduce us to roughly the equivalent of spirit beings, whose lack of a physical bodies prevents their acting on the world around them.
To be free to act, but not to learn and think is equally obscene; it would make us blind and dumb beasts, stumbling through life on the guidance of glandular squirtings or raging whims.
Man is a being of integrated mind and body, and if either is constrained, he ceases to be fully human. He has been, as a human, murdered. As we go along in this talk, look especially for points that recognize this principle in the founding of the United States. Observe how the principles of freedom, both intellectual and physical, were established and protected.
After more than a thousand years of intellectual and spiritual stagnation, several things happened with breathtaking suddenness. There was an awakening of learning, brought about through several channels at almost the same time: Marco Polo’s reports of the science of China, Guttenberg’s press, the emergence of strong monarchs who could unify large parts of Europe into nations, and finally, the reformation of the Church by men like Tyndale and Luther. All these things served to generate pressure, like boiler, that had to have an escape. But where could such a relief valve come from?
Was there a place on Earth that recognized the need for agency? Not a one. Every nation then in existence was ruled by tyrants or gangs. The only freedom available was out on the frontier, away from the power of the tyrant; but if one got that far from one tyrant, one was almost surely getting closer to another. Indeed, the idea of mankind being free was looked upon with astonishment; one needed only to look around to see what horrors had come from people being free! Tyranny was a very natural and comforting – if not comfortable – alternative. The most powerful forces in philosophy were unified against freedom, and against the very idea that Mankind was capable or worthy of it.
Thomas Hobbes taught that it was literally criminal for a person to even question his monarch. Emanuel Kant taught that the moral was whatever the state chose to force people to do. Germany, called, “The land of poets and philosophers,” produced a whole string of so-called “idealists.” GFW Hegel taught that mankind truly exists only as a fragment of the state, and the soul of man was a myth outside the context of the state. Schoppenauer recognized pre- and post-mortal existence, and taught that Mankind’s only hope for happiness lay in murdering all women so that the species could become extinct and return to the companionship of God. Serious academic courses on the ideas of these men may be found on any modern college campus. They really did espouse this kind of stuff, and people really did eat it up. They still do.
Thomas More’s Utopia featured a benevolent, totalitarian government and a society in which every person looked, dressed, and acted the same way. There was no theft because everyone had the same thing, and none of it was worth stealing. There was no contention because the government made sure all were the same, and had the same prospects – ie, none to speak of.
De Montaigne expressed a pretty low opinion of mankind: “Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, finding human condition ridiculous and vain, never appeared abroad but with a jeering and laughing countenance; whereas Heraclitus commiserating that same condition of ours, appeared always with a sorrowful look, and tears in his eyes… I am clearly for the first humor: not because it is more pleasant to laugh than to weep, but because it expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other, and I think we can never be despised according to our full desert.”
(Going back to the ancient Greeks, Heraclitus taught that the only thing that really exists is “flux,” or change. In his model, there is no absolute reality, and therefore, no right or wrong. You’ll see him referred to glowingly in the writing of the Colonial period, and his ideas were central to those of William James, the American pragmatist and founding father of the Progressive movement.)
Jean Jacque Rousseau posited the idea of the “noble savage,” a primal man of great strength and drive, who is seen by the rest of Humanity as a threat to their simpering mediocrity. He said that law, custom, manners, and concepts of decency were merely contrivances of the mediocre masses to keep the Noble Savage in check, and that Mankind’s only progress came when the Savage got the bit in his teeth. (For a look at a modern application of Rousseau’s philosophy, I would direct you to Cambodia in the time of Pol Pot, who was a self-described Rousseauan.)
In England, France, Spain, Portugal, the German states, the Ottoman Empire, these ideas were the heart of government. There were kings and sultans and pashas, but the common denominator was that individual human beings were the property of the ruler. The English, with the Magna Carta, viewed themselves as free, but in religion, economics, and property rights, they held that freedom only at the whim of the monarch.
Against this intellectual and political monolith, a Virginia farmer had the brazen gall to say it was self-evident that all men were created equal, and that they weren’t equally depraved or revolting. This is a critical concept. The United States was not the end result of a long string of causality. It was an outrageous, totally preposterous deviation from the direction taken by the rest of humankind. There were a few tiny sparks – Adam Smith, who wrote of economic freedom, and John Locke, who wrote that the right to life was a “natural right,” based on the nature of Man, but until the 1760’s, they were virtually alone in a cesspool of tyranny and corruption.
I think we need some intellectual Listerine to swish that stuff from our minds. Try this on for size:
"IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
"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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn 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 when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
There follows a long list of abuses, some of which could be published today, and the closing paragraph, the thunder of which reverberates through the soul in the passion of truth. Listen for reference to God:
"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."
The United States was, from the beginning, a point well off the line – an improbability of staggering magnitude. Unless, of course, you consider the hand of God in all this. All of these widely disparate forces and factors worked together in a subtle, exquisite symphony, drawing slowly toward an earth-shaking climax. In fact, the process was so subtle it has totally eluded historians and sociologists for 200-odd years.
Great, pagan old China didn’t discover the New World, though they were far, far ahead of Europe in exploration and trade. They had the means and the skill, but, for some reason, lost the will, and folded back in upon themselves, changing from the world’s most outgoing nation to a recluse, muttering in its self-imposed exile.
France had the means and the skill, but the King was too absorbed with his petty wars and court intrigues. He turned Columbus down. Great Britain had the means and the skill, and probably the drive, but, like the French, were busy with little things. The Portuguese were too intellectual to be bothered. The Spanish, at first influenced by the same sort of learned fools who hobbled their neighbors, decided to give it a try. They’d turned Columbus down repeatedly, but he kept trying them, and finally, inexplicably, Isabella let him have his go. Had he been commissioned by any of the others, he would have started from their home ports, straight into the teeth of the prevailing westerlies, and would have stumbled back into port, exhausted and beaten by weeks of endless tacking and wearing. Spain owned the Canary Islands, and, departing from there, Columbus slipped into the east winds, which bore him to the New World. Any other choice would have doomed his effort.
The very processes of establishing the colonies that became the US was anomalous. The Spaniards were intent on looting the New World, and saw their colonies only as marshalling points for plunder. (At the sharp end of the stick – the explorers, themselves - there was a tremendous desire to bring Christianity to the native peoples.) The French also wished to exploit the natural treasures of the New World, but lacked the sanguine drive and grand vision of the Spainish. Theydidn’t want to alienate the native peoples, and, while New France enjoyed mostly cordial relations with them, restrictions on immigration kept the colony small, and barely viable. Spain and France were both practicants of a mercantile economy, which sharply limited speculation, risk-taking, and growth.
And Queen Elizabeth I… who saw her coming? Talk about a point off-the-line! Under her, the English Navy became an unimaginably powerful force around the world. Her privateers – Drake, Hawkins, and others – wreaked havoc on the Spanish treasure fleets, further slowing the growth of the Spanish colonies.
The English pattern of using joint stock companies to fund colonies rewarded risk-taking and innovation. The Virginia Company made fortunes for its stockholders, which enabled them to keep pouring resources and humanity into that putrid death trap called Jamestown, the survival of which is another outrageous improbability. At one point, two ships, traveling in opposite directions, in a thousand square miles of ocean, in a dense fog, actually met each other. One was evacuating the last survivors of the winter of 1609-10, and the other was a relief ship. If either of those ships had varied her course by 100 yards, or her time of arrival at that crucial point by 5 minutes, Jamestown would have become another New World cemetery, filled with broken dreams and untold suffering.
Those who settled New England were driven to establish a religious dictatorship. They weren’t here for religious freedom. They had nothing against absolute theocracy, as long as it was their theocracy! Southern settlers were, in many cases, treasure-seekers and gentlemen-adventurers who were allergic to work. How ironic that they ended up here, where the work was brutal and endless! In fact, the early history of the United States didn’t show us much other than an incredible courage and toughness. That courage and toughness were exactly what was required to bring into existence what amounted to a whole new subspecies. The vastness of the American continent made it possible for people to get away from the theocrats and the slackers, and exercise their own agency. Insulated from any possibility of royal favor or nepotistic coddling, the New World rewarded the do-er. It’s written of the settling of the American west that the cowards never started and the weak died along the way. It was equally so of the settling of the eastern seaboard and the first colonies.
Once the colonies were established, it is almost as if the English crown were carefully creating a race of irascible, stiff-necked, free-thinking Yankees. The unpredictable, often irrational combination of neglect and heavy-handed regulation combined to create a highly flammable environment, and then fill it with incendiary characters.
The colonists, themselves- especially those who moved west -were rabidly independent and allergic to constraint. Their leaders possessed some of the most outrageous and individualistic personalities ever catalogued, much less ever brought into one room for the purpose of discussing their passions, and agreeing on who had the best ones! The odds of that bunch of prima donnas agreeing on the color of a horse were near zero. But they did agree, and on some of the most magnificent political abstractions ever put on paper.
From the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (101: 77-80)
“According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles;
“That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.
“Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.
“And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.”
The Scriptures tell us that God the Father assembled this group of individuals for the express purpose of founding the United States, and, considering the odds of that many men of that caliber in one room at the same time… There were good leaders in the early days, but nothing to foreshadow the blinding brilliance of the Founders. They were all born within a 50-year period, and within a thousand miles of each other. Nowhere else in human history is there anything even remotely like it.
Consider this about the republic they created. It was a government of law, with strict constraints on that government. But what good is law? Plenty of people break the law, some of them not in government, at all! The law tells us how to act, and the consequences if we misbehave. Where do those consequences come from? From the government. What if the government breaks the law? Is it likely to levy consequences on itself? Not likely. So the law is no constraint on the government, at all. It is like shouting at the wind; you can do it all you want, but you’ll only get hoarse.
There’s an old saying that the only real safety device on a car is the nut behind the wheel. So it is with the law. The only binding parameter on the law is the character of those charged with enforcing it. Character. If those in government are of good character – honest, with integrity – they will keep the law because they believe it is right to do so. If those in government are not of good character, they will not keep the law because they believe it is inconvenient or unprofitable to do so. In the end, it is not the law, but the commitment to it of those in authority who make a government work.
Our Founders gave us a government that is absolutely and explicitly dependent on the character of those elected to office. They believed so much in the inborn common sense and sagacity of the American people that they set up a government that recognized and operated on character. Of course, they also gave us the 2nd Amendment, in case we needed to correct a bad decision, but that is a topic for a wiser man than I.
This government of character and law recognizes Human agency. It leaves us free to choose and to act. It leaves those in government free, too, though I can’t believe the Founders could have foreseen the depravity this would unchain in the world. There is no prior restraint placed on Americans. We are free to decide. We can make deposits in the bank, or we can rob it. However, according the law, at least, there are consequences of misbehaving, and if we choose the action, we also choose the consequences. The man who introduced me to this church once observed that you can’t pick up just one end of a stick. If you pick up the end called action, you also get the end called consequences. In the entire, sorry catalogue of political ideas by which men have tormented themselves, the ideas upon which this nation was based are the only ones to recognize the essential nature and agency of Mankind.
And this brings us back to the starting point: a large number of our countrymen, and a majority of the rest of the world, hate us for our freedom. They see freedom as bad. All that freedom and expression is so untidy! It gets in the way of organization and system. They say the world would be a better place if we’d all surrender our precious FREEDOM – emphasized with little claw marks in the air – and let the real professionals – academics and bureaucrats – run our lives in a way that would benefit everyone. It’s as if More, Kant, Hegel, James, and all the other over-educated idiots were brought back for a cast encore.
We believe that our Father in Heaven is loving and just. Think of a creature, created with very specific traits and abilities – the greatest of which, and those that literally define the creature - are the ability to think, learn, and decide its course in life. Now think of an environment, created specifically for that creature, that clasps shackles upon those great abilities, and forces the creature to deny its creation and the very things that define it. Could this possibly be the work of a God that is loving and just? I’ll answer that for you.
Nope.
In 1831, the French writer, de Toqueville, wrote, “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world of commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
I will close with L. Tom Perry, again from the bicentenniel year of 1976:
“The success of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War came about through men who were raised up by God for this special purpose. You must read the Declaration of Independence to feel its inspiration. You merely need to study history to recognize that a group of fledgling colonies defeating the world’s most powerful nation stemmed from a force greater than man. Where else in the world do we find a group of men together in one place at one time who possessed greater capacity and wisdom than the founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and others? But it was not to their own abilities that they gave the credit. They acknowledged Almighty God and were certain of the impossibility of their success without his help. Benjamin Franklin made an appeal for daily prayers in the Constitutional Convention. In that appeal he said, “If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? I believe without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the building of Babel.”
“The Constitution was and is a miracle. Both Washington and Madison referred to it as such. It was an inspired document, written under the divine guidance of the Lord. James Madison, commonly called the Father of the Constitution, recognized this inspiration and gave the credit to “the guardianship and guidance of the Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations whose blessings have been so conspicuously displayed to the rising of this republic.” (Prologue, p. 95.) We believe that the Constitution was brought about by God to insure a nation where liberty could abound, where his gospel could flourish. Joseph Smith said, “The Constitution of the United States is a glorious standard; it is founded in the wisdom of God. It is a heavenly banner.”
As we pray daily to God for guidance, we could do worse than to make the same plea that George Washington made in his prayer for our country. Notice how many points of the Gospel he touched on, though this was many years before the restoration.
“Almighty God, who has given us this good land for our heritage, we humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will.
“Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning and pure manners.
“Save us from violence, discord and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way.
“Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought out of many kindreds and tongues.
“Endue with the spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be peace and justice at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth.
“In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail.
“All of which we ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
WHO'S AGAINST VIOLENCE?
28 Mach, 2010
There is an explicitly held myth among the American people, promoted shamelessly by the media and the current administration, that only our side is capable of violence. We hear, daily, about threats against some legislator or bureaucrat. Some of it is petty, like the fellow on a radio show who said he’d like to slap Nancy Pelosi off the podium. Some of it is more serious, and some threats may even be credible, but it doesn’t matter if they are serious or credible. People believe they are true.
First and foremost, I want to urge all who read this to turn away from violence or threats of violence. At this point, we are talking about a few individuals who are closer to the edge than the rest of us. I believe that any man can be pushed or cornered into a violent act, but some folks are a lot easier to corner, and require a much shorter push. We all know a few of these. I urge you to talk to those people and calm them down. Get them back from the edge. If the government or the media wish to fabricate an incident, they will. We all know about a certain radio station on the German-Polish border, and in my opinion, our present administration is capable of something like that.
But let’s not give them anything legitimate. If they fabricate something, their lies will be exposed to the world, and even if they aren’t we will still have that certainty that we are innocent of wrongdoing. At the end of the road, that certainty will be worth more than you can imagine. I pray daily they don’t take this road, and I don’t seriously believe they intend to. They are opportunists, and if we give them an opportunity to pass some whirlwind, draconian, Stalinist gun control measure, they’ll do it. But let’s not see devils where they aren’t. There’s enough real ones out there; we don’t have to invent them.
And by the way, there was a poll a few day ago that supposedly revealed that a huge percentage of the American people – I heard numbers from 20-50 percent – believe that Obama is the anti-Christ. Horsehockey. First of all, things aren’t nearly bad enough now for Satan to play his ace. Second, while I do think Obama is a thoroughly evil man – a fascist, a racist, a liar, and a megalomaniac – he’s a two-bit damnyankee punk. Anyone who thinks that little slime is the best Satan has is REALLY kidding himself!
At this point, we are talking about a few individuals, but if there is an action of sufficient magnitude or violence, our enemies can use it to launch a campaign of oppression like we’ve never seen in this country. If that were to happen, there are some very thoughtful, reasonable, and ethical men and women who would fight back. Violence feeds on itself, and before long, we’d have a sure ‘nuf war on our hands. The horror of such a thing cannot be described in human language, and at this point, even if we were to bring the government to terms, what good would it do us? The voters would be so traumatized by the bloodshed they’d turn right around and elect another control freak who promised to enslave them into safety. Of course, there’s always the option of just installing someone and keeping him in office by force of arms. Yeah, right. That’s a real moral solution.
I have not read a single syllable about violence coming from the left, and there are two reasons for that. First, the media doesn’t print it when it happens. Second, the left uses violence as an everyday tool of political action, but they don’t do it themselves. They are not like us. If an individualist gets mad enough, there’s a good chance he’ll engage you directly. That doesn’t mean the violence will be measured or appropriate! Consider Tim McVeigh. He took direct action, on his own. He was a punk, too, and a discredit to our side, and there’s others like him. But McVeigh did it himself. A statist won’t do that. A statist will have the police, the military, the FBI, the IRS, or the UN do their killing for them. I don’t know if Stalin ever killed a single person with his own hands, but he used the power of the state to kill millions. If the statists want to kill you, they’ll arrange a wrong-house drug bust, or set up a scenario like Ruby Ridge or Waco.
After Waco, especially, there was a cry of rage against the FBI and BATF, and it was fully justified. However, the real cry should have been for the head of Janet Reno. She was the murdering liberal monster who signed off on using the armed might of federal law enforcement to incinerate innocent citizens on the grounds of the most preposterous of fabrications.
When the media says the left, or the progressives, or whatever they call themselves, don’t hurt people, don’t you believe it. During the 20th century, alone, almost 100 million human beings were murdered by their own governments, and not one those governments was based on the principles upon which our own government used to rest. It was not individualists or capitalists who did the killing; it was statists who were convinced they were justified in killing people who wouldn’t go along with their despotic schemes.
Now someone is going to say, in a snarky, NIGGYSOB tone of voice, “Well what about Hitler? What about the KKK and all their lynchings?” Right. Hitler was the darling of American Progressives. A lot of them thought we were on the wrong side in WWII. When our troops started finding the Dachaus and Treblinkas, American Progressives never said, “Holy crap! Were we ever wrong about that dude!” No, they quietly abandoned the stage for a time and waited for the American people – grossly mis-educated by the Progressive public school system, I might add – to forget about their love affair with fascism. Now they’re back again, trying to convince us that Hitler was actually an individualist and a capitalist. This is why it is so dangerous to use a model of “left-vs-right.” Those terms are meaningless in this context. Hitler killed a lot of socialists because he was a socialist and didn’t like them hooking on his corner.
And as for the KKK, they are fascists, pure and simple. A lot of people claim the Klan is the extreme of right-wing, or of conservative. Bull crap. On the continuum of political thought, they are right down there on that end with the Obamas, the Hitlers, Mussolinis, and the Pol Pots. Whether it’s the left end or the right end is irrelevant; it’s the statist/fascist end. You will never hear one of them urging his fellows to moderation and peaceful resistance as I am now urging my friends.
Statists, by whatever name you wish to call them, have killed a hell of a lot more people than individualists. Don’t you be hanging your head about being on the end of the continuum opposed to the present administration.
Sic Semper Tyrannis,
Rebsarge
There is an explicitly held myth among the American people, promoted shamelessly by the media and the current administration, that only our side is capable of violence. We hear, daily, about threats against some legislator or bureaucrat. Some of it is petty, like the fellow on a radio show who said he’d like to slap Nancy Pelosi off the podium. Some of it is more serious, and some threats may even be credible, but it doesn’t matter if they are serious or credible. People believe they are true.
First and foremost, I want to urge all who read this to turn away from violence or threats of violence. At this point, we are talking about a few individuals who are closer to the edge than the rest of us. I believe that any man can be pushed or cornered into a violent act, but some folks are a lot easier to corner, and require a much shorter push. We all know a few of these. I urge you to talk to those people and calm them down. Get them back from the edge. If the government or the media wish to fabricate an incident, they will. We all know about a certain radio station on the German-Polish border, and in my opinion, our present administration is capable of something like that.
But let’s not give them anything legitimate. If they fabricate something, their lies will be exposed to the world, and even if they aren’t we will still have that certainty that we are innocent of wrongdoing. At the end of the road, that certainty will be worth more than you can imagine. I pray daily they don’t take this road, and I don’t seriously believe they intend to. They are opportunists, and if we give them an opportunity to pass some whirlwind, draconian, Stalinist gun control measure, they’ll do it. But let’s not see devils where they aren’t. There’s enough real ones out there; we don’t have to invent them.
And by the way, there was a poll a few day ago that supposedly revealed that a huge percentage of the American people – I heard numbers from 20-50 percent – believe that Obama is the anti-Christ. Horsehockey. First of all, things aren’t nearly bad enough now for Satan to play his ace. Second, while I do think Obama is a thoroughly evil man – a fascist, a racist, a liar, and a megalomaniac – he’s a two-bit damnyankee punk. Anyone who thinks that little slime is the best Satan has is REALLY kidding himself!
At this point, we are talking about a few individuals, but if there is an action of sufficient magnitude or violence, our enemies can use it to launch a campaign of oppression like we’ve never seen in this country. If that were to happen, there are some very thoughtful, reasonable, and ethical men and women who would fight back. Violence feeds on itself, and before long, we’d have a sure ‘nuf war on our hands. The horror of such a thing cannot be described in human language, and at this point, even if we were to bring the government to terms, what good would it do us? The voters would be so traumatized by the bloodshed they’d turn right around and elect another control freak who promised to enslave them into safety. Of course, there’s always the option of just installing someone and keeping him in office by force of arms. Yeah, right. That’s a real moral solution.
I have not read a single syllable about violence coming from the left, and there are two reasons for that. First, the media doesn’t print it when it happens. Second, the left uses violence as an everyday tool of political action, but they don’t do it themselves. They are not like us. If an individualist gets mad enough, there’s a good chance he’ll engage you directly. That doesn’t mean the violence will be measured or appropriate! Consider Tim McVeigh. He took direct action, on his own. He was a punk, too, and a discredit to our side, and there’s others like him. But McVeigh did it himself. A statist won’t do that. A statist will have the police, the military, the FBI, the IRS, or the UN do their killing for them. I don’t know if Stalin ever killed a single person with his own hands, but he used the power of the state to kill millions. If the statists want to kill you, they’ll arrange a wrong-house drug bust, or set up a scenario like Ruby Ridge or Waco.
After Waco, especially, there was a cry of rage against the FBI and BATF, and it was fully justified. However, the real cry should have been for the head of Janet Reno. She was the murdering liberal monster who signed off on using the armed might of federal law enforcement to incinerate innocent citizens on the grounds of the most preposterous of fabrications.
When the media says the left, or the progressives, or whatever they call themselves, don’t hurt people, don’t you believe it. During the 20th century, alone, almost 100 million human beings were murdered by their own governments, and not one those governments was based on the principles upon which our own government used to rest. It was not individualists or capitalists who did the killing; it was statists who were convinced they were justified in killing people who wouldn’t go along with their despotic schemes.
Now someone is going to say, in a snarky, NIGGYSOB tone of voice, “Well what about Hitler? What about the KKK and all their lynchings?” Right. Hitler was the darling of American Progressives. A lot of them thought we were on the wrong side in WWII. When our troops started finding the Dachaus and Treblinkas, American Progressives never said, “Holy crap! Were we ever wrong about that dude!” No, they quietly abandoned the stage for a time and waited for the American people – grossly mis-educated by the Progressive public school system, I might add – to forget about their love affair with fascism. Now they’re back again, trying to convince us that Hitler was actually an individualist and a capitalist. This is why it is so dangerous to use a model of “left-vs-right.” Those terms are meaningless in this context. Hitler killed a lot of socialists because he was a socialist and didn’t like them hooking on his corner.
And as for the KKK, they are fascists, pure and simple. A lot of people claim the Klan is the extreme of right-wing, or of conservative. Bull crap. On the continuum of political thought, they are right down there on that end with the Obamas, the Hitlers, Mussolinis, and the Pol Pots. Whether it’s the left end or the right end is irrelevant; it’s the statist/fascist end. You will never hear one of them urging his fellows to moderation and peaceful resistance as I am now urging my friends.
Statists, by whatever name you wish to call them, have killed a hell of a lot more people than individualists. Don’t you be hanging your head about being on the end of the continuum opposed to the present administration.
Sic Semper Tyrannis,
Rebsarge
Friday, March 26, 2010
CALL TO ACTION
26 March, 2010
First of all, here’s to the boys of the Sibley Brigade, especially Pyron’s command, who waged bloody battle at Apache Canyon on this day in 1862. Deo Vindici, Boys. Some of us remember.
Now. This is the first thing I’ve written since the health care monstrosity was signed. I went into a terrible funk for about three or four days, and it took me until now to get really mad again. It’s one of those deep down mads that can drive me all day and all night. As we begin this new phase of the war against America, I’d like to make a couple of observations.
First, let’s not be shooting our mouths off in public or on the net about violence. Even if you just say how much you’d like to poke Harry Reid in the nose, someone in the media will make you sound like Josef Mengle. A few people have been foolish enough to make threats or openly threatening gestures, and you can see what’s been done with it. Now we all know that these fascist bastards are perfectly capable of pulling off another “radio station on the Polish border” stunt. They are 100% capable of manufacturing a story about an incident that never happened. It’s perfectly possible that the statists will start the ball, and because of that, we need to be ready. However, violence is neither necessary, appropriate, nor moral at this stage of the process.
It is also possible that some loony character will get stupid and do something outrageous and give the statists a reason to come down on us, but there’s little we can do to prevent that. We all know there are Tim McVeighs out there. Let’s not do anything to add fuel to the fire. We are all pissed off and ready to throw blows, but let’s not be fantasizing about it in public. Some people are right on the hairy edge of reason, as it is, and the fiery rhetoric of people who are supposed to be calm and rational will only serve to encourage them to jump. If you know someone like this, do all you can to talk them back from the edge.
What do these scum in our government fear? I think there is one thing they fear more than death: loss of power. Everything they have done or said has been aimed at gaining power over us. They despise us. They think we are fools and worse. The very idea of being on equal footing with us lowlifes will drive them nuts. They are willing to destroy this nation and risk armed insurrection - and even their own deaths - to gain power over us, and if we can mount a credible threat to strip them of that power, I think they’ll go over the edge.
How do we do that? We get politically involved. I am stunned at the number of otherwise rational people who still think this doesn’t affect them. I have heard all the tired excuses: I don’t have time… it’s so negative, and I don’t like to dwell on it… I don’t care about politics… I don’t know what I can do… Bull crap. In this conflict, there will be no innocent bystanders. Every man, woman, and child in this nation stands to lose wealth and freedom. We will be free or we will be slaves – all of us – and there will be no one just left on the sidelines if we lose. The scum aren’t going to enslave only those who fight against them; everyone will lose.
So here’s what I’m preaching tonight. (1) Find a group and join it. Whether it’s a Tea Party group, your local Republican party, or whatever; get to be part of a group and participate to the fullest extent of your ability. No excuses. (2) Find a candidate or two who seem to you most likely to support freedom and fiscal sanity, and do all you can to support them. Remember that local government affects your life, too – maybe more than the national government in some ways. You don’t have to have a presidential candidate to support. Governors and national legislators are incredibly important. Even state legislators are important. No effort will be wasted, so grab ‘holt of something and work hell out of it! Alternatively, if there’s a congressvermin you particularly despise, find out who’s running against him or her and throw in your support (3) Talk to people. Some people are on the fence, and might, with appropriate encouragement, get off on our side. Yes, there’s a hell of lot of ‘em who are totally and deeply committed to the enemy’s agenda. Don’t waste your time on them – don’t turn your back on the bastards, either. Some of ‘em are dangerous! (4) create an email distribution list. Then find a few writers you like, who express the greatest ideas in the most powerful ways, and forward their work to your distribution list. (5) Spread ideas like those expressed here to all your friends. If you don’t like what I’ve written, find someone you do like, or write it yourself. But COMMUNICATE!!! And for gosh sakes, don’t fall into forwarding a lot of claptrap about Madalyn Murray Ohair, or other such drivel! Use Snopes or one of the other urban myth-busting sites, but don’t just forward crap without checking it out. And remember that people will add, “This checks out on Snopes,” in the knowledge that few others will actually look it up.
The vast majority of people are overwhelmed at the magnitude of the task. No individual needs to fight the whole fight alone. We can each find pieces of it that are within our ability, and with commitment, we can make all of those little pieces into a vast, unstoppable whole.
In summary, find a local group you can participate with. Find reasonable candidates and fight like hell to get them elected. Talk to people and convert those who are capable of rational thought – and don’t worry about the others. Use email to spread good ideas and good writing. Encourage all of your friends to do the same.
You don’t have to do it all, but you do have to do what you can. Whether you join the fight or sit it out, you’ll still end up a serf. Might as well fight, right?
First of all, here’s to the boys of the Sibley Brigade, especially Pyron’s command, who waged bloody battle at Apache Canyon on this day in 1862. Deo Vindici, Boys. Some of us remember.
Now. This is the first thing I’ve written since the health care monstrosity was signed. I went into a terrible funk for about three or four days, and it took me until now to get really mad again. It’s one of those deep down mads that can drive me all day and all night. As we begin this new phase of the war against America, I’d like to make a couple of observations.
First, let’s not be shooting our mouths off in public or on the net about violence. Even if you just say how much you’d like to poke Harry Reid in the nose, someone in the media will make you sound like Josef Mengle. A few people have been foolish enough to make threats or openly threatening gestures, and you can see what’s been done with it. Now we all know that these fascist bastards are perfectly capable of pulling off another “radio station on the Polish border” stunt. They are 100% capable of manufacturing a story about an incident that never happened. It’s perfectly possible that the statists will start the ball, and because of that, we need to be ready. However, violence is neither necessary, appropriate, nor moral at this stage of the process.
It is also possible that some loony character will get stupid and do something outrageous and give the statists a reason to come down on us, but there’s little we can do to prevent that. We all know there are Tim McVeighs out there. Let’s not do anything to add fuel to the fire. We are all pissed off and ready to throw blows, but let’s not be fantasizing about it in public. Some people are right on the hairy edge of reason, as it is, and the fiery rhetoric of people who are supposed to be calm and rational will only serve to encourage them to jump. If you know someone like this, do all you can to talk them back from the edge.
What do these scum in our government fear? I think there is one thing they fear more than death: loss of power. Everything they have done or said has been aimed at gaining power over us. They despise us. They think we are fools and worse. The very idea of being on equal footing with us lowlifes will drive them nuts. They are willing to destroy this nation and risk armed insurrection - and even their own deaths - to gain power over us, and if we can mount a credible threat to strip them of that power, I think they’ll go over the edge.
How do we do that? We get politically involved. I am stunned at the number of otherwise rational people who still think this doesn’t affect them. I have heard all the tired excuses: I don’t have time… it’s so negative, and I don’t like to dwell on it… I don’t care about politics… I don’t know what I can do… Bull crap. In this conflict, there will be no innocent bystanders. Every man, woman, and child in this nation stands to lose wealth and freedom. We will be free or we will be slaves – all of us – and there will be no one just left on the sidelines if we lose. The scum aren’t going to enslave only those who fight against them; everyone will lose.
So here’s what I’m preaching tonight. (1) Find a group and join it. Whether it’s a Tea Party group, your local Republican party, or whatever; get to be part of a group and participate to the fullest extent of your ability. No excuses. (2) Find a candidate or two who seem to you most likely to support freedom and fiscal sanity, and do all you can to support them. Remember that local government affects your life, too – maybe more than the national government in some ways. You don’t have to have a presidential candidate to support. Governors and national legislators are incredibly important. Even state legislators are important. No effort will be wasted, so grab ‘holt of something and work hell out of it! Alternatively, if there’s a congressvermin you particularly despise, find out who’s running against him or her and throw in your support (3) Talk to people. Some people are on the fence, and might, with appropriate encouragement, get off on our side. Yes, there’s a hell of lot of ‘em who are totally and deeply committed to the enemy’s agenda. Don’t waste your time on them – don’t turn your back on the bastards, either. Some of ‘em are dangerous! (4) create an email distribution list. Then find a few writers you like, who express the greatest ideas in the most powerful ways, and forward their work to your distribution list. (5) Spread ideas like those expressed here to all your friends. If you don’t like what I’ve written, find someone you do like, or write it yourself. But COMMUNICATE!!! And for gosh sakes, don’t fall into forwarding a lot of claptrap about Madalyn Murray Ohair, or other such drivel! Use Snopes or one of the other urban myth-busting sites, but don’t just forward crap without checking it out. And remember that people will add, “This checks out on Snopes,” in the knowledge that few others will actually look it up.
The vast majority of people are overwhelmed at the magnitude of the task. No individual needs to fight the whole fight alone. We can each find pieces of it that are within our ability, and with commitment, we can make all of those little pieces into a vast, unstoppable whole.
In summary, find a local group you can participate with. Find reasonable candidates and fight like hell to get them elected. Talk to people and convert those who are capable of rational thought – and don’t worry about the others. Use email to spread good ideas and good writing. Encourage all of your friends to do the same.
You don’t have to do it all, but you do have to do what you can. Whether you join the fight or sit it out, you’ll still end up a serf. Might as well fight, right?
Thursday, March 11, 2010
MONEY, 4
If the government gets its wealth by taking it from the people, where do the people get theirs? Why, you silly goose, they go to their mailboxes and pick up their welfare checks!
Sorry. Couldn’t resist a teensy bit of sarcasm. But the question is a darned good one, don’t you think? In a legitimate, moral society, where does the average person get wealth? Let’s revisit a couple of principles. There are very few points on which modern liberals have less of a clue.
First, there are only three ways of getting wealth: produce it, steal it, or beg for it.
Second, from the nature of Man, remember that he is an individual being, whose rational mind directs his body in pursuit of what he needs to live as Man.
Third, there is no such thing as a right to enslave. If a man, to live as Man, must be free to think and act accordingly, every, single individual human being has the same right. Freedom does not mean that strong people get to abuse those who are weaker.
Fourth, nothing in the world is of any value until acted upon by human beings. An ocean of fish is just that until human action transforms it into food and lies about the ones that got away.
It is my belief that no wealth has ever vanished. Once created, it may be transformed, fragmented, reconstituted, traded, or squandered, but it never vanishes. Even that which is squandered by one person becomes the wealth of another. In this vein, let us go to the beginning.
Some fellow went out and picked some berries and brought them home to his sweetie. She ate them, and used the energy from them to give birth to their baby. The baby grew up and went about doing things to sustain his own life and the lives of his family – and in our wildest dreams, that of his sainted old pappy, that berry-pickin’ motor scooter. That original batch of berries was transformed from plant reproductive matter to wealth – ie, food – by human action. It was transformed into new life, and the process was repeated ad infinitum to this very day. (A thought occurred to me in this very instant: my job at a cell phone company puts me in the position of feeding my family by my work with Blackberries. Humpf. Never thought of it that way.)
Every human being who goes out into the world to make his own way takes with him the very same, original wealth that was possessed by our berry-picker: his mind and body. A friend of mine used to say that from the neck down, we’re worth laborer’s wages. From the neck up, we’re worth fortunes unimagined.
The story has been told so many times we are tempted to regard it as a hackneyed old cliché, but it is a true story. A young man enters the workforce as a laborer, using his muscles to earn his bread. By dint of focus and determination – both products of a rational faculty – he earns promotion and greater pay. He uses his mind more and his muscles less, for while a strong back may swing a true hammer, an active mind might direct a thousand strong backs. There is an exquisite synergy in this. Just as a man’s body without his mind is a corpse, all those strong backs would wallow in the mire but for the genius directing them to build a hydroelectric dam. And likewise, just as a man’s intellect without his body is a ghost, that marvelous computing engine would be just so much horsepower vented into the atmosphere without those magnificent, strong, willing, and skilled hands on the tools.
When the statists talk about “leveling the playing field,” they are talking about subverting and destroying this synergistic process. In fact, nature has provided the ultimate in level playing fields. We all come on the field with the same tools: a mind and a body. He who enacts the causes of wealth will reap wealth. He who enacts the causes of poverty will reap poverty. What could be more elegant and equal? Be careful, now; we are still speaking of a legitimate, moral society. I’m fully aware that all manner of forces act to pervert the game.
Foremost of these is the power of the statists in all levels of government. They tax the successful with a progressive income tax. They reward the lazy and foolish with money taken from the successful. Tell me how this is a “level playing field:” One man works his guts out, risks everything, and creates a fortune, but after taxes, has enough to feed his family beans. Another man quits school, turns up his nose at the military, blows every penny he gets on booze, hookers, and lottery tickets, and still has enough to feed his family beans.
And what of the weak, the lame, the mentally challenged? They certainly don’t come to the game with the same tools with which others are blessed. Many of them do, however, come with tools of some fashion, and by the charitable grace of their better-endowed neighbors, they, too, can produce within their ability. For those who just flat lack usable tools, there is charity, and free people have proven again and again that they are the very souls of charity. Look at the millions collected for Indonesia, Haiti, and Chile, and this is hardly the most prosperous of times for the US.
How do you get the rich to be charitable? First, let ‘em be rich! Were you ever offered a job by a poor guy? We all know the parable of the widow’s mite, and it is a wonderful lesson, but where, in this great, mediocrity-worshipping, whining, sniveling, statist mob in which we live do you ever hear the story of the rich man’s talents? You won’t, because it is not fashionable to think that rich people are decent human beings who are willing to share their good fortune with others. Sure, you’ll find the odd skinflint who hides his money in his mattress and won’t give a nickel to help anybody, but he’s the exception. (See also, “TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS, posted in this blog in Feb., 2010..)
In this line of thinking, however, is a terrible trap! Ronald Reagan was one of the most egregious purveyors of this error. He proposed that men ought to be free to become wealthy so they could pay more taxes. Baloney. (I almost said horseshit, because that’s so much more fitting a term.)
The reason for allowing men to be free to become rich is… allowing them to be free! Men ought to be free because that’s the way they are made. If a free man shares his wealth, good for him. If he doesn’t share, good for him. He may have to answer for it later, but that’s not up to us!
If money is honestly earned, how it is spent is the business of no one save him who earned it.
You see, statists aren’t against money. Oh, they rail against the rich and preach cannibalism (a 1970’s bumper sticker said, “EAT THE RICH.”) but they really love money as much as the next fellow. The difference between decent people and statists is that the former don’t care how money is spent, as long as it is earned honestly. The latter don’t give a rip how it’s earned as long as they get to control how it’s spent. Look at this: our present government isn’t trying to keep people from earning more than a certain amount; they just want to control how all that money is spent. Look at the graft and corruption they are willing to overlook, as long as they get their hands on the proceeds.
The source of wealth is human action applied to nature. Period. Wealth does not come from a government printing press. Sorry.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist a teensy bit of sarcasm. But the question is a darned good one, don’t you think? In a legitimate, moral society, where does the average person get wealth? Let’s revisit a couple of principles. There are very few points on which modern liberals have less of a clue.
First, there are only three ways of getting wealth: produce it, steal it, or beg for it.
Second, from the nature of Man, remember that he is an individual being, whose rational mind directs his body in pursuit of what he needs to live as Man.
Third, there is no such thing as a right to enslave. If a man, to live as Man, must be free to think and act accordingly, every, single individual human being has the same right. Freedom does not mean that strong people get to abuse those who are weaker.
Fourth, nothing in the world is of any value until acted upon by human beings. An ocean of fish is just that until human action transforms it into food and lies about the ones that got away.
It is my belief that no wealth has ever vanished. Once created, it may be transformed, fragmented, reconstituted, traded, or squandered, but it never vanishes. Even that which is squandered by one person becomes the wealth of another. In this vein, let us go to the beginning.
Some fellow went out and picked some berries and brought them home to his sweetie. She ate them, and used the energy from them to give birth to their baby. The baby grew up and went about doing things to sustain his own life and the lives of his family – and in our wildest dreams, that of his sainted old pappy, that berry-pickin’ motor scooter. That original batch of berries was transformed from plant reproductive matter to wealth – ie, food – by human action. It was transformed into new life, and the process was repeated ad infinitum to this very day. (A thought occurred to me in this very instant: my job at a cell phone company puts me in the position of feeding my family by my work with Blackberries. Humpf. Never thought of it that way.)
Every human being who goes out into the world to make his own way takes with him the very same, original wealth that was possessed by our berry-picker: his mind and body. A friend of mine used to say that from the neck down, we’re worth laborer’s wages. From the neck up, we’re worth fortunes unimagined.
The story has been told so many times we are tempted to regard it as a hackneyed old cliché, but it is a true story. A young man enters the workforce as a laborer, using his muscles to earn his bread. By dint of focus and determination – both products of a rational faculty – he earns promotion and greater pay. He uses his mind more and his muscles less, for while a strong back may swing a true hammer, an active mind might direct a thousand strong backs. There is an exquisite synergy in this. Just as a man’s body without his mind is a corpse, all those strong backs would wallow in the mire but for the genius directing them to build a hydroelectric dam. And likewise, just as a man’s intellect without his body is a ghost, that marvelous computing engine would be just so much horsepower vented into the atmosphere without those magnificent, strong, willing, and skilled hands on the tools.
When the statists talk about “leveling the playing field,” they are talking about subverting and destroying this synergistic process. In fact, nature has provided the ultimate in level playing fields. We all come on the field with the same tools: a mind and a body. He who enacts the causes of wealth will reap wealth. He who enacts the causes of poverty will reap poverty. What could be more elegant and equal? Be careful, now; we are still speaking of a legitimate, moral society. I’m fully aware that all manner of forces act to pervert the game.
Foremost of these is the power of the statists in all levels of government. They tax the successful with a progressive income tax. They reward the lazy and foolish with money taken from the successful. Tell me how this is a “level playing field:” One man works his guts out, risks everything, and creates a fortune, but after taxes, has enough to feed his family beans. Another man quits school, turns up his nose at the military, blows every penny he gets on booze, hookers, and lottery tickets, and still has enough to feed his family beans.
And what of the weak, the lame, the mentally challenged? They certainly don’t come to the game with the same tools with which others are blessed. Many of them do, however, come with tools of some fashion, and by the charitable grace of their better-endowed neighbors, they, too, can produce within their ability. For those who just flat lack usable tools, there is charity, and free people have proven again and again that they are the very souls of charity. Look at the millions collected for Indonesia, Haiti, and Chile, and this is hardly the most prosperous of times for the US.
How do you get the rich to be charitable? First, let ‘em be rich! Were you ever offered a job by a poor guy? We all know the parable of the widow’s mite, and it is a wonderful lesson, but where, in this great, mediocrity-worshipping, whining, sniveling, statist mob in which we live do you ever hear the story of the rich man’s talents? You won’t, because it is not fashionable to think that rich people are decent human beings who are willing to share their good fortune with others. Sure, you’ll find the odd skinflint who hides his money in his mattress and won’t give a nickel to help anybody, but he’s the exception. (See also, “TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS, posted in this blog in Feb., 2010..)
In this line of thinking, however, is a terrible trap! Ronald Reagan was one of the most egregious purveyors of this error. He proposed that men ought to be free to become wealthy so they could pay more taxes. Baloney. (I almost said horseshit, because that’s so much more fitting a term.)
The reason for allowing men to be free to become rich is… allowing them to be free! Men ought to be free because that’s the way they are made. If a free man shares his wealth, good for him. If he doesn’t share, good for him. He may have to answer for it later, but that’s not up to us!
If money is honestly earned, how it is spent is the business of no one save him who earned it.
You see, statists aren’t against money. Oh, they rail against the rich and preach cannibalism (a 1970’s bumper sticker said, “EAT THE RICH.”) but they really love money as much as the next fellow. The difference between decent people and statists is that the former don’t care how money is spent, as long as it is earned honestly. The latter don’t give a rip how it’s earned as long as they get to control how it’s spent. Look at this: our present government isn’t trying to keep people from earning more than a certain amount; they just want to control how all that money is spent. Look at the graft and corruption they are willing to overlook, as long as they get their hands on the proceeds.
The source of wealth is human action applied to nature. Period. Wealth does not come from a government printing press. Sorry.
MONEY, 3
Okay. We’ve got the beginnings of a civilized society. We’ve got specialization of labor, law, police, military, and politicians. In spite of a great many false starts and wrong turns, the basic, innate decency of our species led us in a generally liberal course. People really did try to have decent government, and there were some genuinely decent people involved in government. From those instances, great progress was made, and marvelous principles were recorded. Yeah, I know. It took a long time, and there was a lot of blood and misery along the way, but we finally arrived at a sweltering room filled with grouchy old white guys in 1787. The document they crafted did, indeed, authorize the national government to hire employees and provide certain services. Obviously, all that government service requires wealth to pay the police, military, and judges. Ah. Back to money.
Where does a government get its wealth? From the people. What does government produce? Force. Nothing else. What was the first and only purpose of government? To be the trustee of force in the name of the people, according to the letter of their law. The people did the producing, and the government kept the boogers off ‘em. Does government fish? Make shoes? Run a blast furnace? Drive a truck? No. The government wields force. Remember that, because we’ll get into it in spades later. So if a government does not produce anything, where does it get its operating capital? From the people. The people have to want the government badly enough to voluntarily share their sustenance with it.
What is the maximum amount of wealth a government can have? 100% of the wealth of the people. Can a government have more wealth than that? No. It can print more money, but it can’t have more wealth. Like the ancient sheep deposits, the money printed by the government is a promise to redeem the notes for something of real value, generally specie. The money can’t have more value than the total, net wealth of the people.
Let’s say the entire wealth of the people is a hundred bucks. (Obviously, this is pre-Bush/Obama.) Now let’s say the government wishes to fund public art by buying, at outrageous prices, pieces of crap no working man in his right mind would even look at, much less buy. So the government seizes the entire wealth of the nation. Aesthetic enlightenment, however, comes high, and will require a lot more than a C-note, so the government just prints some more money – let’s say, a thousand bucks worth. Now the government has enough money to pay some bug-eating hippie for his abstract of sticks and turds.
But wait a minute. What is the wealth that stands behind that grand? There is still only a hundred bucks worth of real wealth. So instead of each dollar being worth 1/100th the wealth of the people, each dollar is now worth 1/1000th the wealth of the people. This is called inflation. There’s more money in circulation, but the value of each dollar is only a tenth what it was. That means the hippie got ripped off. Sure, he got paid, say, 800 bucks for his creation, but he can only buy 80 bucks worth of groceries.
Do you really think the grocer would have failed to notice the government’s theft of his money? What’s he going to do? He’s going to increase his prices in order to maintain his lifestyle because everything he buys is also ten times more expensive.
Seems simple, doesn’t it? Well, it is simple. In fact, it is so simple that many hundreds of hours of college education are required to obfuscate it. That, or a single election cycle.
Let’s digress for a minute. When you give someone a dollar for something, you are giving them one dollar’s worth of your life. You worked a certain period of time for that dollar, so, while the dollar is money, your time and skill are wealth. Next time someone says, “It’s only money,” run like the devil; he may be serious. Money stands for wealth, which stands for life. When a man pays you a wage, he is saying, “I value your time and skill enough to give you this portion of my life in exchange for it.”
When you go to a store to buy something, you tell the cashier, “I want to buy that.” The cashier asks, “Can you prove you’ve done something for someone else that they thought was worth a dollar’s worth of their life?”
You say, “By golly, I have, and here’s the dollar bill to prove it.” When you trade money for the goods that service your life, you are trading not only your own lifespan, but the lifespan of everyone involved in the chain of production and trade that led to your having that dollar bill. The moral person gets wealth – or money – only by providing services to other human beings.
Wow. How contemptible is that?
In a moral – ie, free – society, men and women trade freely of their time, skill, and the wealth they produce. If a free man sees a person in need, and wishes to help, he has the option of giving that person a bit of his life. This is called charity, and in my opinion, it is a very great virtue. Americans have always been the most charitable people on Earth, in no small part because they have had wealth enough to share. Ever try begging an apple from a starving guy? You’ll pull back a nub.
In a statist – ie, government controlled – society, men and women are taxed. The government takes money from them and redistributes it to those whom the government thinks deserve it. That is to say, some people (the government) take money from other people (the taxpayers) for the benefit of still other people (the supposedly poor.)
So, if the goal is to take care of the poor, and since the government cannot have more wealth than the combined wealth of its citizens, could not the poor be served as well by charity?
Of course, they could. Money given freely would serve them as well as money taken at gunpoint. It makes no difference to the poor. To the people in government, however, it makes an enormous difference. If men were left free to decide whom they would support, they might choose to support some who would not support government.
People in the government must enact force to take money from those who have it, keep a good bit for themselves, and give the rest to those who will vote for more government. There’s a cliché’ that says, “He who robs Peter to pay Paul can generally count on the support of Paul.” The statists will tell you that charity is inadequate – that only welfare, enforced at the point of a gun, can be adequate. That’s a stinking lie. The difference between charity and welfare is liberty.
Where does a government get its wealth? From the people. What does government produce? Force. Nothing else. What was the first and only purpose of government? To be the trustee of force in the name of the people, according to the letter of their law. The people did the producing, and the government kept the boogers off ‘em. Does government fish? Make shoes? Run a blast furnace? Drive a truck? No. The government wields force. Remember that, because we’ll get into it in spades later. So if a government does not produce anything, where does it get its operating capital? From the people. The people have to want the government badly enough to voluntarily share their sustenance with it.
What is the maximum amount of wealth a government can have? 100% of the wealth of the people. Can a government have more wealth than that? No. It can print more money, but it can’t have more wealth. Like the ancient sheep deposits, the money printed by the government is a promise to redeem the notes for something of real value, generally specie. The money can’t have more value than the total, net wealth of the people.
Let’s say the entire wealth of the people is a hundred bucks. (Obviously, this is pre-Bush/Obama.) Now let’s say the government wishes to fund public art by buying, at outrageous prices, pieces of crap no working man in his right mind would even look at, much less buy. So the government seizes the entire wealth of the nation. Aesthetic enlightenment, however, comes high, and will require a lot more than a C-note, so the government just prints some more money – let’s say, a thousand bucks worth. Now the government has enough money to pay some bug-eating hippie for his abstract of sticks and turds.
But wait a minute. What is the wealth that stands behind that grand? There is still only a hundred bucks worth of real wealth. So instead of each dollar being worth 1/100th the wealth of the people, each dollar is now worth 1/1000th the wealth of the people. This is called inflation. There’s more money in circulation, but the value of each dollar is only a tenth what it was. That means the hippie got ripped off. Sure, he got paid, say, 800 bucks for his creation, but he can only buy 80 bucks worth of groceries.
Do you really think the grocer would have failed to notice the government’s theft of his money? What’s he going to do? He’s going to increase his prices in order to maintain his lifestyle because everything he buys is also ten times more expensive.
Seems simple, doesn’t it? Well, it is simple. In fact, it is so simple that many hundreds of hours of college education are required to obfuscate it. That, or a single election cycle.
Let’s digress for a minute. When you give someone a dollar for something, you are giving them one dollar’s worth of your life. You worked a certain period of time for that dollar, so, while the dollar is money, your time and skill are wealth. Next time someone says, “It’s only money,” run like the devil; he may be serious. Money stands for wealth, which stands for life. When a man pays you a wage, he is saying, “I value your time and skill enough to give you this portion of my life in exchange for it.”
When you go to a store to buy something, you tell the cashier, “I want to buy that.” The cashier asks, “Can you prove you’ve done something for someone else that they thought was worth a dollar’s worth of their life?”
You say, “By golly, I have, and here’s the dollar bill to prove it.” When you trade money for the goods that service your life, you are trading not only your own lifespan, but the lifespan of everyone involved in the chain of production and trade that led to your having that dollar bill. The moral person gets wealth – or money – only by providing services to other human beings.
Wow. How contemptible is that?
In a moral – ie, free – society, men and women trade freely of their time, skill, and the wealth they produce. If a free man sees a person in need, and wishes to help, he has the option of giving that person a bit of his life. This is called charity, and in my opinion, it is a very great virtue. Americans have always been the most charitable people on Earth, in no small part because they have had wealth enough to share. Ever try begging an apple from a starving guy? You’ll pull back a nub.
In a statist – ie, government controlled – society, men and women are taxed. The government takes money from them and redistributes it to those whom the government thinks deserve it. That is to say, some people (the government) take money from other people (the taxpayers) for the benefit of still other people (the supposedly poor.)
So, if the goal is to take care of the poor, and since the government cannot have more wealth than the combined wealth of its citizens, could not the poor be served as well by charity?
Of course, they could. Money given freely would serve them as well as money taken at gunpoint. It makes no difference to the poor. To the people in government, however, it makes an enormous difference. If men were left free to decide whom they would support, they might choose to support some who would not support government.
People in the government must enact force to take money from those who have it, keep a good bit for themselves, and give the rest to those who will vote for more government. There’s a cliché’ that says, “He who robs Peter to pay Paul can generally count on the support of Paul.” The statists will tell you that charity is inadequate – that only welfare, enforced at the point of a gun, can be adequate. That’s a stinking lie. The difference between charity and welfare is liberty.
MONEY, 2
As this hypothetical society grew more populous, the number of thieves also grew. Folks had to go about armed, and stay alert at all times. It’s hard to fish while you’re looking over your shoulder for a claim-jumper. Someone noticed that old Joe, over there, was one tough cookie, and the claim-jumpers left him alone. “Say, Joe. If you’ll keep these creeps off my back, I’ll give you two fish a day.” Joe says that’s okay with him, and you have the first military – and, coincidentally, the first protection racket.
There are side-trips involved in this particular bit of social Darwinism: things like the invention of hemp rope, whereby hangs more than a tale, and the invention of shooting irons. But those are for a different story.
As things evolved, someone decided that in his little corner of paradise, they could put the thieves on notice by posting a sign that said, “No thieves allowed.” Such a sign would have no impact unless everyone in the area agreed to beat the crap out of any thieves that came around. The locals agreed, and they put up a sign, and the law was born. Joe noticed the sign, sauntered over and said, “I’ve got some tough boys here with me, and we’d be happy to enforce that sign if you’ll pay us.” And that was the first police force. It worked pretty good until Joe or one of his shoulder-strikers decided to hold the people up for more pay, at which time the whole community rose up and lynched the overly ambitious ones. When the lynching was done, they remembered what a pain it was to have to go armed and looking over their shoulders all the time, so they reestablished a police force, hopefully with better, more clearly defined terms and conditions.
One of the principles they recognized was that an appointed law enforcement agent could be much more objective in enforcing the law than could individual citizens. If enforcement were left up to each citizen, no two people would do it the same, and the potential for law suits (in those days, pronounced “Doo’- uls”) was great. I’m sure there was some smooth talking and some serious negotiation, and no end of false starts and hemp resets, but the process was on its way.
The documented portion of the evolution of human government begins ‘way after the actual beginning. Who knows what permutations it went through? I’d be willing to bet, though, that the main force driving the development of government was a desire for loot and power. The looting and rape would have gone on forever but for the advent of a few enormous, almost tectonic forces: population growth, travel and commerce, the invention of the longbow and firearms, and the discovery of the New World, to name a just a few. But tyranny has never given up, for one of the greatest failings of our kind is the desire to rule over others – to take their property, their wealth, their sons and their daughters. And much that is noblest in our kind has been done in resistance to that tyranny. The Scriptures tell us there must be opposition in all things. Indeed, basic epistemology tells us that we distinguish one thing from another by the differences, or opposition, between them.
Great virtue can be seen only in the company of great vice. Freedom can be seen only in the company of tyranny.
So now we have an economy based on the specialization of labor, we have boundaries, custom-become-law, we have rudimentary government, and we have police. Remember this, though: the first and true repository of the law was the people. The law started with the desire of the people to be free from the burden of constant vigilance and arbitrary standards. The people voluntarily gave enforcement of the law to the police. The police never owned the law. They were custodians of it, holding it in the name and interest of the people. When some college-educated fascist sonofa… JERK starts wringing his hands about people, “…taking the law into their own hands…” it makes me want to puke. In the hands of the people is precisely where the law was conceived, born, and raised. When the government becomes the enemy of the law, whether through neglect or tyranny, or pure-dee thuggish desire for power, it is the right of the people – nay, it is the solemn responsibility of the people - to take the law from the government, beat the crap out of the government, and set up a new government.
Is there a more eloquent, succinct way of saying all that? Let’s try this:
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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
I love that! In case you don’t recognize it, it’s from the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in the summer of 1776, and I’ve never seen a better, more powerful exposition of the principle.
There are side-trips involved in this particular bit of social Darwinism: things like the invention of hemp rope, whereby hangs more than a tale, and the invention of shooting irons. But those are for a different story.
As things evolved, someone decided that in his little corner of paradise, they could put the thieves on notice by posting a sign that said, “No thieves allowed.” Such a sign would have no impact unless everyone in the area agreed to beat the crap out of any thieves that came around. The locals agreed, and they put up a sign, and the law was born. Joe noticed the sign, sauntered over and said, “I’ve got some tough boys here with me, and we’d be happy to enforce that sign if you’ll pay us.” And that was the first police force. It worked pretty good until Joe or one of his shoulder-strikers decided to hold the people up for more pay, at which time the whole community rose up and lynched the overly ambitious ones. When the lynching was done, they remembered what a pain it was to have to go armed and looking over their shoulders all the time, so they reestablished a police force, hopefully with better, more clearly defined terms and conditions.
One of the principles they recognized was that an appointed law enforcement agent could be much more objective in enforcing the law than could individual citizens. If enforcement were left up to each citizen, no two people would do it the same, and the potential for law suits (in those days, pronounced “Doo’- uls”) was great. I’m sure there was some smooth talking and some serious negotiation, and no end of false starts and hemp resets, but the process was on its way.
The documented portion of the evolution of human government begins ‘way after the actual beginning. Who knows what permutations it went through? I’d be willing to bet, though, that the main force driving the development of government was a desire for loot and power. The looting and rape would have gone on forever but for the advent of a few enormous, almost tectonic forces: population growth, travel and commerce, the invention of the longbow and firearms, and the discovery of the New World, to name a just a few. But tyranny has never given up, for one of the greatest failings of our kind is the desire to rule over others – to take their property, their wealth, their sons and their daughters. And much that is noblest in our kind has been done in resistance to that tyranny. The Scriptures tell us there must be opposition in all things. Indeed, basic epistemology tells us that we distinguish one thing from another by the differences, or opposition, between them.
Great virtue can be seen only in the company of great vice. Freedom can be seen only in the company of tyranny.
So now we have an economy based on the specialization of labor, we have boundaries, custom-become-law, we have rudimentary government, and we have police. Remember this, though: the first and true repository of the law was the people. The law started with the desire of the people to be free from the burden of constant vigilance and arbitrary standards. The people voluntarily gave enforcement of the law to the police. The police never owned the law. They were custodians of it, holding it in the name and interest of the people. When some college-educated fascist sonofa… JERK starts wringing his hands about people, “…taking the law into their own hands…” it makes me want to puke. In the hands of the people is precisely where the law was conceived, born, and raised. When the government becomes the enemy of the law, whether through neglect or tyranny, or pure-dee thuggish desire for power, it is the right of the people – nay, it is the solemn responsibility of the people - to take the law from the government, beat the crap out of the government, and set up a new government.
Is there a more eloquent, succinct way of saying all that? Let’s try this:
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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
I love that! In case you don’t recognize it, it’s from the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in the summer of 1776, and I’ve never seen a better, more powerful exposition of the principle.
Monday, March 8, 2010
ORIGIN OF MONEY,PT 1
WARNING: There may some tongue-in-cheek attempts at humor in the following. No, I do not seriously propose that it happened just this way, but I’m pretty sure the general steps were something like this.
In the beginning, there were few people, each doing everything needed to sustain his own life. They must have been pretty good at, too, because before long (geologically speaking) there were a lot more people. Nothing they needed to live was naturally available in usable form. Fruit and berries had to be picked. Firewood had to be carried. Fish had to be caught. The stuff was out there, but required human action to make it usable by humans. An ocean of fish are of no value until someone catches one of ‘em. A fish is just a fish until human action turns it into food; it’s the human action that adds value.
(A side note on the concept of “natural resources:” The fish gain intrinsic value in their natural state only to the extent of someone’s ability to envision what might be done with them in the future. Oil wasn’t worth squat until some sharpie figured out how to make it slick and burn it.)
One day, someone realized that he was awfully good at making shoes, but not much of an axe maker. His neighbor was a heck of an axe-maker, but ran around barefoot. So this guy goes to his neighbor and swaps a pair of shoes for an axe. Now multiply that process and the principle upon which it is built many, many times and you have an economy and a society built on the free exchange of goods and services. Everyone did what he did best or enjoyed most.
There are only two ways to get what you need: you can produce it or have someone else produce it for you. If you choose the former, your only concern is for the ownership of the raw materials. If you choose the latter, you have two ways of getting it from the other person: without his permission or with it. If you choose the former, you are a thief, pure and simple. (Paying someone else to do your stealing for you doesn’t keep you from being a thief; it makes you a politician, and your employee a tax collector.)
If you choose the latter, there are but two ways of getting the other’s permission: trade for the stuff or just ask him to give it to you. If you choose the latter, you are a beggar. No shame in that, as it stands, but not much future, either. If you choose the former, you must trade something for his goods. Since you are doing this with his agreement, it must be something he will voluntarily accept in exchange. This takes us directly back to the first question in this reduction. If he wants shoes, you must either make the shoes, yourself, or get them from someone else.
To boil all that down, there are three ways of surviving: produce what you need (Whether for self-consumption or trade makes no difference; you are producing the stuff, yourself.), beg for it, or steal it. You are a producer or a parasite. Period. No other options. No amount of window dressing or semantic hair splitting or image-building terminology will change this fact. Beggars and thieves are parasites, consuming the living tissue of the society that keeps them alive. No thief or beggar can survive without producers to prey upon. Do you hear me, Barack?
So in the beginning, wealth was real: shoes, axes, fish, sheep, grain, etc.
When you trade sheep for apples, you have to (1) find an apple farmer who likes mutton, and (2) carry your sheep to him. Man! What a pain! Then someone had a real brainstorm. “I’ll leave my sheep in town, and give the apple farmer a note saying he can have them in exchange for the apples.” That worked pretty good until some sharpie figured out that he could lie about having the sheep, at which point the apple farmer quit accepting paper as trade. It couldn’t have been long before some enterprising gent said, “Tell you what. You leave the sheep with me. I’ll give you a certificate saying you’ve deposited them with me. The farmer knows I’m trustworthy, so he’ll take my certificate, and you won’t have to carry your sheep with you. In exchange for loaning you my reputation, I’ll keep one of the sheep for myself.” Ah. The birth of the banker.
Pretty soon, folks were running all over, exchanging sheep certificates for apple certificates. This not only freed people from hauling sheep all over creation, it also opened up choices. For example, let’s say the apple farmer didn’t like mutton, but he really needed some wheels for his ride. He traded the sheep certificate to the wheelwright for a new set of wheels. There were a jillion different certificates – sheep and apples, of course, and cows, shoes, fishhooks, barrels, plows, services – like plowing, or babysitting – you name it. However the trading was somewhat limited geographically because, while the wheelwright didn’t take the sheep, directly, he still had to be close enough to ‘em to herd ‘em home.
Then someone came up with one of the greatest ideas in all human history. “Let’s set up a standard of exchange, and pick some substance to represent it. The substance needs to be rare enough that not everyone can gave an unlimited supply of it. There were probably a few false starts before they settled on precious metals – silver and gold. It worked like this: you sold your sheep to a broker (dare I say a stock broker?) in exchange for specie. You then carried the specie to the apple farmer and traded it for apples. The farmer had the freedom of trading the specie to anyone for anything. It was universal. It was convenient. It was so flippin’ cool! A bit of this stuff in one’s pocket could be transformed into anything in the world! Even services, like plowing, could be exchanged for it, and it for services. Shoot, folks could be found who would do stuff in exchange for it, and thus was born the idea of working for wages. (And so, too, was born the blues.)
Only one, final evolution remained. Gold is heavy, and if you are going very far it’s a pain to carry much of it. We go now back to the banker. If a man’s reputation were sufficiently strong, he could write out a certificate saying you had so much gold on deposit with him, and you could travel with the certificate. Fits right in your pocket. Your trading partner, even across the Alps, could give that certificate to his banker in exchange for gold or other certificates, which could then be exchanged in Germany as easily as your original could be in Italy. Gold on the banks of the Med could finance business clear up on the North Sea. It was too good an idea to keep secret, and pretty soon, the whole world was using money. Money was not the root of all evil. It was the mechanism by which human society broke the chains of feudalism and spanned the globe. It enabled – and continues to enable – the development of technology, medicine, art… you name it. Any human being can trade labor for money and thus finance his life as a producer, rather than as a parasite.
Barter was surely the basis of it all, and some advocate a return to a barter system. That would catastrophic. Think about the people who work in a semiconductor factory. They make the chips that drive the computers that have changed the world. Without them, all industry would fail, and all finance and investment would crash. But the people who make the bloody things have skills that are utterly useless outside the factory. How much market is there in an agrarian, barter economy for someone who can deposit 12 microns of boron on a silicon substrate? And when you concentrate thousands of people in a small area like a factory town, how can you get enough cattle and cabbage in there to feed ‘em all? The smell, alone, would destroy an economy!
You have to have money to run an industrial or technological society. It was money that freed us from the soil – money that freed us from the plow and the forge – money that let us develop the technology to take us to the stars – money that let Ray Kroc feed cheap hamburgers to more people that were living on Earth 100 years ago. Money the root of all evil? No, it is one of the noblest and finest inventions of the human mind. Money was first built on the integrity and trustworthiness of a handful of visionary men. That’s something, isn’t it? How can something built on trust and honesty and decency and hard work be bad? And yet, it is almost universally regarded as vile and filthy, the source of sin and depravity.
How did that happen?
In the beginning, there were few people, each doing everything needed to sustain his own life. They must have been pretty good at, too, because before long (geologically speaking) there were a lot more people. Nothing they needed to live was naturally available in usable form. Fruit and berries had to be picked. Firewood had to be carried. Fish had to be caught. The stuff was out there, but required human action to make it usable by humans. An ocean of fish are of no value until someone catches one of ‘em. A fish is just a fish until human action turns it into food; it’s the human action that adds value.
(A side note on the concept of “natural resources:” The fish gain intrinsic value in their natural state only to the extent of someone’s ability to envision what might be done with them in the future. Oil wasn’t worth squat until some sharpie figured out how to make it slick and burn it.)
One day, someone realized that he was awfully good at making shoes, but not much of an axe maker. His neighbor was a heck of an axe-maker, but ran around barefoot. So this guy goes to his neighbor and swaps a pair of shoes for an axe. Now multiply that process and the principle upon which it is built many, many times and you have an economy and a society built on the free exchange of goods and services. Everyone did what he did best or enjoyed most.
There are only two ways to get what you need: you can produce it or have someone else produce it for you. If you choose the former, your only concern is for the ownership of the raw materials. If you choose the latter, you have two ways of getting it from the other person: without his permission or with it. If you choose the former, you are a thief, pure and simple. (Paying someone else to do your stealing for you doesn’t keep you from being a thief; it makes you a politician, and your employee a tax collector.)
If you choose the latter, there are but two ways of getting the other’s permission: trade for the stuff or just ask him to give it to you. If you choose the latter, you are a beggar. No shame in that, as it stands, but not much future, either. If you choose the former, you must trade something for his goods. Since you are doing this with his agreement, it must be something he will voluntarily accept in exchange. This takes us directly back to the first question in this reduction. If he wants shoes, you must either make the shoes, yourself, or get them from someone else.
To boil all that down, there are three ways of surviving: produce what you need (Whether for self-consumption or trade makes no difference; you are producing the stuff, yourself.), beg for it, or steal it. You are a producer or a parasite. Period. No other options. No amount of window dressing or semantic hair splitting or image-building terminology will change this fact. Beggars and thieves are parasites, consuming the living tissue of the society that keeps them alive. No thief or beggar can survive without producers to prey upon. Do you hear me, Barack?
So in the beginning, wealth was real: shoes, axes, fish, sheep, grain, etc.
When you trade sheep for apples, you have to (1) find an apple farmer who likes mutton, and (2) carry your sheep to him. Man! What a pain! Then someone had a real brainstorm. “I’ll leave my sheep in town, and give the apple farmer a note saying he can have them in exchange for the apples.” That worked pretty good until some sharpie figured out that he could lie about having the sheep, at which point the apple farmer quit accepting paper as trade. It couldn’t have been long before some enterprising gent said, “Tell you what. You leave the sheep with me. I’ll give you a certificate saying you’ve deposited them with me. The farmer knows I’m trustworthy, so he’ll take my certificate, and you won’t have to carry your sheep with you. In exchange for loaning you my reputation, I’ll keep one of the sheep for myself.” Ah. The birth of the banker.
Pretty soon, folks were running all over, exchanging sheep certificates for apple certificates. This not only freed people from hauling sheep all over creation, it also opened up choices. For example, let’s say the apple farmer didn’t like mutton, but he really needed some wheels for his ride. He traded the sheep certificate to the wheelwright for a new set of wheels. There were a jillion different certificates – sheep and apples, of course, and cows, shoes, fishhooks, barrels, plows, services – like plowing, or babysitting – you name it. However the trading was somewhat limited geographically because, while the wheelwright didn’t take the sheep, directly, he still had to be close enough to ‘em to herd ‘em home.
Then someone came up with one of the greatest ideas in all human history. “Let’s set up a standard of exchange, and pick some substance to represent it. The substance needs to be rare enough that not everyone can gave an unlimited supply of it. There were probably a few false starts before they settled on precious metals – silver and gold. It worked like this: you sold your sheep to a broker (dare I say a stock broker?) in exchange for specie. You then carried the specie to the apple farmer and traded it for apples. The farmer had the freedom of trading the specie to anyone for anything. It was universal. It was convenient. It was so flippin’ cool! A bit of this stuff in one’s pocket could be transformed into anything in the world! Even services, like plowing, could be exchanged for it, and it for services. Shoot, folks could be found who would do stuff in exchange for it, and thus was born the idea of working for wages. (And so, too, was born the blues.)
Only one, final evolution remained. Gold is heavy, and if you are going very far it’s a pain to carry much of it. We go now back to the banker. If a man’s reputation were sufficiently strong, he could write out a certificate saying you had so much gold on deposit with him, and you could travel with the certificate. Fits right in your pocket. Your trading partner, even across the Alps, could give that certificate to his banker in exchange for gold or other certificates, which could then be exchanged in Germany as easily as your original could be in Italy. Gold on the banks of the Med could finance business clear up on the North Sea. It was too good an idea to keep secret, and pretty soon, the whole world was using money. Money was not the root of all evil. It was the mechanism by which human society broke the chains of feudalism and spanned the globe. It enabled – and continues to enable – the development of technology, medicine, art… you name it. Any human being can trade labor for money and thus finance his life as a producer, rather than as a parasite.
Barter was surely the basis of it all, and some advocate a return to a barter system. That would catastrophic. Think about the people who work in a semiconductor factory. They make the chips that drive the computers that have changed the world. Without them, all industry would fail, and all finance and investment would crash. But the people who make the bloody things have skills that are utterly useless outside the factory. How much market is there in an agrarian, barter economy for someone who can deposit 12 microns of boron on a silicon substrate? And when you concentrate thousands of people in a small area like a factory town, how can you get enough cattle and cabbage in there to feed ‘em all? The smell, alone, would destroy an economy!
You have to have money to run an industrial or technological society. It was money that freed us from the soil – money that freed us from the plow and the forge – money that let us develop the technology to take us to the stars – money that let Ray Kroc feed cheap hamburgers to more people that were living on Earth 100 years ago. Money the root of all evil? No, it is one of the noblest and finest inventions of the human mind. Money was first built on the integrity and trustworthiness of a handful of visionary men. That’s something, isn’t it? How can something built on trust and honesty and decency and hard work be bad? And yet, it is almost universally regarded as vile and filthy, the source of sin and depravity.
How did that happen?
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