Parts 1 and 2
Soviet dissident and Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn survived both World War II and the horrors of Stalin’s camps. He became the voice of the nameless millions who died. Some of his famous works include The Gulag Archipelago, The Red Wheel and In The First Circle. Solzhenitsyn’s books teach us never to forget and stay loyal to our first principles under any circumstances. It was the principle he followed throughout his life.
The Gulag Archipelago is a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about the Soviet forced labor camp system. The three-volume book is a narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, as well as the author’s own experiences as a prisoner in a gulag labor camp. Written between 1958 and 1968, it was published in the West in 1973 and, thereafter, circulated in samizdat (underground publication) form in the Soviet Union until its appearance in the Russian literary journal, Novy Mir, in 1989, in which a third of the work was published over three issues. GULag or Gulág is an acronym for the Russian term Glavnoye Upravleniye ispravitelno-trudovyh Lagerey (Главное Управление Исправительно-трудовых Лагерей), or “Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps”, the bureaucratic name of the governing board of the Soviet labour camp system, and by metonymy, the camp system itself.
The original Russian title of the book is Arkhipelag GuLag, the rhyme supporting the underlying metaphor deployed throughout the work. The word archipelago compares the system of labor camps spread across the Soviet Union with a vast “chain of islands”, known only to those who were fated to visit them. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Russian Federation, The Gulag Archipelago has been officially published, and it has been included in the high school program in Russia as mandatory reading since 2009.
Deirdre Hairston is happily married, nursing and newly pregnant with the couple’s second child, but her pastor, ostensibly more concerned with mask-compliance, called the cops on her during Holy Mass.
A conscientious objector to masks, owing largely to nausea from pregnancy, Deirdre sat with her husband and baby in the back of the church, on the far right, at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Dallas.
After the usher failed to force her to put a mask on, he alerted the pastor.
Deirdre Hairston [recounted]: The head pastor, Fr. Milton Ryan, approaches me in the middle of Mass. … He says, “I am the boss here. I am the pastor. What I say goes. Now, if you want to be an obedient Catholic, you put that mask on or you’ll have to leave.” … So I whisper back, “I am not leaving.” He goes, “Fine, But I’m calling the police.”
Which Milt promptly did. The cops didn’t arrest Mrs. Hairston, nor fine her, but they did issue a citation for trespassing after bullying her and her family.
Recall that Texas no longer imposes a “mandate” for diapers—but the Roman Catholic bishop does:
Bp. Edward Burns called for protocols to remain in place, including face coverings: “Catholic faithful in the diocese of Dallas [are] to continue to wear masks out of charity and concern for all those around them.”
Ergo,
Deirdre contacted St. Joseph Foundation in Ohio for clarity on her rights as a Catholic.
She learned no practicing Catholic in the state of grace can be denied the sacraments. But the clergy involved do not seem interested in canon law.
And that explains it all. The Goats serve a new master, and it isn’t the Lord Jesus. As Mrs. Hairston puts it,
It’s almost like [the Goats] become demonic or possessed with fury and angry. It’s bizarre. It’s honestly just bizarre behavior. It’s extremely aggressive. I mean, you’re going to arrest a 28-year-old nursing mom who’s already socially distanced? I mean it proves that it’s not really about the health. It’s just about control.
The first drag queen was recently certified as a candidate for United Methodist ministry. Hope United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Illinois, celebrated Drag Sunday on April 11, although I think it was a virtual service since the church has apparently bought into the coronavirus pandemic nonsense.
This last year has impressed on all of us, Christian and non-believer alike, that the American Church is in serious jeopardy. Its pastors obey government, not God, nor do its members object to such apostasy. With its closed doors, virtual “services” and requiring of reservations before a lost sinner can hear the Gospel, the Church is no longer a light to the world but a blight on it.
Biden invites Putin to crunch summit amid deteriorating ties between Russia & US, as American warships chart course for Black Sea. Basically, the real risk of a derelict usurper in the White House is not that he pushes the big red button . . . it’s that someone else does, because he’s busy taking a nap.
Hunter Biden Interview Body Language: what do four of the world’s top body language and behavior experts make of the Hunter Biden interview and his comments on the Hunter Biden laptop, Ukraine, and his father President Joe Biden?
(On a personal note, the first interviewer of Hunter Biden shown is Anthony Mason of CBS News. Years ago Mason interviewed me when he was a novice reporter in Tulsa for KJRH (Channel 2). That interview was in regard to the Ed Clark 1980 Libertarian Party presidential campaign that year, of which I was the Oklahoma media coordinator.)
On this Tax Week in April (even though the real individual filing deadline for this year has been extended to May 17, 2021), some conservatives are discovering that Milton Friedman isn’t the hero they thought he was. Friedman was behind “one of the most far-reaching extensions of federal power,” the purpose of which was to keep federal coffers copiously filled to fight World War II. Of course the war ended but Friedman’s “gift that keeps on giving,” federal withholding, is still here. More than just making federal taxes appear lower than they actually are, through typical overpayment withholding gives the federal government a nice, big interest-free loan every year. Thanks, Milton!
Jeff Deist, call your office. Stephanie Ruhle’s segment on April 13 dances around the 7-ton albino elephant in the room. One of the alleged causes of inflation in the U.S. economy right now? “Driver shortages.” Central bank? What central bank? What are some of the tools at our disposal for fighting this inflation? For some comic relief (and no spoilers), watch them yourself to see the inanities on display.
Today is April 15, the traditional historic day associated with the coercive collection and seizure of federal income taxes from the American people. Here are some timely thoughts and pertinent reflections upon this usurpation and egregious violation of individual rights and liberties, where confiscation and stealing is rationalized as essential to the health of the state, to the utter detriment and well being of all chastised inhabitants of this “home of the free and the brave.” Here are more episodes on Essential Libertarianism.
The West has yet to experience a Communist invasion; religion here remains free. But the West’s own historical evolution has been such that today it too is experiencing a drying up of religious consciousness…. the tide of secularism that, from the late Middle Ages onward, has progressively inundated the West. This gradual sapping of strength from within is a threat to faith that is perhaps even more dangerous than any attempt to assault religion violently from without.
The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way [. . . ] they must perish in the revolutionary holocaust — Karl Marx
By draping itself in the finery of political activism, the corporatist class consolidates political power, corrupts democracy and distracts from its real functions.
In my very early days in the Libertarian movement I encountered a publication entitled The Libertarian Handbook 1973 (Vincent McCaffrey and Mark Frazier, editors; published by Avenue Victor Hugo, Boston, Massachusetts). It was a useful catalog/guide of organizations, services, publications, and related pre-Internet networking tools. It also had a few essays or articles of a philosophical bent. One of these has firmly stuck in my mind since I first read it decades ago. It vigorously put forth the case that the Libertarian movement would remain merely a side show academic exercise or parlor game until it focused upon the real nature of the military hierarchical command structure of obedience and deference to higher authority of the National Security State. Until legions of Libertarian “George Pattons” within the military who seriously took their Oath of Allegiance “to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic” arose to challenge state usurpation and tyranny — the movement would remain impotent and sterile.
Talk about cognitive dissonance or contradictory concepts to grasp!
Libertarians throughout history have been in the forefront of the anti-militarist tradition, opposed to standing armies and imperial aggression and aggrandizement. Would the very survival and defense of the diminished remnants of the American republic from a deep state “fifth column” coup d’état come down to championing a counter-coup by an Oliver Cromwell and his military cohort as republican defenders of rights and liberties against this globalist leviathan?
Since September 11, 2001 the Constitution of the United States has been suspended and we have been operating under extra-constitutional Continuity of Government.
This is no longer an idle or academic question to casually ignore.
The existential day of reckoning under the usurper Biden administration has arrived. Massive widespread implementation of duplicitous “woke” changes in the orientation and make-up of the military hierarchal command structure of obedience and servile deference to higher authority of the National Security State is occurring, coupled with belligerent calls for putting this mechanism on a war footing, marshalling for eminent intervention abroad. It is something that everyone must give high priority of serious reflection and commitment to action.
Headline today is that the Fear and Death Administration (FDA) has “temporarily” banned the Johnson and Johnson “vaccine” because too many people who have taken the vaccine have dropped dead from blood clots caused by the concoction.
(Did Fauci take that one or the other one? Inquiring minds want to know).
Subject: “Morality” with regard to the initial of force
Dr. Block,
My name is Klaus Schmidt and I’m an Ancap who is a great fan of your work. You’ve always stated that capitalism is an amoral system and is not concerned with moral beliefs. My question is, would determining when it’s acceptable to aggress against another individual be included in the realm of “morality”? I’ve read so much of your work but have yet to come across an explanation and my guess is that the conduct of how we deal with aggression has more to do with ethics as opposed to morality. It seems that other writers may have gotten this confused? I know Michael Huemer made a comment about that in an article regarding your view on animal rights. Clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for this fascinating analysis of yours. I don’t agree or disagree with it. I’m not sure. I believe in the division of labor and specialization, and this data is a bit out of the realm I usually operate in. In other words, I’m too lazy to delve into this with the limited effort I can call upon. Sorry.
Thanks for your kind words. I really appreciate them.
Trump is very good on reducing regulations, taxes and creating peace in the Middle East; he is bad on protectionism, deficits. I vastly prefer him to Biden who is a socialist.
If populism helps promote liberty I favor it to that extent. If Biden wins in 2020, this is still a question, I hope Rand Paul becomes president in 2024.
All voluntary trade is mutually beneficial in the ex ante sense, intra national or international. It would bring costs down since there’d be more goods and services, thanks to a greater specialization and division of labor. Under anarcho capitalism transactions and all other costs would be lower than under statism and central planning. I presume payment could be made in whatever the free enterprise money is: gold, crypto currency, or something else.
Hello mister block, i am looking for sources on how costs would be distributed concerning international trade in a private law society.
My question is would we expect to see higher costs at say the post office? Given that the government would no longer produce law and police? Would it be the case that whatever firm protects me would communicate with whatever firm protects the seller or buyer in the case of a dispute? Would this even be feasible in terms of transaction costs? What are the costs that all participants are bearing here for this transaction to happen? Am i correct in assuming the issue of payment is a non issue? Given that we can bring in a website like paypal or some other form of escrow like it’s done with crypto payments.
Thanks for sharing with me your important thoughts.
I’m a firm believer in specialization and comparative advantage. I’m into peaceful protest not violence, except when it comes to shaking that last bit of ketchup out of the bottle. Then, watch out!
Best regards,
Walter
From: Sebastian Ortiz
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2020 12:28 AM
Subject:
Juan Sebastian Ortiz Madriz
From the standpoint of human psychology and political science:
The extreme naivety and stupid, neophyte intellectual arrogance of libertarians comes from thinking that statism is the result of bad ideas and not of violent action, and that the sheeplike compliance of statist joes with violent people is essentially different from the reason why they, the libertarians try to counter violent action with peaceful argument: cowardice.
If anything the difference at any given time is that the violent in power are the most intelligent among the violent and that the violent in jail are the least intelligent among violent and that the majority inside and outside of jail (which under statism isn’t much different) are simply those who are either less intelligent or equally intelligent and less violent. To have the arrogance of saying “I, innocent, condemn your injustice.” is worthy of a ten year old who has watched too many fairy tale movies. Whoever wants to implement a “more just” system to their own whim will first have to prove to be more violent and intelligent than those who he aims to overthrow. That is how it’s always been and there are serious doubts cast on whether it’ll be different in the future, it certainly isn’t these days.
The Florida Congressman has not been charged with any crimes. But the reaction to this case raises important questions of political, legal and cultural judgments.
Assuming that he actually did get it like he said. Fauci says that he still won’t eat indoors at a restaurant or go to a movie theater. He still avoids “indoor, crowded places where people are not wearing masks.” He says “his day-to-day life remains essentially unchanged from the way it was before he got his shots.” So what he is afraid of? I thought the vaccine protected him?
David M. Hart is second to none in researching and elucidating upon the historic critiques of Karl Marx and Marxism. Scroll down here for exemplary examples.
