Nation’s education chief visits Houston

full article at free paradigm

Here is a nice little article from the Houston Chronicle about “elected” and appointed thugs alike (politicians and bureaucrats) working together to “fix” the government school system. The only way these people work together is at the expense of you and me. The government school system cannot be fixed. That would go against the general tendencies of state-held coercive monopolies. The only way children can be freed from a childhood of harmful indoctrination is to abolish the statist system itself.

…finish reading.

Why Not to Join the Military #3

Green Technology Subsidy?

I was driving by these windmills on a Texas highway and felt compelled to stop and share my thoughts. Like I said I haven’t done too much research, for all I know this is an entirely private enterprise. I have my doubts nonetheless.

Daemon book review

I just finished reading Daemon, and it has an extremely interesting premise: private, non-state actors are beginning to weld Information Age technology in ways that render the nation-state ineffective.

Finish reading article

No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, Chapter One

Bold added by me.*

I.

The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts.

Read the rest..

Welcome to Constitutional Rehab!

Constitutional Rehab will be a series of blog entries dedicated to cleansing irrational statism from the minds of “near-voluntaryists” (constitionalists). I have learned that a good strategy when it comes to showing people the truth is to pick the fruits hanging closest to the ground, so to speak. That is, I should focus my efforts on people who are most likely to see the light of complete liberty. Interestingly enough, a lot of constitionalists bash statism, even though they are themselves statists. The main thing I’ve noticed about constitutionalists is that they ABSOLUTELY LOVE the constitution.

I have chosen to review No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, a short book written by Lysander Spooner in the 19th century.

From Wikipedia:

The Union government’s actions during the war caused Spooner to radicalize his views to an anarchistic view. In response, Spooner published one of his most famous political tracts, No Treason. In this lengthy essay, Spooner argued that the Constitution was a contract of government (see social contract theory) which had been irreparably violated during the war and was thus void. Furthermore, since the government now existing under the Constitution pursued coercive policies that were contrary to the Natural Law and to the consent of the governed, it had been demonstrated that document was unable to adequately stop many abuses against liberty or to prevent tyranny from taking hold. Spooner bolstered his argument by noting that the Federal government, as established by a legal contract, could not legally bind all persons living in the nation since none had ever signed their names or given their consent to it – that consent had always been assumed, which fails the most basic burdens of proof for a valid contract in the courtroom.

Of course, feel free to go on an read the whole thing for yourself, but I’m hoping that I may have a few constitutionalist readers who may just want to take it slow and see what I think about it.

Why Not to Join the Military #2

Collateral Murder Didn’t see this till after giving Cryptogon a shout-out.. This is the site to check first though.

Classified U.S. Military Video Depicts Murder of Iraqi Civilians and Two Reuters Journalists

Soldier used M4 to gun down peers

US Soldier Kills Fellow Troops In Iraq

Fort Hood Shooting

Why free paradigm?

03/26/10 Terrorism, world war, central banks buy gold

Here are some of the best articles of the day:

Doug Casey: Making Terrorism Your Friend

Excellent interview with Doug Casey about terrorism and the coming age of open-source warfare. Here’s a gold nugget:

In my view, the trend towards terrorism as the next evolution of warfare is about as certain as they come. It’s not just the U.S.; all the big nation-states are on the ragged edge of bankruptcy. Their huge bureaucracies, oppressive tax systems, complicated regulatory regimes, subsidies, bailouts, fiat currencies, and welfare programs are – every one of them – near collapse. They were confidence schemes. It’s not just standing armies, but the nation-state itself is a dead man walking at this point.

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Have a Nice World War, Folks
John Pilger

Great anti-war commentary:

According to an American general, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is not so much a real war as a “war of perception.” Thus, the recent “liberation of the city of Marja” from the Taliban’s “command and control structure” was pure Hollywood. Marja is not a city; there was no Taliban command and control. The heroic liberators killed the usual civilians, poorest of the poor. Otherwise, it was fake. A war of perception is meant to provide fake news for the folks back home, to make a failed colonial adventure seem worthwhile and patriotic, as if The Hurt Locker were real and parades of flag-wrapped coffins through the Wiltshire town of Wooten Basset were not a cynical propaganda exercise.

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Central Banks Buy Gold
The Daily Bell

This article discusses the likely motives behind massive gold purchases by central banks last year, which include the ability to manipulate gold and silver prices more effectively and continued control over money in general. Conclusion: as fiat currency fails, real money will naturally come in to fill the vacuum.

03/25/10: China vs Internet, Homeschooled children answer questions, infoliberalism

Chinese Climb Great Wall Over ‘Net Censorship
The Daily Bell

Another relentlessly excellent article from The Daily Bell. Seriously, if you are not reading The Daily Bell on the DAILY, you need to be. This article discusses the difficulty of censoring the internet and why all the anti-NWO’ers need to chill out. The gold nugget of the article:

If you can (through promotional means) convince people that the forces attempting to run the world are so mighty that no change is possible, well, that’s half the battle right there – if you’re part of the elite anyway. Discourage people from trying to change their lot by issuing frightening books such as 1984 (George Orwell was a member of the British Secret Service) or set up websites that constantly harp on the implacability of an upcoming “one world empire” and you’ve gone some distance to intimidate people and discourage dissension.

But very possibly it just ain’t true. And we think our world view is at least to a degree validated by what’s going on today. The Internet is in collision with almost every dominant social theme the power elite has developed recently. We think we can discern the Internet’s fine hand in upsetting so many promotions – the chaos that has overtaken the EU, the American Tea Parties’ anti-government stance, the growing resistance to America’s serial wars, the shriveling of the Green movement and global warming in particular, the evolving difficulties faced by central banks and fiat money (and loss of credibility), the renaissance in the price of gold and silver (ever hated by the elites), and on and on.

The above is not unlike your typical commentary from The Daily Bell. Sharply realistic and positively optimistic.

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Kids speak candidly about Homeschooling! Should you home school? Part 2

This is a great interview with REAL kids with REAL thoughts on homeschooling, government schooling, and the education system in general. Is it just me or does their “lack” of government “education” show? These are two very confident, intelligent, and emotionally mature children. Great information and great perspectives. A must see.

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Infoliberalism, a theory and project for an online freedom revolution
Posted by Sylvain Poirier

Infoliberalism, is a set of concepts which I developed, specifying some logical features that need to be implemented in the form of open source software for web servers, with a new protocol (on top of existing protocols), to be the platform of a new self-sustained free and decentralised online economy and money system that would make most of government interventions and other coercive systems obsolete.

Who doesn’t like the sound of that? Interesting thoughts on the future of freedom and anti-state activism. I personally plan on researching this further, so don’t be surprised to see more updates on this type of subject.