End Game Against Freedom

What is the End Game of the global elites against freedom and liberty?  We can see its path by addicting populations to 'social' provisions such as 'retirement' and 'health care', which are different things than living a good life or providing good doctors and medicine.  This is the Redistributive State which seeks to undermine freedom by giving people material goods in return for those people relinquishing ever more control of their lives to the State.

This can be done by means of an Elite funding or promulgating a lower societal uprising so as to force society to be under enough pressure to call for a crackdown on those putting them at risk.  It is a mug's game, a violent game of 3 Card Monte in which those seeking to lead a normal life are The Mark.  When you agree to the 'good' that such government provided social programs can do at the cost of taking money from those who have rightfully earned it via their liberty, you agree to limit the liberty of all: of the rich to be rich, of the poor to realize that they are the source of their own problems, and of the middle class to purchase the passivity of the poor with the wealth of the rich and hoping for a few scraps for themselves.  When you wash, rinse and repeat this sort of thing you are in the  process of breaking the will of individuals to have a free society, to stand up for freedom and ridiculing them because they actually support the ability of people to get rich and of the poor to also have that same opportunity.  What is offered is the class system, at first, which turns into a self-fulfilling Caste System with those at the upper levels dictating to the rest of society how it shall act in its own terms.

The modern West is in one or more cycles of this, but it is interesting to look at one society where this has reached an end-game: there are no longer any illusions of providing social goods because they aren't necessary as the will of those to have a civil society have been broken.  In China there is so much autocratic control and police suppression that it is hard to get information out, but in another place there is just enough of a shame culture left and the attempts to have a veneer of civilization remaining that we can get a look at what this looks like.

I've reported on the Red Mafia before a number of times, and this time I'm coming at it not from the 'find all low level sources to piece together a framework' end, but at the other end of what happens when a very few who actually want to do their jobs in government AS jobs in government actually give the high level framework in stark detail.  I found this through Amazon Pime's service in  film documentary by Andrei Nekrasov who recounted the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in Poisoned by Polonium.  I had looked at part of the aftermath of this assassination of Litvinenko, but the lead-up to it and the high levels of corruption and societal abuse it points at is telling.  It is a film I urge everyone to see since, if you want to see where a quasi-western State ends when its elites assume autocratic control, there is no better overview of just how this can come to be.

The events the film reviews are centered on the post-Soviet collapse in the 1990's where the productive capacity of the old Soviet industries came under the sway of two general classes of individuals: old Soviet elites and organized crime.  In some cases there is no differentiating between the two because they have a connecting link in the secret service, the FSB which used to be the KGB, and actually dates back to the Czar's Cheka.  At one point they are actually referred to in their modern FSB incarnation under that term: their name changes but their methodology of violence in service to State remains. 

From Litvinenko we hear about this directly:

In our country, the special services are, in fact, a secret political organization that uses sharp methods, secret methods, not against spies and terrorists, but solely to keep a ruling class in power.  In 1999, for example, to seize power, the FSB used secret methods that are only allowed against terrorists and spies.  If the army were to seize power, they'd roll in with tanks and guns and fly in with jets maybe.  But everyone would notice. The FSB, on the other hand, has secret methods, and nobody noticed anything until chekists made up the government and seized every organ of power.  If the KGB was the armed unit of the Communist Party, then the FSB is the armed unit of – of a caste of corrupt Russian officials.

Normally a 'Police State' is something created by a dictator or tyrant as a means to control the population by deploying the police as parts of the government with the sole aim to keep the people controlled by police power.  In the case of Russia this has been flipped around where it is the Secret Police that now put forward their own minions into politics to give a veneer of choice but, in actuality, by their brutal and repressive methods that they keep secret but are whispered about, there is no choice at all.  Really if something is undertaken to sway the public via terrorist means promulgated by the Secret Police who, exactly, is going to investigate them?  Anyone seeking to do so can be intimidated via the system that is in place of informers, records, laws promulgated to help keep the police in power, and then enforced by a corrupt legal system upon those who try to bring the actual truth forward.

With tin-pot tyrants if you have a revolution to get rid of the tyrant, can you be sure that it wasn't the secret police that actually instigated the revolt to put themselves into power?  And when a society shucks off its old totalitarian State apparatus, what happens if it actually keeps the secret police around?  Unfortunately this last question is answered in Russia.

One of the men a special unit of the FSB was to frame a man or take him out of ciruclation , and that manwas Lt. Colonel Trepashkin who was starting to piece together just what was going on inside Russia.  He recounts his story:

My first conflict in the '90s was with today's FSB director Patrushev.  I rounded up a gang that laundered money, murdered people, consisted of war lords.  At some point, I had finally managed to get them, but then the problems really started.  There was that classic chain of protection that gangsters always have whether in the FSB, the military intelligence, or in the police.  I was told to drop the case.  I said "Why, these are criminals, we have to indict them.  I won't drop it!"

The agent inside the FSB who was told to frame him so that Trepashkin would be stopped and was recorded on tape in case anything happened to any of the men from the special group in the FSB:

Trepashkin knew something, and they were afraid he'd reveal it in court.  That was my first assignment in the new department that I found really suspicious.  We ended up avoiding it and never completed it.  At the concluding session of 1997 – [..] My boss Kamyshnikov came to me and said, "You must kill Berezovsky."

There is one relevant question that can be asked of Russian society, however, before going on to how the FSB got into power: were the Russian people ready for freedom from an autocratic, indeed, authoritarian State?  For that there is an answer from Boris Berezovsky:

Berezovsky -  So we can put forward – So a certain hypothesis can be put forward.  The better the opportunities a political system offers its members, the citizens, the more efficient the system is.  But the citizens must accept, voluntarily, certain limitations on free will.  A transition from a totalitarian system to a liberal one can only take place when enough of its citizens learn to accept certain inner limitations of free will.

Nekrasov – Perhaps the transition from external limitations to inner ones.

B – Exactly!

N -  Inefficient systems force external limitations.

[..]

B – What a price humans have to pay for knowledge.  How hard it is to rise above the common wisdom.

N- Is it even more difficult for Russians, would you say?

B -  I know what you mean.  The Russian mentality is that of slaves. That's why the system of forced limitations is so welcome. So why then am I advocating liberalism in Russia?  Am I contradicting myself, advocating freedom for the Russians, going against the nation's character?  So, is Russia ready, which means her people ready to take up the responsibility of freedom? I think they are ready.  Because once the tyrannical dictate was lifted, millions of entrepreneurs appeared, a myriad of independent politicians and journalists appeared.  Russia turned out fully prepared for this crucial, historical step.  We only needed to move forward and consolidate that freedom.  And so my main conflict with the authorities today  is about individual independence.  All those stupidities – media controls, "vertical power" – have one result.  Destruction of freedom in the minds of Russia's citizens.

One can see where Boris Berezovsky is a very dangerous man to the FSB and those that they support.  The betrayal of freedom in Russia post – USSR started at those places that were the worst off condition-wise.  This exploitation would not only put the criminal oligarchs in power, but they would do so with the help of the FSB and the new Duma which had barely gotten time to get itself together.   The film recounts a cover-up of this period in which Vladimir Putin was involved with a company he had going in Germany which was in contact with the Colombian Cartels and served as a money laundering outfit.  Putin was, at that point, head of the FSB while sitting on the board of that company.  This is recounted by Jürgen Roth, a German writer who has been tracking the Red Mafia's work:

Jurgen Roth - When the premesis of the SPAG here in the Frankfurt area were searched around lunchtime – Well, the offices were searched all day.  But around lunchtime, the Chancellor's office was informed.  That same day, the Russian Interior Ministry was tipped off about the search, which is strange.  Even before the search took place, the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt tried to suppress the case.  What was on their mind was that Putin was central to this whole affair.  The prosecutor investigating the case didn't get any help. 

It all started with a report about money laundering in Liechtenstein.  In this report the BND, the federal intelligence service, there was a note about the SPAG company laundering money for Russian criminal organization called Tambovskaya.  And so the Public Prosecutor Kirkpatrick opened an investigation.  Soon after that, it was confirmed that money laundering was taking place, that the Tambovskaya connection existed and that Putin might be involved. 

When the company was founded, Putin was on the board of directors for half a year in 1993.  After that he was on the advisory board until 2000.  During that time he was in St. Petersburg and also already director of the FSB.  So he was on the advisory board of SPAG while he was the director of the FSB. 

Now I am familiar with the workings of the FSB.  If someone somewhere so much as farted, he got a written report about it.  And it's hardly plausible that Putin was not informed about all this, about what was going on with SPAG's money and that the people behind it were criminals, classic mafiosi.  He was under investigation for accepting large sums of drug money,  which is undisputed.

N- That was ascertained?

R – It was ascertained by the courts in Liechtenstein.  You can also track his longtime intelligence connections to Germany, to Dresden. I've got a list of all the intelligence officers from the GDR era, and Putin is on it.  Even back then, he kept close connections with the entire intelligence community involved in dirty business.

N – The East German?

R – The GDR intelligence service.  Stasi.

N- Corruption and things?

R – Not only corruption.  Corruption – That's a matter of course.  No one even discusses that anymore.  It's more to do with spying and destruction.  How do I destroy a political opponent?

This is not the first instance that Putin was involved with underhanded dealing for personal gain via criminal means.  This starts with a lead that Litvinenko gives:

Shortly after I gave the interview on Radio Liberty, publications appeared that accused me of slandering our president.  Not to mention that Putin was caught stealing metal assignments and funds in the early '90s in St. Petersburg.

To properly understand what Putin was doing in Leningrad it is important to hark back to what else was going on in the Non-Ferrous Metals outfits at the time, and here I wall draw on my prior piece A taste of Oil For Food and its chefs, which goes over the process of 'tolling'.  With the Russian economy crippled by State facilities being unable to make any payroll at all, the workers were down to barter of goods their facilities produced in exchange for other goods from other workers in other facilities.  This was causing problems as stuff like food wasn't made locally and had to be brought into many regions and without a cash  based system to work with, there was no way to barter ovens, say, for eggs, cheese and milk.  Those who stepped in to put money into these facilities were generally of two major classes: rich elites of the former Soviet State, and organized crime.  Some facilities did try entrepreneurial capitalism, yes, but for large metal works, aluminum plants, steel foundries, titanium smelters... heavy industry in other words... you needed cash.  Lots of cash.  And these 'investors' wanted a 'sweet deal' from the new government and they insisted on 'tolling'.

This form of 'tolling' is unlike having to pay a certain charge on a toll-based road, however, as that is a government tax on use of that road by those who travel on it.  Here it is something else entirely: the agreement by the government not to put a tariff on goods that the producers get in exchange for their output.  What this put in place was a system whereby the workers actually got paid a pittance, almost all of what was produced went outside the country, what came back after sales had no tariff on them and were then sold at above market prices locally.  If you run this sort of system then those running the business get to keep their overseas money, put a small amount in goods to come back, garner a huge windfall of increased prices for those goods versus what a competitive market would garner and then pocket those profits, as well.  Because State power is used to enforce who gets market share and is able to exclude exterior competition and their better managed systems, what you get is a near monopoly on certain regions and markets by what is effectively monopolies run by organized crime.  Isn't it great when you get to write the bills to be passed like this?

From this the section of the film in which Leningrad (St. Petersburg) comes into clear focus because the situation was one in which Putin was part of a transactional scheme to exchange raw materials for food, or metals for food in 1991-92.  Any FSB agent who understands this sort of region and its criminal element is set to make out like a bandit which is, exactly, what Putin did and was written up and dismissed from the program by local officials about the external affairs office and has since been made to disappear as a document and is very difficult to find copies of it anywhere, even on the Internet.  The value of the amount embezzled was $11.5 million which meant that the citizens of St. Petersburg would go hungry and food would be rationed there for the first time since WWII.  That amount is a low-end figure as it doesn't go into specific foodstuff costs which were left out from the contracts.  From the report:

There are reasons to suggest that partners did not intend to import foodstuffs to St. Petersburg.

[..]

The recommendations to refer the case to the city prosecutor's office and to remove Mr. Putin from his position.

In 2000 another investigation clarified that because of what happened St. Petersburg did not receive foodstuffs in excess of $92 million, but the total cost left unjustified to the committee amounts to $850 million.  All from an organization that was being run by Mr. Putin.

And how did Vladimir Putin get into power?

If you are the head of a secret police organization using illegal means to enforce power, to work with organized crime, and to partake of such crimes as well, and you have the power and means to undercut the judiciary and subvert military officers, then you are left with very little to resist you.  With that said there is one pretext for a State assuming additional powers and that is war.  In this case the war in Chechnya and, most critically, the second phase of it that started with the bombing of a bridge and then an apartment complex in Moscow.

Those bombings had one strange artifact to them: in the case of the bridge bombing there was an FSB agent found dead at the site of it and in the apartment complex bombing an FSB agent was indicted for having supplied the necessary explosives.  Or should it be said that these were Special Agents, for they were.  The denial of the FSB is, ostensibly, 'we couldn't have done it'.  Even though agents of the FSB are implicated.  Indeed this brings into question why a tank column was stopped outside of Grozny for days and then bombed just before the other attacks.  Tank columns do not stop by roadsides for days at a time as that is wasteful in men and resources who can be better used for doing other things, like not needing field maintenance.  If you are trying to put together a meme of advancing terrorist attacks, would there be a better way to do it than just as it was done?  Because terrorists, you see, don't work on 'front lines' and don't need to 'advance' via announcing themselves with periodic attacks along a given axis of movement: they are not military units.

To get more State power over media, over the economy, over people, is there any means better than a war?

If the secret police of a State using illegal means put forward a program to require the current regime to delegitimize itself, would there be any better way than to start what is, essentially, a civil war and then assert 'special powers' in 'rooting out terrorists' by that self-same secret police?  And then, in the midst of awful, bloody fighting, wouldn't it be nice to have political backing, even if from extreme nationalists, for such activity?  Because that also came with the Chechen war and is one of the most startling visual artifacts of the documentary: skinheads chanting for Putin while waving a flag with a black hammer and sickle in a white circle on a red field.  The swastika replaced by the hammer and sickle.  And chants for killing them all, the Chechens and, although none had any involvement in this, the Jews.

With the election of Vladimir Putin also came the election of a high number of FSB agents and officials also 'winning' elections so that every organ of the State was soon in control of the government.  Some may remember the terrorist attack on the theater in Russia where patrons were held captive by 'terrorist' gunmen.  One of those was an FSB agent who was put into a high position by Putin some months after the 'terrorist attack'.

If China points to international socialism becoming a formulation of national socialism, which is to say fascism, then when genocidal war is mixed into that, as is the case in Russia, you get a form of fascism known as Nazism. Of course it will be denied up and down the line, yet the supporters of State power continue to show up with proper symbology be it that twisty, interlocking geometric design of the New Dawn party in Greece, or the swastika replaced hammer and sickle flag in Russia.  This, most virulent form of socialism at the nationalist scale, is a horror for mankind... although not a lesser horror than international socialist kind as both look to kill to get to and remain in power.  Often with tens of millions dead in that quest.

The true horror is the attitude taken by prosecutors and governments outside of Russia when companies started by FSB agents or organized crime in Russia, and it is hard to say which is worse at this point, are then suspected of criminal acts.  Money laundering, drug running, and, of course, murder using exotic means like a highly rare, short lived, radioactive metal like Polonium.  Litvinenko thought he was safe in Great Britain, but safety is only an illusion unless the State will actually do its job to keep you safe from exterior attack... not turn a blind eye towards it or refuse to ask hard questions or even seek to shut down inquests.  Yet, in the West, we see that in Great Britain and Germany, and if that sort of thing is going in those States, one with the longest history of people seeking democratic freedom and the other the one place that should have learned its lessons about the horrors of NOT investigating such things, then what does that say about the rest of Europe and the West as a whole?

In the US we have a man like Eric Holder who, it must be remembered, was involved in some very sorry episodes in the Clinton Administration, proving to be duplicitous in the Elian Gonzales affair, who also put forward a pardon for Marc Rich.  The same Marc Rich who would show up in post-Soviet Russia to bring 'tolling' as a concept with him to teach to the oligarchs.  It is certain Vladimir Putin knew of Marc Rich – as the head of the FSB that would not escape his notice.  And as Marc Rich had investments in operations going across Russia, east to west, it is very likely that Vladimir Putin had more than a nodding acquaintance of Marc Rich's tactics and techniques.  Did Putin actually know Marc Rich, a man then on the lam from the FBI for questioning with an international search warrant out for him prior to his pardon?  Especially as Putin used the methodologies that Rich brought with him to absolute perfection, can that be just chalked up to being a real good study of those techniques?  You don't use them by accident, that's for sure, but with criminal intent as the two commissions investigating the starving of St. Petersburg pointed out.  And as the courts in Liechtenstein also pointed to in the case of SPAG.  Makes you wonder where SPAG got its money, doesn't it? 

Back to Eric Holder, for a moment, how does such a man pushing for a known organized crime participant to get a pardon, which he must have known in his position at the FBI, get a 'pass' by any political establishment?  How does a duplicitous public official with policing powers entrusted to him violate that trust and, yet, get promoted?  How does criminal operations of running guns to Mexican Cartels, and to other non-State operators overseas, against the treaties we have signed with these Nations, actually get a yawn from the media?

What does the End Game Against Freedom look like?

Vladimir Putin had many contacts in the intelligence and police community overseas.

Here's a thought.

President Eric Holder.

But only after some suitable 'national emergency' has taken place in which 'extraordinary powers' need to be used to 'stop' advancing 'attacks' by organizations that don't do advancing 'attacks'.  That is the equivalent in the US.

The End Game Against Freedom is a Police State.

Run by the Secret Police, not a dictator creating one but a dictator put in power by one.

Who watches the Watchmen?

The three factions of the Republican Party today

I'm using my prior break-out of the factions within the Republican Party from back in 2008 to look at where things stand today with the candidates in the field.  I will be doing some re-posting of material from that and not going into the over-view of them within the current atmosphere of the pre-election cycle.

As they have broken out these three groups stand out, and they do have sub-groups within them but gain factional affiliation by their positions as sub-groups.

I)  First is the SecCons or Security Conservatives.  The strong position of the US to wage war in her defense was a vital concern during the Cold War and this faction was in ascendance then.  By putting military concerns first they were able to back a strong and final build-up against the USSR that covered decades and put the Soviet system which was always on the ropes down and out for the count.  These were the backers that won the equivalent of a World War without bringing on true nuclear conflict.  Their problems are in the realms of Fiscal, Social and Domestic policy outside of the military realm and with the draw-down from Iraq, the ongoing relatively low-level conflict against the Talibe in AFPAK and helping out a few other Nations in COIN (Philippines, Colombia, Kenya, Yemen) they are losing a strong position within the Republican Party.  While some of the candidates will support a continued level of military affairs, this faction has no backer who is first and foremost for the military.  Without the Soviets and with China now having its economy implode in bad debt, the lower threat of terrorism going nuclear is not one that pushes people to actively support the old style military structure.  The military, for its part, understands this and is adapting to the modern world, but it is a world with a lower need for capital intensive defense systems and without a large economic need the SecCons are being marginalized.

Part of the marginalization is the comfort to social moderates and liberals, plus a willingness to spend heaven and earth for the latest equipment.  Our times are no longer ones that allow for such extravagance and socially the pendulum that started swinging in the 1890's with Progressivism has, apparently, reached as far as it can go on the other end of the cycle.

II)  Second are the FiCons or Fiscal Conservatives.  This part of the Republican Party has been part and parcel of the 'Rockefeller Republican' brand for decades.  It is this section of the party that is now breaking up due to the Tea Party movement that hadn't even been thought of in 2008.  Today there are two branches within the FiCons and they are currently the ones on the internal battle-lines for the party, itself.  Thus I will go into a bit of detail here.

1) Rockefeller Republicans - These are the 'Establishment Republicans', the guys with the money and many of the reigns via the control of the party leadership and their influence has withstood the Reagan Revolution with its SoCon underpinnings.  These are generally seen as the Big Business supporters for earmarks, subsidies, tax breaks and so on via budgetary work in DC.  It is this segment that overwhelming benefits from the K Street lobbyists who use their outside money and revolving door connections to get inside influence on the federal budget.  This is mirrored in the Democratic Party, to be sure, but in the Republican Party when anyone spoke of 'fiscal conservative' between 1950 and 1980, it was this cohort that was being referenced.  Do note that they are FOR tax breaks but not FOR cutting the size of government, therefore any short-term gain in political advantage from tax breaks is off-set by further erosion of personal liberty of the individual due to larger and more officious government.  While it was this faction that called out the problem of SSA and M&Ms, they are also the ones most notable for being unable or unwilling to get these programs reduced or on a road to being abolished as fiscally unsound.  At least two of the current candidates come from this faction (Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich) or are affiliated with it via their business and political outlooks, and while they are (apparently) at odds with each other on the campaign trail, they are both unwilling to do any wholesale revision of the US government.  Abolishing programs still leaves the apparatus to regenerate them in place, thus removing 'welfare' has allowed for other programs to flourish where there was once that single program and done at higher cost and less accountability.  No one who believes that individual liberty is the basis for society, the Nation, government and the State would ever espouse 'mandates' for anything upon individuals in the name of fiscal conservatism.

2) Tea Party FiCons - The largest faction of the Tea Party is in this sub-group within the FiCons.  Unlike the older cohort, this cohort sees small business and smaller government as the course to go for fiscal conservatism.  The argument that government is doing things it was never designed nor meant to do and not doing those things well or efficiently for the citizenry and, in fact, is infringing on individual fiscal concerns is one that is a 'Fusion' concept, of which I will talk more about later.  Unlike the RR-FiCons, the TP-FiCons are building a fundamental ECONOMIC case for the power of personal liberty to guide the economy that is not a RR-FiCon one.  Where the RR-FiCons are inherently Hamiltonian or Progressive in their outlook, the TP-FiCons are inherently Jacksonian and Traditionalist in their positions.  The inherent nature of an economy being made up of individual transactions at the lowest level seeking the most efficient means to enable such transactions and then allowing for a larger emergent phenomena  to take root based on those transactions is one that is immediately identifiable to TP-FiCons: it is not just Hayek but the nature of human liberty and its source that argues for this and argues against the intermediation of government in any meaningful positive (that is to say in the realm of positive liberty) way and only that it needs to exercise its negative powers granted by the people to safeguard the economy from aberrant actors who will not play by the set of rules for economic exchanges.  Government cannot make such low level decisions without huge negative impact on the overall economy and, no matter what other 'good' is generated, the lost value of human liberty to fully flourish is something that impoverishes rich and poor alike and makes it harder for the poor to advance.  This sub-group is aiming to remove the Establishment RR-FiCon death grip on the party via campaign donations: members directly donate to individuals running for office, not to the party.  This has only been going on, in a real sense, for less than 2 years and due to the economic times we are in and the failure of government to adapt to them (indeed it continues being the problem to the Nation, economically) the more the TP-FiCons will shift the RR-FiCons out of control of the party funds and the party system.

III) Social Conservatives -  In the prior work I broke this category up into the Christian Conservatives and the Traditionalist Conservatives, each with their own outlook on society and the role of government and the church in people's lives.  While not at logger-heads, they have not always marched to the same tune and it was only for a few short years under Ronald Reagan that both sub-groups had time together in-step and in-formation.  Today these two sub-groups are now getting a new blend via a third group made up of parts of each of them and the TP-FiCons: the Fusionists.

1) Christian Conservatives - Here the prior break-out of religious observation and moral law guidance that was the bastion of the Christian Conservatives is now finding that it can make an economic case, as well, which is uncharted waters for many Christian Conservatives.  Moral Law guidance is, itself, only secondarily economic and primarily about the duty of man to god and society to make both moral so as to get good government.  Thus, until the last 2-3 years, the idea that government could be used to promote a moral 'good' was an idea taken up by some candidates (Mike Huckabee in 2008, Newt Gingrich in this go around).  Yet this is fundamentally against moral teachings as government is the last, least and worst place to receive any moral teachings.  Anything that gets between you and God should be disdained, and yet the Progressive Era had slowly shifted Christian Conservative SoCons into this idea that government is the last refuge for the poor and needy to go... not to the actual people who make up the Nation as caring for the poor and needy is a directive to individuals, not to States nor Nations.  The idea that government can tell you when you can work, how long you can work, if you are worthy of 'retirement' benefits, and on and on have been a slow and steady erosion of the moral fiber of the Nation by assaulting the moral fiber of individuals inside and, increasingly, outside the realm of religiously observant Americans.  The moral line in the sand against abortion was the first sign that this erosion had gone too far, but that Christian Conservatives could only do this small portion of the work of protecting society and could not grasp the larger threat to the entire society on a moral basis that government was pushing.  The awakening of Christian Conservatives to the much, much deeper teaching of our rights being vested in us took over three decades to finally filter into this sub-group of SoCons, and the re-identification of not just Life but Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness being prime movers granted by God is now spreading amongst the Christian Conservative SoCons who used to just stick to their faction knitting but now find a way to express a much deeper moral and religious belief for society via economics.  Being conservative it is a slow to move group, but once in motion little will stop it, and if the line in the sand is but a starting line for repeal of the Progressive Era, then it will be the individual who couple God, Faith, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness as a continuous whole that will be the major part of the Fusionist sub-group.

2) Traditional Conservatives - These are the followers of Federalism, a society that treats its fellow citizens with respect, the builders of hearth and home (not just those who purchase one) and while religious to a large extent, it is the religion of conviction at home by the fireside with one's children and the role of man to build a good society for not just himself but for his fellow man, as well, as a great good and duty of man.  While this is the quietest faction of the SoCons they have been a part of the party since Lincoln, and have always understood respecting government but questioning its extent and growth.  For Traditionalists there is always an economic point to be made and it is centered on the family check book and how one spends money for oneself.  These are the individuals who uphold thrift, of neither a borrow nor lender be, paying back one's debts not just promptly but ending them as soon as possible, and for supporting the notion that a man cannot be free if he is in debt to any other man or institution via his finances.  This sub-group may be the first to fully Fuse with the TP FiCons as there are direct parallels (indeed very deep parallels) between household accounting and government accounting, and that if you owe someone then you are in their power due to your debt.  The case that man who is in debt is living on borrowed time and that his works are prone to failure and collapse (no matter if they last) is one that is understood deeply within the Traditionalist Community.   It is this community that is closest to the old Democratic Jacsksonian community (that left the Democrats in the late 1960's) and the amount of cross-over between the old trail blazers (Jacksonians) and the old first settlers (Traditionalists) have always made them able to get along on a social level.

IV) Fusionist Conservatives - Fiscal Conservatism has deep roots in not only societal good but the teachings from the Judeo-Christian heritage about duty to God and one's fellow man.  Unlike libertarians the Fusionists recognize that not all of man's liberties and rights are positive, as Nature gives us both equally (although not in equal amounts), so that the necessity of society to generate organs to watch over and stop the exercise of negative liberties and rights within society requires government.  Man is not wholly good nor evil, but has positive and negative rights and liberties which we can bias via moral teachings to curb the negative rights and liberties and enshrine the positive ones worthy of protection.  Government is to recognize that these positive liberties and rights are to be protected, not infringed upon, and the case for this comes not from legal proceedings but from moral teachings, upholding society, and holding government accountable for the negative powers we grant it to safeguard society and the individual.  This is a deeply libertarian approach, yes, but it is not made by modern libertarian channels but through ones of religious observance, religious teachings and understanding man's duty to God and his fellow man.  Fusionist Conservatism is, at once, deeply conservative and extremely expansive in this day and age as it is the naturally recognized antidote to tyrannical or despotic government.  When Barack Obama chided the people of Pennsylvania as grasping on to their guns, god and bible, he was mocking the very basis of what is the enemy of Progressivism and Socialism in all its forms.  These three, together, give the basis for personal liberty (guns), the originator of our liberty (God) and the written moral teachings of God (the Holy Bible) all in one swoop.  Throw in Gold and you have the result of protected personal liberty able to prosper with obedience to God and upholding moral teachings.  Gold is a result of these things, not a cause of them, and it is garnered through liberty ONLY.  Unwittingly Barack Obama named the Fusionist Awakening in these concepts and knows not the history of a debauched, debased and decadent society that adheres as leeches to government is dissolved by a devout people willing to undergo martyrdom for eternal salvation.  One laughs at these things at their peril, and in speaking of them the seeds that were already planted over decades were given final fertilizer and water to grow again.

At the rate of change for the Republican Party and Conservatism as a whole, the next decade is one that will be fraught with danger and great promise.

Government will need to climb down from its Himalayan Mountain Range of debt.  It can be tossed off, with great social turmoil, or it can climb down by jettisoning the infringement of positive liberties and rights in the way of retirement, medical aid and the million and one other things done in the name of 'good' from environment to energy to agriculture to 'the humanities' to education, either via slow phase-out or wholesale cut-off.  Government so large, so officious and, at the same time, so incompetent creates a Law of Rules in which any person is probably in violation of some rule or regulation at any given moment in the day.  The Rule of Law is simple and easy to understand laws that are clearly defined and enforced without favor nor fervor, while the Law of Rules is all about favoritism and payoffs.  To do this requires and understanding of our fellow citizens that we, as man, have been living over the margin and near the edge of the abyss waiting for one ill moment to topple us into despotism or worse.  To get back from that edge the argument that our personal liberties, rights and freedom are our own salvation in this life and the next, and that passing them off to others (which is so very easy) means that we, as individuals, become cold and cruel to our fellow man because we refuse to recognize his circumstances and help him out of them.  Government cannot do that, indeed it MUST NOT do that as that is not its place as a part of society.  It is just an organ of society, and one that processes the identified problems and waste material and gets rid of them... which is not the brain, in case this has been missed.  No better argument for chasing appetites to constipation of debt can be rendered than is shown by our current government which has been eating so much in the way of the positive it can no longer accomplish its duties to us, as citizens, via its negative powers and responsibilities.

This is a hard argument to make as the Deadly Sin of Sloth is one that guides this age as no other.  Yet the problems of our fellow man are not for someone else to attend to, but for us, as individuals, to ameliorate.  One cannot sit back and let others take care of things, because becoming glued to one's sofa soon means that you can no longer remember how to move from it and become the very sort of problem you were unwilling to deal with in the first place.  The heart of charity is not taxation, which is the negative liberty of theft who's power we lend for government in a limited area of commerce, but in the heart of man who is willing to give time, effort, though, a helping hand and last and least is cash to his fellow man to create a better society.  To get a more cohesive society (albeit with stark and fun differences for that is the essence of liberty on the positive side) we cannot entrust government as a caretaker or the builder of a safety net as it is not only prone to corruption but inefficient and will seek to grant favor to the few via funds that are not available, so as to expand power over the many.  Government granted positive outlook is tyrannical at its core because it can couple the whip with the reward and break man to it.  To stop that require accountability on the fiscal side, first, so as to get rid of the unnecessary appendages of government that threaten liberty in the first place.  When there is no safety net, no tax breaks, no subsidies, we are then left to our own devices to find a good way to live without the costly help of tyranny.

The current field of candidates reflects those trying to grasp on to the old, and dying, those trying to muddle through and a few trying to chart a path to a better future with smaller government and enhanced liberty for man.

Four years will not alter the fundamentals changing America.  We may crash off the mountains into debt, but that is not oblivion as we then get to the end state in a few days, and with next to no government, to boot.

The trends cannot be changed.

What can be altered is the outlook of individual to embrace what is coming and help soften it and explain it, so that we can get to a better place as a society and a nation.

If you dare to, that is.

How to steal an election

The question about ACORN registering not only dead people, but fictional characters and collections of letters as voters has come up as a question as to why this matters.  I responded to this at the Hot Air site and will then add a few thoughts at the end.  As always all problems of spelling, syntax and logic are left for the amusement of the reading public.

* * *

How to turn these phony registratants into votes?

As the ‘activist organizations’ flood the system close to or at the deadline for registration, they swamp the internal controls to verify applications. Those then get put on the rolls as voters. Someone shows up with some form of ID that will pass muster and votes.

As mentioned many of the voter rolls are out and names crossed off as people show up. If you have a database of individuals you have registered or a block of addresses from which phony voters applications were put in, you can then have either a real voter or an ‘observer’ contact someone on the outside to then do a database look-up. If there is not a strict accounting of the actual photo ID, such as taking the driver’s license number or other identifier off of the ID, then you can have someone show up with an ID that looks valid. The cost of cardstock and laminating equipment is low in such a large operation and we have already seen fake ‘press passes’ derived from original source ones via this methodology.

This allows a small number of individuals to then do this Chicago phenomenon of ‘vote early, vote often’.

By the time the actual verification gets to an individual on the rolls, it may be weeks or months after the election, with the latter more likely due to the approaching holiday season.

This could be negated by a requirment for a valid State ID, such as driver’s license or other ID in which the polling station has a read-out for that block of individuals who live in that district. Enter the number, get the name, hand verify the name on the paper rolls, initial and time stamp it. But then you get ‘civil libertarians’ crying about how such databases can be abused, and that cross-checking is, somehow, a nefarious activity. And yet the public’s need for clean elections should have massive criminal penalties in place when such databases are compromised to undermine local democracy…. unfortunately that is not the case.

Thus criminal activity gets a slap on the wrist, civil libertarians decry cross-checking databases, organizations push in a mass of late registrations that can’t be checked and small numbers of individuals ‘vote early, vote often’ because they do not show up at the same polling places but drive from place to place. “Small” being anywhere from a handful to a few tens of people… and if the election doesn’t come out as wanted, then those individuals are sacrificed to call the election into question and claim it was ’stolen’. How many individuals in a given area would it take to convince *you* that this would represent a larger number doing this activity? Two? Three? Ten? Twenty State-wide? Fifty? And just how will you be able to discriminate between just a few individuals doing this and a larger push of which these would be a ‘representative sample’?

There is also, of course, taking a large number of blank ballots, and filling them in and crossing the names off of the rolls after the election, but that ham-handed way usually shows up due to the block of ballots involved. That is if you have a paper-trail ballot.

Really, one can be inventive with this to get to a desired result… which is undermining representative democracy.

* * *

The problem is not just the registration and a few 'bad votes' getting through: it is creating an atmosphere of suspect elections that then seek to disenfranchise the voting public by creating the appearance of fraud in the election process.  The tactic of 'flooding' voting administration offices in the last day or two of the registration cycle is one that is well known, and documented:  it is done to over-tax the registration system and get unaccountable names on the voting rolls and to get absentee ballots for those that would not normally deserve them.

Beyond that, this can be used in an area where a favored politician such organizations like ACORN are *losing* so as to create turmoil, call the ballot process into question and attempt to eliminate strong opposition districts from the vote count via appearances of impropriety.

In strong districts this is used to push up the 'win' so as to get a larger tally so that people can point to: well this candidate got the most votes, why wasn't he elected?  That was in the year 2000, in case anyone has forgotten, and it is an attempt to undermine the system of representative democracy and fairness to all citizens so that they have representative say by region and area.  Thus 'winning big' can be used as a bludgeon to try and overturn a result that is one that expresses the diverse will of the people, not just the majority.

Even if the actual votes that are fraudulent are slight, the number to turn public opinion against the process is paper thin.  Eroding that crumbles the faith in the election system, representative democracy and our respect for each other as citizens as some try to impose results via ideology and ill-means.  By undermining the system of voting and call it into question via such means, we see a direct authoritarian attempt to delegitimize representative democracy and force the will of a minority by disenfranchising voters by calling legitimate votes into question by those activities.

When politicians move money to such organizations from the public treasury, as seen with ACORN and other such groups, the entire process becomes corrosive to the freedom of the ballot and the franchise right.  That is an established right that is protected by the US Constitution and those seeking to undermine it are not only breaking the civil rights of citizens but eroding societal trust in the election process in an attempt to impose ends from unelected organizations supporting non-democratic means to impose their will on the whole of society.

The failings of the volunteers

The struggles continue on, year after long year, with no resolution in sight.

Veterans of many battles soldier on with few to come and relieve them.

Embattled on all sides, and unable to meet the heavy loads set to them, they fail at it, even as they are sent to the fight again and again. They volunteer for it, and the People fail to support them.

Is this the all volunteer Armed Forces in Iraq? No, this is a description of another all volunteer force... but let us say that it was the forces in Iraq and we realized we could not leave. What would you minister, just on the bland face of it?

Send in fresh troops and reinforcements, of course!

But if this force I describe in bitter battles is not the forces in Iraq, then who, exactly, are they?

To no surprise of readers here, it is one that we all know and have come to see as untrustworthy in America. This force of mostly veterans with too few new faces and too much work is, indeed, Congress.

Thanks to CQ in pointing to this piece in Politico on House is not a home.

The poor dears in the House have a 5 day work week!

Long schedules!

Too little time in their districts!

Ah, the river of crying has begun, has it not?

I have gone over the concept of a solution for this before, but I will pull out a bit from the folks more heavily pushing the 1:30,000 House concept. They have a lovely file doing long-term trend analysis of the incumbency problem of the US, and it has been in the realm of 90% return rate now for decades:

Courtesy: thirty-thousand.org
This is not a trend that bodes well for America, and, indeed, has pushed down voter turnout and depressed off-year elections on what should, at basis, be the fundamental underpinning of democracy: the House of Representatives.





The above taken from US Census datasets.
Presented in History is not inevitable
These are not things to put forward as 'those not interested not voting'. Indeed, that is a prescription to lose democracy at its base, from a population that is self-guiding and takes interest in their outlook and future. Consider, for a moment, an Anti-Federalist all of whom were committed to democracy, but were arguing the best form of democracy for the United States, Brutus No. 1:

"The magistrates in every government must be supported in the execution of the laws, either by an armed force, maintained at the public expence for that purpose; or by the people turning out to aid the magistrate upon his command, in case of resistance.

In despotic governments, as well as in all the monarchies of Europe, standing armies are kept up to execute the commands of the prince or the magistrate, and are employed for this purpose when occasion requires: But they have always proved the destruction of liberty, and [are] abhorrent to the spirit of a free republic. In England, where they depend upon the parliament for their annual support, they have always been complained of as oppressive and unconstitutional, and are seldom employed in executing of the laws; never except on extraordinary occasions, and then under the direction of a civil magistrate.

A free republic will never keep a standing army to execute its laws. It must depend upon the support of its citizens. But when a government is to receive its support from the aid of the citizens, it must be so constructed as to have the confidence, respect, and affection of the people." Men who, upon the call of the magistrate, offer themselves to execute the laws, are influenced to do it either by affection to the government, or from fear; where a standing army is at hand to punish offenders, every man is actuated by the latter principle, and therefore, when the magistrate calls, will obey: but, where this is not the case, the government must rest for its support upon the confidence and respect which the people have for their government and laws. The body of the people being attached, the government will always be sufficient to support and execute its laws, and to operate upon the fears of any faction which may be opposed to it, not only to prevent an opposition to the execution of the laws themselves, but also to compel the most of them to aid the magistrate; but the people will not be likely to have such confidence in their rulers, in a republic so extensive as the United States, as necessary for these purposes. The confidence which the people have in their rulers, in a free republic, arises from their knowing them, from their being responsible to them for their conduct, and from the power they have of displacing them when they misbehave: but in a republic of the extent of this continent, the people in general would be acquainted with very few of their rulers: the people at large would know little of their proceedings, and it would be extremely difficult to change them. The people in Georgia and New-Hampshire would not know one another’s mind, and therefore could not act in concert to enable them to effect a general change of representatives. The different parts of so extensive a country could not possibly be made acquainted with the conduct of their representatives, nor be informed of the reasons upon which measures were founded. The consequence will be, they will have no confidence in their legislature, suspect them of ambitious views, be jealous of every measure they adopt, and will not support the laws they pass. Hence the government will be nerveless and inefficient, and no way will be left to render it otherwise, but by establishing an armed force to execute the laws at the point of the bayonet — a government of all others the most to be dreaded."

The long-term stand of democracy is above that of form of government - it is active participation in deciding who shall represent you, as an individual, in government for your greater good and well-being. America re-affirms this outlook over a century later when President Theodore Roosevelt would address the Sorbonne in Paris, 23 APR 1910 via the Theodore Roosevelt website:

Today I shall speak to you on the subject of individual citizenship, the one subject of vital importance to you, my hearers, and to me and my countrymen, because you and we a great citizens of great democratic republics. A democratic republic such as ours - an effort to realize its full sense government by, of, and for the people - represents the most gigantic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught with great responsibilities alike for good and evil. The success or republics like yours and like ours means the glory, and our failure of despair, of mankind; and for you and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or very few men, the quality of the leaders is all-important. If, under such governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nations for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality of average citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible quantity in working out the final results of that type of national greatness. But with you and us the case is different. With you here, and with us in my own home, in the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher.

Being a citizen in a democracy is not just a privilege, it is a duty to the upholding of society. As democracies rest upon the consent of the governed, when those that are governed no longer exercise their right to choose government, it is not only the government but the Nation that suffers in lack of legitimacy. We no longer teach upholding democracy and citizenship as a duty, and so we now lack dutiful citizens that support government and Nation.

We have a tired, worn out set of politicians in a moribund institution that was size delimited in 1913 by Congress. That happened in a 10 year flurry of changes on the basis of democracy in America that would alter the relationship of how Federal Government to the American People. Those changes, however, did not press forward the concept of democracy and have, instead, eroded it deeply. By not having commitment to democracy, America no longer generates leaders that understand democracy or that can adequately express any vision for a future of democracy in America or the world. Because of that, we are at a point where the only institution of the Federal Government that is *trusted* is the Armed Forces. And those same Armed Forces do their job while being harried at all sides not only by those firing bullets and bombs from abroad, but by the media and punditry at home.

This is not a stable mix for any democracy. Only the deep seated view of democracy and adhering to civilian control over the military that was put forward by General Washington serves as the deepest check to worse problems. Those same problems are being generated by veterans fighting not just the last war, but two or three wars back, now... in Washington, DC.

It is time to recall these veterans and send reinforcements, and tell Congress it is time to return popular representative democracy to Washington. I am sure it will cause turmoil, of that there is no doubt.

Not doing so will place the republic in even worse danger as government becomes distrusted and hated, the military loved and democracy diminished.

Give the House of Representatives back to the People so we may be heard in diversity and cacophony.