• The myth of public property

Is it “your” rail network? The Auckland rail tracks and stations are being upgraded at present and, due to disruptions, a special timetable has been issued. On the front of this is written “Buses replacing trains while we improve your rail network”. That’s the socialist lie, here comes the libertarian truth…

If a piece of land belongs to you then you should be able to do whatever you like on that land, if that activity does not violate the personal and/or property rights of another person (that’s the ideal, but we live in a socialist state so your property rights are annihilated by the government). If the rail network – the tracks and the associated land – was “your[s]” then you would be free to walk over it, just as you are free to walk over land that you own. But you are not free to walk over the rail network, and if you do you will be fined up to $10,000 plus any amount of compensation that the judge decides you should pay [1]. This shows that it is not “your” rail network, for no sane person would fine you for walking across land that is yours.

If the rail network is not yours then who does it belong to? It belongs to the state, which controls every detail of what happens on that land. Section 50 of the Railways Act proves my point: it says that the Minister responsible may

(a) set out standards and requirements relating to the behaviour of individuals on railways or railway premises, including, without limitation, standards and requirements concerning the conduct of rail personnel, passengers, or other individuals working on or using railways or railway premises:

(b) regulate all traffic and all classes of traffic, and prohibit traffic or a class of traffic, either absolutely or conditionally, on railways:

(c) set out standards and requirements concerning the use of safety equipment by rail personnel, passengers, or other individuals working on or using railways or railway premises. [emphasis added]

This law means that the Minister may, without consulting anyone else, make a rule requiring you to hop on one foot and wear a pink gorilla suit when in a train station or riding in a train. “Your” rail network? I think not. The state has all the powers that only a landowner should have [2], therefore I conclude that the state is the de facto owner.

Here’s another example: in Australia the state requires people to pay for a permit if they’re going to take photographs in a National Park and may use those photographs commercially [3]. Do you still think that National Parks are public property, owned by all?

What’s the agenda behind this?

The agenda is the Socialist/Communist desire to disempower you by taking away your property/property rights. In the Communist Manifest Marx and Engels laid out ten steps for the transition from communism to socialism. Here’s four of those steps:

1) Abolition of property in land [outlawing private ownership of land] and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

3) Abolition of all rights of inheritance [when you die your property is stolen by the state: death taxes are a partial step towards this].

4) Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels [presumably this blog makes me a rebel in the eyes of the state, and you’re reading it so you’re a rebel by association].

6) Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

The Communist Manifest is alive and well today, and it’s policies are enacted all around us.

What’s a better way?

Don’t allow the state to own anything. Make the government your servant, not your master. Only then will you be free, and only then will the state stop lying about it being “your” rail network.

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1. Railways Act S73 & S92

2. If I visit your house you are perfectly entitled to set down conditions of entry, including a requirement that I wear a pink gorilla suit and hop on one foot. That’s part of your property rights; it’s also a great way to avoid having unwelcome guests. Every landowner has conditions of entry: do you willingly let gun-toting burglars enter your home?

3. Source

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• Why does Obama want to eliminate private health insurance via Single Payer/Universal Health Care

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Barack Obama wants to eliminate private health insurance via his Single Payer/Universal Health Care system. In his own words:

This begs two questions:

1. What does a Single Payer/Universal Health Care system mean for Americans?
2. Why does Barack Obama want to eliminate private health insurance?

1-> What does a Single Payer/Universal Health Care system mean for Americans?

It means death and misery because the government will decide what treatment people will be allowed to have. It will mean having government staff viewing your private medical records. It will mean a reduction in the quality of health care you receive, because the government wants to keep costs down and paltry payments from the government will mean that hospitals will be unable to afford new equipment, new treatments, good staffing levels, and so on (private health care encourages these things because competition encourages hospitals to provide the best possible care, and in a free market system hospitals will supply what patients demand and are willing to pay for). I live in a country where all but a few medical services are “provided” by the state, so I know what universal health means. Also, have a look at this from Bloomberg:

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what [Tom] Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Daschle’s arrogance is breathtaking: he wants to slow life-saving human creativity and wealth generation in order to reduce costs (something that will be impossible when the government is running the health care system). Imagine if the UK government had done the same thing in 1959, and slowed down car development at a time when cars looked like this:

This is a Ford Prefect 100E from 1959. The heater was an optional extra, the vacuum wipers got slower as you went faster, and 0-60mph took 32 seconds: in my experience these were pretty awful cars. Why would anyone want to slow down human creativity and innovation?

Presumably Daschle is wealthy enough to avoid the effect of his own policies. Presumably he would not like being forced to forgo experimental treatments if he had terminal cancer. Heaven forbid that he should descend from his ivory tower and share a four-bed hospital room with the hoi polloi.

2-> Why does Barack Obama want to eliminate private health insurance?

I believe that Obama is a fundamentalist Marxist, and that eliminating private health insurance is part of his Marxist plan to give the state/himself more power and wealth. In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels described the steps for a transition from socialism to communism:

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie [that’s Obama’s desire to tax the wealthy], to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State [Single Payer/Universal Health Care is a step towards this, as are the bailouts where the state ends up owning part of the company], i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear [are] economically insufficient and untenable [e.g. Single Payer/Universal Health Care, TARP – Toxic Asset Recovery Program, cash for clunkers, bailouts of bankrupt companies, etc.], but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax [Obama’s plan to make the wealthy pay more tax].

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State [see above]; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

(Here I have only highlighted those points which pertain to Obama’s health care “reforms”, but in fact much of what is recommended in the Communist Manifesto has been accomplished in the USA and other countries: click here for details)

Remember the Marxist/Communist utopia was a fiction, false advertising to justify immoral acts like Obama’s and those described in the Manifesto.

Summary

• Barack Obama wants to eliminate private health insurance via his Single Payer/Universal Health Care system
• Single Payer/Universal Health Care will mean death, misery, loss of privacy, loss of choice, and all-round inferior health care for Americans
• Single Payer/Universal Health Care will control how doctors treat their patients
• Single Payer/Universal Health Care is intended to slow down human creativity and wealth generation, e.g. new medicines and medical technologies that can save lives
• Barack Obama is following the game plan laid out in the Communist Manifesto

What do you think about Obama’s plan for state-controlled health care and the points that I have raised here?

Hat tip: LRC

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• Zeitgeist, The Movie: what’s it all about?

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Nick posted a comment on my post titled Thinking About State Schools and mentioned Zeitgeist, The Movie. He said that it was a bit of “cult phenomenon” in the USA, so I wanted to find out who was behind this movie which is attracting so many people. What’s this movie all about? The short answer is that it’s about getting people to follow a plan that, if successful, would mean the death of millions and the end of life as we know it. The long answer follows.

Although I haven’t watched the movie, I have read the synopsis on Wikipedia and, if this is correct, the movie looks like a blend of antitheism (specifically, attacks on the God of the Bible), mysticism, historical fact, and historical fiction designed to make people unhappy with the present state of affairs and desire an alternative. Naturally the Zeitgeist Movement that made the movie is offering an alternative, so let’s have a look at what this alternative is and the beliefs behind it. What the movie says is, in a sense, irrelevant. What is really important is the belief system of those people that made the movie, because this movie is their attempt to make people adopt that belief system.

Here’s some quotes from the Zeitgeist Movement website:

This movement is about awareness, in avocation of a fluid evolutionary progress, both personal, social, technological and spiritual. It recognizes that the human species is on a natural path for unification [history shows this to be incorrect], derived from a communal acknowledgment of fundamental and near empirical understandings of how nature works and how we as humans fit into/are a part of this universal unfolding we call life [is there a translator in the house?].

We intend to restore the fundamental necessities and environmental awareness [they’re greenies] of the species through the advocation of the most current understandings of who and what we truly are, coupled with how science, nature and technology (rather than religion, politics and money) hold the keys to our personal growth, not only as individual human beings, but as a civilization, both structurally and spiritually. The central insights of this awareness is the recognition of the Emergent and Symbiotic elements of natural law and how aligning with these understandings as the bedrock of our personal and social institutions, life on earth can and will flourish into a system which will continuously grow in a positive way, where negative social consequences, such as social stratification, war, biases, elitism and criminal activity will be constantly reduced and, idealistically, eventually become nonexistent within the spectrum of human behavior itself [they’re promising an egalitarian {classless} utopia].
[…]
The reality is that we live in a society that produces Scarcity [no, we Westerners live in a society where governments produce scarcity, as do the Zimbabweans, North Koreans, et al].
[…]
It is also important to point out that there are no utopias or endings [so why are they offering an egalitarian utopia?]. All evidence points to perpetual change on all levels [“there are no endings” plus “perpetual change” sounds like Buddhist reincarnation to me].
[…]
In fact, the only true “government” that can possibly exist is the earth and its resources [the only true government is the earth? All hail Earth! How exactly are we supposed to appeal the decisions of a planet? How exactly do planets make decisions?]. From there, all possibilities can be assessed. This is why an intellectual unification of all countries is needed [one world government], for the most important information we as a species can have is a full, highly detailed assessment of what we have on this planet [a great excuse for the one world government, sorry, Earth, to pry into your private affairs and find out exactly what you have to ” voluntarily contribute” to the commune][emphasis added].

KP does *not* look like this, thankfully.

If that’s not religious mumbo jumbo then I’m a red-arsed baboon. The movie opens with a speech by a well known Buddhist and I think that the beliefs of Jacque Fresco, the man behind all this, are clear.

The Zeitgeist Movement is the “official activist arm” of the Venus Project, the website of which prominently displays pictures of futuristic buildings as a promise of what things will be like in a Buddhist utopia, where there will be a “resource based economy”:

A Resource-Based Economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival.

Here’s a message for Jacque Fresco: the commune idea has been tried and found to be a failure. When people do not own anything they do not care about anything. Every problem in the commune is everyone else’s problem – after all everyone else owns everything, including the problems – so no one wants to fix the problems. Additionally, people in a commune do not want to create anything like wealth, art, or practical inventions. Why not? Because they are not allowed to own and enjoy the fruits of their labours, and are forced to hand ownership of those fruits over to the collective.

What motivates people to care about things and create more resources? Personal reward does, and it is lacking in the commune system because everyone else gains from the personal effort of an individual (e.g., you do a wonderful repair to a raincoat and see someone else wearing it the next day when it’s pouring with rain. At the same time you’re getting wet because you got up late and were the last one to the communal wardrobe: it’s not exactly a strong motivation for fixing the next torn raincoat). What motivates people to care about things and create more resources? Personal reward motivates people, and personal reward is another name for profit, that wonderful thing so maligned by the Venus Project. As Lew Rockwell explains so well, everything you love you owe to capitalism (please do read the article, for your own benefit). Take away personal reward/profit motive, as Jacque Fresco wishes to, and what Lew describes will happen:

And yet, if socialism does mean anything at all today, it imagines that there can be some social improvement resulting from the political movement to take capital out of private hands and put it into the hands of the state…it could be as extreme as the desire to abolish all private property, money…[this is exactly what the Venus Project desires]

Whatever the specifics of the case in question, socialism always means overriding the free decisions of individuals and replacing that capacity for decision making with an overarching plan by the state. Taken far enough, this mode of thought won’t just spell an end to opulent lunches. It will mean the end of what we all know as civilization itself. It would plunge us back to a primitive state of existence, living off hunting and gathering in a world with little art, music, leisure, or charity. Nor is any form of socialism capable of providing for the needs of the world’s six billion people, so the population would shrink dramatically and quickly and in a manner that would make every human horror ever known seem mild by comparison. Nor is it possible to divorce socialism from totalitarianism, because if you are serious about ending private ownership of the means of production, you have to be serious about ending freedom and creativity too. You will have to make the whole of society, or what is left of it, into a prison.

In short, the wish for socialism is a wish for unparalleled human evil. If we really understood this, no one would express casual support for it in polite company. It would be like saying, you know, there is really something to be said for malaria and typhoid and dropping atom bombs on millions of innocents.

If you doubt my comment about one world government and Lew’s comment about a world-sized prison, have a look at this quote from the Venus Project website:

We must emphasize that this approach to global governance has nothing whatever in common with the present aims of an elite to form a world government with themselves and large corporations at the helm, and the vast majority of the world’s population subservient to them. Our vision of globalization…

Governance, globalisation. I told you so.

Zeitgeist, The Movie: what’s it all about? It’s all about getting you to join a group of people that desire to change the world. If Jacque Fresco and his followers get their wish they will make the world a prison and their plans “will mean the end of what we all know as civilization itself. It [will] plunge us back to a primitive state of existence, living off hunting and gathering in a world with little art, music, leisure, or charity.” Additionally, “the [world] population [will] shrink dramatically and quickly and in a manner that [will] make every human horror ever known seem mild by comparison“. Jacque and friends promise utopia but will deliver hell. These people are not your friends and I hope that you won’t join their movement.

What do you think about the goals of Jacque Fresco/the Zeitgeist Movement/ the Venus Project?

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• Sweden wants to outlaw homeschooling done for religious and philosophical reasons

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This is from Rohus, a Swedish homeschooling organisation. My comments are in blue:

The 16th of June, 2009, the Swedish Government presented its proposal for a new Swedish School Law, that has been in the works for many years.

The position on homeschooling in the suggested law is a return to darkness. It is unbelievable. Homeschooling will NOT be permitted for those referring to philosophical or religious reasons according to the European convention on Human Rights!

The added words used to make home education virtually impossible, are FOUR:

“Education otherwise is allowed if… there exist extraordinary circumstanses.”

“Education otherwise” means education outside the state system. What is the definition of “extraordinary reasons”?

The reason given is:

“…that the education in school should be comprehensive and objective and thereby designed so that all pupils can participate, regardless of what religious or philosophical reasons the pupil or his or her care-takers may have.” (our emphasis)

This is essentially dishonest. State education always has and always will teach the state ideology; after all, the state does write the curriculum. Remember that one of the ten steps for the transition to communism proposed by Marx is free state education. In the Communist Manifesto he also says:

“Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.

But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.

And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, &c.? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class”.

Thus, the proposed law argues:

“…there is no need for the law to offer the possibility of homeschooling because of religious or philosophical reasons in the family. All together, this means that this proposed change cannot be said to contradict Sweden’s international obligations [i. e. Human Rights Conventions].”

This is Socialism/Marxism with the gloves off, showing it’s true totalitarian arrogance. Personally I don’t give a damn about Sweden’s international obligations, I just want to see Swedish parents free to choose how they educate their children.

A few families homeschool due to distance or medical problems, but I believe that the vast majority do so for religious or philosophical reasons, so this effectively outlawing the vast majority of homeschooling. This also amounts to discriminaton against religions and philosophies. To put it another way, this is persecution of religions and philosophies by the state. Oh, I forgot: the Church of the State is supreme over all, so that makes persecution of the others ok.

The quotes above are my translations from the proposed law on page 584. The proposed law can be downloaded in Swedish from the Swedish Government homepage – here.

The proposal is now out for review and Rohus will submit a very stern review to the government’s proposal. The review closes on October 1st 2009. The re-working of the proposal will be finished by the spring of 2010. The final proposal will then be voted on by Parliament during the spring/summer of 2010 and will take effect in July of 2011. Due to the many changes in the proposal, it will take about a year for all schools to adapt to it. And for home educators… many may emigrate, if the law ends up the way the proposal reads today.

The Swedish Government is making homeschooling illegal, for religious or philosophical reasons, thus showing off its worst totalitarian socialist roots. We need international support to show that Sweden, as a member of the international democratic community, cannot take such a position. As Sweden is often seen as the great social utopia of the world, it is important for Swedish homeschoolers to win this battle. Any and all help is appreciated immeasurably.

Sensible international comments about the new Swedish school law can be sent to: registrator@education.ministry.se

Please, also sign our petition HERE if you want to support us in our work to ensure that home education stays a legal alternative to school. They’re collecting signatures internationally, so go for it.

To add insult to injury, when Swedish homeschoolers go to the government website they read this:

The new Education Act – for knowledge, freedom and security
[…]
The new Education Act includes education from the kindergarten up to adult education. The law is a coherent laws which will form the base of knowledge, choice and security in all kinds of schools and other activities covered by the Education Act.

If that’s not hypocrisy, what is? What about the “freedom” and “choice” of those who wish to homeschool for religious and philosophical reasons?

I wouldn’t be surprised if Sweden becomes like Germany, where homeschooling is illegal and the state persecutes homeschoolers by taking their children into state custody and fining or imprisoning the parents.

Two words describe the situation in Sweden and Germany: evil and totalitarian.

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I believe that the state should not be involved in education in any way whatsoever.

What do you think about the Swedish government’s plan to outlaw homeschooling for religious and philosophical reasons?

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Hat tip: HEF

Related posts:

Who is responsible for uneducated children? (Part 1)

Paula Bennett claims ownership of all New Zealand children

Does homeschooling impair social skills?

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• Communism from a cop

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Southern District road policing manager, Inspector Andrew Burns, has written an “open letter to parents” which says in part

Ultimately the responsibility for keeping this group [15-19 year old drivers] safe is ours; the community, but more importantly the families and friends of these young people.

That is pure dung of bull, and a variation on “it takes a village to raise a child” (only an idiot lets a village raise their child). He’s just as bad as Paula Bennett, who claimed ownership of all NZ children by saying “She [Tariana Turia] and I share a belief that all children are our children” (see my earlier post on that).

I don’t consider 15-19 year olds to be children (although many act like infants), but children, youth, whatever you call them, are the responsibility of parents and parents alone. Many 15-19 year olds are leading independent lives and are therefore entirely responsible for their own actions.

Claiming that the “responsibility for keeping this group safe” rests with the community is simply a way of allowing the state – who supposedly acts for the community – to control this group.

Update: I am describing this as communism because state control of children is a policy from the Communist Manifesto.

What do you think about this comment by the commie cop?

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Related posts:

Should children be taken into state custody at birth?

The minimum drinking age

Police want drinking age raised

Australian government is calling internet censorship “cyber-safety”

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