From; HomeSchool.Com <homeschool@eblastengine.com
"Citizens Healthcare Proposal"
Repeal and Replace – An Easy Replacement for Obamacare
Any health care plan must have more than a political foundation and should parallel the astounding success of the American economy rooted in our Founding Principles – Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights.
A summary of aA complete health care plan is primarily a commercial enterprise that allows for innovation and correction.
a)Reciprocity. Each state must recognize insurance policies purchased in other states.
a)Citizens/residents of any state may purchase health insurance in any state.
a)No process or procedure governing health insurance shall be regulated by the Federal Government.
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow." --James Madison, Federalist No. 62, 1788
Co-authored by Jerry Todd toddyo1935@att.net (661) 213-6288 and Jim Coles III 308guy@reagan.com with editing by Bob Webster - Mailing address: 816 River Oaks Drive Bakersfield, CA 93309Presented to the Association of Mature American Citizens for consideration at its Conference on February 18-19, 2016 in Holley in the Hills, Florida.
Gerald V. Todd
816 River Oaks Drive
Bakersfield, CA 93309-2855
(661) 213-6288
Toddyo1935@att.net
Any health care plan must have more than a political foundation and should parallel the astounding success of the American economy rooted in our Founding Principles – Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights.
A summary of aA complete health care plan is primarily a commercial enterprise that allows for innovation and correction.
- Mandates. All Federal requirements for inclusion in health care policies are hereby repealed.
- The provision of health insurance is a commercial activity, including health savings accounts to be managed by the individual states with these exceptions:
- Reciprocity - Each state must recognize insurance policies purchased in other states.
- Citizens/residents of any state may purchase health insurance in any state.
- No process or procedure governing health insurance shall be regulated by the Federal Government.
- The decision to purchase health insurance is an individual choice; no citizen shall be compelled to purchase health insurance.
- Consumers may choose health care insurance a la carte costed-out on an individual basis.
- Employers have a choice to provide health insurance as part of employee benefit programs.
- The cost of health care insurance benefits provided shall be exempt from taxation of any kind.
a)Reciprocity. Each state must recognize insurance policies purchased in other states.
a)Citizens/residents of any state may purchase health insurance in any state.
a)No process or procedure governing health insurance shall be regulated by the Federal Government.
- Types of health insurance policies shall include:
- Minimal insurance to cover emergency medical treatment.
- Well care plus emergency medical care.
- Basic general plans to cover well care, emergency medical care and routine ongoing medical treatments including doctor office visits, testing, and follow up care.
- Insurance companies may offer limited, temporary insurance at the catastrophic care level.
- The regulatory process is a state, not a Federal responsibility
- Federal funding of medical care shall be as a last resort under catastrophic care.
- All health care-health service providers shall provide lifesaving treatments in emergency situations whether the patient has health insurance or not.
- The patient shall be fully responsible to pay for compensating the health care provider for services rendered. However, this provision does not prohibit health care providers or service institutions from offering “charity care” and/or deferred/reduced payment for such services based on patient need.
- Tort Reform - Americans longing to return to excellence, accessibility, and affordability in health care should encourage their state to emulate the positive effects tort reform has on malpractice liability in the state of Texas.
- Matters of Faith - No health care provider, and no resident of the United States shall be compelled to provide services or to participate in a health care program if such participation would violate his or her beliefs.
- Alternatives to commercial health insurance - Communal, religious affiliated, specialized group, or collective assurance associations may develop and operate membership health care programs, as allowed by laws of the state wherein formed. These plans shall have the same force and full reciprocity among the States.
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow." --James Madison, Federalist No. 62, 1788
Co-authored by Jerry Todd toddyo1935@att.net (661) 213-6288 and Jim Coles III 308guy@reagan.com with editing by Bob Webster - Mailing address: 816 River Oaks Drive Bakersfield, CA 93309Presented to the Association of Mature American Citizens for consideration at its Conference on February 18-19, 2016 in Holley in the Hills, Florida.
Gerald V. Todd
816 River Oaks Drive
Bakersfield, CA 93309-2855
(661) 213-6288
Toddyo1935@att.net
Have Law Schools Doomed SCOTUS?
February 7, 2017, Malcolm A. Kline,
Here’s why good Supreme Court justices, or, for that matter, attorneys in general, let alone attorneys general, are going to keep getting harder to find: Law schools going the way of the Modern Language Association (MLA).“The tendency toward designing a curriculum to suit the interests and eccentricities of law professors can be seen in the decline of the core law school curriculum, with its basic building block courses like Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Corporations, Criminal Law, Evidence, Professional Responsibility, Property, and Torts,” Gail Heriot wrote late last year in a policy analysis for the Cato Institute. “That decline is mainly a function of the fact that fewer faculty members want to teach them.”
“Meanwhile, a plethora of esoteric and boutique courses — such as Harvard’s ‘Alternative Sexual Relationships: The Jewish Legal Tradition’ and ‘Progressive Alternatives: Institutional Reconstruction Today’ — have found their way into the curriculum because, well, some law professor feels like teaching them and nobody has an incentive to tell him that he can’t.” These course titles can easily make it as panels at the annual MLA convention.
Heriot, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, also serves on the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
Posted in Perspectives. Tagged as academia, Accuracy in Academia, AIA, Cato Institute, Gail Heriot, law school, MLA, Modern Language Association, SCOTUS, supreme court, U.S. Supreme Court, University of San Diego School of Law
Here’s why good Supreme Court justices, or, for that matter, attorneys in general, let alone attorneys general, are going to keep getting harder to find: Law schools going the way of the Modern Language Association (MLA).“The tendency toward designing a curriculum to suit the interests and eccentricities of law professors can be seen in the decline of the core law school curriculum, with its basic building block courses like Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Corporations, Criminal Law, Evidence, Professional Responsibility, Property, and Torts,” Gail Heriot wrote late last year in a policy analysis for the Cato Institute. “That decline is mainly a function of the fact that fewer faculty members want to teach them.”
“Meanwhile, a plethora of esoteric and boutique courses — such as Harvard’s ‘Alternative Sexual Relationships: The Jewish Legal Tradition’ and ‘Progressive Alternatives: Institutional Reconstruction Today’ — have found their way into the curriculum because, well, some law professor feels like teaching them and nobody has an incentive to tell him that he can’t.” These course titles can easily make it as panels at the annual MLA convention.
Heriot, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, also serves on the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
Posted in Perspectives. Tagged as academia, Accuracy in Academia, AIA, Cato Institute, Gail Heriot, law school, MLA, Modern Language Association, SCOTUS, supreme court, U.S. Supreme Court, University of San Diego School of Law
A Point of Reference for the Mind.....
Borrowed are these thoughts to frame the following information: (1)...as with all presentations...how they are delivered to the audience can accurately predict the outcome of the opinion after the show...
"It seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the ''fronts'' people assume before one another's eyes, and the ''front'' a writer puts on the face of reality." ~Francoise Sagan
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for
illusion is deep." ~Saul Bellow
And (2) How do we get our information? What POWER does that vehicle and message have to shape the public debate and perception of the information being delivered? Beginning with:
Media bias - (definition) is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The direction and degree of media bias in various countries is widely disputed. Wikipedia.
Recently, debate we have read gave us great pause, and inspired this discussion post. We share with you the following:
A recent CBS News opinion piece featured Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman suggesting…
“I've got a simple idea: Let's give up on the Constitution…If we are to take back our own country, we have to start making decisions for ourselves, and stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document.”
"Stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document."
Sadly, this viewpoint reflects the mindset of elitists on the left that is subsequently promoted by their all-too-willing accomplices in the media. At any other time in American history, such statements would have been considered despicable and even seditious, and would not have been reported by responsible media outlets!
Can there be any doubt how the Obama administration is finding public support for radically transforming our nation?
Media malpractice has become 'the norm' in America’s news coverage.
More than a half-million people gathered in Washington, DC, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s misguided ruling on Roe v. Wade.
Where was the media coverage?
They were covering about a thousand “gun control” demonstrators marching in DC at about the same time! Of the major networks, only Fox News gave any semblance of acknowledgement that the annual March for Life had record numbers and unusual energy in an obviously youthful crowd.
Therein was the real story – pro-life activism has bridged the gap and moved into the hearts and minds of a new generation of Americans who see the hypocrisy and injustice of raw judicial activism. Leave it to the mainstream media to go with the anti-Constitution story of a minority’s demonstration against assault on the Second Amendment!
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech." ~Benjamin Franklin, Rule For Tyrants
RESEARCH ON MEDIA BIAS: ...
The Liberal Media Exposed/media bias history to year 1992.
It is equally illuminating to examine the degree to which members of the news media have supported Democrat or liberal/left candidates and causes, both at the ballot box and with their checkbooks:
In 1964, 94% of media professionals voted for Democrat Lyndon Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater.
In 1968, 86% voted for Democrat Hubert Humphrey over Republican Richard Nixon.
In 1972, 81% voted for Democrat George McGovern over the incumbent Nixon.
In 1976, 81% voted for Democrat Jimmy Carter over Republican Gerald Ford.
In 1980, twice as many cast their ballots for Carter rather than for Republican Ronald Reagan.
In 1984, 58% supported Democrat Walter Mondale, whom Reagan defeated in the biggest landslide in presidential election history.
In 1988, White House correspondents from various major newspapers, television networks, magazines, and news services supported Democrat Michael Dukakis over Republican George H.W. Bush by a ratio of 12-to-1.
In 1992, those same correspondents supported Democrat Bill Clinton over the incumbent Bush by a ratio of 9 to 2.
Among Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents, the disparity was 89% vs. 7%, in Clinton’s favor.
In a 2004 poll of campaign journalists, those based outside of Washington, DC supported Democrat John Kerry over Republican George W. Bush by a ratio of 3-to-1. Those based inside the Beltway favored Kerry by a 12-to-1 ratio.
In a 2008 survey of 144 journalists nationwide, journalists were 8 times likelier to make campaign contributions to Democrats than to Republicans.
A 2008 Investors Business Daily study put the campaign donation ratio at 11.5-to-1, in favor of Democrats. In terms of total dollars given, the ratio was 15-to-1.
Adapted from: "In the Tank: A Statistical Analysis of Media Bias," by John Perazzo (October 31, 2008). This article is complete with footnotes citing the sources of the various statistics.
http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp
It is important to draw the correlation between news media personalities and the national higher education institutions in our country today. Where do you think these media personalities get their education, where is their view of the world is shaped, their associations and their personal and professional alliances formed? These bastions are where they are taught and developed, and it is in this environment that the message thrives.
Bias in the largest universities
Two gentlemen did a study on political bias in our universities. This study was conducted in 2003. It is the opinion of this author that this bias has only grown more prominent in our most recent political cycles, based on the voting records that you can research for yourself, as to the outcome of voting in the geographic areas in each state where these universities are located. That information is far too comprehensive to list in this discussion. Should you wish to investigate, I leave that to you.
by:(David Horowitz and Eli Lehrer)
Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite Colleges and Universities • 28 August 2003
Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite ...
www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/news/1898/lackdiversity.html
This report on political bias at 32 elite colleges and ... We believe a remedy for this problematic situation would be for universities and state ...
Summary of Results
In our examinations of over 150 departments and upper-level administrations at 32 elite colleges and universities, the Center found the following:
The overall ratio of Democrats to Republicans we were able to identify at the 32 schools was more than 10 to 1 (1397 Democrats, 134 Republicans).
Although in the nation at large registered Democrats and Republicans are roughly equal in number, not a single department at a single one of the 32 schools managed to achieve a reasonable parity between the two. The closest any school came to parity was Northwestern University where 80% of the faculty members we identified were registered Democrats who outnumbered registered Republicans by a ratio of 4-1.
Conclusion
These figures suggest that most students probably graduate without ever having a class taught by a professor with a conservative viewpoint. The ratios themselves are impossible to understand in the absence of a political bias in the training and hiring of college instructors. They strongly suggest that the governance of American universities has fallen into the hands of a self-perpetuating political and cultural subset of the general population, which seems intent on perpetuating its control. This is an unhealthy development for the both the educational enterprise and the democracy itself.
"Nothing could be more irrational than to give people power /and to withhold from them information-without which power is absurd. A People who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of gaining it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy...or perhaps both." ~ James Madison
Food for thought...perhaps it will give you a different viewpoint from which to study what you see and how you see it?
A Point of Reference for the Mind.....
We borrowed these thoughts to frame our information...as with all presentations...how they are delivered to the audience can accurately predict the outcome of the opinion after the show...take from them what you will.
The only conclusion that you should value and adopt for yourself is this....we must all learn to THINK AND SEEK FOR OURSELVES. Find the 'truth' that you learn from the sources you trust...and not those 'spoon fed and means tested' that are offered from a point of reference that may or may not have a particular agenda behind it.
'Knowledge is power'. Know what you believe - and why you believe it.
Borrowed are these thoughts to frame the following information: (1)...as with all presentations...how they are delivered to the audience can accurately predict the outcome of the opinion after the show...
"It seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the ''fronts'' people assume before one another's eyes, and the ''front'' a writer puts on the face of reality." ~Francoise Sagan
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for
illusion is deep." ~Saul Bellow
And (2) How do we get our information? What POWER does that vehicle and message have to shape the public debate and perception of the information being delivered? Beginning with:
Media bias - (definition) is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The direction and degree of media bias in various countries is widely disputed. Wikipedia.
Recently, debate we have read gave us great pause, and inspired this discussion post. We share with you the following:
A recent CBS News opinion piece featured Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman suggesting…
“I've got a simple idea: Let's give up on the Constitution…If we are to take back our own country, we have to start making decisions for ourselves, and stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document.”
"Stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document."
Sadly, this viewpoint reflects the mindset of elitists on the left that is subsequently promoted by their all-too-willing accomplices in the media. At any other time in American history, such statements would have been considered despicable and even seditious, and would not have been reported by responsible media outlets!
Can there be any doubt how the Obama administration is finding public support for radically transforming our nation?
Media malpractice has become 'the norm' in America’s news coverage.
More than a half-million people gathered in Washington, DC, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s misguided ruling on Roe v. Wade.
Where was the media coverage?
They were covering about a thousand “gun control” demonstrators marching in DC at about the same time! Of the major networks, only Fox News gave any semblance of acknowledgement that the annual March for Life had record numbers and unusual energy in an obviously youthful crowd.
Therein was the real story – pro-life activism has bridged the gap and moved into the hearts and minds of a new generation of Americans who see the hypocrisy and injustice of raw judicial activism. Leave it to the mainstream media to go with the anti-Constitution story of a minority’s demonstration against assault on the Second Amendment!
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech." ~Benjamin Franklin, Rule For Tyrants
RESEARCH ON MEDIA BIAS: ...
The Liberal Media Exposed/media bias history to year 1992.
It is equally illuminating to examine the degree to which members of the news media have supported Democrat or liberal/left candidates and causes, both at the ballot box and with their checkbooks:
In 1964, 94% of media professionals voted for Democrat Lyndon Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater.
In 1968, 86% voted for Democrat Hubert Humphrey over Republican Richard Nixon.
In 1972, 81% voted for Democrat George McGovern over the incumbent Nixon.
In 1976, 81% voted for Democrat Jimmy Carter over Republican Gerald Ford.
In 1980, twice as many cast their ballots for Carter rather than for Republican Ronald Reagan.
In 1984, 58% supported Democrat Walter Mondale, whom Reagan defeated in the biggest landslide in presidential election history.
In 1988, White House correspondents from various major newspapers, television networks, magazines, and news services supported Democrat Michael Dukakis over Republican George H.W. Bush by a ratio of 12-to-1.
In 1992, those same correspondents supported Democrat Bill Clinton over the incumbent Bush by a ratio of 9 to 2.
Among Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents, the disparity was 89% vs. 7%, in Clinton’s favor.
In a 2004 poll of campaign journalists, those based outside of Washington, DC supported Democrat John Kerry over Republican George W. Bush by a ratio of 3-to-1. Those based inside the Beltway favored Kerry by a 12-to-1 ratio.
In a 2008 survey of 144 journalists nationwide, journalists were 8 times likelier to make campaign contributions to Democrats than to Republicans.
A 2008 Investors Business Daily study put the campaign donation ratio at 11.5-to-1, in favor of Democrats. In terms of total dollars given, the ratio was 15-to-1.
Adapted from: "In the Tank: A Statistical Analysis of Media Bias," by John Perazzo (October 31, 2008). This article is complete with footnotes citing the sources of the various statistics.
http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp
It is important to draw the correlation between news media personalities and the national higher education institutions in our country today. Where do you think these media personalities get their education, where is their view of the world is shaped, their associations and their personal and professional alliances formed? These bastions are where they are taught and developed, and it is in this environment that the message thrives.
Bias in the largest universities
Two gentlemen did a study on political bias in our universities. This study was conducted in 2003. It is the opinion of this author that this bias has only grown more prominent in our most recent political cycles, based on the voting records that you can research for yourself, as to the outcome of voting in the geographic areas in each state where these universities are located. That information is far too comprehensive to list in this discussion. Should you wish to investigate, I leave that to you.
by:(David Horowitz and Eli Lehrer)
Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite Colleges and Universities • 28 August 2003
Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite ...
www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/news/1898/lackdiversity.html
This report on political bias at 32 elite colleges and ... We believe a remedy for this problematic situation would be for universities and state ...
Summary of Results
In our examinations of over 150 departments and upper-level administrations at 32 elite colleges and universities, the Center found the following:
The overall ratio of Democrats to Republicans we were able to identify at the 32 schools was more than 10 to 1 (1397 Democrats, 134 Republicans).
Although in the nation at large registered Democrats and Republicans are roughly equal in number, not a single department at a single one of the 32 schools managed to achieve a reasonable parity between the two. The closest any school came to parity was Northwestern University where 80% of the faculty members we identified were registered Democrats who outnumbered registered Republicans by a ratio of 4-1.
Conclusion
These figures suggest that most students probably graduate without ever having a class taught by a professor with a conservative viewpoint. The ratios themselves are impossible to understand in the absence of a political bias in the training and hiring of college instructors. They strongly suggest that the governance of American universities has fallen into the hands of a self-perpetuating political and cultural subset of the general population, which seems intent on perpetuating its control. This is an unhealthy development for the both the educational enterprise and the democracy itself.
"Nothing could be more irrational than to give people power /and to withhold from them information-without which power is absurd. A People who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of gaining it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy...or perhaps both." ~ James Madison
Food for thought...perhaps it will give you a different viewpoint from which to study what you see and how you see it?
A Point of Reference for the Mind.....
We borrowed these thoughts to frame our information...as with all presentations...how they are delivered to the audience can accurately predict the outcome of the opinion after the show...take from them what you will.
The only conclusion that you should value and adopt for yourself is this....we must all learn to THINK AND SEEK FOR OURSELVES. Find the 'truth' that you learn from the sources you trust...and not those 'spoon fed and means tested' that are offered from a point of reference that may or may not have a particular agenda behind it.
'Knowledge is power'. Know what you believe - and why you believe it.
The GOP Implosion And The Rebirth Of (Classical) Liberalism
Source; https://fee.org/articles/the-gop-implosion-and-the-rebirth-of-classical-liberalism/
PoliticsThe GOP Implosion and the Rebirth of (Classical) LiberalismJeffrey Tucker Monday, May 30, 2016
Monday, May 30, 2016
I had keynoted the last convention in 2014, and the difference between that event and this one was palpable. What made this one historic where the other was not? The remarkable events of this year within the two major parties have created an unprecedented opportunity. The sense of this was easily discernable. This was not a civic club. This was not a social gathering. This was not a liberty-themed meetup.
The big-picture significance of all of this was largely lost on most commentators and delegates at the LP convention.This is a political party. And it matters. The Trump takeover of the GOP, and the entrenched power of the Clinton machine with the Democrats, mean that people who are looking for freedom from power have nowhere within the system to go. This opens the possibility that a new and clear voice can be heard within national politics that points the way not toward more government control but toward the cause of human liberty itself.
What struck me, however, is how the big-picture significance of all of this was largely lost on most commentators and delegates at the LP convention. Despite the ominous sense of responsibilities, they argued ad infinitum about ideology, theory, personality, and strategy. But I found few people who understood the full meaning of what is taking place.
What we have developing here is a new epoch in American politics: an authentically liberal (in the classical sense) political movement in the US is being born as an alternative to a deeply corrupt and ideologically dangerous mainstream dominated by two parties that have trended inexorably socialistand fascist.
In terms of mainstream politics, it’s the interwar period all over again: brown shirts versus reds. Except for this: there is a way out this time. This new movement has a message that is clean and clear: enough is enough, let us be free. Freedom works; government power does not. The emergence of a national political party that stands for liberty might be necessary but it is surely not sufficient. It is a sign of the rise of a broader and potentially transformative social, cultural, and intellectual movement that offers a third way beyond left and right.
Labor, Tory, and Liberal
Consider the way politics has fleshed itself out in most developed democracies over the last 150 years. There have been three broad camps (or parties), which we can call Labor, Tory, and Liberal. The names of the first two have changed (left, right, socialist, fascist, Democrat, Republican, conservative, fake “liberal”) but the themes have remained the same. The third force is known in most parts of the world as liberal except in the U.S. where it is called libertarian today.
Labor was born in opposition to free markets, from the conviction that wealth was being wrongly distributed toward “capital” and at the expense of labor. This party has included labor unions, welfare statists, social democrats, socialists and even communists. It favors higher taxes, more regulatory control, and restrictions on commerce. Over time it came to represent the public sector bureaucracies and, finally, to embody every resentment against free enterprise you can dream up.
What the Tories and Labor have shared was a common desire to curb laissez faire.The Tories represent a different branch of the ruling class: the large banks, corporations, landed aristocracy, the dominant racial heritage, and the rich generally. They later came to include the interest groups that had a strong interest in an imperial foreign policy. This party had a different set of complaints against commercial freedom. It is too disruptive of tradition. It rewards the wrong people. It threatens business monopolies. The Tories long favored their own flavor of government control to restrain the “excesses” of freedom.
What the Tories and Labor have shared was a common desire to curb laissez faire based on conviction that society needs some plan emanating from the top, imposed by wise and public spirited people with the power to rule. In U.S. history, these parties have had different names, but everyone knows them today as Democrats and Republicans. They have traded places many times but always moved toward the same general goal: an ever bigger state and ever less liberty.
The Liberal Party
And who are the Liberals? The liberal idea was born in the high middle ages and Renaissance, with the rise of commercial freedom and the prosperity that followed. It began with the realization that religious freedom is possible and need not send society reeling into chaos. The idea of freedom extended out during the Enlightenment to include speech, press, property rights, and foreign trade. By the 18th century, it came to include a love of peace and an aspiration for universal human rights.
Liberalism came of age in the 19th century, and its achievements were legion: social mobility for the whole population, new technologies of liberation, the end of slavery, the advance of women’s rights, the vast expansion of income and living standards, the explosion of population. Its economic form was capitalism, the greatest generator of wealth for the masses of people ever discovered. The message of Liberalism was clear and exhilarating: all humans have rights that cannot be violated by the state, and, so long as this is the case, society can manage itself without authoritarian control.
The storm clouds gathered and disaster struck in the 20th century. Liberalism was dealt a terrible blow by World War I.It was a beautiful period, filled with optimism. But Liberalism had its enemies on the left and on the right. The storm clouds gathered and disaster struck in the 20th century. Liberalism was dealt a terrible blow by World War I and the government controls that followed in its wake. In the course of one decade in most parts of the developed world, we saw vast and sweeping victories against liberty as wrought by both the Labor and Tory forces: labor controls, income taxes, central banking, product regulation, racial segregation, zoning, marriage controls, speech controls, prohibitions, and imperialism as a national habit.
Even before the Great Depression kicked off unprecedented experiments in central planning and economic control, Liberalism had nearly vanished from politics, academia, and popular culture.
Ludwig von Mises was writing in Vienna at the time and attempted one last explanation of the Liberal philosophy. His brilliant 1927 book on the topic remains a statement for the ages. He pointed out that at this stage of history, all existing political parties represented a lobbying force for some segment of the population. Only liberalism, which had no party, represents the common interest of everyone. But given the size and scope of government, even he doubted that liberalism would return in his lifetime, and sadly he was right.
The Liberal Diaspora
Given this situation, where did the liberals to go? They were homeless by the time World War Two broke out. Following the war, they had been largely driven out of national politics. They were excluded from legislative priorities and media culture, not to mention academia. So the handful that existed turned to writing, publishing, independent educational ventures, civic organizations, and think tanks.
A beautiful example of this was the establishment of the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946 by Leonard E. Reed. He saw a need for liberalism to have a voice and made FEE its home. He preferred the term liberalism but, sadly, the term had been taken over by Labor and the left.
Read was the first in the postwar period to suggest the substitute term “libertarian” and, later, came to reject all labels in favor of what he called the “freedom philosophy.”
By the early 1970s, the movement had grown to the point that it attempted its own political party. It was obvious that with Richard Nixon in control of the Republican Party, liberalism had no voice. The preferred name of Liberal was still taken, so a new party was named the Libertarian Party. Despite some small victories, it has never really taken hold as a viable competitor to the two major parties. (You can read a good timeline of the party here.)
The Union of Tory and Liberal
Still, the Liberal movement grew, under the influence of FEE and the Mont Pelerin Society, among many new upstarts. The names of their intellectual leaders are now household names among libertarians: Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Rand, Lane, among many others.
In the 1980s, in the United States and the UK, the Tories were led by two individuals who adopted liberal rhetoric: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In both their platforms, we saw a fusion of concerns for individual freedom (focussed on economic freedom) together with traditional Tory concerns for national security and restrictions on civil liberties.
It was as decisive as it was ugly: the liberal spirit had finally been purged from the Republican party.This alliance of interests produced some remarkable results such as deregulation, tax reductions, reduced use of money printing, and freer trade. The results were brilliant by comparison to the malaise of the previous decade. Economic growth boomed. Technological innovations grew at an unprecedented pace. Such were the achievements not of the Tory element of the administrations but of its liberal sectors, that which curbed the growth of government and backed private enterprise, thereby unleashing human creativity all over the developed world, and inspiring a global revival of Liberalism.
Within living memory, the party of Liberalism came to be stuck with this partnership. It has generally been beneficial, though muddy. The message of freedom became mixed up with other concerns central to Tory ideology: war, corporate monopoly, financial manipulation, prohibitionism, and social control. To this day, this is a serious problem for the Liberal party. We get stuck with the bad reputation of Tory policies, though we technically bear no responsibility for them.
The 21st Century Tory-Liberal Divorce
It was a long time coming but tensions finally boiled over in 2015 and finally with the apparent nomination of Trump in the spring 2016. Trump, representing an old Tory ideology devoid of the virtues of Liberalism, reasserted the raw statism of interwar politics. His central pillars are familiar to anyone of a certain generation: mercantilism, migration restriction, military belligerence, censorship, prohibition, even to the point of praising internments and recalling a pre-Enlightenment view of religion and society.
Just when everything seems lost, you look around and see something beautiful.It was as decisive as it was ugly: the liberal spirit had finally been purged from the Republican party. There was no more room at the table (and anyone who claims otherwise is not looking at reality). It represents a repudiation of Reaganism, Thatcherism, and the coalition that drove the world to recovery. You only need to compare the speeches of the Reaganites on economics and immigration with those of Trump. They are world’s apart.
The shattering of this coalition is the single most significant political event of our times. It is done. It is a fact. It is decisive. And it will change everything for the foreseeable future.
Liberalism Defines Itself
Just when everything seems lost, you look around and see something beautiful. For 45 years, activists have been struggling to keep the awkwardly named party alive. And it does live! It is on the ballot in every state. It has a full and well-developed platform. It is ready for action.
In the last six months, some awesome people stepped up, ready for the nomination at the top of the ticket. The results were not to every taste but still extraordinary in broad terms. The party rejected the extremes at all ends and voted to nominate two former governors as standard bearers, two men who speak plainly and clearly about freedom in all its forms.
People can complain about this particular issue or that one. But no one can dispute that both Gary Johnson and William Weld represent the Liberal spirit that is now called libertarian. The difference with the Republicans and Democrats is unmistakable. The LP is neither left not right, neither Labor nor Tory, but a third choice: Liberalism as traditionally understood. That is the ethos of the party and the message of its candidates to the American people and the world at large. It is a breathe of fresh air.
In other words, believers in liberty are exactly where we need to be. It’s a big tent, as it should be. It includes as many varieties of Liberalism as there are people who want to be free
And please remember: it's not just about politics. In fact, politics is the least of it. The LP (and I wish it were called the Liberal Party) is finally positioned to be the political voice of a cultural, social, and entrepreneurial resistance movement to the left (Labor, Democrat) and right (Tory, Republican). The takeover of the GOP by illiberal nativists/protectionists/authoritarians is what finally pushed it over the edge.
No, history does not end with this election. One could say that it is just now beginning, now that we finally have a choice, for the first time in our lives.
People often say that America has a two-party system. People always believe that the status quo will last forever. The truth is that the status quo always lasts until, suddenly, it doesn’t.
Times are changing. Liberalism is back.
Jeffrey A. Tucker
Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Digital Development at FEE and CLO of the startup Liberty.me. Author of five books, and many thousands of articles, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook. Email.
PoliticsThe GOP Implosion and the Rebirth of (Classical) LiberalismJeffrey Tucker Monday, May 30, 2016
Monday, May 30, 2016
I had keynoted the last convention in 2014, and the difference between that event and this one was palpable. What made this one historic where the other was not? The remarkable events of this year within the two major parties have created an unprecedented opportunity. The sense of this was easily discernable. This was not a civic club. This was not a social gathering. This was not a liberty-themed meetup.
The big-picture significance of all of this was largely lost on most commentators and delegates at the LP convention.This is a political party. And it matters. The Trump takeover of the GOP, and the entrenched power of the Clinton machine with the Democrats, mean that people who are looking for freedom from power have nowhere within the system to go. This opens the possibility that a new and clear voice can be heard within national politics that points the way not toward more government control but toward the cause of human liberty itself.
What struck me, however, is how the big-picture significance of all of this was largely lost on most commentators and delegates at the LP convention. Despite the ominous sense of responsibilities, they argued ad infinitum about ideology, theory, personality, and strategy. But I found few people who understood the full meaning of what is taking place.
What we have developing here is a new epoch in American politics: an authentically liberal (in the classical sense) political movement in the US is being born as an alternative to a deeply corrupt and ideologically dangerous mainstream dominated by two parties that have trended inexorably socialistand fascist.
In terms of mainstream politics, it’s the interwar period all over again: brown shirts versus reds. Except for this: there is a way out this time. This new movement has a message that is clean and clear: enough is enough, let us be free. Freedom works; government power does not. The emergence of a national political party that stands for liberty might be necessary but it is surely not sufficient. It is a sign of the rise of a broader and potentially transformative social, cultural, and intellectual movement that offers a third way beyond left and right.
Labor, Tory, and Liberal
Consider the way politics has fleshed itself out in most developed democracies over the last 150 years. There have been three broad camps (or parties), which we can call Labor, Tory, and Liberal. The names of the first two have changed (left, right, socialist, fascist, Democrat, Republican, conservative, fake “liberal”) but the themes have remained the same. The third force is known in most parts of the world as liberal except in the U.S. where it is called libertarian today.
Labor was born in opposition to free markets, from the conviction that wealth was being wrongly distributed toward “capital” and at the expense of labor. This party has included labor unions, welfare statists, social democrats, socialists and even communists. It favors higher taxes, more regulatory control, and restrictions on commerce. Over time it came to represent the public sector bureaucracies and, finally, to embody every resentment against free enterprise you can dream up.
What the Tories and Labor have shared was a common desire to curb laissez faire.The Tories represent a different branch of the ruling class: the large banks, corporations, landed aristocracy, the dominant racial heritage, and the rich generally. They later came to include the interest groups that had a strong interest in an imperial foreign policy. This party had a different set of complaints against commercial freedom. It is too disruptive of tradition. It rewards the wrong people. It threatens business monopolies. The Tories long favored their own flavor of government control to restrain the “excesses” of freedom.
What the Tories and Labor have shared was a common desire to curb laissez faire based on conviction that society needs some plan emanating from the top, imposed by wise and public spirited people with the power to rule. In U.S. history, these parties have had different names, but everyone knows them today as Democrats and Republicans. They have traded places many times but always moved toward the same general goal: an ever bigger state and ever less liberty.
The Liberal Party
And who are the Liberals? The liberal idea was born in the high middle ages and Renaissance, with the rise of commercial freedom and the prosperity that followed. It began with the realization that religious freedom is possible and need not send society reeling into chaos. The idea of freedom extended out during the Enlightenment to include speech, press, property rights, and foreign trade. By the 18th century, it came to include a love of peace and an aspiration for universal human rights.
Liberalism came of age in the 19th century, and its achievements were legion: social mobility for the whole population, new technologies of liberation, the end of slavery, the advance of women’s rights, the vast expansion of income and living standards, the explosion of population. Its economic form was capitalism, the greatest generator of wealth for the masses of people ever discovered. The message of Liberalism was clear and exhilarating: all humans have rights that cannot be violated by the state, and, so long as this is the case, society can manage itself without authoritarian control.
The storm clouds gathered and disaster struck in the 20th century. Liberalism was dealt a terrible blow by World War I.It was a beautiful period, filled with optimism. But Liberalism had its enemies on the left and on the right. The storm clouds gathered and disaster struck in the 20th century. Liberalism was dealt a terrible blow by World War I and the government controls that followed in its wake. In the course of one decade in most parts of the developed world, we saw vast and sweeping victories against liberty as wrought by both the Labor and Tory forces: labor controls, income taxes, central banking, product regulation, racial segregation, zoning, marriage controls, speech controls, prohibitions, and imperialism as a national habit.
Even before the Great Depression kicked off unprecedented experiments in central planning and economic control, Liberalism had nearly vanished from politics, academia, and popular culture.
Ludwig von Mises was writing in Vienna at the time and attempted one last explanation of the Liberal philosophy. His brilliant 1927 book on the topic remains a statement for the ages. He pointed out that at this stage of history, all existing political parties represented a lobbying force for some segment of the population. Only liberalism, which had no party, represents the common interest of everyone. But given the size and scope of government, even he doubted that liberalism would return in his lifetime, and sadly he was right.
The Liberal Diaspora
Given this situation, where did the liberals to go? They were homeless by the time World War Two broke out. Following the war, they had been largely driven out of national politics. They were excluded from legislative priorities and media culture, not to mention academia. So the handful that existed turned to writing, publishing, independent educational ventures, civic organizations, and think tanks.
A beautiful example of this was the establishment of the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946 by Leonard E. Reed. He saw a need for liberalism to have a voice and made FEE its home. He preferred the term liberalism but, sadly, the term had been taken over by Labor and the left.
Read was the first in the postwar period to suggest the substitute term “libertarian” and, later, came to reject all labels in favor of what he called the “freedom philosophy.”
By the early 1970s, the movement had grown to the point that it attempted its own political party. It was obvious that with Richard Nixon in control of the Republican Party, liberalism had no voice. The preferred name of Liberal was still taken, so a new party was named the Libertarian Party. Despite some small victories, it has never really taken hold as a viable competitor to the two major parties. (You can read a good timeline of the party here.)
The Union of Tory and Liberal
Still, the Liberal movement grew, under the influence of FEE and the Mont Pelerin Society, among many new upstarts. The names of their intellectual leaders are now household names among libertarians: Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Rand, Lane, among many others.
In the 1980s, in the United States and the UK, the Tories were led by two individuals who adopted liberal rhetoric: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In both their platforms, we saw a fusion of concerns for individual freedom (focussed on economic freedom) together with traditional Tory concerns for national security and restrictions on civil liberties.
It was as decisive as it was ugly: the liberal spirit had finally been purged from the Republican party.This alliance of interests produced some remarkable results such as deregulation, tax reductions, reduced use of money printing, and freer trade. The results were brilliant by comparison to the malaise of the previous decade. Economic growth boomed. Technological innovations grew at an unprecedented pace. Such were the achievements not of the Tory element of the administrations but of its liberal sectors, that which curbed the growth of government and backed private enterprise, thereby unleashing human creativity all over the developed world, and inspiring a global revival of Liberalism.
Within living memory, the party of Liberalism came to be stuck with this partnership. It has generally been beneficial, though muddy. The message of freedom became mixed up with other concerns central to Tory ideology: war, corporate monopoly, financial manipulation, prohibitionism, and social control. To this day, this is a serious problem for the Liberal party. We get stuck with the bad reputation of Tory policies, though we technically bear no responsibility for them.
The 21st Century Tory-Liberal Divorce
It was a long time coming but tensions finally boiled over in 2015 and finally with the apparent nomination of Trump in the spring 2016. Trump, representing an old Tory ideology devoid of the virtues of Liberalism, reasserted the raw statism of interwar politics. His central pillars are familiar to anyone of a certain generation: mercantilism, migration restriction, military belligerence, censorship, prohibition, even to the point of praising internments and recalling a pre-Enlightenment view of religion and society.
Just when everything seems lost, you look around and see something beautiful.It was as decisive as it was ugly: the liberal spirit had finally been purged from the Republican party. There was no more room at the table (and anyone who claims otherwise is not looking at reality). It represents a repudiation of Reaganism, Thatcherism, and the coalition that drove the world to recovery. You only need to compare the speeches of the Reaganites on economics and immigration with those of Trump. They are world’s apart.
The shattering of this coalition is the single most significant political event of our times. It is done. It is a fact. It is decisive. And it will change everything for the foreseeable future.
Liberalism Defines Itself
Just when everything seems lost, you look around and see something beautiful. For 45 years, activists have been struggling to keep the awkwardly named party alive. And it does live! It is on the ballot in every state. It has a full and well-developed platform. It is ready for action.
In the last six months, some awesome people stepped up, ready for the nomination at the top of the ticket. The results were not to every taste but still extraordinary in broad terms. The party rejected the extremes at all ends and voted to nominate two former governors as standard bearers, two men who speak plainly and clearly about freedom in all its forms.
People can complain about this particular issue or that one. But no one can dispute that both Gary Johnson and William Weld represent the Liberal spirit that is now called libertarian. The difference with the Republicans and Democrats is unmistakable. The LP is neither left not right, neither Labor nor Tory, but a third choice: Liberalism as traditionally understood. That is the ethos of the party and the message of its candidates to the American people and the world at large. It is a breathe of fresh air.
In other words, believers in liberty are exactly where we need to be. It’s a big tent, as it should be. It includes as many varieties of Liberalism as there are people who want to be free
And please remember: it's not just about politics. In fact, politics is the least of it. The LP (and I wish it were called the Liberal Party) is finally positioned to be the political voice of a cultural, social, and entrepreneurial resistance movement to the left (Labor, Democrat) and right (Tory, Republican). The takeover of the GOP by illiberal nativists/protectionists/authoritarians is what finally pushed it over the edge.
No, history does not end with this election. One could say that it is just now beginning, now that we finally have a choice, for the first time in our lives.
People often say that America has a two-party system. People always believe that the status quo will last forever. The truth is that the status quo always lasts until, suddenly, it doesn’t.
Times are changing. Liberalism is back.
Jeffrey A. Tucker
Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Digital Development at FEE and CLO of the startup Liberty.me. Author of five books, and many thousands of articles, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook. Email.
What a Libertarian Is - and Is Not by Sam Wells
A libertarian is a person - any person - who consistently advocates individual freedom and consistently opposes the initiation of the use of coercion by anyone upon the person or property of anyone else for any reason. (Coercion is here defined as any action taken by a human being against the will or without the permission of another human being with respect to his or her body or property. This includes murder, rape, kidnaping, assault, trespassing, burglary, robbery, arson and fraud.) Some libertarians (such as the late Robert LeFevre) not only oppose all forms of initiatory coercion, but also the use of retaliatory coercion (revenge or criminal justice). The vast majority of libertarians, however, maintain that physical force used in self-defense or defense of one's family or property is fully justifiable.
But, all libertarians, by definition, at least oppose the initiatory use of coercion. They support the rational principle of the individual human rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. This means that each individual has the right to keep what he earns for himself and his family, and this includes the right to use, trade, sell, give away, or dispose of his property as he sees fit. A person who violates the rights of others by initiating coercion, violence, or fraud against them forfeits his right to be left alone by government and may be arrested, charged, tried, and imprisoned, deported or executed if convicted (depending on the nature of his or her crimes). The basic, proper function of lawful government is therefore limited to protecting these rights of the peaceful individual from criminals and foreign aggression, and in not violating these rights itself, for if government is allowed to go beyond this legitimate function and itself initiates force in violation of the rights of peaceful citizens, it necessarily contradicts the only rational justification for its own existence by acting criminally itself.
Real libertarians take individual rights seriously - seriously enough to consistently uphold them against the initiation of the use of force by anyone (including government) for any reason. This means that government must be bound by the policy of "laissez faire" - which means that government has no business coercively interfering with the lives of peaceful (non-coercive) citizens in their private affairs and voluntary (market) relationships.
Libertarians may or may not approve of some of the things that some people may do in private or in voluntary relations, but whatever their own code of personal moral conduct is, they do not seek to ban any private or voluntary activities by the use of force, including the force of government action. To do so would be to violate the very principle of individual rights of person and property, and thereby undercut any rational argument in favor of freedom or defense of the free-market system. Those exception makers and outright coercive busy-bodies in our midst (referred to as "interventionists" or "statists" by libertarians) who do want to abandon government by principle and instead put Whim in charge of the use of legal coercion are the people who help set the stage for arbitrary and capricious governmental tyranny - leading in the direction of totalitarian dictatorship.
Libertarians Are Not Classical (European) Conservatives
Libertarians are not "conservatives"; libertarians are radicals (principled advocates) for individual freedom and responsibility - and the pure free-market private-enterprise economic system which would result from a consistent application of that principle. A "conservative" on the other hand is one who wishes to preserve the status quo. The status quo in America today is the semi-socialist, semi-fascist mixed-economy welfare-state - a system inimical to personal freedom and responsibility. Libertarians do not support such a system, and oppose any and all measures to expand it while favoring the total repeal of interventionist laws and regulatory agencies.
Conservatives of the William F. Buckley or William Bennett variety are generally more concerned with imposing "order" than with allowing freedom. Although they often (and rightly) complain that government has got "too big" and too meddlesome in our lives, on some specific issues they themselves favor using the political power of government to legislate and enforce their view of morality upon the populace in "the national interest" or for the "social good." William Bennett, for example, opposes the legalization and/or decriminalization of the sale and use of heroin and cocaine, and he continues to support the no-win "War on Drugs" which is causing violence to escalate in our society. Libertarians, on the other hand, realize that "enforced morality" (in such personal matters) is a contradiction in terms; without freedom of choice there can be no moral responsibility or personal growth.
Libertarians also perceive that freedom brings about a more complex, dynamic and harmonious order in society (co-ordinated by the market price mechanism) than any static view of order imposed by central political planning and regulations of our non-coercive behaviors. Some conservatives occasionally seem to forget how miserably the governmment-planned societies under hard-core socialism have failed to fulfill their glorious promises. Outside of its legitimate functions of protecting people from criminal violence and foreign threats, government does nothing as well or as economically as a private-enterprise market economy based on private property rights with individual freedom of enterprise and exchange.
Libertarians are for individual freedom - and this includes the freedom of people to do some things that we and other people may disapprove of. A person should be free (from coercive interference) to do what he pleases with his own life and property, as long as he does not violate (through coercive interference) the same right of other peaceful persons to do what they want with their lives and properties. (The second clause is logically implied in the first.) Libertarians do not oppose non-coercive persuasion, educational efforts, private advertising campaigns, organized boycotts, or even social ostracism as means of trying to effect changes in the private behavior of others. (Many people have stopped smoking tobacco in recent years partly as a result of education and persuasion by friends and family members.) What libertarians do oppose is the attempt by anyone (individuals or government officials) to impose their own views of "fairness" or personal morality on others through the initiation of the use of coercion, by either personal violence or political legislation and governmental action. This principled position sets libertarians apart from conservatives as well as other non-libertarians.
Libertarians Are Not Welfare-State "Liberals"
Libertarians are not to be confused with the so-called "civil libertarians" which typify the membership and leadership of the American Civil Liberties Union. It is true that the ACLU has come to the defense of freedom of speech for certain minorities (e.g., nazis, communists, and anarchists) and this is commendable - but the podium has often been at taxpayers' expense, which is a contradiction from the real libertarian perspective. Many "civil libertarians" believe that some people have a "right" to violate the rights of others; they claim there is a "right to a job" or a "right" to welfare payments or a "right" to "free education" or a "right" to free child care - all at the expense of the people (usually the taxpayers) who are forced to pay for these so-called "rights." Real libertarians are for true freedom, not "freedom" at the forced expense of others. The only obligation that true rights impose on the citizen is of a negative kind: not to interfere with the rights of other peaceful people - i.e., to refrain from the initiation of the use of coercion. This is the core principle of libertarianism and is sometimes called the 'Non-Aggression Axiom'.
Welfare-state "liberals" and "civil libertarians" speak of "rights" of people as members of specially privileged groups, such as "women's rights" or "gay rights" or "rights of the handicapped" or even so-called "animal rights"! Real libertarians know that there are only individual rights, not group rights. There is no such thing as "gay rights" or "black rights" or "white rights" or left-handed Martian rights. Government must not be used to dish out special privileges to any group for any reason, since government cannot give anyone anything unless it takes it away from others by force, thereby violating their rights. There can be no such thing as a "right" to violate the rights of others.
No doubt there are some well-intentioned ACLU members who do promote true civil liberties and uphold human rights; however, the ACLU has not come to the defense of the rights of school children whose freedom is being violated daily by compulsory attendance laws and the tyranny of Federally-ordered forced busing. Nor do I know of any case in which the ACLU has defended the constitutional rights of businessmen who are being harassed by OSHA agents and other bureaucrats, or hounded by such arbitrary and subjective laws as the antitrust acts. Indeed, many "civil libertarians" seem callously insensitive to the victims of crime and legal plunder - while they defend known criminals from justice.
Because of their consistent adherence to the principle of individual rights, libertarians are the only true defenders of liberty -- civil or otherwise. Real libertarians understand that freedom of speech and other civil liberties depend on the sanctity of private property - not its violation by anti-discrimination laws and other forms of government intervention.
Libertarians Are Not for Unlimited Majority Rule
Libertarians are not democrats. While majority rule may or may not be as good as any other mechanism for selecting the men and women who administer the offices of government, libertarians deny that anyone or any group has a right to rule over other peaceful (non-coercive) citizens - whether they are in the majority or minority at any given time. If stealing is wrong for an individual to do, it is still wrong when conducted by a large group or by a majority vote. The number of people involved in an act does not change the rightness or wrongness of the act in that sense. There is no magic number that turns an individual wrong into a collective right. In a libertarian republic, the basic policy of government (i.e., laissez faire) is set by reference to fundamental principle -- the principle of individual rights -- and not determined by a show of hands. Libertarians uphold the right of the peaceful individual to self-ownership and private property against any who would violate this right - even a majority.
Libertarians Are Not Anarchists
Libertarians are not anarchists. While it is true that some individuals favor a political system of competing vigilante committees, and refer to this position as "anarcho-capitalism" (a view formerly held by libertarian economist Murray Rothbard), this is a confusing misnomer based on an apparent failure to clearly distinguish between the nature of market institutions (which do not involve the use of coercion at all, either initiatory or retaliatory) and the nature of coercive entities (criminal or legal). Actually, libertarianism rests on the concepts of individualism, self-ownership, private property, & voluntary (market) exchange. Classical anarchism not only opposed the political state, but also some voluntary organizations of which it disapproved. Most importantly, true anarchists opposed private property - without which no voluntary relationships are possible. Today's libertarians are in the classical liberal tradition of Algernon Sidney, John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Edmund Burke, Herbert Spencer, and Frederic Bastiat - not the anarchist tradition of Proudhon, Kropotkin, and Bakunin. Virtually all the major thinkers and writers which inspired the libertarian cause -- Frederic Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, Auberon Herbert, Henry Hazlitt, F. A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Leonard Read, Ayn Rand, George Reisman -- whatever differences they may have had, they all supported the libertarian position of advocating a general policy of laissez faire be imposed on government -- and they all opposed anarchy and anarchism as antithetical to liberty.
Libertarians Are Not Pragmatists
Libertarians do not advocate freedom or the free-market economy merely because "it works" (which it does better than any other system); they support it as the only non-coercive and just system - the system in which people are free to deal with one another on a voluntary basis as traders (exchangers of goods and services) instead of as masters and slaves - or as privileged class and exploited host. Others advocate government by whim. Libertarians adhere to certain principles, and without the guidance of principles and standards, all that is left is pragmatic expediency and the tyranny of government by whim. One might say that libertarians are "idealists" in the popular sense of that word; after all, libertarians stand for certain ideals - goals to strive for (e.g., less government intervention, more individual freedom and moral responsibility, free markets, etc.). Because libertarianism is based on man's nature and the nature of reality, it is the most practicable social system. Libertarians are practicalidealists.
* * *
Future Paragraphs to be Written
Libertarians Are Not Populists
Libertarians Are Not "NeoConservatives"
* * *
Source;http://www.laissez-fairerepublic.com/LIBERTAR.htm
A libertarian is a person - any person - who consistently advocates individual freedom and consistently opposes the initiation of the use of coercion by anyone upon the person or property of anyone else for any reason. (Coercion is here defined as any action taken by a human being against the will or without the permission of another human being with respect to his or her body or property. This includes murder, rape, kidnaping, assault, trespassing, burglary, robbery, arson and fraud.) Some libertarians (such as the late Robert LeFevre) not only oppose all forms of initiatory coercion, but also the use of retaliatory coercion (revenge or criminal justice). The vast majority of libertarians, however, maintain that physical force used in self-defense or defense of one's family or property is fully justifiable.
But, all libertarians, by definition, at least oppose the initiatory use of coercion. They support the rational principle of the individual human rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. This means that each individual has the right to keep what he earns for himself and his family, and this includes the right to use, trade, sell, give away, or dispose of his property as he sees fit. A person who violates the rights of others by initiating coercion, violence, or fraud against them forfeits his right to be left alone by government and may be arrested, charged, tried, and imprisoned, deported or executed if convicted (depending on the nature of his or her crimes). The basic, proper function of lawful government is therefore limited to protecting these rights of the peaceful individual from criminals and foreign aggression, and in not violating these rights itself, for if government is allowed to go beyond this legitimate function and itself initiates force in violation of the rights of peaceful citizens, it necessarily contradicts the only rational justification for its own existence by acting criminally itself.
Real libertarians take individual rights seriously - seriously enough to consistently uphold them against the initiation of the use of force by anyone (including government) for any reason. This means that government must be bound by the policy of "laissez faire" - which means that government has no business coercively interfering with the lives of peaceful (non-coercive) citizens in their private affairs and voluntary (market) relationships.
Libertarians may or may not approve of some of the things that some people may do in private or in voluntary relations, but whatever their own code of personal moral conduct is, they do not seek to ban any private or voluntary activities by the use of force, including the force of government action. To do so would be to violate the very principle of individual rights of person and property, and thereby undercut any rational argument in favor of freedom or defense of the free-market system. Those exception makers and outright coercive busy-bodies in our midst (referred to as "interventionists" or "statists" by libertarians) who do want to abandon government by principle and instead put Whim in charge of the use of legal coercion are the people who help set the stage for arbitrary and capricious governmental tyranny - leading in the direction of totalitarian dictatorship.
Libertarians Are Not Classical (European) Conservatives
Libertarians are not "conservatives"; libertarians are radicals (principled advocates) for individual freedom and responsibility - and the pure free-market private-enterprise economic system which would result from a consistent application of that principle. A "conservative" on the other hand is one who wishes to preserve the status quo. The status quo in America today is the semi-socialist, semi-fascist mixed-economy welfare-state - a system inimical to personal freedom and responsibility. Libertarians do not support such a system, and oppose any and all measures to expand it while favoring the total repeal of interventionist laws and regulatory agencies.
Conservatives of the William F. Buckley or William Bennett variety are generally more concerned with imposing "order" than with allowing freedom. Although they often (and rightly) complain that government has got "too big" and too meddlesome in our lives, on some specific issues they themselves favor using the political power of government to legislate and enforce their view of morality upon the populace in "the national interest" or for the "social good." William Bennett, for example, opposes the legalization and/or decriminalization of the sale and use of heroin and cocaine, and he continues to support the no-win "War on Drugs" which is causing violence to escalate in our society. Libertarians, on the other hand, realize that "enforced morality" (in such personal matters) is a contradiction in terms; without freedom of choice there can be no moral responsibility or personal growth.
Libertarians also perceive that freedom brings about a more complex, dynamic and harmonious order in society (co-ordinated by the market price mechanism) than any static view of order imposed by central political planning and regulations of our non-coercive behaviors. Some conservatives occasionally seem to forget how miserably the governmment-planned societies under hard-core socialism have failed to fulfill their glorious promises. Outside of its legitimate functions of protecting people from criminal violence and foreign threats, government does nothing as well or as economically as a private-enterprise market economy based on private property rights with individual freedom of enterprise and exchange.
Libertarians are for individual freedom - and this includes the freedom of people to do some things that we and other people may disapprove of. A person should be free (from coercive interference) to do what he pleases with his own life and property, as long as he does not violate (through coercive interference) the same right of other peaceful persons to do what they want with their lives and properties. (The second clause is logically implied in the first.) Libertarians do not oppose non-coercive persuasion, educational efforts, private advertising campaigns, organized boycotts, or even social ostracism as means of trying to effect changes in the private behavior of others. (Many people have stopped smoking tobacco in recent years partly as a result of education and persuasion by friends and family members.) What libertarians do oppose is the attempt by anyone (individuals or government officials) to impose their own views of "fairness" or personal morality on others through the initiation of the use of coercion, by either personal violence or political legislation and governmental action. This principled position sets libertarians apart from conservatives as well as other non-libertarians.
Libertarians Are Not Welfare-State "Liberals"
Libertarians are not to be confused with the so-called "civil libertarians" which typify the membership and leadership of the American Civil Liberties Union. It is true that the ACLU has come to the defense of freedom of speech for certain minorities (e.g., nazis, communists, and anarchists) and this is commendable - but the podium has often been at taxpayers' expense, which is a contradiction from the real libertarian perspective. Many "civil libertarians" believe that some people have a "right" to violate the rights of others; they claim there is a "right to a job" or a "right" to welfare payments or a "right" to "free education" or a "right" to free child care - all at the expense of the people (usually the taxpayers) who are forced to pay for these so-called "rights." Real libertarians are for true freedom, not "freedom" at the forced expense of others. The only obligation that true rights impose on the citizen is of a negative kind: not to interfere with the rights of other peaceful people - i.e., to refrain from the initiation of the use of coercion. This is the core principle of libertarianism and is sometimes called the 'Non-Aggression Axiom'.
Welfare-state "liberals" and "civil libertarians" speak of "rights" of people as members of specially privileged groups, such as "women's rights" or "gay rights" or "rights of the handicapped" or even so-called "animal rights"! Real libertarians know that there are only individual rights, not group rights. There is no such thing as "gay rights" or "black rights" or "white rights" or left-handed Martian rights. Government must not be used to dish out special privileges to any group for any reason, since government cannot give anyone anything unless it takes it away from others by force, thereby violating their rights. There can be no such thing as a "right" to violate the rights of others.
No doubt there are some well-intentioned ACLU members who do promote true civil liberties and uphold human rights; however, the ACLU has not come to the defense of the rights of school children whose freedom is being violated daily by compulsory attendance laws and the tyranny of Federally-ordered forced busing. Nor do I know of any case in which the ACLU has defended the constitutional rights of businessmen who are being harassed by OSHA agents and other bureaucrats, or hounded by such arbitrary and subjective laws as the antitrust acts. Indeed, many "civil libertarians" seem callously insensitive to the victims of crime and legal plunder - while they defend known criminals from justice.
Because of their consistent adherence to the principle of individual rights, libertarians are the only true defenders of liberty -- civil or otherwise. Real libertarians understand that freedom of speech and other civil liberties depend on the sanctity of private property - not its violation by anti-discrimination laws and other forms of government intervention.
Libertarians Are Not for Unlimited Majority Rule
Libertarians are not democrats. While majority rule may or may not be as good as any other mechanism for selecting the men and women who administer the offices of government, libertarians deny that anyone or any group has a right to rule over other peaceful (non-coercive) citizens - whether they are in the majority or minority at any given time. If stealing is wrong for an individual to do, it is still wrong when conducted by a large group or by a majority vote. The number of people involved in an act does not change the rightness or wrongness of the act in that sense. There is no magic number that turns an individual wrong into a collective right. In a libertarian republic, the basic policy of government (i.e., laissez faire) is set by reference to fundamental principle -- the principle of individual rights -- and not determined by a show of hands. Libertarians uphold the right of the peaceful individual to self-ownership and private property against any who would violate this right - even a majority.
Libertarians Are Not Anarchists
Libertarians are not anarchists. While it is true that some individuals favor a political system of competing vigilante committees, and refer to this position as "anarcho-capitalism" (a view formerly held by libertarian economist Murray Rothbard), this is a confusing misnomer based on an apparent failure to clearly distinguish between the nature of market institutions (which do not involve the use of coercion at all, either initiatory or retaliatory) and the nature of coercive entities (criminal or legal). Actually, libertarianism rests on the concepts of individualism, self-ownership, private property, & voluntary (market) exchange. Classical anarchism not only opposed the political state, but also some voluntary organizations of which it disapproved. Most importantly, true anarchists opposed private property - without which no voluntary relationships are possible. Today's libertarians are in the classical liberal tradition of Algernon Sidney, John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Edmund Burke, Herbert Spencer, and Frederic Bastiat - not the anarchist tradition of Proudhon, Kropotkin, and Bakunin. Virtually all the major thinkers and writers which inspired the libertarian cause -- Frederic Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, Auberon Herbert, Henry Hazlitt, F. A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Leonard Read, Ayn Rand, George Reisman -- whatever differences they may have had, they all supported the libertarian position of advocating a general policy of laissez faire be imposed on government -- and they all opposed anarchy and anarchism as antithetical to liberty.
Libertarians Are Not Pragmatists
Libertarians do not advocate freedom or the free-market economy merely because "it works" (which it does better than any other system); they support it as the only non-coercive and just system - the system in which people are free to deal with one another on a voluntary basis as traders (exchangers of goods and services) instead of as masters and slaves - or as privileged class and exploited host. Others advocate government by whim. Libertarians adhere to certain principles, and without the guidance of principles and standards, all that is left is pragmatic expediency and the tyranny of government by whim. One might say that libertarians are "idealists" in the popular sense of that word; after all, libertarians stand for certain ideals - goals to strive for (e.g., less government intervention, more individual freedom and moral responsibility, free markets, etc.). Because libertarianism is based on man's nature and the nature of reality, it is the most practicable social system. Libertarians are practicalidealists.
* * *
Future Paragraphs to be Written
Libertarians Are Not Populists
Libertarians Are Not "NeoConservatives"
* * *
Source;http://www.laissez-fairerepublic.com/LIBERTAR.htm
Has History Already Been Changed?
The many facets of historical revision or attempts at changing what most think as valid history. Read these links and decide for yourselves . .
http://www.usavsus.info/usA--Original13thAmend.htm
Here is some of the proof that still exists showing the deliberate changing of american Constitutional History. Here you can still find the Missing Original 13th Amendment. It also legally prevented Lawyers from serving in congress.
Here are some more research links to the Original 13th Amendment:
http://www.amendment-13.org/research.html Research Links
http://www.amendment-13.org/publications.html Table of Official Publications
http://www.amendment-13.org/leghistory.html Legislative History and Ratification
http://www.amendment-13.org/legextracts.html Legislative Extracts
http://www.amendment-13.org/rebuttal.html Rebuttal of Arguments against the Original 13th Being Constitutional Law
http://www.amendment-13.org/va1819images.html 1819 Virginia States Department copy Images
http://www.amendment-13.org/ratifications.html State Ratifications
http://www.amendment-13.org/privatepubl.html Private Publications
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://uhuh.com/constitution/list-con.htm List of Articles Cached copy
http://www.uhuh.com/constitution/list-con.htm Current copy
http://www.usavsus.info/usA--Original13thAmend.htm
Here is some of the proof that still exists showing the deliberate changing of american Constitutional History. Here you can still find the Missing Original 13th Amendment. It also legally prevented Lawyers from serving in congress.
Here are some more research links to the Original 13th Amendment:
http://www.amendment-13.org/research.html Research Links
http://www.amendment-13.org/publications.html Table of Official Publications
http://www.amendment-13.org/leghistory.html Legislative History and Ratification
http://www.amendment-13.org/legextracts.html Legislative Extracts
http://www.amendment-13.org/rebuttal.html Rebuttal of Arguments against the Original 13th Being Constitutional Law
http://www.amendment-13.org/va1819images.html 1819 Virginia States Department copy Images
http://www.amendment-13.org/ratifications.html State Ratifications
http://www.amendment-13.org/privatepubl.html Private Publications
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://uhuh.com/constitution/list-con.htm List of Articles Cached copy
http://www.uhuh.com/constitution/list-con.htm Current copy
50/50 SPLIT IN THE U.S. - HALF OF US BETTER STAND UP, BEFORE THE OTHER HALF BECOMES..... THE MAJORITY THAT RULES !!!
Yes, it is true that fifty percent of the voters in the last election gave us an outcome we don’t want to live with. But….fifty percent of us also voted for something else. We were not caught up in the contest between who would be the better man. Most of us were in it to try to save a Nation and her perfect ideals that we are seeing stolen from us, by a federal government that has become our Frankenstein.
In the posts that we all write, what is the one thing that we all espouse to believe and testify to....is the most perfect political document ever written.....THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Ladies and gentlemen, we do not have to tear ourselves apart such as the movement to secede from the Union that many are considering, we don't have to feel that this out-of-control train cannot be brake-switched, we do not have to rack our brains for an answer that has not been thought of yet (a magic pill) that will fix the problems of broken government in this country! The answer is already in the Constitution. The founders were inspired to debate and carefully word and craft our foundation to answer every need our Nation would have to face.
ARTICLE V. U.S. CONSTITUTION
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to the Constitution ,or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a Convention proposing Amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and Purposes, as part of the Constitution, when ratified by the Legislature of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof,
as one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and the fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. [modified by the 17th Amendment]
Today, there is great disappointment and our hearts are hungry to make a difference before it is too late.
There are three Amendments in the Constitution that serve to limit our power as a people and give over power to the federal government IMHO, and it is also the opinion of far greater minds than my own, that this convention should revoke the 14th ("no State shall....)), 16th ( power to tax), and 17th (election of senators) Amendments.
Out with 3-in with 1.
“38 States need to be pushed by we the people at the legislative level to revoke all three amendments 14th, 16th and 17th in one Article V State process. This will save the 50 State Republics from the dominant Federal usurped three branches of the current government.
The process is the same for one as it is for three. There is no danger in this process (for a runaway convention) as the individual States will control the entire process - no involvement in DC [Congress or President] all the State 38 must agree and pass the amendment in a vote of the legislatures - then it is submitted to the Congress to send it out to the State legislatures for ratification [the amendment is not open for alteration]. Let us say the worst comes about and the Congress makes changes - then the 38 States just do not ratify that amendment from Congress but does then vote in 38 State legislatures to ratify the amendment sent to Congress in the first place. Once the 38th State legislature votes to ratify that amendment becomes the Law of the Land and Congress – nor the executive [President] nor the Supreme Court has any say in the matter.
It takes an amendment to change - alter- fix/repair any other amendment. Revoke the offending Amendments and return to the limited Federal government and a limited powers court through a proposed 28th Amendment.
*The 14th was used by the courts to enforce the Bill of Rights on the States and to in effect destroy the States powers under the 10th amendment.
*The 16th provides the Fed with enough money to bribe the States and the voters with their own money.
*The 17th took the States representatives [Senators] out of the control of the State legislators so the States were not a participant in the Federal Congress any longer and the State lost their ability to defend their citizens from the tyranny of the Federal Government. Direct election of the Senators made them immune to the wishes of the Individual States.” M.C.
I have taken the liberty of quoting a great teacher in the presentation of this argument - much better explained and stated than I could ever do. I would also like to add a link that helped me to better understand this entire topic :http://goldwaterinstitute.org/articlev. I would encourage you to watch both videos (about 43 minutes, the first the presentation-the second q/a) follow the links to the written information.
This is the solution we so desperately need to explore; while we have the fire-in-the-belly of so many Americans. This is the solution that will stop federal government domination.
The detractors will say/do say… that such a convention is a great danger to the Constitution. It could be destroyed or re-written beyond the original framers intent. Too much power-too much risk? If the Convention is called with a specific agenda in place stating the above/and only the above those goals will be crafted/go back to states for ratification (once again it is our majority voice that is the ck and the balance). If 38 do not ratify it cannot be. Why would we squander such an opportunity designing legislation that would never be accepted? I hope you will notice something very important here in this information-
THE POWER TO CALL FOR A CONVENTION-TO STOP THE ENCROACHMENT OF THE FED GOVT-THE RESTORATIVE- LANGUAGE ALL LIES WITH THE STATES and WE THE PEOPLE.
Is that not what all of us have been clamoring for? When we watched that electoral map fill in on election night - did we not all feel sick in the pits of our stomachs - that though the majority of our nation was colored red - blue won the day. Your children asked you to explain, and you yourself were amazed, to have to admit that we are ruled by the minority states with the greatest population.
As the Patriots so long ago had to face their moment in time when they could no longer be governed in such a manner - WE THE PATRIOTS of TODAY must realize THIS is OUR TIME to peacefully rise up again and answer the call of our People and our Country. If we do not act swiftly - we stand to lose it all. Our Constitution is/has always been/will always be our guide.
Thank you. L.Y.
NUMB THEM DOWN .....OR DUMB THEM DOWN
I slide my arm from under the sleeper's head and it is numb,full of swarming pins, on the tip of each,waiting to be counted, the fallen angels sit. - Wislawa Szymborska
I believe I fear the art of manipulation more than the lack of understanding I see all around us.
Lack of Understanding can be defeated through education and conversation. Manipulation takes the education and the conversation and perverts it...no matter how hard you try to teach/or the value of the truth you speak...if the perverter is pervasive enough-and loud enough-and repetitive enough...their truth can become the truth...and the real truth invisible....like the air.
"only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.."
Manipulation of sentiment through years of social engineering and information perversion is the enemy of a free people. What value you may find in freedom-is the value you place-on what you come to believe is freedom in the first place.
Social engineering (political science)
Social engineering is a discipline in social science that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale, whether by governments or private groups. In the political arena, the counterpart of social engineering is political engineering.
For various reasons, the term has been imbued with negative connotations. However, virtually all law and governance has the effect of seeking to change behavior and could be considered "social engineering" to some extent. Prohibitions on murder, rape, suicide and littering are all policies aimed at discouraging undesirable behaviors. In British and Canadian jurisprudence, changing public attitudes about a behaviour is accepted as one of the key functions of laws prohibiting it. Governments also influence behavior more subtly through incentives and disincentives built into economic policy and tax policy, for instance, and have done so for centuries.
Karl Popper
In his classic political science book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, volume I, The Spell of Plato, Karl Popper examined the application of the critical and rational methods of science to the problems of the open society. In this respect, he made a crucial distinction between the principles of democratic social engineering (what he called "piecemeal social engineering") and Utopian social engineering.
Popper wrote:
the piecemeal engineer will adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evil of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good.[1]
According to Popper, the difference between "piecemeal social engineering" and "Utopian social engineering" is:
the difference between a reasonable method of improving the lot of man, and a method which, if really tried, may easily lead to an intolerable increase in human suffering. It is the difference between a method which can be applied at any moment, and a method whose advocacy may easily become a means of continually postponing action until a later date, when conditions are more favorable. And it is also the difference between the only method of improving matters which has so far been really successful, at any time, and in any place, and a method which, wherever it has been tried, has led only to the use of violence in place of reason, and if not to its own abandonment, at any rate to that of its original blueprint.[1]
The most effective engineering tool is media bias. It is mainstream, widely dispersed, and deeply entrenched into our society through social media, news reporting, movies and commentary methods, as well as admired personality promotions. Here are three of the most successful techniques.
• Mainstream bias, a tendency to report what everyone else is reporting, and to avoid stories that will offend anyone.
• Sensationalism, bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary, giving the impression that rare events, such as airplane crashes, are more common than common events, such as automobile crashes.
• Concision bias, a tendency to report views that can be summarized succinctly, crowding out more unconventional views that take time to explain.
Other forms of bias including reporting that favors or attacks a particular race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnic group, or even person.
Stefano Mario Rivolta lists three forms of media bias:[3]
1. gate keeping bias, i.e., deciding whether to release a story or keep it under wraps (see Spike (journalism))
2. coverage bias
3. statement bias
Methods of presentation:
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed towards influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the chosen result in audience attitudes.
Psychological Political Warfare, “Hearts and Minds”, and Propaganda.[1] Various techniques are used, by any set of groups, and aimed to influence a target audience's value systems, belief systems,emotions, motives, reasoning, or behavior. It is used to reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to the originator's objectives. Target audiences can be governments,organizations, groups, and individuals.
Social constructionism
A major focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the construction of their perceived social reality. It involves looking at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, known, and made into tradition by humans. The social construction of reality is an ongoing, dynamic process that is (and must be) reproduced by people acting on their interpretations and their knowledge of it. Because social constructs as facets of reality and objects of knowledge are not "given" by nature, they must be constantly maintained and re-affirmed in order to persist. This process also introduces the possibility of change: what "justice" is and what it means shifts from one generation to the next.
Societal manipulation is not an unproven theory. Painfully in the history of the world it has been used before toward a conclusion that had never thought could not be imagined. Only a heretic will deny it. A charismatic man that rose to prominence in politics, who took his chosen agenda to the masses and through all the methods I have spoken of here, he changed the perception of the society he led. This national attitude he promoted turned one group of citizens against another group of fellow man. His prejudice and program against these persons resulted in the death of 6 million people. His ambition led to warring aggression of his neighbors-and assault/conquer of their governments. It eventually led the entire world to war to stop the ambition of one man, who tragically used all forms of manipulation to fulfill an agenda....yes, because I remember this 'tragic inhumanity', I fear manipulation more than lack of understanding in my Country today.
"*All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to.
*It is not the purpose of propaganda to create a series of alterations in sentiment with a view to pleasing these blasé gentry. Its chief function is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb the information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.... NUMB THEM DOWN .....
*For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission,....
• If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things. Adolf Hitler
.....OR DUMB THEM DOWN...
PLEASE STUDY IN OUR LIBRARY. INVESTIGATE OUR PROJECT.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/
scientia est potentia) is a Latinaphorism often claimed to mean "knowledge is power”
sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf
I believe I fear the art of manipulation more than the lack of understanding I see all around us.
Lack of Understanding can be defeated through education and conversation. Manipulation takes the education and the conversation and perverts it...no matter how hard you try to teach/or the value of the truth you speak...if the perverter is pervasive enough-and loud enough-and repetitive enough...their truth can become the truth...and the real truth invisible....like the air.
"only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.."
Manipulation of sentiment through years of social engineering and information perversion is the enemy of a free people. What value you may find in freedom-is the value you place-on what you come to believe is freedom in the first place.
Social engineering (political science)
Social engineering is a discipline in social science that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale, whether by governments or private groups. In the political arena, the counterpart of social engineering is political engineering.
For various reasons, the term has been imbued with negative connotations. However, virtually all law and governance has the effect of seeking to change behavior and could be considered "social engineering" to some extent. Prohibitions on murder, rape, suicide and littering are all policies aimed at discouraging undesirable behaviors. In British and Canadian jurisprudence, changing public attitudes about a behaviour is accepted as one of the key functions of laws prohibiting it. Governments also influence behavior more subtly through incentives and disincentives built into economic policy and tax policy, for instance, and have done so for centuries.
Karl Popper
In his classic political science book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, volume I, The Spell of Plato, Karl Popper examined the application of the critical and rational methods of science to the problems of the open society. In this respect, he made a crucial distinction between the principles of democratic social engineering (what he called "piecemeal social engineering") and Utopian social engineering.
Popper wrote:
the piecemeal engineer will adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evil of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good.[1]
According to Popper, the difference between "piecemeal social engineering" and "Utopian social engineering" is:
the difference between a reasonable method of improving the lot of man, and a method which, if really tried, may easily lead to an intolerable increase in human suffering. It is the difference between a method which can be applied at any moment, and a method whose advocacy may easily become a means of continually postponing action until a later date, when conditions are more favorable. And it is also the difference between the only method of improving matters which has so far been really successful, at any time, and in any place, and a method which, wherever it has been tried, has led only to the use of violence in place of reason, and if not to its own abandonment, at any rate to that of its original blueprint.[1]
The most effective engineering tool is media bias. It is mainstream, widely dispersed, and deeply entrenched into our society through social media, news reporting, movies and commentary methods, as well as admired personality promotions. Here are three of the most successful techniques.
• Mainstream bias, a tendency to report what everyone else is reporting, and to avoid stories that will offend anyone.
• Sensationalism, bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary, giving the impression that rare events, such as airplane crashes, are more common than common events, such as automobile crashes.
• Concision bias, a tendency to report views that can be summarized succinctly, crowding out more unconventional views that take time to explain.
Other forms of bias including reporting that favors or attacks a particular race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnic group, or even person.
Stefano Mario Rivolta lists three forms of media bias:[3]
1. gate keeping bias, i.e., deciding whether to release a story or keep it under wraps (see Spike (journalism))
2. coverage bias
3. statement bias
Methods of presentation:
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed towards influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the chosen result in audience attitudes.
Psychological Political Warfare, “Hearts and Minds”, and Propaganda.[1] Various techniques are used, by any set of groups, and aimed to influence a target audience's value systems, belief systems,emotions, motives, reasoning, or behavior. It is used to reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to the originator's objectives. Target audiences can be governments,organizations, groups, and individuals.
Social constructionism
A major focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the construction of their perceived social reality. It involves looking at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, known, and made into tradition by humans. The social construction of reality is an ongoing, dynamic process that is (and must be) reproduced by people acting on their interpretations and their knowledge of it. Because social constructs as facets of reality and objects of knowledge are not "given" by nature, they must be constantly maintained and re-affirmed in order to persist. This process also introduces the possibility of change: what "justice" is and what it means shifts from one generation to the next.
Societal manipulation is not an unproven theory. Painfully in the history of the world it has been used before toward a conclusion that had never thought could not be imagined. Only a heretic will deny it. A charismatic man that rose to prominence in politics, who took his chosen agenda to the masses and through all the methods I have spoken of here, he changed the perception of the society he led. This national attitude he promoted turned one group of citizens against another group of fellow man. His prejudice and program against these persons resulted in the death of 6 million people. His ambition led to warring aggression of his neighbors-and assault/conquer of their governments. It eventually led the entire world to war to stop the ambition of one man, who tragically used all forms of manipulation to fulfill an agenda....yes, because I remember this 'tragic inhumanity', I fear manipulation more than lack of understanding in my Country today.
"*All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to.
*It is not the purpose of propaganda to create a series of alterations in sentiment with a view to pleasing these blasé gentry. Its chief function is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb the information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.... NUMB THEM DOWN .....
*For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission,....
• If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things. Adolf Hitler
.....OR DUMB THEM DOWN...
PLEASE STUDY IN OUR LIBRARY. INVESTIGATE OUR PROJECT.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/
scientia est potentia) is a Latinaphorism often claimed to mean "knowledge is power”
sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf
