When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
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Samizdata quote of the day – stand togetherMay 23rd, 2023 |
 12 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – stand together |
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Associate isn’t enough. Those good men need to act. The problem is the government will infiltrate and then come down on them with both feet, the media will vilify them, the courts won’t allow juries to nullify, and the silent majority will do nothing out of fear of losing their homes, livelihoods, retirements, liberty, etc.
The quote is correct. Sadly after the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, Edmund Burke found that the people who came to lead what had been the “Rockingham Whigs” did not share the commitment to individual liberty that he, Burke, had.
It started before (yes – before) the French Revolution – it started with Free Trade with Ireland, it became obvious that Charles James Fox (who became the de facto leader of the party) defined “liberty” as the power of Parliament and “representative institutions” generally, NOT as individual liberty. So Edmund Burke found himself in a difficult position.
With the French Revolution the division became absolute – as it became clear that no amount of robbery and murder would convince Mr Fox and his followers to oppose the French Revolution, and its plans to expert itself to Britain.
What does one do when the party that should stand for private property rights, individual liberty, does not?
Especially when one is a professional, someone who makes his living from politics, and one has been in a party for a very long time?
Mr Burke thought long and hard about that – and so have many other people, including myself.
A party that has no money, that expects its activists to live on air-pies, is as much use as an army without weapons. But can one accept money from people with whom one totally disagrees?
Edmund Burke actually turned down money from Earl Fitzwilliam over the French Revolution (Fitzwilliam did not, at first, clearly condemn the French Revolution – which led Burke to see his money as blood money, money with innocent blood on it that he would not accept), just as Burke had rejected his early patron (Hamilton) over the his then patron’s opposition to equal private property rights and individual liberties for Roman Catholics.
Turning to the present…
The American situation is plain enough – people who believe in private property rights, in individual liberty, should get involved in the Republican Party – making sure that candidates who believe in this win primaries (and that RINOs lose). And they should insist on honest general elections – paper ballots, cast after showing proper I.D., and counted in public.
“And what should supporters of private property rights, in individual liberty, do in the United Kingdom?”
I do not know – my old head is still thinking about the British situation.
For myself, personally, my own Member of Parliament is a member of the Conservative Party and is someone that I will continue to support – after all he was, for example, a “Spartan” on the matter of British independence (as Mrs Braverman was), I am one of Tolkien’s Dwarves – I do not forget good deeds (or offences).
Other people may not be in my position.
But Edmund Burke was right – in public life a person can do little on their own, you NEED a party.
And a party needs MONEY. It also needs a web of connections, at a LOCAL as well at a national level – a party needs contacts with all the local “small platoons”, families and groups at a local level.
That takes time, and work, as well as money.
This corrupt world where even a moderate group such as “Reclaim” led by Lawrence Fox (no relation to Charles James Fox – at least I do not believe so) is not allowed a bank account, is rather more difficult than the world of Mr Edmund Burke – where the people with money were largely independent farmers.
So Steven R. has a point – the government will infiltrate real opposition groups (if someone is urging violence – that person is a “FED, FED, FED” or is being blackmailed by Feds), the Corporate media will indeed vilify them, and the Corporate financial system will try and make them unemployed and homeless.
That is why it is vital to fight back against government and corporate power (which are joined at the him).
So, for example, when Mike Pence (former Vice President) says that it is wrong for the Governor of Florida to fight “Walt Disney” (Mr Walt Disney has been dead since 1966 – Mr Pence means the accused Disney Corporation that hates and despises everything that Walt Disney stood for) and the “Woke” banks, because they are “private businesses” he shows that he, Mike Pence, is an idiot (or worse).
These “private business enterprises” are backed by the Federal Reserve and the Credit Bubble banks – and they want full-on Corporate State totalitarianism, on an international level.
Do not successfully fight them – and all conservatives will end up living in cardboard boxes on the street, begging for food.
If Mr Pence thinks it is fine for these Corporations to discriminate against people on the basis of their political and cultural views (for example attacking Mr Lawrence Fox and his associates) then it must also be fine for these Corporations to discriminate against people on the basis of their SKIN COLOUR – would Mr Pence like to say that, publicly.
Let us see how long a Corporation keeps its limited liability status (a gift from the government) and its “banking license” if it says “we do not accept black people as customers” or “we do not hire black people”.
The same must be true of Corporations who discriminant against economic and cultural conservatives.
Milton Friedman defended the idea of a Corporation on the grounds that it was apolitical – just a way of maximising profits for shareholders.
O.K. let us hold the Corporations to that – legally.
Presently their concern (the concern of the Corporate bureaucracy, which is much the same as the government bureaucracy) appears to be their DEI and SEG score (and all the rest of it)_ – their decisions are made on political and cultural grounds (as most shares are controlled by other Woke entities – not individuals, and their money comes from the government backed Central Banks and the Credit Bubble commercial banks, not Real Savings), that is NOT what Milton Friedman said the Corporations (including the banks) were.
So, if they stay as they are now (fanatically dedicated to a political and cultural side in the international conflict – and filled with contempt for profits for individual shareholders), his defence of the Corporations falls.
Corporate debt is another sign of this – Corporate managers can be major shareholders, but they do NOT tend to be. Corporate managers, at least in the United States, see their position as one of essentially asset stripping – getting lots of money for themselves (pay, bonus payments and so on) and so are indifferent to long term corporate debt, which destroys individual shareholders in the long term.
“In the long run we are all dead” is not just the Keynesian slogan of governments, it is also (tragically) the slogan of many Corporate managers in the United States.
This is the long run – it has arrived.
The nation of Edmund Burke was a nation of family owned business enterprises (both in farming and in manufacturing – I am reminded of the family dominated manufacturing enterprises of Germany which have only recently come under attack) and commodity money – not endless fiat money and Credit Bubble finance (fiat money is attacked more than anything else in Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France”).
It was the sort of nation that the Economist magazine (and the rest of the international Corporate State) hates, and it is what we must return to – if there is to be any hope for civilisation, and for individual liberty.
And most of the American Founding Fathers agreed – not just Roger Sherman, but also Jefferson and (just as much) his rival John Adams.
The followers of Mr Jefferson and Mr Adams hated each other – but they agreed that the sort of system we have now (they were well aware of the ideas that have created our current economic system) will-not-work, such ideas lead to systematic political corruption (a breakdown in the division between government and business – a vile “partnership” emerges which corrupts BOTH sides) and eventual economic breakdown.
“But only in the long term Paul – a Credit Bubble economy can last for decades”.
It has lasted for decades – this is now the long term.
@Steven R
Associate isn’t enough. Those good men need to act. The problem is the government will infiltrate and then come down on them with both feet, the media will vilify them, the courts won’t allow juries to nullify, and the silent majority will do nothing out of fear of losing their homes, livelihoods, retirements, liberty, etc.
I live in the United States. It is a country colonized by people who said “this system is so far gone, all I can do is leave.” The Puritans tried to live their way in Britain, but could not. The Irish emigrated en masse because Ireland was crushed under the boot of Victorian Britain and there was nothing to be done. The Italians streamed out of a failed Italy.
Eventually a country gets to that point. A point where the systems are so implacable they cannot be fixed. A point where the large mass of the population want the thin gruel ladled out by Mr. Bumble, daring not to ask “please sir can I have some more.” A population that can elect Fetterman over Oz, or that isn’t demanding Biden step down, is a population too far gone to fix. A population that can live through a crisis of 2021 and 2022 and still return the same government that got them in the mess. A country where you couldn’t buy food for your baby, or gas for your car, where groceries almost doubled in price, and the crashing economy reduced wages, sent mortgage rates sky high, and left people is scorching poverty, and where masses of cheap labor floods the border, along with hundreds of thousands of deaths due to the drugs that came with them. And yet, despite this still they re-elect the same government?
I’m all for action, but throwing yourself on the fire with no hope of a win is just foolish. Some battles are lost no matter the bravery of the soldier. If you are stuck in Vichy France you need to find a bubble that gives you some protection from your opporesser, maybe try to do what you can in the resistance, but ultimately your goal is to survive. And possibly follow in the footsteps of our original colonizers and go somewhere that they will treat you better.
TL;DR — Who is John Galt?
Fraser Orr.
When the courts refuse to defend honest money (and honest banking) and private and public contracts, which (as you know) the Supreme Court refused to do as far back as 1935, people can still say “we can elect a new government – we can, one day, restore things”.
But when elections are rigged and the courts refuse to do anything about obvious election fraud (see Arizona yesterday – so much for the election rigging being “just for 2020, just to get rid of Trump” the election in 2022 was just as bent in Arizona) then it may indeed be the end-of-the-road.
Those people going off as far as Paraguay are starting to look wise – if even that is far enough away to be free of the accused “International Community” with its international Corporate State totalitarianism.
Whatever we may think of Donald John Trump (and I have been very critical of some of his opinions over the years), he is the choice of the people – if he is not allowed to run for President in 2024 (by obviously fake charges pushed by totally corrupt courts) or he is allowed to be in the election, but is cheated by yet more election fraud – then, yes, it is the end of the road for the United States.
There must be paper ballots, cast only after showing real I.D., and counted in public.
Nothing else is acceptable – not mass mail-in ballots (mass – “signature verification” is a sick joke when there are vast numbers of mail-in ballots), and not machines.
There are still some, basically, honest States in the United States – but the Federal Government is corrupt to the core. The FBI, and so on, is as corrupt as the international corporations – basically a gang of thugs, financed by Credit Money (Cantillon Effect) produced from NOTHING other than force-and-fear.
The difficulty with breaking up the United States, even if secession was allowed, is that it would leave the world dominated by the Communist Party Dictatorship of the People’s Republic of China.
If I were an American, AND I decided to vote, I would join the Libertarian party, and vote for their policies. If America does fall apart, then the major parties would also fall. Here in Australia, we have libertarian movements. The Liberty and Democracy Party stands for smaller governments. There is also a Libertarian movement, hoping to spread the ideas and ideals of liberty to Australians.
The LP in USA are wackjobs, a bigger collection of pointless assholes you’ll never find. If they can’t get a small state Gadsden flag wavin’ guy like me to even think of voting for them, they’re fucking worthless. They’ve like the BLM movement but for the other side, just as delusional and self important. The LP is a moron magnet.
Cowpens, why don’t you join them, and reform them? Give them a nice symbol, go around the country giving speeches about the oppressed individual, get them all to unite under your banner, and blame the country’s misfortunes on a small minority, such as rich people! A program like that worked for a Herr Hitler, so it could work for you!
Nicholas – in the United States, as you know, there are Primary elections in nearly all States.
Pre liberty people can stand as Republicans and get the nomination.
Then it is a matter of winning the general election – and the first condition of doing that is honest elections.
Sadly in parts of the United States the elections are bent.
No Paul, pro-liberty people in the US can’t win the Republican nominations. They can run on certain planks on that platform (rolling back gun laws or getting DC out of local education) but as soon as they start saying stuff like “God shouldn’t be in public schools” or “we really should be repealing drug laws entirely” or “it sucks that you’ve paid the taxes to support Social Security your whole life, but we need to rip off the band-aid and end it outright,” it’s over, especially against well-entrenched incumbents or the next generation the GOPe have decided they want and are willing to fund. Sure, on paper they can, but in the real world it just doesn’t happen outside of once in a blue moon and invariably our new guy on Capitol Hill who bucks the system finds his district gerrymandered out of existence the next census cycle or crushed in the next primary by the GOPe’s pick or just ends up corrupted by the system. Even Ron Paul put all kinds of pork in spending bills. He said the right things and then did the exact opposite. We just saw it in Florida where a state with a Republican governor and a Republican supermajority in both houses just killed an open carry bill in committee because, and the committee chair put it, “they had done enough for [gun owners] already that session.”
Just remember, the DNC likes half of the Bill of Rights and the GOP likes the other half, but neither party likes them all. And both sides will go out of their way to crush any candidate that is a threat, even to the point of endorsing the candidate of the other party if it comes right down to it.