“Debanking”: The Latest Assault on Freedom of Speech
In their war against free speech, progressive governments are now denying dissidents use of the banking system.
In their war against free speech, progressive governments are now denying dissidents use of the banking system.
China rose from poverty after the Mao years only because its political leadership embraced private property and a market economy. Unfortunately, today the Communist leadership is moving back to socialism.
To progressive elites, the state (at least one run by progressives) is omniscient and all-powerful. To anyone with understanding, the state is an entity usually run by gangsters.
In the Gulag, political prisoners were systematically terrorized by ordinary criminals with the encouragement of the authorities. It was hoped this would help the regime liquidate the state's ideological enemies.
In a free society, political crimes like treason and "seditious libel" are few and far between. Under despotic regimes, on the other hand, political crimes multiply.
The regime has increasingly been consumed with paranoia over threats to itself—propagandistically termed "threats to democracy"—while real crime against private citizens is clearly not a priority at all.
Murray Rothbard wrote that egalitarianism was a war against nature. Statism has become a war against reality.
Federal prosecutors and other law enforcement agents are turning blockchain firms into government subsidiaries. The real goal is to criminalize what really are lawful, private exchanges.
When Mises wrote that the fascists had "saved European civilization," he could have been describing Francisco Franco of Spain, who kept Spain from becoming a communist dictatorship.
In 1944, F.A. Hayek's best-selling book, The Road to Serfdom, warned the West that the "free" nations would lose their freedom as government expanded. He was right.