[geocentrism] Re: Birdman's Weekly Letter #454: Freedom and Fascism -- Force and Consent
- From: "philip madsen" <pma15027@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "geocentrism list" <geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Bernie Brauer" <bbrauer777@xxxxxxxxx>, "Steven Jones" <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:29:49 +1000
This is where he loses his credibility when he reasons thus...
"while democracy is the DISPERSION OF POWER to many. "
It should read acording to modern democracy,
"while democracy is the DISPERSION OF POWER by the many to the few."
The real politico/economic picture is totalitarianism on the left versus chaos
on the right.
This puts Fascism and communism together as being identical, there being
nothing different between corporate and or state capitalism. Chaos meanwhile
is chaos or no government.
Ideally we need in the middle , limited government.. no regulation other than
what safty dictates. road rules.. and a social credit economy, which
translates into what is called "economic democracy", where people vote with
their money..
It will not work without the institution of God's church which puts the
morality and ethical brake on fallen human nature. Well it can but try..
People fail this institution as well, be it Catholic or protestant. And neither
God nor his institution can be blamed for that when they us their will to brake
the rules..
Read economic democracy or social credit by Major Douglas....
Philip.
Philip.
----- Original Message -----
From: Bernie Brauer
To: Philip Madsen ; Steven Jones
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 10:30 AM
Subject: Re: Birdman's Weekly Letter #454: Freedom and Fascism -- Force and
Consent
FYI - forward to Philip by Bernie
John Bryant <jbryant@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Date: November 13, 2007
To: The usual suspects
From: John Bryant (john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Re: Birdman's Weekly Letter #454: Freedom and Fascism -- Force and Consent
Contents: Opinion (as always)
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Freedom and Fascism -- Force and Consent
Thanks Enviroman
One of the great confusions of political thinking concerns the matter of
force and consent. One good example is the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP),
generally credited to the libertarian novelist L Neil Smith and basic to the
thinking of many libertarians, which holds that it is wrong to initiate the use
or threat of force in dealing with others. I have dissected the inadequacies of
the NAP in an essay "The Non-Aggression Principle Is Stupid"
(http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Lbtn/Lbtn-LNeilSmithLtr.html) whose essential
point is that, first, the notion of 'force' is unclear, and second, even
assuming that the notion of force IS clear, it is still morally proper to
initiate force against a person if you believe that the person is about to
initiate use of force against you.
The disclarity in the notion of force can be seen in comparing the
situation where P threatens to beat up Q unless Q gives him money, and the
situation where P threatens to reveal Q's adultery to his wife unless Q gives
him money. Everyone agrees that the first situation is one of initiating or
threatening force, but not so with the second. As Woodie Guthrie summarized the
philosophy of "Pretty Boy Floyd",
As through this world I've traveled
I've seen lots of funny men
Some will rob you with a six-gun
Some with a fountain pen.
The above comments are relevant to a question of politics which is rarely
considered, but often important: When is a government 'fascist'
(non-consensual) and when is it free or democratic (consensual)? George
Washington touched on this question when he remarked that "Government is not
reason, it is not eloquence. It is force, and like fire, it is a dangerous
servant and a fearful master." It has also been skirted in the frequently-made
observation that democracy is but the right of the majority to force its will
on the minority -- much like the often-quoted line about the two wolves and a
sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Needless to say, we end up here in the
same place as we do with the NAP: We cannot distinguish clearly between fascism
and freedom/democracy because we cannot distinguish clearly between force and
consent.
But even if we cannot make this distinction clearly, we can make some
useful observations. The first thing to realize is that, BECAUSE we cannot make
the distinction clearly, this suggests that we regard freedom and fascism as a
sort of continuum in which (complete) fascism is at one end and (complete)
freedom (ie, anarchy) is at the other. This, then, means that every government
gives its citizens SOME freedom, but some governments obviously give more than
others.
The second thing we need to remember is that money is power, so that the
more money a government can extract from its citizens, the more power it will
have. (This raises the interesting question of how fascist a poor government
can be, and suggests that a rich country like America has a lot more potential
for fascism than a poor one like the late Soviet Union; but we shall not
speculate on that matter here. It also suggests that the only way to protect
against fascism is to strictly limit the money which the government can put its
grubby hands on, but again, we shall not consider that question here.) The very
fact that the government has money, however, means that it has power over its
citizens, so while we might not wish to argue that rich governments are
fascist, we nevertheless can recall Lord Acton's remark that power corrupts,
and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so that the richer a government is, the
more likely it will become fascist (ie, the more it will tend toward fascism).
Now we are ready once again to grapple with the question of what fascism
is, as opposed to freedom/democracy. In particular, it should be clear that
fascism is CONCENTRATION OF POWER into only a few hands, while democracy is the
DISPERSION OF POWER to many. This, however, is completely different from the
usual conception of fascism, which is generally thought of as the condition of
a State based on, and dependent upon, legislative action. My point is that
fascism has little to do with law, and a great deal to do with money. To which
we might add that, if the population is wealthy, this creates a countervailing
force to fascism, and a protection against it.
Now a question which we asked earlier involved the attempt to distinguish
between force and inducement, eg, to distinguish between beating someone up for
money, and threatening to reveal their adultery. As is evident upon reflection,
the same question arises when we compare, for example, the case where abortion
is illegal, with the case where abortion is legal but the state attempts to
stop it by offering inducements such as tax breaks or subsidies to parents to
induce them to produce children. People are obviously inclined to think of
inducements as outside the realm of fascism, and yet from our above analysis,
we could argue that that is precisely what it is. Truthfully, I don't think the
answer makes much difference -- it seems like a question more appropriate for
the ancient Schoolmen of the Church who, as a result of their erudite
hairsplitting, became known as 'Dunces', in reference to the name of one of
their most influential brothers, Duns Scotus.
But however we decide to resolve or not the above question, it does seem
reasonable that we may make a distinction between legal impermissibility on the
one hand, and inducement by the State on the other: I suggest that the first be
called hard fascism, and the second soft fascism. Even this is hardly perfect,
because those with money have been getting their way thru bribery and other
forms of palm greasing as long as there has been a medium of exchange; but soft
fascism at least has the advantage that the lowly may rise, and that offers of
money for favors are not prosecuted by the courts. This, however, is not likely
to make any difference to the poor, who do not fare well under ANY system; but
at least people -- whether poor or rich -- feel freer under a system whose
regent's scepter is a carrot rather than a stick.
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