The Occupy movement has expanded across the country and the world since the original September 17, 2011 Occupy Wall Street protest began. The Occupiers have been protesting the expanding gap between rich and poor, the richest 1%, the corporate bail outs, and so on. Unfortunately, it seems like while the Occupiers are genuine in their desire to find answers no one at these protests is actually asking the right questions.

We need to ask where all that bail out money came from in the first place. What system allowed the federal government to hand over trillions of dollars to these corporations, both foreign and domestic? I hear the Occupiers stating that the gap between rich and poor has gotten too large. How did that happen? Is “capitalism” really at fault here?

The Federal Reserve system is what allowed the federal government to issue bail outs to the too big to fail banks and other corporations. A recent audit of the Fed showed that the Fed gave 16 trillion dollars to foreign and domestic entities at 0% interest. Where did that money come from? It is worthless paper that can be created by the Fed at their whim. This affects all of us by an inflation tax that we suffer with every day and with every transaction we make. These too big to fail entities have first access to all this newly created money so they get the benefit of the dollars BEFORE the inflation sets in. So, these companies can then use that money and take advantage of the system and thus create more wealth while the rest of us are now paying double at the grocery store compared to what we paid last year.

Capitalism isn’t at fault here. Crony capitalism/corporatism and a fiat currency is what is at fault. It is time to end the fed. Occupy Wall Street is a good start but once people start realizing the true cause of the economic problems it will be time to Occupy the Fed. Wall Street has been able to use the current system to their advantage, that much is certain (how many of us would be able to secure billions in loans at 0% interest just as we were about to declare bankruptcy?), but we won’t be able to eliminate this problem by destroying private enterprise and taxing corporations to death or guaranteeing jobs and education as human rights. The only way to prevent runaway inflation and a worthless dollar that suffocates our economy is to take the printing presses out of the hands of the Federal Reserve and this will make it far more difficult for corporations to get sweetheart deals from corrupted government officials on the backs of the American people.

“We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.” — Congressman Louis T. McFadden in 1932 (Rep. Pa)

The other day I was faced with a unique opportunity at the conclusion of a political get together and speaking event. I was approached by a gentleman and he asked me to explain to him what Libertarianism was and given that it was getting late in the evening, to do so in as few words and as quickly as possible as he was walking out the door. It was a unique question in the sense that when I am usually asked to explain something about libertarian politics or philosophy it is generally expected that the answer given will be as full and as enlightening as possible, a difficult balance between enough to satisfy the person seeking the information but making sure not to give too much as to overload the listener so that he tunes out. It was a challenging question in the sense that I needed to make a strong enough intellectual impact for this guy to not forget what I said as soon as he gets in the car and turns on FoxNews radio or NPR.

I had a wonderful opportunity to engage a politically active individual who was genuinely interested in what it meant to be a libertarian and I didn’t want it to go to waste. Maybe the only thing preventing this gentleman from donating to the Libertarian Party, getting involved in libertarianism, or volunteering for a Libertarian’s campaign team was the need for quick reassurance, the need to make a connection with a real person (rather than through a computer screen). I remember what it felt like as I was intellectually working my way into a better and more complete understanding of libertarian thought. Having been a member of a major political party my entire life up to that point while having virtually no knowledge of the vast amount of libertarian literature that was out there, making the switch was not something to be taken lightly. I would imagine that for some there was no such thing as “becoming a libertarian,” perhaps to them libertarian-leanings were as simple and inconsequential as flicking on a light switch. For others though, the switch can represent a sea-change in thinking, analyzing, and viewing the world around them. It extends beyond politics into their daily lives. Libertarianism can be an awakening. Just think of that for a moment. Imagine you’re that person where your whole life you were a Republican or a Democrat, your family was Republican or Democrat, your friends were Republicans or Democrats and now you have just been awakened. You read the Mises blog and subscribe to the Lew Rockwell daily email so you figure there must be others like you out there but for the time being you may be the only one in your day to day life. Perhaps you were lucky enough to stumble across Isaiah’s Job by Albert Jay Nock and you get to Part IV and Nock writes:

What chiefly makes it so, I think, is that in any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity. You do not know, and will never know, more than two things about them. You can be sure of those – dead sure, as our phrase is – but you will never be able to make even a respectable guess at anything else. You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you. Except for these two certainties, working for the Remnant means working in impenetrable darkness…“

Right. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Nock’s writings but if this is your first foray in libertarianism you might be worried that the reason libertarians so strongly support individual freedom and sovereignty is because they think they are the only ones out there anyway. Further on in Part IV you get to this passage:

One of the most suggestive episodes recounted in the Bible is that of a prophet’s attempt – the only attempt of the kind on the record, I believe – to count up the Remnant. Elijah had fled from persecution into the desert, where the Lord presently overhauled him and asked what he was doing so far away from his job. He said that he was running away, not because he was a coward, but because all the Remnant had been killed off except himself. He had got away only by the skin of his teeth, and, he being now all the Remnant there was, if he were killed the True Faith would go flat.“

Now you may begin to wonder like Elijah if you are the only member of the Remnant remaining on Earth. How lonely that can feel! Luckily for Elijiah, he didn’t have to continue wondering as he had a pretty good source tell him that he was not alone (“and as for your figures on the Remnant,” He (God) said, “I don’t mind telling you that there are seven thousand of them back there in Israel whom it seems you have not heard of, but you may take My word for it that there they are.”) For the rest of us, we have to continue searching on our own and we learn later on that we are not alone and that there are many of us out there (and that our numbers are growing every day) going about our business and being active in our own ways.

Given the above, as he asked me the question you can imagine my mind starting to race. Do I tell him about our non-interventionist foreign policy? What about our support of free markets? How can I leave out our support for as limited a government as possible or lower taxes and less government spending? Maybe I should tell him about our position on sound money and why I support ending the Federal Reserve? I wonder if this guy is a Republican and I can make the connection easier for him by discussing Ron Paul?

All of those are wonderful ideas and positions to discuss with someone who wants to learn more about libertarianism but how could I possibly explain Austrian economics, the history of the Federal Reserve, or the merits of a non-interventionist foreign policy in such a short period of time as he was readying to walk out the door? I supposed I could have given him one of any number of libertarian leaning websites out there that he would have been able to go home and spend as much time as he needed reading up on it all but making an effective face-to-face case on the benefits of liberty will surely make far more of an impact. Just as we got to the doorway to say our goodbyes it hit me. The four words I was about to give him as an answer to his question encompassed everything we believe as libertarians. These four words explain the reasoning behind free market principles, behind non-interventionism, behind sound money, behind respect for individual freedom and sovereignty…

So, what is libertarianism all about in five seconds or less?

Live and let live.

As we expected last week, Boehner and Co. caved on the debt ceiling increase and settled for an inferior plan with limited “cuts” (which upon further investigation appear higher unlikely to ever actually occur) in order to get something passed prior to the August 2nd deadline. The joy emanating from the establishment was short-lived however once the governments efforts to muscle S&P failed and S&P subsequently downgraded the United States from AAA to AA+ credit rating… and then the blame game started. Obama, the Democrats and the media blaming the Tea Party, the Tea Party blaming Obama and the Democrats, Obama blaming S&P, S&P blaming partisan politics, the Tea Party blaming the Republican establishment, while the stock market continues its slide here and abroad. The establishment is just not used to actually having to face real life consequences for their actions. For the longest time the nation could continue to borrow, print and spend while putting on a show haggling over minor cuts or taxes that wouldn’t truly effect any government program, department, or interest group in order to score cheap political points in preparation of the next election. Those times are over. China, our largest creditor, fired a verbal lashing our way on Saturday demanding that we address our “structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets.” The establishments collective feet are being held to the fire and they don’t like it one bit. They are now in a frenzy. This is uncharted territory.

The most unfortunate part of the downgrade is that it could have easily been prevented since so many of us have seen it coming for a long time but like a drug addict searching for his next fix, the U.S. government could not quit its destructive spending habits. It has become more fashionable to bash Washington D.C. for all of these problems… for their spending… for their borrowing and printing… for their complete disconnect from reality. There are debt addicts in Washington, that is a fact. But like all addicts the first step is generally the hardest one and that is admitting that you have a problem. You can only continue to blame the politicians for so long before it becomes nothing but an excuse.

It is time for us to be honest with ourselves. I think it is time that many Americans stand up and admit their problem.

Hi, my name is ________ and I’m an addict and an enabler. I have sat by idly and watched as our debt has continued to increase by leaps and bounds. I only complain about spending that went towards programs that I did not personally agree with or did not benefit me directly. I want spending cuts but I don’t want my social security or medicare cut. I demand a balanced budget but I do not want any cuts to our military defense and think it is inexcusable to suggest that our troops should come home from endless wars across the globe and that we should not continue to have military installations in every nation. Rather than agreeing to a reasonable budget I feel that other people’s taxes should increase, but not mine. I did not accept any responsibility for the runaway spending in Washington. I blamed all the spending problems on the “career politicians” and “Washington insiders” but I continue to vote for them every election cycle. I always thought someone else would fix the problem and the pain of the solution would be borne by someone else. Whether my political leanings tended me towards support of the welfare state or the warfare state, no matter what, I always supported the side of “big government.” Big government for me but small government for everyone else. I am an addict and an enabler. I now admit I have a problem.”

Doesn’t that feel much better?

It is time that many of us realize that we are part of the problem and work towards becoming part of the solution.

As the House prepares to vote on the Boehner plan this evening many Republicans and so-called fiscal conservatives have finally started to line up in support of the TARP-supporting Speaker’s plan. As of last night, the Speaker was unable to secure enough votes for passage so today the Republican establishment has been working overtime in order to bring enough votes over to their side. The establishment Republicans have thrown a bone to the tea partiers in Congress by adding a Balanced Budget Amendment requirement to the second scheduled debt ceiling increase six months from now. Under the Boehner plan as currently written, the debt ceiling will be raised before the August 2nd deadline (a short-term increase) in an amount that would result in the U.S. reaching the new debt ceiling limit again in six months, thus requiring another increase. During the next 6 months, the Congress will need to pass a balanced budget amendment by a two-thirds majority and then send the amendment to the states for ratification. If the Congress does not send a balanced budget amendment to the states during these next six months between debt ceiling increases then we will all be back in this same situation again at that point.

Any member of Congress who votes in support of the Boehner plan is a coward, a hypocrite, a liar, or a fool and I’ll tell you why. This plan does nothing to solve our country’s fiscal catastrophe beyond kicking the can down the road another six months. The plan is obfuscatory in its design so as to purposely hide from the public that it results in increases in spending, in increases in the debt, and guarantees another increase later this year. Let me be clear: this plan has no answers. This isn’t to say that the Reid plan or the “secret” Obama plan are better, in fact, they are much worse as they specifically call for revenue enhancers, i.e. tax increases as well as a full increase in the debt ceiling without a balanced budget amendment but remember one thing: the reason this country is on the verge of an inflationary default or an actual default is due to our elected leaders continually selling us out with bipartisan solutions that hurt every body in the long run rather than partisan solutions that might actually address the issues head on.

For all the tea party talk about wanting to cut spending and force a balanced budget amendment through the Congress without any additional taxes it didn’t take long for them to fall in line with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and John McCain. All it took was for the establishment to throw them a crumb of requiring a balanced budget amendment before a second debt ceiling increase. That may sound wonderful, our country avoids “default” and continues paying its bills while starting to reduce spending and before any more debt increases a BBA would have to be passed. At first glance, it sounds great but lets dig a little deeper because it is all phony. Under the Boehner plan, discretionary spending will increase very year from $1.043 trillion in 2012 to $1.234 trillion in 2021 (see attached chart). But what about the cuts that the Speaker promised? The cuts in his plan relate to the CBO baseline. The CBO baseline is for all intents and purposes a “guesstimate” of what future spending may be so the Speaker’s plan is basing cuts of an imaginary number without actually cutting anything in reality. It is a fraud that only slows the rise of federal spending without any actual guarantees of real, hard cuts.

The key to bringing in the Tea Party “hobbits“, as Big Government Republican John McCain referred to them as, or Tea Party “schizophrenics“, as Allen West calls them (with friends like these who needs enemies?), is enticing them to vote in favor by tying in the BBA requirement with Boehner’s fake spending cut plan that they allegedly would not support without it. What every member of the Tea Party in Congress or all the Tea Party organizations out there are forgetting to tell you is that the balanced budget amendment has ZERO percent chance of passing Congress within the next six months. Do you honestly believe that John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and John McCain can string together the support of two-thirds of Congress in order to pass the balanced budget amendment along to the states? Republicans currently have 55% (240 total) of the House seats and 47% (47 total) of the seats in the Senate. The BBA passing would require the Republicans to bring 47 Democrats across the aisle in the House and 19 Democrats in the Senate. I submit to you now that the balanced budget amendment at this point in time with the current breakdown of Congress has absolutely no chance of passing and making it to the states for potential ratification. Ron Paul, as keen as ever, was able to identify this deception coming from a mile away, he stated,

Default is coming. The only argument that’s going on now is how to default, not send the checks out or just print the money. In all countries our size, they always print the money. They’re going to raise the debt limit, and then they’re going to print the money, and then they’ll default by inflation, and that’s much more dangerous than facing up to the facts of what’s happening today.”

So, what will the result be if the Boehner plan miraculously passes the House and Senate and is signed by the President? A guaranteed debt ceiling increase tied to a plan with fake spending cuts. And if the Boehner plan as written does not get through the Senate? Surely we can expect to see compromise legislation passed by the big government elements of the Republican and Democratic parties that eliminates the phony balanced budget amendment requirement and leaves the debt ceiling increases tied to nothing. The Tea Party is being bought off with a hoax.

The battle for privacy and freedom from constant government intrusion in our lives is never-ending. It has gotten to the point here in the United States where privacy means you have something to hide and therefore you deserve even less of it than you had before. Our lives have become an open book for the world to see. Websites like Facebook and other social networking tools allow us to provide up to the second details on our whereabouts, our physical appearance, our biographical details, our family, and our political leanings. This type of sharing and openness can be wonderful in some instances like connecting with relatives or meeting new, like-minded friends or connecting with a stranger from halfway across the globe. Social networking also played a large part in communications and coordination during the Arab Spring revolutions over the past 8 months or so. The positive impacts of free association and unfiltered communication are not just limited to individuals on social networking sites but those principles are the bedrock foundation to what has driven positive growth for entire nations throughout the world: free trade, peace, and by extension, prosperity. Thomas Jefferson, who was one of the main inspirations for this blog, was a great advocate for those principles. In his first inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1801, President Jefferson expressed what he believed to be the essential principles of our government,

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.”

Like with most other aspects of freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility, the openness fostered in individuals and nations who accept these principles at face value can also lead to abuse and perversion of purpose if we do not remain careful. Even Jefferson, who wrote so much of the protections of our civil liberties into our founding documents realized this when he advised that,

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

While we have embraced freedom and openness on the internet as we enjoyed all of its benefits (technological and otherwise) it may have led to many of us having let down our guard, our vigilance that Jefferson warned us about many years ago. The enemies of freedom and individual liberty, in many cases solely in the name of security theater, have been utilizing the free flow of information and technological advances in order to rapidly deploy a surveillance state here in America that would not have been possible 10 or even 20 years ago. In the last year alone, the state of Florida made $63 million dollars selling people’s names, addresses, dates of birth, and a list of the vehicles they drive to data mining companies like Lexus Nexus and Shadow Soft. Under what auspices does Florida justify this gross invasion of privacy? Public safety. Lexus Nexus having access to my personal information assists public safety how? Luckily, our court system designed to be a bulwark against legislative or executive tyranny, will surely find this behavior unconstitutional and put a halt to any further sale of information, right? Not according to a Florida judge who has already rubber stamped this action.

Who is going to protect us from these blatant violations of our Fourth Amendment rights? We know that we would be foolish to hope that executive or legislative branch would step into the breach as those branches long ago lost their way but now we consistently see the judicial branch foregoing their responsibility as well. The media? When the First Amendment was drafted the Founding Fathers envisioned a strong, free, and independent press that would act as a watchdog to hold government, elected officials, and others responsible for their actions. Instead of the watchdog envisioned by the Founders the media has become a lapdog to the corrupt big government surveillance state. The media has even gone so far as to exploit the horrific murder of a small boy in New York City as a reason to introduce more and more surveillance camera systems on our public streets. Of course the politicians can’t resist getting involved in situations like these so they have proposed tax incentives to businesses to install more cameras. Pay no mind to the fact that Britain, a nation with one surveillance camera for every twelve people, has seen no reduction in crime since the cameras have been utilized.

In Massachusetts, the state plans to create a “Big Brother” database to map each drivers location history (stored indefinitely, of course) by collecting thousands of license plate data every hour by police cruiser mounted surveillance systems. These systems don’t just store license plate data from suspected criminals but from all citizens (I guess we are all criminals now) so that in the future the data may be referenced just to make sure you weren’t in any unapproved locations or meeting with any domestic terrorist supporters of Ron Paul or libertarianism. As if cameras and license plate scanners weren’t enough, more and more police departments are getting ready to utilize facial recognition and iris-scanning devices that can be attached to the Apple iPhone in order to accurately identify subjects quickly and easily.

If it weren’t enough that the government is obsessed with spying on your every move they are now looking for you to do some of their work for them by ratting out your friends, neighbors, and coworkers if they exhibit any suspicious behaviors like using a video camera, talking to police, wearing dark hooded sweatshirts, or using a cell phone to record video. The Department of Homeland Security “See something, say something” video is embedded below if you can stomach it.

With much of the public lulled to sleep, a lapdog media, and a government with a clear interest in monitoring virtually every aspect of its citizens lives we are going to continue to see more and more outrageous assaults against our privacy like in the above cases. In order to stop these gross violations of our rights we need more individuals, groups, and parties to stand firm in their support and advocacy of the rights recognized by the Fourth Amendment to be secure in our persons, homes, and property. But we no longer have the luxury of sitting back and waiting or attempting to solely rely on others to protect us from these violations. Individual actions will inevitably inspire more individual actions. Once we accept that we need to stand up for ourselves and refuse to submit any further we will see that it is not long before we are no longer standing alone.

That the dollar is dead shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The dollar is a shell of its former self having lost 95% of its value since 1913 and having lost almost 50% of its value in the past three years alone. While having been dead for a long time many have failed to notice the distinction between today’s zombie dollar and the hard money dollar that existed prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. In the meantime to avoid a systemic collapse brought up by the complete fall of the dollar, the Federal Reserve has had to electroshock the dollar back to life like its own version of Frankenstein’s Monster.

We are all aware of the terrible state our economy has been in for some time due to devastating levels of debt, malinvestment, and overextension by the Federal Government. The perfect storm of government intervention, fiat currency, and toxic debt came to a head in 2007/2008. Rather than to let the free market correct those problems by rooting out bad investments, allowing it to set the interest rates based on market conditions, rolling back overspending, and returning the dollar to its original hard money backed state the Federal Reserve doubled down (and tripled down) on their failed policies like setting interest rates artificially low, TARP, and the assorted bailouts to “Too big to fail” companies.

When the intervention of those programs failed to show any type of improvement in the U.S. economy the Fed continued to ramp up its market interventions with the quantitative easing programs. Quantitative easing occurs when a central bank begins purchasing financial assets from banks and other businesses with new, electronically created money. Keep in mind this fiat money has no value beyond the “full faith and credit of the United States” and its relative scarcity rather than being backed by a physical commodity like gold. Again, when the first round of quantitative easing failed to show any true market improvement the Fed decided to ramp up its activities with a second round of money printing, I mean quantitative easing, now commonly referred to as “QE2.” As you would expect when more money is created out of thin air you will see an inflationary effect and true to course true inflation has increased by about 9% a year. I say “true” inflation because the methodology by which the Federal government calculates inflation has been changed in order to show a much lower figure. The effect of inflation from the quantitative easing programs even caused the Fed to suggest that there would not be any additional rounds of easing after the current QE2 expired in June of this year.

Despite the “promises” of the Fed to lay off a potential QE3 Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress today that a new stimulus program is in the works which will of course entail additional asset purchases and that the Fed could also cut the interest paid to banks. Once news of Bernanke’s comments reached the market the dollar crashed and continued on its way to its worst showing against a basket of currencies in almost a month as well as fell to a record low against the Swiss franc. Put this news against the backdrop of the economy adding roughly 18,000 jobs last month, the lowest total in almost a year and consider that the economy needs to add 125,000 jobs per month to keep up with population growth and at least twice that to bring down the unemployment rate. After hearing the news himself, libertarian-leaning Ron Paul stated,

QE3 here we come. And gold is responding, shooting way up near all-time highs. Of course I predicted this. Bernanke will destroy the dollar unless he is stopped.”

Dr. Paul, the author of End the Fed published in 2010, is no Johnny-come-lately to the anti-Fed movement, Dr. Paul IS the anti-Fed movement. In February of 2009, Dr. Paul introduced the The Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act, H.R. 833 by stating,

From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble, every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century can be traced to Federal Reserve policy. The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial “boom” followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts.

Though the Federal Reserve policy harms the average American, it benefits those in a position to take advantage of the cycles in monetary policy. The main beneficiaries are those who receive access to artificially inflated money and/or credit before the inflationary effects of the policy impact the entire economy. Federal Reserve policies also benefit big spending politicians who use the inflated currency created by the Fed to hide the true costs of the welfare-warfare state. It is time for Congress to put the interests of the American people ahead of special interests and their own appetite for big government.

Abolishing the Federal Reserve will allow Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy. The United States Constitution grants to Congress the authority to coin money and regulate the value of the currency. The Constitution does not give Congress the authority to delegate control over monetary policy to a central bank. Furthermore, the Constitution certainly does not empower the federal government to erode the American standard of living via an inflationary monetary policy”

Dr. Paul has been the only voice of reason in Washington, D.C. when it comes to monetary policy (as well as individual liberties, foreign policy, and beyond) since he first arrived there in 1976 having won a special election to fill an empty seat. That is why the news yesterday that “Dr. No” after having served twelve terms was going to be giving up his Congressional seat at the end of his term in 2012 but that in doing so he was going to be focusing even more so on his bid to win the presidency was so bittersweet. An energized Dr. Paul, focused on winning the White House without his future congressional role being held hostage by the party bosses may be the best recipe yet for an astounding run in 2012. At the very least, we can expect (and hope) that this leads to a take-no-prisoners attitude in the upcoming debates and media interviews after he was openly laughed during the 2008 debates by the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney and mocked by the debate “moderator” Carl Cameron.

As a nation we are facing a set of very dire circumstances. We liberty minded individuals need more people as courageous as Ron Paul to stand up to the Federal Reserve, excessive government spending, and violations of our inalienable rights. Dr. Paul is 100% correct when he states that unless he is stopped, Ben Bernanke is going to kill the dollar once and for all. Only this time there will be no more lightning bolts out of the sky to jolt the dollar back to life.

Are you surprised? Whether we are hearing about a government “shutting down” or a state with no government we are told that we can expect to see lawlessness, people dying in the streets, children starving, and for the most part a complete collapse of society as we know it. That sounds perfectly reasonable if you believed that government is the source of order in society and without it people would behave like animals. If you were the type of person who felt that you needed to rely on government to provide for you in every situation the prospect of a government shutdown would be absolutely terrifying. We think of hell-holes where people starve to death or where the people are helpless against roving gangs looking to murder, rape, or steal. If you are one of the people who feel that way you would find common ground with Thomas Hobbes who stated,

During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.”

The imagery in that quote is powerful. Man, so utterly incapable of governing himself in a civilized manner, needs to be kept in awe by an overbearing, all-powerful government force less he revert into an animal and live in a warlike state against each of his fellow man. That government force is necessary in order to raise man up from his animalistic nature by distracting him, like an infant, from his undeveloped, feeble mind capable of only serving his most basic instincts.

John Locke on the other hand had quite a different view of man and the role of government in society than Hobbes. In the Lockean worldview, men are intelligent beings who are capable of governing themselves. Men are not animals that need to be controlled by force in order to prevent them from slaughtering each other. Men should be free to be left to their own devices so long as they do not violate the life, liberty, or property of another.

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to everyone of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man. Government has no other end than the preservation of property.”

For the past ten days, the state of Minnesota has been without a fully functioning state government, all but the most critical sectors having been shut down after the Republican dominated legislature and the Democratic Governor failed to agree on a budget. We could argue all day about whether or not the government of Minnesota ever did truly function properly but for the sake of argument lets put that question aside. There have been no riots, no killings, no looting. In fact, there has been very little news coverage of the shut down because it has been so uneventful. Typically, after the scare tactics have failed to prevent a shut down the media has gone dark because its publicized horrors fail to come to fruition. Peaceful shutdowns are not just limited to the state level either. The U.S. federal government shut down with not but a whimper for a total of 27 days over two different periods in 1995 and 1996. The federal government shut down 11 different times (in varying degrees) since 1980.

The heart of peaceful states with limited governments or states dealing with government shut downs are closely connected to the level of respect of private property rights and the people’s general acceptance of the non-aggression principle. Murray Rothbard defined the non-aggression principle as follows:

No one may threaten or commit violence (‘aggress’) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory.”

That is why we see such a different set of circumstances in a state like Somalia and states like New Zealand, Denmark, or Switzerland, the top three ranking states for property rights in the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom. We are all familiar with the scenes of armed men in the streets of Mogadishu and the book/movie Black Hawk Down but lets be clear however, that Mogadishu does not equal the rest of Somalia nor is it really fair to compare Somalia to states like Switzerland and the United States when a far more accurate comparison to Somalia would be other neighbor nations like Ethiopia and Kenya or Somalia under its prior government before the collapse. What a lot of people forget is that a “utopia” cannot be created overnight nor will order come from chaos instantaneously. The larger the population, the larger the area, the larger the problems, the less developed economically, this will all affect the time needed for positive development economically and politically.

If the history of government shut downs in the United States has shown us anything, it is that government is not a necessary control in all areas of our lives. We did not all devolve into animals without the government hypnotizing us into compliance. So long as we continue to respect private property rights and accept the non-aggression principle (and most importantly continue to educate those who do not), the prospect of future government shut downs over budgetary issues or any other matter should no longer strike fear into the hearts of Americans.

As we creep ever closer to August 2, 2011, the supposed “drop-dead date” for the ever-shifting day we will finally reach our debt ceiling limit,  word out of Washington, D.C. is becoming increasingly hysterical. We are told that if we fail to raise the debt ceiling by that date we will face untold destruction as a result of defaulting on our debt payments. The issues may change but the actors in our state-sponsored duopoly remain the same. Lets flashback to 2006/2007 for a moment. George W. Bush is in the White House and Barack Obama is in the U.S. Senate (I know, this is a scary flashback). At that time, Bush and his fellow Republican party members in Congress are presiding over the largest debt in U.S. history and are looking to increase the debt ceiling as the never-ending spending has pushed the back of the nation against a wall. During the Bush years, the Republicans provided, on average, 39 of the 50 votes that were generally needed to raise the debt ceiling. Barack Obama, Senator from IL, states,

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

Flash forward back to the present day. Contrast the realities of 06/07 to today where Now-President Obama has pushed hard for an increase in the debt ceiling and recently has been touting the typical democratic class warfare game plan. Today the President was quoted as follows:

“If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships,” Obama said. ”[It] might compromise the National Weather Services. It means we might not be funding critical medical research. It means food inspection might be compromised. I’ve said to Republican leaders, ‘You go talk to your constituents and ask them, “Are you willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?”

Wow, never mind that the country would not default on its debts even if we do not raise the debt ceiling but the President would have us believe that if we don’t raise the debt limit apparently we no longer will be able to get accurate (?) weather forecasts and kids will be starving in the streets while fat-cat CEOs will be flying around in their private jets. The Republicans on the other hand are presenting themselves as a bulwark against Obama’s spending machine as beacons of fiscal responsibility and budget cutting! Under the Obama administration, the Republicans have provided only 1 vote on average each of the three times the Senate has voted on increasing the debt limit. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated that,

“The Democrats’ spending spree has brought us to the brink of an economic calamity and now they’re telling taxpayers they won’t do anything to prevent it unless the taxpayers hand over more money in the form of tax hikes.”

The sad fact of the matter is that this complete turnabout by the leaders and the rank and file of both parties barely registers with voters. We are now living in a  “bizarro world”  where up is down, left is right, war is not war it is “kinetic military action“, and principled positions no longer exist because they simply depend on whether or not your party is in power or not. If Obama is replaced in 2012 and Republican X takes his place, would you really be surprised to hear Republican X argue for a debt ceiling increase and Democrat Y in the Senate argue against him? Would you be surprised when the parties talking points completely flip-flop once again? Two wings of the same statist big government party currently operate in the Congress and the White House and voters feel they are resigned to a Morton’s Fork. None of that matters to the power elite as they continue to borrow and spend (and raise the debt ceiling, eventually) and the Federal Reserve continues to manufacture interest rates, manipulate the stock market, and grant sweetheart deals to Wall Street and foreign banks. With the financial crisis raging you would think that perhaps the Fed reigned itself in but during that time the Fed continued to issue .01% loans to the well-connected.

TIME posted an article earlier today on government issued $1 coins that are currently sitting in a vault waiting to be purchased by collectors or banks but there is a big problem: no one wants them… and who would? Especially when you get further down in the article and it states that the face value of the coins is one billion dollars but they only cost the government $300 million to make, i.e. every one of those dollar coins you purchase you are automatically losing 70 cents based on the cost to manufacture.  Take a look at the graphic to the right, that illustrates the value of the U.S. dollar since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. We are in trouble, folks. Even the International Monetary Fund is getting in the mix at this point urging the U.S. to increase the debt limit. What about your hard-earned savings that you had planned to retire on? Every day that goes by your savings purchasing power decreases more and more. Every time the Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air your money purchases less and less. The quantitative easing programs are nothing more than the Federal Reserve printing money and creating inflation. Our deficits are huge and we have come to depend on monetizing the debt in order to survive just a little longer. Republicans and Democrats, equally responsible for this state of affairs, have failed us. It is time to look past party labels.

It can get depressing when you listen to the news and virtually every story involves the government overstepping its authority without so much of a peep from your fellow citizens. That being the case, it is extremely refreshing when I do hear about someone (or something) standing up to an overreaching, coercive governmental action. It doesn’t matter whether it is a minor local issue or a larger national issue. Most people will not even bother to stand up for their rights because they may not want to rock the boat and cause additional problems for themselves. As Stalin asked, “How much does the State weigh?” It can be oppressive and impossible to deal with. Sometimes it may seem like a fight may not be worth it like in the case of contesting a speeding ticket where you may just pay the small fine rather than take hours and hours fighting a battle in traffic court that is rigged against you to begin with or maybe it is a larger issue that involves nameless, faceless, federal bureaucrats that makes it seemingly impossible to know where to start.

One of those issues where it appears like many have just accepted the fate of being degraded by federal authority every time they board an aircraft rather than stand up and refuse such treatment is, you guessed it, TSA porno scans and gropings. Sorry, I mean backscatter images and enhanced pat-downs… that sounds so much less invasive and unconstitutional, doesn’t it? Aside from Thanksgiving travel weekend protests which, let’s be honest, didn’t really amount to anything, the TSA has continued on its merry way taking naked pictures of travelers or molesting them if they refused. A word regarding the “opt-out” protests from last Thanksgiving. Protest organizers called on travelers uncomfortable with the idea of having a naked picture taken of them and studied by TSA workers in a dark room somewhere before being allowed to board a plane to “opt-out” of the scans. The protestor organizers hoped this would result in massive delays in airport security lines and would cause public outcry regarding the inefficient policy that caused them to miss their flight back home to visit family which ultimately would force the government to back away from the use of the scanners. All well and good but by opting out of the porno imaging devices passengers would then be subject to an “enhanced pat-down” that involves TSA goons sticking their white latex covered fingers down your pants and fondling your genitals and/or breasts.

I think it is great that the opt-out protestors were standing up to this blatant violation of our Fourth Amendment rights but their actions were clearly only a first step. Does a free person really accept an enhanced grope when turning down a naked picture? Would Rosa Parks have accepted a seat in the middle of the bus? A much more successful and meaningful protest would be a refusal by air passengers to submit to both police state actions. If you have to travel by air then buy your ticket, get in line for your security theater check, and opt-out of the scans and refuse an enhanced pat-down. I know many out there will say that these security measures are necessary because we are at “war with terror” and anyone who opposes these police state actions ultimately is begging for another 9/11 but that simply is not true. What is stopping terrorists from packing explosives in their carry-on and detonating them while they wait in line for their pat down? Should we then have security checks before you enter the airport? What then if terrorists decide to blow up their cars while driving to the airport, should we have highway checkpoints? This can go on and on forever. There comes a time when a free people must accept the dangers that they face (however infinitesimal they may be…you’re twice as likely to die crushed under a vending machine as you are to die in a terrorist attack) as a price for being free and they must accept the fact that you cannot give up freedom for security (cue the Ben Franklin quote).

Back in May, the State of Texas was considering a bill that would make a TSA pat-down that involves “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly [touching] the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of the other person, including touching through clothing, or touching the other person in a manner that would be offensive to a reasonable person” a misdemeanor, which would have allowed Texas law enforcement to arrest TSA officials and charge them with sexual harassment (a fine of $4,000 and a year in jail). This bill passed the Texas House of Representatives and was on its way to passage in the upper chamber when the TSA decided to send a letter, threatening to cancel all flights out of Texas. After the iron fist of the federal government came down upon the Lone Star State and the upper chamber pulled the measure out of fear of a reprisal from the TSA, Dan Patrick, the representative that introduced the bill stated:

“There was a time in this state, there was a time in our history, where we stood up to the federal government and we did not cower to rules and policies that invaded the privacy of Texans.”

Well, it seems like that time is today, Mr. Patrick. Governor (and potential 2012 Republican candidate for President) Rick Perry decided to add the TSA anti-groping legislation to the agenda for the special legislative session. We’ve already seen the TSA expand its powers from just airports to buses, trains, and even high school proms. It is time that we all stand with Texas and make our support known for this bill, HB 41. Everyone who values their civil liberties should be outraged over the TSA  program that shows no respect for travelers’ privacy or their right to be free from unreasonable searches. We can no longer sit back and wait for the federal government to simply decide that it has taken enough of our rights and that it wants no more power. If you live in Texas call your representatives and tell them that you want to see HB 41 passed and call the office of the Governor and thank him for adding this bill to the special session. If you do not live in Texas then it is time that you call your governor and representatives and tell them that you want to see similar legislation like HB 41 passed in your state.

The hacktivist group Anonymous has been all over the news recently due to their exploits against various government websites (in the U.S. and abroad).  Anonymous was started back in 2003 but didn’t become recognized globally until sometime in 2010. Hacktivism is the act of hacking, or breaking into a computer system, for a politically or socially motivated purpose. These aren’t the anarchistic hackers the government propaganda machine tries to paint them as. The decentralized group uses coordinated attacks to bring down websites and potentially gather data in retaliation for various government actions that endanger internet freedom, free speech, liberty, and human rights. According to an interview conducted with Al-Jazeera, Anonymous stands for “freedom of speech, freedom of information and freedom of information taken to a logical extreme.”

It was in 2010 that I became aware of the group through their retaliatory denial of service attacks (Operation Avenge Assange) against Paypal, Mastercard, Visa, and Amazon.com for their actions taken against WikiLeaks. These companies stopped taking donations or froze donations that had been made to WikiLeaks, or in the case of Amazon.com stopped providing hosting for the site, after they began publishing many secret United States diplomatic cables that had been leaked to the group. On its website Anonymous stated its reasons for the attacks:

While we don’t have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons. We want transparency and we counter censorship. The attempts to silence WikiLeaks are long strides closer to a world where we can not say what we think and are unable to express our opinions and ideas.

We can not let this happen. This is why our intention is to find out who is responsible for this failed attempt at censorship. This is why we intend to utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy.”

At the time I figured Operation Avenge Assange was just a one time action taken in support of WikiLeaks (or just some bored hacker who couldn’t have cared less about WikiLeaks and was only using the controversy to give some fake moral backing to his actions) and that we would never hear about this “group” ever again. I didn’t believe that the response by “Anonymous” was any type of coordinated effort based on sociopolitical motives. I had wrongly assumed that this “one man” would fade away and never be heard from again. Of course, those who had known about this group since 2003 or those who actively assisted in the group in the past had other ideas.

Shortly after the WikiLeaks operation, in late 2010/early 2011 the movement that has now become known as the “Arab Spring” began to take flight in Tunisia. The story of a revolution in Tunisia begins with a twenty-six year old man, Mohamed Bouazizi, who operated a simple fruit and vegetable cart in order to provide income to his family. He continually faced harassment from police and other local officials for no reason other than typical bureaucratic tyrannical nonsense. He would have his produce confiscated, his scales taken from him, or have fines levied against him for operating his business without a permit. Of course, Bouazizi was never able to properly obtain a permit because the state would never allow him one. So after continued harassment he took action in protest of the tyrannical government he was living under and poured lighter fluid all over his body and set himself on fire. Bouazizi died from the burns he had sustained but it was not in vain. He was the spark of a revolution in not just his home country of Tunisia but across the Middle East. His actions inspired many of his fellow countrymen and led to the downfall of the 23 year long regime of President Zain El-Abedine Ben Ali. Ben Ali’s downfall did not come without a fight however. The government placed the capital city of Tunis under curfew, banned public gatherings and authorized security forces to fire on anyone refusing to obey orders. They also shut down the internet.

In Egypt, the people inspired by the protests against the government in Tunisia began to take to the streets themselves to protest their own governments violations of their human rights. As the protests in Egypt began to grow and showed no signs of abating the Egyptian government knew that the protestors were using social media outlets to coordinate, recruit others to join in, and to spread their message across the world. The Egyptian government’s solution to stopping the protestors? They shutdown the internet.

I think you can see where this is leading.

Anonymous didn’t take too kindly to the internet being shutdown in both countries in response to the popular uprisings that were occurring so they did something about it. They didn’t issue proclamations demanding that the internet be restored, that the governments “listen” to the protestors, or that free and fair elections need to be held. In Tunisia, Anonymous brought down numerous Tunisian government websites, provided helpful documentation that would assist in taking down the government and information on how to access the internet despite the government shutdown. In Egypt, Anonymous brought down government websites that continued to be inaccessible until Hosni Mubarak stepped down as well as assisted in restoring access to the Egyptian populace. Anonymous summed it up themselves rather nicely in this message posted on their Twitter feed:

Welcome back to the Internet, #Egypt. Well, except http://www.moiegypt.gov.eg – you stay down”

Anonymous has also been connected to a coordinated shutdown and attack against 91 government websites in Malaysia this week due to internet and other forms of censorship in that nation. Malaysia has some of the strictest censorship rules in the entire world that target TV, movies, and other forms of media. Media outlets in Malaysia are encouraged to “self-censor” when reporting on issues of national interest. In the 2010 Press Freedom Report issued by Reporters Without Borders, Malaysia was ranked 141st.

Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, Malaysia, even Spain, according to the AnonOps blog… all foreign nations that have been attacked by Anonymous. Recently however, Anonymous seems to have focused its sights on the United States specifically on the Federal Reserve and its Chairman Ben Bernanke. In a recent video entitled “CTRL-ALT-BERNANKE”, Anonymous blasts the Fed for its devaluation of the US dollar and for its actions taken to bailout “to big to fail banks” domestically and abroad, looting of the nation and forcing many into poverty. The operation was set to begin this past Tuesday and apparently would include shutting down government websites here in the United States but in the video Anonymous also calls for the public to step up to the plate and “take up public space” until Chairman Bernanke steps down. On June 11, the group hacked into the IMF’s computer system and allegedly was able to get away with lots of data. Can you imagine what information could possibly be included in the data Anonymous grabbed? Anonymous’ stated goal is to break up the global banking cartel, including the Federal Reserve, IMF, and World Bank. While Anonymous was breaking into the IMF, another group which calls itself “LulzSec” took down the website of the CIA (cia.gov). There has been conflicting reports on whether or not LulzSec and Anonymous are affiliated in any way so I won’t comment on that beyond stating that in my view it appears that they are separate entities with differing goals.

Anonymous’ actions aren’t limited to just the federal government either. It appears that one of Anonymous’ next targets may be the City of Orlando! Does Mickey Mouse sit at the top of a tyrannical regime that systematically oppresses Goofy and Donald Duck? No kids, Disney World is safe but what did the City of Orlando do to warrant a possible retaliatory attack by Anonymous? In the City of Orlando, you are required to get a permit (limited to two per year) from the government is you plan on offering food to 25 or more people in downtown parks. Members of the activist group Food Not Bombs, were arrested for offering pancakes and donuts to homeless people in Orlando. A warning was posted on an Anonymous-related German blog calling for the attack against Orlando to begin tomorrow, June 17th at noon.

The sheer volume and frequency of the attacks seem to indicate that this group is not going to be disappearing any time soon. With such a decentralized structure that all of its “members” operate under, it makes it extremely difficult for law enforcement to do anything to prevent any future attacks, especially since anyone can claim to be “Anonymous.” Hacking is illegal under U.S. law and in jurisdictions around the world but as the above examples show Anonymous is not your typical hacker group. The purpose of the attacks by Anonymous are not to steal your credit card information or passwords or to wipe out your hard drive but the common thread that runs through it all is a desire for freedom of expression and protection against tyrannical governments suppressing our rights. It is easy to see the benefit of this type of justice when it happens to dictators in Egypt or Tunisia as protestors are struggling to achieve freedom, I know I was rooting for them, but what about when it is happening here in our own country?

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that governments are instituted among men in order to secure our inalienable rights but when governments fail in their duty to secure those rights it is the right of the people to either alter or abolish the offending government. For Jefferson, this wasn’t the type of action that was to be taken lightly but he recognized that it is a natural right of people to be free and to shake off the chains of a tyrannical government. Are laws that prevent volunteers from feeding the homeless just laws? Is the devaluing of our dollar through the inflationary actions of the Federal Reserve just? What about the TSA and its thugs degrading and humiliating people in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment?

Of course, I do not endorse illegal acts, nor do I urge people to engage in them but it will sure be interesting to see how this battle shakes out between Anonymous and tyrannical governments across the world.