Immigration plan is a disaster

http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/demint-rector-immigration-reform/2013/05/06/id/503087?promo_code=12ADD-1&utm_source=12ADDBonzai_Square_Space&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1

This has been my problem with the path to citizenship for millions of immigrants -- our welfare state can't handle the extra burden. It does no good for the Left to rage about how Hispanics are hard working and eager to succeed -- that's not the point. In this economy that statism has suppressed, the new citizens won't find jobs to support a family, and they'll have live on welfare benefits.

If we created a free market and depended on private assistance for emergencies, the economy would likely support millions of immigrants, but not this economy. This immigration bill is insane given our economic situation.

Which one will be the Peace and Prosperity Party?

Neither party understands the concept of non-interventionism and free markets. Our future depends on Peace and Prosperity.

Democrats oppose foreign entanglements when Republicans start the entanglements. Republicans oppose Democrat entanglements. Which party will take the non-interventionist position and transform foreign policy? This is something so vitally important the American people must demand it. Yes, we need a superior defense, but government has misled the public regarding justificiations for foreign interventions and the build up of weapons the military doesn't even want or need. Military Keynesianism has to stop -- no more interventions in the affairs of other nations. We need to freely trade with other nations and share culture and ideas, but militarism and Global Police actions have to stop.

America is in precarious position

America's Constitution is at risk. At least the Supreme Court is still arguing constitutional issues, but the document has been violated so many times through the years that one can argue it no longer guarantees limits on government power. There's been international pressure for America to join the rest of the world to establish a new order of power which would threaten our sovereignty. Mark Mazower, in his book, Governing the World, the History of an Idea, writes about the historical movement toward world governance. The idea advances forward, then backwards, then forward, but the overall effort appears to progress toward world governance.

During the Bush presidency, the US was criticized for not cooperating with the UN after 9/11, so Obama has made it a point to get the US back on track, embracing R2P, leading from behind, so to speak, downplaying America's unique position in the world, questioning Constitutional limits and making sure, or at least giving the impression, that our foreign interventions are in concert with other nations.

Although no President would actively campaign for the US to sacrifice its sovereignty for the good of the international community determined by an internation insititution, it's easy to see that global efforts are under way to help advance developing countries as western nations are suffering economically. Is a very dangerous bubble forming in Asian nations? As the US drifts further and further from sound economic practices, the last bastion of free market principles is crumbling. Austrian economists say this is disastrous, and I agree with them. The world's central bankers can't plan the global economy without dire unintended consequences. This type of hubris has caused tragic loss and despair for as long a world governance has been contemplated.

America must get back to free market basics, as trite as that sounds. It's less trite and more helpful than universal Keynesianism. 

Political class scorecard on Fiscal Cliff

Now that I've seen analyses of all the winners and losers, according to various pundits and experts from both sides of the political divide, I'm convinced that America as a whole lost and will continue to lose until enough people learn enough about political philiosophy to know that this government has to be either reformed or, if that's impossible, shut down due to lack of consent from the public, which is as unlikely as the first option. There has to be a withdrawal of consent to be governed by this system of government. A new government should be put in place that is limited to the basic duties of government as understood by classical liberals.

Of course, this will not happen, so we're in for a series of "fiscal cliffs" that keep industry confused as to what the rules are and what the cost of doing business will be going forward. Progressives like to ridicule the idea that business is basically stagnant because of uncertainty caused by government interventions, or that businesses are worried about higher taxes, but progressive ridicule doesn't change the reality that statist interference causes economic stagnation and eventual collapse. Maybe the US has further to go than Greece because we built up a greater economy to begin with, but the interventions that destroyed Greece are the same interventions that are destroying our economy.

Long ago Ludwig von Mises wrote about the reasons why government interventions into economic matters lead to stagnation, decline and economic collapse -- the interventions eventually make economic calculations impossible, and when government increases the interventions in attempts to ameliorate the previous interventions it only makes things worse. Government doesn't and can't possess enough information to run an economy, and especially now in a global market that demands free trade and free market principles if companies are to be successful long term. Short term, State capitalism like in China can appear successful, but China will run into the same information problems -- it's impossible to centrally command an economy and sustain growth. From the time of Rome's fall on to America's present crisis, government interference is the main cause leading to the effects we are witnessing as we stumble foolishly into 2013.

If things get bad enough, maybe enough Americans will demand that government get out of the way, but when power reaches a certain point, it's not likely that power will be surrendered, not is it clear that citizens who are receiving benefits from government want government power limited, even if the rest of the country is receiving no benefits from the interterventionist government but are, instead, paying for the interventions.

The final push for complete State control

We've survived violations to our rights in the past. J. Edgar Hoover pushed power past the Constitution, as did FDR and many Presidents and powerful political actors before and after them. America has been able to survive our statist encroachments. Statism was actually built into Constitutional loopholes that Hamilton insisted upon to create a Merchant State, and, since the beginning, we've had a mixture of free market, most prevalent in the 18th century, Merchant State, State Capitalism and Socialism. Our economy has been called a mixed economy since the 20th century statist encroachments began in earnest.

As a nation our leaders have never addressed interventionist advancements directly, as in announcing that government will start developing a command and control economy and intervening at will in the affairs of other countries, but they have succeeded in doing so due to a general trust of government for decades, which was inspired by Americans' committment to the USA. Once government started showing cracks, after the Big Depression, then Nixon, and then Carter, so forth and so on, Americans made a calculation as they started losing freedom and government intervened more and more. In International Relations' discussions there are three Cs when a One World Order is contemplated. The experts talk about committment, calculation and coercion when considering the ways in which such a global order can come about.

Of course, it's preferable to have committment from the people who will be subjects of the ruling order. If there's not full committment, and there would not likely be such ever, then calculation is used by the subjects to determine what they receive in return when they give up their autonomy to the those who wish to rule. If there's determination among the power elite, and if there's no widespread committment and the people don't believe they're receiving sufficient benefits to give up the freedoms the rulers are requiring they surrender, then coercion is used -- coercion is, of course, the weakest of the three, because rulers are constantly attempting to maintain control and order.

The same is basically true at the level of a single nation such as America. Once Americans began acknowledging their freedoms were being violated in various ways, they made calculations to determine if it's worth the loss of some freedoms if we get superior military protection in return or cleaner air or safer products or a stronger safety net, social security and the like, etc. It appears that Americans have made the calculation that they're willing to sacrifice freedom for security, stability, safety, equality, fairness and all the other promises made by a powerful State to justify expansion of power in a command and control economy managed by an interventionist government, plus justification of foreign military interventions in the name of national security, protection from terrorism, etc.

Freedom movements have popped up periodically, such as the Old Right, made up of freedom proponents like Roy Childs, Murray Rothbard, Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov and others. They've proposed limited government a more responsbile private sector that provides solutions to social problems and a non-interventionist policy when it comes to foreign affairs -- no entanglement in the affairs of foreign countries. Although much of it was misguided, the 60s' protests were reactions to expansion and abuse of State power. The Reagan Revolution was ostensibly a freedom reaction against an interventionist government that was steadily expanding State power, although the DC establishment won out in the end, and the march of statism continued practically unabated except for the remaining resistance among the public to giant, sudden power-grabs by government -- small and steady power-grabs have been accepted as part of the calculation of received benefits as freedoms erode. Now, privacy violations are common. The military/industrial complex is not audited and does pretty much what it wants to do, as Presidents run the military like a Prince's private army, and regulations pour forth from a central plan developed in DC and dumped on the rest of the country. Government spends $110 billion on food programs alone, so the last election lets us know that at least the majority of those who voted are still okay with their calculations.

There was a nascent freedom movement that broke out clumsily and confused around 2009, lacking a strong philosophical foundation to give it consistency and clarity -- there's hope that the movement can mature and evolve into a thoughtful opposition force to statism, which has answers to why statism is destructive, and how the private sector can do many things that people think only government can handle. If this movement does grow, we'll see if Americans choose limited government and a free market in the 21st century or whether we'll settle for the shaky promises of government to take care of our most pressing problems. There's much evidence that even though many Americans have calculated that government interventions are worth the loss in freedom, government is unable to deliver on many of it's promises, especially the saftey net promises (study the problems with SS, Medicare, Medicaid). Then we'll see if government opts for the weakness of the Cs, coercion. This is the historical turn of events in countries which evolve toward statist control, even if in the beginning the controllers are benevolent and compassionate -- unlimited power changes everything, and not in a good way.