This ain’t about religion, folks

First, I will not deny that Islam has a history of slavery, brutality, deceit and war.

Second…so does every other religion, race, ethnicity or other description of “human” on the planet.

People tend try very hard to rationalize the anger and desire for violence stirring in their heads.  The justifications people come up with sometimes become motivation and fuel for actual violence.  And often that process at the individual level becomes cliquish, tribal mob-think.  So it’s easy to see why non-Muslims react against “The Religion of Peace.”

But us flag-waving, non-Muslim Americans really need to discuss a few things honestly; including our own culture of global, politically-inflamed and monetary-policy-fueled violence.  

I wish more people understood and acted upon the truth that ALL people everywhere in all times think they’re right…and that only the other people are wrong.

But with so much obvious ignorance and disastrously bad policy (have ANY of our government’s promises or justifications for warfare turned out to be true?), we’re past-due for a look at both OUR history, and our allies…including the one that seems off-the-table, taboo, and the Name Never Spoken: Saudi Arabia.

Ibn Taymiyyah, Abd al-Wahhab (1703 – 1792) was a Sunni Muslim cleric who rejected modern culture and technology, and sought to purify and distill Islam to the faith and practices of the Salaf.  In other words, he wanted people to live in the year 700.

This was not a very popular idea among the very many Muslims who liked the advances made in the intervening thousand years…many of the advances coming from Muslims themselves.

Putting it more simply, many Muslims wanted him dead. So the cleric sought out the protection of a well-known desert warrior/ emir, Muhammad ibn Saud.

It turned out that Wahhab’s ideas of religious discipline and zeal fit very well with Saud’s ideas of military conquest and political domination. They legitimized each other, in effect; and so they created a dynasty that endures to today.

But this weaponized religion in the form of Wahhabism and the House of Saud had pretty powerful enemies within the prevailing Ottoman Empire. So the Ottomans eventually (albeit violently) contained Saudi Arabia’s inherent military expansionist zeal.

Through all this, however, Ottomans and Europeans were also fighting each other. It was mostly the British who started a practice of deceit and division to ally with opposing factions to disrupt the empire.

After the horrific Young Turk Revolution and during WWI is when the young archaeologist T.E. Lawrence was pushed into Britain’s assymetric engagement to bring down the Ottoman Empire.

Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB DSO FAS, better known as “Lawrence of Arabia,” was an amazing guy; and not just because the multilingual soldier/ archaeologist/ writer liked motorcycles. Mostly, it’s because he was both a key historical figure, and a Cassandric chronicler of our current problems in the Middle East.

During the revolution/fall of the Ottoman Empire, Lawrence tried to help the Egyptian-led Hashemite forces make a stable, peaceful transition to the modern world. But England was, at first unbeknownst to Lawrence, also subsidizing the opposing faction of Muslims in Riyad…the House of Saud.

“The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.” – “Report on Mesopotamia” The Sunday Times (22 August 1920)  (does this seem familar somehow?)

Lawrence’s axis of Egyptian/Syrian Arabs did most of the real dismantling of the old Empire while the House of Saud/Wahhabis pretty much rebuilt in the background (and certainly avoided the forces helped/led by T.E. Lawrence).

With the increasing importance of oil, and the ready sources of it in his grasp, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdul-Rahman al Faisal al Saud became more than just a military force.

So the British then did in that conflict what the USA has done ever since…they funded, equipped and aided two sides of a revolution against a third entity, and ended up picking the worst side.

So it was the Wahhabist Saudi faction that gained the real power from the post-revolution/ post-WWI power struggles…because western powers took their side.

To make the long story short, Saudi Arabia became nobody’s friend, but everybody’s ally; especially since FDR signed a deal with the Saudis, and Nixon based the dollar on their oil trade instead of gold after unilaterally ending the Breton Woods Agreement (the connection to gold was essentially broken by FDR long before, but at least we still promised to trade dollars for gold with the BWA).

Richer by far than the dissipating Rothchilds, as heavily armed as they want to be, and to seal their imperviousness to our domestic production, we just gave the Wahhabis our biggest oil refinery in Port Arthur Texas.  

Global imperialism and concomitantly devalued currency wrecked the British Empire, so the USA has now taken on Britain’s role of self-destructing meddler-bully.

We’ve become both puppet and puppeteer, both thug and serf. The middle east is a divided, angry wreck because we made it that way over the past one-hundred years.  And to fight for the value of our dollar on the global market, we have to fight wars for the House of Saud.

What’s next?  What would you do if you were a non-Saudi in the Middle East?

Consider what Lawrence wrote as applicable to all of us:

“Whether they are fit for independence or not remains to be tried. Merit is no qualification for freedom. Bulgars, Afghans, and Tahitans have it. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense of your neighbour’s occupying you is greater than the profit.” – “Letter to the Editor” The Times (22 July 1920)

Let’s Clean Up our Mess

In an OP-ED for Indiana Policy Review I lay out the steps to clean up our mess:

1. End the duopoly.
2. Drive away the moneychangers.
3. Stand down the Empire.

Nearly all of what we call “issues” — the unraveling economy, a ridiculous healthcare system, rising prices, even militarized police and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria — are just symptoms and side effects of a much worse problem.

It makes all our talk of ideology, libertarian versus authoritarian, or even “left” versus “right,” whatever those mean anymore, not just irrelevant but a costly distraction. The problem is corruption; we have a crony-network-crime-ring running the nation and much of the world. Here is what can be done about it in three steps:

First, take away the unconstitutional special powers and immunities seized by the private clubs called the Democratic and Republican parties. We shouldn’t have parties at all, really. Equality under law is fundamental justice, and mandated by Indiana Constitution’s Article I, Section 23. So let’s defrock these charlatans and thieves. Let independents and third parties have equal rights to election-related commissions and ballots. End primary elections, which implicitly provide more money, public attention, free advertising and media promotion to only Democrats and Republicans at the actual expense of all alternatives. End the special powers and immunities of precinct committeemen, which only Democratic and Republican parties are allowed. In case you think that having written special powers and privileges into Indiana Code make the self-appointed “major” political parties legit, Indiana Constitution’s Article I, Section 25 makes it clear that legislation cannot transgress the constitution. Read it; much like the U.S. Constitution’s Tenth Amendment, it’s the single most important sentence in Indiana Law.

This first step must be taken by voters, of course.  Current officeholders will not voluntarily step away from power – you must fire them.  Then we can move to step #2 after you hire people who actually want to move forward.

Second, kill central banking as it currently exists. Yes, audit the Federal Reserve Bank system, repudiate unconstitutional/illegal debts and otherwise clean up the mess. Andrew Jackson was right —  moneychangers are inherently “…a den of vipers and thieves…” and we must rout them out.  But moneychangers, as opposed to mere bankers, are never free-market enterprises; they require political authority to become monopolistic.  And our “Fed” was required long ago to primarily fund our government…not serve the needs of business.  Sound money is critical to freedom, so ending the accounting tricks and thieving traps of political/private hybrid central banks is the single most important step. That’s why it’s constitutionally mandated by the Indiana Constitution’s Article 11 Sections 3 and 7, as well as the U.S. Constitution’s Article I, Section 8:5, and Article I Section 10. But it’s highly unlikely we’ll be able to address the bankers until we take away their two-party puppet show diversions. Look at the campaign donations from the financial sector and you’ll see why this is step two.

Third, stand down the Empire. Our fear-aggression syndrome isn’t just costly and destructive, it makes us less secure, less prosperous, and certainly less free. Not only have all our wars since WWII been unconstitutional but the actual design of our military has been unconstitutional since 1903 by the federal constitution’s Article I Sections 8 and 10, Article II Section 2, the Second and Fifth Amendments, as well as Indiana’s Article 2 Section 9, and Article 12 (the whole thing). This also should be done immediately, but it’s unlikely that most people will see just how bad it has become (and how right Dwight Eisenhower was about it) until we unmask this monster by taking away that crony-network-crime-ring. Also, look at the campaign donations from the military-industrialist sector. Look at how no state of sustained warfare can exist without debt-based fiat currency. You’ll see why this is step three.

Joe Biden, proving that even a broken clock is right twice a day, said: “Fighting corruption is not just good governance. It’s self-defense. It’s patriotism.” Very well, let’s make 2016 the year we do that right.

Summer 2010 Indiana Policy Review

Here’s the latest Indiana Policy Review summer 2010 journal – “A Tea Party Primer.”  Please pass it on to everybody you know.  Tell them to pass it on to everybody they know.

Etc.

It’s now or never, my friends…

Here’s one last column before I take down this site:

I have never believed in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or that creepy Tooth Fairy thing. 

But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t nurtured other baseless, nutty beliefs until some painful paroxysm jolted me awake. 

Many years ago, under horrible personal circumstances, I endured the same spiritual upheaval you’re feeling right now.  Just as with you, my religion turned out to be a big lie.  My false god turned against me, just as it’s turning against you now.  So like you, I can no longer believe in the charity, peace and love of …politicians. 

While initially painful, there is relief in this truth that sets you free. 

But there’s another problem.  Nobody alive remembers how liberty works.  We cannot imagine how schools, roads jobs, healthcare, or food ever existed without a political genesis, subsequent bailouts, lawsuits and bipartisan bickering.  Only if you’re over 100 years old did you even exist when there was such a thing as a free market; with all the innovation, competition and rapid advancement that entails.

So as we endure the agony of Change that’s not working, we must thoughtfully prepare a better way forward.  I suggest we first retrieve what we’ve lost from the past.

All federal authority is still clearly written into the Constitution for the United States of America (Article I, Section 8; Article II, Sections 2-4; Article III), which you could read in just a few minutes.  All other powers are still very clearly denied by one short sentence (Amendment 10).  Similarly, all Indiana government powers are spelled out in the Indiana Constitution, while every other conceivable power is still denied by a single sentence (Article I, Section 25).

No state or federal constitution was ever amended, altered or suspended to authorize most of what governments now do to citizens.  Nullification of anything unconstitutional is already law at every level of government in the republic.  So we have the right, the power, and the duty, to tell politicians to back off; all the way back to the constitutions.

Here’s a summary of what that means:

1. Citizens can do whatever they want to as long as they don’t harm anybody else, or take what’s not theirs.
2. We’d have no more government than necessary to maintain #1
3. We invite others around the world to emulate our success, but otherwise leave them the heck alone.
4. Your major civic duty is to disobey, invalidate and otherwise eliminate all unconstitutional taxes, mandates, organizations and agents.  Yes, civil disobedience is a duty. 

So caveat emptor would replace the FDA, FTC, FDIC, FCC and a zillion other F’agencies.  Common sense, family ties, competition, voluntary associations, charity and free market options galore would replace union/corporate monstrosities, Medicare, Social Security, lobbyists, regulations, litigation and price controls.  And because of the preceding, you get to keep what you earn, buy what you like (smoke it if you’re fool enough – and as long as you don’t blow it in my face), and live however and with whomever you want…as long as you leave others, and their stuff, alone.

No federal tooth fairies, no President coming down the chimney with presents, no more bogus political promises; just a reality proven to work better than anything else ever tried.

That may not be a Square Deal or a New Deal.  But it’s a fair deal, which makes it the best deal in all of human history. 

Can you live with that? 

People used to call that “freedom.”

And they liked it.

We must now act quickly…

“To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection–a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end.”  – Friedrich August von Hayek, Introduction to “Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle,” 1932

 

Hayek won a Nobel Prize for his work explaining what caused, worsened and prolonged the Great Depression.  “Austrian School” economists have ever since warned us about what’s now unfolding before us as an even greater socioeconomic catastrophe. 

 

Putting this into a political perspective, Libertarians have been right and the other parties have been wrong.  Americans have believed the proven nonsense of the entrenched powers to our undoing.

 

Putting this into still another perspective; you are the victim of highly organized crime.  You’ve been robbed, and the theft will continue until you stop it.

 

OK, so now what?

 

First, as Hayek pleaded, we must stop misdirecting the markets; and by extension, we must stop voting for/empowering those who’ve misdirected the markets.  Fire the thieves/cheats/liars.  You must.

 

Next, we must prepare for some tough times.  As I’d warned in the 2000 gubernatorial bid, “We’ve had our years of plenty, and now we must prepare for the years of hard times.”  And we have far less time now than we had in 2000!

 

As an immediate measure, I propose massive budget cuts, refusal of unfunded/underfunded “federal” mandates, and reactivation of voluntary social services (churches, fraternal organizations).

 

I also propose we immediately invoke the Indiana Constitution’s Article 11 with a currency backed by gold or silver, to immunize Hoosiers against the deflation/collapse of the dollar.

 

Here’s Section 7: “All bills or notes issued as money shall be, at all times, redeemable in gold or silver; and no law shall be passed, sanctioning, directly or indirectly, the suspension, by any bank or banking company of specie payments.”

 

This Sound Money Proposal can be implemented by electronic/virtual acquisition of assets such as described at http://www.goldmoneybill.org/.

 

We’d better do this fast…

 

 

 

 

Indiana Greenbacks? Liberty Dollars? …Why not?

I almost always agree with Ron Paul.  Excepting his commitment to the GOP (I tried it once), I could be his understudy.  His travails against central banking, in keen particular, are right on the …er …money. 

Article 11, Section 3 of the Indiana Constitution says this:

If the General Assembly shall enact a general banking law, such law shall provide for the registry and countersigning, by an officer of State, of all paper credit designed to be circulated as money; and ample collateral security, readily convertible into specie, for the redemption of the same in gold or silver, shall be required; which collateral security shall be under the control of the proper officer or officers of State.

I’d love to see a debt-free currency issued in competition/ replacement of Federal Reserve Notes.  …Did you notice our constitution’s gold/silver valuation requirement?  Very nice. 

As Governor I would insist upon citizens’ right to barter using whatever unit of barter it chooses (such as the “Liberty Dollar” which, in 2007, was illegally stolen in Indiana by our “federal” government agents).