by Andrew Mellon
As we embark upon a new year of trying to save this country and restore its founding principles, I have spent much time contemplating questions of readers — most important of which is that given the massive problems we continue to face, and would face even with the most principled conservative Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, what can be done?
But in order to deal with our current struggles, we must recognize that they are symptoms. The cure to these symptoms lies in dealing with their root causes. However, even before dealing with our struggles and their root causes, we must ask, what is our vision for America, and what is the role of government in helping to ensure it rather than dooming us to never reach it?
My view of America is a country in which people are free to pursue their greatest good as they see it, or as the founders put it to create a land in which people can pursue their happiness. This system presupposes that the people are protected. Before people can partake in mutually beneficial trade and activity, they must be reasonably secure in their persons and their property. As such, free markets and the free people that create these markets require strong national defense.
So the vision should be clear — government’s role is to lay the foundation for people to be free, furnishing and preserving prosperity by providing defense for it, both against external aggressors and internal ones by providing a set of stable laws protecting private property and contracts specifically and the individual generally.
Where we stand today is that the government, created to ensure these things is instead imperiling them. Rather than securing private property it consumes and redistributes it. Further, at every avenue government creates barriers to the free voluntary exchange of goods and services that heretofore have provided such unparalleled levels of comfort for us all. Rather than defending us from foreign enemies it cuts deals with them, concedes to them and generally submits to them out of political correctness, moral relativism and an inane commitment to multiculturalism.
As such, in my view we are headed for catastrophe, with the only question being whether it is our economy that completely collapses through the insolvency of our government which will bring down much of the real economy through crippling interest rates and the chaos caused by the collapse of the welfare state, a currency collapse whose effects will be the same or a terrorist attack or attacks that lead to either of these scenarios. Regardless, business will plod along lethargically as the growth of the state continues to suffocate it. That the economy has continued to function at all is a testament to the will of people who continue to produce in the face of looters trying to play G-d and centrally plan the lives of the masses for their own good.
On defense, we are at war with enemies that we are unable to identify, even though they clearly spell out their doctrines and telegraph their plays for us. Islam is at war with us, and perpetually throughout history has been at war with all who refuse to submit to it. The allies of those Muslims who overtly work to destroy western civilization through the murder of innocents and those who covertly do so through cultural and legal means are the leftists both abroad and in the US who either find in the Muslim world a common enemy in the west, or who are Lenin’s useful idiots. Islam lays out its battle plan in the Koran, the Hadith and the rest of its canon, and Marx, Lenin, Gramsci and Alinsky lay out very clearly in effect the jihad of the Communists in their own tomes and letters, a vision which includes using subterfuge and other means to allow the west to kill itself from within.
A document on the strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America contained the following:
George W. Bush was correct when he identified an Axis of Evil, but he painted an incomplete picture; it includes far more countries than he knew or would have cared to admit. If we were to study the doctrines of our enemies, we would see that amongst both adherents to Islam and socialism, not only are the tactics the same — in letting your enemy commit suicide by deceiving him on fronts both cultural to change the perceptions of society and legal to slowly but surely whittle away his foundational institutions, but so too are the goals. Both devout Muslims and leftists seek to create all-encompassing totalitarian governments worldwide, under Shariah law in the case of the Muslims and under the rule of omnipotent elites in the case of the leftists. The systems are based on man being a slave to a deity or to his fellow man, from the annoying regulation to the forced labor camp.
While “progressives” have been on the march however, leading to policies that weaken both our economy and our defenses, our failure has been that we have not proposed an alternative vision. We have not argued the moral case for capitalism, and we have not articulated what a prudent military policy should consist in.
I would argue that the Austrian school of economics, long forgotten amongst the elite is the only school that has consistently explained why economies grow and why they collapse, and how it is government intervention, primarily through the central planning of money and credit in a bank like the Federal Reserve that sows the seeds of ultimate collapse; and secondarily through intervention in confiscatory taxation, subsidization, protectionism, incessant regulation and redistribution of wealth that ends up bankrupting nations and has done so historically, with the central bank as the trusty aid of the politicians who perpetuate this system by helping pay off chosen constituents.
Until we have studied the works of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, Frederic Bastiat and countless others, we will not be armed with the weaponry to begin fighting the disinformation and sophistry of the Keynesians and all others who argue that intervention is not only economically beneficial but moral, contrary to all reason and experience in the history of mankind. Perhaps this immorality is shown most in the fact that anywhere and everywhere socialism has been tried, ultimately the result has been poverty, misery and in some cases widespread death. More importantly, the crux of the split between socialists and capitalists again rests on the notion that while socialists believe that man should control his fellow man, capitalists believe that every man is a sovereign king.
History also leads us to understand the proper object of defense. Defense is not about spreading one’s ideologies or building nations in our image. Defense is about annihilating those who threaten the blessings of liberty and/or threatening to exact such a punishment on our enemies for their cowardly acts that they will never dare attack us. In order to properly defend ourselves, we must recognize our enemies without fear of political correctness or hurt feelings. Evil must be identified as evil and dealt with swiftly and forcefully.
What are the implications on economics and defense? On the former, that the welfare state is collapsing as less people pay into the system while more people become its recipients, and that central planning in all its forms is further causing the economy to fail, and on the latter that Islam and socialism are united against us and that their doctrines which contain their visions and stratagem are written out for us and have revealed themselves through countless acts — they reveal themselves in the things we are afraid to say even in close company and in the workings and machinations that we see daily overseas and at home, including of course outright attacks.
I feel much more confident that Americans will wake up to the forces of evil in the world as they see more images of a Europe that has allowed Muslim immigration en masse and because of a natural distrust of socialist countries, than in Americans ever begging their politicians to abolish the welfare state, and shudder the countless Washington bureaucracies that plague us (including the Federal Reserve that lies at the heart of the expansion of the state). Rather, men will argue against the unjust redistribution of wealth or position that the government confers when it is in their own self-interest to do so, but so far as government favoritism towards themselves they will seek to hold it as closely as possible, not realizing that they are contributing to an unjust, economically infeasible system that will collapse, to the detriment of all.
These problems are age old. Too, their solutions have always laid in understanding their causes. If our government has run up insurmountable debts, look at the programs causing the debts and eradicate them. If the economy is sputtering, look at all of the things that are impeding it, including a sound currency, barriers to trade and innovation and the prevention of the price system from functioning, which allows for coordination and the spontaneous order of markets and do away with them. If we are unsafe, recognize who it is that is making us unsafe, study the enemy and devise a plan to eradicate him or show him that his truculence will lead to his demise.
This can only be effectuated through policy however, which requires all of us to arm ourselves with the right ideas and then to devise a political strategy to propagate them; on this front we can learn much from our opponents. For the government reflects its people, and as such will require a populace imbued with such views as we have discussed herein. We have yet to truly begin an ideological fight directed by a clear vision, one which is based on protecting the natural rights of the individual and which represents the Judeo-Christian morals on which our country is based, while our enemies have been doing so for over a century. We must do so in earnest if we are to have any chance at reclaiming our country.
Big Government
As we embark upon a new year of trying to save this country and restore its founding principles, I have spent much time contemplating questions of readers — most important of which is that given the massive problems we continue to face, and would face even with the most principled conservative Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, what can be done?
But in order to deal with our current struggles, we must recognize that they are symptoms. The cure to these symptoms lies in dealing with their root causes. However, even before dealing with our struggles and their root causes, we must ask, what is our vision for America, and what is the role of government in helping to ensure it rather than dooming us to never reach it?
My view of America is a country in which people are free to pursue their greatest good as they see it, or as the founders put it to create a land in which people can pursue their happiness. This system presupposes that the people are protected. Before people can partake in mutually beneficial trade and activity, they must be reasonably secure in their persons and their property. As such, free markets and the free people that create these markets require strong national defense.
So the vision should be clear — government’s role is to lay the foundation for people to be free, furnishing and preserving prosperity by providing defense for it, both against external aggressors and internal ones by providing a set of stable laws protecting private property and contracts specifically and the individual generally.
Where we stand today is that the government, created to ensure these things is instead imperiling them. Rather than securing private property it consumes and redistributes it. Further, at every avenue government creates barriers to the free voluntary exchange of goods and services that heretofore have provided such unparalleled levels of comfort for us all. Rather than defending us from foreign enemies it cuts deals with them, concedes to them and generally submits to them out of political correctness, moral relativism and an inane commitment to multiculturalism.
As such, in my view we are headed for catastrophe, with the only question being whether it is our economy that completely collapses through the insolvency of our government which will bring down much of the real economy through crippling interest rates and the chaos caused by the collapse of the welfare state, a currency collapse whose effects will be the same or a terrorist attack or attacks that lead to either of these scenarios. Regardless, business will plod along lethargically as the growth of the state continues to suffocate it. That the economy has continued to function at all is a testament to the will of people who continue to produce in the face of looters trying to play G-d and centrally plan the lives of the masses for their own good.
On defense, we are at war with enemies that we are unable to identify, even though they clearly spell out their doctrines and telegraph their plays for us. Islam is at war with us, and perpetually throughout history has been at war with all who refuse to submit to it. The allies of those Muslims who overtly work to destroy western civilization through the murder of innocents and those who covertly do so through cultural and legal means are the leftists both abroad and in the US who either find in the Muslim world a common enemy in the west, or who are Lenin’s useful idiots. Islam lays out its battle plan in the Koran, the Hadith and the rest of its canon, and Marx, Lenin, Gramsci and Alinsky lay out very clearly in effect the jihad of the Communists in their own tomes and letters, a vision which includes using subterfuge and other means to allow the west to kill itself from within.
A document on the strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America contained the following:
The Ikhwan [the Muslim Brotherhood's name for itself] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.Lenin is said to have remarked:
The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.Strategic deception, the equivalent of taqiyya in Islam is key to socialist strategy and helps to explain much in the world — it explains why Communist countries have opened their markets to capital from free countries to allow us to build them up, and why these trade partners continue to ally with and fund various outwardly hostile nations, oftentimes Muslim ones. It gives us a basis for understanding the moves and motives of the Chinese, Russians, North Koreans, Venezuelans and their proxies. Its success is reflected in the incrementalist move towards socialism in the US as opposed the the failed sudden revolutions of the past, which has been occurring as we have built in part or in full the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto.
George W. Bush was correct when he identified an Axis of Evil, but he painted an incomplete picture; it includes far more countries than he knew or would have cared to admit. If we were to study the doctrines of our enemies, we would see that amongst both adherents to Islam and socialism, not only are the tactics the same — in letting your enemy commit suicide by deceiving him on fronts both cultural to change the perceptions of society and legal to slowly but surely whittle away his foundational institutions, but so too are the goals. Both devout Muslims and leftists seek to create all-encompassing totalitarian governments worldwide, under Shariah law in the case of the Muslims and under the rule of omnipotent elites in the case of the leftists. The systems are based on man being a slave to a deity or to his fellow man, from the annoying regulation to the forced labor camp.
While “progressives” have been on the march however, leading to policies that weaken both our economy and our defenses, our failure has been that we have not proposed an alternative vision. We have not argued the moral case for capitalism, and we have not articulated what a prudent military policy should consist in.
I would argue that the Austrian school of economics, long forgotten amongst the elite is the only school that has consistently explained why economies grow and why they collapse, and how it is government intervention, primarily through the central planning of money and credit in a bank like the Federal Reserve that sows the seeds of ultimate collapse; and secondarily through intervention in confiscatory taxation, subsidization, protectionism, incessant regulation and redistribution of wealth that ends up bankrupting nations and has done so historically, with the central bank as the trusty aid of the politicians who perpetuate this system by helping pay off chosen constituents.
Until we have studied the works of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, Frederic Bastiat and countless others, we will not be armed with the weaponry to begin fighting the disinformation and sophistry of the Keynesians and all others who argue that intervention is not only economically beneficial but moral, contrary to all reason and experience in the history of mankind. Perhaps this immorality is shown most in the fact that anywhere and everywhere socialism has been tried, ultimately the result has been poverty, misery and in some cases widespread death. More importantly, the crux of the split between socialists and capitalists again rests on the notion that while socialists believe that man should control his fellow man, capitalists believe that every man is a sovereign king.
History also leads us to understand the proper object of defense. Defense is not about spreading one’s ideologies or building nations in our image. Defense is about annihilating those who threaten the blessings of liberty and/or threatening to exact such a punishment on our enemies for their cowardly acts that they will never dare attack us. In order to properly defend ourselves, we must recognize our enemies without fear of political correctness or hurt feelings. Evil must be identified as evil and dealt with swiftly and forcefully.
What are the implications on economics and defense? On the former, that the welfare state is collapsing as less people pay into the system while more people become its recipients, and that central planning in all its forms is further causing the economy to fail, and on the latter that Islam and socialism are united against us and that their doctrines which contain their visions and stratagem are written out for us and have revealed themselves through countless acts — they reveal themselves in the things we are afraid to say even in close company and in the workings and machinations that we see daily overseas and at home, including of course outright attacks.
I feel much more confident that Americans will wake up to the forces of evil in the world as they see more images of a Europe that has allowed Muslim immigration en masse and because of a natural distrust of socialist countries, than in Americans ever begging their politicians to abolish the welfare state, and shudder the countless Washington bureaucracies that plague us (including the Federal Reserve that lies at the heart of the expansion of the state). Rather, men will argue against the unjust redistribution of wealth or position that the government confers when it is in their own self-interest to do so, but so far as government favoritism towards themselves they will seek to hold it as closely as possible, not realizing that they are contributing to an unjust, economically infeasible system that will collapse, to the detriment of all.
These problems are age old. Too, their solutions have always laid in understanding their causes. If our government has run up insurmountable debts, look at the programs causing the debts and eradicate them. If the economy is sputtering, look at all of the things that are impeding it, including a sound currency, barriers to trade and innovation and the prevention of the price system from functioning, which allows for coordination and the spontaneous order of markets and do away with them. If we are unsafe, recognize who it is that is making us unsafe, study the enemy and devise a plan to eradicate him or show him that his truculence will lead to his demise.
This can only be effectuated through policy however, which requires all of us to arm ourselves with the right ideas and then to devise a political strategy to propagate them; on this front we can learn much from our opponents. For the government reflects its people, and as such will require a populace imbued with such views as we have discussed herein. We have yet to truly begin an ideological fight directed by a clear vision, one which is based on protecting the natural rights of the individual and which represents the Judeo-Christian morals on which our country is based, while our enemies have been doing so for over a century. We must do so in earnest if we are to have any chance at reclaiming our country.
Big Government
