Inspired by the corruption of Wall Street bailouts and the recklessness of the Federal Reserve, a man known only as Satoshi Nakomoto created a new tool to fight central bankers: Bitcoin. A decade later, Bitcoin became the best-performing asset in the world—without the support of any government and despite attacks from some of the world’s largest banks.
At the same time, some states in the US rediscovered their constitutional right to promote gold and silver. Texas went so far as to create its own gold bank.
Now in 2022, global inflation is the highest in recent memory and the elites are determined to weaponize currency against the public. These same people who brought us lockdowns, supply-chain disruptions, and rising inflation now want to remake the monetary system to control and track every aspect of our lives.
Today, of course, PC is obsolete—replaced entirely by the far broader concept of “woke,” which goes well beyond language. And to be sure, “woke” is so vague and so overused as to be a poignant example of George Orwell’s meaningless words,
Language is a critical tool for communication among humans; we cry “watch out” when a speeding car hurtles toward a pedestrian. We also think of language as a cognitive tool for society at large, since all human learning is closely tied to how we learn and process language.
Yet sometimes we forget language is also an important social and cultural institution. And like all institutions, it is subject to corruption, in the form of capture by elites with agendas quite contrary to those of average people. Since language shapes our understanding of all human interactions, academics from all disciplines—but particularly social scientists—ought to pay more attention to linguistic corruption. When language becomes politicized, managed, and policed, we ought to notice, and we ought to fight back.
I make this very point in an upcoming article titled “Evolution or Corruption: The Imposition of Political Language in the West Today,” which will be published this fall in the Italian journal Etica e politica (put out by the University of Trieste Department of Philosophy). The article argues that top-down impositions, rather than natural evolution, often drive changes in language. It analogizes the linguistic “marketplace” with the market for goods and services. Impositions are akin to central planning, while evolution is akin to spontaneous order in the marketplace. The former occurs when elites in politics, media, journalism, and academia attempt to influence both the words we use and the meaning of those words. This is invariably in service of a statist agenda, just as economic interventions serve preferred interests at the expense of overall wealth and efficiency. The constant use and repetition of the word “gender” (a term relating to grammar) when we should use “sex” is one obvious example of imposed, corrupted language in service of a political agenda (trans). By contrast, the Middle English “whilst” sounds odd to our ear today—having naturally evolved into “while” without obvious or heavy-handed direction.
The great Spanish Austro-libertarian economist Jesús Huerta de Soto applies Carl Menger’s theory on the evolution of money to language:
Thus there is an unconscious social process of learning by imitation which explains how the pioneering behavior of these most successful and creative individuals catches on and eventually extends to the rest of society. Also, due to this evolutionary process, those societies which first adopt successful principles and institutions tend to spread and prevail over other social groups. Although Menger developed his theory in relation to the origin and evolution of money, he also mentions that the same essential theoretical framework can be easily applied to the study of the origins and development of language, as well as to our present topic, juridical institutions. Hence the paradoxical fact that the moral, juridical, economic, and linguistic institutions which are most important and essential to man’s life in society are not of his own creation, because he lacks the necessary intellectual might to assimilate the vast body of random information that these institutions generate. On the contrary, these institutions inevitably and spontaneously emanate from the social process of human interaction which Menger believes should be the main research in economics.1
Today, it appears linguistic interventionism is alive and well in the West. Language is a subset of culture, albeit a very important subset, and we can hardly expect progressives to leave it alone. Like culture, language is not property, and it cannot be “owned.” But it can be influenced and steered by linguistic vandals seeking to topple old understandings and leave us all overwhelmed and demoralized by the ever-shifting new terminology.
These countries never attacked US but hate US due to an empire building foreign policy. Wouldn’t life be better for all if limited our battles to the free market?
No longer just an ‘alternative route’ on a drawing board, the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is paying dividends in a time of global crisis. And Moscow, Tehran and New Delhi are now leading players in the Eurasian competition for transportation routes.
Tectonic shifts continue to rage through the world system with nation-states quickly recognizing that the “great game” as it has been played since the establishment of the Bretton Woods monetary system in the wake of the second World War, is over.
But empires never disappear without a fight, and the Anglo-American one is no exception, overplaying its hand, threatening and bluffing its way, right to the end.
End of an order
It seems no matter how many sanctions the west imposes on Russia, the victims most affected are western civilians. Indeed, the severity of this political blunder is such that the nations of the trans-Atlantic are heading towards the greatest self-induced food and energy crisis in history.
While the representatives of the “liberal rules-based international order” continue on their trajectory to crush all nations that refuse to play by those rules, a much saner paradigm has come to light in recent months that promises to transform the global order entirely.
The multipolar solution
Here we see the alternative security-financial order which has arisen in the form of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. As recently as 30 June at the 10th St Petersburg International Legal Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin described this emerging new multipolar order as:
“A multipolar system of international relations is now being formed. It is an irreversible process; it is happening before our eyes and is objective in nature. The position of Russia and many other countries is that this democratic, more just world order should be built on the basis of mutual respect and trust, and, of course, on the generally accepted principles of international law and the UN Charter.”
Since the inevitable cancellation of western trade with Russia after the Ukraine conflict erupted in February, Putin has increasingly made clear that the strategic re-orientation of Moscow’s economic ties from east to west had to make a dramatically new emphasis on north to south and north to east relations not only for Russia’s survival, but for the survival of all Eurasia.
Among the top strategic focuses of this re-orientation is the long overdue International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
On this game-changing mega-project, Putin said last month during the plenary session of the 25th St Petersburg International Economic Forum:
“To help companies from other countries develop logistical and cooperation ties, we are working to improve transport corridors, increase the capacity of railways, trans-shipment capacity at ports in the Arctic, and in the eastern, southern and other parts of the country, including in the Azov-Black Sea and Caspian basins – they will become the most important section of the North-South Corridor, which will provide stable connectivity with the Middle East and Southern Asia. We expect freight traffic along this route to begin growing steadily in the near future.”
The INSTC’s Phoenix Moment
Until recently, the primary trade route for goods passing from India to Europe has been the maritime shipping corridor passing through the Bab El-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, via the highly bottlenecked Suez Canal, through the Mediterranean and onward to Europe via ports and rail/road corridors.
Following this western-dominated route, average transit times take about 40 days to reach ports of Northern Europe or Russia. Geopolitical realities of the western technocratic obsession with global governance have made this NATO-controlled route more than a little unreliable.
The International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC)
Despite being far from complete, goods moving across the INSTC from India to Russia have already finished their journey 14 days sooner than their Suez-bound counterparts while also seeing a whopping 30 percent reduction in total shipping costs.
These figures are expected to fall further as the project progresses. Most importantly, the INSTC would also provide a new basis for international win-win cooperation much more in harmony with the spirit of geo-economics unveiled by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013.
Cooperation not competition
Originally agreed upon by Russia, Iran and India in September 2000, the INSTC only began moving in earnest in 2002 – albeit much more slowly than its architects had hoped.
This 7,200 km multimodal megaproject involves integrating several Eurasian nations directly or indirectly with rail, roads and shipping corridors into a united and tight-knit web of interdependency. Along each artery, opportunities to build energy projects, mining, and high tech special economic zones (SEZs) will abound giving each participating nation the economic power to lift their people out of poverty, increase their stability and their national power to chart their own destinies.
Beyond the founding three nations, the other 10 states who have signed onto this project over the years include Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Syria and even Ukraine (although this last member may not remain on board for long). In recent months, India has officially invited Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to join too.
While western think tanks and geopolitical analysts attempt to frame the INSTC as an opponent to China’s BRI, the reality is that both systems are extremely synergistic on multiple levels.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
Unlike the west’s speculation-driven bubble economy, both the BRI and INSTC define economic value and self-interest around improving the productivity and living standards of the real economy. While short term thinking predominates in the myopic London-Wall Street paradigm, the BRI and INSTC investment strategies are driven by long-term thinking and mutual self-interest.
It is no small irony that such policies once animated the best traditions of the west before the rot of unipolar thinking took over and the west lost its moral compass.
And today there is now this headline that subpoenas have been served and the officials (as well as Twitter, YouTube, Meta, Instagram and LinkedIn) have 30 days to respond:
You will not find either story in mainstream media because it is counter narrative. But for people like me, this is one of the biggest news items I’ve seen.
Alex Berenson tried to argue the state-action doctrine in his Twitter lawsuit, but Judge Alsup denied it. This was in Federal Court in San Francisco.
I’m looking at suing Twitter in California state court and if I win, Twitter has to pay my legal expenses and it also means they can’t silence free speech on their platform anymore, which will be a huge step forward for free speech.
This development is a big win because it means that a judge wasn’t convinced by the government’s attempts to dismiss the case. If the case succeeds, it could open up free speech on all these platforms. It would mean that people with vaccine injuries don’t have to hide anymore.
This win in court is more evidence that the narrative will be falling apart soon.
This ruling and the issuance of subpoenas is a solid step in restoring free speech rights on social media platforms.
The decision makers aren’t hearing the other side of the story because voices have been censored, including the voices of millions of vaccine injured people.
As I’ve said before, the key to ending the pandemic is for decision-makers to start listening to the people that are being censored.
So stopping censorship is an important step forward.
Once that happens, we can go back to normal almost instantly since COVID will no longer kill nearly as many people (we’ll use sensible treatment for in-patient and out-patients), the PCR and antigen tests will be properly specified to eliminate the false positives, and we can end all the stupid mitigation measures (like masks, lockdowns, isolation, etc). And we’ll start incentivizing hospitals to save lives instead of killing people. With a handful of changes, I think there’s an excellent chance we can cut the death rate from COVID to insignificant levels.
I have to disagree with Mr Hornberger. Land is taken to house illegal immigrants. Stolen money (taxes) is used for housing, food, medical care, transportation. During WW II the Soviet Union had a strong presence in Mexico (Leon Trotski was assassinated in Mexico). It has been suggested “terrorist” types are freely crossing our Southern border. Perhaps if we had spent the last 130 years building free market relationships, raising everyone’s standard of living, instead of overthrowing, assassinating and invading (see War Is A Racket by General Smedley D. Butler) we might not be in this situation.
Even as a dumb kid I used to think wouldn’t it be better if the other countries in our hemisphere were in good shape and on our side – just in case.
The so-called “border crisis” is a massive failure because it does not allow property owners to defend their property.”
Alas, Ferguson has it wrong. Private property owners on the U.S. side of the border have the right, both legally and morally, to defend their property from trespassers.
Robert Frost once wrote “good fences make good neighbors.” Very true. Isn’t there any private property on the U.S. side of the border? Doesn’t a property owner have the right to defend his justly obtained property? How about hiring private police to keep intruders from trespassing on your property? The so-called “border crisis” is a massive failure because it does not allow property owners to defend their property.”
Alas, Ferguson has it wrong. Private property owners on the U.S. side of the border have the right, both legally and morally, to defend their property from trespassers.
I know this from personal experience. I grew up on a farm outside Laredo, Texas, a city on the U.S. Mexico border. Our farm was adjacent to the Rio Grande. Under the law, we had the right to keep trespassers, whether American or Mexican, from entering onto our property without our permission … with one exception.
That exception was the U.S. Border Patrol. Under America’s immigration police state, it had the omnipotent, totalitarian, police-state power to trespass onto our property without a search warrant whenever it wanted, and there was nothing we could do about it.
The reason that immigrants cross onto private property is because of America’s system of immigration controls, which makes it illegal for foreigners to enter the United States without official permission. Since it is very difficult and time-consuming (i.e., years) to secure such official permission, immigrants find ways to illegally enter the United States, which lots of times entails crossing the border at unusual places and, in the process, trespassing onto people’s private farms and ranches in the quest to head north.
If the United States had the libertarian system of open borders, there would be no more trespasses onto private property because now immigrants would be free to cross borders normally like human beings. They would be using cars, buses, planes, motorcycles, trains, or any other means of transport, without fear of being busted for doing so. There would be no more reason to be trespassing onto private farms and ranches on the way north.
Ferguson has it right when he says that the “border crisis” is a “massive failure.” But he has it wrong in asserting that it’s a “massive failure” because “it does not allow property owners to defend their property.”
The reason the immigration-control system is a massive failure is because it is a socialist system, in that it is based on the socialist principle of central planning. Any socialist system is inherently defective. That means it cannot be fixed, no matter what “comprehensive immigration reform plan” is adopted. Moreover, as we continue to witness, an immigration-control system comes with death, suffering, and the destruction of liberty through an immigration police state.
The only system that works is a free-market system, which necessarily means the libertarian concept of open borders. It’s also a moral system, given that it comes with life, liberty, vitality, peace, harmony, and the pursuit of happiness.
One year ago today President Biden told Americans if they get the Covid shot they won’t get Covid. Today the quadruple vaccinated Biden has announced that…he has Covid. Has the narrative failed? Also today – dueling narratives: Pelosi demands Blinken designate Russia as a terrorist state while NPR runs article about Ukraine corruption. Apply today to be a Ron Paul Scholar: http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/…
Bloomberg opinion published a piece Wednesday calling for President Biden to increase gas prices, intentionally and forever, in order to hasten a transition to alternate forms of energy. The op-ed, written by columnist Eduardo Porter, called for a “$5-a-gallon floor on gasoline prices.”
Porter described the policy as “one bold move” that would put a “real dent” in “the emission of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that is causing such havoc with the weather,” although he admitted it was unlikely the president would make it.
“As any economist will tell him, the most efficient way to reduce fossil fuel consumption is to raise its price relative to alternatives, encouraging people and businesses to switch to cleaner sources and use less energy altogether,” Porter wrote.
Legend has it that Jed Clampett “was shootin’ at some food / When up through the ground come a bubblin’ crude.”
The Beverly Hillbillies’ transformation into instant millionaires illustrates one of the oldest conceptions in the western world: What’s on your land belongs to you. This idea predates the founding of America. If you find gold in your backyard, that resource belongs to you.
California wants to change that.
A source near San Diego has shared with California Globe a shocking letter that’s quietly being delivered to owners of private wells.
“California is marching toward a world where those with wells on their own property will be required to put a meter on them and pay the government,” writes the source. “Because in their world, the government owns everything and we’re just renters.”
The letter is signed by Natalie Stork, the Chief of Groundwater Management Program Unit 1, and was sent in late July on the letterhead of California Water Boards, under the authority of Gov. Newsom and Jared Blumenfeld, Secretary for Environmental Protection. Buried beneath the bureaucratic acronyms GSA and SGMA (Groundwater Sustainability Agency and Sustainable Groundwater Management Act) is an extremely aggressive conception of government authority and its dominion over private property.
The letter reads, “Landowners whose property is within an unmanaged area and contains an operating ground water extraction well must report the volume of groundwater extracted from the well. The groundwater extraction volume must be reported as a monthly total. In addition to pumping volumes, reports must include the location of the well and the place and purpose of use of the groundwater. Groundwater extraction reports are not due to the state water board until February 1, 2023. However, if you are required to report, the report must include pumping volumes for each month between the date of receipt of this letter and September 30, 2022.”
This is not merely a bureaucratic hassle. There are fees, of course. The base filing fee is $300 per well, which all extractors are required to report. Then there’s an additional fee of $10 per acre foot with a meter, $25 per acre foot without. Tardy filers face a late fee of 25% per month.
California Globe reached out to Ms. Stork and SGMA to inquire how widely this letter was sent and where the State Water Resources Control Board derives the right to charge well owners for water on their own property. This story will be updated to include her comment if either responds.
Meanwhile, the ramifications for property rights are enormous.
“Indeed it may be said with some confidence that the average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. There are moments when his cogitations are relatively more respectable than usual, but even at their climaxes they never reach anything properly describable as the level of serious thought. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over eighty per cent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought. That is to say, they never think anything that has not been thought before and by thousands.”
“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.” ~ H.L. Mencken, Minority Report
“The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists.”
