Feeling Stuffy

Many Christians believe that Romans 13 means that one should always obey every government law, because God has placed the state as authority over us—to the point that it is a sin to exceed the speed limit (an arbitrary, man-made number that actually does not protect anyone’s safety), because that goes against the authority that God has placed over us.

To them I ask, “What if something is legal in 2004 and illegal in 2005?” Such as, say, purchasing a certain amount of cold medicine to alleviate the illness of one’s family? Does that mean it’s not a sin in 2004, but it’s a sin in 2005? Is the Lord really that arbitrary? Is it really a sin to “disobey” the state and acquire more cold medicine than the law says you can have, because you believe/know that you or your family needs more of it? I’m not even talking about making meth here, I’m just talking about how much you can purchase, regardless of the reason.

These are the things that make me frustrated enough to start posting on this blog again.

Seriously, I remember in 2005, when I had a summer job as a cashier at Walgreen’s, I was ignorant of this law until I had customers coming in with a basket full of every kind of cold medicine. The cash register-computers were even programmed so that they would not scan more than the legal amount of Sudafed, Mucinex, etc. (We might have gotten around it by scanning them as separate purchases, I’m not sure, my memory is foggy here.) I was so pissed when my manager explained to me why a customer’s second box of Sudafed wasn’t scanning—even more so when I could clearly see the customer standing in front of me, wheezing and sniffly and exhausted from dealing with a cold in the summer. But, you know, they could have been doing meth, too!

That’s part of the reason I’m starting to dabble in natural medicine and such—so I don’t have to sign away my left arm, my firstborn, and my first house that I don’t even have yet, just to get the government’s permission to buy certain cold medicines. And it’s a sin to disobey such laws? REALLY?

Gold, Guns, and Government: Some Things Just Don’t Change

I’ve been meaning to write about something that happened in the beginning of May, but I guess now is as good a time as any. Back then, I took a mini-break and drove down to Colonial Williamsburg for the weekend. Being a history geek, a rabid libertarian, and something of an anglophile, CW is one of my favorite places in the world. I hadn’t been there since I was about 12 years old, and I can tell you that becoming older, wiser, and more educated has only enhanced the experience for me. It’s definitely not all kids’ stuff, and the visit was everything that I had been hoping for. I won’t go into excruciating detail about the entire trip, but I will share a few things that happened that I found very interesting.

At the jeweler/silversmith’s shop, a woman (a “costumed interpreter,” I believe is the appropriate job title) was demonstrating ring-making, using silver. She talked about how, in the 18th century, rings had not yet become a standard symbol for marriage—that came during the Victorian age. Many people in the 18th century wore mourning rings, in memory of loved ones who had passed on. Rings that symbolized friendship and love were also popular, I think, but were not considered a requirement in society. Many people who traveled wore as many rings on their fingers as they owned or could fit on their hands. (Those who couldn’t afford such rings were probably not traveling much anyway.) Most of us would think this crazy, since it seemed like an invitation for mugging and theft, but what happened was that the rings also served as backup in case someone stole the traveler’s money-purse.

The interpreter specifically said that the money back then was gold and silver coinage, and so anything made of those materials could also serve as money. Therefore, if you were traveling and stopped at an inn, but found that your purse had been stolen, you could give up a silver ring and still get a bed and a meal for the night. Of course, as a pro-gold/silver standard person, this piqued my interest and made me smile.

She also explained that, in having rings, spoons, and other gold/silver materials made, the customer would pay in silver for a ring made of silver. Basically, they were providing their own raw materials—with a little extra for the labor. So if a customer paid 100% of the price of a ring, he would get back about 80% of it in the form of the ring itself, with the other 20% going toward the labor of making it. The most interesting thing was that the interpreter specifically said that you were automatically getting back 80% of the silver you paid—and years later, it would still be worth that same 80%.

“How many things do we buy nowadays that are worth the same years later?” she asked, rhetorically I’m sure.

I thought, “Not houses, that’s for sure.” But as she was speaking, I was amazed and delighted and wondering if she even realized that she was delivering a simple, fundamental argument for a return to specie-backed money.

Of course, none of this comes as a surprise to those who know a little about monetary history and the importance of the gold and silver standard, but I stood there and wondered if 1) the interpreter knew even more than she was letting on, and 2) if that sparked the curiosity of any of the other CW visitors who were listening to her. Sometimes I wish that I had spoken up and said something about how that was a good reason for us to return to the gold standard (I didn’t). Other times I think, “Eh. I was on vacation. No use in starting a debate there.” Except that if such an opportunity presents itself again, I think I’ll have to speak up.

(Recommended reading: Murray Rothbard’s What Has Government Done to Our Money?)

One other (more brief) interesting tidbit from the trip was a visit to the Magazine, where the public firearms, ammunition, and gunpowder were kept—aside from the muskets and such that everyone already had at home. When things began to get heated between the British government and the colonists, Governor Dunmore, fearful of revolution, ordered the gunpowder to be secretly taken from the Magazine in an early April morning in 1775. At first he said it was to protect the colonists from a slave uprising, but later admitted that he was afraid of revolutionary actions by the colonists.

Seeing it and hearing about it, now that i’m older, really made me realize that the state’s attempts to disarm its subjects are never new. The government has been trying to disarm its slaves for centuries—feudal Europe, the British Empire, the USSR, and now the USA. The state may even try to convince the population that it’s all for their own good, their own safety. The face, the voice, the approach, may all change throughout the years, but the general tactics stay the same. These days, the population of sheeple is complacent, lazy, and all too willing to surrender whatever it takes to maintain the status quo. I wonder when enough people will realize what is being done to them? Do they even want to be free? Or is that just too much work?

A Video for the Jaded

Yes, it has been a long time, hasn’t it?

Obviously, a lack of posting for several weeks is not for want of material! In fact, I’ve been absent from this blog because of the opposite problem. I have yet to discover a surefire way to revive myself when I enter another “libertarian slump,” during which I become so disgusted, exhausted, and generally discouraged by ongoing state interference and the ignorance of the populace that I simply give up for a while.

I have even *gasp* been inactive on Twitter for the last few days!! *shudder*

During this period, I have to force myself to keep up with the news, libertarian blogs, YouTube videos, etc. Thankfully, I came across a new-ish video today that gave me enough encouragement to post today. Please do enjoy this compilation of highlights from Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, in which he predicted the economic crisis in which we have found ourselves.

Notable Quotes From “Atlas Shrugged”

Well, now I am REALLY upset, having written an entire, enormous post, which WordPress then ate. It just … disappeared. Soooo I’m going to try this again, I suppose.

I am still working through Atlas Shrugged and absolutely love it. Once in a while, a quote will jump out at me, but for some reason I’ve been neglecting to write them down on even record the page numbers. Stupid of me, yes. But I was reading it today, and came to the part of Francisco d’Anconia’s famous “money speech” and thought, no, I cannot let this pass. Now, as a Christian, I cannot agree with everything Ayn Rand writes, but so much of it just makes sense. So here are my favorite parts:

Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor—your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?…

Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. …

Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. …

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another–their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun. …

When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

“Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot. …

Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’

“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world? You are.

There you have it. No wonder sales of this book have been soaring in recent months.

Top Experts, Scraped off the Bottom

Could someone give me a teaching position in economics at a prestigious university? Oh, I know I only have a 4-year history degree, but based on this article in the Wall Street Journal, I know more about economics than these clowns who testified before Congress yesterday.

You see, several “top economists” think that the government should break up financial institutions that are too big. You know, like what antitrust laws do, I suppose? Because those work so very well? Erm … yes. Anyway, you see, apparently when they get too big, they take on too much risk, they crash, and then comes a “crisis” like the current “crisis.” All right … but first, we already have antitrust laws for stuff like this! Are you saying that something the government implemented may not be working? Yes, indeed, so these “experts” are calling for these laws to be “overhauled,” which in Government-Speak means “made bigger and more complicated.”

Here’s the thing: As in many other things in life, it’s not the size of the company so much as how you use it. No one bothers to ask how banks get to be so big.

Some companies grow large by *gasp* successfully providing what consumers want. Look at how companies like WalMart and Netflix are thriving in this recession/depression/crisis.

Other companies get big because government institutions and policies allow them to.

(This is the part where I say, please, PLEASE read Tom Woods’ Meltdown. I finished it last week, or maybe two weeks ago, and it’s fantastic. Read it. Read it for yourself, and for the ones you love.)

The Federal Reserve and its artificial interest rates and expansion of the money supply, government pressure on banks to lend, easy credit … all of these contributed to swollen, bloated financial companies. The companies’ growth and profits were not founded on real demand, real prices, or real wealth. That’s why it’s called a “bubble”—and all bubbles pop. But the thing is that the government contributed to—nay, caused the financial crisis, and it cannot be expected, then, to have the solution. And the solution is certainly not to dismantle banks, deciding who gets what, and how large they should be.

How would that be decided? How big is too big? And above all, what does the government know? Certainly not enough to have prevented all this in the first place, that’s for sure.

Left alone in a free market, banks and other companies may grow and sustain that growth if they provide real products or services that real people want for real purposes. They will be successful. They may become large, or stay small, depending on how their owners and managers run things. If it fails, well, depending on how large or extensive or influential it is, the company may cause some discomfort to the economy, but eventually the damage is absorbed and something else takes its place.

The thing is, taking on risk can be a good thing, when there is enough actual money to do so. If it weren’t for taking risk with money, resources, time, energy, etc. etc. etc., we wouldn’t have innovation. We wouldn’t have the progress that people seem so keen on. The only way that companies such as banks can grow big enough to take risks that can affect an entire economy is if they have the backing of something else that is even bigger—the government, the Federal Reserve, and all the credit and protection those institutions provide. But the economy, made up of all people and resources, is even bigger, which is why the government can do nothing to stop this correction of years of ridiculous policy and malinvestment.

So, then, here we have just another example of “experts” who don’t know what they’re talking about, calling on the government to solve the problems that it caused. Why such experts either ignore or fail to grasp any of the above, I am at a loss to explain. I remain baffled.

And after writing that, I started reading Tom Woods’ article on LRC today, about economic bubbles.

Tea Party Footage

I’m not exactly Glenn Beck’s biggest fan, but I did like the speech he gave on Wednesday in front of the Alamo. It sums up the ORIGINAL motivations behind the Tea Parties quite nicely.

And if you haven’t read the DHS report that he mentions, have a look. (Warning: PDF file. Give it a few minutes.)

ATTENTION: Any Farmers Who May Be Reading This Blog

Will you marry me?

My Body, My Choice

And no, I’m not talking about abortion. I am talking about health care in America and a fantastic article by David McKalip, M.D., originally on the C4L website, but also posted today on LRC.

Until the federal government just goes bankrupt (though arguably it is already) and completely collapses, I can only see the health care issue in this country getting worse as it follows the course of those before—such as Canada and the UK. I do not understand why more people aren’t terrified by the thought of a far-off bureaucrat they’ve never met, and probably never heard of, deciding what kind of treatment they should get, for how much, for how long, and from which doctor and/or hospital.

I would love the opportunity to be insured against a major health disaster (e.g. a tragic accident, or a disesase the likes of which is rarely seen outside an episode of “House”) if only I could pay less for insurance, and only be out a little cash if I simply want a check-up. I want the opportunity to have more control over my body. If I were laid off, or had to move for some reason, I want to be able to keep health insurance.

Being young and relatively healthy (and with good genes—one grandmother is almost 80 and the other is well past 90), I don’t want to have to pay as much for the same plan as someone else at my job who is 20, 30 years older than myself, or who smokes, or has a chronic condition, or has a family and kids. I’m glad that Dr. McKalip addressed that in his article. With a family full of liberty-minded nurses and a doctor, I count myself fortunate for having quick access to free medical advice, as well, and have avoided many a visit to the doctor’s office simply because I was able to obtain a consultation elsewhere. I don’t need insurance for anything more than what I already mentioned, and if I didn’t have to pay so much in taxes, I would be better able to afford cash payment for the occasional office visit or prescription.

Whatever happened to a woman’s right to choose? Ha, ha! As if that actually exists! Rather, it only applies to if she wants to kill a baby. It doesn’t apply if she wants to smoke, swallow, or inject anything into her body of which the FDA does not approve. It doesn’t apply if she wants to, of her own free will, exchange certain services for money. It doesn’t apply if she wants to use a firearm to protect her body, her property, or her loved ones. It doesn’t apply if she wants to refuse support of government projects and services by keeping more of her own paycheck. It doesn’t apply if she wants to raise her children the way she deems best.

Of course, men don’t have these rights either. I’m just saying …

Yes, this post is a little scatterbrained; I just needed to get some of these things out. For my health, you know.

Incidentally, the article linked above is best served with all 6 parts of John Stossel’s “Sick in America” special (part 1 below) …

And a post from MEP Daniel Hannan’s blog about the UK health care system.

TSA Harassment & Detainment Makes Front Page of Washington Times

Steve Bierfeldt, Campaign for Liberty director of development, and the story of his harassment by TSA agents in the St. Louis airport, has made the front page of the Washington Times.

Protest in Turkey: Obama Just Another Imperialist