From L. Neil Smith via DumpDC:You cannot force me to agree with you. You can force me to ACT as though I agreed with you — but then you'll have to watch your back. All the time. —L. Neil Smith
I heard an idiot on the radio this morning proclaiming grandly that the sovereign remedy for all the nation's problems is to impose a heavy tariff on all imported products, so that people are economically compelled to buy only those things that are produced in America, by Americans.
A log-jam immediately began to pile up in my mind, consisting of all of the many things that are not only wrong, but wrong-headed about this silly-assed notion, the first being, by what right does this guy think he can steal from me or tell me with whom I will be allowed to do business?
Right behind it, came the realization that it has all been tried before, time and time again, and has, virtually without fail, almost invariably generated nothing but disasters of historically heroic proportions.
I confess that I have only included the weasel-words "virtually" and "almost" so you'll think I'm more reasonable than I really am. The fact is, this is one of the worst ideas ever generated by a power- hungry human brain, nakedly greedy for the fruits of somebody else's labor.
But, as usual, I digress.
A tariff, in case you're feeling shy about asking, is a special tax levied on merchandise or materials imported from other countries. Back in the 1960s, for example, American automobile companies and the automobile workers' unions were unwilling to compete with the cheaper, higher-quality products being shipped here, mostly by Japan. Instead of trying to make better, cheaper products themselves, they leaned on their bought and paid-for politicians, who obligingly added about four thousand dollars (in 1960s money) to the price of the average Japanese import.
Sounds like a good deal all around, doesn't it? The car companies get to stay in business. The workers get to keep their jobs. The government gets a lot of extra moolah. The only ones who get screwed are the Productive Class who have a crappy choice between driving a pile of Detroit road-garbage or paying four grand extra for a decent car.
Four grand they might have spent on a better home (that was a lot of money in those days), a better bathroom, modern appliances, their childrens' dental bills, their college educations, or several hundred pairs of shoes. Four grand savagely ripped out of their pockets by corrupt politicians, lazy and obsolescent manufacturers, and union drones whose products—if they came out of the factory on a hangover Monday or a Friday being celebrated early—consumers were wise to avoid.
There are many historians and economists who will claim that one of those disasters was World War II that, if not directly caused by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised the import taxes on over 20,000 items to record levels (and without a doubt lengthened the Depression by at least five years) was certainly made unavoidable by it. I cannot attest to this myself because it is not within my area of expertise.
I do know for sure that the American conflict erroneously known as the "Civil War" was the direct and inevitable result of tariffs...
***
Read the rest.
Don't believe the hype.
Think for yourself.
Think freedom.
Always.
I confess that I have only included the weasel-words "virtually" and "almost" so you'll think I'm more reasonable than I really am. The fact is, this is one of the worst ideas ever generated by a power- hungry human brain, nakedly greedy for the fruits of somebody else's labor.
But, as usual, I digress.
A tariff, in case you're feeling shy about asking, is a special tax levied on merchandise or materials imported from other countries. Back in the 1960s, for example, American automobile companies and the automobile workers' unions were unwilling to compete with the cheaper, higher-quality products being shipped here, mostly by Japan. Instead of trying to make better, cheaper products themselves, they leaned on their bought and paid-for politicians, who obligingly added about four thousand dollars (in 1960s money) to the price of the average Japanese import.
Sounds like a good deal all around, doesn't it? The car companies get to stay in business. The workers get to keep their jobs. The government gets a lot of extra moolah. The only ones who get screwed are the Productive Class who have a crappy choice between driving a pile of Detroit road-garbage or paying four grand extra for a decent car.
Four grand they might have spent on a better home (that was a lot of money in those days), a better bathroom, modern appliances, their childrens' dental bills, their college educations, or several hundred pairs of shoes. Four grand savagely ripped out of their pockets by corrupt politicians, lazy and obsolescent manufacturers, and union drones whose products—if they came out of the factory on a hangover Monday or a Friday being celebrated early—consumers were wise to avoid.
There are many historians and economists who will claim that one of those disasters was World War II that, if not directly caused by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised the import taxes on over 20,000 items to record levels (and without a doubt lengthened the Depression by at least five years) was certainly made unavoidable by it. I cannot attest to this myself because it is not within my area of expertise.
I do know for sure that the American conflict erroneously known as the "Civil War" was the direct and inevitable result of tariffs...
***
Read the rest.
Don't believe the hype.
Think for yourself.
Think freedom.
Always.
I think it was Neil Smith's essay, The American Lenin, that started me on my way to realizing that secession by the states is the only method by which we can enjoy self government instead of slavery to the leviathan state. By 1998, I was a fulfledged member of the Secession Movement. The League of the South is now 17 years old and growing, there are numerous North American Secession activities at various levels of success.
ReplyDeleteThis new essay is one of Neil's best.
"The story of your enslavement." Human farming. On YouTube.
ReplyDeleteA magnificent post. Spot-on.
ReplyDeleteAnd until 1913, the federal government was funded mostly by tariffs, ever since it has been income taxes. Does L. Neil Smith know the destruction wrought by NAFTA, how long will he be a free trader when NAFTA II comes around and we get EU-style supergovernment here. The reason the Japanese drubbed the Big Three was that the Three were allowed by the government to destroy their competition from the 50s to the 70s through bluntly illegal practices, not to metion benefiting the Ike administration's corporate welfare project known as the American Autobahn. Once the Big Three got an oligopoly, they no longer cared. The thing is that when the feds slapped VECs on the Japanese, they built car plants in America, that were non-union and still made better cars. Otherwise, they would have just built cars in kits overseas, and assembled them in Mexico before bringing them in (this is what Geely Motors in the PRC is currently planning).
ReplyDeleteL.Neil Smith is in my view, full blown anarchist, though he would disagree with that.
He should be to us, what Ron Paul is to mainline conservatives, the crazy uncle we lock up in the attic.
And another thing, the Civil War was about the fact that the South with its slave based cotton economy, was producing most of federal revenue. The South knew that Lincoln favored industrial production and would use this revenue for interests in the North, along with the fact that Lincoln was going to stop slavery's EXPANSION. Alexander Stevens, the Confederate VP, basically said the same thing. While this in no way defends Lincoln, who used the Civil War as an excuse to pass the first income tax, conscription and expanded government, the South should not be defended because it was based on an economic system that kept humans in bondage, not to metion that southern leaders had informal support from Britain and France that they would intervene if the situation was Confederate-favorable, not to mention that there were thousands of French and British troops in Mexico in 1862 to "collect debts", and if the Confederacy had won Antietam, there is not a doubt in my mind that these troops would have been used in an intervention.
Newsflash Seccesionists, THE SAME THING WOULD HAPPEN TODAY.
Do you really want to achieve your "independent" state at the cost of another Civil War and intervention by Russian, PRC, EU and UN "peacekeepers"?
600,000 died in Civil War I
60,000,000 could die in Civil War II.
Even Bill Ayers only talked about killing 20 million Americans.
There have been two
ReplyDeleteJust Wars in North America according to Murray Rothbard, a close friend and associate of Hazlitt and other Austrian Economists; the war of secession from Great Britain, also called the American Revolutionary War, and the War for Southern Independence on the side of the Confederate States of America.
Lincoln was the candidate of the corporate state, was one of the top lawyers for the Illinois Central Railroad, whose candidacy was bought and paid for by those working for exactly what we have today.
The southern states' position was and remains the only honorable one in the War for Southern Independence, period.
The several Confederate States lawfully withdrew from the Union via the same method used to both enter that union and withdraw from the Articles of Confederation.
Further, there is no authorization of any kind to be found in the US Constitution that grants a power for one group of states to invade another state or group of states. The Tenth Amendment, in addition to there not being a grant of such power, activity prohibits such an action in writing.
So, there never was and can never be any legitimate defense of Lincoln and the United States in their campaign of murder and mayhem from 1861-1865.
Secession is the only answer to contain the leviathan state in Washington, D.C..
There is no method by which the US government could successfully mount an invasion of even one state in America, much less all of any group of states be they western, northwestern, northeastern, or southern.
For it to attempt such an action would cause it to cease to exist even as a memory.
"L.Neil Smith is in my view, full blown anarchist, though he would disagree with that."
ReplyDeleteL. Neil Smith is in my view, Republican, though he does disagree with that. Read his back catalog and what does he propose? Constitutional amendments. Letters to elected officials. Public campaigns to pressure politicians to change laws. Politics, politics, politics.
Wendy McElroy is a full blown anarchist. Joe Sobran has claimed that title at least once. Billy Beck and Claire Wolfe might accept the title. http://www.strike-the-root.com is full blown anarchist.
"Do you really want to achieve your "independent" state at the cost of another Civil War and intervention by Russian, PRC, EU and UN "peacekeepers"?"
As when police show up to break up a domestic dispute and the fighting couple turn on the police together, the one thing that would unify Americans is foreign troops sticking their noses in. I am not afraid of foreign troops.
Pat, WWII was not just? Sure FDR threw us in on a raw deal and we fought with the mass-murdering Communists, but we stopped the mass murdering Japanese and National Socialist Germans.
ReplyDeleteSecession is nowhere in the Constitution, which is a binding contract on the states, it is just like a gang, blood in blood out. If you want to secede, then you must do it by force of arms and bloodshed. And look, any defense of the Antebellum South is a defense of rich, lazy aristocrats who profited off of human bondage and forced the average man on the street to do the fighting, just like in the North. Lincoln was a corporatist, big deal we already knew that. Look at Lincoln like Qin Shi Huang, both are contemptible leaders, but they led to unified nations, without Lincoln, we would have perpetually divided into smaller squabbling nations and would be foreign vassals while our resources would be plundered.
And Pat, the US government has NUCLEAR WEAPONS, and if a state or group of states, backed by hostile foreign power was going to secede, there is not a doubt in my mind that they would not use them.
Anon 5:07
When does a fighting couple unite against the police, in my experience they turn on each other and try to sell the other out.
In a world of seceding states, foreign troops would be welcomed or hated depending on the region, just like Yugoslavia. We are talking multiple foreign adversaries, PRC, EU, UN, all at the same time. Not to mention whatever is declared the new "legitimate" government.
"We shall all swing together or hang seperately".-Ben Franklin
What we need to do is focus on the winnable states, and leave secession talk to Mass,NY, CA.
Secession means another Civil War, why do you think Mike V. rips you guys for promoting secession talk and implying "fort sumters". The first Civil War had implied foreign assitance, if a second ever happens, you damn right bet their will be.
And these will be well fed foreign troops, against starving guerillas, and they will not have restrictive ROEs.
That "they would bring in foreign troops. What would you do then?" thing cracks me up every time I hear it.
ReplyDeleteThis is America, fools. We might be perfectly willing to beat up on each other, but if some other country decides to pick a side and jump in, we would stop fighting each other, kill all they sent, and most likely launch an invasion of the offending country, plus 2-3 others that werent involved, but were "looking at us funny."
I pray that a foreign country tries that crap. Then I can shoot with a perfectly clean conscience. That, and zombies. I mean real, actual, walking-dead zombies. Not the huge chunk of the population imitating them.
Anon:
ReplyDeleteDo you hear yourself?
The US government is a gang that would use nuclear weapons on those that no longer wish to be associated with it.
Holy shit.
Secession is a Tenth Amendment right.
Leave the gang behind.
Secession means another Civil War, why do you think Mike V. rips you guys for promoting secession talk and implying "fort sumters". The first Civil War had implied foreign assitance, if a second ever happens, you damn right bet their will be.
ReplyDeleteYou need to reread your M.V. again. Mike smacks down the idea of a "Fort Sumpter," but you also need to realize what exactly that means. The South made two mistakes:
They wanted to continue with slavery, which while tangential didn't help them look good, and
they fell into the Fort Sumpter trap.
Aside from that, their cause was just. And Civil War III will be rather interesting--the states most likely to secede are also large sources of federal revenue; will reacquire manpower being used by the fed as federal police and troops desert, leaving only the dirtbags; and have people who can more than take care of themselves given a chance.
The feds will have to fight CWIII totally broke, without help(the economic issues will be global, and no one will have money to spare to send many peacekeepers anywhere), will have to fight without the better troops, who will go home, and will have to fight organizations who vastly outnumber them, and will be able to coordinate well enough to gang up on the fed if necessary.
I'd hope we'd do what Mike wants, restore the Constitution, then fix it a bit. I don't think he'd be too pissed off if we had to break up a bit though. There's better, and there's worse, but if it's all we can get, so be it. THIS is the hard line that will put the socialists in line, not voting or any of that crap.
Loren, the states that send the most in revenue are the New England states, all very liberal. They will secede only after a retaking of the government. And I pray that if we are among the leaders, that we will not use nuclear weapons on them, no matter how hard left they are.
ReplyDeleteThe main resources of the Intermountain West states, that are the likeliest candidates for secession outside of an Oregon Hippie Republic, are huge recipients of federal aid, they also house many military bases, and hold large mineral deposits, they are also great grounds for mobile warfare, the kind that the US government is very good at, and no matter how broke they are, they could still get foreign troops in, but I find the idea of foreign troops aiding the secessionists to be very unlikely, unless they have an agreement to have the seceding state(s) to become vassals.
And to the people saying that foreign troops would "unite" the country against them... in any CWII scenario, the country is already hugely divided, DOES DIVIDE AND CONQUER RING A BELL!
It does not matter how "just" your cause was in your Lost Cause fantasy, the Revolution was won by FORIEGN troops fighting on our soil, and FOREIGN naval support, due to that we basically were told to be French vassals, and it was a stroke of fate that the monarchy was overthrown, so that it did not collect on our debts. And the reason the Civil War was won by the North is that the South did not gain FOREIGN support, but remember that the British and French were fully willing to spilt us up, today's rivals will do the same.
It does not matter how broke the feds could be, any means neccesary will be used, and do not forget, guns and ammo are cheap when purchased in huge quantities.
And do not forget our socialist brethern around the world... ever hear of Skorzeny's commandos, well imagine US, Canadian, and British SAS carrying out the same role here, which would destroy the rebels in weeks. It does not matter how "weak" the government appears, might means right to them and they will not stop as long as they are determined.
Bottom line=Secession is suicide
Secession is not only NOT suicide, it's the only answer to the current state of the leviathan state.
ReplyDeleteThere is no "Restore the Constitution", those participating in that have no agreement, maybe not even any idea, of what it is they want to restore. I wrote about these rallies, one wonders what it is they do want.
I'll touch on those that claim the US government is invincible because "they have nukes" and point out that both Iraq and Afghanistan have been unmitigated disasters for the US government, the Freedom Fighters in those countries leading the US governments Army around as if they had a "hog ring" in their organizational noses. If the US government didn't nuke the Soviet Union or China in the 1950's, it's unlikely to nuke anyone that doesn't nuke it first. I could be wrong about that, but probably not.
I had a long career with the US government's military, 30+ years, including more than a little time in the intelligence analysis field, once you've been on that elephant, you never forget how to ride it.
It's amazing to me that some folks think that the secession of a state or group of states would cause a military response. It's my opinion, based on my experience, that that's extremely unlikely. The drones in the Pentagon know that we know where their families and relatives live. Every pilot of every drone that operates out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada knows that.
Really, folks, the US government cowers in a corner when you speak of secession to it.
Last, let's get this cleared up now. South Carolina lawfully seceded from the Union of states on 20 December 1860. The Union government agreed in writing to negotiate the costs involved with the UNFINISHED and UNGARRISONED Fort Sumter with South Carolina. Yes, that's right, Fort Sumter had no troops assigned, more importantly, it had no cannon or other armaments in place either. It was undefended and no defense was necessary since no troops were there.
The Union Army decided, the rationale is unclear (but suspected), to take the garrison from Fort Moultrie, by small boat in the middle of the night, to Fort Sumter which they did. On 26 December 1860 that overt act of war was complete. Yes, moving troops to land owned by a foreign government is an act of war, so the first act of war was committed by the Union government, make no mistake about that.
The government of the independent, sovereign nation of South Carolina, then the government of the Confederate States of America, gave the invading troops of the Union over four months to vacate our land.
Instead of vacating, they send over 300 armed troops on a civilian transport to land them, the second major act of war against the sovereignty of the Confederate States of America.
The Union was and remains a criminal government.