Some Observations

Some Observations

Thomas Allen

The following describes the ideal state and its government and comments on Europe’s lust for war with Russia.

The Ideal State and Its Ideal Government

What follows is a description of the ideal state and its ideal government according to most left-wingers, especially progressives, socialists, fascists, and many nationalists.

In an ideal state, bureaucrats rule. Bureaucrats are isolated from special interests — so they believe. However, as COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter riots illustrate, special interests have as much control over bureaucrats as they have over politicians. Nevertheless, statists are correct that bureaucrats are more difficult to replace than elected politicians. For statist, difficulty in replacing bureaucrats is a good thing and, therefore, bureaucratic rule is the ideal government for the ideal state.

Bureaucrats are supposed to be guided by the common good, which is what is best for the community. Yet, the concept of the common good is highly subjective. For example, some believe that a disarmed citizenry is for the common good, while others believe that a heavily armed citizenry is for the common good. In the end, personal prejudices and biases, the lust for power and wealth, and ideology guide most bureaucrats, especially those at the higher levels, in deciding what is the public good. Many lower-level bureaucrats are guided by the notion of doing their jobs.

The state is an abstraction that cannot exist without people. What is the state? The people who control the government. (See “The State” by Thomas Allen.) When bureaucrats rule, the state is the high-ranking bureaucrats and the people who own or control them, i.e., the oligarchs, who are ultimately the state.

Of course, people who promote the bureaucratic-ruled state are convinced that the bureaucrats who control the government think like they do. The bureaucrats will promote policies and agendas with which these promoters agree and suppress those with which they disagree. While progressives, socialists, fascists, and other statists find the bureaucratic-ruled state desirable, traditional conservatives, constitutionalists, libertarians, and other libertists find it deplorable.

Unfortunately, the United States are close to achieving the ideal state and its ideal government.  As the statists rejoice over their coming victory, the libertists are mourning the death of their country and its Constitution. (For the differences between a statist and a libertist, see “Statists Versus Libertists” by Thomas Allen.)

Europe’s Lust for War with Russia

Many of the European political leaders are working diligently to start a war with Russia. Following the example of most modern belligerents, they are trying to provoke Russia to fire the first shot so that they can blame Russia for starting the war and, thus, draw the United States into another useless European war. (The leadership of the United States either is stupid enough or controlled enough to carry the United States into another no-win war, but this war will totally destroy the United States.)

These European leaders are beginning to prepare their countries for war with Russia. Several countries are increasing their production of war materials and increasing the size of their armies. Moreover, they are telling their citizens to prepare for war. Some are considering reinstituting the draft.

With whom or what do they plan to fight such a war? They have completely demobilized their native White ethnicities. Whites have been taught that they are the cancer of the universe and do not deserve to exist. Their political leaders have relegated them to second-class citizens in their own countries. Such a demoralized people make a poor army that can be easily defeated.

Do these European leaders plan to use the immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia, and Northern Africa who have flooded Europe over recent decades? These immigrants owe Europe no allegiance. Most came to plunder and conquer. Why should they risk their lives to defend Europe?

Consequently, Europe cannot rely on these immigrants or the demoralized native Whites to fight Russia. Additionally, Europe has depleted much of its war materials by sending them to Ukraine.

Apparently, using Russia’s war with Ukraine as their model, some of these European leaders act as though they will fight Russia for months, if not for years. If the war goes nuclear, which it most likely will, Russia could utterly destroy all major cities in Europe in less than 10 minutes. (If Russia thought that the United States would retaliate, it could destroy the US missile silos before they could fire and take out most of the bombers on the ground. Moreover, it could destroy many major cities, airports, and military and naval bases in less than 30 minutes. Its hypersonic missiles can travel from New York to Los Angeles in less than half an hour. Neither Europe nor the United States have any defense against Russia’s hypersonic missiles. Moreover, Russia also has nuclear torpedoes that can flood much of coastal Europe.)

Do these European leaders believe that they can defeat Russia? Probably not. However, defeating Russia is not the objective. It will not be fought to defeat Russia but to annihilate the Whites of Europe.

Being possessed by Satan’s demons, these European leaders seek to obliterate the White race from the planet because the White race (species) is the race created in God’s image. (See “What Race Was Adam?” by Thomas Allen.) Eradicating the White race with massive nonwhite immigration is taking too long. What better way to achieve their goal than a nuclear war?

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Why I am not a White Nationalist — Where They Are Wrong Politically

Why I am not a White Nationalist — 

Where They Are Wrong Politically

Thomas Allen

The following are some key political areas where White Nationalists err.

– Populism. White Nationalists are populists. Populism claims to champion the common man and to protect him from the oligarchs and plutocrats. The government governs for the common good. (What is the common good, and who decides it?) Populists oppose big business and financial interests. (So do I.) To thwart subversion by special interest, governmental deliberations should be public and transparent. (Can transparency really exist under the authoritarian version of populism? If so, how?) Generally, populists favor fiat money, inflation (to cheat creditors by paying debt with less valuable money), graduated income tax and other “soak it to the rich” schemes (which usually backfire by soaking it to the middle and working classes), governmental ownership of utilities, labor regulations that greatly favor workers, and heavily regulated transportation systems if not outright governmental ownership. Also, they favor immigration restrictions and welfare programs for the working and middle classes. While some populists favor an authoritarian government, others favor direct democracy through popular initiatives and referenda. Popularism gave the United States the Sixteenth Amendment (the graduated income tax) and the Seventeenth Amendment (direct election of Senators).

– Statism. White Nationalists are statists and seem to have little use for libertists. (For a description of the two, see “Statists Versus Libertists” by Thomas Allen.) Under statism, its priesthood, the government, grows until the state consumes all and becomes a god and the decider and provider of everything. Although statism is the cause of most of the social problems that they identify, White Nationalists do not want to abandon statism; they want to use the state to impose their economic and other policies and programs. Communist China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union are examples of the fruition of statism. The love of statism is one of the most egregious problems with White Nationalism. (For more details on statism, see “The State” and “The Difference Between Government and State” by Thomas Allen.) 

– Common good. Except where it conflicts with the common good, White Nationalists support private liberty. However, who decides what is the common good? According to White Nationalists, the state decides the common good and has unlimited powers to achieve it. And who or what is the state? The state is the oligarchs (the ruling elite) through bureaucrats and politicians. (The difference between pursuing the common good under White Nationalism and pursuing it under communism, socialism, fascism, and the current US regime is hard to distinguish although what they consider the common good may differ significantly.) Like all statists, White Nationalists believe that rights and liberties come from the state.

Although White Nationalists support free speech, presumably in the name of the common good, some governmental authority can declare that free speech, freedom of worship, the right to bear arms, and all the other rights and liberties identified in the Bill of Rights conflict with the common good and, therefore, prohibit them.

Many left-wingers believe that the common good requires censorship. Governmental bureaucrats should decide what people read and hear, i.e., what political views to which they are exposed. Since “democracy” is the great common good, censorship is necessary to protect it. Do White Nationalists believe that censorship is a common good? They seem ambivalent; free speech is a common good when it benefits them, while censorship is a common good when some bureaucrat or governmental leader declares it to be a common good.

On the other hand, many right-wingers also believe that democracy is the common good. Yet, they believe that free speech is essential to protecting democracy and is, therefore, a common good. — not censorship. (Nazis and fascists are not right-wingers; they are left-wingers.)

Additionally, left-wingers assert that banning the private ownership of firearms serves the common good because fewer people will be shot (and because disarmed people resisting tyranny is much more difficult). Do White Nationalists agree? Presumably, they do because banning privately owned firearms serves the common good. Or does a common good depend on who decides what it is?

Moreover, many White Nationalists believe that people should be forcibly injected with an experimental gene therapy drug if some bureaucrat finds that it is for the common good. The common good of society always trumps individual liberties.

Furthermore, White Nationalists criticize right-wingers for denying that a common good exists. They are wrong. Right-wingers merely disagree with White Nationalists on what is the common good. For most Right-wingers, individual liberty is the paramount common good.

As shown above, the common good depends on who wields political power.

– Constitution. Being statists, White Nationalists prefer the constitution that Lincoln gave the country to the one that the founding fathers gave it. (For the difference between the two, see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?” by Thomas Allen. Also, see “More on the US Constitution”  and “More Thoughts Related to the US Constitution” by Thomas Allen.) Additionally, as statists, they prefer a centralist society to a decentralist society. Centralists emphasize the larger community: the state, a puissant central government, the collective, big businesses, central banks, and even the utopian world state. (White Nationalists object to a world state because it conflicts with their policy of each race having its own independent countries. Although many may object to a central bank, their economic program requires a central bank.) Decentralists emphasize the smaller community: the individual, the family, voluntary associations, small businesses, and local and State or provincial governments. (For a more detailed discussion of the two, see “Centralism Versus Decentralism” by Thomas Allen.)

– Lack of trust in the people. Like progressives, liberals, socialists, and fascists, White Nationalists do not trust the people. However, like them, they do trust politicians and especially bureaucrats implicitly — despite politicians and bureaucrats being the cause of most of the problems to which White Nationalists object. Like progressives, liberals, socialists, and fascists, White Nationalists seem to believe that sinful humans become angels when they become government employees. If they do not believe this, why do they want them to have so much power?

– Prefer bureaucratic rule. White Nationalists prefer the rule of bureaucrats to politicians governing because politicians think no further than the next election. However, the democratically unaccountable bureaucrats (the “Deep State”) can engage in long-range planning. Thus, White Nationalists believe that a governmentally bureaucratically controlled society — which is a fascist, socialist, and communist idea — is superior to a laissez-faire society.

– Prefer the rule of men. White Nationalists prefer the rule of men to the rule of law. (What the United States enjoy today is the rule of men clothed in the rule of law.) In making decisions, they prefer a strong leader like the Fuhrer or Il Duce, who is held responsible for his decisions, to a legislative body. (Who is going to hold the leader accountable for his decisions?) Moreover, they oppose the checks and balances contained in the US Constitution and State constitutions. Thus, they seem to oppose constitutional government or at least a constitution that is intended to protect the rights and liberties of the people — even White people. Perhaps, this is the main reason that they prefer Lincoln’s constitution since it places little restraint on the federal government.

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Chodorov on Joseph

Chodorov on Joseph

Thomas Allen

In One Is Crowd: Reflections of an Individualist (New York: The Devin-Adair Company,  1952, pages 104-108), Frank Chodorov explains how Joseph became a statist. The following paraphrases Chodorov’s explanation.

Chodorov begins his story about how Joseph ended up in Egypt. Soon after he arrived, Potiphar, an Egyptian bigwig, acquired Joseph. Because of his cleverness, Joseph soon became the chief foreman of Potiphar’s estate. However, Potiphar’s sex-starved wife, whom Chodorov speculates was a homely woman whose husband misunderstood her, attempted to seduce Joseph. He rebuffed her advances. Like a scorned female, she framed her jilter, and her husband sent Joseph to jail.

While in jail, Joseph acquired a reputation as an interpreter of dreams — thus, beating Freud by many centuries. (He began his dream interpreting years earlier at home. His interpretations got him in trouble with his brothers, and they sold him to a caravan going to Egypt.)

Pharaoh began having disturbing dreams. None of his advisors had the psychiatric skills to help him. Then, one of his servants remembered that Joseph had correctly interpreted his dream when he and Joseph were fellow prisoners, and recommended Joseph to Pharaoh.

Joseph cleaned himself up and offered his services to Pharaoh. Pharaoh described his dream, and Joseph replied that the answer was simple. He explained that Egypt was about to experience the well-known business cycle, commonly called the “boom and bust” cycle. “‘The knowledge came to him by divine revelation,’ he said, which was far more reliable than the wisdom of the Harvard school of economics” (p. 105).

Joseph’s positiveness of his prediction astonished Pharaoh. Showing his true statist mantles, Joseph presented Pharaoh with a plan to solve the problem, that is, a plan to cheat Jehovah out of his bust. Joseph’s plan called for laying up a reserve during the years of plenty. To execute the plan, Pharaoh appointed Joseph as Secretary of Agriculture. Since the Senate did not exist in those days, Pharaoh did not have to wait for Senatorial approval, so his appointment was immediate. Having no Bible or Constitution to swear by, “Pharaoh made the appointment stick by putting his own signet ring on Joseph’s hand and a solid gold chain around his neck. For lack of an automobile, an official chariot was assigned to the new dignitary” (p. 106).

No longer did Joseph need to interpret dreams. He was now an administrator who had a plan to execute. Because Egypt’s economy was completely agricultural, Joseph’s position made him the top commissar, the real boss of the economy.

“The first thing he did was to pass laws; without them no plan can work. And the first law on his agenda was, quite naturally, a tax-law. One-fifth of all that these profligate farmers should produce, during the years of plenty, must be taken from them and put under lock and key. It is reported that this 20 percent income tax yielded quite an amount; the grain piled up ‘as sand of the sea,’ and undoubtedly there was a shortage of bins, barns and elevators, for ‘it was without number’” (p. 106).

After seven years of boom, the depression hit. However, whether the depression resulted from overproduction or underconsumption is unknown. (“[A]t that time the learned professors had not yet discovered the sun-spot theory or even the velocity theory of money. The magicians of that day were without benefit of postgraduate courses in economics” [pp. 106-107].)

This depression was called a “famine.” However, what is not told is the cause of the famine. Did a “drought, pestilence or other unforeseeable accident, or,  perhaps . . . the constant sapping of the economy by seven years of heavy taxation” (p.107) cause it?

However, the chronicler does suggest that Joseph may “have anticipated the consequence of his taxing scheme: the abject subservience of the Egyptian proletariat” (p. 107). Soon hunger filled Pharaoh’s kingdom. People came to Joseph, the Secretary of Agriculture, and begged him to return the grain that he had taken from them. Instead of giving them the grain, he sold them the grain. (Thus, he was not a proponent of the welfare state.)

When the people ran out of money, they traded their horses, cattle, and other livestock for grain. “Still the hunger was upon the people, which was natural, for their capital was all gone, and without capital there is little production” (p. 107). Joseph had brought state capitalism to Egypt. The only jobs available for the hungry masses were with the state. As the state was the sole employer, the people had to work for what the state condescended to offer. “They offered themselves as ‘servants unto Pharaoh’ in exchange for bread. Then Joseph said unto the people: ‘Behold I have brought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land.’ In common parlance that means that he had nationalized the land and the labor of Egypt” (p. 107).

Joseph’s plan was great for Pharaoh and Joseph. However, most likely, “some of the proletariat were perturbed over a moral principle: the right of a man to his property” (p. 107).

Joseph ordered farmers to be moved from one part of Egypt to another. Was the migration the result of a slave revolt?  Was it Joseph executing the well-known migratory purge? The chronicler does not explain the cause.

A delegation of Egyptians came to Joseph and told him that they were willing to be Pharaoh’s servants. Thus, “the proletariat had come to terms with collectivism (since that was the only way to get by in this world) and were content with whatever security the Secretary [Joseph] would provide” (p. 108). Nevertheless, Joseph “had to make some concession to private property, perhaps to encourage more taxable production; he restored to some of the Egyptians the land he had taken from them in their adversity, on a rental basis” (p. 108). His rent was one-fifth of the annual production.

Chodorov concludes his story of Joseph:

Though the succeeding monarchs and the succeeding commissars did well under the plan introduced by Joseph, it seems (according to later historians) that it put upon the proletarians a moral blight, so that when conquerors from other lands came to Egypt they met with little resistance; those who had nothing to lose had nothing to fight for. So that even the monarchs had to beg the invaders for administrative jobs. And lots of dust fell on the civilization of Pharaoh (p. 108).

(Since statism is a form of idolatry, was Joseph an idolater?)

Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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False Paradigms

False Paradigms

Thomas Allen

Some, mostly conservatives, argue that the ruling elite manipulates and controls people by creating a false Left-Right paradigm. Their argument is flawed. Most of these paradigms are not false.

An example of the so-called false Left-Right paradigm occurs with the economy. One group wants a governmentally planned and controlled economy — the Left. Whereas, the other group wants a free-market, free-enterprise economy that is free of governmental meddling — the Right. Are these views false? One reality believes that a governmentally planned economy is morally superior to a free-market economy. The other reality believes the opposite. Either one view is false, or both views are false. Both cannot be true. Apparently, the promoters of the false paradigm believe that both are wrong. (This Left-Right paradigm does not include people who believe in a mixed economy of some governmental economic planning but not total governmental planning. This view is the synthesis of the two opposing paradigms, and is probably the goal of the ruling elite, but with more emphasis on governmental control.)

Moreover, conservatives have been moving leftward for a century or more. If the liberals had not moved farther leftward, the conservatives would have passed them by now and be farther left than liberals. Therefore, liberals must move farther and faster leftward toward the ridiculous to keep the conservatives from overtaking and passing them. This race explains why the United States have implemented 80 percent of the planks of the Communist Manifesto. (This ever leftward movement shows the success of the ruling elite in manipulating people to give the ruling elite ever more power.)

If the false paradigm promoters are correct, the conflict between libertists, those who want liberty, and statist, those who want governmental parentalism, is false. If this conflict is false, then which one is false? Are the liberties incorrect, or are the statists incorrect? At least one or both have to be false for a false paradigm to exist. Obviously, both cannot be true.

Another, and perhaps the most important paradigm, is the conflict between people who just want to be left alone and people who are determined not to leave them alone. As long as these two groups exist, conflict will exist. For peace to exist, one must destroy the other. Naturally, the ruling elite side with the controllers because they are kindred.

Many more paradigms exist that the ruling elite can and have used to control people and, by that, increase their power. Examples are segregation versus integration, free trade versus protectionism, individualism versus collectivism, forced vaccination versus freedom of choice, and Christianity versus Judaism versus Islam versus secular humanism.

These paradigms are not false. They exist and are real. All that the ruling elite has to do is to identify them and then amplify them. Their primary methodology of amplification is to heavily support and promote one, usually the Left, while corrupting the leaders of the others. By doing this, the ruling elite pushes the people in the direction that ruling elite want the people to go.

Ironically, most promoters of the false paradigm do not seem to believe that the opposing views are false. They describe these opposing views or paradigms as though they are real, which they are, and, therefore, are not truly false.

Consequently, they urge the opposing sides to compromise their views and join in the struggle against the ruling elite. However, this leads to another paradigm of the decentralists, those against the objectives of the ruling elite, and the centralists, those for the objectives of the ruling elite. How can these two compromise?

Nevertheless, the Left and the Right may be able to compromise on immigration. The Left wants unrestricted, unlimited immigration. The Right wants immigrants to enter the country legally. If the legal requirements for entry were reduced simply to placing the name of everyone who wants to enter the country on a list, then the concerns of both would be met.

In any event, compromise is nearly always a victory for the ruling elite. When the libertists (the Right) compromise with the statists (the Left), the statists usually win. While the statists may not get as much as they want when they compromise, they get much more than the libertists because the libertists usually surrender something and get nothing in return. Thus, the ruling elite wins as the power of the state, which they control, grows. Likewise a compromise between the centralists (the Left) and the decentralists (the Right), most of the time, is a victory for the centralists and, therefore, a victory for the ruling elite. Compromise is not the answer.

(An example of the typical compromise is taxation. The pro-excise tax people want to levy an excise tax of 20 percent on product A, which currently carries no excise tax. Opposing this tax is the anti-excise tax people, who want to eliminate all excise taxes. The typical compromise would be an excise tax less than 20 percent, such as 10 percent. Thus, the pro-excise tax people win, although they do not get as much as they want. Because a new excise tax has been adopted, the anti-excise tax people lose. Since it now has more revenue, the big winner is the ruling elite, who controls the government and, consequently, the state. A true compromise would have been repealing the excise tax on product X. Then both sides would gain something and lose something. Whether the ruling elite gains or loses dependents on whether there is a gain or lose in tax revenue.)

Even a truce between the Left and the Right benefits the ruling elite. It allows them time to consolidate their gains and to prepare their next assault on liberty. (This is why the ruling elite rotates political power between Democrats and Republicans, both of whom are statists and centralists. The elite puts the Democrats in power to push the elite’s agenda forward (leftward) into new territory. Then, the elite  put the Republicans in power to consolidate those gains and make them more efficient. The Department of Education is a prime example.

Nevertheless, the Left and Right do agree on some issues. Both despise the Southerner and the South and believe that Southerners and the South should be eradicated. Both believe in and promote integration and amalgamation and ardently detest segregation and separation. Thus, they are racial nihilists and practitioners of the new morality. Both worship Saint Martin Luther King. Perhaps the Left and Right  can unify on these issues, all of which were once solely left-wing positions.  Unfortunately, the ruling elite is also a strong proponent of these issues.

Contrary to what the promoters of the false Left-Right paradigm claim, the various paradigms that they identify as false are real. The ruling elite does not create them. They merely amplify and use them to advance their agenda of obtaining absolute power over mankind — that is, to become gods.

However, with its journey leftward, the Right should eventually become indistinguishable from the Left. Consequently the Left-Right paradigm will vanish, and the ruling elite will win.

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Conservatives and Their Worship of Equality

Conservatives and Their Worship of Equality

Thomas Allen

Mainstream conservatives, establishment conservatives, neoconservatives, social justice conservatives, and their kindred (hereafter, referred to as “these conservatives”) dominate and control what now passes for “conservatism.” Anyone on the Right who dissents from their underlying philosophy of equality and democracy and their praise of Lincoln and the work of the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction — except to condemn the Radical Republicans for not finishing the task of genociding the Southerner — is ignored, purged, or deplatformed. Moreover, these conservatives are statists, centralists, and racial nihilist. They are the Girondists of the American political spectrum. Examples of these conservatives are Newt Gingrich, Jack Kemp, William Bennett, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, George Will, Karl Rove, William Kristol, and Harry Jaffa.

For these conservatives, equality is the higher law, to which even the Constitution is subordinate. (Using the higher-law argument, the abolitionists precipitated the Civil War, and the Radical Republicans destroyed the fundamental principles of the original Constitutions.) Equality governs all. It is the primary and essential principle of conservatism — the very essence of conservatism.

Many of these conservatives distinguish between the equality of rights and opportunity, which they claim to support, and equality of condition, which they claim to oppose. However, this distinction is sophistry. In this world, obtaining equality of rights, opportunity, and condition is impossible. Moreover, the demand for equal rights and especially equal opportunity naturally and eventually leads to the demand for equality of condition. (Equality of rights and opportunity can only be proven by equality of condition.)

Rejecting the notions that the United States are a genetic country, these conservatives support the notion that the United States are a propositional country. Their purpose is to spread equality and democracy throughout the world. (Like all statists and centralists, these conservatives refer to the United States in the singular, “the United States is” instead of the plural, “the United States are.” Consequently, they contradict the Founding Fathers and nearly all other Americans before the revolution of Lincoln and the Radical Republicans. The Founding Fathers and most other antebellum Americans referred to the United States in the plural.)

To these conservatives, the only clause in all the founding documents of any importance is the phrase “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence. This declaration of equality is the primary, if not the sole, reason and purpose for the existence of the United States. According to these conservatives, the purpose of America’s political founding was not the establishment of republican self-government. Instead, the purpose was the establishment of equality.

These conservatives fail to recognize the paradox and hypocrisy in praising the Founding Fathers, the original Constitution, and their philosophy of States’ rights (federalism, localism, and decentralization) while simultaneously praising Lincoln, who destroyed the Constitution and the Union formed by it with his war, and the Radical Republicans, who destroyed States’ rights with the fourteenth amendment.

For these conservatives, Lincoln is the divine lawgiver, who recalls the country to its providential mission of equality. Like Moses calling his people back to the worship of the true God, Lincoln called his wayward people back to their conventual promise of equality.

Equality has now evolved into diversity. Thus, every nonwhite in the world has an equal right to settle in the United States. Moreover, no White American has any moral or political right to prevent this racial and cultural transformation of their country.

Along with the worship of equality has come the elevation of Martin Luther King, a Communist frontman, to the Olympian of great conservative forefathers. Such an elevation of a Communist sympathizer may seem strange until one realizes that these conservatives have usurped nearly everything that King advocated.

An essential part of these conservatives’ program of sacrificing all on the altar of equality is the eradication of the traditional South. They thoroughly loathe the Antebellum South and everything related to the Confederacy. The South needs to be remade into an egalitarian society where Blacks and Whites can breed themselves out of existence. Moreover, the South needs to be fully purged of its sin of opposing the Puritan Yankee and his industrialization and globalization. Further, these conservatives see the Civil War (their term for the War for Southern Independence) and Reconstruction as a righteous cause well-worth the million-plus lives lost because of them. However, they bemoan the failure of Reconstruction to destroy completely the Southerner and his culture and ethnicity.

According to these conservatives, the War and Reconstruction were primarily, if not solely, about equality, democracy, and race. Economics, culture, religion, and other issues and differences were of little or no importance, except where they related to the sacred equality, democracy, and racial nihilism.

Most of these conservatives consider the traditional, pro-Confederate Southerner a greater threat to the country than the invading hordes of third-world nonwhites. To these conservatives, no differences exist between the South and Nazi Germany.

Opposed to these conservatives are the traditional Southern conservatives, who care little for abstract universals, such as equality. The traditional Southern conservatives do not reject the equal dignity of all human souls in a spiritual sense or to all being equal before the law. (Today, the United States have a two-tier justice system: one for the common man and one for the ruling elite and some of their agents.) However, they do oppose using governmental powers to obliterate social differences.

Joining the traditional Southern conservatives in their opposition to these conservatives are a few pariah conservatives. All these cast-off conservatives have one thing in common: They do not worship equality or Father Abraham. Moreover, they abhor the Radical Republicans and their reconstruction of the South. Instead, they continue to adhere to the original Constitution, and the traditions and founding principles of the United States.

Moreover, these conservatives defend the welfare state. However, these conservatives seek to manage the welfare state more efficiently than liberals, progressives, and socialists. Their worship of equality explains why these conservatives seek to make the welfare state of the liberals, progressives, and socialists operate more efficiently rather than dismantling it.

Furthermore, these conservatives favor foreign intervention and wars in the name of spreading equality and democracy. Even globalism grows out of their lust for equality — although globalism leads to a two-tier system: the global elite on top and the masses on the bottom, who are at least equally slaves of the elite.

Distinguishing between these conservatives and liberals, progressives, and socialists is often difficult. While giving lip service to the original Constitution, these conservatives praise the radical transformation that the Radical Republicans caused and that their descendants, the Progressives, enhanced and extended. By claiming equality as a conservative principle, even the guiding conservative principle, these conservatives stole the key ideology of the Left.

Like the liberals, progressives, and socialists, these conservatives adhere to the Robespierrean motto of “liberty, equality, fraternity.” Also, like the liberals, progressives, and socialists, these conservatives abhor the underlying principle of the American Revolution: “life, liberty, and property.” Like them, these conservatives prefer equality to liberty (because liberty creates inequality, equality and liberty are incompatible).

Most conservatives fall between these conservatives and their conservative opposition. They are the confused conservatives. Although most admire Lincoln, only a few admire the actions of the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction. Also, most esteem King highly. Moreover, most do not hate the South. After all, many are Southerners. While they oppose flooding the country with nonwhites, most tend to be racial nihilists. Although they object to nonwhites coming into the country illegally, few seem to have any objection to large numbers of nonwhites entering the country legally.  Most are not States’ rightists on principle. Unless the federal government opposes an issue that they support, most confused conservatives are centralists. Only when the federal government opposes their particular issue do they become States’ rightists. Furthermore, most confused conservatives confound liberty and freedom with democracy and equality — believing that they are essentially the same. Moreover, most lean toward the welfare state; rare is one who wants to dismantle it. For the most part, confused conservatives are more inclined to ally with these conservatives than with their opponents.

References
Gottfried, Paul. “From the Editor: Thoughts on Bradford v. Jaffa.” Chronicles, February 2020, pages 34-38.

McClanahan, Brion. “The Reinvention of Reconstruction.” Chronicles, February 2020, pages 31- 35.

Trask, H.A. Scott. “The Great Debate: Lincoln’s Legacy.” Chronicles, February 2020, pages 34-38.

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Mencken on Liberty in a Democracy

Mencken on Liberty in a Democracy

Thomas Allen

    In 1926, H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote Notes on Democracy in which he expressed his views on democracy and related issues. He was a journalist, satirist, and critic and a libertarian and one of the leaders of the Old Right. In his book, he describes liberty in a democracy, pages 157-162. Below is an overview of his discussion on liberty in a democracy; my comments are in brackets.
    Whenever the liberties of the people “are invaded and made a mock of in a gross and contemptuous manner,” as occurred “in the United States during the reign of Wilson,” some observers always marvel that people bear such “outrage with so little murmuring.” About such observation, Mencken remarks, “Such observers only display their unfamiliarity with the elements of democratic science. The truth is that the common man’s love of liberty, like his love of sense, justice and truth, is almost wholly imaginary.” [The response of most people to 9-11 supports Mencken. Their quick surrender of liberty to the ruling elite shows their lack of love of liberty.] Unfortunately, for the lovers of liberty, the common man, of whom the masses comprise, is not “happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. He longs for the warm, reassuring smell of the herd, and is willing to take the herdsman with it.” Thus, “[l]iberty is not a thing for such as he. He cannot enjoy it rationally himself, and he can think of it in others only as something to be taken away from them.”
    When liberty is a reality, it is the “exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority of men, like knowledge, courage and honour. A special sort of man is needed to understand it, nay, to stand it — and he is inevitably an outlaw in democratic societies.” Mencken continues, “The average man doesn’t want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” [Hence, the response of the average person to 9-11: throw away liberty for safety — and end up with neither. The common man, the inferior man, the democratic man, fails to realize that without liberty, real safety cannot exist.]
    Mencken cites Nietzsche as saying that liberty “was something that, to the general, was too cold to be borne.” However, Nietzsche “believed that there was an unnatural, drug-store sort of yearning for it in all men, and so he changed Schopenhauer’s will-to-live into a will-to-power, i.e., a will-to-free-function.” [Friedrich Nietzsche {1844 –1900} was a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, and philologist. Arthur Schopenhauer {1788 –1860} was a German philosopher.] Mencken believes that Nietzsche “went too far, and in the wrong direction: he should have made it, on the lower levels, a will-to-peace.” Mencken remarks, “What the common man longs for in this world, before and above all his other longings, is the simplest and most ignominious sort of peace the peace of a trusty in a well-managed penitentiary. He is willing to sacrifice everything else to it. He puts it above his dignity and he puts it above his pride. Above all, he puts it above his liberty.” [As statists promise such peace, statists always have an advantage over lovers of liberty, libertists, in a democracy.]
    The common man loves peace and safety far more than he loves liberty. This may “explains his veneration for policemen, in all the forms they take — his belief that there is a mysterious sanctity in law, however absurd it may be in fact.” Mencken adds, “A policeman is a charlatan who offers, in return for obedience, to protect him [the common man] (a) from his superiors, (b) from his equals, and (c) from himself. This last service, under democracy, is commonly the most esteemed of them all.” [In reality, the ultimate job of the police is to protect the ruling elite, the real powers behind the political leaders, from the masses, i.e., the common man.] “In the United States, at least theoretically, it is the only thing that keeps ice-wagon drivers, Y.M.C.A. secretaries, insurance collectors and other such human camels from smoking opium, ruining themselves in the night clubs, and going to Palm Beach with Follies girls.” [To Mencken, the primary job of the police is to prevent personal vice.]
    Although the common man is deceived about liberty, “he starts from a sound premise: to wit, that liberty is something too hot for his hands — or, as Nietzsche put it, too cold for his spine. Worse, he sees in it something that is a weapon against him in the hands of his enemy.”
    Mencken adds, “The history of democracy is a history of efforts to force successive minorities to be untrue to their nature. Democracy, in fact, stands in greater peril of the free spirit than any sort of despotism ever heard of.” He continues, “The despot, at least, is always safe in one respect: his own belief in himself cannot be shaken. But democracies may be demoralized and run amok, and so they are in vast dread of heresy, as a Sunday-school superintendent is in dread of scarlet women, light wines and beer, and the unreadable works of Charles Darwin.” Then he remarks, “It would be unimaginable for a democracy to submit serenely to such gross dissents as Frederick the Great not only permitted, but even encouraged.” He notes, “Once the mob is on the loose, there is no holding it. So the subversive minority must be reduced to impotence; the heretic must be put down.”
    If a primary purpose “of all civilized government is to preserve and augment the liberty of the individual, then surely democracy accomplishes it less efficiently than any other form.” [The dictatorship of the proletariat does a much worse job. But, then, Mencken considers the dictatorship of the proletariat to be a form of democracy.] If the individual is worth thinking about, then “the superior individual is worth more thought than his inferiors.” Yet, “the superior individual  . . . is the chief victim of the democratic process. It not only tries to regulate his acts; it also tries to delimit his thoughts. . . . The aim of democracy is to break all such free spirits to the common harness. It tries to iron them out, to pump them dry of self-respect, to make docile John Does of them.” [Nearly all laws coming out of Congress and the statehouses seem to have as their primary objective the breaking of all free spirits to a common harness.]
    Democracy measures its success by the extent that it brings down superior men and makes them common. “The measure of civilization is the extent to which they resist and survive. Thus the only sort of liberty that is real under democracy is the liberty of the have-nots to destroy the liberty of the haves.” [Thus, the inferior man is a strong supporter of the welfare state because it brings down the superior man and destroys the liberties of the haves.] Mencken adds, “This liberty is supposed, in some occult way, to enhance human dignity.” In one aspect, perhaps, it does: “The have-not gains something valuable when he acquires the delusion that he is the equal of his betters. It may not be true but even a delusion, if it augments the dignity of man, is something.” Under this apparent reality, “the peasant no longer pulls his forelock when he meets the baron, he is free to sue and be sued, he may denounce Huxley as a quack.” [Thomas Huxley {1825–1895} was an English biologist and a prominent proponent of evolution, in which Mencken ardently believed.] Unfortunately, as the inferior is raised, the superior is lowered. Mencken notes, “If democracy really loves the dignity of man, then it kills the thing it loves.” It reduces all to a common level.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Analysis of Money No Mystery

Analysis of Money No Mystery

Thomas Allen

    The following is an analysis of Money No Mystery: Mastery by Monopoly by Arnold Leese [1938] (Hollywood, California: Sons of Liberty). Leese  (1878–1956) was a British fascist politician. What is proposed in his book is a fascist monetary system. He discusses some Jewish issues that are not addressed since they are beyond the scope and objective of this article. His words and my paraphrases or summaries of his words, I have italicized. My commentary is in roman letters. I have provided references to pages in his book and have enclosed them in parentheses.
    Mr. Leese comments on gold’s suitability for money. One property that makes gold suitable for money is its rarity (p. 3.). Rarity is an important characteristic for money if it is not too rare. What makes gold the most suitable metal for money is its flow-to-stock ratio. Annually, newly mined gold accounts for about 2 percent of the above ground stock of gold available for monetary use. Thus, newly mined gold does not have much effect on the value of gold.
    Mr. Leese remarks that irredeemable paper money had reached “a stage of general stability” (p. 3.). That may have been true during the late 1930s when he wrote. However, that stability was lost during World War II and the decades that followed.
    Like all fiat money advocates, Mr. Leese believes that governmental fiat gives money its value. Government can give otherwise worthless pieces of paper great value by declaring them legal tender and by that eliminate any need for gold backing (p. 3.). If governmental fiat can give money value, bimetallism would have worked. Gold and silver would have exchanged at the same value at the ratio decreed by the government. (Presumably, they would exchange at the same value even if various countries had radically different ratios.) If government fiat and legal-tender laws gave money its value, a $10 U.S. note would have had the same purchasing power as a $10 gold coin in the United States between 1862 and 1879. Instead U.S. notes traded at a discount to gold until they became redeemable on demand in gold.
    Mr. Leese claims, “No one inside this country [Great Britain] cared a scrap whether the legalised paper money was convertible or not into gold; he didn’t want gold; he wanted goods, and got them, through the scraps of paper legalised by the State as National Money” (p. 3.). That may be true. Only a miser wants money because it is money regardless of form. Most people want money so that they can trade it or invest it now or some time in the future. Convertibility into gold serves as a regulator of credit, paper money, and keeps it within proper bounds. If the government or banks are issuing too much paper money or other types of credit money, people will redeem the excess and halt the expansion. Gold keeps the monetary system honest and thwarts the expansionist programs of statists, which is why fascists and other statists hate it.
    Mr. Leese has a better understanding of the gold standard than most post-World-War-II writers, including proponents of the gold standard. He knew that the British pound was the value of 113 grains of gold (p. 4).
    Like most opponents of the gold standard, Mr. Leese declares, “Few people wanted to do this [exchange bank note for gold], because gold has limited functions in general utility; you can’t eat it, drink it, make clothes of it or even flirt with it; before you can make use of it, you have to exchange it for something you want” (p. 4). Thus, he presents one of the most absurd arguments that opponents of gold give. One can eat and wear gold. However, such an argument against gold is stupid and is intended to deceive. The same thing can be said about paper fiat money and even more so about its electronic equivalent. How does one eat, drink, and wear electrons, which make up the bulk of today’s money, flowing through some unknown computer at some unknown location?
    Mr. Leese makes an error common to most opponents and proponents of the gold standard. He asserts that if all paper money is not fully backed by gold, a true gold standard does not exist (p. 4.). The true gold standard does not require all paper money and other forms of market-generated credit money to be backed by gold. Bank credit money (bank notes and checkbook money) can also be backed by commercial money, real bills of exchange, which are themselves a form of market-generated credit money — the real bills doctrine.
    According to Mr. Leese, the international gold standard leads to people and countries attempting to corner gold to “become masters of the International Industrial situation.” Jews were the primary people who cornered gold. By cornering gold, Jews gain control of fixing the rate of interest (p. 4-5). Where the real bills doctrine operates, many financial transactions are with commercial money — not with gold. The propensity of consumers to buy fixes the discount rate of bills of exchange, which is not really interest — not the hoarders of gold. Hoarders of gold have much less power than their opponents give them. (A more detail discussion on hoarding gold is given in “Is Gold Too Easy to Manipulate?”)  As Jews control most of the paper money issued today through central bank operations, abandoning the gold standard for fiat paper money does not eliminate this issue. It does not assuage Leese’s problem of Jewish control of the monetary system. (Perhaps this is why the Protocols of Zion advocates abandoning the gold standard in favor of fiat paper money [v.i.].)
    Mr. Leese writes, “The Financier can, by using his control of Gold to expand or contract the volume of Money (currency or credit) in circulation, create boom or slump in Britain” (p. 5.). As post World-War-II history shows, the financier can more easily expand and contract the volume of paper money. He can expand the money supply far greater under today’s monetary system than he could under the gold standard. Thus, when the inevitable slump comes, it is more severe or last much longer than it would have under the gold standard.
    Like most opponents of the gold standard, Mr. Leese asserts that gold cannot “supply the industrial need for National Money” (p. 5). As I show in “There Is Enough Gold,” enough gold exists to accommodate world commerce several times over when accompanied by the proper credit system, the real bills doctrine. Enough gold was available in 2004 to accommodate 3.8 times the gross world product of 2007 without fractionalization of gold.
    Mr. Leese discusses Britain’s return to the gold standard following World War I (pp. 6-7).
    Mr. Leese writes, “OUR National Money must be divorced from its association with Gold” (p. 8). This part of his proposal has been achieved. In 1971 when President Nixon ended the gold exchange standard, Bretton Wood system, gold ceased any formal role in the world’s monetary systems.
    Mr. Leese states that countries (Great Britain) should pay for imports with domestic paper money that can only be exchanged for goods and services in the importing country (p. 8). To some degree, bills of exchange serve this purpose. The world is in the process of achieving the intent of his proposal by abandoning the U.S. dollar standard that has been in place since World War II. However, his proposal seems to require country A to buy from country B the value of products that it sells to country B. Such an arrangement would greatly hamper foreign trade.
    Mr. Leese recognizes the need to control the amount of money issued (p. 8). He does not offer any mechanism for doing this other than trusting politicians and bureaucrats. Thus, politicians and bureaucrats would have to act contrary to their nature by not seeking to increase their prestige, power, and wealth.
    Mr. Leese discusses how the practices of lending for interest came to Great Britain and the adverse effects of interest (pp. 9-12). Under fascism, interest on foreign loans belong to the people of the country as a whole and not to the individuals who lend the money abroad (p. 11). By “people as a whole” he probably means the government — at least that is what most statists mean. However, the government is not the people as a whole. It has never been and never will be. It is the small group of people controlling it. If the people as a whole are to receive the interest paid on foreign loans, some mechanism needs to be in place to divide that interest among the individuals of the country without the government getting part of it.
    Mr. Leese opposes the Social Credit scheme (p. 12). I discuss the flaws of Social “Credits in Analysis of Richard Cook’s Monetary Reforms.”
    Mr. Leese presents the monetary reforms of the Imperial Fascist League (pp. 12-15). A “Department of Issue is established to control absolutely the issue of currency and credit” (p. 13). Its objectives are:
    (1) Gradually inflate money and credit until the price level of commodities are raised to the level reached at the end of World War I (p. 13).
    (2) After achieving item 1 and in accordance with item 3, stabilize the purchasing power of money so that it becomes as fixed as the yard (meter), pint (liter), and pound (gram) and no longer varies; expand and contract the money supply to maintain a stable level of a general-price index (p. 13).
    (3) Adjust currency and credit until production is sufficient to satisfy the needs of the country and its exportation overseas (p. 13).
    (4) Retire gradually all external and internal interest-bearing government securities with non-interest bearing currency (pp. 13-14), i.e., with non-interest bearing government notes or central bank notes that function like government notes.
    (5) Adjust gradually “to the new values by limiting currency inflation, in the early stages, to State disbursements” (p. 14), i.e., the government gets the new money first before it loses value.
    (6) Distribute equitably credit inflation to agriculture and industry (p. 14).
    (7) Balance imports and exports by tariffs, embargoes, and trade packs that enforce equality in exchange value (p. 14). The trade issue is discussed above.
    Mr. Leese does not propose governmental ownership of banking. However, banks are stripped of their ability to create money via lending. That is, he advocates 100‒percent reserve banking. The government introduces new money by buying government securities and cancelling them and with low-interest loans. Only the government can lend money for mortgages, which are lent through deposit banks. The government fixes all bank interest rates (pp. 14-15).
    His proposal has so many flaws, one knows hardly where to begin. His system depends on the wisdom and integrity of politicians and bureaucrats. If that were not enough, his proposal also depends on them be omniscient. Governments have attempted items 1, 2, and 3. So far they have all failed.
    Moreover, all price indexes are flawed. They always over count some items and under count others. As people’s tastes constantly change, price indexes need to be revised often to account for changing tastes. Also, changes in technology affect quality and cost as well as offering new items not in the index. These changes need to be considered. An ever-changing price index makes comparing the cost of living over an extended time questionable. Furthermore, governmentally generated price indexes are subjected to political consideration. Politicians like to conceal inflation, so they adjust price indexes to hide the real cost of living.
    Most countries can achieve item 4, if so desired, by having their central banks buy all their securities. To keep such action from resulting in massive inflation,  if not hyperinflation, would require large-scale restraint of the monetary and banking system.
    When governments fix interest rates, they drive high-risk borrowers to the black market (loan sharks) for loans. To propose involving the government in the mortgage and lending markets is fuel for corruption and disaster. Governmental intervention in the mortgage and lending markets was a major contributor to the crash of 2008. When governments become involved in economic activities, politics usually trump economics.
    A great irony of Mr. Leese’s fascist proposal of replacing the gold standard with fiat paper money is that the Jewish Protocols of Zion has the same proposal. The Jewish proposal is set out in Protocol 20:

        The present issue of money in general does not correspond with the requirements per head, and cannot therefore satisfy all the needs of the workers. The issue of money ought to correspond with the growth of population and thereby children also must absolutely be reckoned as consumers of currency from the day of their birth. The revision of issue is a material question for the whole world.
        You are aware that the gold standard has been the ruin of the States which adopted it, for it has not been able to satisfy the demands for money, the more so that we [Jews] have removed gold from circulation as far as possible.
        With us [Jews] the standard that must be introduced is the cost of working-man power, whether it be reckoned in paper or in wood. We shall make the issue of money in accordance with the normal requirements of each subject, adding to the quantity with every birth and subtracting with every death.[1]

The two proposals merely disagree in the criteria to use in deciding how much money the government needs to inject into the economy. Was Mr. Leese an agent of the Jews?
    Mr. Leese’s proposal fails to achieve his purported goal. It does not make the monetary system or economy better — at least not in the long run. However, it greatly increases the power of the government, i.e., those who actually control the government, over the economy and the people. As such control is a goal of fascism, Mr. Leese’s proposal does successfully achieve that fascist goal.

Endnote
1. Protocol of the Learned Elders of Zion, ed. Sergyel Nilus, trans. Victor E. Marsden (1905, 1922), p. 16.

Copyright © 2015 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Statists Verse Libertists

Statists Versus Libertists

Thomas Allen

    Throughout the history of America, two political and economic philosophies have competed for control of America. They are the philosophies of the statist party or Hamiltonians and the libertist party or Jeffersonians. Today, the statist party has clearly won the contest. A third but insignificant philosophy, anarchism, also exists.

    Below is a description of the statist party, the libertist party, and the anarchist party and a comparison of the philosophies of the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians.

Statist Party
    The statist party is the party of the pietists (remaking man in the image of the pietist: hence, public schooling, anti-drug and anti-smoking laws, prohibition [ever lowering of driving under the influence standard], democratizing the world, etc.);  the progressive (remaking man in the image of the progressive: hence public schooling, welfare state, governmentally provided healthcare, democratization of the world, globalism, foreign interventionism, etc.); Hamiltonians (protection and promotion of big business: hence, mercantilism, commercialism, central banking, protective tariffs and import quotas, fair trade, managed trade, globalism, extensive regulation of manufacturing and commerce, agribusiness, warfare state, etc.), hence:

    ‒ adherents and advocates of ever-growing government,
    ‒ concentration and centralization of political power,
    ‒ welfare-warfare state,
    ‒ military-industrial complex,
    ‒ large standing armed force,
    ‒ socialism, state capitalism, corporatism, fascism,
    ‒ empire building, imperialism, globalism,
    ‒ fiat money,
    ‒ civil rights movement,
    ‒ parental government,
    ‒ false diversity and amalgamation,
    ‒ rule of man although statutes and regulations abound, etc.

    Statists trust politicians and bureaucrats and distrust the people.

    It is the party of mainline Republicans, Democrats, progressives, populists, modern liberals, New Left, neo-conservatives, living constitutionalists, socialists, fascists, communists, authoritarians, totalitarians, Zionists, etc.

    Government is the answer: What is the problem?

Libertist Party
    The libertist party is the party of the Jeffersonians (agrarianism, local business, artisanism, decentralized banking, voluntary markets [free enterprise, free markets, free trade], limited government, etc.), hence:

    ‒ adherents and advocates of small government (government restricted to the protection of life, liberty, and property from theft, fraud, and trespass; remaking man is not a proper function of government),
    ‒ dispersal and decentralization of political power (states’ rights),
    ‒ personal liberty (but not libertinism) and freedom,
    ‒ personal responsibility,
    ‒ individualism,
    ‒ self-reliance,
    ‒ home and private schooling,
    ‒ commodity money,
    ‒ laissez-faire economics,
    ‒ nationalism, localism,
    ‒ noninterventionist foreign policy,
    ‒ small standing armed force with well-armed local militias,
    ‒ true diversity and preservation,
    ‒ rule of law although statutes and regulations are sparse, etc.

    Libertists trust the people and distrust politicians and bureaucrats.

    It is the party of paleo-conservatives, Old Right, classical liberals, strict constitutionalists, libertarians, etc.

    Freedom is the answer: What is the problem?.

Anarchist Party
    The anarchist party adheres to and advocates the abolition of all governments and governmental authority, which are replaced by voluntary cooperation among individuals and groups and ranges from extreme individualism (adherents of economic freedom) to collectivism (rejecters of economic freedom). Anarchism is highly unstable and has seldom existed. It generally and quickly degenerates into some form of statism imposed by the stronger internal factions or by external conquering powers.

Hamiltonians Verse Jeffersonians
    Hamilton was a statist. Jefferson was a libertist. Since the adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, two philosophies, that of Hamilton and that of Jefferson, have competed to control the political and economic views and policies of America. The following compares the philosophy of the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians.

Government.
    Hamiltonians trust politicians and bureaucrats and believe that:
    ‒    government should be highly centralized and unlimited and unrestrained;
    ‒    the best government is that which governs most;
    ‒    the purpose of government is national greatness;
    ‒    citizens are servants of the government; the government is the master of the people;
    ‒    taxes should be high with an abusive and arbitrary tax collection system and a standing army of tax collectors; taxes should be pervasive and confiscatory;
    ‒    governmental debt should be large;
    ‒    executive power should dominate;
    ‒    judicial activists should centralize all power into the U.S. government and then into the imperial president.

    Jeffersonians trust the people and believe that:
    ‒    government should be limited, restrained, and decentralized;
    ‒    the best government is that which governs the least;
    ‒    the purpose of government is to protect the lives, liberties, and property of its citizens;
    ‒    citizens of the States are the masters of the government; the government is the servant of the people;
    ‒    taxes should be minimal, and tax collection minimized with the least intrusion possible;
    ‒    government should be frugal and debt-free;
    ‒    the executive power should not dominate; the branches of government should be equal with the legislative branch being first among equals;
    ‒    judges apply the law instead of making it and ensure that laws comply with the Constitution interpreted as it is written, strictly and expressly.

Constitution.
    Hamiltonians believe that:
    ‒    the Constitution is  living, dynamic, and flexible;
    ‒    the Constitution is a grant of power;
    ‒    the Constitution grants the U.S. government implied powers;
    ‒    original sovereignty is in the nation and not the States; the U.S. government is sovereign;
    ‒    the “general welfare” clause authorizes the U.S. government to enact whatever it wants if it claims that it is for the general welfare; Congress may spend money on anything that it declares to be for the general welfare;
    ‒    the interstate commerce clause authorizes the U.S. government to regulate anything that it deems may affect commerce including intrastate commerce and allows the U.S. government to plan every economic enterprise;
    ‒    the U.S. Supreme Court decides what the Constitution means; it is the final arbitrator of the constitutionality of a law;
    ‒    no State may leave the union; any that attempt to must be forced back in.

    Jeffersonians believe that:
    ‒    the Constitution is to be construed strictly;
    ‒    the Constitution is a restrain on the powers of the U.S. government;
    ‒    the Constitution does not grant the U.S. implied powers; it only grants specific and expressly delegated powers;
    ‒    original sovereignty resides in the States; the people as States are sovereign; the U.S. government has only delegated sovereign powers;
    ‒    the “general welfare” clause grants no powers; it authorizes Congress to spend money on the enumerated powers and only if it is for the general welfare as opposed for the benefit of a specific group or region;
    ‒    the interstate commerce clause authorizes the U.S. government to regulate interstate commerce to promote free trade among the States and to prevent States from enforcing protective policies;
    ‒    the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion does not decide the meaning of the Constitution; the President, Congress, and States are equal to the Supreme Court in deciding the meaning of the Constitution; the people themselves, usually but not necessarily acting through their respective States, are the final arbitrator of the constitutionality of a law;
    ‒    States may peacefully leave the union.

Federalism.
    Hamiltonians oppose real federalism and believe in:
    ‒    nationalism with the U.S. government being supreme;
    ‒    opposition to states’ rights;
    ‒    the U.S. government being the master of subordinate puppet States;
    ‒    the States being administrative units of the U.S. government;
    ‒    the consolidation of political power;
    ‒    the people being citizens of and owing their allegiance to the United States.

    Jeffersonians support real federalism and believe in:
    ‒    State governments being as strong as if not stronger than the central government;
    ‒    supporting states’ rights;
    ‒    the States keeping the U.S. government from exceeding its bounds;
    ‒    the States being free and independent sovereigns;
    ‒    dispersal of political power;
    ‒    the people being citizens of and owing their allegiance to their respective States.

Economics.
    Hamiltonians lack confidence in the market economy and believe in:
    ‒    subsidizing business in general and the affluent in particular;
    ‒    corporate welfare; mercantilism; fascism; business-government partnership;
    ‒    governmental (centralized) economic planning;
    ‒    protective tariffs;
    ‒    centralized and highly regulated banking; banking and government partnership;
    ‒    politically controlled money supply; politics driving monetary growth;
    ‒    the government and central bank manipulating the economy, thus creating the boom-bust cycle;
    ‒    government being the best judge of excellence in manufacturing.

    Jeffersonians have confidence in the market economy and believe in:
    ‒    laissez-faire economics without subsidies or centralized planning;
    ‒    government and business remaining separate with the government functioning as an umpire to ensure all follow the same rules; no corporate welfare or subsidies;
    ‒     free trade;
    ‒    decentralized banking with minimal regulation; separation of banking and government;
    ‒    market controlled money supply; economics driving monetary growth;
    ‒    the consumer being the best judge of excellence in manufacturing.

Foreign policy.
    Hamiltonians advocate:
    ‒    interventionism and imperialism;
    ‒    a mercantilist empire;
    ‒    a foreign policy that advances the interest of the politically powerful and politically connected, i.e., multinational corporations and international financiers;
    ‒    a large standing army;
    ‒    foreign military alliances;
    ‒    foreign aid to buy and control foreign governments.

    Jeffersonians advocate:
    ‒    nonintervention (do not interfere in the affairs of other countries);
    ‒    no empire building;
    ‒    a foreign policy that defends America;
    ‒    no standing army;
    ‒    no foreign military alliances;
    ‒    no foreign aid.

Freedom.
    Hamiltonians believe in:
    ‒    the government granting, permitting, and limiting freedom;
    ‒    the welfare state, i.e., making as many people as possible dependent on the government.

    Jeffersonians believe in:
    ‒    the government guaranteeing and protecting freedom;
    ‒    the separation of charity and state; making as many people as possible independent of the government.

Copyright © 2011 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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