The Suffering Beyond Our Horizon

It must be said bluntly – a genocide has been going on in Palestine. Already destitute lives are destroyed by bombs. Innocent children are getting their short lives brutally ended, while wailing women are blown to pieces with tears in their eyes. There is currently no peace and no hope for the Palestinian people.

Yet, in the West we live on as if this reality didn’t exist. We were taught “Never again”, but “Never again is now”.

Real Democracy Can Only Be Freedom

With the advent of representative democracy over a century ago in most of the West, the popular belief was that the “rule of the few” would be relegated to the dustbin of History. This never happened of course, as has become clearer to the “many” over the decades. Indeed, the ruling Western oligarchy has become more visible than before, too brazen in its attempts to ram through its globalist agenda on the world.

The illusion of representative democracy has also been fading as social and economic conditions in the West worsen.

The Limits to Public Opinion and the Failure of Democracy

It is not so often admitted, but it is nevertheless the case, that the people can never be successfully represented politically. However, public opinion influences politics, at times even strongly. In all political systems, the ruling minority must take into account, to varying degrees, the public mood as expressed in town halls, polls, elections, demonstrations, and now, social media.

Why Democracy Has Such Staying Power

As has often been noted, « majority rule » in the political sense does not exist in the way it is presented by the dominant institutions of Western so-called “democracies”. The Western public’s resistance to criticism of democracy is therefore remarkable. 

The staying power of representative democracy in the West can be explained as follows. 

Smashing the Western Illusion of Democracy

In these politically turbulent times, the ”illusion of democracy is fading worldwide” as one pundit wrote recently. There is a growing sense, in the West, that democracy is not working well, but there is not yet a full and clear recognition of that fact.

Michel Maffesoli, honorary professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, has been saying already for several years, that “the end of the democratic ideal is manifesting itself”. Signs of this can be seen in the problematic elections that have taken place in his native France and other Western countries.

Julian Assange and the Struggle for Political Freedom

Julian Assange's heroic but tragic life has taken an unexpected turn for the better with his recent liberation through a plea deal with the US government. It must never be forgotten that the Wikileaks founder was a successful publisher and a prized journalist, and yet was at risk of being extradited to the United States to be charged with espionage and imprisoned for life. Though many people around the world have followed Assange's hardships on and off for more than a decade, the many acts of his sham trial in London highlighted the importance of the struggle for political freedom.

Draghi’s Globalist EU Speech Urges Concentration of Power

A quite revealing speech about the future of the European Union was given in Brussels on April 16, 2024 by Mario Draghi, who some say is slated to become the next president of the EU Commission, replacing scandal-ridden Ursula von der Leyen. Draghi, former Italian PM and former head of the European Central Bank, gave policy recommendations for the future, directly to members of the EU Commission. In light of this year’s elections to the EU parliament, the content of this speech should be exposed, because it epitomizes so much of what is wrong today with the political direction of the European Union.

The West Needs Radical Political Change Towards Freedom

It should not have escaped the politically aware that the threats to freedom in Western societies are now unprecedented. This goes far beyond the interventionist pressures that over time have been slowly throttling most Western economies. The Western oligarchic elite is now dead set on implementing what one influential blogger described as “a society hermetically sealed against any form of rebellion, dissidence, or questioning of the ruling class-imposed power structure”.

The Danger of the Western Public's Neglect of Individual Rights

Though the Western political class constantly criticizes the “authoritarian” nature of certain nations, one should sweep in front of his own door first, to paraphrase Goethe. Indeed, Western nation-states and international institutions have for years been gnawing at the freedom and rights of both individuals and companies.

Firstly, the exorbitant fiscal and inflationary pressures on Western populations should never be considered “normal” or “acceptable”; they are severe violations of property rights in and of themselves. These pressures alone help to explain the economic stagnation and political decadence of Western societies. Additionally, previously unthinkable powers have been given to Western police and security forces, many of them now permanent. Wikileaks and others have revealed the programs of mass-surveillance of entire populations that is practiced by unaccountable Western intelligence agencies.

The Western Ruling Elite: Its Development and Its Betrayal

The Western ruling elite has become oligarchic in nature; its political and economic influence is disproportionate and even harmful to society. It is necessary, therefore, to review its historical evolution and expose its current goals.

First of all, it must be recognized that it is natural and necessary for society to have an elite. Murray Rothbard wrote about the ideal of "natural aristocrats", who “live in freedom and harmony with their fellows, and rise by exercising their individuality and their highest abilities in the service of their fellows, either in an organization or by producing efficiently for the consumers.”

Libertarianism and the Importance of Causality

Even though support for the free market has become stronger in the last decades, libertarianism can still only be considered a fringe movement. Most people still believe that many social problems are due to “market failure” and therefore require State intervention to be “solved”. Despite the obvious flaws of modern socialism, with its unlikely combination of redistributive welfare state and globalist crony capitalism, and despite libertarianism’s robust philosophical and empirical foundations, the liberalism of Ludwig von Mises is still far from enjoying the majority support that it so amply deserves.

Modern Socialism is a Forced Socialization

My article “The Education of the Modern Socialist” deserves a follow up. That first part showed that a change has occurred in the definition of "socialism"; a necessary one in view of the failures of this ideology during the last century. Socialism today is based on the ideology of "Statism" that is, the conviction that the State must play a fundamental role in society. This is Ludwig von Mises’ wider definition of Socialism as State intervention; a modern social State that is involved in most if not all the activities of society, whether commercial or not.