Large Sarge
10th May 2011, 05:27 PM
23-April-2011
You can find a recording of the speech and Q&A here. (do to technical difficulties the first paragraph was not recorded)
People who are thinking about becoming writers sometimes ask me how I became successful in this business. I tell them it’s easy. All you need to do is find a woman who loves you so much she’ll subsidize you for 20 years even though she thinks you’re crazy, then one day suddenly you are an overnight success.
There were a few other things that factored into my career, especially into the choice of the subjects I would specialize in writing about — economics, law, history, investments and so forth.
One of the earliest incidents was when I was about 21 years old in the Air Force. I was in a Central American country — I don’t remember which one — and one night we had come off a mission, and were tired and hungry, and stopped at a nice restaurant for a big steak dinner.
After dinner we went to our hotel, which was one of the best in the city. In those days, the dollar was a highly valuable and respected currency, because it was still backed by gold, and even a sergeant could live like a king in a Central American country.
There was a crowd at the door to our hotel, and I had to stand waiting a few moments, so I was just looking around. Across the street I noticed a young woman with three small children. She laid down on the sidewalk, put her head on the concrete step of the building, and then the three little ones laid down and snuggled up against her. She pulled her cape over them as best she could, and I realized that was how she and her children were going to spend the night.
I can see that like it was yesterday. I thought to myself, why the difference between her and me? I’ve just had a big steak dinner and I’m about to spend the night in a clean bed in a luxury hotel, and she and her family are going to sleep outside on the sidewalk with a concrete step as their pillow.
Why the difference? I began studying everything I could get my hands on about economics, law, history and related subjects.
In three or four years I realized the difference was the American Constitution. The primary purpose of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, is to limit the government’s power, so that no matter who gets control of the government, they can’t do much damage. The woman I saw sleeping on the sidewalk lived in a country where the government was unrestrained.
The people were taxed and regulated to death. Literally, to death. A lot of them starved. Anyone who was able to save money, immediately sent it out of the country, so that it would not be stolen, meaning taxed away, by their government. So there was very little savings to start businesses and hire workers. No constitution — meaning no controls on the government — meant no prosperity. It was simply too hard to start a business and hire people such as the woman sleeping on the sidewalk.
Today in America, demographic studies show there are millions of young adults who have given up looking for jobs. They’re just living with their parents, and sitting around all day playing computer games.
People are giving birth to babies, but they’re no longer giving birth to enough businesses for the babies to grow up and have jobs. But I’m getting a little ahead of my story.
Realizing that lack of a Constitution — meaning lack of restrictions on the government — was the cause of poverty, didn’t satisfy me. I thought there was probably something even more fundamental happening than that.
It took me about 15 years of studying economics, law and history until I hit on the two laws I so often write about — the laws that make civilization possible. The first law is, do all you have agreed to do. That’s the basis of contract law. The second is, do not encroach on other persons or their property. That’s the basis of tort law and some criminal law.
Do all you have agreed to do and, do not encroach on other persons or their property. These two rules, these seventeen words, are taught by all religions. They express them in different ways, but they all teach them. This is why these two laws became the basis of the old British Common Law. Common Law was the law common to all.
A lot of the American founders were lawyers, and they had deep backgrounds in Common Law. They built the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the rest of the legal structure that grew up out of the Revolutionary War period from Common Law, which means from those seventeen words.
One of the most important points about the two laws is that they applied to everyone including the government. Especially the rule, do not encroach. That runs all through the Bill of Rights.
Even people who are the government or work for the government — they are not exceptions. That’s what Jefferson meant when he wrote, all men are created equal. No exceptions, no special privileges; everyone obeys the law. Do not encroach on other persons or their property.
These laws were not applied perfectly — nothing humans do will ever be perfect — but it was close enough for the typical American to work, save and invest without interference from government “experts” who believe they know how to run our lives.
America became the most free and prosperous nation ever seen because liberty is the source of prosperity.
People all over the world began to notice the great abundance created by the American system of liberty, and millions of them came here. Millions more stayed at home and triggered off revolutions, and built copies of the American system of liberty.
The nations where the American system took hold came to be known as the free world. Notice that the countries that were most free were also the most prosperous.
I say “were,” because I haven’t heard the term free world now since 9/11. Today it is simply assumed that government experts should meddle in every corner of our lives because they are so good, wise and noble that they know what’s best for us. All men are not created equal and government experts are superior to the rest of us. They are allowed to encroach.
A quarter-million federal bureaucrats now make or enforce regulations. A quarter-million have the privilege of encroaching on us.
And that’s just the federal government, it says nothing about the state and local regulators.
The Constitution says Congress is supposed to be the body that makes laws. But a quarter-million federal bureaucrats who have not been elected by anyone — these are civil servants who have been given the privilege of encroaching.
Millions of children go through commercial airports every year now, and they are growing up thinking that search and seizure without a warrant or probable cause is the normal American way of life. In school, they think being searched and interrogated is the normal American way of life.
They think being required to get a permit to do practically anything is the American way. Having someone demand, show me your papers, where are your papers? is the American way.
America is no longer a free country, and the children are being taught that this is just fine.
At the time of 9/11, 80% of Americans believed a free economy is the best kind of economic system. Today this 80% is down to 59%.1
Now, back to the woman and her children who were sleeping on the sidewalk in a country that had a lot of taxes and regulations. That’ s the future our children are headed for, because liberty is the source of prosperity, and America no longer has liberty. It has bureaucrats. Regulators. Controls. Taxes.
Federal law alone contains more than four thousand criminal offenses. Without realizing it, the average American commits three felonies per day. 2
As one example, if you are caught skipping a rock into a creek or a lake, that’s felony pollution; at least a year in prison.3
Again, this is no longer a free country.
We are now so completely engulfed in this statist nightmare that I doubt one American in a thousand today has the foggiest idea how the American system of liberty once worked. We have almost universal amnesia about our true heritage. People do not know that liberty is the source of prosperity.
I think the typical American today has no more understanding of the system of liberty than that woman long ago sleeping on the sidewalk.
So, because Americans no longer understand our wonderful system of liberty, they are not willing to defend it, and this has led us into the present economic disaster. I think there is a very serious possibility that a lot of our children and grandchildren, and maybe some of us here today, are going to end up on the sidewalk with a concrete step as a pillow.
Now don’t get me wrong. The fact that I’m not talking about investments at this investment conference doesn’t mean I’m saying it’s not crucial to be a savvy investor. Buying gold, silver and platinum, for instance, are absolutely essential. For two decades, I’ve been recommending that my subscribers establish a relationship with Resource Consultants and have a regular program for buying precious metals. Any who have done that are sitting on huge profits, while millions who trusted the government and its currency are in deep financial trouble.
I’m sure there is a lot more profit to come. In terms of the value of today’s dollar, I’ll be surprised if gold does not go to $5,000, silver to $100 and platinum to $5,000.
But financial success is not enough. I certainly like the money we’ve been earning, but what good does it do to be successful in a country where the government has destroyed the economy, and starving, desperate mobs are rioting?
But we can stop this descent into chaos. We can reverse this slide into tyranny and poverty, by teaching others about the system of liberty. We can retrace our steps and go back down the road to liberty, by studying the works of the American founders — of Jefferson, Madison, Patrick Henry and the others.
The reason I’m sure this is possible is because it was done before. The way the so-called free world was created was by foreigners learning from the early Americans.
Well, if foreigners in the past could learn from the works of America’s founders, then so can Americans today! Read the original works of the founders, and then pass the message along to others.
To help you do that, in the 1980s I began writing the Uncle Eric series of books. There are 11 of the books, and they’re written in the form of a series of letters from an economist, Uncle Eric, to his teenage niece or nephew, explaining law, history, economics and a lot of other things from a viewpoint that’s consistent with the beliefs of the American founders. I did my absolute best to make everything in those books logically consistent with the two laws.
Another good place to start is to ask a librarian for the works of the American founders. I especially recommend a book called Thomas Jefferson On Democracy, by Saul K. Padover. It’s really brilliant. It’s Jefferson’s original thoughts about the problems we’re having today.
There’s a lot of other help out there, too: the Foundation for Economic Education, the Mises Institute, The Cato Institute, Advocates for Self-Government. On our web site, which is RichardMaybury.com, you will find listed under “Freedom Oriented Sites” about fifty organizations that are there to help you teach yourself and others what we all need to understand about the system of liberty.
We can return to the American golden age. We can again have a country where the two laws are paramount, where people understand that there is a Higher Law than any government’s law, and where each generation lives better than the one before.
But we’re out of time. We must get started now, or we’re going to end up with the kind of country in which a lot of us will be sleeping on the sidewalk.
We can do this. It’s been done before. The free world was not an accident, it was deliberately created by people on every continent studying the system of liberty.
We have to begin with consciousness raising. We must talk to other people and explain to them that liberty is the source of prosperity, and the reason our prosperity is going away is that our liberty is going away.
We must tell them about the two fundamental laws, and the fact that the laws are universal, everyone including those who work for the government is required to obey them. All men are created equal, and there is a Higher Law than any human law.
You can find a recording of the speech and Q&A here. (do to technical difficulties the first paragraph was not recorded)
People who are thinking about becoming writers sometimes ask me how I became successful in this business. I tell them it’s easy. All you need to do is find a woman who loves you so much she’ll subsidize you for 20 years even though she thinks you’re crazy, then one day suddenly you are an overnight success.
There were a few other things that factored into my career, especially into the choice of the subjects I would specialize in writing about — economics, law, history, investments and so forth.
One of the earliest incidents was when I was about 21 years old in the Air Force. I was in a Central American country — I don’t remember which one — and one night we had come off a mission, and were tired and hungry, and stopped at a nice restaurant for a big steak dinner.
After dinner we went to our hotel, which was one of the best in the city. In those days, the dollar was a highly valuable and respected currency, because it was still backed by gold, and even a sergeant could live like a king in a Central American country.
There was a crowd at the door to our hotel, and I had to stand waiting a few moments, so I was just looking around. Across the street I noticed a young woman with three small children. She laid down on the sidewalk, put her head on the concrete step of the building, and then the three little ones laid down and snuggled up against her. She pulled her cape over them as best she could, and I realized that was how she and her children were going to spend the night.
I can see that like it was yesterday. I thought to myself, why the difference between her and me? I’ve just had a big steak dinner and I’m about to spend the night in a clean bed in a luxury hotel, and she and her family are going to sleep outside on the sidewalk with a concrete step as their pillow.
Why the difference? I began studying everything I could get my hands on about economics, law, history and related subjects.
In three or four years I realized the difference was the American Constitution. The primary purpose of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, is to limit the government’s power, so that no matter who gets control of the government, they can’t do much damage. The woman I saw sleeping on the sidewalk lived in a country where the government was unrestrained.
The people were taxed and regulated to death. Literally, to death. A lot of them starved. Anyone who was able to save money, immediately sent it out of the country, so that it would not be stolen, meaning taxed away, by their government. So there was very little savings to start businesses and hire workers. No constitution — meaning no controls on the government — meant no prosperity. It was simply too hard to start a business and hire people such as the woman sleeping on the sidewalk.
Today in America, demographic studies show there are millions of young adults who have given up looking for jobs. They’re just living with their parents, and sitting around all day playing computer games.
People are giving birth to babies, but they’re no longer giving birth to enough businesses for the babies to grow up and have jobs. But I’m getting a little ahead of my story.
Realizing that lack of a Constitution — meaning lack of restrictions on the government — was the cause of poverty, didn’t satisfy me. I thought there was probably something even more fundamental happening than that.
It took me about 15 years of studying economics, law and history until I hit on the two laws I so often write about — the laws that make civilization possible. The first law is, do all you have agreed to do. That’s the basis of contract law. The second is, do not encroach on other persons or their property. That’s the basis of tort law and some criminal law.
Do all you have agreed to do and, do not encroach on other persons or their property. These two rules, these seventeen words, are taught by all religions. They express them in different ways, but they all teach them. This is why these two laws became the basis of the old British Common Law. Common Law was the law common to all.
A lot of the American founders were lawyers, and they had deep backgrounds in Common Law. They built the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the rest of the legal structure that grew up out of the Revolutionary War period from Common Law, which means from those seventeen words.
One of the most important points about the two laws is that they applied to everyone including the government. Especially the rule, do not encroach. That runs all through the Bill of Rights.
Even people who are the government or work for the government — they are not exceptions. That’s what Jefferson meant when he wrote, all men are created equal. No exceptions, no special privileges; everyone obeys the law. Do not encroach on other persons or their property.
These laws were not applied perfectly — nothing humans do will ever be perfect — but it was close enough for the typical American to work, save and invest without interference from government “experts” who believe they know how to run our lives.
America became the most free and prosperous nation ever seen because liberty is the source of prosperity.
People all over the world began to notice the great abundance created by the American system of liberty, and millions of them came here. Millions more stayed at home and triggered off revolutions, and built copies of the American system of liberty.
The nations where the American system took hold came to be known as the free world. Notice that the countries that were most free were also the most prosperous.
I say “were,” because I haven’t heard the term free world now since 9/11. Today it is simply assumed that government experts should meddle in every corner of our lives because they are so good, wise and noble that they know what’s best for us. All men are not created equal and government experts are superior to the rest of us. They are allowed to encroach.
A quarter-million federal bureaucrats now make or enforce regulations. A quarter-million have the privilege of encroaching on us.
And that’s just the federal government, it says nothing about the state and local regulators.
The Constitution says Congress is supposed to be the body that makes laws. But a quarter-million federal bureaucrats who have not been elected by anyone — these are civil servants who have been given the privilege of encroaching.
Millions of children go through commercial airports every year now, and they are growing up thinking that search and seizure without a warrant or probable cause is the normal American way of life. In school, they think being searched and interrogated is the normal American way of life.
They think being required to get a permit to do practically anything is the American way. Having someone demand, show me your papers, where are your papers? is the American way.
America is no longer a free country, and the children are being taught that this is just fine.
At the time of 9/11, 80% of Americans believed a free economy is the best kind of economic system. Today this 80% is down to 59%.1
Now, back to the woman and her children who were sleeping on the sidewalk in a country that had a lot of taxes and regulations. That’ s the future our children are headed for, because liberty is the source of prosperity, and America no longer has liberty. It has bureaucrats. Regulators. Controls. Taxes.
Federal law alone contains more than four thousand criminal offenses. Without realizing it, the average American commits three felonies per day. 2
As one example, if you are caught skipping a rock into a creek or a lake, that’s felony pollution; at least a year in prison.3
Again, this is no longer a free country.
We are now so completely engulfed in this statist nightmare that I doubt one American in a thousand today has the foggiest idea how the American system of liberty once worked. We have almost universal amnesia about our true heritage. People do not know that liberty is the source of prosperity.
I think the typical American today has no more understanding of the system of liberty than that woman long ago sleeping on the sidewalk.
So, because Americans no longer understand our wonderful system of liberty, they are not willing to defend it, and this has led us into the present economic disaster. I think there is a very serious possibility that a lot of our children and grandchildren, and maybe some of us here today, are going to end up on the sidewalk with a concrete step as a pillow.
Now don’t get me wrong. The fact that I’m not talking about investments at this investment conference doesn’t mean I’m saying it’s not crucial to be a savvy investor. Buying gold, silver and platinum, for instance, are absolutely essential. For two decades, I’ve been recommending that my subscribers establish a relationship with Resource Consultants and have a regular program for buying precious metals. Any who have done that are sitting on huge profits, while millions who trusted the government and its currency are in deep financial trouble.
I’m sure there is a lot more profit to come. In terms of the value of today’s dollar, I’ll be surprised if gold does not go to $5,000, silver to $100 and platinum to $5,000.
But financial success is not enough. I certainly like the money we’ve been earning, but what good does it do to be successful in a country where the government has destroyed the economy, and starving, desperate mobs are rioting?
But we can stop this descent into chaos. We can reverse this slide into tyranny and poverty, by teaching others about the system of liberty. We can retrace our steps and go back down the road to liberty, by studying the works of the American founders — of Jefferson, Madison, Patrick Henry and the others.
The reason I’m sure this is possible is because it was done before. The way the so-called free world was created was by foreigners learning from the early Americans.
Well, if foreigners in the past could learn from the works of America’s founders, then so can Americans today! Read the original works of the founders, and then pass the message along to others.
To help you do that, in the 1980s I began writing the Uncle Eric series of books. There are 11 of the books, and they’re written in the form of a series of letters from an economist, Uncle Eric, to his teenage niece or nephew, explaining law, history, economics and a lot of other things from a viewpoint that’s consistent with the beliefs of the American founders. I did my absolute best to make everything in those books logically consistent with the two laws.
Another good place to start is to ask a librarian for the works of the American founders. I especially recommend a book called Thomas Jefferson On Democracy, by Saul K. Padover. It’s really brilliant. It’s Jefferson’s original thoughts about the problems we’re having today.
There’s a lot of other help out there, too: the Foundation for Economic Education, the Mises Institute, The Cato Institute, Advocates for Self-Government. On our web site, which is RichardMaybury.com, you will find listed under “Freedom Oriented Sites” about fifty organizations that are there to help you teach yourself and others what we all need to understand about the system of liberty.
We can return to the American golden age. We can again have a country where the two laws are paramount, where people understand that there is a Higher Law than any government’s law, and where each generation lives better than the one before.
But we’re out of time. We must get started now, or we’re going to end up with the kind of country in which a lot of us will be sleeping on the sidewalk.
We can do this. It’s been done before. The free world was not an accident, it was deliberately created by people on every continent studying the system of liberty.
We have to begin with consciousness raising. We must talk to other people and explain to them that liberty is the source of prosperity, and the reason our prosperity is going away is that our liberty is going away.
We must tell them about the two fundamental laws, and the fact that the laws are universal, everyone including those who work for the government is required to obey them. All men are created equal, and there is a Higher Law than any human law.