The most important component of social and political reform is for the general population to know what is actually happening and to see through government propaganda and its extreme nationalistic patriotism. Opinion polling finds an all-time low for trusting the US government—less than 20 percent, compared to nearly 80 percent during the gold standard.
This eye opening could be the single greatest contribution of President Donald Trump. He entered the presidency on a campaign of draining the swamp and fighting the deep state. He talked a good game but ultimately lost to those foes, the media, the courts, and the ballot box.
He reclaimed the crown but, after an encouraging flourish, it soon became apparent that he was ruling from a false pulpit. He was captured by a small sliver of American society that includes his Zionist donors, the military-industrial complex, the Israeli lobby, the deep state, and the neocon chorus. He failed to have the Epstein files released and even suppressed their release. The fact that there has been no serious government investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk—a vocal opponent of US military involvement in Israel’s affairs—confirms the corruption of our politicians, in a very sinister manner, for all to see.
In very recent polling regarding American views of President Trump, the Reuters/Ipsos Poll hit a career-low approval of just 32 percent, while the AP-NORC Poll found his approval at a record-low of just 31 percent. President Trump disagrees that he will drag down the Republicans in the midterm election stating that, “I’m doing great,” and he tells voters to just “pretend I am on the ballot,” and that “the $5,000 dividend checks for every American adult” will carry the day.
Increasingly, Americans and people around the world see the American government as a bankrupt, despotic empire headed in the wrong direction. Globally, positive perceptions of America are cratering on a long downward trend. Another recent poll finds the US near the bottom, below Russia, and only noticeably above the bottom of the list of Afghanistan and North Korea, with Israel at the very bottom of the poll.
Most obviously, the world sees the US government hopelessly in debt. American politicians are not even discussing the issue and are certainly not debating ways of addressing the problem. They are only finding new ways of spending even more money and going deeper into debt. America is bankrupt in the eyes of the world.
The entire world shivers when President Trump told Time Magazine that the national debt could simply be inflated away. Printing currency is a hidden tax—the most socially destructive and immoral of all taxes. Under the Crimes Act of 1790, counterfeiting was a capital crime and still carries penalties of 25 years in prison, but our government now considers its own form of printing money to be normal business.
The US dollar is not true money, and it hasn’t been “true” for the last century. It is a fiat legal currency by dictate that has been foisted on America and the world’s economy. Almost from the beginning of human civilization, silver and eventually gold were true money. With its stable, honest value, these elements of the earth helped us transform ourselves from primitive humans into an advanced global civilization of exchange and peaceful cooperation.
Only recently has the scab of false money been opened when the US sanctioned Russia for invading the US-installed regime in Ukraine, stealing Russia’s holding of US government securities in the process. Other countries no longer trust US government bonds and have been increasing their purchases and holdings of gold. The general population, particularly in Asia, have followed suit. There is also a continuing effort on the part of many nations to liberate their gold holding from so-called safe spots in the UK and US bringing it back to their home countries out of safety concerns.
Our war against Iran has been particularly enlightening and has exposed the limits of American military prowess to the extreme. It has exposed the false sense of security we gave to Persian Gulf States. It has ended any special status to the Petrodollar. The War has also fundamentally changed the perception of Iran in the global and American community and scholars have even labeled Iran a “new power.” Propaganda made Iran a pariah, an aggressive state, not to be trusted. But now the world remembers that the Iraq-Iran War was instigated and supported by the US. Iran’s support for Arab-minority groups is no longer viewed as support for terrorism but is seen opposing genocide and in support of the American value of self-determination. In military and diplomatic relations, the Iranians are upholding long established global standards regarding expectations concerning diplomacy and military engagement. Many Iranians can and do readily admit that their system is far from perfect and many oppose the current leaders, just like every other country.
Certainly globally, but also domestically, the perception of America has gone from a benevolent economic superpower to that of a malevolent despotic empire. This fundamental negative change of perception of America rests on top of Vietnam and Afghanistan, to which is added a lack of purpose for the current war against Iran—attacking the adversary during negotiations, killing the supreme religious leader of Iran, and targeting innocent civilians. On display are an arrogant ineptitude of strategy and tactics, and a total lack of diplomacy, rules of engagement, and any kind of concern for our allies, with the exception of Israel. All of this reinforces the American perception that the entire political class lacks character and morality and are untrustworthy stewards of the public domain.
Adding fuel to the fire has been verbal attacks against the sovereignty of Canada and Greenland, the illegal capture of Venezuelan President Maduro, and the increasingly-threatening US stance against Cuba. These are the words and actions of a spoiled despotic ruler, not America—the shining city on a hill—or as Ronald Reagan described in his farewell address, a tall, strong, and welcoming land of peace, harmony, and open doors.
The problem is not new nor unique to the United States. We can’t change the downward trajectory by changing the faces in Washington, DC, but only with a wholesale ideological change toward limited, small government and sound money. History has shown that the problem of empire is ancient and follows a familiar pattern. In general, a once shining star on the globe becomes more aggressive and expansionary abroad and despotic and coercive at home until it unravels and disappears on its own accord.
The medieval Scholastic scholars sent us a warning and Alexis de Tocqueville explained to us that despotism needs not reveal itself in the form of military dictatorship. It could be the “soft despotism” of an unaccountable administrative state.
Old Right thought leaders such as Senator Robert Taft, Russell Kirk, and Pat Buchanan warned us. From the Left, Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Glenn Greenwald, and Gore Vidal also warned us to no avail. Libertarian thinkers such as F. A. Hayek of Road to Serfdom fame, along with Congressman Dr. Ron Paul, and Llewellyn Rockwell have had the loudest and most penetrating voices in opposition to empire.
In terms of seeing the empire has no clothes, one of the most important positive realizations is that many Americans have increasingly interacted with foreigners, we have visited other countries, and we have friends and acquaintances in other countries on Facebook and otherwise. We don’t have the old fear and distrust of non-Americans that once existed, other than the deliberate mass migration on the part of American and European governments, and we see the similarities and differences in global terms. Especially, many younger adults have no intention of going to war with people in other countries. That is a huge step towards a better world as war is the single most destructive impact on society.
Indeed, the most important component of successful social and political reform is for the general population to understand the problem. Then people must understand the correct ways of reforming society and adopt the correct ideological change. People must accept the trials and tribulations that are involved in achieving truly beneficial reform and have the character and conviction to struggle and trudge through the process.
The general guideline of successful reform is that it must be a bottom-up process, not a top-down personality driven process. The general target is that states must be small—the smaller the better—and be based on the inclinations and support of the local community. Self-determination down to the individual must be the goal, along with the open admission that states should have no mission of their own, independent of the people, ala our Declaration of Independence, not security, not equality, and not the greatness of the state.
Above all else, reform must reduce, weaken, and limit the powers of government and it must enshrine the “inalienable” natural rights of the individual to do what they please within a rule of law framework. History has shown that violent revolutions and civil wars are detrimental to life, liberty, and property and don’t necessarily improve society or human liberty. The American Revolution was no pub crawl. In contrast, the downfall of Communism was multi-national, ideologically driven, and largely successful in terms of direction of change over a huge chunk of the world’s population and landmass, and most importantly, non-violent.
