Conservadores e comunistas, unidos

Quem nada entende do programa libertário é assim por vergonha de si mesmo. Imagine se puder um ignorante supersticioso e espalhafatoso explicar que ele é a favor da coação nua e crua pelo estado político. Que defende o estado assaltar o povo e pagar meganhas para aumentar o preço das drogas no mercado negro que tanto favorece os partidos políticos da economia mista? Para se distanciar dos libertários verdadeiros, a declaração honesta seria essa. Mas esse proibicionista se apresenta como se fosse algo diferente dos saqueadores comunistas e socialistas. Para tanto, procura a companhia de comunistas e socialistas travestidos de libertários, moda que remete aos anos 80 quando as pessoas abandonavam o totalitarismo, cujos atletas adotavam disfarces para infiltrar os partidos alheios.

Pra quê acreditar em mim? Veja as palavras do místico que arremeda “liberal”:

O que interessa não é mais um saqueador nacionalsocialista que senta lenha nos demais companheiros socialistas. Afinal, agredir é com eles mesmos. Interessante é o exemplo por ele escolhido para atacar o que as ditaduras odeiam: liberdade. Afinal, Ayn Rand acertou quando afirmou que “se a liberdade tem significado no contexto político, significa estar livre da coação.” Significa não ser assaltado por bandidos armados pelos próprios políticos saqueadores que desarmam a população. Também significa não ser coagido pelos saqueadores eleitos pelas emissoras por eles licenciados, em eleições forçadas, e com cédulas nada verificáveis.

Quem possibilita a farsa no Youtube é o saqueador que infiltra os grupos libertários e proclama que “somos” anarquistas. O golpe funciona assim:

No mundo real, se existe um governo legítimo–que defende os direitos da pessoa humana contra a coação e a fraude–passa a existir um mercado livre justamente pela definição de governo e de liberdade. Os antecedentes são: governo e legítimo. Mercado livre aparece depois, no conseguinte da equação pelo modus ponens dos antigos silogismos da lógica.

Mas a cabala do saque não usa lógica. Acredita que, se a liberdade garantida por governo honesto possibilita um mercado livre, essa causalidade se inverte como se desse para viajar pelo tempo e desembarcar no passado. Imaginam que, no abstrato, o mercado “livre” pode criar do nada uma situação de liberdade — mediante o milagre do anarquismo — pela simples descriminalização de assassinato, assalto, rapto, fraude… enfim, pela abolição do estado de direito que no mundo real é a condição antecedente necessária que possibilita a existência de mercado livre. Para atacar a liberdade basta pixá-la de anarquismo e atacar o boneco-de-palha que resulta desse equívoco.

O argumento socialista-anarquista rema contra a definição de governo — o monopólio sobre a violência definido por Max Weber quando Ayn Rand era uma menininha de doze anos. Monopólio, dizem os saqueadores, requer que a coação seja iniciada contra o povo e bem por isso fere o direito de viver incoacto. Para quem não enxerga a inversão lógica, Ayn Rand sugeriu esse teste: “Pergunte a si mesmo o que é que uma concorrência na restrição forçosa dos homems teria que significar?” É claro que a resposta é guerra, considerada pelos defensores do anarquismo como o estado natural e desejável do que, para eles, seria civilização. Compare isso com a visão pró-liberdade.

Thomas Jefferson, o revolucionário que falava na felicidade das pessoas, escreveu que “para assegurar esses direitos, governos são instituídos entre as pessoas” e ainda fala na legitimização dos governos mediante o consentimento dos governados. Isso, no tempo de Mark Twain, era votação a viva-voz em praça pública a favor ou contra candidatos — votação testemunhada na sua declamação e contagem pelos habitantes da povoação. (Voto secreto, inverificável, foi inventado depois, para facilitar a fraude eleitoral). O importante é reconhecer que um governo pacífico, eleito honestamente e que prende assaltante e assassino é exatamente o que os anarquistas juram que querem abolir.

Mas esse é exatamente o governo que os programas de todos os partidos libertários no mundo querem estabelecer, democratica e constitucionalmente — sem bombas, e sem incêndios. Esse governo libertário não sai matando as pessoas para forçá-los a beber ou fumar aquilo que os sacerdotes da superstição decretam. A limitação não é pelos belos olhos da cerveja ou da erva e sim por dar valor à vida, liberdade e felicidade das pessoas. O místico torturador travestido de liberal é contra essa liberdade pelo fato de ser contra a vida humana aqui na terra. É contra a vida humana da mesma forma que os nacionalsocialistas da Alemanha cristã e os comunistas russos (outra religião), ou mesmo os homens-bomba da atualidade são contra a vida humana.

Se o partido libertário ceder à infiltração pelos proibicionistas assassinos da liberdade, será o suicídio da esperança humana. Nós mudamos as leis como? Granjeando os votos dos cidadãos honestos em favor da nossa proposta. Menos de dois porcento dos votos mudam as leis desde que o programa seja idealista. Não é necessário o candidato ser eleito. O imposto de renda — segunda proposta do manifesto comunista — e o proibicionismo dos fanáticos americanos, ambos infiltraram as leis e constituições de muitos países com menos de dois porcento votando nos seus partidos. A democracia funciona desde que não seja poluída pela infiltração dos amigos do alheio e da coação. No ano em que o partido libertário dos EUA se formou, o governo americano teve que abandonar o alistamento forçado para que nenhum de nós fosse eleito. O que importa são os resultados da integridade, são as leis que revogamos e mudamos no sentido de reduzir a coação da pessoa, seja pelos criminosos ou pelos governos criminosos.

Saiba mais sobre as crises econômicas dos EUA–leia para entender o que causou o Crash de 1929:
Compre este livro na Amazon

Na Amazon:  A Lei Seca e o Crash. Todo brasileiro entende rapidinho o mecanismo desta crise financeira de 1929. Com isso dá para entender as de 1893, 1907, 1987, 2008 e os Flash Crashes de 2010 e 2015.

Sou tradutor e intérprete nos tribunais. Meu outro blog é http://www.amigra.com

Are antichoice candidates libertarian?

germangirl1892Prohibitionists who want to ban or restrict abortion are hostile infiltrators out to wreck the LP. Anarchists tried the exact same thing in the 1980s, and the attempt failed. 

Political reasons:
1. Anti-choice lobbies have already wrecked the Prohibition, Republican, Democratic, Tea and Constitution parties, all of which favor the initiation of force and woman-bullying looter theocracies. Why let their mole infiltrate us under the flap of a “big tent”?
2. The LP has the lowest mystical content of any political party; imitating theocracy parties only attracts  hostile infiltration; the “good faith” plank language is a leftover George Bush device coined to encourage illegal searches by poorly-trained police.
3. Even among entrenched mystical parties, bookie calculations and primary voting gave the most fanatical antiabortionists the highest odds of LOSING. (See McCain, Palin, Romney, Paul Ryan)
4. The Democratic party, with the most pro-choice platform, is the odds-on favorite for WINNING where money talks. (oddschecker.com 3 to 1 the Dems win)

Economic reasons:
1. The crash and panic of 2007 was caused by the Bush party ramping up faith-based asset forfeiture that year. The crashes and depressions of 1929, 1933 and 1987 were also triggered by prohibition coupled with tax enforcement. Conservative prohibitionism causes economic collapses, is anti-libertarian, is not fiscally responsible.
2. Socialism is dead, so the Dems offer no long-term threat. Christian National Socialism has–since the fall of communism–swelled to occupy the vacated communist ecological niche and dominated the GOP. Let’s not encourage this.
4. Loss of individual rights for women is invariably followed roughly 17 years later by a spike in property and violent crime. Repeal of woman-bullying laws herald drops in crime rates, as occurred in Canada after 1988, when antiabortion laws were ruled unconstitutional. (see Freakonomics)

Constitutional and legal reasons:
1. America’s First Amendment protects the “free exercise” of religion. It is Mohammedan law that exhorts the coercive enforcement of religious laws, especially to bully women. Pro life-after-death is anti-life.
2. The 14th Amendment establishes rights for: “All persons born…” GOP fanatics and their infiltrators seek by law to change that to “All ova fertilized…”
3. The 13th Amendment forbids slavery and involuntary servitude, so women may not be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, much less be forced to raise monsters.
4. The Supreme Court acted to strike down all laws forbidding abortion right after the Libertarian Party began tallying votes. Canada has had no  abortion laws since 1988 when they too declared them unconstitutional.

Philosophical and religious reasons: 
Ayn RandAbortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered.
Tonie Nathan (’72 LP VP candidate), believed in a woman’s right to an abortion while never dreaming of having one herself, and she defended gays, if and when they were harassed or discriminated against. Ran with John Hospers, an organizer of the Libertarian Defense Caucus.
Association of Libertarian Feminists: “The basic human right to limit one’s own reproduction includes the right to all forms of birth control (contraception, including sterilization, and abortion), recognizing the dual responsibility of both sexes. ALF therefore opposes all practices and all governmental actions that restrict access to any of these means of birth control, and advocates the elimination of all laws and practices that would compel any woman to bear a child against her will.”
Holy Bible, King James Version: Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. (Psalm 137:9)

The Libertarian Parties in the US and Canada are beacons of hope for the rest of the world. Every country that lacks one is a dictatorship–or at the very least a kleptocracy of mixed-economy criminals.

To communicate with libertarians elsewhere, it helps to have a libertarian translator.

British Union of Fascists in America

Political pollsters lie for a living, and he that pays the piper, calls the tune. Actuaries and bookies use a different set of rules: mathematics. Betting odds offered by Irish and English bookies reveal the best possible measure of what political party is likely to win an election. Bookies lose their own money if they are wrong.

Scott Adams over at Dilbert is really bright. I like him, even though he doesn’t vote and is not aligned with the platform of any party. A hypnotist, like Aldous Huxley he has a keen eye for political persuasion and expects Trump to win. So when the headlines began blaring that Trump was leading Hillary I checked the odds. Bookies were (and are) still betting 3 to 1 that the pro-choice party would beat the antichoice prohibitionist party–nothing had changed. This prompted me to ask what George Orwell termed an “awkward question”:

I vote against both entrenched parties, but I do follow the betting odds. The pro-choice party is still the calculated favorite at 1 to 3 odds. Why is that?

By now the ScottAdams blog is pululating with Trump campaign shills, infiltrators, plants, harpies, 5th-columnists, flacks and impostors. Before long this reply rolled in:

trumpersuader0516 This was brilliant propagandizing, worthy of Oswald Moseley. Adding an obvious screaming whack job rejoinder gave the pretext for erasing the awkward question, thereby getting rid of the uncomfortable dilemma fraught with cognitive dissonance (while making it look like the embarrassing post by an obviously insane Warrior for the Babies writing from a Colorado jail cell was simply wiped up, like drool, in good taste).

britishfascists1934In George Orwell’s day anyone asking awkward questions at a Mosley rally was simply dragged away and beaten by beefy thugs. Today, in an electronic meeting room, the non-sequitor provides the pretext for hushing up the question. Nevertheless, the message that unless I vote for Trump I am helping Hillary run a Bass-o-Matic for babies lingers in the air. This is progress. The awkward question about betting odds favoring the pro-choice party is conveniently sidestepped precisely when fake odds are posted on shill sites to give the impression the GOP is ahead.

The Hillary-Trump odds have shifted just a bit on some betting sites, but campaigns are fought between party platforms. Irishmen are betting 3 to 1 that if Hillary is struck by lightning, Bernie will win. Incidentally, if Independent meant Libertarian, we would have a 2% chance of actually winning. Texas went 3% Libertarian this last mid-term election, and none of the pollsters predicted that!

Anti-Libertarian States

fascism1935

As the Libertarian Party convention approaches, eighteen states are keeping the Party of Principle off their ballots. What sort of States are these? What laws to they enforce? Which of the entrenched parties are they most beholden to?

Marijuana: Of the 18 anti-libertarian states, only Washington has legalized marijuana. Light a joint in any of the others and you will see men with guns moving toward you. They may not beat and shoot you–unless you resist or are insufficiently submissive. Expect them to rob you of money or property, maybe incarcerate you and even brand you a felon so that you lose Second Amendment rights of ever confronting them on a level playing field.

Abortion: Of these cartel-controlled soft-machine states, only three (ME, NH, NJ) offer women freedom of reproductive choice. The rest saddle the fair sex with a bewildering array of unconstitutional-yet-unrepealed general bans, post-viability bans, posturing legislative declarations, bans on morning-after pills, non-surgical techniques and chemicals and many insist on burdensome bureaucratic restrictions such as consents, notices, waiting periods and gag orders. Every year brings a fresh batch of officious fanatics and meddlesome bills.

As things stand today, bookies in England and Ireland are laying three to one odds that the pro-choice looter party will win the national election, and odds almost as hefty that the anti-abortion party will lose. The only recent development is fake betting odds sites that fade no bets but make pollster predictions for whoever pays the piper.

Entrenched party: The anti-libertarian states are evenly divided between the Democracy and the GOP. Ohio and Virginia are the cross-dressing “purple” players, and most of “blue” Tammany-type machines lie near the Great Lakes. Washington stands out as the lone anti-libertarian stats along the “bluish” West Coast.

Takeaways: The anti-libertarian states are committed to the initiation of force and violation of individual rights, but not conspicuously enthralled by either entrenched faction of the Kleptocracy. No attention was paid to tax rates because the financial collapses triggered by GOP prohibitionism more than offset the slow bleeding effect of Democratic parasites.  It is clear that all 18 states are hostile to freedom. The Canadian Libertarian Party could possibly be a good influence on the blue soft machines, but they have their own row to hoe. Exposing cartel ringleaders to their own asset forfeiture, victimless crime and grasping tax laws through selective whistleblowing is another option. A clearer, shorter, straddle-free platform couldn’t hurt either.

Verifiable voting: Of course the only real solution is elimination of the “secret” ballot curtain so roundly denounced by Lysander Spooner when introduced during Reconstruction. Only when every voter is handed a hashtag with which to see how his or her own vote was honestly counted and tallied will the fraud that binds such collusion together release its grip. Robert Heinlein outlined one such approach in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.” Voters cast their ballots at banks, vouched for neighbors and family members, and watched the tellers’ tally in real time. THAT’s democracy.

Find out the juicy details behind the mother of all economic collapses. Prohibition and The Crash–Cause and Effect in 1929 is available in two languages on Amazon Kindle, each at the cost of a pint of craft beer.

Brazilian blog

Need translations for immigration?

 

Eminence grise–the hidden persuader

druggan30mar1930Who defines the ideology that drives a political party? The Republican party was organized to increase tariffs during a depression begun by migration of capital from These States  into England’s Opium Wars. Protectionist looting gradually lost its appeal with the addition of the communist income tax to the US Constitution. This shift had the unfortunate side effect in the form of an opportunity for a power grab by fanatical theocrats.

But the thing went slowly. The Democratic party had in 1908 come out for the communist manifesto income tax as preferable to the mercantilist protective tariff. Why? Because farmers had to sell their crops in free commodity markets and buy implements of husbandry in protected cartel-organized markets. Their attempts to free themselves of this dilemma resulted first in the nullification crisis, which actually did have the effect of temporarily reducing the Tariff of Abominations. The second attempt–the appeal to secession when the second Tariff of Abominations was imposed during the opium war recession, resulted in their crushing defeat and branded them the party of slavery–of holding girls in bondage and used against their will as chattel stock. There was an uncomfortable amount of truth to that accusation.

Right at the outset of the Civil War, a prohibition law forbad selling drinks to soldiers in the District of Columbia, and that was the signal for a resurgence of Maine Law fanaticism. Oddly enough, these movements gathered strength during Indian opium gluts, when cheap morphine was added to distilled spirits for an addictive enhancement.  The result was that alcohol began to seem truly addictive, and large amounts of unspiked liquor were consumed by inadvertent addicts in an effort to diminish withdrawal symptoms. All of this only worsened alcohol’s image as an agent of Satanic Possession.

Finally, religious fanatics and looter ideologues got their wish during the depression foreshadowed by the Panic of 1907. Men with guns were sent to kick in doors to collect income taxes and confiscate beer, houses, breweries, wineries, stills yeast and sugar, and bank accounts… Prohibition and income tax Amendments were ratified. The Volstead Act was a handy source of fines, graft and bribery for local governments, judges and politicians, and after it was passed, the Dem and GOP eventually endorsed it in their platforms.

When the GOP finally endorsed prohibition in 1928, Herbert Hoover was the enforcement candidate. Aided by prosecutor Mabel Willebrandt, Hoover conscripted the income tax law into the dry army and the resulting asset forfeiture completely destroyed the economy. By the time FDR was sworn in there wasn’t a bank left open in These States. The fanatical enforcement had attracted all manner of mystical evangelists eager to add blue laws and antisex legislation, but Hoover’s defeat left them without a cause.  Labor agitators, all of whom had maintained a cowardly silence during the 1932 campaign, jumped on the FDR bandwagon, and historians assure students this opportunism was a leftward swing. It was definitely a swing away from the devout theocracy.

As reason replaces religion, only the brainwashing of youth can preserve mystical remnants. The banning of abortion, popular in the Middle East and other warlike and theocratical regions, has gradually joined and sometimes supplanted sumptuary prohibitionism in spite of the nearly vertical population increase curve.  Prohibitionists now infiltrate four different parties, all of them failures, and send out tentacles toward the libertarian party.

Let’s hope their efforts to infiltrate and wreck the LP.org fail as miserably.

Need a translator or interpreter?

 

 

Expressões difíceis

youcanthaveyourcake

Adulto é criança que largou mão de colecionar escorpiões e cobras e agora enche a cabeça de expressões idiomáticas. Uma das mais preocupantes é: 

“You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

Os campos de batalha estão cobertos dos escombros de tentativas, nenhuma delas, porém, cai como uma luva. E já vi tradutor mais capaz e experiente do que esse servo que vos fala abandonar o campo de batalha saltando por cima da dificuldade pelo expediente de fazer que nem viu. A abordagem Kierkegaardiana “das duas, uma,” não se estica o suficiente para cobrir o sentido.

Pior é outra:

“You can’t have your cake and let your neighbor eat it too.”

Essa aparece em A Revolta de Atlas.

Outra expressão preocupante é:

“Don’t count your chickens until they’re hatched.”

Os canadenses entendem perfeitamente que a galinha é a dona dos pintinhos que choca. E a expressão traduzida, “Não conte ovo dentro da galinha,” até que reproduz bem o sentido da 14ª Emenda da Constituição Americana. Reza o prolegômeno:

Todas as pessoas nascidas ou naturalizadas nos Estados Unidos, e sujeitas a sua jurisdição, são cidadãos dos Estados Unidos e do Estado onde tiver residência. Nenhum Estado poderá fazer ou executar leis restringindo os privilégios ou as imunidades dos cidadãos dos Estados Unidos; nem poderá privar qualquer pessoa de sua vida, liberdade, ou bens sem processo legal, ou negar a qualquer pessoa sob sua jurisdição a igual proteção das leis.

Mas nos EUA, nos países muçulmanos e onde quer que o misticismo influi nas leis, alistadores militares, sacerdotes, políticos e cabos eleitorais querem se apoderar do fruto do ventre alheio como se operassem uma granja. Agem como se coagir a reprodução alheia tivesse cabimento na ética, na lei ou no ditado “Não faça aos outros o que você não quer que seja feito a você.” Onde quase não há mulheres no governo, esse lema é pouco observado. O partido republicano dos EUA quer mudar as primeiras quatro palavras desta emenda. Isso consta do seu programa publicado.  E cumpre ter presente que alheia também se refere a outros países…

Veremos se as eleitoras continuarão a votar contra os seus próprios direitos individuais nas próximas eleições forçadas no Brasil e eleições nada verificáveis nos EUA. Agora que existe Partido Libertário lá e a possibilidade de algum dia haver disso no Brasil–sobretudo se o Partido Novo se dedicar aos verdadeiros direitos da pessoa individual–há de haver como mudar o quadro atual.

Nondisclosure agreements

panics1907-2007Many business wheeler-dealers ask their counterparties or collaborators to sign secrecy agreements. Some might be worried about an invention not yet patented. Others may be running an illegal operation and not want the police alerted. Governments also enter into these sorts of agreements, often to avoid “embarrassment.” But the information they hide may not really be theirs to hide–especially if the concealment exposes citizens to physical harm, financial losses or avoidable death. 

Take the case of financial panics. Every one of these is explained by a circular fallacy wherein agents other than the government overspeculated. Those careless villains allegedly bought in the expectation of being able to sell at a higher price in other words. How do we know they speculated too much? Because the price “fell” and they lost more than their initial investment. Had the bottom not dropped out, that same speculation would have been Goldilocks perfect. The consequent of the argument is relied on to affirm the antecedent. This affirming the consequent was known to the Greeks as a logical fallacy thousands of years ago.

The crash of 1837 is never explained in terms of reality. Great Britain conquered India and turned it into a great opium and indigo farm. When China prohibited opium imports, Parliament needed money to send the Royal Navy to the other side of the planet to bombard and burn down Chinese cities and force the repeal of opium prohibition. To raise the money, English banks called loans and liquidated American securities such as municipal bond issues. Money became scarce, the US invaded Mexico to claim gold in California, then raised tariff rates until secession was resorted to (nullification having been tried with poor results). Yet economics professors in subsidized classrooms never mention these clear and simple facts of reality, all of them preserved in the historical record.

Similarly, the Panic of 1893 had several causes. France’s Panama Canal project was bankrupt, a free silver coinage bill was inflating that fraction or the currency, and the Chinese were angry at congressional renewal of the US policy of excluding them from immigration. Right before Grover Cleveland’s inauguration day, lame duck prohibitionist President Harrison suddenly clamped down on sea and railway smuggling of Asian products that had been skirting the protective tariff. But the the most important shock to the economy–debates in Congress over a movement to legislate the communist manifesto income tax as a permanent peacetime measure–never gets mentioned. Nevertheless the depression was so serious that the Supreme Court had to quickly strike down the income tax law in order for the economy to recover. The usual suspect, the fallacy of “overspeculation,” was rounded up and blamed.

The Panic of 1907 was also sparked in large part by the recalcitrant Chinese, this time boycotting U.S. imports because items containing morphine were not so labeled. When prohibitionist zealots leapt with whoops of joy upon Pure Food law as an open door to political meddling in beer, whiskey and foods marketing, the economy suffered an epileptic contraction. Similar events occurred in 1928, spring and fall of 1929, 1933, 1987 and 2007. In every case, politicians used the violence of law to interfere with the freedom of production and trade, often in harmless and non-toxic articles that, when left alone, offered very real harm reduction compared to their replacements under cartel-benefiting prohibitions. Thalidomide and alcohol come to mind, compared to such alternatives as hemp and lyserg saure diethylamide.

Could it be that politicians have formed another “gentleman’s agreement”–an agreement to conceal inconvenient truths and possibly penalize colleges that dare to offer political economy as part of their curriculum? Might such a subterfuge be accomplished by using federal tax proceeds to manipulate state and municipal governments and influence their educational policies and agendas? Such a move was in fact initiated shortly before the 1987 crash by using the First Lady as a surrogate for launching Orwellian “Just Say No” campaigns using schools to brainwash children with pseudoscientific disinformation.

Government information, like the government itself, belongs to the citizens who instituted and maintain that government. If the laws it enforces are just, proper and exist only to protect the rights of individuals, there is no reason for hiding the names of those who enforce those laws until such time as Congress has issued a declaration of war. Governments that use the violence of law to violate individual rights–such as the German Reich under the sway of Christian National Socialism–are criminal organizations. National Socialist military and political leaders were tried and hanged in Nuremberg during the years following the May, 1945 surrender.

But what of governments that keep from their citizens important relationships such as the statistically observable correlations between mixed-economy meddling, the financial panics that occur when these are detected, and the deleterious effects on pension funds, interest and inflation rates, and other economic measures of prosperity?

Would this not qualify as a financial crime?

Need a financial translator?

Ontem no Rio de Janeiro…

Um turista americano passeia com o intérprete no Rio, e de repente aparece um assaltante:
–Perdeu. Vai passando aí…
–Whu’d he say?
–O cliente quer saber o significado daquilo que o senhor falou.
–Perdeu?
–Sim, pois, veja bem. Sem contexto não dá para fornecer uma resposta precisa e que vá necessariamente se encaixar. Contexto é rei. No mundo da terminologia, ao qual a tradução é estritamente ligada, os termos só existem se aparecerem em contexto. Palavras soltas podem levar a inúmeros erros de interpretração.
–BANG!
–Why’d you shoot my interpreter?
–Senti pena de você mané, e te fiz esse favor. Giívi maney nau.
Essa última parte o turista entendeu. Aliviado, passou a carteira pro bom malandro.

Willingness is wealth

1944refugeesThink about it. Hardly anyone notices little words like “Free,” “Freedom,” “Happiness,” and “willing” when they show up in important government-defining documents. But everyone is starting to notice the lines at immigration and visa services to flee countries that lack them. Let’s have a look at a few.

The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights that Patrick Henry insisted be added to the Constitution protects freedom of religion. This is different from religious coercion practiced for millennia in Europe and right this very minute wherever Mohammedans and prohibitionist Christians control government. Laws against birth control, firearms, condoms, health inspections, pregnancy termination, enjoyable drugs, beer, spirits and wine are all popular with deeply mystical people who fail to notice or understand that the word “Freedom” in the first Amendment means the absence of coercion.

The Second Amendment is only concerned with a Free State, not a communo-fascist variant of socialism or mixed-economy dictatorship. Here again, “free” is different from coerced by initiation of force, and it makes sense. The idea of coercing people who are free to arm themselves whenever that seems wise is easily understood to be a bad idea. Both amendments preclude the government from having power to pass laws sending men with guns out to force religious prohibitions on people or stop them from arming themselves to counter and repel such force.

The Declaration of Independence speaks of rightsmoral claims to freedom of action–which governments are instituted to preserve. The function of law and justice is to stop those who renounce freedom from coercing or killing those of us who value life and freedom.

Finally, the Law of supply and Demand is not legislated with police or guns–at least not in a free country. Modern reformulations of it by mystical conservatives invariably contrive to efface and delete the most important single word in Adam Smith’s formulation:

The market price of any particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the commodity, or the whole value of the rent, labour and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither. (Wealth… Canaan edition p. 61)

The word, of course, is willing. Willingness is the prime mover of all trade and production, and it negates threats and weapons–except those necessary to secure the right to live your happy life of liberty. In other passages Professor Adam Smith spoke of the “eagerness of this competition.” People do not have to be threatened with weapons or forced to do things they are willing, nay, eager to do to in the first place. Folks are willing and eager to do things that will bring them thriving health, comfort and happiness (eudaimonia). Wealth follows willingness so closely as to qualify as an inductively true premise. “All men are mortal,” and “willingness is wealth” are true because no exceptions can be found. In the business world this asset is called “goodwill.”

So if men with guns are unnecessary except to prevent aggression (the initiation of force) from violating your rights, why do altruistic conservatives, progressives and socialists so insistently cast about for pretexts to justify the initiation of force? What standard of value demands that freedom, rights and happiness be sacrificed—thrown away and replaced with coercion, threats and misery? By what standard are thriving and happiness bad, selfish, evil things? What makes  deprivation the good to be forced on us? How did altruistic conservatives, progressives and socialists find out that they are the better people who know what’s good for the riffraff? And why do people flee in leaky boats from looter kleptocracies inspired–with no exceptions–by the ethical precepts of altruistic collectivism?

Gambling on elections?

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Persuasion master Donald Trump has, according to trained hypnotist Scott Adams of Dilbert fame, fissioned into two personae. Redneck Trump, The Don, is the loudmouthed, life-begins-at-erection jerk so inspiring to teevee viewers who have never cracked a book. Centrist Trump is a serious, shape-shifting, non-dogmatic debater able change his mind to fit evidence and no longer convinced women must be threatened with criminal liability and forced at gunpoint to reproduce.**

Trump’s businesslike response to loss of female customer base reveals The Don as someone able to think on his feet and adjust to measurements and feedback from reality. The shift also signals to captains of banking and industry that Trump is not just another prohibitionist baboon eager to embark on a campaign of “concurrent” state and federal prohibition enforcement. The last such campaign completely wrecked the home loan industry via civil asset forfeiture of subprime-market grow houses in states where marijuana is illegal. The crash drove money out of banks and securities markets, causing a Herbert Hoover/George Bush liquidity crisis and depression.

Trump’s pre-Indiana transformation from bigot to grownup is lost on primary-voting morons. But the holy roller and televangelist candidates peddling fetus forfeiture laws to please “Warriors For the Babies” are already off the chessboard with no turning back. Casino owners think in probability terms, so the probability spread Trump needs to overcome today is 0.42 in a zero-sum game. To shift five points Trump needs the support of a sophisticated, literate crowd–the support of men of culture, means and learning capable of reaching back to their preppie days and grasping an analogous situation–not from Gilligan’s Island or Bonanza, but from Stratford-upon-Avon, where “liberal” stands for low-tax laissez-faire worldliness. When educated men are confronted with the apparent reformation of a wily rogue, what comes to mind?

So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promisèd,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
–Prince Harry in Henry IV Part 1, or
–Donald Trump in Republican primaries?

1932banksuspensionsGOP heavies realize that as reason replaces faith in These States, superstitious prohibitionists whose policies cause depressions have become a political liability–as in the campaign of 1932. They also realize that pro-choice LP spoiler votes have cost them many seats. So what would explain the GOP’s expense and effort of creating the antiabortion Tea and Constitution Parties to replace the Prohibition Party as its eminence grise, and recent dogged infiltration of the LP by starry-eyed YAFfers in Ron Paul T-shirts?

 

Dilemma 1: What if two can play? What if an anti-choice “libertarian” candidate were to surf in on a wave of turncoat GOP/YAF rats abandoning the floundering prohibitionist hulk, and secure the Libertarian nomination? Suppose the candidate, like Trump, were to suddenly decide that women are individuals, just like the Constitution and the laws say they are? What if Austin Petersen is not a fifth-column mole sent in to transform the LP into a fifth antichoice party? Suppose Petersen, like Trump, is poised to abandon the initiation of force and–reformation glittering over fault–realize that women, pregnant or not have the same individual rights as men?

The GOP has nothing to lose, but is bait-and-switch a gamble worth taking for a rising party that has already achieved constitution-changing spoiler vote clout?

Dilemma 2: What if an angry GOP wants to temporarily replace the Prohi, Tea and other antichoice parties with a compliant, woman-menacing LP, and eliminate future LP competition by wrecking our credibility?

If the Libertarian party were to join the Prohibition Party’s plank reassigning women a condition of involuntary servitude in violation of the 13th and 14th Amendments, that would forever relegate us–with that Prohibition Party and its Republican, Tea and “Constitution” party clones–to the dustbin of history.

Safer to stick with Gary Johnson, whose two terms as Governor of NM have done him proud, and whose past campaign–whatever its weaknesses–brought us an uptick in hefty, law-changing spoiler votes with no disasters. Gary has become important enough in American politics to even pop up on Google’s radar. Check it out… Compare the comments on him to the comments on Trump, Hillary and the DemoGOP in general before you vote.

** Gary Johnson, as a partially-born semilibertarian candidate in 2012 also believed the Political State should send jackbooted minions to frogmarch physicians off to prison, leaving women to bleed out from coathanger abortions. By 2016 Johnson became a supporter of Roe v. Wade–which was copied from the 1972 Libertarian Party platform.

Need translations of barbarian laws from primitive dictatorships and bandana republics?