What began as a nation founded on the ideal of freedom overtime became a nation with little resemblance to its prior iteration. This shifting of the tide can be principally blamed on the consignment of power to the state and away from the individual. On January 6th, 2021 what started as a protest ended with “civil unrest” when many protesters gained access to the capitol building. The group gathered in support of President Trump at a rally that was held on that same day. After the rally, protests were held all throughout Washington D.C ultimately with individuals gathering on the steps of the Capitol building. Soon after segments of the group got past the police barriers and broke into the Capitol building creating our current situation. Political violence of this sort has been sweeping through the nation since the election of Pres. Donald Trump in 2016 though the majority of it came in form of protest and riots against police; the uniqueness of January 6th comes from the fact that the people who were the “targets” of said aggression was Congress itself. What’s ironic is the ones with the most “power” found themselves helpless in the face of a mob of angry protestors. This entire scenario could have been avoided if the claims of voter fraud and election rigging were taken seriously by Congress or the Judiciary.
A large segment of the American people place trust in the sanctity of our elections. While this is a false hope (election fraud should not come as a surprise to those who have researched the topic long before the previous election) the majority of people who were concerned regarding said fraud could have been appeased with a federal investigation. Yet attorney general Bill Barr and other branches of the federal government refused to take any of their claims seriously. Governor Phil Murphy along with the entire mainstream press proclaimed January 6th as one of the darkest days in our nation’s history, as an attack on the Capitol. While this is laughably asinine they seriously believe it. It has been both described as an act of domestic terrorism and also an attempted coup d’état.
While anyone who proclaims statements such as these should not be taken seriously we must still examine the dramatic irony. Not even six months prior entire cities were burning and other state building’s taken over due to civil unrest surrounding the shooting of George Floyd. The unrelenting destruction of businesses and private property during this time was not only despicable, it was criminal. Yet those very people walk free today while we proclaim the events that took place on the 6th as acts of domestic terrorism. In this same scenario we see the dichotomy between crimes against the individual and crimes against the state and the treatment thereof. As Rothbard notes, “which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely—those against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State’s lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax. ” In this case the protestors who unlawfully entered Congress and vandalized some of the property are being sought after by the FBI while entire cities have burned down and countless businesses have been robbed bare and no attempt at justice has been made.
War of Interest
While I for one do not advocate violence against other individuals, whether they be Congressmen or others, I do find myself sympathetic to those who have just come to realize that the government that they supported and put in power does not care for their concerns. The very people who have been voted into power by the electorate are the people who will use aforementioned power at the behest of their donors and corporate lobbyists. When left unrestrained those with power over others will begin to use said power to benefit themselves not the nation as a whole. We see this in the halls of congress everyday when a bill is passed with alternative intentions. It’s easy for Congress to go “shopping” with other people’s money but when the check bounces due to the insurmountable debt, who is going to foot the bill? The state itself has no money. This is to say that any money the state has is taken from somewhere else.
Rothbard wrote, “The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property; it renders certain, secure, and relatively “peaceful” the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society”.
In this he describes the parasitic relationship the state has with a free market economy. The state siphons away from one group to give to another; this not only hurts the economy by creating unseen problems but also the money subsequently being spent can no longer be used elsewhere. It also destroys the incentive of an individual to produce beyond what is needed to live. The state being the political means to wealth creates those who rely upon it for subsistence. Congress is full of criminals. Individuals who use state power to line their own pockets with no regard for the American people. It is a den of snakes, to be a politician is to be adept at telling a lie while appearing to be honest. It has been said before that whatever a bill is titled the exact opposite is what it will actually do. For example the Patriot act was labeled as such to lull the American people into a false sense of trust without reading the bill itself. A bill titled the Patriot Act would seem to be in support of the American way of life and liberty when in reality it is the antithesis of this; it was the genesis of the legalization of the mass surveillance state. When politicians use state power to repay their donors who got them there a perverse incentive is created for corporations to pay lobbyists, and fund campaigns in order to get an edge in the competitive business environment; and when corporations have to compete for access the price of “enrollment” is bid ever higher. This creates the government to corporation pipeline. From congressmen to military generals, corporations pay for a slice of the big government pie and in return offer those who help a position in their company. An example of this is Lloyd Austin, a retired four star Army general and former commander of United States Central Command. Immediately after his retirement from the army he was given a job on the board of directors for Raytheon Technologies. Raytheon has been the recipient of several multi million dollar government contracts many of which total in hundreds of millions. Lloyd Austin has now been named Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense and it is in his best interest to continue his relationship with Raytheon behind closed doors.
While politicians being bought and sold by corporations and lobby groups is a wretched reality, the bigger problem created by the government is the ever-expanding debt bubble. US government debt went from just under 20 trillion USD to roughly 27.5 trillion USD in just four years from 2016-2020. The debt in the last four years under Pres. Trump has almost surpassed the debt created under Pres. Obama’s eight years. And what’s more alarming is the debt to GDP ratio. Total government spending in 2020 accounted for 44% of GDP. Government spending acts as a burden on an economy. Whatever the government spends can not be used somewhere else where market incentives and human action align.
Congress is the Problem not the Solution
This predation of the economy by Congress is the very reason why the next economic crisis will be a sovereign debt crisis. The Fed and Congress after creating every economic bubble of the last twenty years have chosen to push off the inevitable crash, with quantitative easing and debt monetization, even though this bodes ill for future generations of Americans. With each and every round of QE and government stimulus the debt bubble grows while also enlarging the crash itself. Now when the crash comes whether due to the devaluation of the USD or due to a Black swan event similar to Covid-19 it will be thousands of times worse than it would have been had we faced it as a nation at a time prior. The money printing press cannot be the solution to all our problems because if it is a helpful action, why is it only used when times are bad? Why not when times are good as well if it positively impacts an economy? There is no free lunch, the stimulus packages that are not being paid for through taxes will be paid for in purchasing power as a result of inflation. We as individuals can only prepare for the inexorable future, but hopefully before then many Americans wake up to the need for liberty in an increasingly authoritarian United States.
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