Thursday, March 29, 2012

Ron Paul Rant

 Libertarian Background for understanding Ron Paul's political positions - sources
....and libertarianism with all its potential flavors...like Ronald Reagan and aspartame - see last post. Hopefully this post will provide some education as to the source of all these ideas as well as the controversy and heated discussions (why none of them can agree with each other).  Ideas are great....but its the application of the ideas that we need to watch very carefully (aspartame anyone?).  There's a reason the power brokers are libertarian as well as the instigators of corporatism and proponents of black control boxes (foundations).
Many readers may be surprised to learn the extent to which the Graduate Institute and then Mises himself in the years immediately after he came to United States were kept afloat financially through generous grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. In fact, for the first years of Mises’s life in the United States, before his appointment as a visiting professor in the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York University (NYU) in 1945, he was almost totally dependent on annual research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. Even after he finally landed the position at NYU, where he remained only a visiting professor until his retirement in 1969, his salary was paid for not by NYU, but from funds contributed by generous private supporters. Source
Hayek’s teacher Wieser had been the main contact of the Rockefeller Foundation among the academic economists in Vienna. After 1926, when he succeeded Wieser as the main contact of the Rockefeller Foundation in Vienna, Mises had the opportunity to provide or withhold material benefits. Source
Finally, in his most surprising statement, he [David Rockefeller] revealed he considers himself a follower of the Austrian school of economics. Friedrich Hayek had been his tutor at the London School of Economics in the 1930s. Source

And while I'm on the Ron Paul soapbox from the last post (can you tell I am a former Ron Paul brain washed zealot and campaign donor?)....he rants about abolishing the Federal Reserve (front organization for private banks) but then recommends just turning the money creation power directly over to the private banks (competing currencies - i.e. no adherence to Constitutional mandate for Congress to do the job they are supposed to be doing despite all of his followers claiming how Constitutional he is).  Instead we get digital gold via Lewis Lehrman (CFR, PNAC, etc) and Rand Paul.

Ron is talking about competing currencies...issued by the inner banking circle controlled market of course....in other words setting the stage for the new world order to establish a global currency based on gold as advocated by his buddy Lewis Lehrman of CFR and PNAC. So we have a shell game where they drop the Federal Reserve Notes and go with a global note "backed by gold" (digital gold?)...at least until they say otherwise (think Nixon)....where's the change? Who gets screwed?

Read "The Case for Gold" by Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman which is their viewpoint after participating in Ronald Reagan's Gold Commission which Ron Paul spearheaded.

Is our debt reduced? The money creation problem resolved? No....instead he proposes that we sell off our gold and lands to satisfy the debt (which was created for the cost of printing). Constitutional...nope.

Ron is talking about getting out of foreign entanglements and bringing the military home. This sounds really good and I hate how the US military has become this globalist tool. That said, much of the damage has been done and at this point it would just pave the way for China/Russia whom the globalists have been building up for multiple decades.

Also...what are those troops going to do when they get home? Any jobs out there? Why? Wouldn't be lack of money would it (which creates lack of demand and lack of jobs)? Is Ron Paul planning to fix that? Nope! Instead he's actually going to make it worse by opening the door to a single global currency based on commodities which "we the people" don't control.

So is bringing the troops home a good thing....again No. It will actually be destructive to the nation from multiple angles. First it provides a vacuum for China/Russia to fill. Second, all these guys come home only to find disillusion as they cannot gain employment (job losses accelerate as we find ourselves in a global race to the bottom for the lowest common denominator - i.e. the cheapest grunt labor)....and their respective skill sets are no longer desired....which leads to destruction/chaos at home.

Does Ron Paul really care about the troops and the challenges they face?  How did the vote on gays in the military go?
Numerous researchers have found out that the creation of a cohesive unit... is significantly influenced by broad cultural values, norms, and characteristics that are the result of a common socialization process and basic agreement among unit members about cultural values.

A significant characteristic about a cohesive unit is the consistent observation and evaluation of the behavior of unit members. Any deviation from unit norms, values, or expected behavior brings immediate and intense group pressures to conform to group norms. If the behavior is not corrected, then cleavage results in the group and cohesion is weakened. If the situation occurs in combat, where survival is threatened, then the group can be expected to expel or somehow separate or isolate the nonconforming individual.
Seventy eight percent of soldiers oppose allowing homosexuals into the military. Ninety percent feel very strongly about the privacy issue. They are strongly against it on the grounds of privacy.  Seventy four percent of male soldiers believe homosexuality is abnormal.
Seventy five percent believe gays serving openly in the Army would be very disruptive to discipline. Eighty one percent think there would be violence against homosexuals if it did happen. This indicates to me that if you did that you would have the severe disruption within these primary groups that we have been talking about that are so violative to cohesion...you have got to have a subordination of the individual values to the group so that they can be resocialized into those group values.
If you have gross, widespread dissimilarities in your initial population of recruits, your are going to have an extremely difficult time in achieving that resocialization process. You are going to have fragmentation, you are going to have personal conflict, and so on. Source
I think I could summarize the argument fairly quickly and then save time for my colleagues and hopefully myself to respond to other charges or questions as they arise during the course of this debate. I think I can summarize it best by stating just three essential points.
Many people who serve in the military today share a viewpoint that allowing homosexuals to serve in the military goes against their religious beliefs or moral convictions. Many of our young soldiers entering the military today are from families who hold very strong moral traditions, beliefs and convictions, and strong religious beliefs. Many military people have stated that a change in this policy will, over time, significantly affect our ability to retain many of the people whom we look to today for leadership in the military and will affect seriously our ability to recruit the needed people for the decade ahead to continue to supply the quality of people that we need in our military. Because, on the basis of their own personal religious convictions or their moral convictions, they see this change as creating an atmosphere in which they do not want their sons or daughters to serve, or which they themselves do not feel comfortable serving in.
Second, we fear that the change in policy will significantly reduce our ability to field an effective military force. Perhaps the most essential ingredient in an effective military force, as our military leaders tell us and as sergeants and captains and colonels and generals throughout the ages have said, is an intangible aspect that some define as morale, some define as esprit de corps, unit cohesiveness, discipline. General Powell has spoken to this. General Powell has indicated that change in this policy will undermine good order and discipline.
General Schwarzkopf said it will destroy the military. These are strong words. They need to be heeded. They need to be listened to. That intangible quality say, our field commanders, our sergeants, our platoon leaders, our battalion leaders--that quality is something that is fashioned in an extraordinary way through intense discipline, training, and it is derived on the basis of a unit cohesiveness that is critical to our effectiveness. It is important that we listen to our military leaders when they tell us that this change in policy will affect that is a very dramatic way.
Now, why? Why? Why does allowing homosexuals in the military affect that ability to field an efficient, effective military? Have not homosexuals served in the military, served as good patriots, served with courage, made positive contributions? Absolutely, they have. But there is an essential element here present that is difficult to talk about, no one really wants to talk about, but it must be talked about for us to understand what is at stake. It is a three-letter word called sex.
For the same reason we do not put men and women together in the enforced intimate living situations that we find in our military which is different from every aspect of life--where people live together in barracks, sleep together in tents, shower together in makeshift showers in the desert sands of the Persian Gulf, dress and undress with each other--for the same reason we do not put men and women together in a situation like that because of the sexual attraction element which is one of the most basic of all human instincts and really does not need to be explained in a whole lot of detail--I think everyone understands that----That is a tension-creating, conflict-creating, consequence-creating element that destroys morale, that undermines unit cohesiveness and effectiveness. Source

Ron has also voted for things like "most favored status" to China which has helped assist them in their build up. That's not an "entangling alliance" with what Ron has also called "one of the most brutal, anti-American regimes in the world"???? And has it not fit hand in glove with globalist plans of building up the communist countries and destroying the United States?

Ron is also recommending privatizing the military, education, TSA, FAA, etc etc etc (the election system for government ???)....all while spouting off that we need to get rid of the "privatized" (Federal Reserve and fractional private banking) money creation system. His Restore America kills a large chunk of government spending (although privatizing portions of it - who gets those contracts?)...basically taking the military from foreign lands (leaving a gigantic vacuum for the Russians/Chinese to fill) as well as large portions of the federal government...while completely reducing costs to corporate interests and selling off government assets. So the corporations receive massive benefits (reduced or near zero taxes). The Russians/Chinese benefit. The rich who have all the investments benefit.

But the poor little guy on the bottom....nah he gets squeezed like never before in history. Safety nets go bye bye. The rich get richer....and the poor get much much poorer.

Ron Paul's free market is a crock of BS. He pretends to be for free market while his strategies and policies are designed to destroy the last remaining controls of government. This is clearly evident in his "Restore America Plan" - notice the removal of controls over banking and corporations as well as the reduction in corporate tax (even further globalization as they can move money where ever they want w/o repatriating taxes)....is that the free market you envisioned???

Is Ron Paul advocating putting the power back in Congress.....or more privatization and power to the corporations???

Again go back and look at Ron Paul's actual policies or intended policies and compare them with "free market"....is it really "free" or do you end up in California's situation after they "de-regulated" power and their power bills went up 1600% over the course of a year or two??? All because they now were competing on the "national" market for power...who won? who lost? How did that Enron/Bush story go again???

What was Ron Paul's stance on the whole Enron and California power de-regulation fiasco???

Ron Paul and his agenda.... how does turning the money over to the "market - i.e. corporations" and out of the hands of the government (Congress - i.e. the people...as long as the franchise or right to vote remains in place) fit in with these statements -

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
- Thomas Jefferson

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
- Thomas Jefferson

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
- Remarks at dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere on 4/29/62 by JFK

Ron Paul has long held that land owned by the government should be sold to private developers. In addition to closing the Department of the Interior, his "Restore America" budget plan proposes selling off at least $40 billion worth of public lands such as national parks, and other federal assets, between 2013 and 2016.

Fast forward almost 70 years. Ron Paul announces at the Heritage Foundation that the government should sell its gold to reduce the national debt.

We are buried in debt....is Ron Paul going to help the people....or help the bankers and corporations who are now the legal land owners???

But his followers who talk about the great sacrifices he has made for his country in giving up his vocation of delivering babies to make millions a year and despite a 25+ year history as a representative of "the people" having not gotten one single bill passed.  Does he even donate to his own campaign while asking for whatever "the people" can sacrifice for him?  And those same people cheer when card carrying Bilderberg Group steering committee man Peter Thiel puts a couple million behind Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is a dream-come- true for corporations who want free trade unrestricted by regulation or taxation. Source

Peter Thiel - Ron Paul's biggest fundraiser (both overtly and covertly). PayPal/Facebook/Palantir Technologies/etc...billionaire, 44, who is openly gay and is ramping up the Republican (left?) via GoProud...the host of Homocon...

On the Board of Directors for the Hoover Institution and a member of the Steering Committee of The Bilderberg Group.

Research CIA and Facebook for information concerning the "early" investors...

Bruce Fein - senior adviser to Ron Paul on legal matters concerning his 2012 Campaign run. Bruce Fein is a lawyer in the United States who specializes in constitutional and international law. Fein has written numerous articles on constitutional issues for The Washington Times, Slate.com, The New York Times, Legal Times, and is active on the issues of civil liberties. He has also worked for the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, both conservative think tanks, as an analyst and commentator.

Doug Wead - senior adviser to Ron Paul for 2012 Campaign run. He is a motivational speaker, a Bush family friend, and was a campaign adviser to George H.W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. He was Special Assistant to U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and is the author of more than thirty books, including the New York Times best-seller All the Presidents’ Children: Triumph and Tragedy in the Lives of the First Families.

In 1979, Doug Wead joined entertainer Pat Boone and Dan O’Neill in co-founding Mercy Corps. In 1991, Wead provided initial funding to help launch a Mercy Corps economic recovery program in the newly formed Republic of Kazakhstan. Mercy Corps is a global aid agency engaged in transitional environments that have experienced some sort of shock: natural disaster, economic collapse, or conflict. Mercy Corps, in the last 14 years, has founded 12 different finance institutions. Since 1979, Mercy Corps has provided more than US$1.95 billion in assistance to people in 107 nations. Supported by headquarters offices in North America and Europe, the agency's unified global programs employ 3,700 staff worldwide and reach nearly 16.7 million people in more than 40 countries.

Recommend researching NGOs, the CIA, and Mercy Corps for more information...

Wead was an active behind-the-scenes player in the 2000 United States presidential election, receiving some credit for George W. Bush's victory in the Iowa straw polls of 1999. From 1984 to 2000, he served as an on-and-off adviser to both presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Time magazine called Wead an insider in the Bush family orbit and "the man who coined the phrase 'Compassionate Conservative.'" George W. Bush first picked up the term “Compassionate Conservative” in 1987 from Wead. In 1979, Wead gave a speech titled “The Compassionate Conservative” at the annual Charity Awards Dinner, and tapes of the speech were later sold across the country at corporate seminars.

Lewis E. Lehrman: Independently wealthy (the Rite Aid drugstore fortune), a scholar, philanthropist, and longtime student of monetary policy. He served with Ron Paul on Ronald Reagan's Gold Commission which was instigated by Ron Paul. He and Ron Paul later wrote a book together recommending gold titled "The Case for Gold".

Lewis Lehrman later wrote a book pushing for the use of gold as one world currency.

Lewis was a signatory to the infamous Project For a New American Century document, a pre-9/11 Neo-Con blueprint which yearned for a "new Pearl Harbor" to justify U.S. military expansionism across the globe. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Project for the New American Century, as well as a Trustee to the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. He was a former director for the Heritage Foundation. Lehrman was a managing director of Morgan Stanley in the late 1980s. He was also an investor in George W. Bush's Arbusto Energy. He and Gilder were awarded the National Humanities Medal in an Oval Office ceremony on Thursday, November 10, 2005. The Medal was presented by President George W. Bush. He's a close family friend of the Bush family.

He lectured at Hillsdale College in Michigan, in the Ludwig von Mises “Champions of Freedom” series. Founder of the Lehrman Institute who's director was Barton Biggs of Brookings Institution. Bruce Rabb is partner of the Wall Street law firm, Stroock Stroock & Lavan, organized the Lehrman Institute and has been secretary of it since 1978.

Currently recommending a return to gold standard for a global currency along with Rand Paul.  The architect of the plan, Lewis Lehrman, a businessman and scholar, will present his program in an address October 5 at a conference in Washington on the how to return to a stable dollar. He will outline a five-step program to return America to a gold-backed currency within five years.

Murray Rothbard - Ron Paul's self declared mentor. During the early 1950s, he studied under the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises at his seminars at New York University and was greatly influenced by Mises' book Human Action. Rothbard attracted the attention of the William Volker Fund, the main group that supported classical liberal scholars in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Rothbard began his consulting work for the Volker Fund in 1951. This relationship lasted until 1962, when the VF was dissolved. A major part of Rothbard's work for the VF consisted of reading and evaluating books, journal articles, and other materials. On the basis of written reports by Rothbard and another reader - Rose Wilder Lane - the VF's directors would decide whether to undertake massive distribution of particular works to public libraries. During the late 1950s, Rothbard was also an associate of Ayn Rand and her philosophy, Objectivism, along with several other students of Ludwig von Mises, such as George Reisman.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Rothbard was active in the Libertarian Party. He was frequently involved in the party's internal politics. He was one of the founders of the Cato Institute, and "came up with the idea of naming this libertarian think tank after Cato’s Letters, a powerful series of British newspaper essays by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon which played a decisive influence upon America's Founding Fathers in fomenting the Revolution.

Lew Rockwell Jr - Ron Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982, was a vice president of Ron Paul & Associates, the corporation that published the Ron Paul Political Report and the Ron Paul Survival Report. Founder of LewRockwell.com. Rockwell remains a friend and advisor to Paul—accompanying him to major media appearances; promoting his candidacy on the LewRockwell.com blog; publishing his books; and peddling an array of the avuncular Texas congressman's recent writings and audio recordings. A proponent of the Austrian School of economics, and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. In the mid-1970s Rockwell went to work at Hillsdale College. In his time at Hillsdale College, Rockwell started the Hillsdale College Press, founded the school's monthly publication, Imprimis, and worked in fundraising and public relations. He met Murray Rothbard at Hillsdale College.

Milton Friendman - an American economist, statistician, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades. Friedman was an economic advisor to conservative President Ronald Reagan. Friedman spent 1941–43 working on wartime tax policy for the Federal Government, as an advisor to senior officials of the United States Department of the Treasury. As a Treasury spokesman during 1942 he advocated a Keynesian policy of taxation, and during this time he helped to invent the payroll withholding tax system. During 1946, Friedman accepted an offer to teach economic theory at the University of Chicago (a position opened by departure of his former professor Jacob Viner to Princeton University). Friedman would work for the University of Chicago for the next 30 years. There he helped build an intellectual community that produced a number of Nobel Prize winners, known collectively as the Chicago School of Economics. Aaron Director was a famous professor at the University of Chicago Law School who played a central role in the development of the Chicago school of economics with his brother-in-law, Milton Friedman, the leader of the “Chicago School.” From 1977 on, he was affiliated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He was also a member of the Heritage Foundation as well as the Mont Pelerin Society.

He also played a founding role in the American Enterprise Institute.

Jesse Benton - Ron Paul's 2012 Campaign Chairman. Campaign manager on Rand Paul's 2010 U.S. Senate race from May 2010. Communications director on Rep. Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign starting in March 2007. President of C.I.C Solutions, a Washington, D.C. based consulting firm. Benton has served as press secretary at Americans for Tax Reform, communications director at the American Conservative Union, director of public policy and external affairs at the Performance Institute and communications director and policy consultant for the Liberty Coalition. Media coordinator and board member, American Conservative Defense Alliance. He has also worked on campaigns and in corporate and trade association government relations and external affairs. Alumnus of Mary Washington College.

Grover Glenn Norquist - American lobbyist, conservative activist, and founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Referring to Norquist's activities as head of ATR, Steve Kroft, in a 60 Minutes episode that aired on November 20, 2011, claimed that "Norquist has been responsible, more than anyone else, for rewriting the dogma of the Republican Party."

As a nonprofit organization, Americans for Tax Reform is not required to disclose the identity of its contributors. Critics such as Sen. Alan Simpson, have asked Norquist to disclose his contributors; he has declined but has said that ATR is financed by direct mail and other grassroots fundraising efforts. According to CBS News, "a significant portion appears to come from wealthy individuals, foundations and corporate interests."

While in college, Norquist was an editor at the Harvard Crimson and helped to publish the libertarian-leaning Harvard Chronicle.

Norquist traveled to several war zones to help support anti-Soviet guerrilla armies in the second half of the 1980s. He worked with a support network for Oliver North's efforts with the Nicaraguan Contras and other insurgencies, in addition to promoting U.S. support for groups including Mozambique's RENAMO and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA in Angola and helping to organize anti-Soviet forces in Laos.

In 2004, Norquist helped California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with his plan to privatize the CalPERS system. In 2010, Norquist joined the advisory board of GOProud, a political organization representing conservative gays, lesbians, transgendered people, and their allies, for which he was criticized by the Family Research Council. He has served as a monthly "Politics" columnist and contributing editor to The American Spectator.

Along with Campaign for Liberty coordinator Michael D. Ostrolenk (who serves as President and is a Board Member), Norquist founded the American Conservative Defense Alliance. He also founded a front organization called the Islamic Free Market Institute in 1998 together with a Muslim activitist long associated with Muslim Brotherhood operatives named Khaled Saffuri “to promote a better understanding of Islam in America.”

John Tate:

John is a long-time political operative who has spent the last 26 years working in the political, lobbying and non-profit world in the areas of high dollar fundraising, direct mail, political strategy, grassroots activism and non-profit management.

He is the founder and President of JFT Consulting, Inc. a consulting firm that specializes in political strategy, fundraising and grassroots lobbying. John served as the National Political Director for The Ron Paul Presidential Campaign Committee and is currently President of the newly formed Campaign for Liberty.

Prior to joining Campaign for Liberty, John served as the Vice President, Membership for the Leadership Institute. In this role he headed up a department of LI staff that contacted and visited supporters nationwide to show them and raise funds for special targeted LI programs. In his 4 years at LI this program raised nearly $4 million. He also taught at many of LI's schools.

Before joining LI, John spent 14 years with the National Right to Work Committee, serving as Vice President from 1998 to 2004. As Vice President he oversaw all state and federal lobbying efforts, public relations, the affiliated state and federal PACs for Right to Work and a direct mail and telemarketing fundraising operation that raised more than $23 million to combat Big Labor’s coercive power over workers.

Ted Anderson - (Midas Resources which is the parent company of Genesis Communications Network) Midas Resources has been a Torch Bearer Supporter of the Campaign For Liberty (C4L) since it's inception. Also a supporter of Young Americans For Liberty (YAL) and many others. Ted Anderson is associated with Wallnuts Investment Club with the role of Principal.

Research Alex Jones and Genesis Communications Network for more insights there...

Here's a nice little tool  and a nice little tool for getting additional names and organizations (foundations, trusts, institutes - all tax free of course) with Lewis Lehrman as example here.

The World Order controls the citizens of the United States through the tax exempt foundations. These foundations create and implement government policy through their staff members in key positions in the executive, legislative and judiciary departments. The foundations create educational policy through their staff members in key positions at every level of the educational system. The foundations control religious doctrine through their staff members in key positions in the leading religious denominations.

“Foundation” is a misleading term; Webster calls it an endowment, but a foundation is really a trust, which Roget states is a “syndicate”. If, instead of Rockefeller Foundation, we were to say Rockefeller Syndicate, we would be much closer to the truth. Alpheus T. Mason, in his biography of justice Brandeis, quotes Brandeis as pointing out that “Socialism has been developed largely by the power of individual trusts.” What we have then, are criminal syndicates masquerading as philanthropic enterprises while they inflict Socialist world slavery on nations and peoples for the benefit of the World Order.

Norman Dodd, director of research for the Reece Committee in its attempt to investigate tax exempt foundations, was asked by Congressman B. Carroll Reece in January, 1954, “Do you accept the premise that the United States is the victim of a conspiracy ?” “Yes,” said Dodd. “Then,” said Congressman Reece, “you must conduct the investigation on that basis.” B.E. Hutchinson, chairman of Chrysler Corp., although approving the goals of the investigation, warned Dodd, “If you proceed as you have outlined, you will be killed.”

The New York Times noted April 29, 1984 that 1400 officials were attending the annual meeting of the Council on Foundations. There were 21,697 foundations in the U.S., which in 1983 distributed $3.4 billion in grants. These grants are dispensed only to those who implement the program of the World Order, and whose goal is world slavery.

The international banking families, whose origins go back to the Middle Ages, set up the principal American foundations to protect the wealth they had amassed in their dealings in slaves, drugs and gold, and to perpetuate that wealth through means which can only be described as “imperial decrees”, government charters, in order to neutralize all potential rivals or opposition by controlling them and directing or misdirecting their opposition.

None of the charters of the foundations indicate their real purpose. They are replete with such phrases as “the well-being of mankind” “the elimination of poverty”, the “elimination of disease, “the promotion of world brotherhood”. Compassion, caring, charity, these are the watchwords of the foundations. There is no hint to the unwary of the despotic instincts which drive these “caring” people to promote world wars and world slavery, nor is there any warning to the menials of the foundations that if they falter at any time in their dedication to the goals of the World Order, the penalty is sudden death. Source

Imagine a world where everything is owned: the land, the water, and the air.

Ownership is the right of influence. When you own something you can do what you will with it. Nobody can tell you otherwise. If you save all your money and buy a Porsche, you can drive it off a cliff for all we care. It is yours, and being yours, it escapes our influence.

In a corporation, decisions are made through ownership percentage of the company. If you and I, together, own 51% of our company, we can institute any corporate policy or bylaws we want. But I ask you, how many of us own 51% of Exxon, or Merrill Lynch, or Monsanto? How many of us have ever sat in on a board meeting for Disney, or Microsoft, or K-Mart? Chances are, you have not, and as long as you don’t own enough of the company, you will never be invited. You will never have influence. That takes ownership.

Imagine a world where everything is owned: not by you, but by one of these companies. Imagine that the presiding authority over the water you drink, or the air you breathe is owned by somebody else, and its use had to be commercially negotiated: that you drink because you have permission to drink, or breathe air because you have permission to breathe it.

What else is a license than merely formal arrangements of permission? When you buy a $0.99 song on iTunes, its not merely the bandwidth you are paying for, or even the royalty to the artist. You are purchasing a license — you are purchasing permission from the owner of the music, the record company, to play and store the music on your computer and iPod.

Imagine a world where the central systems of society were privatized in this fashion: they are owned, not by you, and provided through private permission.

What else is Despotism than a society where everything that is done, is done with permission of the elite? What else is Despotism than the privatization of society? Source