Life After Ron Paul and What Might Freedom Look Like?

In this episode we ask the question: What will happen after Ron Paul? So many are waiting for him to free them from regulations and draconian laws, but freedom is a state of mind that we must each discover within ourselves. The work of spreading the ideas of liberty and freedom are also not Ron Paul's responsibility, it is our responsibility as individuals.

As Butler Shaffer reminds us:
Freedom is a state of mind that each of us must discover for ourselves. In so doing, we will find that there is nothing that anyone in authority can do to make our world more peaceful orderly, or free. There are no institutional reforms, or ideologies, or more fashionable gurus to save us: such thinking only continues our sense of irresponsibility.




In the first hour we discuss how roads are already self-regulating and also the modern belief in magic that we call the "legal system."

In the second hour we discuss various aspects of what a non-state society might look like. We get bogged down in details now and then, but offer a few possibilities for how roads, defense, and things of this nature might be provided.

I again recommend to anyone interested in this topic to read The Market for Liberty as an introduction to this philosophy.http://mises.org/books/marketforliberty.pdf

Freedom in Mexico and Seth King on BitCoins

In the first hour David and Josh call in to discuss their discovery of freedom in Mexico (without trillion dollar wars to "keep it free").

In the second hour Seth King from DailyAnarchist.com discusses BitCoin, Anarchism, and the fact that so-called rights are not what make us free.



In the first hour Wake Up Call, Aaron and Josh discuss the American and Alaskan cows and how they do what the farmer wants. In the second hour they discuss the socialist oil dependency that Alaskans have growing on them like a giant tumor.

Collateral Murder

Watch these videos in the link below and make up your own mind.

Wikileaks

Saved by the FBI from those wild Anarchist

Of course, these guys didn't actually do anything and wouldn't if it wasn't for the FBI.

Full story here.

A Tale of Two Flags

From The Dollar Vigilante

[Editors Note: the following post is by TDV Correspondent David Giessel]

A couple weeks ago while visiting friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, I found myself driving north to Berkeley with a friend to spend the evening wandering Telegraph Ave. To get there we decided to take I-880 North along the East Bay. This route takes you past two interesting complexes: Solyndra and Tesla Motors.

For an anarchist, driving past the Solyndra buildings (now for sale!) provides an entertaining and highly visible example of the failure of central economic planning, which goes well with the terrible rush hour traffic on 880 caused by the socialist road system.

Even normal people often find the Solyndra situation funny, they just don’t understand exactly why. Of course my friend and I discussed this briefly as we drove by. She observed it as yet another failed program of the Obama administration, but did not indict the state itself as the more fundamental cause. It’s a start though. Baby steps.

The Tesla complex is a bit north of Solyndra and much larger. They are not bashful about their brand and have TESLA written in massive letters on all of their buildings. My favorite aspect of their complex however is the flags out front. On the tallest pole, the American flag, on the middle pole, the California flag, and on the shortest pole, the Tesla flag. I thought about this for a second and commented to my friend how awesome it was that so many Bay Area companies have their own flags out front. Notably,  Apple used to fly a pirate flag in front of their campus in Cupertino, hence “Pirates of Silicon Valley.”

Read the rest here: A Tale of Two Flags (on dollarvigilante.com)

Cake: War Pigs

Cake's cover of the Black Sabbath classic

Generals gathered in their masses,

just like witches at black masses.

Evil minds that plot destruction,

sorcerers of death's construction.

In the fields the bodies burning,

as the war machine keeps turning.

Death and hatred to mankind,

poisoning their brainwashed minds.

Oh lord, yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away.

They only started the war.

Why should they go out to fight?

They leave that role to the poor, yeah.

Time will tell on their power minds,

making war just for fun.

Treating people just like pawns in chess,

wait till their judgement day comes, yeah.

Now in darkness world stops turning,

as you hear the bodies burning.

No more War Pigs have the power,

And as God has struck the hour.

Day of judgement, God is calling,

on their knees the war pigs crawling.

Begging mercies for their sins,

Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.

Oh lord, yeah!

Liberty Classroom

Tom Woods just announced the "Liberty Classroom" is in full operation. I would highly recommend joining!

Maybe you won't have to read all of "Conceived in Liberty" after all.

Here is the link. Liberty Classroom.

Hunger Games 2012

Federalist 46

A good article about the Hutaree "militia" and Federalist 46 by Chuck Baldwin. Most of it was written 2 years ago.

Thanks Brent!

In dispelling the fears of colonists toward a standing federal army, Madison said in Federalist 46, “Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.”

" So, pray tell, would today’s FBI categorize James Madison’s statements in Federalist 46 as “seditious conspiracy”? If so, perhaps we are closer to tyranny than any of us wants to admit!"

Read the full article here.

The story of Your Enslavement

By Stefan Molyneaux

Our "friends" in costumes

"You know, before this happened I trusted the police," Moore concludes in an ironic echo of the witness who saw him beaten and left for dead on the sidewalk. His experience is just one illustration – albeit an uncommonly infuriating one – of the fact that no informed and rational person should ever make that mistake.

From Will Griggs Pro Libertate.

Necessary Force 

Just for fun.

This one's for David. :-)

"Bacon's Rebellion" from Conceived in Liberty

For those of you who like history, I encourage you to read "Conceived in Liberty" by Murray Rothbard. If you don't like history, read this book anyway.  It is the most comprehensive book on the history of the American Revolution I have ever seen or read. This book will arm you with knowledge that will be very valuable in your everyday struggle for Liberty. This portion of the book I found on Lew Rockwell's blog today.

Bacon's Rebellion

For masses of men to turn from their daily lives to hurl themselves against existing habits and the extant might of a ruling government requires an accumulation of significant grievances and tensions. No revolution begins in a day and on arbitrary whim. The grievances of important numbers of people against the state pile up, accumulate, form an extremely dry forest waiting for a spark to ignite the conflagration. That spark is the "crisis situation," which may be intrinsically minor or only distantly related to the basic grievances; but it provides the catalyst, the emotional impetus for the revolution to begin.

You can download a copy of the book from the Mises Institute here. 
You can also buy a hardback copy from them. I am serious, do yourself a favor, and let your mind be Conceived in Liberty.
Oh, and don't expect to read it in 2 or 3 days. :-)

For the voters

From the Dollar Vigilante today:

For you "anyone but Obama types"

Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 it's OK to violate you.

Read the story here.

What could be the common denominator in the 5 judges that voted against your dignity?

All 5 were appointed by Republican presidents.

This Week's Radio Show: The Hunger Games

In the first hour, Aaron and Josh discuss permissions versus rights. The hour ends with a caller ranting about how stateless societies always end in violence. The second hour kicks off with us asking him which stateless societies ended in violence. "The Roman Empire" is offered as an example. Isn't an empire a state? He goes on to offer more examples of states that ended in violence but offers not a single example of a society with devolved legitimacy of the use of force ending in mass violence. Of course this is what we have been saying since the very first show. The state is not the only ill in society, but by its nature it makes violence and theft systemic instead of sporadic.

The last half hour we discuss the movie/book "The Hunger Games" and the parallels between the film and reality. A more in-depth discussion of these points can be found at the following blog post: http://patriotslament.blogspot.com/2012/04/hunger-games-ripping-veil-off-civil.html

March 17 (the Tom Woods episode) and 24 Radio Show

Tom Woods comes on in the second hour to discuss justice versus law, what the American Republic used to mean, and Ron Paul!!!



In this week's episode we discuss the "majesty" of the presidency, and challenge the listeners to put politicians in their place. Not to bow down. Here we sit like serfs below the assembly and beg them for things. It is time that the people be the power, asking permission from no man.

Occupy Fairbanks Panel Discussion

About a month ago, I participated in the Occupy Fairbanks panel discussion. Topics ranged from politics to economics to philosophy. It was definitely a lively discussion and I had a lot of fun interacting with the other panelists. Thanks to "Occupy Dave" for putting this event together. Enjoy!

Lance Roberts advocates for a true War on Guns

The reason the "War on Guns" hasn't been very productive, is because it hasn't been run as a war, but as a police action. They need to get serious and get the job done.

If you want to see more of the effect of guns, then reference the story on the Ohio school shooting caused by guns, or the story last year of the teenager killed by guns in Anchorage. Now think of being able to buy them at a store, yeh, that'll fix the problems.

Guns are death.

Oops, he actually said "Drugs" (search the News Miner comments for "Lance_Roberts"). I would actually say that we need a war on hands because they facilitate nearly ALL crime. Cut everyone's hands off and we'd be far better off. People don't hurt people, hands do.

Hunger Games: Ripping the veil off "civil society"

I thought about adding to Josh's post with a comment on my thoughts, but decided I wanted to hash this out a bit more in its own post.

The number one theme of the movie is that the illusory power any state has over the people living in it is based solely on the compliance of those people. Right at the beginning the main character's boyfriend tells her, "What if everyone refused to watch? It would be over. There would be no more games." So true. Then throughout the rest of the movie other avenues of non-complaince are presented which would end the game and remove power. The fear of the ruling class that the people might realize that they themselves hold all the cards is emphasized throughout. It is a refusal to kill another child from a poor district that saves the main character's life at one point. It is the refusal to complete the game in the end that forces the all powerful ruler to change the rules to maintain the illusion that he is in control. I do not think it is a coincidence that young children are used in this role. The only powerless people in society are those who have had their humanity, empathy, and idealism beat out of them. This is usually the adults, not the young.

Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
~Albert Einstein

It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own.
~Albert J. Nock

Also, in my opinion, the reason people find the "excessive violence" of the movie disturbing is because it's clearly children killing children. War coverage in the "real world" hides this fact. More than that, it's not some savage society of vikings killing each other or something like that. It's a very cosmopolitan "high minded" society where the organizers sit around and drink cocktails, produce TV interview shows, and attend glitzy parades. I would agree with one of the posters in Josh's blog that it is, like America, very Roman in that sense. It's not Mel Gibson leading brave tough men in battle against evil men or some trite nonsense like that. It is far closer to what modern war really is. American children killing foreigners' children and being killed by them. The adults just sit back and pretend that it's some sort of high minded "honor" while their children bleed out with their arms and legs hacked off. The reality of sending 18 year olds off to kill foreign kids is sick and disturbing. The film just shoves that right in your face.

Phil Ochs correctly identified this in his song "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" where he observes that "it's always the old who lead us to the war, it's always the young to fall."


What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.
~Aldous Huxley

More disturbing to westerners no doubt is the fact that white children who look like their own are killing and being killed by other white children who look like their own. The idea that "the other is different" is erased. Because most still think in the colossally racist paradigm of nationalities, the film manages to find a way to cut through that illusion, creating a discomfort that most do not feel about killing human beings who live elsewhere, especially if they look different.

Also, the game itself, while sold as a "fair" competition, is anything but. Most of the challenges within the game are completely contrived and created by the rulers who conscripted the kids in the first place. The fire, the weird dog things, the constant changing of the rules ... this has the air of the many false flag news reports related to war. Events that happen, become accepted at face value, then later are shown to be contrived or created by the state itself. It also reminds me of the 70+ different reasons the Bush administration gave for the invasion of Iraq over the 8 years of idiocy he was in office. It also reminds me of what those in power do to individuals who refuse to play the game anymore.

Another disturbing part of the film for many is that most of the adults keep telling the children how lucky they are to be selected and what an honor it is to participate in the games, even tho they know the kids are going to kill and die for nothing. Again, this is essentially no different from modern American war culture. It reminds me of The Animals song "Sky Pilot" where it is observed what colossal hypocrites and cowards military chaplains are. "Go and kill, God will be with you." Disgusting and 100% reality. The movie makes people uncomfortable but this fact of life doesn't? How pathetic.



Another aspect that was brought up on the radio show this week was that the poor kids are drafted with no choice while the kids from the wealthy districts volunteer and get years of training before the games. While there is no draft in modern America there is undeniably a "Poverty Draft" where, through economic destruction of the lowest income families through inflation/etc, joining the military becomes the best financial option for the children of these families. These kids are the cannon fodder who see the most combat. Wealthy and educated enlistees generally go into the officer corps or have administrative jobs. Politicians, who fund and promote war, never participate at all.

An alternate potential interpretation of the game arena is that it is a metaphor for forced schooling, another fine aspect of American society. In many schools, the de facto rules are made by the kids themselves. They are thrown into the same building and largely left to fight it out amongst themselves with the only rule being, "Might makes right." Alliances are formed, the weak are eliminated, and the strong prevail.

I could go on, but I'll leave it at that. If you want to leave a comment, instead of just saying "I liked this movie" or "I thought it was rubbish", please take the time to discuss any parallels you see between the film and reality ... or how it affected you personally.