Finding your own Freedom...

My last post left me interested in looking at back issues of Backwoods Home magazine. I was browsing through and found another great article by Claire Wolfe.

It addresses what I think is a common feeling among many libertarians, and also the problems with how we, as individuals, are dealing with them.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/wolfe93.html

Finding your own freedom By Claire Wolfe

The letter to Backwoods Home pleaded:

I have long aspired to a simpler life in a quiet area where I may live as my forefathers did and support and sustain myself. I would like to buy a small farm where I could raise poultry and produce and network with like minded people for companionship and barter. The biggest question for me is the one I’ve never been able to glean an answer for from your publication: Where?

Where can a person go to escape the tyranny of overbearing government and brutal law enforcement? Where can a person experience the elusive liberty of days gone by? Where the hell is Hardyville anyway?

Where would someone begin researching “livability” of specific areas? I must get out of this vile, filthy, vermin ridden prison of a city within about 36 months. The farm is the ball and I have had my eye on it but the clock is ticking and I don’t want to do this twice.

Signed, Miserable in Metropolis

This letter poses so many dilemmas that Dave and Company could devote multiple articles—maybe even entire issues—to finding answers.

Only one problem: After all those future issues of BHM had thundered off the presses, we’d still be waiting for a universally satisfactory solution to Miserable’s puzzles.

As I interpret his letter, Miserable actually asks three very heavy questions. The answer to one is simple—but unsatisfying. The others we can ultimately only answer for ourselves.

The questions I hear are:

Dave Duffy began his simpler, more free life eight miles down a dirt road in Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains. (Issue #1) From there, he founded Backwoods Home Magazine. A freedom seeker with different needs might have said, “No thanks!” to the snow, the isolation, or Oregon’s infamously strict environmental laws. But it worked for Dave and family.

1. How can I live as my forefathers did?

2. Where can I find the most livable geographic location?

3. Where can I live in freedom?

We can toss out question one right now. We can’t live as our forefathers did. Even the Amish use cellphones and have to put up with the Internal Revenue Service. Even ardent backwoodsmen enjoy the benefits of power tools and suffer the nuisances of the welfare state.

We can recapture some of what we believe was pleasant about “the olden days.” But the olden days were never as glorious as we imagine and we can’t get them back.

The days of our forefathers imposed unimaginable work and hardship on most individuals. Those fondly imagined olden days had some very serious troubles: slavery and indentured servitude; the threat of terrible hunger after a bad harvest; war on the homefront; savage bosses, satanic factories, and seven-day work weeks; hellish penal colonies; malaria in the nation’s capital; unwanted immigrants; poor sanitation and high infant mortality; women and children treated as chattel.

Gentlemen like Thomas Jefferson had leisure to ponder the great questions of life. The majority simply worked their tails off, hoped they’d have food on their tables, and died young.

For good or ill, our forefathers and their ways are dead. Try to resurrect the dead past and you know what you end up with? The cultural equivalent of a zombie flick.

Next question.

Where can I find the most livable geographic location?

This is a far more meaningful question and is in some ways right up BHM’s alley. It’s also a more challenging question.

I don’t mean to sound glib, but you’ll find the best answer to that question where you find it, not where anyone else may suggest you look.

As a perfect example of what I mean, take the Free State Project.

Please.

Seriously, the Free State Project (FSP) is the first place to turn if you’re seeking a preassembled wealth of information about livable locations within the U.S. It’s also the first place to turn for a vivid demonstration of why one person’s heaven is another person’s hellhole.

The FSP was born in 2001 in the mind of then-grad student Jason Sorens. His notion was that if 20,000 freedom activists moved to a single low-population state, those activists could change the state’s culture and political climate.

Even if you have no interest in politics and no desire to relocate for political purposes, there’s great information to be gleaned from the Free State Project’s website. If you have no Internet access at home or work, book a computer at you local library. (See sidebar for more information on this and other relocation resources.)

Thermopolis, Wyoming, appeals to anyone who likes high, dry places, bubbling hot springs, and a blessedly laissez-faire attitude. (Issue number 85.) Wyoming is truly one of the nation’s prime havens against high taxes and government brutality. Finding work can be tough, though. And when the cold wind howls, many newcomers want to run for “home.”

Members of the FSP spent two years compiling their wealth of info. Then in the fall of 2003, they voted to select the one future State of the Free.

Prior to the vote, passionate advocates for each candidate state offered facts, figures, contacts, and the voice of experience to back their favorites.

They also argued endlessly and often acrimoniously.

The state eventually chosen was New Hampshire.

And today members and former members of the FSP are still arguing acrimoniously.

Let me give you an example of why the FSP couldn’t determine the best “livable” spot for everybody, and why nobody else can do that, either.

It became obvious well before the vote that FSP partisanship was split between one eastern state (New Hampshire) and three western states (Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho).

The arguments on each side were varied. The following won’t even try to do them justice. But ultimately the arguments could be summed up as a giant clash of values:

New Hampshire partisans: New Hampshire is near Boston where we can get jobs! There are too few jobs in the west!

Western partisans: Boston, with all its congestion, regulation, and taxation is a perfect example of what we want to get away from! Give us wide-open spaces and room to expand!

There was more, of course. Western partisans pointed to land as little as $500 per acre. Eastern partisans said $5,000 per acre and up was no big deal if the land was more fertile and had easier water sources.

Western partisans cried, “New Hampshire has lousy weather!” Eastern partisans rolled their eyes and groused, “Look at the pot calling the kettle black!”

So the arguments go to this very day.

No one can define “livability” for another person. But the facts others have discovered and the subjective reasons others have given for their choices can help you clarify—and move toward—your own goals.

For starters, I’ll offer my own 10-Point Livability List by which I’d judge any small town or rural area. Your mileage will vary. My own mileage might vary, if I were to compose this list on another day. But here’s what immediately rises to the top of my mind:

1. Low land cost

2. Low cost of living

3. Wide-open spaces with lots of room to roam

4. Beautiful surroundings

5. No huge metropolitan area that dominates the entire state’s politics

6. A welcoming attitude toward polite strangers

7. Reasonable access to water for irrigation, animals, and drinking

8. A positive, laissez faire attitude toward guns and gun owners

9. Respect for privacy; lack of busybodies

10. The absolutely indefinable something that simply says, “You’ve found your home!”

It’s perfectly possible that your list might not have a single element in common with mine.

It’s perfectly possible that something as indefinable as a sense of “Home” could overrule every pragmatic consideration on your agenda.

That’s life. It’s an adventure.

Hearty adventurers like the Stram family find quiet, freedom, and opportunity in Thorne Bay, Alaska. (Issue number 84.) You might find your dreams in Alaska, too. But it’s a sure bet that some BHM reader looks at a photo like this and says, “Give me sunshine!” or “Give me a shopping mall within driving distance!” Our concepts of livability are as varied as we are.

Of course, it’s not always a pleasant adventure—which brings us to the next, and even more difficult, question.

Where can I live in freedom?

I realize that “Miserable’s” three questions are ultimately bound up into one. Being free and living like his forefathers mean much the same thing to him. Therefore a livable location must also be one where freedom reigns.

Understandable.

Unfortunately, political freedom doesn’t reign anywhere on earth. You can go to wide-open Wyoming and end up running afoul of bureaucrats. Randy and Vicki Weaver had one of the world’s most horrible jackboot encounters high on a ridge in rural Idaho, in what they imagined to be splendid, self-sufficient isolation.

Given that all of us face limitations on our freedom, we have to choose the kind of freedoms that most matter to us (just as we must choose the elements that constitute “livability”) and seek to maximize those freedoms in our lives.

Once again, one person’s heaven may be another’s hell.

Acquaintances of mine recently moved to a Central American country, praising it for being more free than the U.S. However, their report included a casual account of being stopped at a checkpoint in the middle of that nation and forced to show their “papers, please!”

To them it was no big deal. Me, I crossed that country straight off my list.

Other acquaintances have “gone ex-pat” on Caribbean islands, in Mexico, in other Central American countries, in Asia, and in Canada. They call out to their stateside friends, “Move here! Be free!”

I ask, “Can I bring my guns?”

And they respond, “Well, no.”

Or they respond, “It’s easy. All you have to do is a apply for a permit and fill out form XYZ ...”

Or they respond, “Just smuggle ‘em in and bribe the customs officials. That’s the way it’s done around here!”

And I say, “No way. I ain’t goin’ from a place where I can own firearms in complete privacy to a place where gun owners are either permission-seekers or criminals.”

Those offshore friends think I’m less free than they. And I think they’re fooling themselves. And on it goes.

Although pure political freedom doesn’t exist anywhere on the planet, there is one place where we can seek and find our personal maximum degree of freedom—in our own attitudes and actions.

And I hate to tell you, “Miserable in Metropolis,” but I don’t think you’re going to find freedom.

“Miserable,” this stab of the reality needle isn’t just meant for you. Your plea is one I’ve heard before—a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. I expect that Dave has also received hundreds of letters like yours.

Most freedom lovers understand and share the anguish of your cry for liberty, a peaceful life, and simple values.

If I’m going to jab you now, it’s a jab I’ve even had to administer to myself at times.

Go back to the top and look at “Miserable’s” letter. When I do that, several huge “reality gaps” gape before my eyes.

• “Miserable” wants desperately to be out of the city in 36 months and hasn’t even begun researching yet.
• Instead of going to the library or the Internet, he passively awaits answers from an outside party.
• He believes freedom should be obtainable simply by going somewhere other than where his is now.
• Even after reading BHM, he still has one very starry-eyed vision about country life. A few chickens, a little barter, guaranteed neighborly neighbors and—bingo!—you’re a Jeffersonian yeoman farmer, living the self-sufficient life according to the values of yore.

The major reason we’ve lost freedom is that millions of people sit idly by, trusting others to provide or protect their freedom. Almost nobody admits to being against freedom. They just don’t care enough to do anything about keeping it.

Then it’s lost and even sincere, hard-working freedom lovers don’t know where to turn.

But how hard has Miserable in Metropolis been working toward any of his desperately professed goals?

There’s no clue in his letter. The desperation and passivity say he’s probably envisioning himself to be in a deep hole. Instead of trying to climb out, he’s sitting in the pit crying for someone else to lift him.

But freedom doesn’t arrive like an ambulance or a firetruck to save us. It doesn’t get delivered to our doors in pink ribbons. Nor can we find it simply by renting a moving van.

Same with self-sufficiency. It amazes me how many people claim a desire for self-sufficiency—when they don’t seek to be sufficient within themselves.

Backwoods Home gives volumes of information on everything from honeybees to firearms. It can certainly offer both encouragement and tools to sad city dwellers wanting out. It can help country people be more happy and successful.

But—DUH!—self-sufficiency is a do-it-yourself project!

It’s a lifelong do-it-yourself project. Ceaseless work from now until your personal doomsday.

And so is freedom.

Dorothy Ainsworth built her economic freedom, literally, with the incredible determination it took to design and build her vertical-log home—then built it all over again when it burned down. (Issue numbers 27, 38, 50, and 86.) Claire Wolfe admires Dorothy Ainsworth from afar—while finding her own freedom in a tiny cabin on which she did only the "lite" finishing work. Each woman made the decision that was right for her at her point in life; neither would say that her solution was the only one for everybody.

If you don’t think and act like a free person, then you’ll be unfree wherever you go.

If you do think and act like a free person, you’ll always find a degree of personal empowerment even if your home is a prison cell.

Being free means not only taking responsibility for our own choices. It means taking initiative so that we have choices.

It means we figure out what we want in life, then begin actively heading in that direction.

It means when we run into an obstacle we figure a way around it or we change our course. But we don’t just shrug and wait for a bailout.

Sure, ask for a helping hand along the way. But don’t expect others’ hands, or weary backs, to haul you the whole distance.

One familiar obstacle every freedom lover has smacked into at one time or another is that the life we desire is so far from the life we have. Worse, what we want is far from any life that even seems possible to attain. Our ideals glow on the horizon—but the horizon always remains distant.

Miserable’s dilemma seems to be a classic case of the perfect being the enemy of the good.

If you’ll settle for nothing less than total gloriousness, delivered to you wrapped in the aforementioned pink ribbons, you’re already lost. Enjoy those city vermin. Because either you’ll never get out of the slums or you’ll dash out to the country unprepared and end up running back to the comforts of shopping malls and cable TV within six months, disillusioned and probably broke.

If you must have total freedom or nothing...you’ll end up with nothing.

Here’s a plan for achieving our own best possible degree of both freedom and country livability. It’s not a plan for achieving perfection, but it is a plan that can help us pull ourselves out of a pit of despair and into a better, freer life.

• Read Harry Browne’s book, How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. Although written approximately 30 years ago, there is still no better resource to help you begin your journey. Browne helps us recognize the many false assumptions that keep us from moving toward a better life. Get it. Study it. Make its attitude your own.
• Know what you want.
• Set realistic priorities and deadlines for moving toward your dream, recognizing your limited amount of time, money, skills, and the restrictions of the outside world.
• Research. Consider the costs, the benefits, and drawbacks of every backwoods or small town location that interests you.
• Adjust your goal if necessary.
• Visit the places that interest you and talk with people there. Spend as much time as you can in your chosen locations.
• And again, adjust your goal if need be as new data and new impressions come in.
• Don’t reject a location because it doesn’t have perfect freedom; no place has perfect freedom. Find a place that’s got the best laws and least oppressive law enforcement you can. A place where you can reasonably expect people to mind their business as long as you mind yours.

On the other hand, don’t ignore your “spidey-sense.” If you perceive anything importantly wrong about a place you visit, you’ll really, really, really perceive that wrongness after you move there.

• Once you’ve chosen your location, then choose your specific land or home with equal care. (See sidebar.)
• Then when you run into problems—as you absolutely, guaranteed, 100 percent will—be prepared to adjust again. And keep on keeping on.

Finally, as rural freedom seekers have already figured, one of our jobs in a free, self-sufficient life is to give as much assistance to others as we get.

Read BHM and glean what you can from its pages. But what you find here is a friendly hand to help you along your own chosen—and hard-earned—way.

Find data for planning a move—on and off the Internet The Internet is the best place to begin any search for relocation information. You’ll have easy access to an abundance of statistical data. But even better, a few clicks of a mouse will also take you to photographs, discussion forums, real-estate agencies, state law codes, local business directories, and online visitor centers. It’s really the way to go. If you have no Net access, your local library almost certainly has Net-capable computers you can use. One of the best sources of data for people who are specifically seeking freedom in their new home is the Free State Project. Go to www.freestateproject.org/. Click on “Site Index.” Then head for “Archives—State Data” and “Archives—State Reports.” You’ll be busy for many days and you might just get a lead to your dream haven. This data focuses specifically on a double handful of low-population states. But even if you’re not interested in those states, the data can lead you to other sources of information and can help you set your own priorities for selecting a future location. If you’re uneasy on the Net, then your library is still the place to begin. Ask the librarian to show you publications like these: The Statistical Abstract of the United States—A very dry, but comprehensive publication that describes the population, education, geography, economy, job picture, and other detailed characteristics of every region of the country. The Abstract also contains a list of other useful sources of information. (The complete Abstract is also online at http://www.census.gov/statab/www/) USA Counties—Another Census Bureau publication focusing on county data. This is available in both book and CD-ROM form. The CD will let you easily compare counties. “Best places” publications. Several magazines and organizations periodically name “best places” to live in the United States. Keep in mind that these usually focus on cities. Also remember that what’s “best” for your neighbor might be pure awfulness to you. Nevertheless, these surveys can give you factual data that might lead you to the best rural area or small town near one of these “bests.” Finding and Buying Your Place in the Country by Les and Carol Scher. BHM has called this the “bible” of locating and buying rural land. What more can anyone say? And finally, don’t forget How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. Every freedom seeker should have it nearby at the beginning of the journey.

When is 90% not 90%? Mexican Gun Statistics.

One of the most informative articles on the statistics often quoted by the media in regards to weapons seized in Mexico.

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200907095405/border-and-sovereignty/mexico-economics-and-the-arms-trade.html

MEXICO: ECONOMICS AND THE ARMS TRADE
Written by Scott Steward and Fred Burton
Thursday, 09 July 2009 16:29

STRATFOR.com

On June 26, the small Mexican town of Apaseo el Alto, in Guanajuato state, was the scene of a deadly firefight between members of Los Zetas and federal and local security forces. The engagement began when a joint patrol of Mexican soldiers and police officers responded to a report of heavily armed men at a suspected drug safe house. When the patrol arrived, a 20-minute firefight erupted between the security forces and gunmen in the house as well as several suspects in two vehicles who threw fragmentation grenades as they tried to escape.

When the shooting ended, 12 gunmen lay dead, 12 had been taken into custody and several soldiers and police officers had been wounded. At least half of the detained suspects admitted to being members of Los Zetas, a highly trained Mexican cartel group known for its use of military weapons and tactics.

When authorities examined the safe house they discovered a mass grave that contained the remains of an undetermined number of people (perhaps 14 or 15) who are believed to have been executed and then burned beyond recognition by Los Zetas. The house also contained a large cache of weapons, including assault rifles and fragmentation grenades. Such military ordnance is frequently used by Los Zetas and the enforcers who work for their rival cartels.

STRATFOR has been closely following the cartel violence in Mexico for several years now, and the events that transpired in Apaseo el Alto are by no means unique. It is not uncommon for the Mexican authorities to engage in large firefights with cartel groups, encounter mass graves or recover large caches of arms. However, the recovery of the weapons in Apaseo el Alto does provide an opportunity to once again focus on the dynamics of Mexico's arms trade.

White, Black and Shades of Gray

Before we get down into the weeds of Mexico's arms trade, let's do something a little different and first take a brief look at how arms trafficking works on a regional and global scale. Doing so will help illustrate how arms trafficking in Mexico fits into these broader patterns.

When analysts examine arms sales they look at three general categories: the white arms market, the gray arms market and the black arms market. The white arms market is the legal, aboveboard transfer of weapons in accordance with the national laws of the parties involved and international treaties or restrictions. The parties in a white arms deal will file the proper paperwork, including end-user certificates, noting what is being sold, who is selling it and to whom it is being sold. There is an understanding that the receiving party does not intend to transfer the weapons to a third party. So, for example, if the Mexican army wants to buy assault rifles from German arms maker Heckler & Koch, it places the order with the company and fills out all the required paperwork, including forms for obtaining permission for the sale from the German government.

Now, the white arms market can be deceived and manipulated, and when this happens, we get the gray market - literally, white arms that are shifted into the hands of someone other than the purported recipient. One of the classic ways to do this is to either falsify an end-user certificate, or bribe an official in a third country to sign an end-user certificate but then allow a shipment of arms to pass through a country en route to a third location. This type of transaction is frequently used in cases where there are international arms embargoes against a particular country (like Liberia) or where it is illegal to sell arms to a militant group (such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym, FARC). One example of this would be Ukrainian small arms that, on paper, were supposed to go to Cote d'Ivoire but were really transferred in violation of U.N. arms embargoes to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Another example of this would be the government of Peru purchasing thousands of surplus East German assault rifles from Jordan on the white arms market, ostensibly for the Peruvian military, only to have those rifles slip into the gray arms world and be dropped at airstrips in the jungles of Colombia for use by the FARC.

At the far end of the spectrum is the black arms market where the guns are contraband from the get-go and all the business is conducted under the table. There are no end-user certificates and the weapons are smuggled covertly. Examples of this would be the smuggling of arms from the former Soviet Union (FSU) and Afghanistan into Europe through places like Kosovo and Slovenia, or the smuggling of arms into South America from Asia, the FSU and Middle East by Hezbollah and criminal gangs in the Tri-Border Region.

Nation-states will often use the gray and black arms markets in order to deniably support allies, undermine opponents or otherwise pursue their national interests. This was clearly revealed in the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s, but Iran-Contra only scratched the surface of the arms smuggling that occurred during the Cold War. Untold tons of military ordnance were delivered by the United States, the Soviet Union and Cuba to their respective allies in Latin America during the Cold War.

This quantity of materiel shipped into Latin America during the Cold War brings up another very important point pertaining to weapons. Unlike drugs, which are consumable goods, firearms are durable goods. This means that they can be useful for decades and are frequently shipped from conflict zone to conflict zone. East German MPiKMS and MPiKM assault rifles are still floating around the world's arms markets years after the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist. In fact, visiting an arms bazaar in a place like Yemen is like visiting an arms museum. One can encounter century-old, still-functional Lee-Enfield and Springfield rifles in a rack next to a modern U.S. M4 rifle or German HK93, and those next to brand-new Chinese Type 56 and 81 assault rifles.

There is often a correlation between arms and drug smuggling. In many instances, the same routes used to smuggle drugs are also used to smuggle arms. In some instances, like the smuggling routes from Central Asia to Europe, the flow of guns and drugs goes in the same direction, and they are both sold in Western Europe for cash. In the case of Latin American cocaine, the drugs tend to flow in one direction (toward the United States and Europe) while guns from U.S. and Russian organized-crime groups flow in the other direction, and often these guns are used as whole or partial payment for the drugs.

Illegal drugs are not the only thing traded for guns. During the Cold War, a robust arms-for-sugar trade transpired between the Cubans and Vietnamese. As a result, Marxist groups all over Latin America were furnished with U.S. materiel either captured or left behind when the Americans withdrew from Vietnam. LAW rockets traced to U.S. military stocks sent to Vietnam were used in several attacks by Latin American Marxist groups. These Vietnam War-vintage weapons still crop up with some frequency in Mexico, Colombia and other parts of the region. Cold War-era weapons furnished to the likes of the Contras, Sandinistas, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front and Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity movement in the 1980s are also frequently encountered in the region.

After the civil wars ended in places like El Salvador and Guatemala, the governments and the international community attempted to institute arms buy-back programs, but those programs were not very successful and most of the guns turned in were very old - the better arms were cached by groups or kept by individuals. Some of these guns have dribbled back into the black arms market, and Central and South America are still awash in Cold War weapons.

But Cold War shipments are not the only reason that Latin America is flooded with guns. In addition to the indigenous arms industries in countries like Brazil and Argentina, Venezuela has purchased hundreds of thousands of AK assault rifles in recent years to replace its aging FN-FAL rifles and has even purchased the equipment to open a factory to produce AK-103 rifles under license inside Venezuela. The Colombian government has accused the Venezuelans of arming the FARC, and evidence obtained by the Colombians during raids on FARC camps and provided to the public appears to support those assertions.

More than 90 Percent?

For several years now, Mexican officials have been making public statements that more than 90 percent of the arms used by criminals in Mexico come from the United States. That number was echoed last month in a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on U.S. efforts to combat arms trafficking to Mexico (see external link).

External Link

• GAO report on arms trafficking to Mexico

  (STRATFOR is not responsible for the content of other Web sites.)

According to the report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican officials in 2008. Out of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them, (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.

This means that the 87 percent figure comes from the number of weapons submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF that could be successfully traced and not from the total number of weapons seized by the Mexicans or even from the total number of weapons submitted to the ATF for tracing. The 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in 2008 and less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing.

In a response to the GAO report, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote a letter to the GAO (published as an appendix to the report) calling the GAO's use of the 87 percent statistic "misleading." The DHS further noted, "Numerous problems with the data collection and sample population render this assertion as unreliable."

Trying to get a reliable idea about where the drug cartels are getting their weapons can be difficult because the statistics on firearms seized in Mexico are very confusing. For example, while the GAO report says that 30,000 guns were seized in 2008 alone, the Mexican Prosecutor General's office has reported that between Dec. 1, 2005, and Jan. 22, 2009, Mexican authorities seized 31,512 weapons from the cartels.

Furthermore, it is not prudent to rely exclusively on weapons submitted to the ATF for tracing as a representative sample of the overall Mexican arms market. This is because there are some classes of weapons, such as RPG-7s and South Korean hand grenades, which make very little sense for the Mexicans to pass to the ATF for tracing since they obviously are not from the United States. The ATF is limited in its ability to trace weapons that did not pass through the United States, though there are offices at the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency that maintain extensive international arms-trafficking databases.

Mexican authorities are also unlikely to ask the ATF to trace weapons that can be tracked through the Mexican government's own databases such as the one maintained by the Mexican Defense Department's Arms and Ammunition Marketing Division (UCAM), which is the only outlet through which Mexican citizens can legally buy guns. If they can trace a gun through UCAM there is simply no need to submit it to ATF.

The United States has criticized Mexico for decades over its inability to stop the flow of narcotics into U.S. territory, and for the past several years Mexico has responded by blaming the guns coming from the United States for its inability to stop the drug trafficking. In this context, there is a lot of incentive for the Mexicans to politicize and play up the issue of guns coming from the United States, and north of the border there are U.S. gun-control advocates who have a vested interest in adding fuel to the fire and gun-rights advocates who have an interest in playing down the number.

Clearly, the issue of U.S. guns being sent south of the border is a serious one, but STRATFOR does not believe that there is sufficient evidence to support the claim that 90 percent (or more) of the cartels' weaponry comes from the United States. The data at present is inclusive - the 90 percent figure appears to be a subsample of a sample, so that number cannot be applied with confidence to the entire country. Indeed, the percentage of U.S. arms appears to be far lower than 90 percent in specific classes of arms such as fully automatic assault rifles, machine guns, rifle grenades, fragmentation grenades and RPG-7s. Even items such as the handful of U.S.-manufactured LAW rockets encountered in Mexico have come from third countries and not directly from the United States.

However, while the 90 percent figure appears to be unsubstantiated by documentable evidence, this fact does not necessarily prove that the converse is true, even if it may be a logical conclusion. The bottom line is that, until there is a comprehensive, scientific study conducted on the arms seized by the Mexican authorities, much will be left to conjecture, and it will be very difficult to determine exactly how many of the cartels' weapons have come from the United States, and to map out precisely how the black, white and gray arms markets have interacted to bring weapons to Mexico and Mexican cartels.

More research needs to be done on both sides of the border in order to understand this important issue.

Four Trends

In spite of the historical ambiguity, there are four trends that are likely to shape the future flow of arms into Mexico. The first of these is militarization. Since 2006 there has been a steady trend toward the use of heavy military ordnance by the cartels. This process was begun in earnest when the Gulf Cartel first recruited Los Zetas, but in order to counter Los Zetas, all the other cartels have had to recruit and train hard-core enforcer units and outfit them with similar weaponry. Prior to 2007, attacks involving fragmentation hand grenades, 40 mm grenades and RPGs were somewhat rare and immediately attracted a lot of attention. Such incidents are now quite common, and it is not unusual to see firefights like the June 26 incident in Apaseo el Alto in which dozens of grenades are employed.

Another trend in recent years has been the steady movement of Mexican cartels south into Central and South America. As noted above, the region is awash in guns, and the growing presence of Mexican cartel members puts them in contact with people who have access to Cold War weapons, international arms merchants doing business with groups like the FARC and corrupt officials who can obtain weapons from military sources in the region. We have already seen seizures of weapons coming into Mexico from the south. One notable seizure occurred in March 2009, when Guatemalan authorities raided a training camp in northern Guatemala near the Mexican border that they claim belonged to Los Zetas. In the raid they recovered 563 40 mm grenades and 11 M60 machine guns that had been stolen from the Guatemalan military and sold to Los Zetas.

The third trend is the current firearm and ammunition market in the United States. Since the election of Barack Obama, arms sales have gone through the roof due to fears (so far unfounded) that the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress will attempt to restrict or ban certain weapons. Additionally, ammunition companies are busy filling military orders for the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. As anyone who has attempted to buy an assault rifle (or even a brick of .22 cartridges) will tell you, it is no longer cheap or easy to buy guns and ammunition. In fact, due to this surge in demand, it is downright difficult to locate many types of assault rifles and certain calibers of ammunition, though a lucky buyer might be able to find a basic stripped-down AR-15 for $850 to $1,100, or a semiautomatic AK-47 for $650 to $850. Of course, such a gun purchased in the United States and smuggled into Mexico will be sold to the cartels at a hefty premium above the purchase price.

By way of comparison, in places where weapons are abundant, such as Yemen, a surplus fully automatic assault rifle can be purchased for under $100 on the white arms market and for about the same price on the black arms market. This difference in price provides a powerful economic incentive to buy low elsewhere and sell high in Mexico, as does the inability to get certain classes of weapons such as RPGs and fragmentation grenades in the United States. Indeed, we have seen reports of international arms merchants from places like Israel and Belgium selling weapons to the cartels and bringing that ordnance into Mexico through routes other than over the U.S. border. Additionally, in South America, a number of arms smugglers, including Hezbollah and Russian organized-crime groups, have made a considerable amount of money supplying arms to groups in the region like the FARC.

The fourth trend is the increasing effort by the U.S. government to stanch the flow of weapons from the United States into Mexico. A recent increase in the number of ATF special agents and inspectors pursuing gun dealers who knowingly sell to the cartels or straw-purchase buyers who obtain guns from honest dealers is going to increase the chances of such individuals being caught. This stepped-up enforcement will have an impact as the risk of being caught illegally buying or smuggling guns begins to outweigh the profit that can be made by selling guns to the cartels. We believe that these two factors - supply problems and enforcement - will work together to help reduce the flow of U.S. guns to Mexico.

While there has been a long and well-documented history of arms smuggling across the U.S.-Mexican border, it is important to recognize that, while the United States is a significant source of certain classes of weapons, it is by no means the only source of illegal weapons in Mexico. As STRATFOR has previously noted, even if it were possible to hermetically seal the U.S.-Mexican border, the Mexican cartels would still be able to obtain weapons from non-U.S. sources (just as drugs would continue to flow into the United States).

The law of supply and demand will ensure that the Mexican cartels will get their ordnance, but it is highly likely that an increasing percentage of that supply will begin to come from outside the United States via the gray and black arms markets.

FCC Claims Right To Warrantless Home Searches

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/fcc-raid/

You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.

That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.

“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.

While on the surface that seems very inocuous, the problem lies in what any Federal Agent may see while inside your residence during one of these 'administrative inspections'.

But if inspectors should notice evidence of unrelated criminal behavior — say, a marijuana plant or stolen property — a Supreme Court decision suggests the search can be used against the resident. In the 1987 case New York v. Burger, two police officers performed a warrantless, administrative search of one Joseph Burger’s automobile junkyard. When he couldn’t produce the proper paperwork, the officers searched the grounds and found stolen vehicles, which they used to prosecute him. The Supreme Court held the search to be legal.

With this kind of precedent, the stretch to an 'HR45' type of inspection system seems all the more onerous.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

AP Economic Stress Map

I found this link at the Colorado Gazette.

The map, and the numbers behind it, cannot tell us everything. No single number can track Americans' net worth, no monthly barometer indicates the pain factor of people who lost retirement funds, whose stocks vanished out from under them, who dutifully set aside nest eggs that now amount to little or nothing.

But it can help compare and contrast places, then find the people who breathe life into the numbers that characterize their regions and their hometowns. It can illustrate emerging trends - why are certain areas starting to recover while others are lagging behind? - and offer early hints to where the tightness of economic stress might be starting to loosen.

Pretty interesting stuff....

I am shaken....

This essay has shaken me to my core. To see then (in 1908), that people saw their liberties eroding, is both encouraging and disheartening. Can this fight be won in my lifetime?


Anarchism and American Traditions (1908)
by Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912)

AAT.1 American traditions, begotten of religious rebellion, small self-sustaining communities, isolated conditions, and hard pioneer life, grew during the colonization period of one hundred and seventy years from the settling of Jamestown to the outburst of the Revolution. This was in fact the great constitution-making epoch, the period of charters guaranteeing more or less of liberty, the general tendency of which is well described by Wm. Penn in speaking of the charter for Pennsylvania: “I want to put it out of my power, or that of my successors, to do mischief.”

AAT.2 The revolution is the sudden and unified consciousness of these traditions, their loud assertion, the blow dealt by their indomitable will against the counter force of tyranny, which has never entirely recovered from the blow, but which from then till now has gone on remolding and regrappling the instruments of governmental power, that the Revolution sought to shape and hold as defenses of liberty.

AAT.3 To the average American of today, the Revolution means the series of battles fought by the patriot army with the armies of England. The millions of school children who attend our public schools are taught to draw maps of the siege of Boston and the siege of Yorktown, to know the general plan of the several campaigns, to quote the number of prisoners of war surrendered with Burgoyne; they are required to remember the date when Washington crossed the Delaware on the ice; they are told to “Remember Paoli,” to repeat “Molly Stark’s a widow,” to call General Wayne “Mad Anthony Wayne,” and to execrate Benedict Arnold; they know that the Declaration of Independence was signed on the Fourth of July, 1776, and the Treaty of Paris in 1783; and then they think they have learned the Revolution – blessed be George Washington! They have no idea why it should have been called a “revolution” instead of the “English War,” or any similar title: it’s the name of it, that's all. And name-worship, both in child and man, has acquired such mastery of them, that the name “American Revolution” is held sacred, though it means to them nothing more than successful force, while the name “Revolution” applied to a further possibility, is a spectre detested and abhorred. In neither case have they any idea of the content of the word, save that of armed force. That has already happened, and long happened, which Jefferson foresaw when he wrote:

“The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may become persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right, on a legal basis, is while our rulers are honest, ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will be heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.”

AAT.4 To the men of that time, who voiced the spirit of that time, the battles that they fought were the least of the Revolution; they were the incidents of the hour, the things they met and faced as part of the game they were playing; but the stake they had in view, before, during, and after the war, the real Revolution, was a change in political institutions which should make of government not a thing apart, a superior power to stand over the people with a whip, but a serviceable agent, responsible, economical, and trustworthy (but never so much trusted as not to be continually watched), for the transaction of such business as was the common concern and to set the limits of the common concern at the line of where one man's liberty would encroach upon another’s.

AAT.5 They thus took their starting point for deriving a minimum of government upon the same sociological ground that the modern Anarchist derives the no-government theory; viz., that equal liberty is the political ideal. The difference lies in the belief, on the one hand, that the closest approximation to equal liberty might be best secured by the rule of the majority in those matters involving united action of any kind (which rule of the majority they thought it possible to secure by a few simple arrangements for election), and, on the other hand, the belief that majority rule is both impossible and undesirable; that any government, no matter what its forms, will be manipulated by a very small minority, as the development of the States and United States governments has strikingly proved; that candidates will loudly profess allegiance to platforms before elections, which as officials in power they will openly disregard, to do as they please; and that even if the majority will could be imposed, it would also be subversive of equal liberty, which may be best secured by leaving to the voluntary association of those interested in the management of matters of common concern, without coercion of the uninterested or the opposed.

AAT.6 Among the fundamental likeness between the Revolutionary Republicans and the Anarchists is the recognition that the little must precede the great; that the local must be the basis of the general; that there can be a free federation only when there are free communities to federate; that the spirit of the latter is carried into the councils of the former, and a local tyranny may thus become an instrument for general enslavement. Convinced of the supreme importance of ridding the municipalities of the institutions of tyranny, the most strenuous advocates of independence, instead of spending their efforts mainly in the general Congress, devoted themselves to their home localities, endeavoring to work out of the minds of their neighbors and fellow-colonists the institutions of entailed property, of a State-Church, of a class-divided people, even the institution of African slavery itself. Though largely unsuccessful, it is to the measure of success they did achieve that we are indebted for such liberties as we do retain, and not to the general government. They tried to inculcate local initiative and independent action. The author of the Declaration of Independence, who in the fall of ’76 declined a re-election to Congress in order to return to Virginia and do his work in his own local assembly, in arranging there for public education which he justly considered a matter of “common concern,” said his advocacy of public schools was not with any “view to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better the concerns to which it is equal”; and in endeavoring to make clear the restrictions of the Constitution upon the functions of the general government, he likewise said:

“Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage for themselves, and the general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.”

AAT.7 This then was the American tradition, that private enterprise manages better all that to which it IS equal. Anarchism declares that private enterprise, whether individual or cooperative, is equal to all the undertakings of society. And it quotes the particular two instances, Education and Commerce, which the governments of the States and of the United States have undertaken to manage and regulate, as the very two which in operation have done more to destroy American freedom and equality, to warp and distort American tradition, to make of government a mighty engine of tyranny, than any other cause, save the unforeseen developments of Manufacture.

AAT.8 It was the intention of the Revolutionists to establish a system of common education, which should make the teaching of history one of its principal branches; not with the intent of burdening the memories of our youth with the dates of battles or the speeches of generals, nor to make the Boston Tea Party Indians the one sacrosanct mob in all history, to be revered but never on any account to be imitated, but with the intent that every American should know to what conditions the masses of people had been brought by the operation of certain institutions, by what means they had wrung out their liberties, and how those liberties had again and again been filched from them by the use of governmental force, fraud, and privilege. Not to breed security, laudation, complacent indolence, passive acquiescence in the acts of a government protected by the label “home-made,” but to beget a wakeful jealousy, a never-ending watchfulness of rulers, a determination to squelch every attempt of those entrusted with power to encroach upon the sphere of individual action - this was the prime motive of the revolutionists in endeavoring to provide for common education.

AAT.9 “Confidence,” said the revolutionists who adopted the Kentucky Resolutions, “is everywhere the parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy, not in confidence; it is jealousy, not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

AAT.10 These resolutions were especially applied to the passage of the Alien laws by the monarchist party during John Adams’ administration, and were an indignant call from the State of Kentucky to repudiate the right of the general government to assume undelegated powers, for said they, to accept these laws would be “to be bound by laws made, not with our consent, but by others against our consent – that is, to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and to live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority.” Resolutions identical in spirit were also passed by Virginia, the following month; in those days the States still considered themselves supreme, the general government subordinate.

AAT.11 To inculcate this proud spirit of the supremacy of the people over their governors was to be the purpose of public education! Pick up today any common school history, and see how much of this spirit you will find therein. On the contrary, from cover to cover you will find nothing but the cheapest sort of patriotism, the inculcation of the most unquestioning acquiescence in the deeds of government, a lullaby of rest, security, confidence – the doctrine that the Law can do no wrong, a Te Deum in praise of the continuous encroachments of the powers of the general government upon the reserved rights of the States, shameless falsification of all acts of rebellion, to put the government in the right and the rebels in the wrong, pyrotechnic glorifications of union, power, and force, and a complete ignoring of the essential liberties to maintain which was the purpose of the revolutionists. The anti-Anarchist law of post-McKinley passage, a much worse law than the Alien and Sedition acts which roused the wrath of Kentucky and Virginia to the point of threatened rebellion, is exalted as a wise provision of our All-Seeing Father in Washington.

AAT.12 Such is the spirit of government-provided schools. Ask any child what he knows about Shays’ rebellion, and he will answer, “Oh, some of the farmers couldn’t pay their taxes, and Shays led a rebellion against the court-house at Worcester, so they could burn up the deeds; and when Washington heard of it he sent over an army quick and taught ’em a good lesson” – “And what was the result of it?” “The result? Why – why – the result was – Oh yes, I remember – the result was they saw the need of a strong federal government to collect the taxes and pay the debts.” Ask if he knows what was said on the other side of the story, ask if he knows that the men who had given their goods and their health and their strength for the freeing of the country now found themselves cast into prison for debt, sick, disabled, and poor, facing a new tyranny for the old; that their demand was that the land should become the free communal possession of those who wished to work it, not subject to tribute, and the child will answer “No.” Ask him if he ever read Jefferson’s letter to Madison about it, in which he says:

“Societies exist under three forms, sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under government wherein the will of every one has a just influence; as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our States in a great one. 3. Under government of force, as is the case in all other monarchies, and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence in these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem not clear in my mind that the first condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in it ... It has its evils too, the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. ... But even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to public affairs. I hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing.”

AAT.13 Or to another correspondent:

“God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion! ...What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take up arms ... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

AAT.14 Ask any school child if he was ever taught that the author of the Declaration of Independence, one of the great founders of the common school, said these things, and he will look at you with open mouth and unbelieving eyes. Ask him if he ever heard that the man [Thomas Paine] who sounded the bugle note in the darkest hour of the Crisis, who roused the courage of the soldiers when Washington saw only mutiny and despair ahead, ask him if he knows that this man also wrote, “Government at best is a necessary evil, at worst an intolerable one,” and if he is a little better informed than the average he will answer, “Oh well, he was an infidel!” Catechize him about the merits of the Constitution which he has learned to repeat like a poll-parrot, and you will find his chief conception is not of the powers withheld from Congress, but of the powers granted.

AAT.15 Such are the fruits of government schools. We, the Anarchists, point to them and say: If the believers in liberty wish the principles of liberty taught, let them never entrust that instruction to any government; for the nature of government is to become a thing apart, an institution existing for its own sake, preying upon the people, and teaching whatever will tend to keep it secure in its seat. As the fathers said of the governments of Europe, so say we of this government also after a century and a quarter of independence: “The blood of the people has become its inheritance, and those who fatten on it will not relinquish it easily.”

AAT.16 Public education, having to do with the intellect and spirit of a people, is probably the most subtle and far-reaching engine for molding the course of a nation; but commerce, dealing as it does with material things and producing immediate effects, was the force that bore down soonest upon the paper barriers of constitutional restriction, and shaped the government to its requirements. Here, indeed, we arrive at the point where we, looking over the hundred and twenty five years of independence, can see that the simple government conceived by the revolutionary republicans was a foredoomed failure. It was so because of: 1) the essence of government itself; 2) the essence of human nature; 3) the essence of Commerce and Manufacture.

AAT.17 Of the essence of government, I have already said, it is a thing apart, developing its own interests at the expense of what opposes it; all attempts to make it anything else fail. In this Anarchists agree with the traditional enemies of the Revolution, the monarchists, federalists, strong government believers, the Roosevelts of today, the Jays, Marshalls, and Hamiltons of then – that Hamilton, who, as Secretary of the Treasury, devised a financial system of which we are the unlucky heritors, and whose objects were twofold: To puzzle the people and make public finance obscure to those that paid for it; to serve as a machine for corrupting the legislatures; “for he avowed the opinion that man could be governed by two motives only, force or interest”; force being then out of the question, he laid hold of interest, the greed of the legislators, to set going an association of persons having an entirely separate welfare from the welfare of their electors, bound together by mutual corruption and mutual desire for plunder. The Anarchist agrees that Hamilton was logical, and understood the core of government; the difference is, that while strong govermnentalists believe this is necessary and desirable, we choose the opposite conclusion, No Government Whatsoever.

AAT.18 As to the essence of human nature, what our national experience has made plain is this, that to remain in a continually exalted moral condition is not human nature. That has happened which was prophesied: we have gone down hill from the Revolution until now; we are absorbed in “mere money-getting.” The desire for material ease long ago vanquished the spirit of ’76. What was that spirit? The spirit that animated the people of Virginia, of the Carolinas, of Massachusetts, of New York, when they refused to import goods from England; when they preferred (and stood by it) to wear coarse, homespun cloth, to drink the brew of their own growths, to fit their appetites to the home supply, rather than submit to the taxation of the imperial ministry. Even within the lifetime of the revolutionists, the spirit decayed. The love of material ease has been, in the mass of men and permanently speaking, always greater than the love of liberty. Nine hundred and ninety nine women out of a thousand are more interested in the cut of a dress than in the independence of their sex; nine hundred and ninety nine men out of a thousand are more interested in drinking a glass of beer than in questioning the tax that is laid on it; how many children are not willing to trade the liberty to play for the promise of a new cap or a new dress? That it is which begets the complicated mechanism of society; that it is which, by multiplying the concerns of government, multiplies the strength of government and the corresponding weakness of the people; this it is which begets indifference to public concern, thus making the corruption of government easy.

AAT.19 As to the essence of Commerce and Manufacture, it is this: to establish bonds between every corner of the earth’s surface and every other corner, to multiply the needs of mankind, and the desire for material possession and enjoyment.

AAT.20 The American tradition was the isolation of the States as far as possible. Said they: We have won our liberties by hard sacrifice and struggle unto death. We wish now to be let alone and to let others alone, that our principles may have time for trial; that we may become accustomed to the exercise of our rights; that we may be kept free from the contaminating influence of European gauds, pageants, distinctions. So richly did they esteem the absence of these that they could in all fervor write: “We shall see multiplied instances of Europeans coming to America, but no man living will ever seen an instance of an American removing to settle in Europe, and continuing there.” Alas! In less than a hundred years the highest aim of a “Daughter of the Revolution” was, and is, to buy a castle, a title, and rotten lord, with the money wrung from American servitude! And the commercial interests of America are seeking a world empire!

AAT.21 In the earlier days of the revolt and subsequent independence, it appeared that the “manifest destiny” of America was to be an agricultural people, exchanging food stuffs and raw materials for manufactured articles. And in those days it was written: “We shall be virtuous as long as agriculture is our principal object, which will be the case as long as there remain vacant lands in any part of America. When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there.” Which we are doing, because of the inevitable development of Commerce and Manufacture, and the concomitant development of strong government. And the parallel prophecy is likewise fulfilled: “If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface.” There is not upon the face of the earth today a government so utterly and shamelessly corrupt as that of the United States of America. There are others more cruel, more tyrannical, more devastating; there is none so utterly venal.

AAT.22 And yet even in the very days of the prophets, even with their own consent, the first concession to this later tyranny was made. It was made when the Constitution was made; and the Constitution was made chiefly because of the demands of Commerce. Thus it was at the outset a merchant’s machine, which the other interests of the country, the land and labor interests, even then foreboded would destroy their liberties. In vain their jealousy of its central power made enact the first twelve amendments. In vain they endeavored to set bounds over which the federal power dare not trench. In vain they enacted into general law the freedom of speech, of the press, of assemblage and petition. All of these things we see ridden roughshod upon every day, and have so seen with more or less intermission since the beginning of the nineteenth century. At this day, every police lieutenant considers himself, and rightly so, as more powerful than the General Law of the Union; and that one who told Robert Hunter that he held in his fist something stronger than the Constitution, was perfectly correct. The right of assemblage is an American tradition which has gone out of fashion; the police club is now the mode. And it is so in virtue of the people's indifference to liberty, and the steady progress of constitutional interpretation towards the substance of imperial government.

AAT.23 It is an American tradition that a standing army is a standing menace to liberty; in Jefferson's presidency the army was reduced to 3,000 men. It is American tradition that we keep out of the affairs of other nations. It is American practice that we meddle with the affairs of everybody else from the West to the East Indies, from Russia to Japan; and to do it we have a standing army of 83,251 men.

AAT.24 It is American tradition that the financial affairs of a nation should be transacted on the same principles of simple honesty that an individual conducts his own business; viz., that debt is a bad thing, and a man’s first surplus earning should be applied to his debts; that offices and office holders should be few. It is American practice that the general government should always have millions of debt, even if a panic or a war has to be forced to prevent its being paid off; and as to the application of its income office holders come first. And within the last administration it is reported that 99,000 offices have been created at an annual expense of 1663,000,000. Shades of Jefferson! “How are vacancies to be obtained? Those by deaths are few; by resignation none.” Roosevelt cuts the knot by making 99,000 new ones! And few will die – and none resign. They will beget sons and daughters, and Taft will have to create 99,000 more! Verily a simple and a serviceable thing is our general government.

AAT.25 It is American tradition that the Judiciary shall act as a check upon the impetuosity of Legislatures, should these attempt to pass the bounds of constitutional limitation. It is American practice that the Judiciary justifies every law which trenches on the liberties of the people and nullifies every act of the Legislature by which the people seek to regain some measure of their freedom. Again, in the words of Jefferson: “The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary, which they may twist and shape in any form they please.” Truly, if the men who fought the good fight for the triumph of simple, honest, free life in that day, were now to look upon the scene of their labors, they would cry out together with him who said:

“I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifices of themselves by the generation of ’76 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I shall not live to see it.”

AAT.26 And now, what has Anarchism to say to all this, this bankruptcy of republicanism, this modern empire that has grown up on the ruins of our early freedom? We say this, that the sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly. They thought it possible to compromise between liberty and government, believing the latter to be “a necessary evil,” and the moment the compromise was made, the whole misbegotten monster of our present tyranny began to grow. Instruments which are set up to safeguard rights become the very whip with which the free are struck.

AAT.27 Anarchism says, Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that “freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license”; and they will define and define freedom out of existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man’s determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

AAT.28 The problem then becomes, Is it possible to stir men from their indifference? We have said that the spirit of liberty was nurtured by colonial life; that the elements of colonial life were the desire for sectarian independence, and the jealous watchfulness incident thereto; the isolation of pioneer communities which threw each individual strongly on his own resources, and thus developed all-around men, yet at the same time made very strong such social bonds as did exist; and, lastly, the comparative simplicity of small communities.

AAT.29 All this has disappeared. As to sectarianism, it is only by dint of an occasional idiotic persecution that a sect becomes interesting; in the absence of this, outlandish sects play the fool’s role, are anything but heroic, and have little to do with either the name or the substance of liberty. The old colonial religious parties have gradually become the “pillars of society,” their animosities have died out, their offensive peculiarities have been effaced, they are as like one another as beans in a pod, they build churches – and sleep in them.

AAT.30 As to our communities, they are hopelessly and helplessly interdependent, as we ourselves are, save that continuously diminishing proportion engaged in all around farming; and even these are slaves to mortgages. For our cities, probably there is not one that is provisioned to last a week, and certainly there is none which would not be bankrupt with despair at the proposition that it produce its own food. In response to this condition and its correlative political tyranny, Anarchism affirms the economy of self-sustenance, the disintegration of the great communities, the use of the earth.

AAT.31 I am not ready to say that I see clearly that this will take place; but I see clearly that this must take place if ever again men are to be free. I am so well satisfied that the mass of mankind prefer material possessions to liberty, that I have no hope that they will ever, by means of intellectual or moral stirrings merely, throw off the yoke of oppression fastened on them by the present economic system, to institute free societies. My only hope is in the blind development of the economic system and political oppression itself. The great characteristic looming factor in this gigantic power is Manufacture. The tendency of each nation is to become more and more a manufacturing one, an exporter of fabrics, not an importer. If this tendency follows its own logic, it must eventually circle round to each community producing for itself. What then will become of the surplus product when the manufacturer shall have no foreign market? Why, then mankind must face the dilemma of sitting down and dying in the midst of it, or confiscating the goods.

AAT.32 Indeed, we are partially facing this problem even now; and-so far we are sitting down and dying. I opine, however, that men will not do it forever, and when once by an act of general expropriation they have overcome the reverence and fear of property, and their awe of government, they may waken to the consciousness that things are to be used, and therefore men are greater than things. This may rouse the spirit of liberty.

AAT.33 If, on the other hand, the tendency of invention to simplify, enabling the advantages of machinery to be combined with smaller aggregations of workers, shall also follow its own logic, the great manufacturing plants will break up, population will go after the fragments, and there will be seen not indeed the hard, self-sustaining, isolated pioneer communities of early America, but thousands of small communities stretching along the lines of transportation, each producing very largely for its own needs, able to rely upon itself, and therefore able to be independent. For the same rule holds good for societies as for individuals--those may be free who are able to make their own living.

AAT.34 In regard to the breaking up of that vilest creation of tyranny, the standing army and navy, it is clear that so long as men desire to fight, they will have armed force in one form or another. Our fathers thought they had guarded against a standing army by providing for the voluntary militia. In our day we have lived to see this militia declared part of the regular military force of the United States, and subject to the same demands as the regulars. Within another generation we shall probably see its members in the regular pay of the general government. Since any embodiment of the fighting spirit, any military organization, inevitably follows the same line of centralization, the logic of Anarchism is that the least objectionable form of armed force is that which springs up voluntarily, like the minute men of Massachusetts, and disbands as soon as the occasion which called it into existence is past: that the really desirable thing is that all men – not Americans only – should be at peace; and that to reach this, all peaceful persons should withdraw their support from the army, and require that all who make war shall do so at their own cost and risk; that neither pay nor pensions are to be provided for those who choose to make man-killing a trade.

AAT.35 As to the American tradition of non-meddling, Anarchism asks that it be carried down to the individual himself. It demands no jealous barrier of isolation; it knows that such isolation is undesirable and impossible; but it teaches that by all men's strictly minding their own business, a fluid society, freely adapting itself to mutual needs, wherein all the world shall belong to all men, as much as each has need or desire, will result.

AAT.36 And when Modern Revolution has thus been carried to the heart of the whole world – if it ever shall be, as I hope it will – then may we hope to see a resurrection of that proud spirit of our fathers which put the simple dignity of Man above the gauds of wealth and class, and held that to, be an American was greater than to be a king.

AAT.37 In that day there shall be neither kings nor Americans – only Men; over the whole earth, MEN.

Mother Earth 3, nos. 10-11, December 1908-January 1909

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

h/t to WRSA

Demographics can be a bugger.....

And people laugh at me for having 5 children....I'm just trying to do my part to keep the status quo.

in omnia paratus

Is Secession In Our Future?

The folks over at the von Mises Institute have come up with a brilliant article on state secession. They even mention Alaska as a model state for the project.

Can states secede? There are three levels on which this question can be answered:

1. the inalienable right of secession,
2. the international law of secession, and
3. the US law of secession.

   All three say yes.

While we are not calling for secession(yet) I think that this gives plenty of food for thought.

This says it all....

LOL!

Confessions of a Former Communist Turned Patriot

If this story does nothing but show you the evil that is socialism/collectivism/communism then there is nothing more to discuss.

I can never and will never go back. So when somebody whispers in your ear, "Well, you can't trust him, he used to be a communist," think twice. For he may be the only one who sees clearly enough to point your way through the minefield of bad choices that collectivism -- any and all collectivism -- represents.

Take heed my friends. Read, learn, delve into what the Founders believed and wanted for us a a Nation. Maybe it's not too late.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

At What Point Is a Traitor a Patriot?

The question actually becomes who is the traitor. Those who seek to lift the Constitution above men to substantiate the rule of law or a rule by men who hold themselves above the Constitution in interpretation. I have commented before that the Supreme Court is the use of robed government employees to expand and approve the growth of the Leviathan state at the expense of individual liberty with an imprimatur of legitimacy and it has proven out.

Is this a question that our Forefathers asked of themselves?

Think BHO is not all about 'Gun Control'....Think Again.

Call you Senator today and express your outrage at this back door effort to infringe on your 2nd Amendment rights.

There will be no more free Wacos.

Like I said, Eric, you only get one free Waco. It was your original sin. The botched raid, the massacre, the cover-ups, we've been through them already. You may remember that no one was held to account for that -- not very reassuring to the citizenry. And if, as is apparent, someone in the Department of Justice hasn't learned the lessons of the first Waco, we, the millions of "bitter clingers" out here in fly-over country, have. We have no reason to be trusting of your motives. For we, and you, have been here before.

Michael Vanderboegh has a few choice words for AG Holder. I hope someone in his office is paying attention.