Time is running out...or... isn't it about time!

[GALTGULCH8]

As I understand it from reading history books about the American colonial period, some of the colonists began to believe that although they were British citizens they were subject to an increasingly oppressive form of tyranny under King George the Third.

Evidently this was felt more strongly in the New England colonies where their petitions for redress of grievances were ignored by the King. Isn't it curious that the last ten words of the First Amendment of the BIll of Rights states that under the new government they created not only did they have a right to freedom of speech and of the press and of assembly and of religion but also a right to petition the government for redress of grievances as well.

What I am driving at here is that our present oppressor which has burdened us with taxation applied unevenly, with regulations which subject businesses with unpredictable costs and threats and intimidation, with foreign wars, undeclared and with no clear object or national purpose, killing of American citizens overseas and innumerable deaths of foreign people who come to view America as an occupying foreign force, unsustainable social programs accompanied by growing debt burden for payment of benefits not authorized in the Constitution which is not included in the budget and far exceeds the countries ability to fulfill, maintenance of military bases in countries around the world requiring over one trillion dollars annually to sustain.

In short the country is already bankrupt, the dollar's purchasing power has been drained for decades and other countries are unwilling to let us borrow money through sale of U.S. Treasury Bonds. The dollar is on the verge of the loss of its world reserve currency status.

The government must borrow almost half of every dollar it spends.

Isn't it time that those of us who care about our freedom, appreciate what the Founders envisioned and created and what the power lusters and altruists have done to destroy that vision as they have encroach on the limits set in Article 1 Section 8 and have greatly enlarge the central government to the behemoth it has become, who can no longer rely on the existing major political parties to fight for our freedom, set about organizing and consolidating our own forces in order to overcome the powers that be which have caused the country to take the wrong path.

As I see it this is being done by the Students For Liberty and the Young Americans for Liberty and the Campaign For Liberty on and off the college campuses in America and across the globe. It has the help of the Atlas Society and the Mises Institute and others. It has the potential to grow exponentially and we should help and support it.

[Darrell Hougen]

What I am driving at here is that our present oppressor which has burdened us with taxation applied unevenly, with regulations which subject businesses with unpredictable costs and threats and intimidation, with foreign wars, undeclared and with no clear object or national purpose, killing of American citizens overseas and innumerable deaths of foreign people who come to view America as an occupying foreign force, unsustainable social programs accompanied by growing debt burden for payment of benefits not authorized in the Constitution which is not included in the budget and far exceeds the countries ability to fulfill, maintenance of military bases in countries around the world requiring over one trillion dollars annually to sustain.

Hi William,

I'm not sure how to parse your statement, but it sounds like you're saying that it costs one trillion dollars annually to maintain foreign military bases. However, I'm guessing the figure is closer to $20 billion for our military bases if you include personnel costs: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/04/17/report-us-paying-billions-more-for-military-bases-overseas-despite-troop-reductions/

Darrell

[GALTGULCH8]

Darrell,

You are responding to a tiny part of my post for which I thank you.

I am basing the trillion dollar number on a comment made by then congressman Ron Paul during his run for the GOP nomination. I assumed that he ought to know. He mentioned that there were so many bases in so many countries. I don't remember those numbers, roughly 1200 bases in 150 countries or something like that.

But since you mention your estimate of 20 billion I googled the cost of foreign US military bases and found this fairly recent article:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-worldwide-network-of-us-military-bases/5564

Somewhere down a number of 640 Billion is mentioned and doesn't include it all.

Quite an empire we got. Feel safe!

Meanwhile deeply in debt with off budget items of promises govt makes to pay for disability claims, Social Security retirement claims and Medicare claims not counted because the laws might change.. think default.

Keep in mind that roughly 10,000 people become eligible daily as they reach retirement age of eligibility.

Nothing will stop this unless the numbers of young people of all ages wise up, read the books we read, become aware (of Objectivism) and of Austrian economics and of the Founder's vision for a limited constitutional republic, of the Constitution especially Article Sections 8, 9 and 10 etc.

Objectivism has been around and has stayed alive but has it grown or taken off in the schools and colleges? Have the numbers of admirers and adherents grown into the millions? Not yet!

But it is latching on to the Students For Liberty entity which is not a dues pay to join organization. Rather SFL enables self starters types to do whatever they can think of to spread the word, pass the torch, teach their colleagues in colleges and universities and high schools and to network with all the other pro freedom, individualistic organizations in the world.

It has been growing if not yet exponentially it certainly has that potential given that these young people are aware of the state of the world in which they will spend their lives and try to establish their own careers.

I see it growing and growing and growing.

www.studentsforliberty.org

explore the site

[Darrell Hougen]

Hi William,

If you're counting the entire U.S. military budget which includes all U.S. military bases and personnel including those that are stationed in this country, then, yes, the budget is close to $700 billion (about $688 depending upon which year you look at) but that includes a lot of things including procurement of new equipment and most bases are located in the U.S. The impression I got from your original posting is that you were talking about foreign military bases. (Actually, Wikipedia states that, "As of 2013, the U.S. spends about $554.2 billion annually to fund its military forces, and appropriates approximately $88.5 billion to fund Overseas Contingency Operations." but various pie charts put the number higher. I didn't go to the Fed website to see what the official numbers are.)

I appreciate that you are campaigning for smaller government and libertarianism and I have a lot of sympathy for what you're trying to accomplish. However, I'm also concerned about accuracy, because accuracy contributes to credibility or a lack thereof. It's tempting to throw scary or shocking numbers around in order to try to get attention, but I don't think it is helpful in the long run, especially if they're not accurate. People who are knowledgeable will know immediately that you are exaggerating in order to try to make your case stronger, but I think it makes it weaker by undermining your credibility.

I often hear people on the right or in libertarian circles engaging in fear-mongering. "Oh, the economy is going to collapse!" Of course, if it does, you'll sound prescient, but if it doesn't, you'll lose credibility. The economy has a lot of moving parts and it's hard to say what will happen at any given time. Oil production in this country is up substantially, relieving some of the pressure on oil prices; the Asian economies are growing rapidly, increasing opportunities for trade; science and technology continue to advance rapidly, increasing opportunities for new kinds of businesses to arise. All that may at least temporarily stave off problems caused by loss of economic freedom and loss of personal freedom. That doesn't mean I like the rise of the regulatory state or the surveillance state. But, we should make sure that our arguments make sense even if the economy doesn't immediately collapse.

Darrell

[GALTGULCH8]

Darrell,

As i understand it the national debt burden has been calculated to far exceed the 16 trillion which is the official debt but doesn't count the off budget items. Those include the cost of the promises the government has made to retirees for Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare. These grow by ten thousand newly eligible people each day!

This amount far exceeds the cost of maintaining military bases which you have focused on. The number is over 221 trillion.

What I meant to be the focus of my original post was the growth potential of the Students For Liberty and Young Americans For Liberty both of which are growing in number of chapters on college campuses all over the US and the rest of the world. They are both proliberty and evidently encourage new people to read the same kind of books. Their focus is individual liberty.

At some point they become politically relevant. They are not partisan.

At some point they become the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

The powers that be will ignore them until they are perceived as the threat they might become.

That might be a long way off or sooner than you might think. Exponential growth is daunting. Chris Martenson talks about that in his Crash Course which is on www.peakprosperity.com and very much worth watching.

I had hoped that Ayn Rand's philosophy would grow in numbers of advocates since I discovered it in 1968 at which point there were about 20 thousand subscribers to her The Objectivist Newsletter. I assumed that the numbers would double each year or so. After all i was one of them and I was strongly motivated to make others aware of it and did so at every opportunity each day. Not everyone responded the way I had but surely some would if they were open to ideas, like college students!

Well Ron Paul himself might not be an Objectivist and might be the farthest thing from one, but he ignited a movement among those who cared about the status of our society and its apparent direction and loss of interest in the Constitution. One of his admirers founded Students For Liberty with just twelve college students in 2008.

Once again I am prompted to hope that this fertile realm of college students are probably the most open to new ideas and might just be the generation which will pull off the exponential growth I have been hoping for. The movement will take root in more and more colleges until it involves them all, all over the world. Its adherents will grow in number on each campus as well and over time will lead to an increase in advocates in the general population.

Keep in mind that these folks are encouraged to read Austrian economics works of von Mises, Rothbard and others. Now with the alliance of The Atlas Society they will be reading Ayn Rands works as well and not just her novels.

As Martenson points out in his discussion of Exponential growth in his third and fourth brief, three to six minute talks, compounding is virtually invisible until a certain point where it becomes evident and overwhelming.

Imagine that happening where Students For Liberty becomes an overwhelming presence on every college campus and continues to be forever after as graduates spill out into the real world. This could be and will be a profound influence and will change everything and might lead to a course correction for our society and others in the world where SFL already is taking root.

Perhaps the movement will be ignored by the establishment until it is too late to stop it.

There isn't much time left given that our society is quite literally bankrupt already.

Now that I have a grandson who is just two years old I have more than my usual concern about the direction of our society and the world.

Most of the countries of the world are governed by dictators although there is a growing influence of freedom but the demographics are hinting that a certain one is growing faster than any others and might snuff out the others including ours.

[GALTGULCH8]

As is often the case no one here is commenting on this SFL thing with their estimation of its prospects.

It is hard for me to imagine a young person today who has sufficient aspirations to take the trouble to go to college who does not have some appreciation of the critical condition of our economy and our society with its politics such as it is.

I surmise that many just figure they have to do their own very best in whatever career choice they make in the hope that somebody out there might figure the mess out and solve the problems. Many who are already in positions of leadership believe that the solution includes more government programs or more government investments to create more jobs or new industries. So they don't get it and evidently have little if any incentive to consider free market alternatives. Perhaps too indoctrinated about the alleged evils of free markets.

Requests for donations keep coming these days. Usually with an endorsement from a young person who has their Ph.D. with the help of the Institute For Humane Studies (www.theihs.org) at George Mason University. So I do donate as I have over the years. Now college kids in over 1500 colleges will encounter one of the IHS assisted professors and discover our world and our perspective. This is valuable but it is such a long time line that I fear we don't have that kind of time.

I wonder if college folks have heard of the Students For Liberty so when I encounter young men or women working at what is probably a summer job I ask if they have heard of it. So far most have not but are glad to hear such a thing exists and tell me they will look into it. I have met a couple who have heard of it which is encouraging.

My understanding of compounding and exponential growth leads me to consider it to be plausible that given all the factors involved this could take less than the ten years I thought it might take for Objectivists to number in the tens of millions in ten years back in 1968 when they started with 20,000 subscribers to The Objectivist Newsletter and I thought it might double each year.

I was on another compounding trip about Ron Paul supporters in 2008 when he started Campaign For Liberty with a number counter on his website. It did grow from 6000 when I joined to over 400,000 when for some reason the counter disappeared. I still encounter young people who were inspired by him for one reason or another.

But this time it is not Ayn Rand advocates who are into her philosophy even though everyone needs a "rational, comprehensive, integrated philosophy to live by" most prefer to remain satisfied or dis satisfied with the one, the irrational, mystical, supernatural, incomprehensible, wishful, whim worshiping, mind numbing one they were born into.

This time it is not centered on a Texas politician who doesn't believe in evolution, whose soul was saved by his personal savior when he was a teen, who thinks the world was created 6,000 years ago, who thinks a fertilized single cell ovum is a person with all the rights of a fully grown human being, a man of faith who is also a man of principle when it comes to politics and adherence to the oath of office to abide by the limits set in the Constitution. So not all bad but mixed premises, unscientific despite the fact he is a physician, inspires many who share his religious beliefs but opposed to a right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy, because life trumps her liberty and her right to her life, liberty and pursuit of her happiness.

Perhaps third time is the charm.

This time the movement is pro liberty for the individual. Students For Liberty exists and is out there. Not top down. Self starters motivated to spread the word of liberty in their college and on to other colleges with the help of headquarters which provides them with free books, advice on what others have found works, annual regional conferences etc. Best of all is the fact it has a marvelous track record already with growth worldwide and across the country. SFL put its annual report online for 2013 graphs are looking good. Numbers are growing. On every continent now! Fertile soil in the colleges with new potential recruits yearly forever. Exponential potential!

SFL is not political but once their numbers are sufficient there will be those who choose to throw their hats into the ring.

I don't know what the kindling point will be. Once it is reached the numbers will double and redouble in a shorter time, then redouble again. These people will be armed with what Ayn Rand called "intellectual ammunition."

Remember that the Atlas Society is now affiliated and part of the SFL network which includes other pro free market groups and organizations too.

There is reason to be hopeful although things will get worse before they get better.

Victor Hugo comes to mind with his notion that there is nothing, no armies, which can stop an idea whose time has come.

gg

[anthony]

I always enjoy your indomitable spirit, gulch.

[GALTGULCH8]

I haven't actually met and talked to members of the Students For Liberty. I wonder how active they are, how much time they spend doing the outreach. Do they consider it outreach or passing the torch or recruitment?

What books do they read? Which authors do they read? How do they differ and what do they think about what they are doing?

What kinds of actions do they take to reach others? What motivates them? What do they think about the state of our society which prompts them to become active in this mission?

How do they pass the torch to other colleges? Does that happen intentionally or just by word of mouth?

How excited are they about the progress and growth of the movement?

I wonder what the expectations are for the movement from the standpoint of those within it now.

The day does not go by without my making someone aware of this movement!

So far it has been encounters with young people whom I meet when I am shopping in a supermarket or a Home Depot where a young man employed there helps me by cutting some plywood for a project.

Today it was a young lady working for the summer in a supermarket as a cashier. She never heard of SFL and told me she goes to Brown in RI. I told her a few facts about the start of SFL, twelve students, one from each of twelve colleges in 2008 and now over 930 colleges; East and West Coast conventions a few years ago and now ten regional ones plus international members on every continent!

She was impressed and responded positively when I told her the theme is individual freedom.

I think everyone is concerned about the state of our economy, the unemployment, the cost of living, gas and food prices going up, the national debt, not to mention the favoritism in politics.

The politicians all seem to be saying the same old bromides and speaking in generalities about fighting for the middle class.

There is a kind of pervasive hopelessness as people go about their business each day.

When I tell people I meet about this movement, SFL, and its growth some find it invigorating and are excited about it and say they will look into it.

Their website www.sfl.org

Another growing college organization devoted to liberty is Young AMericans For Liberty www.YALiberty.org with over 300 campus chapters nationwide.

gg