George Washington warned us that “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.”, but we Americans forget that. Government is nothing but a gun. It maintains a monopoly on force, and it uses that monopoly on anyone who would challenge it.

We don’t realize that all our elections are is different special interest groups fighting it out in the polls to gain control of the gun. Each special interest group runs commercials, writes op-eds and trys to convince the general public that the gun is better off in their hands. They will use the gun to make things right, to make them better for everyone. Do not pay attention to who they are pointing the gun at, because they promise not to point it at you.

This warning should have been ingrained in us, coming from a man who could have been King. Our founders knew the government was a gun, so they wrote the constitution to limit the instances in which that gun could be employed. This is why they wrote the constitution in the first place. There were issues under the articles of confederation that made it extremely hard to be a nation. These were things like trade wars between states, states printing their own currency making it impossible to have a medium of exchange, etc. The founders reluctantly handed a gun to the federal government and said, “Here is the gun, and we want you to only address these specific items with this gun.” In order to protect citizens from the gun, they wrote specific rights that could not be trampled by the gun, which we know as the Bill of Rights.

Fast forward to the early 1900s, and you have a group of people, progressives, with ideas that they think they can create society based on their ideology. They realize they can achieve their vision, despite the fact that most people do not want to live out their vision. People prefer to live life as they themselves see fit, but the progressives know that if they can gain control of the gun, the people will have no choice.

This vision has come from both sides of the isle, and both sides love wielding the gun in the direction that they see fit. It has become unfathomable to them and increasingly to us as a people to think that people can possibly make intelligent, rational decisions for themselves. They have convinced us, through government schools, propaganda and their media accomplices, to believe that the gun is there to protect us. They are only pointing the gun as us to make sure we aren’t harmed. It is not government that needs to be limited as the founders believed, but it is freedom that needs to be limited to make sure no irresponsible decisions are made. People don’t even questions who’s defining responsible.

We let the government, an immoral institution if you believe violence is immoral, define our morals. If government says milk is now illegal, we automatically would assume all milk farmers are criminals if they continue milking cows. Then when government decides that they can coerce more taxes by allowing some government controlled milking, they tell us they will allow some milking with strict regulation and licensing. If this sounds far fetched, how is this different than alcohol and gambling. You can’t play a card game in your basement, but you can go to a government sanctioned casino to feed your money to their rich friends.

All this craziness in our society and every societal ill we have comes from this gun being wielded about and forcing upon society decisions and values that would otherwise not be what people would choose for themselves if they were free to choose for themselves. To rephrase Reagan, “The gun isn’t the solution, it is the problem.” It’s time freedom makes a come back, and it’s time we start taking bullets out of the gun. No person or institution is moral if it uses violence to coerce you.  No one weilding a gun can make better decisions for you and your family than you could. It’s time for us get back to what our founders believed, which is people should be free to live out their lives in pursuit of happiness free from coercion.

I watched a documentary this weekend called The Listening Project, and it made me think about my post Public Education – A View From Outside The Matrix. The documentary has a group of people traveling around the world asking people what they think about these United States (notices these instead of the!).

The one thing that I noticed is most of the people knew a lot more about history than most Americans do. They were talking about Rome, Julius Ceasar, etc. While many Americans may have heard of both, they probably aren’t able to explain either and how they relate to modern times. To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember being taught about Rome in school. What I know of Rome has been self taught as an adult. I guess that wasn’t part of what the government mandates us to learn. Study hall was no doubt more important to society.

What the people recognized was we are no doubt the last empire of the world. Now conservatives will argue that we don’t want to conquer lands, so there for we aren’t an empire. We cannot have bases in well over 100 countries, claim we use our bases to look out for our national interests, and then say we aren’t an empire. We use our military and economic power to push countries in the direction we want. Anyways, this is all besides the point. The point is the rest of the world recognizes that we are an empire, and that we are no different than the Roman Empire. Countless people said we are the Rome of today, and that like Rome our empire will perish. They didn’t say this in a way that they want it to happen. They were stating the obvious. It’s too bad most Americans don’t recognize this, because all it would take to avoid it is getting back to what we were founded on.

The other thing that was noticeable in the documentary was that most of the people love the idea of America. They love the people and the spirit that is America. They love the idea that someone can pursue their dreams and make it. What they didn’t like was our government. This goes back to our foreign policy and how we try to force the world to be more like us. It was a bit shocking to see how many of them specifically stated there is a difference between the people and the government. Considering we elect these bums, that was pretty charitable. So here we are socializing everything under the sun, but it isn’t the social programs other nations love. It wasn’t our stimulus bills or our banking system. It’s our liberty. It’s what they believe we have. They don’t realize that we have lost so much liberty, but then again most Americans don’t recognize how much liberty we have lost.

Anyway, it was a pretty good documentary. It’s definitely worth watching. I’m guessing it was made to bash Bush, but I’m sure the people that were interviewed would probably still have the same opinions with Obama in the White House. He has only been a change for the worst. It’s just a shame that public education in this country is leading us down a path of ignorance compared to other parts of he world. When people in South Africa are explaining how Rome fell and how that relates to the US, yet most Americans wouldn’t know what they are talking about, you know it won’t be long before the new Rome is no more.

Over Thanksgiving dinner, my brother and I began our normal debates of politics, war, health care, etc. This year was  a little different.

I’ve always been the typical conservative, who believes the government is a necessary evil that wants to control us more and more with healthcare, welfare, net neutrality and on and on, but we need to maintain a strong military and remain on the offense in the war on terror.

Having always considered my self a free market capitalist, I was reading pro-capitalist books, websites, etc. Eventually, I found myself in a world that challenged my own contradictions. I’ve always realized that liberalism was irrational and illogical, but I always thought conservatism was rational and logical. After reading Ron Paul’s book, End The Fed, I started a debate on Mises.org, a pro-free market site founded to spread the economic ideas of Ludwig von Mises. Like most conservatives, I liked Ron Paul’s belief in the constitution and his domestic policy beliefs, but I thought his foreign policy was isolationist and unrealistic. In the forums, I said I like Ron Paul and would vote for him, but I didn’t believe in his isolationism and questioned whether he believed in a strong military. Having always laughed at liberals and all their contradictions, it was now I who seemed to be the one with contradictions.

Not being used to people debating with logic and reason, I quickly felt like I was being presented an option. The forum users were offering me the Red Pill, leading me on a path which would challenge my assumptions and the Matrix in which we live, or the Blue Pill, in which I could ignore their arguments and stay in the comfort of what I’ve always believed and had reinforced by the Matrix. Having always believed in pursuing TRUTH in spite of fear, ostracizing, or ego, I took the Red Pill. Quickly I realized I was outside the Matrix looking in.

The first thing you realize is the Matrix is constructed of two sides who are opposites of the same contradictory, statist coin. Both believe in using government force in order to compel the populace to live by their terms. One side believes in “national greatness” while the other believes in “national virtue”. Neither fulfills their stated goal, and neither believes in individual liberty. Both sides benefit from the endless debate and the “my team is best” mentality. The Matrix was not constructed over night. It was developed over time piece by piece and quickly became the known world to those who know no alternative to life inside the Matrix. Current generations have had the programming loaded into their minds through the government schools. Even if you attend private schools, you must meet certain mandated “standards”. As an adult, your programming is reinforced with TV shows, news programs, and “educational” programs that reinforce the assumptions that were programmed into you as a child.

The founding institution of the Matrix, the State, is formed by competing parties, which you are encouraged to cheer one as your team and boo the others as the enemy no matter what the topic. Debates rage with differing opinions, but never involve root causes or underlying assumptions. Both sides debate particular wars, but never discuss what caused the war or whether foreign intervention is just and in our best interest (ex: Should our military is deployed in 150 countries). We debate how to best raise the standards of public schools, but no one questions the existence of the public schools or the historical failure of them(ex: Black Americans went from 20% literacy rate in 1860 to 80% by 1890. Now, black Americans have a 60% literacy rate). They debate how to best handle retirement savings, but neither questions whether the government should be handling it at all or the consequences of their mishandling (ex: Inflating Wall Street pay via 401ks and IRAs). Currently, we’re debating health care. One side argues for national health care, and the other argues against it. Neither side debates government involvement and it’s effect on skyrocketing prices in the first place.

It’s not hard to understand why the Matrix is so hard to break free from. It’s all we’ve known. We haven’t experienced schooling without public schools, health care without insurance, a world without US policing, or life without so called “safety nets”. During the debate with my brother, who always argued with my beliefs on foreign policy when I was inside the Matrix, agreed Americans were not looking at the issue properly because they are surrounded by re-enforcing factors such as the media. The media never gives a historical perspective. They only ask what should be done about terrorism or which war we should fight. They never ask why is there terrorism or if we think punishing civilians via embargoes will help them overthrow tyranny. They never ask if we believe it creates less responsibility for Wall Street executives when the Fed drops interest rates to zero and promises to prevent bank failures. They are only asked whether we should have bailouts or not.

The funny thing was as soon as the debate turned to public education, my brother was back in the Matrix. I asked the question of why there should even be public schools, and immediately his programming took hold. “You have to have government schools. How would people get schooling? I don’t think the schools are bad. It’s our culture. Teacher unions aren’t to blame, it’s the parents. You can’t teach a child who’s parent is a drug addict. What about the poor?” On and on the debate raged, but he could not get his head around the fact that the government has created the disastrous system in the first place. He could not comprehend a world without the government. It was if nothing comes about without the government. It’s understandable. Can you imagine arguing what life would be like without slavery in the early 1800s? Surely, you would have been nuts. They were living inside their Matrix, created by generations that came before.

Over the coming months, I will attempt to touch on some of these topics. While I am not an expert, I will present you with Red and Blue pills. The Red pill will question whether our lives our better with government involvement in all aspects of our lives. Is the government really protecting us? Could we live without government? You will have to open your mind and challenge your assumptions if you take the Red pill. On the other hand, you can take the Blue pill. You can stay in your comfort zone, fight the same old fights, assume the government is there for your protection, and live out the consequences of those beliefs. The choice is yours, but you must make a choice.

In the Federalist Paper No. 12, Hamilton is arguing for the Constitution and the Union by discussing the benefits of the Union to raising revenue for the government. Quickly, Hamilton highlights something modern day socialists somehow forget, that through self interest, what they call greed, all members of society benefit.

Hamilton writes, “The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen,” except for modern day socialists, “to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares.” What Hamilton is saying is all enlightened (educated) men of this time period recognize that commerce (free trade) is the best way to build national wealth. Because this is known to be true, enabling free trade has become the object of their policy.

He continues, “By multiplying the means of gratification, by promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals, those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify and invigorate all channels of industry and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness.” Here Hamilton is stating the government should encourage trade by “multiplying the means of gratification”. He talks about precious metals as “those darlings objects of human avarice and enterprise”. Basically, he is saying money and the want of more money (avarice or as socialist like to say, greed) drives people to work more and to produce more for society (enterprise).

“The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer – all orders of men look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils.” What? You mean all these men look forward to earning profits? Those bastards! Hamilton recognizes that it is the reward of profits that causes the merchant, the farmer (husbandman), the mechanic, and the manufacturer to be productive, and the more reward the more productive they will be. He uses words such as assiduous (unrelenting) merchant, laborious (extreme effort) husbandman, active (involving physical effort)  mechanic, and industrious (working energetically) manufacturer.  He uses these words to emphasize it’s the profit motive that creates these behaviors. With no profit motive, you do not have the productiveness of these men.

Next Hamilton discusses how everyone benefits from the free market, even those who think they don’t. “The often-agitated question between agriculture and commerce (basically labor and businessmen) has from indubitable experience received a decision which has silenced the rivalship that once subsisted between them, and has proved, to the entire satisfaction of their friends, that their interests are intimately blended and interwoven.” Notice that Hamilton basically says that the interest of both labor and businessmen are interwoven. Government cannot benefit the laborers by punishing the businessman. In doing so, he also punishes labor.  He continues, “It has been found in various countries that in proportion as commerce has flourished land has risen in value. And how could it have happened otherwise? Could that which procures a freer vent of products of the earth, which furnishes new incitements to the cultivators of land, which is most powerful instruments in increasing the quantity of money in a state – could that, in fine, which is faithful handmaid of labor and industry in every shape fail to augment the value of that article, which is the prolific parent of far the greatest part of the objects upon which they are exerted? It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary;” Apparently, it still has it’s adversary in modern day politicians, socialists, and labor unions, who believe that free markets don’t help everyone. But Hamilton explains, how could you increase the value of one without increasing the value of the other? You can’t increase the value of what labor produces without increasing the value of labor. Both parties benefit.

Lastly, “and it is one among a multitude of proofs how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstractions and refinement, is to lead men astray from the plainest paths of reason and conviction.” Wow, Hamilton points out that jealousy leads men astray from reason and conviction. How true is this in modern society? While everyone truly knows that government produces nothing, many today still want the government to intervene in the free market because of jealousy. They are jealous of the rich. Because of their jealousy, they are blinded to reason which would highlight the errors of their ways. Does this remind you of the tax the rich argument? They need to pay their fair share! Who cares if they have benefited society more by creating jobs, services, products, etc. They don’t deserve that much more than the poor. Low and behold though, when government takes more of their money, they don’t create as many jobs, services, products, etc, and we are all worse off because of it. These are simple truths, but jealousy, as Hamilton points out, leads us astray from reason.

While chatting on twitter, one of my tweeps posted this blog. Because his name has Federalist in it, @Federalist84, I decided I should check it out. To my surprise, the blog is from @SoccerSeal, a 17yr old girl, and she has one of the most straight forward criticisms of President Obama that I’ve heard. Here’s the argument.

The role of a President is not to “Transform” the nation. The role of the president is clearly stated in the Presidential Oath, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.” Nowhere in that oath do I see change or transform. Your job is to protect, preserve and defend. Not change, dismantle, and control. And right now I get the feeling that you are doing the latter.

via Red, White & Conservative.

The Constitution was setup for a reason. It was setup to ensure human freedom. It was not setup for continual transformation. Nowhere does it say the government should give you any rewards. It is only there to protect your earned rewards and your liberties from force. Until we all realize what this 17yr old has already realized, we will continue our steady decline, and we will always have the least of us governing.

While I haven’t read this book yet, it will be on my list as soon as I finish Robert’s book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide To Capitalism”, which helps provide a lot of the fire power behind this blog. Although, Robert is a highly regarded economist, he brings the dismal science down to a level that even an average Joe like myself can understand. In this interview, Robert discusses his book on the Great Depression. It highlights the fallacies you’ve been sold by the liberal establishment. Want to know why Obama’s policies are not working? All you have to do is see why FDR’s did not work.  You can also check out Robert’s blog, Free Advice out at http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/

“The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Great Depression and the New Deal”

June 6, 2009

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Everything they say about the Great Depression and the New Deal is wrong.

No economic myth these days is more pernicious than the myth that the free market caused the Great Depression and the New Deal got us out of it. That, as economist Robert P. Murphy points out is flat-out false. In The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal he provides irrefutable evidence that not only did government interference with the market cause the Great Depression (and our current economic collapse), but Herbert Hoover’s and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s big government policies afterwards made it much longer and much worse (just as President Barack Obama’s extraordinary expansion of government promises to do today). Perhaps even more compelling, Murphy exposes the untold story behind the New Deal—how it operated by force, and why what’s really at stake is not only our economy but our liberty. The real “lessons of the Great Depression” are not what you’ve been taught.

via Financial Sense Newshour Expert ~ Robert P. Murphy 06.06.2009.

While reading the Federalist Paper No. 6, I came across another great Hamilton quote that we should keep in mind.

In No. 6, Hamilton was arguing that in order to prevent unnecessary wars both internally between the colonies and externally between the colonies and foreign nations, they should ratify the Constitution to form the Union. With the Union, there would be rationality in calming the fervor for war with other nations, because one area of the country may be hurt by the war that another part of the country was calling for. With seperate colonies or three or four confederacies, one confederacy or colony could start a war without regard to the others. This would lead to more wars.

Internally, he was arguing with separate colonies or confederacies, there would more than likely be wars between them. He used examples of Britian’s wars with Scotland.

After laying out the historical proof, Hamilton was calling for the dismissal of the arguments to remain separated. He started by asking what would make us think that despite the history of similar nations’ experiences with inter-quarreling we would be able to have peace with separate confederations or colonies.

To shut down the claims from the anti-federalist, Hamilton wrote the following quote to ask why we think that we are different.

“Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, the weaknesses, and the evils incident to society of every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virture?”

Hamilton is basically saying. We aren’t  different. These human traits that have led to war for other nations will not forgo us simply because those who want to maintain the separate colonies say so.

While, Hamilton was talking about war, I think the quote fits perfectly into our modern context. It fits in respect to the our further slide towards socializing as much as possible in our country. Surely, history has laid out the disaster of socialism whether it be the famine in China that killed countless millions, the never ending impoverishment of Cuba, or the horror stories of health care in Britain and Canada. If Hamilton was writing about our governments taking over banks, car companies, possibly newspapers and health care, I am guessing he would say what makes us think we are different? Why do we think we can ignore history?

Today I finally picked up my own copy of The Federalist Papers at Half Priced Books for $3.48. Thank God For The Free Market #TGFTFM as I like to say on Twitter. Anyways, I only made it to the third page before I found my first gem.

Alexander Hamilton wrote, “.. that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of goverment. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants”

What he was saying here is there are people who will benefit from weak or inefficient government, and those people will use their fake concern for the people to hide their bad intentions. While I don’t believe our government is weak. It would have been weak if the Constitution was not ratified. In that circumstance there would have been people who benefited from the chaos. There were those who argued against the Constitution to maintain the weak Articles of Confederation. Many of them claimed to be looking out for the people, but they were really trying to maintain their status and power.

What we can take from this is the warning about inefficient government and the warning about those who are excessively for “the people”.  Surely, in our current day and age we can see how inefficient our government is compared to the government that our founders envisioned. How many times have you heard of unaccounted for billions in HUD, the department of education, or medicare?

Surely, you can recall how those who pushed these inefficient programs screamed their great attentions, “zeal”, from the rooftops. They are looking out for the people, the down trodden, or the most often group of concern, “the children”. How about this one? “We have to bail out Wall Street in order to bail out Main Street.” Really? It’s not because you want to bailout your buddies at your former companies? That’s right. Of course, not. It’s for the people.

The waste is horrible, but the second part of Hamilton’s warning is more disturbing. He warns that listening to the people who proclaim to be the champions of the people are the ones who more often than not are the ones who overturn liberties and become tyrants.

Keep this in mind next time you hear politicians claiming to be looking out for the people with health care, student loans, jobs, or the myriad of other government programs. The next three years are sure to be a case study on the warning above from Alexander Hamilton.