| | | Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 | TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:25 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
RELIGIOUS TERRORISM IN AMERICA
Where are the Jesuit agenda for America and the world heading? For
over 200 years, the goal has been the complete destruction of the
United States Constitution. This would mean the utter demise and
annihilation of the precious freedoms guaranteed by that document.
The right of free speech, free press, freedom of religion or the right to
worship God according to the dictates of ones own conscience, the
right to bear arms, the right to a fair trail, and the right to personal
privacy would all be eliminated. For the past several years, we have
seen this war on the Constitution and freedom taking place in earnest.
In the religious arena, the goal of the Jesuits is to wipe out any trace of
Protestantism and other religions, and to restore world-wide
domination by the pope. Next, we will determine if the Jesuits will be
successful in their sinister purposes.
The only reliable source we can turn to for information on future events
is prophecy from God. The Bible has predicted one event after another
down through history, and the events have occurred exactly as the
Bible said they would. With the same unerring accuracy the Bible
predicts future events, and it shows the results that will occur as a
result of the Jesuits’ conspiracy to rule the world.
The chapter in the Bible that reveals the results of the Jesuits’
treachery is Revelation 13. There are two beasts mentioned in this
chapter; the first one rises out of the sea in verse one and the second
rises out of the earth in verse eleven. Notice the reading of these
verses:
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise
up out of the sea.... — Revelation 13:1
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth.... —
Revelation 13:11
In order to understand these verses, we must determine what a beast
represents in Bible prophecy, and what the sea and the earth
represent. Watch how the Bible interprets itself.
The book of Daniel shows that a beast represents a kingdom, or as we
would say today, a nation or country. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:26 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which
shall arise out of the earth.... Thus he said, The fourth beast
shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be
diverse [different] from all kingdoms.... — Daniel 7:17,23
Thus, we see that Revelation 13 discusses two powers that came to
prominence in the world. These two powers have their beginnings in
different areas of the world, one rises out of the sea and the other rises
out of the earth.
Next, we discover what water represents in Bible prophecy.
And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where
the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations,
and tongues. — Revelation 17:15
We see here that the first power in Revelation 13 had its beginning in a
heavily populated area of the world amid existing nations. This
suggests that the first power came up in the populated area of Europe.
The second world power of Revelation 13:11 rises out of the earth,
which means it arose in an area of the world where few inhabitants
existed. This suggests the rise of the second power occurred in the
Western Hemisphere; where the population density was very light.
Here is more information about the first beast.
...having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten
crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And
the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet
were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a
lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and
great authority. — Revelation 13:1,2
There is also more information about the second beast.
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and
he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. —
Revelation 13:11.
Let us look at the meanings of the words blasphemy, dragon, and lamb
in these verses. The first power commits blasphemy, and has been
given his existence and authority from the dragon.
Mark explains one of the meanings of blasphemy.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the
palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain
of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts,
Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:28 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
forgive sins but God only? — Mark 2:5-7.
As the Son of God, Christ had the power to forgive sins, and He still
has the power to forgive sins today. If a mere man claims that he can
forgive sins, then that is blasphemy. The Jews, who refused to
acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, declared that He had committed
blasphemy because they felt He was only a man. This first power in
Revelation 13 commits blasphemy by claiming it can forgive people of
their sins.
Here is the other meaning of blasphemy.
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone
thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a
man, makest thyself God. — John 10:33
Christ was God in human flesh, but the Jews did not acknowledge this.
So when Christ claimed to be one with His Father, the Jews declared
that He had committed blasphemy. Thus, when a man claims to be
God on earth, this is blasphemy, and the first power in Revelation
claims to be God.
Can you think of a power, rising up in the area of Europe that claims it
can forgive sins and claims to be God? The confessional box of the
Catholic Church is known throughout the world as the place where
people go to have their sins forgiven by a priest. The most heinous
crimes and the most awful deeds have resulted from one individual
bearing his or her innermost thoughts to another human being. The
Bible says, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus;” (1 Timothy 2:5.) A Catholic priest has no
more ability to forgive sins than your pet dog!
Next, consider some of the statements the papacy has made about the
pope being god on earth.
The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not
a mere man, but as it were God, and the Vicar of God. The
Pope is of such lofty and supreme dignity that, properly
speaking, he has not been established in any rank of dignity,
but rather has been placed upon the very summit of all ranks
of dignities.... He is likewise the divine monarch and
supreme emperor and king of kings. Hence the Pope is
crowned with a triple crown, as King of Heaven and of Earth
and of the Lower Regions. — Lucius Ferraris, Prompta
Bibliotheca, volume 6, pp. 438, 442.
For thou art the shepherd, thou art the physician, thou art the
husbandman; finally, thou art another God on earth. —
Christopher Marcellus’s Oration in the Fifth Lateran Council,
4th session. J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum...Collectio,
volume 32, col. 761, translated. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:29 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
The pope is the supreme judge of the law of the land.... He is
the vicegerent of Christ, who is not only a Priest forever, but
also King of kings and Lord of lords. — La Civilta Cattolica,
March 18, 1871, quoted in Leonard Woolsey Bacon, An
Inside View of the Vatican Council, American Tract Society,
p. 229.
Let us consider some of the names applied to Christ in the Scriptures
and see if they could possibly apply to the pope: Almighty God,
Creator, Savior, Christ, Lord, Most Holy, King of kings, and Reverend.
What could be more blasphemous than for a man to claim any of these
titles? “And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God. . . .”
(Revelation 13:6).
The above quotes are utter blasphemy. The Roman Catholic power is
the first beast of Revelation 13. Revelation 13:2 tells us that “The
dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.” Who is
the dragon that gives the papacy her power and authority?
The Bible tells us that the dragon is Satan, the devil.
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called
the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he
was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with
him. — Revelation 12:9
The devil himself gave the papacy its power, its throne, and great
authority. The devil runs the papacy. The devil is the one that leads her
to destroy liberty in the earth. The devil is the one that seeks to gain
homage from earth’s teeming multitudes by having them bow before
the pontiff of Rome. The kind of brutal government the papacy ran
through the Dark Ages is the kind the devil and the papacy promotes in
the earth today. A satanic government has these characteristics:
1. It is controlled by a few; it is dictatorial.
2. It gives no freedom to its people.
3. It joins the church and the government together.
4. It persecutes anyone who does not comply.
That the papacy is the first power of Revelation 13 is beyond question.
However, who is the second power of Revelation 13? We know that it
rises in the Western Hemisphere and “he had two horns like a lamb,
and he spake as a dragon” (Verse 11). This verse indicates that the
government started out lamb-like, being freedom-loving and just, but
it ends up resembling a papal style or satanic government. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:30 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
The Bible tells us that Christ is the Lamb.
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith,
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world. — John 1:29.
And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the
Lamb of God. — John 1:36.
Christ is the lamb of Bible prophecy. The second power of Revelation
13, that rises in the Western Hemisphere, starts out with a Christ-like
government, but ends up acting like the dragon (Satan). It starts out
the opposite of the papacy and ends up just like her. Since a Christ-like
government is opposite of a Satanic government, then the second
power would have these characteristics at its beginning:
1. It is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
2. It guarantees certain inalienable rights and freedoms, like freedom
of speech, freedom of religion, etc.
3. It keeps the church and the government separate.
4. It defends its people from political and especially religious tyranny.
The second power of Revelation 13 that has these characteristics could
be none other than the United States of America. She alone rose up in
the Western Hemisphere and began with a lamb-like government. As
we have clearly seen throughout this book, the Jesuits would be used
to destroy this lamb-like government and make it papal — devilish.
Revelation 13 foretold 2000 years ago that the Jesuits would be
successful, for verse 11 said that America would begin with a lamb-like
government, but would one day “speak as a dragon.” Jesuit infiltration
in all levels and departments of the United States government is why
this country becomes a tyrannical, persecuting power. America is
speaking and behaving more and more like Satan every day.
Revelation 13 reveals the rise of the papacy and the United States. It
portrays the characteristics of the American government in the
beginning and foretells the ultimate takeover by the Jesuits. It also
shows us the dictatorial power the papacy had before the great
Protestant Reformation.
And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the
beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying Who is like unto
the beast? who is able to make war with him? — Revelation
13:4
During the Dark Ages, the world was worshiping at the feet of the |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:30 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
Roman pontiff. With the rise of Martin Luther and the Protestant
Reformation, the Bible was given to the people in their own language
as the only rule of faith and practice. The Bible only was the cry of the
Reformers. Over time, many thousands of people came to accept
teachings found only in the Bible.
It also discloses a time when worship of the pope would once again be
required of all the world on pain of death, and the United States would
be the power that pushes the world to submit to the papacy.
And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him,
and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to
worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast,
that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause
that as many as would not worship the image of the beast
should be killed. — Revelation 13:12,15
How will the world worship the papacy? What mark reveals papal
authority in the earth? We need to find how the Scriptures define
worship. How we understand and respond to this will determine our
destiny as the following verse shows.
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice,
If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his
mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of
the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without
mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be
tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy
angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: — Revelation
14:9,10.
This is the most severe warning from God in the entire Bible. The
following verses will show us the distinction between the true worship
of God and false worship.
Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines
the commandments of men. For laying aside the
commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men…. And
he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of
God, that ye may keep your own tradition. — Mark 7:7-9.
The Jews were given the 10 commandments in Exodus 20:2-17. Over
the centuries, the Jews had corrupted the commandments with many
traditions that confused the authority of the Ten Commandments. This
Christ so unsparingly condemned. He declared that when the Ten
Commandments are set aside and the traditions of men are set up,
then that is vain worship. True worship would involve honoring all ten
of the commandments. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:31 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
False worship is honoring the traditions of men.
True worship is honoring the commandments of God.
In Revelation 13 and 14, we are confronted with a papal tradition that
is being exalted above one of God’s commandments, and this papal
tradition is the mark of papal authority in the world. Do you know of a
papal tradition, that is directly contrary to one of the Ten
Commandments that the papacy herself will tell us is her mark of
authority in the earth? This tradition is so vile in Heaven’s eyes that if
one continues to obey the papacy’s commandment while knowing full
well that it is contrary to the explicit commands of God, “the same
shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.” (Revelation 14:10).
We will now look at several statements from Catholic literature that will
show conclusively the papacy’s mark of authority is in the earth.
Prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep
Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of
the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says ‘Remember
the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’ The Catholic Church says,
No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and
command you to keep holy the first day of the week. And lo!
The entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience
to the command of the Holy Catholic Church. — Thomas
Enright, CSSR, President, Redemptorist College (Roman
Catholic), Kansas City, MO., February 18, 1884.
The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage
they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the
[Catholic] church. — Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk
About the Protestantism of Today (1868), p. 213.
If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship
God on the Sabbath Day [Saturday]. In keeping the Sunday
they are following a law of the Catholic church. — Albert
Smith, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying
for the Cardinal in a letter of February 10, 1920.
The State, in passing laws for the due sanctification of
Sunday, is unwittingly acknowledging the authority of the
Catholic Church, and carrying out more or less faithfully its
prescriptions. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:32 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
The Sunday, as a day of the week set apart for the
obligatory public worship of Almighty God, to be sanctified by
a suspension of all servile labor, trade, and worldly
avocations and by exercises of devotion, is purely a creation
of the Catholic Church. — The American Catholic Quarterly
Review, January, 1883, pp. 152, 139.
Protestants... accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the
day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the
change.... But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize
that...in observing the Sunday, they are accepting the
authority of the spokesman for the church, the Pope. — Our
Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950.
It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists,
and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them
anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an
institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who
observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic
Church. — Priest Brady, in an address, reported in the
Elizabeth, N.J. “News,” March 18, 1903.
The mark of Catholic Church authority in the world is Sunday
observance. This is a tradition that has no place in the Bible. It
originated in Rome, and when we honor the Sunday tradition, we are
paying homage to the papacy. Sunday goes directly contrary to the
plain teaching of the fourth commandment, which declares
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt
thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the
Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy
maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy
gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:
wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed
it. — Exodus 20:8-11.
The papacy tells us exactly what its MARK is.
Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change [from
Saturday to Sunday] was her act. And the act is a MARK of
her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters. —
C. F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:33 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
Sunday is our MARK of authority.... The church is above the
Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof
of that fact. — Catholic Record, September 1, 1923 (Ontario).
By their own words, they tell us that Sunday observance is the Mark of
the Beast. Remember that Satan, the devil, gave the Catholic Church
its power and great authority in the world. Since the papacy is doing
the bidding of the devil, it is the devil who wants the world to break
God’s Sabbath commandment and worship the papacy on Sunday.
Revelation 13 and current history tell us that somewhere down the
road, the Jesuits will foment another terrorist attack or create some
other crisis, and in its aftermath they will be able to institute their
planned desire — a National Sunday Law. They have used Waco,
Oklahoma City, and the World Trade Center disasters to erode away
precious constitutional liberties in America. These three events were all
well planned in order to condition Americans to surrender their bloodbought
freedoms. This is a developing trend that will not cease until
Sunday Laws are passed in this land, and then around the world. These
laws will result in bloody persecution just like in the Dark Ages.
There will one day very soon be only two groups in the entire world.
On one side will be the great bulk of humanity aligned with the Jesuits
of the Vatican in direct rebellion against the God of the universe. The
other group will be a much smaller group consisting of those who love
God and keep all of His commandments. The great dividing line will be
over the Ten Commandments, specifically the fourth commandment,
the Sabbath commandment.
Which side will you be on? Will you embrace the papacy’s ultimate
goal, Sunday observance, or will you embrace the great sign of God’s
power to create and to redeem — the seventh-day Sabbath? Sunday
observance, homage to the pope and to the Jesuits of the Vatican, will
lead America and then the world to devastation and ruin; whereas
Sabbath observance, which represents total submission to God’s
commands will lead to everlasting life with the Lord Jesus Christ.
If any man worship the beast [the Catholic Church] and his
image, and receive his mark [Sunday observance] in his
forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of
the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into
the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire
and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the
presence of the Lamb: — Revelation 14:9, 10. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322000
11/5/2007 11:35 AM | | Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322502
11/6/2007 8:12 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
The Law
by Frederick Bastiat
Preface
When a reviewer wishes to give special recognition to a book, he predicts that it will still be read "a hundred years from now." The Law, first published as a pamphlet in June, 1850, is already more than a hundred years old. And because its truths are eternal, it will still be read when another century has passed.
Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before - and immediately following -- the Revolution of February 1848. This was the period when France was rapidly turning to complete socialism. As a Deputy to the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Bastiat was studying and explaining each socialist fallacy as it appeared. And he explained how socialism must inevitably degenerate into communism. But most of his countrymen chose to ignore his logic.
The Law is here presented again because the same situation exists in America today as in the France of 1848. The same socialist-communist ideas and plans that were then adopted in France are now sweeping America. The explanations and arguments then advanced against socialism by Mr. Bastiat are -- word for word -- equally valid today. His ideas deserve a serious hearing.
Frederic Bastiat
The Law
Translated by The Foundation for Economic Education Permission to reprint granted without special request.
The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
Life Is a Gift from God
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life -- physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production--in other words, individuality, liberty, property -- this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
What Is Law ?
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
If every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right -- its reason for existing, its lawfulness -- is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force -- for the same reason -- cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
A Just and Enduring Government
If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that such a nation would have the most simple, easy to accept, economical, limited, nonoppressive, just, and enduring government imaginable -- whatever its political form might be.
Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.
It can be further stated that, thanks to the non- intervention of the state in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in a logical manner. We would not see poor families seeking literary instruction before they have bread. We would not see cities populated at the expense of rural districts, nor rural districts at the expense of cities. We would not see the great displacements of capital, labor, and population that are caused by legislative decisions.
The sources of our existence are made uncertain and precarious by these state-created displacements. And, furthermore, these acts burden the government with increased responsibilities.
The Complete Perversion of the Law
But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.
How has this perversion of the law been accomplished? And what have been the results?
The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy. Let us speak of the first.
A Fatal Tendency of Mankind
Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing.
But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce, and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man -- in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.
Property and Plunder
Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.
Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain -- and since labor is pain in itself -- it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.
When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.
It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.
Victims of Lawful Plunder
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter -- by peaceful or revolutionary means -- into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws!
Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution -- some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.
The Results of Legal Plunder
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking.
In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them. The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.
The Fate of Non-Conformists
If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is boldly said that "You are a dangerous innovator, a utopian, a theorist, a subversive; you would shatter the foundation upon which society rests."
If you lecture upon morality or upon political science, there will be found official organizations petitioning the government in this vein of thought: "That science no longer be taught exclusively from the point of view of free trade (of liberty, of property, and of justice) as has been the case until now, but also, in the future, science is to be especially taught from the viewpoint of the facts and laws that regulate French industry (facts and laws which are contrary to liberty, to property, and to justice). That, in government-endowed teaching positions, the professor rigorously refrain from endangering in the slightest degree the respect due to the laws now in force."*
*General Council of Manufacturers, Agriculture, and Commerce, May 6, 1850.
Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law.
Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.
I could prove this assertion in a thousand ways. But, by way of illustration, I shall limit myself to a subject that has lately occupied the minds of everyone: universal suffrage.
Who Shall Judge?
The followers of Rousseau's school of thought -- who consider themselves far advanced, but whom I consider twenty centuries behind the times -- will not agree with me on this. But universal suffrage -- using the word in its strictest sense -- is not one of those sacred dogmas which it is a crime to examine or doubt. In fact, serious objections may be made to universal suffrage.
In the first place, the word universal conceals a gross fallacy. For example, there are 36 million people in France. Thus, to make the right of suffrage universal, there should be 36 million voters. But the most extended system permits only 9 million people to vote. Three persons out of four are excluded. And more than this, they are excluded by the fourth. This fourth person advances the principle of incapacity as his reason for excluding the others.
Universal suffrage means, then, universal suffrage for those who are capable. But there remains this question of fact: Who is capable? Are minors, females, insane persons, and persons who have committed certain major crimes the only ones to be determined incapable?
The Reason Why Voting Is Restricted
A closer examination of the subject shows us the motive which causes the right of suffrage to be based upon the supposition of incapacity. The motive is that the elector or voter does not exercise this right for himself alone, but for everybody.
The most extended elective system and the most restricted elective system are alike in this respect. They differ only in respect to what constitutes incapacity. It is not a difference of principle, but merely a difference of degree.
If, as the republicans of our present-day Greek and Roman schools of thought pretend, the right of suffrage arrives with one's birth, it would be an injustice for adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why are they prevented? Because they are presumed to be incapable. And why is incapacity a motive for exclusion? Because it is not the voter alone who suffers the consequences of his vote; because each vote touches and affects everyone in the entire community; because the people in the community have a right to demand some safeguards concerning the acts upon which their welfare and existence depend.
The Answer Is to Restrict the Law
I know what might be said in answer to this; what the objections might be. But this is not the place to exhaust a controversy of this nature. I wish merely to observe here that this controversy over universal suffrage (as well as most other political questions) which agitates, excites, and overthrows nations, would lose nearly all of its importance if the law had always been what it ought to be.
In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder -- is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?
Under these circumstances, is it likely that the extent of the right to vote would endanger that supreme good, the public peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would refuse to peaceably await the coming of their right to vote? Is it likely that those who had the right to vote would jealously defend their privilege?
If the law were confined to its proper functions, everyone's interest in the law would be the same. Is it not clear that, under these circumstances, those who voted could not inconvenience those who did not vote?
The Fatal Idea of Legal Plunder
But on the other hand, imagine that this fatal principle has been introduced: Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another; the law takes the wealth of all and gives it to a few -- whether farmers, manufacturers, shipowners, artists, or comedians. Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically so.
The excluded classes will furiously demand their right to vote -- and will overthrow society rather than not to obtain it. Even beggars and vagabonds will then prove to you that they also have an incontestable title to vote. They will say to you:
"We cannot buy wine, tobacco, or salt without paying the tax. And a part of the tax that we pay is given by law -- in privileges and subsidies -- to men who are richer than we are. Others use the law to raise the prices of bread, meat, iron, or cloth. Thus, since everyone else uses the law for his own profit, we also would like to use the law for our own profit. We demand from the law the right to relief, which is the poor man's plunder. To obtain this right, we also should be voters and legislators in order that we may organize Beggary on a grand scale for our own class, as you have organized Protection on a grand scale for your class. Now don't tell us beggars that you will act for us, and then toss us, as Mr. Mimerel proposes, 600,000 francs to keep us quiet, like throwing us a bone to gnaw. We have other claims. And anyway, we wish to bargain for ourselves as other classes have bargained for themselves!"
And what can you say to answer that argument!
Perverted Law Causes Conflict
As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious. To know this, it is hardly necessary to examine what transpires in the French and English legislatures; merely to understand the issue is to know the answer.
Is there any need to offer proof that this odious perversion of the law is a perpetual source of hatred and discord; that it tends to destroy society itself? If such proof is needed, look at the United States [in 1850]. There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person's liberty and property. As a consequence of this, there appears to be no country in the world where the social order rests on a firmer foundation. But even in the United States, there are two issues -- and only two -- that have always endangered the public peace.
Slavery and Tariffs Are Plunder
What are these two issues? They are slavery and tariffs. These are the only two issues where, contrary to the general spirit of the republic of the United States, law has assumed the character of plunder.
Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The protective tariff is a violation, by law, of property.
Its is a most remarkable fact that this double legal crime - a sorrowful inheritance of the Old World - should be the only issue which can, and perhaps will, lead to the ruin of the Union. It is indeed impossible to imagine, at the very heart of a society, a more astounding fact than this: The law has come to be an instrument of injustice. And if this fact brings terrible consequences to the United States - where only in the instance of slavery and tariffs - what must be the consequences in Europe, where the perversion of law is a principle; a system?
Two Kinds of Plunder
Mr. de Montalembert [politician and writer] adopting the thought contained in a famous proclamation by Mr. Carlier, has said: "We must make war against socialism." According to the definition of socialism advanced by Mr. Charles Dupin, he meant: "We must make war against plunder."
But of what plunder was he speaking? For there are two kinds of plunder: legal and illegal.
I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling -- which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes -- can be called socialism. It is not this kind of plunder that systematically threatens the foundations of society. Anyway, the war against this kind of plunder has not waited for the command of these gentlemen. The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. Long before the Revolution of February 1848 -- long before the appearance even of socialism itself -- France had provided police, judges, gendarmes, prisons, dungeons, and scaffolds for the purpose of fighting illegal plunder. The law itself conducts this war, and it is my wish and opinion that the law should always maintain this attitude toward plunder.
The Law Defends Plunder
But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim -- when he defends himself -- as a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder, and it is of this, no doubt, that Mr. de Montalembert speaks.
This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among the legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best to wipe it out with a minimum of speeches and denunciations -- and in spite of the uproar of the vested interests.
How to Identify Legal Plunder
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law -- which may be an isolated case -- is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.
Legal Plunder Has Many Names
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole --with their common aim of legal plunder -- constitute socialism.
Now, since under this definition socialism is a body of doctrine, what attack can be made against it other than a war of doctrine? If you find this socialistic doctrine to be false, absurd, and evil, then refute it. And the more false, the more absurd, and the more evil it is, the easier it will be to refute. Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder
Mr. de Montalembert has been accused of desiring to fight socialism by the use of brute force. He ought to be exonerated from this accusation, for he has plainly said: "The war that we must fight against socialism must be in harmony with law, honor, and justice."
But why does not Mr. de Montalembert see that he has placed himself in a vicious circle? You would use the law to oppose socialism? But it is upon the law that socialism itself relies. Socialists desire to practice legal plunder, not illegal plunder. Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism? For when plunder is abetted by the law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for help.
To prevent this, you would exclude socialism from entering into the making of laws? You would prevent socialists from entering the Legislative Palace? You shall not succeed, I predict, so long as legal plunder continues to be the main business of the legislature. It is illogical -- in fact, absurd -- to assume otherwise.
The Choice Before Us
This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it:
1. The few plunder the many.
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. Nobody plunders anybody.
We must make our choice among limited plunder, universal plunder, and no plunder. The law can follow only one of these three.
Limited legal plunder: This system prevailed when the right to vote was restricted. One would turn back to this system to prevent the invasion of socialism.
Universal legal plunder: We have been threatened with this system since the franchise was made universal. The newly enfranchised majority has decided to formulate law on the same principle of legal plunder that was used by their predecessors when the vote was limited.
No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).*
*Translator's note: At the time this was written, Mr. Bastiat knew that he was dying of tuberculosis. Within a year, he was dead.
The Proper Function of the Law
And, in all sincerity, can anything more than the absence of plunder be required of the law? Can the law -- which necessarily requires the use of force -- rationally be used for anything except protecting the rights of everyone? I defy anyone to extend it beyond this purpose without perverting it and, consequently, turning might against right. This is the most fatal and most illogical social perversion that can possibly be imagined. It must be admitted that the true solution -- so long searched for in the area of social relationships -- is contained in these simple words: Law is organized justice.
Now this must be said: When justice is organized by law -- that is, by force -- this excludes the idea of using law (force) to organize any human activity whatever, whether it be labor, charity, agriculture, commerce, industry, education, art, or religion. The organizing by law of any one of these would inevitably destroy the essential organization -- justice. For truly, how can we imagine force being used against the liberty of citizens without it also being used against justice, and thus acting against its proper purpose? |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322502
11/6/2007 8:24 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
The Seductive Lure of Socialism
Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.
This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.
Enforced Fraternity Destroys Liberty
Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first."
In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot.
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy.
At this point, I think that I should explain exactly what I mean by the word plunder.*
*Translator's note: The French word used by Mr. Bastiat is spoliation.
Plunder Violates Ownership
I do not, as is often done, use the word in any vague, uncertain, approximate, or metaphorical sense. I use it in its scientific acceptance -- as expressing the idea opposite to that of property [wages, land, money, or whatever]. When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it -- without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud -- to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed.
I say that this act is exactly what the law is supposed to suppress, always and everywhere. When the law itself commits this act that it is supposed to suppress, I say that plunder is still committed, and I add that from the point of view of society and welfare, this aggression against rights is even worse. In this case of legal plunder, however, the person who receives the benefits is not responsible for the act of plundering. The responsibility for this legal plunder rests with the law, the legislator, and society itself. Therein lies the political danger.
It is to be regretted that the word plunder is offensive. I have tried in vain to find an inoffensive word, for I would not at any time -- especially now -- wish to add an irritating word to our dissentions. Thus, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I do not mean to attack the intentions or the morality of anyone. Rather, I am attacking an idea which I believe to be false; a system which appears to me to be unjust; an injustice so independent of personal intentions that each of us profits from it without wishing to do so, and suffers from it without knowing the cause of the suffering.
Three Systems of Plunder
The sincerity of those who advocate protectionism, socialism, and communism is not here questioned. Any writer who would do that must be influenced by a political spirit or a political fear. It is to be pointed out, however, that protectionism, socialism, and communism are basically the same plant in three different stages of its growth. All that can be said is that legal plunder is more visible in communism because it is complete plunder; and in protectionism because the plunder is limited to specific groups and industries.* Thus it follows that, of the three systems, socialism is the vaguest, the most indecisive, and, consequently, the most sincere stage of development.
*If the special privilege of government protection against competition -- a monopoly -- were granted only to one group in France, the iron workers, for instance, this act would so obviously be legal plunder that it could not last for long. It is for this reason that we see all the protected trades combined into a common cause. They even organize themselves in such a manner as to appear to represent all persons who labor. Instinctively, they feel that legal plunder is concealed by generalizing it.
But sincere or insincere, the intentions of persons are not here under question. In fact, I have already said that legal plunder is based partially on philanthropy, even though it is a false philanthropy.
With this explanation, let us examine the value -- the origin and the tendency -- of this popular aspiration which claims to accomplish the general welfare by general plunder.
Law Is Force
Since the law organizes justice, the socialists ask why the law should not also organize labor, education, and religion.
Why should not law be used for these purposes? Because it could not organize labor, education, and religion without destroying justice. We must remember that law is force, and that, consequently, the proper functions of the law cannot lawfully extend beyond the proper functions of force.
When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of these. They are defensive; they defend equally the rights of all.
Law Is a Negative Concept
The harmlessness of the mission performed by law and lawful defense is self-evident; the usefulness is obvious; and the legitimacy cannot be disputed.
As a friend of mine once remarked, this negative concept of law is so true that the statement, the purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign, is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.
But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a subject of education, a religious faith or creed -- then the law is no longer negative; it acts positively upon people. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own wills; the initiative of the legislator for their own initiatives. When this happens, the people no longer need to discuss, to compare, to plan ahead; the law does all this for them. Intelligence becomes a useless prop for the people; they cease to be men; they lose their personality, their liberty, their property.
Try to imagine a regulation of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force that is not a violation of property. If you cannot reconcile these contradictions, then you must conclude that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.
The Political Approach
When a politician views society from the seclusion of his office, he is struck by the spectacle of the inequality that he sees. He deplores the deprivations which are the lot of so many of our brothers, deprivations which appear to be even sadder when contrasted with luxury and wealth.
Perhaps the politician should ask himself whether this state of affairs has not been caused by old conquests and lootings, and by more recent legal plunder. Perhaps he should consider this proposition: Since all persons seek well-being and perfection, would not a condition of justice be sufficient to cause the greatest efforts toward progress, and the greatest possible equality that is compatible with individual responsibility? Would not this be in accord with the concept of individual responsibility which God has willed in order that mankind may have the choice between vice and virtue, and the resulting punishment and reward?
But the politician never gives this a thought. His mind turns to organizations, combinations, and arrangements -- legal or apparently legal. He attempts to remedy the evil by increasing and perpetuating the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder. We have seen that justice is a negative concept. Is there even one of these positive legal actions that does not contain the principle of plunder?
The Law and Charity
You say: "There are persons who have no money," and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside the society. Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in. If every person draws from the treasury the amount that he has put in it, it is true that the law then plunders nobody. But this procedure does nothing for the persons who have no money. It does not promote equality of income. The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.
With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works. You will find that they are always based on legal plunder, organized injustice.
The Law and Education
You say: "There are persons who lack education," and you turn to the law. But the law is not, in itself, a torch of learning which shines its light abroad. The law extends over a society where some persons have knowledge and others do not; where some citizens need to learn, and others can teach. In this matter of education, the law has only two alternatives: It can permit this transaction of teaching - and - learning to operate freely and without the use of force, or it can force human wills in this matter by taking from some of them enough to pay the teachers who are appointed by government to instruct others, without charge. But in this second case, the law commits legal plunder by violating liberty and property.
The Law and Morals
You say: "Here are persons who are lacking in morality or religion," and you turn to the law. But law is force. And need I point out what a violent and futile effort it is to use force in the matters of morality and religion?
It would seem that socialists, however self-complacent, could not avoid seeing this monstrous legal plunder that results from such systems and such efforts. But what do the socialists do? They cleverly disguise this legal plunder from others -- and even from themselves -- under the seductive names of fraternity, unity, organization, and association. Because we ask so little from the law -- only justice -- the socialists thereby assume that we reject fraternity, unity, organization, and association. The socialists brand us with the name individualist.
But we assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity of mankind under Providence.
A Confusion of Terms
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
The Influence of Socialist Writers
How did politicians ever come to believe this weird idea that the law could be made to produce what it does not contain -- the wealth, science, and religion that, in a positive sense, constitute prosperity? Is it due to the influence of our modern writers on public affairs?
Present-day writers -- especially those of the socialist school of thought -- base their various theories upon one common hypothesis: They divide mankind into two parts. People in general -- with the exception of the writer himself -- from the first group. The writer, all alone, forms the second and most important group. Surely this is the weirdest and most conceited notion that ever entered a human brain!
In fact, these writers on public affairs begin by supposing that people have within themselves no means of discernment; no motivation to action. The writers assume that people are inert matter, passive particles, motionless atoms, at best a kind of vegetation indifferent to its own manner of existence. They assume that people are susceptible to being shaped -- by the will and hand of another person -- into an infinite variety of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected.
Moreover, not one of these writers on governmental affairs hesitates to imagine that he himself -- under the title of organizer, discoverer, legislator, or founder -- is this will and hand, this universal motivating force, this creative power whose sublime mission is to mold these scattered materials -- persons -- into a society.
These socialist writers look upon people in the same manner that the gardener views his trees. Just as the gardener capriciously shapes the trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and other forms, just so does the socialist writer whimsically shape human beings into groups, series, centers, sub-centers, honeycombs, labor corps, and other variations. And just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to shape his trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force that he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this purpose, he devises tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws, and school laws.
The Socialists Wish to Play God
Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations. This is so true that, if by chance, the socialists have any doubts about the success of these combinations, they will demand that a small portion of mankind be set aside to experiment upon. The popular idea of trying all systems is well known. And one socialist leader has been known seriously to demand that the Constituent Assembly give him a small district with all its inhabitants, to try his experiments upon.
In the same manner, an inventor makes a model before he constructs the full-sized machine; the chemist wastes some chemicals -- the farmer wastes some seeds and land -- to try out an idea.
But what a difference there is between the gardener and his trees, between the inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his elements, between the farmer and his seeds! And in all sincerity, the socialist thinks that there is the same difference between him and mankind!
It is no wonder that the writers of the nineteenth century look upon society as an artificial creation of the legislator's genius. This idea -- the fruit of classical education -- has taken possession of all the intellectuals and famous writers of our country. To these intellectuals and writers, the relationship between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.
Moreover, even where they have consented to recognize a principle of action in the heart of man -- and a principle of discernment in man's intellect -- they have considered these gifts from God to be fatal gifts. They have thought that persons, under the impulse of these two gifts, would fatally tend to ruin themselves. They assume that if the legislators left persons free to follow their own inclinations, they would arrive at atheism instead of religion, ignorance instead of knowledge, poverty instead of production and exchange.
The Socialists Despise Mankind
According to these writers, it is indeed fortunate that Heaven has bestowed upon certain men -- governors and legislators -- the exact opposite inclinations, not only for their own sake but also for the sake of the rest of the world! While mankind tends toward evil, the legislators yearn for good; while mankind advances toward darkness, the legislators aspire for enlightenment; while mankind is drawn toward vice, the legislators are attracted toward virtue. Since they have decided that this is the true state of affairs, they then demand the use of force in order to substitute their own inclinations for those of the human race.
Open at random any book on philosophy, politics, or history, and you will probably see how deeply rooted in our country is this idea -- the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism. In all of them, you will probably find this idea that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and prosperity from the power of the state. And even worse, it will be stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Conventional classical thought everywhere says that behind passive society there is a concealed power called law or legislator (or called by some other terminology that designates some unnamed person or persons of undisputed influence and authority) which moves, controls, benefits, and improves mankind.
A Defense of Compulsory Labor
Let us first consider a quotation from Bossuet [tutor to the Dauphin in the Court of Louis XIV]:*
"One of the things most strongly impressed (by whom?) upon the minds of the Egyptians was patriotism.... No one was permitted to be useless to the state. The law assigned to each one his work, which was handed down from father to son. No one was permitted to have two professions. Nor could a person change from one job to another.... But there was one task to which all were forced to conform: the study of the laws and of wisdom. Ignorance of religion and of the political regulations of the country was not excused under any circumstances. Moreover, each occupation was assigned (by whom?) to a certain district.... Among the good laws, one of the best was that everyone was trained (by whom?) to obey them. As a result of this, Egypt was filled with wonderful inventions, and nothing was neglected that could make life easy and quiet"
*Translator's note: The parenthetical expressions and the italicized words throughout this book were supplied by Mr. Bastiat. All subheads and bracketed material were supplied by the translator.
Thus, according to Bossuet, persons derive nothing from themselves. Patriotism, prosperity, inventions, husbandry, science -- all of these are given to the people by the operation of the laws, the rulers. All that the people have to do is to bow to leadership.
A Defense of Paternal Government
Bossuet carries this idea of the state as the source of all progress even so far as to defend the Egyptians against the charge that they rejected wrestling and music. He said:
"How is that possible? These arts were invented by
Trismegistus [who was alleged to have been Chancellor to the Egyptian god Osiris]".
And again among the Persians, Bossuet claims that all comes from above:
"One of the first responsibilities of the prince was to encourage agriculture.... Just as there were offices established for the regulation of armies, just so were there offices for the direction of farm work.... The Persian people were inspired with an overwhelming respect for royal authority."
And according to Bossuet, the Greek people, although exceedingly intelligent, had no sense of personal responsibility; like dogs and horses, they themselves could not have invented the most simple games:
"The Greeks, naturally intelligent and courageous, had been early cultivated by the kings and settlers who had come from Egypt. From these Egyptian rulers, the Greek people had learned bodily exercises, foot races, and horse and chariot races.... But the best thing that the Egyptians had taught the Greeks was to become docile, and to permit themselves to be formed by the law for the public good."
The Idea of Passive Mankind
It cannot be disputed that these classical theories [advanced by these latter-day teachers, writers, legislators, economists, and philosophers] held that everything came to the people from a source outside themselves. As another example, take Fenelon [archbishop, author, and instructor to the Duke of Burgundy].
He was a witness to the power of Louis XIV. This, plus the fact that he was nurtured in the classical studies and the admiration of antiquity, naturally caused Fenelon to accept the idea that mankind should be passive; that the misfortunes and the prosperity -- vices and virtues -- of people are caused by the external influence exercised upon them by the law and the legislators. Thus, in his Utopia of Salentum, he puts men -- with all their interests, faculties, desires, and possessions -- under the absolute discretion of the legislator. Whatever the issue may be, persons do not decide it for themselves; the prince decides for them. The prince is depicted as the soul of this shapeless mass of people who form the nation. In the prince resides the thought, the foresight, all progress, and the principle of all organization. Thus all responsibility rests with him.
The whole of the tenth book of Fenelon's Telemachus proves this. I refer the reader to it, and content myself with quoting at random from this celebrated work to which, in every other respect, I am the first to pay homage.
Socialists Ignore Reason and Facts
With the amazing credulity which is typical of the classicists, Fenelon ignores the authority of reason and facts when he attributes the general happiness of the Egyptians, not to their own wisdom but to the wisdom of their kings:
"We could not turn our eyes to either shore without seeing rich towns and country estates most agreeably located; fields, never fallowed, covered with golden crops every year; meadows full of flocks; workers bending under the weight of the fruit which the earth lavished upon its cultivators; shepherds who made the echoes resound with the soft notes from their pipes and flutes. "Happy," said Mentor, "is the people governed by a wise king.". . ."
Later, Mentor desired that I observe the contentment and abundance which covered all Egypt, where twenty-two thousand cities could be counted. He admired the good police regulations in the cities; the justice rendered in favor of the poor against the rich; the sound education of the children in obedience, labor, sobriety, and the love of the arts and letters; the exactness with which all religious ceremonies were performed; the unselfishness, the high regard for honor, the faithfulness to men, and the fear of the gods which every father taught his children. He never stopped admiring the prosperity of the country. "Happy," said he, "is the people ruled by a wise king in such a manner."
Socialists Want to Regiment People
Fenelon's idyll on Crete is even more alluring. Mentor is made to say:
"All that you see in this wonderful island results from the laws of Minos. The education which he ordained for the children makes their bodies strong and robust. From the very beginning, one accustoms the children to a life of frugality and labor, because one assumes that all pleasures of the senses weaken both body and mind. Thus one allows them no pleasure except that of becoming invincible by virtue, and of acquiring glory.... Here one punishes three vices that go unpunished among other people: ingratitude, hypocrisy, and greed. There is no need to punish persons for pomp and dissipation, for they are unknown in Crete.... No costly furniture, no magnificent clothing, no delicious feasts, no gilded palaces are permitted."
Thus does Mentor prepare his student to mold and to manipulate -- doubtless with the best of intentions -- the people of Ithaca. And to convince the student of the wisdom of these ideas, Mentor recites to him the example of Salentum.
It is from this sort of philosophy that we receive our first political ideas! We are taught to treat persons much as an instructor in agriculture teaches farmers to prepare and tend the soil.
A Famous Name and an Evil Idea
Now listen to the great Montesquieu on this same subject:
"To maintain the spirit of commerce, it is necessary that all the laws must favor it. These laws, by proportionately dividing up the fortunes as they are made in commerce, should provide every poor citizen with sufficiently easy circumstances to enable him to work like the others. These same laws should put every rich citizen in such lowered circumstances as to force him to work in order to keep or to gain."
Thus the laws are to dispose of all fortunes!
Although real equality is the soul of the state in a democracy, yet this is so difficult to establish that an extreme precision in this matter would not always be desirable. It is sufficient that there be established a census to reduce or fix these differences in wealth within a certain limit. After this is done, it remains for specific laws to equalize inequality by imposing burdens upon the rich and granting relief to the poor.
Here again we find the idea of equalizing fortunes by law, by force.
In Greece, there were two kinds of republics, One, Sparta, was military; the other, Athens, was commercial. In the former, it was desired that the citizens be idle; in the latter, love of labor was encouraged.
Note the marvelous genius of these legislators: By debasing all established customs -- by mixing the usual concepts of all virtues -- they knew in advance that the world would admire their wisdom.
Lycurgus gave stability to his city of Sparta by combining petty thievery with the soul of justice; by combining the most complete bondage with the most extreme liberty; by combining the most atrocious beliefs with the greatest moderation. He appeared to deprive his city of all its resources, arts, commerce, money, and defenses. In Sparta, ambition went without the hope of material reward. Natural affection found no outlet because a man was neither son, husband, nor father. Even chastity was no longer considered becoming. By this road, Lycurgus led Sparta on to greatness and glory.
This boldness which was to be found in the institutions of Greece has been repeated in the midst of the degeneracy and corruption of our modern times. An occasional honest legislator has molded a people in whom integrity appears as natural as courage in the Spartans.
Mr. William Penn, for example, is a true Lycurgus. Even though Mr. Penn had peace as his objective -- while Lycurgus had war as his objective -- they resemble each other in that their moral prestige over free men allowed them to overcome prejudices, to subdue passions, and to lead their respective peoples into new paths.
The country of Paraguay furnishes us with another example [of a people who, for their own good, are molded by their legislators].*
*Translator's note: What was then known as Paraguay was a much larger area than it is today. It was colonized by the Jesuits who settled the Indians into villages, and generally saved them from further brutalities by the avid conquerors.
Now it is true that if one considers the sheer pleasure of commanding to be the greatest joy in life, he contemplates a crime against society; it will, however, always be a noble ideal to govern men in a manner that will make them happier.
Those who desire to establish similar institutions must do as follows: Establish common ownership of property as in the republic of Plato; revere the gods as Plato commanded; prevent foreigners from mingling with the people, in order to preserve the customs; let the state, instead of the citizens, establish commerce. The legislators should supply arts instead of luxuries; they should satisfy needs instead of desires.
A Frightful Idea
Those who are subject to vulgar infatuation may exclaim: "Montesquieu has said this! So it's magnificent! It's sublime!" As for me, I have the courage of my own opinion. I say: What! You have the nerve to call that fine? It is frightful! It is abominable! These random selections from the writings of Montesquieu show that he considers persons, liberties, property -- mankind itself -- to be nothing but materials for legislators to exercise their wisdom upon.
The Leader of the Democrats
Now let us examine Rousseau on this subject. This writer on public affairs is the supreme authority of the democrats. And although he bases the social structure upon the will of the people, he has, to a greater extent than anyone else, completely accepted the theory of the total inertness of mankind in the presence of the legislators:
"If it is true that a great prince is rare, then is it not true that a great legislator is even more rare? The prince has only to follow the pattern that the legislator creates. The legislator is the mechanic who invents the machine; the prince is merely the workman who sets it in motion.
And what part do persons play in all this? They are merely the machine that is set in motion. In fact, are they not merely considered to be the raw material of which the machine is made?"
Thus the same relationship exists between the legislator and the prince as exists between the agricultural expert and the farmer; and the relationship between the prince and his subjects is the same as that between the farmer and his land. How high above mankind, then, has this writer on public affairs been placed? Rousseau rules over legislators themselves, and teaches them their trade in these imperious terms:
"Would you give stability to the state? Then bring the extremes as closely together as possible. Tolerate neither wealthy persons nor beggars.
If the soil is poor or barren, or the country too small for its inhabitants, then turn to industry and arts, and trade these products for the foods that you need.... On a fertile soil -- if you are short of inhabitants -- devote all your attention to agriculture, because this multiplies people; banish the arts, because they only serve to depopulate the nation....
If you have extensive and accessible coast lines, then cover the sea with merchant ships; you will have a brilliant but short existence. If your seas wash only inaccessible cliffs, let the people be barbarous and eat fish; they will live more quietly -- perhaps better -- and, most certainly, they will live more happily.
In short, and in addition to the maxims that are common to all, every people has its own particular circumstances. And this fact in itself will cause legislation appropriate to the circumstances."
This is the reason why the Hebrews formerly -- and, more recently, the Arabs -- had religion as their principle objective. The objective of the Athenians was literature; of Carthage and Tyre, commerce; of Rhodes, naval affairs; of Sparta, war; and of Rome, virtue. The author of The Spirit of Laws has shown by what art the legislator should direct his institutions toward each of these objectives.... But suppose that the legislator mistakes his proper objective, and acts on a principle different from that indicated by the nature of things? Suppose that the selected principle sometimes creates slavery, and sometimes liberty; sometimes wealth, and sometimes population; sometimes peace, and sometimes conquest? This confusion of objective will slowly enfeeble the law and impair the constitution. The state will be subjected to ceaseless agitations until it is destroyed or changed, and invincible nature regains her empire.
But if nature is sufficiently invincible to regain its empire, why does not Rousseau admit that it did not need the legislator to gain it in the first place? Why does he not see that men, by obeying their own instincts, would turn to farming on fertile soil, and to commerce on an extensive and easily accessible coast, without the interference of a Lycurgus or a Solon or a Rousseau who might easily be mistaken.
Socialists Want Forced Conformity
Be that as it may, Rousseau invests the creators, organizers, directors, legislators, and controllers of society with a terrible responsibility. He is, therefore, most exacting with them:
"He who would dare to undertake the political creation of a people ought to believe that he can, in a manner of speaking, transform human nature; transform each individual -- who, by himself, is a solitary and perfect whole -- into a mere part of a greater whole from which the individual will henceforth receive his life and being. Thus the person who would undertake the political creation of a people should believe in his ability to alter man's constitution; to strengthen it; to substitute for the physical and independent existence received from nature, an existence which is partial and moral.* In short, the would- be creator of political man must remove man's own forces and endow him with others that are naturally alien to him."
Poor human nature! What would become of a person's dignity if it were entrusted to the followers of Rousseau?
*Translator's note: According to Rousseau, the existence of social man is partial in the sense that he is henceforth merely a part of society. Knowing himself as such -- and thinking and feeling from the point of view of the whole - he thereby becomes moral.
Legislators Desire to Mold Mankind
Now let us examine Raynal on this subject of mankind being molded by the legislator:
"The legislator must first consider the climate, the air, and the soil. The resources at his disposal determine his duties. He must first consider his locality. A population living on maritime shores must have laws designed for navigation.... If it is an inland settlement, the legislator must make his plans according to the nature and fertility of the soil....
It is especially in the distribution of property that the genius of the legislator will be found. As a general rule, when a new colony is established in any country, sufficient land should be given to each man to support his family....
On an uncultivated island that you are populating with children, you need do nothing but let the seeds of truth germinate along with the development of reason.... But when you resettle a nation with a past into a new country, the skill of the legislator rests in the policy of permitting the people to retain no injurious opinions and customs which can possibly be cured and corrected. If you desire to prevent these opinions and customs from becoming permanent, you will secure the second generation by a general system of public education for the children. A prince or a legislator should never establish a colony without first arranging to send wise men along to instruct the youth...."
In a new colony, ample opportunity is open to the careful legislator who desires to purify the customs and manners of the people. If he has virtue and genius, the land and the people at his disposal will inspire his soul with a plan for society. A writer can only vaguely trace the plan in advance because it is necessarily subject to the instability of all hypotheses; the problem has many forms, complications, and circumstances that are difficult to foresee and settle in detail.
Legislators Told How to Manage Men
Raynal's instructions to the legislators on how to manage people may be compared to a professor of agriculture lecturing his students: "The climate is the first rule for the farmer. His resources determine his procedure. He must first consider his locality. If his soil is clay, he must do so and so. If his soil is sand, he must act in another manner. Every facility is open to the farmer who wishes to clear and improve his soil. If he is skillful enough, the manure at his disposal will suggest to him a plan of operation. A professor can only vaguely trace this plan in advance because it is necessarily subject to the instability of all hypotheses; the problem has many forms, complications, and circumstances that are difficult to foresee and settle in detail."
Oh, sublime writers! Please remember sometimes that this clay, this sand, and this manure which you so arbitrarily dispose of, are men! They are your equals! They are intelligent and free human beings like yourselves! As you have, they too have received from God the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to think, and to judge for themselves! |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 322502
11/6/2007 8:28 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
A Temporary Dictatorship
Here is Mably on this subject of the law and the legislator. In the passages preceding the one here quoted, Mably has supposed the laws, due to a neglect of security, to be worn out. He continues to address the reader thusly:
"Under these circumstances, it is obvious that the springs of government are slack. Give them a new tension, and the evil will be cured.... Think less of punishing faults, and more of rewarding that which you need. In this manner you will restore to your republic the vigor of youth. Because free people have been ignorant of this procedure, they have lost their liberty! But if the evil has made such headway that ordinary governmental procedures are unable to cure it, then resort to an extraordinary tribunal with considerable powers for a short time. The imagination of the citizens needs to be struck a hard blow."
In this manner, Mably continues through twenty volumes.
Under the influence of teaching like this -- which stems from classical education -- there came a time when everyone wished to place himself above mankind in order to arrange, organize, and regulate it in his own way.
Socialists Want Equality of Wealth
Next let us examine Condillac on this subject of the legislators and mankind:
"My Lord, assume the character of Lycurgus or of Solon. And before you finish reading this essay, amuse yourself by giving laws to some savages in America or Africa. Confine these nomads to fixed dwellings; teach them to tend flocks.... Attempt to develop the social consciousness that nature has planted in them.... Force them to begin to practice the duties of humanity.... Use punishment to cause sensual pleasures to become distasteful to them. Then you will see that every point of your legislation will cause these savages to lose a vice and gain a virtue.
All people have had laws. But few people have been happy. Why is this so? Because the legislators themselves have almost always been ignorant of the purpose of society, which is the uniting of families by a common interest.
Impartiality in law consists of two things: the establishing of equality in wealth and equality in dignity among the citizens.... As the laws establish greater equality, they become proportionately more precious to every citizen.... When all men are equal in wealth and dignity -- and when the laws leave no hope of disturbing this equality -- how can men then be agitated by greed, ambition, dissipation, idleness, sloth, envy, hatred, or jealousy?
What you have learned about the republic of Sparta should enlighten you on this question. No other state has ever had laws more in accord with the order of nature; of equality."
The Error of the Socialist Writers
Actually, it is not strange that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the human race was regarded as inert matter, ready to receive everything -- form, face, energy, movement, life -- from a great prince or a great legislator or a great genius. These centuries were nourished on the study of antiquity. And antiquity presents everywhere -- in Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome -- the spectacle of a few men molding mankind according to their whims, thanks to the prestige of force and of fraud. But this does not prove that this situation is desirable. It proves only that since men and society are capable of improvement, it is naturally to be expected that error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition should be greatest towards the origins of history. The writers quoted above were not in error when they found ancient institutions to be such, but they were in error when they offered them for the admiration and imitation of future generations. Uncritical and childish conformists, they took for granted the grandeur, dignity, morality, and happiness of the artificial societies of the ancient world. They did not understand that knowledge appears and grows with the passage of time; and that in proportion to this growth of knowledge, might takes the side of right, and society regains possession of itself.
What Is Liberty?
Actually, what is the political struggle that we witness? It is the instinctive struggle of all people toward liberty. And what is this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties -- liberty of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of travel, of labor, of trade? In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so? Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism -- including, of course, legal despotism? Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self- defense; of punishing injustice?
It must be admitted that the tendency of the human race toward liberty is largely thwarted, especially in France. This is greatly due to a fatal desire -- learned from the teachings of antiquity -- that our writers on public affairs have in common: They desire to set themselves above mankind in order to arrange, organize, and regulate it according to their fancy.
Philanthropic Tyranny
While society is struggling toward liberty, these famous men who put themselves at its head are filled with the spirit of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They think only of subjecting mankind to the philanthropic tyranny of their own social inventions. Like Rousseau, they desire to force mankind docilely to bear this yoke of the public welfare that they have dreamed up in their own imaginations.
This was especially true in 1789. No sooner was the old regime destroyed than society was subjected to still other artificial arrangements, always starting from the same point: the omnipotence of the law.
Listen to the ideas of a few of the writers and politicians during that period:
SAINT-JUST: "The legislator commands the future. It is for him to will the good of mankind. It is for him to make men what he wills them to be."
ROBESPIERRE: "The function of government is to direct the physical and moral powers of the nation toward the end for which the commonwealth has come into being."
BILLAUD-VARENNES: "A people who are to be returned to liberty must be formed anew. A strong force and vigorous action are necessary to destroy old prejudices, to change old customs, to correct depraved affections, to restrict superfluous wants, and to destroy ingrained vices.... Citizens, the inexible austerity of Lycurgus created the firm foundation of the Spartan republic. The weak and trusting character of Solon plunged Athens into slavery. This parallel embraces the whole science of government."
LE PELLETIER: "Considering the extent of human degradation, I am convinced that it is necessary to effect a total regeneration and, if I may so express myself, of creating a new people."
The Socialists Want Dictatorship
Again, it is claimed that persons are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to will their own improvement; they are incapable of it. According to Saint- Just, only the legislator is capable of doing this. Persons are merely to be what the legislator wills them to be. According to Robespierre, who copies Rousseau literally, the legislator begins by decreeing the end for which the commonwealth has come into being. Once this is determined, the government has only to direct the physical and moral forces of the nation toward that end. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the nation are to remain completely passive. And according to the teachings of Billaud- Varennes, the people should have no prejudices, no affections, and no desires except those authorized by the legislator. He even goes so far as to say that the inflexible austerity of one man is the foundation of a republic.
In cases where the alleged evil is so great that ordinary governmental procedures cannot cure it, Mably recommends a dictatorship to promote virtue: "Resort," he says, "to an extraordinary tribunal with considerable powers for a short time. The imagination of the citizens needs to be struck a hard blow." This doctrine has not been forgotten. Listen to Robespierre:
"The principle of the republican government is virtue, and the means required to establish virtue is terror. In our country we desire to substitute morality for selfishness, honesty for honor, principles for customs, duties for manners, the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of poverty, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity, love of glory for love of money, good people for good companions, merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of happiness for the boredom of pleasure, the greatness of man for the littleness of the great, a generous, strong, happy people for a good-natured, frivolous, degraded people; in short, we desire to substitute all the virtues and miracles of a republic for all the vices and absurdities of a monarchy."
Dictatorial Arrogance
At what a tremendous height above the rest of mankind does Robespierre here place himself! And note the arrogance with which he speaks. He is not content to pray for a great reawakening of the human spirit. Nor does he expect such a result from a well-ordered government. No, he himself will remake mankind, and by means of terror.
This mass of rotten and contradictory statements is extracted from a discourse by Robespierre in which he aims to explain the principles of morality which ought to guide a revolutionary government. Note that Robespierre's request for dictatorship is not made merely for the purpose of repelling a foreign invasion or putting down the opposing groups. Rather he wants a dictatorship in order that he may use terror to force upon the country his own principles of morality. He says that this act is only to be a temporary measure preceding a new constitution. But in reality, he desires nothing short of using terror to extinguish from France selfishness, honor, customs, manners, fashion, vanity, love of money, good companionship, intrigue, wit, sensuousness, and poverty. Not until he, Robespierre, shall have accomplished these miracles, as he so rightly calls them, will he permit the law to reign again.*
*At this point in the original French text, Mr. Bastiat pauses and speaks thusly to all do-gooders and would-be rulers of mankind: "Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
The Indirect Approach to Despotism
Usually, however, these gentlemen -- the reformers, the legislators, and the writers on public affairs -- do not desire to impose direct despotism upon mankind. Oh no, they are too moderate and philanthropic for such direct action. Instead, they turn to the law for this despotism, this absolutism, this omnipotence. They desire only to make the laws.
To show the prevalence of this queer idea in France, I would need to copy not only the entire works of Mably, Raynal, Rousseau, and Fenelon -- plus long extracts from Bossuet and Montesquieu -- but also the entire proceedings of the Convention. I shall do no such thing; I merely refer the reader to them.
Napoleon Wanted Passive Mankind
It is, of course, not at all surprising that this same idea should have greatly appealed to Napoleon. He embraced it ardently and used it with vigor. Like a chemist, Napoleon considered all Europe to be material for his experiments. But, in due course, this material reacted against him.
At St. Helena, Napoleon -- greatly disillusioned -- seemed to recognize some initiative in mankind. Recognizing this, he became less hostile to liberty. Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from leaving this lesson to his son in his will: "To govern is to increase and spread morality, education, and happiness."
After all this, it is hardly necessary to quote the same opinions from Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint-Simon, and Fourier. Here are, however, a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the organization of labor: "In our plan, society receives its momentum from power."
Now consider this: The impulse behind this momentum is to be supplied by the plan of Louis Blanc; his plan is to be forced upon society; the society referred to is the human race. Thus the human race is to receive its momentum from Louis Blanc.
Now it will be said that the people are free to accept or to reject this plan. Admittedly, people are free to accept or to reject advice from whomever they wish. But this is not the way in which Mr. Louis Blanc understands the matter. He expects that his plan will be legalized, and thus forcibly imposed upon the people by the power of the law:
"In our plan, the state has only to pass labor laws (nothing else?) by means of which industrial progress can and must proceed in complete liberty. The state merely places society on an incline (that is all?). Then society will slide down this incline by the mere force of things, and by the natural workings of the established mechanism."
But what is this incline that is indicated by Mr. Louis Blanc? Does it not lead to an abyss? (No, it leads to happiness.) If this is true, then why does not society go there of its own choice? (Because society does not know what it wants; it must be propelled.) What is to propel it? (Power.) And who is to supply the impulse for this power? (Why, the inventor of the machine -- in this instance, Mr. Louis Blanc.)
The Vicious Circle of Socialism
We shall never escape from this circle: the idea of passive mankind, and the power of the law being used by a great man to propel the people.
Once on this incline, will society enjoy some liberty? (Certainly.) And what is liberty, Mr. Louis Blanc?
Once and for all, liberty is not only a mere granted right; it is also the power granted to a person to use and to develop his faculties under a reign of justice and under the protection of the law.
And this is no pointless distinction; its meaning is deep and its consequences are difficult to estimate. For once it is agreed that a person, to be truly free, must have the power to use and develop his faculties, then it follows that every person has a claim on society for such education as will permit him to develop himself. It also follows that every person has a claim on society for tools of production, without which human activity cannot be fully effective. Now by what action can society give to every person the necessary education and the necessary tools of production, if not by the action of the state?
Thus, again, liberty is power. Of what does this power consist? (Of being educated and of being given the tools of production.) Who is to give the education and the tools of production? (Society, which owes them to everyone.) By what action is society to give tools of production to those who do not own them? (Why, by the action of the state.) And from whom will the state take them?
Let the reader answer that question. Let him also notice the direction in which this is taking us.
The Doctrine of the Democrats
The strange phenomenon of our times -- one which will probably astound our descendants -- is the doctrine based on this triple hypothesis: the total inertness of mankind, the omnipotence of the law, and the infallibility of the legislator. These three ideas form the sacred symbol of those who proclaim themselves totally democratic.
The advocates of this doctrine also profess to be social. So far as they are democratic, they place unlimited faith in mankind. But so far as they are social, they regard mankind as little better than mud. Let us examine this contrast in greater detail.
What is the attitude of the democrat when political rights are under discussion? How does he regard the people when a legislator is to be chosen? Ah, then it is claimed that the people have an instinctive wisdom; they are gifted with the finest perception; their will is always right; the general will cannot err; voting cannot be too universal.
When it is time to vote, apparently the voter is not to be asked for any guarantee of his wisdom. His will and capacity to choose wisely are taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an age of enlightenment? What! are the people always to be kept on leashes? Have they not won their rights by great effort and sacrifice? Have they not given ample proof of their intelligence and wisdom? Are they not adults? Are they not capable of judging for themselves? Do they not know what is best for themselves? Is there a class or a man who would be so bold as to set himself above the people, and judge and act for them? No, no, the people are and should be free. They desire to manage their own affairs, and they shall do so.
But when the legislator is finally elected -- ah! then indeed does the tone of his speech undergo a radical change. The people are returned to passiveness, inertness, and unconsciousness; the legislator enters into omnipotence. Now it is for him to initiate, to direct, to propel, and to organize. Mankind has only to submit; the hour of despotism has struck. We now observe this fatal idea: The people who, during the election, were so wise, so moral, and so perfect, now have no tendencies whatever; or if they have any, they are tendencies that lead downward into degradation.
The Socialist Concept of Liberty
But ought not the people be given a little liberty?
But Mr. Considerant has assured us that liberty leads inevitably to monopoly!
We understand that liberty means competition. But according to Mr. Louis Blanc, competition is a system that ruins the businessmen and exterminates the people. It is for this reason that free people are ruined and exterminated in proportion to their degree of freedom. (Possibly Mr. Louis Blanc should observe the results of competition in, for example, Switzerland, Holland, England, and the United States.)
Mr. Louis Blanc also tells us that competition leads to monopoly. And by the same reasoning, he thus informs us that low prices lead to high prices; that competition drives production to destructive activity; that competition drains away the sources of purchasing power; that competition forces an increase in production while, at the same time, it forces a decrease in consumption. From this, it follows that free people produce for the sake of not consuming; that liberty means oppression and madness among the people; and that Mr. Louis Blanc absolutely must attend to it.
Socialists Fear All Liberties
Well, what liberty should the legislators permit people to have? Liberty of conscience? (But if this were permitted, we would see the people taking this opportunity to become atheists.)
Then liberty of education? (But parents would pay professors to teach their children immorality and falsehoods; besides, according to Mr. Thiers, if education were left to national liberty, it would cease to be national, and we would be teaching our children the ideas of the Turks or Hindus; whereas, thanks to this legal despotism over education, our children now have the good fortune to be taught the noble ideas of the Romans.)
Then liberty of labor? (But that would mean competition which, in turn, leaves production unconsumed, ruins businessmen, and exterminates the people.)
Perhaps liberty of trade? (But everyone knows -- and the advocates of protective tariffs have proved over and over again -- that freedom of trade ruins every person who engages in it, and that it is necessary to suppress freedom of trade in order to prosper.)
Possibly then, liberty of association? (But, according to socialist doctrine, true liberty and voluntary association are in contradiction to each other, and the purpose of the socialists is to suppress liberty of association precisely in order to force people to associate together in true liberty.)
Clearly then, the conscience of the social democrats cannot permit persons to have any liberty because they believe that the nature of mankind tends always toward every kind of degradation and disaster. Thus, of course, the legislators must make plans for the people in order to save them from themselves.
This line of reasoning brings us to a challenging question: If people are as incapable, as immoral, and as ignorant as the politicians indicate, then why is the right of these same people to vote defended with such passionate insistence?
The Superman Idea
The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.
They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.
The Socialists Reject Free Choice
Please understand that I do not dispute their right to invent social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law -- by force -- and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes.
I do not insist that the supporters of these various social schools of thought--the Proudhonists, the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the Universitarists, and the Protectionists -- renounce their various ideas. I insist only that they renounce this one idea that they have in common: They need only to give up the idea of forcing us to acquiesce to their groups and series, their socialized projects, their free- credit banks, their Graeco-Roman concept of morality, and their commercial regulations. I ask only that we be permitted to decide upon these plans for ourselves; that we not be forced to accept them, directly or indirectly, if we find them to be contrary to our best interests or repugnant to our consciences.
But these organizers desire access to the tax funds and to the power of the law in order to carry out their plans. In addition to being oppressive and unjust, this desire also implies the fatal supposition that the organizer is infallible and mankind is incompetent. But, again, if persons are incompetent to judge for themselves, then why all this talk about universal suffrage?
The Cause of French Revolutions
This contradiction in ideas is, unfortunately but logically, reflected in events in France. For example, Frenchmen have led all other Europeans in obtaining their rights -- or, more accurately, their political demands. Yet this fact has in no respect prevented us from becoming the most governed, the most regulated, the most imposed upon, the most harnessed, and the most exploited people in Europe. France also leads all other nations as the one where revolutions are constantly to be anticipated. And under the circumstances, it is quite natural that this should be the case.
And this will remain the case so long as our politicians continue to accept this idea that has been so well expressed by Mr. Louis Blanc: "Society receives its momentum from power." This will remain the case so long as human beings with feelings continue to remain passive; so long as they consider themselves incapable of bettering their prosperity and happiness by their own intelligence and their own energy; so long as they expect everything from the law; in short, so long as they imagine that their relationship to the state is the same as that of the sheep to the shepherd.
The Enormous Power of Government
As long as these ideas prevail, it is clear that the responsibility of government is enormous. Good fortune and bad fortune, wealth and destitution, equality and inequality, virtue and vice -- all then depend upon political administration. It is burdened with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore it is responsible for everything.
If we are fortunate, then government has a claim to our gratitude; but if we are unfortunate, then government must bear the blame. For are not our persons and property now at the disposal of government? Is not the law omnipotent?
In creating a monopoly of education, the government must answer to the hopes of the fathers of families who have thus been deprived of their liberty; and if these hopes are shattered, whose fault is it?
In regulating industry, the government has contracted to make it prosper; otherwise it is absurd to deprive industry of its liberty. And if industry now suffers, whose fault is it?
In meddling with the balance of trade by playing with tariffs, the government thereby contracts to make trade prosper; and if this results in destruction instead of prosperity, whose fault is it?
In giving protection instead of liberty to the industries for defense, the government has contracted to make them profitable; and if they become a burden to the taxpayers, whose fault is it?
Thus there is not a grievance in the nation for which the government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it surprising, then, that every failure increases the threat of another revolution in France?
And what remedy is proposed for this? To extend indefinitely the domain of the law; that is, the responsibility of government.
But if the government undertakes to control and to raise wages, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to care for all who may be in want, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to support all unemployed workers, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to lend interest- free money to all borrowers, and cannot do it; if, in these words that we regret to say escaped from the pen of Mr. de Lamartine, "The state considers that its purpose is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the people" -- and if the government cannot do all of these things, what then? Is it not certain that after every government failure -- which, alas! is more than probable -- there will be an equally inevitable revolution?
Politics and Economics
[Now let us return to a subject that was briefly discussed in the opening pages of this thesis: the relationship of economics and of politics -- political economy.*]
*Translator's note: Mr. Bastiat has devoted three other books and several articles to the development of the ideas contained in the three sentences of the following paragraph.
A science of economics must be developed before a science of politics can be logically formulated. Essentially, economics is the science of determining whether the interests of human beings are harmonious or antagonistic. This must be known before a science of politics can be formulated to determine the proper functions of government.
Immediately following the development of a science of economics, and at the very beginning of the formulation of a science of politics, this all-important question must be answered: What is law? What ought it to be? What is its scope; its limits? Logically, at what point do the just powers of the legislator stop?
I do not hesitate to answer: Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle to injustice. In short, law is justice.
Proper Legislative Functions
It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function is only to guarantee their safety.
It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function of law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these same rights by any other person.
Since law necessarily requires the support of force, its lawful domain is only in the areas where the use of force is necessary. This is justice.
Every individual has the right to use force for lawful self- defense. It is for this reason that the collective force -- which is only the organized combination of the individual forces -- may lawfully be used for the same purpose; and it cannot be used legitimately for any other purpose.
Law is solely the organization of the individual right of self-defense which existed before law was formalized. Law is justice.
Law and Charity Are Not the Same
The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect persons and property.
Furthermore, it must not be said that the law may be philanthropic if, in the process, it refrains from oppressing persons and plundering them of their property; this would be a contradiction. The law cannot avoid having an effect upon persons and property; and if the law acts in any manner except to protect them, its actions then necessarily violate the liberty of persons and their right to own property.
The law is justice -- simple and clear, precise and bounded. Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp it; for justice is measurable, immutable, and unchangeable. Justice is neither more than this nor less than this.
If you exceed this proper limit -- if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic -- you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlike justice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself?
The High Road to Communism
Mr. de Saint-Cricq would extend his philanthropy only to some of the industrial groups; he would demand that the law control the consumers to benefit the producers.
Mr. Considerant would sponsor the cause of the labor groups; he would use the law to secure for them a guaranteed minimum of clothing, housing, food, and all other necessities of life.
Mr. Louis Blanc would say -- and with reason -- that these minimum guarantees are merely the beginning of complete fraternity; he would say that the law should give tools of production and free education to all working people.
Another person would observe that this arrangement would still leave room for inequality; he would claim that the law should give to everyone -- even in the most inaccessible hamlet--luxury, literature, and art.
All of these proposals are the high road to communism; legislation will then be -- in fact, it already is -- the battlefield for the fantasies and greed of everyone.
The Basis for Stable Government
Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how even the thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising could arise against a government whose organized force was confined only to suppressing injustice.
Under such a regime, there would be the most prosperity -- and it would be the most equally distributed. As for the sufferings that are inseparable from humanity, no one would even think of accusing the government for them. This is true because, if the force of government were limited to suppressing injustice, then government would be as innocent of these sufferings as it is now innocent of changes in the temperature.
As proof of this statement, consider this question: Have the people ever been known to rise against the Court of Appeals, or mob a Justice of the Peace, in order to get higher wages, free credit, tools of production, favorable tariffs, or government-created jobs? Everyone knows perfectly well that such matters are not within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals or a Justice of the Peace. And if government were limited to its proper functions, everyone would soon learn that these matters are not within the jurisdiction of the law itself.
But make the laws upon the principle of fraternity -- proclaim that all good, and all bad, stem from the law; that the law is responsible for all individual misfortunes and all social inequalities -- then the door is open to an endless succession of complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions.
Justice Means Equal Rights
Law is justice. And it would indeed be strange if law could properly be anything else! Is not justice right? Are not rights equal? By what right does the law force me to conform to the social plans of Mr. Mimerel, Mr. de Melun, Mr. Thiers, or Mr. Louis Blanc? If the law has a moral right to do this, why does it not, then, force these gentlemen to submit to my plans? Is it logical to suppose that nature has not given me sufficient imagination to dream up a utopia also? Should the law choose one fantasy among many, and put the organized force of government at its service only?
Law is justice. And let it not be said -- as it continually is said -- that under this concept, the law would be atheistic, individualistic, and heartless; that it would make mankind in its own image. This is an absurd conclusion, worthy only of those worshippers of government who believe that the law is mankind.
Nonsense! Do those worshippers of government believe that free persons will cease to act? Does it follow that if we receive no energy from the law, we shall receive no energy at all? Does it follow that if the law is restricted to the function of protecting the free use of our faculties, we will be unable to use our faculties? Suppose that the law does not force us to follow certain forms of religion, or systems of association, or methods of education, or regulations of labor, or regulations of trade, or plans for charity; does it then follow that we shall eagerly plunge into atheism, hermitary, ignorance, misery, and greed? If we are free, does it follow that we shall no longer recognize the power and goodness of God? Does it follow that we shall then cease to associate with each other, to help each other, to love and succor our unfortunate brothers, to study the secrets of nature, and to strive to improve ourselves to the best of our abilities?
The Path to Dignity and Progress
Law is justice. And it is under the law of justice -- under the reign of right; under the influence of liberty, safety, stability, and responsibility -- that every person will attain his real worth and the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law of justice that mankind will achieve -- slowly, no doubt, but certainly -- God's design for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity.
It seems to me that this is theoretically right, for whatever the question under discussion -- whether religious, philosophical, political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population, finance, or government -- at whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty.
Proof of an Idea
And does not experience prove this? Look at the entire world. Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the law least interferes with private affairs; where government is least felt; where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal, and popular discontent the least excited and the least justifiable; where individuals and groups most actively assume their responsibilities, and, consequently, where the morals of admittedly imperfect human beings are constantly improving; where trade, assemblies, and associations are the least restricted; where labor, capital, and populations suffer the fewest forced displacements; where mankind most nearly follows its own natural inclinations; where the inventions of men are most nearly in harmony with the laws of God; in short, the happiest, most moral, and most peaceful people are those who most nearly follow this principle: Although mankind is not perfect, still, all hope rests upon the free and voluntary actions of persons within the limits of right; law or force is to be used for nothing except the administration of universal justice.
The Desire to Rule over Others
This must be said: There are too many "great" men in the world -- legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
Now someone will say: "You yourself are doing this very thing."
True. But it must be admitted that I act in an entirely different sense; if I have joined the ranks of the reformers, it is solely for the purpose of persuading them to leave people alone. I do not look upon people as Vancauson looked upon his automaton. Rather, just as the physiologist accepts the human body as it is, so do I accept people as they are. I desire only to study and admire.
My attitude toward all other persons is well illustrated by this story from a celebrated traveler: He arrived one day in the midst of a tribe of savages, where a child had just been born. A crowd of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks - - armed with rings, hooks, and cords -- surrounded it. One said: "This child will never smell the perfume of a peace- pipe unless I stretch his nostrils." Another said: "He will never be able to hear unless I draw his ear-lobes down to his shoulders." A third said: "He will never see the sunshine unless I slant his eyes." Another said: "He will never stand upright unless I bend his legs." A fifth said: "He will never learn to think unless I flatten his skull."
"Stop," cried the traveler. "What God does is well done. Do not claim to know more than He. God has given organs to this frail creature; let them develop and grow strong by exercise, use, experience, and liberty."
Let Us Now Try Liberty
God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well as a human form. And these social organs of persons are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!
And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 323351
11/8/2007 5:49 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
www.samsloan.com
Paula Jones Gets 850,000 Settle from President Clinton.
President Bill Clinton ... The DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: CLINTON’S DEALINGS WITH WOMEN, UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
SUBSECTION: ALL Revised 1/8/01
www.alamo-girl.com
NewsMax 12/29/00 Carl Limbacher "..... Princess Diana
Before her death, Princess Diana claimed privately that a "very flirtatious" Bill Clinton made a pass at her during one of several meetings; and that she considered accepting -- according to close friends who recently shared Diana's confidences with noted royal author Judy Wade. Wade conducted "scores" of interviews with confidantes to the late Princess of Wales for her soon-to-be released biography, "Diana: The Truth," which is excerpted in next week's National Enquirer. After one Clinton encounter Diana reportedly said, "We were a little naughty with each other," according to one confidante who talked to the tabloid directly. ......"
Clinton Misogyny - Sex
Juanita Broaddrick (AR)- rape
Eileen Wellstone (Oxford) - rape
Elizabeth Ward Gracen - rape - quid pro quo, post incident intimidation
Regina Hopper Blakely - "forced himself on her, biting, bruising her"
Kathleen Willey (WH) - sexual assault, intimidations, threats
Sandra Allen James (DC) - sexual assault
22 Year Old 1972 (Yale) - sexual assault
Kathy Bradshaw (AK) - sexual assault
Cristy Zercher - unwelcomed sexual advance, intimidations
Paula Jones (AR) - unwelcomed sexual advance, exposure, bordering on sexual assault
Carolyn Moffet -unwelcomed sexual advance, exposure, bordering on sexual assault
1974 student at University of Arkansas - unwelcomed physical contact
1978-1980 - seven complaints per Arkansas state troopers
Monica Lewinsky - quid pro quo, post incident character assault
Gennifer Flowers - quid pro quo, post incident character assault
Dolly Kyle Browning - post incident character assault
Sally Perdue - post incident threats
Betty Dalton - rebuffed his advances, married to one of his supporters
Denise Reeder - apologetic note scanned
Clinton Misogyny - Other
Linda Tripp - coerce, intimidate, deny - Bob Bennett calls her a liar, release her job application, transfer her.
Julia Hiatt-Steele - Willey's friend and neighbor - used the machine to change her story.
Hillary Rodham Clinton - used as a cover humiliated
Chelsea Clinton - ignored
Betty Currie - used as cover and enabler
Donna Shalala - used as cover, used as whipping post in Cabinet meeting
Madeline Albright - used as cover
Secret Service - female agent complaints
Kathy Ferguson – unwelcome advances
Clinton as a Ladies' Man?
Marsha Scott - claimed an affair
Connie Hamzy - claimed sex
Bobbie Ann Williams - claimed paid sex, paternity
Following are names of ladies rumored to have had sexual relations with Bill Clinton. We of course do not have information to support these rumors and do not intend the reader to think that we believe any of them to be true. Some could be true, some could be false and some could be intentionally spread rumors so absurd as to make the ones listed above and all other rumors look absurd as well. As always, please draw your own conclusions:
Clinton as a Ladies' Man - Rumors
Marilyn Jo Jenkins - rumored
Susan Coleman - rumored (suicide 7.5 months pregnant)
Robyn Dickey -rumored, staffer
Lenora Steinkamp - rumored - mystery jogger on video tape entering the "infamous hallway" with Clinton
Kimba Wood - rumored, judge
Kelley Craighead - rumored, staffer to Bill and Hillary
Sharline Wilson - rumored, claimed drug association
Dee Dee Myers - rumored, staffer
Suzie Whitacre - rumored
Catherine Cornelius - rumored, "distant cousin".
Cheryl Mills - rumored, WH attorney
Current Secret Paramour (per Tripp/King interview) - rumored
Clinton as a Ladies' Man - Rumors with quid pro quo?
Beth Gladden Coulson - rumored - young judicial appointment
Eleanor Mondale - rumored - celebrity daughter, dated Ron Perelman (see Jordan)
Shelia Lawrence - rumored - Widow of Ambassador
Deborah Mathis - rumored - reporter/WH advancements
Debra Schiff - rumored - ex flight attendant, now staffer
Susan McDougal - rumored - business connections
Benazir Bhutto - rumored - current opposition leader in, and former prime minister of Pakistan
Clinton as a wanna be Ladies' Man or intended disinformation? - Rumors High Profile
Barbara Streisand - rumored - celebrity
Markie Post - rumored - actress
Sharon Stone - rumored - actress
Lencola Sullivan - rumored - beauty queen
Martha Stewart - rumored - celebrity
Diana Wiley Pietsch - rumored - sex therapist - Oxford.
Princess Di - rumored - royalty, deceased
Madonna - rumored - celebrity
General Sources:
Capitol Hill Blue 2/22/99 Daniel J. Harris & Teresa Hampton
The Clinton Girls
Do you have names for a new DSL list on Clinton ladies?
New DSL List on Clinton's Ladies
Updated DSL List on Clinton's Ladies - For your review |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 331258
11/25/2007 5:45 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
Actually, it was made this way in 1913...the illegitmate birth year of the Federal Reserve and the IRS (official strong arm of the Fed since 1913).
Thanks President Wilson...you sorry excuse for a President who put set out the gravy train for the lobbying industry.
Quoting: Anonymous Coward 330648
"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." -Woodrow Wilson, who signed the Federal Reserve into existence |
| THE DOOM
User ID: 324260
11/25/2007 6:04 AM
 | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
so doomed
We cannot choose what we are..
Yet what are we but the sum total of our choices?
....and they always lead to DOOM!! |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 333508
11/30/2007 2:18 PM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
IS THE C.I.A. AMERICA'S FRIEND?
By Lynn Stuter
November 27, 2007
NewsWithViews.com
A nationwide news agency, supposedly of the conservative persuasion, recently sent out an e-gram containing items for sale loosely commemorating patriotism and the “holiday season.” Tucked amidst the offerings of DVD’s of John Wayne’s tribute to America and Cecil B DeMille’s epic classic, The Ten Commandments, with Yul Brynner and Charlton Heston, was an ad for a CIA cap, stating,
“The Central Intelligence Agency — the CIA — is known as one of the world’s most secretive and effective government agencies. You can stand with the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency — an important force in the war against terror — by proudly wearing the CIA cap.”
First of all, the so-called War on Terror isn’t a war on terror at all, it’s a war on the Constitution and Bill of Rights; a war on the rights of the American people. The War on Terror is like the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty; in each case the targeted problem got worse instead of better: the War on Drugs brought more drugs into the United States; the War on Poverty increased poverty. In each case, however, federal bureaucracies were spawned that managed to gobble up more and more tax dollars, gain more and more power, while whining that more money would surely cure the problem. Just like more money won’t cure the woes of a failing federal education bureaucracy, more money will not cure any problem in which the government has taken a role. More money to the federal government simply means more bureaucracy, a concept understood by our Founding Fathers but lost on the American people today who continue to hold out hope that things will get better if they just give more money, when consistently the opposite has been proven the case. One would think that after a while the American people would catch on that paying more money into a black hole nets the American people nothing but more grief. While holding out hope, the American people seem addicted to the self-destructive concept that more money will cure ills.
Now we have the War on Terror which has already cost the American taxpayers an estimated $610.5 billon ($610,500,000,000); established a huge federal bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security [1]; and further infringed on the rights of the American people through
* suspension of habeas corpus prohibiting the arrest and incarceration of people without due process—charges being specified, reasonable bail, opportunity to defend, and presumption of innocence;
* posse Comitatus prohibiting the use of the American military against the American people on American soil;
* revoking of the Fourth Amendment prohibiting illegal search and seizure; illegal data mining of bank records, e-mails and phone calls;
* defining dissidents as domestic terrorists (a sure sign of tyranny); HR 1995—the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007;
* requiring Americans to have National ID’s (your papers to be presented on demand whenever and wherever demanded); and
* giving to the executive branch of the U.S. government those tools sought to impose martial law at the whim of the president.
All in the name of fighting a nebulous, loosely-defined group of unknowns with no apparent faces, features or characteristics, called “terrorists.” Not even Osama bin Laden who, immediately following September 11, 2001, was at the top of the list of “wanted”; but who, after Bush got his invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, was suddenly no longer important and no longer hunted. The conundrums only get worse.
For all this, has terrorism decreased? No, it hasn’t. And no, it won’t. But the threat of people blowing up, cars blowing up, planes blowing up, buildings mysteriously imploding into their footprints, bridges collapsing, shopping malls, coliseums and sports arenas being blown up, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, is continually being dangled as a possibility before the American people, complete with graphic pictures of the same occurring elsewhere, to extort more money and more rights from them.[2] And the American people are buying it, hook, line, and sinker.
At the same time, we have not seen one meaningful measure taken to staunch the flow of illegal aliens crossing the borders, north and south, of the United States. Included in that flow — to the tune of 12 to 20,000,000 illegal aliens — are terrorists, rapists, murderers, sodomites, drug dealers, human traffickers, drunks, dope addicts, and many other of the criminal element beyond the fact that every illegal alien becomes a criminal the moment he/she sets foot in this country without the required permission and documents to do so. On average, at least 25 Americans are killed each day by illegal aliens on American soil. Materials needed to build IEDs have shown up in Texas; prayer rugs and terrorist clothing have shown up in the deserts of the Southwest known to be routes of ingress for illegal aliens.
Yet we have the Bush Administration bragging that the War on Terror has been so successful that we’ve not been attacked since September 11, 2001. Of course, who was truly responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, has never been proven. What we have is an official government story that is so full of holes, so riddled with cover-ups, inconsistencies, improbabilities and impossibilities, denials of access, refusals to disclose, and secrecy that only a fool would believe the Bush Administration and government didn’t have something to hide. And the staged 9/11 Commission and its resulting report only makes the government cover-up more apparent.
Then, too, we have media hacks like Glenn Beck contending that those seeking the truth about the events of September 11, 2001, are “idiots” who think the United States government “capable” of pulling off the events of September 11, 2001 without it ending up “front page of the New York Times.” If Beck truly believes this about the government, just how could he possibly imagine the same was not true if this was the foreign born plot of terrorists who delight in taking immediate responsibility for their actions, the limp and unsubstantiated supposed claim of al Qaeda long after the fact (October 2004) notwithstanding?
But all of this could lead one to another conclusion: the reason there have been no further attacks on America is that the attacks that have occurred have occurred to bring about the wanted solution — to bring the American people, who would not support a War on Terror otherwise, to support the Bush Administration’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Time and again, the Hegelian Dialectic has been used to move the American people to accept something they would not otherwise accept. Who can forget the Project for a New American Century document, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century in which the need for a “new Pearl Harbor” is advocated? Who can forget the laundry list of Bush Administration officials whose names are indelibly connected to that document: Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Paula Dobriansky, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Peter W Rodman, Henry S. Rowan, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, and Paul Wolfowitz? Did these people have motive? Did they have means? Did they have opportunity?
Following this train of thought, further terrorist attacks would only become necessary if the American people needed further encouragement to jump on, or stay on, the imperial expansionist band wagon. Consider that when Bush got his troop surge in Iraq, the terrorist threat suddenly disappeared; and apparently, so did Chertoff’s gut feelings prominently aired and promoted leading up to that troop surge. How many times does this scenario have to be repeated before the American people catch on?
The ad above describes the CIA as “one of the world’s most secretive and effective government agencies.” While the name, Central Intelligence Agency, implies this agency is about the gathering and analyzing of intelligence, that is an assumption in large part. Why is the CIA secretive? While most would be quick to respond “for reasons of national security,” do the following fall in the realm of national security?
* Bringing Nazi war criminals into the United States (Operation Paperclip).
* Infiltrating the mainstream media, funding mainstream media, and establishing mainstream media outlets for purposes of propaganda (Operation Mockingbird).
* Funding and running mind control programs — using American men, women and children in mind control experiments no less heinous than those performed by Nazis on concentration camp prisoners (MK-Ultra, MK-Naomi, MK-Delta, MK-Action, Artichoke, Bluebird, Pandora, and others).
* Engaging in child prostitution, pornography and pedophilia, within the United States and abroad (Finders, MK/Ultra, Franklin Cover-up, Washington call-boy scandal, and others).
* Funding the Esalen Institute of California — sending people from that institute to be instructed by Nazi fugitives living in Chile, the theories of behavior modification emanating from Esalen then being taught to teachers in colleges and universities across the United States to be used on children in classrooms.[3]
* Funding CIA covert operations by importing and selling vast quantities of drugs on the streets of the United States of America (Iran-Contra for example).
There is no question that the CIA has been effective. The question is, effective at what? At furthering freedom, liberty and justice as the American people have been led to believe? Or has the CIA been effective in destroying America as it has destroyed other nations in the name of “national security”? Was the CIA behind the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy? Evidence now coming to light suggests more than a scant probability that such is the case [4]; especially in light of the flawed Warren Commission report.
Attempts to view the budget of the CIA, to surveil the scope of operations of the CIA, have been continually thwarted and denied. The budget of the CIA exists in a black hole of secrecy that even Congressman have no access to. The CIA is accountable to no one; their operations cloaked under the guise of “national security” and kept away from the eyes of the American people and Congress until declassified years later, if then.
It is beyond comprehension that the majority of the American people would support the work of the CIA, knowing what they have been and are involved in that is so detrimental to the best interests of the people of the United States, so depraved in purpose and construct. It is beyond comprehension that the American people could believe that the work of a rogue agency is not being used on the American people as it has been used on the people of other nations. CIA involvement in the Franklin cover-up and Washington call-boy scandal is but one instance of this rogue agencies actions.
It is long past time the light of exposure and truth be shined upon the CIA, the depth and extent of its operations laid bare for the American people to see. When an agency must exist within a total vacuum of secrecy, such is not in the best interests, ever, of the people it purports to serve. What is coming to light now, after years of CIA operations in the United States and abroad, proves that.
Wear a CIA cap proudly proclaiming support for the CIA? Not in a million years!
Footnotes:
1, It is of interest, and should be of interest to the American people, that under Hitler, Germany was constantly and continuously referred to as “the homeland” just as Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff refers to the United States as “the homeland” every time he opens his mouth.
2, And lest some one think an attempt is being made to denigrate the lives lost in such fashion, such is definitely not true. What is true is that the perpetrators are not necessarily those appearing, with repetition, on television screens nation-wide.
3, Early leaders at Esalen Institute include B.F. Skinner, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers, all involved in humanist psychology; their behavior modification theories and techniques incorporated in teacher curriculums taught in colleges and universities across the United States. B.F. Skinner is best known for his operant conditioning techniques of how to train a child, not educate a child. Abraham Maslow is considered the founder of Third Force Psychology. Carl Rogers is considered the father of the “human potential movement” (HPM), the concepts of which are taught in teacher curriculums in colleges and universities nation-wide and touted by New Age guru’s like Jack Canfield who, in his self esteem curriculum for schools, 101 Ways to Develop Student Self-Esteem and Responsibility, Vol I, supports teachers putting children in “altered states of consciousness” — a hypnotic state used in mind control in which the mind becomes highly susceptible to suggestion. (For more on this click here; in the left lower column, click on “New Age Religious Practices in the Classroom,”)
4, E Howard Hunt, in a death-bed confession to his son, stated the CIA was behind, was involved in the assassination. Other evidence coming to light supports this confession.
Outside Sources:
1, Constantine, Alex; Virtual Government; CIA Mind Control Operations in America; Feral House; Los Angeles, CA; 1997.
2, Kwitny, Jonathan; The Crimes of Patriots; A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA; W W Norton & Company, Inc; New York, NY; 1987.
3, Roberts, Craig; The Medusa File; Consolidated Press International; Tulsa, OK; 1997.
4, Trento, Joseph J.; The Secret History of the CIA; Carroll and Graf Publishers; New York, NY; 2001.
© 2007 Lynn M. Stuter - All Rights Reserved |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 333142
11/30/2007 6:32 PM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
WTF STOP IT NOBODY WILL READ ALL THIS SHIT !!! |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 333142
11/30/2007 6:33 PM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
you must be so sick lol |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 334055
12/1/2007 10:03 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
Essense of Economics
So, why can't computers be precisely and unfailingly programmed for economic predictions? Here's my thoughts on that subject.
Just as the basic, fundamental unit of the computer you're using right now is a BIT, which is either zero or one, off or on; so is a PROMISE the basic, fundamental unit of economics. There is either a promise to be fulfilled, or there isn't one. And there lies the reason why ALL computerized economic models eventually fail!
How can you possibly program a computer to predict WHO will, and WHO will not, keep their promises? And the WHO we're discussing are global businesses and governments.
It makes me upset that something so simple, as this essence of economics, could not have been taught in grade school. Remember your mom saying, "Keep your promises!" and "Don't make promises you can't keep!" Bet you didn't know your mom was an economic expert. I sure didn't. But I suspect there is a sinister reason schools and universities avoid validating this concept.
Ever think about what paper money, notes, stocks, bonds, savings accounts and checking accounts, really are? They're just, fundamentally, promises! And what happens to you if the maker of those promises don't keep their word? More than likely, you won't be able to keep all your promises to others. And so goes the economy. As long as most folks keep their promises, things are good. When promises start being broken, the downward spiral begins. For simplicity, folks call them "boom" and "depression", "economic cycles", and so on.
And that's one of my reasons for publishing this book on the Internet. Your promises, and mine, are intertwined with millions of others; through businesses, through banks, and eventually through the State. Historically speaking, the average person keeps their promises over 99% of the time. And they're usually very careful not to make promises they knowingly can't keep.
Businesses must keep most of their promises, or they go out of business. Why do you think it's called "business failure?" They simply "failed" to keep their promises. Harry Scherman, back in 1938, published a book titled "The Promises Men Live By." This is an excellent book for understanding economics by understanding how our modern survival depends on promises being kept.
Banks are a business; they rent money, and thus fall into the above business category. But considering the volume of promises they enter into and complete every working day, they're almost as solid as individuals. But when more individuals start finding that they cannot keep their promises, the banks will certainly be immediately affected.
Governments are not businesses, due to the fact that when they make promises they can't keep and start to fail, they print more money. We know this as "inflation." They claim to keep their promises, but those who really understand, know they are only paying the "amount" of the promise, not the "buying power" at the time the promise was made. That's why so many people get hurt when governments get into trouble. Overall, historically speaking, governments do not have such a good record as individuals. This is unfortunate for all of us.
In spite of all this, I am NOT anti-government. I just don't want governments to be out of control. Perhaps we should think of governments to be like fire!
We all have fire in our homes. Under OUR control, it heats water, heats the house, and cooks our food. This makes us comfortable. But when fire gets out of control, it consumes the entire home, and everything is lost, sometimes our lives. Fire does NOT control itself.
So goes government. A reasonable amount of it makes everyone fairly comfortable. But it also does NOT control itself. And when it gets out of control, it will consume the nation. And we lose everything, including our lives.
So we've got to try keeping our governments under control.
I hope putting this book on the Internet helps to accomplish this by making it painfully aware to everyone how close the warnings, or prophesies of the Book of Revelations [I'm not a bible-thumper; just an example!] are to being fulfilled, should we NOT do anything about it.
God provides for the birds,
but He does not throw
the worms into the nest.
To those who say we have no control, "Just let God take care of it," is falling for for oldest trick in every government's book. Which says,
"Relax.
Give us all that we ask, and we'll take good care of you.
We promise!"
[link to www.greatreddragon.com]
© 2006 by Edward Ulysses Cate |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 334055
12/1/2007 10:11 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
About This Book
This book was published in 1889! It's author was L. B. Woolfolk, and it was published by George E. Stevens, 39 West Fourth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. I have not been successful in finding any information about the author, or the publisher. Should anyone have more information about this author, or the publisher, please email me, and I will post such information as I'm able to verify.
I DO NOT AGREE with everything published in this book, especially Woolfolk's anti-Jewish stance. As stated in About This Site, I think 99% of any group, the Jewish community included, are much like the rest of us, and it's up to all of us to search out and control the "psychopaths", the one-percents in our very own group that are selling us out.
And those of Jewish faith have an even greater incentive than the rest of us to do just that. If, as Woolfolk's book claims, that the Money Kings are Jewish, or at least pretend to be, then the Jewish community should expose them.
It even says in Revelations 3-9: I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars . . .
There is also a statement, right up front, in the book "The Sixth Great Power, The House of Barings" by Philip Ziegler, that "The Barings were not Jews." This is the first sentence, of the first chapter, of the book!
We now know that if the Money Kings are, or pretend to be, Jewish, then they financed the death of six million of their own faith in World War II, and even more will suffer once again if the Money Kings are not exposed this time. Ironically, the year Woolfolk's book was copyrighted [1889] just happens to be the same year Adolf Hitler was born. To me, a very chilling thought.
How This Site Came About
Back in the early 70's, having access to mini-computer capabilities made me consider selfish possibilities in economic forecasting. I had access, and millions of others didn't. However, as you well know, computers only perform as good as they are programmed. So off I went, naively, in an attempt to fully understand economics. So I could develop unique economic programs and generate private wealth!
Wherever I traveled, which was a lot back in the '70's and '80's, I spent some of my spare time searching for old business and economic books. Why? Because I could use history to determine which principles were worth paying attention to and which ones to ignore. With new books and ideas, there's no such proof. Due to this continual search for information, there is now a fairly large private economic library in my home.
After almost twenty years, when I finally realized the essense of economics, and therefore of business, it became obvious that computers CAN'T be "precisely" programmed for economic predictions, although others still try.
Click here for Essense of Economics! I'll gladly share it with you.
If I had found this book early on in my research, I would have discarded it as a fool's ranting. Without serious economic study, I suspect that most of you will, too. And that's okay, but I sincerely hope it doesn't take you as long as it did me to understand the importance, and sincerity, of this book and its author. So I consider myself fortunate to have come across this book when I did. By re-publishing this book on this web site, free of charge and in its original form, warts and all, I hope to share with you the same eye-opening experience I had when I found this book.
It just so happened that I found this book in a large Detroit, Michigan used-book store, around the time of the signing of the Maastricht Treaty [1992]. It sends a cold chill through my body every time I read it, especially since it was published in 1889! Which was not long before the first World War. Don't we ever learn? Or is because this kinds of information is deliberately hidden?
And that is why I think this book ties the past 500 years of our world's military/economic activities with the prophesies of the Bible's Book of Revelations. I respect the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, and other religious books as sources of wisdom, but I don't think any one of them have all the answers, nor do any of those books endorse lying to, stealing from, or murdering any human being.
Suppose you lived during biblical times, and you had the foresight, if not the experience, of seeing governments, time and again, breaking their promises. And, at the same time, continuing to make bigger promises to unsuspecting masses.
Harry Scherman, back in 1938, published a book titled "The Promises Men Live By." Written only a few years after the Depression, he surely understood the severity of broken promises.
And what if you foresaw the implications of a future when the possibility of a single world government could be realized, utilizing all means at its disposal, to forcibly become the center of all economic activity. How would you convey such a catastrophic idea, or "vision" to your children, your grand-children, and the generations to come, so that such an evil situation could be AVOIDED!
I, being of no particular faith other than believing in a higher power, of whatever name you wish to use, suspect that this is what perhaps the Book of Revelations is really all about. All books of wisdom have something to say. It's only when they are abused by "psychopaths with attache cases" does harm come our way.
And should my statements not be correct, then certainly no harm will have come to you, and you're now able to view our economic world through a different lens. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 335443
12/4/2007 11:03 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
Rockefeller and the New World Religion
Old-thinker news | Dec. 2, 2007
By Daniel Taylor
"Internationalism must first be a state of mind, an ideal, a chivalry, a religion, before it can be a reality and a system." -- Samuel Zane Batten, The New World Order, 1919
The Rockefeller family, while they are by no means the only major players in world affairs, have contributed large amounts of resources to the creation of a world government. Utilizing vast monetary resources which were initially amassed by the oil empire of John D. Rockefeller Sr., their efforts have gone into nearly every area of significance. From politics, media, to education, the Rockefellers are a force to be reckoned with. [1] One vitally important and often overlooked method of influence that the Rockefellers have enjoyed is in the realm of the church and religion.
It comes as little surprise, given their long term goal of world government, that the Rockefeller family would approve of and support a societal outlook favorable to globalism. The use of religion is one method that, in Rockefeller's eyes, looked to be a promising means of accomplishing this goal. Early programs such as the Interchurch World Movement focused on the maintenance of harmonious relations between people in America's growing industrial society. Later endeavors such as the World Council of Churches would trend towards being global in nature with goals moving beyond that of simply maintaining class stability in America to elimination of national sovereignty and world governance. While some methods have been changed over time, and names of organizations have been altered, the overarching agenda of Rockefeller has remained the same.
As the documents will show, multiple attempts have been made to urge the Christian churches to get behind programs for world governance. If the attempts were not spearheaded by Rockefellers themselves, significant financial support was provided to organizations sharing their vision for the world. A discernable pattern emerges, with the ability to look back at history, that escalating world crises have served as convenient launching points for incrementally larger pieces of the world government agenda. If this pattern continues - and there is little doubt that it will - we will inevitably see greater pieces locked into place after future crises.
On May 31, 2007, speaking in Istanbul Turkey at a conference organized by Akbank [2], Henry Kissinger alluded to this pattern of crises, stating that,
"...The outcome in Iraq will depend on something that a German philosopher, Immanuel Kant said... someday there will be universal peace. The only question is whether it comes about through human insight, or whether it comes about... through a series of catastrophes of such a magnitude that people are so exhausted that they have no other choice." [3]
Utopian ideals of a world civilization and a world government have always existed. No matter how well meaning and egalitarian they may sound, history has shown us that centralized systems almost always lead to corruption and abuse of power. Given the actions of the Rockefeller family in providing support to the Bolshevik revolution, [4] their instrumental role in the spread of eugenics policies to Nazi Germany, [5] and David Rockefeller's proud exclamation, "Some.. believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others... to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it," [6] it would seem that the solution of world government is rising out of crises that the proponents of such a system are fostering.
It should be reiterated that while the Rockefeller family has been involved with promoting the ideas of world government and actively pursuing its formation, the idea did not originate with them. Utopians throughout history have promoted ideas of a world civilization and a world government, often with humanitarian aims. For example, as documented by Frederick Charles Hicks in his 1920 book "The New World Order", Royal Society member John Bellers presented in the year 1710,
"...an elaborate proposal to Parliament for a confederation of states to do away with war. It contained also a proposal for a convocation of all religions." [7]
The Interchurch World Movement (1919 - 1920)
In the aftermath of the bloody conflict of World War I, the League of Nations was presented as a solution to the horrendous problems that the world had witnessed. During the same time period that the League of Nations was formed, John D. Rockefeller Jr. launched the Interchurch World Movement (IWM) in 1919. [1] The Interchurch World Movement was the first attempt by Rockefeller to consolidate the churches into a corporate like structure which would exercise control over their activities. The "stability of government", and the promotion of "harmonious relations" between people in an industrial society that the Rockefeller family was already dominating was a driving force behind the IWM.
Charles E. Harvey, professor of history at California State University, wrote a history of the Interchurch World Movement in a 1982 paper titled "John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Interchurch World Movement of 1919-1920: A Different Angle on the Ecumenical Movement". Harvey traces the roots of the "social gospel" and the resulting battle between fundamental Christians and liberalism back to Rockefeller's Interchurch World Movement. Upon investigating the IWM, Harvey found that the historical information that most historians and researchers were using to research the IWM had been directly prepared by the lawyer of John D. Rockefeller Jr., a man named Raymond B. Fosdick. The doctored information, writes Harvey, was "...compiled precisely to conceal the real role Rockefeller played in the organization."
Harvey documents the request on part of John D. Rockefeller Jr. to his father for millions of dollars to consolidate the churches,
"He wired his father a request for 50 to 100 million dollars to create a foundation that would use the IWM to administratively consolidate the denominations along the lines of big business. The foundation would bind ministers of participating churches in a common pension fund and unite the denominations' foreign and domestic activities."
Rockefeller Jr. wrote in a letter regarding the IWM, that the organization could potentially have a larger influence than the League of Nations,
"I do not think we can overestimate the importance of this Movement. As I see it, it is capable of having a much more far-reaching influence than the League of Nations in bringing about peace, contentment, goodwill and prosperity among the people of the earth."
Harvey presents another letter written by Rockefeller in which he describes the IWM as a smart business investment. Rockefeller writes,
"I know of no better insurance for a businessman for the safety of his investments, the prosperity of the country and the future stability of our government than this movement affords..."
The Interchurch World Movement lasted for a very short time, but it succeeded in planting the seeds of an ideological conflict that has lasted to the present day. By no means did the Rockefellers give up their quest. The centralized structure of churches that the IWM first developed would be put to use in the future under other organizations with Rockefeller financial support.
World patriotism and the federation of the world
As the Interchurch World Movement was gaining momentum, Samuel Zane Batten wrote a book titled "The New World Order", published in 1919 by the American Baptist Publication Society. In this book, Batten paints a picture of a world entering a new phase in which a "new order" is rising out of the turmoil of World War. Batten proposed that a "world federation" be created which would be supported by an "international mind" and justified by a faith of "world patriotism."
"World patriotism must be a faith... There is no more justice for the claim of absolute sovereignty on the part of a nation than on the part of an individual... The only alternative is World Federation... with a world parliament... an international court... an international police force... Men must have an international mind before there can be a world federation. They must see and affirm that above the nation is humanity. Internationalism must first be a state of mind, an ideal, a chivalry, a religion, before it can be a reality and a system." [1] [emphasis added]
The work of Batten is significant in that the ideas he proposed would be pursued aggressively by Rockefeller and other like minded organizations in the years after the publication of The New World Order.
The belief in a world federation was also held by Harry Emerson Fosdick, the brother of John D. Rockefeller's lawyer Raymond B. Fosdick, who, as noted previously, was deeply involved with the Interchurch World Movement. Harry was very close to the Rockefeller family and its inner workings, as he served on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation during World War II. [2] The Riverside church in New York, where Fosdick served as pastor from 1926-1946, was built with money given by John D. Rockefeller Jr. Interestingly, Fosdick held a belief that in the future a federation of the world would be created. Fosdick writes,
"Some day, I predict, a man will rise by whose hands a federation of the world will be so effected, and wars so stopped thereby, that his name will go down across the centuries associated with that great achievement, as Copernicus' name is with the new astronomy, or Lincoln's with the preservation of our union. That man will come. Some day he will arise." [3]
The Federal Council of Churches
Just as the Interchurch World Movement was presented to the churches as a solution to problems facing the globe after the first world war, the Federal Council of Churches (FCC) presented its own solution in the early 1940's for a program "for a just and durable peace" upon the end of World War II. Not surprisingly, the Federal Council of Churches - which was merged with the National Council of Churches in 1950 - received significant funding from John D. Rockefeller Jr. [1] Using a similar corporate structure of churches that the Interchurch World Movement first pioneered, the program developed several agendas for churches to adopt, with world government named as the ultimate goal. As reported by Time in 1942,
"These are the high spots of organized U.S. Protestantism's super-protestant new program for a just and durable peace after World War II:
>Ultimately, "a world government of delegated powers."
>Complete abandonment of U.S. isolationism.
>Strong immediate limitations on national sovereignty.
>International control of all armies & navies.
> "A universal system of money ... so planned as to prevent inflation and deflation."
> Worldwide freedom of immigration.
> Progressive elimination of all tariff and quota restrictions on world trade.
> "Autonomy for all subject and colonial peoples" (with much better treatment for Negroes in the U.S.).
> "No punitive reparations, no humiliating decrees of war guilt, no arbitrary dismemberment of nations."
> A "democratically controlled" international bank "to make development capital available in all parts of the world without the predatory and imperialistic aftermath so characteristic of large-scale private and governmental loans."
This program was adopted last week by 375 appointed representatives of 30-odd denominations called together at Ohio Wesleyan University by the Federal Council of Churches. Every local Protestant church in the country will now be urged to get behind the program. "As Christian citizens," its sponsors affirmed, "we must seek to translate our beliefs into practical realities and to create a public opinion which will insure that the United States shall play its full and essential part in the creation of a moral way of international living.'" [emphasis added]
The Federal Council of Churches program, as Time reports, was strikingly similar to Samuel Zane Batten's New World Order. The ultimate goal was,
"...a duly constituted world government of delegated powers: an international legislative body, an international court with adequate jurisdiction, international-administrative bodies with necessary powers, and adequate international police forces and provision for enforcing its worldwide economic authority." [2]
The World Council of Churches (1948 - present day)
The United Nations - which stands upon land that was donated by John D. Rockefeller Jr. - would replace the failed League of Nations in 1945 after World War II. The World Council of Churches continues to function to this day as an organization intimately aligned with the U.N. As with all previous attempts to centralize the churches, Rockefeller played a pivotal role with the WCC. Chateau de Bossey, located in Switzerland, functions as the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Institute. The institute was bought with money given to the WCC by John D. Rockefeller Jr. [1]
During the 1961 third assembly of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi India, the agenda of world government and a new international order was once again revealed. Interdependence, surrender of national sovereignty, and regional institutions were all themes of the third assembly. Representatives from churches around the world were present, one of whom was Rev. H. N. Riber (U.S.A). Riber, as reported by the third assembly summary,
"...desired paragraphs 61 and 62 [of the third assembly report] to be strengthened because Christians should be ahead of public opinion in requiring the nations to surrender sovereignty in preparation for world government." [2]
Paragraphs 61 and 62 of the World Council of Churches third assembly report carry a familiar theme,
"61. But it must be said to new nations as to older ones that the evolution of an international order will require of all a measure of surrender of autonomy and sovereignty for the sake of the world community."
"62. Peace is dependent not only on goodwill and reconciliation, but in the first place upon the emerging of effective international institutions under the rule of law. Therefore, churches in their desire for peace must recognize the importance of the responsible use and development of international institutions, both in the United Nations and in regional affairs. The aim must be to establish a just system of world order..." [3]
Today, the World Council of Churches holds over 300 member churches worldwide. [4] Some members in North America include: Episcopal Church in the USA; Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA; Presbyterian Church; and United Methodist Church. As noted previously, the WCC has maintained its close relationship with the United Nations since its founding in 1948. The World Council of Churches website re-affirms that,
"...it [the WCC] seeks to demonstrate the ecumenical movement's long-standing commitment to the UN and the ideals embodied in the UN Charter and to give voice to the ethical, moral and spiritual values which must undergird international relations." [5]
"Reconceived" theology for a new international order
Reshaping - at the very least re-focusing - religious doctrine, particularly Christianity, to conform to a globalized world is a key facet in the quest for world governance. "The Social Thought of the World Council of Churches", written by Edward Duff, describes the philosophy that drives the WCC. Duff cites a Rockefeller endowed survey, chaired by professor W. E. Hocking, as a significant contribution to WCC ideals. The "religion of the future", according to the survey, will represent a "common world culture."
"A Rockefeller-endowed survey, chaired by Harvard's distinguished philosopher, Professor W. E. Hocking, concluded that Christianity is merely the highest of the High Religions, a stage in the universal quest for 'righteousness', a precious component of the religion of the future that will represent the 'New Testament of every existing Faith' and serve as the soul of a coming common world culture." [1]
Hocking's writings provide an important window into the thinking behind this Rockefeller survey. Hocking's 1956 book, "The Coming World Civilization," is one such window. In order for a world civilization to come about, Hocking states that Christianity must be reconceived to conform with "global" values and shed its "divisive" attributes. Hocking's stance can be fairly summarized in this statement,
"Let me put it thus: our Christianity is in need of reconception through a deeper and humbler intercourse with the soul of the East..." [2]
Hocking foresaw a future world state under which all religions will "...ultimately unite,"
"...having an affirmative and universal goal in history, even though the city to be built, already present in its conspectus - universus hic mundus jam una civitas - is still in its architecture out of sight. On this conception, the religions may, and will, ultimately unite." [3]
The age old writings and ideas of utopian philosophers are manifesting into the real world through regional governance, international bodies and organizations. With the faith of internationalism securely embedded into society, the architects of the world order hope to achieve their great dream of world governance.
"And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast."
"And he saith unto me, The water which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reineth over the kings of the earth." -- Revelation 17:12-18 (KJV)
Citation:
Introduction
[1] Allen, Gary. The Rockefeller File. Seal Beach, California: '76 Press, 1976
[2] "Kissinger to speak at Akbank conference." Turkish Daily News. May 25, 2007. Available at: < [link to www.turkishdailynews.com.tr]
[3] Clips of this speech can be seen at 18:00 minutes into this video: < [link to video.google.com]
[4] Sutton, Anthony C. Wallstreet & the Bolshevik Revolution. Arlington House, 1974
[5] Black, Edwin. "The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics." History News Network. 2003. November 26, 2007. Available at: < [link to hnn.us]
[6] Rockefeller, David. Memoirs. New York: Random House, 2002. p. 405.
[7] Hicks, Frederick Charles. The New World Order. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1920. p. 71
Interchurch World Movement
[1] Harvey, Charles E. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Interchurch World Movement of 1919-1920: A Different Angle on the Ecumenical Movement. Church History, Vol. 51, No 2. (Jun., 1982), p. 198-209.
World patriotism and the federation of the world
[1] Batten, Samuel Zane. The New World Order. American Baptist Publication Society, 1919. p. 117-159.
[2] lbid 1, Harvey. p. 205.
[3] Fosdick, Harry Emerson. Living Under Tension. New York: Harpers & Brothers, 1941. p. 228.
The Federal Council of Churches
[1] lbid 1, Harvey. p. 205.
[2] "American Malvern." Time. March 16, 1942. Available at: < [link to www.time.com]
The World Council of Churches (1948 - present day)
[1] Duff, Edward S.J. The Social Thought of the World Council of Churches. New York, N.Y.: Association Press, 1956. p. 39-40.
[2] The New Delhi Report, The Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches. New York, N.Y.: Association Press, 1961. p. 115.
[3] lbid 2. p. 107.
[4] World Council of Churches, November 23, 2007. Available at: < [link to www.oikoumene.org]
[5] World Council of Churches, November 25, 2007. Available at: < [link to www.wcc-coe.org]
"Reconceived" theology for a new international order
[1] lbid 1, Duff. p. 151.
[2] Hocking, William Ernest. The Coming World Civilization. Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1956. p. 165.
[3] lbid 2. p. 184
Note: The significance of John D. Rockefeller's advisor and lawyer Raymond B. Fosdick cannot be understated. His close relationship with Woodrow Wilson is noted by Will Banyan in his article "Rockefeller Internationalism,"
"That first meeting at Princeton proved to be the start of a long and productive association for Fosdick, with Wilson taking more than a passing interest in his career in the years that followed. During Wilson's campaign for the presidency in 1912, Fosdick was personally appointed by Wilson to be Secretary and Auditor of the Finance Committee of the National Democratic Committee. He went on to hold a variety of positions in the Wilson Administration, including Chairman of the Commission on Training Camp Activities in both the Navy and War departments. As a civilian aide to General Pershing, Fosdick accompanied Wilson to Europe for the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. During this period, Fosdick also cultivated close relations with Wilson's enigmatic adviser, Colonel House.
Fosdick obviously made a substantial impression, for in May 1919 he was asked by Wilson to accept an offer from League of Nations Secretary-General Sir Eric Drummond to become an Under Secretary-General to the League. A keen supporter of the League, Fosdick had enthusiastically accepted the offer and, in July 1919, took up his new appointment. It was a significant advance for Fosdick, as it made him one of only two Under Secretaries-General in the League (the other was French technocrat Jean Monnet, the future founder of the European Community) as well as the highest-ranking American in the organisation."
...
Sure enough, Wilson's final testament--he died a month later--reinforced Fosdick's globalist zeal. Utterly convinced that the only way to ensure world peace was through some form of world government, and that only US leadership could make it happen, Fosdick devoted his energies to trying to influence elite and public opinion in that direction. In 1928, Fosdick published The Old Savage in the New Civilization, which endorsed "a planetary consciousness" and "a collective intelligence". Fosdick argued that if nations were to co-exist without conflict, then: " ... we must have some centralised mechanism, some established procedure, by which we can determine the understandings and rules of common life ... The assertion of the absolute sovereignty of the state has become in our time the supreme anarchy." |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 335443
12/4/2007 11:55 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
[link to www.globalresearch.ca]
Confessions of a Covert Agent
Psychological Operations are my specialty
Global Research, December 3, 2007
artofmentalwarfare.com - 2007-12-02
The author of the text below claims to be highly experienced in covert intelligence programmes and psychological operations - psyops. Interestingly, he charges that Robert Gates personally helped rig the presidential elections of 2000 an 2004 via massive computer fraud. Stating that this opinion is taken for granted throughout the US intelligence community, the author warns against future elections manipulated via computer fraud. He paints a vivid and disturbing picture of the levels of moral depravity now surging out of the Neocon volcano.
Worth reading and remembering.
Michael Carmichael
Michael Carmichael is the Director of the Planetary Movement, a nonprofit public affairs organization based in the United Kingdom and a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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The following article is excerpted from the upcoming edition of the book The Art of Mental Warfare by David Vincent.
The Art of Mental Warfare Editor's Note
This message comes from an anonymous source believed to be within the US intelligence community. Some of the statements cannot be verified for authenticity, but the general themes and references speak for themselves. I’ve researched everything that is possible to research and it all stands up. I have no reason to believe any of this is untrue. Read it and decide for yourself.
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Psychological Operations are my specialty. PsyOps
Everything I've done has been highly classified, all black programs and black operations. Some people I know thought I worked for the CIA, but it's much more complicated than that. I've worked with people in the CIA, DIA, NSC, NSA, SAIC, Army Intel and many more lesser known agencies within the intelligence apparatus.
Before focusing on PsyOps I started out running covert combat missions, special operations. I was good at what I did and rose through the ranks fast. When the "War on Terror" started I was paid a lot of money to consult with private military contractors. When private paramilitary units needed to get the jobs done that paid the most money they would come to me with checkbooks filled with US taxpayer dough.
I've seen the worst things imaginable, hell on earth. Had friends die in my arms. Seen piles of rotten corpses. Seen men, women and children tortured. I've seen the eyes of terrified and confused children being sold into a vicious life of slavery and an early death.
I could get a lot more graphic, but you get the idea.
That was my life, and all along I was told that I was fighting for freedom and working for the "good guys." What a ridiculous comment that is! In the black world, that is, in the covert world, there aren't any "good guys" — just varying degrees of evil.
As Brigadier General Butler famously stated, "War is a racket." It doesn't have anything to do with freedom and democracy. It is not good fighting evil. There's just a bunch of old greedy gangsta motherfuckers making obscene amounts of cash and breeding hatred, violence, terrorists and sex slaves.
The truth is, there is no oversight! Meaning, you can get away with anything, nothing is illegal because no one knows about it, or the few who do are either in on it or have a vested interest in keeping quiet. Whether you're runnin' guns, weapons, drugs, gold, diamonds, women, children, it just doesn't matter. As long as the old guard gets their resources, it's all good. And in the end, it's all about power. The people who really run this planet know that natural resources (oil, water, coltan, cobalt, etc.) are the key. The "War on Terror" is just a front for a geo-strategic resource grab on a massive scale. Even the wars in Northern Africa are all about exploitation of resources. Once the good ole CIA boys at Bechtel did their NASA satellite studies of the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) mineral resources and discovered that it was the "richest patch of earth on the planet," all hell broke loose! They figured out that the DRC has 80% of the world's coltan, among many other vital resources. Without coltan, you can't have any technology that requires a computer chip: computers, cell phones, satellites and weapon systems, of course. So Bechtel, the CitiBank boys, the World Bank, IMF and various covert elements have been supplying brutal regime after brutal regime in the region. Well over four million and counting have died there.
Same thing with oil in the Middle East. Do you think they really give a shit about Iraqi freedom? We worked hard to make you believe that, but c'mon, they don't give a shit about the Iraqi people. They've killed about a MILLION of them! And that's NOT an exaggeration! They sure as hell give a shit about Iraqi oil though. They also care about Saudi oil, and have a nice deal with a dictatorship that brutally oppresses their people. If freedom and democracy are the issue, how about freeing the Saudi people? Why do you think 15 of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia? We support a regime that oppresses those people. We support them because they cooperate on the oil front. So, why strike back at them? Let's hit Iraq. They don't give us any oil - let's get'em!
If you look at the history of covert special operations, it's all about securing a piece of land that has some valuable resource. Once the resource is identified, special ops figures out the most efficient way to suppress or extinguish the population that is unfortunate enough to live near it. Then the big companies come in, from the United Fruit Company to the Bechtels and Halliburtons of the world. That is the way it has been and still is, from John D. Rockefeller and Allen Dulles right through Kissinger, Bush Sr. and Cheney. Millions of innocent civilians have been slaughtered. Let me repeat that: Millions of innocent civilians have been slaughtered. And I'm not kidding you. These are evil motherfuckers and they are no friends of ours. These things don't have anything to do with protecting the US people or standing up for freedom and democracy. They don't give a shit about the average American. In this age of the global economy, the concept of nation state is obsolete. If only proud Americans could understand that. Pride in the American way is just another propaganda device for PsyOps agents — people like me — to use to manipulate you and make you think that black is white and white is black.
If you were to ask me who is a bigger threat to the people of the US, Cheney or bin Laden, or who has done more damage to the US, I would say Cheney without hesitation. Cheney, along with Bush Sr. and Kissinger, has been running the covert world for about 40 years now.
A little side note for you: I firmly believe Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense and Bush Sr.'s right-hand man in the covert world, used computer cryptography and software security assets to get Bush Jr. elected both times. I do not have direct knowledge of the operation, but research "Robert Gates," "Bill Owens," "electronic voting security," "HAVA," "VoteHere" and "Scientific Applications International Corp." [We will post more on this in the near future.] The operation went so well that Gates was going to be made the first ever Director of National Intelligence. He turned down the job, but then took the Secretary of Defense position when Rumsfeld was removed from his public position. I don't think there will ever be solid evidence linking directly to members of the administration; it's all a tangled web of plausible deniability. But I do think it will eventually be proven that the elections were manipulated to deliver Bush the victory. Many people in the covert world take this for granted, as common sense. Please don't confuse this as partisan propaganda. I don't give a shit about the Democrat or Republican PsyOps mind-fuck dynamic. They're just labels to divide a potentially powerful united US public.
It's hard to get the average American to understand these things. Most everyone in this country has been mind-fucked since birth. For a very blatant example, you can look at the advertising industry and the way they have increased intensely their focus on the youth. It's all about breeding impulsive emotionally driven consumers through repetition - over and over again - buy, buy, buy. You hear something enough and you internalize the message. It becomes something like the air you breathe, like gravity. It's there, omnipresent, but you don't realize it or consciously think about it. It becomes the spring from which your thoughts leap forth.
What it all boils down to is the exposure rate. You take a simple message and you repeat it over and over, such as mentioning Saddam and 9/11. You don't have to say Saddam was involved in 9/11, because that is not true. You just have to mention Saddam and 9/11 in the same simple repetitive message thousands of times and people will support an attack on a country that didn't have anything to do with 9/11 because they've been psychologically conditioned to link the two.
It's psychological operations on a grand scale, mass psychology. The scientific art of manipulating public opinion is 100 years old now. PsyOps have evolved to the point, thanks to the all pervasive mass media, where we can make you believe, or at least passively accept, whatever we want you to. I secretly worked with the world's most powerful media companies to get you to believe what "they" want you to believe. The media is the most efficient weapon of tyranny and oppression ever created. No need to physically control populations anymore when you can do it mentally - program it in, internalize the rules.
To give a little more background on publicly revealed psychological operations, in 1977, after the Congressional Church Committee investigated CIA manipulation of the news media, and right after George Bush Sr. left his post as the Director of the CIA, famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein searched a little deeper into what was known as Operation Mockingbird. He revealed that over 400 US journalists were actually carrying out clandestine CIA PsyOps services. Bernstein identified operations involving almost every major US news outlet, most notably The New York Times, CBS and Time magazine. The CIA responded to all of this with a "limited hangout." A "limited hangout" is CIA speak for when classified information gets out and you have to make it seem as if you are "coming clean" with all the information on the operation, but in reality you are really just admitting part of the operation so you can cover up other deeper parts and continue the program. This worked very effectively for them, as the US public quickly moved on and this operation has largely been forgotten. Currently, I would estimate, with cable news and the Internet now, that there are well over a thousand covert operatives spread throughout the news media. They have a firm grip on television, newspapers, wire services, radio and magazines. However, with the Internet - that's their weak spot - it's too decentralized and difficult to control.
The Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap now describes the Internet as an enemy "weapons system." The Pentagon doesn't hide the fact that they want total control over information, or as they call it "information dominance." They very plainly state that they seek to "control land, sea, space and information." This is what they refer to as "full spectrum dominance." If you don't think they see this as a top priority, look at Iraq. The plan to "embed" journalists with the military in Iraq was a strategic operation that considered "journalism as part of psychological operations." The journalists that weren't "embedded" were considered "enemy combatants." More journalists have been killed in Iraq than in any other war, and it is the US doing a large portion of the killing.
Before I go too far here, the point I want to make to the US public, the bottom line is that the most power crazed and greed addicted people are above the law and get away with everything. In the covert world rules do not apply. Democracy is a fairy tale. Nothing is what it seems, reality isn't real. Through the looking glass Alice goes.
I've fought against it and got nowhere. I've informed people that I naively thought could do something, but nothing could be done. I took all the blood money I've made and donated it to humanitarian causes. Will it make a difference? No. Not in the grand scheme of things, but in the short run it may save a few people… maybe. And that's all I can hope for at this point.
I've become so cynical! I live with guilt and cynicism weighing on my every move, my every thought.
When you've seen the things I have seen, been involved with the things I've been involved with, when you've spent the majority of your life living like I have, what do you do when you decide to give it up and get out? Can you ever get out?
I was able to get out, thus far, when no one I knew thought I could get out. But once you lived in the covert world, "normal" civilian life feels like a prison sentence. Then again, the covert world was a prison sentence.
I've been strongly advised to keep a very low profile and forget about things for a while. But I find it hard to just fade into the night when we are reaching an event horizon, a breaking point. Despite my cynicism, there is a part of me that knows I have to keep fighting. The stakes are just too high, higher then they've ever been. The human species is in serious trouble, facing a set of crises unlike anything we've ever faced before. Unless these covert forces are exposed, and ultimately eliminated, I don't see how we can even begin to make the bold actions that we need to start making now - and I mean right fucking now! These covert forces are a root cause and driver, a cancer spreading through the system and planet.
As far as I can tell, you can't change the system from within the intelligence community itself. This includes the Senate Intel Committee. If the urgently needed changes are ever to happen, it has to come from the US public. Now I know first hand how the American public has been conditioned to be apathetic and not get involved in politics and has been fed a steady diet of misinformation. But propaganda only works to the point where the population being propagandized is not feeling the direct impact and negative consequences on a personal level in their daily lives. That's why the draft played a large role in bringing an end to Vietnam. We need another draft to push the mainstream over the edge and into action, but the façade is beginning to crack - 9/11 had some effect, the war in Iraq certainly, Katrina, massive job loses and an economic downturn that has really just begun have all factored into creating a critical mass. Even the most propagandized population in the history of civilization will have to act when their very survival and well- being is directly threatened and impacted. I just hope enough people will understand the need for bold decisive action now, before it's too late.
So, to the people who have awareness of the problems facing us, if I could give advice, it would be this:
1. Try the Bush Administration for war crimes. If the case could ever be brought to court, the evidence to convict is definitely there. This is why the administration has been strongly against the International Criminal Court. If we are to begin repairing this country, and the world, we must begin by showing these power crazed and covert forces that they are accountable. If we can convict someone like Cheney, we will send a powerful message to the covert world. If we let them walk, we will keep having these problems. New people will follow them and take their place.
2. Investigate where all the military spending has been vanishing off to. There are literally trillions of taxpayer dollars unaccounted for. This money is fueling the covert world and terrorism in general. As part of this, I would include an investigation into war profiteering as well.
3. Make it mandatory that all electronic voting machines must have a 100% verifiable paper trail.
4. Get people into the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) who will smash the current media ownership rules. The concentration of media ownership is the foundation of the covert power structure. Without that, the whole thing is a house of cards. That's why the FCC is currently trying to ram through rules that will further consolidate media ownership before the Bush administration leaves office. As part of this, it is pivotal that we protect the open architecture of the Internet. The media belongs to the people, as does the government, in theory anyway, but we need an information system that actually serves the public interest.
5. Declare a national and global emergency on the environmental front. We have already reached the breaking point. We need organized, governmental, policy driven, bold action now.
6. We need to address entities that now have power over the Constitution, such as the undemocratic and unelected corporate global governing structure - institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and "agreements" like NAFTA and DR-CAFTA, to name a few. Most Americans don't even know what these power structures are, let alone that they have power that supersedes the Constitution. We must also address the National Security Act, that's where the ultimate power of our country lies. The National Security Act has effectively made the Constitution meaningless and is the primary driver of the covert world. The PATRIOT Act and various other newly granted powers must also be drastically revised or eliminated completely in order to protect our civil liberties.
7. Lastly, we need to have publicly financed elections. As long as we have a system that requires candidates to raise tens of millions of dollars to even be considered for office, we will have politicians who bend over backwards for the richest one percent and the most powerful elements of society at the citizens' expense. An important aspect of this has to be a requirement for large media companies to provide candidates with free airtime. Candidates have to spend the majority of their money on advertising in the mainstream media. That's why the major news media spend so much time focusing on who is raising the most money, because they are the ones who end up with all that money. Once we have publicly financed elections and free airtime for candidates, we will get people in office who will work in the interests of the public because they are not beholden to the large and powerful entities. When you have politicians depending on the public instead of the private sector for survival, all the issues mentioned above could be addressed because they won't have to fear the withdrawal of support from large corporations and the wealthy and powerful who do not want these things to happen. This will also enable us to eliminate tax breaks for the richest one percent, put an end to corporate welfare practices, and stop funding for obscene military and prison industrial companies that are profiting off of disasters and no longer serve security interests. Then we can redirect that money into environmental, education, health care and social security programs, to mention a few.
In the current political environment this may all sound like an unrealistic pipe dream, but these are the seven pivotal things that MUST happen. If all seven don't happen within the next few years, we will have set the world on a disastrously irreversible course. This is "the unfortunate reality of our current situation." It is not going to be easy, but you better start fighting for it now, while we still can.
It really does come down to us. You have to personally, in your daily life, do everything you can. With enough public pressure all of these things are achievable. Once we get a small portion of the population acting in this direction, it will quickly catch on and spread. Even though the overwhelming majority of the US population is incredibly propagandized on the surface, just underneath is the realization of the need for mass action. They just need leaders to point this out. The mainstream just needs a spark. Do what you can to set it off. It is a matter of unprecedented significance. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 335443
12/4/2007 12:50 PM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
We know that Satan is operating in high places, and when we consider the family tree of President George W. Bush, we find some amazing things. In a New York Post article, dated October 28th, 2007, an amazing expose’ was presented. We know that Satan tries to work through bloodlines and family trees when he can. With that in mind, records reveal that President George W. Bush is related to Dick Cheney, Hugh Hefner (Playboy Empire), Benedict Arnold, and Vlad the Impaler, who was the real life Count Dracula. (13) There is also strong circumstantial evidence that President George W. Bush’s mother, Barbara, is the illegitimate daughter of Aliester Crowley, the notorious and infamous Satanist. I am still researching this. With all of that in mind, is it any wonder our country is in the condition it is in? |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 335443
12/5/2007 12:08 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
December 3, 2007 (LPAC)--American statesman and FDR Democrat Lyndon LaRouche denounced the invitation of "Fascist Felix" Rohatyn to appear as a featured speaker at a Democratic Party Leadership Forum on the Economy, this Friday, Dec. 7.
The Forum was announced by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who heads the House Financial Services Committee.
"Felix the Fascist is attending, to bring fascism to the U.S.," LaRouche said. "He is remembered for all his fascist friends in Chile, where he brought the Pinochet dictatorship to power in 1973." LaRouche has called for the removal of Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, for destroying the Democratic Party with such policies.
Pelosi gushed to The Hill today, "Restoring the American dream for millions of our nation's working families has been a central priority for House Democrats." But it is Rohaytn who has destroyed American living standards, just as Pinochet did in Chile!
Rohaytn personally negotiated the bankruptcy of Dephi auto parts, an act which began the mass auctioning of what were the greatest density of state-of-the-art machine tools in the United States. The tools, which would be indispensable to rebuilding our nations decaying infrastructure, were sold overseas, as if they were garbage, and the sole proceeds of these sales went to the same looting hedge funds that, now, are trying to thwart any hopes of an FDR, physical economic recovery. Rohatyn's actions perpetuated a trend which has allowed for the decimation of the U.S. auto industry, including the lay-offs of tens of thousands of skilled workers.
Rohatyn, along with neo-con George P. Shultz, is a leading proponent of the "revolution in military affairs"; i.e., a privatized military now being implemented by Dick Cheney, whom Pelosi is protecting by blocking impeachment. Pro-Nazi Lazard Freres partner Andre Meyer referred to Rohatyn, shortly before his death, as "like a son to me."
Any notion, that "Felix the Fascist" is a "longtime Democratic Party wise man," as the Hill describes Rohatyn, should be trashed.
[link to www.larouchepac.com] |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 335443
12/5/2007 12:19 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
BRITAIN is finished as a country, with ONLY the British Middle Class and "multicultural toleration" left to destroy before the rise of a Military Dictator around 2009 - 2010.
The UK is massively overcrowded and has an equally massive "housing shortage" and yet well over 400,000 Eastern Europeans are flooding into Britain every 12 months.
The Home Office does nothing, the British Government as a whole does nothing, and the UK MORTGAGE SECTOR - UK PROPERTY MARKET will completely collapse due to sub-prime mortgage investments worth overall - trillions of $$$$, so the British Pound Sterling (BPS) will in effect become "useless" and be devalued, to then bring in the EURO.
The CITY OF LONDON will NO longer be the European "Financial Centre" of choice, and the UK is rapidly becoming the trash heap of EUROPE anyway.
In short, Britain is:
1) Overpopulated and with to many of the "wrong" kinds of people needed for a healthy economy.
2) Needs to control its National Borders, with a "Civil Defence Authority".
3) Should abolish Political Correctness (PC) which has turned the UK into a oppressive dumping ground
4) Should leave the EU, and be simply an Independent Sovereign Nation once again, without Brussels Bureaucrats talking policy to Parliament in the UK
Britain will have virtually NO Middle Class by 2010, with so many professionals leaving, the UK will have a large illiterate and innumerate population of knuckle scraping IDIOTS who cannot even speak properly.
Welcome to Britain in 2007, a country on the edge of financial oblivion - but DO NOT expect to hear about it on BBC News 24, ITV News Channel, Channel 4 News, Sky News or Channel 5 News!!!!
The UK is in a state of chaos right now, I fear for my Country I really do.
"Should leave the EU, and be simply an Independent Sovereign Nation once again,"
I know what you mean, but its the belief in having a Nation that is NOT part of a European Union, an American Union or an Asian Union, where the People can decide on Government Policy and NOT the Scottish Rite Freemasons controlling the British Financial System (BFS), that is the Credit Card System (CCS) in the UK.
We need to realize that the BFS, is NEVER, ever going to recover because the ILLUMINATI, especially the House of N & M Rothschild & Son, who lend the HSBC over £80 Billion a year, DO NOT want a "boom & bust" economic system but a World Currency and World Bank without National Borders or Nation States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain (UKGB) is a hindrance to that aspiration.
So the British Middle Class will be destroyed between 2009 - 2010 unless there is social changes amongst the British People, and end to open-ended immigration to the UK and the current, crap Labour Government under the Windsor Puppet, PM Gordon Brown, is removed.
House prices are apparently going to drop by 10% nationally by the end of 2008 in the UK - however this is a massively conservative estimate as others have spoken of house prices dropping already by 30% within the past 3 months of 2007 (10/07 - 12/07), so as the UK Mortgage Sector still has another 6 years & 9 months of collapse to go, anyone can see the UK Property Market is finished and eventually so will the British Middle Class be!!!! |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 335145
12/5/2007 1:18 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
you are way off in saying that the catholic church is the beast of revelation
first of all as you said, the beast represents gov't power/kingdom and not religion, the whore riding on the back of the beast represents the religious aspect
Jesus said that 'whosoever' calls upon His name would be saved, and catholics are christians and call upon His name, they are not the enemies of Christ anymore than any other denomination that believes in Christ. Sure they may have some wrong doctrine, but so do all of the churches, Jesus knew this would happen from the beginning, but He still said 'whosoever' believes in Him would be saved
if you are a christian, be careful of condemning His sheep just because they intrepret differently then you |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 335443
12/5/2007 1:30 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
Dont have to many problems with laity who aren't marioloters, prayer for the deaders, praying to "saints" and excathedra infallibiliters. Clergy thats another story, hows this for a start , call no man father. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 335145
12/5/2007 1:53 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
'whosoever' does mean 'whosoever' without conditions |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 335443
12/5/2007 2:14 AM | | Re: TPTB Exposed Bigtime, you want the facts all in one place, READ this | Quote |
'whosoever' does mean 'whosoever' without conditions Quoting: Anonymous Coward 335145
thats as bad as the ultra protestants with "TULIP", it would seem that you pick only the bits of scripture that suit you, and that you are a "progressive liberal" catholic, correct me if i am wrong but your priests get to decide what scripture means, who gets to heaven after many expensive masses for the dead of course etc, not you as a catholic. In fact and faith there are conditions for salvation and maintaining a living faith with our Lord and Saviour, so limited universalism which is what you are promulgating would mean that every pedophile priest, every newage witch, every buddhist that calls on the Lord's name will be saved, sorry you are terribly and misleadingly to others wrong, there are conditions. |
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