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Guest Post: When Governments Go Rogue
Submitted by Brandon Smith from Alt Market
When Governments Go Rogue
There are those today who would claim that the lifeblood of a nation is dependent upon the graces of its government. That government is the focal point of cultural growth, and that we as citizens should respect it as such. I would be more inclined to agree if the public did not so easily confuse the ideals of leadership with the actions of criminals. That is to say, regardless of what we wish our government to be, bureaucracies rarely, if ever, embody the spirit of the common man (a necessity for any system that purports to defend the citizenry). Instead, bureaucracies almost inevitably deteriorate into vehicles for the perpetuation of tyranny driven by the very worst of all stewards; elitist minorities with delusions of godhood.
Unfortunately, despite this fact, the masses often treat these industrious vermin and the plagues of society that they build with the same reverence as they would a sincere and honorable body politic.
Government is not nor has it ever been a foregone conclusion. Government is not concrete. It is not tangible. It is not the foundation of society. Instead, government is an abstraction; a fantastic dream of collectivist paternity in the face of individual hardship. Those who fear to wander the world on their own courage, strength, and merit, seek to elevate and empower “decision makers” to provide the comfort of limited liability. Through this process, governments are created out of thin air. All governmental authority is, thus, HANDED to those in positions of leadership. What makes one man a “king” and another man a “peasant”? Only the people of a country, and where they choose to place their personal control; in their own hands, or the hands of others.
To put it simply, there is no power over us but that which we give away, and no freedom lost, that cannot be regained.
Until this reality is understood, consecutive generations of human beings will be left to wonder astonished at the endless atrocities of governments they thought they could trust. The truth is, no government, no matter how seemingly noble, deserves our full faith. All governments must be treated like storehouses of aging dynamite; with extreme vigilance, care, and suspicion, because, it is in the very nature of centralized power to sink towards destabilization and disaster.
The American dynamic was meant to be different. For the first time in history, a group of people organized an administrative body which was predicated upon the will of the general populace and not the will of the incorporated elite. The Constitution was the first legal document designed to LIMIT the power of government, not endlessly exonerate it. Though many in our modern age have become completely ignorant of its original intent, the Constitution and its written protections allowed for the first decentralized government of the Western world, if not the entire world. A government which was specifically tasked with shielding the rights of the individual beyond the desires of the mindless “majority”, or the normally influential aristocracy.
Obviously, we have strayed far and away beyond the schematics set forth by the founding fathers.
Let us finally be honest with ourselves and say it out loud; our government is not Constitutional! It has become a mutation. A monstrosity. A malformed creature given birth by the oozing genetic material of mad social scientists hell bent on dominating the building blocks of our political life. It is a thing to be abhorred, not admired, and certainly not to be trusted.
The statement above may be confusing to those who have relegated their concerns to the immediate. If one is free to walk about the streets, keep a job, have a drink, and settle in front of his television for hours on end, then what is there to be worried about? If he is not directly affected by the ill notions of men in far off banks and capitols, then why care at all? If the pain of government criminality only strikes people from “other” cultures, or other walks of life, why be concerned? For those who actually suffer from this brand of idiocy, I can only relate the unwarranted role that our government has assumed within our society and hope that they begin to realize how extraordinarily unsafe they really are. The injustices visited upon the few are invariably visited upon the many in time, especially where a rogue government resides.
The kind of intrusion by government allowed by the American people today is utterly astounding. Bank records, medical records, political viewpoints, phone conversations, emails, child rearing practices, food eating habits, health pursuits, social networking habits, biometric data, travel; nothing is safe from the prying eyes of government anymore.
At what point did we as a nation decide that the government’s opinion of the domestic ideal should become the precedent? At what point did we decide that a faceless bureaucracy knows better than we do what is best for us? When did our lives become an open book to be read at the government’s leisure?
I say “we decided”, because we must bear a large part of the blame. From the institution of the Patriot Acts, to the utilization of the FISA domestic spying bill, to the latest monitoring and cataloging by the DHS and the Federal Reserve of private internet activity, we have stood by and done little to nothing in response.
The argument put forth by establishment proponents has always been that the government’s task is to keep us safe. In order to do this, they say, there can be nowhere for “evil doers” to hide. Therefore, the privacy of every individual must be sacrificed for the greater good of the greater number. This argument is unabashed nonsense.
Governments do not keep people safe. Governments are historically predisposed to ending far more lives than they protect, especially when they have strayed from their original mandates. When a government goes rogue, or has been honed as a tool for control rather than defense, its directives lean towards self preservation, not the preservation of the public. That is to say, the government and those who directly benefit from its manipulation set policies that ensure their own safety, and no one else’s.
Without a doubt, all the anti-4th Amendment legislation that has been passed over the course of last decade is focused not on some sinister force, foreign or domestic. Instead, it has been focused on average American citizens, because, whether we want to admit it or not, the government sees US as their greatest enemy.
There was a time when even I would have considered this view as a bit “extreme”. However, I would now have to point out the introduction of bills and executive orders like the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, which essentially erases Posse Comitatus and allows for Martial Law to be instituted with extreme prejudice under executive authority:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:H.R.5122:
http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911/
As well as the attempted passage of the Enemy Belligerents Act, which would allow for the capture, torture, and indefinite incarceration of American citizens as “enemy combatants:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s3081/show
Not to mention the National Emergency Centers Act which allows for the detention of civilians in military and FEMA run facilities:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-645
Or the Obama Administration’s continuance of Bush doctrine which allows for the assassination of U.S. citizens designated as “enemy combatants”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen.html
And most recently, the National Defense Authorization Act, a defense spending action which is being used to coattail legislation which decimates all Constitutional checks and balances and leaves the door open for the government to declare any region they wish a “combat zone”. These provisions are just a rewritten combination of the Enemy Belligerents Act (both bills were fostered by the hand of John McCain) and the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, giving government free reign to designate any person, even an American citizen, as an enemy combatant. This means that anyone, including you, could one day be detained without Habeas Corpus, without fair trial, without due process, without legal representation, forever. Period.
You think rendition only occurs in Middle Eastern hellholes? Think again. With these bills and others like them, the American public is now fair game.
Rationalizations for the above actions abound. Some of the most common naïve positions include the following:
1) Assassinations Against Al Qaeda Agents, Even If They Are American Citizens, Is Justifiable
The nature of the target is irrelevant to the principle underlying the situation. I don’t care if Anwar al-Awlaki was an agent of Hades, the conscience of a country must take precedence over the short term threats that country faces. If a society is unable to maintain its conscience and its principles in the face of hardship, then perhaps that society is not worthy of survival. There are, indeed, many more important things than national security.
This is how all tyranny begins; with a small group or element of a culture singled out for the loss of human rights, while the rest of the people look on and cheer. Eventually, the exception to the rule becomes the rule, and everyone suffers. Under no circumstances should our government be allowed to rewrite Constitutional protections or our moral compass, even if it means giving so called “terrorists” fair treatment under the law. Never forget, the term “terrorist” is as arbitrary as any nowadays, and could be used against you as easily as it could be used against anyone else.
2) The Domestic Realm Is A Haven For “Homegrown Terrorists”
Again, “homegrown terrorism” is a highly arbitrary label. If one looks at statements and white papers coming from the Department Of Homeland Security, or the Department Of Justice, anyone from Constitutionalists, to Ron Paul supporters, to militia members, to barter networkers and sound money proponents, or anyone who even expresses an interest in any of these subjects, is considered a potential domestic terrorist threat.
Where is this headed? Think about it. If these types of people are already being categorized as extremists, what’s to stop the government form categorizing them as enemy combatants?
3) Rendition And Torture Could Save Lives
Okay. Let’s say for the sake of argument that rendition and torture actually could save some lives, though I have never heard of any of these Jack Bauer moments taking place in the real world. Let’s say my life and those I love could be spared. Frankly, I would rather die than be a party to behavior as reprehensible as kidnapping and torture. I couldn’t care less about the theoretical benefits of the activity. As stated earlier, a nation hanging by the poisonous framework of moral relativism is doomed to failure and decay. Despite the propaganda often spread by elitist elements without our government, our military, and our local law enforcement, you DO NOT need to become the monster in order to defeat the monster. This lie should not be allowed to stand…
4) You Are “Overreacting” To The Legislation, And Americans Will Not Be Targeted
Senator Lindsay Graham, a backer of the National Defense Authorization Act, specifically outlined the bill’s jurisdiction over American citizens and even admitted it makes the U.S. itself a “combat zone” under the international laws of war (while at the same time presenting the lie that Federal due process would somehow be enforced for those who are captured). We who oppose the bill could do a lot more without being rightfully accused of “overreaction”. If Americans are not to be targeted, then why create the bill in the first place? Traditional laws of war would be more than sufficient to handle foreign threats, and domestic response agencies like the FBI could easily continue doing whatever it is they supposedly do to safeguard our country. The ONLY reason to introduce a bill which frees the U.S. Government and the DHS to act militarily within the borders of our own nation would be to target U.S. citizens, and to undermine normal Constitutional processes.
The legislation is self-incriminating. Only a complete dullard would argue otherwise.
5) The Government Is A Body Elected By The People, Therefore They Are One And The Same
The only practical explanation I can think of for someone to actually believe this argument is overmedication. Despite what we’re all taught in middle school, our government as it exists today and has for many decades does not represent the will of the people. Two dominant political parties with cosmetic differences in rhetoric but nearly identical legislative platforms and voting records is not an expression of a legitimately free republic. The system revolves around corporate ideologies of globalization, not elections. Its beneficiaries are a limited and powerful fringe of society, not the masses. It is a rigged game. A fake battle between two gladiators owned by the same Caesar. To say that the people and the government are one-in-the-same is a gross error in judgment.
After researching and acknowledging the course our government has taken, the question then arises; what is the ultimate end result? Barring multiple miracles of a complete economic turnaround, full third party inclusion in our political structure, the deconstruction of the Federal Reserve, the decentralization of financial influence, the reintroduction of Constitutional insulation degraded since 2001, and the complete pullback of troops involved in ongoing wars in the Middle East, there can be only one outcome: total conflict.
We did not create this division. The American people did not ask to be targeted. Though we certainly have not done enough to fend off the numerous attacks upon our general liberties, the root of the problem still lay within the core of our government, the puppet leaders who abuse it, and the corporate elitists who use it as a staging ground for personal agendas. We have become two separate groups that cannot and will not be reconciled. The government is openly admitting this through legislation like the National Defense Authorization Act. Its time we did the same.
When two forces diametrically opposed exist upon the same ground at the same time with the same force of will, war erupts. A war of philosophies, a war of dissent, and sometimes, a war of weapons. As unsettling as that might sound, we must take solace in the fact that we at least fight for what is honest. If every American must conform to the twisted path our government has chosen, or be branded an ‘enemy combatant”, then may we all become domestic threats in our own backyard.
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If you learn some history you'll see that our government was never intended to allow the people to rule. The Bill of Rights was a cosmetic concession by the elites who wanted to combine the early colonies (of people who were rightfully suspicious of kings and rulers) into a federal government, and it has never been obeyed by the elites who rule us. The only difference is that they have stopped pretending.
WOW! Ann Barnhardt is ranting and on the warpath!
She's closed her commodity brokerage firm but she's got a whole lot to say about corrupt markets, MF Global and what to own now.
http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/guest-expert/2011...
She is off her lithium and on a manic crusade.
I know a bipolar when I see one.
We need them because they are the only ones crazy enough to throw away a career and attempt to change society from their soapbox.
All women are are nuts. It's the ones that are a "trip to crazy town" you have to watch out for. Move along.
George Carlin......We Like War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDkhzHQO7jY&feature=related
"Our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred
in...war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda
of fear."
-– General Douglas MacArthur
To me the threat is real but the attempt at implementing the new laws being passed will backfire all the way until the banksters and those that took their bribes, to draw up the anti-american laws, will be swinging from the gallows. The pendulum will swing and back on them.
They do not have experience with today's world enough to know the outcome of what they are putting into law.
Most people seem to believe at this time already that the evildoers are the bankers and the politicians that took their bribes.
When the shit hits the fan the very first persons to be brought before the courts are those now passing unenforcable anti-american laws.
When the riots in L.A. occurred the police all hid. The morons that they are hiring now will turn on a dime. Unless all the relatives of TSA, FEMA and DHS are also being paid to defend the crooks the only thing that will happen is that the employees of those agencies will help their relatives jail the crooks.
Many millions of people over the world are learning what the elites look like and where to find them in case an emergency breaks out.
Control of money and power will quickly be lost in a major catastrophy. Elite will turn against elite. Mass hysteria is not something that can be planned for effectively.
A much better solution for backers of the New World Order would be to bring back the law and prosecute the violators.
Compared to the uncertainty of the alternative it does not make good sense not to prosecute a few thousand bankers and politicians. Hell if a few of the elite decided to make the move to do that now they could easily set a few of their enemies up to take the fall.
They have a choice and they can make a difference now. They would have the citizens of all the counties of the world to back them.
I lived with a few artist elites that were in their 20s. They were the children of the old fucks that lived through the hard times of the middle 20th century. They are the ones now inheriting the wealth of their dying parents. My observation was and is that they hated crooked politicians and bankers. It is the old fucks that are dying off that feel there is some urgency to see their misguided dreams unfold before they pass away that are dangerous and losing touch.
Have faith that the people that have the monetary rescources and the people of the world will restore law and order within their seperate countries, states and communities.
I guess if the families of the elites felt like living through a planetary wide apocalypse due to an economic collapse with all the uncertainties then you might see the implimentation of the laws being passed.
More reasonably what you will see unfold is the prosecution of those that are passing such laws.
Those that are elderly and have an old perspective or dream based on that perspective shall pass away with it. No matter how much money and power they control Life will bring about the change that no politician can.
At this rate, people will start embracing the ideologies of the Communist manifesto, such as coming around to the notion that "property is theft". Think about it. Whoever owns you, IS stealing from you, be it Government, some faceless corporation, or the little family business owner.
A logical conclusion?
It's the "Fever for the Flavor"....and perception
....or in the case of their most commonly used devices:
The Propaganda Pandas shoving the "Jim Jones Coctails" down yer throats
They control the transmission
Sandinistas (bad....bad)
Interventionistas (FED Reserve Bank....good....necessary)
When you have 90% of the populace oblivious to the machinations taking place behind the curtains....and 50% of the populace tethered to the govt. teets and umbilical cord of free handouts....you have too many willing participants in the march to a totalitarian police state
Stupidity and willful ignorance is more than a condition....or an affliction. It's a cancer in the latter stages....not alot of cures for it besides bloody revolution.
Lindsey Graham and his co-conspirators in the Legislative branch are not only war mongers....they are traitors to the constitution.
The return of the guillotine is most likely what's necessary to restore the Republic....problem is....the enemy has control over the minds of the military. The military service members have nary a clue they are breaking their oaths.
They have become the enablers....of the real domestic terrorists
FASHION: Effective low rate inflation targeting over the rainbow leads to mispriced risk and its consequences, too.
Artificially low rates arising out of inflation targeting too low leading to risk mispricing such that the losses incurred have a component of risk 'not priced' which realized as a loss create negative growth. So a targeted too low rate of 2 percent encumbered by losses of 1 percent (the risk not priced) leads to an effective rate of 1 percent which also trends downward as well. Uncorrected recession occurs under 2 percent trending and below zero one has deflation trending.
THe relationship of risk to lending is encapsulated in the correct pricing of risk such that it should compensate the lender for a borrower set's total losses over the term of the rate. The elusive value of circulation of money converges to zero with zero capital growth.
There is effectively no money supply when money is not lent or borrowed when money cannot buy and it is not worth it to sell for--no matter how much money is in supply. Free market rates determined by supply (willing lenders) and demand (borrowers willing to pay a fair rate for the risk they represent) do not need 'rate targeting'.
Central economist banker actions become inert before humans' unwillingness to take risk for a perceived negative or underpriced return. In this latter sense circulation of money always has trumped supply of money having met (or intersected) at Zero.
A few men have the hubris to try to control the supply of money but it is the many who circulate money and control whether it flows at all. As simple as that.
Targeting rates assumes knowledge about what an appropriate rate would be, which is an assumption that is completely unfounded as no one sees into the future. And controlling money supply ignoring the price of rates relative to the real underlying risk allows bankers and politicians to drag us forward into the mire of their stupidity and greed's poverty inducing disasters.
Nor is 'economic' knowledge more than a speculation , an ideology crutch, with only the most tenuous relationship to empirical sciences. No actual economic theory has useful applied predictive power;economics as practiced would be more accurately descrbed as'speculativistic.' There is much said looking back as if economic actions were effective and not ratioinalized post facto discussion ambiguous as the cosmic chance of what came to pass.
Astrology has far firmer grounding in empirical science than economist equational theoretical abstractions lost touch from their underlying. Economic theories over a Gaussian curve rainbow randomly right or wrong with an agenda is far worse than not messing with something you actually know nothing about. The delusional witch doctors and theives should be tossed out thats a start.
At the end some math is done --some statistics-- and it doesn't add up does it?
Amen!
Misguided article is misguided. It is not just governments that are the problem. It is that governments and corporations have effectively merged. Similar to the political system in Italy between WWI and WWII under Mussolini.
Repeat: corporations and governments have merged.
The people don't stand a chance. Unless...
I still think Americans are overly hung up over The Constitution and what the Founding Fathers were and/or meant when they drew it up.
They weren't extraordinarily gifted (as many might have you believe ) in foreseeing anything and everything that might happen in the future, no-one is, so get over it!
Large governemnt is likely to be a mirror of how well or how badly the private sector has taken up the reins of the economy, isn't it? With all the jobs that have fled corporate America to end up in some far eastern country, it is they who have sold America (the West in general) down the river. At least governments employ the local populace...and you'd have that go too???
Eventually the people lose the ability to pay for the government services that you speak of. What happens next? Let's face reality, the vast majority of the american public is enamored with their access to electronic media. Zerohedge, excluded.
In our present environment the government is the economy, it was never intended to be that way. IMO, the founders intended the government to provide infrastructure and protection from physical harm (wars, murder, theft). Outside of that they wanted government to be transparent. Paraphrasing here, those that trade temporary security for freedeom do not deserve that freedom. You can see this principle being displayed continuesly as people want the government to protect them from every simple perceived harmful act. Each time legislation is enacted the government gains added authority.
If the government fears the people there is freddom. If the people fear the government there is tyranny.
Offtopic here, but anyway:
I have to say the Germans surprise me with their stubborn resistance to printing. I was sure they do not rule their own country much more than we (Poland) do, but it appears there is some true independence left there. Puzzling. I still think they'll be forced to print one way or another though.
DAX up 1.7% on Merkel's "marathan crisis" speech. My shorts were stopped. I am out. No more shorting for me. 250% long.
do not go long, go AWOL.
Right on, brother.
AWOL = Advance Warning On Long
I agree 100% - a very important article which throws light on the basic problem.
This conditions and the growing superstition of people mainly result due the fact, that press and medias are part of this game. Oligarch, highly manipulating structures - serving the same elitist minorities - should be forbidden.
Elections are not free until this doesn't happen.
Banana republics like Costa Rica or moving north to Canada is looking better every day. The meek have inherited the United States of America. Hiding in the hills of South Carolina or Montana and Idaho will only prolong what's inevitable when Viceroys like McCain and Lindsay take over their fiefdoms. These countries may be even better investments than the US and Europe. I never thought this day would come in my lifetime, but here it is. I guess it's time to emigrate to another land of opportunity every 300 or 400 years or so.
"Viceroys like McCain and Lindsay take over their fiefdoms"... classic. +4 trillion.
Great piece Brandon Smith! I wish I had the resources to print it out and mail to everyone I know. I will share this as a link with many on my email list.
Thanks
"The Constitution was the first legal document designed to LIMIT the power of government, not endlessly exonerate it."
Magna Carta?
Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of achieving, and where the members of society least likely to succeed or even to sustain themselves, are abundantly rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Think all this bullshit is bad? Wait until SOPA passes. Then it will be illegal to think, link web pages, and jack off to porn.
Sexually frustrated males do not make for an easy constiuentcy to control.
Excuse me but it has become abundantly clear that Americans and their elected representatives are truly scary ass sick fucks!
"I would be more inclined to agree if the public did not so easily confuse the ideals of leadership with the actions of criminals"
Leaders who exercise a monopoly on justice and violence are criminals, there is no confusion there.
I wish we would dispense with this childish, offensive, and misanthropic Hobbesian notion that free people need leaders, elected or unelected. It, of course, is what gave rise to the ludicrous neo-liberal programme of "what you cannot do for yourself, the state can do for you" - a statement of pure Marxist sentiment in the most literal sense - which has resulted in societies comprised of helpless, hapless, and hopeless adult children: exactly the kind of serf who requires strong leadership by a strong state. It is unreasonable to expect more from men and women suckled from birth at the teat of the Savior State. A solution which exacerbates the problem it purported to solve.
Economic entities, groups of people voluntarily associating in dissoluble contractual relationships for a common purpose and gain engaging in free enterprise, do often need leadership to realize their goal
People and societies do not. Recursively decentralize your institutions until none but the voluntary and beneficial are left.
Also can we please dispense with the "America was supposed to be/is different" high-school-civics-class rhetoric. The only differences are of degree, not kind.
Thanks for a well written and refreshingly disturbing article.
I would feel very worried about the future if I lived in the US.
whoever wrote this piece is a damn good writer that can really flip a phrase. The writing on ZH is always good but this is the best written article I've seen here in awhile. My congrats to the author on some mighty fine wordsmanship.
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