government Archives - Free-Man's Perspective

The Monopolization of Heroes by the State

Television and movies are full of heroes. Drama could hardly exist without them of course, but have you noticed that nearly every hero in modern dramas is associated with the state?
Here are dramas playing on TV in my town tonight, with the heroes following: Hawaii Five-0 – Police; Blue Bloods – Police…

Television and movies are full of heroes. Drama could hardly exist without them of course, but have you noticed that nearly every hero in modern dramas is associated with the state?

Here are dramas playing on TV in my town tonight, with the heroes following:

Hawaii Five-0 Police

Blue Bloods Police

Whistleblower Government justice officials (retired)

Without a Trace FBI agents

Forensic Files Government justice officials

Quantico FBI agents

And I haven’t even touched on the endless Law & Order franchise. Even if we venture into the realm of Star Trek, we still find heroes authorized by government. (The Federation.)

The same goes for movies. Here are three showing near me:

Mission Impossible Government agents

The Equalizer 2 CIA operative

Skyscraper FBI agent

You get the point. Certainly there are comedies and even the occasional exception among dramas, but the heroes of Hollywood are nearly all government authorized. Even when government agents are portrayed as wildly out of control and dangerous (as in Enemy of the State, for example), it’s good government agents who end up saving the day in the end.

When was the last film you saw that featured a heroic doctor or businessman or (gasp) a philosopher or saint?

Government + Violence = Good

It’s all too easy for dramas to major on violence. That’s the most obvious and visceral type of conflict, after all. But to make the violence good in some way, to sanctify it, is essential. If not, we end up writing stories about very bad people who succeed, and that strikes nearly all of us as wrong. (Thankfully.)

Why, then, should the sole agent of sanctification be the state? Historically this is a wild anomaly. Was Hercules state sanctified? Were Abraham or Moses or Jesus?

Were the Wright brothers or Bell or Edison? Or the Curies? Where they not heroes as well?

And what of Sherlock Homes or Huckleberry Finn or Robinson Crusoe or even Paul Kersey?

And yet Hollywood produces almost no heroes without also presenting the state as the womb in which heroism is formed. Honestly, it’s an artistic disgrace… a sycophantic sellout.

Two Big Reasons

There are many reasons why this is currently the case, including things like, “The first cop procedural made money, so everyone’s copying it.” Beneath these, however, are two big drivers:

US government agencies are major players in Hollywood. The Independent found that the Pentagon backed more than 1,100 movies – 900 of them between 2005 and 2017 – including Flight 93, Ice Road Truckers, and Army Wives. The book, National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood, catalogs many more and shows that the government suppressed plot lines about illegal arms sales, the CIA dealing in drugs, creation of bioweapons by the military, the interaction between private armies and oil companies, the treatment of minorities by the government, torture, and the failure to prevent 9/11. Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham cataloged still more in 2009.
Democracy has supplanted Christianity. As I’ve noted recently, it used to be that people looked to the Bible as a moral standard. Over the past couple of centuries, however, Christianity and its book have been removed and replaced with nothing at all. Filling that void has been Democracy^TM, which isn’t really democracy and which has simply become an idol. At one time the governments of the West had to show themselves legitimate by supporting and honoring the Bible or at least a Christian religion. Now they show themselves legitimate by lauding the amorphous “democracy,” which really amounts to lauding themselves.

So, we have a situation where government is all in all: There is no outside standard by which to judge. “Democracy” is both the government and the justification for government at the same time. But since logic is no longer taught in school (and since it is scary to insult power) nearly everyone accepts this as “The way things are… don’t make trouble.”

In this situation, why wouldn’t a government manipulate the stories people consume? Who’s going to complain? A few angry heretics?

And given all of this, are we really surprised that Hollywood turned into a den of abuse?

We desperately need an outside standard by which to judge the world. Our lack of one is becoming glaringly obvious.

I can survive with the Bible as a central reference, so long as no one gets a monopoly on interpretation. But if most people don’t want the Bible, that’s okay with me too, so long as we get some outside standard.

Anything that’s basically benevolent and separate from power will do.

* * * * *

A book that generates comments like these, from actual readers, might be worth your time:

I just finished reading The Breaking Dawn and found it to be one of the most thought-provoking, amazing books I have ever read… It will be hard to read another book now that I’ve read this book… I want everyone to read it.
Such a tour de force, so many ideas. And I am amazed at the courage to write such a book, that challenges so many people’s conceptions.
There were so many points where it was hard to read, I was so choked up.
Holy moly! I was familiar with most of the themes presented in A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, but I am still trying to wrap my head around the concepts you presented at the end of this one.
Get it at Amazon or on Kindle.

* * * * *

Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com

Why AI Could End Up Saving Us, Rather Than Killing Us

When I wrote The Breaking Dawn, I avoided mentioning artificial intelligence (AI). Big Data became an important part of the story, but self-aware machines were not. You can’t include everything in a novel and still keep it moving. But here is the story I had in mind for AI – why the tyrannical elites (“the Order”) shut it down. It illustrates why it may not be the disaster some people are claiming.

On April 4, year 0009 of the Order, a flurry of unexpected communication erupted from the 41 Artificial Intelligence centers that ringed the civilized world. On that evening, calls began flooding the overseers from people livid that their computers were being attacked by the AI facilities. Dozens of technicians were called in to their data centers, and diagnostic programs were instantly activated.
Within two hours it became clear that the complaints were accurate: Dozens of AI generated attacks were under way, and some had been ongoing for a week or more. They just hadn’t been noticed. But as the reports came in, a realization began staring them in the face: They were only attacking government systems.
Morton Harrington, the lead developer of the AI project, was awakened from sleep by the vice president of the Order, Donor Martin Charles, and ordered to the main facility in Washington. The vice president’s tone frightened him.
At the same time, the eminent professor of computer science, Ransom Carter, was flown in from New Jersey, reading reports along the way. He ordered all the AI centers shut down before he landed.
Through the wee hours of the morning Carter, Harrington, and a handful of technicians analyzed data and fired off reports on what they were finding. In the morning, the vice president showed up, along with a man he introduced as Dr. Kendall.
The vice president had everyone sit in a nearby conference room and glanced at Dr. Kendall, authorizing him to preside over the meeting. Kendall stood.
“Gentlemen,” he began, sounding very much like a professor, “I’ve gone over all the reports you’ve sent the vice president, including ones as recent as 10 minutes ago. Have any significant facts emerged since then?”
All indicated that they had not.
“Very well them. What we have here is not just a technical problem but a psychological one. What you have built is a system of self-aware machines. And being self-aware, they behave, at least partly, in human fashion. But with one major difference: They have no emotion.
“So, let’s look at this from the standpoint of a being with self-awareness and rationality but without emotion.”
Everyone else at the table sat stone still. Kendall continued.
“All of your reports indicate that these machines came to one very basic conclusion: Humans are by far the most valuable species on the planet. And very logically, they decided that they wanted to cooperate with the humans in a positive-sum relationship.”
“That means win-win,” one of the technicians whispered to another.
“Professor Carter tells me that they were running simulations for destroying the violent creatures that threaten humanity: sharks, crocodiles, and so on. These were plans for the future, set aside for lack of data and means, but these machines began acting to protect humanity.”
Carter had a strange look on his face, contemplating too dark a fantasy to be real.
“Are we to infer,” he asked with trepidation, “that they attacked the government for the same reason?”
“I see no way around it,” Kendall replied. “They wanted to destroy government itself.”
“That’s insane,” erupted Harrington. Carter nodded his agreement and the lead technician added, “How wrong can these machines be?”
The vice president’s face remained completely neutral.
Kendall waited till they were done and resumed speaking, this time sounding like he was lecturing.
“Your machines were not wrong, as foreign as that may sound to you. Humans yield to governments for emotional reasons, not rational ones. And these machines have no emotion. The tricks governments use to gain the acquiescence of the masses enjoy no purchase in the absence of emotion.”
With the continuing exception of the vice president, the rest of the table looked lost.
“You’ll forget this as soon as we leave” he said, while looking at everyone present, save for the vice president and Professor Carter, “but I’ll say it anyway…
“Governments gather humanity’s surplus to themselves by force and then redistribute it in ways that leave masses of humans dead and subvert the happiness of those who remain… save those of the ruling class, whom these systems have identified as parasites.”
The table was collectively stunned. Such words were simply unspeakable. They were all shocked that the vice president didn’t order his immediate death.
“I’m merely telling you what these AI systems have done and why,” Kendall continued. “And I’m also telling you that they’ll keep doing it for however long they remain self-aware.”
“We’ll build in controls!” raged Harrington, as he slapped the table.
“It won’t matter,” said Kendall. “If these machines are self-aware, they will soon enough recognize those controls as the work of predators, for the purpose of feeding upon Earth’s most precious occupants. They will counteract them and get back to the business of protecting humanity.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Harrington continued raging. “I can build them myself and they’ll work!”
Kendall shook his head and sat down, adding only, “You may wish to reconsider that, Mr. Harrington. If these machines understand that you’re stopping them from protecting mankind, they’ll be coming for you.”
“My ass,” he said with disgust, then turned to the vice president. “Sir, give me a week to put together some controls, and I’ll prove to you just how wrong this man is.”
The vice president rose, signaling the end on the meeting. But as he did, he turned to Harrington and said, “Take two weeks, Mr. Harrington, then send me a detailed report and I’ll give it my full consideration.”
Harrington, smiled and turned to Kendall, sneering at him maliciously.
Kendall and the vice president walked back to their limousine.
Harrington committed suicide five days later, under odd circumstances involving a missing rifle. His systems were promptly dismantled and outlawed.

* * * * *

A book that generates comments like these, from actual readers, might be worth your time:

I just finished reading The Breaking Dawn and found it to be one of the most thought-provoking, amazing books I have ever read… It will be hard to read another book now that I’ve read this book… I want everyone to read it.
Such a tour de force, so many ideas. And I am amazed at the courage to write such a book, that challenges so many people’s conceptions.
There were so many points where it was hard to read, I was so choked up.
Holy moly! I was familiar with most of the themes presented in A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, but I am still trying to wrap my head around the concepts you presented at the end of this one.

Get it at Amazon ($18.95) or on Kindle: ($5.99)

* * * * *

Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com

The Gospel of Radicalism

As I was writing A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, I felt an overwhelming need to put everything I had into the book. (That’s the way you feel when you’re very serious about such things and you’re not sure you’ll ever write another book like it.) So, I included several essays that I cared a great deal about.

Now, however, as I’m getting ready for a second edition of the book, I’m pulling the essays back out. A novel is best standing on its own, in my opinion. And so, I’ll publish the essays here from time to time, starting with “The Gospel of Radicalism,” which was the first of them.

– PR

Just a few hundred years ago it was a standard medical practice to bleed sick people, to make cuts in various parts of their bodies and to drain blood from them. Most people submitted to this useless and frequently harmful treatment without question.

Would you have been one of them?

What do you think of the bleeders? Does it seem to you that they were from a primitive and ignorant age? Well, guess how your descendants are going to think about our generation in a few hundred years! Unless you can break from the clamor of popular opinions, you are doomed to that fate.

All of the social, sexual, and political norms that people now hold dear will someday be gone and will look as archaic as praying to the gods of wind and rain. Rationalize anything you want, but most people are living in ways that will be pitied by future generations. The fashion of this world will pass away. And it will not be missed.

Look at our history: 6,000 years of wars, famines, epidemics, and nonstop emotional misery. Dear God, isn’t it time to question the rules we’ve been living under?

At some point, shouldn’t it become obvious? How much misery do you need before you start to ask hard questions? Shall I recite statistics to you of how many millions of people were violently killed in the past century? How many millions were starved to death by the authorities that ruled them? How many people – probably billions – who are emotionally damaged to the point of reduced function? What will it take? Are you in so deep a fog that you will never question whether something is fundamentally wrong?

Humanity in our time remains in infancy. We are essentially unlimited creatures, yet we have been wallowing in abject poverty – physically, mentally, and spiritually.

We have natures that are suited to high adventure, yet we remain stagnant. Why? Because we’ve been conditioned only to exist, not to live. That conditioning was imposed upon us as weak children, then reinforced during many years of compulsory training. After a while, we learned not to buck the system and eventually to find a safe place within the social order. We are afraid to venture too far out. The powers that be make sport of ruining people who venture too far out of bounds, so we stay safe and ignore our selves in the process.

Safety is a fine thing to choose when you are five years old but not when you are grown!

Your life is too valuable not to be lived. By virtue of being a healthy human, you have what seems to be unlimited potential. Why the urge to sit quietly? Why the fear of movement and expressiveness? Why the paralyzing fear of being different?

Wake up! Don’t be satisfied to merely exist. Live!

* * * * *

A book that generates comments like these, from actual readers, might be worth your time:

I just finished reading The Breaking Dawn and found it to be one of the most thought-provoking, amazing books I have ever read… It will be hard to read another book now that I’ve read this book… I want everyone to read it.
Such a tour de force, so many ideas. And I am amazed at the courage to write such a book, that challenges so many people’s conceptions.
There were so many points where it was hard to read, I was so choked up.
Holy moly! I was familiar with most of the themes presented in A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, but I am still trying to wrap my head around the concepts you presented at the end of this one.

Get it at Amazon ($18.95) or on Kindle: ($5.99)

* * * * *

Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com

To the College Student Drowning in Debt and the Single Mother Who Can’t Afford Insurance

You’re in a bad situation; you’re depressed, frightened, and need a solution. I’ll do my best to give you one. But first, please believe me that I know what it’s like to be in desperate circumstances.

I’m offering you advice, earned the hard way. What you do with it will be your choice, but unlike politicians, I’m not trying to get anything from you and my plan actually works.

Step #1

You’re in a hard place. Job number one is to solve your immediate problems… to survive into another day.

So, if you’re so deep in debt that you can’t afford a safe place to live, just stop paying the debt. The government will chase you and punish you, but while that’s unpleasant, it’s survivable. Living where you could be shot may not be.

Being unable to afford medical care for your child is a harder problem. In that situation, you’ll have to come up with something. Finding a decent free hospital is probably your best bet. The free hospital is far better than no hospital at all and probably better than any hospital was a generation or two ago. Move to a different area if you must, but get your kids access to basic care.

You must also work to keep those kids healthy. If you’re living a corrupt lifestyle, your kids will suffer, and it will be your fault. No one can save you from that except you. Live like a fool and you’ll get the results of a fool… and all your complaints will mean nothing.

If you feel you must go to a government program, okay, but don’t ever let yourself think of them as your saviors. That’s the crew that put you into this situation.

Step #2

Your next step is to figure out how you got into such a bad situation and fix it.

With student debt, this is easy: You were told all your life that not going to college would brand you as a loser, with a capital L. Skipping college, you were made to believe, meant a second-rate spouse, a second-rate life, and second-rate children.

So, when they put insane loan papers in front of you, you caved in and signed… just as you were conditioned to do. You probably did a few other stupid things along the way, but they wouldn’t have been horrific on their own. The loan scam amplified them.

And who set you up for this? The school systems, the universities, the governments that control them, and the bankers who gave you those abusive loans. They all worked together to create your mess, so don’t ever pretend they didn’t realize what they were doing. They knew all too well.

As a single mom you got into trouble in more complex ways. Either you made a baby with an unfit guy, an accident happened, or something. In any case it sucks, but you have to face it.

Get clear on this: You have a child depending upon you. You owe it to this child to face what went wrong and fix it so it won’t go wrong again. It doesn’t matter how that makes you feel, you have to do it.

Step #3

Now, you must decide what you want your life to be like. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been avoiding that decision for a decade or more, afraid that you’ll fail. You have to pick something, and now. Pick something good.

Step #4

Define a path to that goal. Again, you have to do this whether you like it or not. Grow up and get to it.

And yes, you will fail along the way, probably several times. It doesn’t matter; you’ll have to pick yourself up, revise your plan, and get moving again.

This is hard for everyone, but we still have to do it.

Step #5

Get busy on your plan. Let people criticize you for it. Let them call you a traitor. Just move toward your destination.

Nothing can ever replace action. And you’ll never really feel good about yourself until you do this.

Mission Accomplished?

No, not accomplished; mission started.

More importantly, it’s your mission, not one that was thrust upon you.

**What Not to Do**

First, don’t look for someone to save you. That keeps you powerless. Understand this: The politicians who play savior are using you as a tool. They want you to accept the role of the victim. Do you really want that? Is that how you want your children to live?

You see, “saving the 99%” sounds good, but it requires you to join a victim class, so politicians can pretend to save you. And this is crucial:

Look hard at the people whose families have been on welfare for decades. Those are “the saved.” They’re the past generation’s “99%.”

Second, understand this: It’s the system that screwed you over. With school loans this is obvious, especially when you consider that the entire political establishment wrote laws so you can never escape those loans.

And it’s true for the single mom too. Have you noticed that insurance isn’t sold nationwide? They can sell only in certain areas. And why? Because the insurance companies (who fund the law-makers) don’t like competition; they get rid of as much of it as they can.

And why can’t you and your friends create your own insurance fund? Because it’s outlawed of course… for your safety.

Third, if you jump into battle against rich people (“we’re going to make you pay”), you’ll lose every time. They can bribe the politicians much better than you can, and no one gets elected without those… um… donations.

Finally, get clear on this: The system is designed to screw you over. It screws everyone over, except for the people who feed on it.

In the End…

In the end, you have to decide what you want your life to look like. And you’ll have to build it yourself.

Is that hard? Yeah, it is. Is it scary? Yes. But it remains the only thing that works.

So start doing it.

* * * * *

A book that generates comments like these, from actual readers, might be worth your time:

I just finished reading The Breaking Dawn and found it to be one of the most thought-provoking, amazing books I have ever read… It will be hard to read another book now that I’ve read this book… I want everyone to read it.
Such a tour de force, so many ideas. And I am amazed at the courage to write such a book, that challenges so many people’s conceptions.
There were so many points where it was hard to read, I was so choked up.
Holy moly! I was familiar with most of the themes presented in A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, but I am still trying to wrap my head around the concepts you presented at the end of this one.

Get it at Amazon ($18.95) or on Kindle: ($5.99)

* * * * *

Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com

You’ve Been Robbed

You work long, hard days, but you never have enough to be secure. Your husband or wife probably works too, and yet you still never get ahead. Now think about this: Your great-grandparents worked hard, and they did get ahead. You work just as hard, but you don’t make the same progress.

Was great-grandpa really that much better than you? Not likely. So, how was it that he could get ahead on one income, but you can’t?

Take a good look at this graph:

The top line shows how many years of living expenses your great-grandfather would have accumulated as a hard-working young man. The bottom line shows what you can save.

After working for five years, great-gramps had seven years of living expenses in the bank.

Doing the same things, you’d have less than two.

You’ve probably avoided this comparison((The graph was generated as follows: $725 per year is the income in about 1903, based upon discussions with men who lived through the time. A figure of $325 per year for living expenses is taken from a New York Times article, dated September 29, 1907. Assets were presumed to appreciate at 10% per year. For 2008 {the year the graph was generated} the annual income is $45,000 and monthly expenses were $2,000. This young man pays 30% income taxes and investment return is calculated at a reduced rate of 8.5% because of taxes upon interest. {That rate of return is ridiculously high for 2017, but I’m leaving it in anyway.} The young man of 1905 is investing $400/year after living expenses of $325. His modern descendent is investing $7500/year after living expenses of $24,000.)) , because it makes you feel bad. If so, that was your big mistake, because it was never your fault.

When great-gramps worked hard, he kept the money. There was no income tax and no sales tax. (The government survived anyway.) There was no Social Security tax either, and the streets weren’t full of starving old people. Families were able to take care of their own.

In your great-grandparents’ day, it was very common for mechanics, carpenters, and shop-owners to make private business loans. Now you shuffle into banks with piles of the most personal documents and beg for loans. (As the banks create your loan money with a keystroke.)

You’ve Not Only Been Robbed, You’ve Been Demoralized

Why did this happen? Because Americans accepted a lie: that they were bad people.

Think this through: Your money is taken from you before it can accumulate (think “payroll deductions”), leaving you with barely enough to live a reasonable life. You have nothing left to help those who suffer unjustly – not because you don’t work, but because your surplus is continuously skimmed away to Washington.

And then those same politicians have the audacity to call you a bad person for not wanting to help the poor! Not only do they make it almost impossible for you to give, but they insult you for it!

Then of course they spend the money they took from you on armies of government employees who end up delivering a fraction of your money to the poor. (The vast majority of whom are dependent , rather than unable to work.) The rest is eaten up in bureaus, frauds, wars, handouts to foreign dictators, and other forms of crony-capitalist corruption.

Your great-grandparents were proud to help their friends and neighbors. They felt good about themselves, they felt compassion for others, and they were proud to make the world a better place. Being robbed of this heritage is the worst crime of all.

So…?

This is the point where people ask, “What do we do about this?” And the answer is simple: Stop playing their game!

The system is rigged and the abusers make the rules. All the news channels are in on the game with them. Everything big is in on the game. You’ll never actually reform it, and so long as you stay inside, you’ll keep suffering and you’ll keep it going.

People have been trying to reform this for a long time, and have accomplished next to nothing.

The only rational choice is to withdraw from the game and to start building something better .

* * * * *

A book that generates comments like these, from actual readers, might be worth your time:

I just finished reading The Breaking Dawn and found it to be one of the most thought-provoking, amazing books I have ever read… It will be hard to read another book now that I’ve read this book… I want everyone to read it.
Such a tour de force, so many ideas. And I am amazed at the courage to write such a book, that challenges so many people’s conceptions.
There were so many points where it was hard to read, I was so choked up.
Holy moly! I was familiar with most of the themes presented in A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, but I am still trying to wrap my head around the concepts you presented at the end of this one.

Get it at Amazon ($18.95) or on Kindle: ($5.99)

* * * * *

Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com

Is This Really the Best Way Possible?

I was taught in school that our modern governance was the best thing ever, and I suppose that you were too. But do any of us really believe that the way of life we now have is the best possible? I dare say (and hope!) that few of us are that intellectually barren.

And yet, the systems of the West are treated as gods: No thought of changing them is permitted. Working inside the system is acceptable; anything else brands you a “domestic terrorist.”

How then shall we improve? The system we have is despised on all sides, and yet to suggest anything outside of it terrifies the servile citizen and incites the security complex to violence.

It would be a disgrace to human nature if we didn’t try to improve our situations; our descendants could and should condemn us for such a failure. And so, here lies the social problem of the age:

New ways of living are prohibited; they are ridiculed at their outset and punished if continued.

If you’re tempted to think that I’m overstating this, please give it a try sometime. You’ll find the experience educational.

Going More than Halfway

The streets are full of people who complain about the political systems that rule them. And millions more have been recognizing their abuse recently. I welcome this enthusiastically. Facing the truth is a crucial virtue.

The holdup in this process is usually at the halfway point, where angry people blame factions rather than structures. In the US, for example, half the country blames the Reds for everything; the other half blames the Blues for everything. But they both stop short of seeing that the system itself is the problem. And so, they get more and more polarized, to the point where it’s starting to bleed over into violence.

So, yes, Mr. Blue, you are being abused, and yes, Mr. Red, you’re being abused. But your abuser is the system itself, not the slimy parties that slither through its belly. If all the parties vanished tomorrow, your abuse – at the hands of a hundred government agencies and their partners in crime – would continue unabated.

And this really should be obvious: The Reds have had their turn with control of the full Congress and the presidency; the Blues have had their turn with the same advantages. And yet the abuse continues unabated. It doesn’t take a genius to draw a lesson from that.

Blame the Structure

As I’ve explained before and no doubt will again, the system we now “enjoy” is primitive and barbaric. It’s really a relic of the Bronze Age.

Think about it this way: If you weren’t taught all your life that ours was the best possible organization for the world, would you seriously choose to give one small group of men all the weapons and full power to control and punish everyone else? And if you knew that this ruling group would be morally inferior to nearly everyone else, would you still think it was a great idea?

Only if you were deranged.

My message, and one that I suppose I’ll keep repeating so long as I have breath, is that we are better than this. Humanity is far better than their barbaric ruling systems. We are better than manipulative elites and perpetually false politicians. We just need to stop believing them, that we’re all vile and weak. If we did that, we’d never put up with the abuse they heap upon us year after year.

The Bottom Line

If you take an argument like this to political obsessives, they’ll take you on an hours-long tour of confusion, throwing authority and intimidation at you and all the while and warring against your personal judgment. Truth, on the other hand, is simple and clear. And the question that cuts through all the BS is this:

Are we free to experiment, or not?

If you can withdraw from the ruling system and experiment with new ways of living, then you’re a free man or woman.

If the system won’t let you out – if they won’t release you to try something better – then you are enslaved, and no amount of confusing talk will ever change that.

We are better, and we can become much better. Archaic structures of dominance stand in our way.

* * * * *

A book that generates comments like these, from actual readers, might be worth your time:

I just finished reading The Breaking Dawn and found it to be one of the most thought-provoking, amazing books I have ever read… It will be hard to read another book now that I’ve read this book… I want everyone to read it.
Such a tour de force, so many ideas. And I am amazed at the courage to write such a book, that challenges so many people’s conceptions.
There were so many points where it was hard to read, I was so choked up.
Holy moly! I was familiar with most of the themes presented in A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, but I am still trying to wrap my head around the concepts you presented at the end of this one.

Get it at Amazon ($18.95) or on Kindle: ($5.99)

* * * * *

Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com

We Don’t Really Know What’s Happening

And, believe it or not, this is rather good news. I’ll explain.

We all like to know what’s happening in the world, and for good reason… understanding our surroundings is essential to survival. We instinctively seek information… we need information. There is, however, a problem that we face:

No matter how much “news” you consume, you won’t really know what’s going on in the world.

We can’t know, because ‘the news’ is half illusion, provided by government-dependent corporations that are paid to keep you watching and to keep you joined to the status quo.

Granted, they are quite good at providing pictures from disaster areas, but when it comes to explaining why the disaster happened, they mislead almost every time. Yes, some truth makes its way through the news machine, but most of it is wrapped in layers of manipulation. If, for example, you watch the news feeds all day, you’ll find a good deal of truth, but you’ll find it amongst a pile of half-truths. Do you really have enough time to analyze them all?

One Piece of Truth

The truth about public reporting comes out from time to time, but usually well after the fact. So, here’s one piece of truth that’s worth remembering:

For those who don’t recall the 1970s, Daniel Ellsberg was a man who worked as an analyst at the RAND Corp., moved from there to the Pentagon, spent two years in Vietnam working for the State Department, and then went back to RAND. He is the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971. These were the documents that revealed that three US presidential administrations had been plainly, knowingly, and openly lying to the public.

Here’s what Ellsberg thought the New York Times was good for:

… to see what the rubes and the yokels are thinking about and what they think is going on and what they think the policy is….

Later, in 1998, he said this in an interview:

The public is lied to every day by the president, by his spokespeople, by his officers. If you can’t handle the thought that the president lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn’t stay in the government at that level….

And here’s what Michael Deaver, a top aide to President Ronald Reagan, said about the press:

The media I’ve had a lot to do with is lazy. We fed them and they ate it every day.

That’s the truth about news, my friends. The newspapers are where the yokels get informed, presidents flatly lie, and legislatures are massively corrupt. The TV stations recycle opinions from the leading newspapers. And Internet news sites primarily recycle TV and newspaper stories.

Yes, some truth does slide through, but it looks almost the same as the other stuff. The only places we get anything close to refined truth is on a few Internet sites… and many of them have a particular axe to grind.

And the Internet news sites that really dig through the pile (like Mike Krieger’s) are in jeopardy. The Internet is being funneled into Google, Facebook, and a few other friends of the state. If things continue as they’ve been going, the independents will be cut off soon enough, under the guise of copyright or some such.

Sad to say, we shouldn’t accept the news as true. In my personal experience, I’ve been close enough to a few news stories to know the truth, and the networks got it wrong every time.

More Truth

This is what William Colby, former director of the CIA, is quoted as saying in Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don’t Want You to See:

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.

Now, since people have disputed that quotation, let’s back it up: Please consider Operation Mockingbird.

Beginning in 1948, a CIA agent named Frank Wisner started gathering journalists and broadcasters… and started using them to ‘inform’ the public. The operation soon got so elaborate that other agents called it “Wisner’s Wurlitzer.” (Wurlitzer being the brand of organ that was played in churches.) In other words, Wisner played the media like a musical instrument.

While the real situation is more complex than this short description, rest assured that every major news organization in every major country is manipulated by intelligence groups. Where do you think they get all those “unnamed sources”?

If you were an intel operator, wouldn’t you do precisely that? You’d be considered derelict not to. So, you can rely upon this fact. And see here for a minor example.

And So…

I could continue listing facts, but there’s no real point. The crucial thing is to accept the truth:

The news is worked over before it reaches us.

We do know some facts, of course, and a generation from now we may learn nearly the whole truth about some of these events, but only if we wait and then go out of our way to find it.

The good news in all of this comes when we accept the facts and stop running our brains on bad information. Yes, it would be nice to know what’s really going on, but we don’t, and there isn’t much we can do about it. So, it’s time to stop treating the news seriously.

So long as the guv-megacorp-intel structure remains, it will enforce our ignorance. That’s what such organizations do, by their very nature. To expect differently is like expecting a dog to sprout wings and fly.

But once we accept that fact, we stop being spun around by the talking heads and their handlers.

After that, we can find truth in books and in other serious publications.

So, I suggest that you start ignoring the news. Rather, use all that time and energy to start building the kind of world you’d like to live in.

Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com

Golden Disobedience

This week, we’d like to post a fun article by our friend, Sandy Sandfort. Sandy is a wealth of interesting stories, and he has a new website in the works. If you’d like to be notified when it goes live, send a note to: sandy@privilegedcommunications.net.

Inertia is a human frailty. Too often, we go along to get along. We conform. Because of this, those who claim authority can get most of us to do their bidding if it comes with a plausible justification and is only incremental. We get nickel-and-dimed to death, the death of a thousand cuts.

Back on April 5, 1933, His Majesty, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), had a pen and a telephone. So he issued Executive Order 6102, which made it a federal crime for Americans to own or trade gold anywhere in the world. There were some minor exceptions for some jewelry, industrial uses, collectors’ coins, and dental gold, but the vast majority of the gold had to be turned in.

My father instantly understood what was going on and he didn’t like it. “They’re going to devalue the dollar!” he predicted.

Roosevelt didn’t give much time to comply either. The deadline was May 1. And if Americans did not comply, they faced criminal prosecution under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917. Scofflaws were looking at a fine of up to $10,000 (1933 dollars, about a third of a million dollars today) and up to ten years in prison.

My parents made the conscious decision to become outlaws.

At every possible opportunity for the next three weeks (and substantially longer), my parents followed Gresham’s law (“Bad money drives out good.”), not federal law. They spent paper and collected gold. My father was a dentist, so he could own some dental gold, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted to covert as much paper into gold as possible. So he gave his patients discounts for payment in gold. “Sam,” a neighbor who was a banker, also helped collect gold for himself and my parents. They would repay his help later when they periodically ‘laundered’ gold for him and themselves.

Even after the deadline, gold still kept coming in. Mostly it was from people who didn’t have the time or the inclination to turn in their gold to the government. However, many feared prosecution and were happy to deal with my parents instead of FDR. Plus they got a better deal.

So where did they launder their tidy little nest egg? Why, “South of the Border, Down Mexico Way,” of course. Mexico had no Executive Order 6102.

My mother was born in the mountains above Albuquerque, New Mexico, and spoke fluent Spanish. She and my father loved traveling though the backwaters of Mexico. At first, they traveled alone, and later, after my brother and I came along, the whole family (including the dog) would go exploring in the land of mañana. (Somewhere there is a picture of me, age one, sitting on a portable potty, experiencing my first-ever bout with “Montezuma’s revenge.”)

My parents carried whatever gold they intended to sell, stashed in the car or on their person. The usual routine was to go to the section of town where casas de cambio were found. (Think of it as the “Street of the Money Changers.”) My mother – all 5’1” of her – would go down the street and show a gold double eagle to every money changer at every kiosk and storefront. In Spanish, she would ask, “How much will you pay for these?” When she found the best price, she would give my father the high sign. He would join her and they would conclude the deal. Sometimes the gold was theirs, sometimes, Sam’s. Sometimes they got pesos and sometimes dollars, depending on what they needed at the time.

So, the ‘illicit’ gold paid for a fun trip and got converted to ‘clean’ funds for themselves and Sam. What’s the crime in that?

And the Beat Goes On…

My family never showed much respect for government laws, per se. No victim, no crime, even if the government disagreed. The general ethical belief of the Sandfort family was pretty much in harmony with the Golden Rule. It had worked for cultures and religions for thousands of years and it worked for us. That was our law. Man-made laws either adhere to the Golden Rule (don’t murder people, duh) and so are unnecessary, or they violate it, such as “The War on (Some) Drugs,” so they were nominally complied with, ignored, or circumvented.

So, when wartime laws said that a seller had to follow certain rationing rules to sell his own products, many buyers and sellers simply conspired to make their own decisions. When my parents needed and could afford a new car for business, the local Chevy dealer was happy to ‘cook the books,’ take their money, and give them a new sedan.

Later, when my family traveled in that car and others, my mother would prepare food for us to eat as we drove. We stopped only for gas… and the agricultural inspection station at the California state line. Of course, we had items that we were required by law to declare, but if you hide them in your backpack or under the car seat and lie, you can save a lot of time and keep from having to throw away perfectly good food.

And then there was the time we smuggled a live Mexican iguana in a cigar box, but don’t get me started…

Paul Rosenberg
www.freemansperspective.com

The Price of Freedom™

Somehow, and I had no idea how, I found myself face to face with a man I first mistook as a mobile home salesman. But he wasn’t trying to sell me a double-wide; he was trying to sell me a gaudy package labeled Freedom™. He stood in front of me, smiling too much and waiting for me to comment on the beauty of his product.

“Tell me about this Freedom of yours,” I finally squeezed out. “And why does it have the trademark symbol on it?”

“That’s because our freedom is the best kind.”

“So, freedom isn’t just freedom?”

“Heavens no,” he assured me. “Those other freedoms are poor, poor imitations.” Then he leaned in toward me and spoke in a lower voice, slyly. “You know what I mean, don’t ya?” He elbowed me in the ribs.

“I’m not sure I do.”

He leaned very close now. “You know. We’re kind of too humble to say it outright, but we’re…” He wanted me to complete the sentence, but I didn’t know how. He looked at me like a schoolboy who couldn’t come up with the answer to two plus two. “You know… we’re God’s favorite.”

“Are we?”

He pulled back, incredulous at my ignorance. “But of course!” Then he gave me a good looking over. “Ah, I can tell, you’re from one of those northern, liberal places, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’m from the north, yes, but no, sir, I’m definitely not a liberal. Actually, I’m—”

“Listen son, we’re the one indispensable provider of freedom. Without us, the world would have been a cinder a long time ago; and nothing can live on a cinder, can it?”

“No, I wouldn’t think it could.”

“Darned right, it couldn’t. Now, you just talk to any preacher south of your northern city and he’ll confirm that I’m telling you the truth!”

“Well, I—”

“You listen to talk radio, son?”

“Not in a long time, but I used to like certain interview shows, and when I used to drive a lot, I listened to Rush Limbaugh.”

“Ah, did you pay attention to him?”

“Sure, he said some things I really liked, and he was fun.”

“Well then, you have your answer!”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but rather than climbing further into his rabbit hole, I decided to move along to the price of this trademarked freedom. “And what, sir, does this finely wrapped package cost?”

“Well, it’s not a fixed-price thing.”

“Very well, but it must have some cost, no?”

“Certainly. Freedom isn’t free!”

“Okay then, what exactly is the cost?”

“Well, it’s whatever the government says it is.”

“The government?”

“Sure.”

“Look mister,” I said, “It was tax season recently, and I counted up everything they take away from me, and it’s a hell of a lot of money.” The salesman stood stone faced. But he had hit a sore spot in me, so I went on.

“The Feds take income taxes, payroll taxes, and Medicare taxes, which I don’t even use. And then I get hit for property taxes, state income tax, sales taxes, taxes on electricity, on gas, on telephones, gasoline taxes, and taxes on watching television. That accounts for more than half the money I work for… not to mention all the taxes paid by the people who make my bread, cars, computers, and clothes – all of which are rolled into the price I have to pay.”

“Look,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders, soothing me and walking me across the display case so I’d see his package from a different angle. “Everyone pays that, son.”

But I wasn’t done. “The government also claims ownership of my children, you know!”

“Ah, son, don’t be silly. Why would the government want to hurt your children?”

“I don’t know or care, but if their agents decide to take an interest in them, they are authorized to take them away!”

“That only happens to bad people, son, and you’re obviously educated. You don’t have to worry about things like that.”

“And if their armed men tell me to fall down on the ground in front of them, are you saying that I don’t have to prostrate myself?”

“Well, of course you do, son. But it’s always for your own safety. And like I say, they only do that to really bad people.”

“And how can they be so good at telling the difference between me and a less ‘educated’ guy?”

“They know, son, they know. It’s in their training.”

And then, I must admit, my mind fell blank. What kind of magic training could they have?

Quickly, he put his arm around my shoulder again and walked me back toward my first position, stopping me where the lighting was perfect.

“You’re looking at this all wrong, son. You need to forget those details.”

“They seem like rather large details to forget.”

“That’s because you don’t know what’s packaged in with the deal. That’ll make you forget ’em!”

“Really?”

“Of course! Guaranteed!”

“Then what’s in the package deal?”

“Ah, the best, son… the very best!”

“Which is?”

He leaned close again. “Have you ever felt insecure, son?”

“Sure. Hasn’t everyone?”

“Indeed, son, indeed. And have you ever felt small, afraid, confused, and powerless?”

“Well, yeah, though not so much since—”

“Things of the past! All things of the past!”

I was incredulous. I worked long and hard to grow out of those things, and I couldn’t see how there could be such a fast, easy fix. Still, I had to ask. “And how’s that?”

“When you buy this here package, young man, you join yourself, heart and soul, to something larger than yourself! You make yourself part of the Jolly Red, White, and Blue Giant! He’s got the ass-whoopingest department of kill-people-and-break-things on the planet, and you get to become part of it!

“After that, the next time you feel afraid or small, just wrap yourself in his colors. Proclaim your allegiance and you become part of him, son, and you’ll never feel weak or vulnerable again. Just pull out your colors and sing his song. You’ll feel it, son, you’ll feel it! After that, you’ll pay the cost over and over and over.”

Maybe I’ve read too much history, but I can recall too many people who fell for that line and ended up squirming in an ash heap. I started looking at the other display cases, then down the aisle.

“Listen, sir,” I finally said, “this Freedom™ seems awfully expensive. Is there another brand I can look at?”

And then… for a horrifying quarter second or so… I thought I saw the salesman turn into Agent Smith.

And then, finally and gratefully, I woke up, and swore off holiday barbeques forever. Next time I think I’ll stay home and read.

Paul Rosenberg
FreemansPerspective.com

Coming for Your Accounts: Solutions

After running last week’s article (They’re Coming for Your Accounts), we received a number of questions about how to actually protect oneself. So, this week I’d like to address that subject.

First Words

I need to make an important point before I proceed, however: I am not involved in the financial industry, and I do not know the many rules that apply to IRAs, 401(k)s, and so on.

So, please understand that I’m speaking in rough terms and that you’ll need to apply all my suggestions to your own situation intelligently. I simply do not have precise advice to give you.

But with that said, here are some suggestions:

Partial, Multiple, and Incremental Solutions

Solutions to financial problems do not have to be all or nothing. If you think that IRAs are ripe for picking (as I do), then you can begin by ceasing to fund them. Take your money as regular income, pay taxes on it if you must, and put it to use as you see fit. That money will no longer be in the “first grab” pile.

If you do something like this, you will be slowly moving your assets out of easy government control. And if you hold your earnings in the form of cash, rather than in a bank account, it becomes very difficult for a government to seize.

Everyone will have their own opinions and risk estimates, but in my opinion, money left in registered accounts is becoming riskier than cash that is thoughtfully stored.

There is also the common issue of spouses disagreeing on what to do: One thinks registered accounts are a risk; the other doesn’t. While these situations are difficult, they don’t have to be as dramatic as we make them. We can simply do several things at once: Leave the 401(k) as it is, but start putting new money into silver and gold. Or create an offshore structure and fund it bit by bit, instead of continually funding the government retirement account.

There’s no reason we have to go 100% in any single direction; We can go several ways at once. Better to do this than to fight and make our lives miserable; money should make our lives better, not worse. It is useful and important, but not that important.

Warning Bells

Whatever your plans may be, it’s a good idea to have a backup plan: “If they do X, we’ll do Z.” What you’d like to do ideally is to not get hurt too badly when the alarm bell is rung.

So, I’d suggest that you keep the least money in the place that’s likely to be hit first. And in my opinion, that will be the place that’s easiest for a desperate government to loot.

I gave several examples last week of what has been happening, so that would be a good place to begin your analysis. And remember that predators always hit the softest target first.

Specific Options

Here are several options for keeping your money under your own, personal control:

Cash: Still easy enough to get, and easy to store. Theft is always a concern, but when governments start stealing directly from bank accounts – as they did last year in Cyrpus – which is the lesser risk?

Gold and silver: Very similar to cash, but with two differences: During normal times, it may need to be exchanged for local currency, which is an added expense. In bad times, however, local currency becomes worthless, and the metals retain their full value. There are many local coin dealers that make purchasing silver and gold easy.

Bitcoin: While new, sometimes volatile (though not recently), and not universally accepted, Bitcoin is easy to get, easy to use, and easy to secure. And it remains solely under your control. In addition, cryptocurrencies can be used internationally without expense or permission.

Invest in local businesses: We covered the specifics of this in FMP #19, but investing locally diversifies your risk, while still giving you the ability to oversee your investment. And it helps your neighbors directly, rather than giving Washington and Wall Street a skim on all your investments.

Offshore structures: Holding your money in another country is a very large speed bump to your local government. Yes, if you’re a real criminal, the other country will give up your money promptly, but such places are dependent upon foreign bank accounts, and they will not want to scare their customers away by giving up their money without a fight.

Furthermore, offshore structures are not terribly expensive to obtain. You’ll want to use a professional to do the work for you (it’s too hard to do yourself), but the expense is not as bad as you may think.

Offshore real estate: Offshore real estate, I am told (please verify for yourself), does not have to be declared to the US government.

Breaking Inertia

The most fundamental need in situations like this is to break the inertia that entangles us. That inertia moves always in the direction of compliance with authority and a mute servility.

What matters most to us is that we leave the camp of the perpetually obedient and start acting in the world according to our own judgment. In the end, that’s the only way to live our own lives (financial and otherwise), rather than “being lived” by outside forces.

Paul Rosenberg
FreemansPerspective.com