By Chris Rossini
Accept....Reject...Accept...Reject. All day...Every day. Individual humans are endowed with individual liberty, and the foundation of that liberty is the freedom to choose what they will accept, and what they will reject. What is accepted becomes a part of that individual, sometimes literally! When we go to dinner buffet, a multitude of food choices await for the critical decision to be made. Those foods that are chosen will be turned into blood and literally assimilated into the physical body. Those that are rejected do not. The same applies to the mental aspect of life. The ideas that we believe will tend to attract the associated circumstances into our lives. Those who perpetually complain always seem to have circumstances to complain about. Those who are perpetually expressing gratitude never seem to run out of things to be grateful for. There is something very important about the ideas that we allow to dominate in our own individual lives. Those dominant ideas are evaluated by others as well, and form the cornerstone of our relationships with others. When we go out on a date, or apply for a job, the other individual's primary concern is to see what we've accepted, and what we've rejected when it comes to our beliefs and choices. Do our beliefs align with what they are looking for, or not? How exactly do ideas attract circumstances anyway? This writer cannot explain how food turns into blood, or how ideas act like a magnet. Nor does he believe anyone else can fully explain it either. No one can explain exactly how the seed produces the 100 ft. tree, or how something as massive a 100 ft. tree can be contained in a tiny little seed. But we do know that when that seed is planted into the soil, things start to happen. The wind...the rain...the Sun and all the elements of Life get to work to produce the circumstance of the tree. In America, thanks to the recognition of individual liberty and the centuries of capital accumulation that have accrued, we have a cornucopia of foods to choose from, that become a part of our physical bodies. The supermarkets are packed, the restaurants are on every corner, and we accept and reject the contents of our diet every single day. The choice is always up to the individual on which foods will be assimilated. The individual is sovereign. No one lifts the spoon into the mouth, but the individual himself. Also in America, the 1st Amendment has kept government censorship of ideas largely at bay (though the government and its proxies are always working vigilantly to make censorship acceptable). They are doomed to failure, but they'll have to learn that for themselves. Because freedom of speech is valued in America, there are a cornucopia of ideas to choose from in order to shape our individual lives. They are available to us in abundance. Just as harmful foods are always an option to be accepted or rejected, so are harmful ideas. The truth in every instance is always there, and always inviolable, but getting to it takes effort. Those who truly desire the truth will find it. The ideas that we choose to accept will (somehow) get to work on attracting the circumstances that come with them. The ideas that we reject will (somehow) tend to leave us alone. The choice is always up to the individual. Blaming mainstream media, or politicians, or professors, family, or friends, or co-workers cannot get us off the hook. You choose. You'll tend to attract. The same applies to your neighbors. What they choose, they'll tend to attract. The easy road (that is most often taken) is to try to run away and hide from this liberty to choose. The easy road is to blame, which leads to a mentality of powerlessness. This error is then compounded by another easy but harmful choice: Assigning to oneself the responsibility of what others will accept or reject. The tendency is to use force against others in order to reach for the impossible. They'll accept what you tell them to accept. They'll reject what you tell them to reject. This is the ultimate dead end. Ignoring one's own liberty, and then trying to squash the liberty of others is the road to pain. We are each endowed with the individual liberty to choose. That endowment cannot and will not be overridden. In this corner of the Internet, the idea that is championed is the recognition and honoring of this individual liberty....accepting the responsibility for one's own choices and circumstances, and rejecting the temptation to use force against others. It's a worthy purpose that will keep us busy for a lifetime. Happy Independence Day!
President Trump's withdrawal from the Iran deal continues to backfire, as he is discovering that the other side can also exert "maximum pressure." With the US out of the deal but still demanding a right to dictate the terms to those who remain in the deal, Iran is exercising its right within the deal to suspend abiding by the terms if other parties do the same. Where will this lead? Don't forget to get your tickets to the Ron Paul Institute's Washington conference next month: RonPaulInstitute.org/Conference
As Iran exceeds limits on its stockpile of enriched nuclear material, the Trump hawks are screeching that Iran has broken the JCPOA nuclear agreement. They don't want Americans to know that Iran's reaction to the initial breach of agreement by the US is legal under the terms of the deal.
By Ron Paul
The mainstream media was too busy obsessing over Russiagate to notice that, according to an annual Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees report, the Social Security trust fund will run out of money by 2035. The trustees also reported that the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will be empty by 2027. The trustees’ report is actually optimistic. Social Security is completely funded, and Medicare is largely funded, by payroll taxes. Therefore, their revenue fluctuates depending on the employment rate. So, when unemployment inevitably increases, payroll tax revenue will decline, hastening Medicare and Social Security’s bankruptcy. Another dark cloud on the government’s fiscal horizon involves the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which provides federal bailouts to bankrupt pension plans. The PBGC currently has an over 50 billion dollars deficit. This deficit will almost certainly increase, as a number of large pension funds are likely to need a PBGC bailout in the next few years. Congress will likely bail out the PBGC to avoid facing the wrath of voters angry that Congress did not save their pensions. Unfunded liabilities like Social Security and Medicare are not included in the official federal deficit. In fact, Congress raids the Social Security trust fund to increase spending and hide the deficit’s true size, while leaving the trust fund with worthless IOUs. The media also ignored last week’s Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report predicting the federal debt will increase to an unsustainable 144 percent of the gross domestic product by 2049. The CBO’s report is optimistic as it assumes interest rates remain low, Congress refrains from creating new programs, and there are no major recessions. Few in Congress or in the Trump administration are even talking about the coming fiscal tsunami, much less proposing the type of spending cuts necessary to pay down the debt and have the funds to unwind the entitlement programs without harming those currently reliant on them. Instead, both parties support increasing spending and debt. Republican control of both houses of Congress and the While House led to increased federal spending of over $300 billion dollars. The House Democratic majority now wants even more spending increases. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is threatening to not raise the debt ceiling unless President Trump and congressional Republicans agree to lift the spending caps put in place by the 2011 budget deal. The Republican Congress routinely exceeded the caps’ minuscule spending limits. Therefore, Speaker Pelosi should have no problem getting President Trump and his Republic congressional allies to once again exceed the caps on welfare spending as long as Democrats agree, as they are likely to agree, to bust the caps on warfare spending. America’s military budget already equals the combined budgets of the next seven highest-spending countries. Instead of allowing himself to be neoconned into wasting trillions on another Middle East quagmire, President Trump should bring home the nearly 170,000 troops stationed in almost 150 countries. Unless Congress immediately begins making substantial spending cuts, America will soon face a major economic crisis. This crisis will likely involve the Federal Reserve’s debt monetization resulting in a rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. Since the media and most politicians refuse to discuss this topic, it is up to those of us who understand the truth to spread the word, grow the liberty movement, and force politicians to make real cuts right now.
By Jacob G. Hornberger
In announcing that the U.S. and China are resuming trade talks, President Trump demonstrated the socialist mindset that afflicts him and his fellow Republicans and, for that matter, the Democrats as well. Trump said that during the negotiations, the United States would keep a 25 percent duty on $250 billion of Chinese goods and that he would give China a list of U.S. products to buy. A list of U.S. products to buy? How in the world does Trump come up with such a list? How does he know what China wants? What if China isn’t interested in buying those particular things? It doesn’t matter, at least not to Trump. What matters to him is that he knows which particular U.S. products he wants sold and is forcing China to buy them as part of the agreement to return to the negotiating table. It would be difficult to find a better example of the mindset of a central planner than that. Under a free-market system, people are free to buy whatever they want to buy. They make the choice, not the government. Now, we all know that China is not a genuine free-market system. While the Chinese regime has tremendously reduced government control over economic activity, there is still a considerable amount of government enterprise, not to mention the fact that the government retains overall control over economic activity. Like here in the United States, there is still a large amount of central planning, government management of the economy, subsidies, and other socialist and interventionist policies. Thus, the decisions to purchase things are made by both the Chinese government and the Chinese private sector. Regardless, whether it’s either the Chinese government or a Chinese business that is doing the buying, the principle is the same: they are going to buy what they want to buy. Why should they be compelled to buy what they don’t want to buy as a condition for negotiations that might lead to Trump ending his trade war? Like Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump has convinced himself that the role of a president of a country is to manage and control trade and economic activity. That’s why he is providing the Chinese with a list of what they must buy from American sellers, whether they want to buy such things or not. How does Trump decide which American products and sellers make his favorites list? Politics, of course. We have a presidential election coming up. Trump is no dummy. Like his Democratic opponents, he has to start passing out the political candy in order to get votes. Therefore, the people who are going to make the list are those who stand a good chance at helping him get elected. Among the privileged will almost certainly be those American farmers who Trump has bankrupted or severely damaged economically with his trade war. To ease the economic destruction that he has wrought on them, Trump ended up putting them on welfare. Undoubtedly he will put them on his favorites list so that he can proclaim, “Look what I have done for you. I bankrupted you but I put you on welfare and also on my favorites list that forced the Chinese to buy your products. We are winning my trade war and we are making America great again!” What people want to buy never enters the mind of the central planner. All that matters is what Trump wants, and right now he wants accolades and votes. In fact, Trump’s entire trade war goes to show the mindset of the central planner, one characterized by what Friedrich Hayek called a “fatal conceit” — a conceit by which the planner professes to know what people want better than they do. Convinced that American businessmen could not handle China’s unfair trade practices, Trump designated himself as the official agent for American business and industry. By raising taxes on the American people (that’s what tariffs are), Trump was going to show the Chinese how “tough” he could be in trade negotiations as agent for American business and industry. Predictably, China retaliated by increasing tariffs on American goods. The losers in all this trade mayhem? Both the American people and the Chinese people. Among American losers are the businesses that have been bankrupted or severely damaged by Trump’s trade antics. Also losing are American consumers, who Trump has forced to pay higher prices for items they wish to purchase. Most important, Trump’s antics have served to further destroy the economic liberty of the American people. People have the fundamental, natural, God-given right to trade with whomever they want. That’s what freedom, at a minimum, necessarily entails — the right to use your money the way you want. As the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate this week, points out, no government, not even the U.S. government, wields the legitimate authority to destroy the liberty of its own citizens. Yet, that is precisely what Trump has done with his trade war. The Democrats? They too believe that it’s the role of a president to manage trade and to negotiate trade deals with foreign nations. They too have the socialist mindset of the central planner. Their only difference with Trump is that they feel that they can be better central planners than Trump and his Republican cohorts. The libertarian position? Reject socialism and central planning entirely. Ditch trade negotiations and trade agreements. Unilaterally lift all U.S. trade restrictions and tariffs on the American people. Free the American people to trade freely with whomever they want anywhere in the world, including Cubans, Iranians, North Koreans, Chinese, Venezuelans, and everyone else in the world. If foreign regimes engage in unfair trade practices, which is a virtual certainty, so be it. Leave that to American businessmen and American consumers. What foreign regimes do to their citizenry is no business of a U.S. president or the U.S. government. This article was originally published at The Future of Freedom Foundation.
President Trump made history over the weekend as the only US president to set foot in North Korean territory. After, he held talks with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un for about an hour. Rather than point out the benefits of diplomacy over saber-rattling, however, Democrat leaders and candidates as well as the media slammed the president's move. Do they have a point, or is Trump actually pursuing peace?
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