Introduction to Know Stealing

1.1 Introduction

A people or nation that does not understand liberty cannot defend it.

I work late and rise early thinking about liberty, production and the nature of things. The stakes are high. Your time is valuable. Please permit me to be direct. We have been deceived, and I know how it was done.

The reader with an open mind, who actively questions everything including the ideas recorded here, will get the most out of Know Stealing. When you reach the last page, it is my hope that you will have demanded, and that I will have delivered, solid arguments capable of standing under scrutiny and pressure.

Consider the following brief statements:

We have problems that do not have to exist. They can be resolved.

Western civilization is crumbling financially at the level of the individual, the family, the business and the government. This is no small issue. Why is there a uniform worldwide collapse of economies?

We all know of some bad ideas that the other guy accepts. But it turns out that there are a few simple, important, highly destructive ideas which have been commonly accepted by most people for several hundred years. This confusion and error is causing us serious problems.

Certain commonly accepted ideas are measurably and objectively wrong. These ideas encourage destructive actions, which lead to bad outcomes.

Just like in a garden, we are reaping what we sow. It is time for us to clear away centuries of brush and debris, and it is definitely time to stop planting more bad seeds.

Consider these outcomes:

Job loss

Home foreclosure

Business bankruptcy

People have debt not savings

Retirements grow and disappear on paper

Big government

Government bankruptcy

Worldwide economic meltdown

The list goes on.

Ideas guide actions which have outcomes. Therefore, if society as a whole has common problems, then whatever ideas are commonly accepted about the world are suspect. There are several institutions that people claim are essential to modern civilization because of the good they do. It is true that there are institutions that do good work and have significant influence. However, if an institution is considered to be genuinely influential in society, then it must also be open to scrutiny and critical review.

In other words, how can a person say that institution A is all that is holding things together, and then suggest that the problems that exist are not the fault of the institution? Either the institution is weak and really not very influential, or the institution is influential and has a share in the blame for the global economic, moral and social wreck we are in.

There was a time when I would have argued against certain negative claims about my religion, my country, our marketplace and our government. But I knew something wasn't right, so I went on a journey of sorts to discover the truth about things.

Please accept the following short story as an allegory.

###

I once went on a journey seeking answers. After many years I found an old chest in a forgotten place that was overflowing with good things, including lost knowledge. I studied the contents carefully.

Once I understood the reality, cause and nature of the problems we face, I looked back to tell my friends what I had learned. But they were far away and there was a great wasteland between us. No matter how hard I tried, people could not understand, unless they were able to go back with me over rugged terrain to see what I had found.

What a strange predicament to be in. I loved my friends and people in general and I was sitting before a treasure that would benefit us all. In fact, the value to each individual is much greater if this treasure is shared.

But I couldn't tell people about it, I was too far away. I couldn't show them because the trip over the wasteland was too long and difficult. I had learned enough to understand what was happening in the world, but that is an altogether different thing from showing others. So I set my next goal.

I determined to learn how to effectively share a more complete understanding of the world with others. I set about building trails, roads and bridges. I started drawing maps for the journey. I labored until a dangerous, expensive, painful, fifteen year journey was turned into a few days of safe travel. That travel guide is in your hand.

Come with me. You will never see the world the same again.

###

So how does this trip begin? We need to look for common ground.

By training, our thinking is dangerously twisted so that we learn to perceive friends as enemies and enemies as friends. Our first step is to genuinely put all persons into one big category. Propaganda shouts about differences between people everyday. Is there anything that all people have in common?

Attributing Creation to God, the Bible states the obvious.

“for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45b, NASB95)

We are all subject to a common enemy. For fifteen years I have studied to understand why American families and businesses are being pushed from savings and prosperity toward debt and loss. Besides the sun and rain, it turns out people have much more in common than many of us realize.

The course we are on as a nation is unsustainable. No great civilization expects to collapse, yet they all have. There are specific reasons for their collapse, which are discussed in these pages. The good news is that the powerful tools for restoring our individual wealth and prosperity are recorded here. The bad news is that the powerful tools for restoring our individual wealth and prosperity are not automatically clear and correct in the hearts and minds of people. In order to establish and maintain a free and prosperous society, each person must understand how the world actually works, and then teach others. Businessmen, pastors, politicians, professors, blue-collar, white-collar, young, old, wealthy, poor… We are all together deceived. I will prove this.

Understanding the simple idea that people depend on production is required to restore our liberty and personal wealth. When that idea settles in alongside a few others, a new and valuable framework of understanding comes into view.

The Bible verse above observes a simple fact about the world. The sun rises and the rain falls on every perspective, attitude and religion.

What if there is a small bit of common ground between all people, regardless of worldview?

For instance, I may not know you, but I still know the sun rises and the rain falls on you.

People have different religions, but religion should not be a test for public office, except from the voting booth where it should always be a test. Even though Romans 13 is often poorly translated and wrongly applied, it does state that a Christian must be subject to higher authorities, regardless of religion, political affiliation or worldview. At the same time, the power and actions of authority must be limited based on just law. Getting this basic relationship right in our thinking is essential.¹

Perhaps there are other similar basics that can help restore our freedom. In fact, I am pleased to report that there are. I found these treasures by rejecting the false teaching commonly dressed in peer review, conventional wisdom and “it's always been that way.” For example, we all eat food and use things. Since food and things must be produced, we all have at least that in common. Oppressive power comes primarily from control of production. Power structures cannot exist without the labor and property of producers. A clear understanding of these and a few other essential ideas may forever change the way you perceive the world.

I hope those who already understand these ideas will find this a useful teaching tool. I am thankful for the centuries of great thinkers, writers and teachers who have produced more detailed work on liberty, production and wealth than any one person will ever exhaust. Even so, there may be important ideas here that are genuinely new to most people, regardless of education or worldview.

I labored to make this very basic writing as short as possible, while still being careful to cover essential ideas, so that these ideas can travel quickly. Restoring our liberty and prosperity depends on the speed with which these misplaced old ideas become commonplace again in our society. Every chapter has a purpose and role supporting that end.

One of the great challenges is engaging the audience. I want to engage the economist, scientist and pastor. I also want to engage the cattleman, mechanic and truck driver. I want to draw in the grandfather and his grandchildren. I am hopeful that these ideas will become the buzz in middle school, high school and college. I want mothers and daughters to be informed and encouraged.

In order to genuinely engage such a diverse audience, there must be a common denominator. One would think that an interesting common denominator that speaks to the educated man and the working man, as well as the young and the old would not exist. But it does.

In some ways I am uniquely qualified to present these ideas. You will see from my biography that I am at home with young and old, formally educated or not, grease and dirt or suit and tie, chewing the fat or presenting formal testimony. At every opportunity, I gladly advance the ideas of liberty and openly debate those who hold a different view, whether around the campfire or in the classroom, boardroom or in some public venue.

One of my challenges is to explain where we are wrong in our thinking without unnecessarily offending people. At the same time, I would debate any citizen, businessman, pastor, professor, teacher, leader, political activist, elected official or journalist on these ideas at any time, in any place. The bottom line is that our thinking is extremely mixed up and, in many important areas, just flat out wrong. The errors in our thinking and understanding are costing us our liberty, our homes, our jobs, our retirements and our children's future.

Liberty and prosperity are always at stake in every nation for every generation. Eventually bad decisions in the past force a generation to come to terms with the truth about what is necessary to sustain a free society. We are one of those generations. In our case, we can no longer naively depend on past production, new land, old-style immigration, industrialization, available cheap energy and paper wealth to maintain our standard of living.

We must learn how the world actually works.

We must learn to identify root causes.

We must learn how to defend our individual rights and personal property.

We must understand how power is developed and aggregated.

We must understand how nations are built and how they fall.

We must understand liberty, production, and the nature of things.

These pages contain keys to understanding which will enable a person to see through the errors that surround us daily. We have the power to overcome destructive ideas that exist in business, politics and religion.

My single objective is to share the very best of what I've learned with those who are willing to open their minds and think, in order to understand how to restore and preserve our great nation as a land of liberty and production. I welcome all challenges with regard to these ideas.

Of course the reader will find in these pages opinion, preference, analogy, anecdote, hyperbole, allegory and other literary devices which aid in conveying ideas and communicating meaning. When I claim that something is objectively true, it will be clearly stated as such.

The Bible is referenced as a guiding document for those to whom the book is Holy and as literature for others. Since Christian beliefs significantly impact the culture for both the Christian and non-Christian, understanding how the Bible influences society is useful for all. While there are significant sections which deal with typically misinterpreted Bible passages, the main case can be made using math, reason, logic and history. The Bible passages and teaching are necessary to help resolve certain problematic conflict in Christian teaching and thought.

The material in this book is powerful. It will teach a bold middle school student all that is necessary to debate and defeat a formally educated economist or an experienced politician. Imagine a magnificent skyscraper that is built on a lie. If a person, even a child, can show that the foundation is a lie, then the whole building has to be an illusion. Many things we believe are true are no more than illusions. Children who study the ideas presented in this book will have a better understanding of the world we live in than most successful and formally educated adults.

Sadly, we will discover that for the past 1600 years the Christian community has maintained at least one specific error in Christian thought which makes Christians largely responsible for the disaster we currently face as a nation. Amazingly I've been unable to find any person or literature that makes the specific case that you will read here. Neither have I met anyone who would even make the effort to present a reasoned argument against these claims. I'll be most appreciative if a reader can connect me with literature on any of these uncommon topics.²

The goal of this book is to restore sound thinking about liberty, production, and the nature of things so that a growing number of people may experience the blessings of liberty. In order to do that we have to cover a lot of ground without getting bogged down on any one point. This is a slow-starting, then faster-moving book of ideas which will point the interested reader to a wealth of literature which goes deeper into related theory and detail.

Liberty and prosperity are the prizes. So let's get started.

1Romans 13:1-7 is quoted and discussed in significant detail in the section on Authority.

2My argument here is multifaceted. First, these concepts are critical and basic which means they should be common knowledge. No search should be necessary. Second, I have physically and electronically searched many resources where these ideas should be present, and they are either not present, or at least not obvious enough for me to find. Third, I have asked many well educated people from various disciplines and have met no one who has been previously aware of these facts and ideas. Fourth, the commentaries and writing I have found include error which the information presented here illuminates as error.

Bernanke and the Illusion of Wealth

On the September 15, 2012 edition of the US Farm Report on RFD TV, John Phipps talked about the FED decision to create $40 Billion a month from nothing to buy our home mortgages. In discussing the event, he states what he called the short version of Bernanke's public announcement in the preceding week, then Mr. Phipps adds his own analysis.

The short version: "We're going to worry about inflation once we gets jobs back, not before."

This is very good news, I think. If our whole economy could pick up steam, the possibilities that open up to ag are enormous.

You can see his comments the video on the www.agewb.com/usfr page, shortly after the middle of the program. 

I sent the following email to Mr. Phipps that same day.

Mr. Phipps,

On Saturday September 15, 2012 you mentioned the FED's decision to create more new money as being a good thing for agriculture. This thinking is hailed by conventional wisdom as sophisticated and smart, yet it is objectively illogical and based on measurably false assumptions. It is especially shameful for people who are involved in agriculture to be confused about the effect of any government interventions, especially the act of creating new money from nothing.

If we are to prosper again in agriculture, or as free people in the US, we must stop government interventions on all fronts. In few words, I explain it in this way:

Have you ever noticed that people eat food and use things? Food and things must be produced. Government produces nothing, wastes much and interferes with production. Therefore every promise made by government has to be kept by a producer. Government intervention makes us all poorer than we would otherwise be.

The only way for anyone to increase wealth in the current system is through wealth transfer, not wealth production. The American producer provides the wealth to those at the top of the system. Bernanke cannot produce wealth with entries in a ledger. He can only transfer it.

My question to you is this: How does the creation of new money, which today is simply an electronic ledger entry, add to the wealth of a nation or individual?

$0.99 In May 2012

I am pleased to report that thousands of copies of Know Stealing have been downloaded. The May 2012 promotion began with two days that Know Stealing could be downloaded for free.

The purpose of the book is to get information in the hands of those who would defend liberty if only they had good information. So I want to make it easy for new readers.

Now for the rest of May, to say thank you and to help keep the ideas moving, the eBook is specially priced at 99 cents.

Please share with others that Know Stealing is available for 99 cents during the rest of month of May.

And remember that if you don't have a Kindle, you can download the free Kindle reading app to your Mac, PC, iPhone, Android or Windows mobile device.

Of course the print editions are good for the bookshelf too...

Chapter 6.4 - Know Stealing

There are 8 Chapters in Know Stealing, with 65 sections. Following is one of these sections.

6.4 Institutions

Any government that grows, eventually kills; first productivity, then wealth, then people.

There are good institutions in every category, but they are rare.

I define a corrupt institution as any organization whose survival depends on coercively receiving someone else's labor, property and production, usually for institutional self-preservation or in pursuit of legal plunder, particularly while effectively ignoring or working against the interest of those providing the resources.

A few examples are trade associations, cooperatives, religious associations, religious ministries, political groups, subsidized business, and of course government. When these institutions are funded through a chain of events that are dependent on plunder and deception, bad things happen.

Of course these institutions have member benefits or do some good things, but the benefits are often like buying a thousand dollar hamburger. It is a bad trade. Over time the institution becomes focused on itself, rather than those it was originally organized to serve.

Institutions Are Net Consumers

With rare exceptions, institutions are net consumers. Institutions depend on producers in order to survive. Within a social order that prevents stealing, if producers willingly and freely contribute resources to an institution, then that institution is valuable to society. If the survival of an institution depends on forcefully confiscating profits from production, then that institution is a parasite that is draining valuable life from the society.

Institutions Outlast Individuals

With rare exceptions, institutions outlast individuals.

Institutions which are part of the network of plunder in a society have effectively unlimited resources.

Since an offending institution is supported by the plunder of producers, when resources are transferred, there is a two to one power transfer between the institution and the producers who support it. In other words, because there is no exchange of production, the transfer of resources moves in one direction. For example, every time one unit of money is transferred from the producers to the institution, there is a relative change of two units. If there was an exchange of production, like corn for wheat, both parties would benefit. Without mutual benefit, why would anyone ever exchange one thing for another?¹

Most often, one or only a few producers attempt to resist a particular institution at any one time, which means that through the institution the resources of many neutral producers are focused like a laser on one or a few resistant producers. For example, a farmer or manufacturer may be unwittingly helping crush his neighbor.

In addition, if producers lose their profits to plunder and are at risk of losing their capital, they are in no position to fight the institution. Even in an honest system of exchange, most of a producer's capital is tied up in his productive enterprise. In a costless money system, the producer's real property is subject to loss because he is out of balance on paper, in terms of the money system. A farmer will lose his farm because of ledger entries at the bank. Productive land, buildings and machines are wealth and capital. Ledger entries are not wealth or capital.

On the other hand, the institution's access to resources, in terms of the money system, is liquid, refreshed annually and not dependent on the productive thought or labor of those who operate and receive salaries from the institution.

If one million producers annually contribute $100 each to an institution, then the producer who resists is facing an opponent funded annually to the tune of $100 million dollars. The institution influences producers who do not yet see the problem. While producers are out producing, the institution gives gifts, hires lawyers, gains experience in using an unjust legal system, lobbies government for more resources and generally outlasts the producers who have the gall to complain about being plundered.

Since authority is power and power comes from production, institutions are able to easily overpower the supposedly insubordinate producers.

Institutions Force Producers To Fight Themselves

Because institutions are fueled by production confiscated from producers, producers are in effect forced to fight themselves. To draw a simple analogy, in World War II the United States was at war with Germany. Of course there were many other countries involved on the sides known as the Allies and the Axis, but for the sake of analogy we will focus on the United States and Germany.

Imagine if the United States was required to gear up engineering and manufacturing to supply military gear and soldiers for our own army, and also was required to do exactly the same thing for the German army.

Even worse, we would be required to multiply the relative strength of the enemy. For every one military resource we produced for ourselves, we would have to give ten resources to Germany.

It sounds dumb to supply the enemy at a rate of 2 to1 or 10 to 1, but that's what we do with most institutions. Who in their right mind would provide any resources to an enemy which was trying to establish or maintain a relationship based on force?

Institutional Conflict Breeds More Institutions

Resisting one institution with another institution is a worthless exercise. While resisting an institution with an opposing institution is effective, the end result is not an improvement.

Suppose Institution B is created to resist Institution A. The problem is that over the course of time producers go from Institutional Oppressor A, to both Institutional Oppressors A and B, and finally to Institutional Oppressor B. The process consumes their time, energy and resources in exchange for no improvement in their condition.

In other words, the situation goes from bad to worse, and then if you're lucky enough to defeat Institutional Oppressor A, in the end you just go back to another version of bad under Institutional Oppressor B. Institutions by their very nature engage in internal and external self-preservation at the expense of producers who unwillingly provide the resources for the institutions to exist. This is especially true because the general systems of plunder depend on institutions to control producers and keep the people fighting amongst themselves.

Institutions Are Defeated By Behavior

The most important thing to understand about institutions is this: The only way to defeat unlawful plundering institutions is by individual behavior.

Let's identify flaws in the two typical ways in which we are trained to resist institutions.

The first method is to support an opposing institution which, as mentioned previously, is a waste of time.

The second way is to encourage movements.

Movements absorb the energy of the particular individuals who are actively resisting because they are currently upset about some aspect of the systems of plunder and oppression to which they are being subjected.

Movements come and go because movements are expensive, and producers do not have the time or energy to stay involved in movements indefinitely. They have work to do. The producers who are upset with the plundering institutions are not supported by theft like the plundering institutions are, so these producers have to keep working.

It is worth noting there is the artificial movement that is externally sustained by institutions within the system of plunder. For example, the Soros Open Society Institute was one of the major contributors to the media campaign that was designed to play to an audience of 535, meaning the US Congress². This was an artificial movement designed to project itself as a mass movement on the part of various voting constituencies which would influence congressmen to vote a certain way on a certain issue.

In this case, the artificial movement was populated by those who were deriving their livelihood from the system of plunder. Workers in the artificial movement were sustained by institutions and favored business whose resources are derived from plunder, based on differing weights and measures which enable the manipulation of labor and property on paper.

Sustained Cultural Impact

But producers who are trying to protect their property rights have no such support. This next statement will seem very oversimplified, but it helps to explain why movements are not sustainable. The first order of business for a producer is to secure food, shelter and clothing for himself and those for whom he is responsible. Unless the movement will put food in the stomach, a roof over the head and a shirt on the back, the movement is not sustainable.

The only way for anything to have a sustainable, long-term impact on society is for the thing to be tied to the stomach. There are two pieces to this puzzle.

The first piece is required and will always be present in every society. It is quite simply some level of production. A society that defends individual life, liberty and property will be highly productive, which leads to abundance and prosperity. A society that is highly oppressed will produce what it can under adverse conditions. The greater the oppression, the greater the poverty, disease, hunger and death.

The first puzzle piece, noted above, is about work which leads directly to some level of production. The second puzzle piece is not production in a direct tangible sense.

The second puzzle piece secures the ability to produce without interfering with the ability to produce.

This is different from a movement, which is expensive, time consuming and takes people away from their productive work. To overcome the corruption and plunder of institutions, we need a tool that lets us keep working so that we are able to continue producing. Otherwise resistance leads to our poverty, not liberty and prosperity. Finally, this tool must also be inexpensive and easy to use.

It may sound like the tool I am describing is too good to be true, but it is not. What I am describing is a collection of behaviors which are driven and shaped by belief, which is founded on truth.

If, as a community of free people, we are all willing to actively confront stealing in all forms, at all times, and we are willing to set a standard that says if anyone is not willing to work then he is not to eat, we will completely separate the connection between the producer and the stomach of those who plunder.

Think of separating the connection between the producer and the stomach of the plunderer with this allegory. Suppose you were king of the United States and you called in the head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to give him new powers. You inform him that the IRS may use any resources, any new systems, any laws, police force or any other thing they desired without limits, except one. No person who works for or supports the tax collection, investigation or any other aspect of the IRS work, directly or indirectly, is allowed to eat any food, drink any water or take any form of nutrition ever again, no exceptions.

By disconnecting the stomach from the plunder, there remains no one to do the plundering. They either quit and produce, or starve. Either way, the IRS is no longer a problem. This is a picture of what happens when stealing is outlawed. No honest system of funding a government which defends individual life, liberty and property depends on theft. Without theft there remains a balance of power in society, which is a balance of authority, which is distributed based on production.

I guarantee that if free people will stand together and say “No more!” the institutions will try to regain their position by force. The thieves and their minions will use all manner of propaganda, violence, force, and threats of impending disaster to frighten people into submission. I would expect what are sometimes called false flag operations. But if producers know the truth about how the world really works and are committed to liberty and righteous law, the thieves will not succeed. The thieves will be overcome.

Once the thieves understand that the producers will stand together on the principle that the individual has the right to his own life, liberty and property, then they will become producers, or they will perish.

According to the Bible, God has given able-bodied people the right to choose to work and eat or not work and die. Far be it from me to deprive them of their God-given right to choose life or death.

Footnotes

1 This is a great truth in economics. Exchange does not occur because two things are equal in value. It occurs based on what can be called a double inequality of value. From some combination of a variety of reasons, item A is more valuable to me and Item B is more valuable to you. I may give up a few bushels of corn, from the tons that I produce, in exchange for a few bushels from your tons of wheat. We both gain from the trade.

2 http://www.renewamerica.com/analysis/vernon/061002 Will George Soros rule America (with a little help from his friends, McCain-Feingold)?

Big Lies, Big Crowds

I meet people who ask if Ron Paul is still in the race. The media would have Americans believe he isn't. The media is telling lies. It is their nature and purpose. 

As Thomas Jefferson wrote, If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

So who tells you what to believe? Or do you engage in critical thinking so you can detect absurdities and lies?

Learn How To Be A Crook

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