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Organized Plunder, a.k.a. The State
Authored by Bill Bonner via Bonner & Partners (annotated by Acting-Man.com's Pater Tenebrarum),
Whose Side Are You On?
On one side: the Fed… the NSA… the CIA… Fannie Mae… Freddie Mac… the trade unions… Wall Street… the dollar… Obamacare… New York’s taxi system… QE… the wars on terror, poverty, illiteracy, and drugs… Dodd-Frank… the TSA… the ATF… millions of retirees and disability scammers… General Motors… Hillary Clinton… and many, many others…
A widely held and quite erroneous belief …
On the other: Airbnb… Uber… cryptocurrencies… “Main Street”… businesses… families… gold… young people… savers… Freemasons… Ron Paul… truck drivers… the Episcopal Church… Elks… entrepreneurs… free markets… and millions of honest people who make their livings and live their lives as best they can without holding a gun to anyone else’s head.
Yes, dear reader, maybe it was too much alcohol or too little food. But in the night, a vision came to us. It revealed the big picture in a way we hadn’t seen it. Zombies, you’ll recall, are people and institutions that live at the expense of others. How?
Some are freelance criminals. But most depend on government to get the flesh they need. People don’t give up their own blood readily. They run. They hide. They try to protect themselves. But government maintains a territorial monopoly on the one thing that does the trick – violence.
So today, we stoop to admire the institution of government. What a beautiful racket! It typically takes 20% to 50% of an economy’s output. It makes the rules. It sets the pace. And woe to anybody or anything that gets in its way…
Murray Rothbard’s concise definition of the State
Everybody Is a Customer
You can divide an economy into three estates: households, businesses, and government. Of the three, government is in the best position by far. Everybody is a customer of the government, whether he wants to be or not. And when you have control of the government, you set the terms of the deals with the other estates. And you can change the terms whenever you want.
That’s why there is so much money in politics – because you can get so much money from politics! A person can go into government with nothing; he comes out with a fortune.
Dick Cheney, for example, huffed and puffed almost his entire career in politics, except for a brief stint with a crony defense contractor. Now, he’s said to be worth $80 million.
Dick Cheney – from nada to $80 million – a political career can be quite remunerative.
Photo via politicususa.com
Or Hillary Clinton. She has never had a job in the productive economy. She is said to be worth $21 million. Successful politicians get the best parking places… the best offices… and other perks and privileges that no one else gets
Hillary Clinton: never produced anything consumers would voluntarily acquire, and yet, is said to be worth $21 million.
Photo credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press
Members of Congress also routinely exclude themselves from the rules and regulations they’ve made for others. For example, it is illegal for U.S. companies to misstate their financial positions; for government it is business as usual. In the private sector, fraud is a crime; in government it is “just politics.”
As to the business community, government has a mixed relationship. Every business is a source of funds. In addition to the money it gets from taxation, confiscations, and other predations, government also gets bribes in various forms.
A retired Congressman, for example, can look forward to a career as a lobbyist for the industries he promoted while in office. Or he can make money by giving dull speeches to industry groups. He may choose to do a little consulting, too, or haunt the board of directors.
“Where we are right now”, a public service message sent by Bastiat
Businesses usually begin as productive enterprises. But almost all have zombie tendencies. Once they reach a certain size, they recognize that the best investment they can make is in politics. They hire lobbyists. They pay crony politicians.
In return, government enacts rules and regulations to stifle competition. But as with so many of its activities, government succeeds when it fails. As a new industry arises, the money still flows from the cronies, while the feds get a piece of action from the new enterprises, too.
And households? They grouse and groan. But the masses usually love government. They think business people are greedy SOBs. But they often hold the fellows who run the government racket in the same exalted category as saints, TV stars, and sports heroes. Don’t believe it?
At a recent reception in Baltimore, we noticed people gathered around a familiar face. It wasn’t Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell; it was former senator Paul Sarbanes. Just look around Washington… or any major city for that matter. Do you find statues of Henry Ford? Where is the marble bust of Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin? Where is the pile honoring Sam Walton?
Instead, you find plenty of granite spent to honor scalawags and scoundrels – Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR, to name just a few. And who’s next?
A collection of past scoundrels and scalawags hewn in granite and cast in bronze …
Hillary Is a Terrible Candidate – but is Brain-fog any Better?
In politics, as in markets, nobody knows anything. But we were seated at dinner last night next to a seasoned political analyst…
“Hillary won’t win the White House,” he confided. “She might not even win the nomination.”
We recall that much of what he said was off record, but we can’t remember which parts. So, we will leave his name out of the Diary; he may have spoken more candidly than he had wished.
“The trouble with Hillary is that she’s a Clinton without Bill’s charm. And she’s yesterday’s news. She couldn’t even beat Obama. And he’s a terrible politician.
“Obama only got elected because of a unique set of circumstances – Hillary and George W. Bush. People were sick of Bush. Hillary is a weak candidate.
“So now we’re seeing other candidates come out. Bernie Sanders is showing us how vulnerable she is. Others will be encouraged. One of them will probably get some traction.
“Jim Webb is not getting any money from the establishment. But he has real appeal to the voters.
“As for the Republicans… Hard to say. I’ve met them all. Rand Paul is smart. But he doesn’t have the funding. Or the political network. He’s too much of an outsider and a maverick to be acceptable.
“The trouble with Ted Cruz is that he is inflexible. He’s very smart and right about a lot of things. But you have to be fairly flexible to get elected president.
“The one I really like is Rick Perry. I know, he sounds like an idiot. But he’s not. They just caught him at a bad moment, when he was on painkillers from dental surgery, or something.
“You remember – he couldn’t recall which department he would abolish if he were elected. It was just a case of brain fog. But it happens to everyone.
“He’s actually very smart… and a good campaigner.”
We’ve never met Rick Perry, so we can’t say either way…
Modern Zombies: Ms. “Hard Choices” and Mr. Brain-fog… we actually think we would be quite happy with never hearing about either of them again for the rest of our life…
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Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you.
That's so 1960's
This is the free shit millennium.
Not a bad article, but I guaran-fucking-tee you Hillary is worth order of magnitude more than 21 million. I doubt the Cheney number is very close either. Both of them are thieves and criminals, there's no way they haven't plundered more than that.
Meanwhile, in modern America:
Barry Hussein has still not been charged as an accessory before the fact, in the murder of Kathryn Steinle, even though his obvious treason and contempt for the law led directly to the death of this attractive, innocent woman.
This has legs. Every woman I talked to this week, was livid. Barry might want to hide out in his bunker for the next 500 days or so.
Well, there's the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea's bank accounts, who knows how many "dark" accounts, stashes of gold in Saudi Arabia, could be endless.
Cheney's 80 million is probably just spending money.
Cankles Clinton wants to put adults in camps. No shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBu9YsEAth4
She is full blown fuckan nut job. How can anyone listen to her spew that crap?
And every man is his own country.
Politcs = alcoholism....doing the same thing over & over (voting) and expecting a different result.
and why does this occur, re-occurr ad infinatium? because the "good" people can't stand the sight of blood - particularly their own.
It's not an accident that the middle class has been eviscerated.
Serfdoms are much easier for the ZWO puppet despots to have their way with.
The complete Lack of Leadership in the West is shameful. Surely there are natural born leaders out there. Gets me thinking it's not Leadership the Banksters seek.
Looking at the complete fiasco that is Greece, folks on their last legs while Euro/Goldman fiddles.
I think i can remember Jack Burton inferring they were a trained Veterinarian and the analogy i make is a horse falling over a steeplechase fence, breaking a front and hind leg and without hesitation Jack puts a pistol to its head.
Pure Cruelty to man is what's going on here.
You see how the British embraced Nigel Farage, not.
You can't live your life without having a leader?
Hard wired for serfdom, eh? Ants are too.
Even the mere MENTION of the Civil War given the current context (by making everything about "Johhny Reb" now) I find TRULY fucked up.
I mean seriously THE LAST NAME YOUWANT ENTERED INTO THE RECORD HERE IS ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
And yet...now we have that too incredibly.
At some point someone will ask "what did you do during the War?" here now.
So yes, certainly cynicism is indeed warranted. But so is HUMILITY.
LOOK AT THE FUCKING WAR DEAD ALONE!
"So now it's about who did what in the American Civil War"?
YOU GO THERE WASHINGTON DC!
Seriously...
"What's a Briton?
A Briton? YOU are a Briton....AND I AM YOUR KING!
THE LADY OF THE LAKE...HER LIKENESS SHIMMERING IN THE LIGHT BEHELD EXCALIBUR!
yeah, i'm starting to lose my mind too.
Sanders is the natural choice of the young Obummer voters. My idiot in-laws meanwhile, like Hitlery's toughness. As always, it's pure demographics.
Not that it matters, of course, as all it does is to serve divide and conquer, via those aforementioned idiots who proudly wear the label of "informed voters."
Talk about a free shit army, General Sanders would be the ultimate commander. Might be okay though because he would rapidly sink the listing carcass of the Republic and maybe we could start to rebuild.
I say it again: Statism has nothing to do with the corporate State you have in the USA.
You have Statism in Russia alright. Not in the USA, where corporations rule the State and not the opposite.
Why split hairs on defintions? We all know the lobbyists write the bills but they use the State to get things done.
Definition of STATISM : concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industryThat would be the definition of a perverted state.
There is good reason to split hairs on defintions for the fact that reason is good.
Oligarchy
If it wasnt for the recent hack on Gov workeres I would not have any Idea how many people work for the fed gov...
22 MILLION? WTF doing what? and Im assumming that number is just those that got background checks...
Im attempting to think about the last time anyone of those millions benefitted my daily life. Fighting terroism? puuuleeeeze
one more thing...A great idea for job recovery would be to ban Self -serve anything....Gas stations, Grocery stores etc..
You will be surprised when they put your potato chips and milk in the same bag. You will be real surprised if you get all the way home before you check on your dust.
I have about 4k left in BOFA, should I pull it now?
Hillary might give a great foot job, although I've never experienced such a thing.
Huma might object.
SH
The choices given us are thoroughly and completely vetted by the monied powers/establishment. Only those thus vetted are given a 'pass' by the MSM. Every candidate not vetted is excoriated, ignored, marginalized or relegated to the side lines. The two remaining candidates then talk about generalities or side track important topics with distractions. They promise many things but never tell us how they plan to accomplish them. The entire process has become a farce. It is very unfortunate and I, for one, am not sure of a remedy.
Demagoguery, they do! They are not against each other but for the same end.
The remedy is Article V or continue to boil like frogs.
I'm working on my rope knots, but it's (the rope) is not long enough. Can someone please advise regarding the height and drop? I really want it to end quick.
SH
That's so yesterday, now we use nailguns, quick and no need to have to use your brain.
Finally. An objective article on Greece. I mean, afterall, Dr. Rothbard would be so proud of they've run their country to date.
" Once they reach a certain size, they recognize that the best investment they can make is in politics. They hire lobbyists. They pay crony politicians.
In return, government enacts rules and regulations to stifle competition."
These words are the truth, a turth the liar media works hard to cover up, a truth the public education system is tasked by government with covering up, hiding and repressing. Students are taught to love war, government, military weapons, corporations, and laws. The gaining of knowledge and education of the mind is a thing from the ancient past. Public education wants willing soldiers, brain washed workers, willing debt slaves and followers. Education works to make you a follower, the leaders are the 1% and their banking dictators. We know who runs Bartertown! Washington is run by zionism, zionists fill nearly every post of any consequence, and they favor their own, at the expense of the rest of us.
You are mistaken. Replace the work Education with Indoctrination and you are on to it. Education teaches how to think. Indoctrination admonishes what to think.
Message to th voting cattle by Larken Rose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5FNDRgPOLs
Ya Gotta Vote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAJCFfVAdUg
Best line in song is: Extortion and thuggery are good things when ther'ye called LAW. Classic!!!!
New business Libertarian model.
Fuck the Poor - 25¢
You're an idiot. Libertarian "business" model is, get off your ass and take care of the poor. And oh, stop putting a gun to your neighbors head to make him do it, lazy slob.
My serious Libertarian friends tell me that name calling I.E. Ad Hominem attacks (one of the formal logical fallacies) instantly lose an argument. To further your loss you have hallucinated me putting a gun to my neighbor's head for some unexplained reason. Then you assume I am lazy and also a slob with no supporting facts.
You don't need to work on your argumentation; you need to find out what argumentation is in the first place.
Furthermore, getting off one’s ass and helping the poor doesn’t sound like Libertarian policy to me. It would be an altrustic act of which I don't think Ayn Rand would approve.
You apparently know as much about logical fallacies as you do about Ayn Rand or libertarians.
1) Ad hominen is an INFORMAL fallacy. If that was the extent of my argument, then MAYBE I instantly loose. In fact, however, it had no bearing on my argument. It was simply a point of fact.
An ad hominem fallcy would have been "You're wrong BECAUSE you're an idiot." No. I think it was clear. I said you're an idiot, AND you're wrong.
2) Ayn Rand had no problem with helping the poor. She would have even labelled it as selfish if it's what you wanted to do.
3) Libertarians aren't necessarily Objectivists.
"To further your loss you have hallucinated me putting a gun to my neighbor's head for some unexplained reason."
Really? You mean you don't want the government to FORCE me to support the poor? Because it's pretty obvious that's what you wanted the State for - or was a slam against libertarians on a post about Statism supposed to mean something else? Perhaps you mean we could OPTIONALLY give to "state" programs that help the poor if we WANTED to?
No, that's certainly not what you meant. You want me to support the poor, via the State, by COMPULSTION. And HOW does the state manifest that use of force? Because if it's not with a gun, I suppose I could simply say 'no.'
Now, apart form your childish idolization of State power as the source of all good, I suggest you do just a LITTLE BIT of research into how the welfare state PERPETUATES POVERTY.
I could suggest some places to start.
well said
"I only use the local monopoly of force because I'm afraid of guns."
A very popular argument amongst statist who think they're "freedom fighters".
Think about this gay marriage thing. It has gotten so bad, heterosexuals believe that they need the government to license their togetherness and now the gays want government licensing too.
Is there some kind of masters degree the government offers for licensing people and training them how to be married? If you are bad can .gov take your license away or make you pay every five years?
It is sick. Every where you look someone is looking to big bro for approval.
All the cool tee vee shows are about the FED tit sucks.
CP, you just made realize something: there is no difference, in procedure or requirements, between getting a marriage license and a dog license.
Marriage impacts income taxes, transfer of property rights, and other legal implications.
A dog license does not.
Perhaps you've forgotten that Louisiana once had blood tests for legal marriage in their state. It helped my native Arkansas in getting many couples to make the short drive to my southern border. El Dorado (Union County) issued quite a number of them!
I thought Hillary (or maybe it's the Clinton's) was actually worth over $100mil
I assume the Calipornia tech cartel is good then. "Ok...".
Imagine a future where anarchists live lives as divorced from the state as is conceivably possible. Imagine further that our system of ethics has begun to interpenetrate the larger society. Unlike today, a person’s status will be determined not just by their wealth, but also by the degree they have removed themselves from dependence on or connection to the state. Imagine anarchists as the pious priests of liberty – the new moral authority – dispassionately judging peoples’ failure or success in removing the state from their lives, and offering them counsel in how to better do so. A state may still exist in some form, but all respected people will condemn it – and attempt to solve their problems without it. Those who work for, use, or profit from the state will be made to feel shame. They will be embarrassed that they have not yet found a way to support themselves through honest labor. As they see people refusing the tainted money that they accept, and as they hear people condemning them for what they do, they will begin to think that other people must know something that they don’t. Their profits will not buy them respect. Marginalized, they will feel the need to justify themselves. They will feel a sense of moral anguish and a wish to redeem themselves. They will seek some moral authority who can give them absolution. As purveyors of the new ethics, anarchists must keep the price of redemption as high as possible.
http://anarchiststandard.com/2015/06/an-examination-of-the-ethics-of-int...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDKLF_WusZE
Murray Rothbard?
ho lee fuk
Yea. Tyler has gone Full Jewtard.
"Modern Zombies: Ms. “Hard Choices” and Mr. Brain-fog… we actually think we would be quite happy with never hearing about either of them again for the rest of our life…"
Best comment I've heard in a long long time
Come to Milwaukee! Have a beer / get shot. Good Times!
Sam Walton embodied American Capitalism, but Sam Walton was a greedy motherfucker that was anal retentive in terms of his personality and upbringing, as well as psychosexual development. In brief, Sam Walton got off on getting more, and more, of all market share to the exclusion of competition that may have augmented the Walmart market share in the long run if Sam Walton had the long range perspective that would have enabled a longer term existence of the life of the company.
Presently, and along the same trajectory as CAT, Walmart is now defunct, bankrupt, and so large that it cannot be broken up in time for the worldwide crash of the entire economic system.
NOTE: All BIG box Corporations are in the proverbial collective shitter Worldwide. The Ponzi Casino Capitalists thought they had the fixed markets locked down with financialization, REPO 105, FED & FCC collusion, and a regulatory body the size of a telephone booth to cover all of Wall Street. Simple fact of the matter is that the de Rothschild banking cartel wrongly thought that their Global Ponzi racket could not be penetrated, reverse engineered, and then engineered to destroy itself all in one hour, " Like a thief in the night ", motherfuckers.
:|
Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks.
- Mahatma Gandhi
The premise of this article is nonsense for the following reasons.
The problem is not any State, but the individuals that participate in the state.
We may simply say that the state of the individuals is what determines the state of the state.
A State does not corrupt the citizens. The citizens corrupt the state.
Again and as always, Ethics begets Politics and not vice versa:
"First, let us consider what is the purpose of a state, and how many forms of government there are by which human society is regulated. We have already said, in the first part of this treatise, when discussing household management and the rule of a master, that man is by nature a political animal. And therefore, men, even when they do not require one another’s help, desire to live together; not but that they are also brought together by their common interests in proportion as they severally attain to any measure of well-being. This is certainly the chief end, both of individuals and of states. And also for the sake of mere life (in which there is possibly some noble element so long as the evils of existence do not greatly overbalance the good) mankind meet together and maintain the political community. And we all see that men cling to life even at the cost of enduring great misfortune, seeming to find in life a natural sweetness and happiness....
...But nowadays, for the sake of the advantage which is to be gained from the public revenues and from office, men want to be always in office. One might imagine that the rulers, being sickly, were only kept in health while they continued in office; in that case we may be sure that they would be hunting after places. The conclusion is evident: that governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice, and are therefore true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen...
...Having determined these points, we have next to consider how many forms of government there are, and what they are; and in the first place what are the true forms, for when they are determined the perversions of them will at once be apparent. The words constitution and government have the same meaning, and the government, which is the supreme authority in states, must be in the hands of one, or of a few, or of the many. The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the common interest; but governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether of the one or of the few, or of the many, are perversions. For the members of a state, if they are truly citizens, ought to participate in its advantages. Of forms of government in which one rules, we call that which regards the common interests, kingship or royalty; that in which more than one, but not many, rule, aristocracy; and it is so called, either because the rulers are the best men, or because they have at heart the best interests of the state and of the citizens. But when the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name — a constitution. And there is a reason for this use of language. One man or a few may excel in virtue; but as the number increases it becomes more difficult for them to attain perfection in every kind of virtue, though they may in military virtue, for this is found in the masses. Hence in a constitutional government the fighting-men have the supreme power, and those who possess arms are the citizens.
...Of the above-mentioned forms, the perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy, of the needy: none of them the common good of all...
...The discussion of the first question shows nothing so clearly as that laws, when good, should be supreme; and that the magistrate or magistrates should regulate those matters only on which the laws are unable to speak with precision owing to the difficulty of any general principle embracing all particulars. But what are good laws has not yet been clearly explained; the old difficulty remains. The goodness or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with the constitutions of states. This, however, is clear, that the laws must be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government will of necessity have just laws, and perverted forms of government will have unjust laws...
... Now what is just or right is to be interpreted in the sense of ‘what is equal’; and that which is right in the sense of being equal is to be considered with reference to the advantage of the state, and the common good of the citizens. And a citizen is one who shares in governing and being governed. He differs under different forms of government, but in the best state he is one who is able and willing to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue...
...The first governments were kingships, probably for this reason, because of old, when cities were small, men of eminent virtue were few. Further, they were made kings because they were benefactors, and benefits can only be bestowed by good men. But when many persons equal in merit arose, no longer enduring the pre-eminence of one, they desired to have a commonwealth, and set up a constitution. The ruling class soon deteriorated and enriched themselves out of the public treasury; riches became the path to honor, and so oligarchies naturally grew up. These passed into tyrannies and tyrannies into democracies; for love of gain in the ruling classes was always tending to diminish their number, and so to strengthen the masses, who in the end set upon their masters and established democracies....
...And the rule of the law, it is argued, is preferable to that of any individual. On the same principle, even if it be better for certain individuals to govern, they should be made only guardians and ministers of the law. For magistrates there must be — this is admitted; but then men say that to give authority to any one man when all are equal is unjust. Nay, there may indeed be cases which the law seems unable to determine, but in such cases can a man? Nay, it will be replied, the law trains officers for this express purpose, and appoints them to determine matters which are left undecided by it, to the best of their judgment. Further, it permits them to make any amendment of the existing laws which experience suggests. Therefore he who bids the law rule may be deemed to bid God and Reason alone rule, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast; for desire is a wild beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are the best of men. The law is reason unaffected by desire...
...We maintain that the true forms of government are three, and that the best must be that which is administered by the best, and in which there is one man, or a whole family, or many persons, excelling all the others together in virtue, and both rulers and subjects are fitted, the one to rule, the others to be ruled, in such a manner as to attain the most eligible life. We showed at the commencement of our inquiry that the virtue of the good man is necessarily the same as the virtue of the citizen of the perfect state. Clearly then in the same manner, and by the same means through which a man becomes truly good, he will frame a state that is to be ruled by an aristocracy or by a king, and the same education and the same habits will be found to make a good man and a man fit to be a statesman or a king.
Having arrived at these conclusions, we must proceed to speak of the perfect state, and describe how it comes into being and is established...." ~http://genius.com/Aristotle-politics-book-3-annotated/
Perhaps, another great corruption is the private demagoguery and sensationalist journalism that rides the coattails of corruption with a vested interest in its persistence?
Absolutely dead on. Further we should stop enabling them dehumanizing the institutions like in this article. It isn't the government that does these awful things, its the people in government. When we assign these deeds to a faceless concept we let the people get away with their deeds because we feel powerless to standup against some immortal I situation. We need to repersonalize these things we depersonalized to make their immoral deeds more salient.
Karl? Is that you?
I loved your brother groucho's movies.
Gov't is the problem. Even Sam walton couldn't force you to buy his products. He didn't have an army. He couldn't tax you. He didn't control the media. He couldn't make you do shit.
Radical for Laissez Faire Capitalism, here, in the Walter Williams sense of the identification.
Evidently you are befuddled by my posts at Mises.org where no one can rebuke, by facts, the facts I have pointed out that the defenders of the Misian faith have overlooked. I have rolled the golden apple in to the discussion; the students are confused and the teachers are in mitigation mode.
Karl Marx labor theory of value is wrong. Value is determined by voluntary demand, not labor qua labor.
So where as Marx attaches all of value to the labor, Mises attaches zero to the labor and says the MOE is the value (and Nothing Else!)
I simply point out that if value is determined by voluntary demand, then let's ask, "demand for what?" What is demand? Thus the work performed must be productive in order to meet the demand. And of course, the MOE (medium of exchange) is then introduced only because productive work has been performed. The MOE is necessary to equalize the value of disproportionate productive work.
You are in over your head, my friend. Please try again.
I can never remember which pill I am supposed to take.
I am pretty sure we met in the coffee shop with the dim lights in the Union at University of Wisconsin in 1987. You were the one quoting Aristotle trying to snag the bookish hipster poonana.
"man is free we say who exists for his sake and not for another's"
Say as you please.
If you wish not to discuss the facts that I have stated, then please evade them.
OK I'll bite.
"and by the same means through which a man becomes truly good"
Man can only be "truly good" when he follows Jesus. Men are corrupt by nature. Unless his behavior his directed by the Holy Spirit and scripture he can do no good. Aristotle looked for the good man where there was none.
Does the Christian man become "good"? No. He can behave in good ways at God's good pleasure, but until he is perfected at death, where the urge to sin is gone is he good.
So rotsa ruck on a good human government.
Well designed? Showing some promise? Kinda works in the early going? Perhaps.
There were good people. There are good people. That one attains the good is determined by their actions accorded by their choice. Thus, good human action is moral.
Aristotle secularized the good and anchored to the facts, to man qua man.
What I am pointing out is the article sides with Plato, not Aristotle. That is that the state exists first, that the good state is defined and then the role of individuals are determined from the purpose of the state. That is Plato, and the gist of this article. Aristotle starts with the good individual and then the state is determined from the purpose of the individual. That is not the gist of this article. This article says all states are inherently evil, that it is the state's fault that individuals do bad things. That premise is false.
So are you saying Plato's utopia is possible then?
Article: The masses think business people are greedy SOBs.
Answer: In large corporations, they are greedy thieves.
The executives in virtual every large corporation are greedy SOB thieves. How so? They see spending on lobbyists and political contributions/bribes generates more return on investment than productive activity. And so they "go corrupt".
And if they won't "go corrupt", they are soon replaced by the board or shareholders by any means necessary.
And so, virtually all large corporations become part of government, part of the racket, part of the scam, and pure predators.
Since a great many people think of "large corporations" as "capitalism" (rather than "tiny/small corporations"), the masses come to hate capitalism. Given what they believe IS capitalism, they are correct to arrive at their conclusion.
My attitude about the state is this:
Like a gun owner that has shot many times at the gun range. Taken a combat gun course. Practiced and trained on what to do in common situations. Has prepared their minds for the possible need to kill. And then one night hears an intruder downstairs going thru the silverware--Oh yeah!
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Reduce guillotine unemployment.
You say, "They [the public] think business people are greedy SOBs. But they often hold the fellows who run the government racket in the same exalted category as saints, TV stars, and sports heroes."
95% of the public has a blind loyalty to the government Establishment and I believe the source of this blind loyalty is the injury of the public through vaccines, GMOs and fluoride resulting in the government being viewed as the safe haven to treat this toxic injury.
You can't get the toxically injured sheeple to turn on their saviors and recognize they are also the enemy.
I know a friend that rails against the Fed in league with several government agencies in it's suppression of interest rates and the gold price.
But he has an obsessively blind loyalty to the Establishment while he chain-smokes to distract himself from his toxic injury.
I believe the most toxically injured are the most fearful, anxious and depressed and are blindly loyal to Big Government to save them. It's mind control and capture through injury.
That's why our corporate controllers are so adamant about fluoridating even bottled water, jabbing our infants within hours of
birth with a toxic vaccine and spending millions to keep us in the dark while feeding us unlabeled GMOs with toxic Roundup they snuck into our food in 1996.
The know that healthy people have a natural independence and contempt for any coercive force over them and all they have to do is make the public into patients instead of promoting health and independence. That's why it's so important to stop the capturing process by stopping the poisoning.
We not only have an overpopulation problem of blindly loyal sheeple but they're toxic and dependent on Big Government keeping them alive. We're facing a double cluster of massive numbers that are super poisoned.
Let the rude wake up and violence begin because they are unlikely to recognize, much less remove the poisons from their body. As Mark Twain said, "It's easier to fool the public than to convince them they have been fooled"
Harry Truman said, "Anyone who gets rich in politics is a God Damned crook!"
The only way to stop the corruption, is use Madison's plan in # 10 of the Federalist Papers, pit faction againts faction. But take it to the extreme... a Fourth Branch.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/277193
The State. Try as they might have, the founding fathers of this Republic gave it their best shot at creating a small government responsible to the people. Their big mistake was believing that government would stay small. When you give the monopoly of violence over a certain territory, there is no such thing as a government that will remain small. Power feeds upon itself until it grows bigger than the economy that supports it. This is the flaw that the founders didn't see coming, even though history is replete with examples of such. We have reached the stage of peak government. It is now too big for the economy, to the detriment of all citizens. They are at the stage where they have to just print money out of thin air just to keep things from collapsing. What's next is a bit scary. It's called collapse, but in the case of this government, they won't go quietly into the night. They will attempt to keep power through force. The examples are right in our face. 1,200 FEMA Camps built and being staffed. Jade Helm prepositioning troops and equipment all over the country, not just the SW States on the map. The UN prepositioning equipment all around the country as seen in many alternative news web sites. Hell, even the Oathkeepers are talking about it and trying to organize more vets and on-duty military and law enforcement officers. The future is bleak.
I don't like Rick Perry. He says what is politically expedient at the moment and goes for the momentum. Smart, but weak in the long run. Think Romney is weak? Perry would prove not much stronger if truly someone put his huevos into the political vise on the national level. Other than his hair, I just don't see him being true Presidential material.
Hillary is not as weak as the author implies. Bear in mind, her campaign manager made Bilderberg's meetup in Austria. She's being groomed for the role as Obama was some 7 years or so ago. Hells Bells, she ran the White House in the 90's and gets to run it again if elected! I never trusted that heifer and always voted against her when she was on Wal-Mart's Board of Directors (as a shareholder is capable of doing) and after Bengazigate, Cattlegate, and the like, I can't trust her now.
Rand is a bit young to be President, and not because of his age. It's the collective brainwashing and government giveouts which make matters rather difficult for him, and I sense Rand still has much to learn as he's not quite the same as his father, who I voted for in the Iowa Straw Poll and later the Election where I now live. He's trying to do a tightrope walk, fiddlefooting with factions he likely disagrees with. It simply won't work, at least for now. The only exception I see is if the economy craters between now and the election next year. Sadly, we may well be involved in a global war (WW III) as bank$ter desperation may invoke such to keep said cratering from occurring, with a strong societal revolution by the Sheeple that changes the tables, not just the musical chairs or status quo we've endured. The reset WILL happen though - simply delayed, and I predict this even if a significant part of the global population is exterminated as a global reset has to occur. Derivative garbage is much of my reasoning for this.
That leaves Trump. The Trump Card is becoming far more visible as of late. He's much like Perot and Mad Max with a bad combover combined. The Donald could truly disrupt this election cycle. He resonates with so many as they see the Inner Beltway nonsense and they want someone who won't be bought out and has a rough-assed edge to them. In the South, it's said "It ain't workin'" and that's why Don stands a really decent chance, as long as he doesn't go all-out ridiculous, such as drowning a bag of kittens or biting heads off fluffy chicks on TV.