Saturday, September 27, 2014

Government = The Most Dangerous Religion

[ Onebornfree's Freedom Network commentary: people who know me well - relatively few, I'll admit :-) - know that I have often stated that the state is nothing more than a religion; essentially no different, in the big picture, from any other religion. Now it seems that Mr Larken Rose, shares my opinion, which is a nice surprise indeed. I have to thank Mr Rose for taking the time to explain it all in this fairly short, and very to the point, video, something that I have no ability to do. Although this video is posted here for the possible benefit of all Freedom Network members near and far, as well as for non-members, it is  in particular aimed at the person who showed up at the Network's 11/09/14 meeting who rather indignantly proclaimed {paraphrased here} that they not only voted but "were proud to be allowed to vote" even though they understood that " their vote meant absolutely nothing"- or words to that effect :-) . I hope that that person in particular takes time to watch the video, and to think about the implications, and maybe others too.  Regards, onbornfree.]




Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6uVV2Dcqt0


More About "Onebornfree":

"Onebornfree" is a personal freedom consultant and a musician. He can be reached at: onebornfreeatyahoodotcom  .

Onebornfree  Blogs: 
                                                                                         
 Onebornfree's Financial Safety blog[ Investment philosophy blog]

Onebornfree's 9/11Research Review blog[ A personal review of the state of 9/11 research]


The Freedom Network [ home page for the Freedom Network]

The Problem-Solver [Personal Freedom consulting]

Music Info: 

Onebornfree's [aka Fake-Eye D"] Music channel [Studio mixes + live solo recordings]

Fake Eye D's soundCloud channel [ no videos, so faster download]

Saturday, September 6, 2014

The "Social Contract" Scam and "The Matrix" Of Belief

[Onebornfree & Freedom Network  commentary: I believe that the primary assumption justifying the existence of all governments,  an assumption therefor made by all of its/their supporters, and therefor a very necessary ingredient in the "matrix" of myths surrounding all governments, is the unexamined assumption that governments actually work, and that they can therefor solve many, if not all, of our social problems. 

Because most people believe this unexamined assumption, we are subjected to a never-ending stream of would be, pie-eyed world improvers and do-gooders, all of whom believe that whatever problem[s] it is they see in this world, that it can be solved simply by more government rules and regulations. 

For example, I recently looked at this unexamined assumption with regard to the writings and proposals of monetary reformer Stephen Zarlenga, who mistakenly believes that even more centralization of the current monetary system  will miraculously improve/replace the current corrupt system. 

Moving on.... the "Social Contract" assumption.  

Another essential core "matrix" belief/assumption, and one that, similarly left unexamined, does a wonderful job of supporting the assumption that government actually works/solves social problems, is the "Social Contract" assumption. 

Summary: both the "government works" assumption, and the "social contract" assumption are very powerful core "matrix" assumptions that will keep you quite firmly locked "inside the matrix" as long as you believe in them. 

In this great article below by Paul Rosenberg, the "Social Contract" assumption is closely examined and exposed as a yet another "matrix" fraud,  just like our old friend, the "government works" assumption, . Enjoy, onebornfree.]

                        


When you hear the word “social,” it’s even money that you’re being snookered.

“Social justice,” for example, is primarily a ruse for penalizing individuals without any finding of fact as to their individual guilt.

Whether you actually did anything deserving of penalty is irrelevant… it’s “social.” And if you question the deal, you’re a bad person.

The granddaddy of all the “social” scams, however, is the “social contract.” That’s what replaced the “divine right of kings” in the 17th and 18th centuries, when it was falling apart.

This is, in Wikipedia’s (slightly edited) words"

"a theory or model that addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual."

In other words, this was the new explanation of why it’s right for one group of men to rule over other men. Wikipedia continues:

"Arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler in exchange for protection of their remaining rights."

So, a group of rulers gets to ignore our rights, take away our money (continually), punish us when it wishes, and even send us off to war. And that’s all okay because we somehow agreed to the deal. It’s a “contract,” after all.

Except It’s Not

If an adult wants to sign away his rights and make himself a serf to politicians, that’s his choice, and I won’t take it from him. But for the deal to be legit, a clear agreement and authorizations on both sides are required.

A contract is (again per Wikipedia, with my emphasis):

"An agreement having a lawful object entered into voluntarily by two or more parties, each of whom intends to create one or more legal obligations between them. The elements of a contract are “offer” and “acceptance” by “competent persons” having legal capacity who exchange “consideration” to create “mutuality of obligation.”"


The social contract fails this standard in multiple ways. In fact, it is not a contract in any rational sense of the term. And if it’s not a contract, then the use of that word is fraudulent.

Fraud is a “false representation with the intent of persuading the victim to part with property,” and that is precisely what is being done with the social contract, and on a gigantic scale.

We have a supposed contract, and we have trillions of dollars changing hands, based upon its legitimacy. If, in fact, it is not a contract, then the entirety of the arrangement is a massive criminal fraud.

So, is this the “social contract” legitimate? Let’s examine some crucial aspects of contracts:

Competence

In order to agree to a contract, one must be competent. You cannot, for example, make a contract with a hungry five-year-old, trading a few candy bars for a third of the child’s lifetime earnings. The child is not competent and any such agreement is rightly considered invalid.

The social contract, however, is held to be binding upon us from birth. How is that possible? Can an infant do what a five-year-old or even a twelve-year-old cannot?

Verdict: The social contract fails.

Voluntary agreement

A contract must be agreed to. I was never given a choice to sign or reject such an agreement, and I doubt that you were either. There can be no contract at all without a voluntary agreement. (See the next point below for the standard objection.)

Verdict: The social contract fails.

Without duress

A contract must be agreed to “without duress.” That is, without a threat of harm.
The standard objection to my “agreement” point above is that people agree to the social contract by their actions: If you use anything provided by a government, you automatically agree to the entire social contract. That line of argument fails in several ways (entrapment for starters, followed by being informed), but the largest issue in my mind is that of duress.

To get out of the social contract, we are told, we must leave the ruler’s territory. That places the ruler’s rights above our own as a starting point, which voids any semblance of “equal justice.” But I’ll pass up that discussion for today.

Leaving the ruler’s territory means spending large amounts of money, a tremendous amount of time to make arrangements, leaving our jobs behind, leaving all our friends behind, and leaving our entire families behind.

In other words, we can only escape the social contract by undertaking difficult, expensive, and heartbreaking actions.

Imagine a Fuller Brush salesman coming to your door and offering you an assortment of brushes for thirty dollars. Then, when you politely decline, he pulls out a gun and says “No! If you don’t want the deal, you have to abandon your house. Either pay me or leave.”
Is this salesman’s demand criminal? If so, the social contract is criminal as well. Both seek to secure agreements by using duress.

Verdict: The social contract fails, both legally and on grounds of cruelty.

Undue influence

Undue influence involves “one person taking advantage of a position of power over another person.”

Clearly, this applies to the social contract. First, we are compelled to attend schools run by the “other party” to the contract. These institutions teach us that the social contract is the way of the world and that any competing ideas would be crazy. And we are held in their classrooms five or more hours per day, beginning at five-years-old and running until adulthood. (If nothing else, consider the daily “Pledge of Allegiance” and try to count the number of times you were made to recite it.)

On top of that, the “other party” employs legions of armed men and authorizes them to violently subdue those who oppose them and their rules.

If these things are not undue influence, then nothing is. You can’t indoctrinate the other party, hold a sword to his throat, force him to sign, and still call it a contract.

Verdict: The social contract fails.

Mutuality of obligation

With no “mutuality of obligation,” there can be no contract. If the other side of the contract is not meeting their obligations, there must be recourse.

After the US government failed to protect New Yorkers on 9/11, all eight million of them should have been entitled to a refund. Clearly the other side of the deal failed to meet their obligations. (That, of course, didn’t happen: the loss of their rights only got worse.)

And then we have the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which removes all the most serious consequences from the other side of the deal.

There is no mutuality of obligation in the social contract. Therefore, it’s not a contract.
Verdict: The social contract fails.

I could go on, but I think my point is made. I have cited five clear violations of contract law and alluded to several others. If even one of these is valid, the “social contract” is invalid.

If the terms of a contract are uncertain or incomplete, it’s no contract at all. And for one party to continue to seize the goods of the other, claiming a contractual right to do so, is criminal fraud.

The Real Purpose of the “Contract”

As with the divine right of kings that preceded it, the hidden and essential aspect of the social contract is to give subjects a reason to submit.

The obvious reason for the subject to submit is that rulers employ thousands of armed men, who are authorized and prepared to punish disobedience. This, however, isn’t really enough for effective rulership. Policemen and jails are expensive, and many, many more than our current number would be required, if fear was the sole reason for obedience.

For governance to work, the subjects must believe that obeying is the right thing to do, and that’s where the social contract comes in: It gives people a reason to obey, beyond a mere threat. It saves them from having to face fear or even to consciously submit.

Strange as it may sound, an effective ruler must equip his or her subjects to obey. It’s a fundamental factor in rulership. And that’s the true purpose of the “social contract.”

So…

By any legal standard, the “social contract” fails. That won’t cause any rulers to change, of course, but truth still matters to some of us.
Original article source
 Paul Rosenberg.
September 5, 2014


More About "Onebornfree":

"Onebornfree" is a personal freedom consultant and a musician. He can be reached at: onebornfreeatyahoodotcom  .

Onebornfree  Blogs: 
                                                                                         
 Onebornfree's Financial Safety blog[ Investment philosophy blog]

Onebornfree's 9/11Research Review blog[ A personal review of the state of 9/11 research]


The Freedom Network [ home page for the Freedom Network]

The Problem-Solver [Personal Freedom consulting]

Music Info: 

Onebornfree's [aka Fake-Eye D"] Music channel [Studio mixes + live solo recordings]

Fake Eye D's soundCloud channel [ no videos, so faster download]





Saturday, August 23, 2014

From Conservative To Anarchist


[Comment from Onebornfree and The Freedom Network: if you like this article, please take a look at the related article by the late Joe Sobran linked to at the bottom of the page.]

Four years ago, I became an anarchist, and I’ve never looked back. My political philosophy now runs through my veins. But this wasn’t always the case. I used to be a young, apathetic conservative. Then, I was introduced to libertarianism, which slowly turned me into an anarchist. This might sound crazy, but I assure you, it’s quite reasonable, and many people share my same story.
It all started in 2007. I was casually aware of politics at the time. My parents were conservative, so I was conservative. Youtube was still relatively new, and I remember one day stumbling across a video of Ron Paul. I was immediately intrigued. Here was this funny old man saying the opposite of his fellow Republicans on stage, and he called himself a “Constitutional conservative”. This sounded appealing. He would say all these fascinating things I’d never heard before, and the more videos I watched, the more excited I became. After only a few weeks, I was fully on-board with the platform of this Ron Paul guy. Little did I know this resonance with a political philosophy would change my life.
If you know anything about Ron Paul, you know he’s an exception to the rule. He was a politician, yes, but only in title. Politicians are (rightly) known as slimy, spineless, unprincipled folk whose political ambition overrules any shred of integrity they possess. Ron is the opposite. He defies the oxymoron “principled politician”. He’s been called the one exception to the gang of 535. And it shows when he talks. He doesn’t appeal to rhetorical flourishes or woo the crowd with empty platitudes. He really believes what he says and speaks out of conviction, something nonexistent among politicians.
But to me, ultimately, Ron Paul is a charming, principled nerd. He’s an extremely well-educated man in every area of political thought, especially Economics. He puts philosophic ideas above politics or elections. In fact, he used his presidential campaigns as educational platforms. Ron didn’t think he could win, but he knew more people would discover the power of free-market ideas if he ran for president.
But as he would tell you, Ron Paul’s ideas are more important than his person. Millions of people were swayed by the philosophy of freedom, not just his charming personality. The core principles of limited government resonated through all political upbringings, whether you identified as a liberal, conservative, or were apathetic.
Given my conservative ideology, I knew that lots of people gave lip service to the Constitution, but rarely did they defend it consistently. They supported military intervention overseas, but balked at the idea of requiring Congress to formally declare war. They complained about the Department of Education, but would only support gentle budget cuts, at most. Ron said what conservatives were too afraid to say: get the government out of education altogether. We don’t need a 10% budget reduction; we need to abolish the whole department! Conservatives say they support individual responsibility and don’t want a nanny-state. Then how can they support the War on Drugs? If an adult decides to peacefully smoke pot in his basement, and not hurt anybody, we don’t need a nanny-state micro-manage his life and throw him in jail. Conservatives supposedly want you to be free to make bad decisions, as long as you pay the consequences for them.
Probably the most controversial position Ron held was on the US military. He thought, as old-school conservatives did, that we should be extremely cautious before intervening in foreign affairs. He also thought the Pentagon wasn’t infallible; they are prone to the same egregious waste and mismanagement as the Department of Education. This ruffled a lot of feathers. It shouldn’t have. Ron simply applied the same principles across the whole spectrum of government.
He was consistent, and he kept coming back to the following principle: what is the proper role of government? Before we argue about cutting 10% of the Department of Education’s budget, shouldn’t we discuss whether or not it should exist in the first place? Is it appropriate, or even Constitutional, for the Executive Branch to send troops into foreign counties for an extended amount of time without Congressional declaration? Before we nibble around the edges of government spending, we need to talk about what government should do in the first place.
To me, he was precisely correct, but it revealed an unsavory truth: Republicans and Democrats aren’t so different from each other. One party might want to raise spending 5%; the other might want to cut spending 5%, but both favor the status quo and support big government in their respective areas. Liberals and conservatives are like two sides of the same coin. Constitutional conservatism, I thought, represented a real alternative.
But my journey didn’t stop there, because Ron implanted a little seed in my head. When he spoke, he often mentioned the “Austrian School of Economics”. I never heard of it, but eventually, I decided to Google around. What I discovered changed my life. I came across the Mises Institute, which had a number of free books and lectures online about Austrian Economics. I was immediately enamored. The explanatory power of Economics was breathtaking. After diving into the literature, I didn’t simply believe government was inefficient, I understood why. This had an enormous impact on my political philosophy, and it started my transition to radical libertarianism.
I now believe it’s impossible to have a clear understanding about how the world works without Economics. The coordination of prices, profits, and losses in a market is awe-inspiring. No exaggeration – it is almost miraculous. I will write extensively about this at a later time. But suffice to say, Economics became a pillar around which I would develop my other political beliefs.
The further I learned – the further I went down the rabbit hole of Austrian Economics – the more “radical” I became. Not only was government inefficient at delivering mail, but they were inefficient everywhere they intervened. The same economic principles apply to the Post Office as apply to the Patent Office. Of course, this wasn’t radicalism for the sake of radicalism, it was just consistency. And if you apply economic principles consistently across the board, you are left with a very grim perspective of government. However, I was no anarchist.
I firmly believed in small-government libertarianism. Markets could handle everything except few core services: the courts, military, and police. Of course, this would be considered wildly limited government compared to today’s standards.
My first interaction with an anarchist, ironically enough, was as an intern in Ron Paul’s congressional office. I was given the opportunity to be his intern in DC for a semester, and one of his staffers considered himself an anarchist. He was a nice guy, but I didn’t take his ideas too seriously.
But that changed in the summer of 2010. I was fortunate enough to attend a conference for students at the Mises Institute – the organization I held in such high regard. The conference was called “Mises University”, and it would be a week long, focusing solely on Austrian Economics. I was elated, and it turned out to be one of the most intellectually stimulating weeks of my life. I was surrounded with the smartest peers I’ve ever met.
A few lectures hinted at the possibility of complete statelessness – the idea that private entrepreneurs could better provide all the services of government, including courts, military, and police. Supposedly, for the same reasons we don’t want government to monopolize the production of shoes, we don’t want them to monopolize the court system or the production of national defense. I wasn’t convinced.
During the middle of the week, I was forced to adjust my beliefs a little bit, so I called myself a “Secessionist” for a few days. But I was no anarchist. I agreed with some core ideas – that taxation is fundamentally coercive and is therefore theft. I agreed that markets were based on voluntary, peaceful human interaction, while governments were necessarily based on violence or threats of violence; and I agreed that, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t need any coercion whatsoever – voluntary decisions would reign supreme. But, I thought, we don’t live in a perfect world, and surely in some circumstances, large groups of people wouldn’t care about the “rights” of an individual. Statelessness might sound nice in theory, but in practice, people wouldn’t respect the property rights of a lone anarchist, declaring his independence in the middle of a city.
Until one night, when I was challenged by a fellow student named Dan. He was a pretty burly guy, former Air Force I think, and we were hanging out at one of the local bars after the lectures. (Of course, “hanging out at the bar” at Mises University really meant “talking loudly about nerdy ideas in public places”. I remember some locals dancing at the bar, but they were outnumbered 3-1 by sweaty geeks talking about monetary history.)
I told Dan about my hesitations with anarchism, and he said he understood. “But,” he said, “let me ask you this: if I want to opt out of government services, should I be able to?” It’s a simple question, but I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to say, “Of course you should be able to opt out of government services! If you don’t want to pay, you don’t have to, but then you don’t get to use the services.” But alas, such an admission would be tantamount to anarchism. After all, government services are by definition tied to taxation, and you can’t opt out of taxation. Doing so would be opting out of government, which is precisely what these anarchists were talking about.
On the other hand, I couldn’t say with a straight face that indeed, Dan should never be able to opt out of government services. I’d have to be willing to put him in jail if he tried. Even if his decision to opt out was poor – if he’d be better off by using the services – I couldn’t justify forcing him to pay for something he didn’t want. So, I was perplexed. I didn’t have a good response, and I remember slowly responding, “I think I might be an anarchist now.”
I wrestled with that question for the next few months, as I kept trying to justify the existence of involuntary government. I read a book called Chaos Theory by Bob Murphy, which has a section on the private production of law. My list of necessary government services dwindled. Then it happened: I became a closet anarchist. After playing devil’s advocate so much with myself – being an annoying anarchist – I couldn’t find a proper counter-argument to my critiques of limited government.
I was shocked. I couldn’t believe I’d ended up so far away from where I started. I thought anarchists were bomb-throwing hooligans who smashed in windows for recreation. But this type of anarchism was about private property and peaceful, voluntary cooperation. I saw the contradictions and inconsistencies in popular conservatism, and I couldn’t stomach it any longer.
By the end of 2010, I came out of the closet. But I didn’t know what to call myself. “Anarchist” seemed too dramatic and hot-button. (Believe it or not, people dismiss you rather quickly upon identifying as an anarchist.) I toyed around with labels like “anti-statist” or other nonsense, but I’ve recently settled on the term I find most appropriate: market anarchism.
You can sum up market anarchism succinctly: all the services which are currently provided by governments can be more efficiently and ethically provided by private entrepreneurs. Granted, there’s a million different ways to phrase it, but that’s how I prefer. Really not so radical, is it?
Four years later, and my conviction has become stronger. The explanatory power of market anarchism is unparalleled. Politics finally makes sense when you throw out the romance surrounding government and patriotism. But what’s surprising to me is how my own justification for anarchism has changed. I still wholly subscribe to Austrian Economic theory, but now I am even more compelled by the ethical and philosophic arguments for anarchism. To an anarchist, it’s clear as day: taxation is theft. Theft is immoral. Therefore, taxation is immoral, which condemns government as immoral. Simple and profound.
Upon taking the leap to anarchism, it appears preposterous and naive to try and manage the lives of a hundred million people from a central planning board. Social problems involving 300 million people aren’t resolvable by one tiny group forcing everybody to act a certain way, threatening them with jail time if they don’t comply. It seems clear.
On a philosophic level, proponents for government run into trouble: what exactly is a government, anyway? Upon inspection, “governments” are only grandiose, harmful abstractions; they have no tangible reality. We live in a world inhabited by humans – not “governments” or “countries”. This might sound absurd – and I won’t defend the claims right now – but I intend to give rigorous explanations for these ideas in the future.
The anarchist worldview is radically individualist, not because it views people as isolated decision-makers, but because individualism is the most philosophically critical way of viewing the world. It helps us avoid dramatic abstractions and opens up the world of economic thinking. And at this point, I can’t imagine turning back; anarchism has gone to my core.
If anybody is intrigued by this story, I only ask they pursue the topic sincerely. Hold on to your objections as long as you can, and see if your beliefs can withstand the criticism of market anarchist arguments. I humbly suggest starting with Austrian Economics and see where it leads. I, for one, sought political truths as a young conservative, and I believe I’ve found them in market anarchism.
Reprinted with permission from Steve Patterson.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Withdraw Consent-Video

[Onebornfree/Freedom Network commentary: The system is a scam- however the system cannot be changed/improved. Trying to change it "for the better"only strengthens it and makes it larger and worse than it already is. Instead, simply withdraw consent. If you need help with the "withdrawing consent" part, maybe I could help. Email : onebornfreeatyahoodotcom . Regards onebornfree ]:


                 

Youtube 

Regards, onebornfree

Monday, August 4, 2014

"The God-Like Vanity of Central Planners" -Bill Bonner

[Onebornfree/Freedom Network commentary: Bill Bonner is one of the few financial writers that I bother to keep up with these days, not because I always agree with his opinion on the economy etc., although I fairly often do, but because he is a very good and thoughtful writer who makes me think; he does not pull any punches, and he is also often very funny, so he makes me laugh as well as think.  However, this particular piece by him, although originally directed at his usual audience, and therefor superficially concerned with business/finance/investment, and related economic issues, has far broader implications, and the "big picture" message - the futility of central planning - has, in my opinion, very  important implications and broad principles that can be applied to all facets of an individuals life.  My only "quibble" with this article is his use of the economist F.A, Hayek's "Fatal Conceit"  quote and related as a supposed illustration of  Bonner's  ideal, when in fact, if you dig below the surface, you will discover that Hayek, although he superficially talked "a good game", was, ultimately, very much a statist/central planner himself :-)  . Regards, onebornfree.]



"There are those who believe they can make the right decision more right… or the poet more poetic. And although many of these snake-oil salesmen content themselves with a quick buck and the next train out of town, some of them go for the long con. These are the central planners.


The illusions, mistakes and misconceptions of central planners take their toll in a great variety of ways – mostly as costly nuisances. Occasionally, when they are particularly ambitious, they make the history books.

Napoleon’s march on Moscow. Mao’s great famine. The Soviet Union’s 70-year economic experiment. These fiascos are caused by well-meaning, smart public officials. They are the Hell to which the road paved with good intentions leads.

The Fatal Conceit

Sometimes, a mistaken public policy can be reversed or abandoned before it has done serious harm. Mostly, however, a combination of special circumstances makes correction impossible. The disastrous policies are reinforced until they finally reckon themselves out in a catastrophic way.

Large-scale planners fail because they believe three things that aren’t true.

First, that they know the exact and entire present state of the community they are planning for (wants, desires, hopes, capabilities, resources); second, that they know where the community ought to go (what future would be best); third, that they are capable of creating the future they want.

None of those things is more than an illusion. Together, they constitute what F.A. Hayek called “the fatal conceit… that man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes.”

Each man always does his level best to shape his world in a way that pleases him. One wants a fat wife. One wants a fortune. One wants to spend his time playing golf. Each will try to get what he wants depending upon the circumstances. And the future will happen.

The pretension of the central planner is he knows a better future – one that he can design and bring about.

The god-like vanity of this assertion is staggering. No one knows what future is best for humankind. People only know what they want.

The Future Has to Wait

We presume the best future is the one in which people get what they want… or at the very least what they deserve.


A man burning in Hell may want ice cream; it doesn’t mean he will get it. But the central planner presumes to know not only what he wants, but also what he should have. (It is scarcely worth mentioning that the central planner’s hands are as empty as his head. He has no ice cream to give anyone.)

Where individual plans and evolution will take us collectively no one knows. Fate will have the final say. But the central planner will have his say first, disrupting the plans of millions of people in the process. He certainly has no amor fati. It would put him out of business.

Instead, he steps in to impose his version of the future. And as soon as the smallest bit of time and resources are shanghaied for his ends rather than those of individual planners, the rate of natural, evolutionary progress slows.

The millions of private trials that would have otherwise taken place are postponed or canceled. The errors that might have been revealed and corrected are not discovered. The future has to wait.

Even when they are applied with ruthless thoroughness, central plans inevitably and eventually go FUBAR. No “workers’ paradise” ever happens. The War on Drugs (or Poverty… or Crime… or Terror… or Cancer) ends in a defeat, not a victory. Unemployment does not go down. The “war to end war” doesn’t end war. The Domino Theory falls; the dominoes don’t.

And if any of these grand programs “succeeds,” it does so by undoing previous plans often at a cost that is far out of balance with the reward. World War II is an example of central planning that seemed to work. But the Allies were merely nullifying the efforts of more ambitious central planners in Germany and Japan.

A Not So Rational Life

Generally, life on Earth is not so “rational” that it lends itself to simple-minded, heavy-handed intervention by the naïve social engineer.


Sure, we can design bridges. Houses too. And particle accelerators. But we cannot design economies. No more than we can invent real languages. Societies. Customs. Markets. Love. Marriages. Children. Or any of the other important things in life.

Not to overstate the case, however, it is also true that humans can design and achieve a certain kind of future. If the planners at the Pentagon, for example, decided that a nuclear war would be a good thing, they could bring it about. The effects would be huge. And hugely effective.

This extreme example reveals the only kind of alternative future that the planners are capable of delivering. Large-scale central planning can be effective, but only by pulverizing the delicate fabric of evolved civilized life.

It is a future that practically no one wants, because it means destroying the many different futures already in the works – marriages, businesses, babies, baptisms, hunting trips, shopping, investments and all the other activities of normal life.

Not all central planning produces calamities on that scale, of course. But all, to the extent they are effective, are repulsive. The more they achieve the planners’ goals, the more they interfere with private goals, and the more they retard or destroy the progress of the human race."

Article Source

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

11 Tactics Used by the Mainstream Media to Manufacture Consent for the Oligarchy

        The mainstream media is aging and collapsing under the weight of its own hubris and arrogance. Now entirely formulaic in presentation and predictable in substance, the ‘major’ outlets of news, which are monopolized under only a small handful of corporations, serve the purpose of misleading the public on important issues and manufacturing consent for government and the oligarchs.

                         

The public is still largely numb to this reality, and in a wicked catch-22 for modern man, many people are still addicted to the very media that serves as the primary weapon of social control against them.

The tide is turning, however, and to help break the spell we bring you this comprehensive list of 11 tactics used against the public by the mainstream media to coerce consensus, divide, conquer, ridicule and stifle truthful or meaningful conversation about the state of our world.

1. Lying by Omission – What is not on the nightly news? This is the most important question to ask when consuming mainstream media. The average hour-long broadcast consists of 48 minutes or less of actual news programming, minus, of course, the chit-chatting, the expensive motion graphics and the bumpers, highlights and story recaps. With a formula like this, full of pomp and grandstanding, the impression given is that if it does not make it on the nightly news, then it is not of significance. The most obvious way in which the mainstream media manufactures consent for policy makers and advertisers is by omitting from the news reel those stories and perspectives which may compromise the broadcasters' agenda, whatever that may be.

2. Controlling the Debate – Who is arguing, and for what cause? News programs are businesses just like anything else and, as such, news executives keep a go-to list of  contacts to fulfill any necessary role in a program or segment. If the government needs credibility, they roll out an ex-president and remind you that he has ‘gravitas.’ If the military-industrial complex needs a voice, then they roll out a familiar think-tanker to interject in a debate with a common-sense perspective in favor of national security. If something is too complicated for public consumption, then they open the Rolodex to the ‘experts’ page and shuffle some know-it-all in front of the camera. The media is laden with groomed pundits, so-called opinion leaders, and commentators, and each one has a definite reputation, each one resonates with a specific target audience, and each one fills a predictable role in a conversation. Program guests are very well vetted, and news is a science, a very lucrative science that excels in giving the impression of a diversity in ideas while keeping the debate sequestered in a very well-constructed box. The characters in this box make all the difference.

3. Selecting the Right Anchors, Casters and Presenters – Our lives have been pegged to the dollar, and as such, a ‘good job’ is valued above many genuine virtues. People like to keep their jobs, as do news anchors and newscasters, and since news is, again, a business, the voices and faces on news programs are hired to perform a role, a job description, a task. They are not employed to pursue morally driven journalism for the benefit of society. If they perform as they are required, they advance and gain more exposure. If they rock the boat, there are a thousand other hungry job-seekers champing at the bit to replace them and do exactly they are hired to do. News anchoring is a job like anything else, and those at the forefront are the best at playing the role.

4. Scripting and Synchronizing News – One of the creepier and more blatant efforts to homogenize thought and manufacture consent is to script the news at high level, then distribute these scripts to many different locales and anchors to read verbatim, while they feign authenticity. This is partially a result of the business decision to save money by employing as few actual news gatherers as possible, but is also a key part of the strategy to achieve conformity amongst people of different backgrounds and interests. The government has also been known to interject itself into the chain of command for selecting which news scripts are to be disseminated to the public. This is the most fundamental characteristic of propaganda, and is rather embarrassing to witness once you realize just how disingenuous your local news presenters are and just how easily duped most people are.

5. Politicizing Everything – Language is the greatest weapon of social control, and with mainstream media, powerfully debilitating language is pushed into every corner of our consciousness. Conservative vs. Liberal. Democrat vs. Republican. Right-winger vs. Left-winger. Good vs. Bad. Left vs. Right. Right vs. Wrong. White vs. Black. And so on. Ad nauseam. The truth is that ideas and opinions are as vastly different as grains of sand on a beach, yet the media intentionally frames every issue in terms of a phony left-right paradigm that has been constructed to pigeon hole complex ideas and interests into a cheapened thought prison. No unorthodox idea or point of view can reach critical mass because everything is automatically framed in a ‘with us or against us’ mindset, turning people against each other for no reason other than to appeal to our desire to be on the winning team. The mainstream media is the chief party responsible for creating the constructs of ‘left’ and ‘right,’ which have been tightly integrated into our social consciousness as a means of achieving divisiveness and disagreement among the populace. This is the chief tactic of divide and conquer, and when people are compelled on any issue to ‘pick a team’ and fight the rivalry to its bitter end, many opportunities for true progress are lost and the populace is easily goaded into a position favorable to the elite.

6. Using the Language of Separation and Labels – Sometime in the 1990s, the mainstream media stopped referring to people as ‘people’ or even as ‘citizens’ and began calling everyone ‘consumers.’ Once again, language is important to shaping reality, and as ‘consumers’ our role in the affairs of business and state are reduced to hapless bystanders whose job it is to choose and reject, not interject and affect. We’ve all heard the label ‘conspiracy theorist,’ which is the most popular label used when an idea or story is unfavorable to the mainstream media and the interests that back them up. You are a ‘conspiracy theorist’ if you ask questions, assimilate facts in a logical manner, or pursue justice outside of the main flow of public discourse on a popular issue. This type of language is also part of the process of politicizing everything, and by also labeling people in accordance with their country of origin, religion, skin color, economic class, or whatever else, more wedges of division are driven into the populace, deflating our inherent power in numbers.

7. Asking the Wrong Questions – Press access to ‘important’ people in our society is tightly regulated, and the powers-that-be don’t like to be confronted with unexpected and hard questions. For this, the mainstream media dutifully uses its access to people in high places to ask softball, trivial, nonsensical, ignorant questions about irrelevant and superfluous issues. Independent media is winning the long race against corporate/fascist propagandized media because people are naturally inclined to resonate with common sense and truth, which is not at all what corporate mainline media is involved with. White House correspondents shouldn’t waste our time and insult our intelligence by asking a war-time president about his pet dog or a recent golfing trip. But they do, all the time.

8. Closing the Book Too Soon – Moving an important or complicated issue from the front page as quickly as possible is a common strategy to remove touchy subjects from the public conversation. Sadly, our national attention span is at an all-time low, mostly because we’ve been trained to move from issue to issue with lightening speed, never soaking up any one thing for too long. With such a short-term memory, it is easy to protect a politician, forget a genocide, ignore the long-term effects of a bank bailout, and so on, just by moving onto to something new. Once the media has signaled that a story has been resolved or adequately discussed, then any afterthought, individual investigation, or further inquiry is labeled as extremist and ignored.

9. Triviality and Distraction – With all of the important decisions being made daily by powerful people, decisions that genuinely affect quality of life for many people, the news outlets are steadfastly devoted to engaging in gossip, entertainment, murders and acts of violence, car accidents, disasters and other pablum. The body politic is kept confused by celebrity happenings, endless sports contests and other such pageantry, and the media uses these many forms of distractions to fill time and brain space so that important issues are seen as a drag or as a downer, and never given proper reflection. This is so ubiquitous in our society nowadays that there really is no escape.

10. Outright Lying – When all else fails, just lie, make it up as you go along, sell your air time to the highest bidder, and never look back. In the Internet age, people are pretty keen on fact checking, rebutting, arguing, and gathering stats, and there are enough facts available to prove any side to any story. In fact, this has become an art form for major media, and the ability to gather facts in accordance with an agenda is a profitable skill for the mainstream media. Lying has always worked, and the bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed.

11. Bonus – Eye Candy and Mind Melting – This one is a bonus and part of the new era of network news. Rather than employ virtuous gumshoes and hardcore reporters of truth, mainstream media instead invests in graphic artists to make each frame of the broadcast an over-designed motion collage of brain-melting info overload. Staying focused on what the anchor or guest is actually saying is impossible. By design, the news is presented in a mad shotgun blast of competing signals, and your attention is split in ten directions with tickers, bubbles, stock footage, gyrating lights and special effects. The point here is to exhaust the mind with over-stimulation so that the brain cannot function methodically and cannot process an issue beyond the shallow surface. This is also known as hypnotism, or mind-control.

Conclusion


News is a commodity just like everything else these days, and although many still believe the point of news is to inform, it is important to accept the hard truth that the purpose of the news is really just to sell something, be it a product, an idea, a candidate, a public image, a war, or whatever. For this, the mainstream media is focused on first deciding which issues are to be discussed in the public forum, then by using a bagful of tricks to shape people’s perceptions of an issue, the media divides us and pits us against each other while leading us into consent for an underlying and hidden agenda.

Sigmund Fraud is a survivor of modern psychiatry and a dedicated mental activist. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com, where this first appeared
, and where he indulges in the possibility of a massive shift towards a more psychologically aware future for mankind.

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