How Obama admin is skewing data, creating illusion of falling jobless numbers

What We Need Is More People on Food Stamps

Bank of America to Customer: Your Cash Is No Good Here

Is the goose tapped out?

The surreal world of fascialism

The Boss Versus the Laws of Economics

Free Google Maps unfair to paid competitors, France rules

Where the World Bank Dishes Out Your Money

Corruption in Fascist Business Model

Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world? -- Thomas Paine

Newt Gingrich: Moon President

Gingrich's Glass Jaw

The Eagle Has Crashed

The Truth of US

Mitt Romney Looks to FDR for Inspiration of His Patriotism: A Salute to Strong Central Federal Government

History of the Pledge of Allegiance

Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor?

How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America

Newt: FDR the 'Greatest President of the 20th Century'

Newt Gingrich Praised SEIU Head Andy Stern's Forward-Looking Vision

Was Reagan Conservative?

The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren't infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free. -- Ron Paul

How drones, Special Operations forces, and the U.S. Navy plan to end national sovereignty as we know it

"All I knew for sure is they were there to rob and kill me."

The Growing Iranian Military Behemoth?

Homeland Security: You're All 'Militia Extremists' Now

Is your underwear spying on you?

Michael Bloomberg: 'You'd Think That if a Congresswoman Got Shot in the Head' it Would Change Congress' Views on Gun Control

In Federal Suit, Man Claims DPD Stormed His House For No Reason, Beat the Hell Out of Him

Some Reasons the Government Would Want Your Neighbors to Report You

Modern War and Being Only "Kinda" Pro-life

What Is a Just War?

The glory of the human race is the uniqueness of each individual, the fact that every person, though similar in many ways to others, possesses a completely individuated personality of his own. It is the fact of each person's uniqueness ... that makes us care whether he lives or dies, whether he is happy or oppressed ... It is the fact that these unique personalities need freedom for their full development that constitutes one of the major arguments for a free society. -- Murray N. Rothbard

Majestic Monday Melodies, The Day After The Super Bowl Edition

My favorite Super Bowl Commercial

2012 Super Bowl Halftime Show: Madonna Showcases Old Age, Irrelevance

Henry David Thoreau's 7 choices to live deliberately

Greedy geezers don't want Ron Paul to end the welfare state

The Push Toward a Snitch Culture: New App Enables "fast, discrete, and intelligent" Anonymous Crime Reporting

Police Device Can See Through Clothing

Police State Alabama: Mississippi Grandmother Diane Avera Faces Prison for Sudafed Purchase

The Libya Secret: How West Cooked Up "People's Uprising"

Republicans ARE Discouraging Voter Turnout

Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule. -- Alexis de Tocqueville

theCL Report (February 06, 2012) is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

'For the Good of the Party'

In an open society with democratic institutions, political support should come from an informed and continually evaluated decision. This means as a responsible citizen living in a free society, it is your duty to be cynical about the people claiming to represent you; not to provide them with blind loyalty - like a dog to man.

Personally, I've found the "debates" tiresome. Chock full of stupid questions and scripted answers, it seems to me that our political process has been transformed into a bad form of "reality TV." It's better than nothing, I suppose. But regardless, the last thing we need to worry about is "the bloodshed and ravages these [debates] are causing," and/or that "the Republican candidate – whomever it finally arrives to the election – [will become] so weak that President Obama will get easily elected."

This sends the wrong message.

Fear over the debate process weakening your favorite candidate tells us more about said candidate than it does about the process. If you firmly believe in the philosophical underpinnings of conservatism, that the rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" are inalienable, and forthrightly reject collectivism … What do you have to fear?

Your candidate feels the same way, no?

"Hip-Pocket" Conservatives

If you're a GOP cheerleader declaring "Anybody But​ Obama," you're in the hip-pocket of the Republican Establishment. They own you.

By worrying about "electability" and/or "winning," you've marginalized yourself and diminished your vote. How so? In doing so, you've sent the Establishment a clear message: Your wants and desires don't matter; you choose the party over principle; and you simply aren't willing to fight for Traditional American Philosophy.

Oh, I've heard all the rationalizations before - "purity", "enemy of the good", etc. - even from myself. But the fact of the matter remains that, when push comes to shove, the excuses do not alter the underlying truth: movement conservatism cowers whenever it comes to actively seeking victory over the federal leviathan, choosing resignation instead.

Though many attempt to shame folks like me for saying so, realize that conservatives can't point to any significant successes in policy that have actually rescinded the New Deal/Great Society bureaucratic welfare state, thus returning the federal government to the (very limited) size authorized by the Constitution. Instead, GOP cheerleading has resulted in each new expansion of the welfare/warfare/security state being viewed as irreversible, and each new department sacrosanct.

Why give your vote away for that?

There are Only 10 Commandments, not 11

You may think the Democrats are evil and that, right or wrong, you must defend the Republicans come hell or high water. But that's not the truth. The Republican Party, and by extension Republican politicians, have no loyalty towards you whatsoever. They don't even consider themselves as your representatives. They see themselves as your rulers. Sure, they pay you some lip service here and there, but they don't take your wants or desires seriously. In most cases, quite frankly, they hold you in absolute contempt.

You've been invited to the dinner party, but the question remains … Are you seated at the table? Or are you being served on a plate?

That's right! What you want doesn't matter. And as long as you remain loyal to the party, it never will.

The "Winning" Team

American politics has devolved into a simple game of "Us vs. Them," in which ideological issues have been trumped by the self-esteem of declaring: "I'm on the winning team!" Expanded welfare? No problem. Violated the Constitution? A mere technicality. Bailed out wealthy bankers at taxpayer expense? No big deal. "We beat the Democrats!"

[B]y proclaiming from the start that he offered "a choice not an echo," Goldwater made his supporters understand who their enemy was. That enemy was the liberal, eastern Rockefeller Republicans who, every four years from 1936 through 1960, had inflicted the Republican Party with a presidential candidate who "me-too-ed" the Democrats on the fundamental issues of big federal spending and an interventionist foreign policy. -- Phyllis Schlafly

Read that again, I'll wait.

The fact that your real enemy isn't simply "The Democrats," but the entire Washington Establishment, is something republican Mother works tirelessly trying to teach. As she notes, "The Reality of the Situation" is that:

[W]e have two factions in America, both being played by the same planners in different ways. But like in a sick game of Mother May I, both are used to march us toward complete tyranny.

Left, right, left, right … Leviathan continues to grow. Eroding our liberties (at an ever increasing pace) along the way.

'For the Good of America'

If you want to understand how government and politics really work, stop listening to the rhetoric of politicians and radio jock rants, and read "The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom" by James Burnham instead. This should dispel any illusions you may have about how power really works. Then follow that up by reading Albert Jay Nock's classic, "Our Enemy, The State."

All political institutions are oligarchical in character. All governments are composed of elites. All states exist through exploitation, theft, and violence. All actively engage in propaganda and indoctrination. The rule of the elite is based on force and fraud, and the primary objective of the ruling elite (both individually and collectively) is to maintain their power and privilege. There are no exceptions. Not even in the good old, U.S. of A.

If you want to understand electoral politics, learn from long-time conservative activist, Gary North.

Any time a politician begins to think you are in his hip pocket, make sure he knows you are a tack. -- Gary North

The most important power "We the People" have in politics is the power to impose pain on politicians.

Any definition of political victory that ignores getting your agenda enacted into law, enforced by the Executive, and upheld by the courts, is a complete sham. Because otherwise, you're only getting people elected for the sake of their personal careers', not your agenda. This means that to advance your agenda, you must be willing to impose severe penalties on disobedient politicians, regardless of party affiliation.

The Establishment understands this. They respect it. But they exploit it against you.

Here's how you can exploit them instead.

The Rules of Engagement

The political system was summed up a generation ago by the man I regard as the elder statesman of the hard-core wing of the American conservative movement, M. Stanton Evans: "Evans's Law of Political Perfidy."

When our friends get into power, they aren't our friends any more.

To this, I add North's Law of Partisan Politics:

When a movement is in either political party's hip pocket, it will be sat on.

If you do not believe this, then you are a sheep for the shearing -- and then, after several shearings, the roasting. You are on some politician's menu.

THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

These are eight basic rules of engagement. There may be others, but these are fundamental. If you do not believe these, you are headed for disappointment.

1. Vote for a hard-core challenger on the other side against a squishy incumbent. This rule separates the hard core members from the soft core members … Why is this so important? Incumbents must become deathly afraid of your movement.
2. Hold your newly elected politician's feet to the fire the first time he breaks ranks on a key vote. He is like a puppy. When he leaves a mess on the carpet, get out the switch. "Bad dog! Bad dog!" Let him remember that switch. Let him fear that switch. The second time he does it, warm up the car. You and he will be taking a trip to the pound. You are his voter only for as long as he is your representative.
3. Get him to sign a resignation letter. Before you work for him, make sure he has signed a resignation letter … This is a political suicide letter. You will see who is serious about your #1 issue and who is not …
4. Track all of his votes on your #1 issue, and post them online. The Congress deliberately seeks to conceal voting results. Your committee must keep track of every vote related to your interest.
5. Find out who his largest campaign donors are. This will tell you who will have the most clout when he takes office. Investigate the PACs. Investigate the donors who send in the maximum donation allowed. Are they members of one group? Post this information on the site that you set up to monitor his votes.
6. Instill fear. This is your #1 task, once he takes office.
7. Inflict pain. This is the basis of #6.
8. Trust, but verify. If your group refuses to verify, it should not trust.

Politics is not based on love, because civil government is based on coercion. Do not impose "tough love" on a politician. He is not to love you. He is to obey you. You are not to love him. You are to monitor him. Impose negative sanctions and positive sanctions wisely.

We are dealing with dedicated people. We are dealing with power-seeking, often ruthless people. Don't try to buy them off. Don't try to sweet-talk them. If they don't vote the way you want them to vote, defeat them. This, they understand. This, they fear.

Either they are on your menu, or you are on theirs. I suggest the former.

What's that you say? Doesn't sound "respectable?"

Reflexively falling lockstep behind the party doesn't sound "respectable," that is, if you ask me.

Change

If you want to change Washington, if you want to change the Republican Party, you have to be willing to inflict pain. "Bad dog! Bad dog!" Yes, this means Republicans will sometimes "lose." With your help too! Because you purposely voted against them.

But, but, but … If Romney is the nominee and I vote for Ron Paul, I'll "split the vote." Nonsense. That assumes your vote belonged to (was the property of) Romney to begin with - an idea that any freeman should find repulsive.

But, but, but … A vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Obama. Nonsense. A vote for Johnson is a vote for Johnson. Sure, it may be one less vote for Romney, but that's Romney's fault for not representing you and the principles you believe in. It is the job of candidate to consolidate support. If they're having trouble it's a reflection on them, not you.

But, but, but … Every excuse for not voting for principle boils down to the "horse race" theory of politics. Accoring to this view, one should vote, not for what he believes in, but simply for the candidate perceived to have the best chance of "winning." In other words, putting Republican Party victory over your own desires and beliefs. But why give in to that which you believe to be wrong?

Seriously. Why give your vote away so cheaply?

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. -- John Quincy Adams, 6^th President of these United States

As long as you're willing to accept whatever candidate they give you, even if you think the alternative (Obama) is worse, you've surrendered your power, thus accepting that the (career) interests of Establishment figures are of greater importantance than your own principles, and furthermore absolving them of all wrong-doing. You've given them no incentive to change whatsoever. Even worse, you've put them in charge!

"Government of the Establishment, by the Establishment, for the Establishment."

Is that what you want?

Because that's what you'll get, that is, until you're willing to scorn Republicans with the same vengeance usually reserved for Democrats, actively work against politicians who don't obey, and inflict a serious amount of pain.

Every candidate must know that he will lose if he waffles on his promises. This is the language of politics. Republicans will "see the light" only if they feel the pain.

"For the Good of the Party" by theCL was originally published on February 3, 2012 at Political Realities.

‘For the Good of the Party’ is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

1. Definition of Individual Rights
2. Newt Gingrich Will Never Be President
3. Ronald Reagan's "Budget Guru" Endorses Ron Paul
4. Doing Your Own Thing with Cintia Dicker
5. Lucy Pinder and the Road to Serfdom
6. Creepy Bill Gates Population Control Video
7. Conservative: What is a Neocon?
8. How Theodore Roosevelt Changed America
9. How Woodrow Wilson Changed America
10. Newt Gingrich: Rockefeller (liberal) Republican

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Top 10 Posts (February 04, 2012) is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

"Food Stamps: An Economic Stimulus!"

Suze Orman is an Idiot, example #412,375

Bill Gross Explains Why Gold Is Becoming The Default "Store Of Value"

Military Keynesianism and America's Decline

Fraudulent debt = counterfeit money

Why We Are Totally Finished: Corporatocracy Has Replaced Capitalism

Commentary: Jim Grant says gold, not paper currency, is the future

The Revolution of 1913

What If We Only THINK We're Free?

If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy... But the American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country. -- Michael Parenti

Study reveals almost complete Ron Paul media blackout in Florida

Romney = President Goldman Sachs 2.0

Friedrich Nietzsche was right about Mitt Romney

Totalitarian feminism and the smearing of Susan G. Komen

Mitt Romney and Saul Alinsky

John Boehner running cover for Holder; puts brakes on 'Gunwalker' investigation

Abortion and the law.

Enough With "Family Values"

Gary Johnson Debates Romney and Obama Over Marijuana

Just when you thought the presidential election follies couldn't get any weirder

Trusting government nowadays means dividing humanity into two classes: those who can be trusted with power to run other people's lives, and those who cannot even be trusted to run their own lives. -- James Bovard

Homeland Security Is Big Business And Growing

Never Call the Police: Single Mother in Milwaukee Raped by Cop – Then Arrested for "Assaulting an Officer"

Drone Swarms are Here: 1 Minute to Midnight?

Drones: Coming to the Skies Near You, Part II

End the Violence, End the War on Drugs

Obama Targets Catholics

Why You Shouldn't Fear Iran

Who is killing more Americans, Iran or Mexico?

Refuted: Congressional Lies about NDAA Kidnapping

The State of Surveillance Technology

It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society. -- Murray Rothbard

Communism Documentary Part 2

Progressivism = Totalitarian Socialism

There are no Atheists in the Foxholes...

What a raving, megalomaniacal lunatic!

Bills Passed in Congress: January 2012

Senator Brandegee Suicide or Cold Case?

Stem Cell Lunacy: Your Body is a Drug, According to the FDA – And It's Federal Property

The Decision-Makers-of-Wars & 'You'

According To The FBI, Internet Privacy Is Now Considered To Be Suspicious Activity

John Boehner's 'GobGop' Plan to Sell Out the Tea Party in 2013

Painful as it may be to hear it, there's nothing special about the people of this country that sets them apart from the other people of the world. It is the Bill of Rights, and only the Bill of Rights, that keeps us from becoming the world's biggest banana republic. The moment we forget that, the American Dream is over. -- Alexander Hope

theCL Report (February 04, 2012) is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

Libertarian Political Realism

Philosopher Alexander Moseley offers a straightforward definition of political realism as "tak[ing] as its assumption that power is (or ought to be) the primary end of political action, whether in the domestic or international arena." Realism thus provides a prism through which to observe and to appraise political phenomena, dispensing with the illusions that have built up around the modern state. A consistently realistic view of the state does not impute to it godlike, extramundane characteristics or motivations, or detach it from all of the analyses that mark common discussions of incentives and "human nature." Political realism — as both an experiential or historical matter and a methodological one — must be at the center of a thoroughgoing libertarian project, informing our criticisms and proposed solutions. In a time when attitudes toward political power are marked by awe and adoration rather than a deliberate suspicion, a new, rehabilitated realism can furnish the fresh approach to social questions that people around the world are crying out for.

The paradigm of political realism has been informed by and closely intertwined with "'classical elite theory,' a school of thought whose enduring contribution to sociology has been to assert, very simply, that minorities always wield control in large societies and associations."[1] The theories of elitism and realism, in and of themselves, do not necessarily entail a value judgment about whether elites should sit at society's controls; instead, they make a simpler, more fundamental judgment about the conditions that have, as a matter of fact, obtained in political arrangements of all kinds, ranging from feudal systems, to absolute monarchies, to democracies. As a response to Marxism, elitism dismissed out of hand the idea that the state could ever be motivated by egalitarian attitudes, as an instrument of proletarian interests. Already, then, the tradition of classical elitism shares with libertarianism an emphasis on the most basal and distinctive quality of politics, refusing to abide arbitrary distinctions that end up being more rhetorical than substantive.

Anatomizing political institutions and evaluating their results with elite theory as a touchstone equips libertarians with a capacity not to lose the forest for the trees. The theory asks, What is the central and essential purpose of the state in social life? And the sundry brands of total statism during the 20th century seem to lend support to the elitist thesis about the fundamental nature of political society: regardless of purported ideologies, only a small few can brandish the coercive levers of the government machine at any given time.

Further, concrete interests and incentives will eclipse orotund ideological diction wherever the two come into conflict. Where libertarians and the classical elitists may part ways, though, is in their respective analyses regarding the inevitability of elite rule, with the elitists insistent on the ultimate permanence of the political class. Among the primary expositors of this argument — of the notion of Rule by a Few as an insuperable law of nature — was the German sociologist Robert Michels, whose 1911 work Political Parties gave us the "iron law of oligarchy." The claim of the iron law, put generally, is that a small, mobilized and established group will always be capable of and prepared to manipulate processes and rules to their advantage. The great majority of the populace, after all, consumed with the quotidian burdens of workaday life, will hardly notice that elite interests are systematically overtaking ostensibly "public" institutions.

In discussing what he calls (quoting Charlotte Twight) "participatory fascism," Robert Higgs has delineated the kind of oligarchic rule that prevails in the United States (Higgs adds that it might variously be called "disaggregated neocorporatism or quasi-corporatism"). Characterized by "abundant 'iron triangles'" composed of "well-organized private interest groups" and the government agencies and committees that are tasked with regulating them, US political economy finds the basic contentions of elitism confirmed. Focusing on the ways that this oligarchic system has developed during and with the help of crises, Higgs has echoed the assertions of, among others, Pareto and Michels that only a small group can act quickly, decisively and in concert to achieve their ends. Murray Rothbard similarly assailed America's "neo-fascist 'corporate state'" as the antithesis of a free market, the result of momentous state interventions in the economy.

Given their premises about power and its enticements for human beings, libertarians may find the classical realists' devotion to the state something of a paradox, contradicted by their very assumption. Realism as we find it in the work of, for instance, Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes regarded the state as separate and distinct from society itself, as a kind of "necessary evil" erected to prevent the summum malum — political disorder.[2] For the realists, a powerful, central state, like those of the present day, was imperative in preventing the worst expressions of human nature from precipitating the war of all against all. So while they in many ways avoided romanticizing the state, looked upon as power incarnate, they nevertheless failed to see the inconsistency in their idea.

Libertarians have a more complete understanding of realism's claims and their practical implications. If human nature really is what Hobbes suspected, then statism is indeed the most dangerous of proposed solutions to the kind of all-encompassing savagery that worried him. Libertarian scholars, particular those of the Austrian School, have sedulously demonstrated that it is the state that has been the source of most violence, disorder, and chaos in the world — a fact that is quite consistent with the realists' understanding of power relations. Certainly a tiny circle of rulers, naturally driven by cupidity, cannot be trusted with the kind of power associated with the Hobbesian vision of the state. The mistake of realism, then, at least in part, is the one that elitism so methodically addresses, that of treating the state as a kind of external, objective apparatus capable of administering impartial justice to society at large. Because while libertarianisms share realism's construction of the state as a thing apart from society more generally, libertarians don't pretend that the state is therefore insulated from or above the inducements that drive all relationships. Having set up the state or "artificial man" as a panacea, outside of the illations about humanity they had previously put forward, the realists had their solution to the problem of chaos. But what a thin solution it is in light of libertarian insights. Where Hobbes and Machiavelli made the far-reaching idea of realism a defense and justification for the state, libertarians must seek to rescue its lessons for a free society.

"The emergence of an omnipotent managerial class," Mises wrote in Human Action, "is not a phenomenon of the unhampered market economy." Rothbard's work too is brimful with examples of the ways that elites within political economy coordinated to garrote genuine free-market dealings in order to create and protect monopolies. And like the classical elitists, Rothbard observed that, for the elites, "theory came later; theory came … to sell to the deluded masses the necessity and benevolence of the new system." In the final analysis, it has mattered little to elites what the system of political parasitism and spoliation is called, at least as long as their mastery over productive society is left intact.

Taken together, the most valuable elements of both realism and elitism can do much to advance the libertarian case against the state and in favor of a society defined by voluntary exchange and individual rights. These historical traditions can provide reference points and shading to an already resonant contemporary libertarian political theory. "All that the analyst or historian need do," argued Rothbard, "is to assume, as an hypothesis, that people in government or lobbying for government policies may be at least as self-interested and profit-motivated as people in business or everyday life, and then to investigate the significant and revealing patterns that he will see before his eyes." We would do well as advocates for a free and stateless society (forgive the redundancy) to heed Rothbard's advice.

"Libertarian Political Realism" by David S. D'Amato is reprinted from Mises.org.

David D'Amato is a news analyst for the Center for a Stateless Society. He is a lawyer with an LLM in the law of international business. See David S. D'Amato's article archives.

Notes

[1] Alasdair J. Marshall, Vilfredo Pareto's Sociology: A Framework for Political Psychology (2007).

[2] Annette Freyberg-Inan, What Moves Man: The Realist Theory of International Relations and Its Judgment of Human Nature (2004).

Political Realism with Rose Byrne is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog