Big Government: An Unnecessary Evil That Should Be Abolished

Guest post By Brandon Smith

There are two types of people in this world; those who worship the ideal of centralized command authority, and those who do not.  Those who value freedom regardless of risk or pain, and those who value slavery in a desperate bid to avoid risk and pain.  When I consider the ultimate folly of man, in the end I look to the meek and unquestioning masses who strive to avoid risk, because it is they who always end up feeding the machines of war, despair, and tyranny.  The power thirsty halls of elitism surely instigate and manipulate the tides of this wretched ocean of quivering souls, but ultimately, the weak-hearted and weak minded make all terrible conquests possible.  

They live by the rule of fear, and their fear drives them to seek control; control of their environment, control of others, and by extension they believe, control of the future.  They attempt to mitigate their overwhelming fear by containing the world and sterilizing it of everything wild, untamed, and unknown.  They dream of a society of pure predictability, and zero responsibility.  They are willing to sacrifice almost anything to attain this position of artificial comfort.    

The concept of “big government” appeals to such people for many reasons…

Government in most cases is nothing but an abstraction.  It is merely a tool that serves the interests of a particular group of people at any given time.  Modern politics is an expression of the foolish cat fight between factions of people to decide who gets to wield the weapon of government and impose their ideology on the rest of us.  At least, that’s what it almost always devolves into.  The great illusion of the system, though, is that ANY group of average people ever actually wields any power.  The truth is, big governments are always operated by very small and exclusive clubs of root beneficiaries out of the sight of the population. 

The smaller this dominant group becomes, the more corrupt and criminal the government generally is.  A government reaches a state of despotism whenever its functions are twisted for the sake of an elite few to the detriment of the common man, and when it ignores the natural inborn rights of the individual for the sake of some fabricated collective .  If one were to closely examine the birth of every iron-fisted oligarchy throughout history, they would find a cyclical pattern of centralization; the removal of checks and balances, the removal of legitimate public involvement in the political process, a dependent and infantized citizenry, and the rise of a “bureaucratic class” which regards itself as superior and born to lead.  All steps taking place within Western societies today.  

Unfortunately, the masses tend to view big government as an inevitability of life; as a natural extension of culture.  Rarely if ever do they ask what tangible purpose it serves.  Are they really getting what they want out of their government?  Or, is the government taking what it wants from them?

I have always found the worshipful attitude that some citizens ascribe to government simultaneously fascinating and disturbing, because these people are not bowing down to a wise and benevolent entity.  Rather, they are bowing down to their own delusions of what they believe that entity to be.  The most dangerous and insidious of governments present themselves as a kind of social vanity mirror.  They allow the citizenry to project their collective desires, biases, shortcomings, and fears, and reflect back an image that entices and placates the majority.  The lies and manipulations of big government are designed to satiate our basest fantasies, but what we see as a concrete edifice of political and legal might, in the end, is a mirage mired in the fog of our own naïve expectations. 

So, the question again arises; if the structure of big government is built upon deceit and misrepresentation, what tangible purpose does it really serve?

The answer is no purpose…at least, no purpose that elevates and enriches the public at large.

Big government is not a “necessary evil”.  It is just evil.  Like the ring of Sauron, it lures in the weak with promises of power, but this power is a ruse.  Each side of our false left/right paradigm, Democrat and Republican, thinks that if only THEY were the bearers of the ring they would “finally use it for good”.  But once in their possession, they are overtaken, overwhelmed, and corrupted by personal temptation. 

The Democratic Party, with all of its proclamations of humanism and respect for civil liberties, is a perfect example.  How quickly did the rank and file Democrats turn away from their anti-war, anti-torture, anti-banker, anti-surveillance, anti-tyranny stance once Barack Obama, a self proclaimed Democrat, was placed in office?  Very quickly!     

And what about the common Republican?  How many of them utterly abandoned their ideals of limited government, reduced spending, Constitutional rights, and Christian understanding as soon as Bush and the Neo-Con regime was installed?  Most of them!

And when all is said and done, who has reaped profits and gained dominance during both disastrous administrations?  The corporate high priests and international banking cartels, not the oblivious participants of the fake political theater.  Yet, a masochistic cycle of misplaced trust in the system on the part of the masses continues... 

If these latest signs of big government corruption aren’t enough to make the public question the validity of the establishment, I’m not sure what will…

The Rape Of Cyprus

Even in the face of unmitigated government theft, I still hear the occasional rationalization of the Cyprus debacle.  Defenders of the bailout measures (which the EU demanded) allowing the confiscation of private citizen savings to pay off government mismanaged debt, argue two things:

1) The banks that were targeted contained “Russian blood money” and hidden funds, so confiscation really amounted to a “punishment of rich criminals” rather than the Cyprus public. 

2) It is “better” that the citizens go along with the confiscation of a percentage of their accounts, rather than lose everything through collapse. 

Just to be clear, any sizable Russian funds being stored in Cyprus were removed before the bailout measures were instituted.  Therefore, the assertion that such people were “punished” is a lie and a distraction.  The Russian scapegoat was merely being promoted by global financiers and political elites in order to con people around the world (not just those in Cyprus) to accept the concept of government theft of private funds as being “moral” under “certain extraneous circumstances”.  When a government wants you to set aside your conscience in support of an immoral action that serves their interests, they will almost always conjure a false villain and engineered consequences for you to direct your fear and anger at.  Once they can convince you to abandon your own principles to smite an imaginary enemy or avoid a manufactured threat, even if only one time, it will be much easier for them to convince you again a second time. 

Large and corrupt governments love to use the magic of the false choice.  For instance, “…it is better to sacrifice some of your money and your principles to the establishment than it is to live through total collapse of the nation…”  This false choice process, though, never ends.  The offending government will demand more property and more freedom from the citizenry everyday while constantly warning that if we do not submit, the alternative will be “far worse”.

The truth is, Cyprus is not the issue.  What the disaster in Cyprus reflects, however, concerns us all.  It is a moment of precedence; an action which sets the stage for the final destruction of the idea of private property.  It dissolves one of the final barriers to total government control.  Governments and elitists have always stolen from the public through misspent taxation and rampant inflation, but with Cyprus, we see a renewed feudalistic paradigm.  The EU and the banking hierarchy are sending a message to the Western world:  You are now their personal emergency fund, and nothing you own is actually yours anymore. 

When an institution confiscates property and capital at will from a subdued and frightened populace without consent, they are essentially exploiting the labor of that populace.  In any culture or language, this is called “slavery”.

Private Corporations Openly Dictating The Law

As most in the Liberty Movement know, the seeds of Fascism germinate in the soil where the corporate world meets the political world.  This is one of the primary reasons why we will stop at nothing to eliminate entities like the Federal Reserve; a privately run banking cartel that mingles with government yet answers to no one, including Congress or the people.  The Fed has existed since 1913, and has dominated the value and circulation of our currency ever since.  However, today, they are taking on new powers…

As a part of the recent bailout bonanza and the legislation surrounding it, the Fed has begun writing operational policy for other private banking institutions:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/26/us-citigroup-moneylaundering-idUSBRE92P0OO20130326

The transition has been subtle but the implications are dangerous.  The Fed is becoming a regulatory body with expanding influence outside of the electoral process.  It is preparing the ground for other private central banks to become fully unaccountable governing structures.  Right now, they are limited to the banking sector, but eventually, this dynamic will poison every aspect of the financial world until every economic decision will be made without any oversight from the public. 

Moving in a slightly different direction, the Federal Government is beginning to establish law which removes the ability of the public to have any means of redress against particular corporations.  The ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ hidden within the pages of the HR 933 spending bill creates special circumstances that protect the GMO producer from litigation and public examination over the dangerous genetic products it markets.  This legislation, in essence, builds a coalition between Monsanto and the government, and even allows Monsanto in some cases to dictate what the government can and cannot do when dealing with GMO’s. 

The Obama Administration’s support of this bill should be a shock to any environmentally inclined Democrat, and any Democrat who is still willing to defend Obama after learning of this legislation, in my opinion, is a lost cause. 

This move on the part of our government is striking because of its open criminality.  It shows that we have entered a new stage of the totalitarian process; one that will invariably lead us to catastrophe.

Legislation By Special Interest Group

In the halls of big government, politicians do not produce major legislation.  Rather, bureaucrats and think tanks fashion policy while elected officials serve as mouthpieces and middlemen.

How often do we discover after the passage of particularly nefarious pieces of legislation that the politicians who voted for them NEVER read the bills themselves?

This past week, sources within NY governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration claimed that he didn’t actually read the NY Safe Act before championing it, and blamed the vast mistakes and unconstitutional oversteps of the bill on Mayor Bloomberg and the Brady Center.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/gov_faking_care_of_business_execs_9uIcEq5lJPk96ayylaRAGL

Now, I do not believe that Cuomo was not aware of the implications of the Safe Act, even if he didn’t read the bill.  But I do believe that the bill was drafted purely by special interest groups like the Brady Center without any oversight from actual state legislators, who then passed it overnight without a second thought. 

In a big government system, legislative wrangling is non-stop.  A bureaucracy thrives on the endless introduction of new laws and new restrictions, and so it makes perfect sense that political representatives, who now act merely as mascots, never have the time to read all the paperwork.  Why would they read it, when they are no longer making decisions on such policies anyway?  All they have to do is vote how they are told to vote by their handlers, and trust that they will be protected by the establishment from public anger. 

Legislation by proxy is rampant in our government today, and it begs us to consider this - If our government has become so oversized and complex that our elected leaders can no longer oversee the actual writing of legislation and must use private think tanks to write it for them, perhaps we should cut the system down until their work load is manageable.  The alternative is a legal and political structure that is engineered entirely by obscure interest groups with an agenda, and this is highly unacceptable.

Complete Disregard For Individual Rights

In the evolution of big government, there comes a point at which the oligarchy has attained enough power that it feels safe in admitting its true intentions.  Usually, this is done in the name of the “greater good”.  Sometimes, they don’t even try to sugar coat it. 

This past week, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg in an unguarded moment stated the underlying philosophy behind the impositions of government control over the people.  When questioned about the Constitutionality of the growing drone surveillance grid in American skies, Bloomberg had this to say:
“Everybody wants their privacy, but I don’t know how you’re going to maintain it.  It’s just we’re going into a different world, uncharted, and, like it or not, what people can do, what governments can do, is different. And you can to some extent control, but you can’t keep the tides from coming in.”
“The argument against using automation, it’s this craziness– oh, it’s Big Brother. Get used to it.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bloomberg-new-york-eventually-surveillance-city-article-1.1296103
And there you have it.  The new age (for Bloomberg and big government elites like him) is a place in which government is separate and above the people.  The government does not exist to serve the citizenry; the citizenry exists to serve the government.  Privacy is a privilege that governments can take anytime they wish.  Citizens, being slaves, should not expect such privileges.  And, this subjugated nightmare world is a place that we must accept as a natural extension of progress.  Big Brother is the future, so grow up and “get used to it”…

I will not be “getting used to it”, and neither will millions of Americans like me.  We'll tear the whole monstrosity down first.              

Institutions of law and order are supposed to reflect the highest inherent principles of humanity and defend those principles regardless of the nature of the times.  Honor and conscience do not suddenly become obsolete simply because danger looms, or catastrophe strikes.

Big government bastardizes the original intent of the founders, who formed a small subservient central federal structure to fulfill one purpose – as a protector of the natural freedoms of the population.  The federal system was never meant to have any domestic power beyond this task, nor should it.  Today, as we have shown over and over again, the centralized political behemoth we live under is absolutely unnecessary and completely destructive to the freedom and prosperity of the culture it was originally tasked to defend.  It can and must be dissolved, and it is time for average Americans to deeply and seriously ponder this option rather than ignorantly assume that because it exists, it should exist.  Otherwise, like a weaponized cancer, it will devour what is left of the healthy fabric of our society and destroy whatever good remains within us.




You can contact Brandon Smith at:  brandon@alt-market.com
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What Kind Of Power Should Government Have Over Your Life?

Guest Post by Brandon Smith

The concept of government power is a strange and complex cipher. The existence of governments has always been predicated on assumptions of necessity, but few societies have ever truly considered what those necessities might be. What is government actually good for? What do they do that is so important? And, what happens when a government fails in the roles and duties that a culture deems vital? We tend to view government as an inevitability of life, but the fact is, government is NOT a force of nature, it is a creation of man, and it can be dismantled by men just as easily as it can be established.

In America, many people see government as an extension of the Republic, or even the source, and an animal that feeds at the behest of the common citizen. An often heard argument against the idea of drastic change or even rebellion within the establishment system is the assertion that the government “is us”. That it is made of Americans, by Americans, and for Americans. That there is no separation between the public, and the base of power. This is, of course, a childish and fantastical delusion drawn from a complete lack of understanding as to how our system really operates today. How many people out there who make this argument really believe at their very core that they have any legitimate influence over the actions of the state? I wager not many…

At bottom, to cling to the lie that the government as it stands is a construct of the people is an act of pure denial designed to help the lost masses cope with underlying feelings of utter powerlessness.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government has shown clearly through word and action that its concerns are not with the average American, and that its loyalties rest with decidedly smaller and more elite interest groups. When elections once meant to dissuade political abuse become a false paradigm tool for the maximization of tyranny, have we not lost our voice as a society? When any government decides it is no longer concerned with the freedom and prosperity of a nation, no matter how righteous that government claims to be, we MUST, as citizens, ask ourselves whether that government is still useful to us, and what kind of power it should be allowed to wield. It is a dereliction of our duty not just as Americans but as human beings to simply treat government as a realm outside of our control or concern. It is lazy. It is dangerous. It could very well be disastrous. Government should answer to us, now and forever.

As the new millennium stampedes forward, however, it appears that the intended roles of the American dynamic have been reversed. The progression of the past decade has seen a hailstorm of legislation and executive orders that impede personal liberties and erode Constitutional protections in place for centuries. So many trails towards totalitarianism have been blazed recently that it is becoming difficult to track them all, and yet, I do not think many in our country have asked themselves what this means to their future. What kind of rights are you ready to hand over to government? How many aspects of your life should the establishment be able to dictate? How much freedom are you willing to give away?

While pondering these questions, each man and woman should also take into account the powers that those in government THINK they deserve. What have they asked for lately? What have they taken without permission? Here is just a short list of the more detrimental declarations of authority attempted over the past decade along with the pieces of legislation and executives orders used to make them “all legal”…

The Power To Invade Your Privacy

The U.S. government has long held at least a private belief that it should be allowed access to every aspect of a citizens personal life. In the past, the excuse of criminal suspicion was a standard rationalization, but this expanded beyond the targeting of individuals to broader surveillance of the populace as a whole with the advent of the drug war. Financial records especially became subject to government perusal without warrant and generally without any criminal charges filed.

This trampling of the 4th Amendment over a fabrication of a “war” on substances that by all rights should be legal anyway was just a taste of what was to come. With the explosion of the war on terror (another fabricated conflict), the application of mass surveillance became standardized. The Patriot Acts and the FISA bill, both upheld by so called “Republican” and “Democratic” presidents, have opened the door for centralized electronic spying in the name of “national security”. Never before has the world seen such an unbridled assault on the private lives of common citizens. The big brother grids of the Soviet era are child’s play compared to the data mining of the 21st century, and this tyranny is made possible by the marriage of government and corporate interests, working in tandem to ensure an ever tightening net.

The usual ill conceived debate point for such surveillance is the claim that it is “for the greater good”, for our own safety, and that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear. It is not uncommon for slaves to embrace the loss of privacy in the name of safety, even if that feeling of safety is an illusion, but, in the end, whether we have something to hide is none of the government’s concern. In a true Republic, innocent until proven guilty is a paramount ideal, and this ideal cannot exist in a country where everyone is treated as a suspect at every moment of every day. No politician, no corporate body, no president, no alphabet agency in existence is exalted enough to play the all seeing all judging eye of god. This kind of power in the hands of an organization whose sole purpose is self preservation and expansion at any cost? Absolutely unacceptable!

The Power To Silence

From the DHS, to the private Federal Reserve, to Google and Facebook, the tides of opinion and social observation are being tracked, catalogued, and flagged for future intervention. With active programs now in place to identify and isolate negative online criticism of these institutions as well as to marginalize freelance web journalists and more mainstream media icons with a strong voice, the general public is finally beginning to see what we in the Liberty Movement have been warning about for years:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/dhs-creates-fake-accounts-monitor-social-networks/story?id=15247533#.T2mCinkkU3E

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/29/business/la-fi-fed-facebook-20110929

The invasion of privacy is merely the first step in the process of silencing dissent. If the citizenry is put in a position in which they know they are constantly being watched, they may decide to censor themselves to avoid possible retribution. In fact, the destruction of free speech has always been accomplished in history first by the target population itself. Terrified of real and imagined consequences, people begin to filter their own views, until a single harmless and homogenized collective voice forms.

The near miss of SOPA legislation has proven as well that the government hopes to one day be able to summarily vaporize internet outlets based on whatever guidelines they see fit to apply. It also showed that the American public is not going to roll over while this occurs. I think it safe to say that the internet is the very last bastion of free speech in the world, free from filtration, bureaucratic meddling, and corporate vampirism. SOPA was a test case. New and more subversive methods will arise, and shutting down the web as we know it will be a number priority for our government for the foreseeable future.

“Free speech zones” aside, protest is becoming far more difficult in this country. Less-than-lethal devices like tasers, rubber bullets, tear gas, sound cannons, microwave guns, etc. have “humanized” the act of government violence against peaceful protest, but the effects of violating the 1st Amendment are the same. Add to this the use of Fusion Centers to coordinate armies of riot cops with the help of the DHS, the FBI, and even the military, and you have a high grade goon machine constructed to undermine the people’s right to redress grievances. It has become obvious that this government not only wants to stifle your ability to affect change through electoral means, but it is also determined to make sure you can’t openly complain about being muscled out of the political process either.

The Power To Financially Destroy

Of course, much of the economic distress that we suffer today was generated by the corrupt activities of the Federal Reserve (a privately controlled banking cartel) and global financing conglomerates like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, however, the government’s complicity in these activities cannot be denied. It was the Congressional repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that gave international banks the ability to derivitize massive numbers of mortgages and create the ongoing implosion of the housing bubble. It was the SEC that turned the other cheek for years while credit fraud flooded markets and ratings agencies gave AAA status to toxic and basically worthless assets. It is the U.S. government to this day that defends the Federal Reserve’s nonstop quantitative easing, the destruction of the dollar, and increased deficit spending driving our nation even deeper into debt. The passage of the bailouts despite an 80% opposition from the public sent a stark message; the government does not care what you think about the economy, and will do what it pleases, even if it means destroying your means of fiscal survival.

The Power To Imprison Without Trial

The NDAA is truly a perfect representation of the kind of power the government would like to have over the people, no questions asked. The Obama Administration’s half hearted promises to not use the provisions of the legislation to detain American citizens indefinitely without trial are little comfort, especially when one considers that the man has not kept a single positive promise since taking office in 2008. Frankly, I would have slightly more respect for the president (which isn't much) if he had the guts to come out and admit what the language of the NDAA clearly states; that American citizens can and will be designated as enemy combatants under the rules of war, and that anyone, regardless of citizenship, can be labeled a “terrorist” for any reason by the executive branch.

I suppose the one good side-effect of the passage of the NDAA is the level of awakening going on in the American public to the direction our country is taking. Not to mention, the scrambling that political representatives now have to do to cover themselves and explain away their support for the draconian measures.

For those who do not grasp the ultimate goal of this kind of legislation, the NDAA seems outlandish, or insane. But, in a certain light, it is perfectly logical. A government that seeks totalitarian control is REQUIRED to remove the protections that a jury trial affords, otherwise, it cannot function in the manner it desires. If a person is given the opportunity of a jury by his peers, this takes the ability to criminalize out of the hands of government and places it in the hands of a third party. Just as in the economy, the globalists who stand at the helm of our country would very much like to centralize law. This means removing all checks and balances from the equation. In the name of national security, Washington D.C. considers all things possible…

The Power To Kill Without Trial

Another program supported by both Republican and Democratic presidents, the ability to assassinate American citizens without trial based on mere accusations from the executive branch is a highly useful tool for tyranny. Over the past couple years the questions have always been; how far do they plan to take this policy, and, will they try to use it against American citizens on American soil? These questions have been indirectly answered by FBI head Robert Mueller when he tried to dodge them in a recent hearing:

Mueller’s claim that he is “not sure” if Americans can be assassinated on U.S. soil is the same as an admission that this is at the very least being considered. Given the legaleze wrangling that both Mueller and Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder have tried to implement in rationalizing the use of assassination, I find it hard to fathom that anyone would NOT expect they would use the policy for Americans on home turf. The power to kill or imprison without trial is expressly forbidden by Constitutional law and the Bill of Rights. Such abuses were the primary cause of the Revolutionary War, yet, here we are again, dealing with the same murderous reasoning with a slightly different face.

The Power To Militarize

Federal fusion centers and funding for local law enforcement has irreparably damaged state and county objectivity and opened the door to a steady diet of anti-liberty propaganda for police officials across the nation. Some eat it up, some don’t. However, the issue here is one of intention. Why does the federal government feel the need to arm divisions of local law enforcement with automatic weapons, predator drones, and even tanks? Why is Congress going out of its way to free up FAA regulations to allow police organizations unprecedented access to predator drones, up to 30,000 by 2020, for use in civilian airspace?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/7/coming-to-a-sky-near-you/?page=all

Why does the DHS suddenly need 450 million rounds of .40 cal ammunition from ATK?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/atk-secures-40-caliber-ammunition-contract-with-department-of-homeland-security-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-dhs-ice-2012-03-12?reflink=MW_news_stmp

And why has Obama quickly and quietly signed the Executive Order for National Defense Resources Preparedness? Though many will claim the order only rehashes such continuity of government policies seen in older programs like Rex 84, I find it a bit disconcerting that our government suddenly feels the need to rehash Rex 84 powers at all!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness

The order is a claim to eminent domain, not just over land, but over every resource imaginable in the face of a “national emergency”. Using military force, all goods, services, and property, can be confiscated in the name of support for military and governmental logistics. In an article written in February titled “The DHS Defends Globalism, Not America”, I warned that Janet Napolitano’s language of supply chain protection and resource allocation could only be supported by the pilfering of goods from one place to feed another:

http://alt-market.com/articles/552-the-dhs-defends-globalism-not-america

Now we see that this was indeed the intention all along. Given that the John Warner Defense Authorization Act allows the president to declare a national emergency and martial law for almost any reason at any time without oversight from Congress for at least 6 months, the possibility of vast programs of resource confiscation becomes much more likely.

The power to militarize a culture at will, and to force that culture to work and produce in the name of the state and the benefit of the state is perhaps the most terrifying power of all. It is, for all intents and purposes, the power to enslave.

What Has Our Government Become?

Really, who needs terrorists when you have a government like ours? If it is the widespread destruction of the principles that founded our society that you fear, then the last enemy you need worry about is the Muslim boogie man. The greatest threat to our way of life is an institution that has always operated right under our noses and acted with impunity sheltered by the very borders it is tasked to defend. It is the only group in existence that has the resources, the military backing, and the proven intent to undermine liberty in America. It is the supreme threat to individual freedom in the world today. And, the worst irony of all is that it commits every one of its crimes in our name.

So, there comes a point when we have to decide what kind of respect this brand of monstrosity deserves? It would appear that the government, or at least root elements of it, see the American people as the enemy. And why not? We are, in the end, the only force on the planet in a position to deconstruct the machine, so it only follows that we find ourselves locked in its crosshairs. We have not been given much choice. The only decision left to make is one within each individual. How much do we really need the system, and how much pain and horror are we willing to endure to satisfy its insatiable hunger? Where will we finally draw the line…?

Original Article