Posted by GusCo on 03/24/09
Last updated 03/25/09

I am not doing so frivolously when I say that I am more afraid of the state of current events than I have been at any other point in my life. Walls are being erected on all sides, thwarting any means of physical or intellectual defense. Those in power rise to meet the needs of public outcry attacking symptoms of problems in the manners most conducive to their shared agenda, to rule. We are inundated with information to make us fear ourselves and each other. The depravity of human minds and actions are placed so predominantly on display that the populace begs for fortification, for regulation from the only entity capable, the state. This is the historically proven, practical means of societal conquest, no guns, and no bombs, just a magnanimous and opportunistic response to the chorus of public demand.   

During the course of this discussion the most important thing to remember is that when it comes to the actions of the state, problems are never resolved, they are managed, and with each new act of management, each prohibition, and each legislation, a sub-culture is created, a black market, a criminal enterprise. It is impossible to logically dispute the fact that with every creation of a law, some object, substance or action then becomes illegal. It is then only logical to say that with any new found state of illegality of an object, substance, or action, some person becomes a criminal. This is how the state keeps its services in demand, by effectively creating criminals. While it may seem that this statist system of cyclical regulation is capable of continuing in perpetuity it actually cannot. As the ratio of criminals to law abiding citizens grows, as it obviously will, so too does the regulatory power of the state. This continues until such a point that everyone in society becomes a criminal and is either incarcerated, or is placed under what is essentially a state of house-arrest and constant supervision. This is the dynamic of the police state that logically must be the result of our leader's little power grabs, no matter how seemingly innocuous or well-intended they may be.  

The founding fathers understood this dynamic, and it is not coincidentally that the United States Constitution so carefully stipulates the government's powers. These limits were set because the founders knew that once granted a power outside the realm of the constitution this police state dynamic is set into motion, regardless of how honorable the intentions that spurred the acquisition of said power were.

Statists will, almost without fail, dismiss this point at paranoia, and cite that the American people are not vulnerable to the same oppressive threats from which the founders were trying to protect themselves. This is simply not true; while tyranny was an immediate threat to the colonials, it was because of the perpetual threat of tyranny to a free society that the founders placed these restrictions. So for one to say, for example, that the right to keep and bear arms is outdated and no longer applicable in society today is not just nonsense, it is dangerous. In fact, this example is probably one of the most dangerous mentalities possible with respect to inadvertently setting off the police state dynamic. If those who advocate anti-gun laws were to achieve their goal they would, with the stroke of a pen, place every privately owned firearm in the country in the hands of a criminal. While granted, many peaceful upstanding citizens will be in the ranks of those in violation of this law; they will have become de jure criminals. This increase in the number of citizens classified as criminals, which I believe would be exponential, would logically result in a call for increased police action in the enforcement of the new laws, further closing the, by this point, quasi-free society. Any resistance to a gun ban would, by nature of the particular restriction, clearly end in violence.

It is with the creation of criminal subcultures through legislation that the state creates new threats thus perpetuating this dynamic. An excellent example of this is the current drug war in Mexico. Just as we saw with prohibition in the early part of the twentieth century, the War on Drugs has created a leviathan criminal enterprise working in the interest of capitalizing on the public demand for narcotics. By attempting to dictate an issue of public morality the state forces law abiding citizens to circumvent the rule of law in order to fulfill their consumptive desires. This provides the potential for tremendous profits to be paid to those ruthless enough to undertake the risk of breaking these laws. The profits made by those able to profit from this new demand are then used to build armies to defend the drug empires from anyone attempting to come between them and the massive profits they otherwise would not have been afforded. As a result we now have a drug war in which thousands of people are being killed. It is here that we see an example of the state attempting to manage, not cure the ailments of society. They do this not by attacking the root cause of the problem i.e. controlled substance laws, but by attacking a symptom of it. That is why we all hear the current drum beat in the name of gun control to prevent these criminal entrepreneurs from waging their war. This would obviously just create the criminal subculture we described above with regard to firearm bans, thus increasing the need for enforcement and furthering the societal tightening. Are we beginning to understand the pattern? Think as far into the future as you can stand, from travel restrictions, to curfews, to soldiers in our streets, the derivative restrictions will continue ad nauseum.

The constitution does not provide us with rights, our rights our dictated by natural law. They are ingrained on the structure of humanity, and of the universe. The constitution simply restricts the state from interfering with those rights. The importance of this differentiation goes well beyond semantics; it goes to the very core of democratic society. It is paramount to the preservation of a republic ruled by its individual citizens. When the state uses legislation to dictate a principle such as morality, which is variable based on individual values, the result will always be the continuous suppression of personal liberty. I'd like to conclude with a quote by the late, great Austrian scholar, Murray Rothbard, "It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright."

Posted 03/24/09 rightsman Las Vegas,, NV

Gusco, A great article! You are spot on! I, too am afraid, but not for myself, for my children and grand children, nieces and nephews, and those of my friends. I am not afraid of dying, but am afraid of leaving my loved ones ignorant of our natural rights. So few people outside of the Libertarian movement, and The Ron Paul Revolution are aware of their natural rights, or that they have natural rights that the battle is all uphill. I have a question for you: By or under what Constitutional Authority was the Police Department in your city or town formed? I have found no Constitutional Authority for such. Thank you, Robert Walker

Posted 03/25/09 Elysiumboy Billericay, United Kingdom

So many very good points there, Gusco. I'll give you my opinion, being in a country that a little further down the lines of oppression. I feel they start with really subtle things, slowly changing the appeal towards a certain object like smoking, drinking, virtually anything that can physically harm you because they have the hold of government run welfare schemes like our NHS (these are only examples; you may not have the same in your country yet, but you will see the signs). The NHS (National Health Service) is an organisation assisting people with operations etc. But like any government run organisation the cost is constantly talked about; we talk about their wastage (and unbelievably for an advanced species, cleanliness), whilst they claim we are causing too much harm to our bodies and therefore costing the NHS a fortune. No one gave a s--t about fitness in the 70s, although I don't deny it was there, but in the 80s, 90s and so on, how you look is made to be publicly everything. Most of the time their worlds don't even clash, but with things like the newspapers you can travel the wrongs of either side across the borders and produce disgust very easily. People are notoriously known for judging entire groups for individual's actions so the biggest prejudice is fed constantly by newspapers evenly positioned to feed either end of society. Of course, where there is balance, there is generally control so all they have to do is tip the scales and public anger rises for a certain section of the population. By our own deduction (not paranoia), we realise that this can be used in any direction, including turning anger towards the government which legally, by international regulations, allows martial law. What would anger the people so much that all could turn against the government? Destroying our means of trade then start mentioning a thing that many are already "paranoid" about; The New World Order. Just one mention has people picking up their pitch forks and running for the hills (we don't have guns here so they are able to push us further; civil war is chaos, not control, but it is the perfect way to avoid international law and bigger nations are always prone to bigger circumstances in change)so all we have to ask here is do they know those words create fear amongst the more extreme of people. A revolution must be prepared as strategically as a government's defence, and terrorism or rioting, bringing about martial law, will stunt any of those thoughts (I do not want you to fight! Beat them at their own game by voting their power away). I'm not extreme and they s--t the life out of me!

Posted by GusCo on 03/20/09
Last updated 03/20/09

Dear President Obama:

Today your administration reached in and added thirty dollars to my paycheck, and as a result all of my liberty-driven free market views went flying out the window. By means of the "Making Work Pay" credit that was created by your American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I am going to get an extra sixty dollars a month, that is 720 dollars a year! I cannot believe I ever doubted you Mr. President, please accept this, my humblest apology.  When I saw your goliath, unprecedented fiscal policies, breaking government spending records left and right, I thought surely that we would all have to foot the bill through our income taxes. Boy was I wrong. You have actually managed to spend more money than any president in history, and yet my taxes are lower! Your greatness, President Obama, defies all logic.

I would like you to understand one thing; I don't have very much money. I live, as do many others, paycheck to paycheck. sixty dollars a month will pay my electric bill. I mean sure, that money was technically the product of my own work, and so in reality I am actually just being allowed to keep what amounts to about an extra 2 percent of my paycheck, but it is still money in my pocket. Money YOU gave to me, my gracious, omnipotent president. I know now that any illusions I may have had of self-sufficiency were just that, illusions. This gift, and it is a gift, that you have given me has made me realize sir, that I need you to take care of me. Please build a state strong enough to serve my needs, make sure that my stomach is full, my health is attended to, my environment is clean. I can't do it without you Mr. President! I need you to educate my children, I need you pave my roads! It has become profoundly clear, just how much I need you. I don't need guns, by all means, take them. Nor do I need gold; your legal tender suits me just fine. Do with me as you wish sir, you have my full, unwavering faith.  

Now that we have established my unending allegiance to you, I'd like to ask you something just between us... How did you do it? With our bankrupt government that has accumulated more debt than an average person could in a thousand lifetimes, how were you able to sacrifice all of that tax revenue? We certainly know that you have some very big plans for this country; we have all seen your budget the funding for which federal tax revenues were already falling considerably short. Now don't get me wrong Mr. President, I am not complaining, but how can you afford to let us keep our money like that? Where are you going to get the money for the things YOU want to do?  Certainly you wouldn't just have your buddies over at the Federal Reserve just print the money? That would mean that whatever extra money we had would be devalued by inflation, effectively undoing all the good you've done. Granted, yes that would be a very smart move politically, it would allow you to garner public support while still continuing business as usual, but I have far more faith in you than that sir. Are you borrowing it from someone? Now while I realize that government is a business and credit is often the driving force of business, I have to say our ratio of debt to equity seems a bit disproportionate. I know you aren't the sort of man to burden future generations with exorbitant debts.

So then where sir, where are you getting this money? I know! You're bringing the troops home, right? Bringing in the reaches of our empire would surely put a dent in your massive budget! Is that the plan Mr. President? Of course, I have heard a great deal about sending more forces to Afghanistan, and escalating drone attacks on Pakistan are certainly not going to reduce the need for troops in the region. So I guess that can't be it.

Well I am stumped sir; I haven't got the slightest idea how you are going to do this. Please Mr. President, enlighten me.

Posted by GusCo on 03/05/09
Last updated 03/05/09

Dear Congressman Sessions:

I am contacting you today regarding HR 1207, The Federal Reserve Transparency Act. I would like to encourage you feverishly, in the interest of your constituents, to lend your support to this legislation. It is criminal that an institution which has been granted a coercive, state-sponsored monopoly on our legal tender should be allowed to operate in such a clandestine manner. The Federal Reserve is, each and every day, stealing money out of the pockets of Americans through their inflationary policies, and they do so with just the click of a button.

This crisis is being exploited as an opportunity to attack personal property rights, when it should be a time of economic introspection. Now is a time for entrepreneurship, is it a time for production, and it is a time to shed light on the inflationary policies that are the keystone of bubble economics. This administration is constantly assuring the public that stimulus spending will be stringently accounted for, and transparency will be demanded of anyone in receipt of the public funds from their massive redistribution. Why then is the same stringent accounting and transparency not being demanded of the vehicle for that redistribution? The answer to that question is that such transparency would stifle the growth of the Leviathan state for which this administration is striving. That is precisely why this bill is so important.

If the agenda of this presidency is socialist, then it is our duty to show it as exactly that. It is our duty to expose their power-starved statist agenda, and show them that they will no longer be allowed to hide behind their pretense of the public good. It is our duty, Congressmen Sessions, to withdraw our intellectual consent from this movement to inspire and rob the masses in the name of altruism. We must remind our federal government that the true public good lies in the sanctity of personal property and in unwavering individual liberty. Our battle today is against ignorance, and pulling back the curtain on the Federal Reserve is the first step towards a society that is free from pretense. One in which nothing but liberty can reside in the name of the public good, and the truth is clearly demonstrated, that freedom and socialism are irreconcilable.

In Liberty,

Anthony Gus Cohen

Posted by GusCo on 03/04/09
Last updated 03/04/09

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/03/geithner-touts-tackling-
tax-evaders-failing-pay-taxes/

 While the mainstream media is calling attention to the blatant hypocrisy of this measure, I would like to call attention to the massive federal budget and the tremendous projected shortfall of tax revenues. My first thought is that they are laying the groundwork for some serious tax hikes by ensuring that legislation will already be in place enabling them to quell any sort of tax-rebellion. I hope I'm just paranoid...

Posted 03/04/09 Caleb Kinley Hot Springs, AR

Well, they would have a great place to start with Obama's cabinet.

Posted 03/04/09 Exnihilo Frisco, TX

http://www.rense.com/general81/irss.htm

Posted by GusCo on 02/04/09
Last updated 02/04/09

 When contemplating man's journey of existence one will not find an achievement more deserving of praise than success in business. To build a business, to make tremendous profits, to get rich is the most marvelous feat a man can reach. To have done so means that he has created something that is good, something that is desired, something that is needed. More importantly, he should know that this object, that is so profoundly desired, and this business, that has produced said object so efficiently as to create such tremendous wealth, are both- his. That is true greatness. If the divine image truly resides in all men, then that image is production.

Now I must ask of you, who are some the wealthiest, and the seemingly most successful men on earth. The politicians, the automotive executives, the investment bankers, how did you acquire such tremendous wealth? Did you produce a product so superior to the competition that it created an insatiable demand? Did you produce it so efficiently that its selling price demanded a market feeding frenzy? If so, then you have my deepest respect. Conversely, I must know, did you perhaps pull some strings with your politician friend to put the competition out of business? Did you lack the capacity to produce a product that would merit any demand? Did you rely on the merit of others to create your empire? Were you kept afloat not by your own volition, but by money stolen from the pockets of the productive? If this is the case, then you are nothing more than a thief, a highwayman, deserving not even of my contempt.

You see, if the true greatness lies with the productive, then it is only logical that true evil lies with those who hinder production. I ask of you to think of the men you crushed with your influence. Think of the entrepreneur trimming his operating budget, struggling to pay the taxes that are supporting you and your anti-production. You say that you are needed; you say that society depends on you. Under the guise of altruism, you speak of the public welfare, the horrors to come if you close your doors. The true horror lies with the opportunities for production lost because of the capitol you have stolen. You're altruism is your justification, your delusion of import. Great men need no justification, they ask no permission, and they know without qualification that their work is good.

Allow me this opportunity to say to you, that you are not needed; you exist only to sustain yourself. You prey upon the good to perpetuate your worthlessness. If you wish to matter, to be of some significance, if you wish to be something good, then pick up a hammer, a saw, take up a pencil and paper and create something that is your own. If you wish to matter, then you must produce.

Posted 02/04/09 GusCo El Paso, TX

Thanks Tim! I'm working on it, I cant seem to get them to print anything!

Posted 02/04/09 BlackMask Eugene, OR

Profit is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end. The love of profit is a corrupt value. To love your accumulation of currency, the power of possession, to be satisfied with material wealth, is a manifestation of psychological and emotional delusion. Men should be free, but they must also be moralists. Greed is indeed a sin, as all wise men in history have told. And one simply cannot justly wield the power of economic freedom, when they are enamored with riches. It is the same corruption that is evident in government.

Posted 02/04/09 GusCo El Paso, TX

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter" Ayn Rand