Political Theory

Re: What can be done?

nirgrahamUK — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:01:09 GMT

crypto you are being oversensitive. he simply said he thought you were wrong. he didnt say you were always wrong about everything. just wrong about that.

If i am wrong on something I would prefer to be enlightened rather than left being wrong. whether its a help or an attack is more about how you choose to read the words he wrote. you should make the choice to believe he tried to help you. thats my advice anyway, for what its worth.

Re: What can be done?

cryptocode — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:31:24 GMT

" I was just trying to help!"

Questioning another's verasity is not deemed as help, but as an attack. Try to be more moderate. Still - it's an interesting point. (You might have mentioned it instead of attacking.) I may look into it more closely. What would you consider as proof?

Re: What can be done?

a platonic charisma — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:37:17 GMT

Haha. If you think that website counts as historical evidence enough, go for it. I don't think anyone has ever actually found it in any of his writings, that's all. And there is the matter of him 'inventing' the word deflation some 100+ years before it appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The quote has enough of an internet presence for you to get away with using it, anyway. I was just trying to help!

Re: What can be done?

cryptocode — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 04:15:21 GMT

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/thomas_jefferson/

And now, as you have impuned my honor by questioning it, I throw down this gauntlet before you and challenge you to a duel. You will die.

Re: What can be done?

a platonic charisma — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 23:32:18 GMT

cryptocode:
"If the American people ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered ... I sincerely believe that the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies." --Thomas Jefferson

I don't think that is a real Jefferson quote. It's a myth.

Re: What can be done?

cryptocode — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:08:21 GMT

Thank you Liberty Student. That's a great reply, and I will apply it.

Re: What can be done?

liberty student — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:47:03 GMT

cryptocode:
I'm angry at myself for having learned about the FRB and economics so late in life.

I felt this way briefly. But the best cure for anger is positive action.

What is frustrating is trying to communicate my thoughts without sacrificing my radicalism. I am getting better at this. An early frustration when I arrived here over 1 year ago, was that the forum was heavy on philosophy and theory, and as an ignorant layman, I was lost and confused. I know some miss the higher level discussions at times, but this forum has become a lot more geared towards street level conversation without compromising on the radical message of individual liberty and the possibility of a voluntary society.

One word of advice. Start small. Stop trying to move mankind/America, and focus on perfecting your own understanding and knowledge. If you're not sure what to do, donate to Mises.org or similar endeavours. Those people already have an aim, model and experience, and can carry forth progress while you sort out where and how you specifically want to make an impact.

Re: What can be done?

cryptocode — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:37:21 GMT

I'm also enjoying this site immensely. I hope to learn much.

But that being said, I must ask, what can be done to shift America's way of thinking back towards the free market?

Quote

American education is completely in the hands of the Teachers Union, the Teacher Training Institutes, and the D.C. powers. Nothing can be done.

I think we need to fight this fight on moral grounds. I feel that most American's would believe that freedom is a good thing, and what we must convince them of is that Capitalism IS freedom. We must champion the belief that the individual knows what is best for himself and should be allowed to make his own choices and decisions. We must destroy the code of Altruism, which teachs that the individual is to live for others with no thought of his own well-being. We must remind Americans that our very government was created to protect and perserve liberty, not to ensure equal outcomes for all.

Quote

Who's WE Kimosabe. You've changed the subject from I to we. I do not allow you to conscript me.

Your goals seem also to be confused. Do you want to do something - to take action? For whose benefit. Your own or others. Do you want to educate others in capitalism? Do you want to propogandize and control their beliefs. Please do not take offense. I am trying to point out different behaviors in different groups of people and between different generations.

You will not live long, no one does. Our public education system has developed over a period of 150 years. During only my lifetime our morals, or if you prefer, our culture, have completely changed. I'm not even sure we value honesty and more, but I'm very sure we've lost all sense of honor. I agree with you that the problem is due to a vast cultural or moral change in our country. A daily Mises article recently discussed that. But people cannot be forced to change their beliefs quickly if ever. Most people find thinking to be hard work and try to avoid it. They have become sheeple who will never act.

It is political knowledge that in any group of people no more than10% do all the work. That means 10% think and are willing to take action upon that thought. This is true for any size group. I even tested this out in graduate school. It works there also.

Since the Mises site is primarily for education, only 10% of the people will ever come here, at most. There are other sites, kitco.com for example, where people are more willing to take action. They are gold bugs, usually older than on this site, who also like to discuss economics. There you will find some died in the wool keynsians to test your knowledge. Or the Libertarian or Constitution parties. These are people who want to be activists.

Have you read and studied our Constitution. It is here: http://www.constitution.org/cs_found.htm. Some comments by a founding father:

'The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.' -- Thomas Jefferson

"When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."~~- Thomas Jefferson

"If the American people ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered ... I sincerely believe that the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies." --Thomas Jefferson

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-Thomas Jefferson

"Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.... And when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate." - James Garfield

Yet very little action has been taken. We have become a shameful and dishonorable people who demand and cry out to be given food, clothing, shelter of their own choice, all to be stolen from those who produced it.

I apologize if I'm sounding pedantic. I'm angry at myself for having learned about the FRB and economics so late in life.

Re: What can be done?

Thedesolateone — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:44:50 GMT

thepaintballer45:

About calling taxation theft... I wouldn't know for sure, but if I got into a discussion about it, I might try this angle... First, talk about inflation. It will probably be much easier to convince is a bad thing. It shouldn't be hard to see how inflation is essentially theft.

Also, big companies and banks often accrue some of the benefits of the inflation tax, and the poor and middle classes always take the brunt of the costs; people tend to love opposing things which hurt the poor.

Re: What can be done?

thepaintballer45 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:04:43 GMT

The way I see it, ANY grounds, when looked at objectively with the facts, lead to libertarianism & anarchy.

Moral and ethical, logical, whatever. It all leads to libertarianism when the right facts are examined with an open mind.

For example, I just finished writing a note on facebook about tax and tax evasion. I basically said that there is no logical, moral or ethical argument that can truly be made against theft evasion. Taxation is merely a type of theft that refers to an organization viewed as having the authority to do what is wrong for others to do coercively or fraudulently taking value/money from others. On what grounds do people really and truly come to the conclusion that this organization has this authority? Tradition, I believe, is the biggest one. Tradition is an amazing thing. It's kind of like muscle memory, something you just do without question or objectivity. You're simply programmed to do it. You don't ask questions, you don't consider alternatives, you don't really think at all, it's just done.

I try to view it and argue it from all angles, and they pretty much all lead the same place. You never know but what it takes to get someone to wake up and realize the truth might just be looking at it from the right angle (morally, ethically, logically, biblically, whatever it may be, whatever they hold over tradition or whatever they hold over whatever they're using to justify the wrong of governments)

Just the thoughts off the top of my head... I'll let you decide if it's worth .02.

Edit: About calling taxation theft... I wouldn't know for sure, but if I got into a discussion about it, I might try this angle... First, talk about inflation. It will probably be much easier to convince is a bad thing. It shouldn't be hard to see how inflation is essentially theft. At that point, it's a short step to taxation being theft, as inflation is essentially a tax. In fact, it's more of a direct tax than, say, income tax, as it doesn't even require the exchange of the representation of value (the green), it simply sucks the "value" right from it. It's instantaneous, no forms or transfer of physical representations required. That is, assuming my understanding of inflation is simi-correct.

Re: What can be done?

Stranger — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 05:22:36 GMT

Gandhi did not try to persuade the entire Indian people to become Gandhi. He simply acted and created the change he wanted to see, and paid the price to do so. It was his leadership in action that persuaded others to join his side.

Re: What can be done?

bearing01 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 05:11:53 GMT

Marx lived 1818 - 1883 and wrote his manifesto in 1848, perhaps before Thackeray in 1854.

Anyway, I don't know. I'm not an expert. DiLorenzo is also a history scholar and knows a lot more than me on the subject.

Re: What can be done?

Juan — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 05:04:37 GMT

You may find this article informative:

http://mises.org/story/1887

"Not that all of these individuals used the term capitalism, for as DiLorenzo points out, "The word capitalism was coined by none other than Karl Marx, who hoped that it would help in his crusade to denigrate the system of private property and free enterprise and promote socialism."

Well, a quick search for "capitalism etymology" seems to suggest otherwise. For instance

The first use of the word "capitalism" in English is by novelist Thackeray in 1854, by which he meant having ownership of capital. In 1867 Proudhon used the term "capitalist" to refer to owners of capital, and Marx and Engels refer to the "capitalist form of production" ("kapitalistische Produktionsform") and in Das Kapital to "Kapitalist", "capitalist" (meaning a private owner of capital).

Re: What can be done?

liberty student — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:52:41 GMT

I've tried to stop saying Taxation is theft. It's way beyond what most people can comprehend.

You have to guide people to thinking. It's not a switch they can turn on, the way many of us are turned on all of the time.

Re: What can be done?

bearing01 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:30:39 GMT

I'm very curious about the origin of the word "capitalism"

You may find this article informative:

http://mises.org/story/1887

"Not that all of these individuals used the term capitalism, for as DiLorenzo points out, "The word capitalism was coined by none other than Karl Marx, who hoped that it would help in his crusade to denigrate the system of private property and free enterprise and promote socialism."