Obama's Role Defined

Michael Rozeff identifies President Obama's function in our moribund, imperial order:

Obama is the establishment's attempt to put a new face on its old, tired, and worn out nostrums. Fewer and fewer people are buying, but the compulsion machine just keeps on centralizing the money flows. It knows no better. Top-down government centralization doesn't work, but the machine keeps running. Obama's cachet is evaporating after less than one year. He's now under 50 percent approval.

My family is mostly Democrat in affiliation or sympathy. They greeted the new emperor with hosannas when he won the election. Now they don't even speak his name. Conversation among old folks at the Thanksgiving dinner table lingered on two assertions: (1) No matter what they do to the rest of us, congressmen will get enormous perks and the best available medical care, all at our expense; (2) Israel is sucking up enormous amounts of our tax dollars, which it uses to fund a police state where Arabs are at best second-class citizens.

Granted, this is a tiny sampling of Baby Boomer opinion on just two topics. But it suggests a gradual awakening among people who used to support the welfare/warfare state without question. They still fear freedom. They still want the dole. They're probably down with bombing folks in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, they can no longer ignore the overwhelming incompetence and corruption of the Federal Government.

"Replacement, Not Capture"

Gary North's article "Digits and Revolution" presents the decline of the U.S. Postal Service as an example of how to recover freedom from a centralizing bureaucracy:

Years ago, my friend Robert Thoburn, the entrepreneur who developed Fairfax Christian School, was standing in line at the Post Office at Christmas time. The line was very long. He turned somebody next to him and said it would sure be better if the system were run by the government. He got an incredulous look; then that person smiled. Thirty years ago, that seemed like a fruitless observation. Yet, as it has turned out, we could lose the Post Office tomorrow and barely feel it. We don't use first-class mail to communicate any longer. We use the Internet. We use Federal Express and UPS and other delivery systems to deliver anything really important that we have to send. The Post Office in effect has gone senile.

We don't sense that it's gone. Yet the reality is this: we have replaced something with things that are better. Therefore, at some point, we will see the Post Office either go out of business or become simply a forgotten memory. Yet the Post Office is part of the Constitutional system. The Post Office has always been a way for the government to control the flow of information. As Robert Nisbet said in an autobiographical essay, in the year he was born, 1913, the only contact that the average American had with the Federal government was the Post Office. How much contact do you have with the Postal Service today? It delivers mostly junk mail to you. We ought to think of the U.S. Postal Service not as snail mail but as junk mail. It is the junk mail service for the junk mail industry. Even this is subsidized. It gets cheaper rates.

We have seen the demise of the Post Office operationally over the last ten years, yet we have paid almost no attention to this. There has not been a revolution in our thinking about the Post Office. There has simply been a kind of forgetfulness. We haven't paid much attention to the fact that we don't need it anymore. This has not taken any kind of an organized political movement.

The Post Office is sacrosanct. It is untouchable. But now it is simply ignored. This is the best way to have a revolution. Create a free-market alternative to a particular government institution, and then refuse to use the boondoggle anymore. At some point, we can simply vote to de-fund it. We can privatize it. Nobody will care, because hardly anybody is using the system any longer.

Here is my slogan for political reform: Replacement, not capture; then de-funding.

Let us take this slogan and begin to apply it to all the government institutions that we deal with on a regular basis. Apply it especially to the Federal government.

Modern Britons Worse Off Than Medieval Serfs?

Commenting on yesterday's post about tyranny in Nanny State Britain, Broken raises an interesting question:

"I wonder if anyone who knows enough would care to explore whether, when some of the most oppressive living under previous regimes when titles or rank meant something, were they not somewhat better off than they are now? Was ancient feudalism any worse?"

Off the top of my head, I can name at least three points on which feudalism was less oppressive than the government which rules England today. To be specific (and open to correction from anyone who can prove otherwise), I see the following relative advantages for an English medieval commoner:

1. The nanny state, via gun control laws, makes self-defense against criminals exceedingly difficult and dangerous. The balance of power is horribly tilted in favor of evil when a gun-wielding thug confronts a law-abiding victim. Put another way, modern Britons are legally required to give a deadly technological advantage to criminals. Medieval commoners might have been forbidden to use swords, but they were free to use knives, bows and arrows, cudgels, quarterstaffs, pitchforks, and axes against crooks. The wicked enjoyed no great advantage in weaponry. A man skilled with the quarterstaff could hold his own against a swordsman. Crime was thus better kept in check, and ordinary people did not live in helpless terror of common hooligans.

2. The nanny state arbitrarily prohibits (or interferes with) certain acts of kindness and mercy, from babysitting a friend's child without a government license to saving neighbors from a burning house. Not only were commoners in the Middle Ages permitted to help each other in these ways, but it would never have entered the mind of a medieval sheriff, baron, or king to forbid such things.

3. The nanny state claims the authority to micromanage the family in the name of health, safety, and education, even to the point of installing cameras in people's homes, and forbidding parents to supervise their own children on the playgrounds. No sphere of ordinary life is sacrosanct from the official snoops and busybodies. The medieval home was not inviolate but, generally speaking, a commoner's family life was not the subject of government scrutiny unless there was suspicion of fomenting or abetting rebellion.

This is not to imply that medieval life was better on the whole. In most material things, modern Britons, even the poor ones, live better than feudal monarchs. Legal protections against torture and imprisonment without trial, taken for granted today, were unknown in the darkest periods of English feudalism. The class system remains, but its present inequities (if inequities they may be called) are of a purely social nature. It is nothing like the ancient Anglo-Saxon order wherein a commoner who killed a nobleman was put to death, but a nobleman who killed a commoner merely paid a fine. People are free to emigrate from the UK, whereas the serfs of old could not even move freely within the country, being bound to the land almost like chattel property.

But modern socialism, no less than feudalism, imagines a status society where the individual's place is determined by the state. Socialism has spawned regimes more brutal and despotic than any medieval government, in large part because as a modernist ideology it rejects Christian moral restraints on political power. The violations of personal and property rights enumerated above show that Britain is moving toward a re-imposition of serfdom, albeit on a new pattern where the serfs are permitted the illusory freedom of voting for which master shall rule over them. Whether this is dictated from London or Brussels, the outcome will be the same.

The Nadir of Political Evil

How do you tell when a political system has reached the nadir of evil? Is it at the point where the state enslaves and kills millions of its subjects, or establishes a cult of hysterical dictator worship? Or can a government cross that threshold in a less dramatic way? It seems to me that evil and politics become virtually identical when an ordinary man can no longer fathom the arbitrary demands of his rulers, and runs afoul of them even when he attempts to obey them.

From an article on the UK web site Surrey Today:

A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for "doing his duty".

Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year.

The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year's imprisonment for handing in the weapon.

In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: "I didn't think for one moment I would be arrested.

"I thought it was my duty to hand it in and get it off the streets."

To get a more comprehensive idea of just how morally inverted Britain has become, read some of the posts on the Nanny Knows Best blog. Though written with wit and humor, they tell a sad tale of a once free nation whose native population is harangued, hounded, and punished simply for going about their business. For example, it is a crime in the UK to babysit without a license.

I know too little about British politics to guess what might replace this loathsome system when it has run its course. But even a crude authoritarian regime, which gives its subjects a few comprehensible rules to follow, would be preferable to the merciless, invasive lunacy of a totalitarian social democracy. I won't be at all surprised to see Britons gravitating to that sort of political movement someday.

State Sovereignty: A Turf War

The "Firearms Freedom Act" (HB-315) has been introduced into the Ohio House. The substance of the bill:

...to provide that ammunition, firearms, and firearm accessories that are manufactured and remain in in Ohio are not subject to federal laws and regulations derived under Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce and to require the words "Made in Ohio" be stamped on a central metallic part on any firearm manufactured and sold in Ohio.

Firearms Freedom Acts have already passed in Montana and Tennessee, and similar legislation has been introduced in other states. Predictably, the regime in Washington has denounced this state-level assertion of Tenth Amendment restrictions on central government power. So far, neither side has attempted to force the matter. The state politicians lack the confidence (and mass support) to challenge Washington with anything more than speeches and printed words.* The Feds evidently despise the provincial governments too greatly to fear them. But sooner or later, this political stalemate will be broken. The pressure from below will be relentless:

At the time of passage [of the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act] through the TN House and Senate, Judiciary Chairman Mae Beavers had this to say - "Be it the federal government mandating changes in order for the states to receive federal funds or the federal government telling us how to regulate commerce contained completely within this state - enough is enough. Our founders fought too hard to ensure states' sovereignty and I am sick of tired of activist federal officials and judges sticking their noses where they don't belong."

Such paeans to the Constitution might be more or less sincere, but essentially this is a turf war. Federal and state officials were mostly thick as thieves during the boom years. The latter may have resented the former's encroachments on their power, but with everything pumped up on credit, there seemed to be plenty of loot to keep both gangs satisfied. The dual separation of powers conceived by America's founders - between the national and state governments, and among the three branches of the national government itself - has degenerated into a cynical collusion of elites against commoners. Now, with the boom over and the economy contracting, the thieves grumble amongst themselves. The small time bosses see their territories becoming ever poorer under the federal taxes and the currency depreciation. Unlike the big bosses, they cannot print their own money to run endless deficits. They cannot legalize and tax the drug trade. They cannot control their own borders where illegal immigration is a problem. More ominously, state politicos are much closer to their subjects, and therefore would bear the brunt of popular outrage if the depression leads to serious food shortages. They remember the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and they understand how limited will be the aid and protection from Washington in the event of a social breakdown.

Texas governor Rick Perry has couched talk of state secession in terms of flattery and reassurance to Washington: "We've got a great Union." But the fictional Lando Calrissian might be closer to the truth in muttering, "This deal's getting worse all the time." The flattery and empty declarations will stop (and enforcement of sovereignty claims will start) when the central government becomes too impoverished to bribe its satraps and too weak to punish them. You can always count on the politicians to look out for themselves first.


* Until the states are able and willing to enforce these laws against Federal usurpers, they are as toothless as the "nuclear free zone" ordinances passed by liberal local governments during the Eighties.

More Government School Child Abuse

This time the victim is 6-year-old Zachary Christie:

Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary was suspended and now faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.

Yep, just another day in the mind-squashing, soul-killing, "zero-tolerance" prison that is the Delaware state school system.

The good news is that Zachary's mother is home schooling him now. The bad news, it seems, is that she only intends to keep this up until her son's punishment is overturned or he goes into the kiddie lockup. After that, presumably, it's back to the regular "schoolag" for another 12 years of mandatory idiocy and degradation. Let's hope Mr. and Mrs. Christie will receive strong encouragement and support from home schooling parents, so that they decide to remove their precious son from the public school system altogether. They strike me as well-meaning people who've only begun to learn how much their government despises them. It's sad to think they might choose to go on being outraged, bewildered victims.

You have to wonder what motivates Zachary's tormentors, the teachers and administrators hell-bent on humiliating and "reforming" him. Their self-important yet feeble excuses give voice to the hive mind of bureaucracy. These drones received orders from above and they obeyed them, to keep their jobs, their status, and their place in the system. The nonsense they mouth about knife fights and eye-gouging is either a salve for the odd guilty conscience, or an attempt to manipulate parents into agreement or at least submission.

Young Zachary is wiser than his enemies:

...I think the rules are what is wrong, not me.

A Pitiful Sight

In the dying days of vaudeville, when live variety show performers could barely hold their own against the new medium of film, vaudevillians found a precarious niche in "combination shows" with silent movies. The arrival and ubiquity of the "talkies" rendered their best efforts obsolete. From that time forward, pairing live acts with films could only call attention to the inferiority of the older medium. The better vaudeville performers adapted by going into films. The rest faded away.

I'm reminded of this historical transition every time I see television news reporters trying to do interesting stories about the Internet. Take this Fox News piece on peopleofwalmart.com, for example. It's a couple of boring, middle-aged suits yukking it up as they ineptly describe a brilliantly funny product created and distributed in a superior medium. More embarrassing than their lame commentary is the poor quality of the web site images they show the audience. Like the vaudeville/film combination, this serves only to reveal the shortcomings of the older form.

Who will be making or watching this antiquated, irritating junk when the Baby Boomers die out?

The Slow Death Of A County Government

Ruined building in Cairo, Illinois

Alexander County, Illinois is running low on money and manpower:

CAIRO, Ill. - As sheriff in one of the state's poorest counties, David Barkett often has his hands full keeping drug and property crimes in check. But now things have gone from bad to worse to desperate in Alexander County, where 27 percent of residents live in poverty and the general fund has dwindled to $30,000.

Barkett this month laid off three-fourths of his staff, leaving just four deputies to help cover the county that spans more than 250 square miles in far southern Illinois. Just days later, he surrendered five patrol cars to the local bank for nonpayment, leaving his department just one county-owned vehicle.

And by midweek, Barkett's prisoners may be turned away from the regional jail because the county hasn't kept up paying for the upkeep of its inmates there.

Barkett admits his department is hogtied by the shortage of vehicles and deputies, but he remains undaunted:

"I firmly believe that the good will prevail, the good Lord willing," he said. "I'm not a quitter, and I wasn't elected to let these people down. And I have no intention to do that."

You have to wonder how many other county sheriffs are in the same predicament, watching their communities rotting away before their eyes. Without tax-funded governments to back them up, they will probably need to organize local militias to stave off anarchy.


Update (10-9-09)

The state government of Illinois is also broke. Comptroller Dan Hynes says his office is getting 2,6oo calls a week from frantic creditors begging to be paid.

Tribal Chieftains?

Karen De Coster has spotted an unintentionally revealing column by Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. She draws particular attention to these passages, which express Noonan's vision of journalists' proper role in society:

Who are the Elders? They set the standards. They hand down the lore. They’re the oldest and wisest. By proceeding through the world each day with dignity and humanity, they show the young what it is that should be emulated. They’re the tribal chieftains. This role has probably existed since caveman days, because people need guidance and encouragement, they need to be heartened by examples of endurance. They need to be inspired.

…The new Elders will have to rescue America from the precipice. They’ll have to be mature, think of the collective, of the country as a whole.

After reading the entire editorial, I posted the following comment on Karen's blog:

That’s an ironic title ["Keeping America Safe From the Ranters"] for the WSJ editorial. Noonan’s demand for intellectual submission to the MSM is as a fine piece of pro-establishment ranting as you could ask for, once you get past the initial, maudlin blubbering about dead geezer journalists.

In some ways, she is more accurate than she knows in likening dead and doddering media gatekeepers to tribal chieftains. These would be chiefs who take their pay, and their orders, from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and who instruct the tribe to stay on Big White Father’s desolate reservation…and joyfully accept the wonderful smallpox blankets from GlaxoSmithKline. Tribal metaphors also bring to mind the MSM’s antiquated technology, and its proud cultural isolation from the wider world.

In other ways, Noonan’s analogy reveals her ignorance of how tribes actually worked. The chief was respected not because he was old, or because he affected a dignified posture, but because he spent a lifetime at productive tasks: hunting, gathering, building, herding, and/or engaging other tribes in trade, diplomacy, and war. He became an expert by virtue of experience and achievement, and he led by example until the tribe relegated him to advisory status in support of a succeeding, younger chief.

The more appropriate primitivist metaphor for the American MSM shill would be the lowest sort of Hollywood tribal witch doctor, the bug-eyed shaman who insists that his followers maintain an abject superstition, and who brands all useful innovations as sacrilege.

Noonan's real grievance is that the "ranters" (and by implication, all dissenters from the Establishment media) draw attention to the increasing poverty, instability, and lawlessness of modern America. None of these things were supposed to occur, according to the predictions of the government and its media propagandists. For decades, they've promised safety and stability at the expense of our liberty. Events are laying bare not only their dishonesty, but the ridiculous premises on which their lies were founded.

It's appropriate for elite mouthpieces to whine and beg for the respect which they've justly forfeited - a respect, we should note, they imperiously denied to their critics when they held a virtual monopoly on the flow of information. They show no signs of wanting to earn it back by demonstrating intellectual independence from the politicians. Even on a pure business level, they insanely persist in telling customers what they should want instead of adapting to meet actual market demand.

State Secession and Counter-Economics

Dave Montgomery of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram surveys the rise of secession movements across the United States:

Fanned by angry contempt for Washington, secession movements have sprouted up in perhaps more than a dozen states in recent years. In Vermont, retired economics professor Thomas Naylor leads the Second Vermont Republic, a self-styled citizens network dedicated to extracting the sparsely populated New England state from "the American Empire."

And on the other side of the continent, Northwestern separatists envision a "Republic of Cascadia" carved out of Oregon, Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia.

While most Americans dismiss the breakaway sentiments, sociologists and political experts say they are part of a larger anti-Washington wave that is rapidly spreading across the country.

The article quotes Vermont secessionist Thomas Naylor, who makes his case succinctly:

"The empire has lost its moral authority. It’s unsustainable, ungovernable and unfixable," he said. "We want out."

Montgomery engages in pointless, liberal hand wringing over tangential issues of racism, environmentalism, and capital punishment (on the last point, he absurdly lumps a theoretically independent Texas together with Iran and North Korea, in a desperate invocation of the ridiculous "Axis of Evil" concept). He avoids examining the constitutional merits of secession, which makes this a typically shallow MSM piece. Yet his moderate tone, and willingness to let the activists occasionally speak for themselves, presents the secessionists in an almost favorable light. In fact, he unwittingly aids them by giving readers the names of secessionist organizations, so that these can be Googled and contacted by potential recruits.

Will any of these tiny organizations gain sufficient political influence to achieve their goals? Based on the historical record of American secession, I doubt it. Both the American Revolution and the War Between the States (a.k.a. the Civil War) were instigated and led by men who already held power: sitting politicians at the state level. Those leaders were careful to deliberate amongst themselves to ensure coordinated action, to marshal their forces, and to present a united front to the central government. There are no signs of this yet. If the governors of several or more states call a convention and propose an anti-federal alliance, then we'll know the stage is being set for a regional revolt.

However, there is another kind of secession, which radical libertarians call counter-economics. This strategy does not pit local governments against the center, but calls for individuals and small networks of people to set up a parallel economy. The goal is not power, but freedom. Polish Solidarity activist Wiktor Kulerski described it this way:

“This movement should create a situation in which authorities will control empty stores, but not the market; the employment of workers, but not their livelihood; the official media, but not the circulation of information; printing plants, but not the publishing movement; the mail and telephones, but not communications; and the school system, but not education.”

Kulerski's words appear in a fine article published by The Freeman, "A Tribute to the Polish People". It's a fascinating study of how to beat a modern police state without resorting to violence, which is a game the state usually wins. Significantly, the Poles were able to outmaneuver and undercut their oppressors even though they had no cell phones or Internet. Of the six points Kulerski enumerates, the American state is already retreating in the fields of information, publishing, communications, and education.

The two secession strategies are not mutually exclusive, and it's reasonable to expect that counter-economics will do much to pave the way for a territorial breakup or shrinkage of the present United States. The more useless the central government is seen to be, the more willing are citizens and local politicians to part company with it.

Update

Michael Panzner has posted a thoughtful treatment of this subject on his blog: "Secession Talk Going Mainstream?"

Japan Has Had Enough

In his article "Japan Abandons America", Robert Morely writes of the impending sea change in U.S.-Japan relations:

For over 50 years, one party ruled Japan virtually uninterrupted. During that time, Japan remained a loyal ally and supporter of U.S. policy. This month, a historic event took place.

Japan has new leadership. In a landslide victory, a new party has done the seemingly impossible. A new freshmen class of leaders now governs the Land of the Rising Sun. The effects are already rippling across the Pacific toward America.

Yukio Hatoyama is Japan's new leader. He officially took office last Wednesday, and he is already threatening to split with the United States.

Hatoyama blames America for the global economic crisis and says that the U.S. is responsible for "the destruction of human dignity." He campaigned on protecting traditional Japanese economic activities and reducing U.S.-led globalization.


And that's not all:

More alarming for American policymakers, Hatoyama has authorized a wide-ranging review of the U.S. military presence on Japanese soil. He is reexamining the agreement that permits U.S. warships to dock at Japanese ports, and has said Japan should take a second look at why it is spending billions to house and transfer U.S. troops between its islands. Hatoyama has also moved to quickly end Japan's fueling support for the U.S. naval anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On Wednesday, an even bigger torpedo hit. Both U.S. and Japanese officials confirmed that discussions were underway to remove all U.S. fighter aircraft from Japan.


It was easy for the regime to whip up a war frenzy against Iraq, even before 9-11, but Japan is an entirely different matter. There isn't even a remotely convincing pretext for branding Japan a "rogue state", let alone blockading or bombing her. She is not just another pipsqueak nation to be bullied and beaten up:

Japan is the world's second-largest economy. It is also America's second-most-important creditor. The U.S. government owes Japan over $724 billion! The only nation America owes more money to is China ($800 billion). The U.S. also imports $140 billion worth of goods from Japan each year.


You have to wonder if the American empire is following a similar trajectory to that of its old Soviet rival. With the U.S.S.R., the satellite nations broke away first. Then the internal provinces revolted. How Stage Two plays out for America, we can only guess, but Stage One is beginning.

Can a De-Industrialized USA Maintain the National Power Grid?

The following comment appeared on Karen De Coster's blog today.

Clark writes:

Hate to break it to everyone, but I work for a major power company back east.

We have NO SPARE parts for the major components of the distribution grid.

Back in the mid 90s, some genius at the IRS decided to tax us on our spares inventory as retail stock because we occasionally sold parts to other power companies. The solution to this that the bean counters came up with was to liquidate it all. Sent to the scrappers. Millions worth.

You won’t hear it from us, but the forecasted solar flare activity has everyone very worried.

The problem with our grid is that it isn’t the money spinner, generation is. Thus the distribution grid has been sorely neglected.

What happens when we have an electrical incident of sufficient strength at a substation (lightning will do it) is that the coils and breakers at the substation literally melt. Being large components that we don’t make here in the US anymore, it takes months to replace them. (forget the cans you see on the power poles, that’s a residential step down transformer…I’m talking about the big stuff, surrounded by fences)

Normally, it’s isolated and we just reroute the power around the down substation, but if it turns out to be several at the same time we have a major problem on our hands. (Upper Ohio 2003, entire counties were down for over 6 months)

On top of that, the entire cross national grid is routed through only 5 major switching stations. FIVE. Do you think that the sun, with all it’s power, isn’t capable of throwing a wrench in that situation?

Literally we’re talking 6 mos to a year for some of these components they’re so specialized. And if you have grid issues in the countries where they are made, well you can bet they’ll be getting themselves back up before they export the stuff to us….if they can even manufacture them without electricity of their own.

So, sit and think really, really hard about what your community (and the community down in the bad part of town) would look like without power for 6 months.

Above a certain level, taxation destroys capital (i.e., the tools needed to produce things, or the cash savings that enable a producer to buy these tools). America exceeded that level years ago, with the infamous result that hardly any goods are manufactured here. Until now, I hadn't considered the combined effect that offshoring/outsourcing and outrageous taxes might have on the energy industry. Spare parts inventories are capital goods, and taxing them gives power companies a perverse incentive to dump them.

People of Walmart

The People of Walmart web site provides a fascinating, and sometimes repulsive, view of lower class fashion in early 21st century America. There is no shame in dressing simply, and it is no laughing matter if poverty compels some people to dress shabbily. But what drives folks to don shirts emblazoned with obscene taunts directed at total strangers, or shamble about under overlapping piles of brazenly ugly, ill-fitting, mismatched pieces of fabric? Where is the sense of shame, or at least of proportion and harmony?

Jim Kunstler, speaking of decadent modern architecture, says, "Ugliness is entropy made visible." This would seem to apply equally to deliberately hideous clothing fashions. They are visible evidence that something - an appreciation for order and beauty- has undergone entropy, has, in a word, died.

Yet notably, this mass acceptance of slovenliness began in the 1990s, at the same time the Federal Reserve began massively expanding the credit supply. It cannot be a coincidence that cheap money leads to a cheapening of cultural standards.

A Starting Point for Community Disaster Preparedness

Ted B. at SurvivalBlog suggests a strategy for getting neighbors to cooperate for the sake of community preparedness, while conditions are still civilized:

While it is still an ongoing process of refinement, as all preparations tend to be, we took an approach that may well serve your own community. First, we advertised a community preparedness meeting, with enough advance notice that people could get it on their calendar if interested, but not so far in advance that it was forgotten by the time it arrived. The invitation, via signs at the Post Office and Fire Station, and distributed via flyers, had three key elements:

It was to be an informal meeting with no governmental spin or involvement; it was to get folks talking about community preparations for a variety of situations where we could help each other out effectively, while maintaining our privacy and independence, and finally it would include some refreshments. You’d be surprised how many people are drawn by the prospect of home made brownies, fresh coffee and Huckleberry lemonade.

The meeting itself stressed that the purpose was to:

• Help local citizens to get to know a few more of their neighbors, and
• Expand preparedness thinking from just individual parcels or immediate neighbors to the entire community.

Also mentioned up front was that the meeting was not called in order to:
- Pry into anyone’s issues with their neighbors
- Get into political debate
- Gather information about peoples’ pantry, gun safe contents, or underground bunker…
- Violate privacy – personal or property
- Pressure anyone to participate
- Fill peoples’ calendars with meetings/activities

We reminded attendees that planning was important now:

- So that preparations can be done when we have time, resources, good weather, low stress levels
- So that friends and neighbors know how the community as a whole will respond, before any action is needed
- So that critical preparations are not overlooked
- So that shortfalls can be corrected before an event makes them a critical issue
- Because some preparations may take a long time
- To avoid excessive duplication of efforts

We talked about the various scenarios that might require the community to band together instead of trying to deal with the issue on our own, including wildfire, extreme weather, a major transportation interruption, a large scale natural (or man-made) disaster, economic meltdown or further acts of governmental tyranny.

We discussed the focal areas that might be established to get people with specific knowledge or skills involved on teams of resource planners/coordinators to allow the best response to the situation:

• Communications
• Emergency Resource planning/coordination

- - Food/water/fuels (consumables)
- - Personnel/Equipment/shelter (hard resources)
- Defensive systems
- Medical
- Fire
- - Advanced Preparedness
- - First response
- Unusual hazards and situations

This would not work so well in a typical neighborhood, because suburbanites depend more on government (practically and emotionally) than do country people. The faintest suggestion of standing up to further state tyranny would send at least one neighbor squealing to the FBI or Homeland Security. At the very least, I'd expect a large meeting might draw a surreptitious observer from FEMA, taking notes of who has food and weapons stores, so that these could be confiscated at an opportune time. Still, if the meeting is kept small and low-key enough, some of Ted's ideas could be adapted for suburban use.

The Evolution of the American Man

Source: Lampoonthesystem.com

The Insanity Factory

This morning I saw the following Yahoo News headline: "Healthcare Foes Compete to Frame Kennedy's Legacy". The choice of terms represents not just the dishonesty of the government and its press flacks, but their insistence on distorting the meaning of words to the point where they bear no relation to the things they purport to describe.

Healthcare, in government Newspeak, means state takeover of the medical profession. It's a piece of mendacity on par with defining law as the strong-arming of Americans by unaccountable police and bureaucrats. Yet proponents of socialized medicine, both the deceivers and the deceived, will yammer unashamedly that "we must have healthcare," oblivious to the asinine implication that the practice of medicine does not yet even exist in the United States. Of course, that is the intended effect of the buzzword: to convince people on a sub-rational, purely emotional level that the only alternative to socialized healthcare is no healthcare at all.

I'm reminded of Broken's observation: "An expression or word can be shifted within the pool of meaning to turn things on their heads." U.S. government and corporate propaganda is a kind of manufactured insanity, and people whose minds are shaped by it become virtual idiots.

American Christians and the Beginnings of the Underground Church

Baptist pastor Chuck Baldwin writes on the little-noticed but important schism developing among Christians in America:

Churches used to be respected as lighthouses in communities: places free from the jaundiced juxtaposition of political correctness and avarice. Today's churches are filled with both. Where once churches stood as guardians of truth, they have now become progenitors of error. Where once preachers stood in the similitude of Elijah and John the Baptist, they now grovel in the image of Joel Osteen and Rick Warren. Sunday Schools were once bastions of Bible teaching; today they are glorified coffee shops and playgrounds. The modern Christian home cannot even disciple its own children: how can it then be expected to "make disciples of all nations"?

I repeat: the modern American church has, for the most part, become irrelevant.

It is little wonder that more and more people are losing interest in the organized church. Instead of finding Christian love and kindness, they find the same kind of gossip, slander, petty bickering, favoritism, and selfishness that they might find at any office water cooler. Instead of hearing a prophet of God declare the Word of God, they hear a milquetoast minister meekly musing the latest self-help book.

The complete irrelevance of today's organized church in America to the preservation of Christian liberty and constitutional government is especially disconcerting to those of us who still have freedom's fire burning in our souls. Where do we go for respite and instruction?

I tell you the truth: there are hundreds of thousands of patriotic, freedom-minded Christians all over America who have had it "up to here" with these spineless social clubs called churches! They are tired of petrified pastors groveling before corrupt politicians and businessmen. They hunger for truth, and they are not finding it in most organized churches.

As an example, go to my list of people who have written me to let me know that they are desperately seeking a Black Regiment-type church that they can attend. The list grows by the day. See the list "here."

These people are not looking to be entertained or pampered. They do not care about social standing or making "business contacts." They don't care which church has the "most exciting" youth program, or how many softball teams it has. They want a church where the pastor isn't afraid to speak truth to power and take a stand for liberty. And, unfortunately, such churches are getting harder and harder to find.

In fact, I submit that the true church is not "emerging"; it is "submerging." As in totalitarian regimes all over the world, where there are basically two types of churches: the organized State-approved church, where people who worship the State go to put on a religious show; and the underground church, where real Christians go to worship God with honest, likeminded believers.

The "underground" church in America is not totally underground—yet. But the schism is taking place rapidly.


The phrase true church can be put to mischievous uses, and it will be, if one forgets that a Christian fellowship ought to be true (loyal, faithful) to Jesus as our spiritual head. Also, I would be wary lest a "black regiment" congregation elevate rationalistic, Lockean theory to the same status as Scripture. Nevertheless, this exodus looks like the work of the Holy Spirit: God calling His people out of doctrinal compromise with a diabolically evil political system.

Baldwin's choice of words is admirably precise. He calls for the church to be a place of respite and instruction. In the context of modern tyranny, this means respite from official propaganda and instruction in truth and discernment. It also signifies (or will come to signify) a temporary freedom from pro-government snitches and busybodies, i.e., the true church is a place where neighbors do not betray you to unwarranted punishment.

In matters of politics, almost all American churches have become irrelevant, except perhaps as shills for the regime. Their record of exposing evil in high places, and exhorting believers not to partake of it, is almost as miserable as that of the churches in Nazi Germany. See Mark Dankof's essay, A New Barmen Declaration for American Evangelicals?

The Regulatory Protection Racket

Charles Hugh Smith publishes an anecdote from a correspondent who tried vainly to start a small business in a Pacific Northwest town:

A few years ago my wife, 2 kids, 3 dogs, 1 cat, 2 gerbils and I moved to a picturesque small town on the Pacific Coast with a large historic district where my wife had a job offer at the local hospital.

I found work as a chef at the population center 1 hour+ commute each way by car, ferry and shoe. After a couple of years of 10-12 hour days plus the commute I was getting burned out. So when the new owner of a local boutique hotel asked for proposals for a restaurant to replace the failing "Gifte Shoppe" in his ground floor commercial space, I jumped on it. We shook hands on a sweetheart deal lease-wise as long as he did not have to contribute to any build-out costs.

That's when the fun began.

I sketched some plans and had them drawn up by an architect ($1000).

I submitted them for review to the County building Dept. ($300).

Everything was OK, except for the bathrooms. They were not ADA compliant. Newly built bathrooms must have a 5' radius turning space for a wheelchair. No problem. I tried every configuration I could think of to accomodate the larger bathroom space without losing seating which would mean losing revenue. No luck. I would have to eat into my storage space and replace it with a separate exterior walk-in cooler($5,000). I would also have to reduce the dining room space slightly so I had to plan on banquettes along the exterior wall to retain the same number of seats (banquettes vs. separate stand alone tables ($5,000) Revised plans ($150). Re-review ($100)

Next came the Utility Dept. It seems the water main was insufficient even for the current use, a 24 suite hotel, and would need to be replaced ($10,000).

Along comes the Historical Preservation Society, a purely advisory group of starched collar, pince nez wearing fuddy-duddies (well, not literally) to offer their "better take it or else" advice, or maybe lose the Historic Status tax break for the hotel.

It seems that the mushroom for the kitchen exhaust fan would be visible from the street, so could I please relocate it to the rear of the building? Pretty please? Extra ducting and more powerful fan ($5,000).

Hello Fire Dept! My plans showed a 40 seat dining room, 2 restrooms , a microscopic office, and a kitchen. My full staffing during tourist season was 4 servers, 1 dishwasher and 1 seasonal cook-total occupancy 47, myself included.

The Fire Inspector said the space could accomodate 59. "But I only have 40 seats. I want luxurious space around the tables." I pleaded. "No. It goes by square footage. 48 seats, 4 servers, 3 cooks,one dishwasher, 1 person in the office and 2 people in the restrooms." "Why would I need 4 cooks for 40 seats when I am capable of doing that alone? And if the cooks are cooking, the servers are serving, the officer is officing, the diners are dining, then who the H#$% is in the bathrooms?"

"Square footage. Code!" And therefore it went from Class B to Class A, requiring a sprinkler system for the dining room and a third exit ($10,000) in addition to the existing front door and the back kitchen door. It would have to be punched through the side wall and have a lit EXIT sign.

Could it be behind the screen shielding the patrons from viewing the inside of the bathrooms every time the door opened? Oh, no! It might not be visible. The door would have to be located where 4 guests at the banquette plus their opposite companions were seated-loss of 20% of seating unless I squeezed them into smaller tables destroying the whole planned luxurious ambience.

Pro Forma:

$250K sales.
$75K Food and Beverage purchases
$75K Labor cost
$75K Expenses
$25K net before taxes.
Result of above experience=Fugget Aboud It!!!

Loss to community-$100K income plus tips +$20K Sales tax.

Smith adds comments of his own, which boil down to a plea for bureaucratic reform. Like all liberals, he believes that governments have the right and duty to extort obedience from property owners. He bemoans the damage inflicted by the "regulatory" protection racket, but assumes that it must continue perpetually, albeit in a low-intensity, "nurturing" mode:

Codes and regs which make sense as individual ideas become straitjackets when layered on top of one another with no integration via a common-sense, cost-benefit, marginal-value analysis. The choice is clear: either nurture small business and enable its survival or cities, towns, counties and states will see their tax revenues drop in a death-spiral: the more they drop, the higher the taxes they place on surviving businesses, which then speeds their decline into insolvency, which further lowers tax revenue, and so on.

But coercive government is incapable of cost-benefit, marginal-value analysis. Moreover, officials cannot see property management from an owner's perspective, because they do not personally bear the costs of the obstacles and failures they force upon him. Were there some voodoo spell that citizens could inflict on bureaucrats to make them experience even a portion of the frustration, poverty, and shame suffered by all those who are pronounced "not up to code", we would see a wondrous decline in harassment and plunder. In the absence of voodoo, and given the unwillingness of Federal, state, and local officials to repeal their protection rackets, we will see the "death spiral" of governments declining in tandem with the communities they've gutted. And businesses that manage to start up will do so "off the books", in a dodgy but life-sustaining black market economy.

Growing Numbers of Smokers Evade the Tax Looters

Since the politicians will not repent of their greed and will not reduce taxes, Americans are learning to minimize government theft of their earnings in previously unimagined ways.

From AP via Antiwar.com:

Something unusual is cropping up alongside the tomatoes, eggplant and okra in Scott Byars' vegetable garden - the elephantine leaves of 30 tobacco plants.

Driven largely by ever-rising tobacco prices, he's among a growing number of smokers who have turned their green thumbs to cultivate tobacco plants to blend their own cigarettes, cigars and chew. Byars normally pays $5 for a five-pack of cigars and $3 for a tin of snuff; the seed cost him $9.

"I want to get to where I don't have to go to the store and buy tobacco, but I'll just be able to supply my own from one year to the next," Byars said.

In urban lots and on rural acres, smokers and smokeless tobacco users are planting Virginia Gold, Goose Creek Red, Yellow Twist Bud and dozens of other tobacco varieties.

Although most people still buy from big tobacco, the movement took off in April when the tax on cigarettes went up 62 cents to $1.01 a pack. Large tax increases were also imposed on other tobacco products, and tobacco companies upped prices even more to compensate for lost sales.

Some seed suppliers have reported a tenfold increase in sales as some of the country's 43.3 million smokers look for a cheaper way to get their nicotine fix in a down economy. Cigarettes cost an average of $4.35 a pack, home growers can make that amount for about 30 cents.

Home schooling, home gardening, barter, local issuance of alternative currencies, the Internet's end run around the Establishment's information gate keepers. This keeps getting better. Any day now, we'll be seeing articles on unlicensed businesses employing large numbers of Americans who cannot find jobs in the official, taxed-and-regulated economy.

Why Government Fails, and Why Conservatism Has Failed

Ilana Mercer sums it up succinctly:

Nothing works in government because there is no private property. If you were given something to manage that you don’t own, have no stake in, on behalf of millions of people you don’t know, and who have no recourse against your mismanagement, except to whine like wimps—how well would you perform?

The larger context of Mercer's observation is the stubborn refusal of American conservatives to defend, without shame or compromise, the right to property. This is an old problem, identified decades ago by Ayn Rand. In "Conservatism: An Obituary", Rand wrote:

One need not wonder why [conservatives] are losing elections or why this country is stumbling anxiously, reluctantly toward statism. One need not wonder why any cause represented or upheld in such a manner, is doomed. One need not wonder why any group with such a policy does, in fact, declare its own bankruptcy, forfeiting any claim to moral, intellectual, or political leadership.

The meaning of the "liberals' " program is pretty clear by now. But what are the "conservatives"? What is it that they are seeking to "conserve"?

It is generally understood that those who support the "conservatives," expect them to uphold the system which has been camouflaged by the loose term of "the American way of life." The moral treason of the "conservative" leaders lies in the fact that they are hiding behind that camouflage: they do not have the courage to admit that the American way of life was capitalism, that that was the politico-economic system born and established in the United States, the system which, in one brief century, achieved a level of freedom, of progress, of prosperity, of human happiness, unmatched in all the other systems and centuries combined - and that that is the system which they are now allowing to perish by silent default.

- Excerpt from Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (Signet Classics edition, 1967), pp. 194-195.


Having been a conservative myself, and having discussed politics with conservatives since my conversion to libertarianism, I think Rand was only half correct. People on the Right generally do go on the defensive when the Left accuses them of hard-heartedness toward the poor. But the flaw in their position runs deeper. I've observed that conservatives generally agree with liberals on three points: (1) That the collective, called Society, comes first in order of importance, whereas the individual comes second; (2) That the oracle of Society is the State, which determines when and where the individual must be subordinated or even sacrificed to the collective; (3) That the only possible alternative to this arrangement is moral anarchy, slavery, or even extinction.

The Right and the Left contest the definition of the first point: e.g., is the almighty collective the American Nation State or the World State? They argue bitterly over the application of the second: e.g., who is to be sacrificed to the Moloch of the prison industry, the dope smoker or the business owner? They tacitly agree on the third: e.g., if the State is not obeyed, we all shall be destroyed by Islamofascism/Global Warming. Fundamentally, they are both collectivist ideologies. That is why conservatives do not instinctively defend private property against the State, and why their movement has failed to stop the expansion of government power in America.

When the FDIC Goes Broke (If It Hasn't Already)

Bloomberg reports (August 20) that the FDIC is running out of money:

Colonial BancGroup Inc.’s collapse and the prospect of mounting failures among regional lenders may prompt the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to impose a special fee as soon as next month to boost reserves by $5.6 billion.

The FDIC board might act sooner than expected after the Aug. 14 failure of Alabama-based Colonial cost the agency’s insurance fund $2.8 billion, and as banks such as Chicago-based Corus Bankshares Inc. report dwindling capital and Guaranty Financial Group Inc. of Austin, Texas, says it may fail. The fund fell to the lowest level since 1992 in the first quarter.

“With the failure of Colonial Bank and the possible near- term failures of one or two more large banks, the FDIC may be forced to levy a special assessment on the industry sooner than it had planned,” said Camden Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America, an industry group.

The failure of 77 banks this year is draining the fund, prompting the agency in May to set an emergency fee of 5 cents for every $100 of assets, excluding Tier 1 capital, to raise $5.6 billion in the second quarter. The agency has authority to set fees in the third and fourth quarters, if needed, to prevent a decline in the fund from undermining public confidence.

Here is the extent of the decline since the end of March:

The fund had $13 billion on March 31, the lowest since 1992 when it was $178.4 million, the FDIC said. The 56 bank collapses since March 31 cost an estimated $16 billion. First-quarter failures cost the fund $2.2 billion, the agency said.

The agency is required by law to shore up the fund when the reserve ratio, or balance divided by insured deposits, falls below 1.15 percent. It was at 0.27 percent as of March 31.

The FDIC can replenish its reserves by borrowing from the US Treasury. This would reveal its bankruptcy. How would bank depositors react to the news? Bill Sardi believes it could trigger a bank run of epic proportions:

Now if just a small portion of American bank depositors hear that the FDIC had to tap into the US Treasury for funds, and these depositors feel their banked money is at risk and want to withdraw some of it, the mother of all bank runs could ensue. This could create the day of reckoning that many have predicted. A short banking holiday would have to be declared and who knows what happens from there – troops in the streets, issuance of new currency, martial law? Don’t think those in the Federal government haven’t made plans for such an occurrence.

They can plan all they like. No government rules effectively without general obedience, and that obedience depends on a modicum of legitimacy and social stability. The former is fading, as evidenced by the Town Hall protests and the retail ammunition shortages. The latter will quickly erode in a banking or monetary collapse.


Update

Vox Day declares flatly that the FDIC is broke:

Given recent history, it would appear to be most unwise to assume that the federal government will do much more than permit the FDIC to borrow the additional $70 billion by which its credit line was increased in May, especially should depositors become aware of the increasingly fragile state of the banking system and begin to withdraw their funds from it. Banking holidays and other restrictions on the public's ability to access its money are probably more likely than an outright bailout, especially since a bailout will cost around $225 billion merely to maintain the status quo if Meredith Whitney's calculation of 300 bank failures is correct. In any case, the ability to ask permission to borrow from an unpredictable institution already $11.7 trillion in debt and expecting a further $9 trillion in deficits is not insurance nor can it reasonably be described as a guarantee of any kind.

Guns At The Protest Rallies

The open carrying of guns by some citizens at anti-Obama protest rallies signifies a stiffening moral resistance to government tyranny in America:

Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms," he said.

Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who monitored the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.

"Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions," Oliver said. "We were keeping peace on both ends."

Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty" stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.

"It's a political statement," he told The Boston Globe. "If you don't use your rights, then you lose your rights."

Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested.

At this stage, the display of firearms is individual and purely symbolic, and we should note that it's restricted to jurisdictions where open carry is still legal (as it should be!). The appearance of armed groups of conservative citizens, especially in areas of strict gun control, is the next stage of escalation. This might happen if Congress ignores the voters and rams nationalized medicine down our throats.

"If you find something evil that wobbles, push it."

Gary North writes on the revolutionary effect of the Internet (in particular Google and Wikipedia) in rerouting information, through countless channels, around the old barriers erected by financial expense and Establishment censorship:

Wiki is available in dozens of languages. It is replacing all other general encyclopedias. The division of labor is working.

If you find a Wiki entry with an error, you can correct it using the Edit feature. I do this from time to time. I don't get paid, but I want things right. This mentality is widespread among Wiki users. The articles keep getting better.

If readers of encyclopedias were evil-minded, they would deface the entries by adding lies. Yet this is not done often, and the errors are found and corrected rapidly.

Ideological wars do break out. Then the page is locked by a committee. You have to apply to update the entry. If there were many such disputes, it would be impossible to sort them out. There would not be enough volunteers to serve on the committees.

The Wiki system relies on volunteers. It works. It relies on honest intentions. This usually works. It relies on digital translation. This works well enough to allow the transmission of basic information – more than most readers can remember. Our minds are the weak links now, not the translation software.

The translation software will get better. In 20 years, it will probably rival the skills of a human translator who did not learn both languages as a bi-lingual child. It may take less time than 20 years.

This will increase the division of intellectual labor. It will vastly expand our horizons. Already, we can find out what other nationalities think about such topics as the origin of specific wars.

The way we learn about history will change for the better. Revisionist history will spread. The Establishments of all nations will suffer.

It's especially gratifying to see how quickly the Internet detects and exposes government falsehoods, virtually in real time. Despite the government's ability to set up its own web sites (however sparse and poorly designed), and despite the considerable Web activities of government's fascistic and socialistic supporters, we now have a free market in ideas. Critically, that market is cheap enough to be accessible to any literate person.

Politicians and bureaucrats still control the physical realm of force. They no longer control, nor can they recapture the initiative in, the realm of ideas. A centralized tyranny must lock down both realms to maintain long-term dominance over a people.

North concludes:

The gatekeepers no longer control the flow of information. This has never happened in man's history. Gatekeepers still control the gates. But the walls have holes in them. These holes are widening.

The gatekeepers control accreditation. They no longer control content except where it is very expensive to do primary research, such as nuclear physics. In the social sciences and humanities, it's just about over.

When I think "Establishment," my mind goes back to Rocky III. Mr. T's character tells Apollo Creed, "you're going down."

If you find something worth posting, post it. Call this "post-it notes." It beats armed revolution every time....

In short, if you find something evil that wobbles, push it.

A Brilliant Woman Overlooks the Obvious

Camille Paglia, a staunch Obama supporter who perceives the ugly reality of nationalized medicine, cannot figure out why her political hero is pushing so hard for it:

....The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.

You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy. [Emphasis added]

What is so difficult to grasp here? The lust for power, for the ability to play God with other people's lives, is an elemental human vice. It is the driving force behind the modern state. Expansion of power by political elites over non-elites is typical and virtually inevitable. What is unusual and unexpected in politics is the voluntary relinquishing of state power (This was the ideological core of Ron Paul's presidential campaign, and the reason why the elite's media shills attacked him when they could no longer ignore him).

Most voters, even of the highly educated sort, appear to have a tremendous emotional need to idolize their favorite politicians. It's akin to sports team fandom and celebrity worship. Actually, it's worse. Fans of athletes and celebrities aren't mystified when the objects of their adoration reveal themselves to be arrogant, contemptuous people.

The Reality of Nationalized Medicine

Ilana Mercer recalls how Canadian socialized medicine nearly killed her daughter:

A cursory investigation into why Nicky coded that night was conducted. The findings were, conveniently, inconclusive. The custodians of Canada care had tried to convince me that my daughter had reacted to a compound in the chemical cocktail that was the anesthetic.

A decade on, the same precious person required wisdom teeth extraction, this time in the United States. She had forgotten how close she had once come to dying, but the thought of another such procedure terrified her mother. Nicky's American oral and maxillofacial surgeon, however, had no qualms whatsoever about putting her under in his well-appointed rooms. (Yes, we paid him ourselves: ever heard of saving for a procedure instead of going on holiday?) For after hearing all the facts of the case, he was in a position to explain what had happened ten years back.

It took a free American practitioner, in private practice, to deconstruct for me what had transpired on that fateful day.

The subpar care Nicky had received entailed the ongoing administration of morphine. Morphine, especially in a young child, depresses the respiratory system. Administered following hours on a powerful opiate, the general anesthetic acted cumulatively to stop her breathing.

This nearly lethal malpractice was the natural outcome of an inhuman system that forces doctors and patients into a giant bureaucracy, where the individual counts for nothing.

Assuming Obama and his minions force this abomination on us, I expect to see the rise of an extensive black market in medical services, run by moonlighting doctors taking payments in cash. And we'll be glad for it, once we've had a good dose of the socialist stuff.

Getting Out From Under the Dollar

Local businesses in Pittsboro, NC have issued their own paper currency:

A few dozen local businesses banded together this spring to distribute the Plenty – a local currency intended to replace the dollar. Now 15,000 Plenties are in circulation here, used everywhere from the organic food co-op to the feed store to, starting this month, the Piggly Wiggly supermarket.

Last popularized during the Great Depression, scrip, or locally created stand-ins for U.S. currency, is making a comeback. Pittsboro, population 2,500, is one of a handful of communities that launched its own money in recent months. It reports an avalanche of calls from other communities that have lost faith in the global financial system.

"The Plenty is not going to get siphoned off to Wall Street, or Washington, or make a stop in Bentonville on its way to China," said B.J. Lawson, a software entrepreneur who is president of the board of the Plenty cooperative. "It gives us self-reliance."

Evidently, the Government doesn't yet recognize this emergence of competing currencies within U.S. borders as a threat to its power. It was equally inattentive to the rise of home schooling and Internet communications, until these devolutionary trends became too powerful to reverse. Americans are slowly waking up to the truth that the System's state currency - like its state schooling and its state-licensed, corporate media information outlets - is rigged to keep non-elite people ignorant, poor, and weak.

Aside from his none-too-subtle dig at Walmart, B.J. Lawson is wise enough to see how the fiat dollar robs productive people by "siphoning" their earnings to politicians and their cronies in the financial industry. Now he and his neighbors are doing something to solve the problem, setting a great example for millions of other Americans who are sick and tired of the Federal Reserve's modern version of serfdom.

Freedom is not yet winning. But it is on the march.

Driving Poor Americans Out of the Car Market

Gary North's article on the Federal "Cash For Clunkers" program reveals its genuine purpose: to drive up the price of cars by reducing the supply. Traded-in old cars have their engines destroyed, rendering the vehicles useless for anything but scrap. Poor people will be the first casualties of this boondoggle due to a decreasing availability of used cars (the kind they can afford to buy), and to a government-created shortage of spare parts that they've been able to buy cheaply from pick-and-pull yards. Beneficiaries will be the banks (people usually take out loans to buy new cars), the largely moribund domestic auto industry (which wants to unload inventory), and the scrap metal industry.

CFC is a current version of an old "New Deal" horror: the government's destruction of livestock and other agricultural products to keep food prices high during the Great Depression.

North observes that Congress, in approving measures like this, has lost touch with reality:

There is no boondoggle too nutty for Congress to reject our of hand. The fiscal deficit is an estimated $1.8 trillion. Instead of watching every spending bill like hawks, Congress figures "What's another $2 billion?" The magnitude of the deficits today is so great that there is now no resistance to further spending, all funded by government debt.

This is hit and run of the poor. It is also hit-and-run either for future taxpayers or future investors in Federal debt, who will be stiffed by mass inflation. Then the rest of us will lose.

There is no stopping Congress today. The last flickering traces of fiscal sanity ended in the election of 2004.

Not Enough Food in Detroit

Shortly after writing an earlier post about the dwindling number of grocery stores in Detroit, I wondered if I might be exaggerating the risk of genuine, widespread hunger there. I'm sorry to say that it's real. Detroit is slowly running out of food:

In this recession-racked town, the lack of food is a serious problem. It's a theme that comes up again and again in conversations in Detroit. There isn't a single major chain supermarket in the city, forcing residents to buy food from corner stores. Often less healthy and more expensive food.

As the area's economy worsens --unemployment was over 16% in July -- food stamp applications and pantry visits have surged.

Detroiters have responded to this crisis. Huge amounts of vacant land has led to a resurgence in urban farming. Volunteers at local food pantries have also increased.

But the food crunch is intensifying, and spreading to people not used to dealing with hunger. As middle class workers lose their jobs, the same folks that used to donate to soup kitchens and pantries have become their fastest growing set of recipients.

"We've seen about a third more people than before," said Jean Hagopian, a volunteer at the New Life food pantry, part of the New Life Assembly of God church in Roseville, a suburb some 20 miles northeast of Detroit. Hagopian said many of the new people seeking assistance are men, former breadwinners now in desperate need of a food basket.

Hagopian is an 83-year old retired school teacher. She works at the pantry four days a week, spending two of those days driving her own minivan around town collecting food from local distributors.

The pantry, housed in the church basement, gives away boxes of food that might feed a family of four for a week. It includes dry and packaged goods like cereals and pasta, peanut butter, canned fruits and vegetables, 7 or 8 pounds of frozen meat (usually chicken or hot dogs), and eight pan pizzas donated from a local Pizza Hut. Most of the other food is purchased from a distributor or donated by the county food program. Last month they gave out 519 boxes.

Hagopian hopes the demand for food doesn't get much worse.

"I hope we're at the top of it because we'll run out of food, and then we'll have to go out and find some more," she said.

She should brace for the worst. Across metro Detroit, social service agencies are reporting a huge spike in demand for food assistance.

Certainly it's not a Siege of Leningrad style famine. One might fairly characterize this as more of a money shortage, or a job shortage. But if the number of gas stations were to dwindle in a major city, making fuel expensive and difficult to find, we'd certainly call it a local gasoline shortage.

At this rate, if the trend of decline continues, I'm guessing the former Motor City will become a virtual ghost town in ten years. The few remaining inhabitants will be the newly emergent urban farmers, destitute squatters living in decaying buildings, and roving gangs of criminals seeking to prey on the first two classes. A utilities shutdown will be the coup-de-grace, but by that time, with all the individual residences cut off for lack of payment, it will barely be noticed.

Antidepressants: The Social Time Bomb

Jim Rawles' observations on the unemployment woes of a none-too-bright, working class couple apply to a large swath of the American population: they are hedonistic, improvident, and/or fated to suffer intense emotional and physical withdrawal pangs when their addictions can no longer be fed.

It is also noteworthy that this man is on anti-depressants. He is not alone. Consider this article that was sent to me by Karen H.: Antidepressant Use Doubles in US, Study finds. That is alarming just by itself, but just consider what will happen if and when the Schumer Hits the Fan, and all those patients run out of their medications. (And their booze, and their cigarettes, and their marijuana, and their MTV, and their Crackberry instant messages, and their chocolate, and their American Idol, and their Dunkin' Donuts, and their porn, and their meth, and their soap operas, and their "Energy" drinks.) This could get very ugly, very quickly, once so many millions of suddenly very cranky, very desperate people start roaming the streets.

Antidepressants are hailed by Big Pharma's commercials as bringers of happiness, but they have a dark side. I have a close relative who goes off the rails when he misses a single dose of Abilify. Before that it was Prozac, which was a nightmare. My wife has a close relative who takes Zoloft to keep from having panic attacks. Multiply this by millions, the legions hooked on mood-elevating drugs, and you've got a major reservoir of incipient, large scale madness held back by a very thin dam of paychecks and pills. 27 million Americans! Now add to that a depression worse than the 1929-1940 slump. Not enough jobs, not enough money, not enough drugs. I don't believe any other nation in history has faced a potential threat of this kind. Rawles talks of people in withdrawal roaming the streets, but they'll also be driving the streets - and freeways - in a fog of confusion, rage, and despair.

There's an obnoxious pre-tribber Christian bumper sticker: IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS CAR WILL BE UNMANNED. These folks might well see something akin to their Left Behind-style demolition derby, only more random, and they'll be in it.

Federal "Cash for Clunkers" Web Site: A Trap?

Glenn Beck reports that the Federal Government's "Cash for Clunkers" web site tricks users into turning over control of their computers to police and intelligence agencies:




He quotes the following language from "Privacy Statement", to which the user must agree before being allowed to use the site:

This application provides access to the DoT CARS system. When logged onto the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the U.S. Government.

Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DoT, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign.

It sounds like clicking the "I Agree" button might result in cops kicking down your door, or your bank account being frozen, should your computer contain evidence that you've broken some obscure law. If that happened, you would not be able to raise a 4th Amendment objection to this seizure of evidence because you agreed to let the government search your records.

But it's not quite that bad. Greg at The Holy Cause blog did some research into the matter, and the following are his less sensational, but still disturbing, findings:

The text Beck is referring-to is found at the dealer login, not at any consumer site. So Beck’s warnings to “not try this at home” are more show business than anything else. But there is still plenty to answer for. Here is the actual text:

This application provides access to the DoT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the United States Government. It is for authorized use only. Users (authorized or unauthorized) have no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy.

Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DoT, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign. By using this system, the user consents to such interception, monitoring, recording, copying, auditing, inspection, and disclosure at the discretion CARS or the DoT personnel.

Unauthorized or improper use of this system may result in administrative disciplinary action and civil and criminal penalties.

Unauthorized attempts to defeat or circumvent security features, to use the system for other than intended purposes, to deny service to authorized users, to access, obtain, alter, damage, or destroy information, or otherwise to interfere with the system or its operation are prohibited. Evidence of such acts may be disclosed to law enforcement authorities and result in criminal prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-474) and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-294), (18 U.S.C. 1030), or other applicable criminal laws. (all emphasis added)