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Do We Need The State? – Doug Casey’s International Man

Posted by M. C. on May 21, 2020

Editor’s Note: Sociopaths are drawn to the government. They seek power and control over others through coercion, taxation and more.

Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together peaceably in Palestine, Lebanon, and North Africa for centuries until the situation became politicized after World War I. Until then, an individual’s background and beliefs were just personal attributes, not a casus belli. Government was at its most benign, an ineffectual nuisance that concerned itself mostly with extorting taxes. People were busy with that most harmless of activities: making money.

https://internationalman.com/articles/do-we-need-the-state/

by Doug Casey

Rousseau was perhaps the first to popularize the fiction now taught in civics classes about how government was created. It holds that men sat down together and rationally thought out the concept of government as a solution to problems that confronted them. The government of the United States was, however, the first to be formed in any way remotely like Rousseau’s ideal. Even then, it had far from universal support from the three million colonials whom it claimed to represent. The U.S. government, after all, grew out of an illegal conspiracy to overthrow and replace the existing government.

There’s no question that the result was, by an order of magnitude, the best blueprint for a government that had yet been conceived. Most of America’s Founding Fathers believed the main purpose of government was to protect its subjects from the initiation of violence from any source; government itself prominently included. That made the U.S. government almost unique in history. And it was that concept – not natural resources, the ethnic composition of American immigrants, or luck – that turned America into the paragon it became.

The origin of government itself, however, was nothing like Rousseau’s fable or the origin of the United States Constitution. The most realistic scenario for the origin of government is a roving group of bandits deciding that life would be easier if they settled down in a particular locale, and simply taxing the residents for a fixed percentage (rather like “protection money”) instead of periodically sweeping through and carrying off all they could get away with. It’s no accident that the ruling classes everywhere have martial backgrounds. Royalty are really nothing more than successful marauders who have buried the origins of their wealth in romance.

Romanticizing government, making it seem like Camelot, populated by brave knights and benevolent kings, painting it as noble and ennobling, helps people to accept its jurisdiction. But, like most things, government is shaped by its origins. Author Rick Maybury may have said it best in Whatever Happened to Justice?,

“A castle was not so much a plush palace as the headquarters for a concentration camp. These camps, called feudal kingdoms, were established by conquering barbarians who’d enslaved the local people. When you see one, ask to see not just the stately halls and bedrooms, but the dungeons and torture chambers.

“A castle was a hangout for silk-clad gangsters who were stealing from helpless workers. The king was the ‘lord’ who had control of the blackjack; he claimed a special ‘divine right’ to use force on the innocent.

“Fantasies about handsome princes and beautiful princesses are dangerous; they whitewash the truth. They give children the impression political power is wonderful stuff.”

Is The State Necessary?

The violent and corrupt nature of government is widely acknowledged by almost everyone. That’s been true since time immemorial, as have political satire and grousing about politicians. Yet almost everyone turns a blind eye; most not only put up with it, but actively support the charade. That’s because, although many may believe government to be an evil, they believe it is a necessary evil (the larger question of whether anything that is evil is necessary, or whether anything that is necessary can be evil, is worth discussing, but this isn’t the forum).

What (arguably) makes government necessary is the need for protection from other, even more dangerous, governments. I believe a case can be made that modern technology obviates this function.

One of the most perversely misleading myths about government is that it promotes order within its own bailiwick, keeps groups from constantly warring with each other, and somehow creates togetherness and harmony. In fact, that’s the exact opposite of the truth. There’s no cosmic imperative for different people to rise up against one another…unless they’re organized into political groups. The Middle East, now the world’s most fertile breeding ground for hatred, provides an excellent example.

Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together peaceably in Palestine, Lebanon, and North Africa for centuries until the situation became politicized after World War I. Until then, an individual’s background and beliefs were just personal attributes, not a casus belli. Government was at its most benign, an ineffectual nuisance that concerned itself mostly with extorting taxes. People were busy with that most harmless of activities: making money.

But politics do not deal with people as individuals. It scoops them up into parties and nations. And some group inevitably winds up using the power of the state (however “innocently” or “justly” at first) to impose its values and wishes on others with predictably destructive results. What would otherwise be an interesting kaleidoscope of humanity then sorts itself out according to the lowest common denominator peculiar to the time and place.

Sometimes that means along religious lines, as with the Muslims and Hindus in India or the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland; or ethnic lines, like the Kurds and Iraqis in the Middle East or Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka; sometimes it’s mostly racial, as whites and East Indians found throughout Africa in the 1970s or Asians in California in the 1870s. Sometimes it’s purely a matter of politics, as Argentines, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and other Latins discovered more recently. Sometimes it amounts to no more than personal beliefs, as the McCarthy era in the 1950s and the Salem trials in the 1690s proved.

Throughout history government has served as a vehicle for the organization of hatred and oppression, benefitting no one except those who are ambitious and ruthless enough to gain control of it. That’s not to say government hasn’t, then and now, performed useful functions. But the useful things it does could and would be done far better by the market.

Editor’s Note: Sociopaths are drawn to the government. They seek power and control over others through coercion, taxation and more.

Unfortunately, there’s little any individual can practically do to change the course of these trends in motion.

The best you can and should do is to stay informed so that you can protect yourself in the best way possible, and even profit from the situation.

Be seeing you

 

 

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What If the Government Has It Wrong? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on May 21, 2020

What if the COVID-19 virus has run its course and run into natural immunities? What if many folks have had symptom-free episodes with many viruses and are now immune from them? What if the government refuses to understand this because it undermines the government’s power to control us?

What if — as Thomas Jefferson said — the blood of patriots should be spilled on the tree of revolution at least once in every generation? What if we nullify the government that has nullified our rights?

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/05/andrew-p-napolitano/what-if-the-government-has-it-wrong/

By

What if the government has it wrong — on the medicine and the law?

What if face masks can’t stop the COVID-19 virus? What if quarantining the healthy makes no medical sense? What if staying at home for months reduces immunity?

What if more people have been infected with the virus in their homes than outside them?

What if there are as many credible scientists and physicians who disagree with the government as those who agree with it? What if the government chooses to listen only to scientists and physicians who would tell it what it wanted to hear? What if the government silences scientists and physicians, and even fires one, who attempt to tell it what it didn’t want to hear?

What if the government wants to stoke fear in the populace because mass fear produces mass compliance? What if individual fear reduces individual immunity?

What if a healthy immunity gets stronger when challenged? What if a pampered immunity gets weaker when challenged? What if we all pass germs and viruses — that we don’t even know we have — on to others all the time, but their immune systems repel what we pass on to them?

What if the COVID-19 virus has run its course and run into natural immunities? What if many folks have had symptom-free episodes with many viruses and are now immune from them? What if the government refuses to understand this because it undermines the government’s power to control us?

What if government orders to nursing homes and assisted living facilities to accept the sick and contagious are insane? What if the same government that micromanages nursing homes and assisted living facilities knows that they are not hospitals and are not equipped to cure the sick or contain contagion?

What if the government makes health care decisions not on the basis of medicine or human nature but statistics? What if reliance on the government’s statistics has made many folks sick?

What if we’d all be healthier and happier if we make our own choices with our own physicians rather than the government making choices for us? What if it is un-American for the government to tell you how to care for yourself? What if it is equally un-American for you to follow the government when it intrudes into your personal choices?

What if the Supreme Court has ruled many times that your health care decisions are private, personal and to be made between you and your physician? What if the Supreme Court has also ruled many times that your private health care decisions are none of the government’s business?

What if we never elected a government to keep us free from all viruses, but we did elect it to keep us free from all tyrants? What if the government — which can’t deliver the mail, fill potholes, stop robocalls, or spend within its income — is the last entity on earth into whose hands we would voluntarily repose our health for safekeeping? What if the government won’t admit that its understanding of science is colored by politics?

What if the government has misunderstood its mandate? What if the government thinks it can do its job by keeping us safe but unfree? What if — according to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence — government’s first duty is to safeguard our rights? What if there is no legal basis for the government to keep us at home or to close our businesses?

What if the government gave itself the power to interfere with our personal choices? What if that self-imposed power violates the basic constitutional principle that the government derives its powers from the consent of the governed? What if no one consented to a government that interferes with our personal choices? What if our personal choices to take personal chances have never needed a government permission slip?

What if the Constitution was written to restrain the government? What if all in government — local, state and federal — have taken an oath to uphold and comply with the Constitution?

What if the government decrees that liquor sales are essential but clothing sales are not? What if the government decrees that abortions are essential but orthopedic surgery is not? What if the government decrees that music stores are essential but the free exercise of religion is not?

What if these decisions about what is essential and inessential are for individuals — and not for the government — to make?

What if to the barber or short-order cook or retail sales person a barbershop and a luncheonette and a clothing store are essential? What if to those who love God, the free exercise of religion is essential?

What if the government makes essential whatever serves its friends, enhances its wealth, maintains its stability and removes obstacles to its exercise of power? What if the Constitution — with its protections of our rights to make free choices — is an intentional obstacle to governmental power?

What if America’s founders and the Constitution’s framers chose liberty over safety? What if the government doesn’t like that choice? What if the government only nominally endorses it?

What if — when the pandemic is over — the government remains tyrannical? What if — when the pandemic is over — folks sue the government for its destruction of life, liberty and property only to learn that the government gave itself immunity from such lawsuits? What if — when the pandemic is over — the government refuses to acknowledge its end?

What if — as Thomas Jefferson said — the blood of patriots should be spilled on the tree of revolution at least once in every generation? What if we nullify the government that has nullified our rights?

Be seeing you

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Essentials of Panarchism

Posted by M. C. on April 23, 2020

Time to re-visit Panarchism.

Panarchy is a condition of human relations in which each person is at liberty to choose his own social and political governance without being coerced. Panarchy means that persons may enter into and exit from social and political relations freely. It means that government exists only with the consent and by the consent of the governed.

Panarchism has new conceptions of what a people who are governed, a government, and consent mean. These give rise to a new conception of the nonterritorial State and revised ideas about sovereignty and authority. By viewing government as nonterritorial, panarchism reorients the movement for liberty away from destroying the governments that others may prefer and toward obtaining the governments that each of us may prefer.

https://www.panarchy.org/rozeff/panarchism.html

Michael S. Rozeff

Note

Those who, in the name of civilization and the protection of personal liberties, refuse categorically an imposed state religion or an economic system based on monopolies, should be ready to acknowledge that a government exerting a monopolistic territorial sovereignty leads to the same situation of lack of civilization (wars, clashes, feuding) and unfreedom (subjection to and manipulation by a central power) for everybody, irrespective of personal needs and wishes. That is why Michael Rozeff is all in favour of Panarchy because “Panarchists do not attempt to smash the governments others want. They deny no one the freedom to be unfree. However, they deny others (and their States and governments) the freedom to make them unfree.”

Panarchism is a new political philosophy that builds upon and extends the core concept of consent of the governed, which goes back primarily to John Locke. Consent of the governed is a concept that permeated revolutionary America. It appears in Article 6 of the Virginia Bill of Rights. It appears in the Essex Result. Benjamin Franklin wrote “In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.” The Declaration of Independence asserts that “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Panarchism proposes a comprehensive extension of liberty to the consensual choice of government itself, in form and content. It proposes government by consent for any persons who arrange such government for themselves. Conversely, it proposes that a government has no authority over any persons who do not consent to it.

Panarchy is a condition of human relations in which each person is at liberty to choose his own social and political governance without being coerced. Panarchy means that persons may enter into and exit from social and political relations freely. It means that government exists only with the consent and by the consent of the governed.

Panarchism has new conceptions of what a people who are governed, a government, and consent mean. These give rise to a new conception of the nonterritorial State and revised ideas about sovereignty and authority. By viewing government as nonterritorial, panarchism reorients the movement for liberty away from destroying the governments that others may prefer and toward obtaining the governments that each of us may prefer.

Free persons in a free society already practice a degree of panarchy. By individual consent, they associate with those whom they wish to associate with (and who wish to associate with them), and they do not associate with others. By choice, they vary their associations by time, place, duration, and other dimensions. They choose companions, places to live, workplaces, clubs, and churches on the basis of individual consent rendered in a noncoercive social context. Free persons form consensual organizations, associations, and groups. They form themselves into sub-societies and “peoples,” which are groups of persons that, via individual consent, willingly aggregate on various grounds and interests. In doing so, they create multiple coexisting forms of governance whose basis is not territorial (although it may optionally be so) but relational.

Panarchism proposes that panarchy be extended to government (or functions of government) in the same way that it is already present in society. Let persons be free to form peoples and to choose their own forms of government.

Why? Because consent today is too limited to allow a meaningful sovereignty of people. Because the rulers have become the sovereign and the people their servants. Because complex systems of voting and parties have diluted consent to the vanishing point. Because would-be peoples are thwarted from forming. Liberty does not mean a vote for one of two parties that runs a single monopoly government. It means active consent over the very form, as well as the content, of one’s governing relations.

Why panarchism? Because in today’s governing relations, we find ourselves living under distant States and governments whose form is not of our choosing. Because the planet is blanketed with States and governments that too often deliver injustice, insecurity, disorder, waste, misery, death, and destruction, as States and governments historically have done. Because States and governments focus and amplify power, using it for purposes that many of us do not believe in. And because governments today legitimate and encourage contentious struggles for domination where one group’s gains is another group’s loss, and where the struggles absorb more and more resources and divert energy from productive to unproductive uses.

The liberty that is basic to panarchy promises a better way of life, by extending to each of us the capacity to engage in the social and political relations of our own choosing in accord with our own beliefs. Since persons will not freely consent to governments whose decisions in the main leave them, by their own estimation, worse off, the free choice of government will provide the kind of check-and-balance on government failures and misdeeds that is a critical missing element of today’s political arrangements.

Panarchy envisages many possible societies and sub-societies across a land, region, or province. There need not be a single sovereign authority that imposes law on all, unless it happens to be by consent. In panarchy, multiple and diverse sources of self-chosen sovereignty coexist side-by-side, each finding its source of legitimacy from the consent of those who are willing to place themselves within a particular set of governing relations. People freely place themselves within multiple non-territorial governing associations, as contrasted with finding themselves assigned by authorities on a geographical basis.

The American revolutionaries blazed a trail toward nonterritorial government when they called for consent of the governed, but they simultaneously veered away from that trail. Just as they skirted the slavery question, they skirted the issues of what constituted a people, a legitimate government, consent, and secession. Article 14 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights sought “to maintain Virginia’s sovereignty over its restless, far-flung western counties.” It proclaimed “That the people have a right to uniform government; and, therefore, that no government separate from, or independent of the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof.” This particular territorial idea of government was justified by a false appeal to a mythical right to uniform government, in order to prevent the formation of West Virginia. Some 85 years later, West Virginia, which for decades had many sound reasons not to be governed by Richmond, finally seceded from Virginia.

Little has changed. Despite hundreds of breakaway and secession movements worldwide, the territorial notion of government has not changed. Indeed, many such movements themselves view government as territorial. American federalism has become nationalism. Governments of today are making societies over, based upon claims of legitimate authority that are less rooted in consent than in territorial claims of rulership.

The idea of government needs to be severed from the idea of the territorial State and from the notion that the government of such a State is all that government is or can be. Since the State is single, territorial, and coercive, such an idea views government as single, territorial, and coercive. The territorial idea supports States in place. It empties consent of all real meaning and replaces it by the machinations of meaningless votes, party politics, lobbying, redistricting, power, and campaign money flows. The territorial idea of government without consent dooms mankind to living without one of the most basic liberties, which is the liberty to choose one’s government.

It is a mistake to identify government as the executive and administrative means of the monopoly State. When those who are pro-State do this, it leaves little or no room for those who do not consent and wish to live by their own forms of government. When those who are anti-State do this, they become anti-government, a position that does not allow those who want various forms of their own government to exercise their choices.

Government is the social coordination of human personal interactions. To the extent that human beings interact with one another, government is thus inescapable. Advocates of no government, unless they eschew all social interaction, can no more live without government than can statists. But the necessity of government does not imply that government must be nonconsensual and territorial. We have an alternative to living under a single territorial State that makes and enforces all sorts of rules, for all of us, all the time. Panarchy is that alternative.

We ourselves govern a vast range of human activities by consent, nonterritorially, and without the State. This was historically and is currently the case. Persons within human societies create governance from varied and multiple sources that include moral and ethical codes, custom, bodies of judge-discovered law, rules, principles, manners, religion, pacts, agreements, understandings, and contracts, as well as through a variety of instruments, institutions, and organizations that include family, associations, churches, schools, corporations, and business firms. Society, in this sense, which is really many interpenetrating and diverse societies, already reflects a high degree of panarchy. Societies everywhere already employ panarchy as a beneficial principle of social organization and order.

Panarchism proposes extending panarchy further. It stands for a world in which people live by the governing relations of their choice while abiding by the decisions of their neighbors to live by theirs. A society with such liberty will hold together in the same ways that societies have always held together: through a complex network of shared values, beliefs, ways, language, and other commonalities that are put to work through self-interest that is expressed in individual, associational, and cooperative endeavors. It will hold together better than today’s societies because the nonconsensual government that fertilizes today’s constant political and economic battles, rebellions, and civil wars will have been reduced.

Different people understand freedom and liberty in different ways, and even when they agree, they place different values on liberty. One woman may choose to labor for another for a wage, while another may regard wage-labor as slavery. One man may allow himself to be inducted into an army, while another may look upon the draft as slavery. These different ideas of good and bad government can coexist in panarchy. Liberty and government are not at mutually exclusive poles. Abolishing government per se does not bring liberty for all. Abolishing government and replacing it with one’s own personal vision of liberty does not bring liberty for all. Liberty for all entails the capacity for all to choose their own governments. In panarchy, men and women are free to be unfree (in the eyes of others) to any desired degree. They may enter into many different kinds of governing relations. This sets panarchy apart from political conceptions that deny them the choice of State and government. Panarchists do not attempt to smash the governments others want. They deny no one the freedom to be unfree. However, they deny others (and their States and governments) the freedom to make them unfree.

Once we open up our thinking on the question of what government is, we can get away from the idea of “a government” and “the government.” Government is a set of functions that can be identified. Change is not a question of today’s government or none. There are all sorts of intermediate possibilities.

National governments have absorbed major functions such as old age security, aid to the indigent, and health care from civil society and local government. They have done so via complex majority rules and voting procedures that circumvented consent of the governed. Governments across the world often suppress minorities of many kinds. The imposition of nation-wide rules discriminates against and suppresses all those who do not consent and who do not want their government to handle certain critical issues. Medicare, for example, involves a taking and a wealth transfer. This kind of program could become nonterritorial and consensual. Mr. K can subscribe to a plan and belong to a government that deducts from his wages, while Mr. J need not. They can be neighbors and do this.

Many of today’s government functions can remain in place for those who want them while making them voluntary for those who do not. The idea in these cases is not to end government but make it consensual. Vast amounts of regulation of labor relations, energy, education, health, and welfare are such that one neighbor can live without certain rules even if his neighbor wants them. Instead of attempting to take Medicare away or attempting to persuade voters to vote it down, which plays the game of accepting monopoly and territorial government, panarchism goes at the problem of lack of consent and unjust powers of government in a different way. Let those who want Medicare have it; let those who don’t withdraw. Panarchism seizes the moral high ground. Why should those who don’t want Medicare be impressed into it by those who do? Isn’t this like making everyone belong to the same church? How can there be consent of the governed when we are herded, whether we like it or not, into programs that affect our lives in major ways?

Coordination problems involving human interaction are not going to disappear. The reform of government even where coordination issues are not at issue may well be difficult. Panarchism does not deny these difficulties. It sets out a just and peaceful destination that can be achieved peaceably, which is a future of reform in which the State abandons its territorial claims. This may happen little by little. It may happen by degrees. It may happen partially and gradually, or it may happen by leaps. Consensual and nonconsensual government are likely to continue to exist alongside one another for some time. Reforms, small and large, are unpredictable. They are for people themselves to advance and accomplish. Every step that people take, peaceful and nonaggressive, toward devising and living by their own government is a step toward more complete panarchy and greater liberty.

 

 

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Exactly How Many Deaths Are Needed to Justify Giving Governments Control of Everything? | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 20, 2020

So, a government looking to extend its powers, to assume additional rights from its citizens, will need to manufacture consent, else rebellion with ensue. And there is no better opportunity to manufacture consent than during an existential crisis, whether it’s enemies massed at the gate or ones concealed within.

Obviously, if those enemies do not exist, they have to be invented.

https://mises.org/wire/exactly-how-many-deaths-are-needed-justify-giving-governments-control-everything?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=c19a729e74-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-c19a729e74-228343965

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

The CDC estimates that 61,000 Americans died from the flu during the 2017–18 flu season (with a range of 46,000 to 95,000 deaths). Few of us even remember that event. Stores stayed open, folks met and worked, and everyone lived as normal.

Taking sixty-one thousand deaths as our baseline, how deadly does a virus have to be to justify the destruction of our livelihoods and economy in general?

Half as deadly? No that wouldn’t make sense. But neither would “as deadly,” either.

Would twice as deadly cross the panic threshold? But that would be just twice something we didn’t notice while it was happening. So maybe even double is not enough.

No one is ever safe, ever. But we all lived lives in a world of uncertainty. That is, until many panicked and allowed governments to drive us into our own caves, so to speak.

But who incited panic? Media and social media initially sounded the alarm, sparking fear. However, it was government that provided justification for that fear, wrapping dour pronouncements in a veneer of supposed science and truth. Soon the panic threshold was breached. While the various media live off provocative headlines, government lives off fear.

So we end up with this strange symbiotic relationship: with the aid of a friendly media, government justifies the fears it propagandizes; constituents panic and turn to both government for help and the media for information. Certainly, it has to be this way. Why? Because government rules through the consent of the governed.

As Mises noted:

Only a group that can count on the consent of the governed can establish a lasting regime. Whoever wants to see the world governed according to his own ideas must strive for domination over men’s minds. It is impossible, in the long run, to subject men against their will to a regime that they reject.

So, a government looking to extend its powers, to assume additional rights from its citizens, will need to manufacture consent, else rebellion with ensue. And there is no better opportunity to manufacture consent than during an existential crisis, whether it’s enemies massed at the gate or ones concealed within.

Obviously, if those enemies do not exist, they have to be invented. As Schumpeter stated:

There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest—why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for a breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome’s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs. They were enemies who only waited to fall on the Roman people.

Not too long ago, the devised enemy was ISIL—haunting the Levant in Toyota trucks. We were told daily that ISIL was readying a strike against the US some fifty-five hundred miles away. Plausible? Hardly. However, the propaganda machine was able to create some angst, for some time, anyway.

Today the enemy is through the gate unseen, infiltrating bodies and minds. COVID-19 is a government’s dream. Folks who just yesterday, or so it seems, said certain acts of government, such as closing churches, would ignite rebellion, gladly consent to authoritarian edicts. But why?

There is the manufactured fear, the product of the propaganda machine—the good doctors making dire predictions about likely death counts, surrounded by somber officials, all standing near a dais backed by the richly colored, acronymed logo of some official sounding agency. Great video, great propaganda.

But there is more. Government is blaming the virus, not itself. That serves several purposes. It allows government to employ a misdirect, pilfering the public purse and annulling rights while the masses concern themselves with social distancing.

It also provides personal cover to minor agents of the bureaucracy, who do not have to spend sleepless nights fretting about their role in the destruction of our economy.

Hannah Arendt wrote about the Eichmann trial and tried to answer the conscience question:

The trick used by Himmler…was very simple and probably very effective; it consisted in turning these instincts around, as it were, in directing them toward the self. So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders! (Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem)

So you hear statements that twist reality in this manner: “The virus will let us know when we can reopen the country.” As if the virus is dictating policy.

We are told that government officials are only reacting as the virus commands. And the enforcement agents spreading tickets and handcuffs are simply shouldering the horrible tasks that must be pursued.

Is this how we, the people, choose to live? In a world where government foments fear for its own purposes and then stands back, blaming its actions on an enemy of its own creation?

Once more, how deadly does a virus have to be to justify the destruction of our livelihoods and economy in general? Twice the usual? Three times? I can’t decide the issue for all. I simply ask you to consider first what we are allowing (crashed economy, record unemployment growth, exploding government debt, unconstitutional government edicts, well, you get the picture).

And I ask you to consider who, or what entities, are benefiting. It is true that some cui bono (to whom it is a benefit) arguments are fallacious, but not all. However, consider this: besides a shift of rights and power from the people to the state, there is that matter of trillions moving from our wallets to those of the friends and families of the politically connected.

As I wrote above, no one is ever safe, ever. But until a month ago, we all accepted a world of uncertainty and didn’t panic. What was true then is true today—to be free is not to be safe. However, to live free is to live. Period.

 

Be seeing you

 

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Government Has No Rights – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on February 7, 2020

These so-called laws are not meant to make a better or safer environment, but strictly meant to control the population at large. The people have been easily fooled into believing that the state is a god that must exist so that order can be maintained. So why is there no order?

Consider the average American today. He believes it is bad not to have his earnings stolen by the gang of thieves at the IRS. He thinks that it is okay that he must pay for a government permission slip in order to drive, or to improve his own house, or to open his own business, or to sell lemonade to his neighbor. He thinks it is okay to be strip-searched and radiated every time he boards a plane.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/gary-d-barnett/government-has-no-rights/

By

“Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.” ~ Robert LeFevre — Notes: Financial Sense

The government and the state are synonymous terms to be sure, and both create and perpetuate evil by claiming to hold power that does not exist. Government has no rights whatsoever, but claims power over others as if it had the right to do so. Only the individual has rights, and therefore all government is illegitimate.

As Benjamin Tucker so eloquently stated:

If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the State. ~ Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1972). “State Socialism and Anarchism and Other Essays”, Ralph Myles Pub

In today’s world, the “laws” set forth by governments are considered by most of the common masses as rules that must be obeyed. If they were thinking properly, they would ignore all government laws, and call them what they are; demands enforced by the ruling class by open and aggressive force. These so-called laws are not meant to make a better or safer environment, but strictly meant to control the population at large. The people have been easily fooled into believing that the state is a god that must exist so that order can be maintained. So why is there no order?

There are constant shootings, murder, theft, extortion, beatings, incarceration, and unfounded wars, with most all of these atrocities committed by the very government making the “laws.” This is why government should be ignored. It has nothing, it produces nothing, and it is nothing. Government is simply a name attached to a false entity that has no right to exist, and can only survive by the use of force in order to uphold its mandates. If enough of the population decided to ignore the government and its laws, it would simply wither away and die. If one individual attempts this, he will be jailed or shot, but if a large number of people decided not to comply with any laws, and decided not to pay the state’s taxes, the government could be crippled quickly and brought to submission.

Government is really nothing, and is only able to continue its assault on liberty due to the people allowing it to do so. Government claims a right to rule, but it has no such right. These are just people, the absolute lowest form of people, that make up a gang of thieves and murderers that have been able to fool the public into believing that state rule is legitimate. The notion of state authority is ludicrous on its face, as it consists of just a tiny sampling of miscreants that rule by fear and propaganda, but there is nothing to fear except the insane idea of government. By denouncing government, by ignoring government, and by defunding government, it will cease to exist, all without violence. All that is required in order to affect the government’s demise are large numbers of people around this country willing to oust the bastards by starving them to death. There are only a few cowards in government, and over 300 million of us. We have the upper hand.

How did government become so intrusive and invasive? How did government come to claim authority over all? How did government build a massive murdering class of enforcers to not only tame the pathetic citizenry, but to lay siege to much of the rest of the world as well? And how does this government continue its reign of terror against us all?

This began with what is considered by the enslaved sheep as its bible, the irrelevant United States Constitution. The same type of politicians that exist today secretly drafted the Constitution over two centuries ago, and used it to create a central governing authority giving the false impression of rule by the people when none was meant to exist. A coup of this magnitude while genius was nothing less than an act of treason. The only reason this coup was successful was because the people were fooled into believing that they controlled the politicians, when in fact, these trimmers sought just the opposite. To this day, most still accept the lie that they are in charge of this corrupt government. Blind ignorance at this level is what the politicians count on in order to retain power and control.

Consider the average American today. He believes it is bad not to have his earnings stolen by the gang of thieves at the IRS. He thinks that it is okay that he must pay for a government permission slip in order to drive, or to improve his own house, or to open his own business, or to sell lemonade to his neighbor. He thinks it is okay to be strip-searched and radiated every time he boards a plane. He thinks it is okay for his neighbor to be thrown in prison for smoking a plant in his home. He thinks it is okay that the money stolen from him by government is used to kill and maim innocent men, women, and children around the world, and actually applauds those that do the killing. He thinks he is free because he can, along with 100 million others, pull a lever for a pre-chosen sociopathic megalomaniac once every four years. He believes that waving a flag and saying God is on our side makes him a patriot. He thinks that all children should be forced to receive poisonous vaccinations on demand. And he believes that openly stealing from his neighbors by using government mobsters and their murderous agents relieves him from responsibility for that theft. Is it any wonder that America is now the land of the enslaved instead of the land of the free?

Americans have become victims of the government because they voluntarily allow government to exist. They allow government to steal, to administer violence, to war and murder, to cage citizens for victimless crimes, and they allow that same government to spy and monitor their activities. The government calls this taxation, law enforcement, national defense, and spreading democracy. These are all lies because government has no right to do any of these things. If a normal human has no right to do it, then neither does the state.

It is time to take all authority away from this evil government. Once people realize that government is illegitimate, and stop believing that they are obligated in any way to bow down to this monster, the solution is clear. There are hundreds of millions of us and a handful of them. Stop obeying, stop paying the extortion called tax, stop voting, ignore the state, and starve it to death.

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Secession Is the Answer to Building a Free Society – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on January 22, 2020

It would lead to actual freedom simply due to the fact that separating from the federal government would break the current command that exists in this central power, and would for all those participating, eliminate the central authority. Without the power to use its taxing “authority” and restrictive laws, the federal government would wither and die.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/01/gary-d-barnett/secession-is-the-answer-to-building-a-free-society/

By

“Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible ‘anarchy’, why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?” ~  Murray N. Rothbard (2004). “Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, Scholar’s Edition”, p.1051, Ludwig von Mises Institute

The question seemingly always raised is that the idea of true freedom sounds good, but how do we do it? What is the single plan to fix everything? Obviously, there is not one answer or any legitimate short answer to this question, and those that ask it, are usually not really interested in real freedom in the first place. In fact, most people do not want the responsibility of freedom, and that makes the government’s job easy, because as a rule, the only thing required by the state to keep the apathetic public at bay, is to offer them safety and benefits. They are happy to remain slaves, so long as they can get the things they want without much effort, and can through their proxy government, use others to gain for themselves.

But what is going to happen when this system fails, and this economy breaks down, which is imminent in my opinion? What will the people do when their welfare stops? What will they do when transportation shuts down, and fuel becomes scarce? What will they do when their money becomes worthless? What will they do when there food supply dwindles, and what will they do when there is civil unrest, riots in the streets, and widespread chaos? Waiting until the inevitable happens to take action will be too late.

The elimination of government and tyranny, a stop to all the wars of aggression, of all the murders due to those heinous wars, and an end to the slavery by the state that exists in the United States today seem impossible, but is it? The ensuing freedom that would result from an end to this governing system is almost beyond imagination, and does appear to be elusive, but what if there were a way, a way that had been tried before and had been successful? That way is secession, and is exactly what the people did in order to form this country in the first place.

So if real freedom is desired and sought, why not try secession?

Secession is simply breaking ties. This term comes from the Latin word secedere, which means to go apart. In our country, the initial breaking apart was from England and the king. When the southern states seceded, they decided due to the massive abuses of a tyrannical central government to leave that union, and become independent, as was their right to do. The secession of the southern states did not cause the Civil War, as the evil Lincoln decided to war against his own country in order to retain total control of the tyranny that was the federal government; that central government designed and created by the so-called founders. His acts of war were proof that the federal governing system created in the late eighteenth century had nothing to do with freedom, but was designed to build a centralized power that was to hold sovereignty over the states and individuals in favor of a political ruling class.

Secession today is not only viable, but also necessary in order to regain freedom for the individual. It would lead to actual freedom simply due to the fact that separating from the federal government would break the current command that exists in this central power, and would for all those participating, eliminate the central authority. Without the power to use its taxing “authority” and restrictive laws, the federal government would wither and die.

This could be done in several ways, and would not have to be a universal plan or strategy. That is part of the beauty of secession. The top down approach would begin with the states, but since many if not most of the state governments are tyrannical as well, bypassing the state governments might be a better option. But with enough support from the general population, any states that were hesitant, may feel forced to go along in order to retain some form of structure. Secession is any separation from the ruling class, so this can be done at any level. States can secede from the federal union, counties can secede from the state, cities and towns can secede from the counties, and so it goes. This can also work in reverse from a bottom up position, where the smallest entities, including individuals, could begin the secession movement.

This does not have to be nationwide in order to work. Once this process begins, the fear that will consume the federal rulers will become obvious, and as the federal system becomes more exposed, its weaknesses will also come to light. Consider the snowball effect, and know that the higher the pressure from the people, the more concessions that will be forthcoming from the central government. The only other option for the government would be violence, and that could easily cause an awakening of the rest of the common population, an awakening that would never be desired by the governing elites. This is not 1860, it is 2020, and given the technological advances in communications, and the fact that almost every citizen can be reached instantly, the advantage lies with numbers.

I do realize that this sounds not only radical, but also very far-fetched, but is it really? One of the great advantages of any secession, and at any level, is that the people would have to work together, and this alone could break the horrendous pattern of division that allows the rulers to continue to hold power and control over the masses. The division of the people was planned and implemented over a long period of time, but any solidarity would break the hold of this evil authoritarian system. Fighting amongst ourselves; democrats against republicans, black against white, all against all, can only force us to remain in a state of slavery, whereas working together builds strength, and a way to escape this fascist oligarchy where the few control everything. Isn’t secession and independence a better way?

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States Seceding from the Union : Can We? Should We ...

 

 

 

 

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Some James Bovard Quotes

Posted by M. C. on January 4, 2020

https://www.azquotes.com/author/1723-James_Bovard

As long as enough people can be frightened, then all people can be ruled. That is how it works in a democratic system and mass fear becomes the ticket to destroy rights across the board.

Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch.

America needs fewer laws, not more prisons.

Part of the reason that the government’s fear mongering is succeeding is because so many people are so ignorant, that it is easier for government to frighten people in submission.

It is unfortunate that Americans are no longer aware of what the constitution says and what their rights are. Because of that, we are often very passive about what happens when the government violates those rights.

It is one of the great tragedies of the US, that most learn most of what they know about the government from the government.

Today’s citizen is obliged to find his freedom only in the narrow ruts pre-approved by his bureaucratic overlords. “Risk-free liberty” is the ideal of the Welfare State: citizens are permitted only liberties which have been declawed, defanged, neutered, certified and wrapped in benevolent restrictions.

The only things government can do are regulate and redistribute, prohibit and penalize, confiscate and command. Are these the things that liberty is made of? Somebody else’s money and an endless list of Thou Shalt Nots?

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James Bovard

 

 

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Essentials of Panarchism

Posted by M. C. on October 7, 2019

Panarchy means that persons may enter into and exit from social and political relations freely. It means that government exists only with the consent and by the consent of the governed.

https://www.panarchy.org/rozeff/panarchism.html

Michael S. Rozeff

Note

Those who, in the name of civilization and the protection of personal liberties, refuse categorically an imposed state religion or an economic system based on monopolies, should be ready to acknowledge that a government exerting a monopolistic territorial sovereignty leads to the same situation of lack of civilization (wars, clashes, feuding) and unfreedom (subjection to and manipulation by a central power) for everybody, irrespective of personal needs and wishes. That is why Michael Rozeff is all in favour of Panarchy because “Panarchists do not attempt to smash the governments others want. They deny no one the freedom to be unfree. However, they deny others (and their States and governments) the freedom to make them unfree.”

 

 

Panarchism is a new political philosophy that builds upon and extends the core concept of consent of the governed, which goes back primarily to John Locke. Consent of the governed is a concept that permeated revolutionary America. It appears in Article 6 of the Virginia Bill of Rights. It appears in the Essex Result. Benjamin Franklin wrote “In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.” The Declaration of Independence asserts that “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”Panarchism proposes a comprehensive extension of liberty to the consensual choice of government itself, in form and content. It proposes government by consent for any persons who arrange such government for themselves. Conversely, it proposes that a government has no authority over any persons who do not consent to it.

Panarchy is a condition of human relations in which each person is at liberty to choose his own social and political governance without being coerced. Panarchy means that persons may enter into and exit from social and political relations freely. It means that government exists only with the consent and by the consent of the governed.

Panarchism has new conceptions of what a people who are governed, a government, and consent mean. These give rise to a new conception of the nonterritorial State and revised ideas about sovereignty and authority. By viewing government as nonterritorial, panarchism reorients the movement for liberty away from destroying the governments that others may prefer and toward obtaining the governments that each of us may prefer.

Free persons in a free society already practice a degree of panarchy. By individual consent, they associate with those whom they wish to associate with (and who wish to associate with them), and they do not associate with others. By choice, they vary their associations by time, place, duration, and other dimensions. They choose companions, places to live, workplaces, clubs, and churches on the basis of individual consent rendered in a noncoercive social context. Free persons form consensual organizations, associations, and groups. They form themselves into sub-societies and “peoples,” which are groups of persons that, via individual consent, willingly aggregate on various grounds and interests. In doing so, they create multiple coexisting forms of governance whose basis is not territorial (although it may optionally be so) but relational.

Panarchism proposes that panarchy be extended to government (or functions of government) in the same way that it is already present in society. Let persons be free to form peoples and to choose their own forms of government.

Why? Because consent today is too limited to allow a meaningful sovereignty of people. Because the rulers have become the sovereign and the people their servants. Because complex systems of voting and parties have diluted consent to the vanishing point. Because would-be peoples are thwarted from forming. Liberty does not mean a vote for one of two parties that runs a single monopoly government. It means active consent over the very form, as well as the content, of one’s governing relations.

Why panarchism? Because in today’s governing relations, we find ourselves living under distant States and governments whose form is not of our choosing. Because the planet is blanketed with States and governments that too often deliver injustice, insecurity, disorder, waste, misery, death, and destruction, as States and governments historically have done. Because States and governments focus and amplify power, using it for purposes that many of us do not believe in. And because governments today legitimate and encourage contentious struggles for domination where one group’s gains is another group’s loss, and where the struggles absorb more and more resources and divert energy from productive to unproductive uses.

The liberty that is basic to panarchy promises a better way of life, by extending to each of us the capacity to engage in the social and political relations of our own choosing in accord with our own beliefs. Since persons will not freely consent to governments whose decisions in the main leave them, by their own estimation, worse off, the free choice of government will provide the kind of check-and-balance on government failures and misdeeds that is a critical missing element of today’s political arrangements.

Panarchy envisages many possible societies and sub-societies across a land, region, or province. There need not be a single sovereign authority that imposes law on all, unless it happens to be by consent. In panarchy, multiple and diverse sources of self-chosen sovereignty coexist side-by-side, each finding its source of legitimacy from the consent of those who are willing to place themselves within a particular set of governing relations. People freely place themselves within multiple non-territorial governing associations, as contrasted with finding themselves assigned by authorities on a geographical basis.

The American revolutionaries blazed a trail toward nonterritorial government when they called for consent of the governed, but they simultaneously veered away from that trail. Just as they skirted the slavery question, they skirted the issues of what constituted a people, a legitimate government, consent, and secession. Article 14 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights sought “to maintain Virginia’s sovereignty over its restless, far-flung western counties.” It proclaimed “That the people have a right to uniform government; and, therefore, that no government separate from, or independent of the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof.” This particular territorial idea of government was justified by a false appeal to a mythical right to uniform government, in order to prevent the formation of West Virginia. Some 85 years later, West Virginia, which for decades had many sound reasons not to be governed by Richmond, finally seceded from Virginia.

Little has changed. Despite hundreds of breakaway and secession movements worldwide, the territorial notion of government has not changed. Indeed, many such movements themselves view government as territorial. American federalism has become nationalism. Governments of today are making societies over, based upon claims of legitimate authority that are less rooted in consent than in territorial claims of rulership.

The idea of government needs to be severed from the idea of the territorial State and from the notion that the government of such a State is all that government is or can be. Since the State is single, territorial, and coercive, such an idea views government as single, territorial, and coercive. The territorial idea supports States in place. It empties consent of all real meaning and replaces it by the machinations of meaningless votes, party politics, lobbying, redistricting, power, and campaign money flows. The territorial idea of government without consent dooms mankind to living without one of the most basic liberties, which is the liberty to choose one’s government.

It is a mistake to identify government as the executive and administrative means of the monopoly State. When those who are pro-State do this, it leaves little or no room for those who do not consent and wish to live by their own forms of government. When those who are anti-State do this, they become anti-government, a position that does not allow those who want various forms of their own government to exercise their choices.

Government is the social coordination of human personal interactions. To the extent that human beings interact with one another, government is thus inescapable. Advocates of no government, unless they eschew all social interaction, can no more live without government than can statists. But the necessity of government does not imply that government must be nonconsensual and territorial. We have an alternative to living under a single territorial State that makes and enforces all sorts of rules, for all of us, all the time. Panarchy is that alternative.

We ourselves govern a vast range of human activities by consent, nonterritorially, and without the State. This was historically and is currently the case. Persons within human societies create governance from varied and multiple sources that include moral and ethical codes, custom, bodies of judge-discovered law, rules, principles, manners, religion, pacts, agreements, understandings, and contracts, as well as through a variety of instruments, institutions, and organizations that include family, associations, churches, schools, corporations, and business firms. Society, in this sense, which is really many interpenetrating and diverse societies, already reflects a high degree of panarchy. Societies everywhere already employ panarchy as a beneficial principle of social organization and order.

Panarchism proposes extending panarchy further. It stands for a world in which people live by the governing relations of their choice while abiding by the decisions of their neighbors to live by theirs. A society with such liberty will hold together in the same ways that societies have always held together: through a complex network of shared values, beliefs, ways, language, and other commonalities that are put to work through self-interest that is expressed in individual, associational, and cooperative endeavors. It will hold together better than today’s societies because the nonconsensual government that fertilizes today’s constant political and economic battles, rebellions, and civil wars will have been reduced.

Different people understand freedom and liberty in different ways, and even when they agree, they place different values on liberty. One woman may choose to labor for another for a wage, while another may regard wage-labor as slavery. One man may allow himself to be inducted into an army, while another may look upon the draft as slavery. These different ideas of good and bad government can coexist in panarchy. Liberty and government are not at mutually exclusive poles. Abolishing government per se does not bring liberty for all. Abolishing government and replacing it with one’s own personal vision of liberty does not bring liberty for all. Liberty for all entails the capacity for all to choose their own governments. In panarchy, men and women are free to be unfree (in the eyes of others) to any desired degree. They may enter into many different kinds of governing relations. This sets panarchy apart from political conceptions that deny them the choice of State and government. Panarchists do not attempt to smash the governments others want. They deny no one the freedom to be unfree. However, they deny others (and their States and governments) the freedom to make them unfree.

Once we open up our thinking on the question of what government is, we can get away from the idea of “a government” and “the government.” Government is a set of functions that can be identified. Change is not a question of today’s government or none. There are all sorts of intermediate possibilities.

National governments have absorbed major functions such as old age security, aid to the indigent, and health care from civil society and local government. They have done so via complex majority rules and voting procedures that circumvented consent of the governed. Governments across the world often suppress minorities of many kinds. The imposition of nation-wide rules discriminates against and suppresses all those who do not consent and who do not want their government to handle certain critical issues. Medicare, for example, involves a taking and a wealth transfer. This kind of program could become nonterritorial and consensual. Mr. K can subscribe to a plan and belong to a government that deducts from his wages, while Mr. J need not. They can be neighbors and do this.

Many of today’s government functions can remain in place for those who want them while making them voluntary for those who do not. The idea in these cases is not to end government but make it consensual. Vast amounts of regulation of labor relations, energy, education, health, and welfare are such that one neighbor can live without certain rules even if his neighbor wants them. Instead of attempting to take Medicare away or attempting to persuade voters to vote it down, which plays the game of accepting monopoly and territorial government, panarchism goes at the problem of lack of consent and unjust powers of government in a different way. Let those who want Medicare have it; let those who don’t withdraw. Panarchism seizes the moral high ground. Why should those who don’t want Medicare be impressed into it by those who do? Isn’t this like making everyone belong to the same church? How can there be consent of the governed when we are herded, whether we like it or not, into programs that affect our lives in major ways?

Coordination problems involving human interaction are not going to disappear. The reform of government even where coordination issues are not at issue may well be difficult. Panarchism does not deny these difficulties. It sets out a just and peaceful destination that can be achieved peaceably, which is a future of reform in which the State abandons its territorial claims. This may happen little by little. It may happen by degrees. It may happen partially and gradually, or it may happen by leaps. Consensual and nonconsensual government are likely to continue to exist alongside one another for some time. Reforms, small and large, are unpredictable. They are for people themselves to advance and accomplish. Every step that people take, peaceful and nonaggressive, toward devising and living by their own government is a step toward more complete panarchy and greater liberty.

The helpful comments of Adam Knott and John Zube are gratefully acknowledged, but all errors herein are solely mine.

 

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Government | Mises Institute

Posted by M. C. on October 1, 2019

As it is certain, on the one hand, that we are all making some similar request to the Government; and as, on the other, it is proved that Government cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labor of the others, until I can obtain another definition of the word Government, I feel authorized to give my own. Who knows but it may obtain the prize?

Here it is:

https://mises.org/library/government-0

Claude Frédéric Bastiat

Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

Long article

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How To Create Peace – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 12, 2019

Unfortunately, too many Americans want government to grow and have more power over our lives. That means conflict among us is going to rise.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/06/walter-e-williams/how-to-create-conflict/

By

We are living in a time of increasing domestic tension. Some of it stems from the presidency of Donald Trump. Another part of it is various advocacy groups on both sides of the political spectrum demanding one cause or another. But nearly totally ignored is how growing government control over our lives, along with the betrayal of constitutional principles, contributes the most to domestic tension. Let’s look at a few examples.

Think about primary and secondary schooling. I think that every parent has the right to decide whether his child will recite a morning prayer in school. Similarly, every parent has the right to decide that his child will not recite a morning prayer. The same can be said about the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag, sex education and other hot-button issues in education. These become contentious issues because schools are owned by the government.

In the case of prayers, there will either be prayers or no prayers in school. It’s a political decision whether prayers will be permitted or not, and parent groups with strong preferences will organize to fight one another. A win for one parent means a loss for another parent. The losing parent will be forced to either concede or muster up private school tuition while continuing to pay taxes for a school for which he has no use. Such a conflict would not arise if education were not government-produced but only government-financed, say through education vouchers. Parents with different preferences could have their wishes fulfilled by enrolling their child in a private school of their choice. Instead of being enemies, parents with different preferences could be friends.

People also have strong preferences for goods and services. Some of us have strong preferences for white wine and distaste for reds while others have the opposite preference — strong preferences for red wine. Some of us love classical music while others love rock and roll music. Some of us love Mercedes-Benz while others love Lincoln Continentals. When’s the last time you heard red wine drinkers in conflict with white wine drinkers? Have you ever seen classical music lovers organizing against rock and roll lovers or Mercedes-Benz lovers in conflict with Lincoln Continental lovers?

People have strong preferences for these goods just as much as they may have strong preference for schooling. It’s a rare occasion, if ever, that one sees the kind of conflict between wine, music and automobile lovers that we see about schooling issues. Why? While government allocation of resources is a zero-sum game — one person’s win is another’s loss — market allocation is not. Market allocation is a positive-sum game where everybody wins.

Lovers of red wine, classical music and Mercedes-Benz get what they want while lovers of white wine, rock and roll music and Lincoln Continentals get what they want. Instead of fighting one another, they can live in peace and maybe be friends.

It would be easy to create conflict among these people. Instead of market allocation, have government, through a democratic majority-rule process, decide what wines, music and cars would be produced. If that were done, I guarantee that red wine lovers would organize against white wine lovers, classical music lovers against rock and roll lovers and Mercedes-Benz lovers against Lincoln Continental lovers.

Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena. Again, the prime feature of political decision-making is that it’s a zero-sum game. One person’s win is of necessity another person’s loss. If red wine lovers win, white wine lovers would lose. As such, political allocation of resources enhances conflict while market allocation reduces conflict. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater the potential for conflict. That’s the main benefit of limited government.

Unfortunately, too many Americans want government to grow and have more power over our lives. That means conflict among us is going to rise.

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