Posted on 11/11/2011 3:16:15 AM PST by Kaslin
In America, the federal government seems to control everything. Light bulbs, shoe leather, refrigerators, even the water strength in your shower. Your banker, your doctor, your lawyer, your computer all are regulated beyond belief. What is it in America that the feds can't control? The answer is simple: human nature. We need to eat, and we need to move about; and that means we will use the free market in order to do so, with or without the government.
Every capable human engages in market exchanges, even in those countries where it's illegal. Through all of history, humans have advanced civilization by building up the avenues of trade so as to increase their standards of living. When you buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of gas, you are freely choosing to engage in what remains of the free market. I emphasize "what remains" because when you buy bread, you are paying the local or state government a tax for a product that was baked under conditions set forth by the feds and one of the 50 states, and when you buy fuel for your car, up to one quarter of the cost of the fuel consists of state and federal sales taxes.
Sales taxes constitute a grand theft concocted by politicians and bureaucrats so as to provide them with a never-ending supply of cash they can use to bribe people for their votes. Sales taxes also make items we need more expensive. And they intrude upon our privacy. Think about it. If I want a loaf of bread and you are a grocer willing to sell me one, what business is that of the government? None. What involvement has the government had? None. What has the government done to add value to that transaction? Nothing.
The protesters on Wall Street seem not to understand that free trade is a natural right -- like speech, travel, religion, self-defense, privacy -- and is mutually beneficial to the buyer and the seller. That's why at the end of a transaction, each party says "thank you." We have both benefited. It's a win-win. I have food and fuel, and the seller has revenue. So how is it today that this natural and daily activity has become much maligned and exploited and hated by government elites?
As the global economies have collapsed in the past decade, nothing has been certain except for uncertainty. The world's central banks, drunk on power, loaded their people up with debt and then slowly guided their economies to destruction. That's the consequence of government control of the monetary system and means of exchange. Prices in an economy are like traffic signals, signaling where goods and resources should go and how fast. Central banks distort those traffic signals and even give the wrong signals. That's why we get crashes -- because of government traffic signals, because the government has taken "free" out of the marketplace.
But free trade does occur in the United States in some ways. The black markets are where people trade what they want for the price agreed on, free of taxes and free of government regulations, and at prices that are acceptable to the parties. Simply banning the transaction will not deter some portion of the population from attempting to acquire something -- whether it's bread, tobacco, drugs or guns -- that the government doesn't want us to have, at prices we are willing to pay. People will always trade what they have for what they want or need. That's human nature. That's a natural human right. The government cannot stop that. But, of course, governments have tried to stop the exercise of this right.
During World War II, for example, FDR and his cronies rationed sugar, leather, tea, tobacco, guns, coffee, fuel and many other items our parents and grandparents needed for everyday use. The stated purpose was that the troops needed these items and there was not enough to go around, so the feds would decide who got what and how much all these things would cost. But there was a black market for all these items, and there, the items were plentiful and the price was freely agreed upon. If the government had stayed out of the picture, the market could have existed in the light of day. We now know that FDR was as much interested in control of the population as in supplying the troops.
The government fears trade because it can't control it. The feds would do well to remember the historical truth that where goods and services don't move freely, armies will; and where goods and services do move freely, armies don't. And when the black market becomes more prosperous than the one the government regulates, it will be time to change the government.
The government fears trade because it can’t control it. The feds would do well to remember the historical truth that where goods and services don’t move freely, armies will; and where goods and services do move freely, armies don’t. And when the black market becomes more prosperous than the one the government regulates, it will be time to change the government.
This says it all
It’s been us working for FedGov™ since Mr. Lincoln’s War.
FedGov™ should be controlling our borders and protecting us form an invasion from Mexico and elsewhere. They don't do that.
But, if a private company wants to move form a union state to a right-to-work state, FedGov™ is right in there stopping the whole deal.
"Honey, do you know where I put my cartridge box?"
We work for the government, and the evidence for that is in the fact that no government program or agency has been or will be eliminated, but our taxes go up and will continue to do so. We’re told all the time that we have to “save” Medicare or Social Security or countless other programs, and that there must be “sacrifices” to do so. Well, who’s doing the sacrificing and who’s being saved? Never once have I heard a democrat (or a republican for that matter) say that taxpayers need to be saved. Always the programs. Isn’t it obvious who works for who?
The “ballot box” isn’t working real well at the moment.
We need to establish that the Commerce Clause is limited.
Jacquerie was posting the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention and came across an interesting discovery. The CC, as expanded since Teddy Roosevelt’s time to the present, was debated and rejected. The CC is narrow.
Jacquerie can you link us to that again? It is worth educating every FReeper about. The Commerce Clause was debated as to whether or not the new US government should vest public funds or control over large swaths of the economy. The Founders voted no.
The protesters on Wall Street seem not to understand that free trade is a natural right
What the so called conservative writers don’t understand is that free trade is virtually non existant. Various parasites buy politicians to pass laws that give them an upper hand when making business transactions.
People have to understand that the government has to control every aspect of our lives in the name of SAFETY.
It’s a dangerous world out there and “mommy government” makes it safe for us. For example: The commode...if the government did not regulate the size of them, we would run out of water and DIE! There are millions of benefits that the government lets us serfs benefit from such as providing food and shelter for those who don’t wish to work and those who need their help to have plenty of babies without cost.
The list goes on and on and on.
Of course, the government has to grow to provide these wonderful safety nets to protect ourselves from everything ranging from financial failure to hard to open pill bottles.
We all should freely give up our freedoms of choice to enjoy the umbrella of safety the government provides for us.
/sarc
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed...
I won't repeat some of the nasty things I've been called on this forum just for pointing that out.
It is refreshing, however, to hear a judge acknowledge the existence of natural rights. The Founders were adamant that the protection of natural rights were the purpose of government.
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If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.
John Adams, Rights of the Colonists, 1772
Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Monroe, 1791
...excerpts...
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
...As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose — that it may violate property instead of protecting it — then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious. To know this, it is hardly necessary to examine what transpires in the French and English legislatures; merely to understand the issue is to know the answer.
Is there any need to offer proof that this odious perversion of the law is a perpetual source of hatred and discord; that it tends to destroy society itself? If such proof is needed, look at the United States [in 1850]. There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person’s liberty and property.
...But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim — when he defends himself — as a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder...
...It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
The Law - Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
bump 4 ltr
The day was August 18th 1787.
PERIOD.
That is the limited scope of the specified purpose intended for American governance.
Thanks, Jacquerie, you’re terrific and the work you’ve done is opening eyes. Keep it up. We need an August 18 day of remembrance in 2013.
Gracias. (A little Spanish lingo.)
OUTSTANDING! Thanks for the ping/link and your analysis at the link. BTTT!
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