Without bringing back the moral code, the concept of a Constitutional Republic is dead. This is loosely paraphrasing John Adams who said: Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
However, we must agree that "bringing back the moral code" is not a prescription for a theocracy. The author speaks of "the sovereignty of the individual" which also misses the point that our current crisis is not political or economic, but spiritual. As you suggest, the Constitution is a master work of incorporating Judeo-Christian values into a foundational document without even mentioning God. The author rightly balances the "sovereignty" view with the acknowledgment of human weakness and frailty, but subjects such as “repentance” and “revival” are glaringly absent. One of our biggest challenges in righting the ship will be in the battle for language, and a critical definition therein will be to define "freedom". Good luck with that, in distinguishing it from "licentiousness" without Scriptural guidance.
Spirituality is a close relationship between a man or woman and their Maker. Government needs to stay the sam-hill out of that relationship. I'm so glad you referred to the master work of our Constitution, because that is where we need to be!
Internally Self-governing people who have mastered negative emotions according to Spiritual principles neither need nor desire anything more than a Night Watchman external government.
Those who would inflame negative emotions - say the Resentment Studies departments at University - create annoying Serfs.
Robert Sapolsky’s “Behave” traces how human behavior at our best and worst springs from the same evolutionary biology. Interesting stuff.
People with a God of the Present Moment accept a Tragic view and build; those with a God of the Future Moment have a therapeutic view and destroy.
Nov 1, 2023·edited Nov 2, 2023Liked by Robert W Malone MD, MS
Interesting piece. I subscribe to Utobian, so I am familiar with his style and approach to ideas. There are a few historically doubtful assertions here, about the civil war and WWll. The civil war ended slavery but that wasn’t the root cause of the union war effort, it was more broadly economic which is consistent with Toby’s accurate identification of the contradictions of capitalism which he refers to here as liberalism. Marx was the most astute observer of these contradictions, of course.
The Nazis were ultimately defeated by the Russian army, but certainly the industrial might Toby refers to was a huge factor in defeating Hitler. Of course, Hitler had been supported by major American financial interests. Anyway, quibbles notwithstanding, he is right about the lack of a coherent political philosophy among those of us in the loosely defined Health Freedom movement. The most common belief appears to be condemnation of “communists” and “communism,” a throwback to the paranoia of the cold war and a dangerous sort of reductionism that contains the seeds of yet another tyranny. However, we need more than a coherent philosophy to escape the tightening noose of AI, global governance and the destruction of all bills of human rights.
I appreciate the gentle approach taken by you in critiquing this minefield of red flags. I was about to respond to it a great deal less gently when I read your diplomatically stated comment, which in these divisive times is probably the most constructive approach, certainly as evidenced by Dr Malone's "like". "Quibbles notwithstanding", indeed; and "reductionism that contains the seeds of yet another tyranny" is beautifully stated and points to the difficulties encountered in generating a coherent philosophy. Coherence is a heavy constraint on degrees of freedom, in physics and in human culture, as reflected in your last sentence and in Larry's reply to you here, though I think he missed your call for "more than a coherent philosophy". Not quite sure where Erl was going with his reply, but I admire his brave bio profile.
Charles, great points, and I agree on the red flags. The most important mechanism missing in the article is sound money. If we had sound money, while adhering to the other mechanisms mentioned in the article, we wouldn’t be where we are today, and we certainly couldn’t have communism. Great points.
This comment covers some good points. I, however, don't think that a "coherent philosophy" needs to be our first priority. It took me many years to learn what I know at this point, and I'm not sure that adds up to something that is totally coherent. Yet I think I have learned many valuable things that anyone interested in these subjects should know about and be able to discuss.
Larry, excellent points. I’ll repeat here what I’ve said in other comments. We would have liberalism and civil liberties, and simply liberty, if we had sound money along with the other economic mechanisms mentioned in the article. I’ll also add that we never really had liberalism, at least since after the Federal Reserve was instituted in 1913. Central banks like the Fed are wholly incompatible with any notion of liberty.
I call a man my teacher who believed that the solutions to our problems do not lie in the exact forms of our social and political structures, but in the proper operation of our minds.
I suppose he could be wrong, but I very much doubt he is. We here on Earth are missing so much vital information about ourselves and the universe that it is nearly a miracle that any of us still value freedom, honesty, a hard day's work, or that happiness that comes from fulfilling one's responsibilities. And on top of that we must tolerate the company of demented men (mostly men) who will likely be with us nearly forever.
Go ahead and argue for your institutional reforms. And I will argue for greater self-knowledge. And perhaps some day, together, we will live to see a better world.
Excellent points, especially on all the vital information here on earth we are missing about ourselves and the universe. I agree. But I'm also interested in what we do know, specifically the basic cause and effect economic laws set in motion by human action. In other words, there's absolutely no reason we can't have both institutional reforms (which history and basic economics indicate would bring more peace, order, and prosperity for all), and greater self-knowledge. Why not have both? And after, should not the proper operation of our minds, and self-knowledge necessarily lead to institutional reform? Of course, they should.
Reform might or might not follow from a better level of knowledge. What those of us who are working more heavily in the knowledge department right now assert is that insufficient knowledge has led to bad choices when it came to reform. Recent "reform" has led to a lot of very centralized structures. Is that what we really need? Or does a less centralized approach work better? A central authority can enforce a certain level of consistency across a society. But when does this enforcement turn to tyranny? Those answers lie in the hearts and minds of people, and not in their structures.
Would one's ideas of ideal structures change if one were convinced that we have all existed for millions of years and could find ways to recover much of that lost experience? Would one's ideas for a better legal system change if one became aware of the true nature of psychopathy and how to handle it? These are questions we can't even ask until that knowledge is gained. Yet they seem pertinent if not fundamental to our current problems.
I agree there have been bad choices on reform, for well over a century. What I’m pointing to is radical decentralization. So, perhaps “reform” is not an apt word. What I’m talking of does speak to your questions of recovering lost experience and the true nature of psychopathy. That knowledge was gained millennia ago, and it couldn’t be more pertinent to our current problems. For context, I’ll paste for original comment: Outstanding essay, and urgently outstanding question: “did liberalism fail”? “Are we there yet?” No, but it’s poignantly clear that liberalism is in the process of failing. Cutting to the quick, the proximate cause is the Federal Reserve. The Fed is inherently rigged to destroy liberalism, and any notion of freedom and free people, because the Fed controls (and destroys) our money. It is the Fed, and the things that only the Fed can fund – things that could not exist without the Fed’s funding -- which destroys the economic mechanisms liberalism is necessarily dependent upon.
I think it’s absolutely, critically important that great leaders on medical and freedom issues, such as Dr. Malone, begin introducing the Fed and “sound money” into the conversation of not only “medical freedom,” but every conversation of Freedom. We will never have any meaningful, sustainable notion of Freedom or liberalism, as long as the Fed exists and operates as it has the last 110 years. We will never be free, as long as central banks like the Fed control our money. This issue may sound complicated, but it’s not. The concepts of money and the Fed are very simple concepts, once we begin wrapping our heads around them, and though certainly not easy, a transition to “honest” and “sound” money will not be nearly as difficult as one might think, if “the story” (to use Toby Rogers’ term) is simply and properly told. Rogers is correct. It's all about the story. "Those who tell the story rule society." This quote has attributed to Plato, but also, as a Native American proverb. Whatever the case, the quote couldn't be more true. This should be glaringly evident to every American, especially since 2020.
Toby Rogers begins by mentioning the “limitations and contradictions” in liberalism. He's correct. It's important to understand that in economic matters, there's rarely solutions, but rather tradeoffs. But the greater point is that true liberalism – Freedom -- is the only way toward at least the promise and pursuit of the greatest amount of meaning and happiness for the greatest amount of people. Freedom is the only way. And true liberalism must include sound money. We simply can’t have liberalism – freedom – without sound money.
Americans told a great story in the late 18th century, leading to and through the American Revolution. They told their story of “liberty and justice for all” in the face of insurmountable odds. The story included all of the mechanisms for liberty Toby Rogers identifies in this essay posted by Dr. Malone. But as we can see, the story told by the founders during the American Revolution also included the economic mechanism of sound money. We must remember the arguments of the founders over the First and Second Banks of the United States. We must remember the warnings about central banks like the Fed, from men like Thomas Paine. Here’s Paine in “Common Sense”:
“As to the assumed authority of any assembly in making paper money, or paper of any kind, a legal tender, or in other language, a compulsive payment, it is a most presumptuous attempt at arbitrary power. There can be no such power in a republican government: the people have no freedom – and property no security – where this practice can be added.”
Thomas Paine was right. With the Fed, essentially, "the people have no freedom." The evidence is all around us. Fast forward from Paine’s warning, to another from the mid 20th century, by F.A. Hayek, best known for his “The Road to Serfdom.” Hayek addresses the dangerous ills central banks like the Fed, which pump paper money (and now, digital money) created out of thin air, into the economy:
“I doubt it has ever done any good except to the rulers and their favorites… money is certainly too dangerous an instrument to leave to the fortuitous expediency of politicians.”
Our Road to Serfdom is indeed paved with the Fed’s dollars, printed out of thin air by scheming politicians and politicized bankers.
In short, the story and script to attain and sustain liberalism and Freedom is already written. We just have to keep re-telling it anywhere and everywhere, over and over, BUT, with the inclusion of the economic mechanism which is sound money. All of the other economic mechanisms Toby Rogers cites in his essay hinge on sound money – ALL of them: free speech. freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, rule of law, fair elections, free trade, markets, private property, and entrepreneurship. Again, the things which kill these economic mechanisms would not exist, or at least would not be as powerfully effective, if not for the Fed, which funds them. We would not have a $33 trillion-plus national debt, with some $100 trillion-plus in unfunded liabilities, without the Fed. We would not have had the Great Depression, nor the financial collapse of 2008. (It’s important to note that the article blames “economic liberalism” for boom busts. But it’s central banks like the Fed which cause boom/busts-- more on this shortly, and in the links at the end of this comment).
Now, by “honest” and “sound” money, I mean, in part, non-inflatable money backed by something of real value -- gold or silver, for example. Money which cannot be tampered with and inflated by politicians bent on scheming ways to fund all of the unsustainable bureaucracies and agencies which are used to destroy liberty as mechanisms of the unsustainable welfare/warfare state. If not for the Fed’s inflationary, debt-financing, monetary expansion and artificial rigging of interest rates, our politicians wouldn’t be able to fund the absolutely catastrophic wars of choice we’ve been engaged in for the past half-century, nor the millions sent around the globe by men like Anthony Fauci for coronavirus “research,” nor the bureaucracies and agencies like the FBI and NSA and the rest of the “technocratic state,” which are used to harass, spy-on, censor, and cancel American citizens, and destroy our civil liberties. Sound money would have largely prevented the federal government’s catastrophically destructive reaction to the 2020 covid outbreak. We would also not have the boom/bust economic cycles and recessions Rogers mentions in his essay, which destroy the poor and middle class while redistributing wealth and power to the already wealthy and powerful (the Fed is responsible for all of the recessions over the last 110 years). Furthermore, we wouldn’t have the inflation of the money supply, which results in rising prices of goods and services across the economy, destroying the purchasing power of the dollar, which of course, hurts the poor, middle class, and the vulnerable like those with fixed incomes, the most.
"Those who tell the story rule society." The story above might be the most important story to tell today, for the cause of freedom, and so individual liberty can rule society -- liberalism. Below are some links to a handful of brief introductions speaking to the necessity of sound money.
Part 2, in addition to my last comment, here’s the links mentioned. These address your points on recovering lost knowledge and experience (the necessity and practical utility of sound money was understood millennia ago), and the true nature psychopathy (the mechanics of the effects of inflation on the brain, from ancient Egypt, to Weimar, to Keynes’ quote below. For example:
“If anyone is curious, here are the sources and links I mentioned in my first comment, below: The Mises Institute is perhaps the very best on the issue. These videos are short and very easy to understand: "Why Study Money?" https://youtu.be/qIQg6TdJsgo?si=0DhW72Ac8WCxgdqt
Whatever we feel about politics, or libertarianism, this book is perhaps the best, most concise introduction to why we need to End the Fed: End the Fed https://mises.org/library/end-fed-1
Lastly, it’s important to note that Karl Marx noted that central banks like the Fed are necessary for communism. Central banks are the 5th plank of communism in “The Communist Manifesto.” Read that again, and ask yourself: how many planks of communism already exist in the US’s federal government? These planks are the problem, not liberty or liberalism.
Lastly, speaking of communism, we must remember the warnings from the architect of Western economies, J.M. Keynes. Keynes is responsible for much of the economic ills we suffer through today. But he was correct when he wrote the following. The Fed’s inflation not only impoverishes us and destroys our money and liberty, but it also negatively alters our micro, individual choices and behavior. Let this quote sink-in, and think through the implications. Keynes is describing what we see all around us, today:
“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.
Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
In the latter stages of the war all the belligerent governments practiced, from necessity or incompetence, what a Bolshevist might have done from design. Even now, when the war is over, most of them continue out of weakness the same malpractices. But further, the governments of Europe, being many of them at this moment reckless in their methods as well as weak, seek to direct on to a class known as "profiteers" the popular indignation against the more obvious consequences of their vicious methods.
These "profiteers" are, broadly speaking, the entrepreneur class of capitalists, that is to say, the active and constructive element in the whole capitalist society, who in a period of rapidly rising prices cannot but get rich quick whether they wish it or desire it or not. If prices are continually rising, every trader who has purchased for stock or owns property and plant inevitably makes profits. By directing hatred against this class, therefore, the European governments are carrying a step further the fatal process which the subtle mind of Lenin had consciously conceived. The profiteers are a consequence and not a cause of rising prices. By combining a popular hatred of the class of entrepreneurs with the blow already given to social security by the violent and arbitrary disturbance of contract and of the established equilibrium of wealth which is the inevitable result of inflation, these governments are fast rendering impossible a continuance of the social and economic order of the 19th century. But they have no plan for replacing it....”
Agreed. The idea of reds under the bed is a distraction. Give benefit where benefit is due. Take the cheap goods produced by diligent workers and be happy. And share your technology. Build trust. Don't scare the daylights out of people with shock and awe.
Earl good points. But once we study communism, for example, The Communist Manifesto, we see that there’s certainly too much communism in the US federal government. The case is easily made that indeed, that is the proximate cause of our loss of liberty.
Outstanding points, and concerns. I think there is a great case to made, though, that adhering to the economic mechanisms mentioned in the article, and most importantly, adding sound money to them, addresses those concerns, such as communism. We simply can’t have communism, and what we have today in the US, if we have sound money, private property, and the other civil liberties mentioned. It sounds simple, but it truly is that simple.
I totally agree. We already have an excellent blueprint in those documents. We desperately need to return to the fundamental principles therein. Our United States Constitution granted very limited enumerated powers to the federal government reserving all powers not granted to the federal government to the individual states and the people. Most of the federal bureaucracy is in fact unconstitutional. While all political and appointed office holders are required to support the Constitution most by their actions violate their oath.
Great points, I know I sound like a broken record here, but I think the key to restoring some semblance of liberty necessarily begins with at least understanding sound money.
I never say never unless I'm absolutely 💯 forced to admit that I can't see a solution.
So far, and I do Thank 😊 Our Mighty Heavenly Father for continuing 🙏 to keep me optimistic.
I do acknowledge that it will take much work from many people and that the number of people who are willing to acknowledge MUCH LESS WORK to reverse this trend are dwindling.
History is an excellent teacher....our first step... take back the education system and ensure that it educates rather than indoctrinates. Reedify the institution of marriage and family and leave parenting to parents.
Some may say extolling the virtues of the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Founders is propaganda. They're wrong. There is no deception involved. Our founding documents along with the values contained therein are not hidden. They are the foundations of this republic and we must require adherence to them if we are to keep it. There is a difference between requiring adherence in exchange for citizenship and requiring adherence or being executed--the latter being the result of every socialist-Marxist-communist progression that has ever occurred throughout history.
I believe the other cultural practice that become exponentially magnified and in vogue is to lionize any person for whom one votes and is elected to office. It's bad enough that most such elected representatives drink their own bathwater; must we join them in the libation? Those persons running for office are, in the end, just people like the rest of us. They have made a decision to run and to make the sacrifices associated with attaining office. Their sacrifices are made very public while the rest of us must make other sacrifices attendant with/to our life's work choices without such fanfare and for the most part in obscurity. Nevertheless they are no less important to those who rely on us.
Good ideas often have few supporters. Yet they can sometimes prevail. The American revolution, for instance, was never supported by a majority of colonists.
Ana, great points. I appreciate your realism mixed with optimism. I think there’s a strong case that if we understand and move toward sound money, the rest will fall into place. Sound money is the one economic mechanism missing from this otherwise strong article. Interestingly, I also believe there’s a strong case that the only hope starts with Christians more deeply studying the Bible. Indeed, there is a Biblical mandate for sound money, but sadly, most Christians don’t heed the mandate, if they even know it exists. The story must be told. As I said in other comments, and as this article states, it’s all about “story.” The founders and the Bible already told the story of the necessity of sound money. Christians just need to learn the story, and tell it over and over and over,
That's why the current group of Marxist Democrats in charge of our country right now hate the Constitution so much. But without acknowledging the strong possibility that they are currently destroying the voting system will lead this country to the next destructive stage.
I agree with this, too. Of course, the Founders (Framers) studied extensively to come up with those documents. And the most philosophical part of them is just the first part of the Declaration.
Where Public Life is concerned there was always only one team on the playing field. If you love freedom and limited government and believe that a free and prosperous civil society should be the foundation of political order, and you act every day within the philosophical confines of that worldview, you will eventually lose to those who do not share that philosophy. It is axiomatic. In America it took about 233 years, starting at 1787, but the outcome was guaranteed. I didn’t go to Town Halls for 50 years because I didn’t want a Town Hall. I wanted a Rotary Club or a Church or a Boy Scout troop or any number of civil organizations that would make my community a happy place to live and that would organically look after the poor and needy while minimizing their ranks. It was a freedom based worldview based on a theological understanding of how life should be ordered. When you are facing an opposition that awakens every day and dreams of how much more money and power and control they can funnel to themselves and to government, the end being to take away your freedoms, and that is their passion and their religion, 24/7, you better have an equal and opposing force on that very same playing field. If your love of freedom means you don’t want to get involved because you don’t believe in the fundamental premise, well, in that case you or your children or grandchildren are in big, big trouble.
Bien, those are clearly facts backed up by real history. Controllers are insidious beings and they will eventually get their way as they use human greed to infiltrate society, its schools, churches, its culture, and government officials. Though manifest, certainly by the turn of the end of the 19th century, the 1960s was a pivotal point in that progression. Many of us watched it unfold, although much was hidden for years, like the plans for depopulation. Most media did not cover the ugly side but we could feel it for decades until it dumped itself on us.
I do not believe this is primarily about groups or organizations. Not that they aren’t important, but I believe the most important factor has been a lack of involvement of conservative individuals in the local political machinery of their communities. This is especially true of School Boards, local Legal offices(judges and district attorneys), County Health officials, County Commissioners and city mayors. This was our first line of defense, and the people on the Right allowed the people on the Left to completely take over these positions nationally. This is true of 80% of Red states and this really is the crux of the matter. The people in red states are generally conservative and mostly Republican but they have elected leftists or left leaning individuals in nearly all of the critical positions I mentioned. This has been researched and documented by people like Daniel Horowitz. It has gone on for decades and it explains more than any other single factor(other than a loss of moral values in general) why our nation is where it is(IMO)
Our modern priorities are Comfort, eating and entertainment. Politics, inequality and God are way down the list. New absurdities are rolled out daily to create confusion and fear such as killing your 6+ month old in the womb is ok. What is stopping killing a 2 year old? Not enough are uncomfortable to disrupt the comfort, good food and Taylor Swift moments to recognize the sound of a waterfall approaching. We are modern day Roman’s believing the U.S. is too powerful to fail, believing all those millions of new arrivals without any means of support will not rebel, believing they can ignore the corruption, greed and absurdity as they enjoy the good life of apathy and overconsumption. I don’t trust my own reality anymore making it difficult to know who or what alternative would provide a viable solution to the current insanity. I do know killing is bad in the womb or out, that accepting millions and millions in donations for a congressional salary of $174k requires payback, that CO2 makes trees and plants grow, and greed breeds liars. You think all those MSM liars aren’t influenced by million dollar salaries?
I guess it boils down to human nature and free will to do as one pleases while residing on this earth. Liberalism, if it means liberating the many, as the article seems to suggest, to do their own thing; or tolerant/open-minded which has been used to crush the life out of common sense, we are hurting as a people and country.
I think you are spot on. Since we working Americans have been asleep at the wheel enjoying the fruits or OUR labor, we did not notice that the school systems removed requirements for Government, economics, world history, and American history.
These subjects became 'electives' 20 years or so ago. No wonder our young people are repeating history, to them it is not history. They do not know what happened, then were not enlightened by education like most of us were.
One of my physician clients, a first generation Chinese American made his teenagers take the elective courses mentioned above so that they would understand where he came from, and their Mother who is a Viet Nam refugee. These parents happily sent their son and daughter off to Tulane and Georgetown, and lost them to politics. The children they raised to be proud Americans turned into total liberals who hate the parents who gave them the opportunity they never had in their mother countries.
How very sad for all four of them.
When people in my community ask me why I care about the school system here in Mesa Arizona since I do not have children, I am stunned by the ignorance of so many about who controls our tax dollars. Our community wants a 500,000.00 bond to be put towards facility improvements They have already spent several million of our tax dollars on marketing and printing signs to put on every street corner of a city that is 129 square miles. (Simple math states that this is a ton of money).
The school boards actually are running our country, and they have been infiltrated by Marxists for years as was foretold by many years ago.
Rather than developing a new political philosophy maybe we need to revisit an existing one. I refer to ancient wisdom that establishes the proper hierarchy between us and the One who gave us our very breath.
2 Chronicles 7:14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
And the One who already anticipated the Marxian critique of the "rich getting richer" by instituting a Year of Jubilee every 50 years. where lenders had to look over their shoulder at the calendar to see what constraints kept them from absolute domination.
Having a degree in economics and public policy analysis from Penn State, I found reading a Wealth of Nation's by Adam Smith a journey into the brain of a genius. His comprehensive practical analysis of how microeconomics and macroeconomics work to sustain commerce which sustains a civilization laid the blueprint for capitalism.
Exactly, and Capitalism, supported by the "Trickle Down Economic Theory," involved lots of regulation, against exploitation, which has been completely abandoned, so that they could say see - Capitalism doesn't work, and totally discredit it!
I did not finish that book - it was too deep. My theory is a 'free market' is truly great for everyone that participates until it raises up titans, which cause government to intercede until such time as government is bought off.
It becomes the Wealth of the Wealthy. The Theory of Moral Sentiments was just that - a loving theory.
Not exactly as I theorized though. It was Obama that flipped my theory that the titans bought off government. Ha, not on his watch. His admin started consolidating the titans and coercing them via threats (Choke Point) and the force of laws and sucking them in under his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He brought them into his inner circle and cut deals (Obama Care). He had eight years to change the country and he pulled it off.
We were gifted a constitutional republic built around a very good constitution. Two problems. First lawyers managed to replace all the understandable language in the Constitution with their pernicious brand of legalese gobblegoop and proceeded to highjack the judiciary and legislative branches. Second, the maintenance of this republic requires an enlightened electorate which progressives (read marxists) have pretty well discombulated by destroying public education and capturing so-called higher education. It all needs to be rebuilt from the ground up
The unconstitutional unelected administrative state has destroyed the Constitution. The rise of the welfare state has destroyed the Republic. The general public has becomed dissconnected and lazy, believing "it's the government's fault/solution" when in the past we knew it was the individual/family/community's duty. We had a small government because individuals working through their local institutions took responsibility.
Great assessment. And yes, need only original framework with tighter control when rebuilding. The citizens kept the gov honest for about a 100 years, so blame is shared, but rather disproportionally.
Makes me think of the old saw..."What do you call a 1000 dead lawyers on the bottom of the ocean? A good start." My sibling became an attorney and changed professions after several years . He said being an attorney was destroying his reputation. It seems to have have escaped the notice of the general public that the legal profession and educational institutions have been hijacked by Marxists.
I have a former client who worked hard to be a clinical psychologist, once degreed and working he quit. He just called me one day and asked how do I get off of this healthcare bullshit? I responded, what do you mean? He said, these people coming to see me are fat, lazy, and entitled, I do not want to see people who do not want to be helped.
I asked him what he was going to do, he said, I am going to buy a Starbucks franchise and get paid more for watching crazy people buy overpriced coffee. He did it. Good for him.
Even more disturbing. Knew a girl who got her Ph.D. In biomed. sci. and went to law school wanting to specialize in patent law. Was very unimpressed with her classmates. Drawer full of dull knives.
I've always thought of Smith's work as propaganda, not a work based on any rigorous research. Though philosophy may be useful as a way to organize ideas, its conclusions must be tested if one intends to apply them to the real world.
Read List on political economics if you want to know how the real wealth of nations is created and how the USA, Germany, Japan ect. grew and prospered while the British Empire rotted away from 1845 on.
How can we survive if humanity is now considered lab rats by the medicine man? Case in point. Crispr/Vertex announced today that after marketing their new DNA/injection sickle cell anemia drug, they can then evaluate the "off target" events. This was approved by the FDA. No longer are adverse events called by their true name. Now they are "off target" events. Initial "off target" events are at 10.1% and they have a green light to move forward. RNA injections are in the same classification and the harm created and will be created is being totally ignored. The root cause I have discovered is "regulatory capture" here and across the globe. Stop it and we the people are back in charge. Until then we are traveling down the wrong roads in society. Here is a full explanation of "regulatory capture". When the Republican lead legislation that gave corporations the same rights as we as individuals in the US, was the height of regulatory capture. Corporations now have control over individual rights with their money power! Well expressed with the covid con.
As information systems have become exponentially more sophisticated with the advent of computer technology, the very wealthy have gained controls of these information systems. This has allowed "the ruling class", these elites, to manipulate all data input into these information systems to their advantages. It is inevitable these same elites have gained the abilities to vastly influence a global population severely lacking in critical analytical thinking skills. Using the knowledge they have gained from these same info systems, these elites have provided an opiod to a population easily distracted by many types of audio-visual vectors, effective distractions engineered by the elites. One massive effect of all of this is the elimination of smaller economic competitors, creating fewer and fewer megacompanies. These megacompanies, in turn, are owned by megawealthy investors who expect mega returns on their investments. These ultrawealthy investors sit on the controlling boards of directors of these megacompanies, and they hire subservient management teams who are "legally" bound to do their fiduciary duties to make sure these ultrawealthy investors receive a maximum ROI. The logical conclusion of this spiraling upward of wealth into the hands of the few, and control of the global population, is an oligarchy that controls all aspects of society, including police enforcement of laws and regulations created by this oligarchy. The World Economic Forum is just a feign. The real manipulation ensuring this oligarchy will never be seen, unless of course, drastic actions are taken to destroy it. That's where are Planet Earth is headed unless radically changed.
Great assessment. It was not accomplished in a vacuum though. It's great enabler was/is the USG who grew the monopolies, forked out the seed money to get it all rolling. We will have a New World Order, it's just around the corner says George Bush Sr in the early 90s.
Look at the work of David Rockefeller and the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, to name just a few of the organizations created by this, then, chairman and ceo of Chase Manhattan Bank.
I have and you are again on the money, literally! They have numerous studies programs that feed garbage to the innocent to bring them on board. His programs were added to the CFR, which was originally organized by Wilson called 'The Inquiry' with members from the IGR (Institute for Government Research) funded by the Carnegie Corporation for Robert S. Brookings, who later renamed it the Brookings Institute. It would all be a classic intrigue if it wasn't a scheme against humanity.
(Between creating a weaponized virus, blocking access to off-the-shelf treatments, imposing deadly hospital protocols, authorizing toxic Remdesivir, and injecting the most dangerous vaccines in history, Stakeholder Fascism has already killed over 7 million people worldwide.)-
You are forgetting the lockdown deaths. According to the UN over 30,000,000 starved to death because of the manufactured economic collapse.
That is the diabolic part, isn’t it? 'Man’s inhumanity towards man.' I don’t know if the UN is telling the truth on those awful numbers, because they are certainly part of the problem… it could be a ‘progress report’. (Isn’t that an awful thought?!) My pastor’s wife had too many jabs, on top of already having an autoimmune disease… she’s had at least 4 bouts of bad Covid, her immune system is almost completely depleted. She wasn’t getting better so her doctor put her on Remdesivir! She started getting worse, immediately. I sent Dr. Kory’s article detailing his concerns about it and its ‘black box’ warning to her husband (I know them well), HE pulled her off it.
Liberals, the left or as you say progressives all act as a hive. This all is mainly wrapped around, economic, medical, social media and political issues. We as average hard working citizens, many who have become WOKE to this, should treat it as an asymmetric war that has been waged against our way of life. With that we have been forced into this war. If we as the majority in this country fight on these four fronts, economic, medical, social media and political, and choose alternative conservative parallel businesses we can make change and a shift away from the progressive fascist communists. If we become more hive like as the progressive they will be forced to change. J.Goodrich
It's beyond me how we turn things around sufficiently after so much hate and envy has been fueled by politicians, while simultaneously increasing global debt and unfunded liabilities so extremely as to be impossible to deal with non-radically (unless freeing up oil drilling or some new energy miracle could make the difference?). I would like to believe we could still win the right to informed consent, at least. But I'm not even sure that most of our legislators even care whether the WHO takes over. It's as though they think they can take the world right up to the brink and just turn on a dime any time they want. It's beyond me.
A very interesting essay and a critical question to explore. I see one glaring omission. In my mind you cannot talk about the development of classical liberalism, as it relates to the Western world, without addressing the role of the Bible/Christianity in that development. We just returned from Greece and Turkey where we visited sites at Phillippi, Athens, Thessalonica, Delphi, Ephesus and other places. The history is almost too much to get your head around. There is a lot that has come before us, the opportunity for learning from these ancient societies is nearly endless. I was struck with the brilliantamce of St. Paul in sailing nearly 800 miles to the tip of Europe where he was able to start a church in each location. The lessons of the Bible opened completely new frontiers, for instance Lydia, the seller of purple was the very first convert in Europe. We assume she was a single woman because she invited Paul and his companions to her house and not her husband, as would be the custom. The Bible brings the focus on individual rights, as seen in the teaching about slavery. Slaves are equally loved by God. It was this foundation that prepared the soil for Adam Smith and the development of western civilization as we know it in modern America. Liberal democracy requires citizens with clear morality and clear ethics. Western civilization has walked away from this foundation that made it possible for 1 in every 7 peoples alive to want to come to America. Until we return to the foundation we cannot regain what has been lost.
American Evangelicalism made the idolatrous mistake of equating ‘Americanism’ ‘Patriotism’ and the GOP with faithfulness to Jesus. I was under this spell for a long time... then God started smashing those idols out of my life. Now, I am truly His. Christ, alone.
Nothing wrong with noting or supporting someone who is in a position to further the presence of biblical truths in our nation and does so. God uses people and events as reminders we are fallen but there is a path to salvation.
True, but I have found very few true Christians in politics that did not bend away from true faith. I knew of one 'no appologies' Christian, that served as a state Senator... I was his researcher before he ran for public office. So, I knew his actual character.
That doesn’t mean don’t be 'American, Patriotic or vote GoP' (if you are inclined to)… it means don’t wrap the cross in the American (or any national) flag. God is I AM… He is ‘other'.
We need to be frank with pastors/ministers who give false messages. To your point, we hold no one person up as if he/she were even God-like. We are all His creatures and all in sin.
Yes, but more generally...a culture, political party or even a nation. If we are ‘In Christ’, we are one. In the letter to the Ephesian 2: 11-22 says it so perfectly "Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,d but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God bye the Spirit.” There is no longer any division or categorization… all are one, in Christ Jesus.
I am unsure whether this idea of a coherent "political" philosophy has any possibility of success at this point in history, but I'm slightly hopeful. As other writers below point out, we've lost a great deal of our communal capacity for rational thought, and when the discourse happens in a forum that the powerful can control, our actual philosophy may never become wide spread enough to take hold. We've lost a lot. It's heart breaking. That said, the human being is informed by an inexplicable but clearly undeniable connection to the eternal. Maybe this understanding will, over time, coalesce into a coherent philosophy (sure, political in part) that can bring us into a new age. Thanks Dr. Malone and Utobian for this very timely and very thoughtful "next step forward" in the discourse. Joe Uveges
Without bringing back the moral code, the concept of a Constitutional Republic is dead. This is loosely paraphrasing John Adams who said: Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
However, we must agree that "bringing back the moral code" is not a prescription for a theocracy. The author speaks of "the sovereignty of the individual" which also misses the point that our current crisis is not political or economic, but spiritual. As you suggest, the Constitution is a master work of incorporating Judeo-Christian values into a foundational document without even mentioning God. The author rightly balances the "sovereignty" view with the acknowledgment of human weakness and frailty, but subjects such as “repentance” and “revival” are glaringly absent. One of our biggest challenges in righting the ship will be in the battle for language, and a critical definition therein will be to define "freedom". Good luck with that, in distinguishing it from "licentiousness" without Scriptural guidance.
Spirituality is a close relationship between a man or woman and their Maker. Government needs to stay the sam-hill out of that relationship. I'm so glad you referred to the master work of our Constitution, because that is where we need to be!
Great points.
Internally Self-governing people who have mastered negative emotions according to Spiritual principles neither need nor desire anything more than a Night Watchman external government.
Those who would inflame negative emotions - say the Resentment Studies departments at University - create annoying Serfs.
Robert Sapolsky’s “Behave” traces how human behavior at our best and worst springs from the same evolutionary biology. Interesting stuff.
People with a God of the Present Moment accept a Tragic view and build; those with a God of the Future Moment have a therapeutic view and destroy.
Right on!
Interesting piece. I subscribe to Utobian, so I am familiar with his style and approach to ideas. There are a few historically doubtful assertions here, about the civil war and WWll. The civil war ended slavery but that wasn’t the root cause of the union war effort, it was more broadly economic which is consistent with Toby’s accurate identification of the contradictions of capitalism which he refers to here as liberalism. Marx was the most astute observer of these contradictions, of course.
The Nazis were ultimately defeated by the Russian army, but certainly the industrial might Toby refers to was a huge factor in defeating Hitler. Of course, Hitler had been supported by major American financial interests. Anyway, quibbles notwithstanding, he is right about the lack of a coherent political philosophy among those of us in the loosely defined Health Freedom movement. The most common belief appears to be condemnation of “communists” and “communism,” a throwback to the paranoia of the cold war and a dangerous sort of reductionism that contains the seeds of yet another tyranny. However, we need more than a coherent philosophy to escape the tightening noose of AI, global governance and the destruction of all bills of human rights.
I appreciate the gentle approach taken by you in critiquing this minefield of red flags. I was about to respond to it a great deal less gently when I read your diplomatically stated comment, which in these divisive times is probably the most constructive approach, certainly as evidenced by Dr Malone's "like". "Quibbles notwithstanding", indeed; and "reductionism that contains the seeds of yet another tyranny" is beautifully stated and points to the difficulties encountered in generating a coherent philosophy. Coherence is a heavy constraint on degrees of freedom, in physics and in human culture, as reflected in your last sentence and in Larry's reply to you here, though I think he missed your call for "more than a coherent philosophy". Not quite sure where Erl was going with his reply, but I admire his brave bio profile.
Charles, great points, and I agree on the red flags. The most important mechanism missing in the article is sound money. If we had sound money, while adhering to the other mechanisms mentioned in the article, we wouldn’t be where we are today, and we certainly couldn’t have communism. Great points.
Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it.
This comment covers some good points. I, however, don't think that a "coherent philosophy" needs to be our first priority. It took me many years to learn what I know at this point, and I'm not sure that adds up to something that is totally coherent. Yet I think I have learned many valuable things that anyone interested in these subjects should know about and be able to discuss.
Larry, excellent points. I’ll repeat here what I’ve said in other comments. We would have liberalism and civil liberties, and simply liberty, if we had sound money along with the other economic mechanisms mentioned in the article. I’ll also add that we never really had liberalism, at least since after the Federal Reserve was instituted in 1913. Central banks like the Fed are wholly incompatible with any notion of liberty.
I call a man my teacher who believed that the solutions to our problems do not lie in the exact forms of our social and political structures, but in the proper operation of our minds.
I suppose he could be wrong, but I very much doubt he is. We here on Earth are missing so much vital information about ourselves and the universe that it is nearly a miracle that any of us still value freedom, honesty, a hard day's work, or that happiness that comes from fulfilling one's responsibilities. And on top of that we must tolerate the company of demented men (mostly men) who will likely be with us nearly forever.
Go ahead and argue for your institutional reforms. And I will argue for greater self-knowledge. And perhaps some day, together, we will live to see a better world.
Excellent points, especially on all the vital information here on earth we are missing about ourselves and the universe. I agree. But I'm also interested in what we do know, specifically the basic cause and effect economic laws set in motion by human action. In other words, there's absolutely no reason we can't have both institutional reforms (which history and basic economics indicate would bring more peace, order, and prosperity for all), and greater self-knowledge. Why not have both? And after, should not the proper operation of our minds, and self-knowledge necessarily lead to institutional reform? Of course, they should.
Reform might or might not follow from a better level of knowledge. What those of us who are working more heavily in the knowledge department right now assert is that insufficient knowledge has led to bad choices when it came to reform. Recent "reform" has led to a lot of very centralized structures. Is that what we really need? Or does a less centralized approach work better? A central authority can enforce a certain level of consistency across a society. But when does this enforcement turn to tyranny? Those answers lie in the hearts and minds of people, and not in their structures.
Would one's ideas of ideal structures change if one were convinced that we have all existed for millions of years and could find ways to recover much of that lost experience? Would one's ideas for a better legal system change if one became aware of the true nature of psychopathy and how to handle it? These are questions we can't even ask until that knowledge is gained. Yet they seem pertinent if not fundamental to our current problems.
I agree there have been bad choices on reform, for well over a century. What I’m pointing to is radical decentralization. So, perhaps “reform” is not an apt word. What I’m talking of does speak to your questions of recovering lost experience and the true nature of psychopathy. That knowledge was gained millennia ago, and it couldn’t be more pertinent to our current problems. For context, I’ll paste for original comment: Outstanding essay, and urgently outstanding question: “did liberalism fail”? “Are we there yet?” No, but it’s poignantly clear that liberalism is in the process of failing. Cutting to the quick, the proximate cause is the Federal Reserve. The Fed is inherently rigged to destroy liberalism, and any notion of freedom and free people, because the Fed controls (and destroys) our money. It is the Fed, and the things that only the Fed can fund – things that could not exist without the Fed’s funding -- which destroys the economic mechanisms liberalism is necessarily dependent upon.
I think it’s absolutely, critically important that great leaders on medical and freedom issues, such as Dr. Malone, begin introducing the Fed and “sound money” into the conversation of not only “medical freedom,” but every conversation of Freedom. We will never have any meaningful, sustainable notion of Freedom or liberalism, as long as the Fed exists and operates as it has the last 110 years. We will never be free, as long as central banks like the Fed control our money. This issue may sound complicated, but it’s not. The concepts of money and the Fed are very simple concepts, once we begin wrapping our heads around them, and though certainly not easy, a transition to “honest” and “sound” money will not be nearly as difficult as one might think, if “the story” (to use Toby Rogers’ term) is simply and properly told. Rogers is correct. It's all about the story. "Those who tell the story rule society." This quote has attributed to Plato, but also, as a Native American proverb. Whatever the case, the quote couldn't be more true. This should be glaringly evident to every American, especially since 2020.
Toby Rogers begins by mentioning the “limitations and contradictions” in liberalism. He's correct. It's important to understand that in economic matters, there's rarely solutions, but rather tradeoffs. But the greater point is that true liberalism – Freedom -- is the only way toward at least the promise and pursuit of the greatest amount of meaning and happiness for the greatest amount of people. Freedom is the only way. And true liberalism must include sound money. We simply can’t have liberalism – freedom – without sound money.
Americans told a great story in the late 18th century, leading to and through the American Revolution. They told their story of “liberty and justice for all” in the face of insurmountable odds. The story included all of the mechanisms for liberty Toby Rogers identifies in this essay posted by Dr. Malone. But as we can see, the story told by the founders during the American Revolution also included the economic mechanism of sound money. We must remember the arguments of the founders over the First and Second Banks of the United States. We must remember the warnings about central banks like the Fed, from men like Thomas Paine. Here’s Paine in “Common Sense”:
“As to the assumed authority of any assembly in making paper money, or paper of any kind, a legal tender, or in other language, a compulsive payment, it is a most presumptuous attempt at arbitrary power. There can be no such power in a republican government: the people have no freedom – and property no security – where this practice can be added.”
Thomas Paine was right. With the Fed, essentially, "the people have no freedom." The evidence is all around us. Fast forward from Paine’s warning, to another from the mid 20th century, by F.A. Hayek, best known for his “The Road to Serfdom.” Hayek addresses the dangerous ills central banks like the Fed, which pump paper money (and now, digital money) created out of thin air, into the economy:
“I doubt it has ever done any good except to the rulers and their favorites… money is certainly too dangerous an instrument to leave to the fortuitous expediency of politicians.”
Our Road to Serfdom is indeed paved with the Fed’s dollars, printed out of thin air by scheming politicians and politicized bankers.
In short, the story and script to attain and sustain liberalism and Freedom is already written. We just have to keep re-telling it anywhere and everywhere, over and over, BUT, with the inclusion of the economic mechanism which is sound money. All of the other economic mechanisms Toby Rogers cites in his essay hinge on sound money – ALL of them: free speech. freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, rule of law, fair elections, free trade, markets, private property, and entrepreneurship. Again, the things which kill these economic mechanisms would not exist, or at least would not be as powerfully effective, if not for the Fed, which funds them. We would not have a $33 trillion-plus national debt, with some $100 trillion-plus in unfunded liabilities, without the Fed. We would not have had the Great Depression, nor the financial collapse of 2008. (It’s important to note that the article blames “economic liberalism” for boom busts. But it’s central banks like the Fed which cause boom/busts-- more on this shortly, and in the links at the end of this comment).
Now, by “honest” and “sound” money, I mean, in part, non-inflatable money backed by something of real value -- gold or silver, for example. Money which cannot be tampered with and inflated by politicians bent on scheming ways to fund all of the unsustainable bureaucracies and agencies which are used to destroy liberty as mechanisms of the unsustainable welfare/warfare state. If not for the Fed’s inflationary, debt-financing, monetary expansion and artificial rigging of interest rates, our politicians wouldn’t be able to fund the absolutely catastrophic wars of choice we’ve been engaged in for the past half-century, nor the millions sent around the globe by men like Anthony Fauci for coronavirus “research,” nor the bureaucracies and agencies like the FBI and NSA and the rest of the “technocratic state,” which are used to harass, spy-on, censor, and cancel American citizens, and destroy our civil liberties. Sound money would have largely prevented the federal government’s catastrophically destructive reaction to the 2020 covid outbreak. We would also not have the boom/bust economic cycles and recessions Rogers mentions in his essay, which destroy the poor and middle class while redistributing wealth and power to the already wealthy and powerful (the Fed is responsible for all of the recessions over the last 110 years). Furthermore, we wouldn’t have the inflation of the money supply, which results in rising prices of goods and services across the economy, destroying the purchasing power of the dollar, which of course, hurts the poor, middle class, and the vulnerable like those with fixed incomes, the most.
"Those who tell the story rule society." The story above might be the most important story to tell today, for the cause of freedom, and so individual liberty can rule society -- liberalism. Below are some links to a handful of brief introductions speaking to the necessity of sound money.
Part 2, in addition to my last comment, here’s the links mentioned. These address your points on recovering lost knowledge and experience (the necessity and practical utility of sound money was understood millennia ago), and the true nature psychopathy (the mechanics of the effects of inflation on the brain, from ancient Egypt, to Weimar, to Keynes’ quote below. For example:
“If anyone is curious, here are the sources and links I mentioned in my first comment, below: The Mises Institute is perhaps the very best on the issue. These videos are short and very easy to understand: "Why Study Money?" https://youtu.be/qIQg6TdJsgo?si=0DhW72Ac8WCxgdqt
This is another outstanding introduction: "What has government done to our money?" https://mises.org/library/what-has-government-done-our-money
Whatever we feel about politics, or libertarianism, this book is perhaps the best, most concise introduction to why we need to End the Fed: End the Fed https://mises.org/library/end-fed-1
or https://www.amazon.com/End-Fed-Ron-Paul/dp/0446549177/ref=sr_1_1?crid=GU0CI5UEEHPM&keywords=end+the+fed&qid=1699190644&sprefix=end+the+%2Caps%2C214&sr=8-1
Now, for CHRISTIANS, it’s vital to note that there is a Biblical mandate for sound money. Think of the possibilities, if Christians across the US understood and internalized what the Bible says about sound money. Here are two excellent books on the subject: "The Ethics of Money Production" https://mises.org/library/ethics-money-production (here's podcast on the book: https://mises.org/library/guido-hulsmann-ethics-money-production )
"Honest Money": https://mises.org/library/honest-money
Here’s an excellent, entertaining and humorous approach, in a 7 minute rap video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
Lastly, it’s important to note that Karl Marx noted that central banks like the Fed are necessary for communism. Central banks are the 5th plank of communism in “The Communist Manifesto.” Read that again, and ask yourself: how many planks of communism already exist in the US’s federal government? These planks are the problem, not liberty or liberalism.
Lastly, speaking of communism, we must remember the warnings from the architect of Western economies, J.M. Keynes. Keynes is responsible for much of the economic ills we suffer through today. But he was correct when he wrote the following. The Fed’s inflation not only impoverishes us and destroys our money and liberty, but it also negatively alters our micro, individual choices and behavior. Let this quote sink-in, and think through the implications. Keynes is describing what we see all around us, today:
“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.
Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
In the latter stages of the war all the belligerent governments practiced, from necessity or incompetence, what a Bolshevist might have done from design. Even now, when the war is over, most of them continue out of weakness the same malpractices. But further, the governments of Europe, being many of them at this moment reckless in their methods as well as weak, seek to direct on to a class known as "profiteers" the popular indignation against the more obvious consequences of their vicious methods.
These "profiteers" are, broadly speaking, the entrepreneur class of capitalists, that is to say, the active and constructive element in the whole capitalist society, who in a period of rapidly rising prices cannot but get rich quick whether they wish it or desire it or not. If prices are continually rising, every trader who has purchased for stock or owns property and plant inevitably makes profits. By directing hatred against this class, therefore, the European governments are carrying a step further the fatal process which the subtle mind of Lenin had consciously conceived. The profiteers are a consequence and not a cause of rising prices. By combining a popular hatred of the class of entrepreneurs with the blow already given to social security by the violent and arbitrary disturbance of contract and of the established equilibrium of wealth which is the inevitable result of inflation, these governments are fast rendering impossible a continuance of the social and economic order of the 19th century. But they have no plan for replacing it....”
Read the rest: Commanding Heights : https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_inflation.html
Agreed. The idea of reds under the bed is a distraction. Give benefit where benefit is due. Take the cheap goods produced by diligent workers and be happy. And share your technology. Build trust. Don't scare the daylights out of people with shock and awe.
Earl good points. But once we study communism, for example, The Communist Manifesto, we see that there’s certainly too much communism in the US federal government. The case is easily made that indeed, that is the proximate cause of our loss of liberty.
Outstanding points, and concerns. I think there is a great case to made, though, that adhering to the economic mechanisms mentioned in the article, and most importantly, adding sound money to them, addresses those concerns, such as communism. We simply can’t have communism, and what we have today in the US, if we have sound money, private property, and the other civil liberties mentioned. It sounds simple, but it truly is that simple.
Our political philosophy is already laid in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We just need to abide by it.
I totally agree. We already have an excellent blueprint in those documents. We desperately need to return to the fundamental principles therein. Our United States Constitution granted very limited enumerated powers to the federal government reserving all powers not granted to the federal government to the individual states and the people. Most of the federal bureaucracy is in fact unconstitutional. While all political and appointed office holders are required to support the Constitution most by their actions violate their oath.
Great points, I know I sound like a broken record here, but I think the key to restoring some semblance of liberty necessarily begins with at least understanding sound money.
So true!
Except for the fact that it was written for a moral society.
Sadly 😥 we've lost that component!
Do you feel there is no way to bring back a better sense of morality here?
I never say never unless I'm absolutely 💯 forced to admit that I can't see a solution.
So far, and I do Thank 😊 Our Mighty Heavenly Father for continuing 🙏 to keep me optimistic.
I do acknowledge that it will take much work from many people and that the number of people who are willing to acknowledge MUCH LESS WORK to reverse this trend are dwindling.
History is an excellent teacher....our first step... take back the education system and ensure that it educates rather than indoctrinates. Reedify the institution of marriage and family and leave parenting to parents.
Some may say extolling the virtues of the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Founders is propaganda. They're wrong. There is no deception involved. Our founding documents along with the values contained therein are not hidden. They are the foundations of this republic and we must require adherence to them if we are to keep it. There is a difference between requiring adherence in exchange for citizenship and requiring adherence or being executed--the latter being the result of every socialist-Marxist-communist progression that has ever occurred throughout history.
I believe the other cultural practice that become exponentially magnified and in vogue is to lionize any person for whom one votes and is elected to office. It's bad enough that most such elected representatives drink their own bathwater; must we join them in the libation? Those persons running for office are, in the end, just people like the rest of us. They have made a decision to run and to make the sacrifices associated with attaining office. Their sacrifices are made very public while the rest of us must make other sacrifices attendant with/to our life's work choices without such fanfare and for the most part in obscurity. Nevertheless they are no less important to those who rely on us.
Outstanding points.
Good ideas often have few supporters. Yet they can sometimes prevail. The American revolution, for instance, was never supported by a majority of colonists.
Ana, great points. I appreciate your realism mixed with optimism. I think there’s a strong case that if we understand and move toward sound money, the rest will fall into place. Sound money is the one economic mechanism missing from this otherwise strong article. Interestingly, I also believe there’s a strong case that the only hope starts with Christians more deeply studying the Bible. Indeed, there is a Biblical mandate for sound money, but sadly, most Christians don’t heed the mandate, if they even know it exists. The story must be told. As I said in other comments, and as this article states, it’s all about “story.” The founders and the Bible already told the story of the necessity of sound money. Christians just need to learn the story, and tell it over and over and over,
That's why the current group of Marxist Democrats in charge of our country right now hate the Constitution so much. But without acknowledging the strong possibility that they are currently destroying the voting system will lead this country to the next destructive stage.
I agree with this, too. Of course, the Founders (Framers) studied extensively to come up with those documents. And the most philosophical part of them is just the first part of the Declaration.
Agree. And we should especially restore sound money. Liberty is not possible with the Fed, and until we get much, much closer to sound money.
Where Public Life is concerned there was always only one team on the playing field. If you love freedom and limited government and believe that a free and prosperous civil society should be the foundation of political order, and you act every day within the philosophical confines of that worldview, you will eventually lose to those who do not share that philosophy. It is axiomatic. In America it took about 233 years, starting at 1787, but the outcome was guaranteed. I didn’t go to Town Halls for 50 years because I didn’t want a Town Hall. I wanted a Rotary Club or a Church or a Boy Scout troop or any number of civil organizations that would make my community a happy place to live and that would organically look after the poor and needy while minimizing their ranks. It was a freedom based worldview based on a theological understanding of how life should be ordered. When you are facing an opposition that awakens every day and dreams of how much more money and power and control they can funnel to themselves and to government, the end being to take away your freedoms, and that is their passion and their religion, 24/7, you better have an equal and opposing force on that very same playing field. If your love of freedom means you don’t want to get involved because you don’t believe in the fundamental premise, well, in that case you or your children or grandchildren are in big, big trouble.
Bien, those are clearly facts backed up by real history. Controllers are insidious beings and they will eventually get their way as they use human greed to infiltrate society, its schools, churches, its culture, and government officials. Though manifest, certainly by the turn of the end of the 19th century, the 1960s was a pivotal point in that progression. Many of us watched it unfold, although much was hidden for years, like the plans for depopulation. Most media did not cover the ugly side but we could feel it for decades until it dumped itself on us.
Do you not see any group today attempting to build such a rival organization?
I do not believe this is primarily about groups or organizations. Not that they aren’t important, but I believe the most important factor has been a lack of involvement of conservative individuals in the local political machinery of their communities. This is especially true of School Boards, local Legal offices(judges and district attorneys), County Health officials, County Commissioners and city mayors. This was our first line of defense, and the people on the Right allowed the people on the Left to completely take over these positions nationally. This is true of 80% of Red states and this really is the crux of the matter. The people in red states are generally conservative and mostly Republican but they have elected leftists or left leaning individuals in nearly all of the critical positions I mentioned. This has been researched and documented by people like Daniel Horowitz. It has gone on for decades and it explains more than any other single factor(other than a loss of moral values in general) why our nation is where it is(IMO)
This trend, however, aligns with the allegation that schools have been focusing on the creation of left-wing political activists.
Our modern priorities are Comfort, eating and entertainment. Politics, inequality and God are way down the list. New absurdities are rolled out daily to create confusion and fear such as killing your 6+ month old in the womb is ok. What is stopping killing a 2 year old? Not enough are uncomfortable to disrupt the comfort, good food and Taylor Swift moments to recognize the sound of a waterfall approaching. We are modern day Roman’s believing the U.S. is too powerful to fail, believing all those millions of new arrivals without any means of support will not rebel, believing they can ignore the corruption, greed and absurdity as they enjoy the good life of apathy and overconsumption. I don’t trust my own reality anymore making it difficult to know who or what alternative would provide a viable solution to the current insanity. I do know killing is bad in the womb or out, that accepting millions and millions in donations for a congressional salary of $174k requires payback, that CO2 makes trees and plants grow, and greed breeds liars. You think all those MSM liars aren’t influenced by million dollar salaries?
I guess it boils down to human nature and free will to do as one pleases while residing on this earth. Liberalism, if it means liberating the many, as the article seems to suggest, to do their own thing; or tolerant/open-minded which has been used to crush the life out of common sense, we are hurting as a people and country.
I think you are spot on. Since we working Americans have been asleep at the wheel enjoying the fruits or OUR labor, we did not notice that the school systems removed requirements for Government, economics, world history, and American history.
These subjects became 'electives' 20 years or so ago. No wonder our young people are repeating history, to them it is not history. They do not know what happened, then were not enlightened by education like most of us were.
One of my physician clients, a first generation Chinese American made his teenagers take the elective courses mentioned above so that they would understand where he came from, and their Mother who is a Viet Nam refugee. These parents happily sent their son and daughter off to Tulane and Georgetown, and lost them to politics. The children they raised to be proud Americans turned into total liberals who hate the parents who gave them the opportunity they never had in their mother countries.
How very sad for all four of them.
When people in my community ask me why I care about the school system here in Mesa Arizona since I do not have children, I am stunned by the ignorance of so many about who controls our tax dollars. Our community wants a 500,000.00 bond to be put towards facility improvements They have already spent several million of our tax dollars on marketing and printing signs to put on every street corner of a city that is 129 square miles. (Simple math states that this is a ton of money).
The school boards actually are running our country, and they have been infiltrated by Marxists for years as was foretold by many years ago.
Not many listened.
Rather than developing a new political philosophy maybe we need to revisit an existing one. I refer to ancient wisdom that establishes the proper hierarchy between us and the One who gave us our very breath.
2 Chronicles 7:14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
And the One who already anticipated the Marxian critique of the "rich getting richer" by instituting a Year of Jubilee every 50 years. where lenders had to look over their shoulder at the calendar to see what constraints kept them from absolute domination.
Having a degree in economics and public policy analysis from Penn State, I found reading a Wealth of Nation's by Adam Smith a journey into the brain of a genius. His comprehensive practical analysis of how microeconomics and macroeconomics work to sustain commerce which sustains a civilization laid the blueprint for capitalism.
Exactly, and Capitalism, supported by the "Trickle Down Economic Theory," involved lots of regulation, against exploitation, which has been completely abandoned, so that they could say see - Capitalism doesn't work, and totally discredit it!
I did not finish that book - it was too deep. My theory is a 'free market' is truly great for everyone that participates until it raises up titans, which cause government to intercede until such time as government is bought off.
It becomes the Wealth of the Wealthy. The Theory of Moral Sentiments was just that - a loving theory.
And, it's happening before our very senses.
Not exactly as I theorized though. It was Obama that flipped my theory that the titans bought off government. Ha, not on his watch. His admin started consolidating the titans and coercing them via threats (Choke Point) and the force of laws and sucking them in under his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He brought them into his inner circle and cut deals (Obama Care). He had eight years to change the country and he pulled it off.
We were gifted a constitutional republic built around a very good constitution. Two problems. First lawyers managed to replace all the understandable language in the Constitution with their pernicious brand of legalese gobblegoop and proceeded to highjack the judiciary and legislative branches. Second, the maintenance of this republic requires an enlightened electorate which progressives (read marxists) have pretty well discombulated by destroying public education and capturing so-called higher education. It all needs to be rebuilt from the ground up
The unconstitutional unelected administrative state has destroyed the Constitution. The rise of the welfare state has destroyed the Republic. The general public has becomed dissconnected and lazy, believing "it's the government's fault/solution" when in the past we knew it was the individual/family/community's duty. We had a small government because individuals working through their local institutions took responsibility.
Great assessment. And yes, need only original framework with tighter control when rebuilding. The citizens kept the gov honest for about a 100 years, so blame is shared, but rather disproportionally.
Makes me think of the old saw..."What do you call a 1000 dead lawyers on the bottom of the ocean? A good start." My sibling became an attorney and changed professions after several years . He said being an attorney was destroying his reputation. It seems to have have escaped the notice of the general public that the legal profession and educational institutions have been hijacked by Marxists.
I have a former client who worked hard to be a clinical psychologist, once degreed and working he quit. He just called me one day and asked how do I get off of this healthcare bullshit? I responded, what do you mean? He said, these people coming to see me are fat, lazy, and entitled, I do not want to see people who do not want to be helped.
I asked him what he was going to do, he said, I am going to buy a Starbucks franchise and get paid more for watching crazy people buy overpriced coffee. He did it. Good for him.
Even more disturbing. Knew a girl who got her Ph.D. In biomed. sci. and went to law school wanting to specialize in patent law. Was very unimpressed with her classmates. Drawer full of dull knives.
I really despise him for that.
As we all should.
I've always thought of Smith's work as propaganda, not a work based on any rigorous research. Though philosophy may be useful as a way to organize ideas, its conclusions must be tested if one intends to apply them to the real world.
Read List on political economics if you want to know how the real wealth of nations is created and how the USA, Germany, Japan ect. grew and prospered while the British Empire rotted away from 1845 on.
How can we survive if humanity is now considered lab rats by the medicine man? Case in point. Crispr/Vertex announced today that after marketing their new DNA/injection sickle cell anemia drug, they can then evaluate the "off target" events. This was approved by the FDA. No longer are adverse events called by their true name. Now they are "off target" events. Initial "off target" events are at 10.1% and they have a green light to move forward. RNA injections are in the same classification and the harm created and will be created is being totally ignored. The root cause I have discovered is "regulatory capture" here and across the globe. Stop it and we the people are back in charge. Until then we are traveling down the wrong roads in society. Here is a full explanation of "regulatory capture". When the Republican lead legislation that gave corporations the same rights as we as individuals in the US, was the height of regulatory capture. Corporations now have control over individual rights with their money power! Well expressed with the covid con.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp
Robert
When can we expect to hear you again on Rogan?
When he invites me.
As information systems have become exponentially more sophisticated with the advent of computer technology, the very wealthy have gained controls of these information systems. This has allowed "the ruling class", these elites, to manipulate all data input into these information systems to their advantages. It is inevitable these same elites have gained the abilities to vastly influence a global population severely lacking in critical analytical thinking skills. Using the knowledge they have gained from these same info systems, these elites have provided an opiod to a population easily distracted by many types of audio-visual vectors, effective distractions engineered by the elites. One massive effect of all of this is the elimination of smaller economic competitors, creating fewer and fewer megacompanies. These megacompanies, in turn, are owned by megawealthy investors who expect mega returns on their investments. These ultrawealthy investors sit on the controlling boards of directors of these megacompanies, and they hire subservient management teams who are "legally" bound to do their fiduciary duties to make sure these ultrawealthy investors receive a maximum ROI. The logical conclusion of this spiraling upward of wealth into the hands of the few, and control of the global population, is an oligarchy that controls all aspects of society, including police enforcement of laws and regulations created by this oligarchy. The World Economic Forum is just a feign. The real manipulation ensuring this oligarchy will never be seen, unless of course, drastic actions are taken to destroy it. That's where are Planet Earth is headed unless radically changed.
Great assessment. It was not accomplished in a vacuum though. It's great enabler was/is the USG who grew the monopolies, forked out the seed money to get it all rolling. We will have a New World Order, it's just around the corner says George Bush Sr in the early 90s.
Look at the work of David Rockefeller and the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, to name just a few of the organizations created by this, then, chairman and ceo of Chase Manhattan Bank.
I have and you are again on the money, literally! They have numerous studies programs that feed garbage to the innocent to bring them on board. His programs were added to the CFR, which was originally organized by Wilson called 'The Inquiry' with members from the IGR (Institute for Government Research) funded by the Carnegie Corporation for Robert S. Brookings, who later renamed it the Brookings Institute. It would all be a classic intrigue if it wasn't a scheme against humanity.
(Between creating a weaponized virus, blocking access to off-the-shelf treatments, imposing deadly hospital protocols, authorizing toxic Remdesivir, and injecting the most dangerous vaccines in history, Stakeholder Fascism has already killed over 7 million people worldwide.)-
You are forgetting the lockdown deaths. According to the UN over 30,000,000 starved to death because of the manufactured economic collapse.
That is the diabolic part, isn’t it? 'Man’s inhumanity towards man.' I don’t know if the UN is telling the truth on those awful numbers, because they are certainly part of the problem… it could be a ‘progress report’. (Isn’t that an awful thought?!) My pastor’s wife had too many jabs, on top of already having an autoimmune disease… she’s had at least 4 bouts of bad Covid, her immune system is almost completely depleted. She wasn’t getting better so her doctor put her on Remdesivir! She started getting worse, immediately. I sent Dr. Kory’s article detailing his concerns about it and its ‘black box’ warning to her husband (I know them well), HE pulled her off it.
Liberals, the left or as you say progressives all act as a hive. This all is mainly wrapped around, economic, medical, social media and political issues. We as average hard working citizens, many who have become WOKE to this, should treat it as an asymmetric war that has been waged against our way of life. With that we have been forced into this war. If we as the majority in this country fight on these four fronts, economic, medical, social media and political, and choose alternative conservative parallel businesses we can make change and a shift away from the progressive fascist communists. If we become more hive like as the progressive they will be forced to change. J.Goodrich
James, we have a small window 🪟 of time ⏲️ in which we will be that majority!
If we don't LOUDLY PROTEST to our elected representatives to CLOSE OUR BORDERS IMMEDIATELY, that window will be SHUTDOWN FOREVER!
I want to believe that is possible James.
The problem is people making change.
It's beyond me how we turn things around sufficiently after so much hate and envy has been fueled by politicians, while simultaneously increasing global debt and unfunded liabilities so extremely as to be impossible to deal with non-radically (unless freeing up oil drilling or some new energy miracle could make the difference?). I would like to believe we could still win the right to informed consent, at least. But I'm not even sure that most of our legislators even care whether the WHO takes over. It's as though they think they can take the world right up to the brink and just turn on a dime any time they want. It's beyond me.
A very interesting essay and a critical question to explore. I see one glaring omission. In my mind you cannot talk about the development of classical liberalism, as it relates to the Western world, without addressing the role of the Bible/Christianity in that development. We just returned from Greece and Turkey where we visited sites at Phillippi, Athens, Thessalonica, Delphi, Ephesus and other places. The history is almost too much to get your head around. There is a lot that has come before us, the opportunity for learning from these ancient societies is nearly endless. I was struck with the brilliantamce of St. Paul in sailing nearly 800 miles to the tip of Europe where he was able to start a church in each location. The lessons of the Bible opened completely new frontiers, for instance Lydia, the seller of purple was the very first convert in Europe. We assume she was a single woman because she invited Paul and his companions to her house and not her husband, as would be the custom. The Bible brings the focus on individual rights, as seen in the teaching about slavery. Slaves are equally loved by God. It was this foundation that prepared the soil for Adam Smith and the development of western civilization as we know it in modern America. Liberal democracy requires citizens with clear morality and clear ethics. Western civilization has walked away from this foundation that made it possible for 1 in every 7 peoples alive to want to come to America. Until we return to the foundation we cannot regain what has been lost.
A beautiful way to explain the spiritual battle that has plague humankind throughout the ages Tony.
Humanity has become adept at peddling backwards. I hope that can be corrected.
We correct it in ourselves, in our churches and in focusing in on the Beattitudes, to draw others towards Christ... I believe.
We need to do a better jobs of correcting it in our churches. They have failed on a grand scale.
American Evangelicalism made the idolatrous mistake of equating ‘Americanism’ ‘Patriotism’ and the GOP with faithfulness to Jesus. I was under this spell for a long time... then God started smashing those idols out of my life. Now, I am truly His. Christ, alone.
Nothing wrong with noting or supporting someone who is in a position to further the presence of biblical truths in our nation and does so. God uses people and events as reminders we are fallen but there is a path to salvation.
True, but I have found very few true Christians in politics that did not bend away from true faith. I knew of one 'no appologies' Christian, that served as a state Senator... I was his researcher before he ran for public office. So, I knew his actual character.
That doesn’t mean don’t be 'American, Patriotic or vote GoP' (if you are inclined to)… it means don’t wrap the cross in the American (or any national) flag. God is I AM… He is ‘other'.
We need to be frank with pastors/ministers who give false messages. To your point, we hold no one person up as if he/she were even God-like. We are all His creatures and all in sin.
Yes, but more generally...a culture, political party or even a nation. If we are ‘In Christ’, we are one. In the letter to the Ephesian 2: 11-22 says it so perfectly "Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,d but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God bye the Spirit.” There is no longer any division or categorization… all are one, in Christ Jesus.
I am unsure whether this idea of a coherent "political" philosophy has any possibility of success at this point in history, but I'm slightly hopeful. As other writers below point out, we've lost a great deal of our communal capacity for rational thought, and when the discourse happens in a forum that the powerful can control, our actual philosophy may never become wide spread enough to take hold. We've lost a lot. It's heart breaking. That said, the human being is informed by an inexplicable but clearly undeniable connection to the eternal. Maybe this understanding will, over time, coalesce into a coherent philosophy (sure, political in part) that can bring us into a new age. Thanks Dr. Malone and Utobian for this very timely and very thoughtful "next step forward" in the discourse. Joe Uveges
This "classic" liberalism is being erased by people who felt that they weren't able to get enough of what they wanted with that system in place.
Capitalism is similar, in that it works well, and to the extent that people don't steal.