The Evil of State Education

This was published in the Spring 1996 issue of THE RESISTER, Volume 2, Number 4.


The Evil of State Education

by
L. S. Spooner

Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers.

--Thomas Hodgskin

One of the most insidious frauds government has perpetrated against the American people is its school system. That system has enabled the government to usurp the freedom and responsibility of parents, to indoctrinate children into good taxpaying sheep, to transform education into mind-numbing, passivity-inducing routine, and to turn schools into laboratories for social engineers.

We constantly hear how the schools are turning out young adults who can't read, know no history or geography, and can barely balance a checkbook. Those stories are true. But believe it or not, that's not the worst indictment of the government's school system. Much worse is what it does to the character of parents and children.

Much can be learned about the nature of government schools by investigating why they were established in the first place. They were not established to make up for any deficiency in people's ability to learn to read, write, do arithmetic, and acquire knowledge of other subjects. Before about 1840, when the government-school movement began, America was a highly literate society. Publishing boomed in the young Republic. Hundreds of newspapers flourished. Books and pamphlets sold in the millions among a population of around 20 million. (In 1818 Noah Webster's spelling book sold what would be the equivalent of 65 million copies today.) European visitors such as Alexis de Tocqueville marveled.

Education was so easy to come by that the Southern states outlawed it to slaves. (You don't need to outlaw something you don't expect to happen.) Senator Edward M. Kennedy's office issued a paper not long ago stating that the literacy rate in Massachusetts has never been as high as it was before compulsory schooling was instituted. Before 1850, when Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to force children to go to school, literacy was at 98 percent. When Kennedy's office released the paper, it was 91 percent.

Clearly, the government schools were set up for a purpose entirely separate from true education. Rather, they were a manifestation of what later came to be called the "Progressive" mindset, the belief that people's lives increasingly needed to be subject to control by experts. The original aim of the public schools was the creation of a homogeneous national, Protestant culture--the Americanization and Protestantization of the disparate groups that made up the United States. At the individual level the aim was the creation of the Good Citizen, someone who trusted and deferred to government in all areas it claimed as its own.

Throughout history rulers and court intellectuals have aspired to use the educational system to shape their nations by creating a new kind of human being. The model was set out by Plato in The Republic and was constructed most faithfully in Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany. But one need not look only to extreme cases to find such uses of the educational system. The United States differed only by degree. One can readily see how irresistible a vehicle the schools are to a social engineer. They represent a unique opportunity to mold future citizens early in life, to instill in them the proper reverence for the ruling culture, and to prepare them to be obedient and obeisant taxpayers. Is it just an accident that the theme of every history class is that without the benevolent state, we would be overrun by robber barons, monopolists, businessmen bent on poisoning us, and other private-sector villains?

The keys to using the educational system for social engineering are compulsory attendance and tax financing. Were families free or financially able to send their children to nonstate schools or to avoid formal schooling altogether the state's effort would be thwarted. The state's ostensibly benevolent goal of universal education has actually been an insidious effort to capture all children in its net.

The deep insidiousness can be seen in the phrase "the right to an education." What could that mean? In truth, there can be no such right if it means that others are compelled to provide the services or the money. There can be no right to the labor or property of others. In contrast, there is a legitimate right to educate oneself, if that means using one's own resources and energy (or those willingly donated) to acquire knowledge and understanding. The right to an education, in practice, means the power of authorities to define what "education" means and to impose that definition on others. As the New Hampshire Supreme Court candidly said in 1902, "free schooling . . . is not so much a right granted to pupils as a duty imposed upon them for the public good. . . . While most people regard the public schools as the means of great advantage to the pupils, the fact is too often overlooked that they are governmental means of protecting the state from the consequences of an ignorant and incompetent citizenship." That is the nub of the case against compulsory education. By its nature, it extends to government the power to determine what education and school are. When the state has that power, it has everything.

Despite the widespread belief that government schools are a home-grown American institution, they actually come from authoritarian societies, such as 19th-century Prussia. The German philosopher Johann Fichte, a key contributor to the formation of the German school system, said that the schools "must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will." That sentiment is typical of the architects of government schools in all countries. American education intellectuals modeled their system on Fichte's. As former teacher and radical school critic John Taylor Gatto has written, "A small number of very passionate American ideological leaders visited Prussia in the first half of the 19th century; fell in love with the order, obedience, and efficiency of its education system; and campaigned relentlessly thereafter to bring the Prussian vision to these shores."

Those intellectuals knew that to create the New Citizen, they would have to remove children from their parents' influence as far as possible. As Horace Mann, the acknowledged father of the American public school, put it, "We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause." He made clear his objective of molding children into proper beings when he said, "Children are wax."

Government schools from the beginning have been the enemies of liberty, family, and laissez faire capitalism -- the spontaneous order of liberal market society. In such an order, individuals choose their own ends and engage in peaceful means, competitive and cooperative, to achieve them. They also raise their children according to their own values and by their own judgment. In contrast, government schools interfere with that free development and try to mold youth into loyal, compliant servants of the state. As educator Maria Montessori noted, the schools' ends require a rigidity and authoritarianism that is inconsistent with the needs of growing rational beings seeking knowledge about the world. Thus, the schools are a source of immense frustration, boredom, humiliation, and even violence for many children. It should surprise no one that those schools produce children who are passive, listless, aimless, and even worse: violent toward themselves and others. (The ultimate logic of the schools is that children who don't want to sit still should be drugged to treat their "attention deficit.")

The effect on the family is less obvious but no less harmful. When government runs education all the big decisions about children's education are made by someone other than their parents. The system literally makes parents irresponsible with respect to their children's education. Why did parents tolerate that in the beginning? Why do they tolerate it now? Was the lure of "free" education so strong that the American people were willing to sell out their children for it?

The only real alternative to that system is the complete privatization of education. The government schools must be shut down at once. That would require, at least, the abolition of school taxes, the elimination of compulsory attendance laws, and the discharge of all government school personnel. Anyone should be free to start any kind of school, and parents should be free to seek education for their children according to their best judgment. There should be no government requirements with respect to curriculum, testing, or teacher qualifications.

Education can be obtained in unlimited ways, formal schooling being but one, perhaps the least effective, method. A totally privatized system would come to recognize that each child is unique and that free entrepreneurship is the best way to discover how to satisfy the demand for education. Privatization would shift the locus of education from the state to the family, where it rightly belongs. Education is not intrinsically expensive. Low-income people would, as they have done historically, finance their children's education through savings, scholarships, and charitable donations. As the burden of taxation becomes lighter, they will have an easier time acquiring the necessary resources.

Privatization would encourage social harmony. Today, government schools are a source of civil divisiveness as groups attempt to use the system to impose their values on others. In the past, the Protestants who controlled the schools excluded secular subjects such as evolution from the government schools. Today, the schools are controlled by secular relativists who use the Constitution to keep religious beliefs and practices out. Moral issues, most notably relating to sexual conduct, have provoked fiery conflict between education bureaucrats seeking to establish their notion of tolerance and modernity, and parents who believe their right to raise their children in their own way is being stolen.

Which side one takes in those disputes is not the issue here. What matters is that the government's education system offers no way out of such stressful confrontations. That someone's values will be shoved down the throats of others is a systemic defect of government-run schools. Someone's values must shape the curriculum. Here's our choice: either values will be imposed by force through a government school system, or parents will be free to choose how to educate their children. There is no middle way.

The Founding Fathers, cognizant as they were of the bloody history of religious rivalry, bequeathed to us the separation of church and state, unlocking one of the secrets to social harmony and prosperity. For all the reasons we cherish the separation of church and state, we must now have a separation of school and state.
_

Helpful Hints Department

I received the following message in reply to a question about setting up a bugout kit:

If you live in the city, a nice sport coat, slacks, shirt, tie, $2,000 cash in 20's and 10's, AWOL bag containing comfy cloths and necessary hardware. Travel by train or bus if you don't trust your car. Find a nice bed and breakfast in the country with a lot of escape routes. Lay low until the heat is off. Have a (secure) destination. Just remember. Once you're on the run you can never stop. More on this later.

Our assessment is that IF they go after anyone it will be the cowboys playing soldier and shooting off their mouths. You should be OK. Remain "uninteresting."



_

Principles of Money Laundering

The following article was originally published in the Fall 1995 of THE RESISTER, Volume Two, Number Two.


RESISTANCE
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Principles of Money Laundering

by Stephan Girard
RMO, Special Forces Underground


Money laundering is simply the act of bringing unreported money into a person's or organization's recorded (or unrecorded) account by diverting it through legitimate business fronts. Financial crimes investigators classify laundered money into four types; black money, grey money, white money, and subterranean money.

Black money is money obtained by criminal means, such as kidnapping, bribery, fraud, tax evasion, theft, smuggling, trafficking in illegal commodities (such as drugs), and armaments dealing.

Gray money is money that the owner does not want known to be in his possession, even though it may not have been illegally obtained. Tax avoidance is legal if obtained through a "loophole" that the government has overlooked. A loophole has value only until it is used to such a degree that attention is focused on it. Then the government usually changes regulations so that the loophole can no longer be used. Thus the person or institution using the tax avoidance scheme may want to prevent having his legal tax avoidance system come to the attention of the government.

As another example of gray money, a person may have a business which is exceedingly profitable, and may want to conceal his prosperity to avoid attracting attention which could cause increased competition. Or a man who may not want his wife, or partners, or relatives to know he has made or obtained a large amount of funds.

The third type of money is clean, ordinary money--the type most of us obtain in small quantities at rare intervals by hard work, investment, or inheritance. However, some people get clean money by laundering black or gray money.

The fourth and last type of money is that obtained through the "subterranean," or underground, economy. It has been estimated that in the United States alone, this economy is worth at least $500 billion per year, in both legal and illegal money, depending on the circumstances. Basically, it is like the ancient bartering system. A barber cuts his dentist's hair free, and the dentist gives him free dental services. But the phenomenal amount of this unreported money indicates a substantial portion may be illegal.

The difficulty of money laundering depends on the amount to be laundered, the place of laundering, and the sophistication of the procedure used. The simplest method in many countries is to take a risk and use the local banking system. However, this is difficult in the United States because of the reporting required. It is generally not difficult to change the respectability of currency.


There are three principle means of laundering money. The bank method, the tax haven method, and the black market method. The last is the simplest in many countries. Every country has a parallel money rate, variously called the free market, inland, or black market rate. The cost of changing currency in most countries is about 10 percent, but in countries with strong currency, it may only be 2 or 3 percent.

In practice, the black market method works this way. Assume a person has "black" money in a given country, say, New Zealand. He can take it to the black market and change it for another currency such as U.S. dollars, at the black market rate of about 5 percent. This money, now in U.S. dollars, can officially be sent back to the country in which the switch was made. The black money has been made white.

In countries with no exchange controls, money need not go through the black market. It can be changed at the official rate at any bank, without records. The system of using the parallel market involves two countries, but it is safe as long as the person is not caught dealing with the black market money changer.

The bank method of legitimizing black or grey money is perhaps the most commonly practiced method in the United States. A drug trafficker, for example, instigates the changing of money through the banking system thus: A bag of soggy bills collected from street sales is taken to the neighborhood bank and changed to reputable financial instruments such as T-Bills, Letters of Credit, large denomination traveler's checks, real estate deeds, or bank drafts, thus becoming "clean." Up until 1980, this was reasonably easy to carry out in the United States.

In 1979, proposed amendments were considered by the Treasury Department, and a new Bank Reporting Ruling went into effect in July 1980. The ruling is too complex to report in full, but its main thrust was to amend the Bank Secrecy Act which requires financial institutions to report uninsured currency transactions in excess of $10,000. Specific forms provided by the Secretary of Treasury must be used for reporting purposes.

In sum, every currency transaction over $10,000 has to be reported, with positive identification of the person making the transaction (including name, address, Social Security number if a U.S. citizen, or passport number if alien, and various other details). The new regulation made it most difficult for any one person to make a currency transaction of more than $10,000 without a complete disclosure to the government.

The tax haven method is probably the most important of all. When World War II ended in 1945, there were approximately 55 countries in the world. Today there are just under 200. Every fragment of a major country seems to want independence. Once they have independence they usually find that their costs of operating greatly increase. However, all of the costs cannot be supported by inward cash flow. The new countries usually give up agriculture, and everyone moves to the city, where there is electricity and television. For a while they "borrow their way to success" from overseas banks. But when their credit lines are exhausted, they eventually scratch at any source of income. One ever-present possibility is to operate as a tax haven--a conduit for tax evasion money, tax avoidance money, or black market derived from crime.

Money goes around the planet earth 24 hours a day in search of vacuums. "Hot money" seeks out the cool areas of survival, including what the Germans call Eine Steveroase (a tax oasis) and the French call un paradis fiscal (a financial paradise). Tax havens are refuges from death duties and high taxes. The oldest and best known tax havens are the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands Antilles, Monaco, Macao, Hong Kong, and Luxembourg. However, so many new havens are being created--e.g., the New Hebrides, Andorra, the Caicos, and Turk Island--that policing them for infractions is all but impossible. The new nations of the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshalls and numerous other newly spawned nations in Africa, Asia and Europe will undoubtedly play in important role in money laundering.

Take the case of Nauru as an example. It is an independent nation, 8 square miles in size. It is a member of the United Nations and a British Commonwealth. It has no taxes of any kind, no tax treaties, and no exchange controls; commercial transactions may be carried out in any currency. The country prohibits immigration. Government almost never grants tourist visas, and it certainly does not grant tax investigation visas. A visa would be virtually impossible for an IRS or any other tax investigator to obtain. The government is sound and stable. The people of Nauru have a standard of living 50 percent higher than that of the average American citizen. There is no political unrest. English is the official language. Nauru has modern companies and trust laws, and the law draws on British traditions. It is the smallest nation in the world with a president, elected parliament, and a well-developed civil service. It has its own highly efficient airline which flies to 20 or more countries.

A holding company can be set up in Nauru with as few as one and not more than 20 shareholders. The holding company has remarkable powers. It can operate without an annual meeting, and there is extraordinary freedom in relation to its shares. It need not have an auditor. Books can be kept outside Nauru's jurisdiction. A company is effectively established by sending in a form issued by the government. The annual corporation fee is as low as $150.00 (naturally, the cost varies with the number and complexity of services required).

Commercial transactions or money can be routed through Nauru. The structure of Nauru's corporation act makes it easy for U.S. companies to form Nauruan holding corporations and manage them as wholly owned corporate subsidiaries without the necessity of setting up a "board of directors" as is required in many countries. The laws of the country have a statutory bar against any disclosure. An overseas company can easily and cheaply form a holding company which can do almost any conceivable commercial transaction such as being an intermediary in money legitimation, tax avoidance, profit stripping, re-invoicing to skim profits and take them tax-free, or do almost anything that does not represent fraud or a legal breach in Nauru (the transaction can breach laws of other countries, but Nauru does not set itself up as the world's policeman). The government has made positive efforts to welcome offshore investors and offers Nauru as a secretive tax haven, superior to those that suffer political unrest and upheaval.

It is not difficult to see how this serves those who have a need to transform black currency into white currency at a low cost, with complete secrecy. It is nearly impossible to prosecute someone through tracing finances if that person is sophisticated and knows how to use tax havens.

U.S. federal law requires that any transfer of over $5,000 out of the United States must be reported to the treasury. This, however, does not apply to inter-bank transfers. Therefore, anyone moving large amounts of cash have to set up their own banks. These are usually one-room operations in places like St. Vincent, Anguilla, or the Cayman Islands. The cost of a banking charter and license in the Cayman Islands is $6,500 in total. The bank can be "owned" by a Cayman management service company, and the beneficiary owner need never be known to any investigator. In Anguilla, no paid-up capital or reserves are required. Anguillan law states that a bank's license and charter can be sold without government approval.

Some bank haven countries even offer bank charters and licenses for as little as $60.00. The low cost of owning an offshore bank makes it quite easy to transfer huge sums of money, with no reporting to anyone, and the cash filters through the bank as a conduit. It can be returned to the United States, pure as the driven snow, as a loan or any other similar way, or it can be placed in a secret account elsewhere.

Another ruse is the use of bearer bonds. These are not registered in anyone's name--they belong to whoever holds them. A person who wants to hide his money can buy municipal bonds and store them with his broker (unlike T- bills). The broker keeps them separately in a special account for each customer. The only place where a name is registered is at the brokerage house, which keeps the name only of the original buyer and the holder at the time of sale. It does not record intermediate sales. A lot of people use this system to keep their money possessions secret.

Tax-free municipal bonds are also used. The Wall Street Journal lists these and their interest rates. They are usually in bearer form, and interest is paid by redeeming coupons. They are available only through brokerage houses. The broker keeps the name of the original purchaser, but intermediate sellers and buyers are not registered. These bonds may purchased with cash or otherwise, through a third party. Millions of dollars of unreported assets and income can be accumulated this way.

There are numerous other methods of laundering money. For example, insurance agents can accept deposits in any amount, and no bank reports are necessary. Examples laundering money through insurance companies include:

1) The overseas "Umbrella life policy." An overseas insurance company (usually in the United Kingdom, Jersey, Switzerland, Hong Kong, or Australia) sells a life insurance policy in the United States. (They are even sold by direct mail or telephone solicitation.) These overseas companies have devised an "umbrella policy" which includes not only life insurance, but also investments. For example a $300,000 policy may have $100,000 in full life insurance, and $200,000 in currencies, stocks, bonds, T-bills, or other investments. The policy is classified by the United States as insurance, even though it is only partially insurance. It is usually single payment, the total cost for life is paid up at the time the policy is taken out. The cost may be $60,000 or more, depending on the makeup of the policy, for a $300,000 policy.

The advantage of this type of policy to a normal customer is that when the insured dies, his heirs get the full value (investments and all) tax free. If the investment part was separate and not packaged with the insurance, the heirs would have to pay death duties.

If a policy holder wants to cash in the policy before death, say in five years, he pays only capital gains on his earnings.

2) "Borrowing" against a life insurance policy. A money launderer buys a policy from a company. He can pay the agent in any way he wants, perhaps even with bags of soggy bills. Unlike banks, the insurance agent does not have to report cash transactions over $10,000. The money is received by the agent, who finds ways to get it to the parent company. The money launderer then borrows up to 90 percent of the value of his policy, and the money is sent to him wherever he desires. The U.S. government is quite accustomed to loans from insurance companies to policyholders. The borrower pays no tax on a loan. It is all legal, and the $300,000 (or whatever the sum) has been returned to the laundry man with no tax, and only a small service charge, quite proper. The IRS has no objection showing a loan from an insurance company.

Contrary to popular belief, the 1980 reporting regulations (Section 103.22 of part 103 of Title 21, code of Federal Regulations) did not make money laundering impossible. The 1980 Treasury Department Regulations have produced only two results: 1) money laundering was temporarily retarded while people found more sophisticated systems of circumventing the regulations; 2) it is now more difficult, more costly, and more important to launder money. The amount of money laundering may even have increased because laws make it imperative to launder black and gray money.

The 1980 regulations did not stop money laundering for a variety of reasons. Federal regulations do not restrict banks or other financial institutions from accepting or transferring cash. It only requires financial institutions to "report within 15 days all unusual deposits or withdrawals or other transactions, the name and address, the account number, social security or taxpayer number (if any), or in the cases of
aliens a passport or identification document (unless the person or institution is exempt) and only in cases of over $10,000 transactions."

Exempt from this regulation are U.S. residents who operate retail stores which deal in a "substantial amount" of currency. Exempt also are U.S. residents who operate amusement parks, bars, restaurants, sports arenas, racetracks, grocery markets, hotels, licensed check cashing services, or theaters. For example, one could own 3 different bars in 3 different cities, use several banks in each city, and make cash deposits of tens-of-thousands of dollars per day with no reports filed by the banks, and without breaking the regulations.

Exempt also are withdrawals of cash for payroll purposes. Finally, transactions between domestic commercial banks or home loan banks are exempt as are transactions between nonbank financial institutions and commercial banks.

Because currency transactions involving less that $10,000 do not have to be reported, one can deposit or "legalize to other forms of money" any amount as long as it is divided up--for example, he can launder $24,000 by three $8,000 deposits in three banks or branches.
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AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR READERS

This was published in the second issue of THE RESISTER.


AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR READERS

For the past two months our observers have been reporting that some readers are questioning the integrity of contributors to The RESISTER because they choose to be known by pseudonyms rather then their real names. This is a legitimate concern and it deserves to be answered at length.

First, no contributor is obliged to use a pseudonym, as anybody who has actually READ the first issue can tell you. Second, the decision to require staff members and regular contributors to use pseudonyms was an OPSEC issue, not an ethical one. Third, there is a historical precedent we follow which, if not already familiar to you, in all likelihood never will be, and is therefore none of your business. Fourth, publishing The RESISTER is a security risk in its own right, let alone referring to in tradecraft and organization. Really, what DO they teach you guys in the Q-course these days?

The RESISTER is a response to the altruistic cannibalism which is consuming the principle of inalienable individual rights upon which this nation was founded and which have been served-up in sacrifice to the mob god of democracy, the minority god of tribalism, the nature god of environmentalism, the slave god of collectivism, and the statist god of socialism.

Do you want to know who we are? We are the individuals who conceive the ideas the cretinous mob calls "the team effort." We are the individuals whose excellence is subverted by the racist policy of "equal opportunity." We are the independent, innovative, and creative who have been enslaved to serve the "greater good." Without us you would still be prying roots out of ground with a pointed stick.

It would be a great comfort and convenience for the myriad unconstitutional federal agencies to note us, categorize us, and file us away for future "reference." We will not give them an early chance, nor will we be goaded into identifying ourselves by sneering comments about anonymous writers.

Every whim based, undefined, un-judicable law it passes; every unconstitutional gang of armed badge wielding thugs it deploys; every unconstitutional agency it creates; every incomprehensible special interest regulation it mandates; every dime extorted through taxation and redistributed to the incompetent and undeserving; every American life lost in some altruistic war, humanitarian assistance, or peacekeeping operation, demonstrates the illegitimacy of the federal government.

The federal government is not "of the people," it is the instrument of pull-peddlers. It is not "by the people," it is the toady of special interests. It is not "for the people," it is the exercise of force for the sake of force.

Pass laws against us; we will not obey. Regulate our activities; we will not comply. Legislate our behavior; we will not consent.

We are freemen. We will not be subjugated. We have the guns to prove it.


THE EDITOR
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NO COMPROMISE: Don't Tread on Me

This was originally published in the very first issue of THE RESISTER.


NO COMPROMISE: Don't Tread on Me

by "Minuteman"
3 SFG(A)


As a soldier-historian I have been watching, with considerably more than passing interest, The very document I have sworn to defend against both foreign and domestic enemies, the Constitution of the United States, sink deeper and deeper into a socialist cesspool; a cesspool constantly fed by the sewer of compromise.

On 19 April 1775, a handful of men in Lexington Massachusetts took up arms in defense of their peers at Concord to oppose a force sent to confiscate their means to resist tyranny. This confiscatory force was not a foreign invader, nor an army of occupation; it was the army of their government. Our ancestors resisted, and won.

Modern Americans are content to grovel at the feet of their government, compromising at every turn, whimpering insipid platitudes of subservient thanks when their Constitutional rights, assured by the original ten Amendments to the Constitution, are granted to them anew as privileges.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are limitations on government -- not the individual. Bear in mind that the original ten Amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, were not the product of those who wrote the Constitution, the Federalists, but to those who opposed it, the Anti-Federalists. The Anti-Federalists recognized the potential for tyranny in the Constitution and insisted on guarantees of inalienable rights that could not be abrogated by the government. They recognized that all government is, by definition, tyrannical.

Socialists believe words are fuzzy, undefinable constructs that assume whatever meaning they want under whatever whim context they invent at the time. Socialists hate the 18th century language of the Constitution because the words used actually had specific meaning in the context in which they were used. Thus the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states in full:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

In context, the term "...regulated Militia," meant the whole citizenry, independently armed, practiced and drilled in the use of their arms, prepared to take up those arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.

In context, the phrase "...free State," meant not only defense against foreign aggression, but more explicitly, defense against domestic tyranny.

Note the elegance and exclusivity of the closing to this keystone of the Bill of Rights, "...shall ont be infringed." In context this means: No organization, government or non-government, by design, neglect or whim, through legislation or regulation, for reasons specific or implied, shall restrict this right in any way, form, or condition.

Socialists believe the Second Amendment refers only to State government, or even more terrifying, to the Federal Government. Their shopworn bromide that the term "...the people..." in the Second Amendment applies only to the National Guard, Reserves, standing army, and police, but not to individuals, is a base lie.

"...(T)he people..." means all individuals. Period.

The National Guard is an instrument of force of a state government. The Reserves are an instrument of force of the Federal Government. Both organizations are, in 18th century terms, a Select Militia. It was in wise opposition to a government monopoly of armed force by a Select Militia in general and a standing army in particular, that the individual's right to keep and bear arms was guaranteed. No wonder our socialist government and their despicable altruist cheerleaders despise the Second Amendment.

Supreme Court rulings on the Second Amendment have affirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to individuals, not to armed gangs on federal or state payrolls. Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that the right of individuals to bear arms appropriate to (select) Militia use is unquestioned. This means: If the National Guard, Reserves, standing army, and innumerable armed gangs of local, state, and unconstitutional Federal police have, for example, M-16 rifles, it is not only the right of individuals to possess and openly bear the same weapons, it is contrary to the preservation of their liberty not to.

Political socialists in the U.S. Congress, as well as police state socialists in the unconstitutional Justice and Treasury Departments are using the typical stalking horses of government tyranny, public safety, and some undefined mob of irrelevancies called "the children," to creep up on and abolish the sole guaranty of personal liberty in the Constitution, the Second Amendment.

By "public safety" the Federal government means greatly expanding the powers of their own armed gangs of badge wielding thugs. By those amorphous abstractions they call "children" they are referring to 15 - 24 year-old minority street garbage killing each other over drug and extortion turf.

Socialists are constantly calling for compromise on Second Amendment issues which they themselves fabricate. Compromise, as any intelligent person knows, is unmitigated evil. Only the inept, irrational, and intellectually corrupt ask for compromise and only they win when compromise is conceded by the able, rational, and intelligent out of some fear of being labeled "extremist."

Socialists revile those who stand on principle, those who distinguish right from wrong, and those who can differentiate between truth and lies. Whenever socialists fling accusations of extremism you can rest assured that their opponents have the truth of their side. Simply put, in any compromise between poison and food, only death wins.

Regarding the Second Amendment, the victor in the compromise between the right to keep and bear arms equivalent to those of the Select Militia, and government legislation against them, is slavery. The men who stood armed against their government at Lexington knew that their only choice was liberty or serfdom. They did not compromise.

Two-hundred years ago Randy Weaver and David Koresh would have been heroes for resisting government whimsy. Today they are vilified for having defended their liberty by force of arms. The unconstitutional Federal police, as always, demonstrated groveling cowardice in their investigation, execution, and cover-up of these outrages. The media, as always, whined, simpered, and adopted the greasy socialist party line like the practiced second handers they are.

Adopting the bald eagle as the national symbol was a mistake. It should have been the rattlesnake. Philosophically, the only flag in our history that reflects the cause of the American Revolution, resistance to government tyranny, is the coiled rattlesnake over the words: "DONT TREAD ON ME." No one can look upon that flag and misunderstand its meaning.

Under the Constitution the only Federal crime is treason. Subverting the Constitution can only be construed as such. Those in government, Federal state, or local, who by action or inaction would legislate away the only individual guaranty against tyrannical government, the right to keep and bear arms, and those who support such legislation, are traitors to the Constitution.

As a soldier of the standing army I am sworn to defend the Constitution against these domestic enemies of the Constitution. I will, and I am not alone.
_

The Conspiracy of Philosophy

This article was originally published in Volume 2, Number 2 of THE RESISTER.


The Conspiracy of Philosophy

by M. O. Warren
PAO, Special Forces Underground


Black helicopters. Secret cabals of hidden influence. A massive "New World Order Conspiracy" whose tentacles reach into every facet of our lives--its minions just waiting for the hidden World Government's orders to tattoo "666" bar codes onto our foreheads. It just doesn't exist. No matter how much the NWO conspiracy believers want it to exist, it just doesn't.

The possibility of a such a far-reaching and all-powerful secret "World Government" maintaining such a huge conspiracy for any length of time is beyond even the realms of fiction. It is impossible to imagine the resources that it would take - not to mention the number of people that would have to be in on it. Much like the old East German STASI, which employed 25 percent of East Germans to spy on the other 75 percent, and then used unpaid informants among the 75 percent to keep tabs on their spies! Why, even the most vocal of the NWO conspiracy theorists might be members of that conspiracy with orders to mislead and confuse us....

Enough! Conspiracies of people are fun, but they just aren't there. At least not in the way they are presented.

"Ahh...", say the conspiracists, "how do you explain the Trilateralists and the Council for Foreign Relations--with their members permeating business, government and the media throughout the US and Europe? How do you explain how their members serving in key roles in both Republican and Democratic administrations for dozens of years? How do you explain their secret meetings?"

The explanation is right there before us. There is in fact a conspiracy. A conspiracy far worse than any paranoid flight of fancy might create: a conspiracy of philosophy.

These organizations (the Trilateralists, the CFR) exist because a large number of influential people adhere to the same flawed statist philosophy. This philosophy, which fueled Franklin D. Roosevelt's dictatorial transformation of this Republic into a socialist "democracy," has dominated American politics in both parties since the 1930s. Like all philosophical revolutions, its roots extend farther into the past--but it was the crypto-communist F.D.R. who made it the cornerstone of American politics. The politics of compromise and 40 years of a Democrat controlled House enabled statists of all shades of red to undermine the Constitution straight through, and including, the alleged "Republican Revolution" of November 1994.

From the Missouri Compromise to Senator Robert Dole's one man midnight "evil-looking rifles" compromise vote, compromise has been the Achilles Heel of the Republic. Formerly, the great congressional compromises merely delayed addressing issues; issues that festered into great crises with far-reaching consequences. Now, the statists have learned to manipulate compromise so that, in the end, they have conceded nothing and socialists have coincided all. The liberal media and socialist politicians praise their opponents for being "bipartisan" and "statesmen" while celebrating another victory for the supremacy of the all-powerful State and the further erosion of the status of sovereign citizen into that of peon.

The great truism of revolution is that it is a struggle of ideas, not of arms. This is a continuation of the struggle that led to our revolt against tyranny and then to the adoption of our Constitution--that singular document that enshrines the natural rights of Man and guarantees them against the tyranny of the State. Notice that I did not say "grants" or "gives". Your rights as an individual are natural rights (in other words, they would exist in a "state of nature", where the individual is sovereign and the State does not exist), they can not be "granted" or "given" to you. Your rights are unalienable, whether you choose to exercise them or not. Yet, as the Framers knew, the State can deny your rights, but only if you are stupid enough to grovel for "security."

And it is to continue this most poignant struggle, that of a Free People against the natural inclination of the State to tyranny, that the Framers built separation of powers into the Constitution. They did it with malice of forethought, so the People would never become complacent--but rather be eternally vigilant.

Statism is the natural inclination of any government to tyranny. While it has a name, it is a philosophy, not a conspiracy. As in any philosophy, its believers can range from the benign to zealots. Woodrow Wilson was a benign statist (that sick species known as 'do-gooder')--he would probably be shocked (but not disappointed) to see the total transformation of the federal government that grew from his socialist idealism. Zealotry is personified in Franklin D. Roosevelt (Clinton's hero), who believed that any whimsical end the State espoused justified any means to accomplish it.

Unfortunately, the wisdom of the Framers did not foresee the moral slough and intellectual bankruptcy that the American people would fall into when socialists promised them a free lunch and "retirement with dignity"--nor did they foresee the mischief that a communism sympathizing media would enable. (Except, perhaps, Alexander Hamilton, who is reputed to have remarked to James Madison, at a dinner held in honor of the ratification of the Constitution: "The people. Your people are a great beast.")

The paranoid fringe, with their delusions about FEMA conquering these United States from their underground bunker headquarters with an army of blue-helmeted Third World thugs counting the cash in your pocket with a scanner from across the street are the best friends the statists have. While these misguided ones are busy forming militias to fight the UN and a Russian armored division living in salt mines below Detroit (or is it Kansas City?), they are actually encouraging the growth of statism. First, these obvious fantasies are held in ridicule by the majority or true patriots--and their most vocal adherents are adept at appearing ludicrous! Second, their activities both provoke and legitimize statist internal security measures which lead to greater acceptance of tyranny. The hapless so-called militias have done much to provoke and encourage the introduction of alleged anti-terrorist legislation that further promotes tyranny--let alone the damage done to the cause by fools who appear before Congress in fatigue uniform.

We must reject delusion and instead work to fight statism as a philosophy, a vile poison that has infected every venue of American society and politics. Our credo must remain the Constitution, the very bedrock that defines our Republic. The writings of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and other commentaries by the Framers (as well as those political philosophers who influenced them) provide us with insight that illuminates that document. We must guard against irrationalists who can not read the Constitution's plain English, or who seek to re-interpret it as a "living document."

To do this, we must speak out. In this and every other platform. We must vote--and be prepared to throw the compromising bastards out over and over again until our message is received. It takes direct, active involvement. We must demand accountability from our elected representatives and refuse to entertain the pronouncements of unelected pull-peddlers. We must re-capture our schools from the state, or refuse to send our children to them. And we must stay true to the ideological foundations of this Republic.

Compromise is certain death.
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Militia Organizations and Effective Communications

This article was originally published in Volume 2, Number 1 of THE RESISTER.


Militia Organizations and Effective Communications
by M.O. Warren
PAO, Special Forces Underground

The purpose of this article is to provide the organizers of voluntary organizations an introduction to some essentials of effective communications and group organization. The first question we must ask is; "Why is communications important?" The answer is because we live in a world where, as Marshall McLuhan noted, "The medium is the message." Although the irrationality of this concept cannot be disputed, as the mainstream news media increasingly loses objectivity and concentrates on agenda-based journalism, perception becomes reality.

The professional journalist is worrying about getting his byline on the lead story (or his ten-second sound bite on the evening news.) That is the yardstick by which their career success is measured--not the objective reporting of the news. To be fair, this has (in the past) been less true of the print media than the broadcast media. Today, however, journalists are not taught to separate their personal biases from objective fact. According to a recent poll of journalists, they are normally left-of-center Democrats--bearing in mind that the Democratic Party is left-of-center politically. That means that anything you say or do will be represented by the media from, at best, a socialist perspective.

That is fine if your organization represents a position that a journalist sympathizes with personally. He will report your views favorably. But what if your organization's position is one that the journalist is predisposed to be hostile to? You must attack the philosophical premises of his beliefs at their root and expose them for what they truly are.

We must stress from the outset that your message must be truthful. Falsehoods are always found out and will discredit your organization forever. Always use objective facts, gathered from original sources, as the basis of your message.

Modern communication theory recognizes three phases to communication. These are 1) transmission, 2) reception, and 3) feedback.


Transmission

Your group's communicator is the transmitter. The intended target audience is the receiver. How your intended target audience reacts to your message is the feedback to you defining the effectiveness of your message.

There are several factors that complicate communication. The first is the values and core beliefs of your intended target audience. These create filters which predispose the intended target audience to react in a given way to your message. Obviously, the more you understand about your intended target audience, their values, culture, social attitudes, etc., the better you can tailor your message in such a way as to reach the audience and get the response you desire. Madison Avenue does this with advertising, though imperfectly.


Reception

Reception is a difficult thing to ensure. You can tailor your message to persuade your intended target audience, but how can you be sure they will receive it after you put it out? One way is to get your message into outlets that your intended target audience considers credible. Even with modern advances in technology, finding suitable outlets still is not easy. A poll taken some years ago indicated that most Americans get their news from television, but that over 90 percent of those who said they got their news from television also said they never watched news programming! Where can we assume these people get their information on issues from? Entertainment programming. That means that programs whose producers use the program to stress certain political or social slants in presenting topical issues have an effect way beyond their entertainment value.

As a private group, you have to make the most effective use possible of the media available to you. Examples include meetings (rallies, demonstrations, and public meetings--to include town meetings, etc.), television (both stories by local and national media--as well as local cable access channels), radio (call-in shows, interviews, news pieces), newspapers (letters to the editor, advertisements, feature stories, etc.), facsimile machines (press releases, etc.), and electronic on-line services (both commercial and bulletin board type).

How your spokesman, your message, and your group are perceived is critical. Your spokesman should be a well groomed, well dressed, articulate, personable, and unflappable individual. He should not be a threatening, wild eyed, sputtering fanatic. People will immediately turn your group off if your spokesman isn't a normal, credible person they can identify with. This extends logically, although to a lesser degree, to the entire group. Having a credible spokesman standing in front of a bunch of threatening fanatics negates any acceptance your spokesman has gained for your group.

No one expects you will be able to groom all your members to the standard of your chosen spokesman. However, all group members who are exposed to the public (for example, your staff), must be able to talk to and deal with the media and the public, presenting your group's message in a credible way (in their own words). Analyze how the media treats people it interviews. Any individual or group appearing before the media or public in camouflage uniform deserves exactly the credibility they will receive -- none.

Group spokesmen should be carefully selected. Realizing you have only a finite number of choices among your membership, you might have to train your spokesman. Many local colleges have communications courses (including public speaking). Unfortunately, some training will have to be on the job, with the attendant risk.

Feedback

By analyzing feedback you can fine-tune your message and increase its acceptance among the intended target audience. Madison Avenue calls this post-testing. You will have a harder time of it, as your group is trying to find out if your message is being accepted (rather than watching to see if sales go up, or whatever).

Some methods of post-testing include public opinion polls (some knowledge of statistics is necessary for this), interviews (these can be in the form of a question, or questions, that your members ask persons in the target audience in day-to-day activities), or other impact indicators like increased membership, favorable news coverage, etc. When you analyze these impact indicators, you will see if the intended target audience accepted your message and if it is affecting their attitudes.

Bear in mind that if your message challenges the core beliefs of the intended target audience it will be dismissed out of hand. It is better to start small and get people to consider your idea first. Once you can get people to concede you have a credible point, then you establish another point, then another, and so on. As an example, consider the anti-smoking campaigns over the past 30 years. We have gone from smokers freely smoking in public places to being forced (in many places) to smoke outside. This was not accomplished overnight! First the various anti-smoking groups got people to consider that maybe no-smoking areas were a good idea, then the
next step, and the next...

Group Organizational Considerations

You are what you appear to be. No amount of communication is going to be effective if your intended audience can not identify with you. In organizing your group, which is, after all voluntary, you have to be selective in recruitment--especially any members that will have leadership or public roles. Often, groups that started for one purpose have been captured by irrationalists and deflected on to courses at odds with the group's original goal. The environmental movement provides several examples (such as the Sierra Club).

There are ways to do this. Your organization should have a clear statement of purpose (which should be public). You must make it clear that you will not tolerate anybody who does not stay within that statement of purpose. Of course, your organization may develop and change, and the membership may later decide to change that statement of purpose.

Whenever the members of your organization appear in public to represent your organization's views they are, as far as the public is concerned, your organization. If a hunter's rights group appears before the Fish and Game Commission unshaven and wearing camouflage while the animal 'rights' activists are neatly groomed and wearing suits and ties, the hunters will probably fail to make their point. You should always encourage your members to look their best in all circumstances.

You should consider that your organization is always in the public eye and that your members are your ambassadors at large.

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