Review: Common Sense–the Way Back

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Reform
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5.0 out of 5 stars Patriotic Love and Common Sense For All
November 21, 2009
Felton Williamson, Jr.
By remarkable coincidence, Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue: An American Life just came out, jumped to the top of my ‘waiting to read” stack, and includes the phrase “Commonsense Conservative” is featured in that book. Combine it with Richard Branson's “Gaia Capitalism” and you have the makings of something special.

This book is short (123 pages), easy to read, and an inspiring patriotic labor of love, a gift to all of us who care deeply for American the Beautiful and are confused and/or angry about all that has been done “in our name” by the festering cesspool of Washington-based politicians and senior bureaucrats who live to claim budget share (inputs) rather than deliver public service (outputs).

The author provides the single best, most complete, and most sensible demarche against EARMARKS that I have ever seen. Included are eight illustrations and I will list them here because they capture the essence of this book's common sense:

1. System analysis by “Prohibition Peers”

2. Real system analysis of Prohibition

3. Nation's Wealth

4. Value of the Dollar

5. Production of consumable assets

6. The Nation's and the “Commons” Wealth

7. Prosperity versus Freedom

8. The Iron Triangle–the Politics of Collusion

Although the author lists and address five “showcase” programs of excessive federal authority that should be nullified by all 50 states (and I would added, secession is most certainly an option for many including Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, Vermont, Flordia, and perhaps Maine and New Hampshire as well), he focuses primarily on EARMARKS. The five are the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Interstate Commerce Commission, Inflation, Earmarks, and Income Tax.

Early on I am impressed by the author's pointing out that all the “isms” are in fact the same, a concentration of power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. His focus, “the real deal,” is on individual sovereignty, on the individual's ability to create new wealth without destroying the commons.

The author says that monopolies would not exist and I absolutely agree, observing that “home rule” is sweeping across the USA and corporations as well as absentee landlords may one day find they are barred from counties no longer tolerant of carpetbaggers. A couple of references:
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

The reader should be prepared for a lot of UPPER CASE sentences, what the online world calls “shouting” but once you get used to it the book reads very well.

Among the various recommendations of the author that are outlined in “The Way Back,” I am particularly taken by two: 1) recognize that inflation is a tax and mandate annual reporting on anything leading to inflation; and 2) eliminate the individual income tax.

In 1992 Alessandro Politi, an Italian journalist, coined the term “intelligence minuteman” to capture my concept of public intelligence (decision-support) of, by, and for We the People. Today for $75 billion of our hard-earned dollars, the secret intelligence community provides the President with less than 4% of what he needs to know, and nothing at all for most others. I myself have beaten the US Intelligence Community in a benchmark exercise on Burundi for the Aspin-Brown Commission. This author is an intelligence minuteman, and he offered all of us a gift of intelligence (decision support).

Below I list a few books within my Amazon limit of 10 links. Those interested in hyow 1,400 other books across 98 categories might be connected to this book are invited to visit Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where I provide access options that Amazon has refused to implement for over four years, e.g. you can see all the books reviewed on Democracy, or Pathology of Power, or Congressional Failure, etc.

In this constained review context, see also:
An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard
Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect
Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Revolution: A Manifesto
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!
Secession: How Vermont and All the Other States Can Save Themselves from the Empire

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