We were fortunate to visit the seat of the Empire in Washington, DC, last week to attend a conference (more on that to follow). The Washington DC area is home to some very moving war memorials. Among them those dedicated to those who gave their lives in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
In nearby Arlington, Virginia the Arlington National Cemetery provides a resting place for approximately 400,000 soldiers. This Military Cemetery was established on 624 acres after the Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, the former estate of Mary Anna Custis, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. Ms. Custis, of course, was the wife of none other than Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
The Changing of the Guard at Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, Arlington, VA
Most famously, the Tomb of the Unknowns commemorates those who perished in conflict and could not be identified. It is the focal point for many at the Cemetery. It has been guarded around the clock since 1937 and its changing of the guard is one of the most solemn and precise disciplines in the US Military.
Today we watched television program recounting the history of the Navy SEALs, perhaps the most visible and celebrated contingent of the US Military. One thing that stuck out to us is that for the SEALs who shared their stories on the program, they saw their service as “fighting other’s battles.” Indeed, this is the spirit of the Veterans who have answered the call of duty throughout History. They train and then go willingly into the face of danger so that others don’t have to. They defend those who are unable or unwilling to defend themselves, and the depth of their sacrifices is too often overlooked.
Let it be not so this Veteran’s Day, as we remember those who have given their lives for many. You can read about a few we have been privileged to know here: An Ode to the Veterans We’ve Known
Today in 1828, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, or Leo Tolstoy, as most have come to know the Russian writer, was born in Yasnaya Polyana, a few hundred miles south of Moscow.
“The Kingdom of God is Within You”
While Tolstoy is best know for works such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, it is important to note that Tolstoy’s later works on Christian Anarchist thought and non-violence (specifically, what is refered to as “peaceful non-resistance”) had a profound impact on Martin Luther King, Jr. and had a direct impact on Mahatma Ghandi.
“L.N.Tolstoy Prokudin-Gorsky” by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky – Журнал “Записки Русского технического общества”, №8, 1908. Стр. 369. URL: http://prokudin-gorsky.org/arcs.php?lang=ru&photos_id=818&type=1. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L.N.Tolstoy_Prokudin-Gorsky.jpg#mediaviewer/File:L.N.Tolstoy_Prokudin-Gorsky.jpg
For anyone who is interested in truly achieving peace, his work The Kingdom of God is Within You is a must read.
Tolstoy’s influences included Victor Hugo, George Fox, William Penn.
In honor of Leo Tolstoy, we present links to our own works which have been inspired by Leo Tolstoy, whom Ghandi referred to as:
The greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced
Join us in honoring Tolstoy and all of the peacemakers on this earth, for now, more than ever, our voices are needed! Go forth, and love your neighbor as you love yourself
Robert D. Kaplan, Stratfor’s Chief Geopolitical Analyst, published in interesting report yesterday recounting his clairvoyance in predicting the rise of anarchic rule in certain African states (predictions that came to pass) and the general erosion of state governance throughout the world.
Kaplan’s observations are of particular interest to us, as we hold the belief that Anarchy is an Ultimate Given, meaning that groups of people tend to search for a coordinated approach to their inherently anarchic surroundings, the most recent of which has been the democratic nation state.
While Kaplan’s analysis appears to paint a picture of chaos and lawlessness, which indeed are the hallmarks of regime change, we see democratic nation states and their attendant monetary regimes as things that the world is currently shedding for its ultimate betterment, as they now serve to restrict trade instead of facilitating it as once was their chief contribution to the livelihood of the governed.
The continued adoption of communication via the internet is moving toward a state of maturity from which the natural progression towards internet facilitated trade amongst parties is causing the world to eschew the label of their respective nation state and replace it with one of religion or other shared affinities which are readily accessible given the pace of mobile communication expansion.
Kaplan also makes a clear distinction between the need for strong governance of urban societies whereas rural/agrarian societies tend to govern themselves, a point that is lost on most observers, not the least of which are the political classes in the current nation state, which tend to focus on national borders as the only limitations to their sphere of influence.
While Kaplan’s analysis is interesting and serves to explain what is likely to continue to occur for the next 5 to 20 years in terms of the erosion of central governments, he appears unable to speculate as to what form the governing body of a large geographical area would take.
As such, we will speculate for him. The world is in the process of segregating itself into phyles, or groups of people aligned in terms of ideologies, be they religious or otherwise, independent of geographic location. These phyles will tend to unite, geographically where possible, but primarily through trade relationships. Once these trade relationships are established, the increased division of labor will resume within the phyles, giving rise to a true increase in the Monetary premium of items that up until now have not been identified as money.
Bitcoin is one example of what is essentially a pure monetary premium transmitter. As the nation states continue to crumble, the foundations for new societies united by ideology and/or trade relations are already being laid, and we hope and pray for a peaceful transition onto them for all, as the failed model of the democratic nation state based on mere borders must be laid to rest peacefully for humankind to truly prosper.
Without further ado, Robert D. Kaplan…
Why So Much Anarchy?
By Robert D. Kaplan
Twenty years ago, in February 1994, I published a lengthy cover story in The Atlantic Monthly, “The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet.” I argued that the combination of resource depletion (like water), demographic youth bulges and the proliferation of shanty towns throughout the developing world would enflame ethnic and sectarian divides, creating the conditions for domestic political breakdown and the transformation of war into increasingly irregular forms — making it often indistinguishable from terrorism. I wrote about the erosion of national borders and the rise of the environment as the principal security issues of the 21st century. I accurately predicted the collapse of certain African states in the late 1990s and the rise of political Islam in Turkey and other places. Islam, I wrote, was a religion ideally suited for the badly urbanized poor who were willing to fight. I also got things wrong, such as the probable intensification of racial divisions in the United States; in fact, such divisions have been impressively ameliorated.
However, what is not in dispute is that significant portions of the earth, rather than follow the dictates of Progress and Rationalism, are simply harder and harder to govern, even as there is insufficient evidence of an emerging and widespread civil society. Civil society in significant swaths of the earth is still the province of a relatively elite few in capital cities — the very people Western journalists feel most comfortable befriending and interviewing, so that the size and influence of such a class is exaggerated by the media.
The anarchy unleashed in the Arab world, in particular, has other roots, though — roots not adequately dealt with in my original article:
The End of Imperialism. That’s right. Imperialism provided much of Africa, Asia and Latin America with security and administrative order. The Europeans divided the planet into a gridwork of entities — both artificial and not — and governed. It may not have been fair, and it may not have been altogether civil, but it provided order. Imperialism, the mainstay of stability for human populations for thousands of years, is now gone.
The End of Post-Colonial Strongmen. Colonialism did not end completely with the departure of European colonialists. It continued for decades in the guise of strong dictators, who had inherited state systems from the colonialists. Because these strongmen often saw themselves as anti-Western freedom fighters, they believed that they now had the moral justification to govern as they pleased. The Europeans had not been democratic in the Middle East, and neither was this new class of rulers. Hafez al Assad, Saddam Hussein, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Moammar Gadhafi and the Nasserite pharaohs in Egypt right up through Hosni Mubarak all belonged to this category, which, like that of the imperialists, has been quickly retreating from the scene (despite a comeback in Egypt).
No Institutions. Here we come to the key element. The post-colonial Arab dictators ran moukhabarat states: states whose order depended on the secret police and the other, related security services. But beyond that, institutional and bureaucratic development was weak and unresponsive to the needs of the population — a population that, because it was increasingly urbanized, required social services and complex infrastructure. (Alas, urban societies are more demanding on central governments than agricultural ones, and the world is rapidly urbanizing.) It is institutions that fill the gap between the ruler at the top and the extended family or tribe at the bottom. Thus, with insufficient institutional development, the chances for either dictatorship or anarchy proliferate. Civil society occupies the middle ground between those extremes, but it cannot prosper without the requisite institutions and bureaucracies.
Feeble Identities. With feeble institutions, such post-colonial states have feeble identities. If the state only means oppression, then its population consists of subjects, not citizens. Subjects of despotisms know only fear, not loyalty. If the state has only fear to offer, then, if the pillars of the dictatorship crumble or are brought low, it is non-state identities that fill the subsequent void. And in a state configured by long-standing legal borders, however artificially drawn they may have been, the triumph of non-state identities can mean anarchy.
Doctrinal Battles. Religion occupies a place in daily life in the Islamic world that the West has not known since the days — a millennium ago — when the West was called “Christendom.” Thus, non-state identity in the 21st-century Middle East generally means religious identity. And because there are variations of belief even within a great world religion like Islam, the rise of religious identity and the consequent decline of state identity means the inflammation of doctrinal disputes, which can take on an irregular, military form. In the early medieval era, the Byzantine Empire — whose whole identity was infused with Christianity — had violent, doctrinal disputes between iconoclasts (those opposed to graven images like icons) and iconodules (those who venerated them). As the Roman Empire collapsed and Christianity rose as a replacement identity, the upshot was not tranquility but violent, doctrinal disputes between Donatists, Monotheletes and other Christian sects and heresies. So, too, in the Muslim world today, as state identities weaken and sectarian and other differences within Islam come to the fore, often violently.
Information Technology. Various forms of electronic communication, often transmitted by smartphones, can empower the crowd against a hated regime, as protesters who do not know each other personally can find each other through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. But while such technology can help topple governments, it cannot provide a coherent and organized replacement pole of bureaucratic power to maintain political stability afterwards. This is how technology encourages anarchy. The Industrial Age was about bigness: big tanks, aircraft carriers, railway networks and so forth, which magnified the power of big centralized states. But the post-industrial age is about smallness, which can empower small and oppressed groups, allowing them to challenge the state — with anarchy sometimes the result.
Because we are talking here about long-term processes rather than specific events, anarchy in one form or another will be with us for some time, until new political formations arise that provide for the requisite order. And these new political formations need not be necessarily democratic.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, societies in Central and Eastern Europe that had sizable middle classes and reasonable bureaucratic traditions prior to World War II were able to transform themselves into relatively stable democracies. But the Middle East and much of Africa lack such bourgeoisie traditions, and so the fall of strongmen has left a void. West African countries that fell into anarchy in the late 1990s — a few years after my article was published — like Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, still have not really recovered, but are wards of the international community through foreign peacekeeping forces or advisers, even as they struggle to develop a middle class and a manufacturing base. For, the development of efficient and responsive bureaucracies requires literate functionaries, which, in turn, requires a middle class.
The real question marks are Russia and China. The possible weakening of authoritarian rule in those sprawling states may usher in less democracy than chronic instability and ethnic separatism that would dwarf in scale the current instability in the Middle East. Indeed, what follows Vladimir Putin could be worse, not better. The same holds true for a weakening of autocracy in China.
The future of world politics will be about which societies can develop responsive institutions to govern vast geographical space and which cannot. That is the question toward which the present season of anarchy leads.
A Salute to the Veterans we have been privileged to know
With most of the markets we follow taking a breather for the holiday, save the Bitcoin, which bows to no sovereign and raced up to $383 today, we turn our gaze and tip our hats once again to veterans, not just those of the United States, which has specifically set aside this day to honor them, but of all men and women who have thrown themselves into the face of danger and worked in extremely difficult conditions to defend a national ideal that they believed in with all of their heart.
Here at The Mint, we wish to honor them by remembering the four veterans that we have known, three have passed on and one remains. Each story is woven in with our own, and has changed the course of history for us.
First, there is our Grandfather Collins, who, as World War II raged on, managed to memorize the eye chart so that they would allow him to enlist in the Army. While leaving our grandmother behind with countless other young women in the same situation at an Army base in Kansas, he boarded a troop transport which zigzagged its way across the Atlantic Ocean, dodging German U Boats, while sleeping on a rack with many other men, packed in like sardines for roughly 18 days until they safely reached their destination in England, where, as an ambulance driver he witnessed first hand the casualties returning from the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
“They didn’t tell us, but you could see they were mounting something big,” he told us of the preparations for D-Day. He mentioned that they would ride bicycles 20 miles for a beer at the Pub on weekends.
When VE day arrived, he said they were allowed to stay in some of the finest hotels in Paris, but he was extremely anxious to get home to his young bride and could not enjoy it as one might imagine in retrospect.
Next, there is our other Grandfather, Victor, who enlisted in the Army early on in World War II and was sent to the Pacific Theater of operations. While all of the Veterans we knew passed for difficult things, it was he who had the most difficult time. He was an excellent baseball player in the Army and had the bad fortune of rupturing his spleen while playing ball in Hawaii. While the surgeons were able to successfully remove it, they sewed up his abdomen with a sponge still inside! The incision became so infected that they shipped him back to San Francisco to be operated on once again as he was close to dying.
When he recovered from this ordeal, he was sent into back to the Pacific Theater and, from what the family knew, contracted malaria and got lost in the jungle. It was not until much later, after he had passed away, that we found out that he had actually been a Japanese POW and, at the end of the war, weighed just 98 pounds and again was at the brink of death.
They sent him on a train to his uncle’s farm in western Nebraska, where, fortunately, he was nursed back to health.
Third comes Edgar, our Grandfather Victor’s brother (our great uncle), who fought Germany’s Rommel, the Desert Fox, in Northern Africa. Uncle Ed’s observations of the war that he related to us were that dentistry in the field involved a drill that was powered by a stationary bike. As such, it was best to have a cavity filled when the men with the best bicycle legs were able to help.
He also observed that water was scarce, and it vexed him as to how the villages they visited during the war, who seemed short of water then, had grown to tens of thousands of people some 40 years later. He and his wife, Ethel, were featured in the Reader’s Digest as a letter Ed sent to Ethel was found among a bag of US Army mail that had been found 40 years later. It had words cut out of it to prevent the letters from giving away troop positions and planned movements that the servicemen may have inadvertently included in the letters to their sweethearts.
Ed often said that if any of us youngsters were drafted, he would pay for us to go live in Canada. After the events of 9/11, he recommended that we read The Haj in order to understand Arab culture.
These three brave men above went on to live long, full lives and, while we have recounted some of the difficult things they were called to live during World War II, they did not doubt the call of duty which was given to their generation, and were glad to have served, and even gladder to be home when it was over.
The final veteran that we’ve known is a friend and former colleague who left the company before we did to occupy a UN post in Geneva. We went to visit him once and he led us on a hike through some of the hills leading up from Ouchy, a nearby village, where at the top, we took in a pot of fondue and enjoyed the views over Lake Geneva.
We knew that Ryan, our friend, had been in the military before we knew him. During our ascent over short rock walls and past cows donning bells, we took the opportunity to ask him about his experiences. He was the leader of a tank unit in desert storm in 1991, and recalled how he would have to run up to holes in the sand to see if there were any Iraqi soldiers that had survived in their foxholes in the desert as the tank units advanced. Not for the faint of heart.
The sacrifices of men like Collins, Victor, Ed, and Ryan all too often go unrecognized and, even more often, are not recounted, even by the very men who lived through the horrors of war to their immediate families.
We tip our hats to them and to all veterans across the United States and throughout the world of all nations, for they have demonstrated that at times it requires uncommon valor to keep the light of freedom burning in this world.
May they be remembered fondly and often, and may those who made the ultimate sacrifice rest in peace.
A mere 48 hours into the first shutdown of the Federal Government, life in the land of the free appears to be carrying on as normal for most non-Federal employees. Even Federal employees, while technically not getting paid, at least have some measure of certainty that they will get their jobs back and will likely be paid for the time they missed, unlike many unemployed Americans.
Much of the MSM commentary to this point has centered on the current budget standoff being nothing more than a childish spat amongst Congressmen who possess an increasingly common blend of arrogance and ignorance that is almost a prerequisite for public office circa 2013. For the MSM, anything other than business as usual is abnormal. What this analysis fails to recognize is that what is truly abnormal is what passes as business as usual for the Federal Government.
The current shutdown of the Federal Government is revealing on a number of levels. It is an exceptionally bold gambit being played by the faction of the Republican party that has brought the machinations of the Federal government to an unplanned halt. Amongst the revelations that have surfaced are the following:
The Federal government has somewhere on the order of 800,000 “non-essential” employees. The President is the one who decides which classes of employees are essential and non-essential. The President’s choices provide an interesting insight into his priorities. The distinction between essential and non-essential functions should also inform future discussions about austerity.
The President, in delaying the penalties for businesses with regards to the Affordable Care Act for a year, neglected to offer the same treatment for individuals. While on the surface, this appeared to be an administrative move, the faction of Republicans who are blocking a clean continuing resolution have called the President out on this slight of the American Public.
The Affordable Care Act provides for the addition of 16,000 IRS agents and zero doctors via direct funding provisions, a statistic that seems to defy logic and highlight the core function of the government as tax collector. Any increase in the availability and quality of care is left to market forces guided by government policy, a scenario that has failed in the sense that it produces sub-optimal results in every sphere where it has been applied.
Even if there was a clear administrative need to selectively apply the Affordable Care Act’s provisions, the act of selectively applying the laws provisions undermines the credibility of the law itself and in practice gives the President near dictatorial powers. This is a matter of principle that is worth standing up for. The fact that governance in America has degenerated this far and that it takes a budget or other fiscal crisis for it to rise to the surface is a national tragedy in and of itself. Further, this matter of principle, equality before the law, may be the only appeal to reason that the Republican faction has for what is otherwise an indefensible position. Either the Republicans themselves underestimate its importance or the MSM, in bickering about why certain satellites cannot be launched into space, has abandoned all appeals to reason in the discussion and this fine point of governance is lost on most observers.
The American Economy will eventually be much better off were the Government to remain shut down once it is allowed to adjust to the new realities. If the Fiscal crisis facing the government is as dire as advertised, it should be a no brainer for the government to discontinue any non-essential activities until such time that the nation’s finances improve to a point that they can afford to perform them.
It is reported on a number of fronts that the shutdown will shrink GDP by x% (roughly 1.2% by one estimate) and that $60 billion per day is simply disappearing because the government is not spending it on the wages of non-essential employees. This analysis falls into the classic fallacy of failing to see beyond what has disappeared to envision and recognize what will appear in its absence. While a number of non-essential government tasks are not being performed, a window of opportunity exists for enterprising individuals to undertake tasks that society deems essential but were not possible because a heavily subsidized competitor, i.e. Uncle Sam, had claimed a monopoly on activity. The reality is that the economy is likely to grow exponentially under current monetary policy, regardless of what the government does.
There are many more revelations that are bound to appear before the shutdown is resolved. It will take cutting through the MSM’s shallow analysis to parse it out, but if one keeps their eyes open, they will see the underbelly of the amoeba laid bare, and it is not a pretty sight.
“For the day of Yahweh is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so will all the nations drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been. But in Mount Zion, there will be those who escape, and it will be holy. The house of Jacob will possess their possessions.”
Anyone who has taken time to read the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, has no doubt encountered text similar to that found in the first sentence in the above excerpt taken from the prophetic vision of Obadiah.
It refers to the fall of nations. For years we were somewhat vexed as to what this would mean. It is clear that history itself appears to be a constant rising and falling of nations as weaker or “evil” nations fall and stronger, more “just” nations take their place. What would happen, then were all of the nations to fall at once?
What at first appeared vexing is now clear. The nations, all nations, are mere constructs of men. As we have described in this space, at best the nations may be seen as a response, albeit misguided, to humankind’s inherently anarchic surroundings. Yet as human constructs, it is inevitable that the nations, rather than improving over time, are bent on self-destruction from their inception.
Indeed, this is the case today. When nations appear to be getting stronger, this is a result of an increase in human cooperation fostered on a base of trust and free trade. Over time, the nations unwittingly work to erode the base of trust and free trade that humans have formed. Once the people realize this, they inevitably work to throw off the yoke of the nation, and begin to walk in the Kingdom of God.
Such is the rise and fall of nations, and if the vision of Obadiah and countless other biblical prophecies come to pass, the ultimate fall of all nations is a sure thing.
Our long awaited Treatise on Economy and Philosophy, Why What We Use as Money Matters, is now available in various digital formats at Smashwords.com and on Kindle at Amazon.com. With any luck, we will have a print version available before we leave for the Southern Hemisphere.
What kind of book is this? It is largely up to the reader to decide. For us, it is the fruit of two years of wrestling with some of life’s deeper questions with regards to Economics, Politics, and Philosophy. It has answered many of them and, in turn, has raised other issues, for in our exploration, as you will see, the current state of affairs is laid bare for all to examine, and our recommended courses of action may be unpalatable for many.
Nevertheless, there it is, altogether thick and challenging, yet refreshingly simple, the key to reversing the effects of climate change.
In a sense, it culminates the first phase of what we set out to do here at The Mint. There will be more to come, but for the time being, we leave you to ponder the following brief excerpt:
“The natural world strives daily to achieve a perfect state of balance. Events and occurrences that, taken by themselves, appear chaotic and devoid of meaning are together part of a constant rebalancing of the earth’s delicate state. Each event is a splash of color across an oppressive gray sky that hints at a rainbow that will soon appear. “
Dissent is information: Anarchy ensures system resilience
Here at The Mint, we have learned to embrace the anarchy in which we live as an ultimate given. Anarchy is the primary state of being for all humans, whether we recognize it or not. The sooner one realizes that they live in a state of Anarchy, the better able they will be to operate within it.
We also recognize that centralized control, when exercised without consent, is bad. Fortunately, anarchic systems have a way of dealing with centralized control by forcing the disbandment of any form of control that is not obtained by assent. Not by assent of the majority, as democratic thought would have us believe, but assent by each individual. As such, if one is involuntarily subject to a form of centralized control, there is an easy escape for those who are not physically detained. The escape hatch is in the mind, as all centralized control mechanisms can be escaped by changing one’s mind about the power it wields over them.
As both anarchy and its antithesis, centralized control, coexist to some extent all around us in various forms of ultimately voluntary capitalist and socialist systems which are constantly interacting with each other, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to understand why Anarchy is superior to centralized control.
We recently came across a post on Zerohedge.com, Why Centralization Leads to Collapse, which articulates what we believe to be the primary reason the for the superiority of Anarchy:
Dissent is information
The author of the post, in a concise, well written fashion, recognizes that centralized control, which is an natural outgrowth of the desire for efficiency, leads to the rejection and ultimate termination of viewpoints that do not agree with the ideology or methods of the central authority. Dissent is ignored, hindered, or terminated.
However, is terminating dissent, the centralized authority has removed perhaps the most important means by which a system can transmit information from the margins.
This information is important as well as the activities that dissenters carry out, for the diverse and seemingly contrary activities serve to make the entire system in which people live “anti-fragile.” This means, for practical purposes, that an anarchic system is better prepared to deal with changes in data and the natural environment because it is constantly dealing with it by default, while a centralized system labors under the delusion that’s contingency plans are adequate to stave off any event that would threaten the supposedly superior system.
The rejection of dissent, then, ensures the collapse of the centralized system, while the toleration of the Anarchic system ensures its resilience. It may be said that the chief virtue of Anarchy, then, is that it prevents centralized control by definition.
God recognized this and intervened famously on the Tower of Babel to ensure the earth which had rejected Him would remain resilient. Mankind is dangerously close to constructing any number of similar towers today.
Our latest E-book in the “Why what we use as Money Matters” series: What is Truth? On the Nature of Empire, has now shipped and will soon arrive on digital shelves across the Internet.
In the twenty first century, it has become clear to most that there is no divine right or imperative for the existence of an Empire on the earth. As such, an ever-increasing number of peoples have thrown off the yoke of Empire in favor of what has become known as a democratic model of collective governance. Yet simply changing the rules of governance has not put an end to the core ideals of Empire, and governments today that are elected democratically have largely retained the hallmarks of Imperial rule, namely the tendencies toward a central monopoly on the use of force and the right to demand tribute. How can this be?
The purpose of this volume is to gain an understanding of the true nature of Empire and, to convince the reader that Empire, and by extension large scale government, is not only unnecessary, but a great hindrance to human progress. This volume also explores why the Imperial model virtually ensures that the worst elements of humanity will rise to power, where they will ultimately impose their will on their fellow humans by violence. For the violent outcomes that Empires invariably produce are not exceptions to the rule, nor are they merely the norm.
They are literally guaranteed by design.
Once we have grasped the true nature of Empire, we will then will explore the only known antidote to Empire and the only possible means for mankind to rid itself of the lethal effects of Empire on the earth. And it is probably like anything you have imagined.
The following is an excerpt from our upcoming ebook release, “What is Truth? On the Nature of Empire” which is volume IV in our series “Why what we use as Money Matters.”
As we researched the book, we were joined unexpectedly by James Tissot by way of his astonishing artwork. His depiction of Joseph and His Brothers approaching Pharaoh adorns the cover, and his great works, such as this one entitled: “Ce que voyait Notre-Seigneur sur la Croix” or “What Our Lord Saw from the Cross” in English have moved and inspired us as we have toiled on this volume. We pray that they will move and inspire you as well.
“Ce que voyait Notre-Seigneur sur la Croix” (What Our Lord Saw from the Cross) – by James Tissot
What is Truth? On the Nature of Empire
As men and women go about their daily occupations, it is relatively common to stop and form an opinion on the benefits or detriments to society of a particular action taken by the government. While it is easy to form an opinion and then take sides of an issue, perhaps the most important question that can be asked is not, “What should the government do?” but rather, “Why is the government doing anything?”
The reason that the second question is rarely, if ever asked is that the concept of Empire, or a large scale government which is seen as the ultimately authority, has been part of the human experience for so long that it’s existence or utility are rarely, if ever, questioned. We pray that this volume has caused you to give it some thought.
The ignoble goal of all Imperial activities has been to establish and maintain primacy in the affairs of men and women throughout the entire known world. This demand for primacy and allegiance takes the form of the Empire claiming a monopoly on the use of force, which is invariably followed by demands for tribute. Ultimately, the head of Empire will make an appeal to divine right and declare him or herself a deity. As the Empire begins to fade out of existence, it tends to become more violent and intolerant, not conscious of the fact that its subjects are devoting a great deal of time and energy to escaping its grasp.
Those who remain are left to either perish at the hands of the Empire or at the hands of those who see no alternative save the use of the force of arms to overthrow the Imperial leadership, which has been necessarily populated by the members of society who are best able to suppress their conscience in blind pursuit of the Imperial imperative.
Such is the nature of Empire, and it is lethal to human progress. The existance of Empire on the earth ensures that all who inhabit it will take the side of Cain, who in the Biblical account related in Genesis chapter 4 lead his younger brother Abel to a field where he murdered him, or Abel, the innocent. Cain’s murderous act is born out of the mistaken belief that the removal of others from the earth will secure one’s place before God and man. It is an idea that is the driving force behind Imperial action, and it is death.
Cain leadeth Abel to Death by James Tissot
Fortunately, there is a better way. The better way lies neither in violently or peacefully resisting the Empire, it lies in the doctrine of non-resistance, which paradoxically is the best way to ensure one’s safety and security regardless of the state of Imperial degeneration that one finds themselves surrounded by.
However, the path of non-resistance is not without risk. Many of history’s most noted adherents are noted because they perished while clinging to this principle. It is not for the faint of heart, yet it is attainable.
The power to do this is found in the person of Jesus Christ, who replied to the Imperial lament, voiced by Pontius Pilate, an instrument of the Roman Empire, “What is truth?”
Jesus’ response, which is not recorded in the Biblical account but made clear by His subsequent actions, echoes through 2000 years of Imperial rule to guide our actions today:
“God Forgives”
In His reply, we find the power to embrace the doctrine of non-resistance, which is the only hope that mankind has to live in peace both here and now, regardless of the proximity of Imperial rule to his or her daily activities, and in eternity. For to forgive is to live in eternal peace with God himself.
Stay tuned in to The Mint for the upcoming ebook release!
In today’s Mint we submit to you, fellow taxpayer, an excerpt of our upcoming E-book release: On the Nature of Empire. Enjoy!
Empire: An Introduction
empire-/’empī(ə)r/- noun -1. An extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority or oligarchy.
Derived from the Latin imperium, the word Empire has come to embody the concept of dominance on a grand scale. From the time of the original Akkadian, Mayan, and Egyptian Empires to the more recent Greek, Roman, and British versions, the ignoble goal of all Imperial activities has been to establish and maintain primacy in the affairs of men and women throughout the entire known world.
Proof of this is found in the nearly invariable behavior of the heads of Empire, known as emperors and empresses, who come to embody the ultimate conceit of the imperial mindset by attempting to establish themselves as a deity. The conceit is always fatal, for this ridiculous presumption has the nasty side-affect of destroying any shred of legitimacy that the head of Empire may have previously established. However, whether or not the emperor publically manifests a claim to deity by demanding reverence reserved for the truly divine or, at the opposite end of the spectrum of possible outcomes, they make a demand for reverence that goes largely unchallenged, those who have reigned in the emperor’s chair have invariably come to assume that they had, at their disposal, the divine right to liquidate any and all threats to their claim to the ultimate power over their fellow mortals.
In the twenty first century, it has become clear to most that there is no divine right or imperative for the existence of an Empire on the earth. As such, an ever increasing number of peoples have thrown off the yoke of Empire in favor of a what has become known as a democratic model of collective governance. Yet simply changing the rules of governance has not put an end to the core ideals of Empire, and the hallmarks of Imperial rule, namely the tendencies towards a central monopoly on the use of force and the right to demand tribute, have been largely retained by governments today that are elected democratically. How can this be?
The concept of Empire is a construction of men, and is largely a result of a tolerance by the many of what is nothing more than antisocial behavior by a few. As we have stated above, an Empire, at its base, is a monopoly on the use of force which evolves into a monopoly on the right to demand tribute. Living under Imperial rule is not man’s natural state, and it will eventually come into conflict with mankind’s natural disposition for autonomy, commonly known as freedom or the right to self determination.
Why do the many tolerate the antisocial behavior by a few that ultimately leads to Imperial rule? The answer is that Empires do not appear overnight. They emerge over relatively long time horizons and, until they approach their blow off phase, may appear to have many benefits. However, these benefits always come at a great human cost, a cost that is almost always obscured from those who receive them.
It should come as no surprise, then, that there is no historical evidence of an Empire spontaneously arising by mutual consent. On the contrary, Empires are created and expanded by subjugating a territory and the peoples that inhabit it via either the threat or actual use of military force. Once subjugated, the Empire attempts to consolidate its control of the territory by exacting tribute from its subject. From ancient times up to today, an Empire’s demand for tribute ultimately manifests itself in taking control over the food supply.
Painting “Joseph and His Brethren Welcomed by Pharaoh”, watercolor by James Tissot 1836-1902
One of the more poignant historical examples of this can be found in the Biblical book of Genesis, where Joseph advises the emperor of Egypt at the time, Pharaoh, to store up the Egyptian grain production for a time in anticipation of a seven year famine. The Pharaoh then sold the grain back to the Egyptians and foreigners during the famine. While the story generally has a happy ending, it is a stark example of the Imperial prerogative to confiscate property via taxation.
Paradoxically, the subjects of Empire, who could just as easily eat from the foodstuffs they produce and store up their own rainy day funds, find themselves rendering their harvests to the representatives of the Empire, in the case of the Pharaohs, a full 20% of their production, only to be forced to beg them back at a future date when the need arises. The Paradox is furthered in that the Empire, in attempting to maintain primacy via various forms of taxation, ultimately ensures its demise, as the inherent waste in the Imperial model overwhelm its ability to extract further tribute from its subjects.
The mechanism of taxation itself causes the Empire to weaken, as it indirectly encourages sub optimum activity and in the worst case, inactivity and waste by those who receive the benefits of the proceeds of the taxes.
Long before the Empire becomes aware of its weakened state, the subjects themselves are often the first to realize that the Emperor is wearing no clothes, to borrow Mr. Andersen’s metaphor. Those with the means and the initiative will move to escape the withering grasp of the Empire. Those who do not leave are often left to perish in a futile effort to either defend the Empire or oppose it through the same force of arms by which the Empire came to their lands. For an Empire must ultimately demand allegiance from its subjects, and an intolerance for dissention will tend to increase in direct proportion to the level of weakness of the Empire.
As such, for an Empire to perpetuate itself, it must rely entirely on the force of arms when necessary and coercive propaganda at all times in an ultimately futile attempt to assure it retains the primitive right to meddle in the affairs of others. In the final blow off phase, which is marked by civil wars such as the one currently playing out in Syria, the Empire will resort almost exclusively to the use of arms to squash dissention.
Yet the maintenance of Empire, like the air travel industry, is in every case a losing proposition. It is an utter and complete waste of time and money. To maintain an Empire requires an ever increasing amount of human and intellectual capital which are depleted in ever increasing quantities as the Empire slides into history’s dustbin, where it will simply attach itself to the long list of Empires that were.
The concept of Empire has always been lethal to human existence and prosperity. However, for some reason it is romanticized in the human psyche. The purpose of this volume is to gain an understanding of the true nature of Empire and, to convince the reader that not only is Empire, and by extension large scale government, unnecessary, but it is a hindrance to human progress and virtually ensures that the worst elements of humanity will rise to power, where they will ultimately impose their will on the rest of us by violence. For the violent outcomes the Empires invariably produce are not exceptions to the rule, nor are they merely the norm.
They are literally guaranteed.
Finally, we address Pontius Pilate’s infamous inquiry, to Jesus of Nazareth before His public trial:
“What is truth?”
It is a question that has been left to humanity for two millennia, and it is time that it be answered, for in the answer lies our common fate.
Intrigued? Stay tuned to The Mint for the book’s release.
As the clock ticks down once again on another fiscal deadline, it would appear that the US and global economy are in for a brief bout with a familiar friend, uncertainty. In the face of uncertainty, it is important to review one’s basic premises to be assured that they still hold. Here at The Mint, we perform this analysis by way of presenting a list of Key Indicators at the end of each segment.
Most days, it hardly seems worth doing. The data we track tends to stay in a fairly tight range. However, were one to read The Mint say, two months ago, there may be a noticeable difference in the data points which would tell us something. That something, for the past two years, has been that come what may, be it TARP, Debt ceiling votes, Euro zone crises, Fiscal Cliffs, or the latest version, the Sequester, our key indicators have consistently returned one answer as to what lies beyond the speed bump: Inflation.
However, the drama that unfolds in the lead up to what can only be described as a failure to properly sends jitters through the most vulnerable parts of the financial markets, which circa 2013 are literally all financial assets. The jitters are caused by a Pavlovian reflex that the markets have ingrained in their psyche at the hint of the POMO (the Fed’s Permanent Open Market Operations) running dry.
The POMO, for the initiated, is where the magic of QE and other monetary alchemy takes place. It is where the FED exchanges wine for sewage, and it is increasingly difficult to say who is providing what. In the end, it will all turn to sewage, and the end is always nigh, hence the Pavlovian response.
To illustrate the point, we offer an incident from our youth as an example of how the Pavlovian response of market exits (or risk off trading) works. Though no animals were injured in the incident that follows, if you are a member or PETA or are sensitive to animal cruelty, you may want to jump below the graphic to continue reading.
When we were a young boy in Colorado, we had a dog that we would come to call the Rock long before an aspiring professional wrestler adopted the nickname and made it famous.
The Rock was an extremely lively dog and, while fun to be around and play with, he, like all young pups, wanted to get out and see the world. To accomplish this goal, The Rock would dig holes under the fence and wriggle through them. More often than not, the family would spend the better part of the afternoon patrolling the neighborhood in search of our four legged explorer.
Our Uncle, who lives in Nebraska and is a farmer turned banker, but was a farmer at the time, offered some advice on the matter. As most people are aware, cattle and other livestock can be coaxed into staying in an enclosed area by running an electrified wire around the perimeter. The trick is that the perimeter fence does not need to be live for the livestock in question to respect it as a boundary.
The reason for this is that the livestock are trained to have a Pavlovian response to the mere sight of the wire. When the fence is installed or new livestock are moved to the enclosure, the wire is turned on and the electric current runs through the wire. The initiated livestock stay clear of the wire and search for a good view as the new livestock, who are unaware of the fence’s magic powers, bump into the wire unaware and are promptly shocked, or as the farmer thinks of it, “conditioned,” to stay away from the wire.
We now return to The Rock. Our Uncle, after hearing of our plight, offered to lend us one of the electric wire fences so that The Rock could be trained to stay within his confines.
We set up the fence. The Rock watched the installation with interest. We put the final length in place and then turned to The Rock for what we imagined would be a brief round of “conditioning.”
We stared by placing his paw upon the live wire. There was no Pavlovian response on the Rock’s part, just the usual excited stare and panting. Next, we tried the top of his foot, which was covered in hair. Again, nothing.
We quickly touched the wire ourselves and satisfied ourselves that it had been turned on. How could we get The Rock to understand that the wire was a force to be reckoned with?
Again, readers with PETA affiliations, if they have read to this point are encouraged to jump to the graphic. This is the final warning.
It began to dawn on us that the reason that The Rock had avoided the shock to this point was that there was no moisture on his paw or hair (it was a fine summer day in an arid climate, after all). All that was needed to get the current running was a bit of moisture.
It did not occur to us to grab a spray bottle to lightly moisten the dog and retry the relatively innate area of the paw that we had focused on up to that point. What did occur to us was to grab a piece of raw meat and hang it over the wire.
What happened next remains permanently etched in the memory of all who witnessed it.
The Rock, delighted at the offering, immediately extended his tongue to retrieve the meat from the wire, the way he would have any food morsel that he was offered. Naturally, he was shocked as his tongue made solid contact with the wire.
The Rock did not retreat at that point, rather, between yelps of both pain and pleasure, continued what was a vain attempt to remove the meat from its perch.
After about the third attempt, a shock of sufficient strength was delivered by the fence and The Rock abruptly turned and ran 180 degrees into the house. We were standing at the door in disbelief as The Rock hit cheetah type speeds as he encountered us at the door.
We do not remember exactly how we ended up on our back, but we suspect we completed at least one full, albeit involuntary, rotation in the air before we arrived there.
In the background we heard uncontrollable laughter, and The Rock didn’t leave his hiding place under the bed for the rest of the day.
Strangely, the incident did not change The Rock’s attitude towards digging under the fence, and he managed to escape whether or not the electrical perimeter wire was on or off.
The Pavlovian response, which was so evident in his cheetah like retreat that day, had been completely forgotten. It wasn’t until he was hit by a car and had his hip shattered some time later that He finally gave up carousing.
We take a brief break from our tale to welcome back PETA members and animal sympathizers and to provide the following graphic, which was created by Wells Fargo’s Mark Vittner and Michael Brown and comes to us via the Money Game. The graphic looks at which states stand to lose the most income, on a relative basis, should the Sequester become a reality. By extension, it shows which is most dependent on Federal government spending. Not surprisingly, the noise attributed to the Sequester threat comes from the fact that those populations most affected on a relative basis reside near Washington DC.
Federal Spending as percentage of GDP by State via Business Insider’s The Money Game
Those closest to Rome are the ones who will get scorched as it burns. However, thanks to the Fiscal fire hoses provided by the POMO of the FED, the Sequester will barely register as a spark
So it is with government finances when the monetary premium is removed from goods in the natural realm. The above mentioned TARP, Debt ceiling votes, Euro zone crises, Fiscal Cliffs have proved to be nothing more than the meat hanging on the electrified wire for the governments of the west. The latest version, known as the Sequester, which is essentially the spawn of the August 2010 debt ceiling debacle, is simply more meat on the wire.
Traders will yelp and make a dramatic retreat, and then return to digging under the fence the next day. They will continue to roam farther and farther afield until they are hit by a car, which will come when the FED is the only customer for US Treasury debt, and the incestuous feedback look of the money supply overlords and government debt and spending collapses upon itself.
At that point, analysis will be useless, as the entire system upon which present analytical tools base their assumptions will cease to exist.
While the moronic Sequester is important for doctors and those who make armaments for a living, (many of whom live very close to Washington DC, making for a vocal and visible constituency that will be impacted) it is meaningless, both in terms of reigning in government spending or slowing down, let alone stopping, the t
As we watch the US Presidential election unfold from the sidelines, the outcome which we predicted recently here at The Mint appears to be playing out nicely. So, who will win?
To answer this question, we have updated our October 23rd predictions based on what we presume to be better data, courtesy of Dr. Michael McDonald at George Mason University, with regards to anticipated voter turnout.
According to the data, we may assume a voter turnout of up to 65.49% of the total voting age population (VAP) in the US. Further, we assume that the presumed winner in our analysis musters an astonishing 58.8% of the popular vote, which by all measures would be considered such a resounding endorsement, one would think that the entire populace had spoken with one voice as to who should be our leader.
2012 – Another defeat to the Land of the Free
They would be wrong. Even with these generous assumptions, the Silent Majority still garners 39.6% of the vote versus the winner’s 35%. {Editor’s Note: We will provide a final update on this data set once the dust settles.} In a silent contrast to what will most certainly be a rousing victory speech by the winning candidate, the Silent Majority appears set to trample the President elect in a landslide victory of its own.
Unfortunately for those of us who count ourselves a part of the Silent Majority, our victory will be ignored, as it has been for the past 14 Presidential elections and for every election before 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower was triumphant.
Given that the Silent Majority will once again be ignored, we offer a bold prediction of what the next four years will hold:
1. An expansion of the US Military and police state.
2. An expansion of the US Government’s intrusion into the lives of its supposed subjects via a continued barrage of new rules and regulations.
3. The Federal deficit will continue to spiral out of control. Despite an onslaught of propaganda as to who should pay taxes, Federal tax revenue has remained in a tight range, between 14.4% and 20.6% of GDP ever since World War II. Even at the high end, tax revenues will not fund the $2.479 trillion worth of mandatory spending on entitlements and interest on existing debt for the coming year.
Once the confetti settles and cabinet appointments have been made and confirmed, Washington DC will quickly return to business as usual. We offer today’s stock market rally, which is largely a function of the US dollar being sent to the woodshed in the currency markets, as proof of this.
The financial markets care not who wins the election, they care that there is an election, and that the status quo be maintained. Unfortunately, the status quo is unsustainable, and events far beyond the control of the US President elect will determine America’s fate.
If you are a disgruntled voter whose candidate lost, or who, despite casting a vote for the winning candidate, is wearied by voting for change every four years and getting more of the same or worse, we welcome you into the Silent Majority. While we have no say in what happens in Washington DC, we deem this a happy state of affairs, for it is a land far away with concerns far different than our own.
Now, if we can only convince them to observe the Golden Rule…
In our recent open letter to Evo Morales, we brought up three principles which must operate together in a society for the greatest amount of material good to come to the greatest possible amount of people. While most assume that the principles, Liberty, Private Property, and Equality before the law, can only operate via the apparatus of government, we argue that the exact opposite is the case. By necessity, the operations of government, an ultimate sovereign, would necessarily hinder the operation of these essential principles.
The reasoning is this: These principles are so important that they must be learned and respected by every member of society. At the same time, they are so basic to human nature that they are most effectively learned by simply living amongst one’s fellow human beings. As such, the more a person is exposed to the anarchic environment in which we all ultimately live, the more quickly they will master these essentials.
Free Banking – The key to Liberty
The apparatus of Government can only retard the most effective teacher: Hands on experience.
The recognition of the vacuum of power called Anarchy, which all systems great and small operate under, is extremely important when trying to understand the world as we know it. However, it is not the focus of today’s Mint.
Today’s Mint is focused on Free banking. Within our three great principles, Free banking generally fits under the principle of Liberty. However, as banking and currency circulation, circa 2012 is perhaps the least free area of enterprise, it deserves special consideration as we examine what true freedom consists of.
Important as it is, the concept of Free banking may seem foreign to you, fellow taxpayer, as it is to nearly every other person, great and small, on our beloved earth.
However, the concept of Free Banking is perhaps the most important thing that men today can dedicate themselves to, for it is the lack of Freedom when it comes to currency and credit which has lead to stripping of the earth’s resources and the resulting environmental problems which a number of developing nations suffer from in a disproportionate manner.
Specifically, the suppression of Free Banking has caused the activities of man to create what is an unsustainable imbalance with the demands of the earth’s natural systems.
So what is Free banking? As the name may suggest to many in the developed world, it is not a lack of monthly charges on a bank account, rather, it is the freedom for banks to compete as issuers of credit and safe keepers of currency in any form.
The Free Lakota Bank – Free Banking in action
The current slave banking system’s fatal flaw is that it is obligated to issue credit and accept deposits in currencies which are nothing more than debt issued by a Central Bank. This constraint causes the currency created by the Central Bank to be the basis of all of man’s activities out of a necessity to pay a tax to the government in said currency.
To compound this fatal flaw, the issuing Central Banks actively manipulate the interest rates, which affect the price of the flawed currency and credit, making the value of both the credit and savings of everyone completely subject to the whims of the Central Bank.
If the currency which everyone was working for had been created legitimately by the labor of another man and its price, via the interest rate mechanism, allowed to respond to real supply and demand signals, a natural balance would be struck between credit and savings in society. This balance would express itself as conservation and eventual increase of the earth’s resources.
However, the currency which everyone is working for is nothing more than a piece of data created by a computer and printed onto a piece of paper and, via the active suppression of the interest rate mechanism, is not allowed to be properly discounted. As such, all of the labors of man are set towards destroying the earth, turning it into more pieces of paper, and depositing them into a bank in order to close out the credit account created by the computer.
We observed the zeal with which Evo Morales and other revolutionary leaders have implemented reforms by closing down a majority of the ministries of the government almost immediately upon gaining the power to do so. It is a swift move in which they attempt to consolidate their power. However, as one studies these cases, they will see that often there was one notable exception that was allowed to continue operating: The Central Bank.
The Central Bank is often seen as a sacred cow, even by those who vehemently opposite it, on the grounds that the currency and interest rates are too important to day to day life to be to the incapable hands of the people, which is what the concept of Free banking is all about.
However, it is for this very reason, the indispensible role of currency and credit in society, that currency and interest rates CANNOT be left in the hands of any one entity, no matter how much clairvoyance is attributed to them.
No one would argue that grains and fuel are important to everyday life in nearly all the earth. However, even hard core Marxists would be hard pressed to admit that all peoples would be better off were only one entity given the ability to produce and set the price for either. As such, it has been proven over and over again that the expansion of the ability to produce such indispensible items not only provides them in sufficient quantities to satisfy demand, it will do so at a price that is more or less tolerable for all (this argument, of course, is null if the price is controlled by a single entity).
While free market proponents are quick to recognize the benefits of the freedom to produce grains, fuels, and healthcare, for example, they become hardcore Marxists when it comes to currency and credit. What those who fall into this trap fail to realize is that all of the virtues of free markets are worthless if the most basic economic common denominators of currency and credit are not allowed to operate in as nature intended.
Free banking would allow free markets to solve all the problem of scarcity in currency and credit in the most efficient way possible. Why, then, is Free banking seen as the ultimate boogeyman by those in authority? It is for one reason and one reason only:
Control of currency and credit represents the ultimate authority in the material world.
While free market reforms can go a long way towards liberating the peoples of the world, the task and to close down the Central Bank and allow both the banks and the people to choose in what currency they will issue credit and maintain their savings. Far from leading to anarchic chaos, the basic need for exchange and the issuance of credit amongst humans would cause all of society who wished to trade with one another to arrive at a tacit decision as to what is best suited to serve as currency.
While in most cases, this tacit decision has arrived on Gold and Silver, the British and American empires, the most recent examples of empire, grew so wealthy that lesser metals, such as copper, were thrust into use as currency.
As a practical matter, it must be admitted that closing down the Central Bank would be a shock. For this reason, we look to solutions such as those seen in the actions of Canupa Gluha Mani, the Ithanchan of the Free Lakota Bank, as a path to free banking and the ultimate freedom of the peoples of the world.
The Lakota people declared their freedom from the sovereignty from the Government of the United States government in 2007. As an important part of this process, they knew that it would be necessary to establish their own monetary system. Further, they recognized that to simply choose another currency would again make them slaves to the creators of that currency.
To solve this problem, they opened the Free Lakota Bank and adopted what is known as the American Open Currency Standard, which is attempt to return to a balanced system of metallic weights and measures to use as currency which is recognized and traded internationally.
While this may seem now like an impossible step to take, the Peoples of the earth must enjoy free banking if they are to enjoy Liberty, Private Property, and Equality before the law in any meaningful way. For the lack of options in currencies in favor of the Central Bank’s monopoly on the issue of credit will keep the Peoples of the earth and their governments in the bonds of financial slavery until the Freedom of Banking is restored.
Free banking, by its very nature, does not obligate a people to adopt a currency standard, as the native Lakota people have. While the most likely outcome of the liberation of the currency and credit markets is for all involved to quickly settle on a new currency standard, it is necessary to guarantee that all Peoples the right to choose which currency they want to hold and to bank in. This is the only way that man can live in harmony with one another and with the natural world. This freedom is the spirit of the principle of Free Banking.
We’ve heard it said that the most heavily armed force on the planet is the American citizenry. Not the American military, its citizenry. Those who doubt the effectiveness of the 2nd amendment must look beyond urban crime statistics and consider its usefulness as a matter of National security.
Were only the 1% of the population associated with the military or police forces allowed to bear arms, America would lose its largest deterrent to foreign invasion, and the Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto may have chosen a different strategy. The question then becomes, why should the standing military be such a drain on the National budget when the private sector, the citizenry, has both the rights and responsibility to provide for both National and Civil defense? We look forward to your comments!
A few days ago, we laid out three seemingly absurd reasons why we have decided not to vote in the upcoming elections, with the exception of city and county referendums. If you missed it, you can read our rant here:
In the spirit of full disclosure of our voting record, we have voted in just two of the five Presidential elections that we have been eligible to cast a vote in. Namely, in 2004, we voted for the incumbent on the indefensible reasoning of choosing the “Lesser of two evils,” for though it be the lesser, one has still chosen evil. In 2008, we wrote in Ron Paul, albeit with an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness, as write in votes are, if anything, a symbolic gesture.
In the meantime, we have dutifully filled out countless circles on scantron sheets and scanned countless pages of voter’s guides in a fruitless effort to understand, to loosely quote Joe DiMaggio as he came upon his then wife, Marilyn Monroe, striking her now famous pose as she stood over a steam grate in Times Square, “what the hell is going on around here.”
By the time the most recent ballot arrived in the mail, along with a voter’s guide which rivaled the yellow pages in size, our disillusionment for what today passes as democracy was complete. We resolved, then and there, to stop tacitly endorsing the enslavement and slaughter of persons with which we have no quarrel. We would withhold our vote.
Given our history and our most recent resolution, it can be said that we have not exactly been the model of someone fulfilling their civic duty. Yet strangely, since coming to grips with our non-voter status, we have never slept better.
Are we alone in our disillusionment? Or is our shunning of civic responsibility something native to the American landscape? We have taken it upon ourselves, fellow taxpayer, to provide you with the shocking answer to these questions.
We began by analyzing a data set of the total US voter turnout against the corresponding voting age population (VAP) at the time. We chose the Presidential election years in the US as they are generally the election cycles which elicit the highest voter turnout. Fortunately for us, the voter turnout for the Presidential elections held from 1828 – 2008 is accessible on Wikipedia.
To arrive at the VAP totals, which were provided for the election years 1960 and later, for the prior elections (1828 – 1956), we did the simple inverse math of dividing the number of votes by the stated voter turnout percentage. This gave us a “theoretical” VAP with which to perform our analysis. We then pulled census data for each year which coincided with an election year to satisfy ourselves that our methods were sound.
Within the data set, we then broke the number of popular votes cast in each election, which is also available on Wikipedia, down three ways. Those for the candidate with the majority of votes, those cast for the one who came in second, and the combined votes for all other candidates which were counted. The counts are presented in the order of the highest number of popular votes received, not those cast by the electoral college. It is interesting to note that in four times in US History (three of which, 1876, 1888, and 2000, appear in our data set) the candidate with the highest tally of popular votes was not elected to the Presidency.
We then took the number of popular votes by category and divided it against the VAP for those deemed eligible to vote to arrive at our final data point, the percentage of the VAP which cast a vote for the candidate. As we did this, we added a fourth category which we call the “No vote,” to capture, for comparison purposes, the percentage of the VAP who simply did not cast a ballot.
We then took the four resulting percentages by election year, from 1828 – 2012* (*We extrapolated the findings based on 2008 turnout and today’s Intrade market for the election) and asked two questions:
1) In each election analyzed, was the President elected by a simple majority of the total VAP?
2) In each election analyzed, did the percentage of No votes represent an absolute majority of the VAP?
While we wouldn’t stretch this analysis to question the legitimacy of a Presidential election, the findings are nonetheless fascinating with regards to the presence of non-voters in America. You can see a graphic of the percentages for each candidate juxtaposed against the “No vote” candidate by election year, on the plot below.
On the plot, the highest mark is the winner. The “X” on the plot represents where the “No vote” candidate, if you will, would have finished. The colors of the other markers, despite their blue, red, and green tones, do not indicate which party won that year, only the percentage of votes received by the first, second, and all other candidates for whom votes were cast:
In summary, when taken against eligible voters, the No vote majority began to emerge in 1916 after a 75 year hiatus, and took firm command of the polls in 1968. However, 2012 is shaping up to be an exception, and, if current trends hold, it can be said that, come November 7th, there will be a President actively selected by a majority of the eligible VAP in the US for the first time since Lyndon B. Johnson.
Now, most voters in the US are aware that women were not allowed to participate in elections as voters until 1920. Don’t worry ladies, nor the rest of those who were/are part of the disenfranchised, we have not forgotten you. In fact, when the analysis is expanded to include all of the presumed VAP over 18, regardless of their technical eligibility to vote, (which is the number used to arrive at the voter turnout percentages) the results are even more dramatic:
What we see in this analysis is that, since 1828, there has been only one President who was elected by a simple majority of the VAP, Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. In fact, those who did not vote consistently represented an absolute majority until 1928, which means, depending upon how one interprets the No-votes, there may not have been a President who was elected to office in the purest democratic sense until Eisenhower. While we admit it is a bit far fetched, it is nonetheless fascinating to ponder.
Voter frustration/apathy, after taking a break through a good portion of the 20th century, returned to America in 1996, as Bill Clinton defied the indifferent masses, which again represented an absolute majority of Americans as it had in all pre 1928 elections, and extended his stay on Pennsylvania Avenue for four more glorious years.
Blanco o Nulo? The question of interpretation of the Non-votes.
Blank or Null? The answer to this question determines how one will ultimately interpret the data which we have gathered. Are we to take the “No votes” as “votes in Blanco,” meaning that the lack of a countable vote signifies tacit assent to the selection of the voting majority? This is the generally accepted analysis of the absence of votes in America, where voting is not obligatory.
Or shall we take them, or at least a portion of them, as “Nulo,” meaning that the absence of a countable vote signifies a disillusionment with the democratic process so deep that one simply refuses to go through the motions to lend even a shred of legitimacy to the process?
In Bolivia, it is obligatory to vote, if you cannot provide proof that you have voted, you can face a fine, or worse. This legal obligation has also given rise to an explicit form of voting, “in Nulo,” which can be cast if one chooses not to select one of the candidates or decide on a measure which has been presented.
It is the formalization of a conscientious objection. The likes of which have only been officially tallied in US in the bizarre election of the year 2000, when a Washington DC resident filed a vote as an “abstention” in protest of Washington DC’s lack of representation in Congress.
So which is it, blanco or nulo? It is an important question, and one that, unlike Bolivia, the United States voting regimen currently has no tool to answer.
We have provided a link to the data sheet used to create the above graphics so that you can check our work as well as expand and hopefully improve upon it. Please feel free to download it and use it as you wish.
As November 6, 2012 approaches, the votes are tallied, and a President of the United States is declared, stay tuned long enough to catch the data on voter turnout. With the latest measure of voter apathy in hand, go to a quiet place and ask yourself the following question:
Did the American people win the election? If our predictions are correct, the answer will be the same as it has been with regards to every election before and since everybody liked Ike:
As we watched the Presidential debate Tuesday night, along with the rest of the huddled American masses, we were hoping to hear something that would sway us from our current non-voter status. We hardly listened to what was said, although our radar went up as one attendee asked about inflation, which happens to fall into our realm of interests. The periscope of our consciousness went down, however, as each candidate responded in turn with a stream of words which registered as a vague reference to a non-entity referred to as “the economy.”
They just don’t get it. And unless someone at the top “gets” the concept of inflation and its root causes very soon, the current form of the United States government may not exist by the time the next Presidential term is completed.
With the exception of the inflation bit, we hardly listened to what was said. Politics, as most politicians will attest, has nothing to do with the keeping or breaking of promises. In the end, these expensive popularity contests boil down to the intangible of charisma.
As such, we were more interested in the demeanor of the candidates. Both, while giving the appearance of physically fit, well dressed, and well informed men, seemed to lack something we call the spark of life, that thing that makes you want to be around somebody. The intangible of charisma, so hard to define, yet so apparent when present, did not make an appearance last night.
We decided to retain our current policy regarding democratic elections.
At The Mint, our current policy is to refrain from voting on all matters which ask us to reach beyond our own city and county. Even then, we inform ourselves and vote, not on individuals seeking election to sinecures, but on specific referendums, generally with the dual aim of obtaining personal benefit and minimizing both our tax bill and governmental interference in our personal affairs.
How did we arrive at such an unreasonable stance with regards to voting? How can we consciously fail to perform our “civic duty” year in and year out and still live with ourselves?
The conscious decision not to vote, at its base, is our way of peacefully resisting what has become a shameless power grab at the highest levels of government. A series of well intentioned actions at the Federal level has lead to a number of unintended consequences which are about to cause a great deal of suffering.
Beyond this philosophical objection, there are practical matters to consider, which we submit for your examination and comment:
1. Mind-boggling complexity
From time to time, a ballot measure will be presented which will be stated in a manner so clearly that one can place a vote and know exactly what a yay or nay will mean in terms of real world consequences. As for the rest of the ballot issues, along with the selection of lawmakers and judges as our proxies, one can’t be expected to keep up with the chaos that passes as national and state governments, and for the most part, we feel that participating in elections or the political process on at these levels is at best a waste of precious time and, at worst, encouraging an enterprise which long ago overstepped any reasonable boundaries, both in its authority and its ability to manage its finances. At this point, the best one can hope for is to stay clear of the amoeba.
Large scale democracy has a nasty habit of imposing the will of a few on all via the ignorance or indifference of many. Circa 2012, voters are rarely asked straightforward questions like “Is it ok to steal and kill?” They are instead asked questions like “Do you prefer a fellow named Obama or Romney to serve as President?” We will ignore the fact that politicians on the State and National level are thrust immediately into situations where keeping promises depends upon factors far beyond their control, and simply recognize that the choosing the President of the United States does little or nothing to change the underlying bureaucracies and interests which have turned the Government of the United States into a strange form of benevolent mafia.
2. The question of taxes.
By our calculations, we give up roughly 16 hours per year just compiling data for and filing the required tax declarations at the State and Federal levels. Not to mention the time spent generating the money to pay said taxes. On the county level, this seems reasonable. The county even has the courtesy to calculate the tax bill for us and simply request payment. As for compliance, it is simple, you either pay the bill or you don’t.
Further, if you think that your tax bill is too high, you can leave the City or County and find a City or County with a more reasonable tax regimen, or no regimen at all.
While leaving the City or County may be a costly step, it may be feasible for those who desire to move. Relocating geographically from a State or a Country is quite another matter, which makes their manner of taxation both understandable and sinister.
The Federal and State governments, as opposed to most county governments, have a much different take on both taxation, as well as the rest of the authorities which they have granted themselves over their subjects. We use the term “grant themselves” because, as anyone who has tried to vote their conscience on a ballot measure can attest, many measures are written in a way that simply makes the voter a tool in the hand of those who crafted the legislation.
{Editor’s note: We will refrain from going into the argument that somehow, the illusion of democracy, the Western embodiment of the “Might makes right” mentality, creates a government with legitimacy on the scale the the State and Federal Governments circa 2012 claim. It is sufficient to say that there are an abundance of examples which would argue to the contrary.}
Returning to taxation with regards to the State and Federal regimens, it is up to the individual to file a declaration each year at their own expense. Naturally, the governments reserve the right to audit said declaration, again, at the taxpayers expense. If any inconsistencies are encountered, the taxpayer faces a myriad of penalties from the payment of additional taxes and penalties up to and including serving time in prison.
Even this tack could be considered reasonable were the tax codes written in a straightforward manner. As things are, the income tax code serves as nothing more than a spider’s web, designed to entangle all who tread it. We are all caught in it, it is just a matter of time until the spider makes its way over to devour us.
The saving grace, if there is one with regards to the State and Federal tax regimen is this.They can’t take us all. While it is likely that every single American has failed to fully comply with the 73,608 page tax code, it is extremely unlikely that the spiders of the various Government or State tax authorities will ever get around to eating all of those who are caught in their web. As with any predator, they tend to go after the larger prey first.
In this sense, adopting the Franciscan/Marxian belief that poverty is a virtue may keep one safely off of the spider’s radar.
3. The Trail of Tears
While both complexity and having to pay for something are generally good enough reasons to abstain from any activity, the most compelling reason not to vote is one that is best understood by examining one of the most shameful examples of the modus operandi of the Federal Government: Their well documented dealings with the Cherokee people, whose world collided with the Feds in the early 19th century in the Southeastern part of North America.
The Trail of Tears, a painful chapter in US History – courtesy of http://katta1f.wikispaces.com/
We refrain from making value judgments and will simply examine the highlights of the interaction as we understand them. A much more detailed account can be found, as always, in the Wikipedia.
The Cherokee found themselves generally prospering as a people and inhabiting lands in the Southeastern US in the 1700 and early 1800’s after presumably relocating there from the Great Lakes region. During this time, they increasingly came into contact with European settlers and engaged them in trade.
As time went on, the increasingly organized and well armed colonies began to covet the lands of the various Indian groups in North America. Once the revolution against the British and subsequent conflict known as the War of 1812 had been won, the States of the newly formed United States of America began to dispossess the various Indian peoples of their lands.
{Editors Note: Sensitive readers are asked to excuse, for the moment, the use of the term “Indian” (Columbus most likely died believing that he had landed in India en route to China, hence the mistaken identity attached to Native Americans peoples), instead of the appropriate “Native American”. The choice to change terms at this point in the essay was made consciously so that the reader may understand which groups were impacted by the barbarous Indian Removal Act. No disrespect is implied or intended.}
While their tactics changed according to what was politically expedient at the time, the general policy of the State and Federal Governments was to ultimately expel the Indian populations and force them West, so that the vested interests of the States could take advantage of the lands which were occupied by the Indians.
What is most troubling about the treatment of the Cherokee people is that, from what we can tell, they had adapted to life amongst the new colonists and generally worked to comply with what were ultimately unreasonable demands of the governments. As a case in point, the Cherokee allied themselves with and fought alongside the US against the pro-British factions during the War of 1812. They served the US’s interests in the war alongside none other than Andrew Jackson.
Jackson later returned the favor by signing the Indian Removal Act in 1830 which sealed the Cherokee’s fate and began the final chain of events which would lead many of them to an early grave along the now infamous “Trail of Tears.”
While the the Indian Removal Act was passed on the assumption that the Cherokee and other Indian groups faced certain extinction were they to be forced to live alongside the increasingly numerous white settlers, it is generally acknowledged today that the real motivation for the Act’s passage was the discovery of gold in Georgia.
We have read about and watched similar scenarios of deceptions preceded and followed by apologetics play out too many times by centralized governments over the ages to believe that a group of persons who do not know our name and are so far removed from us that they would not recognize our moccasins if they took the time to walk a mile in them, have our best interests at heart.
Even if they did, we have observed that their best efforts to effect change on a large scale end up causing more harm than good. While the economic damage done by such unilateral actions can be repaired or forgiven, the damage to the moral character of a society of embracing this might makes right mentality will ultimately destroy it.
The desire not to participate in the choosing of the next person to be called “Commander in Chief,” or any of their collaborators or subordinates, is the primary reason why we will not be walking around with a sticker on our chest or an ink stained hand on election day.
For The Trail of Tears has been tread for too long. It is time to live in the Kingdom of God.
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