Focus on Life™

Don’t’ get deceived by the looks or even by the words, observe the underlying reality and the deeds. We are not living in freedom—actually we might never have. Only the forms of suppression and abuse have been changing along the centuries, sometimes with a figurehead and more recently only with symbolical representatives.

Oxford American Dictionary defines tyranny as “cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control”. The last definition already includes democracy provided that one is considering the issue from an individual’s perspective. Democracy is a system where a certain selection of the population is giving their power to a few elected representatives that use the power of force to apply their rules to the whole population. It is worthwhile to notice that not everybody in the population is even entitled to vote.

The much-embraced democratic process is only a form of tyranny where majority is entitled to enforce the minority under its regime. And what is the smallest minority? An individual. This system assumes a lot. It believes that it has the moral right and the obligation to suppress and use violence or threat of violence to force its decisions to the people under its regime. In other words freedom of expression and diversity are not allowed and individuals are sacrificed for the cause defined by someone else. Everybody is forced to do as they are told to do without any choice. Coercion is not cooperation, it is brutal and arrogant point of view that assumes and regards the right to tell others what they are supposed to do. Democracy tells us how we are allowed to live and carry out our lives. And if we do not fit to the predefined paradigm we are forced to underwrite the values, beliefs, and assumptions decided by the democratic process.

And like any system it is only as good as the people using it. It is fruitful to try to find an area of life into which this coercive process has yet not penetrated in our societies. Our freedom has been narrowed done to a very few choices, sometimes to plain one. Choice belongs to freedom but it also means that the one who makes the decisions is also responsible of one’s actions. Freedom is only valued by those who can appreciate it. It seems that we do not have many representatives of freedom left in this planet. It is easier to do what someone else has thought to be good for us and just follow the pattern no matter whether we speak about education, health, economy, arts, science, or any other area of the society.

Freedom expects a lot from us. Acceptance, tolerance, and the respect for others are among the qualities that are only nurtured under freedom. These are not so much tested when you agree with someone but when you do not. If you see something different from your own perspective, are you trying to suppress, deny and convert it to the traditional point of view or let it have its way provided that it is not violating your own rights to self-expression?

Voluntary cooperation is a friend of freedom. Coercion belongs to the category of violence. All this boils down to a basic question: are individuals trusted to live their lives without someone else’s forced intervention? Apparently still today we are living in a huge kindergarten.

“Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits” is a good case in point how the law is turned into a business driven by high level politics.
The Dunwalke-website puts it another way: “Make a law, make a business.” — Old New Jersey street saying.

See also Rothbard’s brief outlook of Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy.

“Too many people living in democracies are lulled into believing that they are free because they have the right to vote and elections are held periodically. If you take conscription for military service as an example, I think you would find that if it was proclaimed by a sole monarch, the people would revolt and disobey. However, in a democracy, when the politicians vote for it, the people comply and still think they are free.”

In the twentieth century 170 million people were killed by governments. It’s the bloodiest century in all history. Read an excerpt from A Century of War by John V. Denson.

Ludwig von Mises: “It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments.”

Read the article by Thorsten Polleit.

Try to imagine a system of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force that is not a violation of property rights. If you cannot do so, then you must agree that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.

Read the famous essay of Frédéric Bastiat.

Albert Jay Nock:

Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: you get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you. A citizenry which has learned that one short lesson has but little more left to learn.

Read the essay from here.

Another great essay from Nock: Life, Liberty, and … which can be found from the introduction to his book Our Enemy, the State.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe brings some light to the unstable condition of democracy: The Paradox of Imperialism.

Elections are coming in many countries so it is fruitful to remind both the candidates and the voters how the system works.

The receipt for the power hungry and ignorant is the following.

Firstly, create an abstract system that is superior to any individual and call it something good in general. A state will do if you cannot come up with anything else.

Secondly, impose some rules and regulations that are forcible by violence in case of disobedience when necessary. By the rules and laws take away from the individuals their basic rights and sovereignty to the point that they will not directly exhaust under them. Don’t bother with minorities (individual is the smallest), just make sure that the majority is behind you. Naturally a large part of the regulations are to collect massive amounts of wealth from the population for unspecified common good and welfare of the people.

Thirdly, let the people select some individuals to represent themselves and let these individuals form parties if they like. Obviously these individuals are paid by the state and they are not responsible of their actions to anyone, the least to any individual who has elected them. To elect a representative once in a few years is a great privilege itself and it will suffice. After all, it’s the people who have elected all the representatives and thus they are responsible of their actions as well.

Fourthly, hire state officials and a ruling elite to run the state. Since they are paid by the state they are objective and keep only the good of the people in mind. Give posts for intellectuals in order that they become dependent on the state. This ensures that the majority will back the state.

Fifthly, let the state officials and the intellectuals to come up with more rules and regulations. After all the state is about managing the people, for its own good. Impose also strict penalties for breaking these rules. Enroll a substantial amount of bureaucrats to monitor the overall system and make them write studies and reports. Measure the productivity and demand ever more paper work and red tape in order to keep the system busy and inflated. This is the state’s shop front and thus it has to look busy and efficient.

Sixthly, start to utilise the confiscated wealth for special purposes and privileges benefiting some minority groups (i.e. individuals or entities) defined and decided either by the current majority or by the state officials. Make sure that the decision criteria are flexible in order to adjust for ever-changing circumstances and situations. This is the prime motor of the state apparatus: take away rights in general (be innovative) and provide special exceptions, privileges, subsidies and permissions to few. This creates the prestige and the continuous need for consulting with state officials.

Seventhly, endorse the necessity and great achievements of the state apparatus. Make clear that everything done by the state is for the well-being of the people and the state itself is totally unselfish. Do not forget to add that it is very hard and difficult to take care of everyone’s welfare and thus the current budget is to be enlarged in the future.

Eighthly, create a lot of public debate how some minor portions of the budget should be allocated and to whom. This will keep the public busy and the larger budget moments can be allocated smoothly to the interest groups lobbying and providing the best possible leverage.

Ninthly, favour the majority by budget allocations and promises of better future. Praise the poor and the people dependent on the state aids and state support. Frown the wealthy, rich and those of individual type. Contrast them to the non-profit status and common good of state that is not selfishly focusing on its own interest but the welfare of all. Increase the tax burden in order to make it difficult if practically impossible to become wealthy and thus financially independent of the state. The already rich are only interested to maintain their status and thus they are nothing to worry about.

Tenthly, if there are some domestic problems and public concerns about the justifications and actions of the state blame everyone else but the state (e.g the business cycle, global trade, bad weather, difficult circumstances).

And the bonus: use the opportunities created by the lobbyist, business and most of all the flexible legislation for personal wealth on top of the good pay and perks provided by the state.

A society is decaying when it is interested in only of the effects and not in the causes. What happens when the ‘needs’ are of most importance and the ways to satisfy them are despised? A moral decline.

Who does not have any needs? We all do. Newspapers are full of ‘needs’ to be fulfilled. They are very urgent and thus must be satisfied at any cost. But whose needs are more important than anyone else’s?  Why should others fulfil someone else’s needs? In short, what is the justification for the underlying assumption that everybody else except the person itself should be responsible for satisfying one’s own needs? This is to say that it is fine and noble to receive without one’s own effort and let the others even work for it. To close the circle the ones who are working for the ‘needs’ of others are morally despised by the others because they are making an effort and thus at least are getting something done. They are called selfish and greedy. It is socially acceptable to receive benefits in due cause solely because one needs them but it is low and almost criminal to mind one’s own business and stand firmly on one’s own two feet. Their needs are of no importance since they are capable of taking care of themselves. Thus it is OK to discriminate against the ones with capabilities and virtue—“they have it all” as it is often said. It is the ones who do not have are more important exactly because they lack something. And because they have deficiencies their ‘needs’ have to be fulfilled. In another words, ability and hard work are less valued than ignorance and vices. Not doing and trying are achievement themselves whereas making an effort and working for one’s success are self-evident and of no importance whatsoever—they are sacrificial.

It is socially acceptable to care for others’ well-being, often even in general terms without being able to define the others specifically (i.e. ‘public good’, welfare of the state, general good or welfare), and to do something that is non-profit and thus ‘not selfish’. This means that everyone minds everyone else’s business but no one is allowed to mind one’s own. A socially acceptable and morally just society is one where no one is selfish and thus not focusing at all for one’s own needs and well being. In addition, it is socially acceptable to receive if one has needs but if everyone is just to receive from where is it all then coming from? And how can the others know exactly what are the most important needs for everybody else? Or is it so that there is a more general standard which defines what others are supposed to need and in what proportions? Or is it just called the welfare state and democracy by majority rule?

We regard ourselves as civilised but seldom we bother to define what does it really mean. Civilised is often confused with something modern and thus better than previous. But how can it be per default that something is better simply because it comes later?

Human history is a history of serfdom and slavery. A tiny minority rules the majority and the majority is kept under the current rule either by physical fear or imposing ideological and moral means for the same end. The end result has always been the same: some, very few, benefit and the rest pay and suffer the consequences. It does not really matter how the political system is called because actual, de facto, circumstances reveal the reality anyhow. Despotism, communism, democracy, socialism, capitalism, and feudalism are just abstract words with little concrete and commonly accepted meanings. The reality does not change by naming it differently. Also, the previous ideological principals that were the founding forces for something considered as noble at the time usually decay after a few decades or generations, and can revert to its opposite reality in practise.

Thanks to our history we have never experienced freedom. Therefore we are not accustomed to it either. It is difficult to claim something that is almost beyond practical comprehension. Liberty is one of the key things we have never realised in our societies. The Founding Fathers of the United States were probably the closest in our modern history to grasp the concept by stating in the Declaration of Independence the following: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”

The statement holds some very strong fundamental concepts and moral ideas upon which all the rest is based on. It starts by stating that everybody is born equal and this self-evident fact cannot be changed during the course of anyone’s life nor can it be taken away from any person by any means whatsoever. Just to state this once again: everybody is equal and no one is above or below anyone else. This means that everybody has the inseparable right for his or her own independence and freedom, and since everybody is equal nobody has the right to violate anyone else’s independence and freedom (i.e.Rights) either. Especially the negative right is very important – a right to decline and refuse.
It continues by opening up some of these inseparable Rights by naming them: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. By saying that everybody has the inseparable right for his or her own life this means that everyone’s life is equally valuable and no one shall interfere with other’s life (or separate one from it). Liberty states the inseparable right for one’s own actions and their consequences (as long as they do not violate anyone else’s Rights). This means that one is free to choose his own moral choices but also to bear the consequences.
The Pursuit of Happiness declares that everyone has an equal opportunity to seek and discover his or her own happiness by one’s own means and choices. It does not state that one is entitled to happiness (i.e. one has a right for happiness). It does not define happiness since it is everyone’s own quest to define and materialise it in one’s life. Thus it is part of the liberty and freedom that everyone has. One is free to seek for his or her way of happiness and practise it as well without anyone’s interference.

Altogether, we are born free and equal and continue to be so along the courses of our lives. We are free to act and use our lives as we wish without anyone’s interference provided that we are not denying anyone else’s similar rights either. A mutually respective way of living based on everyone’s own actions and free will to exist independently.

The final sentence defines the role of Governments only as the means for the protection of the stated Rights, and nothing else. It does not define for governments any role per se and thus they only raison d’être is to make sure that every person is equal and their inseparable rights are not violated by anyone (not even by the government itself).

The above statement is very strong and the humanity has not been ready for it, as of yet that is. Why? Because it is made for grown-ups that are expected to appreciate their own and other’s life above anything else, and respect this principal by not violating anyone else’s rights by force (i.e. involuntarily). It requires that everyone is responsible of one’s own life including one’s own actions and their consequences. This means that one appreciates oneself and lives by one’s own standards, values and moral choices without imposing them to anyone else involuntarily neither directly nor indirectly (i.e. by third parties or entities such as government). It also means that we are free to pursue our own course of life and enjoy from it as well. Especially the last points have been very difficult and basically non-existing in the modern Western societies.

Coming back to our legacy we have always been under someone’s rule either physically, mentally or spiritually and therefore it is very natural for us to expect something or someone to look after us and tell us what to do. This parenting concept is so evident that we don’t even realise it. We expect someone else to take responsibility of our own lives and let us follow the lead. Naturally there has been and always will be people who are ready to take the lead and define the rules how the rest of the population should behave, think, act, work and most of all live their lives. By allowing this to happen we give away our own liberty but more importantly we force others under someone else’s rule and judgement and thus deny their very Right for independent existence. Imposed liberty is no liberty at all. So far liberty has been too precious to be left for everyone to seek for and purse themselves.