[Please, don't bust my chops over semantics in this post. I use 'socialism', 'Marxism' and 'communism' interchangeably. They all embrace the idea that the hive, village or group are more important than the individual, and we all have an obligation - always forced upon us - to maintain the hive.]
Note: I've been sitting on this post for 3 days. I've read it and re-read it. It sounds bat-dung crazy to suggest and plan for the US to head down this path. But I can't see a way out. How do you feed a nation that increasingly becomes dependent upon the State for its survival?
The goal of socialism is communism.
--Lenin
In the last post, I discussed the
Alluring Call Of Socialism. On paper, it sounds sweet to huge numbers of people. In practice, not so much.
Socialism has always ended the same way. With a totalitarian state. Everything is eventually nationalized. Land, business, all personal property.
It's all for the good of the state.
Preppers and independent people ultimately strive to have land and property to maintain our independence. We buy land, equipment, seeds, animals, weapons, etc., to allow us to live that independent lifestyle. In America, you're not guaranteed wealth and independence, you're guaranteed the opportunity for wealth and independence. Many Americans are willing to work hard to meet those two goals.
It's the reason people come to America. To build a life of freedom and prosperity.
But that doesn't mesh with the communist ideology. In fact, it's in direct conflict with that ideology. You work for the state, not for yourself.
The hive is more important than the bee.
In countries such as the US, or entire regions, such as the EU, the state starts the application of this ideology via taxation. It starts slowly, and gradually grows.
During the debates about whether the sixteenth amendment should be ratified (allowing for income tax), the proponents stated that the tax rate would never exceed 2%, I believe. Now, in addition to the constitutionally allowed excise taxes, we have more taxes and fees than you can follow. Gas tax, sales tax, a zillion telecommunications taxes, building permits, sewer fees, real estate taxes, business asset taxes, business license fees - it never ends.
In our precious metals business, I have sales tax, business license tax, special business district taxes, second-hand dealer tax, alarm tax, fire service tax, payroll tax, state income tax, federal income tax, all the telecommunications taxes, all of the gas and electric taxes, non-salable asset taxes, certified scale taxes, weighmaster taxes, and indirectly, the property tax paid by the landlord, via our lease payments. These are just the taxes that come immediately to mind.
The socialist government wonks use propaganda to brainwash us into believing that the hive is more important than the bee. We saw this when Barry Obama made the comment about how successful businesses didn't get there by themselves, but through the generosity and guidance of the state.
Jake Tapper of ABC news perhaps presented
the view of the state most accurately -
The president’s argument, which is similar to one made by Massachusetts Senate candidate (now senator-elect .ed) Elizabeth Warren, revolves around the idea that business people need the infrastructure provided by the government in order to succeed. [emphasis added]
To anyone with more than two gray cells to rub together, this is a laughable statement. The government doesn't provide anything. They don't earn money to build roads,
they take it. Your money. My money. Our money. The roads weren't provided by some altruistic donation from a private charity that is owed thanks. The government simply did their job!
But the hive needs more honey, and you've gotta give it up.
Soon enough, the cashflow starts to dry up, and the wonks need to get creative. A great example is what they're now kicking around with regards to the gas tax. Since cars now get better gas mileage people don't need as much of the stuff. That cuts into tax revenues.
Now, they're talking about changing the tax to a "miles driven" model. Expect some sort of government controlled odometer to be installed on all cars sometime in the near future.
Perhaps the greatest "creative response" to the need for more taxes is to promote and successfully enact a tax on air. The socialists call it, Cap and Trade.
The public sales-job started with the idea that carbon dioxide is causing the planet to heat up. Despite being roundly disproven and exposed as a fraud of the first order, the wonks convinced enough soft-headed citizens and politicians to pass Cap and Trade laws. All under the guise that they were saving the planet.
You don't even need to scratch under the surface to obliterate this scam. They fairly admit it's nothing more than a dollar grab.
All of these programs work like this: Some government agency sets a number for the tonnage of CO2 that a company can release into the air. Like the
fraud recently conducted first auction here in California (thanks Arnold), your business is given a certain credit by the taxing authority. If you release in excess of the allotment, you can get back into the good graces of the wonks in one of two ways.
First you can buy credits from another company that doesn't need all of their allotment. You'll do this via exchanges that will facilitate these swaps. For a fee. This is the business Al "Mr. Hockey Stick" Gore started. What a great stroke of luck that was, huh? Stir this shit up, and make a profit from it! Genius.
The other way is to buy more credits from the government entity charged with setting the CO2 levels. Yes, you can buy your way out of it directly with the government.
If the government was so concerned with global warming, beach front property in the Rockies and the impending end of the planet, why in God's name would they allow these horrible, polluting companies to toss the wonks a few pieces of silver?
Because it's not about the environment, it's about tax revenues. Period, end of story. California tax receipts, for instance, will net a cool
billion dollars a year for the criminals in Sacramento.
---
Here's where it starts to get scary. This is where the self-reliant homesteaders and preppers start really feeling the bite of the wonks. It's also where people on both sides of the equation start dying, and not from old age.
Eventually, the tax dollars stop increasing despite the wonks dogged efforts to keep 'em flowing. The State keeps increasing its need for funding, but the well is getting dry. There's just nothing left to tax.
So,
like every socialist regime before it, the new one starts nationalizing. Businesses first, then private property.
This isn't scare tactics. This isn't boogie-man stuff. It's a logical progression,
and it's in your history books.
Marx, Engels et al, understood the need for productive farmland. Your title deed is hereby invalidated and your land liberated for the people!
The Russians called it 'kulak'. You have more than someone else, so you're portrayed as greedy - tight fisted, to be literal. For the good of the hive,
your property is liberated.
Both peasants and Soviet officials were often uncertain as to what constituted a kulak. They often used the term to label anyone who had more property than was considered "normal," according to subjective criteria, and personal rivalries played a part in the classification of enemies.
Hmm, I'd guess that
anything is considered more than 'normal' by the folks who have nothing other than the Government Teat in their mouth.
Or perhaps they'll just follow the lead of
Future Chairman Mao in China. In part -
Land reform in a new Liberated Area should be divided into two stages. In the first stage strike blows at the landlords and neutralize the rich peasants. This stage is to be sub-divided into several steps; strike blows at the big landlords first, and then at the other landlords. Treatment must be different for those who are local tyrants and those who are not, and different also for big, middle and small landlords. The second stage is the equal distribution of land, including the land rented out by the rich peasants and their surplus land.
Yeah. The 'rich peasants' and their surplus land.
Accept The Challenge
Whoa. What now? All of those self-sufficient fantasies evaporating right in front of our eyes.
So how does this proceed? If the nightmare scenario of nationalizing all private assets is the ultimate goal, the PTB will want to lay the ground work to make resistance less difficult. Gun control is the first and most obvious avenue. Make it more difficult for individuals to possess guns and ammo.
Logic and empirical data tell us that an armed society is a much safer society. Every state that enacted 'Shall Issue' CCW laws saw drops in crime, and particularly in violent crime. The data is irrefutable.
And irrelevant.
The Diane Feinstein's of the world will go to the grave working to paint guns as bad, and using the MSM propaganda machine to sell their vision. Families that lost family members to gun violence (ala Brady Bunch) will be trotted out in public to sell their snake oil.
And the majority of the public will buy it. "Who needs a weapon of war, like an AK47 or AR15? Their only purpose is to kill people!"
So, tighter gun control (and ammo control) - even more than now - will be one of the signals.
Tied to that is a beefing up of domestic police forces. Why in Gods Name does every Mayberry RFD need a tactical armored personnel carrier? And a SWAT team? And a sniper squad? And riot gear for every officer?
They don't, unless it's in anticipation for some out-of-the-norm civil unrest. The Talking Points are that the gear and squads are for terrorism. Well, when much of your citizenry is considered to be a possible terrorist, I guess the term kind of loses its common meaning. If you own guns, have food and equipment storage, and are vociferous about your disgust with our government, you and everyone like you are all considered potential terrorists.
This is already happening all over our country.
This tipping point has already tipped. The facade of safety against terrorism is being chugged by the masses like a drunk with his Ripple. This was easy to accomplish, as it didn't directly affect any citizen. Genius. Stock up the local police all you want, and until the hammer is used against the masses, no one cares.
Hey, no harm, no foul, right?
They've now strengthened their offensive capabilities, and weakened your defensive capabilities. Time to start grabbing assets in earnest.
The business nationalization will be the first indication. It will be big stuff. Oil, coal, transportation, telecommunications, banking. Infrastructure stuff. Washington DC knows how to better run these industries, and the proceeds will now go to all of the peeps, not just to the greedy businessmen that started the companies.
When they're done with the businesses, they'll start going after the real property of individuals. They'll come for our private farms, homesteads and the like. Anything that might be able to be farmed, as per items 1, 4, 7 and 9 of the
Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto.
This is the one that we preppers will need to worry about. The indicator will be when they start taxing you for items you produce for your own consumption. The vegetables you raise, the eggs you gather, the steer you slaughter. The thinking is, just like going to a regular job, your efforts produced something, and you were paid for your efforts. In this case via turnips and hamburger. That's income, and it needs to be taxed.
Oh, and you clearly don't need all of that food you're producing, so we'll just liberate the excess. Have a nice day, comrade.
The only legal foundation they need to take your property is the desire to take it.
I see two possible outs for us.
First, buy land that is only marginally arable or productive (i.e., for cattle). Make it remote and acidic or alkaline land where with a good bit of effort via composting, and creative use of water and greenhouses can be productive on a small scale. Think the Northern Nevada, Eastern Washington State, Eastern Oregon, Southern Idaho and Northern Utah desert areas (most of Survivalblog's 'American Redoubt'). Sorry, I don't include Texas, New Mexico, California or Arizona deserts, because I think they're going to be overrun by what we currently call Illegal Aliens, and which will then be called "Dream Act" Reconquistadors.
Make the land only produce enough for your immediate family. No more. Make it land - like the Gaza strip - where the Israeli government gave the Palestinians the land, but since they had no idea how to keep it productive, it crapped out. Make the land unattractive to the socialists and their need to fill the bellies of many people.
Make the cost/benefit calculation tip to the negative.
The other option is much more risky. Much more. And it requires accumulating a LOT of like-minded individuals being in one region. More than I think is possible, really.
You would need an area filled with individuals - and state and local governments - that would be willing to fight for their land
together. It could include all of the aforementioned land and perhaps include the Dakota's, Montana and Wyoming. I hesitate with these last 4 states, as the wheat growing and pasture lands might be valuable enough for the socialists to fight for in earnest. Also, with the Bakken Formation (oil and gas) in Montana and North Dakota, the PTB won't give them up so easily.
So, we're talking secession of a huge chunk of America, and I just don't know how realistic that would be. I think it would only have a chance if, unlike the Civil War, it was fought like the mujaheddin against the USSR and the US in Afghanistan. Asymmetrical warfare.
You punch them in the gonads, then melt into the woodwork. You poke them in the eye, then vaporize.
Bleed them to death. Death by a thousand cuts. Death by public political pressure -
It just ain't worth the effort.
This is my personal plan. Tucked away in some corner of Idaho with the hopes that if this nightmare comes to fruition, there will be enough like-minded folks in the area willing to make life difficult for the PTB.
---
I know many of you that already have productive farms and homesteads are saying that you'll draw a line in the sand, and fight to the death. That will be fine by the PTB. They'll expend very little effort, you'll be dead, and they'll have your land.
And that accomplished, what? A 'moral victory'?
A toe-to-toe conflict ends up with you dead. Quickly. But a generation-long blood-letting has a chance. And maybe your kids and grandkids will have something left to re-claim after the communist system collapses.
And they always collapse.
---
The zillion dollar question is, "When is this going to happen?" I think it will be some time after the dollar collapses, which I thought would have happened by now. Uncle Ben Bernanke and Company have been fortunate that Europe is in such a mess, as it's helped prop up the buck.
But the fundamentals of the dollar are doomed, and our country has an insurmountable amount of debt. When you work in the hundreds of trillions in unfunded liabilities with Social Security and Medicare, our way of economic life is toast. You can't tax enough to ever meet these obligations. It's impossible.
So there will be defaults in public debt and promises, and the government will be forced to take what it needs.
My crystal ball simply isn't strong enough to call when that happens - just that it will happen.
---
You see, it always comes down to money. They want what you've earned. Your job is to keep it yourself.
Reduce the amount of taxes you pay. Legally or illegally - your choice. Positives and negatives with either option, but we must have the goal of Starving The Beast.
Hide or disguise your accumulated wealth. Have it in a bank, and it's as good as gone. You've willingly provided an accounting of how much is available for the taking. If you have a big pile of cash that suddenly disappears, they'll come looking for you. Bet on it.
Start NOW with ways to keep your money under wraps. Precious metals are your best bet here. Valuable and portable.
Establishing those Multiple Streams of Income will help you to thrive. Seriously, get on this now.
And "lose" some guns and ammo. You'll need to find them again in the future.
---
Copyright 2012 Bison Risk Management Associates. All rights reserved. Please note that in addition to owning Bison Risk Management, Chief Instructor is also a partner in a precious metals business. You are encouraged to repost this information so long as it is credited to Bison Risk Management Associates. www.BisonRMA.com
