I said something about this a while back but I want to simplify it even further and get to what I currently believe to be the root, or at least a major part of the root, of the problem.

At the root is a problem. It is an uninspected problem for most of us but it is simply stated and hard not to see once pointed out. It is this; Most of us are in agreement, or at least consent to, two totally opposed political philosophies.

The first philosophy is that it is wrong to initiate the use of force against an otherwise peaceful person in order to get him to do your bidding. As an example you would probably object to someone threatening you with a gun and demanding your wallet. We all agree this would be a bad thing and would regard the person with the gun to be a criminal. So ask someone if they agree with this philosophy and the chances are pretty good they will say yes. But....

The second philosophy is consensus = truth and rightness. Democracy we are told is rule by majority vote. If an apparent majority vote for something then we all have to go along with it. I think this is workable for a small group when the subject of the vote is what movie to see or where to eat but applying it to an entire society and having no limit to what it can be applied to is somewhat extreme to say the least in my opinion.

If a group of your friends announced to you they had taken a vote and it had come out that a majority consider it necessary for you to give them half of your income to spend on whatever they pleased I suspect you would object to this. But on what grounds? Would you object because you weren't given a chance to contribute to the making of the proposition? Would it be because you don't agree with what the money will be spent on? Would it be because you consider only you should be able to decide how your money should be spent? Whatever your reason it would be in opposition to the idea of democracy as defined above.

Now maybe you would favour a democratically made decision when you are not part of the group whose wealth will be exploited. Maybe you'd be perfectly happy to take the earnings of another group of people you don't belong to. Maybe you consider it only right and fair to take what others have that you don't have. Here's the thing; In order for you to benefit from what others have put together that they aren't willing to just give away force has to be employed to get them to do it. Democracy allows you to feel no guilt about this for two reasons; First it isn't you who will be employing the force, and second, the majority agrees it is right and proper. But is it right and proper? How does a consensus amongst an apparent majority become right? If the only tool they can use to make it happen is the threat of violence against those who do not agree isn't this just another case of might making right. Does might make right? Personally I don't think so. Call me an extremist.

So how to solve this. Here is my suggestion for electoral reform that would be meaningful to all.

1. Government shall have no right under any circumstances to create fiat* money from thin air either through a central bank or by any other means. *Fiat money is anything (paper or coins or electronic entries) that only has value because the government says it has value and because there is confidence amongst the users that it will be exchanged for goods and services.

2. Government shall have no right to borrow money under any circumstances.

3. Government can raise money for any purpose it chooses as long as that money is given completely voluntarily.

4. Government may not keep records for any reason of who contributes or who does not contribute.

5. Anyone shall have the right to contribute or not contribute to anything he chooses and he can stop contributing or start contributing whenever he sees fit.

 6. Anyone can call himself a member of the government by his own election alone.

A couple of additional considerations on the above.

It really doesn't matter who makes up the government. What matters is the consent of the people to any proposal that is made by that government. We do not live in a world where the active consent of each of us is sought or needed. But wouldn't it be a better world if it were?

It might seem that some people would not want to contribute to very much. This may well be the case. If that is their will then what justification could there be for overriding it?

Those government proposals that do meet with enough funding would truly be what the people want.

'nuff said

It is obvious, right now, that Labour will not win the next election. It is unfortunate that in order to throw one lot of scoundrels out we have no other mechanism than electing another bunch of scoundrels with fresher faces and more enthusiasm for power and pillaging.
Sean Gabb is by far the most outstanding and least thanked political commentator in England at this time in my opinion. This is a link to a speech he made to a Conservative Association somewhere in the south of England recently. It would have been, I fancy, a fascinating thing to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting.

About the Tories that is. During the Labour party conference we heard that the public sector was safe in the hands of the Labour party but that the Tories would make huge cuts. Unfortunately that is not so and the latest Tory proposals merely increase government spending more slowly than they would have. George Osborne proposed a pay freeze on those public sector workers earning more than £18k a year.

If the Tories were a valid opposition party instead of a set of new faces there would be no need for any pay freezes. At a minimum huge chunks of the public sector would just be abolished thus enabling the ex-employees to get real jobs where they can receive what they are worth in a true and honest fashion through voluntary exchange with customers just like the rest of us. Doctors and nurses would still have value in the private sector, perhaps more than they do now. Teachers would have at least some skills that many parents would still be willing to exchange for. Police would still be needed to catch people who injure persons or property. Many other government employees might have to retrain to learn skills that are actually wanted by those who would pay for them.

The full value of such a move would be enormous beyond the imagination of many. Those ex tax eaters would instead be productive members of society, producing wealth instead of stealing from the rest of us.

Might it be that the picture being painted of the Tories as being radically different from the Labour party is merely to encourage us to vote for the Tories who will in fact turn out to be so close as to make no real deviation from the road to complete authoritarianism?

This is an interesting talk on the history of the fight for liberty against the state.

This is an often stated line from Jimmy Doane. "More people died at Chappaquiddick than at Three Mile Island". Jimmy has a way with words.

This isn't one I can find a way to embed here but is so good I thought I'd link to it anyway. It packs a powerful punch about the origins of "political correctness" and makes you wonder if having your kids go to university is such a good idea after all.

If this man had stuck to his principles in office the world would have been a much better place.

This is a quite prophetic talk from 1961 about the threat of socialised medicine. As I listened to it I heard, in my head, several BBC and Guardian types trying to ridicule him. You might find the same thing.

The power of constant propaganda over decades and decades is amazingly strong but it also has a weakness. When someone starts to think for themselves the rhetoric of the state becomes obvious and predictable.

This is so completely off the wall in such an utterly stupid way that I just couldn't help laughing. Get this... Hillary Benn thinks it a good idea to ban supermarkets from offering "buy one get one free" offers. Obviously it is "for the children" or "the environment". It certainly wins my vote as the most ridiculous idea for the children, the environment, the economy or winning back voters.  We do live in interesting times.

This reform is incredibly simple yet amazingly far reaching and powerful. It was inspired by listening to James Whale's talk show on Monday. He wanted to know why those who complained didn't vote to do something about it. I had a great deal of agreement with him on this. This is not a wholly original idea but is perhaps an unusual presentation of it.

After listening to many of the responses and from other conversations I've had with friends and people I meet day to day I have come to the following conclusions about where I believe most people outside of government and the public sector are at;

1. They don't like the way our current form of government works. They don't feel like they have any power to correct it and are pretty much in apathy over the whole thing.

2. They don't vote in elections for reasons to do with number 1 above. This is coupled with the fact that the only way to "kick the bastards out" in our current system is by electing another bunch of bastards to take over.

3. We are not taught that "spoiling a ballot paper" does get counted as spoiled ballots. If you can't bring yourself to vote for the lesser evil there is still a point in voting. We aren't given the option of "None of the above" as such, but we can cross out all the names and simply write that on the sheet. The vote is counted as a spoilt ballot which is better than not being counted at all.

Most of us believe that democracy means we have a say. Unfortunately that isn't all it means. It also means rule by the majority of those who vote. As there are no areas of economic or other aspects of life that politicians do not feel comes into their area of jurisdiction that means that what freedoms we still have left are by no means guaranteed. In fact it is inevitable they will be continuously eroded. It leads to a multitude of false claims and deliberate manipulation of facts by those with vested interests in political outcomes. Indeed a "political outcome" essentially means having to fool some groups and buy off others.

Democracy, as we have it, is a classic divide and conquer mechanism. Far from bringing about a classless society it continuously creates new classes of us against them. The rich against the poor. Women against men. Blacks against whites. Gays against straights, etc. We are constantly clamoured to adopt one or more of such groups as part of our "identity". Yet there is little if any need for us to do so. Most of the justifications given us are false and self serving to those who promote them. But that is not the subject of this post.

So to the solution. It is startlingly simple and very democratic in the sense that we each have a real say in how our lives are run and who has control over our money. No part of government can raise any money for any purpose other than by voluntary contributions from the population. They cannot borrow from banks and they cannot print money nor have it printed for them. They have to compete in the same way that those of us who currently pay for government have to compete. That is it. The whole solution. Nothing else is needed.

Before dismissing it give it some thought. Yes of course this means that government will not have the budget that it currently does. What would this mean apart from having to cut back it's never satiated ambitions? For one thing it would mean that there isn't the support from the public that is claimed. And that would mean it is not in the interest of enough of the public to support the proposition. So it wouldn't have any so called mandate anyway.

And of course that means there will be cuts in their "services". There weren't that many who were in favour of going to war in Iraq or elsewhere. Yes of course those businesses who make arms were in favour but if they didn't have the taxpayers to foot the bill could war be as profitable. I think not. Yes there will be all manner of other problems that might be perceived at first glance but at least try and think it through. What does it mean politically if there is too little money raised to fund a bank bailout? Does it mean the end of civilisation as we know it or just the end of a corrupt business and thus allowing those funds to go to other places that are valued higher?

There are some obvious questions this will raise from those who probably won't give it much thought. What about the poor? What about the roads? What about defence? I am not suggesting abolishing anyone's desire to help the poor. We will still need roads and defence. And if we need them we will figure out how to provide them in the same way we figure out how to provide shoes and lifeboat services.

The poor are not helped by welfare programmes that create dependency on the state. They are certainly not helped by being led to believe they are entitled to the hard earned pay of others. They could be helped into productive activity by private charities which are not paid according to how little they achieve. The same applies to many other government "services".

There is lots more I could say on this and probably will but I want to put this up sooner rather than later.

An obvious reference to Ron Paul. Still the single point of sanity in the whole of US politics. Here is his speech before the House of Representatives on a bill ciriticising China over human rights.

I have been obvserving some of the events of the last few weeks concerning the expenses of MPs and have been wondering what to post about it if anything. It is a momentous event for a newspaper to do what newspapers should have been doing all along and holding up the activities of the Westminster club to scrutiny. One might also speculate as to why the Telegraph is doing this as Sean Gabb has done. (Sorry I don't have a link).

There is a whole lot I could say about the matter but it all boils down to the question that is the title of this post. Let's just expand the debate a little.

Found on the Mises site with this article by Lew Rockwell.

Tom Conti is an actor I have liked for a couple of decades but I had no idea he was capable of such a statement as follows. It isn't nearly as radical as it might have been but judging it against the usual BBC intellectuals it stands out like a sore thumb.

The "bill" is Ron Paul's bill to audit the Fed. And Ben is of course Bernanke. This is an interesting conversation between them. RP's bill is gaining considerable momentum and Ben really looks scared.

The following is the entire content of a blog post from the FEE website (Foundation for Economic Education). It is so spot on and memorable and I wanted it to get whatever wider audience my blog may provide.

"The current push for a regulatory dictatorship over the financial industry is based on the principle that we must keep on a tight leash any organization whose activities are so pervasive and consequential that its potential for misjudgment presents a “systemic threat.”

Isn’t that the case for strictly limiting the government?"

This has to be one of the greatest speeches ever made in the US Congress. What if we had a politician with a quarter the courage and honesty of this man in the UK? Yes this is Ron Paul again.

The title is one I wish I'd thought of myself. I'm unable to give credit as I don't know where it came from originally. I got it from a post on LewRockwell.com which I link to here. Here is a nice picture of the recent snow in London to go with it.

It is but a few days before we have the biggest frenzy of love for The One as he gets sworn in as "Leader of the Free World". Isn't it odd how no one in the msm seems to notice the irony in that title?

His first lie will be told in full public view to millions around the world in that very ceremony. He will swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

I expect he will have violated that, as President, within his second day in office.

But what of his other promises?

He has promised "change" and I fully believe him. He will cost the American taxpayer a huge amount of money and "change".

He seemed to promise to be less of a warmonger than Bush or McCain. Ron Paul would have brought ALL American military personnel home from more than 100 countries around the world. Obama? All his actions so far lead me to expect he will continue where Bush leaves off.

So why will the likes of the BBC and Guardian people be wetting their knickers over all of this?

Within a couple of days of his winning the election there was a play on BBC Radio 4 with dialogue something like this;

First man: Isn't it great that Obama won?

Second man: Yeah but I didn't think you were interested in politics.

First man: I'm not. But at least he's black.

Being the first Black Man in the White House is the one promise he is sure to keep.

Happy New Year by the way.

Here is a short video of Ron Paul telling it like it is. Much of what he has to say is just as relevant to the UK. It is something a real conservative would say. But that would require an understanding of economics.

I heard the news today oh boy. Gordon the Wannabe and other undesirables are openly planning the next central bank. It will be same as the Bank of England or the Federal Reserve or the Bank of Europe. But it will be bigger and better. In fact the central bank of the world looks like it is just around the corner.

If you want some common sense analysis of what those thugs are really up to take a look at this video. It was made some time ago maybe even before Gordon knew what his role would be. But just imagine what might happen if this were seen and put into the current context by a good number of people in this country. I wonder how Gordon would try to appear responsible and completely public spirited then.

I've put a new link under friends on the right of the blog. It is a radio station that isn't controlled by the main stream media. It is American but considering their ruling class is pretty much the same as ours it is relevant to UK listeners too.

I haven't checked out all the broadcasters/podcasters but Thomas E. Woods is on their and he is most certainly worth listening to.

Some predictions. These aren't really that hard to believe. They just follow some obvious directions a little further into the future. For some really outrageous predictions see the puppet pundits on how short the "credit crunch" recession is going to be and how the government is taking care of everything. I thought I'd put them up and see if I get any reactions. Assuming of course that I still have some readers - I know I don't deserve them after so few posts in the last year or so. Anyway...

Read More "You Read it Here First"

Am I coining a new term? I don't know but I thought of it a few days ago when I attempted to give my views on the subject of what a state approved art college education seems to produce. I may reproduce that here some time too. An Identifist is a word used to counter those that tend to use labels like sexist and racist etc. It is someone who believes individuals should consider themselves to be a card carrying member of an arbitrary group, usually assigned victim status, not of their own choosing...

Read More "The Identifist"

Another YouTube item. This is audio only. Mitt "discusses" a 1% flat tax alternative to the income tax, takes another jibe at Ron Paul, and loses a potential voter, all in about 3 minutes.

This article over at the Libertarian Alliance says it so well I just had to plug it.

I just read an excellent piece by Ron Paul on the use of the words "freedom" and "democracy" written in 2005. It is very well written. You can find it here.

This is a good piece that includes a link to another good piece. What is most interesting to me are the comments on the linked piece. Distinclty positive in the main.

Most of the commentors don't see a British equivalent. My own think is that if RP does well in the US it will make a difference here as is now happening. If he makes it to president it will make a huge difference here. It wil be much harder to marginalise those who hold the principles he represents.

Most of us use words to communicate. Some to obfuscate (make difficult to see or understand). Some so as to appear to say one thing, whilst saying something completely different, in order to obtain "agreement" or compliance. Even worse are those who attempt to implant ideas in such a way as to bypass our normal rational analysis of them. Such an implanted idea, because it has never been rationally analysed by the person who holds it, becomes a fixed idea and can be brought to bear in...

Read More "A word in your ear"

Are you loyal to a party because of family, friends or class "identity"?
Do you study the issues each time and vote according to whoever comes closest to your own values? How did you arrive at those values?
Have you always voted a certain way and it is too late now to change?
Do you not vote at all because all candidates seem the same?
Do you abstain so as not to give any of them any kind of consent from you?
Do you abstain because you don't see any point to it?
Do you choose on the basis of looks, dress sense, hairstyles, manners?

What do you think of politicians? Are they all crooks? All honorable? Somewhere in between? Do you think it is possible for someone of real integrity to make it to the top? Do you believe that power corrupts?

Could you answer all the above on a postcard? Maybe you could but Probably not.

These questions, and a whole lot more, are now being discussed on The Big Debate forum. You might like to join in. The idea is to form a new political party.