Julian Assange: "Google and the NSA: Who's holding the 'shit-bag' now?"
The below article by the editor-in-chief of the website WikiLeaks ( https://wikileaks.org ) Julian Assange concerns the entwinement of the Western (particularly the United States') misnomered "security" state (actually, terrorist and mass-death state) with the highest levels of the supposedly "private" internet sector:
Julian Assange, "Google and the NSA: Who's holding the 'shit-bag' now?", The Stringer, Aug. 24, 2013, http://thestringer.com.au/google-and...t-bag-now-4691 , https://wayback.archive.org/web/2014...t-bag-now-4691 , http://www.webcitation.org/6TZUJpEsv , http://archive.today/VWQ94 , http://megalodon.jp/2014-1025-0541-5...t-bag-now-4691 .
The following is my response to Julian Assange's above article, posted by me under my legal name to the above page on August 29, 2013:
----------
I thank Julian Assange for his present exposé.
Google has long been closely enmeshed with the US intelligence agencies. Dr. Rick Steinheiser in the Office of Research and Development at the CIA and Matt Cutts of the NSA, to name a few, are employed by Google in high-level positions. Google Earth and Google Maps software came from Keyhole, Inc., which was funded by the CIA via In-Q-Tel. As well, Google has been helping the Chinese government in censoring the internet in that country.
Government, whatever its de jure status, strongly tends toward oligarchy. The bigger the government the stronger this tendency will be, since then the stakes of exercising a disproportionate influence over government policy are raised--as big government has the ability to, e.g., make or break business fortunes via its policies and how it chooses to enforce them. That is true every bit as much for formal democracies. Consequently, under government, the strong inclination is a winnowing effect whereby those who rise to the top of the private sector and the government sector are those who are willing to "play along to get along", i.e., amenable to supporting the furtherance of the political establishment's power.
Such applies to media outlets and universities, as well; which, when combined with the government's own schooling and propaganda, inculcates the largest part of individuals' Weltanschauung from cradle to grave: the contents of that worldview being rather thoroughgoing, if muddleheaded and hodgepodge, forms of etatism, accompanying a high degree of political naïveté which such a position implies. Hence, the very intellectual tools which are prerequisite for sustaining an effective defense of liberty are absent most people.
So also due to that effect of winnowing, there tends to be a confluence of ideology at the top level, for accruement of power becomes its own purpose as the government moves toward its logical conclusion: the total state, and all the horrors that come with it. Distinctions such as Democrat and Republican, "liberal" and conservative, etc., are useful for providing hoi polloi with innocuous distractions, but they mean little at the top echelon.
Since all governments (including totalitarian dictatorships) ultimately can only exist due to the "consent" of its subjects (at least "consent" in the sense of resignation), it's understandable why the oligarchic nature of government would not be widely publicized by the political establishment within a formal democracy.
The process of tendency toward oligarchy I've outlined above is intrinsic to government due to the inherent perverse incentive structures which obtain under government (i.e., the internal logic of the system). Ultimately it doesn't matter how pure and good the intentions are of the people who set up the government, nor what type of government is nominally instituted: so long as the defining feature of government exists--that of a regional monopoly on ultimate control over the law--then this process cannot be avoided, since the inherent incentives of the system are such as to reward actors who bring about such outcomes (being that one who is able to inordinately influence the policies of a government can use that influence for his personal benefit and that of his friends, whereas liberty for society is a general benefit which accrues to no one in particular). All the good intentions in the world are no match against perverse incentives.
For those who would like a deeper examination into this most pressing of issue which I touch upon above, see Sec. 8.2.1 of my following article; pp. 63-65 of said section give a methodological analysis of government, with pp. 65-86 giving historical background on some of the more unseemly acts by states, and finally pp. 87-98 of that section giving a history on our present globalist plutocracy: James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network, Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708 [ https://archive.org/details/ThePhysi...ryOfEverything , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redfor...ics-of-God.pdf , http://sites.google.com/site/physico...ics-of-God.pdf , https://alphaomegapoint.files.wordpr...ics-of-god.pdf ]. This article concerns physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything; however, it also analyzes the societal implications of said, particularly the implications of the exponential advancement of technology and hence also the coming radical life-extension technologies (i.e., transhumanism) in light of a world dominated by a callous oligarchy.
Re: Julian Assange: "Google and the NSA: Who's holding the 'shit-bag' now?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jamie Michelle
Government, whatever its de jure status, strongly tends toward oligarchy.
For those who would like a deeper examination into this most pressing of issue which I touch upon above, see ...giving a history on our present globalist plutocracy:.
Regular visitors to this section will be familiar with your vanity publications, the presentation of personal opinion as historical fact, the abuse of historical documents to prove your points, and you devotion to the 'free market capitalism' of Rothbard and Hoppe, which you seem to think is a form of anarchy thus allowing you to marry the 'anarchist' Jesus of Nazareth with your favoured political economy which, incredibly, you also see as the only guarantor of liberty in contemporary society.
1) In one part of your post you are promoting the idea that the USA is an oligarchy, at the end it has become part of a 'global plutocracy'. The two are not the same, as an oligarchy is the concentration of power into the ownership of a few; plutocracy the ownership of wealth by a few.
2) Most undergraduates in the social sciences are familiar with Robert Michels' 'Iron law of oligarchy', and should also know that he developed his theory as a critique of the German Social Democratic Party, as it was in the late 19th early 20th century (when it was still, officially, a Marxist party); but that Michels rejected Max Weber's theory of social domination for his own theory of oligarchy.
It is also the case that Michels extended his critique of the political party to become a critique of democracy, which he ended up believing was a sham on its own terms because of his 'iron law'. Michels then moved to Italy where he became a supporter of Mussolini's fascist experiment which, as with Hitler's German version proposed a critique of the very oligarchy Michels claimed to exist in all organisations, perhaps because he believed a charismatic leader could smash this inherently corrupt system and replace it with something new, except that by the terms of his own theory, all political movements which seek state power are doomed to end up as oligarchies.
3) Michels theory is of enduring importance, but does not take as an alternative the theory of a rotating power first proposed by Aristotle as a means of depriving power from the governing class through rotation so that people who were in government become the governed, the governed become the government, and so on. Though one notes that as only citizens would govern, the actual rotation of power in Athens would circulate between a few people, though the idea is valid as an idea. Michels also seems immune to the concept of popular democracy as a vibrant form of democracy in which issues are regularly decided upon by as many people as possible,something which the internet may have made more possible whereas in the past, as Michels would argue, it was not possible or practical for government to consult the people all the time on its decisions.
4) Your vanity publications tend, for the most part, to offer free market capitalism as the only true means of offering individuals liberty- liberty from the state and taxation being key elements of this, yet what you choose to ignore is the extent to which it is capitalism itself that has created the very machinery of exploitation that creates both oligarchies and plutocracies, and which by its nature cannot exist without slavery -the enslavement of individuals by money. When you propose the overhaul of the modern state, a state dominated by oligarchs and plutocrats in which democracy is a deceptive tool to guarantee the reservation of power and wealth for a small elite, with something you refer to as anarchism, you cannot in fact guarantee that the outcome will be the same, because capitalism by definition rewards the few at the expense of the many.
Re: Julian Assange: "Google and the NSA: Who's holding the 'shit-bag' now?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
Regular visitors to this section will be familiar with your vanity publications, the presentation of personal opinion as historical fact, the abuse of historical documents to prove your points, and you devotion to the 'free market capitalism' of Rothbard and Hoppe, which you seem to think is a form of anarchy thus allowing you to marry the 'anarchist' Jesus of Nazareth with your favoured political economy which, incredibly, you also see as the only guarantor of liberty in contemporary society.
1) In one part of your post you are promoting the idea that the USA is an oligarchy, at the end it has become part of a 'global plutocracy'. The two are not the same, as an oligarchy is the concentration of power into the ownership of a few; plutocracy the ownership of wealth by a few.
2) Most undergraduates in the social sciences are familiar with Robert Michels' 'Iron law of oligarchy', and should also know that he developed his theory as a critique of the German Social Democratic Party, as it was in the late 19th early 20th century (when it was still, officially, a Marxist party); but that Michels rejected Max Weber's theory of social domination for his own theory of oligarchy.
It is also the case that Michels extended his critique of the political party to become a critique of democracy, which he ended up believing was a sham on its own terms because of his 'iron law'. Michels then moved to Italy where he became a supporter of Mussolini's fascist experiment which, as with Hitler's German version proposed a critique of the very oligarchy Michels claimed to exist in all organisations, perhaps because he believed a charismatic leader could smash this inherently corrupt system and replace it with something new, except that by the terms of his own theory, all political movements which seek state power are doomed to end up as oligarchies.
3) Michels theory is of enduring importance, but does not take as an alternative the theory of a rotating power first proposed by Aristotle as a means of depriving power from the governing class through rotation so that people who were in government become the governed, the governed become the government, and so on. Though one notes that as only citizens would govern, the actual rotation of power in Athens would circulate between a few people, though the idea is valid as an idea. Michels also seems immune to the concept of popular democracy as a vibrant form of democracy in which issues are regularly decided upon by as many people as possible,something which the internet may have made more possible whereas in the past, as Michels would argue, it was not possible or practical for government to consult the people all the time on its decisions.
4) Your vanity publications tend, for the most part, to offer free market capitalism as the only true means of offering individuals liberty- liberty from the state and taxation being key elements of this, yet what you choose to ignore is the extent to which it is capitalism itself that has created the very machinery of exploitation that creates both oligarchies and plutocracies, and which by its nature cannot exist without slavery -the enslavement of individuals by money. When you propose the overhaul of the modern state, a state dominated by oligarchs and plutocrats in which democracy is a deceptive tool to guarantee the reservation of power and wealth for a small elite, with something you refer to as anarchism, you cannot in fact guarantee that the outcome will be the same, because capitalism by definition rewards the few at the expense of the many.
Hi, Stavros. The globalist oligarchy are of course obviously also a plutocracy, and they use government to concentrate their wealth.
Your above comments misunderstand the purpose of government. The entire raison d'être of government is so that a parasitic ruling class can subsist on the usurped wealth of the productive masses.
Your misunderstanding on what the intrinsic purpose of government is is what I term the Jeffersonian fallacy. The veridical view of government's purpose is what I term the Hamiltonian shrewdness. Thomas Jefferson's view of government is in contradiction with reality, as Jefferson held the naïve and erroneous position that government could exist to protect human rights. Whereas Jefferson's archenemy Alexander Hamilton correctly understood that the purpose of government is for an oligarchy to bamboozle and mulct the commonality.
Because the Jeffersonian view of government's purpose is in contradiction to reality, it must necessarily fail in practice.
Below are vital articles concerning the nature of government, of liberty, and the free-market production of defense:
Prof. Murray N. Rothbard, "The Anatomy of the State", Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer 1965), pp. 1-24. Reprinted in a collection of some of Rothbard's articles, Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays (Washington, DC: Libertarian Review Press, 1974), https://mises.org/sites/default/file...%20State_3.pdf , https://mises.org/sites/default/file...20Essays_2.pdf , http://webcitation.org/6XfwvbslB .
Murray N. Rothbard, "Defense Services on the Free Market", Chapter 1 from Power and Market: Government and the Economy (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Inc., 1977; orig. pub. 1970), http://wayback.archive.org/web/20040...wer&market.pdf , http://webcitation.org/5ve3w5w9a , http://pdf-archive.com/2013/08/28/ro...and-market.pdf .
Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "The Private Production of Defense", Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter 1998-1999), pp. 27-52, http://mises.org/sites/default/files/14_1_2_0.pdf , http://webcitation.org/5ve41VasQ .
Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "Fallacies of the Public Goods Theory and the Production of Security", Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter 1989), pp. 27-46, http://mises.org/sites/default/files/9_1_2_0.pdf , http://webcitation.org/5ve485kNf .
Prof. David D. Friedman, "Police, Courts, and Laws--On the Market", Chapter 29 from The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Co., 1989; orig. pub. 1971), http://daviddfriedman.com/Libertaria...hapter_29.html , http://webcitation.org/5ve4A6KFZ , http://archive.is/I1mt4 .
Concerning the ethics of human rights, the below book is the best book on the subject:
Murray N. Rothbard , The Ethics of Liberty (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1998; orig. pub. 1982), https://wayback.archive.org/web/2013...ard/ethics.pdf , http://webcitation.org/5ve4GO9l5 .
If one desires a solid grounding in economics then one can do no better than with the below texts:
Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Economic Science and the Austrian Method (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1995), http://mises.org/sites/default/files...20Method_3.pdf , https://wayback.archive.org/web/2014...books/esam.pdf , http://webcitation.org/63rQDYtj2 .
The above small book by Prof. Hoppe doesn't delve into political theory, but only concerns the methodological basis of economics (i.e., the epistemology of economics). I would recommend that everyone read this short book *first* if they're at all interested in economics. There exists much confusion as to what economics is and what it is not. This book is truly great in elucidating the nature of economics and its epistemic basis. If one were to read no other texts on economics, then this ought to be the economic text that one reads. Plus it doesn't take all that long to read it.
Murray N. Rothbard, "Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics", in Mary Sennholz (editor), On Freedom and Free Enterprise: The Economics of Free Enterprise (Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1956), pp. 224-262; reprinted in Murray N. Rothbard, The Logic of Action One: Method, Money, and the Austrian School (London, UK: Edward Elgar, 1997), pp. 211-255; http://mises.org/sites/default/files...conomics_3.pdf , http://webcitation.org/5ve4WQnYm .
Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2nd ed., 2004; orig. pub. 1962), http://mises.org/sites/default/files...20Market_2.pdf , http://webcitation.org/6Xfycj7zV .
Murray N. Rothbard, Power and Market: Government and the Economy (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Inc., 1977; orig. pub. 1970), http://wayback.archive.org/web/20040...wer&market.pdf , http://webcitation.org/5ve3w5w9a , http://pdf-archive.com/2013/08/28/ro...and-market.pdf .
These texts ought to be read in the order listed above. I would also add to the above list the below book:
Murray N. Rothbard, America's Great Depression (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 5th ed., 2000; orig. pub. 1963), http://mises.org/sites/default/files...pression_3.pdf , http://webcitation.org/6Xfyn2oXY .
The above book concerns how governments create depressions (i.e., panics; recessions) through credit expansion (i.e., fractional-reserve banking and/or fiat money).
On the matter of politics in relation to God, see my below article, which demonstrates the logically unavoidable anarchism of Jesus Christ's teachings as recorded in the New Testament (in addition to analyzing their context in relation to his actions, to the Tanakh, and to his apostles). It is logically complete on this subject, in the sense of its apodixis.
James Redford, "Jesus Is an Anarchist", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Dec. 4, 2011 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2001), doi:10.2139/ssrn.1337761, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761 , http://archive.org/details/JesusIsAnAnarchist , http://theophysics.host56.com/anarchist-jesus.pdf , http://webcitation.org/66AIz2rJw .
See also my below article, which demonstrates the logically unavoidable correctness of the anarcho-capitalist theory of human rights. It doesn't derive an "ought" from an "is"--rather, it derives an "ought" from an "ought": an "ought" everyone must necessarily presuppose in order to even begin to deny it.
James Redford, "Libertarian Anarchism Is Apodictically Correct", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Dec. 15, 2011, doi:10.2139/ssrn.1972733, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1972733 , http://archive.org/details/Libertari...ticallyCorrect , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redfor...rtarianism.pdf , http://webcitation.org/63xyCLjLm .
For how physics allows unlimited progress by civilizations--to literally infinite intelligence and power--see my following article on physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology, which is a proof (i.e., mathematical theorem) of God's existence per the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE), which is also required by said known physical laws. The Omega Point cosmology has been published and extensively peer-reviewed in leading physics journals.
James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1974708 , http://archive.org/details/ThePhysic...ryOfEverything , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redfor...ics-of-God.pdf , http://alphaomegapoint.files.wordpre...ics-of-god.pdf , http://sites.google.com/site/physico...ics-of-God.pdf .
Additionally, in the below resource are six sections which contain very informative videos of Prof. Tipler explaining the Omega Point cosmology and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model TOE. The seventh section therein contains an audio interview of Tipler. I also provide some helpful notes and commentary for some of these videos.
James Redford, "Video of Profs. Frank Tipler and Lawrence Krauss's Debate at Caltech: Can Physics Prove God and Christianity?", alt.sci.astro, Message-ID: jghev8tcbv02b6vn3uiq8jmelp7jijluqk@4ax.com , July 30, 2013, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ro/KQWt4KcpMVo , http://archive.today/a04w9 , http://webcitation.org/6IUTAMEyS . The plain text of this post is available at: TXT, 42423 bytes, MD5: b199e867e42d54b2b8bf6adcb4127761, http://ge.tt/3lOTVbp , http://webcitation.org/6WGd90MBa , http://archive.today/cVRmc .
