abuse

Is There a Limit to the Government Abuse Americans Will Accept?

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Paul Rosenberg – Any student of history learns that people will put up with horrific government abuse before they do anything about it. And so I’ve been watching for years, waiting to see how much abuse the Western world, and Americans in particular, will accept from government before they admit that they’re being abused.

In dark moments, I’ve even wondered whether this time was different, whether the natural human reaction against pain had somehow been eliminated. People in the past have rebelled against far less.

But I’ve also come to understand we have, in our times, a unique driver of compliance. By that, I refer to the most sacred of our public idols, “democracy.”

Notwithstanding that no modern government is actually a democracy, ‘“democracy’” has proven to be the greatest cloak for government sins in all of human history. After all, if the government is everybody, there’s really no one to blame. That’s plainly a scam, of course, but lots of people have bought into it… and after they’ve mouthed their worship to “democracy” a few times, they can be counted on to defend it.

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The Systemic Abuse of the Productive Class

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Freeman’s Perspective July 4 2013

abuseThe productive people of this world are being abused. We all know it and we all complain about it. And most of the things we complain about (taxes, stupid laws, politicians and bureaucrats doing ridiculous things) are backed by large, powerful systems. That is why I chose “systemic abuse” for this issue’s title.

The idea of a system being abusive by nature often bothers people in a deep and obscure way, but that characterization is true. If we try to blame “one bad actor,” we are lying and we know it.

I’m not going to waste time on the abuses of the current world systems. You must be aware of them, and you can get lists of complaints from many other sources.

Instead, I want to explain how we producers are really the controlling group in the world, even though most of us don’t know it. We as a group can end our abuse whenever we change our minds about it, and we as individuals can do a lot to bring that about.

But in order to face a life without abuse, each producer will have to do some serious soul searching and adjustment. That sounds strange, I know, but it is true. It will become clearer as we proceed.

Knowing Ourselves

Let me begin with this: You don’t have to be a superstar to count yourself among the producers. In fact, you don’t even need to have a job. What matters is that, given a choice, you would rather create than live off of the production of others.

If you feel good coming home from an honest day of work; if you like pointing at something and saying “I made that;” if you care about your work as a carpenter, trucker, housewife, nurse, welder, shopkeeper, clerk, farmer, rancher, engineer, or any of a hundred other professions, you are a producer.

This desire for production is in us from childhood and perhaps from birth. It is natural to beings who have the ability to perceive, to will, and to compare before/after results. Even infants get satisfaction from willing and succeeding. Buckminster Fuller said it well: Every child has an enormous drive to demonstrate competence.

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The Shocking Results of Continuous, Systematic Abuse

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FreemansPerspective.com May 6 2013

abuseWe Americans like our movie heroes: Tough, free thinking, adaptive, willing to defy authority to save the people. The problem is, no one ever acts like that in real life. Cheering Arnie or Chuck or Sly is a long, long way from doing something heroic yourself – and the current batch of Americans are not so big on that. (Nor are Europeans, or most others.)

One of the great Roman writers called the Romans a “royal, rebellious race.” Likewise Americans – especially in the West, had a real tradition of unflinching individualism. But, as in Rome, American virtue has been lost, while stories of the virtue remain.

21st Century Westerners obey. They do as they are told. They feel free to complain, but they never stop obeying.

You know the script that people try to follow: Do well in school, rebel a little, wear the new shoes/jeans/accessories, with the popular logos, get a university degree (take student loans to do so), get a job at a big firm with great benefits, buy a house, vote, send your kids to daycare, watch TV, and so on.

The problem is that the “Obedience Script” isn’t working out very well. Please consider these recent reports: Continue reading →