Blog 33 | The Libertarian Institute

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Anti-War Blog – Do They Really Know It’s Christmas?

by Kym Robinson | Dec 17, 2024 | Blog

Every year as the end of December crawls near, the spirit of Christmas grips those sometimes Christians, even atheists join in and celebrate it as a cultural habit and the true believers further confirm their faith. The spirit of celebration is one of joy, community, family, love, a time to rejoice the birth of a God or son of one, or the one true King, the birth of Christ.

War has waged over this period, fought by those who call him their prince of peace, they chose the State and the profession of killing above their faith in God. In every other day of the year, such a faith is at peace with such killing and destruction, whether in his name or for whatever cause requires the slaughter of strangers. At Christmas, we are reminded about the importance of peace.

It’s around this time when we recall those moments in World War One when men of faith, far from home, exhausted, celebrated Christmas in it’s first year. On the Western Front most famously though in pockets in the East, men came together and shared moments where language was no barrier between brothers in different uniforms. In the years after, the wars beyond that 1914 Christmas such joy and commonality between man dissipated. But for that moment, those men chose peace and defied their orders, dismissed the State and celebrated their faith and love.

In the nations which claim to be secular, while also on occasion celebrating their Christian tendencies this time of year has politicians spitting out messages of joy and promises of welfare. Meanwhile arms will be sent to killers, those nations may also be active in the killing too. Killing and destroying, the reasons not even explained. It’s just war without reason or a need to address the public with any respect.

The public, media and even layers of government just accept that in some form a permanent war shall remain. Those nations will talk of Western values, some of their conservatives will even claim them to be a Christian nation but to those on the outside, in the frontiers where modern technology takes life in the ancient act of war, they have come to know such values and faith in a different light. It’s death, starvation, occupation, war, war and war. Not unique to such nations but the exceptionalism allows them to do it without end, nothing can stop them not their laws, conscience, or even claimed faith in a peaceful God.

As social media plays a moral tug of war over Lilly Phillips’ choice, where no victims are found those who proclaim faith and values are riled up with digital indignation. Judging, hating and shaming. That is what the God of their intuition would do. The soldiers who fought in the decades of war, are embraced as broken heroes, understood to have sinned and who deserve a salvation. Forgiven. Loved. Those doing the killing are suddenly non-moral actors, obediently helpless servants it seems. The leaders we are meant to blame. It’s as though for many the killing of any and all, is tolerable or at the very least a far less slight than an actress performing in sex acts.

A little boy Mohammad Saeed, unlikely to be a Christian, though in Gaza he suffers alongside many who are, used a roller blade to crawl across the ground to makeshift tents. Having had both of his legs taken by the killers in their war, the six-year old only knows the misery and the suffering that warfare brings with it. In Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Palestine others die, suffer and experience the wars that are inflicted on them.

I have seen accounts hiding behind traditional or orthodox imagery of faith, those claiming to uphold culture and proclaim whatever mythic virtues a redditor shared in meme form dismiss the suffering of such children. The Christ or God in their mind is hateful, angry, a deity of vengeance and genocide. As biblical as a compassionate and loving Christ is.

It’s unlikely that little Mohammad knows much about theology, or foreign policy for that matter in fact I suspect many of those who are killing and starving him and his community really do either. The killers follow orders, do so because they are paid or act out of hatred, full of chauvinistic pride that fuels a collective hate of the other, that’s biblical as well. For little Mohammad he adapts, lives and tries to live. With what little he has, he can only breathe in the dirt while his hand and the roller blade pull him further along so that he may find shelter in a tent that in time could be targeted by the professional killers of the IDF. The weapons sent by those in the USA who will celebrate Christmas with their families, bonus included.

I am sure we will all hear ‘Merry Christmas’ and maybe ‘Peace be with you.’ How many mean it, how sincere any of it is. How much love and care really is inside the hearts of those who only love a loving God every holiday season. Their true God is the State or at least money. Whatever they worship we only ever see through deed, actions and inaction the true belief.

As one who would be tarred with the label, ‘atheist’ the sentimentality of the season is a mixture of nostalgic and off putting. It is a beautiful time and one of sadness but as I get older, a little wariness of the insincerity. Is it loving to hate a child like Mohammad so much? Is it noble to endorse those and the very entities that would contribute to children like him losing life and limb? How much eggnog can wash away the guilt if any actually exists?

It should not take the festive season to reflect and contemplate peace. It should not take this time of year to make amends or to promise to be better, to do better. It should not take the voice of Bing Crosby to remind you not to be abusive to your or any family, the fabricated sounds of the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad singing Silent Night to think of the lonely soldiers far from home or the voices of carolling children to think of those ravaged by war.

Merry Christmas and may the God of your belief help you find peace with yourself and your neighbour. Set the example, inspire, be the good you want to see. There has to be a better world than the status quo, it’s hard to imagine that any deity who resides in the hearts of so many good people would want their followers to keep worshipping the killers like they do. God speed and peace to you all.

Winter Reading

by John Weeks | Dec 16, 2024 | Blog

Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton’s new book is shaking things up and making a stir all at once. Provoked: How Washington Started The New Cold War With Russia And The Catastrophe In Ukraine is a read it and weep. Or, for the War Party hacks, don’t read it; just weep.

Provoked has been endorsed by former CIA officer and bestselling novelist Barry Eisler. You can read all about it in my latest Institute article.

Eisler, buy his own account, has published a novel that is very Horton-adjacent. The God’s Eye View is some kick-ass thriller fiction underpinned by Eisler’s real-world knowledge of “national security” shenanigans.

And like Horton, Eisler reads his own audio version of the book. So here’s what you do. Snag yourself a copy of Provoked, a copy of The God’s Eye View, and some Moon Does Artisan Coffee (the official coffee of the Scott Horton Show). Brew some coffee, pour yourself a mug, and enjoy the incredible pairing of Horton’s non-fiction and Eisler’s fiction.

A Warhead That Could: The Extinction Event for Exquisite Military Platforms

by Bill Buppert | Dec 16, 2024 | Blog

oreshnik

Chalk up another crafty Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) to the Russian military.

I am hoping the West has noticed the game changer that a conventional warhead on hyper-sonic IRBMs and ICBMs has changed the balance of power in near peer and peer combat for the remainder of this century as exemplified by the Oreshnik attacks by the Russians.

This is a strategic decapitation weapons system that makes exquisite platforms like aircraft carriers and static land bases eminently targetable with no hope of defending against the incoming warheads.

Germany is too far gone to catch up and they have traditionally been the bleeding edge of any military innovations in the EU.

Unless an uncharacteristic miracle takes place in the US procurement and acquisition system, the US and the West is years behind. There is a slight chance a crash program to convert half of the current Minuteman III armory to conventional warheads which could fast-track the game changer but the arthritic and sclerotic history of American arms in the last half century turning on a dime to fight a future war instead of the last war is slim.

Germany’s inability to increase innovation and production is emblematic of the entire West.

Take a listen to my latest WarNotes Episode 005 where I discuss nuclear weapons in the 21st century published this morning.

Kiel Institute Report:

War is back in Europe and as it becomes long-lasting, the question of armament gains central importance. This report finds that Russian military industrial capacities have been rising strongly in the last two years, well beyond the levels of Russian material losses in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the build-up of German capacities is progressing slowly. We document Germany’s military procurement in a new Kiel Military Procurement Tracker and find that Germany did not meaningfully increase procurement in the one and a half years after February 2022, and only accelerated it in late 2023. Given Germany’s massive disarmament in the last decades and the current procurement speed, we find that for some key weapon systems, Germany will not attain 2004 levels of armament for about 100 years. When taking into account arms commitments to Ukraine, some German capacities are even falling. The new Tracker provides detailed information on quantities, value of the orders, predicted delivery dates, as well as the companies from which Germany procures. The situation of slow and insufficient procurement can and needs to be remedied. Failing on deterrence would mean a higher likelihood of a costly war. Instead of Germany pursuing a “war economy”, as some have argued, Germany’s defence budget needs to durably and credibly increase. Higher and credible long-term demand will lead to increasing supply capacities. A long-term European armament strategy is needed. Germany and Europe need to focus on speed in procurement, on cost effectiveness through economies of scale in an integrated European market, on innovation, and on technological superiority. Tracking military rearmament is essential to the security of the continent.

Fit for war in decades: Europe’s and Germany’s slow rearmament vis-a-vis Russia

You are living in historic times.

I urge you to watch the short video below.

HT to Millinneum 7:

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

Economics Is about Individual Choice

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 16, 2024 | Blog, Economics

“The light which the economic theorist can throw on an economic process, or on the outcome of such a process, is viewed as deriving from his ability to relate back the process to the individual acts of choice of which the process is made up. Through the theorist’s understanding of the decisions made by individuals, and of the way in which these decisions have mutual impact upon one another, and become mutually adjusted to one another, he is able to ‘explain’ the course of economic events, and to understand the probable results that will follow from given exogenous changes operating on the system.” (Emphasis added.)

Israel M. Kirzner, An Essay on Capital, 1966

New WarNotes Podcast Episode is Live Monday 16 December 2024

by Bill Buppert | Dec 15, 2024 | Blog

Ep 005 “Fixing Fight Club: 21st Century Nuclear Renaissance”

In this episode, a complete reassessment of American nuclear weapons has to be done.

In the future near-peer and peer fight, nuclear weapons will be an option in the 21st century and no one can predict how they will used.

In concert with the emerging Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) such as robotics, autonomous targeting and hyper-velocity weapons systems that are earth shattering and millennial bending, it is time to calibrate and reassess expectations and the dust off the war-gaming illusions that created the system of planetary suicide hovering over the world today.

What happens with the advancement of space weapons which is now in the near future; what about the impact of these weapons dilemmas on a multi-planetary human evolution?

Stop the madness.

You can find the episodes on your favorite podcast vendor.

Notes: cgpodcast.substack.com/notes

My Substack: cgpodcast.substack.com

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

I want to thank my listeners and readers for your continuing solicitude. Please leave reviews if you find the time at your podcast vendor.

How Far We’ve Come

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 15, 2024 | Blog, Economics

“The conditions under which modern man of the capitalist West must act are different from those under which his primitive ancestors lived and acted. As a result of the providential care of our forebears we have at our disposal an ample stock of intermediate products (capital goods or produced factors of production) and of consumers’ goods. Our activities are designed for a longer period of provision because we are the lucky heirs of a past which has lengthened, step by step, the period of provision and has bequeathed to us the means to expand the waiting period. In acting we are concerned with longer periods and are aiming at an even satisfaction in all parts of the period chosen as the period of provision. We are in a position to rely upon a continuing influx of consumers’ goods and have at our disposal not only stocks of goods ready for consumption but also stocks of producers’ goods out of which our continuous efforts again and again make new consumers’ goods mature.”

—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

The Vulnerable Capitalist

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 14, 2024 | Blog, Economics

“Popular literature attributes enormous ‘power’ to the capitalist and considers his owning a mass of capital goods as of enormous significance, giving him a great advantage over other people in the economy. We see, however, that this is far from the case; indeed, the opposite may well be true. For the capitalist has already saved from possible consumption and hired the services of factors to produce his capital goods. The owners of these factors have the money already for which they otherwise would have had to save and wait (and bear uncertainty), while the capitalist has only a mass of capital goods, a mass that will prove worthless to him unless it can be further worked on and the product sold to the consumers….

“[C]apital goods are not independently productive. They are the imputable creatures of land and labor (and time). Therefore, capital goods generate no interest income…. [No] income accrues to the owners of capital goods as such.”

—Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, Chap. 5, secs. 6 & 7, 1962

Winter is Coming to an American City Near You

by Bill Buppert | Dec 13, 2024 | Blog

kinetic bomb

It is much worse than Shawn Ryan thinks per his reactions during the interview.

Sarah Adams discusses a forecast of an attack on the US from 1:12:00 to 1:25:00.

There will be far more than 1k fighters (think train the trainer) because the aQ et al planners will coordinate with auxiliary forces on college campuses and other anti-Israeli cadres to facilitate the clogging of 911 phone lines with false calls, create traffic accidents on major arterials, conduct information shaping on the Coprophile Media networks and provide logistics support to the fighters among other things to include shelter and aid.

Since October 2023, the domestic alignment of millions of sympathizers to the anti-Israel coalition has created a de facto homegrown support infrastructure for attacks on the US homeland by Sunni and Wahhabi fanatics.

This will take place over days with different target sets every 24 hours to make the slow response by the government at all levels play whack-a-mole and fail to anticipate movement of the target sets from public venues to residential areas to infrastructure to direct hits on emergency response modalities like police & fire departments and then lower priority targets until they burn themselves down (HT to William Forstchen).

Hostile drones will be used to target any flashing lights they see (police & fire vehicles) and electric vehicles; the former to stymie emergency response and the latter to create massive fires on arterials.

The unintended consequences and chaos avalanches that will follow this attack by the US government response will make things even worse.

I cover this in detail in the Storming America episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50 in my Chasing Ghosts podcast.

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me