Was The Moon Worth It?

On The Space Program

Today the very last space shuttle launched from the Earth. Its mission will continue during the next couple of weeks and with Godspeed it shall return back to Earth and signal the end of an era in human flight. The first shuttle launched the year I was born and thus I have known it for the entirety of my life. The United States Space program has captivated me as far back as I have memory. It drove me to study physics in college and go on to study Aerospace Engineering in graduate school. Although I decide it was not for me once I was in the thick of the study, on days like this I often wish to revisit it.

I don’t know what it is that is so inspiring about traveling beyond our planet. It is a hostile environment, perhaps the most unfriendly to human life within our reach, yet we have reached for it. To float above the Earth or visit other worlds is utterly inspiring to me. It must be due to an innate desire in man to explore the unknown. Something which seems to be, as I see it, deeply intertwined with man’s desire to be free. This inexplicable inborn desire which every human shares to be a sovereign over their own life combined with the innate curiosity of our surroundings makes us a fantastic explorers. After every great exploration in the history of mankind, whether exploration of ideas, land, sea or air have been carried out by men and women who decided that this is how they wished to spend their finite time on this planet, often facing much dejection, ridicule and even persecution from a society who wished them to conform to the norms of the day, wanting them to accept the finite views considered to be the ‘truth’ or the ‘consensus.’ Many times the explorers would fail, but their failures build the body of knowledge for the next generation to succeed. Inevitably an explorer, a free spirit, will show humanity that the limits it has perceived were merely self-imposed, not hard limits placed on us by a physical world but only obstacles to overcome in the human mind.

Over the past few years much has changed for me and I have studied at length the issue of our innate desire to be free. We here in the U.S. celebrated this week the anniversary of a day over 230 years ago which we declared our freedom as a nation. I think it is interesting that we celebrate the day which we ‘declared’ our freedom as opposed to the day we won the war of independence which was September 3rd 1783. It is significant as once a man declares his freedom he will have all the strength he needs to fight for it. This is why we celebrate the declaration and not the inevitable victory for freedom as it is the declaration which opens the door for possibility much as Kennedy’s declaration to place a man on the moon by 1970 allowed people to understand and embrace that cause.

However beloved the space program has been to me for my entire life in my study of this notion of personal freedom which is inborn, and as declared in 1776, “unalienable”, I must now take issue with Mr. Kennedy’s declaration and all that has come from it.
There is an inherent problem with governmental exploration and that is that it clashes with personal freedom. Let us take pause and notice who drug us into the space race. It was the USSR. Their ventures for national glory far outweighed its interest in the liberty of its people (and I believe that is an understatement). So in kind we responded with a similar quest for national glory under the pretext of the cold war and also in kind sacrificed the liberties of those who formed that very nation.

Most would abhor such a statement. After all, the space program is a great source of national pride and is a testament to human ingenuity and collaboration. However, there are many such examples of human ingenuity and collaboration in our history which did not involve extortion of funds from the public under coercion of law. The tax code of the United States has overstepped the bounds of the constitution and even the most elementary study of the founder’s intent and ratifying arguments show that such a system would have never been tolerated by that generation of men which is surely one of the greatest to have existed anywhere on the planet at any time in its history. A generation of warrior philosophers who, when given the reins of a nation, opted to tie the hands of its new government to only those privileges granted to it by its citizens. The power of the nation stemmed from the rights innate in every individual and the power of the government stemmed from the privileges it was granted by the people. The government was not to be a power unto itself; it was to derive its power from the people. However, just as a land owner can grant the privilege to someone to rent his land, if he does not check in from time to time to make sure that the renter in not abusing his property there is really no one to blame but the property owner if the property is destroyed. It is in our hands to ensure that the government we have granted certain privileges to does not run away with or take advantage of those privileges.

So this is me checking in and seeing that, even though my renter has built a big, interesting, kind of weird yet at times magical structure on my land, it was not in our initial agreement that he even had the privilege to build anything at all. Even worse was when I asked how he paid for such a structure he responded “Well, I extorted it from the local population.” Needless to say I’m not particularly happy about this situation.

This issue of tax on income is a whole can of worms and I want to try and keep it narrowed to the space program so I’m going to just sum up this portion by saying that landing a man on the moon was an outrageously expensive project. I won’t even put the numbers here because billions and even trillions of dollars don’t really seem to even bother anyone anymore. Along with the war in Vietnam and other governmental projects the portions of the space program which could not be funded with tax dollars were funded by expansion of the money supply via The Federal Reserve/Treasury/Fractional Reserve Banking mechanism. This monetary expansion paved the way for the inflation of the seventies which paved the way for 18% interest rates by the time the first shuttle launched into orbit.

One of the most interesting things about government projects is that you can see the clear results of a man triumphantly landing on the moon what you cannot see is what robbing that capital from businesses and individuals has removed from the roster of achievements of mankind. Man’s first flights into the air were not aided by government subsidy let alone led by a governmental organization. One might argue that terrestrial flight is not nearly as expensive or complex as extra terrestrial flight so only large governmental organizations can achieve it but this very notion is eroding before our eyes as private space flight is becoming an ever growing reality. Here is a great article published just yesterday about the new space race in the Mohave, it even touched on the general disdain there for NASA’s lack of vision and waste. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9531950.stm

This new space industry has been hampered repeatedly by NASA and now more than ever by a slumping economy which is due solely to the general acceptance and practice that the government can centrally plan our economy. If you want to argue that this collapse is due to greedy businessmen, you are correct. There is a caveat to your argument though. Greed, in a free market (a real free market), has a natural check. That is that to make greater profits one must accept greater risk. Those risks are always present when a profit is made and so a shrewd person finds their happy balance of risk to profits. On the other hand… if you remove the risk from the equation of the quest for profits you get what is called “big greedy capitalists”. The irony here is that if the risk is removed from the “capitalists” and forced upon the taxpayer what you get is not a “free market” or “capitalism” at all. What you get is moral hazard where people will reach for more and more risk free profits until the risk buck just cannot be passed anymore and you get a collapse. Example: Fannie Mae buying up almost every mortgage in America and packaging them as investments for Wall Street AKA Mortgage Backed Securities. Result: Mortgage originators no longer cared if the loan was repaid because they almost instantly sold the mortgage leading to extremely relaxed lending requirements as the profits increased as the number of new loans increased. All the while the originator was facing no risk if the loan defaulted eventually. The government’s role in the current crisis is daunting and continues to be as they continue to make gross errors in attempting to centrally manage the economy. This current weak economy, like the stagflation of the 1970’s, is due to overspending by the government, loose monetary policy and most of all a flawed economic ideology with respect to the government’s role in the economy.

So if NASA had never existed it is true that we would not have landed on the moon or had the Voyager missions (my personal favorites) YET! But look at where we are now… we have not been to the moon in 40 years! Why? Most would say because the bureaucrats in Washington are too concerned with bailing out Wall Street and not with human exploration. That’s true to an extent but what I believe the REAL truth of it is, and this is quite clear, it was an unsustainable mission just as the housing boom was unsustainable. You cannot build houses forever and have the price of houses increasing forever. Eventually the market will take hold from the planners and say: “This was a misallocation of resources and it must be corrected!” The moon mission was a misallocation of resources which diverted tremendous energy from the market place and the American public in the form of manpower, raw materials, taxation and devaluation of the currency.

The shuttle mission was designed to create a less wasteful, more sustainable way to visit and explore the universe beyond our atmosphere. Our government- run space program as well as similar programs and wars were made possible by and most likely at the expense of the great economic prosperity The United States cultivated over the prior 150 years of economic freedom. Now as a new breed of space travelers developing actual sustainable ways to travel into space their efforts may be destroyed by the economic mayhem that has beset us at the hands of the collectivists in government. Along with the gradual erosion of liberty which has been followed by the erosion of the economy over the past half century the new sustainable space travelers may be set back decades. If that is the case then in the big picture of human exploration was it the right call to spend trillions in tax and inflated dollars on space exploration? Watch this documentary and tell me that this amount of free human will, investment, risk and ingenuity is not at least on par if not exceeding that of NASA. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B06E0E57D703A4F3
But little did we know that this beautiful vision of a space faring humankind could be crushed because “we choose to go to the moon and do the other things”. We’ve now lost more freedom and bankrupted our country. In the short term they are great accomplishments, going to the moon, reaching for the stars. But in the long view of history we might come to find it to have signaled the beginning of the end of our ability to reach into space, at least for the foreseeable future. The excesses of the past will lead to inevitable budget cuts at NASA and possibly the near evaporation of its mission in addition we are left with a horrid economic environment for the infant private human spaceflight firms.

Please do not misconstrue this as me being against space exploration. Quite the contrary, I am against how we went about doing it. More and more I realize that it is the process of reaching one’s goals that shows the real meddle of an individual or multiple individuals working together. Even the communists wanted to create a society for people where they’d be without want and happy. That is also the aim in our declaration of independence (roughly). It should be quite apparent that how we chose to get to that common destination made all of the difference. Likewise in going to the moon and beyond, mankind will get there, just let those who are interested in doing so dream and work toward it. Don’t extort money from uninterested parties at the expense of the overall economy. Allow true freedom to reign and let that human potential in all of its forms flourish and resonate and you’ll have your weekend trips to the moon. The only way we can have it though is to realize that freedom is the best way to have the most prosperous world for everyone and only the most prosperous world will have the ability to reach for the stars.

For Opponents of The Gold Standard

In this article, which announced a big win for those interested in asset backed money, the mainstream could not help itself and in all fairness was likely correct in including a paragraph from opponents of what would be called "The Gold Standard". This part entertained me and I was actually thankful for the easy target it provided. There's no better time to give voice to your opponents than when they are dead wrong and easily shown to be so. I took aim and was prompted to write an absurdly long comment. Instead of once again having it die in exile on some server I'm putting that comment here on my wee blog. Here's the Original Article from AP: Utah making gold and silver coins legal currency, pushing debate about national gold standard

He's my commentary:

My favorite part is this: "Opponents of the law warn such a policy shift nationwide could increase the prospect of inflation and could destabilize international markets by removing the government's flexibility to quickly adjust currency prices."
This charge is almost laughable except for the fact that so many people have bought it. Printing money, low interest rates, legalized 10% bank reserve rates and rampant borrowing increase the prospect of inflation. I would only agree with these oppositions in saying that giving Americans a vehicle to back their purchasing power with an asset backed money would probably hasten a massive inflationary trend as people will move to the currency which cannot be debased by arbitrary, bureaucratic and banker whims. This by no means would indicate that introduction of a gold backed option causes inflation. Gold is only the MRI which reveals the cancer underneath the surface of the dollar. No one ever blames the MRI for their cancer so it would also be foolish to blame a gold backed money for inflation. It only reveals the horror beneath. It does not create the horror of hyperinflation. They go on to say that introducing a valuable money could "destabilize international markets by removing the government's flexibility to quickly adjust currency prices." Ladies and gentlemen I submit to you our current world economy. The system which the opponents of gold backing are citing is the system we have had in one form or another for 100 years since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. It has in fact been the policy to erode the gold standard since at least 1913, an aim finally achieved completely in 1971. Opponents of Gold backing always say something like “We’d be going backward in financial development”. I'd happen to disagree. Ask the Spartans about inflation and money debasement, ask the Romans. Ask the Germans of the 1920s and above all ask our founders about the Continental Dollar, which inflated to ZERO along with all of the others. This is why in the constitution they mandated that "No State shall...make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts." The game of something for nothing and currency debasement is thousands of years old and its lesson is clear: Any time you give a person or group the ability to get something for nothing they will abuse it for their own benefit. In ALL cases where some body is given the prerogative of money printing or diminishing the gold content of coins or whatever means were used to debase through artificial injection of value the result has ALWAYS been the collapse of that currency to zero. These Keynesian ideas parade around as if they are the economic equivalent to fusion power but they date back to the days of wood fires in mud huts. They have new names and new terminology with formulas and heavily titled men backing them up but it is nothing more than legalized counterfeiting for the benefit of one class at the expense of another. At the benefit of the US and other world governments and their banking class who control issuing of currency at the expense of everyone else. It's true that artificial injection of credit and currency have stabilized some situations but these 'victories' for Keynesianism have dire consequences (i.e. dot com bubble and crash, housing bubble and crash) because they distort reality. They make it appear that the USA needs more houses, so massive resources and labor are redirected and they are built. What we are left with is now a housing surplus which the US population will not be able to absorb until 2020 and a skilled profession full of men who can no longer apply their hard earned knowledge to earn a living because there is no demand for it. These distortions of markets could not occur in a society where capital could not be artificially injected. It is plain to me that these opposition arguments are weak even to the casual observer.

On Ron Paul's Positions of Freedom

Every so often I see a comment on a news article that just prompts me to write a dissertation. Afterward I often feel well that was a waste of effort on some comment stream that will disappear from site in couple hours so I post it here to make myself feel better. Here is the link to the original article Ron Paul Questions Mitt Romney

Here is the Comment to which I was responding:

Ron Paul knows that when you conduct a fund raising marathon, you only "get" commitments. No one actually gets all of the bank transfers that day. So what is the meaning of Ron Paul's "speech acts" here? He knows full well that this is how fund raising works. So why is he making it appear that Romney has done something out of the ordinary? It's a cheap shot. It speaks to the core of Ron Paul. Paul is desperate to get attention. He claims to be a man of HIGH integrity, yet his actions speak louder than his words.

Paul loves to make speeches about "freedom and tyranny." It makes us feel patriotic. But then he speaks in general and vague principles of "freedom" when having to address complex problems. Its much "easier" to say that you'd die for a cause rather than saying, "I'll stick around and solve complex problems."

Take for instance, health care reform. What is Paul's solution for the states to reduce health care costs? In Paul's state of Texas, there are millions of people who are uninsured. In fact, Texas is the WORST in the nation. Out of these millions of people, children are the hardest hit. Wow! Let freedom ring!

This is the real difference between Romney and Paul. Romney is willing to use the mandate to address personal responsibility. It is a mistake to suppose that simply becuase we have libertarian freedom, that we are all free from personal responsibility within a society. Yes, if you lived on an island, then you get to do whatever you want. but, when you join a modern and thriving society, these responsibilities change.

Romney is the only conservative willing to "ACT" on this reality. Romney is the one for personal responsibility.The other Republicans can only say they are for the "status quo." We don't want or need status quo candidates.

Ron Paul likes to propose radical changes, but they are untested and unmeasured. He wants to gamble with prostitution (in the day of high pornography use) and legalization of drugs with personal responsibility is at an all-time low. in short, Paul is for radical social experiments that will cause a lot of harm and damage - all for the sake of claiming that we are "more" free.

You're all for more freedom until you have to bone of your children for "legalized" drug overdose or a daughter who chose to "legally work" as a prostitute.

In short, Ron Paul has given up on the tough issues and proposes that we just become more free by abandoning laws to protect "modern" societies.

No Thanks Ron. Our country won't survive your experiments.

Here is My Response:

You make a lot of assumptions in your argument here. You are correct in saying "It is a mistake to suppose that simply becuase we have libertarian freedom, that we are all free from personal responsibility within a society." But you are projecting that onto Ron Paul's position and the libertarian position in general. This is simply false. Just because someone is not forced to give their money over to help others does not mean that person does not feel responsibility within a society. This is where collectivism differ from individualism. Individualists believe in the voluntary giving of one's own money, this is called charity (and the USA is the most charitable nation on earth). Collectivists believe in the giving of other people's money, taken by force, this is called welfare. So when you say that "Romney is willing to use the mandate to address personal responsibility." What you are really saying is Romney is willing to use the mandate to force people to compulsively hand over their money so it can be given to the group of his choosing". How does being forced to give your money equate to personal responsibility I wonder. If Robin Hood came to your door and put a gun in your face and said "give me your money, I want to give it to the poor people or the uninsured or the oil companies or to Pakistan or to Lockheed Martin to build the latest drone" how can you say that you give this money out of responsibility? Giving money out of responsibility is when someone who has been blessed by their intellect and their community in which that intellect thrived to have an excess of capital and a comfortable enough life that they feel indebted to that community which fostered it. Feeling responsibility is when one's own heart is touched by the needs of others and those funds are voluntarily given and utilized in accordance with the giver's wishes. What is responsibility when one bureaucrat's heart bleeds so he steals the capital of others to put toward that cause and then takes personal fulfillment and accepts the pravda for doing so. He has sacrificed nothing, he has not toiled and given of his labor. He is only a modern day Robin Hood who violates the rights of one group to provide for another and keeps the fame (and a portion of the stolen goods) for himself.

"Ron Paul likes to propose radical changes, but they are untested and unmeasured." regarding prostitution and legalization of drugs.
This another false statement. It has been tested and measured. It's called the 18th and 21st amendment. Alcohol, a drug (the most widely used and problematic one in our society, even today), was prohibited. This gave rise to an immense black market which gave birth to large illegal trafficking syndicates (sound familiar?). Corruption and illegal activity became so rampant that it was repealed and thus "legalized", now Alcohol is widely available and is a big business with quality standards and open competition. There are still problems with alcohol abuse, but there are voluntary, free organizations all over the nation to help people with the disease. Prostitution, where legal and out in the open, is where the prostitutes are screened for diseases weekly and there are institutions with rules to defend their prostitutes' rights etc. Prostitution is everywhere and will be everywhere no matter how hard you try. Most prostitution rings in most cities are run by tyrannical pimps who are the scum of the earth. Modern day brothels, where they are legal, have much better conditions for the prostitutes and customers. I'm not saying I'll ever go to one or condone its use but your arguments that they are untested and unmeasurable are ABSOLUTELY FALSE!

Furthermore: This argument which has been placed in your mind by FOX news is a psychological ploy to make liberty seem like some evil thing. Ron Paul's philosophy extends to the entire economy, no bureaucrats picking winners and loser. That, in turn, means that prostitution and drug must be de-prohibited, but that is only a totally fringe issue used to debase his philosophy by playing on people's emotions. When you heard a pundit say that about Ron Paul's position did you react emotionally to it? Probably, because that is was the media does. In never appeals to your higher reasoning only your emotional hot buttons. The fact is that large companies actively seek regulation on their respective industries. The large companies depend on their government regulators to restrict entry into a market and stifle, through expense of compliance, competition. Do you really think that with the million and billions these companies spend in congress that these regulations could not be in their favor? This is why Ron Paul wants to legalize the free market. From oil to prostitution. Equality under the law is supposed to be a calling card of our republic. But then why are these large companies so favorably treated, even bailed out with tax payer funds. Why is one man's specialty outlawed while another's is subsidized? Legalizing equality under the law is not radical! Promoting inequality under the law is radical and I'd venture to say against the very fabric of this Republic. The inequality is so interwoven to the cloth of the law now though that it may seem radical to rip it out. But it is no more radical than pulling the weeds from a choked flower bed thus allowing the flowers to flourish.

My Predictions About The Death Of Bin Laden

When I first heard the news the first thing I thought was "Why Today?" As I watch the president's address he mentioned that he'd/they'd been following the lead since August and basically known for sure since last week where he [Bin Laden] was. I think that many readers here might agree that this day has not been a matter of if but when since maybe as far back as 2001... who knows? So I'm just going to go out on a limb as I have some predictions about this whole thing and the timing of it. It seems as the foreign markets open today that some of the predictions are beginning to take shape already but only time will tell. I think that the timing of the killing of Bin Laden will have many implications beyond the scope of any person or persons to see. That being said here are the first 4 that come to my mind: 1) the first of the Republican debates this week, 2) the silver short story, 3) the debt ceiling and 4) the end of QE2... well 5 things, my wedding on this coming Saturday :).

1) The dollar index was tanking last week and silver was like the engine that could trying to break away from $50 an ounce mark. Most reading this have probably read about the massive short positions out there and the length which the big boys are going to reestablish their shorts and crash silver. In case you have not, here's a short video which describes it pretty well and simply Click here for short video. The Asian markets have only been open for.... well about as long as rumors of the president’s announcement hit the airwaves this evening. In that time the dollar index has rallied and silver has crashed $5 an ounce. Today also happens to be the end of the 1st quarter (the 1st Monday after April 30th) which is traditionally the day which short positions and deliveries of precious metal come due. I predict a further pullback in silver on the heels of all of this. This is all music to my ears really. Everyone should raid their saving and stock up during this pull back IMHO. I don't know how much they'll get out of the pullback or how long it will last. It is clear though that in the end, silver will be unstoppable. They can only catch Bin Laden once after all.

2) It should be clear to everyone that this is going to DEEPLY affect the republican field during this election. In what ways I do no know. The good news is that this bump will not last Obama through to the election and his ruinous economic policies (with his Republican friends) will never cease to haunt him in the coming years. Luckily for those interested in Ron Paul this, I believe, will only help his chances. He never sought to claim the head of Bin Laden as many, now failed, Republicans have. Furthermore, the Ron Paul sites are already alive with comments about leaving the Middle East. We all know that that is not the agenda of the administration though but we also know is that this can only strengthen Dr. Paul's arguments of abandoning frivolous wars in the Middle East. Catching Bin Laden was a major objective in 'the war on terror'. With an increasingly war-weary public the rational for our military presence in the Middle East is dwindling. Common sense people, I believe, may find themselves agreeing more and more with Ron Paul's philosophies on foreign policy. At least one would hope so. Once again, we will have to see.

3) The debt ceiling will get raised with little debate now that the public is giddy and distracted. You'll hear about it, but it will be back page news. Either that or they'll say: "If we don't raise the debt ceiling Bin Laden will re-animate and lead the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse on an unstoppable jihad on the most free Americans." Or some variation of that, it will probably sound more like: "With the leaps we've made in the past weeks in securing America we cannot afford to lose that ground by de-funding our efforts to halt global terrorism at this critical moment in history. We are on the brink of victory in a war where it is impossible to declare victory.” (I ask General Petraeus about perpetual war in the Middle East in this video). Ok so they might leave out that last part.

4) Even if the debt ceiling is raised there may be no one who wants to buy our treasuries with The Fed's QE2 ending in June. S&P just lowered the credit rating of the USA so the USD and USA in general needs a boost to keep this bond bubble from popping. With QE1 & QE2 The Fed bought something like 800 billion in treasuries. Almost a Trillion more dollars printed into existence! I don't know what M3 is these days... I don't even thing they're publishing it anymore but basically that's a whole crap load of money which will, once it trickles down to the masses, dilute all dollar savings around world. The unsustainable fiscal policies of Quantitative Easing executed by The Fed and Treasury, explained well in this short video QE Explained in less than 7 mins, will require more actual money be invested in treasuries at some point. In order to do this they must ‘rally’ the USA and attract foreign investment. The signs we’re seeing now in the wee hours of early foreign markets show that this announcement may already be paying off in this respect.

5) Lastly, as if this past weekend's Royal wedding, which people have been looking forward to all year, didn't overshadow my wedding this coming weekend enough!... Now a decade of American longing has been fulfilled only 6 days prior to what is supposed to be my 'big day'. I'm sure given this that the media blackout of my wedding will only continue and deepen!

These are just a few predictions for this historic day in our country. Maybe I'll be right and can take credit or maybe I'll be wrong and learn my lesson about predictions. Either way it was fun to think about.

Sincerely,
Rich Clarke

Last night I finished watching the New Zeitgeist film titled Moving Forward. I also watched an hour interview with the creator Peter Joeseph (below referred to as PJ). I began some debates on YouTube in the chat section but when it became too late I went to bed. Today I went to see if anyone had replied to me and several had. So I decided to pick one and just unload all of my thoughts on him in a private message on Youtube. Here is that message.

First my Parting words last night:

"night night all... it's been fun here. I think that Peter is right on about a lot of the problems we have. In the end though, as I reflected, I think the causes he elicits are not the whole story. Also, while I'm not saying they are impossible, his solutions are very unlikely to yield the perfect, work free, society proposed. From what is depicted in the film I'd say this is not a peaceful movement either. The "peaceful mob" was not there to deliver a birthday cake at the end. The Plutocrats capitulated because they knew that if they did not. Eventually that mob could kick their butts or at least make their lives hell. @ParadigmShifting. Complying with the masses denotes a pure democracy AKA mob rule. This mean that the rights of the individual are not protected, which means that individuals exist at the whim of the masses. This is referred to as a collectivist philosophy. PJ can say all day that all the -isms are crap.But he is in fact promoting one whether he knows it or not.

Response from ParadigmShifting

"The "right" of an individual to keep the majority of the life giving resources of this planet to himself isn't a right. If thats how you feel then as a member of the masses I say fuck your right. I was born on this planet just the same as you were, what gives you anymore "right" to anything on it than I have?"

My Private message to ParadigmShifting

So then what about my resources. By your argument then if I chop down a tree and use its wood to keep warm you then have a 'right' to that wood? So then you have a right to my labor. Because you were born here do you have a right to my services? To my time? to my person? I don't think so. That is because I 'own' me. My body is sovereign. Meaning I alone control its action and I have a right to protect it from harm. In this resource based economy they never talk too much about human resources. The greatest of all resources. They just say that no one will have to work for anything material. Someone will have to work though. Even PJ admits that... of course they will volunteer their time to maintain the equipment of this world. PJ also implies that people will be left to be creative and invent new things as opposed to the grind of work. So then there will be labor happening. If ownership of one's self is abolished as old fashioned then the collective owns your labor and if a cause is deemed the greater good of the greater number of human resources your human resource can be exploited or even extinguished if necessary. While this sounds like a technological advance this is in fact the most primitive of philosophical systems. With the resources centrally controlled we must ask... who are the central controllers? Will they not abuse their power? "No they will not... because the lust for power will be bread from the human mind!" To that I say. Dream on. The reason this nation remained free as long as it did was because the founders placed limits on the central authority. For the last 100 years or so those limits have been compromised. When asked how we'd make sure to have good men in the central authority Thomas Jefferson said "Speak to me not of good men, we shall bind them in the chains of the constitution".

Power is a tool. Just like any tool it can be used for good or for evil. PJ uses his power of persuasion and media to promote ideas which he thinks are right. If you asked him he'd say that is a good use of power. When designing any system it usually has power centers. If your system depends on moral men to control these power centers then it is doomed to failure. Especially if rights of personal ownership are not maintained meaning that the needs of the majority will rule the individual. In this society the individual has no recourse when the majority speaks, other than begging on hands and knees. If everything is provided to you as a privilege by the resource center or computer mainframe then everything can be taken away as well. Either by force or by accident. When you have a populous dependent on one central system of resource management that system and those who are a part of it are vulnerable to manipulation or control. If individuals are not self sufficient, and have no natural rights, the most fundamental being the right to life (the ownership of one's own body) then individual have no rights. They have only privileges granted them by a higher authority. The nature of privileges dictates that they can be removed from you at any point, this includes your license to live. Also these privileges means that at some level some entity owns the resources of the world. Even if that entity is titled "The People of Earth" if those people at once own nothing, not even themselves, but in turn owns everything, including others you have a paradox. The power to control all of the resources will have to be delegated. PJ states this. That it will be managed by a central earth nervous system. This system will own the resources and decide what to do with them. Ok, perhaps you'll say it will not 'own' anything because no one will 'own' anything... Well then I'll just leave it at what PJ says. The system will monitor, allocate, optimize and delegate the resources of the earth. With the collective right to the resources of the earth delegated to the system the individual is left with no rights at all then. Since ownership of one's self or anything is passe. So even though the majority lives "as if EVERYONE on Earth has a six figure income", as one commenter posted last night, they have no rights. Thus they are nothing more than slaves to this system. House slaves, granted... but slaves non-the-less. The typical response to this would be. You just have not learned enough about the Venus Project. You need to go to their website and see what it's all about. You need to watch this video or that interview. You need to get more educated. To that I'd say, I've seen the 3 movies. I've reviewed several interviews with PJ, hours worth. I have read their posts on The Venus Project's site. It all sounds very nice but it is plain to see that there are oversights. Such as those listed above.

One of the main links on The Venus Project's page is "A New Social Design". Social design is not a new practice. Time and time again brilliant great men have proposed new social designs to bring prosperity as solve the problems of our culture. It is these very designers who have ruined our society today. The central economic planner such as the central banks of the world and those who attempt to manage economic industries and resources are constantly mis-allocating resources. The Venus Project says that they will be different because they will use science. Well... our power centers today base everything on science. The scientists are bought and paid for though and if in a moneyless, Venus Project, society you say that cannot happen then you cannot be talking about the same human species which I am. Persuasion does not die with money, especially is a society where individuals have not rights. I would recommend that Venus Project members read "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat. It was written in 1850 but is still one of the best works of social literature ever published. It is short and can be read in an afternoon. I cannot tell you what to believe, because you own your own mind, and you can continue to believe in the noble ends of the Venus Project. I just beg of you please look closely at the means to that end. Please consider that their computer system will have to be programmed by flawed humans and that we don't know everything about our Earth. Technology has been a foundation stone of human material progress over the eons. However, progress and technological discovery was never greater than after a group of philosophers decided that the rights of the individual are supreme and innate in society. Anyone who violates those rights, no matter the ills or perceive nobility of their cause, will be held accountable. They realized that no group should have rights beyond the rights of the individuals who make up that group. At that time we saw the greatest advances the world has ever known. Do not misconstrue these statements to say that I believe that this is the society in which we live now. For it is not. These ideas have been gradually eroded ever since their inception by our common enemies. That is another story though. Please consider what I've said here.

My Response to Einstein

My response to this article titled: "FLASHBACK: Albert Einstein Identifies The Inherent Flaw Of The Gold Standard"

Main Quote from Article: “The gold standard has, in my opinion, the serious disadvantage that a shortage in the supply of gold automatically leads to a contraction of credit and also of the amount of currency in circulation, to which contraction prices and wages cannot adjust themselves sufficiently quickly.” Albert Einstein

My Response:

If such an actual check on a nation's production as the gold standard existed we'd not be in the predicament we are in now. No nation or person can run a decades long deficit and not pay the price someday. If there was a gold standard of some type in place our deficit would have never been able to run as high and as long as has today. Consequently, because it is a lasting trend, production has gone overseas and left the USA.

Forget the Gold Standard or any Commodity standard or bias toward it for a moment. The real issue is production. Nations must produce in order to trade with other nations. All we have produced over the last 30 years is a bunch of paper with dead presidents on it. China and other nations now are the producer nations. When the fiat dollar falters, and it will, the US will be in dire straights. Whether gold, silver, copper, corn, oil, beans or lumber, all of these things, these commodities, cannot be counterfeited. Only through work and production can they be made usable for their purposes. Once a nation gives the right to claim the production of another nation or person without having produced themselves then you get abuse. In our case, abuse of the dollar, which has depreciated 96% since 1900. The average person's life savings in 1900 would not be enough to buy a car now. His lifetime gross income not enough to buy a house. How can the wealth of a nation's people be preserved and grown from generation to generation under such conditions? With the fall of the dollar we've seen a corresponding fall in quality of life in the last 50 years. Every household must have 2 earners now to make ends meet. Actual wages are down, costs are up. It does not matter who it is, unless it is God himself, when you give one man, one group or one nation the ability to legally get something for nothing the system will be abused at the expense of the neighboring individual's, societies, nations and eventually the counterfeiter himself.

Recessions caused by trade imbalances under a gold standard, which you discussed above, are not the problem, the imbalance is the problem. The recession is the cure. The nation or person is producing an unwanted, outdated or overpriced product. The recession is the signal that it needs to retool, refocus or be liquidated to more productive means. Instead what we do now is to flush the industry with funds and credit to keep building the unwanted products indefinitely to preserve the jobs, the name or the pride of the endeavor. Giving money to a company who still makes CRT TVs in 2011 to keep jobs or because the company has been around since 1878 etc. will not increase demand for CRTs. People want the Chinese flat screens and the Goodwill down the street from me has big boxy CRT TVs for sale for $10 as far as the eye can see. All propping up such a company in times of trade-imbalance-induced-recession does is waste more glass, more copper, more silver, more wood, more labor and more manufacturing space on junk no one wants or needs.

Life in a non-counterfeit economy is not easy. We cannot just print our way out of trouble at the expense of the rest of the world's and our own neighbor's savings. We have to stay on our toes and realize that whatever it is that got you to where you are today is not enough to get you there tomorrow. There is a cure for gold-standard-trade-imbalance-induced-recession. It's call savings. So long as the deficit is not large, like say... 4:1, reference: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2010 then it should be able to be absorbed by savings until the nation can retool its production to correct the deficit of trade. Unfortunately, a nation with a sometimes negative savings rate and a 4:1 imbalance is in for a rough ride. How on earth did it get to be 4:1 anyways... how could we get 4 tons of stuff in return for 1 ton of stuff in 2010. Well lucky us. Just as you pointed out above, we have an elastic money supply that can issue counterfeit value into the system, thus allowing the imbalance to never force a correction and thus expand as we make more and more stuff nobody wants or just make nothing at all. All of this misused production is not cured by the elastic money, it is merely given a blood transfusion. It is still not able to produce it's own blood and will need the blood of others indefinitely. So now, thanks to the system you endorse, some day the world will stop taking the paper and give us back all the paper we gave them over the years and all we'll have left is 1/4 the productive capability of our neighbors, no savings and a mountain of defaulted debt. All because of an imbalance that a gold standard or any non-fiat standard could have stopped.

The truth is that we only learn through negative feedback. If you are groping in the dark for the light switch you identify and move to correct each time you grasp something that is not the light switch until you find it. If you are doing the correct thing, such as a pilot maintaining a heading, no action is required until the instruments read that conditions have changed or the pilot has made an error and strayed from his course at which point he must act to correct.

Einstein was a genius, but he wasn't always right. That's a fact. Geniuses are always thinking of new ideas, thinking about things. Trying to find which ideas work and which don't. Exploring deeper the plausible ideas and ignoring the bad ones. I'm not saying that this was a bad idea he stated in your quote. I think he is actually absolutely correct. In today's world though I think he'd appreciate it, if he were still alive, if I asked "Mr. Einstein, seeing now what has transpired perhaps you'd be better served by your correct observation of trade imbalances and the gold standard by looking at it differently. Perhaps this characteristic is in fact an advantage of the gold standard. Perhaps is a society with misallocated resources needs a contraction of credit and money to let it know it is veering off course so it can steer itself in the correct direction."

Oh and by the way, The Germans... they make awesome stuff that everyone wants. That is why they are a prosperous nation in the sinking ship of Europe. Even though their neighbors rob them blind every day with bailouts to Greece, Spain and Ireland their production base is strong enough to take it. At least for now.

Response to Kevin Powell and His View on Guns

My Response to this video
Adam Kokesh vs. Kevin Powell on Russia Today



and this article Arizon is America by Kevin Powell

Furthermore, If you don't feel like reading this letter I wrote to Kevin just watch Adam Kokesh read it on his show.



Hi Kevin,

Saw your interview on Russia Today. I really enjoy how you stated at 3 mins and 20 seconds-ish that "As George Earl once said famously that 'Everything is political' and he was absolutely right". Then for the rest of video you tried to say that you were not political, that your opponent on the show was the only political one and he said politics first. Sooo. You're saying that everything is political except you the humble public servant? Also your opponent, Adam, said in his opening statement that everyone out there is saying that this shooting is "Non-partisan" but, oh by the way, I'm right and you're wrong. I don't know if you noticed but he basically wrote your script there for the rest of the segment. The fact that you hardly let the man speak doesn't mean you are any more right it just makes you look like a loud mouth. I also don't see how you can think of yourself as non-political when you're proposals challenge the Bill of Rights.

I'm no gunslinger and I don't own a gun but I do know that the 2nd amendment was not intended to ensure that people have the right to hunt pheasant. It's written "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Being NECESSARY to the security of a free state! Now the militias were disbanded due to the strength of the US military, which is a woeful thing, so all that is left to defend the 'free state' is the right to bear arms. There are many problems with having a free state but as Jefferson said “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”

Furthermore, I once saw a bumper stick that said: 'Mao, Stalin and Hitler all agree, Gun Control works!' Now that's an inflammatory thing to say but it is the truth. All of those societies had controls on fire arms. Not that it made much difference. I mean after all even if the Germans had guns it would not have changed the fact that Hitler was elected democratically and everything he did was completely legal. Even the 'final solution' was 'legal' as the Reichstagg had, through the enabling act, made anything Hitler wanted to do absolutely legal. That citizens of that nation did not have a set of overarching laws considered inalienable to protect them. In that nation the people's rights were delineated by the state. So when the state came to take you away there was no higher law to appeal to. That's what happens when governments grant the rights to their people... they can take them away! There was no overarching philosophy, just the law which, at the end of a gun, said that you no longer had any rights to defend. That's the point where having a gun might be nice, to at least have a chance to defend your natural rights from the artificial rights of the state.

Natural laws are often the most difficult to understand. The men that made our nation were to the first to grasp at them and codify, through experience, those which they thought most fundamental. Those men could have become the monarchs and rulers of a new aristocracy in a new nation but instead chose to acknowledge that there are natural laws and that a state has no authority to govern over them but merely to defend them. These men chose to forgo the power they could have had in their lives to make something much greater. These were the real servants of society who really sacrificed. They knew that these natural laws above all else are the most important to uphold. So to say that you are a public servant in one sentence and then say that you are in favor of gutting the bill of rights in the next is an outrage. We are continuing down a path which has been followed with only one exception in history. That path is that all rights are privileges given by the state. The exception used to be The United States of America. You are but one more brick in the wall who wishes rights to be mere privileges handed down from state authority. I am just one drop of water saying that these rights are innate in our humanity. We'll never be terribly great friends. Right now and for the last 80-100 years the wall has grown high and strong with your help and the help of many many others. Like all walls though, one drop at a time it will be worn down by the laws of nature. It will take years, decades or even more but natural law will peacefully erode the wall with reason and truth to rule once again. It's started to rain again here as people begin to realize the difference. Beginning to learn about legalized plunder and that both parties, Republican and Democrat, believe that the rights of the people are to be delineated by the state. If I'm wrong about you please correct me, but if you are looking to turn a natural right into a privilege given by the government your stance is pretty plain to me.

I wrote this in response to the video but also would like to reference the above article you wrote as well. This above statement should answer your question of "who do they want their country back from?" Most American's have not been able to put their finger on this question quite yet mostly because for their entire lives they've been told to blame the Republicans or blame the Democrats. The answer they seek is that the people want their country back from those who believe that it the duty of the state to deliver the rights to the people not protect the rights they already have from birth. It has little to do with returning to a slave economy or the Jim Crow south. Slavery is a scourge on American/World History and may have already well ruined us. On a conciliatory note based on your above letter you are correct about Americans needing to look long and hard at their country. I'd even agree with the things you recommended they look at. I'd just expand it a little. Look at the welfare system (which make people dependent on the state and expect to be taken care of by the state), social security, The Federal Reserve, The IRS and all fancy schemes to rob Americans blind. Unemployment (which discourages people to take employment which pays less than $300 a week), Minimum wage laws (which discriminates against unskilled workers and causes us to lose jobs to cheaper labor overseas). Over-medication of the public, especially in public schools. Public Education is not adequate and, in my opinion and experience, can even be harmful to creating free thinking and productive individuals. The Patriot Act (Total assault on the Bill of Rights) and the War On Terrorism (how can you fight a war against a military tactic? How about a War On Flanking?). Is medical treatment a right? If so who grants it? God? Is every child born with an indentured, personal physician beside him? Well of course that is not the case. Which means that means that the 'right' to health care is also a right granted by the state and thus one which can be arbitrarily removed by any number of bureaucratic means. Most balk at the notion of eliminating these institutions but they are strands in the fabric of our society just as we are. If WE are the problem, as you said in your post, and if those programs are part of US then they perhaps should be looked at with another perspective as well.

Sincerely,
Rich Clarke

Where Have All of The Men Gone? The Edge Of The Sword

This was originally posted here: http://dailypaul.com/node/153984
Visit that site for Dailypaul user comments. There are quite a few of them.

I had an interesting social experience a couple of hours ago. I hope those that read it enjoy it or get something out of it.

Here in Georgia (Atlanta) we just got, oh, about 6 inches of snow in approximately 4 hours (tip of the hat to Al Gore). I was at a colleague's house working on a project when he came back from outside and said, "If you want any chance of getting home you should leave now." Myself and another left post haste with already an inch on the ground after about 45 minutes of snowfall. Snow plows down here are about as common as The Yeti so you can imagine the scene. Luckily most motorists were aware of the impending storm and stayed off the road. However there I was in the driving snow thinking to myself that this trip was ill advised/You're an idiot. My fiancée had told be to stay there if the weather got bad so I knew if anything happened I'd get an earful.

Everything was going quite well until I reached a hill on the East West connector about 10 miles from home. Traffic stopped and I was about 50 or so cars back in the mix. I sat for about 5 minutes contemplating my options and seriously wondering if I was going to have to abandon my vehicle and walk that far. I went for the 'walk up and see what's going on' option. I was quite a ways back and it was cold so I ran to the head of the congestion about a quarter mile ahead. There stood a large hill with several vehicles at various elevations and in various forms of stuck-in-the-snow-ness.

Several others had exited their vehicles and we banded together to start pushing. At first it wasn't going well but soon we managed to get a system going. We tried to convince rear wheel drive motorists to pull off to the right lane and wait as front wheel drive vehicles could easily tackle the hill. You can imagine how well that went over. We moved about 100 cars through... maybe more. The rear wheel folks would get through of course and I'd have to go all the way up the hill with them because they'd get stuck every 50 feet or so. After pushing one up the hill with another guy I went down to find only one or two people around and jam up as a rear wheel drive car came to the cue. Most of my original crew was gone as their cars had been freed. I realized that my car was running somewhere about a quarter mile back and probably blocking traffic so after freeing that SUV I ran back what seemed like forever looking for my car. I found it and luckily cars were moving by it in the other lane. I moved it up some, so that I could at least reap some benefit for all the work, and then proceeded on foot back to the front.

On my way to my car everyone was rolling down their windows asking. "Hey what's going on up there?", "Hey are things moving up there?", "Has anyone called the police?" (I laughed at that one. No way in hell they could get here). So on my way back to the front I knocked on windows with male drivers to enlist help as there were not many pushers left. Most just looked at me in a really confused fashion. I knocked on one tough looking guy's window. Looked like the military type and he had a girl with him. He rolled down his window and I asked him to come help. He proceeded to ask me a slew of questions about the situation. I answered, told him why it was backed and he should come help. He then bitched about it yelling out that it's a "Damn Chinese Traffic Jam", whatever that is, in tone like all the people in front of him were idiots. All the while not budging from his seat. I just said "fine don't come" and yelled as I walked away "Enjoy your MAN!" to his blonde passenger. That was probably the most dangerous point of the evening, not because of the snow but because the guy finally got out of the car and now could not seem to stifle his MANhood as he accosted me for saying such a disrespectful thing in front of his lady friend. I apologized and said I'm sorry I've been pushing cars for about 45 minutes. He said "Well that's not my problem you shouldn't take your frustration out on me." Perhaps he's right, but after the blank stares I got through nearly 100% of the windows I appealed to for help I was just like "What is wrong with these men?" So unfortunately he got the brunt of that observation. In all likelihood his elicit reaction was because there was some truth to my statement. He even threatened to snap my neck... All this after I had personally done about 40% of all the work that had kept him inching forward (past my car) for the last 30 minutes. The front was jammed up again when I arrived and we got it cleared and kept going. That distraught man disappeared amongst the commotion. I think I saw him push one car and later only noted his absence. I'm sure I pushed him out later. I hope his girl took note.

Bottom line, and I'm sorry this was so long, is not one man I asked came willingly or sprung to action. I guess all the go-getters had already freed their cars and moved on. I felt like a salesman out there trying to sell them the way out of being stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere. Some came, but only after much prodding. I'm not saying I'm some great hero or anything. I'm just saying ... where have all the men gone? It really is true that in society it's about 5% of the population that leads. "The edge of sword" as they say. The masses sit in their car, not knowing what's going on just 100 yards in front of them, hoping that someone else will push them out. It makes me really worry about the days ahead as times are sure to go from bad to worse in the relatively near future. Everyone on here should know that you'll be the 5% everyone will look to. You know what's around the bend (more or less) and will take action to make things better while everyone else looks around in confusion wondering what the hell is happening.

P.S.

This for anyone who cares if I got out. Everyone else can go check out other posts :). I looked back to see a Mack truck without a trailer (rear wheel drive) trying to make its way to the front. I went up to him and was said "man... I hate to say this but you might not make it and if you get stuck half way up the hill there's no way we'll be able to push you around like these little SUVs and get you out. You could block the whole road!" He said "naw man... If I can get going I'll make it just fine!" and he was insistent. He was trying to go around a car and was stuck and he then asked... "Is that your car in front of me?" I look and to my amazement... it was. "I said yeah... I can move it for you"... I looked back at that truck knowing what would happen as he climbed the hill and looked ahead and the road was more of less clear. I said to myself, "I've done all I can here" and drove off easily maneuvering past a few stuck rear wheel drive cars. I was home in 10 minutes and exhausted. It took me well over an hour to make a trip that's normally 20 minutes.