Tag: genocide

Trajectory of the State: What Happens When Statists Overplay their Hand?

It has been a good run for state worshipers. The 1800s gave more and more people the belief that the state could bring about a good utopia for all to enjoy. (Outside those who saw peril in the state, like those in the most southern seven US states in the “deep south” in 1860 and 1861)

By the end of the 1800s it seemed that the progressive movement was about to birth and bring about a century of peace. However, WWI and WWI PLUS all the genocides of the 20th century meant millions died during as well as outside of official wars.

By the end of the 20th century we saw two collectivist Communist states morph in various ways towards entities that pay more attention to well-being of the taxpayers. Russia emerged out of a God-less era to embrace family and Christianity in the 20th century. China backed off on the underground Church (that was thriving under persecution) to a degree where this is tolerated in this Communism version 2.X coupled with quite a capitalist friendly environment where regulations are minimized that allow entrepreneurship to thrive. While these states are not perfect, it does appear they have learned the lessons of the 20th century.

This brings us to the US state complex that is exceptional enough that it still believes there are no lessons to learn. However, if Lew Rockwell’s post “Working Around Leviathan” predictions are true, their days are numbered as they get less and less relevant in society as technology advances so much faster than the state can digest it.

Lew does a great job at balancing the forces at work in 2020, where he compares the US state apparatus:

Never before has a government in human history owned more weapons of mass destruction, looted as much wealth from a country, or assumed unto itself the power to regulate the minutiae of daily life as much as this one. By comparison to the overgrown behemoth in Washington, with its printing press to crank out money for the world and its annual $2.2 trillion dollars in largesse to toss at adoring crowds, even communist states were powerless paupers.

.. to the private commercial/business side:

At the same time — and here is the paradox — the United States is overall the wealthiest society in the history of the world. The World Bank lists Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Norway as competitive in this regard, but the statistics don’t take into account the challenges to mass wealth that exist in the US relative to small, homogenous states such as its closest competitors. In the United States, more people from more classes and geographic regions have access to more goods and services at prices they can afford, and possess the disposable income and access to credit to put them to use, than any other time in history. Truly we live in the age of extreme abundance.

Some will claim it is the government’s role that has made especially large corporations most successful and should receive credit for all they do. However, Lew is quick to point out a disclaimer to that effect, but not before sharing what both the so-called “right” and so-called “left” tend to think:

It seems that people on the right and left are quick to confuse correlation with causation. They believe that the US is wealthy because the government is big and expansive. This error is probably the most common of all errors in political economy. It is just assumed that buildings are safe because of building codes, that stock markets are not dens of thieves because of the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), that the elderly don’t starve and die because of Social Security, and so on, all the way to concluding that we should credit big government for American wealth.

I do hope you chuckled as you read this. Only those in DC would take this seriously, most of the rest of us recognize sarcasm.

If we are looking for those that create value and wealth, do we think of government? Does on think of Obamacare, Amtrak or the United States Postal Service?

Government is not productive. It has no wealth of its own. All it acquires it must take from the private sector. You might believe that it is necessary and you might believe it does great good, but we must grant that it does not have the ability to produce wealth in the way the market does.

If you understand economics, or if you have ever spent time in a monopoly, you will find that they do not have any good feedback loop that helps them indicate what the market needs. Government is even more handicapped since no one in their bureaucracy is ever accountable for government action or inaction. They simply have no skin in the game and do not see the taxpayers as customers:

Economic law limits what the state can do. The state cannot raise wages for everyone. It cannot dampen prices that want to rise without causing shortages, or increase prices that want to fall without causing surpluses. It cannot predict the course of markets or human events. It can control surprisingly few forces that work in the world.

In all its central planning, government is forever declaring the major combat operations are over, whether in foreign or domestic policy, only to discover that its real struggles and battles last and last. A good example is in the area of foreign trade. If a good or service is more efficiently produced abroad, the logic of the market will reassign production patterns until they conform. An attempt to protect domestic industry can do nothing to change this reality. Instead, protection only increases prices for consumers, subsidizes inefficient firms, and brings about ever-increasing amounts of wasted time, work, and resources.

On the other hand are those that seek to truly bring value to the market and are rewarded with wealth that can be placed into capital improvements that can make the business even more productive, efficient and even adaptable to the changing market. This was seen by the 1700 and 1800 farmers all the way to the manufacturers of the 1800s that could accomplish this all without government involvement.

Lasting prosperity can only come about through human effort in the framework of a market economy that allows people to cooperate to their mutual advantage, innovate and invest in an environment of freedom, retain earnings as private property, and save generation to generation without fear of having estates looted through taxation and inflation. This is the source of wealth. This is the means by which a rising population is fed, clothed, and housed. This is the method by which even the poorest country can become rich.

I will only add one more quote and if you are interested, please read all of Lew’s words that at least to me, give hope for the generations to come:

But here I would like to concentrate on what I think is an explanation that is too often overlooked. It requires that we understand something about the extraordinary capacity of the human mind to overcome obstacles put in its path. In all the history of states and the history of reflection on social organization and economics, this component is the most underestimated because it is the least predictable and the most difficult to comprehend. Human beings are creative and determined, and, if they have a love of liberty, and cooperate through exchange, they can overcome seemingly impassable obstacles.

It is because of this power of human ingenuity and determination to improve the world around us, despite the state, that a vast gulf has come to separate the accumulated power of the nation-state from its effective power in the management and guidance of society and the world economy.

Yes, despite the state, human ingenuity can improve the world, as well as its parallel, despite religion, humans with God’s help and hope, can improve the world in loving those around them.

Praying that the future does see the archaic state fall by the wayside and that grassroots communities with free trade on a global basis can improve the lives of those all over the world.

One can dream can’t they?

Acts 2:17

Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.

-SF1

Epic Lies: Bringing Democracy to the World & Mission Accomplished

Usually, when the bombs start to drop, it is really the middle of the story. The start of the story is usually hidden to the public at large, both intentionally and by sheer ignorance.

The “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq by US forces in 2003 was not the reaction to something Saddam did wrong, like having WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction), but was part of an agenda that was set in motion years if not decades before:

It’s surely clear to almost everyone now that we were lied into an illegal war which not only destroyed an entire country, but which also led directly to the rise of ISIS and helped bring terrorism to Europe too. – Ron Paul (2016)

While statism kills, empires kill on a whole different level. While nations like Germany (Jews) and China (farmers) and USSR (Ukrainians, etc) and USA (Southerners and American Indians) do their share of genocide, there is nothing like an empire that can take that to a whole different level.

But it was not always so. Take for instance a majority of the time the British Empire was a world power, as Eric S. Margolis in this article explains:

The British were always masters of efficient imperialism. In the 19th century, they managed to rule a quarter of the Earth’s surface with only a relatively small army supported by a great fleet. Many of their imperial subjects were so overawed by the pomp and circumstance of British rule that they often willingly cooperated, or at least bent the knee.

Call it colonialism 101. Ardent students of Roman history, the British early on adopted the Roman strategy of ‘divide et impera’, divide and conquer. The application of this strategy allowed the British Empire to rule over vast numbers of people with minimal force.

For over one hundred years, life in the American colonies were not bad at all actually. This is why there was 1/3rd of Americans that did NOT want to go to war with the British Empire, as up until the 1760s, the British ruled in a minimalist way!

When we reflect on the poor country of Iraq, and how it was somewhat abused by English power in the early 20th century especially after the discovery of oil, never really knew what was in store for them by 1990. From a post WWII transition that saw American influences in the Middle East region on the increase, and with Saddam Hussein in the employ and control of the CIA, even supplying Iraq with chemical weapons in its war against Iran in the 1980s, it is clear that the American Empire was in the driver’s seat.

In 1990, when the world was shocked that Hussein invaded Kuwait, there were those in the US Government that were not surprised as they gave him the green light. This even allowed the US Empire a “reason” to respond to this attack on an adjacent sovereign nation and allowed a “coalition” of UN nations to mount an attack on Iraq (Gulf War I) to place it under tighter control until the US again invaded 12 years later.

Eric S. Margolis goes on to explain:

I was in Iraq in 2001 and 2003 and saw how much it had developed in spite of the draconian rule of Saddam Hussein. I was one of only a few journalists trying to dispute the western lies about Iraq. The dim-witted Iraqi secret police threatened to hang me as a spy – after I revealed their germ warfare plant at Salman Pak had been set up and was secretly run by British technicians.

There was enough fake news in the early 2000s to convince the American public and the world that Saddam was bad and that the US and its allies were good.

Iraq, let’s recall, was the target of a major western aggression concocted by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Britain’s Tony Blair, financed and encouraged by the Gulf oil sheikdoms and Saudi Arabia.

Truth be told, these “leaders” are in fact war criminals still walking free.

Most people don’t understand that Iraq remains a US-occupied nation. We hear nothing about the billions of dollars of Iraqi oil extracted by big US oil firms since 2003. For the US, Iraq was a treasure house of oil with 12% of world reserves. It was OPEC’s 2nd largest producer.

Recall one of the leading neocons who engineered the invasion of Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, claimed the US could finance its entire invasion of Iraq (he estimated the cost at about $70 billion) by plundering Iraq’s oil. Today, the cost of the occupation has reached over $1 trillion. Wolfie is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, President Trump says the US will grab Syria’s oil fields.

It is all very sick, but the problems in Iraq do not make it into MSM these days:

Ever since the 2003 invasion, Iraq has been ruled by a succession of US-appointed figureheads who have proven as corrupt as they are inept. During the war, the US destroyed most of Iraq’s water and sewage systems, causing some 500,000 children to die from water-borne diseases, wrecking much of its industry and commerce, leaving millions of men unemployed. Public services have broken down.

Before the US invasion, Iraq led the Arab world in industry, farming, medicine, education and women’s rights. All that was destroyed by the ‘liberation.’

The fallout from this conflict and that in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria have produced economic refugees that have invaded Europe and dispersed Christians out of the Middle East. Will we ever know the true statistics for all the chaos that was put into action in 2001 (Afghanistan) and 2003 (Iraq)?

How is that for the legacy of American Exceptionalism?

Blow-back (CIA term) is a thing, and we thought the 2000/2010s had seen enough terrorism as a result, just wait ..

-SF1

Palestine (Yes, That Is Named After a People)

Sheldon Richman is one of my “go to” people like Walter E. Williams. Wise men who have lived through decades of change and can see truths so easily while also doing the research that backs up the issues they bring light to.

From a Libertarian Institute article called “Depopulating Palestine, Dehumanizing Palestinians” Sheldon defines some words to set the context:

Dehumanization is an apt term because it consists of more than merely murder, massacre, torture, blockade, dispossession, humiliation, and the like. It consists of the very denial of the humanity of the victims and their cultures; it may include attempts to wipe them from the archives and from anyone’s memory.

I am sure most minds go back to the stories of Nazi efforts, but they were not the only ones that used this method to achieve their goals .. African peoples dehumanized by European powers, Maoist China, Rwanda, South Africa, Cambodia, etc. However, it seems that the systematic and even popular effort to dehumanize the Muslim AND Christian people who have lived for a very long time south of Syrian and Lebanon and north of Saudi Arabia compounded with an effort to actually deny they ever existed:

No one better vocalized this denial better than a former Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, who famously said:

There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.

The tendency might be to counter with an effort to prove that a people group existed, however, that is beside the point. The point is that there is epic proof that individuals lived there and it was not like after WWII there was no one there and it would be the perfect place to put Jews, even though a vast majority of these Jews do NOT have as their ancestors a Hebrew people. So Sheldon fleshes out who these people were and part of their story as well as any claim to land based on a people group:

Morally, we have rights by virtue of our personhood, not by virtue of our inclusion in a subgroup of persons. The idea of rights not rooted in the individual literally is nonsense. Among other things, this means there is no Jewish land, Palestinian land, or land with any other ethnic, racial, or religious qualifier. There is only legitimately and illegitimately acquired land.

It is not up to governments or narratives to grant people land that belongs to others .. although many have been duped into thinking that God explicitly directed the events to create an apartheid state that has caused nothing but violence and death in the Middle East in the last 70 years.

But in fact, notwithstanding fabricated and wholly discredited “histories” of Palestine and Israel, it is now uncontroversial to state that the establishment of Israel saw hundreds of thousands of indigenous individuals driven from their ancestral homes and hundreds of others massacred by recent European immigrants (many of them atheists yet nevertheless claiming to be Jewish) with a tenuous connection to Palestine or ancient Israel. H. G. Wells posed a reasonable question: “If it is proper to ‘reconstitute’ a Jewish state which has not existed for two thousand years, why not go back another thousand years and reconstitute the Canaanite state? The Canaanites, unlike the Jews, are still there.” (Quoted in Ian Gilmour and David Gilmour, “Pseudo-Travellers,” London Review of Books, February 1985.)

Ian and David go on to state: “.. The modern Palestinians are a people of various ethnic origins, descended from the conquerors of Palestine since early Biblical times. Their ancestors are the Canaanites and Philistines who, unlike the Jews, were never deported. They remained in Palestine (which took its name from the Philistines) and their descendants formed, and still form, the core of the indigenous population…”

Evidence of this come from the founding members of the nation of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, as it came into existence in 1948:

The fellahin [Palestinian farmers] are not descendants of the Arab conquerors, who captured Eretz Israel and Syria in the seventh century CE. The Arab victors did not destroy the agricultural population they found in the country. They expelled only the alien Byzantine rulers, and did not touch the local population. Nor did the Arabs go in for settlement. Even in their former habitations, the Arabians did not engage in farming.… They did not seek new lands on which to settle their peasantry, which hardly existed. Their whole interest in the new countries was political, religious and material: to rule, to propagate Islam and to collect taxes.

So, we have a 70 year old effort that has squeezed these people into smaller and smaller areas of their land …

What is clear is that people WERE in the land and a SMALL number of Jews could have settled there however, once there was a groundswell of dispensation religious support that made it appear that God had indeed brought the Jews back to the Promised Land, the Zionists (atheists) seized this opportunity for power and control:

Ahad Ha’am, a “spiritual Zionist” who had spent time there, reported in 1891, “‘Palestine is not an uninhabited country,’ and has room ‘for only a very small proportion of Jews,’ since there was little untilled soil except for stony hills or sand dunes.” Ha’am and others warned the Zionist movement to respect the indigenous population.

Thus if there was to be a Jewish state, most if not all of the non-Jews would have to go. “Only in a very few places in our colonialisation were we not forced [sic] to transfer the earlier residents,” Ben-Gurion told the 1937 Zionist Congress” (Gilmours). His militias would “be forced” to transfer many more a decade later.

The view most American Christians have is that these people are Arabs that came into this area in the 7th century, however, this is simply not the case:

The dehumanization of the Palestinians was manifest in the Western attitude that these individuals saw themselves merely as undifferentiated members of an Arab horde, indifferent to their immediate surroundings, that is, to their homes, towns, villages, farming communities, market connections, and ultimately their larger homeland, and thus would accept “transfer” to other Arab areas. No westerner ever thought of himself in such nonhuman terms, but thinking of Palestinians that way came easy. That’s the stuff of mass injustice, of literal and cultural genocide.

This injustice is real, and it is time to spread the truth of the 70 year lie and a people (Muslims and Christians) that are being evaporated and marginalized.

SF1