Gov. 1A-30: Run Roughshod and Smooth Handling *

    When Libertarians define state power we typically ascribe the source of that power to the explicit threat of violence. If the state could only operate according to this principle the power it would exercise over society would be far less grave. Indeed, the majority of the state's influence comes from subtle corruption and bribery. Not the sword, but bread and circuses. Indeed, it seems the entire purpose of discretionary spending is to secure state power in an age where it is increasingly irrelevant. To the people receiving federal money, all seems well and prosperous. What they don't realize is that the same money which benefits them also extends a sinister tentacle of control into their lives. It is impossible for the state to extend the smooth hand to give without also extending the rough one to control. 

    The eternal fallacy of statism is to believe that one can receive benefits by living at the expense of others without also suffering the proportional consequences of state control. In private life, we know nothing is ever really free, and so it is with the state. Being a monopoly on government, the state always secures its power by imposing rules for the use of its 'free' money. Rulers promise to help communities, but they only do this in search of approval. The incentive is to target a demographic, not to provide services that help people. The people distributing the money have the power to do good and to do evil, and they have goals and an orientation toward control. Of course, there are always strings attached. Money is only doled out with the stipulation it will be used to further the ends of the ruler.

    What do we mean by control? state control of what? The beneficiary, that sector of the economy? the market? all government? society? the lives of every individual in its jurisdiction? No, it must control all of these. The claim of the modern state is sovereignty, by definition, it controls its subordinate units. By nature the state has rejected local independence, it favors centralized power as a fact of its existence. The main tendency of the state is to consolidate federal power, and believe it or not, there are no effective checks on the growth of state power. As individuals, rulers always want more power to suit their ever-expanding ends. An empire can never grow so large and tyrannical as to satisfy a ruler. 

    The best way to envision the ways of the state is to view them as a web of control. The charity of the state, like the silk of a spider, exists to trap their source of power. Rulers wish to feed on you their prey and swell the body of the state. A shining promise hangs above the web, hiding everything in its glare. The web of silken strings is only seen by the prey once they fly straight into the creature's lair. like Eros the bugs near the light, not knowing they can never have what it offers, there are always webs of strings attached. The creature that weaves this web feasts and swells with new power. Observers might not even blame the spider for feeding in this manner, but nobody can deny how it has captured its source of power. 

    Let us be charitable to the statist and assume all of his theoretical rulers are perfectly benevolent and altruistic. They have put a lot of time and money on the line toward a goal. That money HAS to have strings attached, otherwise, it might be used for something not so desirable. Laws are a form of string, they stipulate how the money can and cannot be used. Even if the money is given as discretionary spending there are certain ways it has to be spent, and certain things are required of the recipient. Imagine billions of dollars were doled out with no strings attached, all you can see is corruption and scandal. In fact, such a policy would cause the ruler to lose legitimacy, the opposite of their goals. No, for rulers to be legitimate and attain their 'benevolent' end the money needs to have labels, like infrastructure or homelessness. Inside the state, oversight by incompetent bureaucrats is seen as the best way to prevent this, even if it is stupid. The outcome is the same either way, waste, embezzlement, and misallocation. The difference is that politicians can say they spent a few extra millions on infrastructure or homelessness, some token topic. So even if rulers claim to be benevolent, the underlying incentive structure of state aid lends itself to control and corruption. 

    To see the full and terrifying consequences of this we need to look no further than the reservation system. However you choose to see reservations, either as some form of benevolence or attempted genocide, they are appalling. It is hard to pin down exactly how much is allocated to the system, but most sources put it between two and twenty billion dollars. With this amount of money, undereducated observers might expect serious benefits. However, the results are just the opposite. Native Americans are among the poorest and most underserved communities in America. Where does all the money go? And why have native Americans remained so poor on reservations faithfully managed by the state? It has to do with this appalling web of threads woven with money. The offer of Federal stewardship is the light that attracts the flies, but they get caught by the web made with strings laid by the spider. Once the public is hooked on that offer it becomes caught in the web of rules, regulations, and entitlements the state weaves. Once the offer is accepted the people become slave vassals who only exists to feed the bureaucracy. The state tear into the very being of personality with its imposed law and manufactured justice. The system of reservation camps are said to be independent, but reality is far from it. The promise of democracy is that citizens will be cared for by the bottomless pocketbook of the state, but the truth is that the state owns them. The state holds an impossible claim to all land, all wealth, and all freedoms, even the very personality of the individual is claimed by the state. For the price of all being, they receive nothing because the state does not exist to serve them, its motivation is to feed on them. Any money spent is beyond touch, it disappears with corruption, waste, and embezzlement. This is the reality of your Democratic peoples state!

    Despite all objections, it is impossible for the state to extend the smooth hand without the rough. Promises of aid conceal the more sinister realities of state rule. Masters have ever-expanding fanticies of power, there is no rest in the lust for power. No kingdom can ever satisfy a tyrant, and altruism suffocates the world like an overbearing mother.  Tyranny never doubts her ways, once began, a policy of control is never relinquished. Every law, every act, and every decree works to feed the beuacracy, to feed the state, to give sucor to the tyrant. These promises of candy cottages for every little girl and boy are a great wool over the eyes of the people. A witch stands at the door and promises everything in the world, but it only wants to feast on innocent flesh. If our nation is to prosper it cannot make insane promises of every kind on this green earth. Our people cannot not permit scheming politicians to fleece the nation again and again for whatever they desire. The politics of plunder can lead only to a suffocation by tyranny and the death of all that makes us great.  The people of this once great nation must cast off the great illusion before it is too late! America must embrace freedom, it must embrace liberty rather than death! 

• all it does is create corrupt lies

Western Civ. 1-30: Modern Parallels From The Peloponnesian War

    A major war is forever the defining event of a generation. It is no wonder that they are said to divide history with their earth-shaking consequences. In the history of the west, there have been three wars that truly marked new eras in history. These were the European civil war of 1914-1945, the Thirty Years War, and the Peloponnesian war. From 431-404 BC. The latter is largely remembered as a self-destructive atrocity never to be repeated. Today, all Greeks see themselves as culturally united and the war as shameful brother killing. The great tragedy of the war was the end of peace and unity among the Greeks. Greek brotherhood was undermined by the state to produce war, famine, economic conquest, and death. Terrible war ended the Greek golden age, overturned the Delian League, and shifted the balance of power. The present situation of the west is deeply analogous to this ancient period. This essay will explore the parallels between the two ages and their implications on history. 

    Collusion between states will typically happen after a major war, and the Greek example was no different. Similar to postwar NATO, the Delian league was formed in response to an eastern threat. Like NATO, the alliance initially proved its value through wars and interventions spearheaded by the dominant power, Athens. But after the Peace of Callias, many members questioned the purpose of their continued membership.  For protection, each member state was expected to contribute to 'the cause of freedom'. The most controversial requirement was the building of ships, which was often just outsourced to Athens. With so much money flowing through the treasury, Athens began to embezzle funds to build monuments and public works. Eventually, the Athenians even moved the treasury into their own city, a clear sign of imperial intent. Athens being Athens, she answered objections by citing the cost of rebuilding her city. Embezzlement is corrupt, but not so corrupt as the scandalous plundering of America to fund foreign aid programs. 

    During the same period, Athens became aggressively imperialistic. Modern America loves her puppets, but Athens also enjoyed colonies throughout Ionia, the Bosporus, and the Aegean islands. Strangely similar to the contemporary doctrine of Pax Americanus, A host of garrisons in the Agean gave Athens a strategic advantage. With such mounting controversy, some states got cold feet. Naxos and Thalia withdrew from the Delian League, and Athens demanded their return under a serious threat of war.  We ought to ask what would happen if some country left a modern pact like NATO. Hypothetically imagine that the Ukrainian government joined Russia, or there was some similar occurrence elsewhere. Concerns about the imminent growth of a rival empire would surely spark WW3. In the case of the Greeks, this conflict sparked the most violent war in their entire history, The Peloponnesian War. According to Thucydides "The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm that this inspired in Sparta made war inevitable." Sparta was a state analogous to China, a rival of America with similar concerns about their rivals. Sparta and its allies in the newly formed Peloponnesian league invaded Athens in 431 BC. 

    During the war, the Athenians stuck to naval confrontation, their shared strength with America. In order to save their population, and prevent a defeat on land Pericles built a long wall connecting Athens proper to its powerful harbor and naval center. The Athenian strategy was to wait for the siege to be called off. The state welcomed every refugee that came near the city, but their plan had a serious flaw, They did not think of plagues. Such a plague broke out in 430 BC, killing 1/2-2/3 of the population, including Pericles. This tragedy was highly demoralizing, but the war continued. Today America also welcomes every refugee, and our cities are full. But the American plague is far more dangerous, it is a plague of rival ethical systems and tribal identities. This nation is welcoming people who would make the country their ethnostate in an instant if they had the numbers, and we are giving ourselves away to them. Can America survive a race war? Should we tempt it on the brink of WW3? It seems unwise. 

Over time the war was locked in a stalemate. The divide between the strength of the states was too large, and neither could strike a decisive victory. This is also analogous to the current world situation, war, politics, and the dynamics of strategy have not changed. It is doubtful that either America or China could strike a decisive blow from across the pacific, the only sure thing is that it would be a long and bloody war. After ten years of stalemate and fighting a truce was struck in 421. For a time it seemed like politicians would exhibit learned behavior, but they had only gotten bored. The war started again with the disastrous Athenian expedition to Sicily. It all began when the Athenians became lustful for blood and empire. For a state one war is never enough, the assembly wanted to sacrifice its military for a new colony in Sicily.  As in all democracies, mass psychosis and group pressure prevailed. An invasion of Sicily was prepared, but they underestimated the enemy. The following expedition ended in catastrophic failure, prompting the Spartans to break the uneasy peace. 

    This expedition illustrates a few important ideas about the condition of the democratic state. To begin with, the whole decision-making process of democracies is broken. The court of public opinion is not a court of justice, and neither can it make rational decisions without the ability to do a cost-benefit analysis. For example, the Athenian commander Niceas called for reinforcements when the Syracutions proved too much. The Assembly was hasty to comply, the costs of raising a second army were distributed and not specific to them. All democratic legislatures suffer from the drunkenness of public opinion, but they drown in sunk-cost fallacies. When an expedition is first declared all seems well, but nobody considers the real cost. When it begins to fail the politicians always fall for the fallacy. In their empire, much like America, political ventures have no costs, only sinking! The consequences are distributed and the voters unaccountable, the democratic state is like a kid in a candy shop with a platinum credit card. 

    The idea of rational Greeks is a myth, they were as human and as dead to reality as the rest of the world. Both in terms of their democratic tomfoolery and their pagan religion. The Athenian army was about to evacuate when they saw an eclipse. General Nicias listened to his seers and took this as an omen, but his mistake gave the enemy enough time to block the mouth of the harbor. All escape attempts failed. In the end, some 50,000 men from Athens and its allies were killed. Now speaking of wasteful specialization, America is no better. We still have pointless wars just like this one, but we do even stupider things yet. Social security, welfare, clean energy, and more, the 'expeditions' of congress are bleeding our country dry,  but we suspect nothing of the sort. 

As you might expect, the result of this expedition was political instability and infighting. Democracy is the citizen passing the buck to the best demagogues, and so you would expect the demagogues to do the same and point the finger rather than take the blame. A democracy is always at war with everything, Other states, its own citizens, other politicians, its laws, and finally nature itself. In the case of Athens, there was a series of coups and political putsches. For the part of statists, at least they are consistent, in foolishness that is. Sparta felt threatened by the imperial tendency of Athens, saw an opportunity, and took up arms once more. What the greeks never understood is where real power comes from, from spiritual and material consistency oriented towards the highest definite goals. Honest people know these goals are Christ and the wealth from the free market. 

    When they fought their foe Athens was routed in battle, but the war continued, only more sinking could bring them to the muck where they saw their highest glory. It was only with the Spartan victory in 404 BC that the Delian League was dissolved. With the defeat of an embarrassed Athens, Sparta briefly attempted to emulate them by establishing an empire. Statists never learn, will they? After the war, Athens had to submit to Sparta, more unneeded proof that might makes right and destroys great civilizations. The Spartans established naval power by granting Persian control over Ionia. Wheeling and dealing with your own people away for empire is usual fodder for states, even small ones. Meanwhile, the rule of the thirty spartan tyrants was in full effect in Athens. When America falls I wonder what our new warlords will look like? Perhaps they will be a la Man in the High Castle, or perhaps the very same Jews who rule us now. No matter what, it doesn't matter, they are all the same in the eyes of God. Eventually, they are overthrown. The least we can say of the common man is that he is resistant to tyranny, even subconsciously. 

    In the end, all empires must fall, and power swings on a seven-axis pendulum. In 371 BC spartan power was overthrown by Thebes. By the mid-fourth century, no one city-state was dominant. Politics and wars had exhausted the city-states. Again, the basic error of statism is to believe that power comes from military force, but military power is unstable and built on temporary advantages. The true power of nations comes from their consistency with reality. A nation that is oriented towards truth will have direction and movement towards the good. The first of the two key principles of power is personal transformation by the high spiritual order of Christ. The second comes from the open conduct of economic life, a function of population times cultural innovation plus the potential for free trade. Any nation built on these principles will prosper spiritually and economically. Wars destroy both the economy and civilization of a people.  Rebellion against God and the choice to pursue military strength over the things which truly build a nation destroyed Athens, then destroyed the strength of all other greeks. The resulting weakness of the Greeks meant they would be ruled by the power of Macedonia and would never again enjoy the glory of their independence again. 

We must recognize that wars are dick-measuring contests between states, but they do not build up a nation, they can only destroy a people who are already weak. The present situation of America is analogous to the greek situation after the Persian wars. The great eastern enemy has been defeated, the intervening wars have been waged, the alliances have been forged and the corruption sewn. Sooner or later there will be a conflict, but we know from history that humanity will only remember this coming war with shame. Conflict always rises from the united disunity of federations and the will to power. The solution is not to create one large state, but that is an argument for another day. What we must realize in order to thrive is that the world is already more united in Christ and the market than it ever was under a federation of states. In the future of this country, there are two paths, war, and tyranny, or peace and voluntarism. Of the two, I prefer the latter. Choose consistency, chose for the truth to set you free, not to be dead in slavery to rebellion. 

Western Lit. 1-25: Ethical Sanctions in Proverbs

Write 500 on this topic: "Discuss the relationship between ethics and sanctions in Proverbs 1-7."

    The book of Proverbs is somewhat peculiar in that it is the only biblical book with an introduction. In the opening chapters of 1-9 Solomon provides an overall view of its goals, but also an excellent outline of the rest of the book, thus we will focus on them. The first capter covers the ethical basis for his claims in the entire book, but this introduction is extended to each of the nine chapters. He explains the purpose of the book is to teach his son(s) "Kohkmah" or wisdom in the form of applied knowledge. Attached is the idea of reverence and awe to God, this brings forth a humbled ethical mindset in which the individual totally submits himself to the divine in order to gain blessings. 

    The book follows a series of ten speeches which deliver parallel naritives about ethical living and the approval of the highest father. These books are considered as the wellspring of hebrew literature, including the later psalms and extra-biblical literature. To that effect they do not focus much on much about sovereignty, hierarchy, or inheritance, though these thems are touched on. The real focus of proverbs is to contrast the wisdom of God with the foolishness of evildoers. It does this with examples of the sanctions granted to the adherents. Each diologuge speaks about the blessings and joy that wisdom brings its adherents, but foolishness is seen as self destructive. 

    One of the most salient points goes like this. The incarnation of wisdom offers itself as a blessing to the ones who will receive her. This is the image of a woman standing in public selling her goods to the foolish. However they ignore the excellent deal and instead turn towards her rival, a prostitute, who slays her victims in her dungeon and hides the bodies. All the fools know about this possibility, and dread it, but they choose evil anyway. This is the idea that when the thing you dread strikes you, the wisdom you ignored will haunt you. That your evil desires will reap and eat what they have planned and sowed. These chapters involve negative sanctions for evildoing, but the ultimate sanction is to make your life so miserable that it was if you were dead, suffering, and caring out in agony unable to scream forever, this is the hell man makes of himself. 

    Individuals should follow the ethical system they have discovered as a result of their pursuit of the divine, this will bring positive sanctions to their lives. Evil comes from a neglect of wisdom, your failure to orient yourself and act properly results in greater suffering.

    The book of Proverbs is not only for the king, it is the wellspring of a broad array of ancient wisdom literature. It showed the people that wisdom meant to to receive discipline that leads to insight, Righteousness, justice, and the straight ethical path in life. A good life meant the freedom found in voluntary submission to God, but that foolishness is a way to pour out our life and ruin it. It taught that the wisdom of God brings glory to its adherents and the incarnation of wisdom offers itself freely to everyone and only fools would reject it at their own demise.  It is an commentary on Ethics which reports sanctions as the result of our willful choices in life. 

    It might be useful to recap all of this information. The goal of the text is to teach wisdom, it is taught from the perspective of a king speaking to his son. I'm sure Jung and Perterson would have plenty to ay about the importance of the king and father archtypes here, but nevertheless, it comes from a place of knowledge and genuine advice. The king advises that theives may entice the son to do evil and to act destructivly in the kingdom, but they do not know this behavior is self-anihilating. He teaches that Wisdom is freely available, but it must be accepted and cherished like a good woman, people ignore this offer and instead prefer a 'quick flick' with their desire over what will truly be valuable. The implication is that we should not be ethical simpletons, we should heed the sanctions of the Logos, and strive for a transendently valuable etos rather than an inauthentic and weak one. The book teaches that there are imperative ethical consequences to action, and through imagery and symbolism It fosters a love for wisdom and righteousness. We have to strive for the practical, applied knowledge of ethics, and if we don't we will be cursed to consume ourselves in a pit of death.

Western Lit. 1-25: Aristotle: The Philosopher

    When we speak about philosophy, what is the first thing that comes to mind? For most people in the west, it is an image like that of Raphael's School of Athens, a picture of Greek architecture and Greek philosophers. Why does this image strike us so vividly? Perhaps it is because a large part of all human achievements happened in the backwater called Greece, especially in the small city of Athens, during a period of only 300 years. More importantly, the most prolific scholar of the greatest philosophical epoch in human history lived there, and his name was Aristotle. He is known as the father of modern science and the creator of the first empirical method and the logical method. His writing covered a vast array of subject matter including philosophy, science, and politics, in over 200 treatises. As a teacher, he influenced figures such as Alexander the Great and Theophrastus. After his death, his writings were preserved by his students and went on to dominate western and Islamic thought for the next 2,000 years. When we speak of philosophy we might think of the Greeks in general terms. But when we speak of philosophers themselves, we think of The Philosopher.

    Many scholars have a high output, Mises wrote at least 28 volumes, Gary North produced over 50 books, and Rothbard churned out at least a whopping 60 complete books. These are by no means small contributions, but Aristotle, over his lifetime, produced more than 200 works, of which only 31 lectures survive. these alone cover volumes in the fields of biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, physics, poetics, political theory, psychology, and zoology. Out of all his work, which is almost beyond belief, his greatest contribution was to make the world curious about knowledge. For the first time in history humanity began to wonder about how things worked, and today we stand on his shoulders, able to see the world much clearer than ever before.

    It complements a man of great intellect to teach his wisdom, and by doing so his students inherit his methods. As a lifelong scholar and teacher, Aristotle laid the foundations of formal logic which were considered the standard for millennia. After leaving Macedon in his youth Aristotle studied at the academy for 20 years. During this time he was surrounded by the platonic tradition and managed to improve upon it with his own ideas. After some time his fame spread and he was summoned by the King of Macedon to tutor and influence the greatest warrior who would ever live, Alexander the great. This education would have a profound effect on both men as Alexander fell deeply in love with Hellenic culture. In return, Alexander received a gift equivalent to millions of dollars for the founding of The Lyceum in Athens. This would be a center of intellectual influence in Greece for hundreds of years. 

    The preserved writings of Aristotle only constitute about a fifth of his total output, and yet they encompass nearly a million words. These were partially preserved by later Roman philosophers such as Cicero and Seneca. After the fall of the roman empire, the works were lost to the Latin west but survived in the East. Here they were inherited by the Islamic caliphates and the Easter Empire. They were held as nearly sacred writing by many including Caliphs, Emperors, scholars, philosophers, and scientists. Here they aided even further developments in science and philosophy. After the fall of Constantinople, they were finally translated into Latin and had a profound effect on medieval Europe. Throughout the Renaissance and enlightenment, they played a central role in western thought. Great men such as Thomas Aquinas, William of Oakham, Francis Bacon, and Ludwig Von Mises all followed the Aristotelian tradition of science and empiricism. Over time all of the sciences he pioneered were refined and perfected by the west, but that would have been far less likely without him.

    The end of Aristotle's life came unexpectedly but in its own good time. After the death of Alexander, he fled from Athens and passed away from a bowel complaint. He was laid to rest next to his late wife but he did not die there. He pioneered many fields of study found in modern science. His work laid the foundations for logical studies and the scientific method. Throughout his life, he had tremendous influence from a long successful career and academic position in his lyceum. His preserved writings have influenced scholars from all over the west and Islamdom over millennia. For these reasons and many more, we remember Aristotle as the greatest philosopher of all time, THE Philosopher if you will.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle#:~:text=He%20made%20pioneering%20contributions%20to,Athens%2C%20known%20as%20the%20Lyceum.

Gov. 1A-25: An Infantile Trust: Power and the state *

    In recent years there has been a lot of hubbub made about the definitions of words. Many people are unable to provide simple definitions of nouns, but something even more difficult is defining the proper role of the state. For their part statists seem unable to agree on what constitutes a legitimate government, or what its role might be, but most of all not a single one of them agrees on what the state ought to do with money. Everyone agrees they should be doing... something but how could they know? Should it dictate the use of language? Flatten the economy to an anthill? Win the war on drugs? Cover the country in solar panels? Provide insurance to pay big pharma? For any of these things, the state must have money. But the state is a monopoly of violence first and foremost, they are in the business of producing bads, not goods, and nobody will pay them for it willingly. For this reason, they level taxes on everything under the sun. A gas tax, liquor tax, sales tax, inflation tax, even bagels are taxed! This means that the benefits of any spending are a package deal with the tyranny of taxes.

    Any rational person has to reject this view of the state as a benevolent maternal goddess. Humanists disgrace the name of Christ and mock his children for believing in what they call an immoral fairy tale. At the same time, they also worship a god which has bread for all mouths, productive work for all hands, Capital for every venture, unending credit, and debt, and salve for every wound. Voting is their prayer, monuments are their temples, and politicians are their priests. What they refuse to admit is that their false god is supported by theft and violence alone. They are dupes of one of the strangest illusions that have ever taken hold of the human mind, even stranger than the communists pretend Christ to be. They mock the church saying it oppresses the poor, but the opposite is true. Our goal is to become one with the Logos so that we might glorify him, and that desire spawns a love for our fellow men who are also made in his image. Likewise, the goal of the statist religion is to live life at the expense of others. This sick desire is a source of war, plunder, slavery, and all manner of other atrocities.

    The deep desire for sin in man is grounded in the desire to gain satisfaction without regard to anything besides self-destructive gratification. In a statist society, the oppressor does not oppress his victim directly, he calls on the state to do it for him. But their god is imperfect, "it can never satisfy one party without adding to the labor of others." Truly, "Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else" (Bastiat, Government, p.99). "But truly, the most astonishing aspect of this religion is the blindness of the people to the scandal of it all. They are utterly unable to apply their most fundamental morals consistently. If they did, they might begin to suspect that 

"reciprocal plunder is no less plunder because it is reciprocal" (Bastiat, Government, p.100). In the same way that we are told Christians do not question our beliefs, the statists make themselves hypocrites. 

    From wherever a people get their laws, there also will you discover their highest god. In the modern world, the state is the source of law, sanctions, succession, authority, and sovereignty. this fallacious representation of deity is a fertile source of calamities. The state creates millions of tiny 'unseen' problems with its corrupt doctrine, but statists ignore this and attribute the problems to externalities rather than the perverse covenant system. They don't think of it this way but the state is a creature with two hands. One is a large and rough hand for extorting large quantities of wealth. The other hand is small and soft, it is for giving back a little. On account of the second hand, they count the creature innocent, but the giving would be impossible without the taking, and the monster keeps far more than it gives back. The thing that is seen is the blessings of the giving, but the unseen cost is the hoard of wealth the dragon steals and then gambles away.

    There are other problems with giving trust to a state, they are extremely unstable. No organization can go on stealing and creating grievances without upsetting someone, but even if stats could exist peacefully nobody agrees on how they ought to be run. These conflicts are the source of civil war, insurgencies, and revolution. This might not seem like a big deal at the moment, but America perhaps has dealt with the most rebellions of any country in the world in recorded history. There were possibly hundreds of Indian Wars, over 250 slave rebellions, and hundreds of other political engagements from every corner of the political spectrum. Outside of America, many countries have coups every few years. South America, Africa, Southern Europe, and Asia, no matter where you look this is a serious problem. It starts when a new government comes to power, and inevitably begins to lavish promises which are impossible to perform, but even these promises differ from those of the public, which has hopes and dreams that can never be realized. Over time some states realize it is much easier to promise than to perform and to do it repeatedly, so once it is broken, and it is, everything stays broken.

    

    But how does the state keep up with any of its promises? It is impossible for a state to give more than it takes. It does not add any value to society. At best it can only add unwanted utilities, if the people wanted them they would pay for them voluntarily. All the state does is seize money and redistribute it without prices, which means it is always bashing its brains out on the socialist calculation problem. Even if they did have a way to tell if what they were doing is valuable, the state has no incentives to create value. Politicians are only incentivized to create a perception of value to citizens in order to be elected. While in office there are only weak personal and moral incentives to do good. But there is absolutely no real mechanism for regulating the way political action is pursued. The legislature can vote for any crime, any injustice, and any measure of spending

    So how does the state reconcile this irreconcilable conflict? Well, much like its lower-class citizens, it lives on credit. It does this by requesting Moral, Social, and Economic loans which it quickly spends and never intends to repay. It is far easier to swap out the talking heads and point the finger than it is to solve problems because solving those problems would literally cost them everything. The result of this unsustainable cycle of spending and borrowing is crippling bankruptcy. This bankruptcy extends to all areas of society including the moral, social, and economic realms. The very idea of a state is that it should give more than it takes. But this is both impossible and harmful to everyone involved, I suppose it just "comes with the territory".

    Friedreich Bastiat put it about as well as anyone could. "Government is and ought to be [seen as] nothing whatever but common force organized, not to be an instrument of oppression and mutual plunder among citizens; but, on the contrary, to secure everyone his own, and to cause justice and security to reign." (p. 107) But the state does the opposite. As a monopoly of violence, it perverts the purpose of the government to produce only evil. We must abandon mutual plunder and the imbalance of promises between what can be done and what we want to be done. That kind of thinking leads to War, Plunder, and Slavery. The deification of the state is an illusion that feeds on its own love of sin. To end this cycle we must have a way to restrict governments to securing rights. The way to do that is to ensure they check each other's power in the marketplace of ideas. They have to follow the path of objective morality and for that to happen God must be the highest sovereign. We cannot trust the state, therefore our goal is a voluntary society based on the law of God, not the politics of plunder. 

Gov 1A-20: The Politics of Plunder

    In the course of human affairs, it is eminent how utterly suicidal the structure of the state can truly be. However, if there was a single fatal disposition of the state it would be the proclivity to live at the expense of others. In its every action, the state is used by those who control it to extract wealth from others for their own benefit, especially from weaker rival groups. In this way, the modern state, with all of its constitutions, representation, and bureaucracy, has not evolved beyond the primitive states of rival villages in the upper paleolithic. A continent-spanning war between the mightiest nations is little more complex than two dozen cavemen bashing each other's heads in over a bad harvest. All political conflict comes down to groups of primates going ape-shit on one another, only on a far grander, and more terrifying scale. Thus the way polity conducts itself, politics, ought not to be distinguished by grandiose visions of world peace and fraternity, rather we ought to view it as it is, a struggle over the 'right' to live off the labor of others. This is what Bastiat called The Politics of Plunder. wherever plunder is less burdensome than labor, it prevails

    If the Lord our God, Christ, the spirit we must emulate in order to thrive has commanded us "Thou shalt not steal" the Lord of the flies, the serpent, and the deceiver have commanded mankind "Thou shall not steal, except by majority vote". Yet we eat of the tree we fancy best, the fruit of our own choosing. A part of that fruit is the state, which serves only to preserve rights from its own tree, and fatally, the ability to live at the expense of others. It does this by waging wars, oppressing the people for the extraction of God's property, enslavement, and the protection of coercive monopolies, itself included. If the origin of sin is to make our own right, then The sin of plunder comes from our desire to live at the expense of others. In the realm of rightful law, we call theft criminal, no matter how uncomfortable it is for us personally, but things change once we enter into the realm of politics.

    In the west, we hold our own property, and the property of others as so sacred few of us ever think to violate it. But when the tribe, the protecting agent of the law, the state, intervenes as a middleman we make ourselves foolish like apes. Everyone does a whoop and a holler for plunder and thievery, everyone wants their bread and circuses, and they all dance and shout and cry in support of the man who promises the most and best. Nobody realizes that the state is that great fiction by which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. Nobody asks how this kind of behavior can stand, much less how we as human beings can stand it! On what foundation does this great monument to fantasy stand? At those words, the great orgy of statism degenerates into mortal combat. The only things everyone can agree upon are war, exploitation, coercion, and slavery. The political nature of the west grows like a tumor in her bosom until it kills her, but she refuses to remove it because it is the dearest object of comfort to her children. Milk obtained by lying is sweet to a man, But afterward, his mouth will be filled with dust. 

    For all time, the Law has been our tutor to the image of God, so that we may be justified by our faith in him. The purpose of the law is to make us more like Christ so that we will suffer less for all manner of tragedy, including plunder. But the law is ignored, And justice never comes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore justice comes forth perverted. The law has become an instrument of plunder, numb to its true purpose. This perversion is because of the corrupting influences of violence and power over men, which come from the desire to live by a right not afforded to you. The results of state plunder stem from a broken law, but the effects reach far beyond individuals. The conflict between True morality and the perversion of law leads to a loss of moral sense in society and a lack of respect for the law. The Destabilizing forces of this conflict may end in people legitimizing slavery to their government, depending on protection rackets, and sustaining monopolies of force. 

    Most political action today stems from the desire to get the vote in order to plunder. The means of plunder is taxation, a source of wealth for whoever happens to slip their hand into the voluptuous pockets of the state. However, the state keeps most of the wealth for its own ideas, whether these are wars, monuments, or other megalomania. These ideas do not create wealth, and at best only provide an unwanted utility. The fundamental axiom of political life is the right to assistance. That is, any group has a right to any amount of 'assistance' as long as their voting base is influential enough. This could take the form of forever increasing bribes to the masses or even corporate welfare. It matters little in the long run. both are imposed through democracy as the war for political victory spreads. Thus go the ceremonies of plunder.

    In the past few decades, there has been a lot of talk about defeating this or that disease. But there is really only one disease that disgusts me, and that is the terminal condition of sin. We can't quite cure it if only absolve ourselves of its guilt. However, we can treat the symptoms, one of which is the great fiction. If we want to fight plunder we have to know how to test for it and how to deal with it. The best indicator for plunder is whether or not a law redistributes wealth. If it does, then the law is legalized plunder. For example, protectionism favors domestic producers over foreign ones, a form of gross discrimination. This policy may grow local industry, or it might ruin it. Either way, it certainly works to funnel cash away from consumers, and competition into the hands of the rich.

    In the past, plunder has been a right held only by the elite. For a time this preserved a sense of order and general respect for the private property ethic. As C.S. Lewis put it "It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies" In recent times the pendulum has swung towards a more egalitarian sentiment. The string of thought is that theft is not theft if it is done in the service of the common good, people owe it to themselves. This, unfortunately, has led to a state of extremely high time preference, all things are held in common except those objects within personal use. Because of this unfortunate circumstance, better known as The Tragedy of the Commons, everyone is incentivized to compete for the existing resources rather than preserve them for later use. To illustrate this imagine a wrecking ball chained to a crane inside a building owned by society incorporated. Every time the ball swings too far it caves in a wall and destroys the building. After a disaster such as this, many people are killed, and the whole thing has to be rebuilt. But there is a better solution, we could choose not to destroy our society, from the inside with lies and plunder. Let it be that nobody should plunder anyone.

    This approach, the abolition of plunder in society, describes a meritocracy. Nothing is more meritocratic than the absence of the undeserved privilege to plunder. Sadly, meritocracy is not accepted by those without merits. In the modern era, the state is only a franchise to the competition for the privilege. This has always been the source of revolutions, civil war, and the looming collapse of civilization. Plunder is more than something wrong, plunder is the opposite of the idea of human rights. Property rights are human rights, and plunder is the abolition of those rights. The basis for any involuntary transfer of property is the idea that the original owner had no property rights, of which all his rights consist. In the same sense, reciprocal plunder is no less plunder because it is reciprocal, such a nullifying action is no less dehumanizing than the first. A violation of human rights is a violation of God's sacred temple, thus theft and retribution are wholly sinful and destructive. 

    Perversity among perversities, The law has become the instrument of the same evil it was sworn to prevent. The walking contradictions, the Platonic sophists of the enlightenment have reached down from heaven to touch our finger and to shine light into the cave of our primitive understanding. They enlighten us about the tender mercies of the state, and its honest desire to protect life, liberty, and property, and for that reason, we must preserve it. But our antithesis is the antitheism to their state worship. We oppose them, daring to suggest as primitive fools that the primitive origin of the state lies with primitive bullying and the struggle for power. To us the bully is the most primitive form of the state, it has always been a violent and plundering organization. When an ape brutalizes his fellows he dominates the group. Over time the bully ape became a tribal warlord, these warlords became kings, and so on. Historically, the state has always been restrained by other governments, those blessed with self-government, religious groups, and tribal identities have checked the expansion of the state into their own sovereign spheres. Without these restraints, the state is only an agency of unrestrained plunder, a monopoly on violence with no competition. 

    The fact that sovereign governments have always hindered the state raises the question of which restrictions can justly be placed on the state. The answer has to do with the nature of reward and punishment. Plunder is fundamentally immoral in the eyes of God, and, in a society without plunder, just laws are the mere negation of evil. In other words, negative sanctions are the proper response against plunder. The need to reduce harm and provide justice gives birth to the law and the legal system. The goal of this system is to protect the triad of rights: Personality, Liberty, and Property. The statist system is the cruel perversion of this ideal in the service of plunder. Remember, an unjust law is active, It forces people to act and plunders them of their rights, but a just law punishes evil to preserve those rights. 

    In the eyes of God harm is injustice, and plunder is a grievous sin against the image of God. Therefore plunder is unjust and illegal in the courts of heaven and earth. Justice is the form of the good, and law is the enshrined code of justice legitimized by the sanctions of government. With this ethic in mind, we can see that law is an organized form of justice and that justice is the truth about man as described by God. The purpose of the law is to protect personality, liberty, and property. For the protection of these rights, the government is organized as collective action. With the right of the sovereign to exclude other governments it becomes an extended network for the defense of personality. Philosophically there is no difference between a group of individual men and an equal group of men who happen to share a creed, therefore government is best understood as a collective of individuals. One man does not have the right to murder, neither do ten or ten thousand or millions of them altogether. No government as a whole has any more rights than an individual does on his own. the command of Christ is to resist not evil, to turn the other cheek, and to love our enemies. Many will dispute this, but our command from heaven is to refuse to meet violence with violence, collective force, a form of tribal violence, is out of the question, only action which is glorifying to God is permissible. 

    No human government is truly sovereign, all are beholden to the one true king for the service of his glory. In the present, all things work in the service of the king, and all forms of government are no different.  All earthly kingdoms rebel against their king and for this reason they are passing away to be replaced by the kingdom of God. While they are here they exist to defend that which glorifies God, in particular three things. The first of these is Personality, or the right to safely keep a personal identity, it is the individual which glorifies God so it must be protected. The second is the liberty to perform actions, which is necessary because one cannot act to glorify God without the freedom to act. Finally, property must be protected. If individuals have control over their personality, that is personal properties, and they have the freedom to act,, then by extension, they own the fruits of those freedoms. But what does the government, and particularly civil government do in its rebellious state? It moves from justice to injustice by perverting the law and deceiving the masses. We are told the Government ought to rebel against the individual justice of God in favor of the collectivized justice of a false king. This is done for three main reasons. 1. Naked greed, 2. Misconceived Philanthropy, and 3. Laziness mixed with unregulated power. All three of these excuses lie in sin, their purpose to facilitate plunder for the goal of living at the expense of others in which there is no good. 

    I have written a great deal, but much of it is difficult to understand and all of which will seem strange at first. But now that it has been read it is important to come to a set of conclusions about it. To begin with, Justice is grounded in the image of our fellow man who we love as ourselves and second only to the good itself. Because of this image of mankind, we have the desire to protect our brothers, and for this reason, we organize governments of many kinds. These governments, which are passing away as the kingdom approaches, are designed to protect from assaults on personality, liberty, and property. Because of man's collective and individual rebellion against God, the law now assaults all three. Plunder originates in this sinful rebellion out of a desire to thrive ignorant of the true image of man. Law would contradict itself to plunder from some and give to others, therefore law should be a party to these ideas. But the laws are made to contradict their purpose in spite of it. Men compete for the power to plunder other men, we call this war and politics. But earthly rulers are no different from other men, all are greedy, misguided, and lazy, and for this reason, they are being replaced for the glory of God. The law and the collective organization which authorize it exist for the mutual protection of property rights. Just laws only protect, they do not through plunder and redistribution which are contradictions of purpose. The only way for us to achieve this great goal is by the establishment of a voluntary society. Nothing can be done to shield against violence, sin, or plunder if it is not done voluntarily, to force these things on anyone is to fight evil with evil.  

    Statism is a contradiction and blasphemy against the sovereignty of God, laws are meant to serve him by showing us how to love our neighbor. Plunder is a sin that originates from the desire to conduct life at the cost of other men, to do so is a curse against your neighbor and a rebellion against God's law. Yet men compete for the position of a ruler so that they may maximize their plunder and redistribution. The solution is to voluntarily accept the kingdom of God on earth as our government, not the kingdoms of dirt. This cannot be forced, and it cannot be avoided in history.

Western Lit. 1-25: Spartan Polity

    When most westerners envision the warrior archetype, they see a young spartan man clad in bronze with a corinthian style helmet. To most, this is what a noble warrior looks like, but what they do not know is that the reality of Sparta is less honorable. Far from Zach Snider's 300 Sparta was not a state of freedom-loving warrior-nobles. In reality, Sparta was a small agricultural community in the south of the Greek Pelloponisia. It was a backwater in the largest backwater in the Mediterranean. Beyond this, the inhabitants weren't as noble as you might think. The social structure of Sparta was highly classist and depended on an authoritarian police state. The picture that history paints is very different indeed from our romanticized view of Thermopylae. 

    The city which came to be known as Sparta emerged from a series of agricultural communities at the south end of pelloponisia. This began when a tribe of Dorians migrated into the area between 800-1000 BC and began rapidly subjugating the local Ionians. The area was fertile for crops but lacked natural harbors. In order to control the larger population of Ionian serfs the Dorian nobility conceived of an authoritarian police state supported by slave labor. This policy can hardly be criticized by a modern audience considering the hypocrisy of such an accusation. In any case, only a tenth of the population were Spartiares and thus citizens. this led to a social structure which may seem strange to us at face value, but less so when examined historically. 

    Spartiari men became recruits at seven, soldiers at 20, married citizens at 30, and returned at 60 to be attended by a personal slave on a plot of land allotted by the state. They would have been at the top of their social hierarchy, with political divisions among them determined by wealth and age. Spartan men lived to serve the state as the arm of the military, but women were considered no less important, albeit inferiors. They also underwent physical training to become physically fit and to bear strong sons, but their value also lay in overseeing affairs of estate. With men always gone at war or policing the slaves it was important for the outnumbered Spartiares to leverage every advantage possible, thus, women commanded a great deal more respect than they did elsewhere In Greece. 

    

    Below the citizen Spartiares, there were two major social classes. The higher of the two was Perioeci or middle class. They conducted all trade and industry, for a time it was illegal for Spartans to participate in the trades so the economy was entirely dependent on them. They were free to travel, trade own land, marry, serve in the military, and more importantly, pay taxes. They did not have the full rights of citizens but could become one by serving well in battle. They lived in their own cities and were self-governing, as long as they remained part of Sparta. Like in most of the ancient world only a small number of people belonged to this class, another group altogether had the privilege of actually populating Sparta

    When the Dorian invaders subjugated the local Ionians they almost bit off more than they could chew. This subject class, which would come to be known as Helots outnumbered their rulers eight to one. The honor of performing all the less... desirable work fell on them, this included farming, cleaning, construction, and housework. Nearly every Spartan family had at least one slave, and many wealthy families had entire bloodlines under their thumbs. The unfortunate masses were subjugated to exactly the treatment you might expect from a bad movie trope. Slaves endured all kinds of cruelty and frequent massacres designed to keep them in check. the most prominent of these was the annual Crypteia.  During this period every new soldier would be encouraged to murder as many slaves as possible, especially the fit young men. Despite these realities, according to Myron of Priene, emancipation was 'common. The most typical reason was for dutifully completing a tour of service as a hoplite in the military. Slaves also bought their freedom at prices which were, even for the upper classes, considered exorbitant. Yes, despite forming the backbone, arms, legs, and skeleton of Sparta, the Helots were not appreciated as anything but property. The upside to all of this was that the spartan elite did not have to work and could focus on their main pursuit, training to subjugate their slaves, How counter-intuitive of them.

    

    Even Barbaric civilizations make their best efforts to raise strong children, and the Spartans were no different. Of course, citizens were just a fraction of the population, and only the upper class could be educated if they expected to maintain their system of domination. Spartan education is better described as a system of refinement, and despite the common belief, it is unlikely this 'refinement' began at birth. Unwanted children would have been left in a public area to be adopted, or not, by couples who could not bear children. Then, starting at seven, young boys were taken away to live in communal barracks. for the next 13 years, they would train to be servants of the state as soldiers and citizens. This training was absolutely brutal and consisted of intense exercise and hardship including starvation and freezing cold. meanwhile, their sisters remained at home to be educated by their mothers. Girls were also expected to exercise for similar reasons. It was believed that a strong woman would bear strong sons for the state. When their training was complete Spartans were ready to live a life dedicated to preserving their slave state. It was not quite America but no soviet union either. Sparta was a strange country.

    The coming of age is something of a human universal. Nothing is more exciting than the manifest flourishing of your offspring who carry your genetic material out into the world. Jews have their Bar Mitzvahs, The Tutsi had tribal sports, Americans have the 'sweet 16' and the Spartans have the Crypteia, a somewhat... unique ritual. Of course, a man who was old enough to slaughter innocents wasn't quite a real man yet, no spartan was permitted to visit his wife, except by seeking out of the barracks, until he was thirty. At that time men were free to live on their own land, participate in the assembly, and inherit the full rights of Spartan citizenship. Of course, he was still a tool to the state, a tool to be exploited until it was useless. Spartan retirement was almost rewarding considering the lives they led. besides the aforementioned benefits, a man in his 60s was ellaegeble to fill one of 28 not-so-lifelong positions on the council of the old, the Chief Judicial, legislative and Administrative branches. Of course, a popular assembly of men over 30 was able to approve the legislation. Presiding over these bodies were the two kings, who acted as the arms, or more aptly, fists, of the state. Over time an elected body of five Euphors became the most prominent body, probably because election permits demagoguery. this proved to be one downfall of Sparta, as in later years the Euphors became extremely corrupt. Of course, the entire state, like any criminal organization, was really supported by the soldiers of the military. 

       You wouldn't know it from the myths of its former inhabitants, but the land in the south of the Peloponnese is surprisingly fruitful. Despite its jagged cliffs and high mountains, the rolling hills and valleys of the coastal landscape provide fertile land for agriculture and timbering. Even the harsher features are somewhat of a blessing in disguise. The mountains are rich in iron and yield good terracotta for pottery. These were, of course, natural exports from Sparta, even though their trade was limited by a lack of natural harbors. But the tiny city-state shared more with its neighbors than natural resources.  Like all Greeks, they had their fair share of fairs, festivals, dancing, and music. Of course, you could hardly consider them greek if they didn't share a love of Homer, and of course, they did. despite all their differences, the Spartans were quite similar to other greeks in terms of economics. They exported their natural resources, had a small and skilled artisan class, and shared a common cultural tradition. 

    This flourishing culture wouldn't last long though. In fact, by the 6th-century cultural life ceased to innovate and began to atrophy, something had changed. To understand this phenomenon it is important to look back to the founding of the budding state. With the conquest of neighboring Messenia in the 8th century, BC Sparta was faced with the decision to integrate or rule the inhabitants, they chose the latter. Little did they know this would be their downfall. Faced with the prospect of ruling as a minority, the Spartans decided to make a few lifestyle changes. Beginning before the 6th century cultural activities were restricted by the state, this ensured tough citizens who were not occupied with frivolous things like singing or acting. But following Lycurgus, this trend reached a whole new level. Following a sweeping set of cultural and political forms, spartan society would never be the same. The goal of these reforms was to enforce equality among citizens, military fitness, and austerity. These virtues ensured the survival of the spartan way of life against the constant threat of revolts or usurpations by rival powers. 

    The history of Sparta was as interesting as it was cruel and bloody, perhaps because of it. Despite all of their military prowess the small empire never performed as well as you might guess. The slave state only began to rise as a dominant power in the 5th century, peaking in the 4th century after the Peloponnesian war. Unfortunately, the glorious victory of that war was not enough to stop its decline. Whether you chalk it up to geography or politics or something else altogether Sparta never developed a navy large enough to expand off their tiny peninsula. Further, all their military campaigns were limited by the constant threat of Helot revolts and other forms of social unrest. Today many greeks look back on the Peloponnesian war with righteous disdain, and perhaps spartan citizens did as well. It was the peak of their power, their triumph over all of Greece but at the same time, it marked the height of their corruption and the death of their imperial lifestyle

    So what do we make of Sparta? Certainly, we can never view them as heroes, or even as noble warriors again. To us, their morality is beyond redemption. Their Government did not exist to support individual rights, it existed to preserve the rights of the mighty, even if it meant reducing themselves to cogs in a machine. That idea would be bad enough, even if most Americans didn't believe in the same things themselves. No, far worse, they perpetuated a system of tyrannical slavery and genocide. They didn't even build cool monuments like obelisks or collimated temples such as the Washington monument and white house. If you are going to enslave entire races you have to at least leave one cool monument, geez. I Cannot think of a more perfect way to summarize Spartan society than with their greatest achievement in winning the Peloponnesian war. Despite previous vetoes from their allies, Sparta did go to war with Athens in 311 BC. Sparta does what it wants. During the war, Spata portrayed itself as the liberator of the greeks from tyranny, spartan men were treated as little more than tools for war such as spears and swords. Finally, Sparta ended the war by capturing hundreds of people in slave raids and seizing Athens into a backwater, to bring civilization of course. This overview of their society gives us a better idea of what they stood for and will give us a clearer picture of what distinguished Athens in the ancient world. With that Adieu.