EF Podcast #3 - Why I Use a $20 Gold Certificate as an Avatar

"Twenty Dollars in Gold Coin payable to the bearer on demand"

What was the Gold Standard?  Why do I use an image of an old $20 bill as my avatar / image?

The gold standard did two things that people in power and governments severely dislike: 1) it limited their power and reach and 2) it placed power and independence in the hands of the regular people.

Money backed by gold can't be printed, because gold can't be arbitrarily printed or created.  This limits the ability of governments to create war and exercise power over institutions or people.  The reason why the US gov't has devolved into a rapacious empire is because there is practically no limit to any cost.  Wars all over the planet? Not a problem.  Prisons out of control and a Police State to monitor the Herd?  No problem.  Big Business wants to capture a sector of the economy by creating a regulatory thicket to block the little guy?  No problem as gov't will create a department and enact legislation to crush small independent people.  How much will all of that cost?  Doesn't matter as the Federal Reserve will create the debt, monetize it and it is now "paid" for.

If you had the ability to open your browser, go to your bank account and move the decimal place around, or add numbers as you saw fit - you'd be thrilled.  The idea is a silly one, but that is what the FED can, and does, do.

How it came to be that way and how to find out more - see below:

Books:

• The Creature from Jekyll Island, G. E. Griffin
• What has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray Rothbard
• A History of Money and Banking, by Murray Rothbard (links to a PDF download)
• Pieces of Eight, by Edwin Vieira
• The Case for Gold, by Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman

EF Podcast #2 - Finding Reliable Sources of Information

In this podcast I discuss finding reliable sources of information - a necessary component for the Intellectually Curious.  Sites that get introduced are:

Zerohedge.com
LewRockwell.com
RT America - Breaking the Set
Corbett Report

These sites are like food for a hungry person.  Once you realize, as many thoughtful HS students do, that teachers, mainstream media and the Establishment are interested in what you think, not HOW to think - these websites are golden.

Education Forensics - Podcast #1

This is the first podcast in a series.

It is divided into three parts.  I speak about what the general philosophy of what my site and my philosophy is all about.  The three parts are: thinking for yourself, becoming intellectually curious, and finding good sources for information.

Facebook Dialogue part 27

I became Facebook friends with a young person who is really into punk rock.  That unto itself is worth a post because I am in the bad school on the wrong side of the tracks, and Punk Rockers are not common at all.  I asked him how he came about with his anti government view, which I saw on his FB page, and he said it was the music he was into.  Of course it made me feel old because he's interested in the late 1970's and 1980's Punk bands.  He thought it was great that I was alive during those times - I didn't have the heart to tell him about the fashions of the day...

A couple of days later he put up a post that was "F*** Racism. Fascism. Sexism. Nationalism. Anti-Semites. Homophobia. Nazi Punks. Transphobia. Control. Religious War. All War. -- Teach Peace and Anarchy."

I responded with: "just about, if not all of the 'isms' are a bad joke"
He responded with: "I know, a very bad joke indeed."

Here is where it gets interesting.  A friend of his came back with this: "Anarchy and peace don't go together as long as people with independent thought are in the mix"

I thought this was odd - how can a person see independent thinking people and independent thought as anything but positive?  How would independent thought hurt the cause of peace?  So I came back with this: "Anarchy and peace go perfectly together as independent thinkers don't need a Rancher to run their lives or whip them into a frenzy."

Then he came with what, under normal circumstances would be seen as a conversation stopper - a long response with some decent points, but not quite good enough: "Independent thinkers don't need someone to run their lives, that's true, but that doesn't mean that they'll agree to non-violence or even non-prejudice. Many wars and prejudices occur because of independent thought. In an anarchy, there would be no way to fight racism because people who have racist views would act on them without repercussion, and unfortunately that's a large group of people. Anarchy breeds violence and prejudice, because that is part of the human condition. Without a societal structure to have an open and safe discourse on the subjects that need to be improved upon, things will not be improved upon; in fact, things will mostly just devolve."

I jumped all over this - especially the last part: "Devolve into the way things are now? I think the current state of affairs, with the violent and rapacious drug / prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, regulatory thicket blocking the poor - - these things make your argument lose a lot of steam. Freedom is the answer - to think that a 'societal structure' will somehow stop racism - it can only do it by force, which defeats the whole purpose. Gov't is an opinion with a badge and a gun, nothing more, nothing less. You're arguing from an outcome, not an ethical stance."

I thought the person's focus on racism was odd.  The Gov't and their media lapdogs push the racism angle in order to keep the Proles arguing among themselves, but I'm willing to play ball and debate with that as an example...  Then I got this in return:

"I'm not saying that it's perfect how it is now, but I'm saying that anarchy and peace won't happen together. In theory, it sounds great. The problem is that not everyone has the same morals and not everyone will agree not to use violence. Anarchy and peace only work if everyone thinks the same way, but that's not how people work. Everyone thinks differently, everyone has their own view on things, and that's one of the things that makes us great. Sure, the current government has problems, but just because it has problems doesn't mean you should abolish it altogether. What is wrong, ethically, with having a social structure or governing authority?"

I was a little off put by the term 'social structure' - that is a term that is vague enough to be scary.  I came back with this: "Good question - because a governing authority can only enforce things through force. Governments use badges, guns, prison cells, confiscations and threats to enforce their mandates. The non-aggression principle that governs the (admittedly utopian) anarchist / libertarian world takes care of what you speak of. The principle is that one cannot use force unless it is perpetrated unto you. With that principle held, a free people, regardless of how they think, will live and prosper. If people have dark, sick, racist thoughts and ways, then free people will shun them. If they are bad rapacious businessmen or teachers or whomever then a free people will ignore them and the free market will get them to change their habits - or it won't and they'll have to figure it out on their own. I think the 'social structure' you speak of would emerge in smaller communities - among people who think alike and wish to live a certain way (possibly how the Mormons do their thing now). But if people are free to leave and move, then everyone can be a free agent. Anarchy is simply no central authority that uses force to do the "right" thing. That thinking has turned the USA into the horror show it is today, with the killing machine gov't it has today."

This young person is keen enough to ask questions of someone who is able to parry and confront his questions - this is why I kept going with the dialogue.  So far this is where it stands so far.  The young people are more willing to ask questions and debate, I've found out over the past few years.  This video would be helpful to this person, and many other young people:

Diversity - But Not Diversity of Opinion

In High School we get taught a lot about 'diversity' and 'tolerance'.  The proponents of this doctrine come from the left leaning folks in academia and Mainstream Media.  It is impossible to pick up a copy of the NY Times or take a class on a college campus today and not get force fed empty slogans about 'tolerance' and 'diversity'.  To some degree, these institutions have a point, but as usual, the credo is for you, not for them.  Case in point is today's cover story on Rand Paul on the front page of the NY Times.

Rand Paul is Ron Paul's son, and he seems to be getting popular.  A "Republican", with a libertarian leaning must be a threat to the Order of things because they put a story on the cover titled "Rand Paul's Mixed Inheritance."  The entire article can be summed up by one of the comments: "Do the authors of this article not realize that their entire screed is a guilt-by-association smear? One wonders whether the journalists learned the art of sophistry and fallacies in their training at University, or whether they picked it up in the field."

The main point of the article is basically that Rand Paul's intellectual inheritance includes a bunch of fringe racists and republicans.  Probably the most logically fallacious and silly attempt at smear is the one that tries to connect Gary North and Michele Bachman. "Gary North, a Paul aide, was a proponent of “Christian Reconstructionism,” the Bible-based political ideology that propelled Michele Bachmann into politics."

There is no explanation for this sentence.  It is simply placing Gary North (whose material you can read here) and Michele Bachman in the same box.  The two people have nothing in common.

The authors use ad hominem and from the very beginning. The following is the lead sentence on the front page of a once proud bastion of the Fourth Estate: "The libertarian faithful — antitax activists and war protesters, John Birch Society members and a smattering of “truthers” who suspect the government’s hand in the 2001 terrorist attacks — gathered last September, eager to see the rising star of their movement."

Do you see what they did?  There's the dose of Ad Hominem in "John Birch Society members.  There's  the odd pairing of 'anti tax activists and war protesters.  Then there's the key part that you're supposed to, without thought, look at and say 'conspiracy kook' and that is the term "truthers".  The sick irony is that during the W Bush years, the 9/11 Truth movement was one to be taken seriously, as was the anti war movement.  As we've seen, those movements were just anti - Bush reactions.  Now that a good Democrat is in office, there is no anti war movement and it is trendy to malign the people who want the truth about 9/11.  The truth movement doesn't think that 9/11 was an inside job, they simply realize that the official story is a joke, implausible if not impossible, and they want the truth.  Only the mainstream, which thankfully is dying, has chosen to malign and denigrate people who seek the truth.  In my opinion, an arm of the media that turns the word 'truth' into a pejorative should be shunned.

The NY Times is shown to you as a leader in journalism, something to be taken seriously.  Take a look at the whole article and sad sacks who make up about 85% of the commenters.  It is filled with historical inaccuracies, empty statements and ignorance.  10 minutes of research on Gary North, Walter Block, Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises will show you from where Rand Paul's intellectual underpinnings arise.  The comment board is basically a collection of "without government, who will build the roads and schools?" type wailing.  I found the lockstep opinions in the comments frighteningly limited on an intellectual scale.  The fact that the current administration is everything that the Bush administration was, but worse, seems to be beyond the scope of the commenters.

To the Guardians of the Status Quo, doing a little research is too much to ask.  The fact that Rand Paul thinks somewhat differently is sin enough.  You're supposed to kneel before the 537 people in Washington DC who know better than you.  If you dare question the rapacious killing machine that the Federal Government has become it's obviously time to smear you on the front page.

Diversity, but not diversity of thought - not from the Thought Controllers.  By the way, note the lack of diversity on the Editorial Board of the Times, with regard to race and the $40,000 per year universities they attended.  Why anyone takes this institution seriously is a mystery.

Edit - January 27th: Lew Rockwell answers the NY Times in devastating fashion.

Cask of Amontillado in under 5 minutes

Here is a much more concise, clear and short study 'guide' to Edgar Allan Poe's masterpiece "The Cask of Amontillado".

As always, reading the story is a better move, but if you didn't prepare correctly, using these 3.5 minutes you can sound intelligent in class, perpetrate like you read the story, and not be in the dark or embarrassed by the teacher.

How To Watch the MSM and Have Fun at Their Expense

As high school students, you get teachers who are (usually) either unable to think for themselves or are repeating what they've been told to repeat by their favorite political party, the Democrats.

One movement that is gaining steam is the Nullification movement.  Your imagination free teacher hears 'nullification' and thinks "slavery" and "confederacy".  Your instructor thinks this because he has been trained, as one would train a pet, that Nullification - the idea that a state (say New York) nullifies or negates a Federal law that it feels is illegal or unjust - is something that relates to 'states rights', ergo, slavery.

Of course, everything your teacher learned is wrong, and you're being taught the wrong thing as well.  The MSM uses the same code words to attack doctrines that they don't like.  They are well paid and have a vested interest in a monolithic all powerful Federal Government, and they'll get you away from historical truth with buzzwords and loaded illogical sentences.

Ironically, one of the Southern complaints was about Nullification - they hated the North for nullifying the fugitive slave laws, particularly the abomination that was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

But facts don't matter to the MSM or their paid shills.  Here is Rachel Maddow embarrassing herself using loaded words and scary terms to try to get you to never, and I mean never, consider any other way of life other than a titanic all powerful federal government that controls every aspect of your life.  Remember, the elders in your life have been conditioned to be afraid of freedom, of anything that de-centralizes power.  The huge Corporate Media and the Feds love the current system, and here is a perfect example of propaganda that is designed to get you to embrace your servitude and never think about anything other than the status quo: