Who Picks Up the Trash?

Some have said that Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan and other titans of industry at the turn of the century wanted to replace the older education system with a new one that would not produce "highly educated, independent-thinking" competitors to the established family dynasties.

In particular, the rising tide of immigrants was a fearful prospect. Those who left tyrannical governments and made the sacrifice to travel to America were usually the most intelligent, the most independent-thinking, the most talented, and therefore the most competitive to the establishment. They willingly took the most menial jobs, and exploited the freedom that once existed in America to rise to become powerful businessmen.

The modern public education system helps protect the Establishment.

Diane Ravitch, writing in the Huffington Post, says an Establishment educator named

Gerald Bracey ... wrote in an education journal called "Phi Delta Kappan" (October 1991) that as a society "we must continue to produce an uneducated social class" that "will sweep the streets, unclog sewers, scrub toilets, pick up trash, bus tables or mop floors -- no matter what the wages."

Ravitch notes that

The latest international assessment (the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA) shows that our students score behind many other developed nations in math, and our top-scoring students are statistically behind their peers in 23 of 30 developed nations in math.

When we think of "developing nations," we think of illiterate non-white masses who would do a fine job cutting our grass and clearing our tables. But if we let them all in, we could well be letting in superior people who will compete against us.

Immigration laws and dumbed-down public schools are therefore in the interest of the rich and powerful Family Dynasties -- as well as "white trash," who could lose their low-end but often union-protected jobs to immigrants. Instead of getting manual laborers from developing countries, the Establishment creates their serfs from among Americans in the public school system.

Manual labor jobs should not be seen as perpetual assignments, but as learning stations. Colonial Americans were also educated in systems of apprenticeship, which have now been destroyed by Child-Labor Laws and minimum wage laws. Perhaps there are some who reach their full potential in such jobs, but many others could move upward if it were not for various government regulations and restrictions on their freedom to gain the ability to compete.

Weekend Reading

Army probes claims of US funds flowing to Afghan insurgents

Guest Post: Is the U.S. a Fascist Police-State? zero hedge

The American Conservative » Terminators of the Skies

N Korea seeks $75 trillion in compensation - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

How many Americans are targeted for assassination? - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Mere Anarchy « J. Neil Schulman

Your Papers, Please!

Imagine Obama issues an executive decree, or Congress passes a law, that says nobody can worship on Sundays without a permit. Without "documentation." Without papers.

I would never call anyone who violated this law and worshipped on Sunday an "illegal worshipper," or an "undocumented worshipper." This is because there is no Constitutional authority for such a law. Such a law is unconstitutional.

There is nothing in the Constitution which empowers the federal government to require papers or a federal stamp of approval before a Mexican can enter the U.S. It's not in the Constitution. Nowhere.

Just as America's Founding Fathers ignored the British "Stamp Act," so "illegal" aliens more embody "the Spirit of '76" than those who apply for the government stamp of approval before entering the U.S.

Tragically, some "illegal aliens" have as little respect for private property and the rule of law as many natural-born American citizens, and especially those who work in Washington, D.C.

Mankind's Worst Idea

"The State" or "The Government" is the worst idea the human race has ever come up with.

Actually, it's the second-worst idea. The worst idea was that of Adam and Eve in the Garden: autonomy from God. The quest to "be as gods" (Genesis 3:5).

The idea of "the government" is a logical corollary of autonomy from God.

Defining "The State"

"The State" is the only human institution that claims a monopoly over violence. The Family, churches, corporations, schools, never make this claim. Usually this government monopoly is claimed only in certain areas of society: the military, prisons, etc. "The Government" may choose to compete against other institutions (like the Church) in other areas (like welfare) without claiming a monopoly (prohibiting other people from being charitable), but still maintaining an essential monopoly: the right to steal ("taxation"), thus permitting it to "stay in business" even though it could not successfully compete without forcibly confiscating the wealth of competitors, whereas the competition can only hope to persuade people to donate money freely and voluntarily.

"The Government" is a bad idea because it is an immoral idea. It is wrong to kill. It is wrong to steal. It is wrong to steal in order to fund acts of killing. No corporation or private citizen would ever behave like a State without becoming a "criminal." Corporations and neighbors don't want to be known as "criminals." But "the State" convinces us it is not a "criminal" even though it behaves like one. The State convinces us that its crimes are "necessary."

"The Government" is a bad idea because it is a wasteful idea. It is not able to compete against non-criminal alternatives without resorting to force and threats of violence. The inability to compete in a free market arises when others are able to use resources more efficiently to accomplish the same goal, thus reducing costs, and lowering prices for consumers. If the only way you can compete is to threaten your customers with violence (prison, fines, asset forfeiture, death) to "do business" with you, then you have become like a "government."

"The Government" is a bad idea because it is a corrupting idea. Although the idea of "the government" is evil, it parades as the most noble among us. It debases the ideas of work, charity, and service as much as it debases the currency. Just as bad money chases out good, so bad government chases out the good.

"Limited Government" is an impossibility. This is why Tea Party advocates who vote Republican are betraying the original Tea Party participants, who believed what would soon be written in the Declaration of Independence: that we have a duty to abolish tyrannical governments. We will always have tyrannical governments -- or sentence our children to tyranny -- as long as we continue to put our imprimatur on the institution of "government" and the hope of "limited government."

Hans-Hermann Hoppe explains all this:

The goal of “limited”—or “constitutional”—government, which Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan and other Mont Pelerin Society grandees had tried to promote and that every “free-market” think-tank today proclaims as its goal, is an impossible goal, much as it is an impossible goal to try squaring the circle. You cannot first establish a territorial monopoly of law and order and then expect that this monopolist will not make use of this awesome privilege of legislating in its own favor. Likewise: You cannot establish a territorial monopoly of paper money production and expect the monopolist not to use its power of printing up ever more money.

Limiting the power of the state, once it has been granted a territorial monopoly of legislation, is impossible, a self-contradictory goal. To believe that it is possible to limit government power—other than by subjecting it to competition, i.e., by not allowing monopoly privileges of any kind to arise in the first place—is to assume that the nature of Man changes as the result of the establishment of government (very much like the miraculous transformation of Man that socialists believe to happen with the onset of socialism).

That is the whole thing: limited government, is an illusory goal. To believe it to be possible is to believe in miracles.

As a territorial monopolist of legislation and the money-printing press, the State has a natural tendency to grow: to use its “fiat” laws and “fiat” money to gain increasing control of society and social institutions. With “fiat laws”, the State has the unique power of threatening and punishing or incentivizing and rewarding whatever it pleases. And with its “fiat money”, it can buy-up support, bribe, and corrupt more easily than anyone else.

Certainly, an extraordinary institution such as this will have the means at its disposal, legal and financial, to deal with the challenge posed by [think-tanks and political parties that promote] limited government.
The Property And Freedom Society — Reflections After Five Years The Libertarian Standard

"Limited autonomy" is an impossibility. Either Jesus is Lord, or you are your own lord, even if you choose to agree with Jesus 99.9% of the time. Eventually you will want the rival Archist out of your world entirely.

"Limited government" -- "limited archism" -- is, like "limited autonomy," a logical impossibility. It will never exist. It is never permanent, but is always a cover-up of a transition from freedom to tyranny.

"The Government" is fallen man's idea. It is not God's idea.

Government spending, government debt, and government violence will continue to expand until voters are willing to become "government" teetotalers and swear off the sauce. Completely.

I Repudiate the Second Amendment

The Second of the Bill of Rights says:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

For decades, courts and constitutional scholars have been arguing about whether this amendment gives
• an individual right for sportsmen and gun collectors to possess guns,
• or whether the amendment only gives this right to "the militia," e.g., units of the National Guard or some such governmental entity.

Of course, in 1776 there wasn't a thought in the world that "environmentalists" were going to hijack the government and prevent hunters from killing game. And nobody was concerned about guns behind glass in museums or private collections.

The only people who worry about guns in the hands of private citizens are would-be dictators (and other criminals).

Even without the Second Amendment, the Constitution never enumerates any power of the federal government to control the sale and possession of guns. The federal government under the Constitution does not even have the right to ask for a Yahoo email address from a suspicious fellow who wants to buy a truckload of bazookas and machine guns. (No Republican candidate would ever say such a thing.) Libertarians are far more consistent in their opposition to gun control (government control of your guns) than any other political party.

Since most of us are victims of educational malpractice in government-approved schools, we are unfamiliar with the pervasive character of the "Call to Arms" in colonial America. Even the tiny minority of 21st-century Americans who were told about a speech that said "Give me Liberty or give me Death" are unaware that this was part of Patrick Henry’s Call to Arms.

(Death, of course, is not the preferred option. To put it bluntly, "Give me liberty or give me death" says to the tyrannical government, "Give me liberty or I will kill you. Or die trying.")

And so the heart and soul of the Second Amendment is the right of the people to engage in violent revolution against an unconstitutional government. Or to use the words of the Declaration of Independence, to "abolish" "tyranny."

I agree with the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, who said we have a duty to abolish any government that becomes a tyranny, and who would unquestionably say that the Bush-Obama regime is a Mega-Tyranny.

But I hereby repudiate my right to take up arms against the government, or use any other "Second Amendment Remedies."

I believe those responsible for the original Boston Tea Party would vote for me in the November election rather than anyone now running for the Republican or Democrat nomination. This is because I believe most strongly in the duty to abolish tyrannical governments. But the irony is, I would not have participated in the Boston Tea Party. I view the original "tea party" as an unChristian act of vandalism.

I fact, I believe the entire American Revolution was unBiblical.

In his letter to the Romans, in the section today labeled "chapter 12" and "chapter 13" (there were no chapter divisions in the original letter), the Apostle Paul told his readers to "bless them which persecute you" (12:14), "never pay back evil for evil" (12:17), "avenge not yourselves" (12:19), "if thine enemy hunger, feed him" (12:20), and "overcome evil with good" (12:21). Paul goes on to say that this "pacifist" attitude should characterize even our dealings with the most evil entity on the planet: "the powers that be" (13:1).

It is impossible to reconcile the Bible and the American Revolution, though the Founding Fathers, virtually all of whom claimed to be Christian, often tried to do so. Using a musket to shed the blood of another Christian wearing a Red Coat, or flying an airplane into an IRS office, cannot be a Christ-like response to tyranny. So quote this:

Kevin Craig repudiates the Second Amendment and his right to take up arms against the Bush-Obama regime.

However, to repeat, both the Bible and the Declaration of Independence declare that we have a duty to abolish tyranny. The Bible would qualify this: not with muskets, but with reason and persuasion and the power of the Holy Spirit to turn tyrants into servants.

One of the greatest ironies in all of American History is that of Republicans in the 21st century who claim to support the 2nd Amendment, but continue voting for tyranny in the form of unconstitutional Wall Street Bailouts, expansion of unfunded Medicare liabilities, secularist domination of local schools by federal bureaucrats, entangling alliances with foreign dictators, no-win wars, and stripping gold from the dollar. Republicans talk big about supporting small arms for "collectors" and "sportsmen," while ignoring the entire purpose of the Second Amendment: to overthrow tyranny in defense of liberty. Patriots today have a "right" to a very limited range of puny weapons vs. a federalized and militarized government police. We have neutered "rights" and a powerful tyranny. But the candidates talk tough about our "Second Amendment rights."

If the Signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 could see the U.S. today, they would draft a new indictment of a government far more tyrannical than the government they abolished in a bloody war that lasted nearly 10 years. The two major parties have given us tyranny.

Americans must not be content with a sham Second Amendment. True Americans must repudiate "Second Amendment remedies," the government's promises of "security," and the myth that ours is still a "free state."