Posted on 01/05/2010 8:56:40 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
In his extraordinary book 'Democracy: The God that Failed', Hans Hermann Hoppe points out that the process of civilization is stopped when government continually violates property rights.
The natural process of civilization comes through delaying consumption, saving, and building capital. Undoing it leads to higher societal time preference.
When natural disasters strike or a gunman robs you in an alley, "the effect of these on time preference is temporary and unsystematic," Hoppe explains.
Victims are entitled to defend themselves against the individual aggressor and prepare themselves for the calamities of the occasional act of God. Resources will be reallocated to defend one against potential robbers, and provisions will be made for potential natural disasters.
However, when government aggresses, it is considered legitimate and "a victim may not legitimately defend himself against such violations." Democracy legitimizes this government aggression because the violence is sanctioned by a majority of voters.
This decivilization process that Hoppe describes continues in fits and starts. The uneducated continue to live in never-never land, believing that each new ruler means change and that their lives and happiness can safely be put in the hands of a kind and caring government. But government's current ham-handedness - with its bailouts, money printing, and rights violations - has alerted more than a few individuals to do what comes naturally: defend themselves and prepare for the worst.
The government's legal-tender money - the dollar - is now under questioning. While the commercial-banking fractional-reserve monetary engine is stalled with loan write-downs and bank failures, the Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet like never before. Man of the Year Ben Bernanke is deathly afraid of deflation, and John Maynard Keynes is a hero again. The inflation cake is in the oven, albeit not quite fully baked.
And the current administration does not seem friendly to the property right of allowing us to protect ourselves. The president believes that only law-enforcement officers should have weapons.
So while high-time-preference folks like Shannan DeCesare shout "Merry Christmas to me" after unloading some gold jewelry for $610 at a gold party, low-time-preference types are lining up in pawnshops and gun shows to buy gold, silver, lead, and guns.
DeCesare attended a gold party that the Wall Street Journal describes as an example of the new Tupperware party. These parties appeal to the cash-for-gold crowd trying to maintain a boom-time lifestyle by unloading their valuables. The cash poor end up taking between 65 and 75 percent of what their gold would be worth to a refiner according to the WSJ.
These parties offer a comfortable atmosphere for selling the yellow metal. "It can be really difficult for a lot of people to walk into a jewelry store or pawnshop holding a little bag of gold," Lisa Rosenthal, owner of Party of Gold, told the WSJ. Ms. Rosenthal's company has specialists working more than 1,000 parties a month. And why would anyone sell their gold for 65 to 75 cents on the dollar? In his book More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places, author Michael J. Mauboussin has a chapter titled, "All I Need to Know I Learned at a Tupperware Party." People buy Tupperware because they feel like they must reciprocate the host for hosting the party and providing the free party favors. Plus, as Mauboussin explains, "the single most important fact of the Tupperware formula is the tendency to say yes to people you like."
In the case of gold parties, attendees don't want to just show up, drink the wine and eat the appetizers but leave turning their noses up at the low prices offered for their, or their departed mother's, old jewelry, especially when it's their friend down the block hosting the event. They happily trade a metal that has proven to have value for thousands of years for the government's depreciating paper.
But while gold sellers are shy to see the nearby pawn dealer, gold buyers go where they must to see who has inventory for sale. The demand for guns is so good that the gun show in Las Vegas recently charged $14 a head just to walk in and look around - after parking cost of $3. The lot was full and business was brisk.
The demand for space at gun ranges in Salt Lake City was strong enough the day after Christmas that it was a 15- to 20-minute wait to rent an "alley" at the second range we inquired with. The first range contacted was reservation only and completely booked for the day.
Panic buying of ammunition, silver, and gold has created shortages and led to price increases for all three in 2009. "Currently no .380 ammunition - I haven't seen any for about four months .38 special, it's been at least a couple of months," Denver gun-store manager Richard Taylor told CNN earlier this year. "It's just that there's been a huge demand and it's far outweighed supply right now."
And in November, Bloomberg reported that the US Mint had suspended sales of most American Eagle coins made from precious metals, including gold and silver. With coin sales surging 88 percent in the first 10 months of this year, the mint is out of metal and sales will resume "once sufficient inventories of gold-bullion blanks can be acquired to meet market demand," the mint said in a statement posted on its website.
So, some Americans are unloading their family treasures and cheering for bailouts, money printing, and gun control, while others are stocking up on precious metals, guns, and ammo to protect themselves and their wealth.
There is no question which group is the civilized one.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (defined as a liberal gift) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, followed always by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years."
Attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, (October 15, 1747 - January 5, 1813) a Scottish-born British lawyer and writer.
Yep. We’re living on borrowed time as it is. ;)
FWIW. :)
************
Very interesting. I have always felt this in my marrow, but the exposition of government as authorized racketeering - which can only fail after the waste of property and lives - is very logical and sound.
—great quote though it is, that has been debunked many times—(see Snopes)—
Maybe we should remember and reinforce the fact we are a republic , not a democracy.......we allow the foundation to erode or be undermined the rest will collapse.
My opinion.
You can remember all you want, but the fact is that the average government school 'graduate' couldn't even read either of those words, much less tell you what they meant.
PS - government school 'graduates' are also known as 'voters.'
When the Majority of non-producers vote to steal the wealth and work of the Minority producers, Democracy dies.
We’re there, folks.
Seems like homeschooling is our only chance-! And stocking up on ammo in the interim.
This needs to be examined in light of some blunt axioms about government.
The first of these is straightforward: that a government can only continue to exist when it can contain or thwart competing forms of government. Unless it has the authority to keep out challenges to its legitimacy, it will be overthrown by a government that will.
That such overthrow, in an orderly and responsible manner, is at times a good thing, is an important corollary to this axiom. It also introduces the second axiom.
That governments succeed or are displaced based on their “efficiency”. In this case, efficiency is defined as a simple ratio of what the government promises to do, and what the government actually delivers. If it promises to do a few things and delivers, it will likely continue. If it promises many things, and cannot deliver them, it will likely fail and be replaced.
The first corollary to this is rather ironic. That it matter far less *what* is promised, than if that promise is met or not.
The second corollary is likewise strange. Often, promises can be distilled into just one of two opposites: “change” and “no change” of the status quo. And there is some depth to this corollary.
For example, because of 9-11, George W. Bush was a president of radical change, as we all saw. But after eight years of change, the public was exhausted of this change, and felt there had been too much change. So while Obama promised “change”, as such, this was seen as first and foremost “change back”, the undoing of some of the elements of the W. Bush change that the public disliked.
Had Obama done so, evaluating then tearing down those changes made by Bush that are seen by the public as onerous, yet ineffective, he would have gained much political capital. But instead, he took their vote to mean that they wanted even *more* change, and in a radically new direction.
And the public for the most part, doesn’t want that. Right now it wants gridlock, stability, peace, economic restoration and quietude, not more change. And this is why Democrat poll numbers are crashing and burning.
Finally, a third axiom of government is found in the original constitution of the United States, that the best government is a balanced government. Yet over generations, the national government has become terribly unbalanced in relation to the State governments and the people.
This is the one kind of change the US desperately needs right now, because if this balance can be restored, many of our other problems will fix themselves over time.
So the important question is how do we get there from here?
Somebody said it at some point in time, we just aren't sure who.
I do not believe that gold is a safe store of wealth. FDR made gold illegal to own. The Fascists will do it again. In fact, no property will be secure, Kelo made sure of that. As income is no longer sufficient to support the government, they will come after property. As things deteriorate, foreign debt holders, i.e. China, will demand payment. Personally, I would give them California now to pay of the debt. We will create a “RentenZerO” backed by property own by the people. Or nukes, giving a promise we won’t use them, probably not a valid source of value, given the Ohole would give them away before he would use them.
That our current government is doing all it can to disarm The People out of fear is evidence that we are living in tyrannical times and, as per the Constitution, the government needs to be scrapped and we need to start over. Our leaders know that and fear The People because of it. They are taking actions to this end at this very moment and is why the left/globalists fear white, right-wing, military people who demand the government stop the march toward complete socialism.
I know what yer saying .......yet we didn’t want, we did, and still do with grandchildren, friends and coworkers and confront those who suggest we are a democracy in our presence.
No...I pledge allegiance to the democracy.
No...Battle Hymm of the Democracy.
Although we hear the term democracy used constantly in reference to our form of government, the word does not appear in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States, our two fundamental documents. Indeed, Article IV,Section 4, of the Constitution “guarantees to every State in this union a Republican Form of Government.’’
We didn’t totally rely on goobermint schools to teach our children. Did their homework with them and discussed their day in class and out at dinner. We showed them where to look and how early in life to make their own decisions and how to reference, then politely and respectfully make socialist teachers with an agenda look like the dumb asses they are !
My opinion.....stay safe !
Very well said!
That quote is phony, both in its attribution (which is undocumented) and in what it says. Civilizations last much more than 200 years. Regimes and dynasties may come and go, but as far as anyone can tell, there is no way to make an average of all of them. To begin with, how do you mark the beginning and the end of each of these entities in a consistent way?
Who cares what that number would be, anyway? This has nothing to do with the mere passing of years. It is, rather, a matter of the process of social decay.
We should always be cautious of grand oversimplifications of history. One thing is clear, however: countries and ways of life rise and fall. There are clearly feedback processes which keep us from reaching a comfortable and just equilibrium.
History is also NOT like the much talked-about pendulum. If it were, it would be very easy to figure out. Next time some bozo mentions historical processes as being like a pendulum swinging back and form, I think that I will take a swing at him, so he know the difference. History is more cyclical than reciprocal. Hey, that’s a good way to put it. It shows why it is sometimes so hard just to turn back on evil tendencies, because once one loses social morality, it is difficult to regain it and restore its primacy. Generations must go through the cycle of destruction and rediscovery, with untold suffering, before having a chance to recover.
Humanity seldom learns through history. We wish they would, but only a very few ever realize what is going on. The masses always think that the times they are in are unprecedented, although history is littered with examples. I would go so far as to assert that there is no failing we can point to today which does not have many parallels in the past, even going back to ancient times.
Happy New Year Buddy !
Backatcha!
It's gonna be colder than Hillary's heart. But their are many potential victims in the "hood".
And I'm hungry...
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to you too.
Good luck!
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