Monica

There Is Something Wrong

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There is something wrong and we all know it.

What do I think it is? I think it is that power is concentrated in the hands of those with different goals from the people from whom that power derives. I call the top of the pyramid “the power elite” and the source of the power “the sovereign citizen,” but whatever you call it, you have probably noticed the disconnect between our agents, the government we pay for and which acts in our name, and our wishes – better reflected in campaign promises than legislation.

But what can we do? I always answer this question in the same way: Start by not talking yourself out of the truth.

During the last presidential primary season, I advocated for Ron Paul. I didn’t stump for him – I’m an anarcho-capitalist and have no hope for coercive monopoly government no matter who holds the top title – but I do respect Ron Paul and supported him. In response to my suggestion that people actually vote for him, I got two arguments:

Monica

Crimea & Self-Determination: The First Principle of the Law of Nations

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We Did Not Consent to this Government

While living in Los Angeles in 2008, I had an epiphany. I saw in a neighbor’s window a Soviet-style poster of Barack Obama’s face and wondered what red-blooded American would be attracted to such ominous imagery. The face wasn’t bad, it was the Andy-Warhol-meets-Vladimir-Lenin color-blocking that freaked me out. Around the same time, George W. Bush had signed a law that would, incrementally of course, ban the warm glow of the Edison lightbulb. For me, this convergence of events was the tipping point. I realized the American Experiment had failed. Limited government was a utopian fantasy. No piece of paper, no matter how brilliantly conceived or masterfully written, could defend itself against a central monopoly on the use of force. No matter how limited at its inception, the power would be nurtured and abused until it converted all useful social power into state power.

Once I had this revelation, I gave up hope. I concluded that man was destined for serfdom, perhaps camouflaged as a combination of taxes and regulations, but unjust limits on personal and economic freedom and the theft of the fruits of one’s labor were inevitable in any organized society.

Monica

Crimea & Self-Determination: The First Principle of the Law of Nations

Posted on by Monica

We Did Not Consent to this Government

While living in Los Angeles in 2008, I had an epiphany. I saw in a neighbor’s window a Soviet-style poster of Barack Obama’s face and wondered what red-blooded American would be attracted to such ominous imagery. The face wasn’t bad, it was the Andy-Warhol-meets-Vladimir-Lenin color-blocking that freaked me out. Around the same time, George W. Bush had signed a law that would, incrementally of course, ban the warm glow of the Edison lightbulb. For me, this convergence of events was the tipping point. I realized the American Experiment had failed. Limited government was a utopian fantasy. No piece of paper, no matter how brilliantly conceived or masterfully written, could defend itself against a central monopoly on the use of force. No matter how limited at its inception, the power would be nurtured and abused until it converted all useful social power into state power.
Once I had this revelation, I gave up hope. I concluded that man was destined for serfdom, perhaps camouflaged as a combination of taxes and regulations, but unjust limits on personal and economic freedom and the theft of the fruits of one’s labor were inevitable in any organized society.

Monica

Manufacturing Advocacy

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Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky used the phrase “manufacturing consent” to describe how the media acts to garner the consent of the governed for policies and actions to which an objectively informed constituency might not consent. This builds on the premise by the great and precocious Étienne de La Boétie that government always requires the consent of the governed.  The media, Herman & Chomsky’s theory holds, manufactures this consent.

Recently, however, I have noticed that the phenomenon goes beyond manufacturing consent and now qualifies as manufacturing advocacy. I have noticed that when I try to tell people one-on-one about the truth behind the propaganda, (most recently, for example, with regard to the Ukraine), the majority of people don’t evaluate the new evidence they had been previously shielded from, they actually argue against it!  The responses differ between left and right, but the result is the same: irrationally advocating the unprincipled behavior of our agents in government against our own interests as tax-paying citizens who value liberty and justice for all.

Monica

Exposing the Shadow Government in the Ukraine (and the US?): Podcast of March 8 Show

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Hour 1 Hour 2 Here is some of the source material I used for the show today… Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt conspiring to install a shadow government in the Ukraine (BEFORE the uprisings that ousted the democratically-elected President Yanukovych). Here is the wiki entry on one (more…)

Monica

Our Enemy the State by Albert Jay Nock

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I recently found Our Enemy the State, by Albert Jay Nock, under a chair in my kids’ playroom–I must have bought it long ago and misplaced it. I flipped the book open to a chapter: “Politics and Other Fetiches,” and despite the unpromising chapter heading I was immediately riveted. Although written in 1935, Our Enemy (more…)

Monica

Philip Seymour Hoffman vs William Stewart Halsted

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Two of my brothers were hardcore heroin addicts. One quit, the other died. As a matter of fact, off the top of my head, I could name a half a dozen people in my family circle who died from drug abuse. Even short of risk of death, I think getting high every day, whether from illegal drugs, prescription meds or alcohol, is way more trouble than it’s worth, and I have seen people I loved degenerate into something less than fully human after transmogrifying into junkies.

For these reasons, it is understandable why I don’t take lightly my adherence to the libertarian principle that people are inherently free to abuse themselves, but I do believe neither the state nor the citizenry have the right to forcibly prevent an individual from using drugs for recreational purposes.

Monica

Duck Dynasty Dust-Up

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Unless I really can’t avoid it, I do avoid discussing divisive “wedge” issues on the air, and I did not make an exception for the Duck Dynasty dust-up, but I do want to take this opportunity to express one heartfelt view I have. I feel strongly that the American people, gay or straight, black or (more…)