Anyone who has been following The G Manifesto knows I have been waging a one man War against glittery shirts and rhinestones for a few years (like I waged a one man war against the multi-colore striped Mortgage Broker button down shirt before it).
I guess it is another victory, you can’t get with me, so pick a B.C. date, because your history.
The Age of Elegance is coming. (Or returning, depending on how you are looking at it).
That is, it’s coming if we want to get out of this mess we are in.
In other news, Simon Black has a great article about exactly what I was talking about at lunch today with a friend over some imported jamon iberico and a glass of red with a couple of smokes thrown in for good measure.
One thing is for sure: It is going to be a long, hot summer.
Some gems:
Now, clearly there are a lot of disgruntled Americans. There’s a lot of anger… even class tensions. The OWS movement is emblematic of this sentiment for sure, but in terms of taking action, most people still believe in the political process.
All of their angst and negativity will be taken out in the voting booth. Until then, it’s the calm before the storm. But the unfortunate reality is that no matter which way the 2012 election turns out, chaos will ensue.
If President Obama wins a second term, many conservative Americans will have reached their breaking points. If a republican candidate should win, a huge portion of Americans will feel they have lost their champion.
No matter what, though, people will quickly realize that absolutely nothing has changed. They’ll recognize that the insolvency of the United States government is a simple arithmetic problem; that social security is bankrupt; that the Treasury Department is a giant Ponzi scheme; and that there is. no. recovery.
For now, Americans are still investing in the political process. Come next year, though, all the hope that’s building up will turn quickly into disappointment… and then anger. Then they’ll take that anger to the streets.
This is what happens when governments go bust. It’s happened numerous times throughout history, and it’s playing out right now from Greece to Argentina.
Social unrest becomes commonplace. Governments engage in financial repression, giving rise to asset seizures, inflation, and capital controls. Militarized police states categorize ordinary citizens into combatants and non-combatants. Collateral damage becomes an acceptable risk. Society turns on itself, and crime rates soar.
Watching the farce of America’s political theater play out, it’s clear that this ticking time bomb will go off after Election Day 2012. As polarized as voters are, and as dismal the federal balance sheet is, there’s little chance of society keeping it together afterwards.
What’s happening right now is merely an overture… and you can mark a date on your calendar for when the real fun begins.
Simon Black of Sovereign Man, who believes “that in order to achieve true freedom, you have to be able to make money, control your time, and eliminate the mindset that you are subject to a corrupt government that is bent on degrading your personal liberty” (basically, the cat has a pretty dope site), has been busting out some good Data Sheets lately:
Tell me if you think it’s worth fighting for
In 43 BC, over 2,000 years ago, warring consuls Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian were duking it out with each other over control of Rome following Julius Caesar’s assassination the prior March.
Each had legions at his disposal, and Rome’s terrified Senate sat on its hands waiting for the outcome.
Ultimately, the three men chose to unite their powers and rule Rome together in what became known as the Second Triumvirate. This body was established by a law named lex Titia on this date (give or take depending on how you convert the Roman calendar) in 43 BC.
The foundation of the Second Triumvirate is of tremendous historical importance: as the group wielded dictatorial powers, it represents the final nail in the coffin in Rome’s transition from republic to malignant autocracy.
The Second Triumvirate expired after 10-years, upon which Octavian waged war on his partners once again, resulting in Mark Antony’s famed suicide with Cleopatra in 31 BC. Octavian was eventually rewarded with rich title and nearly supreme power, and he is generally regarded as Rome’s first emperor.
Things only got worse from there. Tiberius, Octavian’s successor, was a paranoid deviant with a lust for executions. He spent the last decade of his reign completely detached from Rome, living in Capri.
Following Tiberius was Caligula, infamous for his moral depravity and insanity. According to Roman historians Suetonius and Cassius Dio, Tiberius would send his legions on pointless marches and turned his palace into a bordello of such repute that it inspired the 1979 porno film named for him.
Caligula was followed by Claudius, a stammering, slobbering, confused man as described by his contemporaries. Then there was Nero, who not only managed to burn down his city but was also the first emperor to debase the value of Rome’s currency.
You know the rest of the story– Romans watched their leadership and country get worse and worse.
All along the way, there were two types of people: the first group were folks that figured, “This has GOT to be the bottom, it can only get better from here.” Their patriotism was rewarded with reduced civil liberties, higher taxes, insane despots, and a polluted currency.
The other group consisted of people who looked at the warning signs and thought, “I have to get out of here.” They followed their instincts and moved on to other places where they could build their lives, survive, and prosper.
I’m raising this point because I’d like to open a debate. Some consider the latter idea of expatriating to be akin to ‘running away.’ I recall a rather impassioned comment from a reader last week who suggested that “leaving, i.e. running away, is certainly not the proper response.”
I find this logic to be flawed.
While the notion of staying and ‘fighting’ is a noble idea, bear in mind that there is no real enemy or force to fight. The government is a faceless bureaucracy that’s impossible attack. People who try only discredit their argument because they become marginalized as fringe lunatics.
Remember John Stack? He’s the guy who flew his airplane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas earlier this year because he had a serious philosophical disagreement over tax issues.
While his ideas may have had intellectual merit, they were immediately dismissed due to his murderous tactics. Violence is rarely the answer, and it often has the opposite effect as intended, frequently serving to bolster support for the government instead of raising awareness of its shortcomings.
Unless/until government paramilitaries start duking it out with citizen militia groups in the streets, this is an ideological battle… and it’s an uphill battle at best.
Government controlled educational systems institutionalize us from childhood that governments are just, and that we should all subordinate ourselves to authority and to the greater good that they dictate in their sole discretion.
You’re dealing with a mob mentality, plain and simple. Do you want to waste limited resources (time, money, energy) trying to convince your neighbor that s/he should no not expect free money from the government?
You could spend a lifetime trying to change ideology and not make a dent; people have to choose for themselves to wake up, it cannot be forced upon them. And until that happens, they’re going to keep asking for more security and more control because it’s the way their values have been programmed.
When you think about it, what we call a ‘country’ is nothing more than a large concentration of people who share common values. Over time, those values adjust and evolve. Today, cultures in many countries value things like fake security, subordination, and ignorance over freedom, independence, and awareness.
When it appears more and more each day that those common values diverge from your own, all that’s left of a country are irrelevant, invisible lines on a map. I don’t find these worth fighting for.
Nobody is born with a mandatory obligation to invisible lines on a map. Our fundamental obligation is to ourselves, our families, and the people that we choose to let into our circles… not to a piece of dirt that’s controlled by mob-installed bureaucrats.
Moving away, i.e. making a calculated decision to seek greener pastures elsewhere, is not the same as ‘running away’… and I would argue that if you really want to affect change in your home country, moving away is the most effective course of action.
The government beast in your home country feeds on debt and taxes, and the best way to win is for bright, productive people to move away with their ideas, labor, and assets. This effectively starves the beast and accelerates its collapse. Then, when the smoke clears, you can move back and help rebuild a free society.
I’d really like to know what you think — which is the right thing to do, stay or leave? What are you planning to do?
I’m convinced that what we’re seeing right now from the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is the tip of the spear in the government’s battle for increased control of the public.
The groundwork has been laid for years– legislation empowering the TSA has gradually eroded civil liberties to the point that airports in the United States have now become ‘no rights’ zones. “Please remove your shoes” has now become “Take out your prosthetic breast so I can check it for explosives.”
Passengers who show up to an airport in the United States are now given two options: (a) go through the radiation bath [don’t worry, the government says it’s safe…] and let the TSA see you naked, or (b) let the TSA thugs grope you and fondle your children’s genitals.
This is not enhanced security protocol, this is a systematic desensitization to government intrusion. The idea is to get people used to new procedures, then continue to add more layers of government control.
Certainly, people will complain. They will be outraged… YouTube videos will abound of TSA agents stroking women’s breasts and disrobing 5-year old boys. The government will hold firm, though, responding that the tactics are necessary and that they will ‘look into’ egregious violations.
To be clear, some of the tactics are designed to be scaled back as concessions. It’s like turning up the volume from 0 to 10… everyone starts screaming that it’s too loud, so the government turns it down to 8. People think, “ah, that’s not as bad…” and eventually become accustomed to the noise.
In time, the government turns it up from 8 to 20. People pour into the streets again, protesting until the government turns it down from 20 to 15. People once again become accustomed to the noise as the new normal. This cycle escalates until no one can remember the sound of silence any longer.
It’s fairly easy to do– there will always be politicians and bureaucrats who can invent stories about innocuous white powders and men in caves that scare the daylights out of people.
Similarly, there will always be long lists of sociopaths, perverts, and pedophiles who are attracted to a job description that authorizes them to grope, fondle, humiliate, and intimidate others.
No place is perfect, every country has its challenges. But there are many nations with positive growth trends and governments that don’t treat their people like milk cows.
One of those countries is Chile, and if you’re looking for ideas, I strongly recommend that you consider it. I’ve been writing about Chile off and on for a while now, and for the life of me, I still can’t figure out why it’s not on the radar…
