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THE PROSPECTS FOR LIBERTY
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
THE PROSPECTS FOR LIBERTY
by Joel Skousen
www.joelskousen.com
WORLD AFFAIRS BRIEF
May 10, 2002
Copyright Joel M. Skousen
Partial Quotations with attribution permitted.
Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief
(http://www.joelskousen.com).
[Excerpt]
I just returned from speaking at the FEE Fest, the first annual national convention of the Foundation for Economic Education, Leonard Read's venerable free-market foundation dedicated to educating the world on the virtues of liberty (see their website at http://www.fee.org). It was an historic occasion for America's oldest private organization dedicated to the restoration of liberty, and it was a resounding success, with over 800 participants and a roster of the best and brightest speakers in the liberty movement.
FEE is currently led by Austrian economist Mark Skousen (my brother) who was able to use his considerable reputation and wide influence to attract renowned conservative and libertarian speakers to the event on a mostly pro-bono basis (no small feat), guaranteeing a scintillating atmosphere of debate and enthusiasm for liberty at a reasonable price. It was the first time in more than a decade that anyone has pulled together such an ideological gathering for liberty without the lure of some direct monetary attraction (although conservative corporate investors did help underwrite and facilitate the effort). For all of us in the conservative/libertarian movement who feel relatively isolated in numbers, it was like a breath of fresh air to rub shoulders with formidable minds and dedicated citizens welded together in a common cause. Mark's strategy is not to compete with other groups dedicated to the cause of liberty, but to bring them together each year under one big tent. I predict that the annual FEE Fest will become the freedom event of the year.
I was also impressed to find out that the developer of the Venetian Hotel and convention center complex, which hosted the FEE banquet celebration, is a free-market advocate and trustee of FEE. He regaled the audience with a fascinating tale of his efforts to build the Venetian on free-market principles, despite the massive opposition he received from the unions and other corrupt elements in Las Vegas, who have de facto control of Las Vegas planning and regulatory bodies. Amid all the corrupt Mafia-type influence and control in Vegas, it's nice to know there is an oasis of principled business development in the form of the 5-star Venetian Hotel.
Despite all that was positive at the FEE Fest as a gathering of the faithful, there was a disturbing lack of in-depth understanding on the part of both the speakers and the participants as to what is really going on in the world, both as to the apparent resurgence of free markets in the last two decades and regarding the future threats to liberty. Nathaniel Branden, veteran libertarian objectivist philosopher and former colleague of Ayn Rand, was invited to give a keynote address on "The Future of Freedom." He was cautiously optimistic--buoyed up by the gains made in the free market realm, but still disturbed by the conventional media-driven view of global threats to peace. There was a general consensus of agreement with Branden's assessment. What I would like to suggest, however, is that this assessment is only half true--because neither the gains in the free market nor the visible threats are representative of what is really happening in the world. Permit me to explain.
Free-market economists and libertarians correctly understand the inevitable tension between socialism (which can never deliver on what it promises) and liberty (which can and does deliver). Leaders at the conference tended to view the resurgence of free markets as the natural inevitable result of people waking up to the fact that socialism doesn't deliver the goods, and choosing freedom instead. To a certain extent this is true. But it is also false. What people are choosing is not the full extent of free-market liberty, but rather government restricted liberty instead--the freedom to produce lots of material goods, while still being shielded from the rigorous judgments of the free market. They want both.
Most people still don't want the government to allow employers to hire and fire at will and at free-market prices for labor. They still want unemployment benefits without visibly having to pay for them. People still want the welfare safety net even though it is a violation of other taxpayers' rights. They still want other taxpayers to subsidize the public education their children receive. They also want protection from people's negative judgments about their group affiliations, weight problems, and sexual preferences. There are huge constituencies for these and other forms of statist control and regulation--even within the conservative movement.
The reason I am not optimistic about the future of liberty is because the freedom gains of the last two decades have come dishonestly. There are ulterior motives behind statist leaders' efforts to partially dismantle certain aspects of Socialism. First, the globalist promoters of free-market reforms have introduced them NOT because they believe in them fully, but because such reforms are essential pacifiers in the globalist scheme, meant to keep people prosperous and content so they don't notice or object to the other socialist and globalist controls that being built. In other words, free market reforms are only the bait in the globalist trap of international regulatory control. Because of this ulterior motive, our enthusiasm for recent gains should be cautious. While it is true that people's taste of freedom makes it more difficult for governments to renege on existing reforms (while times are good), it doesn't guarantee that government will continue to move in the direction of liberty when a crisis returns; nor will they ever dismantle the myriad socialist benefits and protections that are popular among the ignorant majorities. Socialists learned long ago that Communism fails rapidly because it kills all free-market incentives. Consequently, the technique of modern socialists is to both cultivate and regulate free markets so the markets can be milked for revenues while being restrained from expansion lest they provide avenues of escape from government power. In short, the chains of globalist controls are being forged in the fine print of the WTO, NAFTA and the EU, even as people are being sold on joining such organizations by the promise of freer markets.
Second, people have been led to believe that the free market can coexist indefinitely with moderate socialism and regulatory control (Tony Blair's vaunted Third Way of Fabian Socialism). This is not true. Over the long haul the movement of men's character under mixed Socialism will be toward greater corruption, with louder calls for protection from the consequences of their declining true worth. The benefit-corruption of the masses and the allure of socialism (promising higher rewards than deserved based on actual worth) will eventually rebound to overwhelm liberty--as is already happening today in Britain, Europe, and Latin America, including Chile: the only South American country to really give free markets a try. The laws of human nature cannot be countermanded. People will always seek to shield themselves from the rigors of others' judgments, and will continue to wield their democratic powers to vote themselves benefits, unless prohibited by law.
In this regard, I was saddened at the lack of interest from other speakers during my presentation, which was aimed at developing strict legal structures and principles of law to proscribe or discourage the allure of socialism. Intellectual leaders seem content to argue the benefits of liberty without going through the tough and contentious process of hammering out the details of the restrictive constitutional law necessary to defend liberty.
Third, the current illusion of free-market boom times has been built on the back of government fiat money. It would not have happened as rapidly under honest money--though it would have been more stable. One of the main reasons people have been duped into thinking they can have both free market abundance and a welfare state is that they have not had to pay the full price. The inexorable growth in both government debt (deferred taxation) and monetary creation (taxation by invisible inflation) has kept people from having to pay the true price of this mixed socialist system during the past 50 years. Inflation in the US has been relatively invisible because the US Treasury has exported much of its dollar creation as the dollar has expanded into a world currency. The rest of the world has been absorbing our inflated dollars, sparing us, temporarily, from having to pay for those government expenditures. No other country has had this deceptive release mechanism available to hide inflation of the money supply. The illusion won't last forever, though, despite American optimism to the contrary. When this fiat money pyramid finally collapses, so will the pretense of being able to "have your cake and eat it too."
Fourth, as to overt military threats, most of the conservative and libertarian speakers still have not confronted the evidence pointing to a concerted globalist conspiracy to destroy American liberty. There is little realization among the conservative and libertarian leaders I spoke with that the current "war on terrorism" is anything more than a red herring--an phony excuse to justify another round of intervention in the world. It isn't that terrorism doesn't exist. It does--but it is a very controlled entity (by the major powers) and is being used selectively to further a globalist New World Order. Perhaps free-market intellectuals realize that to even countenance a conspiratorial position would bring upon them the derision of the world, and a certain loss of influence even within libertarian circles. Most would certainly lose their positions within America's educational institutions and foundations if they attacked the globalist agenda in this manner. Thus, the threat of derision when addressing the "C" word has become the globalist's formost defense against exposure of their evil intents.
Lastly, almost uniformly, our own libertarian leaders naively believe the Russians really did shut down the Soviet system of state terror voluntarily and transform themselves into quasi-capitalists. They are anxious to believe this grandest of all modern deception because it tends to vindicate the free-market's claim that Communism can't survive on its own. Most believe that China will do the same. This is naive. Our own leaders do not understand that these predator centers of collusion and evil do not exist because of mistaken economic allegiances, nor even because of religious culture or national pride. They exist, as does the New World Order globalist movement, as competing, dedicated secret combinations of men working for absolute evil and the suppression of liberty.
The globalist establishment in the West is competing against Russia and China for dominance, while the latter two, though feigning an alliance for now, fully intend to turn on each other at some point in the future. None of these three predators intend to lose the battle for final supremacy, and none have our best interests in mind. In my opinion, the most dangerous by far is the Western Globalist movement--currently split into two factions vying for control: the US/British faction and the European faction. Herein lies the greatest threat to Americans: while trumpeting euphemistic appeals to democracy and peace, along with patriotic calls to fight terrorism, our own Republican leaders are slowly guiding America toward defeat in a coming world war, followed by subsequent acquiescence to the NWO. See the blue banner on my website (http://www.joelskousen.com/) entitled Strategic Threats for details on this war scenario.
All this does not bode well for the optimists in our movement. Most people can't seem to bring themselves to believe that their own leaders, who parrot patriotic and Christian themes, are capable of treason and betrayal. Thus, either out of ignorance or out of fear of losing their "credibility," most of our best thinkers are content to simply champion the benefits of free markets, without addressing this crucial threat: the systemic evil which holds almost all the reigns on state power, and which is very likely to use those state powers to someday shut down all opposition if we do not raise the alarm while still free to do so.
My view of our situation is this. I believe the actual, hidden powers arrayed against us are in de facto control of all the levers of government power in this country except the vote--which they still have to manipulate. Because almost all the collusion between normal fiduciary government offices is hidden, they are much stronger than they appear on the surface. The reasons the Powers That Be (PTB) both in media, education, and government deride any notion of a conspiracy on the left so vehemently are twofold: 1) they know the charges are true, and 2) they know that it is the only issue sufficiently powerful to cause the majority to rise up and overthrow them. Thus, by voluntarily restraining ourselves from searching out the evidences of collusion in high places and raising the alarm, we deny ourselves the only weapon they really fear.
Still, the experience of the Italians from 1994-96 demonstrates the near futility of any attempt to win back an entire country to free-market ideals, even after exposing pervasive collusion. In 1994, a huge conspiracy was discovered in Italy by one honest magistrate, who secured testimony proving that all the political parties in government were being bought off and controlled through huge kick-back schemes involving the Mafia, Masonic Lodges, and globalist conspirators. The entire ruling government was brought down in a single year and nearly everyone in high position was forced to resign. The most powerful political parties ceased to exist (or so it was announced). For libertarians, it seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity. A wholly new reform government was installed, headed by Silvio Berlusconi, a private media magnate who controlled the largest private sector in television and radio. It appeared as if the invincibility of the conspiratorial forces who controlled Italian government for years had been broken.
But it was not meant to be. Berlusconi was found to have built his media empire with government collusion. Within nine months, the benefit-corrupted Italians rebelled against Berlusconi's free-market reforms and he was ousted. All the other big socialist parties had silently reorganized under new names (like the Communists in eastern Europe did after the "collapse" of the Soviet Union) and were voted back into power by 1995. Notice that even convincing the public that a conspiracy exists does not guarantee they will be wise enough to vote against those same people after they have changed organizational names and played like they "repented." People are way too trusting and ignorant to play in today's sophisticated world of deception and lies. They are especially immune to good judgment when a politician looks at them and swears allegiance to God and the Constitution. Look at how many conservatives think George Bush Jr. is "one of us." As I have amply detailed in prior briefs, he is not.
There is some hope if we realistically assess the threats and are willing to set down a no-compromise strategy. But how can we hope to fight or win, if our own conservative/libertarian leadership (in which I do not include the Republican globalist establishment) is blind to the full range of threats and only concerned about economic or religious liberties? (Americans are suckers for the concept that if they are free to worship and to trade, they are truly free. There is a lot more to freedom than that.) I do not criticize my fellow conservatives and libertarians lightly. They are sincere and mean well, but few have the enlightenment to see through the grand deceptions of our age--let alone tackle the growing combinations of power arrayed against us. Sadly, ideas alone will not win the day, nor will purely political action.
Here is the strategy in which I think we must engage. We only have a few years of peace left before the globalists spring their trap. If we continue to be lulled into a hope that the phony conservative Republicans will save us, we will use up our remaining window of opportunity and be overwhelmed by the next world conflict. In the coming devastation of a nuclear/biological or chemical World War III--a predictable backlash against continual US intervention around the world under the guise of "fighting terrorism"--the surviving US government officials (emerging from bunkers already built to survive what is coming) will begin a dramatic crackdown on dissent, especially targeting the conservatives, libertarians, and the religious right. Draconian controls and regulations will come down upon America in the name of fighting the next war against tyranny.
Conservatives, driven by intolerance and official persecution, may well be forced to flee to other areas for safety where they will find like-minded others gathering to find refuge. Presently, the small minority of constitutional-conservatives are so uniformly dispersed among a sea of ignorance that we can never achieve majority status anywhere, as presently constituted. Yet there may come an opportunity, amidst the instability and destruction of the next war or depression, to dramatically effect a new movement to reestablish a bastion of liberty in some area or state of the nation.
The key is to prepare for a potential opportunity or crisis such as this beforehand--and that means first, preparing to survive war itself, and second, preparing to govern our new found majority status (in some defined area of refuge) with tight legal structures modeled after America's founding principles of limited government. That means taking time, while we still have relative peace, to hammer out the remaining differences between libertarians and conservatives, so that we have a basis of commonality upon which to quickly form a new government for future protection in the midst of the coming crisis.
Even if you do not believe we are headed for war, I trust you can see the advantage in starting to forge a unified system of principles and laws that liberty-minded people can agree upon. But the issue becomes all the more imperative when one considers the likelihood of an impending crisis, such as I believe is forthcoming. Developing a workable framework for constitutional liberty is a difficult and time-consuming process--something you don't want to have to worry about in a crisis of survival. Presently, governments are all controlled by trained lawyers and planners with a statist mentality. In a crisis of change, those same lawyers and politicians will feel it their exclusive privilege to dictate any new terms of government reform. As in the founding of this great nation (where Madison and group came prepared with "the Virginia Plan"), the ones who are organized beforehand with a specific proposal will have the advantage.
It is my intent to help give our side a head start on the reform process--to establish the basis for discussion, with a large constituency of support already formed. If we do not, in the next crisis of government, it will be the statists who will rise up and say, "We know how to run a government--just like the way we always have." While conservatives will still be arguing among themselves about which version of the Constitution to go back to (no easy task), the statists will have won the day and will have voted themselves back into office. Let's prepare in advance to have a bullet-proof system of liberty of our own ready to slap down on the table.
This was the intent of my presentation at the FEE Fest, to invite others to join me in developing sound principles and a workable framework for a government of liberty. The details of such a framework as I have already developed are available on my website at http://www.joelskousen.com/Philosophy/. There you will find what I am presenting as a basis for a new "Foundation for the Ideal State." This is a work in progress so don't expect to find a perfect system yet. I have a public forum discussion area where you can post your comments. Come join in this founding process. You'll learn a lot in the process.
BUSH ADMINISTRATION USING GOVERNMENT SECRECY TO MASK ILLEGAL CHINESE PURCHASES OF MILITARY DUAL USE EQUIPMENT
The following excerpts come from an article by Charles R. Smith of www.softwar.net. Smith has become an expert in tracking technology transfers to Communist China under the Clinton administration. Now it is the Bush administration he is watching--specifically because Smith has found crucial evidence that, while claiming (via Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld) that China is a future threat, the Bush administration is allowing China to purchase tons of dual use military equipment--and trying to keep it a secret. [My comments in brackets]
"The Bush administration has decided not to tell America exactly how much business the Chinese army does inside the United States. In a recent Freedom of Information response, the Commerce Department decided not to disclose what a Chinese air force front company bought from America. According to the Commerce Department, the undersecretary for the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) has determined that `disclosure would not be in the national interest [meaning, it would not be in the globalist interest--which is counting on a future war with Russia and China that will force the world into a NWO for survival, followed by a permanent loss of sovereignty. Naturally, there are other lesser motives, like enriching multi-national corporations like Boeing].
"`Information about export licenses and license applications that list China United Airlines as a consignee or end-user of the items exported under the export license [such as Boeing aircraft--which are now being used for military transport], are protected from disclosure,' wrote Barbara Fredericks, the Commerce Department assistant general counsel, in an April letter. However, the Commerce Department clearly was in the business of selling something to foreign militaries [which is not legal--thus the continued assertions by Commerce that this is a civilian transfer]. The recently declassified documents show that the department was informed in 1994 that China United Airlines is actually owned by the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)."
Smith also detailed in his report the use of Lippo (Chinese subsidiary) agent John Huang (a convicted felon) by the Commerce Department to facilitate numerous arms transfers to other nations including missile frigates and Patriot Missiles to the United Arab Emirates. He reports, "The Bureau of Export Administration (BXA), the section of the Commerce Department that authorizes foreign sales of aircraft, computers and commercial security software to civilian end users, pressed Congress to sell the warships to the UAE navy."
Smith also found some telling attempts by Commerce to suppress sensitive portions of the agreement between the US and China during China's consideration for WTO membership. "The Commerce Department d id release information concerning China's `WTO Accession' detailing US administration support for the red Chinese application to join the World Trade Organization. The department heavily blacked out the information, however, noting that the details were withheld in order to protect `the agency's decision-making process.'" [My sources indicate the blacked-out portions detail secret concession the US agreed to make to China which they do not want the American people to know about].
Other headlines in the newsletter:
BUSH CONSIDERING SHIELDING US/RUSSIAN ARMS AGREEMENT FROM PUBLIC SCRUTINY
http://www.centrexnews.com/columnists/skousen/2002/0510.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
by Joel Skousen
www.joelskousen.com
WORLD AFFAIRS BRIEF
May 10, 2002
Copyright Joel M. Skousen
Partial Quotations with attribution permitted.
Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief
(http://www.joelskousen.com).
[Excerpt]
I just returned from speaking at the FEE Fest, the first annual national convention of the Foundation for Economic Education, Leonard Read's venerable free-market foundation dedicated to educating the world on the virtues of liberty (see their website at http://www.fee.org). It was an historic occasion for America's oldest private organization dedicated to the restoration of liberty, and it was a resounding success, with over 800 participants and a roster of the best and brightest speakers in the liberty movement.
FEE is currently led by Austrian economist Mark Skousen (my brother) who was able to use his considerable reputation and wide influence to attract renowned conservative and libertarian speakers to the event on a mostly pro-bono basis (no small feat), guaranteeing a scintillating atmosphere of debate and enthusiasm for liberty at a reasonable price. It was the first time in more than a decade that anyone has pulled together such an ideological gathering for liberty without the lure of some direct monetary attraction (although conservative corporate investors did help underwrite and facilitate the effort). For all of us in the conservative/libertarian movement who feel relatively isolated in numbers, it was like a breath of fresh air to rub shoulders with formidable minds and dedicated citizens welded together in a common cause. Mark's strategy is not to compete with other groups dedicated to the cause of liberty, but to bring them together each year under one big tent. I predict that the annual FEE Fest will become the freedom event of the year.
I was also impressed to find out that the developer of the Venetian Hotel and convention center complex, which hosted the FEE banquet celebration, is a free-market advocate and trustee of FEE. He regaled the audience with a fascinating tale of his efforts to build the Venetian on free-market principles, despite the massive opposition he received from the unions and other corrupt elements in Las Vegas, who have de facto control of Las Vegas planning and regulatory bodies. Amid all the corrupt Mafia-type influence and control in Vegas, it's nice to know there is an oasis of principled business development in the form of the 5-star Venetian Hotel.
Despite all that was positive at the FEE Fest as a gathering of the faithful, there was a disturbing lack of in-depth understanding on the part of both the speakers and the participants as to what is really going on in the world, both as to the apparent resurgence of free markets in the last two decades and regarding the future threats to liberty. Nathaniel Branden, veteran libertarian objectivist philosopher and former colleague of Ayn Rand, was invited to give a keynote address on "The Future of Freedom." He was cautiously optimistic--buoyed up by the gains made in the free market realm, but still disturbed by the conventional media-driven view of global threats to peace. There was a general consensus of agreement with Branden's assessment. What I would like to suggest, however, is that this assessment is only half true--because neither the gains in the free market nor the visible threats are representative of what is really happening in the world. Permit me to explain.
Free-market economists and libertarians correctly understand the inevitable tension between socialism (which can never deliver on what it promises) and liberty (which can and does deliver). Leaders at the conference tended to view the resurgence of free markets as the natural inevitable result of people waking up to the fact that socialism doesn't deliver the goods, and choosing freedom instead. To a certain extent this is true. But it is also false. What people are choosing is not the full extent of free-market liberty, but rather government restricted liberty instead--the freedom to produce lots of material goods, while still being shielded from the rigorous judgments of the free market. They want both.
Most people still don't want the government to allow employers to hire and fire at will and at free-market prices for labor. They still want unemployment benefits without visibly having to pay for them. People still want the welfare safety net even though it is a violation of other taxpayers' rights. They still want other taxpayers to subsidize the public education their children receive. They also want protection from people's negative judgments about their group affiliations, weight problems, and sexual preferences. There are huge constituencies for these and other forms of statist control and regulation--even within the conservative movement.
The reason I am not optimistic about the future of liberty is because the freedom gains of the last two decades have come dishonestly. There are ulterior motives behind statist leaders' efforts to partially dismantle certain aspects of Socialism. First, the globalist promoters of free-market reforms have introduced them NOT because they believe in them fully, but because such reforms are essential pacifiers in the globalist scheme, meant to keep people prosperous and content so they don't notice or object to the other socialist and globalist controls that being built. In other words, free market reforms are only the bait in the globalist trap of international regulatory control. Because of this ulterior motive, our enthusiasm for recent gains should be cautious. While it is true that people's taste of freedom makes it more difficult for governments to renege on existing reforms (while times are good), it doesn't guarantee that government will continue to move in the direction of liberty when a crisis returns; nor will they ever dismantle the myriad socialist benefits and protections that are popular among the ignorant majorities. Socialists learned long ago that Communism fails rapidly because it kills all free-market incentives. Consequently, the technique of modern socialists is to both cultivate and regulate free markets so the markets can be milked for revenues while being restrained from expansion lest they provide avenues of escape from government power. In short, the chains of globalist controls are being forged in the fine print of the WTO, NAFTA and the EU, even as people are being sold on joining such organizations by the promise of freer markets.
Second, people have been led to believe that the free market can coexist indefinitely with moderate socialism and regulatory control (Tony Blair's vaunted Third Way of Fabian Socialism). This is not true. Over the long haul the movement of men's character under mixed Socialism will be toward greater corruption, with louder calls for protection from the consequences of their declining true worth. The benefit-corruption of the masses and the allure of socialism (promising higher rewards than deserved based on actual worth) will eventually rebound to overwhelm liberty--as is already happening today in Britain, Europe, and Latin America, including Chile: the only South American country to really give free markets a try. The laws of human nature cannot be countermanded. People will always seek to shield themselves from the rigors of others' judgments, and will continue to wield their democratic powers to vote themselves benefits, unless prohibited by law.
In this regard, I was saddened at the lack of interest from other speakers during my presentation, which was aimed at developing strict legal structures and principles of law to proscribe or discourage the allure of socialism. Intellectual leaders seem content to argue the benefits of liberty without going through the tough and contentious process of hammering out the details of the restrictive constitutional law necessary to defend liberty.
Third, the current illusion of free-market boom times has been built on the back of government fiat money. It would not have happened as rapidly under honest money--though it would have been more stable. One of the main reasons people have been duped into thinking they can have both free market abundance and a welfare state is that they have not had to pay the full price. The inexorable growth in both government debt (deferred taxation) and monetary creation (taxation by invisible inflation) has kept people from having to pay the true price of this mixed socialist system during the past 50 years. Inflation in the US has been relatively invisible because the US Treasury has exported much of its dollar creation as the dollar has expanded into a world currency. The rest of the world has been absorbing our inflated dollars, sparing us, temporarily, from having to pay for those government expenditures. No other country has had this deceptive release mechanism available to hide inflation of the money supply. The illusion won't last forever, though, despite American optimism to the contrary. When this fiat money pyramid finally collapses, so will the pretense of being able to "have your cake and eat it too."
Fourth, as to overt military threats, most of the conservative and libertarian speakers still have not confronted the evidence pointing to a concerted globalist conspiracy to destroy American liberty. There is little realization among the conservative and libertarian leaders I spoke with that the current "war on terrorism" is anything more than a red herring--an phony excuse to justify another round of intervention in the world. It isn't that terrorism doesn't exist. It does--but it is a very controlled entity (by the major powers) and is being used selectively to further a globalist New World Order. Perhaps free-market intellectuals realize that to even countenance a conspiratorial position would bring upon them the derision of the world, and a certain loss of influence even within libertarian circles. Most would certainly lose their positions within America's educational institutions and foundations if they attacked the globalist agenda in this manner. Thus, the threat of derision when addressing the "C" word has become the globalist's formost defense against exposure of their evil intents.
Lastly, almost uniformly, our own libertarian leaders naively believe the Russians really did shut down the Soviet system of state terror voluntarily and transform themselves into quasi-capitalists. They are anxious to believe this grandest of all modern deception because it tends to vindicate the free-market's claim that Communism can't survive on its own. Most believe that China will do the same. This is naive. Our own leaders do not understand that these predator centers of collusion and evil do not exist because of mistaken economic allegiances, nor even because of religious culture or national pride. They exist, as does the New World Order globalist movement, as competing, dedicated secret combinations of men working for absolute evil and the suppression of liberty.
The globalist establishment in the West is competing against Russia and China for dominance, while the latter two, though feigning an alliance for now, fully intend to turn on each other at some point in the future. None of these three predators intend to lose the battle for final supremacy, and none have our best interests in mind. In my opinion, the most dangerous by far is the Western Globalist movement--currently split into two factions vying for control: the US/British faction and the European faction. Herein lies the greatest threat to Americans: while trumpeting euphemistic appeals to democracy and peace, along with patriotic calls to fight terrorism, our own Republican leaders are slowly guiding America toward defeat in a coming world war, followed by subsequent acquiescence to the NWO. See the blue banner on my website (http://www.joelskousen.com/) entitled Strategic Threats for details on this war scenario.
All this does not bode well for the optimists in our movement. Most people can't seem to bring themselves to believe that their own leaders, who parrot patriotic and Christian themes, are capable of treason and betrayal. Thus, either out of ignorance or out of fear of losing their "credibility," most of our best thinkers are content to simply champion the benefits of free markets, without addressing this crucial threat: the systemic evil which holds almost all the reigns on state power, and which is very likely to use those state powers to someday shut down all opposition if we do not raise the alarm while still free to do so.
My view of our situation is this. I believe the actual, hidden powers arrayed against us are in de facto control of all the levers of government power in this country except the vote--which they still have to manipulate. Because almost all the collusion between normal fiduciary government offices is hidden, they are much stronger than they appear on the surface. The reasons the Powers That Be (PTB) both in media, education, and government deride any notion of a conspiracy on the left so vehemently are twofold: 1) they know the charges are true, and 2) they know that it is the only issue sufficiently powerful to cause the majority to rise up and overthrow them. Thus, by voluntarily restraining ourselves from searching out the evidences of collusion in high places and raising the alarm, we deny ourselves the only weapon they really fear.
Still, the experience of the Italians from 1994-96 demonstrates the near futility of any attempt to win back an entire country to free-market ideals, even after exposing pervasive collusion. In 1994, a huge conspiracy was discovered in Italy by one honest magistrate, who secured testimony proving that all the political parties in government were being bought off and controlled through huge kick-back schemes involving the Mafia, Masonic Lodges, and globalist conspirators. The entire ruling government was brought down in a single year and nearly everyone in high position was forced to resign. The most powerful political parties ceased to exist (or so it was announced). For libertarians, it seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity. A wholly new reform government was installed, headed by Silvio Berlusconi, a private media magnate who controlled the largest private sector in television and radio. It appeared as if the invincibility of the conspiratorial forces who controlled Italian government for years had been broken.
But it was not meant to be. Berlusconi was found to have built his media empire with government collusion. Within nine months, the benefit-corrupted Italians rebelled against Berlusconi's free-market reforms and he was ousted. All the other big socialist parties had silently reorganized under new names (like the Communists in eastern Europe did after the "collapse" of the Soviet Union) and were voted back into power by 1995. Notice that even convincing the public that a conspiracy exists does not guarantee they will be wise enough to vote against those same people after they have changed organizational names and played like they "repented." People are way too trusting and ignorant to play in today's sophisticated world of deception and lies. They are especially immune to good judgment when a politician looks at them and swears allegiance to God and the Constitution. Look at how many conservatives think George Bush Jr. is "one of us." As I have amply detailed in prior briefs, he is not.
There is some hope if we realistically assess the threats and are willing to set down a no-compromise strategy. But how can we hope to fight or win, if our own conservative/libertarian leadership (in which I do not include the Republican globalist establishment) is blind to the full range of threats and only concerned about economic or religious liberties? (Americans are suckers for the concept that if they are free to worship and to trade, they are truly free. There is a lot more to freedom than that.) I do not criticize my fellow conservatives and libertarians lightly. They are sincere and mean well, but few have the enlightenment to see through the grand deceptions of our age--let alone tackle the growing combinations of power arrayed against us. Sadly, ideas alone will not win the day, nor will purely political action.
Here is the strategy in which I think we must engage. We only have a few years of peace left before the globalists spring their trap. If we continue to be lulled into a hope that the phony conservative Republicans will save us, we will use up our remaining window of opportunity and be overwhelmed by the next world conflict. In the coming devastation of a nuclear/biological or chemical World War III--a predictable backlash against continual US intervention around the world under the guise of "fighting terrorism"--the surviving US government officials (emerging from bunkers already built to survive what is coming) will begin a dramatic crackdown on dissent, especially targeting the conservatives, libertarians, and the religious right. Draconian controls and regulations will come down upon America in the name of fighting the next war against tyranny.
Conservatives, driven by intolerance and official persecution, may well be forced to flee to other areas for safety where they will find like-minded others gathering to find refuge. Presently, the small minority of constitutional-conservatives are so uniformly dispersed among a sea of ignorance that we can never achieve majority status anywhere, as presently constituted. Yet there may come an opportunity, amidst the instability and destruction of the next war or depression, to dramatically effect a new movement to reestablish a bastion of liberty in some area or state of the nation.
The key is to prepare for a potential opportunity or crisis such as this beforehand--and that means first, preparing to survive war itself, and second, preparing to govern our new found majority status (in some defined area of refuge) with tight legal structures modeled after America's founding principles of limited government. That means taking time, while we still have relative peace, to hammer out the remaining differences between libertarians and conservatives, so that we have a basis of commonality upon which to quickly form a new government for future protection in the midst of the coming crisis.
Even if you do not believe we are headed for war, I trust you can see the advantage in starting to forge a unified system of principles and laws that liberty-minded people can agree upon. But the issue becomes all the more imperative when one considers the likelihood of an impending crisis, such as I believe is forthcoming. Developing a workable framework for constitutional liberty is a difficult and time-consuming process--something you don't want to have to worry about in a crisis of survival. Presently, governments are all controlled by trained lawyers and planners with a statist mentality. In a crisis of change, those same lawyers and politicians will feel it their exclusive privilege to dictate any new terms of government reform. As in the founding of this great nation (where Madison and group came prepared with "the Virginia Plan"), the ones who are organized beforehand with a specific proposal will have the advantage.
It is my intent to help give our side a head start on the reform process--to establish the basis for discussion, with a large constituency of support already formed. If we do not, in the next crisis of government, it will be the statists who will rise up and say, "We know how to run a government--just like the way we always have." While conservatives will still be arguing among themselves about which version of the Constitution to go back to (no easy task), the statists will have won the day and will have voted themselves back into office. Let's prepare in advance to have a bullet-proof system of liberty of our own ready to slap down on the table.
This was the intent of my presentation at the FEE Fest, to invite others to join me in developing sound principles and a workable framework for a government of liberty. The details of such a framework as I have already developed are available on my website at http://www.joelskousen.com/Philosophy/. There you will find what I am presenting as a basis for a new "Foundation for the Ideal State." This is a work in progress so don't expect to find a perfect system yet. I have a public forum discussion area where you can post your comments. Come join in this founding process. You'll learn a lot in the process.
BUSH ADMINISTRATION USING GOVERNMENT SECRECY TO MASK ILLEGAL CHINESE PURCHASES OF MILITARY DUAL USE EQUIPMENT
The following excerpts come from an article by Charles R. Smith of www.softwar.net. Smith has become an expert in tracking technology transfers to Communist China under the Clinton administration. Now it is the Bush administration he is watching--specifically because Smith has found crucial evidence that, while claiming (via Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld) that China is a future threat, the Bush administration is allowing China to purchase tons of dual use military equipment--and trying to keep it a secret. [My comments in brackets]
"The Bush administration has decided not to tell America exactly how much business the Chinese army does inside the United States. In a recent Freedom of Information response, the Commerce Department decided not to disclose what a Chinese air force front company bought from America. According to the Commerce Department, the undersecretary for the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) has determined that `disclosure would not be in the national interest [meaning, it would not be in the globalist interest--which is counting on a future war with Russia and China that will force the world into a NWO for survival, followed by a permanent loss of sovereignty. Naturally, there are other lesser motives, like enriching multi-national corporations like Boeing].
"`Information about export licenses and license applications that list China United Airlines as a consignee or end-user of the items exported under the export license [such as Boeing aircraft--which are now being used for military transport], are protected from disclosure,' wrote Barbara Fredericks, the Commerce Department assistant general counsel, in an April letter. However, the Commerce Department clearly was in the business of selling something to foreign militaries [which is not legal--thus the continued assertions by Commerce that this is a civilian transfer]. The recently declassified documents show that the department was informed in 1994 that China United Airlines is actually owned by the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)."
Smith also detailed in his report the use of Lippo (Chinese subsidiary) agent John Huang (a convicted felon) by the Commerce Department to facilitate numerous arms transfers to other nations including missile frigates and Patriot Missiles to the United Arab Emirates. He reports, "The Bureau of Export Administration (BXA), the section of the Commerce Department that authorizes foreign sales of aircraft, computers and commercial security software to civilian end users, pressed Congress to sell the warships to the UAE navy."
Smith also found some telling attempts by Commerce to suppress sensitive portions of the agreement between the US and China during China's consideration for WTO membership. "The Commerce Department d id release information concerning China's `WTO Accession' detailing US administration support for the red Chinese application to join the World Trade Organization. The department heavily blacked out the information, however, noting that the details were withheld in order to protect `the agency's decision-making process.'" [My sources indicate the blacked-out portions detail secret concession the US agreed to make to China which they do not want the American people to know about].
Other headlines in the newsletter:
BUSH CONSIDERING SHIELDING US/RUSSIAN ARMS AGREEMENT FROM PUBLIC SCRUTINY
http://www.centrexnews.com/columnists/skousen/2002/0510.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878