The Real America: Executive Power, Foreign Policy, and a Domestic Police State.

***This article was inspired by a conversation among friends and family during a recent gathering. Naturally, the conversation geared towards political matters, and while there was some early disagreement, the majority of our grievances regarding recent political events were commonly held. The group consisted largely of conservative leaning folks, all of us sharing an anti-Obama sentiment. Despite these areas of agreement, the nature of the discussion quickly became one of serious and passionate disagreements. In my opinion the majority of these disagreements stemmed from a wide divergence in the information each individual relies upon to understand current events around the world. I intend in this article to present my understanding of the real issues that should concern free individuals in the world today. Perhaps this will allow myself, my family and friends come to an agreement, and hopefully it will help many others fully grasp the threats to individual liberty and freedom that we are all facing. ***

The Emperor Has Political Body Armor

                The IRS has been caught with their pants down targeting enemies of President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee with unlawful scrutiny. In this process the IRS successfully delayed the approval of tax-exempt status to groups that associated with the American Right. By effectively using illegitimate Executive powers to silence his opposition, he was further enabled to win reelection. As Ron Paul pointed out, it really isn’t surprising that the IRS is so often used as a political tool, considering the amount of power given to the tax collectors. “…The power to tax involves the power to destroy…” – Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in the McCulloch v. Maryland decision¹, and Chicago politics has always been about destroying the opposition. This administration has shown it is willing to trample the sacred First Amendment rights recognized in the Constitution for power. Former Federal Judge Andrew Napolitano brilliantly describes the nature of libido dominandi, or the lust for power in this conclusion to his book.

                The Associated Press and Fox News “reporter” James Rosen were spied on by the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Documents were seized, phones were tapped, and families were scrutinized. This direct attack on the freedom of the press was accomplished also through illegitimate Executive power. It was Thomas Jefferson who said “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”², and the Obama administration understands what he meant. The intimidation created by the release of this news alone stifles the freedom of the Press in immeasurable ways. We may never know who, in the future may refuse to report something based on fear of potential prosecution. We can no longer tell ourselves that we have a ‘Free Press’. Not only has the mainstream media consisted of big government Leftists for as long as I can remember, but now the Obama administration is targeting the freedom of those who threaten his political power. A bought-off press may still be free and biased, but an intimidated and prosecuted press is toothless.

Foreign Policy

                Does it seem odd to you that the only thing congressional leaders from the Democrat and Republican parties can agree on is foreign policy? Typically bipartisan policies are those that the majority of the voting public support. That is absolutely not the case in this instance. Barack Obama was elected on several failed promises, but let us recall only a few. First and most glaring was him promise to close Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and he possesses the sole power to do so. Five years into his presidency we have learned in spite of a mainstream media blackout, there has been a hunger strike ongoing for over one hundred days. The Miami Herald has done great work in tracking the hunger strike (as of today, 5/29/13, there are a total of 103 hunger strikers, 7 have been hospitalized, and 35 have been forcibly kept alive via feeding tube), and Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian has written extensively about the illegal detainment that the U.S. government imposes without filing charges or providing anything remotely recognizable to due process.

“Obama’s responsibility for the Guantánamo disgrace extends… More than half of the remaining 166 detainees at the camp are Yemeni. Dozens of those Yemenis (along with dozens of other detainees) have long ago been cleared for release by the US government on the ground that there is no evidence to believe they are a threat to anyone. A total of 87 of the remaining detainees – roughly half – have been cleared for release, of which 58 are Yemeni. Not even the US government at this point claims they are guilty or pose a threat to anyone.”- Glenn Greenwald (3)

Campaigning Barack Obama also promised to bring the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to an end as soon as possible. Instead he endorsed General David Petraeus’ “Surge” in Afghanistan while continuing to fuel a civil war in Iraq. President Obama has expanded the Drone Assassination program to encompass nearly all of the Middle East and North Africa. To read more about the specific assassination of a 16 year old American citizen who has still not been accused of any wrongdoing or suspicions thereof, click here. It has also been reported by the New York Times that Obama uses a “kill list” to help his team of national security advisors decide who to illegally and immorally assassinate without due process via Drone strike. The Obama administration has also redefined “enemy combatant” to mean any military aged male killed by the strike. Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of several books regarding American foreign policy, wrote that “In less than three years under President Obama, the U.S. has launched drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.  It maintains that it has carte blanche to kill suspected enemies in any nation.” ⁴ This is obviously very disturbing to any of us familiar with the blowback that can be expected from this foreign interventionism, but it gets worse. After several months of refusing to acknowledge the assassination by drone of the above mentioned 16 year old American citizen, someone from the Dept. of Justice leaked what came to be known as the “DOJ White Paper”. In reviewing this document, Constitutional lawyer and author John Whitehead wrote the following:

“As president, Obama has gone beyond Guantanamo Bay, gone beyond spying on Americans’ emails and phone calls, and gone beyond bombing countries without Congressional authorization. He now claims, as revealed in a leaked Department of Justice memo, the right to murder any American citizen the world over, so long as he has a feeling that they might, at some point in the future, pose a threat to the United States.

Let that sink in. The President of the United States of America believes he has the absolute right to kill you based upon secret “evidence” that you might be a terrorist. Not only does he think he can kill you, but he believes he has the right to do so in secret, without formally charging you of any crime and providing you with an opportunity to defend yourself in a court of law. To top it all off, the memo asserts that these decisions about whom to kill are not subject to any judicial review whatsoever.” – John W. Whitehead ⁵

To read more about Obama’s cowardly and morally bankrupt escalation of drone warfare, click here.

Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki 16 yr. old Assassinated via Drone Strike

Does this foreign policy make us safer? If the answer wasn’t so obvious perhaps a more detailed description of ‘blowback’ would be warranted, but we can attain this obvious answer by looking only at Syria. Most are familiar with the “civil war” in Syria and the political debate in America that is focused on what form of intervention is called for (notice the lack of non-intervention in the debate), but what people are less familiar with was pointed out concisely by the President of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Daniel McAdams:

“Anyone really paying attention to US policy in the Middle East these past several months must be wondering whether Washington has gone insane. US foreign policy under the triple threat of Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Hillary Clinton has gone to openly supporting what the German intelligence services (echoed in several prominent and panicked mainstream German media sources) have found to be predominantly al-Qaeda-backed terrorist attacks inside Syria. Americans can be forgiven for scratching their heads at the reality that the United States government is actively supporting in Syria what it has spent the last eleven years fighting just a few thousand miles away in Afghanistan”.– Daniel McAdams⁶

As if there was any doubt that the American government would soon make its cooperation with jihadists an overt alliance to topple the anti-Western Assad, Senator John McCain made a trip to visit with the al-Qaeda affiliated groups in Syria on Memorial Day.⁷ There is no doubt he was assuring American weaponry at the very minimum. It is very telling that the only thing these Senators can agree on right now is that arming al-Qaeda is the right thing to do.

                If you remain unconvinced that the actions of our “bipartisan” foreign policy actually make us less safe, than I ask you how will we pay for it? Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke is inflating our monetary base to the tune of 85 billion dollars per month⁸ further debasing the currency and indirectly stealing from savers, investors and entrepreneurs. Levels of taxation only continue to increase, and with the poorly named Affordable Care Act being enacted at this very moment the unfunded liabilities of the Federal Government are utterly unsustainable. Even if the world were full of terrorists that hated us simply for our freedoms (as absurd as that is) it does not justify robbing the wealth of future generations to pay for pre-emptive, offensive acts of war.

Domestic Police State

                It was widely accepted after 9/11 that in order to gain security it becomes necessary to give up “some liberty”. Benjamin Franklin wrote that “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”⁹ While understanding the full context of this quotation may still be up for debate, it seems clear to me, and the last decade has proven it true in the spirit commonly accepted.

                The Fourth amendment of the United States has served its purpose remarkably well throughout the history of the American Government. Again we will turn to Judge Andrew Napolitano to place this issue in its historical context and explain how this government has stripped away this integral protection of individual liberty:

“After the Founders won the Revolution, the framers wrote the Constitution in large measure to assure that the new government in America would not and could not do to Americans what the king had done to the colonists. Hence the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that only judges issue search warrants and only after the governmental agency seeking the warrants presents evidence under oath of probable cause of crime. Regrettably, that was weakened after 9/11 with the enactment of the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act – written in defiance of the Constitution and in ignorance of our history – permits federal agents to write their own search warrants, just as the king and Parliament had permitted British soldiers to do. Those agent-written search warrants are intended to be limited to the search for evidence of terror plots and are theoretically limited to the seizure of physical records in the custody of third parties, like lawyers, doctors, hospitals, billing clerks, telephone and Internet carriers, and even the Post Office. (Did you know that federal agents can see your mail and your legal and medical records without permission from a judge?) This abominable piece of legislation sacrificed freedom for safety and enhanced neither.” – Judge Andrew Napolitano ¹⁰

The Patriot Act was bad, but do not fool yourself into thinking that with the exit of Bush signaled the exit of the Police State. The TSA is in high gear trampling you’re fourth amendment rights. Since the illegal and perverted gropings occur daily, there have been many gross abuses caught on film. Take a few minutes to watch this video and decide for yourself, are these free individuals?

                While the above video is incredibly disturbing because of the sheer number of people whose rights are being violated every day, another incident is disturbing for the opposite reason, the use of illegitimate Executive power to target an individual’s freedom based solely on speech. Adam Kokesh is a well-known libertarian activist. He is a veteran of the Iraq War, working as a Civil Affairs Sargent in Fallujah around 2004. He saw the horrors of war, and he understands war as the health of the State. In recent weeks Kokesh announced his “Open Carry March on Washington”  scheduled for July 4^th 2013. In an unrelated political protest at which Kokesh was the keynote speaker, multiple angles of video footage show that he was singled out and targeted for arrest, likely because of his planned demonstration. The original charge he was detained for was “Assault on a Federal Officer” despite the countless video accounts that proved the charges were frivolous. You can see for yourself here:

After a huge outpouring of suppport, protest, phone calls and donations to legal funds Adam Kokesh was released after nearly a week of detention. His charges were reduced to mere citation fines of approximately two hundred dollars. While this story may have had a happy ending, it goes a long way towards revealing the political thuggery that infests every level of government, and especially its enforcement arms.

                And just to be sure I don’t leave out your favorite of Obama’s abuses; Benghazi, Stimulus I & II, Solyndra, recess appointments while Congress was not in recess, failure to produce a budget despite Constitutional obligation, trillion dollar annual deficits, etc… The point is you could go on forever with this guy, he really is a propped up dope that can’t do anything right. Many Americans see and understand this, but the only other obvious choice is a Republican Party that is old, tired, and absolutely lacking a consistent political philosophy, and likely to get us into pointless wars. Barack Obama and the DNC have deftly maneuvered themselves into a place of political dominance that will lead to a system of One Party Rule if nothing is done to stop them.  I am not suggesting that Obama will not relinquish power in 2016; the DNC is too powerful to risk their existence on one man. He will be replaced with more hope, and more change. His sponsors however, will remain in place pulling the same strings that are forcing Obama to dance right now.

Political Action

The ruling “Political Class” has put itself in position to maintain power until the whole thing comes crashing down around all of us.  The Emperor lost his clothes a decade ago and Obama’s hope and change only disguised him for so long. It is corrupt political power that will keep him in office, and the same political power will install the next puppet of the political elite. The Obama administration and all administrations after his will survive purely via political body armor. The will of the people has done little to affect change of policy in recent history, and the government has grown less responsive and more tyrannical.

                We can reverse the trend if we refuse to play the rigged game. It is naïve to think that we can vote the government smaller. We can no longer play by their rules because this is not a game for us. I am not going to pretend to offer a detailed strategy here, but I do wish to express my optimism. Through education, demonstration, and exemplification it is possible for us to throw off the chains of Washington. It is necessary for every freedom loving individual to sacrifice time and energy towards these goals. We must redefine political action outside the paradigm of Left vs. Right, outside of the mainstream media, and outside of the authority of Washington D.C.

               I cannot speak for anyone else, but I’m sick of paying for a parasite class to restrict our freedoms, perpetuate fraudulent wars, and drive our society into economic ruin.

 by Adam Alcorn, Founder/Editor of the Humane Condition, @AdamBlacksburg

As always the author can be reached at thcondition@gmail.com

Dr. Murray N. Rothbard

NOTES:

1. McCulloch v. Maryland Decision, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=21&page=transcript
2.  The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Edited by Julian P. Boyd et al. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950–. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs8.html
3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/15/obama-guantanamo-hunger-strike-moqbel
4. http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175454/
5. http://lewrockwell.com/whitehead/whitehead71.1.html
6. http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/116720.html
7.  http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2013/may/27/mccain-spends-memorial-day-with-al-qaeda-allies.aspx
8.  http://www.moneynews.com/FinanceNews/Schiff-Fed-stimulus-economy/2013/05/24/id/506207
9.  Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
   US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 – 1790)
10. http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano99.1.html

The American Civil War: Power at Stake

The causes of the Civil War are, unfortunately, disputed among countless people on countless forums.  Most of the time, either bad history is being practiced or untrue statements are being made.  The true causes reside within countless primary documents and an understanding of American culture at the time.  After looking at the evidence, I have come to two conclusions that I will argue in this brief essay.

Presidents Lincoln and Davis

1.) Slavery was a Necessary Factor for Southern Secession whereas State Sovereignty was hardly at Play.

      South Carolina, the first state to secede, did not come to that decision over night.  Just like most confederate states, South Carolina’s decision to secede can be traced back to 1850.  This was the year that the U.S. congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act.  Specifically, the act required that northern states enforce laws concerning fugitive slaves.  The northern states were now required to return slaves that had escaped for freedom.  Furthermore, the act declared

“And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid… and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid.”[1]

 

In other words, those who aided escaped slaves could be charged and fined.  The reason that southern states were upset about this is rather ironic.  The south was not upset about these new laws.  They were upset that northern states either nullified, or refused to enforce them.

Almost immediately after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed, Vermont passed the Habeas Corpus Law which effectively nullified the Fugitive Slave Act in Vermont.  Four years later, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the Fugitive Slave Act was unconstitutional.  Furthermore, jury nullification was common among northern states.  The fact that the Federal government did not force the northern states to follow the Fugitive Slave Act is what led to secession, beginning in 1860.  In fact, this reason is mentioned several times throughout the “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.”  One section of the declaration reads

“We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”[2]

 

This type of language was common among southern declarations of independence.  The evidence is clear.  Slavery and a weak federal government were necessary for southern secession.  Northern nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act pushed the South towards secession.

2.) The Federal Government was interested in Federal Expansion whereas the Liberation of Slaves was hardly at Play.

             There were numerous reasons behind the Union’s prevention of southern secession.  Primarily, the notion of Manifest Destiny and the need for federal revenues motivated the Union to take action.

It should be acknowledged that, although slavery played a huge role in southern secession, the Union did not go to war to free the slaves.  President Lincoln, the commander in chief during the Civil War, stated

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help save the Union.”[3]

Ulysses S. Grant, the Union General, wrote that

“The sole object of this war is to restore the Union. Should I become convinced it has any other object, or that the Government designs its soldiers to execute the wishes of the Abolitionists, I pledge you my honor as a man and a soldier I would resign my commission and carry my sword to the other side.”[4]

The real reason for the Union’s response to southern secession was a sentiment that was at the heart of U.S. policy.  It is commonly known as “Manifest Destiny,” a philosophy centered on U.S. expansion “from sea to shining sea.”  In fact, this was the same philosophy that led to the Mexican-American war of the late 1840s.  This nationalistic idea, more so than the seizure of Fort Sumter, is what drove the Union to stop the south from breaking away.

Further, the Union needed southern money to maintain its continental expansionism.  This is due to the federal tax system of this time period.  Specifically, until 1861, the Union relied on tariffs imposed on various ports.  The south, however, contained most of the country’s ports.  Furthermore, an estimated 75% of federal revenue came from the southern ports.  Without these funds, the Union would have to contract rather than expand.  There was a reason that top ranking Union officials were concerned with maintaining the Union.  Southern money played a role in continental expansionism and was necessary for “Manifest Destiny.”

Ultimately, neither the Confederacy nor the Union should be admired.  The confederacy left the Union because of its’ opposition to northern nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act.  The Union went to war with the confederacy in order to maintain the funds necessary for an expansionist policy.  The Civil War should not be thought of as a war of liberation.  Instead, it should be looked at as a war between two governments seeking power.

– Will Shanahan, Contributor, the Humane Condition

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[1] U.S. Federal Congress, USConstitution.net, “The Fugitive Slave Act.” September 18, 1850. (Accessed April 24, 2013) http://www.usconstitution.net/fslave.html.

[2] Confederate States of America, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy, “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” December 24, 1860. (Accessed April 24, 2013.) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp.

[3] Abraham Lincoln, “Lincoln’s Letter to Horace Greeley,” (August 22, 1862) 1.

[4] Ulysses S. Grant, “A letter to the Chicago Tribune,” (1862).

The Story of How We All Murdered A Sixteen Year Old Boy

Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki

On October 14^th, 2011, we all murdered Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki. To understand why we are to blame, we must understand the nature of government and the circumstances surrounding his death. Ultimately, it is nationalism, taxation, and apathy that incriminate us.

 

The United States has both a socialized military and nationalistic attitude. We all pay for national defense through our taxes and thus, are purchasing the product that they deliver. Furthermore, we decide who leads this socialistic institution through the collective practice of voting. In November of 2008, the nation spoke and elected Barack Obama into office. Voting is the action that pushes collectivization through in this nation. Every four years we encounter the same cliché about coming together “as a nation” to decide on who our next leader will be. This political process is how we supposedly choose the person who will “represent” our nation in the larger world. Our participating in the political process is what led to the election of the man who authorized the drone strike that took young Al-Awlaki’s life. But this nationalistic collectivism alone does not make us responsible for the actions of the state.

 

The second institution that incriminates us in the death of the young Al-Awlaki is taxation. Our taxes are what fund our government run programs, including the military. Taxation, of course, refers to the income tax, inflation tax, and deficit spending. In other words, it is our money that funded the drone strike that led to Al-Awlaki’s death. However, taxation and collectivism combined are not enough to make us conspirators in his murder.

 

The third and final requirement to warrant guilt is apathy.  This is because to not act out, when our property does the killing, implies consent. To put it simply, did we show outrage after the fact? The answer is yes for a small segment of the population. Their hands are clean. The majority of Americans however, are all in on this crime. To understand why, we must look at who Al-Awlaki was and how he died.

 

Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki was born in Colorado on August 26^th, 1995. He was a natural born U.S. Citizen and son of the infamous Anwar Al-Awlaki, a terrorist who was assassinated just two weeks before Abdulrahman’s death. The young Al-Awlaki had no terrorist connections and had not seen his father for several years, prior to his death. He was also killed, via drone strike, without a trial or jury. Al-Awlaki was not engaged in hostilities against the U.S. at the time of his death. The Washington post reported that the “Obama administration lawyers have said the military and CIA can target suspected terrorists outside of war zones only if they represent a direct threat to U.S. interests. But the criteria they use remain shrouded in mystery. There is no external review by the courts.” When asked about the extra judicial killing of a 16 year old boy who was born in Denver, press secretary Robert Gibbs stated “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children.”[1]

 

How does all of this relate back to us? First, this administration was voted into office through the collective process of voting. Second, the bomb that ended this teenage American’s life was funded through our tax dollars. Our labor is what produced the wealth that was able to purchase the missile that killed Al-Awlaki. Finally, we return to the notion of apathy. What was the American public response to this atrocity? There were no major protests. A large portion of Americans still support this style of warfare. People still pay their taxes. The most damning evidence for American consent to this type of behavior took place about half a year ago. The American people came together and re-elected the same authoritarian regime that authorized this drone strike. They reelected the same regime that has not issued a public apology for the extra judicial killing of this American teenager. The majority of Americans either stood by and did nothing or supported the regime itself. Therefore, on October 14^th, 2011, we all murdered Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki.

– Will Shanahan, Contributor, the Humane Condition.

 

NOTES:

[1] Connor Friedersdorf, “How Team Obama Justifies the Killing of a 16-Year-Old American.” The Atlantic, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2013. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-team-obama-justifies-the-killing-of-a-16-year-old-american/264028/.

Craig Whitlock, “U.S. Airstrike That Killed American Teen in Yemen Raises Legal, Ethical Questions.” The Washington Post, 22 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-airstrike-that-killed-american-teen-in-yemen-raises-legal-ethical-questions/2011/10/20/gIQAdvUY7L_story_1.html.

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Statism: Warfare, Welfare, and Cultural Violence

The violence in our culture is appalling, heinous, tragic, entirely predictable and yet not uncommon. As an individualist, the use of words such as a “society” or “culture” must not be afforded the status or rights of an individual, but the concepts are necessary and can remain useful in discussing cultural ills. The “culture” referred to in this article is simply the amalgams of human values and tastes across the world. It is important not to focus simply on the blatantly forceful culture of the United States but to focus on the world large. The purpose of this article is to offer a simple thesis as to a contributing cause behind these acts of violence that we have become all too familiar with.

As is the case with many distorted and corrupted issues in our time, we can begin with the real meanings of certain terms as they are used to misconstrue one good idea after another. (See liberalism, capitalism, etc…) The foreign policies of the U.S. and the majority of the Western world have since before WWII, dramatically shifted back towards the Mercantilist ideals of the late middle ages.  The populace of any given nation has never been too fond of their overlord’s imperial adventures, and they especially hate footing the bill. Serving to change public opinion the term “Isolationist” was dragged through the mud and defined as a derogatory label that Murray Rothbard referred to as meaning “If not actively pro-Nazi, “isolationists” at the very least were narrow-minded ignoramuses ignorant of the world around them.”¹

Rothbard again pointed out that it was not enough to simply make up a word and ruin it, but that a word with positive connotations must be redefined. “Until the smear campaign of the 1930s, opponents of war were considered the true “internationalists”, men who opposed the aggrandizement of the Nation State and favored peace, free trade, free migration and free cultural exchanges…”².

So here is where we have a shift in lexicon that allows entirely imperialistic exercises of government to be sold to the populace as acts of internationalism, multi-culturalism and all that other crap that doesn’t have any meaning.

When the government acts on our behalf overseas it plays by no rules. They are bullying other kids on the playground of the world, and what happens to bullies? This is an oversimplification of the principle of blowback, but it can’t be overlooked in terms of international/political violence. The same behavior that sparks the blowback we have experienced also sparks terror here at home.

In much of the West, and the United States in particular, the governments are over-the-top paternalistic. They treat the ‘citizenry’ as if they are at best useful idiots, and at worse in the way of “collective progress”.  It is naïve to think that people will react differently to governments doing the bullying than they would if it were anyone else. Of course it is not as easy to deal with the Leviathan that is the State as it is the playground bully. To punch Uncle Sam in the nose is a suicide wish. But it is equally naïve to assume that the anguish and discontent created by the policies of the State will simply wash away unnoticed.

I do not have any extra knowledge as to what motivated the murderers in Blacksburg, Aurora, Newtown, Boston, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria. No matter the aggressor, be it the U.S., NATO, Iran, or foreign/domestic terrorists there is one commonality. Everyone alive on Earth today has grown up under the blanket of force that we call the state.

Whether it be through the foreign policy of any number of nation States, or the violent nature of the welfare state, violence is constant in our lives. There can be no effective discussion of cultural ills until the amount of violence and coercion in our lives is recognized. Statism is a kind of slow and painful torture. People react in a million different ways. Some develop a sort of “Stockholm Statism”, and others submit peacefully so to protect their families. Others react violently and irrationally. Does that sound familiar?

A child grows up and imitates the bad habits of their parents. When kids of the paternal state grow up, do they see a problem with violence? Or do they see it as the answer?

Notes 1 and 2: Rothbard, Murray Newton. “War and Foreign Policy.” For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. Rev. ed. San Francisco, Calif.: Fox & Wilkes, 1978. 329-330. e-Book.