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[jamie]

"There are no good cops.  There are no good soldiers.  They exist only in propaganda films and fantasies. Both occupations are inherently evil. ( omitted    )   Both turn well-intentioned fools into psychopaths."

Silver, is this what you really believe?

I left out the attract  thugs and bullies part because that is unarguably true.

[Rarick]

Yep, but there are rumbling on social media and other places that are looking ominous.  Where there used to be references to "triple S" is starting to get specific like people are thinking things over in detail.........   What house address to call in a "Domestic shots fired" on, so a long gun(S) has good clear shots that don't go thru cars or door panels.......... and has a chance of spotting the entry crew as well......

There are a lot of dog lovers out there trying to make similar plans.......

Jeez, Rarick - what's your point, Man?

I'm trying to talk about positive consciousness - you know, that "mental" part of what we're all doing here in a "mental" militia - using our damned minds constructively to help turn an evil tide of totalitarian tyranny, and you sit here like an auto-referent god damning everything I am working for - using your sour words. So what's up Dude?

Salute!
Elias

I thought it was obvious, fight the good fight but watch your ass, the fire is heating up........

[Silver]

"There are no good cops.  There are no good soldiers.  They exist only in propaganda films and fantasies. Both occupations are inherently evil. ( omitted    )   Both turn well-intentioned fools into psychopaths."

Silver, is this what you really believe?

I left out the attract  thugs and bullies part because that is unarguably true.

I submit that the entire paragraph is unarguably true.

Freedomista Maggie McNeill addressed this a few years back:

If a cop is tasked with enforcing a law he knows to be immoral, it is his duty as a moral man to refuse that order even if it means his job. If he agrees with an immoral law then he is also immoral, and if he enforces a law he knows to be wrong even more so. The law of the land in Nazi-era Germany was for Jews and other “undesirables” to be sent to concentration camps, and the maltreatment of the prisoners was encouraged and even ordered by those in charge; any German soldier or policeman enforcing those laws was the exact moral equivalent of any soldier or policeman under any other democratically-elected government enforcing the laws enacted by that regime. Either “I was only following orders” is a valid defense, or it isn’t; either we agree that hired enforcers are absolved from responsibility because “they’re just doing their jobs”, or we don’t. You can’t have it both ways, and sometimes Nazi analogies are entirely appropriate.

I am not appealing to authority here, but pointing out that thoughtful people have been reaching the same conclusion for centuries.  Read Erasmus on the Wickedness of Soldiers by Lawence Vance.  Read Erasmus directly if you dare, it is powerful stuff.

Erasmus wrote a full 300 years before the invention of police, that clever ruse whereby an occupation army is imposed upon citizen-subjects by calling it something else.  So while he confined himself to writing about soldiers, every word applies to police as well.

Let me amplify on McNeill's point:  Those German soldiers and policemen were subject to immediate, severe punishment, up to summary execution, if they did not obey orders.  But at Nuremberg we hung them anyway.  We rejected "just following orders" as a legitimate excuse for immoral acts.

The source of the paycheck does not change the morality of the employee's actions.

Now if ordinary German citizens, in addition to police and soldiers, could be caged, beaten, and killed for refusing a salute, what possible excuse does any US thug have for their actions?  Their risks are primarily economic, such as losing an over-paid low-skill job with a luxurious pension.

Unless of course they are an actual oath keeper, meaning that they take their oath to the Constitution seriously, and act to uphold it.

Like Chelsea Manning, who has earned the right to be called whatever she wants.  Because her objections to the many heinous war crimes of US soldiers against unarmed civilians were ignored, she acted.  She kept her oath.

For that she was tortured for months, subjected to a show trial, and locked in a cage, where she remains.

That's what happens to soldiers and policemen who refuse to obey unconstitutional orders. 

People with the courage and integrity of Chelsea Manning are extremely rare, and I don't hold the average thug to her standards.  She could have simply resigned and rejoined peaceful civil society, and I for one would have accepted her decision and welcomed her.

As I would welcome all such people who renounce the use of violence to achieve their goals. I don't expect them to risk imprisonment, torture, and death in order to keep their oath to "a goddamned piece of paper."  I don't require penance and restitution.  All I ask is that they take off the silly costume and join the ranks of peaceful free men and women.

Peace,

Silver

PS - I realize that Chelsea Manning could be offered as an example of a good soldier.  I have several responses, starting with the observation that the overwhelming majority of soldiers believe the opposite.

More importantly, since her sentence includes a forced dishonorable discharge, she remains a soldier only by the whim of her tormentors, not by her own choice.  Once she is freed, she will no longer be a soldier.  She proves my point - the only good soldiers are ex-soldiers.

[Moonbeam]

Silver, thank you for articulating your thoughts. I don't always view folks in positions of "authority" the way you and others do. However, I have a better understanding of such sentiment when you take the time to share your perspective.

[da gooch]

Silver,

I, too, would like to thank you for your response.

Having been an ignorant dupe of the edudoctrination system and direct recipient of the military brain washing I can empathize with the currently serving young people who have fallen into the propaganda mills "tender mercies".

Still when it came to following orders blindly ... I had [and continue to have] a major negative response. For the longest time I attempted to push the responsibility of my negative reaction off on the actions of others.[bad leaders in my one specific situation, etc]

Then the red pill happened ... [actually a series of small separate red pills]

I have since been attempting to reach, teach and inspire those currently ignorant of the reality of their self induced prison and criminality.
Truly some of the folks attracted to the business of controlling [or killing] others are [or should be classed as] Thugs and psychopaths.
There are however a certain number who are, as I was, simply ignorant of the actual consequences and reality of their decision to  "serve their country".

Would you mind expressing your ideas and or suggestions of how you, or someone else, would go about reaching out to those individuals and getting them to renounce their "career" and the job/mindset/philosophy?
Without starting the "conflict" [think overt combat] that we all would very much like to spare ourselves and our children.

Thanks

edit to clarify a point and add emphasis

[Silver]

Gooch,

I don't have a magic formula.   You hit the nail on the head: there are the genuine psychopaths and bullies naturally attracted to and encouraged in these fields, and then there are those who are "ignorant of the actual consequences and reality of their decision."

Nearly all bullies are dreadful cowards, which is one of the reasons we see "officer safety" becoming so prominent in a field that is actually quite safe by most standards.  I've never learned a reliable cure for bullies.  Their extreme cowardice also prevents them from facing the unpleasant facts about their pathetic existence. 

Ignorance is a treatable condition and knowledge is the cure.  The trick is finding out which red pill will open their mind. 

For many it is seeing (different) thugs inflict pain and suffering on them or someone they care about. 

For others it is reading Ayn Rand, or Ron Paul, or Lew Rockwell, or some other libertarian or anarchocapitalist work. 

For a few the moment comes when washing the day's blood off of their hands and they accidentally confront the reality of their crimes. 

For a very few it is learning about the nature of money and gold, usually because (other) thugs have stolen their retirement plans or other financial loss. 

For a microscopic minority it comes from learning the truth via free-market economics, which at its core is about how a civil society chooses to order itself.

Any of these can work, all of them work on some people, but none of them work on all people, and most of them don't work at first try.  Some ignoramuses cling stubbornly to their delusions with the tenacity of the righteous.  Change is difficult, learning truth requires thought, which most people experience as difficult.  Most importantly, the life of a thief can be quite comfortable so long as you don't think about it.

There are two and only two classes of people in this world: The productive class who make their way by economic means, primarily free trade, and those who use fraud and violence to parasitize the productive class.  This is a MUCH bigger group than the thug ranks of police and soldiers, but all police and soldiers are parasites, without exception.

Beliefs are behaviors and members of the parasite class believe that it is perfectly honest and good to steal from their fellow men.  From there it is but a small step to believing that it must be right and good to club, choke, shoot, burn, cut, beat, poison, and cage anyone who protests the theft of their property.  One more small step and the same violence is meted out to any dissenter who refuse "lawful orders" of any kind. 

So we find ourselves today subjected to capricious whims of a ruling class, none of whom has any legitimacy beyond the boots and bullets of the enforcer class.  Just being different is dangerous, speaking out is nearly suicidal, and actual acts of dissent almost uniformly fatal.

Most of the ignorant people in the parasite class are not at all innocent, but many of them can be reformed if they have some courage and the good fortune to find the right red pill.  In their defense, they  have a lifetime of misinformation poured into intentionally defenseless minds from a tender age. That explains their ignorance, but no adult is excused of the consequences of their decisions because of ignorance.

So the short answer to your question is knowledge.  The longer one is to try as many different kinds of knowledge, approaches to teaching, and opportunities for learning as possible. 

We freedomistas have one extraordinarily powerful force on our side.  We speak the truth.  It takes a lifetime of conditioning to get a man to accept the pack of lies we call law, government, taxes, wars, etc.  But all of that conditioning can be destroyed in a single moment of clarity, and once shattered the conditioning is nearly impossible to repair.  A chink is opened, a mind awakened from a long slumber, and soon large chunks of rationalization and self-delusion are falling away.  Watching that process is both terrible and gratifying.

So it is worth trying.  Indeed it is the only non-violent approach that I know, and I have sworn not to use violence to achieve my goals. 

Understand that I don't fault you or Elias or any other free man for reaching out, for trying. Perhaps the talking and thinking that comes with being an Oath Keeper will provide the moment of clarity.  Our enemies vastly outnumber us, every new recruit is incredibly precious.  It is certainly worth trying.

What I have been trying to communicate here is that I will only trust an Oath Keeper such as you or Elias, ones who recognize evil when they see it, take off the costume, and renounce that way of life.  Success is measured by the growing ranks of deserters, period. I cannot, dare not accept that a thug who continues to be employed as a thug will honor any oath.  Just as they fool themselves into thinking that living from the proceeds of theft is good and just, so will they find a way to rationalize kitten-stomping and much worse when ordered to do so.

Peace,

Silver

[jamie]

Maybe there are no good cops but there is such a thing as a good soldier.  I don't know who else was at Valley Forge and a few other places.

It is an imperfect world.

[Silver]

I don't know the names of the fools at Valley Forge, but it is easy enough to know their characters.

The dregs of humanity are roused to come out of their hiding-places, and collect like bilge-water from all over the world: men burdened by disgrace or debt or fearful of the threats of the law on account of their misdeeds, or men who are conscious of their crimes and so think they cannot be safe in time of peace, or who have dissolutely squandered their capital and are now led astray by sordid poverty to the worse crime of robbing others. Finally, there are men whose evil disposition and evil mind so act on them (as if they were born for crime) that they would have dared to do such things at the risk of their lives even without the prospect of going unpunished or the offer of pay. Wars have to be carried on with these sweepings of humanity; such dregs have to be received into cities and homes, although a whole generation will hardly be enough to clean the stink from your citizens’ morals. If indeed we learn nothing so easily as depravity, there is also nothing so difficult to forget.

Panegyric by Erasmus

We are instructed to admire the men at Valley Forge because their side was victorious and they suffered great hardships when their fool of a general left them trapped and vulnerable in a frozen winter waste.  Erasmus wrote about that as well:

Who could possibly tell how many hardships these idiots of soldiers put up with in their camps? And they deserve worse just for being willing to put up with them: food at which a Cyprian ox would turn up its nose, sleeping quarters that would be scorned by a dung-beetle, few hours of sleep and those not of their own choosing, a tent that lets in the wind from every direction, or no tent at all. They have to endure an open-air life, sleep on the ground, stand in their arms, bear hunger, cold, heat, dust, rain. They have to obey their commanders, they have to bear floggings with rods; for no slave’s bondage is more humiliating that soldiers’ service. Add to this that when the fatal signal is given you have to go and face up to death, either to kill mercilessly or to fall miserably. We undergo all these woes in order to get to the most wretched part of all. We afflict ourselves first with these countless woes, just in order to inflict them on others.

As for their being heroes:

We loath an executioner because he is hired by the legal authority and puts to death the guilty and the condemned; but men who abandon their parents, wives and children and rush off to war of their own accord, nor hired but asking to be hired for some wicked butchery, are almost more welcome when they go home than if they had never been away. They think they have won some sort of nobility from their villainies. The man who has stolen a garment is infamous; the man who has robbed so many innocent people while he was on his way to join the army, while he was serving as a soldier and when he was coming back is considered a respectable citizen. And the soldier who has conducted himself with the most brutality is thought worthy to play the commander in the next war.

It is most certainly an imperfect world, but that does not excuse institutionalized murder or a business model whose profits are paid in money but costs paid in blood.

Supposedly the American Revolution was fought over taxation, with a proposed sales tax of about 3%.  There were also complaints about an unresponsive legislature and ruling class.

Speaking strictly for myself, if my sales taxes were at 3%, there was no income tax, and my nearest legislator 3,000 miles away, I would find that an enormous improvement over the present situation.  In terms of unaccountable government tyranny we are far worse off today than any colonist.  That war ended like all wars, with myriad empty promises and countless filled graves.

Peace,

Silver

[jamie]

Erasmus had some problems, looks like he hated everyone to me.

From The Praise of Folly (1509)

The merchants are the biggest fool of all. They carry on the most sordid business and by the most corrupt methods. Whenever it is necessary, they will lie, perjure themselves, steal, cheat, and mislead the public. Nevertheless, they are highly respected because of their money. There is no lack of flattering friars to kowtow to them, and call them Right Honorable in public. The motive of the friars is clear: they are after some of the loot.

[Elias Alias]

Well, just moseying by here to drop off a couple of possibly related bits of trivia.

The reason I work with Oath Keepers is partially indicated by this story of a cop who got his ass arrested for refusing to remove his Guy Fawkes mask on a public street. During his arrest, he also refused to let the arresting cops know he was a cop in their own district. When you listen to his commentary, toward the end of it he goes into his understanding of the meaning of the Oath. When we looked into it, he joined one of our facebook pages about eight months ago, where he has been learning. Brief video:

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/12/07/another-hero-cop-risks-career-to-defend-constitution/

So that guy made my day, and Oath Keepers is connecting with him right now to see how we can help him. This sort of good news is happening more frequently as Oath Keepers continues through our fifth year. It's an uphill battle, but as Gooch noted, some of them just need to be educated. I feel personal reward every time a new cop or soldier joins Oath Keepers. Every little bit helps.

And here is something else that makes me feel good. This young woman is hitting hard. I've not looked at these forums to see if anyone has already posted her website yet, but if they haven't I will. But for this thread, suffice to know that I'm now doing an email interview with Josie The Outlaw to be published at our national website and blasted out all over the nation. Josie The Outlaw likes Oath Keepers and is happy to work with me for the interview. She will appreciate all the hits you give her site and this YouTube video:

"On Being An Outlaw" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eZC98kOtec

There are three other videos, and I like every one of them. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCldbpfJU_kyRIueXmXvBHdw/videos

Note that her "Message To Police" has, in only six days, drawn over a hundred thousand downloads - and that is not counting the hits which viewed it from her front page, here - http://www.josietheoutlaw.com/

So. Each of us has his/her subjective preference for "general disposition". For some, the glass is half full; others see it as half empty. I don't think that will ever change in the field of human nature, so I don't sweat it. But I'm damn glad I work with Oath Keepers, and I know for a fact that it's the same reason Claire writes for S.W.A.T. Magazine.

Peace and prosperity to all, (which may be easier to find after reading here: http://www.silvertowne.com/p-23422-the-silvertowne-vault-cast-episode-128-gold-bitcoin-and-too-big-to-fail-banks.aspx ) Can't believe I'm going to be able to buy silver at less than twenty bucks per ounce! Awesome!

Salute!
Elias Alias

[Klapton Isgod]

I'm waiting for what will happen once all the people sharing her videos right now find out she's an "anarchst."  It should be interesting.  Hopefully we'll see even more bright yellow lightbulbs going on.

[RagnarDanneskjold]

...

Happy Thanksgiving, Silver. (And anyone else reading this too!)
Salute!
Elias

And a belated Happy Thanksgiving to you, Elias.

[da gooch]

Well, just moseying by here to drop off a couple of possibly related bits of trivia.

snip - snip

And here is something else that makes me feel good. This young woman is hitting hard. I've not looked at these forums to see if anyone has already posted her website yet, but if they haven't I will. But for this thread, suffice to know that I'm now doing an email interview with Josie The Outlaw to be published at our national website and blasted out all over the nation. Josie The Outlaw likes Oath Keepers and is happy to work with me for the interview. She will appreciate all the hits you give her site and this YouTube video:

"On Being An Outlaw" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eZC98kOtec

There are three other videos, and I like every one of them. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCldbpfJU_kyRIueXmXvBHdw/videos

Note that her "Message To Police" has, in only six days, drawn over a hundred thousand downloads - and that is not counting the hits which viewed it from her front page, here - http://www.josietheoutlaw.com/

snip - snip

Salute!
Elias Alias

Elias,
Do you or anyone else have dvd copies of her videos? Even transcripts would be fine if I could get them.
As you all probably know, by all of my whining, that I am trapped by location and age of telephone company equipment into a dial up connection which coughs, hacks and freezes at any download over 1Mb. Videos are totally impossible. Software updates are a day long project.

I can score a satellite dish from one of the "dish network" installations but don't have the budget to afford the service. Just my luck.

Any help is much appreciated. 

[jamie]

Well, just moseying by here to drop off a couple of possibly related bits of trivia.

snip - snip

And here is something else that makes me feel good. This young woman is hitting hard. I've not looked at these forums to see if anyone has already posted her website yet, but if they haven't I will. But for this thread, suffice to know that I'm now doing an email interview with Josie The Outlaw to be published at our national website and blasted out all over the nation. Josie The Outlaw likes Oath Keepers and is happy to work with me for the interview. She will appreciate all the hits you give her site and this YouTube video:

"On Being An Outlaw" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eZC98kOtec

There are three other videos, and I like every one of them. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCldbpfJU_kyRIueXmXvBHdw/videos

Note that her "Message To Police" has, in only six days, drawn over a hundred thousand downloads - and that is not counting the hits which viewed it from her front page, here - http://www.josietheoutlaw.com/

snip - snip

Salute!
Elias Alias

Elias,
Do you or anyone else have dvd copies of her videos? Even transcripts would be fine if I could get them.
As you all probably know, by all of my whining, that I am trapped by location and age of telephone company equipment into a dial up connection which coughs, hacks and freezes at any download over 1Mb. Videos are totally impossible. Software updates are a day long project.

I can score a satellite dish from one of the "dish network" installations but don't have the budget to afford the service. Just my luck.

Any help is much appreciated.

it isn't anything Larken Rose hasn't said a thousand times.  This is a good explanation of what is going on.

http://www.larkenrose.com/blog.html

[jamie]

I don't know the names of the fools at Valley Forge, but it is easy enough to know their characters.

The dregs of humanity are roused to come out of their hiding-places, and collect like bilge-water from all over the world: men burdened by disgrace or debt or fearful of the threats of the law on account of their misdeeds, or men who are conscious of their crimes and so think they cannot be safe in time of peace, or who have dissolutely squandered their capital and are now led astray by sordid poverty to the worse crime of robbing others. Finally, there are men whose evil disposition and evil mind so act on them (as if they were born for crime) that they would have dared to do such things at the risk of their lives even without the prospect of going unpunished or the offer of pay. Wars have to be carried on with these sweepings of humanity; such dregs have to be received into cities and homes, although a whole generation will hardly be enough to clean the stink from your citizens’ morals. If indeed we learn nothing so easily as depravity, there is also nothing so difficult to forget.

Panegyric by Erasmus

We are instructed to admire the men at Valley Forge because their side was victorious and they suffered great hardships when their fool of a general left them trapped and vulnerable in a frozen winter waste.  Erasmus wrote about that as well:

Who could possibly tell how many hardships these idiots of soldiers put up with in their camps? And they deserve worse just for being willing to put up with them: food at which a Cyprian ox would turn up its nose, sleeping quarters that would be scorned by a dung-beetle, few hours of sleep and those not of their own choosing, a tent that lets in the wind from every direction, or no tent at all. They have to endure an open-air life, sleep on the ground, stand in their arms, bear hunger, cold, heat, dust, rain. They have to obey their commanders, they have to bear floggings with rods; for no slave’s bondage is more humiliating that soldiers’ service. Add to this that when the fatal signal is given you have to go and face up to death, either to kill mercilessly or to fall miserably. We undergo all these woes in order to get to the most wretched part of all. We afflict ourselves first with these countless woes, just in order to inflict them on others.

As for their being heroes:

We loath an executioner because he is hired by the legal authority and puts to death the guilty and the condemned; but men who abandon their parents, wives and children and rush off to war of their own accord, nor hired but asking to be hired for some wicked butchery, are almost more welcome when they go home than if they had never been away. They think they have won some sort of nobility from their villainies. The man who has stolen a garment is infamous; the man who has robbed so many innocent people while he was on his way to join the army, while he was serving as a soldier and when he was coming back is considered a respectable citizen. And the soldier who has conducted himself with the most brutality is thought worthy to play the commander in the next war.

It is most certainly an imperfect world, but that does not excuse institutionalized murder or a business model whose profits are paid in money but costs paid in blood.

Supposedly the American Revolution was fought over taxation, with a proposed sales tax of about 3%.  There were also complaints about an unresponsive legislature and ruling class.

Speaking strictly for myself, if my sales taxes were at 3%, there was no income tax, and my nearest legislator 3,000 miles away, I would find that an enormous improvement over the present situation.  In terms of unaccountable government tyranny we are far worse off today than any colonist.  That war ended like all wars, with myriad empty promises and countless filled graves.

Peace,

Silver

"I don't know the names of the fools at Valley Forge, but it is easy enough to know their characters"

Silver, I don't think you know their characters and Erasmus from the 16th century doesn't either.