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L. Neil Smith's
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 566, April 18, 2010

"One way or another, the next three years could
end the 200-year struggle against socialism."


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Pursuing Invariably the Same Object
by L. Neil Smith
[email protected]

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

Okay, let's get it over with, right up front.

There are individuals who believe, whenever they're presented with evidence of what the Declaration of Independence called government's "long train of abuses and usurpations", that it's sufficient to lift their noses into the air and sneer haughtily, "Hmmph—conspiracy theory!"

It used to be only liberals who argued with nouns: "Hmmph—Ayn Rand!" or "Hmmph—Rush Limbaugh!" Lately, the malady seems to be spreading. Even right-wing talk show hosts will scoff at those who believe Barack Obama may not be legally qualified to hold office and say, "Hmmph—birthers!", instead of offering a legitimate counter-argument.

On the assumption that any exist.

Depending on who you listen to, human history goes back six or eight thousand years. In all of that time, without a doubt, there have been hundreds—more likely thousands—of small groups who gathered in secret to make plans that wouldn't have been approved of by the majority who were not involved in the planning. That's the essence of conspiracy: small group, secret—and probably illegal or unpopular—plans.

A few modern examples ought to suffice. It seems appropriate, at the moment, to begin with the 1773 Boston Tea Party, in which a gang of hooligans (from the government's point of view, as well as that of most Bostonians), incensed at a new tax on imported tea, disguised themselves (not very well) as Indians, boarded British ships in Boston Harbour, smashed cargoes of tea chests open, and threw them into the water.

Does anybody think they gathered there spontaneously, as sort of an eighteenth century flash mob? Or was the action planned by ... conspirators?

In 1794, wondering why their fathers had even bothered to fight the War of Independence, the next generation of conspirators were secretly gathering in certain western Pennsylvania churches, tarring and feathering the local collectors of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's hated new excise tax on whiskey, burning down their homes (now that's what I call a serious tax protest), and shooting holes through the stills of neighbors who were willingly paying the federal tax.

The United States of America itself is the result of a conspiracy to overthrow the authority of the British king in North America. This plot was not only unpopular with at least two thirds of the people living here at the time, it was highly illegal. Some signers of the Declaration of Independence were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered. If our side had lost the war, it would have happened to them all.

Because they were conspirators.

Another group of conspirators—extremely wealthy and powerful ones—whom some folks believe should have been arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered, met in 1910 under the most secret and secure conditions possible at the time, at a resort on Jekyll Island, Georgia to plot out the "scientific" currency system we now call the Federal Reserve.

Skip ahead half a century or so. The United States Congress itself, based on acoustical evidence derived from police recordings, now says that there was a second rifle firing at Jack Kennedy in Dallas. Two or more people planning a crime like that constitute a conspiracy.

It turns out that the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which a few years later propelled America into the Vietnam War, never happened. Somebody—several somebodies—would have had to make up the elaborate lie, insert it into the news stream, and keep it there until it had its desired political effect. We call people like that conspirators.

Similarly, there is substantial evidence that the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt—desperate to get a war started in order to distract the public from its disastrous and embarrassing mishandling of the Great Depression—knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked by the Japanese navy and was actually notified by a Hawaii radar operator and others that the enemy planes were on the way.

If we are to believe the official government stories, there was a conspiracy involved in the 1995 destruction of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, while the World Trade Center buildings were brought down in 2001, and the Pentagon damaged, by a mostly Saudi conspiracy.

So conspiracies do happen, after all—and those who deny it should probably be suspected of being involved in a conspiracy, themselves.

Just kidding.

No, I'm not.

Yes, I am.

Let's move on.

One of the most worrisome unanswered questions staring Americans in the face at the moment is this: why—despite the fact that most of us oppose Barack Obama's collectivist agenda in general, and the healthcare travesty that he and his minions recently foisted on us in particular—did members of both houses of congress vote Obama's way, even though they know it will mean losing their jobs this fall or in 2012?

We've all heard what I call the Profiles in Courage answer, that noble, selfless Democrats are gladly willing to sacrifice themselves and their careers if it means advancing the Grand Plan another notch or two.

But remember who it is we're talking about here. There's nothing noble or selfless about politicians and there never has been. Putting it charitably, Profiles in Courage is a compendium of Democratic mythology, ghostwritten for an ambitious young Massachusetts Senator who never did a thing for himself if he could pay to have it done by others.

It's been suggested that Democratic Senators and Congressmen occupying districts likely to go to the Republicans next time—some of which only went to Democrats last time out of well-deserved hatred and revulsion for George W. Bush and his policies—were promised cushy jobs in what we laughingly call the "private sector", if the voters kick them out. The trouble with this theory is that it would still leave the Democratic Party as a whole out of power for a dangerous interval during which their "accomplishments" could be repealed.

Make no mistake, the Democrats are socialists (Republicans are, too, but that's another story). Socialism is the doctrine that the wants and needs of the group come before the rights of the individual. The fact is, over its 180-odd years, socialism has failed abjectly everywhere it's been tried, in country after country, and most people are now aware of it. This is the last shot socialists are ever going to get before history finally closes the door on them forever, and the hysteria of their actions during the past two years proves they know it.

So the likeliest answer to why the Democrats have taken this politically dangerous course is that their leaders have promised them they'll throw the next election, by various means technological or otherwise, and they won't have to pay the consequences for what they've done.

Or the election will be postponed, using the excuse of some manufactured calamity, just like Pearl Harbor, or the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Or the election will be cancelled altogether, and America will begin a descent into madness and mass murder, exactly like Germany, Russia, China, Cambodia, and all the other nations that succumbed to socialism.

Apparently I'm not the only person worried about this likelihood. Various talk show hosts have mentioned it. And check out this pair of articles:

"Will Obama Suspend the Mid Term Election?"
By J.D. Longstreet
Western Front America, March 23rd, 2010

"Are Politicians even worried about the 2010 Elections?"
An open letter to America from Aaron Zelman, Founder and Director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

There are legitimate questions being asked here, and plenty of reasons to be asking them. The Obama regime has been working up to something extreme from the beginning, attacking talk radio hosts and FoxNews, excoriating the Internet, characterizing all those who oppose their socialist agenda as racists, neofascists, even Nazis, comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan, and even accusing them of encouraging violence.

Janet Napolitano, of the unconstitutional Department of Homeland Security, perhaps under the undue influence of militant leftists at places like the Southern Poverty Law Center, has issued warnings to police all over America, identifying certain people—anyone who dislikes Obama or his policies, is conspicuously religious, conversant with the Constitution, a supporter of Ron Paul, advocates hard money, homeschools their kids, or owns guns—as a potentially violent problem.

To me, and to others, this looks like nothing more than advance preparation for a day when the government rounds up the noisiest dissenters, accuses them of domestic terrorism, and makes them vanish into any of the secret torture prisons that they've built around the world.

Can anything be done to prevent it? Can anything be done to save what somebody once called "the best idea anybody ever had for a country"?

You are doing it right now, just by reading this article. And you can do a great deal more by sending other people to read it, or by sending it to them. The government likes to hatch its plots in the dark. Help us shine the cleansing light of truth on what they're doing. If enough individuals are talking about it, they may be deterred.

For the moment, that may be our only hope.

Next, you have to stay mad—and grimly determined—with regard to the next election, if it happens. Remember the way you felt as they ignored the people and broke law after law to take our doctors, nurses, and hospitals away from us, force us to buy their "insurance" and threaten us with fines, imprisonment, and ultimately death if we refused.

One way or another, the next three years could end the 200-year struggle against socialism. But be wary. The only way to win, at present, is to support Obama's opponents. However once in power again, Republicans will not be naturally inclined to give up power, or to repeal, nullify, or otherwise dispose of what the Democrats have left behind, but to build on it—exactly as Democrats did with Bush's illegal policies and practices—and to twist them into their own image.

Neither party can be trusted. It is time, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, "to provide new guards for [our] future security."

This is a beginning.


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Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been called one of the world's foremost authorities on the ethics of self-defense. He is the author of more than 25 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collected articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at lneilsmith.org.

Ceres, an exciting sequel to Neil's 1993 Ngu family novel Pallas is currently running as a free weekly serial at www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/?page_id=53

Neil is presently at work on Ares, the middle volume of the epic Ngu Family Cycle, and on Where We Stand: Libertarian Policy in a Time of Crisis with his daughter, Rylla.

See stunning full-color graphic-novelizations of The Probability Broach and Roswell, Texas which feature the art of Scott Bieser at www.BigHeadPress.com Dead-tree versions may be had through the publisher, or at www.Amazon.com where you will also find Phoenix Pick editions of some of Neil's earlier novels. Links to Neil's books at Amazon.com are on his website


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