Ron Paul: America’s Greatest Politician

In my last post I described the four qualities that are necessary to qualify as a great politician: a deep knowledge of history, political theory, economic truth, and a charismatic quality, usually displayed in speech making. As I said there, I can think of no politician in modern times who possesses these four qualities, but the person who comes closest to fulfilling these four qualities is Dr. Ron Paul, former Texas Congressman for eight terms, and thrice Presidential Candidate, once as a Libertarian and twice as a Republican.

Firstly, Ron Paul has a clear and deep knowledge of Free-Market Economics, a system known as Capitalism. Without this knowledge, no nation or economy can survive in the long run. America has been able to survive, not only because up until now, its’ economy was mostly Free Market, although the percentage of the economy which is distorted by socialist coercions has declined steadily since Roosevelt’s New Deal was implimented, and because the US can issue the reserve currency of the world. I have never heard any Congressman, Senator, or President expound the truth about economics as clearly and cogently as Ron Paul. And for that reason alone he could be called America’s Greatest Politician.

Dr, Paul’s knowledge of American History also seems to be top-notch, as he frequently quotes historical examples, as in his proposals to go after terrorists with Letters of Marque and Reprisal. His knowledge of the discussions of the Founding Fathers concerning Liberty, The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights seems to be deep, as in his didactic speeches of his 2008 campaign, which turned into educational elucidations of key American concepts, delivered to a largely young audience. I noticed that each speech seemed to deal with a different libertarian concept, and thus listening to the campaign speeches of this radical was akin to taking a college course in American Liberty.

Of course, such historical examples are intimately connected with political theory, and that theory can succinctly be put in the sentence “The only legitimate function of government is the defense of individual Liberty”. Indeed, one might sum up Ron Paul’s whole political philosophy in this one word: Liberty.

The fourth essential quality, that of a certain personal charisma, might be the weakest of the four essential qualities necessary in a great politician or stateman when it comes to Ron Paul. His speeches are polite, and rarely enter the stages of anger, although I’d say that the few times I saw Dr. Paul get somewhat angry at injustice in his speeches were perhaps his best moments. If Ron Paul had been a mighty speech-maker like Gladstone or even FDR, he might have become President, but tragically, he is too much of a gentleman to imitate the Italian jackanapes Mussolini.

Yet, in some ways, I think Ron Paul’s speech-making, and his generally conservative, courteous approach to politics is exactly what most American’s want in a politician, so in that way I think Ron Paul’s political charisma was exactly right for America’s largely conservative tastes. Ron Paul represents the reasonable neighbor, whose complaints about the Government show up the absurdities and fascisms inherent in current American politics. When Clement Atlee became socialist Prime Minister of Great Britain under his Labour government in the 1950s, many in his party complained that he struck you as being a minor official in local government who was being paid a few pounds a week, instead of the Prime Minister, but others in the party said he was just what was needed precisely because he represented the average milquetoast bureaucrat that infested the British Civil Service. In one sense that is also true of Ron Paul: he represents the quiet, courteous voice of logic spoken in the face of government tyrannies. So in that sense, Ron Paul’s personal charisma as a politician was actually perfect for the American political scene.

As I stated in my last post, finding a politician who possesses these four qualifications for the making of a great statesman or politician, is like ringing up four cherries on a slot machine with only three windows; it’s nigh impossible. In fact, in my long history of watching politicians and thinking about political issues, I have never found that great politician or statesman in America, or in any other political system, usually because immediately they proposal a Keynesian economic measure that directly contradicts the Constitutional guarantees of Individual Rights. Almost all politicians in America don’t even qualify as great on one of these four essential qualities, let alone all four. America definitely is cursed with lousy politicians.

Dr Ron Paul stands as a beacon of Liberty floating in this dross of mediocre political hacks. He is truly America’s one Great Politician.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian

The Four Essential Qualities of a Great Statesman or Politician

There are four essential qualities necessary to be a great statesman or politician. Without any of these four qualities or talents, a politician will remain merely a mediocrity or, worse, a curse on the public.

One of the great political problems, especially in contemporary America, is the rarity — nay, the almost impossibility — of anyone combining these four essential qualities within themselves. It is hard to think of anyone, or any politician of the past, who has encapsulated these four qualities.

Firstly, the Great Statesman must have a deep knowledge of Rights Theory, and of how that theory would manifest itself in the laws of a country. In America, those Rights pertain solely to the Individual, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, and are defended by those statutes included in the Bill of Rights, which protect individual Rights from assaults by the Government or the Collective.

The Declaration of Independence states the kernel of that Rights Theory when it describes the Inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. In previous constitutions and articles of confederation, this last “pursuit of happiness” Right was succinctly mentioned as “property”, but I believe Jefferson saw that property was instrumental to the acquiring of “happiness”, and that fundamentally that was the only real value of property.

So understanding Rights Theory and how it pertains to private property is the basis of any sound government, and this understanding might be classified as “political theory” or the basis of the Law.

So the first quality of a great statesman will be a deep understanding of The Law, and how all Civil Rights are ultimately based solely on Property Rights.

Very few in Congress even get to this level of understanding and competence.

The second quality of a great statesman is a deep knowledge of history. In the United States, that will require a deep study of both US history and British history, since so many of the American laws and customs derived from England and the English system of government. One wonders how a Congressman in their 20s or 30s can have had enough time to study deeply the histories of both cultures.

After a correct knowledge of Law and History comes the necessity for a correct knowledge of Economics. In a society brainwashed into the Keynesian system of economics, which enables Fascism or corporatism — a collective tyrannical overlordship of the Government, the giant corporations, the large private and government-worker unions, and the military-industrial complex against the individual non-union worker, the small shopkeeper, and the artisan — in such a society, it is virtually impossible to find an Individual who understands Austrian School, free-market economics. The economic system deriving from the Declaration and the Bill of Rights — Free-market Capitalism— is denigrated by those tyrannical forces, but without promoting Capitalism based on Inalienable property rights, as the Austrian School of Economics has so clearly explained, a society is doomed to finally fall into economic chaos. Yet very few in government have the courage to speak out for the Capitalist system, especially now that the Keynesian system has produced such wealth inequality in America so that the streets are overflowing with the homeless and destitute — 60 years after War Criminal President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed his “War on Poverty”.

So the third essential quality for the Great Statesman is a correct understanding of Economics.

Lastly, in combination with right understanding of law, history, and economics, comes the quality of a personal charisma or charm which currently seems to be the most important quality for getting elected in America. The mass of voters don’t really care about your economic policies, as much as they are looking for an actor to entertain them, sooth them, inspire them, or make them feel that a competent is at the wheel. Probably the most successful American politicians who have had this talent in recent history were presidents Reagan, Clinton, and Trump. Reagan and Trump both had actual acting experience, and Clinton knew how to play the audience, and is perhaps the only non-professional actor who had that talent. In the past one thinks of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill as having that quality of being a political persona rather than a political theorist.

Without having a deep understanding of all four of these qualities — Law, History, Economics, and Public Persona, — one cannot be a Great Statesman or Politician. And perhaps that explains the putrid electoral choices that the world’s electorates are offered, election after election, and no different in the US, Britain, and the EU than it is in the Third World.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Nominee 2014

Debate vs Dialogue

Debate has had a long tradition in modern Western political history as a way of airing and deciding issues, especially in England and the now-liberated American Colonies (currently known as “The United States of America” — an appellation you may well have heard mentioned in the news).

Debate used to be part of the American school curriculum. I recall engaging in debates in junior high and high school, and forensics, the study and art of public speaking and debating, also used to be taught in the government schools. But I have heard no mention of debating tournaments, or debating teams at our local schools for decades.

And when it comes to the name-calling, propaganda, and crudities one reads in online arguments concerning politics and political issues, it is clear that America and the West have greatly regressed from that state where American and British legislators would courteously engage in virtual debates, listing points in favor of their propositions, and attempting to convert their listeners to the speaker’s positions. Converting through propaganda and bold oratory have always been techniques to convince the opposition or the uncommitted of the righteousness of their creator’s propositions, but never have they sunk as low as now, or been practiced on such a politically-ignorant public as now exist in the US and the UK. This is in large part the consequence of almost everyone 45 years or younger having been “educated” in government schools.

But debate in itself is not enough. Indeed, there are several fatal flaws in debate which render it less efficient as a tool of political progress than another method we shall come to.

In debate, the debater usually comes to view his positions as part of his ego. If I am a socialist, or a Libertarian, I have a set of ideological principles with which I identify. This identification of political beliefs with the “I” that most people carry around in their heads all the time is so strong that an attack on those principles is felt as an attack on the person themself, though they may not be consciously aware of that threat. If, for example, I’ve been a fervent socialist for 50 years (I haven’t actually) and you bring forth a cogent, valid argument as to why, for example, minimum wage laws are an assault on the poorest in society, I will feel my entire ideological edifice threatened if part of me sees the validity of your argument. So I must descend into name-calling and straw-man argumentation to protect my ego, since I identify that ego so strongly with my political ideology.

Libertarians may suffer from this ego-problem slightly less than all the other political ideologies, because most Libertarians are looking for the metaphysical, bedrock, truths in political philosophy and economics, and if someone can point out a fallacy in their current thinking they are usually willing, and happy, to see the former flaws in their thinking, or to merely consider an objection to one of their principles which they have never heard before and so never considered. I’m always glad to hear an argument that changes my long-held opinion on some specific political topic.

However, current Libertarians seem almost as obsessed with the minutiae of doctrine as other political groups, only slightly less so.

But going beyond debate, we come to the idea of dialogue. Dialogue comes from the Greek dia, meaning through, and logos, meaning word or reason. In dialogue there is a communication between two or more people which results in a communal realization, so that people in the dialogue spontaneously see the truth of what is being said. There is no attempt to convince or convert, but merely a stating of the “logos”, and through the faculty of reason the participants see the truth of what is being said, or see how to proceed in a situation.

Let us take an extreme example. Three people have their two-wheel drive get stuck in a sand wash they mistake for a jeep trail in the Mojave Desert. They’re 20 miles from the interstate which in turn is 35 miles from the nearest small desert town. They all state their view of the situation and how they might proceed to extricate themselves. One person gives a strategy which causes another person to think an idea which the first person hadn’t thought of. This resulting idea is adequate to save the trio. The speakers’ personal egos were not involved in trying to convince the others of how to save all three of them, nor was their any attempt at convincing each other once all three saw, with equal clarity, a solution to their dilemma.

The quantum physicist David Bohm mentions in a lecture that he recalled reading the work of an anthropologist who studied a tribe of American Indians who were hunter-gatherers. Periodically the 30 or so members would sit in a group on the ground facing each other, and each would say whatever they felt like concerning the tribe, etc. There was no leader in authority, although the words of the tribal elders probably carried more weight due to their longer experience. When everyone had had their say, the tribe seemed to know what to do, and with a group the size of 30, and everyone knowing everyone else well, it seems as if by just listening to each other, the tribe had come to some un-coerced, common decision. This is a perfect example of the concept of “dialogue”. But one doubts such unanimity could be achieved in groups much larger than 30, or with people out to have argumentative political fireworks.

Such dialogue as these American Indians practiced seems to be virtually non-existent in the fractious American political scene.

And debate — civil debate as used to be practiced in debate evenings and tournaments all over America — has become a dead institution. Politicians have become mere dummies, mouthing the words which their party’s psychological tests have shown bring an emotional response from listeners. There is very little political integrity in Congress; most are there to carry out the blueprints of their party.

The caustic friction between Left and Right in America is no surprise to libertarian students of the Austrian School of Economics. Ludwig Mises and Frederic Hayek both pointed out that as socialist society continues, the economic fight over the dwindling resources, and the guaranteed inflation of any socialist economy, will increase social friction. After 50 years of LBJ’s “Great Society” we are at that point of increased friction. When Clinton took us over the $5 trillion Federal debt, that was the first step. When Obama increased it from $8 to $20, that was the second and third steps.

And now we’re at the riot stage.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian

A Political Party in Search of a Name

I’ve been pondering for a long while what would be a good name for a political party that reflected my economic, political, and moral views, and I admit that I have come up with nothing.

What would you name a party that was fiercely pro-individual capitalist free-market, along with all the civil liberties that go along with inalienable property Rights, but was also for environmental protection, restoration, and reforestation, while advocating for animal welfare, an end to vivisection, and a vegan or at least lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet? Considering that pro-Free Marketeer Libertarians poll about 1.8% as an average percentage in elections, that only a fraction of the American public are Greens or American Indians, who seem to be the main groups having a sacred view of Nature, and that roughly 1.5% of the American public are vegetarians, let alone vegans, it seems an insurmountable task to forge a political party out of those individuals unlikely enough to have all of these three interests in common.

Am I a political party of one?

And what to name such a party? The “Vegan-Libertarian” Party is such a mouthful to have to say every time you introduce yourself as a candidate, or discuss your party. “Enviro-Vegan-Libertarian Party” is even worse — the amount of calories you’d have to expend just to say your party’s name would leave most party members thin from the effort. On that score the Greens obviously have a huge advantage over the Libertarians, Democrats, and Republicans. A one syllable party name is obviously an advantage, caloricly speaking. But how to convey a trifecta of main political issues with one word?

Of course, the proper name for such a party would be the “Liberal” Party, as in Liberty. But that term has been hijacked by the Left wing of the Democratic Party, which is really a corporate-welfare-Fascist party that also passes out individual welfare to buy its voters. In Australia, the “Liberal” Party is the equivalent of the US Republican Party or the British Conservative Party, the so-called “Tories”. Neither of them is either Libertarian or Classical Liberal, although they are slightly closer to it than the Left-wing parties.

So I’m stumped. I can’t figure it out. Should we name such a party after a person, like “The Jefferson Party”?

Does anyone know the name of a Founding Father who was also a strict vegetarian and loved trees?

— Paul Grad, Enviro-Vegan-Libertarian, Libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Nominee 2014

A Libertarian H-Bomb on May 23rd: The Brexit Party and the EU Parliamentary Elections

Brexit (definition) – A type of British hardtack biscuit much favored by the English peasantry which the EU broke its tooth on in 2019.

On May 23rd, 2019, we may see the second, and most potent, stage of the quasi-Libertarian Revolution being staged in Britain by those Old World Liberal Englishmen who wanted Mankind’s Liberation from the tyrannies of governments. The Libertarian wants, first and foremost, the Liberty of the Individual to do whatever he wants as long as he doesn’t assault someone else’s Property Rights. But he also wants that not only for himself, but for all the other Humans.

Part of that Liberty concerns self-government — the people ruling themselves through Parliament, which they choose in democratic-majority elections. This is what is generally known as British Democracy.

It took hundreds of years of bloody British history for the people to throw off the double-yolks of a monarchy with omnipotent power, and a state church. But they finally did it and developed an unwritten Constitution, unlike America, that had certain traditions and established certain boundaries. And the first boundary was that Parliament ruled and was the voice of the people, not any other force like the monarch or the church.

And because a Prime Minister was chosen by his fellow party members in Parliament, and ruled for no fixed terms, he was indirectly chosen by the people who, by voting for a party, knew the general policies that whomever became Prime Minister would surely follow and promote. But unlike in America, if the Prime Minister lost the confidence of his party or the nation, he could be out of office at any time if he proved corrupt or incompetent. In America the Citizens are stuck with whatever clown is voted into the Presidency for four years, and squawk though they may, they cannot easily remove the clown before his sell-by date, no matter how putrid he or she is. Look at the War Criminal Johnson and the War Criminal Nixon, both of whom it took years to remove from office, and only when their fellow politicians finally wanted it.

But in England, the only checks on Parliament were a certain unspoken pressure from the monarch, and the secondary influence of the House of Lords. Otherwise, Parliament ruled supreme and Parliament was the voice of the people who could be called on to vote at any time. In that sense, British Democracy was and is more immediate than American democratically-elected Republicanism.

Britain’s joining the EU changed all that, a change which the masses and most of the politicians failed to comprehend. For it has led to EU rules being imposed on the UK, and for the first time in history UK courts have overruled acts of Parliament because they did not comply with EU laws. This, in effect, gave the unelected EU bureaucrats, who propose EU legislation, which is then passed by the EU Parliament, power over and above Parliament, which could find its decisions being rescinded by UK courts that were being forced to follow EU rules (as has occurred). In effect, for the first time in its history, the UK had a constitutional court that could invalidate an act of Parliament. Or, to put it simply, Parliament no longer ruled the UK.

That is, the Cromwellian Revolution of the 17th century, which overthrew the rule of an absolute Monarchy, had been overturned by the EU bureaucrats without the British public having any say in the decision. Indeed, the Remainers in the UK call the Brexiteers all kinds of names, and predict dire disaster if England does not abjectly lie down and subject herself to the EU bureaucrats. After centuries of war, France and Germany have finally conquered England.

But the recent local council elections in Britain changed all that. The Tory Party, led by the pathetic Theresa May, kept flying in the face of the Tory rank and file, and huge numbers of Labourites and Independents, who wanted a Brexit. The dilatory tactics of May finally exasperated the public to such an extent that the Tories lost over 1300 council seats while Labour lost 82. The Greens gained 145, the Liberal Democrats, who are like milquetoast Democrats in the US, gained many seats, but the largest number of seats gained, over 400, went to Independents unaffiliated with any party, and the minor parties.

The fact that Independents and fringe parties won the greatest number of seats was in itself an indication of a libertarian upsurge in public cynicism towards the corrupt major parties in the UK.

But feeding on that has been the amazing growth of the Brexit Party, which, formed only a month ago by Nigel Farage, is way ahead in the polling, leaving the Parties that have dominated British Politics for several centuries in the dust. That a libertarian Party, libertarian in the sense of wishing to devolve power from a huge Leviathan state to a smaller democratic state, could leap in 30 days from non-existence to leading the British polls at 64% is an amazing political phenomenon. After years of constipation, it looks like the public is tired of eating white bread and junk food.

Whether May 23rd, 2019 will prove to be the beginnings of a great British Libertarianism, so well articulated in the old British Liberal Party and its shining lights like Lord Acton, or merely another descent into the dark, castrating bureaucratic rule of the unelected EU Councils, we cannot as yet know.

On May 23rd, we will see if Britons, once again, will never never never be slaves.

— Paul Grad, vegan-libertarian

The Degeneration of American Society, Circa 2018

America has really degenerated over the last 60 years, and lost many of the qualities that people of that time were capable of. People of that day were just coming out of eons of Mankind living in the most primitive, violent ways because of lack of technology. When Mechanism took Command, it enabled man to live on a level, and in an orderly way, as he had never been able to in all human history. This was exemplified for a while in the 1920s, when, for the first time, a man could live an orderly life, with clean surroundings, new clothes, a modern house, and conveniences and amusements like cars and radios, if he could secure a living. The possibility of Order came into humanity, which had never, ever existed before. Imagine living in the world of Henry VIII; even the wealthy could not live an orderly life then, because of the insecurities of disease, of impoverishment through government fiat, or else having your head cut off.

As the 30s progressed, despite the Depression, the technologies just became more refined, a progress that has gone on uninterruptedly since those days. Compare the cinematography of the 1930s to that of 1963, and you will see a huge improvement in image quality. And now, unfortunately, films look like commercials, having lost that documentary realism one got from the black and white dramas of the 1960s.

This artistic degeneration also eclipsed Jazz. Jazz from the late 1950s to around 1970 was quite a popular genre, though not the major one of Rock, which also had a huge creative explosion during the same period. Both of them started to change in the early 70s, and by 1980 you had disco and jazz was using synthesizers, and sounding a bit like Soul music. The drive and elegance of Basie and Ellington, and the many, many talented trios and quartets, was really amazing, even to this lover of Rock. College kids back then would listen to Jazz in addition to Rock. Do they do that now?

So the breakdown of Art in Film, Jazz, and Rock seemed to parallel the breakdown of American Society that started to set in under Nixon, and really took off under Jimmy Carter. Since then every President has made it worse. Hopefully the current one might reverse that trend, although it is too far gone already.

In the 1960s, people were still in touch with that long past wisdom and humanism of man. People in Britain were generally very courteous and civil, and despite a hard life, alleviated only by beer, cigarettes, and football, they seemed to remain cheerful, and displayed a sharp sense of humour, based on plays, puns, and double meanings of English words. Literature was prized. In a famous, or infamous, speech of War Criminal Lyndon Johnson, in the early 1960s,on gun control, he mentions that in the US there were over 40,000 homicides in the previous year, compared to 38 in England. A murder in England would be in the national papers, and the police didn’t carry guns. In fact, if anyone attacked or shot a policeman in a robbery, the other thieves would help the police catch the criminals.

Of course, there were many very bad aspects to British society, but in general it was a civil, courteous, fairly cheerful, one.

One reason for this was Capitalism. Not the Capitalism of the behemoth corporations like GE and the major banks. But Capitalism in the form of the shop, Individually-owned. England used to be known as a “Nation of Shopkeepers”. A person would open a store dealing in something he liked, or was interested in, or knew much about. The fruitier who loved fruit and seeing people eat, the bookseller with his regulars whose favorite subjects he’d memorized, the three-chair barbershop, the antique junk shop, the cigarette card and stamp shops,— all these enabled their owners to earn a living in an age when many were virtually forced down the coal mines, or to be a dull bank or insurance clerk, scribbling away all day, while the boss rode you. To shop-ownership you probably owe the Capitalist, libertarian strains in English history, the low murder rate in a country where drinking was de rigueur for the working man and everybody else, despite alcohol’s lowering of inhibitions. Blows they’d come to, but rarely murder. And if done on alcohol, murder was rarely premeditated. The Dr. Cribbin who poisoned his wives was a figure of horrible fascination for the public, frequently referred to for decades afterwards. I doubt if many American millenials would now know who Dr. Cribbin was.

And Capitalism in England, as in Holland, forced or encouraged people to get along with each other, so that toleration of other people’s views was necessary if you wanted their custom, and custom meant money now and money in the future. As I put it, imagine two Armenians who go into business together, and after a few years, one finds that the other is defrauding him through the business. He breaks the partnership, and takes on a Korean partner. Not only is the Korean scrupulously honest, but he’s pleasant to work with, having an excellent sense of humor. And both partners are making a good living through the business. Is the Armenian likely to hate Koreans, or does the partnership humanize what was an Ethnic identity into an Individual? Modern people have forgotten that up to 1960, Americans thought all Japanese and Chinese looked alike. But decades of frequently seeing Asian faces have now led people to see them as individually as they see Western faces. This is what made America unique; it was a place where people from many lands came to create a society where Capitalism and the law created the conditions for an orderly life (as compared to anywhere else on the earth), and its basic law was the most Classically Liberal and Libertarian in the long history of Mankind. Jefferson in 1776 was light-years ahead of most of the current leaders in the world in his Libertarian understanding of political science, Natural Rights, and the composition of a Minarchist, or minimal government, Republic, as well as being far ahead of almost all current American politicians. (President Kennedy, the last great President, once invited Pablo Casals to perform at the White House. After the performance he said, “There has never been this much culture in the West Wing since Jefferson dined alone.”) That Capitalism, combined with the radical Freedom of Conscience which some of the Christian Radicals like Roger Williams displayed, along with those other colonies that propounded a radical tolerance for different religious sects and religions, — that I think is what made America so unique in the history of Human civilizations, although there were those anti-libertarian colonies that persecuted sects mercilessly, like the terrible persecutions of the Quakers. You also see this radical Libertarianism in the later efforts of Christian radicals like William Lloyd Garrison who, in the 1830s, was speaking out against “the Peculiar Institution” of slavery, as it was so euphemistically referred to, the worst anti-libertarian Crime next to murder.

You can see this collaboration of many ethnic strains coming together in the making of Hollywood films. If you look at the names of the technicians and actors, you will find names typical of virtually every country excluding the Third World of Asia and Africa (except for cameraman James Wong Howe). Somehow all these people of different backgrounds came together to make the steady stream of excellent films that came out of Hollywood for 30 years after sound came in. And what caused all this energy to be expended was Capitalism, the desire of all these people to make a profit in order to live. As one person aptly put it, the films were written by Communists, they were directed by Social Democrats, and they starred Right-wing Republicans.

But now that Socialism has so long depleted the wealth of Americans, and the constant printing of money and piling of government debt has further weakened the currency, American society is reaching the limits where social groups start fighting for the limited resources. And that is the underlying cause of the increased social friction between the two competing large political camps in America, the Left and the Right. Like Camus, the libertarian is neither one nor the other.

The Libertarian economists Hayek and Mises both predicted this degeneration late in the socialist cycle, and now that 51% of Americans receive government benefits, and 49% don’t and pay into the system, we have crossed into a democratic-majority socialist entity that is no longer the old Jeffersonian Republic of pre-1964, when the US ended silver coinage.

I recall financial analyst Robert Prechter predicting this increase in conflict in 2009. He said that you didn’t want to be in office during that time because you would be blamed for the collapse, no matter what you did. But he recommended getting elected during the depths of the late depression because, when the economy naturally rebounded as markets always do when they’re not interfered with, you would reap the Political credit, even if you did nothing. (Re-elect Harrigan! He did nothing! (Cheers are heard from the crowd.)).

So the heated political rhetoric goes on, with very few having any idea of the libertarian political and economic Principles on which the Republic was founded.

The U.S. – A great Society that reached its peak 55 years ago, and began to die with the twin murders of President Kennedy and silver coinage.

— Paul Grad, Enviro-Vegan Libertarian

America’s Seven Political Parties: What They Believe in a Nutshell

Osbert and Vlad were planning their political campaign for the school’s upcoming election.

Osbert: What shall we call our party?

Vlad: Do we really need a political party? Couldn’t we just run as ourselves?

Osbert: No, no. You must have a political party or people won’t know who you are.

Vlad: Well, what do these parties want to do?

Osbert: First, they all want to make things better. The Conservatives want to make things better by keeping things exactly as they are.

The moderate Democrats want to make things better by changing things, but not so much that anybody notices.

The Republicans want to make things better by changing things, but not so much that anybody notices, and only if it benefits themselves.

The Progressive Democrats and Socialists want to make things better by taking everything away from everybody who isn’t a Progressive Democrat or a Socialist.

The Fascists and Communists want to make things better by killing everyone but themselves.

The Libertarians want to make things better by letting everyone do whatever they please as long as they do not assault someone else.

Vlad: We’d better not run as Libertarians. They sound dangerous.

— Paul Grad, enviro-vegan libertarian

Against Proportional Representation: The Statist Boondoggle

One of the most vile, and most seductive, political ideas is that of proportional representation — the idea that a political party should have as many representatives in government as its proportion of the vote in the general election.

Firstly, this violates the principle of first past the post as the winner. Instead, you vote for a political party, and that party picks the members who will serve in the representative legislative branch of government such as Congress or the UK Parliament. But who is going to pick these representatives? Ultimately a Party hack or a group of them, who will shoo the election over to their favorite fellow-party members. There is no direct choosing of representatives, but only an endorsement of an “in group” who will decide for you who will represent you.

Secondly, proportional representation completely ignores the Libertarians and Independents who are outside of any political party, and registered as non-affiliated voters. How are they to “choose” anyone, since they may be opposed to all political parties, or have a cynical attitude towards such parties based on long experience and observation of the American Political Scene? Proportional representation also flies in the face of Anarchists who want no association whatsoever with any political system or political party. How are they to be represented, since their “religion” forbids them to further Government by voting for it? In a first past the post system, those Anarchists might find someone who represents their philosophy, or they might vote for the candidate who is closer to anarchism. But under proportional representation they are forced to vote for some political party, which of course is an endorsement of government, something completely anathema to their “religion”.

Proportional Representation is touted around joyously as a panacea for impotent government by the various socialist-capitalist melange parties in the US and other developed so-called democracies, as is voting for a second or third tier candidate if your first choice fails to win. But all it guarantees is the election of more Keynesian-economics politicians who have no comprehension of correct Minarchist government and Austrian-school economics, and believe in the philosophies of the major parties in the US and UK, which is to print money, inflate, and pay off the welfare- and military-industrial- tranches in their political populace. Republicans and Democrats, Tory and Labour, they are all deeply corrupt and incorrect in their political and economic beliefs. And that is why both these societies are slowly rotting.

Proportional Representation also leads to fractured parliaments in which coalitions must be formed to pass any legislation, resulting in impotent governments that have trouble passing any significant legislation (or de-legislation in terms of rescinding unjust and anti-Jeffersonian laws).

So no, no proportional representation in your political systems. First-past-the-post is the best in that it forces people to vote for individuals, not vague and inchoate political ideologies.

—Paul Grad, Vegan-Libertarian

The Grenfell Tower Fire Massacre Shows Socialist Government’s Failure

Great Britain has had Socialist governments since the 1930s, and socialist legislation shortly after the turn of the century, but after almost 90 years of big-government socialistic, bureaucratic rule, the Grenfell Tower Massacre can still occur.

This massive death was caused by government incompetence, because all governmental bureaucracies become incompetent. Frederick Hayek pointed that out in his 1943 book, The Road to Serfdom. This is because in all bureaucracies, the worst rise to the top. The most mediocre, fawning, afraid to criticise, milquetoast, bureaucrat will rise to the top, and we see this in the constant incompetence of the police, and the security services in Europe, who let known terrorists and law offenders wander around the streets, instead of incarcerating or deporting them.

The same incompetence is illustrated by the Grenfell Towers fire massacre. First they tell people to stay in their apartments, and they’ll be rescued. Then, when the building is being engulfed in flame, they tell people to selfl evacuate. How much more incompetence can there be in a country as developed as England, with an educational system which traditionally has prided itself on the quality of the scholars, intellectuals, and writers, which won renown throughout the world?

Now they say that sixty apartment blocks must be evacuated immediately, and thousands of people are being thrown out of their domiciles on a second’s notice, even though these sixty blocks have had people living in them for ages, and its hard to believe it wouldn’t be cheaper to hire firewatchers on each floor with extinguishing equipment for far less than it has cost to rehouse these people, the Socialists thrown them into the streets, or sterile hotels. At the very least a few days to a week’s notice should have been given to these victims of Socialism.

With sixty out of sixty blocks failing fire safety standards by having the flammable cladding on their sides, and the number of buildings to be checked at 600 according to the Press, it is clear how dangerous Socialist government is to the health and safety of the Individual Citizen and the non-voting Child. That such a situation could go on for so long without a tragedy bringing it to mass attention clearly shows why government, especially socialist government (and every government in the world is socialist or authoritarian in some measure) is always going to be incompetent in whatever it touches.

If this had been a private huge company or corporation, you can be fairly sure that that cladding would have been tested and guaranteed not to be flammable, or else they would have been sued into bankruptcy, or probably had their CEO serve jail time and a huge fine. If people have died, he might have been convicted of Manslaughter. There would have been some sort of retribution and compensation for the victims, and the satisfaction in knowing that someone who caused the death of your relative because of negligence or the quest for profits had paid a heavy price. But when Socialist Government does it, nobody goes to jail, nobody resigns, nobody loses their salary and pays a huge fine, or sits behind bars like the person having a few ounces of cannabis.

All Big Government does is set up a commission or inquiry. No one gets executed. A White Paper is issued with recommendations, because the Socialist illusion is that big government can always be reformed, so they have been “reforming” it for ninety years, while it continues to keel from one tragedy and incompetence to the next. Crisis after Crisis without end, with people uselessly losing their lives, because most voters have been brainwashed into tolerating Socialist, un-Jeffersonian Government.

With Corbyn’s 40% Labour vote, you can see how mentally brainwashed are the British People. This guy’s love-of-big-government doctrine has brought about situations like the Grenfell Tower Massacre, yet he recently got cheered at Glastonbury by the young crowd. So the coming generations have no inkling of how they are supporting what is destroying them, because they never read the philosophical Masters and Writers of the 20th Century; they never read anything except perhaps an assigned textbook, certainly not Hayek and Rothbard, and Russell, Sartre, and Camus. Or Huxley, Alan Watts, and J. Krishnamurti,or stuff from the earlier philosophers from Plato’s Socratic dialogues to Schopenhauer’s Essays, stuff that will develop the brain, make you doubt opinions you’re sure off,and lead to an investigation of the consciousness of the individual.In the modern world, this is all bypassed for visual stimuli and junk food among most of the young, and it’s been going on for so long that their parents are just the same. I’m now seeing old middle-aged women with wrinkly tatooes.

So Socialist government destroys Liberty and Mentality, and impoverishes so many people, especially the young, that it leads them to more Socialism, which finally results in the complete breakdown of society. The West is in this process; England well illustrates it.

Since the process will continue because so many cheer and believe in big, bureaucratic government, there is very little hope of turning it around in America, the UK, and Western Europe, and Asia is equally as wimpy as the British when it comes to confronting Governmental Authority, look at China and Japan, or Singapore. Of course, Asia also has a rich tradition of Capitalistic trading, with many merchants.

Yes, the Grenfell Tower Fire Massacre clearly shows that with so many brainwashed, historically- and economically-ignorant, people there is really very little hope of now diverting Mankind away from disaster,

-Paul Grad, Libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Nominee 2014

The U.K. Elections: The Young Socialist Pitbulls Put Down John Bull

It looks like Britain has finally gone to the dogs, the socialist pitbulls that is. The election the other day had young people flocking to vote for a racist, and, in doing so, overlook his racism.

It’s a bit like if the hippies and the leftists of the 60s had voted for George Wallace, never mentioning his treatment of Blacks when he was Governor in the segregated South.

Apart from the fact that Theresa May was your typical Hillary Clinton-type middle-aged woman politician, with no charisma, spontaneity, or humour, and had done a dismal job as Home Secretary for six years, what really got the vote for Corbyn’s Labour party was the malaise that socialist society imposes on youth. Ironically, those youth were voting for a further entrenchment of their poverty, and their comrade’s poverty, by voting for a despot who glories in the overthrowing of Property Rights, And let us not forget that all Rights, including the Freedom of Speech and the Freedom of the Press, ultimately boil down to some form of Property Rights, thus their importance.

They also chose to vote for a Leftist racist, and thus they have crossed over the line from being Liberarians as far as civil rights go, even if they were unfortunately Leftists, to becoming Fascists. The toleration of Corbyn’s antisemitism, and his toleration and friendship for antisemites, show him to be little different from the left wing of the Nazi party in the 30s. This situation is exactly the same as if all the Liberals in America had crowded around George Wallace when he ran for President, and never ever mentioned his racism. In four hours of election night news I did not hear one word about Corbyn’s antisemitism, but I did hear many words of praise from Leftists and fellow party members for Corbyn. Yet in America, as we neared the last election, the names Trump, Bannon, and  Breitbart were never mentioned without mentioning words like “racist, antisemitic, white supremacist”. The fact that Corbyn’s antisemitic scat has been swallowed by the Left shows how utterly corrupt and far from Jeffersonian Principles they have moved.

Of course, this corruption is inevitable with socialism, or Marxism, which immediately catagorizes and defines each man according to material standards, the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, big Capital, etc. Socialism must violate the inalienable Jeffersonian Rights in order to achieve its goals, and thus it produces corruption — the corruption of force or coercion. This Aggression against Individual’s Property Rights is what Libertarianism seeks to end, both when carried out by government or by rogue individuals.

So the Socialism of England, not unlike the Socialism of America or of Western Europe, has corrupted the youth of Britain and the Continent, and now the Youth of Britain are rebelling against that prison of socialist bureaucracy by voting for a racist. This shows you how corrupt and cynical decades of Socialism can make people, especially young people who have their lives ruined through government controls like the income tax, the social security tax, the health services tax, local property tax and code regulations, and the minimum wage laws which guarantees a hefty level of teenage unemployment, to the glee of the unions, who can thus cut out a lot of wage competition from youths.

Additionally, the rotten, boring government schools, are only really training the youth for corporate fodder jobs. Government schools train at public expense the corporate workforce that could have been trained by the billionaire corporation.  For example, in the period from 1900-1910, trade between the U.S. and Latin America heated up, and that is when the schools first started teaching Spanish. Thus do corporations, in collusion with the Democrats and Republican, shift the burden of corporate training to the local property tax payer, while braying about the virtues of government schools.

The big boost in the Labour vote coming from new younger voters seems to parallel the lack of critical economic understanding that characterized the youth in America who supported Bernie Sanders. You’ll notice in Sanders campaign speeches that he wailed long and hard about the evils of the corporations and wall street, but would never mention the huge military spending budgets that are ballooning the budget deficits. Sanders understand of economics is that of a piss ant, and to have him at the helm of the country would have been very economically dangerous. Somehow it seems that being a Leftist over the course of ones’ life, for fifty or sixty years, damages or deranges the brain so that such people can no longer discern reality. Sanders blind naivete is a good example.

The good news out of the bad news from the UK election, is that Corbyn didn’t win, and he won’t be Prime Minister, and also that Theresa May may not be Prime Minister much longer. Both outcomes devoutly to be wished.

— Paul Grad, vegan libertarian, Libertarian Nominee for Oregon Governor 2014