Balloons & Flash Drives: How A Private Organization Is Trying To Incite Rebellion In North Korea

Authored by Anders Hagstrom via The Daily Caller,

The U.S.-based Human Rights Foundation (HSF) has worked with North Korean defectors to smuggle flash drives and other tools into their dictatorial homeland to counter the regime’s propaganda throughout 2017.

HSF director Alex Gladstein claims that his organization has successfully smuggled up to 10,000 flash drives into the country containing documentaries countering state narratives, according to The Telegraph.

The organization also uses massive hydrogen balloons plastered with news bulletins to float across the border into North Korea in hopes that citizens will realize their true situation and bring the country down from within.

“This is to liberate minds,” Gladstein told the paper.

 

“We’re creating little windows to the outside world so that the North Korean people can make decisions for themselves about what they want to do with their lives.”

HSF’s “Flash Drives for Freedom” campaign sees volunteers go to great risk smuggling USB sticks through black markets on the China-North Korea border. The majority of North Koreans have devices that can read the flash drives, and since the program began, HSF has smuggled in 2 million hours of footage and 48 million hours of reading material, reaching an estimated 1.1 million North Koreans. According to HSF’s website, the flash drives contain ebooks as well as an offline version of Korean wikipedia.

HSF began the program in 2013 by simply filling hydrogen balloons with DVDs and leaflets and floating them across the border. High level North Korean defectors have said that causing the general population to question their living conditions is one of the most effective ways to attack Kim Jong Un’s regime.

“Given the history of Eastern Europe, I hope that people can think about the potential of information rather than reckless conflict and provocation and totally failed diplomacy,” Gladstein said.

 

“There is nothing the government can do with information, they can’t manipulate it. It’s a very powerful thing.”

Thae Yong-ho, who was once second in command at North Korea’s U.K. embassy before defecting in 2016, calls the general population of North Korea Un’s “Achilles heel.”

“We cannot change the policy of terror of the Kim Jong-un regime,” he said. “But we can educate the North Korean population to stand up by disseminating outside information.”

Some Europeans Have Never Been Outside The EU

When it comes to holidays and travelling in general, Europe has a lot to offer.

Cosmopolitan cities jam packed with culture, pristine beaches, excellent ski resorts, you name it. Given all of that, it comes as little surprise that many Europeans never travel outside the EU.

As Statista"s Niall McCarthy notes, the most recent Eurobarometer data showing the share of people who have travelled at least once outside the EU was published in 2014.

You will find more statistics at Statista

The above infographic shows the results of the research, with Swedes most likely to have been outside the EU. That is more than likely due to the long and open border with neighbouring Norway which is not part of the EU.

The same story is likely true for Austria due to its proximity to Switzerland.

People in newer member states in Eastern Europe are least likely to have been outside the EU with Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary and Romania all towards the bottom of the ranking.

Interestingly, Portugal comes second last, possibly due to the fact that it only shares a land border with Spain. Only 18 percent of all Portuguese residents have travelled outside the EU.

South Korea Braces For Terrorism At The 2018 Winter Games

It’s difficult not to empathize with South Korea right now: The country is preparing to host the Pyeongchang winter games in February – a moment of immense national pride – as the risks of a terrorist attack (not to mention nuclear annihilation) have intensified.

To wit, Reuters reports that the South Korean government is taking precautions to assuage the international community’s fears. Police conducted a series of security drills on Tuesday to prepare against terror attacks ranging from a hostage situation, a vehicle ramming a stadium and a bomb-attached to a drone.

South Korea Police and firemen were among around 420 personnel participating in the exercise, held in front of the Olympic Stadium at Pyeongchang, just 80 km (50 miles) from the heavily fortified border with North Korea as SWAT team members rehearsed a scenario where they shot down a drone with a bomb attached that was flying toward a bus carrying athletes.

In another situation, a terrorist takes a bus full of tourists hostage and tries to ram the vehicle into the stadium before being gunned down by police. Officers in gas masks also practiced removing a chemical bomb.

Anxiety on the Korean Peninsula has been rising in recent months due to a series of missile tests by North Korea as it continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons in defiance of UN sanctions and warnings from the US.

“Please keep in mind that accidents always happen where no one has expected,” South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said.

 

“Please check until the last minute whether there are any security loopholes."

Lee did not mention North Korea, but South Korea’s Defense Ministry on Friday flagged risks that North Korea could resort to terrorist or cyber attacks to spoil international events.

Some 5,000 armed forces personnel will be deployed at the Winter Games, according to South Korean government officials and documents reviewed by Reuters.

Hacking is also a risk that the South Korean government is preparing for.

Pyeongchang’s organizing committee for the 2018 Games (POCOG) has also hired a private cyber security company to guard against a hacking attack from the North, tender documents show.

To minimize the risk of provoking an aggressive North Korean reaction during the games, South Korea has asked Washington to delay regular joint military exercises until after the Olympics, the Financial Times reported. The latest headlines suggest this request has been accepted and joint drills have been delayed until April.

How The U.S. Dictatorship Works

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

A recent article in the Washington Post described how the current US tax-‘reform’ bill is being shaped; and it describes, basically (at least as far as tax-law changes are concerned), the operation of a US dictatorship by the super-rich.

First of all, however: there is no longer any realistic question as regards whether the US in recent decades has been a dictatorship, or instead a democracy. According to the only scientific analysis of the relevant data, that has been done in order to determine whether the US is a dictatorship or a democracy, the US is definitely a dictatorship that’s perpetrated by the extremely richest, against the public-at-large; in other words: the US Government functions as an aristocracy, otherwise referred-to as an oligarchy, or a plutocracy, or a kleptocracy; but, in any case, and by whatever name, it’s ruled by a tiny number of the extremely wealthiest and their agents, on behalf of those few super-rich, against the concerns and interests and needs of the public (everyone else). So: instead of being rule by the public (the “demos” is the Greek term for it), it’s rule on behalf of a tiny dictatorial class, of extreme wealth — by whatever name we might happen to label this ruling class.

That study, by professors Gilens and Page, explained that it examined “1,779 instances between 1981 and 2002 in which a national survey of the general public asked a favor/oppose question about a proposed policy change,” and it compared those public-policy preferences, by the public, versus the public-policy preferences regarding those same issues, by the super-wealthiest; and, it found that only the public-policy preferences by the super-wealthiest and their paid agents, made any discernible difference, at all, in the likelihood that a given public policy ultimately became enacted into law, in the United States. Whereas the public-policy preferences of the wealthiest do, at far higher than mere random chances, become enacted into laws, the public-policy preferences of the public are (except in political rhetoric and promises — frauds perpetrated to deceive the public) ignored, in the United States.

Here is an excellent six-minute video describing the methodology and findings in that landmark study...

And here is a commentary by former US President Jimmy Carter, in which he says that he knows it’s true.

He said this not on the basis of examining thousands of cases and doing the statistical analysis of the data, like Gilens and Page had done, but just on the basis of his observations of how the US federal government has been functioning in recent decades. And, of course, the scientific study is vastly more reliable than is any individual’s mere opinion about the matter.

Furthermore, there exists evidence that even in some local or state governments in the United States, considerable corruption exists, and therefore an extreme slant prevails in favor of the rich. During June 2016, I headlined about this, “Here Is How Corrupt America Is”, and opened:

The best reporting on the depth of America’s dictatorship is probably that being done by Atlanta Georgia’s NBC-affiliated, Gannett-owned, TV Channel “11 Alive,” WXIA television, its “The Investigators” series of local investigative news reports, which show, up close and at a cellularly detailed level, the way things actually work in today’s America. Although it’s only local, it displays what meets the legal standards of the US federal government in actually any state in the union; so, it exposes the character of the US government, such that what’s shown to be true here, meets America’s standard for ‘democracy’, or else the federal government isn’t enforcing federal laws against it (which is the same thing as its meeting the federal government’s standards).

What was exemplified in this reporting by that excellent investigative team could be called “corporate organized-gangsterism,” and this gangsterism was being led by an operation, “ALEC,” that was founded by politicians whose careers are funded by the Koch brothers and some other US billionaires.

Furthermore, as was mentioned briefly at the opening here, a recent issue of the Washington Post’s “PowerPost” section was titled "The Finance 202: Tax overhaul"s big test comes now”, and it described in detail what was shaping the Trump Administration’s tax-overhaul bill. This article reported that the lobbyists were shaping it 100%. It’s a superb nitty-gritty, down among the weeds, description, of the monetary deals, the horse-trading, that were being made, not only for corporations, but for the wealthiest non-business lobbies, including ‘nonprofit’ ones, but almost all of these lobbies, too, depend overwhelmingly upon billionaires for their funding. What’s being carved-up and served, is being carved-up from governments, and being served to the super-rich. (After all: conservatives say “Government bad, business good,” and Republicans are the conservative Party; so, it’s taking from government, and going to business.)

So: is it any wonder why Gilens and Page found what they did? They found that "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.” (By “mass-based groups” was being referenced what the left often calls “movements” or “grass-roots” organizations. After all, what happened from “Occupy Wall Street”? Nothing. It was a big waste of time and effort. Authentic movements get marginalized, because the billionaires’ ‘news’media despise them. Fake ones, such as the Kochs’ “The Tea Party ‘movement’,” get weaponized, because the billionaires’ ‘news’media treat them extensively, and often grant them respect. Top-down’s the way, in any dictatorship. That includes in America.)

Here is another excellent video - this one 10 minutes long - summarizing the Gilens and Page study...

The only major difference between Republican politicians and Democratic ones, then, is that, whereas Republican ones don’t even need to pretend that they oppose limitless greed (since limitless greed that’s carried out by frauds instead of by outright physical violence — which latter type of coercion is the type that’s employed more by lower-class crooks, anyway, and those are the type of crooks who fill our prisons, not the type who fill our boardrooms — is, essentially, supported by Republicans’ ideology, as ‘being entrepreneurial’ and ‘competitive spirit’), Democratic politicians do need to make that pretense (since their voters are liberals, and liberals don’t share the conservatives’ “Greed is good” libertarian faith). But the outcomes, even when Democrats are in power, are vastly more helpful to the billionaires, than to the public. 

Does this mean that Democratic (or liberal) politicians are necessarily more hypocritical than Republican ones are? No. Whereas Democrats pretend to be opposed to the system’s favoring the super-rich, Republicans pretend to be opposed to “sins” and other religious-based shiboleths. Both Parties can win and retain power only by deceiving (defrauding) the public, and serving the billionaires, though in different ways — some conservative, and some liberal. Virtually everything else than that service to billionaires (and to centi-millionaires) is just frauds by politicians, because, at least after around 1970, only the richest 1% or (usually far) less are actually being served by the US federal Government. It’s not the billionaires that are defrauded by politicians; it is clearly the public that is being defrauded by them.

The public are served only to the extent that the public’s interests are the same as the billionaires’ interests. And the Gilens and Page study found that the public’s policy-preferences are simply ignored — not ignored in the political rhetoric, but ignored in the political outcomes.

The US Government, thus, is of a few people (the policymakers), by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. And that’s just an established fact.

Direct Democracy: Best Bet Or Mob Rule?

Direct democracy is defined as a democratic system where citizens, not elected officials, vote on major national issues to decide what becomes law.

As Statista"s Dyfed Loesche notes, some hail it as the purest form of democracy. Others are wary because some issues are highly complex and require a minimum of expertise to make a sound decision.

Some critics argue people can be moody and swayed by demagogues to vote for the wrong thing. The Brexit referendum in Britain is one example where many observers argue that people casted their votes ill-informed and manipulated by populist campaigns. Others see it as a vote pushed by a gut feeling of resentment, with voters not so much concerned with the matter at hand but rather wanting to throw a spanner in the works of a system they feel doesn"t profit them anymore.

You will find more statistics at Statista

As the infographic above shows, the British are comparatively wary of direct democracy, compared to, for example, the Germans.

In Sweden, often lauded for her ingrained democratic tradition, just a little more people than in Britain think of direct democracy as a good or very good system.

However, in all countries depicted more than half of the citizens think this system is at least somewhat good, according to data from Pew Research Center.

The End Of The Age Of Benevolence

Authored by Francis Marion of CanadianGunBlog.com, via Jim Quinn"s Burning Platform blog,

The history of democracy, Marxism and feminism is the history of the snake, which, being hungry for more, stalks its own tail and consumes itself.

Some evenings I sit on the sofa in the family room with my teenage daughter and watch a TV program with her. I leave the choice of the show to her, it matters little to me, and when she finds something she likes she sits next to me, puts her head on my shoulder, and snuggles up for the hour it takes to watch whatever it is she’s chosen.

It’s our time.

Occasionally we’ll sneak in another twenty or thirty minutes to the objection of her mother but I like my time with her so I put up with the raised eyebrows and the, “She’s got school tomorrow,” scoldings. It’s important to me that she knows I love her, that I want to spend time with her and that she feels safe when she is with me. Someday, when she is a grown woman I want her to find a man that will take care of her and protect her like I do. I expect no less from a suitor and neither should she.

There will be women who read this who will object to my stance. They will say, “She doesn’t need a man to feel safe or validated or content,” but I would disagree. When she gets older she’ll need a good man, not just any man, and that’s as true today as much as it was ten years, twenty years, fifty years, one hundred years and even one thousand years ago. And it will become even more so as time goes on.

Indeed, we have reached peak denial in our civilization and whether we like it or not reality is about to make a come back.

The freedom that we have enjoyed in the west and the modern democracies that have sprung forth from our evolving and enlightened philosophies over the past few hundred years are not a given. Granted, they are preferable outcomes given our natural state but politically speaking they are an anomaly in the history of mankind and not the norm.

As such, democracy and the systems, social structures and institutions that have grown up around them are grossly misunderstood by the vast majority of the western world. Most of the people living in the west today have been raised to believe that democracy is a moral system of governance and that it is our gift to the rest of mankind. But democracy is not an inherently moral system nor is it a guarantor of linear, progressive political growth.

At its root democracy is quite simple. It is the exercise of political power by the majority over the minority. It is the power to choose in matters of politics. This, of course, begs the question: to choose what?

Since choices in general (and political ones are no exception) can be either good or bad, in this case, both for the individual and the body politic, then it follows that democracy is neither. It is nothing more than a tool for decision making where the majority holds the power to make decisions that affect everyone, either for better or for worse. Democracy is, therefore, a reflection of the character of the people who exercise it.

Additionally, democracy is also the use of soft force. That is, the minority bends to the will of the majority on political matters and the apparatus of the state is responsible for carrying out its demands. The minority consents, willingly or unwillingly not because violence is present but because, by the state’s presence, it is implied.

More importantly, though, democracy is a luxury that is preceded by benevolence but does not necessarily guarantee its continuance or creation if forgotten.

Societies in a state of internal turmoil, or where competing factions vie for political power, often through the use of overt physical violence, will forgo democracy because the primary component for its exercise, order, is absent.

Democracy in the western world has always followed ‘order’. ‘Order’ is a byproduct of force and, like democracy varies in severity on the scale of good and bad, its moral leanings by and large being dependent on the type of people who impose it from the top down. It can be fatherly and benevolent or it can be violent and oppressive. It is never universally both.

Thus democracy usually occurs where ‘order’ has been established and the apparatus of the state is at least somewhat benevolent.

In a political world ruled by strength, order and benevolence are precursors to suffrage. Without either suffrage would not exist, choices would be limited and brute strength would still be the order of the day.

Whether feminists are willing to admit it or not, brute, physical strength is at the root of all political power, thus feminism came into being because those who held that strength chose to exercise benevolence and reason over strength and subjugation. Their suffrage was dependent first and foremost on the benevolence of those who held political power. And like it or not, those who held political power at the time it was introduced were men.

As time progressed, at least in the West, democracy, and universal suffrage gave way to both physical and intellectual freedom for women. In the West during the twentieth century, its political structure (and the intellectual values it embodied) and the industrial revolution it spawned ushered in a new era for women, giving them choices they had not previously had, by and large, since the beginning of recorded history.

Women were finally free to choose between family, career or both. Rather than playing the role of the weaker, subservient sex women found their place beside men in society as intellectual equals. Physical strength was no longer a factor in the social structure of our civilization. An intellectual meritocracy came to be valued over a system based simply on brute force. This structure was the product of order created from benevolent strength.

But the rise of Marxism and feminism, particularly the rise of third-wave feminism has put ‘order’ at risk.

Without order, an intellectual meritocracy will once again become subservient to strength. It’s a hard pill for women and progressive liberals in general to swallow but it’s a fact.

Marxism and modern feminism work continuously towards a perfect world but ignore reality in the process. They forget an important lesson, born true repeatedly throughout history:

There is no utopia.

The best we can hope for in any civilization is for a society to be built and based on fundamental individual rights and freedoms. If we refuse this then we return to what we were before. This means rule by brute force which means the end of political and legal equality for women and the death of democracy itself.

The irony in the dilemma which the West now faces is that our demise, the continual erosion of a democratic, intellectual meritocracy, is by and large spurred on by the very people that our system was created to protect.

Feminists, both female and male, cry daily for more of the same poison which infects us.

More illegal and unscreened immigration. More tolerance of philosophies which are intolerant themselves. More invitations for an enemy created by a corrupt and immoral government to ignore our borders and live among us.

More cries for moral nihilism, the repression of speech (one of the cornerstones of their own suffrage) and the denial of fundamental biological reality.

More cries for the denial of basic math and the continuance of government-sponsored bread and circuses. More of everything which our civilization cannot sustain. More of everything which rots us from the core.

Subsequently, modern feminists decry the men of their own civilization as misogynists, racists, and intolerant while forgetting it was their own men who recognized that a society built on equal political rights for all was preferable to a society built on spoils taken by the strong.

They forget that it was the men they live among who valued justice over greed and force so much that they shed the old ways and took their place beside their women instead of in front of them. They do all of this while cheering on the invasion of their own countries by foreign men who view them as nothing more than chattel property. In doing so they have unwittingly invited the destruction of their own freedom.

While I sit next to my daughter I wonder what the future will hold for her. I have no desire to see her disenfranchised but the reality is that many of her own kind have chosen a future where reason has been rejected and instead, traded for thirty pieces of silver and whatever makes them feel good. Unfortunately, a world without reason is a world without order which is a world without choice. A world without choice is a world of brute force. And that’s a man’s world.

Ironic.

Benevolence and democracy should have ushered in an era of truth and reason but instead, they ushered in an era of denial and wishful thinking. Thus, democracy’s beginning will also be its end. What came from force will return to it.

For those of you paying attention and who can see the contradictions and the resultant decay, pray. Pray that what comes afterward will once again be benevolent.

The EU"s Biggest Standing Armies

As we detailed previously, the foreign and defense secretaries of 23 EU countries (out of 28 in total) agreed on Monday to take further steps towards forming a European defense force.

Five countries opted out: The United Kingdom (that"s is leaving the EU), Denmark, Ireland, Portugal and Malta.

The defense union has been on the agenda for a long time and is called the Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO.

This chart shows the EU countries with the largest standing armies, according to data provided by GlobalFirePower.com.

You will find more statistics at Statista

It counts in all active military personnel, so-called "ready-to-fight" elements, but not civilian employees or reservists.

France has the biggest standing army, counting 204,000 Soldiers, followed by Germany and the relatively small Greece.

What Will Push Them Over The Edge?

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Recently, the people of two of Italy’s most prosperous regions voted in a referendum, on whether they wished to have greater autonomy from Rome.

The referendum is non-binding, but that’s not what’s most significant in the results.

What is significant is that over 95% of those who voted in Lombardy did so in favour of greater autonomy. In Veneto, the number in favour of greater autonomy was even higher, at 98%.

Roberto Maroni, president of Lombardy, said, “I now have a commitment… to go to Rome and give concrete actualization to the mandate that millions of Lombards have given me.”

It may appear on the surface that Mister Maroni intends to make an appeal for independence, but this is not what will occur. He’s a politician and won’t invite Rome to jail him for sedition. His goal will instead be to demand that a greater amount of the national income that’s generated by Lombardy and Veneto (about 20% of the total) remains within those regions.

This will not mean that he wants his people to be taxed less; his goal will be to retain a larger portion to be absorbed by the regional governments—to be in his own hands.

So much for the politicians’ agenda. But what does the referendum say about the people of the regions? Well, the extraordinarily high numbers in favour of greater self-determination demonstrate that virtually all the people in the regions have figured out that Rome is bilking them of their earnings and they’re getting pretty cheesed off.

In prosperous times, a population tends not to complain too much about being robbed through taxation. They grumble a bit, but tolerate it. However, in more stringent times, when people are finding it more difficult to make ends meet, they become more resentful of governments that are chronically both overreaching and wasteful.

Since 2008, we’ve been living in such a time, and the longer people go on without a true recovery, the more resentful they’re going to be.

Independence movements have been afoot in many countries in Europe, every state in the USA, and elsewhere on the globe, but, until recently, they’ve been minor issues, attracting primarily fringe support.

Brexit changed all that, as the people of one of the illustrious G7 countries voted to remove themselves from the parasitical EU.

This, of course, inspired the voters of “lesser” countries to consider the possibility of independence more seriously.

Some of these movements have been efforts by largely dependent entities such as Scotland to express the resentment of being the poor step-sister to a more prosperous central government, but others have been the result of the growing resentment that the province or region that’s producing the lion’s share of the national revenue is routinely having it siphoned off by the central government.

It’s predictable that any regional political leader will like the idea of independence, so that he can create his own country and become its president. However, in the present environment, we’re seeing the people of Lombardy, Veneto, Kurdish Iraq, and Catalonia voting overwhelmingly in favour of either full separation, or at least, greater autonomy.

Of course, this can’t be tolerated by the central governments, as it means that they’ll be losing all that revenue and, in many cases, this would collapse their economy.

But, at present, we’re looking at only the thin end of the wedge. There are countless other provinces and regions out there that have a similar desire to secede, and justifiably so.

After all, much of Europe, until the last century or so, was not made up of large countries. It was made up of lots of little tribal areas that sometimes worked collectively. Even the Roman Empire began as a collection of provinces.

Whilst we, today, are accustomed to a world map that’s remained largely the same throughout our lifetimes, there’s actually nothing sacred in the borders that were drawn on maps decades ago, often by people who had never been to those locales (in the case of former colonies and conquered areas). The smaller, tribal areas made more sense and actually worked more in favour of the inhabitants.

But, since World War II, the world has been headed in the direction of über states. The Unites States had already led the way in the late 18th century, but in recent times, the EU was formed and repeatedly expanded. In addition, many organisations have joined groups of countries together (ASEAN, Mercosur, Caricom, etc.).

In each case, the über states were created without the expressed majority interest of the voters. (In EU countries, referenda were sometimes held, but, in no case did a majority of voters vote in favour of joining the EU. The leaders did it in spite of the lack of support.)

Invariably, the über states were created by the political leaders and for the political leaders.

Not surprisingly, in each case in which the people of a province, state, or region have expressed a desire to secede, the central government has forcefully opposed secession. (The Americans fought their civil war, not over slavery, but over secession.)

Today, states such as Texas, which have repeatedly stated both their right and interest in possible secession, have been advised that, if they make such an attempt, they’ll be met with whatever force is required to stop it.

In Catalonia, we’re watching a standoff build between the leaders in Barcelona and Madrid, as each event unfolds.

And Catalonia is a good example of a further reason for a central government to resist the departure of a province: Should Catalonia succeed, there’s the likelihood that the adjoining regions of Valencia and the Balearic Islands might also be inspired to make an exit from Spain, and for the very same reason—because they’re the revenue producers and are having Madrid siphon off their earnings, to be spent on less-productive regions.

Governments have had a long history of claiming, “If we don’t all stick together, we’ll be doomed.” However, historically, the aggressors, more often than not, have been the empires. The smaller a country, the more likely it is to mind its own business.

In addition, the smaller a country, the more closely its leaders are to their people and, correspondingly, the more responsive they are to the people’s needs and goals.

The great majority of the armed conflict that exists today exists either in the larger countries, or, more often, due to the aggression of larger countries.

Brexit has most certainly been the cause of a trend for smaller entities to get up the courage to back away from the parasitical central governments. The hope would be that this trend will expand dramatically.

There can be no doubt that there are those who believe in and are doing their utmost to create a New World Order (they’ve been stating their intent for over a hundred years). Yet, just as we seem to be moving headlong in this direction, a reversal has begun to take place at the same time.

There can be no doubt that the reversal will be resisted strenuously; however, as the voting described above attests, this is a ground-up trend, not a government-generated trend, and, historically, strong ground-up trends have had a healthy track record of success.

*  *  *

Even “successful” independence movements never go smoothly. Extreme economic turmoil is simply built into the game. However, some people always manage to come out the other side much wealthier. We’re sharing how in our Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse. Click here to download your free PDF copy now.

The Countries Most (& Least) Satisfied With 'Democracy'

Across the globe, the spread of right- and left-wing populism and authoritarian politics have shaken the very foundations of democracy.

As Statista"s Niall McCarthy notes, a new survey from Pew Research has found that people across the globe are generally unhappy with the functionality of their political systems, though levels of satisfaction with democracy vary hugely between countries.

As can be seen from the following infographic which shows a selection of countries from the survey, people in India have tremendous faith in democracy. 79 percent of those polled said they are satisfied with the way democracy is working in India compared to 11 percent who are dissatisfied. Germany also recorded a high level (73 percent) of satisfaction with democracy.

You will find more statistics at Statista

In many other developed countries, however, faith is waning.

In the United Kingdom and Japan, 47 percent of people are not satisfied with how democracy is working in their countries while in the U.S., that rises to 51 percent. France, South Korea and Brazil all recorded dissatisfaction levels of 65 percent or higher... but Greece tops the charts with only 21% of its citizenry "satisfied" with the weay democracy is working.

Future Headlines...

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

The following is a random assortment of headlines that we may see in the future.

However, they’re not fanciful; they’re based upon historical, political actions taken by past empires when they were in decline.

The wording, however, has been modernised to reflect current media presentation.

“President Announces Executive Order to Keep US Dollars at Home”

The accompanying article then goes on to describe that a financial crisis could be on the horizon, as US dollars are exiting the country. This is due to those people who are retired and who receive Social Security courtesy of the government but live overseas, where they spend America’s money. In order to ensure that a crisis doesn’t occur, the president declares that those who “threaten the country’s solvency” in this way will have their cheques ceased until they return to US soil, so that they can reinvest in the Greater Good of all their countrymen.

“FBI Warnings Come to Pass—Domestic Terrorist Attacks in Five States. President Announces Emergency Measures”

Shootings occur in several states, all within a brief time period. The president orders martial law, citing the already established authorization under the Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the suspension of habeas corpus. Although it’s initially announced as a temporary emergency measure, the country becomes a permanent police state.

“Recent Domestic Terrorism Incidents Linked to Inadequate Control of International Travel”

The accompanying article describes what FBI and CIA intel has “revealed”—that domestic terrorists travel in and out of the country at will and that, therefore, terrorist incidents could have been prevented if international travel were curtailed.

Most people today would agree that governments are becoming more restrictive and many of them are fearful that, in the future, there’s a danger that their liberties will be increasingly removed - a development they say they wouldn’t accept, were it to happen.

Yet, each time another liberty is impaired or removed, these same people shrug their shoulders and accept that the latest loss of liberty is “necessary” for the safety of all.

Why does this occur?

Well, each time a government seeks to curtail a freedom, the spin doctors devise a plausible explanation that suggests that the new restriction is being imposed for the good of the public.

This technique has worked well throughout history. Whenever a government chooses to oppress its people beyond the level that they’d normally accept, one of the most popular solutions is to capitalise on an existing event that instils fear in the people. If no such event occurs, it’s created, often as a false-flag incident—one where the government itself stages a threat to the security of the people, blames it on others, then offers to remove the threat by removing freedoms.

As John Adams said on many occasions, “Those who trade liberty for security have neither.” Quite so.

Whenever a country implements capital controls, migration controls, or any other significant loss of freedom, it’s a sure bet that that government is slipping in its ability to hold on to the customary cooperation of its people. Any government that’s steadily robbed its people of their ambition and/or prosperity finds that, at some point, those people begin to vote with their feet. They tend to first move their money to a jurisdiction that’s less restrictive. At some point, they tend to move themselves to a jurisdiction that allows them greater freedom and opportunity.

The US was built upon this principle. Originally, colonists who were prepared to be hard-working and self-reliant left England, Holland, Germany, etc., willing to accept the hardships of frontier life for the hope of greater self-determination. Later, in the 19th century, millions of similarly minded people from all over Europe migrated west for the same reason. These people became the backbone of the industrial revolution, turning the US into the world’s most productive nation.

But, today, the shoe is clearly on the other foot. America has become grossly over-regulated and both money and people are quietly migrating elsewhere. As this trend becomes more prominent, we shall surely see greater restrictions on such people, who have inherited the pioneering spirit and are now seeking other countries where there’s greater opportunity for self-determination.

Again, none of the above is anything new. This scenario has played itself out time and again, throughout history. And, always, there have been warning signs, if the people were able to read them.

Invariably, the justification of greater restrictions, such as in the above hypothetical headlines, means the removal of freedoms. In every case, the spin used is that the removal is for “the greater good.”

Morris and Linda Tannehill, in The Market for Liberty, phrased it this way:

“Enslaving men ‘for the good of society’ is one of the most subtle and widespread forms of slavery.”

And again, historically, such restrictions are typically a last-ditch effort on the part of a declining country to trap their citizens like sheep in a pen, to be available for a final shearing before the collapse. Ayn Rand described it as follows:

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

Should we at some point in the near future see headlines like those above, we would be wise to take it as a warning (if we have any vision) that dramatically increased controls are, in fact, the death-knell of freedom.

The choice then will be whether to accept subjugation or vote with our feet.

This by no means suggests a change in our ideals. On the contrary, it means making a move in order to continue to live by our ideals, as exemplified in this final quote, from Thomas Paine:

“My country is wherever liberty lives.”

(Mister Paine was born in England, but moved to America in 1774 and never regretted his flight to freedom.)

Throughout history, there have always been countries that were in decline at the same time as there were countries that were opening up. The present time is no different. The principle remains the same; only the names of the countries change.

*  *  *

Wealth confiscation and shrinking personal liberty are virtually inevitable as an economy collapses. They go hand in hand. That’s why we put together the Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse for our readers. Click here to download your free PDF copy now.

Mike Krieger Warns "Don't Become A Right-Wing Snowflake"

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg…Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose rein to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation.

– Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

Here’s a prediction. Right-wing snowflake culture will expand exponentially in the coming years, and its rise will be cynically and intentionally fueled by Donald Trump himself.

Having proved himself a fake populist on most issues that actually matter, Trump has no choice but to move more enthusiastically into the culture war to deflect away from his obvious betrayal on economic populism and keep his diehard supporters in heat. In other words, he’ll do exactly what mainstream Democrats and Republicans have been doing for decades, which is distract the public and keep it fighting while oligarchs grab what little is left. This works out just fine for billionaire Trump and the Goldman Sachs guys running his administration.

If I’m correct, how should we respond? How do those of us who see a creeping right-wing snowflake culture emerging push back? Rule number one is don’t act like a snowflake in response. Exposing hypocrisy with incisive rational arguments and humor is the best way to push back against right-wing authoritarianism, just like it’s the best way to push back against left-wing authoritarianism. The authoritarian mindset is the enemy of freedom loving people everywhere irrespective of your specific views on health care, taxes, etc. There are far bigger things at risk to us as a people if we allow ourselves to be divided into two separate authoritarian gangs fighting for power.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what seems to be happening with far too many people, and I ask that you not play this dangerous game. People are vulnerable to autocratic cults when they lack real principles based on freedom; when they know what they’re against, but don’t really know what they’re for. Standing for something as empowering and ethical as liberty is what keeps you grounded and sane in the midst of a society-wide mental breakdown.

A perfect example of the emergent right-wing snowflake mindset comes courtesy of Donald Trump himself. In his commentary on NFL protests last Friday in Alabama, the president showed a degree of thin skinned outrage quite reminiscent of the hordes of college cry bullies I’ve criticized so harshly over the years. Let’s revisit that comment, which is what sparked everything that followed.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired!’ You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy disrespects our flag, he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it. They don’t know it. They’re friends of mine, many of them. They don’t know it. They’ll be the most popular person, for a week. They’ll be the most popular person in the country.”

If you take a step back and honestly analyze the emotional sentiment at play in the above rant, you’ll see it’s quite similar to that of a 19 year old Berkley leftist dressed like a ninja hyperventilating about Milo Yiannopoulos giving a speech. For left-wing snowflakes, right-wing trolls is where they draw the line, while for right-wing snowflakes it’s the act of refusing to stand for a song or salute a flag. It’s one thing to have a strong opinion on your own personal behavior, but it’s quite another to demand your fellow citizens behave in the same way you see fit. The mindset of someone obsessed with telling you how to live or behave in your everyday life is the mindset of an authoritarian.

It doesn’t matter if that person is marching with antifa, wearing a MAGA hat or draped in the American flag. The true enemy of freedom is, and always has been, the authoritarian personality. A left-wing snowflake gets triggered by Milo or Ben Shapiro, while a right-wing snowflake gets triggered by a millionaire athlete kneeling during the national anthem. Each side will argue their position is more enlightened, patriotic or whatever, but at the end of the day, if you feel emotionally harmed by a fellow citizen exercising free speeches rights, you should probably start by examining your own demons.

When examining the authoritarian personality one thing becomes clear. Authoritarian types can typically be divided into two camps, leaders and followers. The leaders tend to be opportunistic, power hungry and manipulative. In many cases these people are highly intelligent when it comes to the ways of human nature, which is how they were able to propel themselves into a position of leadership in the first place. Such people typically aren’t even genuinely offended by the taboo act they demonize, but they are instinctive enough to know it can be used to corral and manipulate a certain segment of the population. They only care to express outrage over the action in question to bolster their own power. Donald Trump and his high profile cheerleaders tend to fall into this camp. Creating outrage boosts their careers.

Importantly, it’s the followers of authoritarian leaders who ultimately hold the real power. Without followers, leaders would fail to exist since the power and social capital of the leader depends on a willingness to follow that person. Most people who fall for authoritarian signaling do so out of deep insecurity, which the authoritarian leader instinctively grasps. It is the insecure and ungrounded person who most easily falls prey to the authoritarian leader.

Take the national anthem for example. Why does someone not standing for it bother you so much? If you feel standing is a patriotic gesture that’s your right, but why do you care so much if a fellow citizen fails to see it the exact same way you do? Moreover, what does a patriotic gesture mean if it isn’t voluntary? If Americans are cowered into standing for the anthem out of fear of being deemed unpatriotic, then the gesture itself no longer has any meaning. It merely becomes a ritual act of symbolic dogma, more appropriate for a society like Nazi Germany than the U.S. Republic. The fact so many Americans stand for the national anthem voluntarily is precisely what makes it a powerful gesture.

In this sense, right-wing snowflake culture employs the same tactics as left-wing snowflake culture. Left-wing snowflakes are quick to categorize anyone with a different political opinion as a Nazi in an attempt to shut down political debate via intimidation. Right-wing snowflakes do the same thing with superficial patriotic gestures, and then call those who won’t stand or salute “un-American.” Both tactics are destructive, wrong and the antithesis of a freedom loving person.

Our culture is one of extreme superficiality. This is exactly why so many people lose their minds over NFL players taking a knee, but could never be driven to such burning outrage over a war launched based on falsehoods that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Politicians and oligarchs encourage such superficiality, because if the public can be kept extremely ignorant and stupid then those who actually call the shots and craft the legislation can be left alone to steer society in the way they deem fit without the general public interfering. The end result is the rabble fights about the national anthem, flags and Milo, while the country continues to get looted.

Going forward, I expect Trump to pull many more stunts like the one he did this past Friday. He knows he’s a fraud on the populist issues so many of his voters cared about, so his only option is to rally the troops by further inflaming the culture war. A culture war between right-wing and left-wing snowflakes, each promoting their own brand of authoritarianism. This works just fine for a politician like Trump. His Goldman Sachs advisors can do as they please as a distracted public shrieks over the cultural supremacy of their particular brand of self-indulgent, self-rightous outrage.

So what’s my advice? First of all, don’t become a snowflake. As Martin Luther King, Jr. noted, hate doesn’t drive out hate. Similarly, snowflakes don’t drive out snowflakes. You don’t battle back against left-wing snowflake culture by becoming a right-wing snowflake, or vice versa. If you truly believe in freedom, don’t compromise that core principle just because you got triggered.

Are you a proponent of liberty, or do you want a society based upon whatever type of conformity makes you feel most comfortable? Don’t react based upon emotion, or simply because you want to give the other team a black eye. If you believe in liberty, act like it, and please do not become a snowflake.

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A Constitutional Anniversary To Forget

Authored by Antonius Aquinas,

While not a jubilee year, last week marked the 230th anniversary of the US Constitution.

Naturally, most of its devotees enthusiastically praised the document which by now is seen on a par with Holy Writ itself.  An editorial from Investor’s Business Daily provides an example of such hagiography:

The Constitution’s beauty is that it not only delineates our rights as Americans, but expressly limits and defines government’s ability to interfere in our private lives.   This equipoise between citizens’ duties, responsibilities and rights makes it the defining document or our nation’s glorious freedom.

But America is wonderful largely because of the Constitution and those who framed it . . . . What we have is too precious to squander . . . .

Most of the piece laments about the widespread ignorance of its sacred contents among the denizens in which it rules over and encourages the unlearned “to bone up a bit on your constitutional heritage . . . .” 

The editorial fails, as do most others on the Right, to understand that it is not a lack of knowledge of the Constitution’s contents among the populace which lies at the heart of America’s social, economic, and political problems, but the very document itself.

One of the main reasons why the Constitution continues to be so widely venerated is due to the deliberate distortion of history that its “founders” promoted and that generations of its sycophants have continued to perpetuate to this very day. 

The official narrative runs that the Constitution was enacted because of widespread popular support for a change to the supposed inadequacies and deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation.

This is a myth.

Instead, the Constitution was a coup deliberately schemed by the leading political and mercantile classes to set up a powerful central government where ultimate authority rested in the national state. 

The use of the term “federal” to describe what was created in Philadelphia in those fateful days was a ruse much like the banksters and politicos used “Federal Reserve” to describe the central bank created in 1913.  It was neither “federal” – a decentralized monetary order – nor a “reserve” of gold, but a monetary institution which could create money out of thin air and eventually eliminate the gold standard.

It was a similar political maneuver 230 years ago as a new American national state was established and touted as a decentralized form of government where power was evenly divided between state and national levels and between the different branches of the government itself  – “separation of powers.”  In actuality, however, the “federal system” was the elevation of central power at the expense of local authority which had previously existed.  Section VI of the Constitution says it all:

The Constitution and the laws of the United States  . . . shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Elementary political science has shown and plain common sense knows that any person or institution given “supreme authority” will misuse and abuse such power.  Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely is an undeniable dictum of human nature.  A truly decentralized system of governance would not contain a plank as “supreme law of the land” as part of its foundation.  Instead, real federalism would be dispersed, as it existed in the past in such political arrangements as confederacies, leagues, and, certainly, under the much maligned feudal social order.

Even the Constitution’s celebrated Bill of Rights is flawed and has proven to be ineffective in protecting basic human freedoms.  It is the federal government which enumerates and interprets what freedom individuals should possess.  Thus, the meaning and extent of individual liberties will be in the hands of federal jurists and courts who will invariably rule on cases in favor of the state.  The ensnaring of individual rights within the central government’s authority did away with the venerable common law which was a far greater defender of liberty than federal courts.

Just as important, the enactment of the Constitution, which brought all the individual states under it suzerainty, did away with one of the most significant checks on state power – “voting with one’s feet.”  When there are multiple governing authorities, if one jurisdiction becomes too oppressive, its subjects can move to freer domains.  This still happens on a local level as high tax and regulatory states such as California and New York have lost demographically to freer places like Nevada and Texas.  Yet, from the Federal Leviathan there is no escape, except expatriation.

Unless and until Americans and all the other peoples of the Western world who live under constitutional rule recognize that it is the type of government which is the cause of most of the political turmoil, social unrest, and economic malaise  which they face, there is no hope of turning things around.

People Ignore Facts That Contradict Their False Beliefs

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The more people there are who ignore facts that contradict their beliefs, the likelier a dictatorship will emerge within a given country.

Here is how aristocracies, throughout the Ages, have controlled the masses, by taking advantage of this widespread tendency people have, to ignore contrary facts:

What social scientists call “confirmation bias” and have repeatedly found to be rampant, is causing the public to be easily manipulated, and has thus destroyed democracy by replacing news-reporting, by propaganda - ‘news" that’s false - in a culture where lies which pump the agendas of the powerful (including lies pumped by the billionaire owners of top ‘news’media and of the media they own) are almost never punished (and are often not even denied to be true). Thus, lies by those powerful liars almost always succeed at enslaving the minds of the millions, to believe what the top economic-and-power class want those millions of people to believe — no matter how false it might happen actually to be. 

Recently, a particularly stark example of this came to my attention. On 15 September 2017, an article that I wrote for the Strategic Culture Foundation, and which was titled by a true statement that I had only recently discovered to be true, was republished at a news-site that I consider one of the best around, “Signs of the Times” or “SOTT” for short, and a reader-comment there, simply rejected that title-statement and the entire article, because it contradicted what the person believes. This commenter entirely ignored the evidence that I had provided in the article, which proved the statement to be true. 

No matter how irrefutable the evidence is, most people reject anything which contradicts their deeply entrenched false beliefs, and this reader-comment crystallized for me, this phenomenon of “confirmation bias” — the phenomenon of ignoring evidence that contradicts what one believes.

The article was titled “Liberalism doesn’t respect a nation’s sovereignty.” I never knew that fact until I researched it, but I found, after looking through (and my article quoting key documents from) the history of the matter, that it’s actually the case: that liberalism (as it’s understood and defined by the scholars of the subject, and as it’s based upon the key formative documents of the historical tradition, “liberalism”) rejects a nation’s sovereignty. This fact shocked me to discover; so, I wrote an article documenting it, and SCF accepted it, and it then became republished at a few other sites, including SOTT.

The reader-comment at SOTT which for me personified confirmation-bias, was (in its entirety): “This is a rather new twist blaming liberals for invading countries. I"ve always associated liberalism with the left wing and democratic, progressive politics. I"ve always associated conservatism with the right wing, big business, militarism and invading other countries. Trying to move the goal posts, are we?”

That person never clicked onto my article’s links documenting the case, nor even read the quotations given in the article itself from John Locke and from Adam Smith, who were key founders of “liberalism” as that tradition has come down to us. He instead ignored all of that evidence, and stated — entirely without evidence of any sort — that I (and SOTT, and SCF, for publishing it) were “Trying to move the goal posts.”

I (a Bernie Sanders voter, and a lifelong progressive and opponent of conservatism) am “Trying to move the goal posts” — how? By pointing out the manufactured phoniness of ‘liberalism’? By pointing out a key way in which liberalism was designed by its aristocratic sponsors (in this case by the aristocrats who sponsored Locke and Smith), to be an ideology that would encourage conquest, empire, and discourage democracy (which is based upon the sanctity of national sovereignty — based upon the lack of imposition of government by or on behalf of anyone who isn’t a resident on the land). Liberalism, I show there, was designed for Empire, not for democracy. That reader simply refused to consider the evidence.

People who insist upon deceiving themselves disgust me. Anyone who blocks out the key relevant facts and persists in believing the lies they were raised with, or became fooled into believing, doesn’t harm only themselves by the lies they believe; they vote on the basis of the lies they believe, and thus these people who refuse to be open-minded destroy democracy, and invite control of the nation by the aristocracy (who sponsor the proponents of those lies). People who refuse to question their own beliefs, become increasingly putrid pools of their own false beliefs, which have been created and nurtured and sustained and become larger and larger pools of lies, by constant repetition from the media and lobbyists of the rich and powerful, so as to enable the exploiters to enslave the masses, via those constantly repeated and embellished lies. 

Such self-‘justifying’ fools, who refuse to clean-up their conceptual pool that’s been increasingly polluted by lies, are enemies of democracy, no matter how much they may consider themselves to be ‘liberals’. They don’t even know the reality of what liberalism is. One thing that it definitely is not (as my article documented) is progressivism (which is utterly opposed to foreign conquest and to the entire imperial project of imposed rule, regardless whether by outright invasions or else by coups).

Thus, we have two dominant ideologies against progressivism: One is conservatism, which everyone recognizes to be against progressivism and for Empire and constant conquest, profitable war for the arms-merchants and for the ‘news’media owners who also benefit from stirring up invasion-fever, not only like William Randolph Hearst did but today like they all do. The other is liberalism, which hides that it’s actually conservative — hides this, by being ever-so-sweet toward certain ethnicities or other groups that are being oppressed domestically, and by vociferously condemning conservatives for what is actually nothing more than the blatancy of conservatism’s favoritism toward the aristocracy.

An authentic democracy cannot be based upon a “demos” (a public) that is overwhelmingly composed of suckers - manipulated fools. Only by means of the tiny aristocracy plus the huge mass of their suckers, does a democracy degenerate into a fascism. (For example, something like this can be supported overwhelmingly by the political Party that dominates the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, state capitals, state legislatures, and runs the U.S. White House, in this ‘democratic’ nation — ‘democratic’ according to the propaganda; but if this were really a democracy, then none of those politicians would be able to win public office.)

*  *  *

A well-established central finding of psychological research, concerning “confirmation bias” or “motivated reasoning” (which are two phrases referring to people’s tendency to believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of any contrary facts), is that individuals evaluate whatever they read or hear according to their pre-existing ideas about the given subject. Specifically, psychologists have found that people tend to pay attention to whatever confirms their existing ideas, and tend to ignore whatever contradicts those pre-established beliefs.

For examples, the following studies are available online:

“Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs,” in the July 2006 American Journal of Political Science, reported: “We find a confirmation bias – the seeking out of confirmatory evidence – when [people] are free to self-select the source of arguments they read. Both the confirmation and disconfirmation biases lead to attitude polarization ... especially among those with the strongest priors [prior beliefs] and highest level of political sophistication [the highest degree of exposure to, and involvement in, the given subject-matter that the study was dealing with].” Prejudices were stronger among supposed experts than among non-“experts”: The more indoctrinated a person was, the more prejudiced. “People actively denigrate the information with which they disagree, while accepting compatible information almost at face value.” Moreover, “Those with weak and uninformed attitudes show less bias” (and this is actually one reason why the best jurors at trials are generally people who are not personally or professionally involved in any aspect of the given case – they are “non-experts”).

Sharon Begley’s article in the 25 August 2009 Newsweek titled “Lies of Mass Destruction: The same skewed thinking that supports a Saddam-9/11 link explains the power of health-care myths [such as that Obama’s health plan had ‘death panels’]” summarized the study in the May 2009 Sociological Inquiry, “‘There Must Be a Reason’: Osama, Saddam, and Inferred Justification,” which had surveyed, during October 2004, 49 conservative Republicans who admitted they believed that Saddam Hussein had caused the 9/11 attacks. This study found that 48 of these 49 extreme conservatives were utterly impervious to the overwhelming factual evidence which was provided to them by the presenters that contradicted this false belief they held.

A study concerning not political conservatism but merely resistance to new technologies is James N. Druckman’s “Framing, Motivated Reasoning, and Opinions about Emergent Technologies,” which was presented at a technological conference in 2009. He reported that, “factual information ... is perceived in biased ways ... (e.g., there is motivated reasoning).” “Facts have limited impact on initial opinions.” Moreover, “Individuals do not privilege the facts. ... Individuals process new factual information in a biased manner. ... Specifically, they view information consistent with their prior opinions as relatively stronger, and they view neutral facts as consistent with their existing” views.

“Motivated Reasoning With Stereotypes,” in the January 1999 Psychological Inquiry, found that, “When an applicable stereotype supports their desired impression of an individual, motivation can lead people to activate this stereotype, if they have not already activated it. ... People pick and choose among the many stereotypes applicable to an individual, activating those that support their desired impression of this individual and inhibiting those that interfere with it.” Similarly, another research report, “The Undeserving Rich: ‘Moral Values’ and the White Working Class,” in the June 2009 Sociological Forum, found that John Kerry had probably lost the 2004 U.S. Presidential election to George W. Bush at least partly because white working class voters overwhelmingly believed that Bush was like themselves because he behaved like themselves, and that Kerry was not like themselves because his manner seemed “snooty.”

If The Majority Votes To Secede - What About The Minority?

In recent years, left-wing groups have often been the driving force behind secession movements. This has been the case in Scotland, in Catalonia, and in California. 

In each case, the secession movements have been initiated in part to forward left-wing goals, such as the creation of a larger welfare state or to escape limitations imposed by political interest groups and institutions deemed to be too right-wing. 

Within the American context, the loudest calls for secession right now are coming from California where leftists are eager to assert their independence from the Trump administration in Washington.

Generally speaking, these California secessionists want single-payer health care, an even larger welfare state, confiscation of private firearms, and an ever larger environmental "protection" bureaucracy. That is, they want a European-style welfare state. 

California as Case Study 

This case presents Americans - and especially libertarian-minded Americans - with a question that continues to come up in recent years on secession matters: should they support a left-wing secession movement? 

Is it right or moral to support a secession movement that, in the short- and medium- terms is almost guaranteed to adopt policies that are counter to the cause of freedom and free markets? 

The answer must first and foremost be compared against the reality of forcing political union on a separatist region. That is, the cost of allowing a region to separate must be compared to the cost of keeping it in — i.e., military invasion, occupation, mass arrests, government surveillance, martial law, and worse.

Not surprisingly, we"re forced to conclude the answer is the same whether we"re talking about secession in Scotland, in California, or in Catalonia: the answer is yes.

What About the Minority Interests? 

Often, the immediate retort to this position is to point to those groups in the minority who are left stuck in the seceding territories. 

The argument goes something like this: "Now that you"ve cut California loose, what about those poor conservatives, gun owners, and business owners who will now be negatively impacted by a newly empowered California government? Before, California was at least somewhat restrained by its membership in the United States. Now the California government is even more free to inflict misery on the hapless taxpayers and productive people who are stuck there." 

To this criticism, there are at least two responses.

One: California Independence Means More Freedom for the Rest of the Country 

Those who wish to focus on merely what happens to those who are in California take a parochial and far-too-limited view. Yes, it"s true that business owners, religious Christians, and gun owners in California (to name just three groups) would likely be negatively impacted by California independence. The California government has long illustrated an open hostility to these minority groups. 

The other side of the coin, however, is that California secession would lead to a significant expansion of freedom for the "rump" United States left behind. Freed of the influence of California on American politics, the remainder of the United States would likely move significantly in the direction of more freedom in markets. Federal regulations would likely be scaled back, and presidential candidates would no longer need to cater to interest groups with sizable memberships in California. 

California"s 53-member delegation in Congress (39 of them Democrats) would be gone, and voting patterns in Congress would likely shift in a direction more hospitable to freedom and free markets. 

In other words, the nation would be freed from a great weight tied around its neck. One might even say the situation is analagous to the removal of an infected appendage. It wouldn"t be the first time such a thing had happened. In 1861, when Southern States began seceding from the Union, New Yorker George Templeton Strong welcomed the prospect of being freed from the political influence of the slave drivers down south. He concluded "the self-amputated members were diseased beyond immediate cure, and their virus will infect our system no longer."

But, unlike Strong who might have been induced by conscience to think of the slaves left behind in the seceding territories, we face no similar scruples. Obviously, comparing modern California to a slave state of old is laughably inappropriate, and unlike the slaves, Californians are free to move away. Nor is it the moral obligation of Texans, or Floridians, or Coloradans to protect the Californians from the excesses of their own government.

Thus, when we think of post-secession California subject to the whims of a hard-left government there, we must also think of the 285 million remaining Americans who would benefit from the separation. 

Note also that this situation even has advantages for the taxpayers and business owners in California who wish to escape the California regime. 

Now that the rump United States has been improved by California"s absence, those in California who seek a more business-friendly legal environment can dramatically change their fortunes for the better by moving across the new national boundary to Arizona or Nevada. For these migrants, the net gain achieved by leaving California has grown larger thanks to California"s departure. 

Two: More States are Preferable to Fewer States 

The second response to the objection lies in the fact that secession already brings with it a solution to the problem. That is, the problems caused by one secession are solved by more secession. 

As I"ve explained here, here, and here, a larger number of states is preferable to a smaller number. A larger number of small states provides more practical choices to taxpayers and citizens in choosing a place to live under a governments that more closely match their personal values. 

Thus, in considering the problems of an independent California, we find that the primary problem faced by taxpayers and productive residents in California is that the state is simply too large and contains too diverse a population within its boundaries. 

As noted by numerous commentators over the years — including supporters of the Six Californias initiative — California"s population is quite politically and culturally diverse, although it has been dominated for decades by a hard-left coalition of voters based around the Bay Area. Compared to these voters, Southern California residents appear downright centrist, but one would not know this by looking at statewide politics because Northern California is so adept at throwing its weight around. 

The solution to this problem lies in breaking up California into still smaller pieces. We can see many of these political lines ripe for decentralization in the voting patterns revealed by statewide votes such as those for Propsition 187 and Proposition 8. We can see it in the map of legislative districts. Nor is this just a matter of metropolitan areas versus rural areas. Many suburban areas within the metroplexes of California are quite right-of-center in their own rights, and would surely benefit from further political decentralization. 

Urban core cities ought to be their own self-governing territories, with suburan and rural areas kept separate and self-governing in their own ways. 

The net result of all of this would be to offer a multitude of choices among taxpayers, entrepreneurs, gun owners, and moral traditionalists as to where they might live and enjoy the benefits of self-determination within their own communities. 

But before any of this can happen, we must first establish and extend the moral and legal legitimacy of self-determination through secession and decentralization. Clinging to the status quo of existing regional and national boundaries is reactionary in the extreme. Insisting that no community ought to be allowed self government unless its leaders are hard-core libertarians is impractical, irresponsible, and doomed to failure. 

Nevertheless, when confronted with new attempts at decentralization and secession, even some of those who claim to be for freedom and self-determination cling to ideas of imposing nationalistic control over others. They invent emotion-laden fictional slogans claiming "we are one nation" or "secession is treason" or other sayings designed to justify using the power of the state to impose political unity.  Ultimately, this is an ideology of monopoly and coercion, and tramples the very ideals of freedom that the nationalists claim they hold dear.

Ron Paul: Here's The Truth About The War Between The Alt Right And Cultural Marxists

Despite recently being demonetized by YouTube, possibly for his anti-establishment views and slamming President Trump’s decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul is back with a video addressing the widening left-right political divide in the US – and the role that the “immoral use” of government force has played in fomenting the US’s present political crisis.

Claiming that the US is "witnessing a battle between authoritarian groups in America", the prominent libertarian and former politician says that the "Alt-Right" and Cultural Marxists are fighting to control a government that is bankrupt, doesn"t follow the Constitution, and controls a foreign empire that is running on fumes.  Ron Paul describes our dilemma.

“Most Americans agree the violent confrontation between the alt-right and the cultural Marxist is serious, dangerous and getting worse. Understanding economics, cultural differences and the acceptance of authoritarianism is required to find the answer to the crisis.

Rejecting a society based on personal liberty led to the conflict we are now witnessing: replacing authoritarianism with volunteerism must be our goal. The immoral use of government force caused this crisis and expanding it will only increase the hatred between the two sides.

Though there are leaders on both sides promoting violence, large numbers are attracted to the raging culture war for emotional reasons in response to the lies and the incitement by those whose ulterior motive is seeking power, wealth and promoting a dangerous new world order.”

The biggest problem that Paul sees is that neither the left or the right have made liberty – both economic and political – a priority. In fact, just the opposite is happening. Both the left and the right are moving in a more authoritarian direction.

Meanwhile, the left’s penchant for labeling all of their ideological opponents as Nazis and racists is helping to sow chaos and division, Paul says.

“One side has been labeled the alt-right, the other cultural Marxism. The right would like to reduce the debate to the differences between Communism and a populist government that emphasizes caring for Americans over foreigners. The Left would have us believe it"s merely a conflict with supporters of racism and injustice and cultural Marxism. Neither side speaks of Liberty. The alt-right is made up of conservatives, populists, and pro white enthusiasts, but all are labeled Nazis and fascists by the left.”

“Some are just fed up with the false charges and the penalties toward whites by leftist racists and the extremism of political correctness. The vicious labeling of all those who are frustrated and who join with those who are angry as Nazis and racist is only for the purpose of creating chaos. The left demands that all Trump supporters fit into this category. This is the strategy for fomenting race riots and civil war. No doubt Trump makes himself vulnerable to these inaccurate and wild charges by his enemies. The left promotes cultural Marxism and class warfare yet there are fellow travelers who represent typical liberal activists progressives and white haters. Many on the Left generally despise any minority who chooses to be a conservative or libertarian.”

Leftists, Paul says, are far more cynical than their idealistic proclamations would suggest. White leftists only see minorities as important within the context of their votes, and are quick to treat minorities who identify as conservative or libertarian as traitors to the cause. Meanwhile, neither side understands how liberty leads to economic prosperity for the largest number of citizens.

“Too many on the left see minorities as only important when their votes can be corralled. From their viewpoint as minorities, well-being success must come only from benefiting from doctrines promoted by forced wealth redistribution by the liberal left it"s all about control it"s cynical racism.”

“The philosophic issues that divide us are what matters. Both sides accept the principle of government aggression as a proper tool of government. Neither side understands how true freedom leads to the prosperity that both sides pay lip service to. Neither side understands the shortcomings of deceptive, short-lived prosperity that comes with government deficits and monetary inflation which always ends badly, especially for the people who are supposed to be benefiting by government welfare spending. The ending of such a period of artificial wealth is now apparent and since it"s not understood by either side of the current raging conflict, both are proposing different government solutions with sharp disagreements in the blame game.”

Both the left and the right claim to be the torchbearers of the American experiment. But neither side cares about what the Constitution says, Paul said. Furthermore, both sides banded together to support the Bush doctrine, a willingness to countenance foreign interventionism that persists across the modern political spectrum. Leftists and conservatives take advantage of superficial differences to divide people – the left via identity politics and the right via their racist views.  

“Both sides claim patriotic loyalty and ownership of the American tradition. Neither group cares about what the Constitution says both sides support America"s world Empire its militarism the military industrial complex and horribly dangerous Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war. Neither side condemns our aggression or foreign interventionism. There is extensive support by both for economic planning by government though in different degrees and for different purposes.”

“This means no complaints about protectionism, Federal Reserve power or subsidies to the special interest groups. For our bipartisan leaders, it is only who gets to distribute the loot that matters. Identity politics has taken over in forming alliances. This encourages lying, race preferences demagoguery and inciting hatred since the concept of Liberty is something that applies to individuals rather than special interest groups it is therefore rejected.”

“Liberty is not something that can be distributed according to the various groups that claim victimization and a right to other people"s earnings. The tool used especially by the far left is extreme political correctness that regulates speech by claiming hateful motivation by anyone with whom they disagree. These charges are inevitably spread with a broad brush by a complicit media advocating both types of authoritarianism. Left and right purposely divide people by natural and acceptable differences. Pursuing the cause of Liberty unites all those who honestly seek peace and prosperity in distinction from those who resort to authoritarianism. Divisiveness will cause both sides to fail with their half-hearted efforts to force an escalation of violence and the destruction of the middle class.”

Unfortunately, neither the left or the right has expressed concern with the “deeply flawed” US monetary system, Paul said. The Federal Reserve has been allowed to debase the US dollar through the complicity of both left- and right-leaning politicians. And now, as Paul notes, the bills are all coming due.

“Neither side will face up to the economic reality of a deeply flawed economic system and the pending collapse of the American Empire. Sadly neither side complains about the danger of the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes and decisions being made to go to war without congressional approval, the dependency on deficit spending, and the monetary mischief of the Fed. The bills are now coming due and the political chatter associated with the current social strife serves to distract from the philosophical impurities from which we have been infected for many decades. The number of enemies that we have generated by our foreign policy is ignored and the problem made worse by our economic and military meddling around the world our inability to pay our bills and meet our unfunded liabilities will be the limiting factor.”

In short, the US’s economic and military meddling around the world have led to a reliance on unsustainable deficit spending. This, Paul contends, is the greatest threat facing American society - and neither side is talking about a solution.

His full video is below.