Bretigne Shaffer's Blog, page 4

We Are More Free to Create than We Realize

 

I was on Tom Luongo’s podcast, Gold Goats 'N Guns, speaking about a range of topics, from parenting in an increasingly crazy world, to the exodus from California, and especially, my vision for a long-term living community for intellectually disabled individuals, using the Private Membership Association model - and how we all really have a lot more freedom to create alternative solutions than many of us realize.

If you don't already read and listen to Tom, you should. He's one of the most thoughtful and insightful commentators on world events and the economy that you'll find. And now especially, much of what he has been talking about is really coming to a head. This is one good place to start. And I've invited him to be on my podcast too - so look for that soon.

You can listen to my conversation with Tom here.

 

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A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Human Spirit - Butler Shaffer

 

 

I think this is my favorite of all of my dad's talks. I was there when he gave it, nearly 20 years ago, at a time when the post-9/11 authoritarianism was still fresh, still even felt like maybe it could be temporary. Surely people wouldn't just come to accept this as their "new normal", right? 

My dad's words here are as poignant as ever. This is audio only - if I can find a video version, I'll post it here.

 

 

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WTMWD #82: The Get Moving Challenge - How to Unplug and Start Taking Action, with Susan May

 

 

There is a sense of urgency to the medical freedom movement these days. With everything that has happened over the past two and a half years, it often feels like our work is cut out for us - and we will never get through it all.



That feeling of overwhelm can be paralyzing.



Fortunately, there are people like Susan May to help us!



Susan is an incredibly grounded and productive person who, through her "Gather and Get Moving" Facebook group, and her "RiseUp" community,  has been helping medical-freedom activists to unplug, take care of themselves, find some peace, and get more done! 



I spoke with Susan about what she does, and about her upcoming "Get Moving Challenge" - a free 5-day challenge to help medical-freedom advocates Get Moving - energetically and physically. The Challenge starts on Monday, September 26th!

         

WTMWD #81: Deep Work for Anarchists - with Starr O'Hara

 

 

I talk with writer Starr O'Hara about her journey to anarchism, her latest book "How to Survive Dystopia (With Your Humanity Intact)", and the work we can each to do to "conquer ourselves" so that we can move forward.



We also talked about her upcoming re-launch of a group she has started to support like-minded freedom folk actually get stuff done. The group is called "Extremists Being Awesome" - and it sounds like that's exactly what it is! They meet for two hours, five days a week, and she says the existing members have accomplished some incredible things since they started.



Starr will be opening the group up to new members in a few weeks - if you want to learn more about it, and be notified when the group opens up again, follow her Substack for updates.



Starr's book is here.



Her Substack is here. 



And she is also on Twitter.





P.S. Apologies for the audio skipping you might hear in this episode. We had an issue with the connection freezing up briefly several times. It didn't last long enough to disrupt the flow of the conversation, but I apologize for any annoyance caused.

 

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Most of my Blogging is on my Substack Now

 

 

...just a quick note to say that you'll find more of my commentary and other posts over on my Substack Publication, "On the Banks."

I still keep this blog updated with big things, and podcast episodes, etc. but if you want all of my commentary, that's where you'll find it.

Thanks for reading!

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When the Good Guys Get it Wrong

 

Image: Public Domain

 

From my article on LewRockwell.com today:

Toby Rogers has been one of the heroes of the medical-freedom movement since before most Americans knew there was a need for a medical-freedom movement. (His cost-benefit analysis of the Covid-19 vaccines is just one example of what he has contributed here.) He recently wrote a lengthy post in which he asks, essentially, “since both free markets and the progressive regulatory state have failed, what’s next for humanity?”

My reply to Toby follows.

Toby,

I hope you are sincere in welcoming corrections. Because there are some fundamental errors here, and I hope you will be open to hearing about them.

Let me start by saying that there is a story about free markets that is told to everyone who goes through a government school in America (and I imagine elsewhere). The story goes something like this: “Free markets are all well and good in theory, but in practice they produce monopolies that are no longer accountable to their customers and must be reined in by the government.”

This story is a lie. And if you understand why the government lies about all the other things it lies about, I think you’ll understand why it has an interest in perpetrating this lie too.

With that in mind:

1. You say: “The dirty little secret of classical liberalism is that it came to depend on both slavery and colonial empire to infuse wealth into the system.”

In fact, colonial empire was a drain on the British economy. Yes, it made a few people – “John Company”, and other cronies, along with the crown itself – very wealthy. But it did so at the expense of everyone else in Britain.

This book presents an accounting of all of this. From the description:

“…empire profits were earned at a substantial cost to the taxpayer. [The authors] depict British imperialism as a mechanism to effect an income transfer from the tax-paying middle class to the elites in which the ownership of imperial enterprise was heavily concentrated, with some slight net transfer to the colonies in the process.”

The reality is that both the ideals of classical liberalism, and the economic interests of the population as a whole, were very much at odds with British imperialism, and the mercantilist system – which was precisely what Adam Smith addressed in his “Wealth of Nations.”

2. You say: “…and “Adam Smith’s famed “butcher, baker, and brewer” got rich from being downstream of the enormous wealth generated when Scotland cornered the market for new world tobacco (which was slave-grown…”

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make here. That markets cannot function without an assist from slavery? But that’s patently untrue. You must recognize that the world is overflowing with examples that contradict that claim. So what are you saying?

3. Your description of progressivism:

“Progressivism was a reaction by the middle and upper classes against the failures of both liberalism and Marxism while attempting to retain the best aspects of both — seeking to preserve individual liberties while using the state to impose limits on corporate power. Progressive muckraker Upton Sinclair described the disgusting practices of meat packing plants in The Jungle and this led to the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906. Support for anti-trust action to break up large monopolies was another hallmark of progressivism.”

To begin with, “The Jungle” was completely made-up fiction. Lawrence Reed has written a thorough expose of this book and the mythology around it.

He writes:

“…historians with an ideological axe to grind against the market usually ignore an authoritative 1906 report of the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Husbandry. Its investigators provided a point-by-point refutation of the worst of Sinclair’s allegations, some of which they labeled as “willful and deliberate misrepresentations of fact,” “atrocious exaggeration,” and “not at all characteristic.””

and:

“According to the popular myth, there were no government inspectors before Congress acted in response toThe Jungle, and the greedy meat packers fought federal inspection all the way. The truth is that not only did government inspection exist, but meat packers themselves supported it and were in the forefront of the effort to extend it so as to ensnare their smaller, unregulated competitors.”

It’s worth reading the whole piece by Reed, to get the full sense of the extent to which this novel really was nothing more than anti-capitalist propaganda. (There’s a reason it is required reading in so many government schools.)

More broadly, the myth that government regulation was borne of a desire to “impose limits on corporate power” is simply not true. The historical reality is that established businesses not only supported regulation of their industries, but were instrumental in setting up the regulatory state.

... Read the rest here.

 

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WTMWD #80: My Mutual-Aid Vision for the Future, and Fighting Back Against Medical Tyranny - with Susan May

 

 

I was interviewed by Susan May, the founder of “RiseUP with Susan May” and the RiseUP community, and creator of the Facebook group “Gather and Get Moving with Susan May”, a "...safe place for medical freedom advocates to connect and be inspired to action."



Susan and I talk a little about my own history, and about my experience fighting medical tyranny while in the hospital with our daughter. We also talk about my vision for a Mutual-Aid society and community dedicated to caring for those with special needs.



My Freogan Fellowship website is here.

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I'm Starting A Private Substack Publication - For Those Who Are Serious About Building Solutions

 

 

A few years ago, I had an idea. It was more than an idea - it was a compulsion. It was an urgently felt need to create a space where people who care about the human flourishing that happens when we are free could come together.

That was it. Not a plan for saving the world, just a place where we could hang out with each other, share our ideas, commiserate, and feel at home. And maybe, by virtue of doing all of this, we would come up with some ways to make a real difference in the world. Or maybe we would just feel a little less alone in that world.

I spent some time brainstorming with a friend about setting up some kind of platform for this, and finally decided to launch my idea as a podcast. And in March of 2020 - the week that California Governor Gavin Newsom decided to forcibly shut down our lives - I recorded my first episode, with Jeffrey Tucker, then with AIER, and soon to become one of the brightest lights in the battle against Covid tyranny. I’ve recorded many more episodes since then, with some of the best and most interesting advocates of liberty, at a time when human freedom is under unprecedented assault all around the globe.

I’m proud of my podcast. But it’s not quite what I set out to create. Mostly: It’s not very interactive. And so after a lot more brainstorming, I’ve decided to launch a new online community: Building Parallel Solutions. It’s a little different from my original idea, in that it is focused on creating solutions rather than just hanging out together. (Although there’s certainly room for that too.)

We’re starting out on Substack, as a private publication, I’ll be adding a private group on a social-media platform (probably MeWe), and we will also have occasional online video meetings. I will also be adding a paid membership option for those who want a little more direct support in creating solutions - I’ll post more about that later.

For now though, I think that what I said in my podcast manifesto fits nicely here:

It's the "nearly" that I'm interested in.

That–possibly very small, possibly not so small–number of people who can see and think for themselves. Who understand for themselves the difference between right and wrong, who don't need to have anyone else tell them that it is wrong to make another person your slave, or to lock another person in a cell when they have harmed no-one.

That's who I think of as the audience for my podcast ("What Then Must We Do?") You might call what I'm doing "preaching to the choir", but that's not it. I'm looking to reach the people who already recognize the problem, and who want to do something about it…

Maybe none of us is powerful enough to defeat the violence that is the state. Maybe even together we are not enough. But I am certain that if there is any hope for us at all, it lies entirely with this group of people.

Oh, and if I sound a little elitist, as if I think the "Non-Nearlys" are somehow inferior to the "Nearlys"… well, yes, I do. I do think that thinking for oneself is superior to not thinking for oneself. I also think that great masses of people who don't do much thinking for themselves, who don't have their own moral compasses, are one of the most deadly threats to all of humanity, and always have been.

But here's the thing about being among the "Nearly" (or, as Albert Jay Nock called them, the Remnant): it is a choice. Anyone can choose to start questioning what they have been taught their whole life. Anyone can choose to listen to their own conscience over the values and opinions that are fed to them by the people and institutions around them. Anyone can do this.

"What then must we do?" I honestly don't know. The forces arrayed against individual human beings just living their own lives as they choose seem more powerful and more entrenched than ever before. So, do I know how to change that? To defeat the people and institutions that wish to (and do) rule over us? No, I don't. But I do believe that between us–between all of the "Nearly"–we can figure this out.

“Building Parallel Solutions” is an invitation-only publication for people who are serious about - you guessed it - building parallel solutions. If that’s you, and you’d like to be a part of this, just drop me a line at bretigneprivate@substack.com, with “Please add me to BPS” in the subject line.

I look forward to seeing you there!

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Join the Open House for Free Minds, this Saturday!

From Freogan Fellowship Learning:

 

...and take 15% off of our fall classes!

We'll be giving everyone a chance to meet our instructors, hear about our classes, and get your questions answered - and to give us input. What classes would you like to see? What formats are best for you? We'd love to hear from you!

Join us this coming Saturday, 10:00am Pacific Time, 1:00pm Eastern Time, US. Just fill in the form on the website, and we'll send you a link to the meeting (the link will be at the bottom of the page.)

We look forward to seeing you there!

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WTMWD #79: Can Liberty Dollar Save the World?

 

 

 

I speak with Wayne and Kathy Hicks of Liberty Dollar Financial Association, about Liberty Dollar's history, and its rebirth as a Private Membership Association.



If you're looking for solutions to state-controlled money and financial systems, and if you're not entirely sure that Bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency) is the answer, then you need to listen to this episode. Liberty Dollar's new incarnation is truly revolutionary - and it doesn't stop at money and finance.



We talk about food security, the Liberty Dollar social network platform, and how the "outside-the-box" nature of LDFA can help to reclaim the economy from the world of crony corporatism.



You can find Liberty Dollar Financial Association here. (This is my affiliate link, so if you sign up using this link, I will get a little something.)



And LibertyNet, the social-network platform, is here.

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