The Peaceful Transfer of Violent Power

[scott]

from the brilliant Sheldon Richman:

The Peaceful Transfer of Violent Power
by Sheldon Richman, January 19, 2009

At the risk of raining on the parade, I suggest that the inaugural festivities are not what they appear. Barack Obama says the pomp and circumstance are not about him but are a celebration of democracy. “For the forty-third time, we will execute the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next,� he said.

He’s right, but not quite as he meant it. The peaceful transition from the Bush to the Obama regime is indeed the occasion, but let’s focus on exactly what is being transferred. Despite the oratory about hope, change, and renewal, government — as someone, perhaps George Washington, said — “is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force.� If that is right — and I contend it is — then in the inauguration we have the irony of a peaceful transfer of something that is anything but peaceful: the legal power to use physical force.

This is something to celebrate?

The question would be fair no matter who succeeded George W. Bush. It’s not so much the man but the office that warrants our distrust and (to use Jefferson’s term) jealousy. To modify the words of Judge Gideon Tucker: No person’s life, liberty, and property are safe as long as the occupant of the White House possesses the powers that are invested in the presidency (and government generally).

The essence of government as we know it is the power to use force against people who have never harmed anyone. The most basic power is the power to tax. Indeed, government could do nothing without it. The power to tax is the legal authority to compel people to surrender their money to the state under penalty of fine, imprisonment, and worse for refusal. Whether or not one thinks this power is good (I don’t), one cannot deny that it is based on the threat to commit violence against the nonviolent.

Thus, this week we witness the peaceful transfer of the authority to commit legal plunder.

Apologists for government undertake bizarre mental contortions to show that we have consented to be taxed. Balderdash. I was never asked to consent, and I’m sure you weren’t either. I refuse to accept the nonsensical argument that by not vacating the parcel of land I purchased, I have signaled my “tacit consent� to be plundered and bullied. That implies the government owns the territory it rules and therefore can set the conditions under which it is used. That sounds like feudalism. Are we merely tenants of the governmental landlord?

Built on the power to tax (legally steal) are myriad other powers that entail the threat of violence against peaceful individuals. If you wish to buy things from people outside the jurisdiction claimed by the U.S. government, you may do so only on the terms it permits under its trade laws. If you wish to invite to your home or business someone who lives outside that jurisdiction, again, you can do so only under terms laid down by the government’s immigration rules. You are not free to make your own decisions in the matter.

If you don’t want your money given to others — say, Wall Street banks, auto companies, welfare recipients, stem-cell researchers, military contractors, the Israeli air force, the Iraqi and Afghan rulers — too bad. You have no say. Correction: you have one impotent vote every four years. That’s virtually the same as no say.

If you don’t want the armed forces killing people in your name, again, too bad. No one asked you.

If you don’t want the Treasury and the Federal Reserve stealing your hard-earned money through deficits and inflation, you may as well shut up. It’s going to happen anyway.

This is the power the peaceful transfer of which we celebrate.

We might wonder why inaugurations aren’t more sober affairs. Why all the hoopla? The answer is simple. Government is a horrendous and exploitative imposition on most of us. From the rulers’ perspective, there is always the danger that we may figure this out and refuse to go along. Hence the need for regular propaganda spectacles to reinforce the myth that we are the government.

The prayers of The Who’s Pete Townshend, alas, have not been answered. Most of us are getting fooled again.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0901h.asp

[graham]

Sheldon Richman really lays it all out doesn't he and there's much truth in his words.
However do we have an alternative ?

It's the price we all pay to avoid falling into anarchy.
We live in a world that should be a much fairer and kinder place . Humanity leaves so much to be desired but sadly the individual man is helpless to change but only himself.

Graham

[erick]

Unfortunately, peaceful society cannot exist without government.

[scott]

As Thoreau said:

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

I guess you guys aren't ready yet. :-)


For one example of how the market could supply security for people in a state of anarchy, see Molinari's "The Production of Security." As Rothbard summarized it: "Molinari grounded his argument on free-market, laissez-faire economics, and proceeded logically to ask the question: If the free market can and should supply all other goods and services, why not also the services of protection?"
http://mises.org/web/2716

[erick]

You and I might be prepared for it but do you really think everyone else is?

[AB Hammer]

Wow this is sounding like the good old days. The Dark Ages. Whats in your wallet. LOL

[primemignonite]

I do not know who Mr. Sheldon Richman is, but of what he writes and the way he does it, I find logical and appealing, as does similarly his proponent of previous.

As-to the content itself, much of it is already well known and objected-to, beginning with no-less-than our third national President, Mr. Thomas Jefferson and not ended yet, but, it is good to have it re-stated as yet another expression of the truth within it.

Of what Mr. Richman laments is that thing and evolution as directly caused by one Mr. Alexander Hamilton, and his mercantilist snake/allies, it effected by means of their national Constitution, of then-recent.

Before the days of it, we were a confederation of friendly, independent sovereign states, having a government made purposely weak so that it could not come against the founding states nor The People, which they, the states, were duty-bound to protect as buffer, standing in-between the two.

While Mr. Jefferson was out of the way, safely in Europe, on diplomatic mission, Mr. Hamilton and his stalwarts ACTED, and by means of hook and crook, plotted, cajoled, wore-down and finally, vanquished their capable opponents to their plans, to upset the status-quo with their new Constitution, and establishing by it's means, a new national government, one set-to-fail as planned originally to remain weak and controllable by the states and, as intended full-well by the plotters, to later grow into an overbearing monstrosity of usurpating and dissipating power, forever "eating out our substance", as now it surely has become and does.

Out of our insufferable quagmire, as Mr. Richman writes-of well, which we endure in mostly impatient silence, this writer is not expecting to escape any time soon, and, nor should any others I would advise, except by means of actual, physical re-location.

Of course, what is required to escape it absolutely while remaining in situ - short of irrational retreat into the fantastical, which route many do take - is THAT REMEDY already tried long ago and found NOT wanting-of any power of correctness as to it's ultimate, quasi-Divine philosopy and form,

The Declaration of Independence

(What else? "Hope"?! "Prayer?!" Your "rights"?!)

At this point, ideas of fiddling with "rights", Constitutionally "guaranteed" or otherwise, is totally wrong-headed, and bound to do at best, waste yet more time and energy of thought. Within it, as-to our low condition of present, there IS NO REMEDY find-able! Try as we might, none will be found!

The Declaration, our history and the land and it's people, and not the Constitution, is the true America and Americanism! (Mightn't we, for once and for all, finally get that straight???)

As it is with the newly risen cult of profane Obamation, worship of the Constitution is not only ignorant, but is dangerous exceedingly! Effectively, they are identical mistakes. The execrable, compounded events due-to such over ramping adulation, as we have witnessed and continue-to, stand well for this author's assertion, I believe.

Also, I believe that what I've written here would concord well, as-to the essentials, with most of the sentiments of Mr. Richman, if they were to become fully known.

James

[MrTim]

Aaron Burr did this country a favor when he shot Alexander Hamilton (the father of the Federal Reserve system.) Wasn't soon enough tho....

[primemignonite]

Mr. Tim

You expressed my exact sentiments, 'though had I written them, I would not have been so kind.

May I add a befitting AMEN!?

[Did you like or dis-like MY offering? It took a while to do.]

James

[graham]

Sheldon Richman link :
http://www.fff.org/aboutUs/bios/sxr.asp

Well he seems to have been around for a while and is very radical .
Maybe he pays no taxes and hence the name Richman.

I cannot comment on your post James as I am not an authority on American history.
It does seem that Mr Richman , Scott, and yourself despise the constitution as no more than an agreement between merchants to protect their interests and to levy taxes on the people.

The constiution was written centuries ago and has been the cornerstone of the US government ever since. Revered as if it were created by the hand of God Almighty.
But if not this constitution then what ?

Look around the world and show me where things are fairer and better. I'm serious because I'd really like to know.

As an aside I watched a clip about sweatshops and life in Cambodia .
Thousands of Cambodians scratch out a miserable existance sorting through garbage dumps for scrap that they can sell for 5 cents a pound. One woman had been living this way for 30 years and had raised her children in shacks by the side of the dump.
A sweatshop job would be her "dream come true" !

Obama wants to eliminate sweatshops around the world.

Graham

[erick]

"The constiution was written centuries ago and has been the cornerstone of the US government ever since."

I disagree. The Federal Government only gives lip service to the Constitution while it continuously pries more and more power from the states and liberty from individuals. We haven't followed it statutes since Jefferson (much to our detriment in my view).

[barksalot]

I don't think the constitution is despised here, its the people that have perverted and abused it for greed and power.

[erick]

To be certain it has been abused by some for their own greed and power but more often it has been abused by so-called "progressives" in the name of achieving noble ends but at the expense of personal liberty and the ultimate law of the land.

[barksalot]

it has been abused by so-called "progressives" in the name of achieving noble ends but at the expense of personal liberty

Yes this is the perversion ( misinterpretation of the intent of the constitution)

[murilo]

As an outsider, I'll send my 1/2¢:
Depending upon the country you are born and live, be advised that ABSOLUTELY you don't know and you will not recognize WHAT is a truly crisis of any kind. ( if you are born after 1945, of sure )
You just may guess about... your reality is a comparative luxury!
For the other side, one other sad thing you also are not able to guess.
It's the political and financial potential to theaf and put stuffs each time worst... worst... and worst... beyond the well's botton!
Cheers!
Murilo
( A very bad Obama should be incredibly much better than ANY brazilian politician!)