Rather than infringe on law-abiding peoples' rights, the Government should severely punish those who initiate force. But then, that makes too much sense.
The Statist mind believes that it is much better to try and eliminate all possible danger, no matter what the cost to law-abiding folks. The Nanny Syndrome involves a belief that the safety and nourishment of "society" trumps any individual right that gets in the way of that lofty goal. Unalienable individual rights?...forget them if they get in the way. The Constitution?...forget it if it gets in the way. Common law precedence [which was: an individual basically is free to do anything as long as that action does not infringe on the rights or property of others]?...forget it. The "good of society" is the greatest good. Some of us think not; we believe that freedom of the individual is the greatest good---as long as that individual does not initiate force or fraud. [If the person does initiate force or fraud, then legally punish that individual severely; don't take away the rights of law-abiding people.]
Statist thinking is that government must "take care of" people, because the world is dangerous and (most of all) unfair. The cost of trying to make the world "fair" is staggering---loss of individuality, loss of freedom, and loss of income on an unprecedented scale. Government not only taxes us to an unnecessary degree, but often charges an additional fee for its "services".
Society is not an organism...it has no rights; it is made up of individuals who have unalienable rights that have nothing whatsoever to do with any government anywhere. Unalienable rights are not the same as "civil rights"; the latter are granted by statute.
http://www.originalintent.org/edu/14thamend.php
Even requirements for gun permits are infringements on the unalienable right to self-defense possessed by law-abiding people. Furthermore, the permit requirement often is economically discriminatory; a permit in some places can cost as much as $150.
A great myth surrounding gun control has spread in this country: that a lack of gun control increases crime. Not true at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyoLuTjguJA
The Supreme Court decision on this issue should prove interesting; it is due sometime between April and July.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
The Shadow Government: A Bit of History
This is from Professor Carroll Quigley, the late and renowned macro-historian, who was Bill Clinton's mentor at Georgetown University---and was written about 45 years ago. Excerpts from his book, Tragedy and Hope (1966):
[All emphasis added.]
"There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Group has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so...
"I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments...
"[A] front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group...
"On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy...
"In England the center was the Round Table Group, while in the United States it was J.P. Morgan and Company or its local branches in Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland...
"The American branch of this 'English Establishment' exerted much of its influence through five American newspapers (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the lamented Boston Evening Transcript )...
" They were gracious and cultured gentlemen of somewhat limited social experience who were much concerned with the freedom of expression of minorities and the rule of law for all, who constantly thought in terms of Anglo-American solidarity, of political partition and federation, and who were convinced that they could gracefully civilize the Boers of South Africa, the Irish, the Arabs, and the Hindus, and who are largely responsible for the partitions of Ireland, Palestine, and India, as well as the federations of South Africa, Central Africa, and the West Indies...
"It was this group of people, whose wealth and influence so exceeded their experience and understanding, who provided much of the frame-work of influence which the Communist sympathizers and fellow travelers took over in the United States in the 1930's...
"It must be recognized that the power that these energetic Left-wingers exercised was never their own power or Communist power but was ultimately the power of the international financial coterie, and, once the anger and suspicions of the American people were aroused, as they were by 1950, it was a fairly simple matter to get rid of the Red sympathizers...
"Before this could be done, however, a congressional committee, following backward to their source the threads which led from admitted Communists like Whittaker Chamber, through Alger Hiss, and the Carnegie Endowment to Thomas Lamont and the Morgan Bank, fell into the whole complicated network of the interlocking tax-exempt foundations...
The Eighty-third Congress in July 1953 set up a Special Committee to investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations with Representative B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee, as chairman. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far and that the 'most respected' newspapers in the country, closely allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about any revelations to make the publicity worth while, in terms of votes or campaign contributions..."
[My point here is to illustrate that those who founded the "Shadow Government" were beyond political party affiliations, right v. left, and all that propaganda. I believe that is still true today...and today, the Shadow Government is greatly expanded and includes many multi-national corps, not just those in banking, oil, and newspapers.]
[All emphasis added.]
"There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Group has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so...
"I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments...
"[A] front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group...
"On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy...
"In England the center was the Round Table Group, while in the United States it was J.P. Morgan and Company or its local branches in Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland...
"The American branch of this 'English Establishment' exerted much of its influence through five American newspapers (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the lamented Boston Evening Transcript )...
" They were gracious and cultured gentlemen of somewhat limited social experience who were much concerned with the freedom of expression of minorities and the rule of law for all, who constantly thought in terms of Anglo-American solidarity, of political partition and federation, and who were convinced that they could gracefully civilize the Boers of South Africa, the Irish, the Arabs, and the Hindus, and who are largely responsible for the partitions of Ireland, Palestine, and India, as well as the federations of South Africa, Central Africa, and the West Indies...
"It was this group of people, whose wealth and influence so exceeded their experience and understanding, who provided much of the frame-work of influence which the Communist sympathizers and fellow travelers took over in the United States in the 1930's...
"It must be recognized that the power that these energetic Left-wingers exercised was never their own power or Communist power but was ultimately the power of the international financial coterie, and, once the anger and suspicions of the American people were aroused, as they were by 1950, it was a fairly simple matter to get rid of the Red sympathizers...
"Before this could be done, however, a congressional committee, following backward to their source the threads which led from admitted Communists like Whittaker Chamber, through Alger Hiss, and the Carnegie Endowment to Thomas Lamont and the Morgan Bank, fell into the whole complicated network of the interlocking tax-exempt foundations...
The Eighty-third Congress in July 1953 set up a Special Committee to investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations with Representative B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee, as chairman. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far and that the 'most respected' newspapers in the country, closely allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about any revelations to make the publicity worth while, in terms of votes or campaign contributions..."
[My point here is to illustrate that those who founded the "Shadow Government" were beyond political party affiliations, right v. left, and all that propaganda. I believe that is still true today...and today, the Shadow Government is greatly expanded and includes many multi-national corps, not just those in banking, oil, and newspapers.]
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