Two Words - Screw That

Friedrich von Hayek, a major figure in the Austrian school of economics, wrote in his seminal work the Road to Serfdom,

“By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.”

It’s hard to ignore Hayek’s prescient warning when you hear about the US government’s newest (and 17th) spy agency that it wants to roll out [8]… because hey, 16 spy agencies just isn’t enough.

Or the Transportation Security Administration ‘aggressively screening’ a 7-year old girl with Cerebral Palsy at JFK Airport in New York (causing the family to miss their flight [9])… and then later issuing a statement defending its agents’ actions.

Or Congress authorizing the IRS and State Department to revoke US citizens’ passports on suspicion of tax delinquency; as of last week, the bill has passed both the House and Senate, and is now awaiting a final agreement before going to the President for signature.

Then there was the National Defense Resources Preparedness executive order that President Obama signed last month– an order which gives the federal government autocratic power to seize and redistribute all agricultural resources in the event of a national emergency.

When you step back and look at the big picture, the writing on the wall seems so clear, so obvious. In Western Europe and the United States in particular, bankrupt, insolvent governments will resort to any means necessary in order to maintain the status quo: keeping them in power at our expense.

This means continuing to reduce personal liberty, eliminate economic freedom, vanquish privacy, debase the currency, stifle innovation, eradicate financial opportunity, and destroy the savings and livelihoods of millions of people.

These tactics are not new, this time is not different. Empires on the slide have always resorted to cannibalism– feeding off the productive class in order to keep the party going a little while longer.

More