Innocent excursions in analysis and speculation

WesBurt@aol.com
Sat, 27 Sep 1997 15:06:21 -0400 (EDT)


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Dear Members of Burt's List, Friends and Captives who may leave on request:

Listed below is the full text of a message that combines the best thinking of
two prominent posters to the internet. The message addresses that TEFLON
TOPIC which has held my attention since the UN. was established in San
Francisco, CA, with the same defect of omission that we see in the Decalogue
(the Ten Commandments), in the Creeds of the organized religions, and in the
U.S. Constitution. That defect is the omission of any mention of the MINIMUM
amount of government that a society must have in order to establish the
MAXIMUM of stability, prosperity, and "Universal Individualism." Lloyd
Miller has successfully resisted the temptation to comment on any my posts
since I subscribed to his PRJ list in 97-06-08. Batesfam@pacbell.net, on the
other hand, has not been so cautious. IMHO, both of them are Extropians by
temperament, if not by subscription.

Extropians will be pleased to hear that Mr. Frederick Mann, author of the
NSPIC debate, has asked to be removed from my copy list, which he was not on.
From now on, my posts on the TEFLON TOPIC will not mention NSPIC.

As you read through the combined message, please keep an open mind, and see
if you agree that my proposal to correct the defect of omission in our public
policy by adopting that little touch of socialism confirmed by our Generally
Accepted Accounting Procedures (GAAP) and practiced by every well managed
corporation would give Mr. Miller a much larger market for his books on
Conspiracy Theory, and, give Mr. Batesfam@pacbell.net a much larger scope for
his Conspiracy Theory speculations.

>>>>>>>>>>>>> Begin combined message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Subj: Universal Individualism vs. the NWO Tyranny
Date: 97-09-27 07:23:06 EDT
From: lloyd@a-albionic.com (Lloyd Miller, Research Director)
Sender: owner-prj@mail.msen.com
Reply-to: lloyd@a-albionic.com (Lloyd Miller)
To: prj@mail.msen.com (New Paradigms Discussion Group),
agendas@maelstrom.stjohns.edu (Agendas)

Interesting excursion in analysis and speculation from Bates, below:

As I have stated elswhere, recently, there needs to be a triumph of
universalist individualism among a critical mass of individuals world-wide.
Individualism "in one country" or "the West" only would not hack it. One
would need a critical mass of universalist individualism in most of the
major regions.

We know that universalist individualism has grown and can grow as a
spontaneous cultural phenomenom (ie. without State or monied interest
backing). I have met through the internet Randist, Rothbardian, and
Stirnerite individualists, for instance, from many cultures. However, we
have no evidence that it can grow rapidly and to the extent where it would
reach critical mass and set the norms for a whole society or region, to say
nothing of the world. As Bates sez, if it were possible, real universalist
individualism would result in real world-wide laissez-faire (free trade),
not the currently emerging managed, regulated, "political" world trade. No
UN, no IMF, no World Bank, no Federal Reserve, no Central Banks, no
treaties, no trade agreements, no product regulations, no World Trade
Organization, etc.

Then there is the problem of the "phoney individualism" allowed as
"bait" by the New World Order univeralism....see H. G. Wells and other New
World Order idealists....or watch Star Trek [Roddenberry was a World
Federalist]. Submit to univeral Rhodes-style covert Imperial tryranny and
your rulers will give you a measure of individual respect! They will even
honor your irrational sexual hang-ups and obsolete
racial-ethnic-religious-national collective obsessions! Be what you want to
be within the New World Order tyranny, but OBEY!

So, real universalist individualism will have to cope with co-optation
by the World State, ie. the idea that only the State has the power to allow
me to develop as an individual....H G Wells' and Bertrand Russell's New
World Order blather is full of this destructive message as is today's
political correctness. However, universalist individualism has the
advantage that it cannot be permanently defeated and forgotten as can silly
racial-ethnic-religious-national collectivisms. Individualism is an
elementary inference from the ostensive facts of human existence and will
always arise in any situation to grow again [short of universal Borg-like
mind control]. Soooo...I am making the case that only rational,
universal individualism in the long run can limit and/or defeat the New
World Order corporatist tyranny that is so rapidly engulfining us.

Lloyd Miller, Research Director, A-albionic Research

http://a-albionic.com/a-albionic.html

-----Original Message-----
From: batesfam@pacbell.net <batesfam@pacbell.net>
To: prj@mail.msen.com <prj@mail.msen.com>
Date: Wednesday, September 24, 1997 5:43 AM
Subject: Individualism and Collective Identity

batesfam@pacbell.net wrote:
>
> Those whose perspective in conspiracy research tends to fall
> heavily on the "New World Order" concept, or the notion that the main aim
> of the world super-elite is the construction of a global government, tend
> to focus highly on both individualism AND national idenity as the
> necessary anti-thesis to the world super government. The elite are
> seen, by left-wing anti-imperialists and right-wing "race nationalists",
> as desiring the elimination of national and ethnic barriers for the sake
> of the global market. Some among both camps will argue for strong
> nationalistic police states as a solution to the "dictatorship of
> capital", the Fascist "Third Position" and the "anti-imperialist" regimes
> in Third World countries both promise this. Others will argue that a
> devolution of the nation-state will accomplish freedom from globalist
> consolidation. Agrarians, populists, anarchists, hippies, State's
> Righters, and sincere decentralists advocate this, but so does the
> Council on Foreign Relations with its aim of building world order by the
> seemingly autonomous networking of cities, "bio-regions", and "free
> market relations". Finally, individualism is posited as the solution to
> global coerced pseudo-unification.
> Individualism may mean many things, and is never philosopically
> defined with precision by anyone except Ayn Rand "Objectivists". Ayn
> Rand was a staunch "Olympian", a special kind of elitist who glorifies
> individual effort, building vast fortunes through capitalism, and negates
> the statism and coercion of other elitists, as well as that of
> egalitarians. Ayn Rand's individualism co-exists with a strong belief in
> private property and the State, albeit the "limited state" of Locke and
> Jefferson. Her status as either a pro- or anti-New World Orderist is
> murky. She opposed the UN, collectivism, state capitalism, and racism.
> She also was for abortion, appearantly the death penalty, and idolized
> the nineteenth century "great fortunes" who were recruited by world order
> advocates with abandon (who jumped on board for a variety of reasons).
> She was against world government, so we'll lump her with the "anti" crowd
> for simplicity's sake.
> Ayn Rand would not see individualism as compatible with racial,
> religious, or "blood and soil" collective identity. This even put her at
> odds with Jefferson, Thoreau, Wendell Berry and other individualists who
> were also staunch Yoeman farmer agrarians. It would certainly put her at
> odds with most right-wing anti-NWO populists, who see individualism and
> race/religion/nationalism as quite complementary.
> Bio-regionalism, States Rights, and national secession are not,
> however, inherently individualist. They are not even anti-NWO by nature,
> if one remembers that these movements have traditionally had ties to
> Foundations, International Banks, and intelligence agencies. But the
> images that inspires most people to be anti-NWO are populist images,
> appealing beneath the surface of intellectualism, and are generally tied
> in with the above movements and philosophies. It becomes useless to
> explain to a secessionist of any stripe that their movement is funded by
> the Rockefeller or Ford Foundations, they are convinced of their own
> "anti-establishment" nature because of a general rage towards the
> dominant society, its bourgeois values, and are often angrier at the
> middle classes and technocrats than the elite and become very useful to
> the elites once the "revolutionary" aspects of their movement are curbed.
> The political aim of a movement, even of anarchist movements,
> which are the most ideologically anti-heirarchy, more often than not
> becomes a means for the continuation of cultural "memes" that perpetuate
> coercive systems. Abstractions becomes justifications, justifications
> for the sublimation of the individual to a conformist thought process and
> coercive social relations. This is not to say that middle class
> individualism is the only individualism that can exist, anarchist
> individualism, aristocratic or autocratic individualism, and Stirnerist
> individualism are all potential individualisms. Nor is all individualism
> anti-NWO, the NWO can function as a cultural/political/economic
> equivalent of "the Borg" of Star Trek fame, who could assimilate anything
> and turn it to their advantage. "Individualism", as an "ism", can be as
> manipulated as any national/ethnic identity. Thus we have a question
> that needs addressing, and one which can not be boiled down to simplistic
> dichotomies. The question is as such:
> Is opposition to "global governance", the homogenization of the
> world with increased centralized control over every individual, a
> phenomenon of global "salad bowl" diversity, one in which the "wicked
> witch", or the World Trade Organization and the IMF, is dead, and long
> live a thousand colorful dancing elves singing the songs of their own
> colorful national identies. Do we embrace "global devolution" and return
> to staunch identification as Jews, Europeans, Africans, and Polynesians?
> Or do we reatreat even further from particularist identities, retreating
> in to rarified abstracions such as "individualism", Lockean contract
> theory, anti-statist internationalism (true free trade anti-government
> theory as opposed to global "free trade" corporatism), and contempt for
> the unenlightened "group minds" of the landscape of identity politics?
> Can these possibilities coexist in a diverse world without the threat of
> homogenization? Perhaps they must, perhaps the only solution to world
> government, or statist centralization of any kind, is the non-ideological
> diversity which allows individualist and non-individualist societies to
> coexist without the messianic evangelism on the part of political
ideologies which only brings conflict, and aids
> Utopian elites in their attempts to reign in the chaos of existence with
> "global order" and "world unity". If any successful counter-attack to
> globaloneyism ever comes near to victory, we will see if divergent
> philosophies truly can make alliances, and mutually respect each other's
> freedom. We will also be confronted with the moral dilemnas involved with
tolerance between ideolgies, its limits, and the ethical imperitives
involved with "tolerating" a society wedded to national authoritarianism.
We'll see how such dilemnas are resolved, we know that such an
alternative to globalism is no Utopia.
>
> No answers here, only questions. Any thoughts on the matter?

--
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If we consult the 1996 World Bank ATLAS for performance data on the world-wide laboratory of nations and plot national performance (y) measured by GNP/capita against tax rate (x) as % of GNP, the envelope of best performance begins at government = 30% of GNP in Switzerland and ends with government = 55% of GNP in Sweden. The Swiss produce $37,180/year/capita, the U.S. produces only $25,860/year/capita at the Swiss tax rate, and the Swedes produce $23,630/year/capita at a 55% tax rate, so it should be obvious to a ten year old child (the test of effective teaching on the internet) that the national tax rate is not the determining factor of a nation's performance. We must look for the factor that moved the U.S. production from 171% of Swiss in 1949 down to 70% of Swiss in 1994. But before we do that, we had better assure the wealthy and politically powerful members of society that their share of the GNP will not be diminished as the U.S. production/capita is restored to parity with that of Switzerland by correcting the systemic defect of omission in our public policy.

In his 1915 book, PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION, that Englishman with the bad press, Bertrand Russell, gave us a concise statement of the little touch of socialism needed to correct the systemic defect of omission in U.S. public policy when he wrote on page 128:

"The expense of children aught to be borne wholly by the community. Their food and clothing and education aught to be provided, not only to the very poor as a matter of charity, but to all classes as a matter of public interest. In addition to this, a woman who is capable of earning money, and who abandons wage-earning for motherhood, aught to receive from the State as nearly as possible what she would have received if she had not had children. The only condition attached to State maintenance of mother and child should be that both parents are physically and mentally sound in all ways likely to affect the children."

The mode of society that provides minimum government, maximum individual freedom, and security for all is not located on the political spectrum line between anarchy and communism. It is located on the perpendicular bi-sector of that line, equi-distant from both of those fallacies.

Lets hear some clever dialog from the faint-hearted lurkers on the several mail lists listed on Burt's list.

WesBurt