It is not enough to believe that free people would thrive and prosper without the state. We need to know why that is the case. Lew Rockwell is one the most eloquent speakers in this regard. His passion and articulation of the issues are phenomenal. This is a short talk about how we recover from disasters.
It is easy to get discouraged looking at the daily insane acts and pronouncements of politicians. The antidote is Lew Rockwell.
Vested interests almost never use logic to win an argument. And you probably wouldn't expect them to. After all they know they are pushing for special rights over others that can't be justified logically. In fact I would go as far as saying that when you are up against someone who tries to win an argument by using ridicule or other tactics that attack you rather than your argument you know you are either facing a member of a vested interest group or a sucker for their propaganda.
If you have spoken to such people in the last year and felt like you came off worst then watch the following video. Peter Schiff was part of the team working with Ron Paul. Here we see him predicting the current economic mess before it happened. Isn't the internet great? Watch those who "argue" against him.
For me the most important take-away from the video is that accurate predictions are possible and aren't based on luck. They are based on sound economic theory which is absolutely not the current mainstream economics as taught in most of our schools and colleges. Sound economics and sound economists are possibly the greatest enemies of our ruling class. Sound economics is worth learning about and www.mises.org is probably the best place to start.
There are very few people quite like Lew Rockwell. Take this analysis of the current gushing over Obama. If he isn't on your reading list I think you are missing out.
Which writers do you admire?
I'm used to either listening to music of my own choice or to Radio 4 when driving. R4 tends to be nothing more than a non-stop propaganda delivery system which often infuriates with the logic of "everyone knows" but occasionally, albeit very occasionally, there is a gem like the what men do in their sheds documentary of around 15 years ago.
Most of my trips are relatively short these days and I've taken to listening to a lot more podcasts that are also relatively short. If you find your sense of logic outraged more often than not on R4 and you'd like to be among friends who will treat you with respect then I highly recommend subscribing to the podcasts put out by Lew Rockwell. Lew is sane and highly intelligent. He speaks softly and has a passion for truth and the genuine well-being of his fellow men such that makes it obvious is missing from the heart of every politician in history bar those few like Ron Paul.
You can find and download the free podcasts here.
I've seen a few reports of smokers being caught smoking where verboten. The apparent intention of the media is to "name and shame". I very much welcome these stories for two reasons.
1. They let us know the ban is not being thoroughly adhered to.
2. Far from shaming those involved they are either made into heroes or shown up as hypocrites.
www.tobacco.org sounds like it might be a good place to buy some tobacco. Not so. It was a place where "news" was aggregated. By "news" was meant every false claim made by anyone who was even remotely antagonistic toward smokers.
On their website right now is the following which might be removed when they realise how self damning a statement it is. So I record it here for posterity;
"Payroll bounced today. I realize that this is poor reflection on my skills as a business owner, and I'm pretty embarrassed.
But I'm also pretty frustrated. The tobacco news has been without funding for 18 months (save for a 4-month period, which I haven't yet been paid for), so I've taken what income we do get (mostly from Tobacco Documents Online), and used those profits to pay for news continuation. Document funding has mostly dried up in 2007.
We're not really set up to charge subscriptions or take small donations. We need large players in the tobacco control arena to support our work. Subscriptions don't work because
So, maybe we're done. Maybe something will come through, I've heard that the Bloomberg Initiative may be a good fit, but I'm lousy at raising money. I'm grateful to Robert Wood Johnson, American Legacy Foundation, and the other organizations who have funded the news for so many years (and walked me through the contracting and billing process).
After a while, we'll put the archives back up, so we'll still have access to the news history. But we're out of money, and although at 63 Gene might want to retire, that's not really an option now. (So, if you have some work for him, please contact him directly!)
It's been a pleasure serving the tobacco control community, and a joy to experience the many victories, especially in the area of smokefree workplaces (including bars and restaurants). Thank you all for the work you do, and for letting Gene and me be part of that."
To be completely honest I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand there is happiness. On the other joy.
A fellow traveller going by the name of AntiPuritan has written this nice piece that I thought deserved to reach whatever greater audience this blog might afford it. "I think it's important to understand how the fanatics WANT us to feel, so that we can start to subvert it properly. Now the ban is in place, they want us to feel marginalised, beleaguered, cowed, ridiculed, powerless, thoroughly beaten and finally broken and ready to conform. So, do you feel like this?...
I have re-discovered something important to do with morale. Morale has nothing to do with morals by the way. It is about how you feel about what you are doing or what is going on around you.
I have found that my own morale can be influenced by me. That is good. It certainly isn't good to have your whole day ruined by watching the news or reading a newspaper. So not doing those things is helpful.
But the main thing I have been discovering in recent weeks is that finding out just how bad it all is and doing nothing about it is a pretty sure way to end up feeling suicidal. That isn't how we win life's battles. The secret to high personal morale under an ever more repressive state is fighting back. No matter how you fight back any effort in that direction will make you feel better. The more that effort is well thought out and well targetted the better. But the basic thing is to fight back.
(to print and hand out)
the source of government power
