End Game Against Freedom

Note this is a cross-post.  I am looking to utilize some of this material for another post, but that is a look at what it takes to retain freedom (or gain it) when governments no longer respect freedom and liberty of the individual.  The post now follows.

What is the End Game of the global elites against freedom and liberty?  We can see its path by addicting populations to 'social' provisions such as 'retirement' and 'health care', which are different things than living a good life or providing good doctors and medicine.  This is the Redistributive State which seeks to undermine freedom by giving people material goods in return for those people relinquishing ever more control of their lives to the State.

This can be done by means of an Elite funding or promulgating a lower societal uprising so as to force society to be under enough pressure to call for a crackdown on those putting them at risk.  It is a mug's game, a violent game of 3 Card Monte in which those seeking to lead a normal life are The Mark.  When you agree to the 'good' that such government provided social programs can do at the cost of taking money from those who have rightfully earned it via their liberty, you agree to limit the liberty of all: of the rich to be rich, of the poor to realize that they are the source of their own problems, and of the middle class to purchase the passivity of the poor with the wealth of the rich and hoping for a few scraps for themselves.  When you wash, rinse and repeat this sort of thing you are in the  process of breaking the will of individuals to have a free society, to stand up for freedom and ridiculing them because they actually support the ability of people to get rich and of the poor to also have that same opportunity.  What is offered is the class system, at first, which turns into a self-fulfilling Caste System with those at the upper levels dictating to the rest of society how it shall act in its own terms.

The modern West is in one or more cycles of this, but it is interesting to look at one society where this has reached an end-game: there are no longer any illusions of providing social goods because they aren't necessary as the will of those to have a civil society have been broken.  In China there is so much autocratic control and police suppression that it is hard to get information out, but in another place there is just enough of a shame culture left and the attempts to have a veneer of civilization remaining that we can get a look at what this looks like.

I've reported on the Red Mafia before a number of times, and this time I'm coming at it not from the 'find all low level sources to piece together a framework' end, but at the other end of what happens when a very few who actually want to do their jobs in government AS jobs in government actually give the high level framework in stark detail.  I found this through Amazon Pime's service in  film documentary by Andrei Nekrasov who recounted the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in Poisoned by Polonium.  I had looked at part of the aftermath of this assassination of Litvinenko, but the lead-up to it and the high levels of corruption and societal abuse it points at is telling.  It is a film I urge everyone to see since, if you want to see where a quasi-western State ends when its elites assume autocratic control, there is no better overview of just how this can come to be.

The events the film reviews are centered on the post-Soviet collapse in the 1990's where the productive capacity of the old Soviet industries came under the sway of two general classes of individuals: old Soviet elites and organized crime.  In some cases there is no differentiating between the two because they have a connecting link in the secret service, the FSB which used to be the KGB, and actually dates back to the Czar's Cheka.  At one point they are actually referred to in their modern FSB incarnation under that term: their name changes but their methodology of violence in service to State remains. 

From Litvinenko we hear about this directly:

In our country, the special services are, in fact, a secret political organization that uses sharp methods, secret methods, not against spies and terrorists, but solely to keep a ruling class in power.  In 1999, for example, to seize power, the FSB used secret methods that are only allowed against terrorists and spies.  If the army were to seize power, they'd roll in with tanks and guns and fly in with jets maybe.  But everyone would notice. The FSB, on the other hand, has secret methods, and nobody noticed anything until chekists made up the government and seized every organ of power.  If the KGB was the armed unit of the Communist Party, then the FSB is the armed unit of – of a caste of corrupt Russian officials.

Normally a 'Police State' is something created by a dictator or tyrant as a means to control the population by deploying the police as parts of the government with the sole aim to keep the people controlled by police power.  In the case of Russia this has been flipped around where it is the Secret Police that now put forward their own minions into politics to give a veneer of choice but, in actuality, by their brutal and repressive methods that they keep secret but are whispered about, there is no choice at all.  Really if something is undertaken to sway the public via terrorist means promulgated by the Secret Police who, exactly, is going to investigate them?  Anyone seeking to do so can be intimidated via the system that is in place of informers, records, laws promulgated to help keep the police in power, and then enforced by a corrupt legal system upon those who try to bring the actual truth forward.

With tin-pot tyrants if you have a revolution to get rid of the tyrant, can you be sure that it wasn't the secret police that actually instigated the revolt to put themselves into power?  And when a society shucks off its old totalitarian State apparatus, what happens if it actually keeps the secret police around?  Unfortunately this last question is answered in Russia.

One of the men a special unit of the FSB was to frame a man or take him out of ciruclation , and that manwas Lt. Colonel Trepashkin who was starting to piece together just what was going on inside Russia.  He recounts his story:

My first conflict in the '90s was with today's FSB director Patrushev.  I rounded up a gang that laundered money, murdered people, consisted of war lords.  At some point, I had finally managed to get them, but then the problems really started.  There was that classic chain of protection that gangsters always have whether in the FSB, the military intelligence, or in the police.  I was told to drop the case.  I said "Why, these are criminals, we have to indict them.  I won't drop it!"

The agent inside the FSB who was told to frame him so that Trepashkin would be stopped and was recorded on tape in case anything happened to any of the men from the special group in the FSB:

Trepashkin knew something, and they were afraid he'd reveal it in court.  That was my first assignment in the new department that I found really suspicious.  We ended up avoiding it and never completed it.  At the concluding session of 1997 – [..] My boss Kamyshnikov came to me and said, "You must kill Berezovsky."

There is one relevant question that can be asked of Russian society, however, before going on to how the FSB got into power: were the Russian people ready for freedom from an autocratic, indeed, authoritarian State?  For that there is an answer from Boris Berezovsky:

Berezovsky -  So we can put forward – So a certain hypothesis can be put forward.  The better the opportunities a political system offers its members, the citizens, the more efficient the system is.  But the citizens must accept, voluntarily, certain limitations on free will.  A transition from a totalitarian system to a liberal one can only take place when enough of its citizens learn to accept certain inner limitations of free will.

Nekrasov – Perhaps the transition from external limitations to inner ones.

B – Exactly!

N -  Inefficient systems force external limitations.

[..]

B – What a price humans have to pay for knowledge.  How hard it is to rise above the common wisdom.

N- Is it even more difficult for Russians, would you say?

B -  I know what you mean.  The Russian mentality is that of slaves. That's why the system of forced limitations is so welcome. So why then am I advocating liberalism in Russia?  Am I contradicting myself, advocating freedom for the Russians, going against the nation's character?  So, is Russia ready, which means her people ready to take up the responsibility of freedom? I think they are ready.  Because once the tyrannical dictate was lifted, millions of entrepreneurs appeared, a myriad of independent politicians and journalists appeared.  Russia turned out fully prepared for this crucial, historical step.  We only needed to move forward and consolidate that freedom.  And so my main conflict with the authorities today  is about individual independence.  All those stupidities – media controls, "vertical power" – have one result.  Destruction of freedom in the minds of Russia's citizens.

One can see where Boris Berezovsky is a very dangerous man to the FSB and those that they support.  The betrayal of freedom in Russia post – USSR started at those places that were the worst off condition-wise.  This exploitation would not only put the criminal oligarchs in power, but they would do so with the help of the FSB and the new Duma which had barely gotten time to get itself together.   The film recounts a cover-up of this period in which Vladimir Putin was involved with a company he had going in Germany which was in contact with the Colombian Cartels and served as a money laundering outfit.  Putin was, at that point, head of the FSB while sitting on the board of that company.  This is recounted by Jürgen Roth, a German writer who has been tracking the Red Mafia's work:

Jurgen Roth - When the premesis of the SPAG here in the Frankfurt area were searched around lunchtime – Well, the offices were searched all day.  But around lunchtime, the Chancellor's office was informed.  That same day, the Russian Interior Ministry was tipped off about the search, which is strange.  Even before the search took place, the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt tried to suppress the case.  What was on their mind was that Putin was central to this whole affair.  The prosecutor investigating the case didn't get any help. 

It all started with a report about money laundering in Liechtenstein.  In this report the BND, the federal intelligence service, there was a note about the SPAG company laundering money for Russian criminal organization called Tambovskaya.  And so the Public Prosecutor Kirkpatrick opened an investigation.  Soon after that, it was confirmed that money laundering was taking place, that the Tambovskaya connection existed and that Putin might be involved. 

When the company was founded, Putin was on the board of directors for half a year in 1993.  After that he was on the advisory board until 2000.  During that time he was in St. Petersburg and also already director of the FSB.  So he was on the advisory board of SPAG while he was the director of the FSB. 

Now I am familiar with the workings of the FSB.  If someone somewhere so much as farted, he got a written report about it.  And it's hardly plausible that Putin was not informed about all this, about what was going on with SPAG's money and that the people behind it were criminals, classic mafiosi.  He was under investigation for accepting large sums of drug money,  which is undisputed.

N- That was ascertained?

R – It was ascertained by the courts in Liechtenstein.  You can also track his longtime intelligence connections to Germany, to Dresden. I've got a list of all the intelligence officers from the GDR era, and Putin is on it.  Even back then, he kept close connections with the entire intelligence community involved in dirty business.

N – The East German?

R – The GDR intelligence service.  Stasi.

N- Corruption and things?

R – Not only corruption.  Corruption – That's a matter of course.  No one even discusses that anymore.  It's more to do with spying and destruction.  How do I destroy a political opponent?

This is not the first instance that Putin was involved with underhanded dealing for personal gain via criminal means.  This starts with a lead that Litvinenko gives:

Shortly after I gave the interview on Radio Liberty, publications appeared that accused me of slandering our president.  Not to mention that Putin was caught stealing metal assignments and funds in the early '90s in St. Petersburg.

To properly understand what Putin was doing in Leningrad it is important to hark back to what else was going on in the Non-Ferrous Metals outfits at the time, and here I wall draw on my prior piece A taste of Oil For Food and its chefs, which goes over the process of 'tolling'.  With the Russian economy crippled by State facilities being unable to make any payroll at all, the workers were down to barter of goods their facilities produced in exchange for other goods from other workers in other facilities.  This was causing problems as stuff like food wasn't made locally and had to be brought into many regions and without a cash  based system to work with, there was no way to barter ovens, say, for eggs, cheese and milk.  Those who stepped in to put money into these facilities were generally of two major classes: rich elites of the former Soviet State, and organized crime.  Some facilities did try entrepreneurial capitalism, yes, but for large metal works, aluminum plants, steel foundries, titanium smelters... heavy industry in other words... you needed cash.  Lots of cash.  And these 'investors' wanted a 'sweet deal' from the new government and they insisted on 'tolling'.

This form of 'tolling' is unlike having to pay a certain charge on a toll-based road, however, as that is a government tax on use of that road by those who travel on it.  Here it is something else entirely: the agreement by the government not to put a tariff on goods that the producers get in exchange for their output.  What this put in place was a system whereby the workers actually got paid a pittance, almost all of what was produced went outside the country, what came back after sales had no tariff on them and were then sold at above market prices locally.  If you run this sort of system then those running the business get to keep their overseas money, put a small amount in goods to come back, garner a huge windfall of increased prices for those goods versus what a competitive market would garner and then pocket those profits, as well.  Because State power is used to enforce who gets market share and is able to exclude exterior competition and their better managed systems, what you get is a near monopoly on certain regions and markets by what is effectively monopolies run by organized crime.  Isn't it great when you get to write the bills to be passed like this?

From this the section of the film in which Leningrad (St. Petersburg) comes into clear focus because the situation was one in which Putin was part of a transactional scheme to exchange raw materials for food, or metals for food in 1991-92.  Any FSB agent who understands this sort of region and its criminal element is set to make out like a bandit which is, exactly, what Putin did and was written up and dismissed from the program by local officials about the external affairs office and has since been made to disappear as a document and is very difficult to find copies of it anywhere, even on the Internet.  The value of the amount embezzled was $11.5 million which meant that the citizens of St. Petersburg would go hungry and food would be rationed there for the first time since WWII.  That amount is a low-end figure as it doesn't go into specific foodstuff costs which were left out from the contracts.  From the report:

There are reasons to suggest that partners did not intend to import foodstuffs to St. Petersburg.

[..]

The recommendations to refer the case to the city prosecutor's office and to remove Mr. Putin from his position.

In 2000 another investigation clarified that because of what happened St. Petersburg did not receive foodstuffs in excess of $92 million, but the total cost left unjustified to the committee amounts to $850 million.  All from an organization that was being run by Mr. Putin.

And how did Vladimir Putin get into power?

If you are the head of a secret police organization using illegal means to enforce power, to work with organized crime, and to partake of such crimes as well, and you have the power and means to undercut the judiciary and subvert military officers, then you are left with very little to resist you.  With that said there is one pretext for a State assuming additional powers and that is war.  In this case the war in Chechnya and, most critically, the second phase of it that started with the bombing of a bridge and then an apartment complex in Moscow.

Those bombings had one strange artifact to them: in the case of the bridge bombing there was an FSB agent found dead at the site of it and in the apartment complex bombing an FSB agent was indicted for having supplied the necessary explosives.  Or should it be said that these were Special Agents, for they were.  The denial of the FSB is, ostensibly, 'we couldn't have done it'.  Even though agents of the FSB are implicated.  Indeed this brings into question why a tank column was stopped outside of Grozny for days and then bombed just before the other attacks.  Tank columns do not stop by roadsides for days at a time as that is wasteful in men and resources who can be better used for doing other things, like not needing field maintenance.  If you are trying to put together a meme of advancing terrorist attacks, would there be a better way to do it than just as it was done?  Because terrorists, you see, don't work on 'front lines' and don't need to 'advance' via announcing themselves with periodic attacks along a given axis of movement: they are not military units.

To get more State power over media, over the economy, over people, is there any means better than a war?

If the secret police of a State using illegal means put forward a program to require the current regime to delegitimize itself, would there be any better way than to start what is, essentially, a civil war and then assert 'special powers' in 'rooting out terrorists' by that self-same secret police?  And then, in the midst of awful, bloody fighting, wouldn't it be nice to have political backing, even if from extreme nationalists, for such activity?  Because that also came with the Chechen war and is one of the most startling visual artifacts of the documentary: skinheads chanting for Putin while waving a flag with a black hammer and sickle in a white circle on a red field.  The swastika replaced by the hammer and sickle.  And chants for killing them all, the Chechens and, although none had any involvement in this, the Jews.

With the election of Vladimir Putin also came the election of a high number of FSB agents and officials also 'winning' elections so that every organ of the State was soon in control of the government.  Some may remember the terrorist attack on the theater in Russia where patrons were held captive by 'terrorist' gunmen.  One of those was an FSB agent who was put into a high position by Putin some months after the 'terrorist attack'.

If China points to international socialism becoming a formulation of national socialism, which is to say fascism, then when genocidal war is mixed into that, as is the case in Russia, you get a form of fascism known as Nazism. Of course it will be denied up and down the line, yet the supporters of State power continue to show up with proper symbology be it that twisty, interlocking geometric design of the New Dawn party in Greece, or the swastika replaced hammer and sickle flag in Russia.  This, most virulent form of socialism at the nationalist scale, is a horror for mankind... although not a lesser horror than international socialist kind as both look to kill to get to and remain in power.  Often with tens of millions dead in that quest.

The true horror is the attitude taken by prosecutors and governments outside of Russia when companies started by FSB agents or organized crime in Russia, and it is hard to say which is worse at this point, are then suspected of criminal acts.  Money laundering, drug running, and, of course, murder using exotic means like a highly rare, short lived, radioactive metal like Polonium.  Litvinenko thought he was safe in Great Britain, but safety is only an illusion unless the State will actually do its job to keep you safe from exterior attack... not turn a blind eye towards it or refuse to ask hard questions or even seek to shut down inquests.  Yet, in the West, we see that in Great Britain and Germany, and if that sort of thing is going in those States, one with the longest history of people seeking democratic freedom and the other the one place that should have learned its lessons about the horrors of NOT investigating such things, then what does that say about the rest of Europe and the West as a whole?

In the US we have a man like Eric Holder who, it must be remembered, was involved in some very sorry episodes in the Clinton Administration, proving to be duplicitous in the Elian Gonzales affair, who also put forward a pardon for Marc Rich.  The same Marc Rich who would show up in post-Soviet Russia to bring 'tolling' as a concept with him to teach to the oligarchs.  It is certain Vladimir Putin knew of Marc Rich – as the head of the FSB that would not escape his notice.  And as Marc Rich had investments in operations going across Russia, east to west, it is very likely that Vladimir Putin had more than a nodding acquaintance of Marc Rich's tactics and techniques.  Did Putin actually know Marc Rich, a man then on the lam from the FBI for questioning with an international search warrant out for him prior to his pardon?  Especially as Putin used the methodologies that Rich brought with him to absolute perfection, can that be just chalked up to being a real good study of those techniques?  You don't use them by accident, that's for sure, but with criminal intent as the two commissions investigating the starving of St. Petersburg pointed out.  And as the courts in Liechtenstein also pointed to in the case of SPAG.  Makes you wonder where SPAG got its money, doesn't it? 

Back to Eric Holder, for a moment, how does such a man pushing for a known organized crime participant to get a pardon, which he must have known in his position at the FBI, get a 'pass' by any political establishment?  How does a duplicitous public official with policing powers entrusted to him violate that trust and, yet, get promoted?  How does criminal operations of running guns to Mexican Cartels, and to other non-State operators overseas, against the treaties we have signed with these Nations, actually get a yawn from the media?

What does the End Game Against Freedom look like?

Vladimir Putin had many contacts in the intelligence and police community overseas.

Here's a thought.

President Eric Holder.

But only after some suitable 'national emergency' has taken place in which 'extraordinary powers' need to be used to 'stop' advancing 'attacks' by organizations that don't do advancing 'attacks'.  That is the equivalent in the US.

The End Game Against Freedom is a Police State.

Run by the Secret Police, not a dictator creating one but a dictator put in power by one.

Who watches the Watchmen?

Brought to you by A Citizen of the Republic

Structural analysis of Amendment II

From the US Constitution's Bill of Rights:

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

To do some analysis on this Amendment requires examining it by its parts as this is a passive voice clause that hints at it being of a large scope unlike the active voice clauses that mention a particular part of government or government function.  To those not familiar with this sort of terminology I point you to two prior posts looking at the work of Nicholas Rosencranz in – All agree or none shall pass Part 1 and Part 2.  His work on the Subjects and Objects of the US Constitution serve as a means to examine the inter-contextual structure of the Constitution and its Amendments via the SVO structure of sentences.

To begin comes the passive voice system in which the subject is not one of a stated power or function of the US government nor, indeed, any State government which would get direct recognition.  Here the subject is the Militia which has prior mention in the US Constitution which allows for the context of Amendment II to be seen in light of what the prior citations are for this subject.  In Article I, Section 8 there is this mention:

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

These are passive voice clauses as compared to the five more active voice clauses seen preceding them in Section 8 regarding the Army and Navy which are power grants to Congress:

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

In these clauses Congress is granted power to do things: To define and punish Piracies and Felonies; To declare war, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; To raise and support Armies; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.

These are all things Congress is granted power to do and they are specific power grants to specific Objects be they legislative in nature or to parts of the government specifically created and cited by this language.  Congress is not granted power to create the Militia but to arm, organize, train and discipline the Militia when it is actively called up for service.  This is a function not of creation but of regulation to normalize the operations of the Militia to that of the military power granted to Congress.  This is not a power grant to Congress for creation of such a body or organization.  This is the power granted to Congress for the Militia is exacting: it may provide for calling forth the Militia and that the Militia will act under the Law to suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.  In those two instances Congress is granted only the power to tell the Militia it must act in accordance to the Laws of the Union which are not just the civil laws but the military laws used to govern the stated Army and Navy powers of Congress.  Those Laws are those of the Piracies and Felonies, War, Letters, Rules of Capture, and Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces as well as the Militia.  These are militarily known as the Laws of War and are operational in nature, which means they are how a military is to operate and what the rules are it is to follow when in war.

The internal organization, creation, and all other powers for how the Militia gets its officers are not granted to Congress but to the States the Militia comes from.  That is to say that the power of assigning officers, creating drill routines, how often training is supposed to happen and how the Militia gets organized is not granted to Congress but to the States separately.  The second clause is thus one of regulation during a call-up to service which is strictly limited to war or suppression of insurrection.

From this the Militia begins to get a definition:

1) Militias are State bodies created by the States,

2) Militias can be called into service by Congress during war or to suppress insurrection,

3) Congress can regularize the operations of Militias to be in accord with army and navy laws, rules, procedures and common arms,

4) Militias have their internal command structure determined by their respective States, not by Congress,

5) Militias are not regular forces under the command of Congress and are explicitly stated as bodies that may be called forth in service to the Union but are otherwise not under Congressional power.

There are two additional clauses in Article I that deal with these powers, and they are in Section 10, which is in regards to the States, and I will give you the first and third clauses as the second does not deal with war powers:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

[..]

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

These are active voice prohibitions and exceptions that pertain to the war powers and the Militia is an adjunct to those powers.  The first is an explicit prohibition on the States on war powers that they may not utilize nor exercise: Treaties, Alliance, Confederation and Letters.  The second is an active voice prohibition with exception.  States are not allowed without Consent of Congress to keep Troops or warships in time of peace or enter into Agreement or Compact with another State or foreign Power, or engage in war.  The exception is explicit on these things: unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.  Any State suffering invasion or in imminent Danger that no other forces can come to defend the State is then relieved of such prohibitions.

From this we get another definition of the Militia:

6) Militia are not Troops or navy.

That is Militias are not standing forces but those individuals of a State who come together to practice the arts of war but do not form a standing military organization.  They do not get regular pay from the State.  While uniforms may be regularized, actually getting one can be done either by purchase or donation of used equipment.  In fact all the equipment and supplies rely on those who volunteer for such work without pay and with only the internal rank recognition as formulated by their State.  As is often seen in movie depictions these are 'Honorary' titles, save during call up to arms by Congress or utilized by their State to combat invasion or Dangers, in which case they become active and formal titles of rank.

A Militia  is not the National Guard unit as that is part of an organization directly created by Congress, under standard Congressional regulations for the army and the navy, with its internal structure defined by Congress.  National Guard have many appearances of Militia in duties and their ability to be called up by Governors but their internal command structure is one created by Congress, not the States. 

If the National Guard were a Militia they would be able to own their own weapons and equipment, be responsible for them and train as their States provided for, as well as have rank positions that were solely a State concern.  The bases, armories, equipment, supplies, provisioning, and all other things would be the property of the Militia, the members of the Militia or set aside by the State to form volunteer Troops that answer to the State, first, then federal government only during times of war or insurrection.  In some instances the National Guard is explicitly called a Reserve Unit of a military branch, and a Militia is specifically not a Reserve but an autonomous unit under direct regulation of their respective States as non-standing forces.

Moving on to Article II, Section 2 and the Executive Branch there is the following, in part:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; [..]

This is an active voice in 'The President shall...' and a direct and specific power grant to the individual of the President.  As leader of the armed forces, the President also becomes leader of the Militia of the several States only when they are called into service by Congress.  Thus there is a two part requirement with order precedence: active call into service by Congress then allows the Presidential power of command.  What is interesting is that the States generally place their Governor (or other determined Executive) in charge of the Militia during call to service for the State. 

This is an ongoing tradition of the several States as existed before the Constitution  as I examined for a number of the States in this posting.  Indeed during such times of service a Governor's power grant of Field Marshal or General (or whatever a State determines it to be) would then place the Governor in charge of his Militia during call up by the legislature in that State and such duties would also place that Governor in charge during a call up by Congress as the leader of the Militia.  This would serve as a check and balance on the President and federal power and also allow for a voice in wartime to be heard from the States, especially on operations taking place within that State (to repel an invasion, say).  The President would get overall command of forces, yes, but the particular way those commands are passed down would be through the Governor (who may appoint a State determined Militia Officer in charge of actual disposition, but the chain of command would still be present).

That is the Executive power grant and it is short and sweet.

In the Judicial power grant in Article III there is this from Section 2 and do note the internal link to an Amendment is in situ from the Archives:

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;-- between a State and Citizens of another State,--between Citizens of different States,--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

During active calling for the Militia they serve as an adjunct to the regular forces and under the codes for them set by Congress.  In general when operating in the field on hostile territory, even during an insurrection, the State may not be said to be in control of such territory where that conflict is taking place or that the actual land is contested via force of arms.  Thus the military code is in place for field operations and as they are not normal, civilian operations they operate under the Courts Martial system.  Thus Courts Martial are normally not jury trials but ones by Tribunal or, if in the field during combat, often by a commanding officer who must make a life or death decision on the spot.

There is an appeals process to the Supreme Court and that is a direct and mentioned power grant to it.

Thus we now know who regulates the Militia: the States in Peace and the Congress only under calling forth in war.  This regulation is one that is in the nature of training, organization, and command structure.  Prior to the US Constitution, State Constitutions tended to leave the lowest and most local level of the Militia up to local organization and officers below a certain rank, and then those companies would come under the structure regulated by the State.  In this case 'regulation' is in regards to the regularization of duties, training, etc. not in what you arm yourself with.  If a higher level wants the Militia to have different arms in the field, then it must supply them and train the Militia in its usage, which is the Congressional language that says as much.  There are no prohibitions in such regularization and, indeed, it is usually an upgrading of arms and armament when it is supplied by Congress.  And nothing prevents the Militia from using what it wants to as each individual must support himself within the organization.

From this we now have a much better definition of the Subject of the Amendment II: the Militia.

Next is the Verb in the SVO sentence and it reads as follows:

being necessary to the security of a free State,

The Militia is a pre-requisite to a free State and that has a similar mention in the body of the Constitution in Article IV, Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.

This is an active voice part of the compact between the States and the US government which is created by the signatories to the Constitution, which are the duly elected representatives of that State with the assent of the people of that State.  The purpose of this larger government is to ensure that a Republican Form of Government is in every State, which is to say a multi-way power division between branches that have separate power domains, and that the government shall protect each State from Invasion.  Here we learn an important proviso on the prior Article I, Section 8 mention of suppression of insurrections: that can only be done when a State Legislature, or Executive when the Legislature is not actively convened, petitions Congress for this intervention.  Thus there is a State check on the suppression of insurrection power and is broadened to domestic Violence for the States.  Not only is this a positive check on Congressional over-reach, but it actually puts a greater scope on what a State may see as violence against the State as an entity.

It can then be said that as the States are guaranteed a Republican Form of Government and that each State shall be a free State, that the Republican Form of Government is a pre-requisite for a free State.  Indeed this goes with prior examination of Art. I, Sec. 10 and that the scope of governments in the States are to have Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches, although their exact powers are determined by each State.

A Militia then serves two purposes from Amendment II:

1. It serves to keep an established free State as free,

2. It is the foundation of a free State as its guarantor.

The US government is only to serve to protect each of the States and to come in service when a State Legislature or, in limited circumstances, Executive calls upon Congress for help.  As seen in Art. I, Sec. 10, the normal prohibitions upon a State to keep Troops disappears during an invasion, emergency which shall not admit of Delay which is larger domestic Violence against the State as an entity.  Isn't it nice how the same stuff gets repeated in slightly different terms throughout the Constitution so that people can get a good idea of what a specific power is?  Art. IV, Sec. 4 does that without ever once mentioning the Militia, and yet it now fully scopes out the power relationship with regards to it via the States and the larger government they have created.

If this larger government is the external guarantor of a free State, the Militia is the internal guarantor of it.  Amendment II puts the Militia in an exactly equal power position as the entirety of the US federal government in the Verb activity of the Militia.  They are exactly equal in power and are given the same domain with the exception of which is internal and which is external, and the line between them is demarcated and explicitly drawn.  It is because of that equivalence of power and stature that the Congress cannot control and regulate the Militia at all times, as that would make a sham of having a free State.  To have a free State you must have:

1. A Militia.

2. A Republican Form of Government.

Anything that is a necessary prerequisite for something else thus places it ahead of the other thing.  If A is necessary to having B, then B cannot be necessary to have A: A comes before B.  And if B is necessary to get C, then A comes before C.

A = Militia

B = free State

C = United States government

A then B.

B then C.

Militia before a free State before the United States government.

That is the explicit logic structure set up by Amendment II and is in accord with creation of the Constitution by free States.  You do not get to the United States before you get to a free State and you do not get to a free State before you have a Militia.

Now comes the Object of the SVO sentence:

the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Who makes up the Militia which is the Subject of this Amendment?  That is answered: the people keeping and bearing Arms in a way that is not infringed upon.

Who would do such infringing?  Who is this prohibiting, in other words?

The power of a passive voice is that when it is not explicit (which would create an active voice, as in Amendment I) then it is universal for that domain in question.  You can go to Amendment III and see this sort of thing at work with the 'No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without consent of the Owner...'  This is a universal protection against any that would house a Soldier in a private residence.  It does not matter if Congress wants it done or if the Executive orders it, or a Judge requires it: it is prohibited from all THREE from doing this.  Their power is limited, and circumscribed during peace time and then in times of war there is necessary military law to follow for territories under dispute.  In other words even during wartime there is a necessary set of laws to follow for Soldiers as set by Congress.  Yet at no time is 'set by law' mentioned in Amendment II, which means there are no provisos to Congress making law in this area.

Amendment IV also is a passive voice reading 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers...' is one that is against the Executive who must seek a Warrant from a Judge before violating these protections.  Otherwise, on just the say-so of an Executive this cannot be done.  What is more is that Congress cannot order a blanket search by law without having provisions for the Judiciary to moderate it via the Warrant process.  Yet the Executive and Judiciary are not mentioned in Amendment II.

Take a look at Amendment V, and I'll do a bit more with it here as it mentions the Militia, but as individuals:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Note that while serving under call-up during wartime means you are subjected to military law and its system, so the standard civilian protections are not enforceable for individuals serving during a war.  Why don't jihadis get a civil trial?  They are at war with us, waging illegal war and are subject to military justice whenever they wage war against the Nation.  Similarly if you are in the Militia under call-up and commit a crime in-theater, you can expect military justice as given by Congress.  Thus when called up the Militia is under military law, and when not serving they are under civilian law.  It would be expected that during time of training in the voluntary Militia you would be under the laws set by your State for such activities and training.

It can be seen that there are laws for the individual regarding the Militia, how it is formed (done by the State) and how it serves under call-up either by the State or by Congress.  These are not prohibitory laws for firearms, but laws for conduct and order within the ranks and during combat.  Thus these are not venues to prohibit arms of any sort and they are universal and inclusive of not just the federal government but, because A then B, of the State as well.  Internally this is consistent with the other Amendments in the Bill of Rights and the Body of the Constitution as well, and this provision has rooting in both and must be read as part of the existing structure of the Constitution itself.

Would this mean that there are no prohibitions on any arms for anyone?

No, there are prohibitions and one of the simplest deals with loss of certain civil rights by criminals.  Convicted felons have their civil rights restricted in regards to the franchise and the keeping and bearing of arms as such individuals have demonstrated that they have placed themselves outside the law for their own reasons in the way of crime and are no longer trusted with either the franchise nor the right to bear arms.  But do note that felons who pick up any readily available arms for self-defense against animals or other criminals (or in times of war) will not be prosecuted as they have exercised their positive natural liberty to preserve their own life.  To those wishing to give back the franchise to felons, why not the right to keep and bear arms?  If they have, indeed, served their time and done penance, and you wish to trust them with the franchise, then why not with arms as they come in hand-in-hand should not your trust be perfect in that regard?

Looking back to the Common Law, there were restrictions on arms one could not bear on their own, such as cannons and mortars.  These crew-served weapons one could own (a man's home is his castle) but couldn't take along with him to the store or city council meeting.  Keeping and bearing meant that you could keep such heavier arms, but had restricted utilization of them because you could not bear them.  Keep and bear arms means things you can carry with you.  And back in that day it was not just muskets, pistols and such, but axes, swords, long knives, sabers... anything you could afford, really.  About the only other restrictions were on those who had lost all touch with reality, those who were violently insane, or just unable to learn how to operate even the simplest of arms or who were so withdrawn that very little could reach them save hunger.  They were usually restricted by confinement, kept from dangerous objects by family or cared for by individuals or institutions that tended to the sick.  If you heard voices but performed your duties, recognized commands and realized the voices in your head couldn't order you to do anything but that guy with rank insignia could, then you had the opportunity to defend yourself like the rest of them.  While we may have improved upon diagnosis, description and some treatment of these problems, the social controls seem to be less, today, than they were way back when before the Framing.  If you can't trust your fellow man to help on this, then bucking the stupidity up to government isn't an answer and becomes a whole different sort of problem.

Thus the restrictions upon individuals are those of self-government, caring for your fellow man, and seeing that those who are criminal really may do their time, but that lack of self-control for a felon means that there is a serious lack of something there that time just may not heal.  That's about it. 

A free State is not just kept by armed citizens, it is formed by armed citizens, and that logic is one that is at the basis of Amendment II.  It is a recognition that the positive natural liberty of bearing arms is not just self-defense, but in the creation of a free State that will recognize your rights as an individual to be free to live in a society that respects you and that government is forced to respect by its very foundation.  Of course there are dangers to this, but there is worse danger and blood... rivers of blood... due to tyrants and autocrats, despots and dictators, emperors of many stripe who have decided that slavery for others is better for them... when government is not forced to recognize that it is accountable to free citizens who are willing to change or abolish government when it no longer respects their freedom and liberty.

Sen. Paul's filibuster and the question

Congratulations to Sen. Rand Paul for utilizing the filibuster on a question that he has been asking for nearly a month and asked of the head of DoJ, Eric Holder, and the White House during that period: in their opinion does the President have the power to order a drone attack against an American on American soil without due process of law procedures?

This is not the question: can the President order someone stopped when they are in the process of attacking the United States?  That is an in-process question where someone is armed, known, dangerous, affiliated with an organization that has already attacked the United States or has otherwise made clear their intention to attack the United States on their own or in affiliation with others.

That, incidentally, is called Treason and has its own due process procedure set by the US Constitution.

And a single penalty after trial and being found guilty of same.

The White House, Eric Holder and Mr. Brennan, the man who's nomination for head of CIA has caused all of this to come out, have all given a big, hearty waffle on this question.  Do note that if this was the previous Administration that the Left, the MFM and all sorts of others would be denouncing that President and calling attention to this question.  Their complicity in partisan, tyrannical ends is demonstrated by their lack of doing anything.  Save Code Pink and the ACLU, I will grant those organizations and any others that have stood up to join with Sen. Paul and his fellow Senators that assisted on this that they have followed on an ethical and moral line of reasoning.  No matter how much you may not like what some of these organizations do, and how insane their motivations may be at times, they are consistent in their insanity.

As for me the question should be self-evident: no, the President does not have that power nor authority to go outside due process.  Going after those actually wielding weapons, planting bombs or hacking into the infrastructure of, say, a major sewage system to put its contents into the drinking water of millions of people, those people should be stopped with whatever force is necessary short of an indiscriminant missile attack.  Anything that has a warhead measured in pounds of explosives, launched from any platform including a shoulder fired weapon from an individual, is a bit much to go after an individual who is not in a tank, not in an APC, not in a hijacked aircraft about to hit a building or other infrastructure component, or in a known and designated bunker or other fortified area.  The potential for the innocent getting hurt or killed in a non-war zone is far too high to be using explosives outside of a testing range  or other designated safe facility utilized for the training of same.

And as to the question of being on a 'kill list', I have addressed that previously as something that has a lack of stated doctrine and procedure with legal framework attached to it.  The Congress can and should play a part in this using their Article I, Section 8 powers under the Letters language as that is the power that is granted to Congress to address and deal with the Private Enemies of the United States and the language allowing Congress the power to set the means by which the military forces of the US operate.  This would allow Congress to name specific groups that have attacked the United States as Private Enemies of the Nation, and that joining such a group is treasonous as it is one that has waged Private War on the US as defined in the Law of Nations.  Further it could tell the President that individuals of that organization, foreign and domestic, are to be publicly put on a list of those individuals to be brought in by any means necessary, apprehended when feasible overseas, and that these individuals are admonished to turn themselves in to any US Embassy or any US military base or organization for proper tribunal or trial.  Congress could place the general activities of 'terrorism' as those of 'piracy' and put forward, via legislation, that all such individuals are engaged in Piracy when they attack the US on their own and not as part of a Nation.  This would actually allow the removal of the cumbersome terrorist statutes and embrace the pre-existing framework of Piracy trials which are also a known part of the international framework of understanding between Nations.

These things would then set a basis for doctrine of apprehension for the Executive Branch and also define when private individuals who are actively part of an organization attacking the US may be attacked, and that other individuals or organizations, public or private, that are aiding and abetting such hostile groups or individuals are to be put on a separate list so that proper legal proceedings can go forward to freeze their assets whenever possible and seize them once proper legal recognition and status is done via trial.

Thus I applaud Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster.

I also humbly suggest that he start legislation to finally get a hard and fast set of legal understandings put forward to properly define and scope out just what a President can and cannot do with drones and other unarmed vehicles in the pursuit of 'terror' groups overseas.  Congressional input and designation of groups is necessary, and the President will then have to ask Congress to add or remove organizations to such a list as this is a WAR POWER of the Congress at work.  That would then set a methodology that is public and well understood on who is on such a list, and what recourse they have to turn themselves in for proper legal procedures be they citizens or foreigners, at home or abroad.  This would then involve all three branches of government and could even set up an initial tribunal system to find out just who is and is not a 'combatant', with the military running such under the Geneva Conventions and defining that 'terrorism' falls under the 'Saboteurs and Espionage' trials for military affairs.  Those trials are well known and understood, and have a single outcome when guilty, and it is immediate and summary in nature.  That would also clear out Gitmo and allow the US to shut it down once the last of the detainees are processed.

These things are things that can be done by a Senator or Representative and work with others to put legislation forward and move it through Congress.

That is how the entire thing is supposed to work.

Best to remind everyone of that while there is still time.

Freedom vs. Utopia

I've been continuing on with The Moral Foundations of Politics presented by Professor Ian Shapiro at Yale as part of their Open Yale courses and have now gotten into the post-Classical views on politics, leaving the 19th century behind as such propositions as Utilitarianism and Marxism are both seen as so flawed as to not offer a complete nor satisfactory means to remove politics from society.  Indeed, that singular goal of turning science into a means of replacing politics proved to be ill-founded, ill-thought out and when the scientific method is rigorously applied to either they both fall short of their goals of removing politics from the affairs of Man.  Simply put, you can't get rid of it due to the complexities of societies and individuals and the fact that valuations on such affairs cannot be rendered objectively but subjectively.  Both the maximization of social utility and the creation of the bureaucratic self-ending State prove to have so many problems as they are both a threat to human liberty because of the underlying principles involved.  Thus in the 20th century, while adherents to both ideals try to find a way forward with them, their ability to have good outcomes in the world lead to problems that show philosophies of Man that are unable to deal with Man as he is.

From that point Professor Shapiro moves to a late 20th century thinker called Robert Nozick, who proposed the utilization of subjectivity and Man's freedom to analyze just what sort of political system and results one gets starting from just about any point in the political spectrum.  Instead of trying to work through a mechanical system, like both Utilitarianism and Marxism that assert a methodology of approach to render objective means, Nozick proposes a subjective approach utilizing post-Newtonian conceptions in the way of Einstein's 'thought experiments'.  His goal is not to step outside of society and politics but to temporarily put it aside and ask a fundamental question: what is the purpose of the State?

The thought experiment entails having you, the individual, ask yourself what sort of situation you would be in if no State government existed.  Yes, it is an impossible situation but this is a thought experiment, not a real world goal to reach.  If every politician, judge, lawyer and political activist suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke along with every bureaucrat and every tome of laws and regulations they created, why would you need them?  What is their purpose?  And what would your reaction be in this case where the State, as we know it and as has been known to every generation of mankind, suddenly evaporated?  It is a profound question and the answers you get start to show major lines of thought in the 1980's and forward to today, but not in the mainstream of political thought until just recently.

In that Stateless state you would be back to your Natural Rights and Liberties and must rely on self-governance.  But that is no assurance against Man in that State of Nature (red of tooth and claw) and to protect yourself you must actually do that and also protect those things you create that allow you to survive.  Otherwise you would fall prey to Savage Man because that is the state of being you have entered into.  To protect yourself you might band together with others who are like minded with you to help, but then the burden of protecting all of those things you own as individuals and each of your individual lives falls to you, and you have more and better things to do with your liberty than that, don't you?  Thus you may find others who have decided on a division of labor as a means to achieve this end (remember how Marx hated that?) so that they can protect your belongings as you went about doing other things.  You form a Stateless contract with such a group as there is no one to enforce it other than each other, but you can work on a principle of accountability and of one's word being their bond, with proof of that only coming over time.  From that the basis of protective organizations starts and we could liken this to Mafia families or bands of Warlords and their personal followers.

What happens in this state of being without a State?  This is, perhaps, the Anarchist dream Utopia but it has a problem: there is no one to really enforce the contract.  Worse still is that to gain market and expand, as any organization must due to internal needs and requirements of administration and covering ever more people as they become popular, such bands then start to compete for market space.  What happens when rival protection rackets start to go after the same territory?  Conflict.  And that is what happens with these protection organizations, as they may start at a low-level of threats and intimidation to gain market (or go out of existence as stronger organizations prevail) until open conflict ensues.  In this way the more capable organizations will expand and flourish to cover more and more population until they cover a society.  At that point there is a power dynamic change as the legitimizing power to enforce protection can be used against a population, but that population also has some capability to withhold funding the organization at large to hold it accountable.  In either case you get the State. 

From a start of pure Statelessness you get the State and yet it is just that one power and function that has been granted to it: to protect one's life and property from others harming them.  This is a Utilitarian conception of John Stewart Mill and this is the State that protects it: The Night Watchman State.  And who watches these Watchmen?  All members of society.

Such a minimalist State allows maximum freedom to exercise individual liberty, protects all members of society and their property (although you never lose the responsibility, duty and right of self-protection), but otherwise does nothing else and is held in check from expansion by the population at large.  While not a new conception of such a State, it comes with a far different set of underpinnings than Enlightenment or Classical or even Ancient views of it since it is a State in thought experiment only, not a goal nor objective to achieve: this is not a rigorous methodology to create a new realm of morality in politics, but an analytical tool to analyze what is or is not moral in politics.

If one steps away, mentally, from their current society and asks if any idea is good or bad to each individual in society, then they must look at the greatest harm done as well as the greatest good generated on any political question.  This is not a means with an end, but a pure tool to wield in cutting away questions of their normal externalities and get to the actual propositions involved.  Thus something like, say, 'should there be a minimum wage?' or 'should there be unemployment benefits?' can be asked not by pointing out to the 'good' that can be done but also to looking at the harm it can do, and no political proposition or law is harmless.  Passing legislation to say that rabbits are cute is not the same as enforcing a taking of wages to fund the unemployed or to require redirection of resources directly to a minimum wage as a forced part of any contract: there is harm done and to a large number of people and then only to benefit a minority of the population by removing liberty or the fruits of liberty at the direction of government.  That is a moral question and an ethical one that brings home the actual question: is it right to take away money that represents a person's time spent in productive labor to give it to someone who has lost their job?  That is actually not a simple question to ask as it entails lost productivity of not only individuals and a society in an attempt to give temporary recompense to those who have lost a job.  That is a harm.  Anything done to an individual that removes their liberty or its creations is a harm as it is those very things that the State is supposed to PROTECT.  Why?  You just went through that thought experiment and can see that the best and most minimal thing a State is supposed to do is PROTECT your life and the artifacts of time spent with your liberty, not take them and give them to others.

As you are now outside the actual system (with thought experiments) and are not contained within it you also get to ask: how does this effect me without my knowing where I will be in the economic scale once I step back into the active society?  Remember this is a thought experiment and while performing it you have no attributes of the society involved: you have no class, you have no social standing, you have no religion, you own nothing and you are detached in all ways from that society that you can manage so as to try and render a moral judgment on a political activity from all parts of society.  Yes you will have difficulty doing that detachment, which is why such an analytical tool requires rigor in its use and you must self-analyze any bias you bring to the table.  It is a tool that cuts into not just political morality but into your own moral basis as an individual, and when it cuts it can cut deeply.

Now consider a real world example of a famous professional athlete who has put into his contract that every person coming to a home game puts a quarter into a box for the player to watch the game.  This contract is negotiated between the player and the team (as it is a team sport) and they are agreeable to it.  You, as a fan, get to decide if you want to go to those games and see a world famous athlete play in full knowledge that you'll be paying that athlete 25 cents.  This is a Pareto Perfect situation in which everyone gets to decide if this additional cost is worth the result.  It is also a form of promise from the player to play well as if he can get enough people excited with his play to fill the arena every night, then he makes more money over his career.  There is no force to enter into the contract, and yet it is agreeable to the player and the team.  You have a choice as to paying what amounts to a private tax that is a very small cost compared to the ticket price, and 25 cents isn't all that much.  The player makes millions of dollars in this method.  It also has the benefit of being a real-world example as this is what Wilt Chamberlain had in his contract, so you can't say that it isn't possible.

That player gains wealth beyond what he is guaranteed to get from his salary or wages from people just showing up to watch him play home games.  The team makes far more money from the increase in ticket sales and has a strange form of personal commitment from the player to continue playing at top form or even improve.  The fan gets better on-court play that is more entertaining to them from the player.  Does Wilt Chamberlain deserve all that money?  He did earn it after all, by utilizing a freely negotiated part of a contract acceptable to all involved.  Does anyone think that he isn't entitled to that and to be protected from its being seized in order to, say, give it to the poor?

This example is a powerful one as it demonstrates a principle of freedom allowing for the unequal distribution of wealth via freely negotiated contracts.  It is, perhaps, the largest game-changer in the approach to morality in politics that anyone has developed and is one of the keenest tools to pull apart redistributive systems.  Those on the Left would criticize Wilt Chamberlain and say that he did not deserve to have such accumulated wealth and that the State should have some say in how it is used (through taxation, say) even though these are negotiated payments to see an ephemeral activity for the temporary enjoyment of those watching a game.  It is a price paid for enjoyment and the social experience of a game, not productive activity which irks the social moralists even more.  The goal of those moralists is to reach a Utopian end-state (usually a Marxist one as it involves forcible redistribution of wealth) and they have just run into the worst kind of roadblock that can be put in front of them: the death of the Utopian end-state ideal.

With this tool a different Einsteinian 'thought experiment' can progress and it is one that can be used against a Utopian end-state.  Lets make that a State where everyone is exactly equal in material wealth, have all their needs met and contribute accordingly. 

Now put in place the freedom of contract. 

What do you get? 

Unequal results, the accumulation of wealth and the end of the level end-state which disappears in relatively short order as everyone makes subjective decisions on what to do with their freedom to exercise their liberty. 

The great thing is that Mr. Nozick lived to see this come about in the fall of the Eastern Bloc in such places as Poland and Czechoslovakia where State owned businesses were apportioned out by one-share per citizen.  Each citizen had equal ownership in these businesses to do with as they pleased with the shares.  Some put them under mattresses, others burned them, others used them as toilet paper and others started purchasing them.  Within 5 years those firms that actually had any productive capability had gained majority owners, and not through an original wealth imbalance (as was the case in Russia) but through the free play of a free market starting out in an egalitarian starting condition.  It didn't last long.  Nor does any equal distribution system of wealth as human freedom is its death knell when liberty is allowed to be freely exercised.

Any State that violates its minimalist being to redistribute wealth is thus in conflict with human liberty and freedom.  And even if it reaches some desired form of 'equality' across all of mankind, the moment that freedom is allowed back in, then the entire thing will evaporate in short order without the force of the State to back it.

You really can learn a lot just by wanting to find out about abstruse areas of thought like the moral basis of politics.

And, yes, this is also the death knell for any attempt at 'collective' humanity that isn't coercive and authoritarian, despotic in all ways to the individual.  The greatest tool to wield against it?  Individual liberty.

It was once a revolutionary idea.

And it still is.

A purely aha! moment

I've been watching a few different classes at the Lecture Kings site on my Roku Box, and of particular interest has been ones from Yale.  One series that I finished just a week or so ago was on Ancient Greece and it was full of all sorts of interesting information on era of the pre-Polis Greek civilization and then the rise of the Polis and then its fall.  A very good series of lectures that were both entertaining and enlightening, both.

After going through a number of course titles and brief overviews from various institutions, I wound up back at Yale for a series on the moral underpinnings of political thought.  This course starts just at the end of the Enlightenment and during the Classical period and after a brief intro utilizing the Eichmann trial to illuminate what the role of a citizen is in a State and what are the moral boundaries of a State with regards to its citizens.  That, in itself, is a thought provoking set of classes and it will be used as a touchstone to examine how the Classical and Post-Classical formulations of modern political theory play out over time.  This starts out with Jeremy Bentham and the concept of utilitarianism which he pushed as not just a legal formulation (which is to say laws based on a concept) but a moral formulation for society.  Utilitarianism has a core tenet that is called 'the greatest happiness principle' in that man, for any action or decision, will make decisions to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.  For a State, then, the goal is to maximize happiness for the majority of its members and that is a standard that follows for all decisions of government.  He put forward that nature gives us these two masters, pleasure and pain, and that we are driven in all decisions by them.

It is fascinating that for a man who declaimed that there was no 'natural law' or 'natural rights' that he has put forward both a natural law (that nature inflicts pleasure and pain) and a natural right (man to choose between them so as to maximize pleasure).  Yes there are some problems with utilitarianism, but it does serves as a basis for other political thought (such as libertarianism) although not through Bentham but through his friend James Mill and particularly through his son John Stuart Mill.  If Bentham would put forward raw utility (which is to say the maximizing of pleasure for the majority in society) to its limits, then John Stuart Mill would shift that towards the maximization of liberty for the individual and out of State control.  Neither Bentham nor Mill saw much from government as being necessary, and Mill shifted the conception from government utilizing laws so that individuals could maximize pleasure to a set based on the harm principle, where so long as someone is not harming others or property, they should be free to live their lives without interference.  Mill also adds in a community principle in that harming oneself or one's property may put the community at disadvantage as a form of intervention particularly for those incapable of self-government.  Otherwise freedom, particularly freedom to discourse, is a necessary precondition in society amongst individuals.

If libertarianism can trace its roots to a strong foundation point, that point is laid by John Stewart Mill.  It is a utilitarian point, however, and one that rests on legal not natural rights.

After utilitarianism under Bentham, Mill and others, comes Karl Marx as the next of the Classical political philosophers and it is in watching the first lecture on him that I received an aha! moment and it is because of the context of the time that Marx lived in that I had not fully considered before.  Marx lived at a time when science was coming to the forefront of industry in that items that had only empirical meaning in the 17th and 18th century were now getting practical application.  Going from theories of pressure to utilizing steam as a motive source of power and a replacement for stationary power sources, was seen as a liberating concept for mankind.  Being able to place real values based upon empirical equations (and through that also note other things going on that were outside of theoretical concerns) meant that areas of learning in the natural sciences of physics, chemistry and astronomy were all moving into practical concerns for industrial design. 

Adam Smith had done a good job in describing how divided labor in a pin factory (one man to move a wire reel to a cart, another to start the unspooling process, another to run the cutting machine, etc.) meant that production for all of the workers involved jumped by orders of magnitude by concentrating on single tasks.  Smith calculated that 18 men could turn out something on the order of 48,000 pins a day (all put into paper, boxed and then put into a shipping crate) while if they all did the entire production of each pin themselves, their production might be in the dozen per person.  Labor reduced to a task process created efficiency, in other words.

Now if you are able to place real valuation on labor, you should then have a Labor Theory of Value in which value is meant as exchange value (a commodity).  There is a lot to go into on the LTV but its setting due to time and place puts it in an era when science was moving to engineering, which is to say that the lovely empirical stuff was getting real nuts and bolts put to it to see if it could work.  The work force of, say, steam pressure was once just an empirical thing, which meant you had so much steam in so much volume at a certain temperature and it could be said to have a force behind it that could be calculated from those parameters.  Hydraulic power would utilize similar equations (pressure, volume, fluid density) which are applied to pneumatics, and those equations (and even some of the meanings of terms) are applied to electricity (the pressure or volume of electricity as an example).  So it should be obvious that if natural laws pertain to such things then it is perfectly natural that man and his activities conform to similar laws for labor and production.

Setting aside the rest of Marx for a moment, the late Classical and Neo-Classical thoughts on political morality (and economics as well) had something else to deal with: it was understood that profits were declining.

Period.

Any school of thought either had to incorporate that as part of its basis or explain it in some way by its process.  This had been an understood phenomena seen across economies.  Profits were declining.  And since that really sounds like a natural function of an economic system, which is to say industrial capitalism, anyone wanting to put forward any sort of theory on politics and the economy had to take this into account.  Utilitarian thought put it at a nexus of individual response and freedom of discourse so as to maximize pleasure... yes, difficult to comprehend in those terms, but you can see at least some glimmer of how that works.  Marx puts it as the centerpiece of the overall analysis of capitalism and how it has the seeds of its own destruction buried within it.  Further there is a natural value of a commodity that is different from its market value and that is the intrinsic value of that commodity.

Given the pre-condition it is impossible not to get an aha! moment out of this sort of thing.  If declining profits are a natural function of industrial capitalism, then there must be something driving that function.  Just as heat creates steam which in a confined vessel raises pressure, so there must be some natural force behind capitalism which causes declining profits.  This is the 19th century, after all!  Why soon man would have everything explained...

As the formulation of socialism that results from this is scientific socialism, isn't the very first place to see if it is well founded is upon its preconditions?  Really, if the decline in profits is due to some other function not directly related to labor or value in a direct and immediately corresponding way, then a LTV will have problems standing.  That is to say that if profits are declining for other reasons outside those of the given system of analysis, then the system of analysis must be revised, re-done or just scrapped... just like scientists do.

Off-hand I can think of a number of analytical basis known in the 19th century and used by scientists and engineers to test out declining profits.  First is to have exactly the same test and experimental baselines and to control the unknowns in an experiment.  This is known as 'repeatability' and if you can't find equivalent conditions or ones with known differences that can be described, then your chances of actually describing a phenomena in a precise way is nil.  You will get different vapor pressures if water has different soluble compounds in it, therefore you test with pure water to find vapor pressure and the amount of energy to move from water to vapor.  Similarly if profits are declining in multiple industries, they must be comparable on an unadulterated basis: changes to composition mix will give you different and non-conforming results.

An observable phenomena is only of note if you can verify the circumstances of each observation and compare the differences between them, especially if you are examining the exact, same phenomena.

After that there are variables to each experimental arrangement, which is to say some of the differences involved in each experiment.  This is related to the first, but in a slightly different way, in that the measurement of profits is one that is performed slightly differently for different parts of the economy.  Within each sector profits will vary on a number of axes based not just on traditional supply and demand curves, but also things like the number of competitors and the efficiency (and productive capacity) of each one.  Profits will tend to maximize when there are few competitors in a given sector or when market share is seen as 'captured' by certain firms.  With that said the ability to open new markets within a sector or expand markets means increased opportunity to build competition which will effect the bottom line.  While one large firm (A) will have maximal profits, when it gains two competitors (B & C) profits for (A) will suffer due to competition and pricing will be changed to reflect that.  The two competitors (B & C) will go from zero profits to the potential of some profits and perhaps even positive profits, which will still be less than (A) alone.  Taken as a whole amongst all three firms (A, B & C) profits have declined and production of goods has increased and prices have adjusted for that.

What is fun is that the amount of labor per object or commodity may have actually increased due to lack of initial experience of the competitors unless they have a way of increasing productivity that the first firm could not implement.  Suddenly declining profits is not a problem of capitalism, per se, but a function of competition, new entrants, expanding markets, market share, and a whole host of other vectors that each must be considered separately for each sector of the economy.  But if you consider declining profits as a principle and guiding effect (like the energy garnered when water flows downhill over a certain grade or the amount of work energy it takes to haul something uphill or hoist it up into a building) then you get a wholly different viewpoint on what sort of economic theory is possible.  When it is made a constant, which is to say a natural invariable, and not something amenable to other functions but part of the guiding of how a system works, you get very different results.

That was the aha! moment of seeing how the confluence of the natural sciences and industry were moving into economic and political thought and morality.

All it took was one sentence about the requirement to explain declining profits and all the rest just followed.  It is that one minor piece that, once added, suddenly makes so much so very clear.

Decade of war amidst unending war

There are two kinds of war, which is to say that there are two distinct and separate categories of warfare.  One kind that we know is that waged by Nations against other Nations and that is formal, legitimate war or war that takes place within the accountability structure of Nation States.  Nations are accountable actors and they are all equal as to type: while some are larger and more capable and others weak and less capable they are all Nation States as a category and represent a place on earth, a people living within that territory and even when inflicted by forms of dictatorship or despotism that government is one that is accountable to its fellow Nation States for its activity amongst them.  Accountable military actors represent that Nation, are held in an accountability structure by that government, fight under a banner and wear the uniform of that Nation and are amenable to the formal structure of war which includes cease-fires as a form of treaty (indeed the highest form, even when temporary) and can be officially ended by the governments involved, even to the point of extinguishment of one of those governments to end it.

Formal, declared war is a way for a Nation, large or small, weak or powerful, to assert its standing as a legitimate actor for its people to act with respect to them so as to assert their standing as a Nation amongst all Nations to be treated like any other Nation.  It is an understood venue of war that, even in the era of Total War, has limits to it which is the ending of one (or more) of the governments involved as institutions.  The people who had been under that form of government now have the right, as a people, to decide their own way in the world and settle internal problems and re-establish legitimate government.  Often that has not been the case in the history of mankind and the results can be ethnic populations that undergo unrest, cause civil war and otherwise seek to reassert their people's right to having a definite and defined government that is different than the one imposed on them.  When that government is defined, when it raises a banner, when those fighting to establish it put on uniforms and place their military actions as accountable to their rebel government and to the people for which they are fighting, they are performing an act of legitimization in seeking to establish this government to represent these people.  This, too, is legitimate and if but one Nation amongst the brotherhood of Nations recognizes and supports them then this organization is considered a Nation coming into being.

In summary that is one category of war and while war is a horror at least this type of war can end and reach a settlement.  That is desirable amongst the affairs of men.  No matter how many die, no matter the brutal logic that it entails, this formal form of warfare is desired when peace cannot be sustained due to the differences amongst men within the brotherhood of Nations.

There is another form of warfare, however, as war is not born amongst Nations but within the hearts of men as an inalienable right and power that cannot be divorced from individuals.  Indeed we recognize that this happens amongst animals who have a right and power to defend themselves against predation, and those seeking such predation we call predators.  The actions of such warfare is, then, depredation: that of acting like a predator upon others with no formal recourse against such actions.  This form of warfare, by its nature and source, is informal and takes place by men as individuals who can form groups but form no government and seek to establish no Nation.  If civilized man recognizes that Nations and the State system used to run a Nation are limits upon passion to which we submit so as to have a protection of our society as distinct from other societies and to be represented, then it is to be recognized that those adhering to this framework agree to quell their passions and allow for only accountable actors to declare war.  Those that seek to act with the power of war on their own, no matter their reasons, if they become an unaccountable actor amongst Nations, then we are to call their actions depredation.  By renouncing to utilize the civilized form of accountability, they reduce themselves to their savage nature, which is base in all regards, and that they have reduced themselves to savagery as they now put their actions into only one venue of accountability: warfare.

This kind of warfare is of a separate kind and nature from formal war and it is informal and illegitimate war.  If the formal kind is that done in public with accountability and, thusly, Public War, then this form done in private with no accountability is Private War.  These are distinct and separate categories of warfare and have been recognized as such since the dawn of mankind and the first Nations created by man to represent a people.  If a Nation is a creative framework to foster an understandable system amongst men, then those performing Private War are antagonists to this agreement and see that only the natural, savage predation structure is valid and legitimize that viewpoint by their actions.  We call these people by various category names, yet they all have the same underlying viewpoint to them: pirates, brigands, corsairs, freebooters, armies of thieves and terrorists.  That list is not all inclusive, but demonstrates that the supposed cause to perform such Private War is not limited to any ideology nor religion, but is universal in its scope.  Thus no matter what stated cause those performing such actions are claimed, their activity is, one and all, savage and against the structure of Nations in all regards.  This is not a 'clash of civilizations' as that puts forth that there is a structured environment for such a clash to take place amongst men to sort out their differences.  No this clash is amongst the civilized of all kinds and against those seeking to assert their will upon all mankind no matter if it be to plunder or booty, or just to become a warlord over a people and subjugate them to the will of that savage predation.

Private War can have many stated causes but its effects are the same, universally, and it is to tear at the civilized nature of man who works hard to put his savage nature aside and assert his positive natural rights on behalf of himself to his own betterment and, thereby, to the betterment of all civilized men.  Civilization is an agreed set of limits upon the actions of individuals to which we hold each other accountable.  Those performing illegitimate and informal war hold themselves and their sole standard as individuals up as supreme amongst men and will inflict it upon any they come across if they so like and have no limits upon their actions.  If civilizing oneself is an act of construction, then reverting to savagery can only result in destruction of the works of man both physically and as a mental framework that we agree to abide by.  Times can, indeed, change and bring forth great and new excitements and stimulation via the heights that can be achieved amongst the civilized of the earth.  Unfortunately the nature of nature does not change and is unchanging, and by being part of that framework and natural in all regards (no matter what we create it is all within this realm of nature) we are under threat of reverting to savagery.  While man does have a social instinct, as all animals capable of any thought so acquire, it can be put forth that if a single generation of man were to lose the ability of understanding what the limits of his actions are, then the entire edifice of civilization would collapse into savagery and that civilization would need to start all over again from that most base of states within Nature.

It is desirable, indeed part of the foundation of, formal war that there be an end to it and that a regularized course of affairs resume amongst Nations.  Nations and their governments called States are not permanent edifices amongst men, however, and it is sobering to see how often mighty Nations crumble under savagery.  Sophisticated systems of trade, discourse and intercourse amongst Nations can fall away as dust under savage man and his actions.  Building, construction and creation of artifacts and governments is a long and laborious process and yet, apparently, those that seek to end them can do so in very short order as depredation creates isolation from the very civilized structures created by men and those structures are seen as not safeguarding civilization itself.  Such governments can implode by ill moves (no matter how noble in cause) and their own weight causes them to implode, yes.  Such structures, even those that are lean and capable, can also implode at the slightest hint that they are no longer capable in safeguarding the very structure that allows them to exist.

From this it can be seen that those waging informal war can wage it not just on individuals, but upon the creations of those people in the form of States to run their Nations.  Informal, predatory and illegitimate war can be waged against Nations and by their very informal source there is no easy formal way to go to war against those doing this.  Military actions without an obvious object cannot be brought into being and only responses given to attacks as the only and defensive venue against those savages seeking to end a Nation and its State.  While war can be declared against those creating a safe haven for such actors, those actors are not attached to those people nor that territory and may basely flee to create a new predatory atmosphere for themselves elsewhere.  These ones flee the judgment of war against them and seek to inflict it upon the weak so as to weaken all of mankind and liquidate civilization at that most low of levels.  The power of any Nation, no matter how mighty, is brought low by such savages as they, by their chosen path, seek to remain unaccountable to anyone on this earth.   

Yet, for that, there is a venue that Nation States can take beyond the formal military means and that is to declare such actors who oppose them from the informal realm as being pirates, savages and an enemy to all mankind.  These are then not the Public Enemies of a Nation but its Private Enemies and a Nation State can then exercise specific articles against individuals and organizations that are in the Private realm.  Within this realm is the authorization of private individuals of that Nation State to be given papers and limits to their actions to predate upon the predators.  These are known as Letters of Marque and Reprisal, as they can be given not just to go after a particular asset of such savages, but to bring a fight to them wherever they are within the limits of warfare done by accountable actors.  Thus a Public action may be taken and authorized to put Private individuals into the role of accountable and self-organized military to go after the assets of those who seek and make war from the Private realm upon a Nation and its people.  Such counter-predation is under the oldest form of understandable warfare that is part and parcel of the savage realm: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  A simple dollar for dollar accounting in which every dollar of destructive cost that has been inflicted by an individual or unaccountable organization may be legitimately seized by them to yield up Private returns for those risking their lives to do so.  This, too, is limited warfare in that it does have an end once dollar amounts of cost value are reached: the score has been evened and settled with as much damage inflicted as has been given.  Amongst even the most savage of animals it is understood that the horn of an antelope may gore a lion, that a puffer fish may injure the mouth that bites it and perhaps even inflict a mortal wound where one is being administered.  That is savage justice and yet one that is comprehensible to civilized man as we are all creatures of Nature and see this form of reprisal as legitimate as it is not only codified into civilized law but is based in Natural Law.

What this creates, and civilized man is one that asserts creative nature above base predation, is a two-fold system of justice to hold those waging war against Nations accountable.

The first is the martial realm in which such illegitimate actors can be put to death with only the most basic of trials to see if they are fighting for a government in a declared war while wearing a uniform and being accountable to a Nation State's government.  Fight without these things and you are subject to the laws martial and your end is summary execution.

Within the realms martial are also the private takings of goods and artifacts and despoiling the very things utilized by savage man to wage war upon civilized mankind.  Here the act is to be authorized to do so and then seek out and predate upon the predators, strike where they are weak and take anything of any value or destroy that which they use, and then yield it up for cash payments usually at auction.  Demonstrate that these are the goods of such savages and the payments begin to defray the cost they have inflicted in the private realm and the funds flow in from that private realm via the Nation's authorized and legitimate actors.  Once the dollar cost of inflicted damage has been reached, the Letters are then withdrawn and those actors formerly utilized go back to purely private concerns.

Together those are the complete martial or war track of accountability: end actors that you run across militarily or those actively waging war against the Nation, and send private actors out to start putting the pain of attacking the civilized upon the wallets and goods of those doing the attacking.  This is rough justice but it is the venue that the savages actively seek, thus a wholly vital realm that they will easily understand in their most base of states.

The other realm is that of public law in which the crimes of piracy are applied to those who are caught when not actively engaged in warfare or just at large in the civil venue.  Piracy is a simple charge to prosecute as it has a touchstone of waging war without any legitimacy granted by a Nation State.  War waged illegitimately can also fall into this venue, but rarely elicits a civil trial save when there are no authorized military actors to take such people into custody.  These savages caught in the civil realm an be put on trial and found guilty of their crimes and the proper punishment performed for their actions.

Unlike other forms of civil prosecution, the crime of piracy being both civil and military allows for trials in both venues to occur, although because of the savage nature of such actors the military is preferred as they are the ones best suited to sort out just what is and is not a legitimate military action.  Even those prosecuted by civil means for piracy can undergo a separate trial for military crimes associated with piracy: the civil penalties due to death and destruction of property is a separate realm of jurisdiction from waging war illegitimately and while the action may overlap those two realms they each are separated in the accountability chain for that activity taken.  There is no 'double jeopardy' between mere civil crimes and crimes of warfare, and both venues are open to civilized man against those waging war without legitimacy and predating upon civilized man.  An act of blowing up a building, say, can be both a civil crime (call it terrorism or simple destruction of private property with intent to kill or injure) and a war crime (that of waging war without legitimate basis).  Do note that while civil punishments may vary, the military punishment is without variance and must be so to uphold the formal and legitimate form of warfare: by putting such actors to an end there is a clear and decisive statement of what is and is not acceptable in the realm of war by a civilized military structure.

Upon informal war there is a value judgment but it is not one based upon the supposed causes brought forth by those actors, but a judgment that such form of war is illegitimate no matter what the stated cause is.  Thus the judgment upon why people revert to savagery is set aside to deal with the fact that they have decided, on their own, to reduce themselves to the savage state of being and become a predator and wage a war of depredation upon all mankind.  That martial realm of judgment is hard, nasty and justified as it is not we, the civilized, forcing men to act like savage predators but they who become predators forcing this realm of decision upon us.  Sad that they could not take up the myriad forms of civilized discontent to express themselves and create a better world, but that decision is not forced on them to become uncivilized.  No matter the supposed 'justice' of a cause, to take up savage war is to wash away all of those arguments and put the most base fact of savage war taken up by individuals into clear stark light.  Woe befall those who seek to muddy this starkness and they do no benefit to mankind and can even be seen as trying to debase man to a lower standard by trying to legitimize savagery.  No matter how noble the calling, there is not elevated basis for those that choose savagery willingly and no trusting them in the future to be reformed as they have so easily shrugged off the burdens of being civilized once and can easily do so again.  There is not a gray area to be seen between these realms, no hint of shading on the border: one is civilized and adheres to civilized formal war, or one does not.

It is a life and death decision.

One not forced upon any individual but chosen freely each and every moment of every day, and only once one steps from civilized action does the choice to return get barred. 

It is hard work to remain civilized.

Sad that there are those who seek to legitimize savagery.

No good shall ever come of that.