Independence Day has become In Dependence Day

Another favorite Nationalist holiday is here. Independence Day or the day America officially broke away from the hold of England and its King. This day is one of the most celebrated inaccuracies in American History. To be sure, this day will continue as long as the lie of American Government remains in the place of power over people, and so long as people allow Government the power over them. Those that formed this new form of sluttish slavery in disguise of freedom, and those that seek to reinstate the old ways of republics and democracies have no more authority to write, sign, and decide the futures of people other than themselves.


The present state of affairs is not much different than it was in 1776, and as the Declaration of Independence was drafted and approved by those wishing to form a new government, a new form of subservience, it is now that we, in our time, must thrust the chains of servitude from our backs and necks, we must secede from the tyranny of Government. Though much smaller and contained to what we are under now, the King of England and his henchmen reminded the citizens of the 13 original colonies of their servitude to the crown and its dictates, decrees, laws and taxation. And today the American King is in the despotic attitude of the Kings before him.

  

The many counts against the King set forth in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 can be seen today, not just in the sitting president but in all aspects of American Politics. The same acts that led to the separation of ties between England and the Colonies are in full view and full practice as it was then. Trade restrictions, overreach and subverting laws, holding large militaries and protecting them from prosecution of actions deemed criminal to the citizen populace.

To set ourselves differently from our predecessors we do not enact to bring new government from the old, we do not hold that any government would in fact be a good or moral government; we do not believe that a small government would remain small and their powers concentrated. From the past we work for the future; that future is freedom and no amount of government can give you or even allow you unconstrained and absolute freedom. 

Americans are dependent on their belief in government. They are unable to see the ways which every action of government can be accomplished in peaceful and voluntary ways. They are dependent on a system of theft and redistribution. They are dependent on a system of forced security and compulsory welfare. They are dependent on the destruction of foreign lands and the brutality and empire spreading. They are dependent on regulations and restrictions, licencing and fees. They are dependent on drugs while criminalizing the very nature that they come from. They are dependent on the new form of government they have allowed to run rampant over them. They are dependent on Corporatism and blame the effects on Capitalism. They are dependent on the altar of Government, sacrifices to Government, and unrelenting subservience to Government. 

You are NOT free.

They are slaves to their own Ignorance, their own Apathy, and their own Complacency. They are subjects to their own Confliction in Ideology; a slave to their own Indifference, Statism, Nationalism, and Sensationalism.

They are more interested in the latest Celebrity Wedding, or Sports Star Baby, Dancing with the Stars, and Tabloid gossip. They let the media dictate what they think; the church what they believe; the corporations what they buy and what they eat.

Allowing their own self to be bound to the edicts of central planners and a superiority complex has shackled them in chains far greater than they realize. They have locked the chains on every generation to come after them and have denounced their right to prosperity and the exercise of their natural rights.

You are a slave to the belief that you are free.

“When in the course of Human events, it becomes necessary for one person to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which Laws of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation”

Your Declaration of True Independence is yet to be written.


Follow me on Twitter @PatriotPapers
Find me at Liberty.me @BeardedLibertyGuy

INVADE THE WORLD By Murray N. Rothbard

When Communism and the Soviet Union collapsed several years ago, it seemed evident that a massive reevaluation of American foreign policy had to get under way. For the duration of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy was simply a bipartisan interventionist crusade against the Soviet Union, and the only differences were precisely how far the global intervention should go.

But when the Soviet Union fell apart, a rethinking seemed absolutely necessary, since what could form the basis of U.S. policy now? But among the intellectual pundits and elites, the molders of U.S. and even world opinion, virtually no rethinking has occurred at all. Except for Pat Buchanan and us paleos, U.S. foreign policy had proceeded as usual, as if the Cold War collapse never happened. How? Buchanan and the "neo-isolationists" urged that American intervention be guided strictly by American national interest. But the liberal/neocon alliance, now tighter than ever before (now that Soviet Communism, which the neocons were harder on, has disappeared), pretended to agree, and then simply and cunningly redefined "national interest" to cover every ill, every grievance, under the sun. Is someone starving somewhere, however remote from our borders? That's a problem for our national interest. Is someone or some group killing some other group anywhere in the world? That's our national interest. Is some government not a "democracy" as defined by our liberal-neocon elites? That challenges our national interest. Is someone committing Hate Thought anywhere on the globe? That has to be solved in our national interest.

And so every grievance everywhere constitutes our national interest, and it becomes the obligation of good old Uncle Sam, as the Only Remaining Superpower and the world's designated Mr. Fixit, to solve each and every one of these problems. For "we cannot stand idly by" while anyone anywhere starves, hits someone over the head, is undemocratic, or commits a Hate Crime.

It should be clear that there is now virtually no foreign policy distinction between the liberals and the neocons, the Tony Lewises and Bill Safires, Commentary and the Washington Post. Wherever the problem is, the liberal-neocon pundits and laptop bombardiers are all invariably whooping it up for U.S. intervention, for outright war, or for the slippery-slope favorite of "sanctions." Sanctions, the step-by-step escalation of intervention, is a favorite policy of the warmongers. Calling for immediate bombing or invading of Country X as soon as a grievance starts would seem excessive and even nutty to most Americans, who don't feel the same sense of deep commitment to the U.S.A. as Global Problem-Solver as do the pundits and elites. And sanctions can temporarily slake the thirst for belligerence. And so it's sanctions: starving the villains, cutting off transportation, trade, confiscating their property in terms of financial assets, and finally, when that doesn't work, bombing, sending troops, etc. Troops are usually sent first as purely "humanitarian" missionaries, to safeguard the "humane" aid of the UN "peacekeepers." But in short order, the benighted natives, irrationally turning against all this help and altruism, begin shooting at their beloved helpers, and the fat is in the fire, and the U.S. must face the prospects of sending troops who are ordered to shoot to kill.

In recent weeks, in addition to humanitarian troops, there had been escalating talk of American "sanctions": against North Korea of course, but also against Japan (for not buying more U.S. exports), against Haiti, against the Bosnian Serbs (always referred to as the "self-styled" Republic of Srpska, – this in contrast to all other governments "styled" by others?). Jesse Jackson wants the U.S. to invade Nigeria pronto, and now we have Senators Kerry (D., Mass.) calling for sanctions against our ancient foe, Canada, for not welcoming New England fishermen in its waters.

OK, the time has come to get tough and to get consistent. Sanctions are simply the coward's and the babbler's halfway house to war. We must face the fact that there is not a single country in the world that measures up to the lofty moral and social standards that are the hallmark of the U.S.A.: even Canada is delinquent and deserves a whiff of grape. There is not a single country in the world which, like the U.S., reeks of democracy and "human rights," and is free of crime and murder and hate thoughts and undemocratic deeds. Very few other countries are as Politically Correct as the U.S., or have the wit to impose a massively statist program in the name of "freedom," "free trade," "multiculturalism," and "expanding democracy."

And so, since no other countries shape up to U.S. standards in a world of Sole Superpower they must be severely chastised by the U.S., I make a Modest Proposal for the only possible consistent and coherent foreign policy: the U.S. must, very soon, Invade the Entire World! Sanctions are peanuts; we must invade every country in the world, perhaps softening them up beforehand with a wonderful high-tech missile bombing show courtesy of CNN.

But how will we Look in the Eyes of World Opinion if we invade the world? Not to worry; we can always get the cover of our kept stooges in the UN, NATO, or whatever. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who is already reneging on his agreement to run for only one term as UN secretary-general, is perfect for the job; no more power-hungry UN official has ever existed. But what about the Security Council? That's OK, because we can always buy off the abstention of China or whoever for a few billion. No problem.

And then the whole world will subsist under the U.S. and UN flags, happy, protected, free of crime and poverty and hate. What could be more inspiring?

A few isolationist, narrow-minded, selfish, callous, and probably anti-Semitic gripers, however, are bound to complain. They like to talk about various "lessons," for example, Somalia. They like to say: well sure we can get in and "win" easily, but how do we get out? In order to fix up democracy, genocide, poverty, hate, etc., we the United States, must create the country's infrastructure, set up and train its entire army and police (preferably in the U.S.). We must teach the benighted country about freedom and free elections, create its two Respectable political parties, and begin with a massive multi-billion dollar aid program to make everyone healthy, wealthy, and wise, provide an educational program (replete with dropping huge bags of food by plane so CNN can do handsprings – even if some of the "helped" are killed by the bags), outlaw smoking and junk food, and feed them all with tofu and organically grown mangoes.

But what about the Getting Out Party? What about our universal experience that when U.S. troops get out, the whole aid, infrastructure, etc. go down the drain? The solution is simple, though it has been far overlooked because some narrow-minded selfish fascist stick-in-the-muds will raise a fuss. The solution: We Don't Get Out! Ever. So we don't have to worry about preparing the natives for transition. We should stay in there and cheerfully Run the World. Permanently for the good of all. A Paradise on Earth. We can call it, the "politics of meaning."

But how will we have the manpower to do the job of occupying? Don't worry about it. In the first place, we can have a 20-million man and woman army, suitably gayized and feminized and Politically Corrected, marching in there with food packages, medicines and hypodermics in one hand, and guns and condoms clutched in the other. We've got plenty of manpower options; we could bring back the draft, we could restore the Peace Corps, and/or we can set up a huge Buckley-Clinton type National Service program, where kids "pay back society" by spending two healthful, fun-filled maturing years setting up infrastructure in Zaire or Haiti or North Korea. With this program, the kids could "pay back" the Earth. What? You say that some of our kids might pick up diseases or get shot along the way? Well, that's OK, because, as they say these days, every failure is a "learning experience."

And then, of course, the U.S.A. will only provide the backbone of the permanent forces of World Occupiers. The rest of the slots will be filled by troops from every other world country, headed by the UN, NATO, etc., providing equally healthful and joyful experiences for other occupiers: Zairians, Ukrainians, Vietnamese, etc. To see Vietnamese troops, for example, occupying Holland, would provide instructive and globally democratic lessons in multiculturalism and mutual love of all peoples. The hardcore narrow-minded will of course have to be dealt with severely, but I am confident that massive educational programs, orientation courses, teachers, books and pamphlets, etc. will change the common climate of ethnic hate to love and understanding. In addition to teachers, hateful and undemocratic attitudes will be stamped out by a legion of shrinks, therapists counselors, etc.

How will all this be financed? Every nation will, of course, contribute its "fair share" of expenses, but since the U.S.A. is the world's Only Superpower, we must face the fact that the U.S. will have to be paying the lion's share – maybe 80 or 90 percent – of the program.

And of course there are always narrow-minded, backward, selfish dogmatists, who will balk at this program, and claim that it is too "costly." There are always a few rotters who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. But again: not to worry. There will be a massive transpartisan educational effort, from all parts of the spectrum, from the Clintonian or Jacksonian left to the dozens of self-proclaimed "free-market" think-tanks, who, suitably financed by government and by corporate elites, will pour forth tomes instructing us that the program will "pay for itself," that it is in the best tradition of the Free Market and Democracy; that these expenses are not really costly because they constitute "investment in human capital" and will therefore save the taxpayers money in the long run, etc. Thus, clearing up all the hookworm in the world will so reduce medical costs that we will all be paying less money. Eventually.

Any residue of complaint, any who survive this educational effort – and let's face it, there are a few rotten apples in every barrel – will be sent to "educational retraining centers," where their objections will be put to rest, and, after a few healthful years in these camps, chopping logs and reading the collected works of left, liberal, neocon and Pragmatic Libertarian pundits, I am sure that they will emerge, happily adjusted to the Brave New Global Democracy of tomorrow.

The above presents the consistent implications of our persistent policy of intervention, and it outlines the system toward which this country has been tending.

The question is: How do we derail this trend? How do we Take it Out? How do we prevent "1984"? Unfortunately, the Republican Party, while significantly better than the Democrats on domestic policy, has been, if anything, worse and more interventionist on foreign affairs. Note the Republican take on Slick Willie: they accuse him of bumbling, evasion, continual changes of line (all true), but except on Haiti, they don't really oppose intervention per se. Sure, it would be nice to have a clear-cut, consistent foreign policy, but clear-cut in what direction? A clear-cut Enemy is not exactly an unmixed blessing.

Meanwhile, things are far from hopeless. There is both an anti-war and paleo-grassroots ferment in this country that is heartwarming. There are all sorts of manifestations: Conservative Citizens Councils, county militia movements, sheriffs who refuse to enforce the Brady Bill, rightist radio talk show hosts, lack of enthusiasm for American troops getting killed in Somalia or Haiti, a Buchananite movement, and increasingly good sense on this question from syndicated columnist Robert Novak. Meantime, the least we at Triple R can do is accelerate the Climate of Hate in America, and hope for the best.

September 1994

Do You Hate the State? By Murray Rothbard

Originally published in The Libertarian Forum, Vol. 10, No. 7, July 1977.

I have been ruminating recently on what are the crucial questions that divide libertarians. Some that have received a lot of attention in the last few years are: anarcho-capitalism vs. limited government, abolitionism vs. gradualism, natural rights vs. utilitarianism, and war vs. peace. But I have concluded that as important as these questions are, they don’t really cut to the nub of the issue, of the crucial dividing line between us.

Let us take, for example, two of the leading anarcho-capitalist works of the last few years: my own For a New Liberty and David Friedman’s Machinery of Freedom. Superficially, the major differences between them are my own stand for natural rights and for a rational libertarian law code, in contrast to Friedman’s amoralist utilitarianism and call for logrolling and trade-offs between non-libertarian private police agencies. But the difference really cuts far deeper. There runs through For a New Liberty (and most of the rest of my work as well) a deep and pervasive hatred of the State and all of its works, based on the conviction that the State is the enemy of mankind. In contrast, it is evident that David does not hate the State at all; that he has merely arrived at the conviction that anarchism and competing private police forces are a better social and economic system than any other alternative. Or, more fully, that anarchism would be better than laissez-faire which in turn is better than the current system. Amidst the entire spectrum of political alternatives, David Friedman has decided that anarcho-capitalism is superior. But superior to an existing political structure which is pretty good too. In short, there is no sign that David Friedman in any sense hates the existing American State or the State per se, hates it deep in his belly as a predatory gang of robbers, enslavers, and murderers. 

No, there is simply the cool conviction that anarchism would be the best of all possible worlds, but that our current set-up is pretty far up with it in desirability. For there is no sense in Friedman that the State – any State – is a predatory gang of criminals.

The same impression shines through the writing, say, of political philosopher Eric Mack. Mack is an anarcho-capitalist who believes in individual rights; but there is no sense in his writings of any passionate hatred of the State, or, a fortiori, of any sense that the State is a plundering and bestial enemy.

Perhaps the word that best defines our distinction is “radical.” Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and anti-statism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul.

Furthermore, in contrast to what seems to be true nowadays, you don’t have to be an anarchist to be radical in our sense, just as you can be an anarchist while missing the radical spark. I can think of hardly a single limited governmentalist of the present day who is radical – a truly amazing phenomenon, when we think of our classical liberal forbears who were genuinely radical, who hated statism and the States of their day with a beautifully integrated passion: the Levellers, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine, Joseph Priestley, the Jacksonians, Richard Cobden, and on and on, a veritable roll call of the greats of the past. Tom Paine’s radical hatred of the State and statism was and is far more important to the cause of liberty than the fact that he never crossed the divide between laissez-faire and anarchism.

And closer to our own day, such early influences on me as Albert Jay Nock, H. L. Mencken, and Frank Chodorov were magnificently and superbly radical. Hatred of “Our Enemy, the State” (Nock’s title) and all of its works shone through all of their writings like a beacon star. So what if they never quite made it all the way to explicit anarchism? Far better one Albert Nock than a hundred anarcho-capitalists who are all too comfortable with the existing status quo.

Where are the Paines and Cobdens and Nocks of today? Why are almost all of our laissez-faire limited governmentalists plonky conservatives and patriots? If the opposite of “radical” is “conservative,” where are our radical laissez-fairists? If our limited statists were truly radical, there would be virtually no splits between us. What divides the movement now, the true division, is not anarchist vs. minarchist, but radical vs. conservative. Lord, give us radicals, be they anarchists or no.

To carry our analysis further, radical anti-statists are extremely valuable even if they could scarcely be considered libertarians in any comprehensive sense. Thus, many people admire the work of columnists Mike Royko and Nick von Hoffman because they consider these men libertarian sympathizers and fellow-travelers. That they are, but this does not begin to comprehend their true importance. For throughout the writings of Royko and von Hoffman, as inconsistent as they undoubtedly are, there runs an all-pervasive hatred of the State, of all politicians, bureaucrats, and their clients which, in its genuine radicalism, is far truer to the underlying spirit of liberty than someone who will coolly go along with the letter of every syllogism and every lemma down to the “model” of competing courts.

Taking the concept of radical vs. conservative in our new sense, let us analyze the now famous “abolitionism” vs. “gradualism” debate. The latter jab comes in the August issue of Reason (a magazine every fiber of whose being exudes “conservatism”), in which editor Bob Poole asks Milton Friedman where he stands on this debate. Freidman takes the opportunity of denouncing the “intellectual cowardice” of failing to set forth “feasible” methods of getting “from here to there.” Poole and Friedman have between them managed to obfuscate the true issues. There is not a single abolitionist who would not grab a feasible method, or a gradual gain, if it came his way. The difference is that the abolitionist always holds high the banner of his ultimate goal, never hides his basic principles, and wishes to get to his goal as fast as humanly possible. Hence, while the abolitionist will accept a gradual step in the right direction if that is all that he can achieve, he always accepts it grudgingly, as merely a first step toward a goal which he always keeps blazingly clear. The abolitionist is a “button pusher” who would blister his thumb pushing a button that would abolish the State immediately, if such a button existed. But the abolitionist also knows that alas, such a button does not exist, and that he will take a bit of the loaf if necessary – while always preferring the whole loaf if he can achieve it.

It should be noted here that many of Milton’s most famous “gradual” programs such as the voucher plan, the negative income tax, the withholding tax, fiat paper money – are gradual (or even not so gradual) steps in the wrong direction, away from liberty, and hence the militance of much libertarian opposition to these schemes.

His button-pushing position stems from the abolitionist’s deep and abiding hatred of the State and its vast engine of crime and oppression. With such an integrated world-view, the radical libertarian could never dream of confronting either a magic button or any real-life problem with some arid cost-benefit calculation. He knows that the State must be diminished as fast and as completely as possible. Period.

And that is why the radical libertarian is not only an abolitionist, but also refuses to think in such terms as a Four Year Plan for some sort of stately and measured procedure for reducing the State. The radical – whether he be anarchist or laissez-faire – cannot think in such terms as, e.g.: Well, the first year, we’ll cut the income tax by 2%, abolish the ICC, and cut the minimum wage; the second year we’ll abolish the minimum wage, cut the income tax by another 2%, and reduce welfare payments by 3%, etc. The radical cannot think in such terms, because the radical regards the State as our mortal enemy, which must be hacked away at wherever and whenever we can. To the radical libertarian, we must take any and every opportunity to chop away at the State, whether it’s to reduce or abolish a tax, a budget appropriation, or a regulatory power. And the radical libertarian is insatiable in this appetite until the State has been abolished, or – for minarchists – dwindled down to a tiny, laissez-faire role.

Many people have wondered: Why should there be any important political disputes between anarcho-capitalists and minarchists now? In this world of statism, where there is so much common ground, why can’t the two groups work in complete harmony until we shall have reached a Cobdenite world, after which we can air our disagreements? Why quarrel over courts, etc. now? The answer to this excellent question is that we could and would march hand-in-hand in this way if the minarchists were radicals, as they were from the birth of classical liberalism down to the 1940s. Give us back the antistatist radicals, and harmony would indeed reign triumphant within the movement.

Murray Rothbard