The SovereignLife Blog

While most of the world watches the news on TV – being fed news as non-interconnected events without analysis – more observant viewers will see a pattern emerging. The first signs were at the Copenhagen conference on climate change – where China was unexpectedly forceful.

Now, with the US announcement that is selling armaments to Taiwan, China has responded aggressively, so much so, that it’s response is already being commented on and analysed for clues as to China’s intentions.

I think it’s pretty clear. China is finding its feet and starting to see itself as an actor on the world stage. This, naturally enough is causing alarm bells to go off in Washington and European capitals – as westerners have never had to face this situation before.

All I can really say is, “get used to it!”. This is all par for the course in the dramatic power shift underway. We are witnessing the turning of the tide in human affairs as Asia, lead by China, rises to economic preeminence.

Naturally, the “old order” doesn’t like it. But we’ll have to get used to it – even if it means being dragged kicking and screaming into this new “reality”.

And don’t expect this change to happen without a fight.

Lew Rockwell hits the nail on head with his essay How to Fix The Jobs Problem.

Many years ago I had a small business employing just three people. After a few years of that, dealing with taxes, insurances, and the inevitable state bureaucracy, I swore never to employ anyone ever again. And so it has been.

Ron Paul makes an excellent point in his bill which seeks to allow competing currencies. In essence he is saying that if we can’t “control” or audit the Fed, then the very least the US Congress can do is abolish the law that makes Fed Notes the only legal tender.

Instead, allow people to choose their own currency – which in Ron Paul’s view should be gold and/or silver.

Actually, while it may seem like a rather mundane thing to simply repeal legal tender laws, such a change could be profound. It could open the door to a raft of innovative currencies which, if based on gold and/or silver, would go a long way to helping people protect themselves from the constant erosion in value of the Fed Dollar.

I can easily imagine digital gold banking, where you have an account at a gold depository. They provide you with a debit card which can be used to spend your gold, and merchants throughout the land are enlisted to accept such cards (much the same way merchants were enlisted when credit cards first made their appearance all those years ago).

It’s all about acceptance. If you and I could easily spend our gold in ways that we want, then the barrier to using gold as money would be overcome. And I’m convinced this would happen quite naturally – if only the state gave up on its monopoly over money.

France is apparently moving closer to banning the burka – the veil that some Muslim women wear over their faces. Reading the readers’ comments on the BBC’s “have your say” section shows a remarkable range of opinion – for and against.

Actually, this provides an interesting test for the concept of freedom – a sort of barometer if you will.

On a personal level I find face veils (either leaving eyes visible or not) to be a very anti-social stance to take. What I mean is, when you can’t see someone’s face then you are very unlikely to strike up a conversation with them, unless you already know them.

I’ve been to a few Islamic countries – Turkey, Dubai and Malaysia. Turkey is secular and you don’t see many veils, or even head scarfs. Dubai is a mixture. Malaysia is multicultural and only the Malay women wear head scarfs, but not face coverings. However, in Malaysia there are a good number of Arabic tourists (not sure where from) and these women invariably wear the burka. And what I’ve noticed is this: while their behaviour in public, with their husbands and children, is quite normal – there is a definite barrier caused by such a code of dress which prevents you from showing any “normal” friendship. You feel locked out.

However, this proposed ban is not about that, but whether the government should be able to dictate clothing.

I think the answer is simple: uphold property rights. I think Moslem women should be free to wear the burka if they so choose – in public. However, when it comes to holding down a job or being able to go enter certain premises, then the decision is entirely (or should be) up to the property owners themselves.

Example: if an airline deems it an issue to allow face-covered women on its planes, then it should be free to ban them – in the same way many retail and banking outlets prohibit the entrance of men with any form of face covering.

A property owner may have valid or even invalid reasons for either admitting or not admitting a veil-wearing woman, but that is his or her prerogative.

So how to apply the principle of property ownership to the proposed burka ban by France? Simple, any employer (private or even government) has the right to stipulate the dress code, so has the right to either ban or not ban burkas.

In such a case, it would logically follow that the French government’s powers should only extend to their own employment situations – in government departments. And this is indeed what they may intend doing.

An excellent essay by Paul Craig Roberts asks the question “What is the greatest human achievement”. Then after listing a number of possible and commonly assumed answers, he states his own: The greatest human achievement is the subordination of government to law.

He then goes on to illustrate how far the USA has fallen from this pinnacle of achievement – in making government totally unaccountable, and therefore an imminent threat to individual freedom.

Read his essay HERE.

There is a rising consensus that gold is headed for around $1,500 an ounce this year – maybe more – as governments around the world debase their money by flooding the marketing with more – to ostensibly fight deflation.

This article adds more weight to that argument.

Which goes to show, even though gold is currently over $1,100 as I write this, if you consider it “too expensive to be buying gold now” you are likely to be proven very wrong.

In this interesting article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the spectre is raised of the European Union fracturing, due to the indebtedness of some of its financially weaker members.

In this particular case it is Greece that is in trouble – with it bond rates rising and with it the very real possibility of credit downgrade and debt default in the future.

This would have serious ramifications for the EU. And the financially stronger nations, lead by Germany, are not likely to want to bail out their poorhouse brothers.

Revolutions are made of this sort of stuff.

Over the last 8 weeks or so I’ve been working on various additions and enhancements to my offshore freedom club – SovereignLife. Just this morning I uploaded the new files and switched on the new modules for what I’ve termed “v2″. So for those of you who are not members but are interested in what SovereignLife offers, I recommend you download my newest e-report – The Sovereign Matrix.

As someone who has travelled to and lived in many countries over the years – including Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China, Singapore, United States, Bahamas, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, France, Turkey – I know that when you get past the “image” of what you think a country and its people are like, in fact they are very much like “us”.

What do I mean? I mean that when you strip away the facade of race, nationality, religion and culture, you find some basic human traits which all humans appear to share. And theses include such things as simply wanting to lead a happy life, to fall in love, to bring up a family, to want the best for one’s children, to enjoy the company of good friends, to be successful – and any number of other common human goals.

And it is in this way that travel broadens the mind. When you travel you get to meet people in other countries first hand – not through the eyes of some magazine, news report, or political utterance. You find that when you get past the official “image”, and understand where such people are coming from, you come to the realisation that if only we could remove the barriers of misunderstanding between people of different nations, then perhaps we could have true peace.

I was reminded of this fact when watching this video – which is a delightful account of an American travel writer who visited Iran to see how ordinary people live and to mix with them.

Watch the video, then ask yourself if you would want to bomb Iranians.

Bin Laden must be laughing – wherever he is – because back in the 90s he claimed he would oust the modern “Crusaders’ by luring the US and its allies into a series of small, debilitating, hugely expensive wars to bleed and slowly bankrupt the US economy, which he called America’s Achilles’ heel.

Seems his grand strategy is working. And now the underpants bomber is causing our dear leaders to introduce full body scanners in a wantonly knee-jerk response. Trouble is, it has already been revealed that the scanners they are considering would not actually “see” a bomb in anyone’s underpants – at least not the sort of bomb that the underpants bomber was carrying.

Just more people control I guess.

But here’s a disturbing story from Eric Margolis, which reveals how a Muslim extremist recently tried to assassinate Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Nayef, by placing a bomb in his rectum.

Will “Drop your pants and bend over please sir/madam” be the next command we hear from our friendly immigration officials?