George Floyd Riots

Evidence of Staging

Evidence of “Government” / Media / Non-Government Organizations (Esp funded by George Soros) Collusion and Coordination – Past & Present

Leaked Documents from 2015 showing how George Soros-funded Friends of Democracy were involved in staging violent riots including coordination with “friendly BWI officials and LE [Law Enforcement]”

https://www.infowars.com/documents-detail-plan-for-civil-unrest-and-martial-law-in-baltimore/

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F.A. Hayek: Why the Worst Get On Top [In “Government”]

by editor Art Of Liberty | May 21, 2026 | AoLF Important News

Chapter 2 from our FREE paperback book: Hayek for the 21st CenturyEtienne Note: This is the 3rd Article in our tribute to the great Austrian Economist Friedrich August von Hayek better known as F.A. Hayek, syndicated from Hayek for the 21st Century, which we are giving away for FREE in paperback through a partnership with the Mises Institute. In this essay, Why the Worst Get on Top, which is one of the most quoted and controversial sections of The Road to Serfdom (where this essay was originally published) Hayek makes the case that centralized power structures like “government” tend to reward people who are:the most ruthlessthe least constrained morallythe most skilled at propaganda/manipulationthe most willing to use coercionthe most capable of mobilizing mass resentmentWhy the Worst Get on Top became influential because it reframed authoritarianism as not merely a problem of evil individuals, but a systemic selection process.Hayek’s core arguments:centralized systems require coercioncoercion rewards ruthlessnesspropaganda rewards simplificationmass mobilization rewards tribalismmoral restraint becomes an obstacle to advancementThis is Chapter Two from Hayek for the 21st Century – Paperback available for Free with any purchase from ArtOfLiberty.org/Store, “Going Paid” on any of our Substacks or by paying S&H for the book. The copies are free thanks to the generosity of a donor to the Mises Institute and they have an offer with free S&H Here.Previous Chapters from Hayek for the 21st Century: Introduction by Thomas J DiLorenzo, President of the Mises Institute & Editor of Hayek for the 21st Century + Hayek bio, quotes, rap battles and memes!Chapter 1: The Intellectuals and Socialism by F.A. Hayek Why the Worst Get on Topby F.A. HayekAll power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. —Lord ActonWe must now examine a belief from which many who regard the advent of totalitarianism as inevitable derive consolation and which seriously weakens the resistance of many others who would oppose it with all their might if they fully apprehended its nature. It is the belief that the most repellent features of the totalitarian regimes are due to the historical accident that they were established by groups of blackguards and thugs. Surely, it is argued, if in Germany the creation of a totalitarian regime brought the Streichers and Killingers, the Leys and Heines, the Himmlers and Heydrichs to power, this may prove the viciousness of the German character, but not that the rise of such people is the necessary consequence of a totalitarian system. Why should it not be possible that the same sort of system, if it be necessary to achieve important ends, be run by decent people for the good of the community as a whole? We must not deceive ourselves into believing that all good people must be democrats or will necessarily wish to have a share in the government. Many, no doubt, would rather entrust it to somebody whom they think more competent. Although this might be unwise, there is nothing bad or dishonorable in approving a dictatorship of the good. Totalitarianism, we can already hear it argued, is a powerful system alike for good and evil, and the purpose for which it will be used depends entirely on the dictators. And those who think that it is not the system which we need fear, but the danger that it might be run by bad men, might even be tempted to forestall this danger by seeing that it is established in time by good men. No doubt an English “Fascist” system would greatly differ from the Italian or German models; no doubt if the transition were effected without violence, we might expect to get a better type of leader. And if I had to live under a Fascist system I have no doubt that I would rather live under one run by Englishmen than under one run by anybody else. Yet all this does not mean that, judged on our present standards, a British Fascist system would in the end prove so very different or much less intolerable than its prototypes. There are strong reasons for believing that what to us appear the worst features of the existing totalitarian systems are not accidental by-products, but phenomena which totalitarianism is certain sooner or later to produce. Just as the democratic statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans, so the totalitarian dictator would soon have to choose between disregard of ordinary morals and failure. It is for this reason that the unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful in a society tending towards totalitarianism. Who does not see this has not yet grasped the full width of the gulf which separates totalitarianism from a liberal regime, the utter difference between the whole moral atmosphere under collectivism and the essentially individualist Western civilization. The “moral basis of collectivism” has, of course, been much debated in the past; but what concerns us here is not its moral basis but its moral results. The usual discussions of the ethical aspects of collectivism refer to the question whether collectivism is demanded by existing moral convictions; or what moral convictions would be required if collectivism is to produce the hoped-for results. Our question, however, is what moral views will be produced by a collectivist organization of society, or what views are likely to rule it. The interaction between morals and institutions may well have the effect that the ethics produced by collectivism will be altogether different from the moral ideals that lead to the demand for collectivism. While we are apt to think that, since the desire for a collectivist system springs from high moral motives, such a system must be the breeding ground for the highest virtues, there is, in fact, no reason why any system should necessarily enhance those attitudes which serve the purpose for which it was designed. The ruling moral views will depend partly on the qualities that will lead individuals to success in a collectivist or totalitarian system, and partly on the requirements of the totalitarian machinery.We must here return for a moment to the position which precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime. In this stage it is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action for action’s sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough “to get things done” who exercises the greatest appeal. “Strong” in this sense means not merely a numerical majority—it is the ineffectiveness of parliamentary majorities with which people are dissatisfied. What they will seek is somebody with such solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants. It is here that the new type of party, organized on military lines, comes in. In the Central European countries the socialist parties had familiarized the masses with political organizations of a semi-military character designed to absorb as much as possible of the private life of the members. All that was wanted to give one group overwhelming power was to carry the same principle somewhat further, to seek strength not in the assured votes of huge numbers at occasional elections, but in the absolute and unreserved support of a smaller but more thoroughly organized body. The chance of imposing a totalitarian regime on a whole people depends on the leader first collecting round him a group which is prepared voluntarily to submit to that totalitarian discipline which they are to impose by force upon the rest. Although the socialist parties had the strength to get anything if they had cared to use force, they were reluctant to do so. They had, without knowing it, set themselves a task which only the ruthless, ready to disregard the barriers of accepted morals, can execute. That socialism can be put into practice only by methods which most socialists disapprove is, of course, a lesson learned by many social reformers in the past. The old socialist parties were inhibited by their democratic ideals; they did not possess the ruthlessness required for the performance of their chosen task. It is characteristic that both in Germany and Italy the success of Fascism was preceded by the refusal of the socialist parties to take over the responsibilities of government. They were unwilling wholeheartedly to employ the methods to which they had pointed the way. They still hoped for the miracle of a majority agreeing on a particular plan for the organization of the whole of society; others had already learned the lesson that in a planned society the question can no longer be on what a majority of the people agree, but what is the largest single group whose members agree sufficiently to make unified direction of all affairs possible; or, if no such group large enough to enforce its views exists, how it can be created and who will succeed in creating it. There are three main reasons why such a numerous and strong group with fairly homogeneous views is not likely to be formed by the best but rather by the worst elements of any society. By our standards the principles on which such a group would be selected will be almost entirely negative. In the first instance, it is probably true that in general the higher the education and intelligence of individuals becomes, the more their views and tastes are differentiated and the less likely they are to agree on a particular hierarchy of values. It is a corollary of this that if we wish to find a high degree of uniformity and similarity of outlook, we have to descend to the regions of lower moral and intellectual standards where the more primitive and “common” instincts and tastes prevail. This does not mean that the majority of people have low moral standards; it merely means that the largest group of people whose values are very similar are the people with low standards. It is, as it were, the lowest common denominator which unites the largest number of people. If a numerous group is needed, strong enough to impose their views on the values of life on all the rest, it will never be those with highly differentiated and developed tastes—it will be those who form the “mass” in the derogatory sense of the term, the least original and independent, who will be able to put the weight of their numbers behind their particular ideals. If, however, a potential dictator had to rely entirely on those whose uncomplicated and primitive instincts happen to be very similar, their number would scarcely give sufficient weight to their endeavors. He will have to increase their numbers by converting more to the same simple creed. Here comes in the second negative principle of selection: he will be able to obtain the support of all the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are prepared to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently. It will be those whose vague and imperfectly formed ideas are easily swayed and whose passions and emotions are readily aroused who will thus swell the ranks of the totalitarian party. It is in connection with the deliberate effort of the skillful demagogue to weld together a closely coherent and homogeneous body of supporters that the third and perhaps most important negative element of selection enters. It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program, on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off , than on any positive task. The contrast between the “we” and the “they,” the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action. It is consequently always employed by those who seek, not merely support of a policy, but the unreserved allegiance of huge masses. From their point of view it has the great advantage of leaving them greater freedom of action than almost any positive program. The enemy, whether he be internal like the “Jew” or the “Kulak,” or external, seems to be an indispensable requisite in the armory of a totalitarian leader. That in Germany it was the Jew who became the enemy till his place was taken by the “plutocracies” was no less a result of the anti-capitalist resentment on which the whole movement was based than the selection of the Kulak in Russia. In Germany and Austria the Jew had come to be regarded as the representative of capitalism because a traditional dislike of large classes of the population for commercial pursuits had left these more readily accessible to a group that was practically excluded from the more highly esteemed occupations. It is the old story of the alien race being admitted only to the less respected trades and then being hated still more for practicing them. The fact that German anti-semitism and anti-capitalism spring from the same root is of great importance for the understanding of what has happened there, but this is rarely grasped by foreign observers. To treat the universal tendency of collectivist policy to become nationalistic as due entirely to the necessity for securing unhesitating support would be to neglect another and no less important factor. It may indeed be questioned whether anybody can realistically conceive of a collectivist program other than in the service of a limited group, whether collectivism can exist in any other form than that of some kind of particularism, be it nationalism, racialism, or class-ism. The belief in the community of aims and interests with fellow-men seems to presuppose a greater degree of similarity of outlook and thought than exists between men merely as human beings. If the other members of one’s group cannot all be personally known, they must at least be of the same kind as those around us, think and talk in the same way and about the same kind of things, in order that we may identify ourselves with them. Collectivism on a world scale seems to be unthinkable—except in the service of a small ruling elite. It would certainly raise not only technical but above all moral problems which none of our socialists are willing to face. If the English proletarian is entitled to an equal share of the income now derived from England’s capital resources, and of the control of their use, because they are the result of exploitation, so on the same principle all the Indians would be entitled not only to the income from but also to the use of a proportional share of the British capital. But what socialists seriously contemplate the equal division of existing capital resources among the people of the world? They all regard the capital as belonging not to humanity but to the nation—though even within the nation few would dare to advocate that the richer regions should be deprived of some of “their” capital equipment in order to help the poorer regions. What socialists proclaim as a duty towards the fellow members of the existing states, they are not prepared to grant to the foreigner. From a consistent collectivist point of view the claims of the “Have-Not” nations for a new division of the world are entirely justified—though, if consistently applied, those who demand it most loudly would lose by it almost as much as the richest nations. They are, therefore, careful not to base their claims on any equalitarian principles but on their pretended superior capacity to organize other peoples. One of the inherent contradictions of the collectivist philosophy is, that while basing itself on the humanistic morals which individualism has developed, it is practicable only within a relatively small group. That socialism so long as it remains theoretical is internationalist, while as soon as it is put into practice, whether in Russia or in Germany, it becomes violently nationalist is one of the reasons why “liberal socialism” as most people in the Western world imagine it is purely theoretical, while the practice of socialism is everywhere totalitarian. Collectivism has no room for the wide humanitarianism of liberalism but only for the narrow particularism of the totalitarian. If the “community” and the state are prior to the individual, if they have ends of their own independent of and superior to those of the individuals, only those individuals who work for the same ends can be regarded as members of the community. It is a necessary consequence of this view that a person is respected only as a member of the group, that is, only if and in so far as he works for the recognized common ends, and that he derives his whole dignity only from this membership and not merely from being man. Indeed, the very concepts of humanity and therefore of any form of internationalism are entirely products of the individualist view of man, and there can be no place for them in a collectivist system of thought. Apart from the basic fact that the community of collectivism can extend only as far as the unity of purpose of the individuals exists or can be created, several contributory factors strengthen the tendency of collectivism to become particularist and exclusive. Of these one of the most important is that the desire of the individual to identify himself with a group is very frequently the result of a feeling of inferiority, and that therefore his want will only be satisfied if membership in the group confers some superiority over outsiders. Sometimes, it seems, the very fact that these violent instincts which the individual knows he must curb within the group can be given a free range in the collective action towards the outsider becomes a further inducement for merging personality in that of the group. There is a profound truth expressed in the title of R. Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society—however little we can follow him in the conclusions he draws from his thesis. There is indeed, as he says elsewhere, “an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.” To act on behalf of a group seems to free people of many of the moral restraints which control their behavior as individuals within the group. The definitely antagonistic attitude which most planners take towards internationalism is further explained by the fact that in the existing world all outside contacts of a group are obstacles to their effectively planning the sphere in which they can attempt it. It is therefore no accident that, as the editor of one of the most comprehensive collective studies on planning has discovered to his chagrin, “most ‘planners’ are militant nationalists.” The nationalist and imperialist propensities of socialist planners, much more common than is generally recognized, are not always as flagrant as, for example, in the case of the Webbs and some of the other early Fabians, with whom enthusiasm for planning was characteristically combined with the veneration for the large and powerful political units and a contempt for the small state. The historian Elie Halévy, speaking of the Webbs when he first knew them forty years ago, records that their socialism was profoundly anti-liberal. They did not hate the Tories, indeed they were extraordinarily lenient to them, but they had no mercy for Gladstonian Liberalism. It was the time of the Boer War and both the advanced liberals and the men who were beginning to form the Labour Party had generously sided with the Boers against British Imperialism, in the name of freedom and humanity. But the two Webbs and their friend, Bernard Shaw, stood apart. They were ostentatiously imperialistic. The independence of small nations might mean something to the liberal individualist. It meant nothing to collectivists like themselves. I can still hear Sidney Webb explaining to me that the future belonged to the great administrative nations, where the officials govern and the police keep order And elsewhere Halévy quotes Bernard Shaw arguing, about the same time, that “the world is to the big and powerful states by necessity; and the little ones must come within their border or be crushed out of existence.” I have quoted at length these passages, which would not surprise one in a description of the German ancestors of National Socialism, because they provide so characteristic an example of that glorification of power which easily leads from socialism to nationalism and which profoundly affects the ethical views of all collectivists. So far as the rights of small nations are concerned, Marx and Engels were little better than most other consistent collectivists, and the views they occasionally expressed about Czechs or Poles resemble those of contemporary National Socialists. While to the great individualist social philosophers of the nineteenth century, to a Lord Acton or Jacob Burckhardt, down to contemporary socialists, like Bertrand Russell, who have inherited the liberal tradition, power itself has always appeared the arch-evil, to the strict collectivist it is a goal in itself. It is not only, as Russell has so well described, that the desire to organize social life according to a unitary plan itself springs largely from a desire for power. It is even more the outcome of the fact that in order to achieve their end collectivists must create power—power over men wielded by other men—of a magnitude never before known, and that their success will depend on the extent to which they achieve such power. This remains true even though many liberal socialists are guided in their endeavors by the tragic illusion that by depriving private individuals of the power they possess in an individualist system, and by transferring this power to society, they can thereby extinguish power. What all those who argue in this manner overlook is that by concentrating power so that it can be used in the service of a single plan, it is not merely transferred but infinitely heightened; that by uniting in the hands of some single body power formerly exercised independently by many, an amount of power is created infinitely greater than any that existed before, so much more far-reaching as almost to be different in kind. It is entirely fallacious when it is sometimes argued that the great power exercised by a Central Planning Board would be “no greater than the power collectively exercised by private boards of directors.” There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning board would possess, and if nobody can consciously use the power, it is just an abuse of words to assert that it rests with all the capitalists put together. It is merely a play upon words to speak of the “power collectively exercised by private boards of directors” so long as they do not combine to concerted action—which would, of course, mean the end of competition and the creation of a planned economy. To split or decentralize power is necessarily to reduce the absolute amount of power and the competitive system is the only system designed to minimize by decentralization the power exercised by man over man. We have seen before how the separation of economic and political aims is an essential guarantee of individual freedom and how it is consequently attacked by all collectivists. To this we must now add that the “substitution of political for economic power” now so often demanded means necessarily the substitution of power from which there is no escape for a power which is always limited. What is called economic power, while it can be an instrument of coercion, is in the hands of private individuals never exclusive or complete power, never power over the whole life of a person. But centralized as an instrument of political power it creates a degree of dependence scarcely distinguishable from slavery. From the two central features of every collectivist system, the need for a commonly accepted system of ends of the group, and the all-overriding desire to give to the group the maximum of power to achieve these ends, grows a definite system of morals, which on some points coincides and on others violently contrasts with ours— but differs from it in one point which makes it doubtful whether we can call it morals: that it does not leave the individual conscience free to apply its own rules and does not even know any general rules which the individual is required or allowed to observe in all circumstances. This makes collectivist morals so different from what we have known as morals that we find it difficult to discover any principle in them, which they nevertheless possess. The difference of principle is very much the same as that which we have already considered in connection with the Rule of Law. Like formal law the rules of individualist ethics, however unprecise they may be in many respects, are general and absolute; they prescribe or prohibit a general type of action irrespective of whether in the particular instance the ultimate purpose is good or bad. To cheat or steal, to torture or betray a confidence, is held to be bad, irrespective of whether or not in the particular instance any harm follows from it. Neither the fact that in a given instance nobody may be the worse for it, nor any high purpose for which such an act may have been committed, can alter the fact that it is bad. Though we may sometimes be forced to choose between different evils they remain evils. The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule; there is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves “the good of the whole,” because the “good of the whole” is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done. The raison d’état, in which collectivist ethics has found its most explicit formulation, knows no other limit than that set by expediency—the suitability of the particular act for the end in view. And what the raison d’état affirms with respect to the relations between different countries applies equally to the relations between different individuals within the collectivist state. There can be no limit to what its citizen must be prepared to do, no act which his conscience must prevent him from committing, if it is necessary for an end which the community has set itself or which his superiors order him to achieve. The absence of absolute formal rules in collectivist ethics does not, of course, mean that there are not some useful habits of the individuals which a collectivist community will encourage, and others which it will discourage. Quite the reverse; it will take a much greater interest in the individual’s habits of life than an individualist community. To be a useful member of a collectivist society requires very definite qualities which must be strengthened by constant practice. The reason why we designate these qualities as “useful habits” and can hardly describe them as moral virtues is that the individual could never be allowed to put these rules above any definite orders, or to let them become an obstacle to the achievement of any of the particular aims of his community. They only serve, as it were, to fill any gaps which direct orders or the designation of particular aims may leave, but they can never justify a conflict with the will of the authority. The differences between the virtues which will continue to be esteemed under a collectivist system and those which will disappear is well illustrated by a comparison of the virtues which even their worst enemies admit the Germans, or rather the “typical Prussian,” to possess, and those of which they are commonly thought lacking and in which the English people, with some justification, used to pride themselves as excelling. Few people will deny that the Germans on the whole are industrious and disciplined, thorough and energetic to the degree of ruthlessness, conscientious and single-minded in any tasks they undertake, that they possess a strong sense of order, duty, and strict obedience to authority, and that they often show great readiness to make personal sacrifices and great courage in physical danger. All these make the German an efficient instrument in carrying out an assigned task, and they have accordingly been carefully nurtured in the old Prussian state and the new Prussian-dominated Reich. What the “typical German” is often thought to lack are the individualist virtues of tolerance and respect for other individuals and their opinions, of independence of mind and that uprightness of character and readiness to defend one’s own convictions against a superior which the Germans themselves, usually conscious that they lack it, call Zivilcourage, of consideration for the weak and infirm, and of that healthy contempt and dislike of power which only an old tradition of personal liberty creates. Deficient they seem also in most of those little yet so important qualities which facilitate the intercourse between men in a free society: kindliness and a sense of humor, personal modesty, and respect for the privacy and belief in the good intentions of one’s neighbor. After what we have already said it will not cause surprise that these individualist virtues are at the same time eminently social virtues, virtues which smooth social contacts and which make control from above less necessary and at the same time more difficult. They are virtues which flourish wherever the individualist or commercial type of society has prevailed and which are missing according as the collectivist or military type of society predominates—a difference which is, or was, as noticeable between the various regions of Germany as it has now become between the views which rule in Germany and those characteristic of the West. Till recently, at least, in those parts of Germany which have been longest exposed to the civilizing forces of commerce, the old commercial towns of the south and west and the Hanse towns, the general moral concepts were probably much more akin to those of the Western people than to those which have now become dominant all over Germany. It would, however, be highly unjust to regard the masses of the totalitarian people as devoid of moral fervor because they give unstinted support to a system which to us seems a denial of most moral values. For the great majority of them the opposite is probably true: the intensity of the moral emotions behind a movement like that of National Socialism or communism can probably be compared only to those of the great religious movements of history. Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity. From the collectivist standpoint intolerance and brutal suppression of dissent, the complete disregard of the life and happiness of the individual, are essential and unavoidable consequences of this basic premise, and the collectivist can admit this and at the same time claim that his system is superior to one in which the “selfish” interests of the individual are allowed to obstruct the full realization of the ends the community pursues. When German philosophers again and again represent the striving for personal happiness as itself immoral and only the fulfillment of an imposed duty as praiseworthy, they are perfectly sincere, however difficult this may be to understand for those who have been brought up in a different tradition. Where there is one common all-overriding end there is no room for any general morals or rules. To a limited extent we ourselves experience this in wartime. But even war and the greatest peril had led in this country only to a very moderate approach to totalitarianism, very little setting aside of all other values in the service of a single purpose. But where a few specific ends dominate the whole of society, it is inevitable that occasionally cruelty may become a duty, that acts which revolt all our feeling, such as the shooting of hostages or the killing of the old or sick, should be treated as mere matters of expediency, that the compulsory uprooting and transportation of hundreds of thousands should become an instrument of policy approved by almost everybody except the victims, or that suggestions like that of a “conscription of women for breeding purposes” can be seriously contemplated. There is always in the eyes of the collectivist a greater goal which these acts serve and which to him justifies them because the pursuit of the common end of society can know no limits in any rights or values of any individual. But while for the mass of the citizens of the totalitarian state it is often unselfish devotion to an ideal, although one that is repellent to us, which makes them approve and even perform such deeds, this cannot be pleaded for those who guide its policy. To be a useful assistant in the running of a totalitarian state it is not enough that a man should be prepared to accept specious justification of vile deeds; he must himself be prepared actively to break every moral rule he has ever known if this seems necessary to achieve the end set for him. Since it is the supreme leader who alone determines the ends, his instruments must have no moral convictions of their own. They must, above all, be unreservedly committed to the person of the leader; but next to this the most important thing is that they should be completely unprincipled and literally capable of everything. They must have no ideals of their own which they want to realize, no ideas about right or wrong which might interfere with the intentions of the leader. There is thus in the positions of power little to attract those who hold moral beliefs of the kind which in the past have guided the European peoples, little which could compensate for the distastefulness of many of the particular tasks, and little opportunity to gratify any more idealistic desires, to recompense for the undeniable risk, the sacrifice of most of the pleasures of private life and of personal independence which the posts of great responsibility involve. The only tastes which are satisfied are the taste for power as such, the pleasure of being obeyed and of being part of a well-functioning and immensely powerful machine to which everything else must give way. Yet while there is little that is likely to induce men who are good by our standards to aspire to leading positions in the totalitarian machine, and much to deter them, there will be special opportunities for the ruthless and unscrupulous. There will be jobs to be done about the badness of which taken by themselves nobody has any doubt, but which have to be done in the service of some higher end, and which have to be executed with the same expertness and efficiency as any others. And as there will be need for actions which are bad in themselves, and which all those still influenced by traditional morals will be reluctant to perform, the readiness to do bad things becomes a path to promotion and power. The positions in a totalitarian society in which it is necessary to practice cruelty and intimidation, deliberate deception and spying, are numerous. Neither the Gestapo nor the administration of a concentration camp, neither the Ministry of Propaganda nor the SA or SS (or their Italian or Russian counterparts) are suitable places for the exercise of humanitarian feelings. Yet it is through positions like these that the road to the highest positions in the totalitarian state leads. It is only too true when a distinguished American economist concludes from a similar brief enumeration of the duties of the authorities of a collectivist state that they would have to do these things whether they wanted to or not: and the probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation. We cannot, however, exhaust this subject here. The problem of the selection of the leaders is closely bound up with the wide problem of selection according to the opinions held, or rather according to the readiness with which a person conforms to an ever-changing set of doctrines. And this leads us to one of the most characteristic moral features of totalitarianism, its relation to, and its effect on, all the virtues falling under the general heading of truthfulness. This is so big a subject that it requires a separate chapter. The Art of Liberty Foundation is honoring the Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek, one of the most important economists to have ever lived, with a campaign that will both syndicate the new book: Hayek for the 21st Century – Essays in Political Economy and provide free paperback copies of the book to anyone who goes paid on our Substack as an annual member and/or orders anything from ArtOfLiberty.org/store.This introduction to F.A. Hayek includes his biography, memes, quotes, “Rap Battles” with economist Lord John Maynard Keynes, and the first installment of our syndication of Hayek for the 21st Century – Essays in Political Economy: The Introduction to the book by Thomas J DiLorenzo, President of the Mises Institute & Editor of Hayek for the 21st CenturyWe are also adding the full PDF of Hayek for the 21st Century to our uncensorable flash drive of Freedom: The Liberator.BiographyF. A. Hayek’s life spanned the twentieth century, and he made his home in some of the great intellectual communities of the period.Born Friedrich August von Hayek in 1899 to a distinguished family of Viennese intellectuals, Hayek attended the University of Vienna, earning doctorates in 1921 and 1923. Hayek came to the University at age 19 just after World War I, when it was one of the three best places in the world to study economics (the others being Stockholm and Cambridge).Like many students of economics then and since, Hayek chose the subject not for its own sake, but because he wanted to improve social conditions—the poverty of postwar Vienna serving as a daily reminder of such a need. Socialism seemed to provide a solution. Then in 1922 Mises published his Die Gemeinwirtschaft, later translated as Socialism. “To none of us young men who read the book when it appeared,” Hayek recalled, “the world was ever the same again.” It was around this time that Hayek began attending Mises’s famed Privatseminar. For several years the Privatseminar was the center of the economics community in Vienna.Later, Hayek became the first of this group to leave Vienna; most of the others, along with Mises himself, were also gone by the start of World War II.At the L.S.E. Hayek lectured on Mises’s business-cycle theory, which he was refining and which, until Keynes’s General Theory came out in 1936, was rapidly gaining adherents in Britain and the U.S. and was becoming the preferred explanation of the Depression. Hayek and Keynes had sparred in the early 1930s in the pages of the Economic Journal, over Keynes’s Treatise on Money.Within a very few years, however, the fortunes of the Austrian School suffered a dramatic reversal. Mises left Vienna in 1934 for Geneva and then New York, where he continued to work in isolation; Hayek remained at the L.S.E. until 1950, when he joined the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Other Austrians of Hayek’s generation became prominent in the U.S. but their work no longer seemed to show distinct traces of the tradition founded by Carl Menger.At Chicago Hayek again found himself among a dazzling group. But economic theory, in particular its style of reasoning, was rapidly changing. In addition, Hayek had ceased to work on economic theory, concentrating instead on psychology, philosophy, and politics, and Austrian economics entered a prolonged eclipse.When the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics went to Hayek, interest in the Austrian School was suddenly and unexpectedly revived. Hayek’s writings were taught to new generations, and Hayek himself appeared at the early Institute for Humane Studies conferences in the mid-1970s. He continued to write, producing The Fatal Conceit in 1988, at the age of 89.Hayek died in 1992 in Freiburg, Germany, where he had lived since leaving Chicago in 1961.Among mainstream economists, he is mainly known for his popular The Road to Serfdom (1944) and for his work on knowledge in the 1930s and 1940s. Specialists in business cycle theory recognize his early work on industrial fluctuations, and modern information theorists often acknowledge Hayek’s work on prices as signals, although his conclusions are typically disputed. Hayek’s work is also known in political philosophy, legal theory, and psychology.Within the Austrian School of economics, Hayek’s influence, while undeniably immense, has very recently become the subject of some controversy. His emphasis on spontaneous order and his work on complex systems has been widely influential among many Austrians. Others have preferred to stress Hayek’s work in technical economics, particularly on capital and the business cycle, citing a tension between some of Hayek’s and Mises’s views on the social order.Hayek’s writings on capital, money, and the business cycle are widely regarded as his most important contributions to economics. Building on Mises’s Theory of Money and Credit (1912), Hayek showed how fluctuations in economy-wide output and employment are related to the economy’s capital structure. In Prices and Production (1931) he introduced the famous “Hayekian triangles” to illustrate the relationship between the value of capital goods and their place in the temporal sequence of production.In Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle (1933) Hayek showed how monetary injections, by lowering the rate of interest below what Mises (following Wicksell) called its “natural rate,” distort the economy’s intertemporal structure of production. Most theories of the effects of money on prices and output (then and since) consider only the effects of the total money supply on the price level and aggregate output or investment.Hayek’s writings on dispersed knowledge and spontaneous order are also widely known, but more controversial. In “Economics and Knowledge” (1937) and “The Use of Knowledge in Society” (1945) Hayek argued that the central economic problem facing society is not, as is commonly expressed in textbooks, the allocation of given resources among competing ends.It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only those individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge not given to anyone in its totality.Clearly, the Austrian revival owes much to Hayek. He ranks among the greatest members of the Austrian School, and among the leading economists of the twentieth century. His work continues to be influential in business cycle theory, comparative economic systems, political and social philosophy, legal theory, and even cognitive psychology. Hayek remains one of the most intriguing intellectual figures of our time.Fear the Boom and Bust: Keynes vs. Hayek – The Original Economics Rap Battle!F.A Hayek vs. John Maynard Keynes square off in Fear the Boom and Bust – The Original Economics Rap Battle where Keynes, who advocated “government” action during periods of recession and depression and “wants to steer markets” squares off against F.A Hayek, who advocates for low taxation and savings-led investment by those who best understand their industries… Hayek “wants them set free”Full Lyrics Here: https://genius.com/John-papola-fear-the-boom-and-bust-hayek-vs-keynes-lyricsFight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek – Economics Rap Battle Round TwoFull Lyrics Here: https://genius.com/Econstories-fight-of-the-century-lyricsWhich way should we choose?More bottom-up or more top-down?The fight continuesKeynes and Hayek, second roundIt’s time to weigh inMore from the top or from the ground?Let’s listen to the greatsKeynes and Hayek throwin’ downIntroduction to Hayek for the 21st CenturyIntroduction by Thomas J DiLorenzo, President of the Mises Institute & Editor of Hayek for the 21st CenturyThe rest of Hayek for the 21st Century will be syndicated in the coming weeks.In a February 7, 2000, article in The New Yorker, journalist John Cassidy wrote that “it is hardly an exaggeration to refer to the twentieth century as the Hayek century.” He said this because of Friedrich Hayek’s prominent role throughout the century in defending free market capitalism and his critiques of socialism, especially his writings on the importance of decentralized knowledge in economic decision-making. Hayek lived to see his ideas proven correct with the worldwide collapse of socialism in the late eighties and early nineties. Watching the images of the collapse on television he said to his son, “I told you so.”The Knowledge ProblemThe “knowledge problem” is Hayek’s key contribution to the critique of socialism. It recognizes the commonsense notion that what makes the economic world go around is the use of knowledge by all kinds of people with different abilities, educations, experiences, and skills. Thanks to this international division of labor and knowledge, we collaborate “as though led by an invisible hand” in order to mutually prosper. It all depends of course on freedom—the freedom to own property, to pursue a profession of your Introduction 7 8 Hayek for the 21st Century choosing, to start and run a business, to buy and sell, to be guided in your decisions by free market prices. By contrast, socialism in all of its varieties is based on the opposite idea—that what is supposedly needed for prosperity is totalitarian powers in the hands of a small number of politicians and “planners” who will forcefully impose a single plan on an entire society. Hayek labeled this “the fatal conceit” of socialism in his last book. The entire world now knows that he was right, and all of the socialist tyrants and their propagandists and court historians were (and are) wrong.Hayek’s “The Use of Knowledge in Society” and “The Pretense of Knowledge,” reprinted here, are the two best expositions of the Hayekian knowledge problem. Indeed, John Cassidy credited Hayek with providing an explanation of the workings of “the information age” of the internet that would develop some fifty years after he first started writing about the importance of decentralized information in society. This is not mere speculation on Cassidy’s part. As just one example, the cofounder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, claims to have gotten the idea for Wikipedia as an Auburn University undergraduate finance student aft er Mises Institute Research Fellow Mark Thornton got him to read “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” Hayek called free market capitalism guided by private property and free market prices a “telecommunications system,” which Cassidy suggested was “one of the great insights of the [twentieth] century.”Hayek’s Demolition of Socialists and Their IdeasHayek wrote in a 1961 Southern Economic Journal article (“The Non Sequitur of the ‘Dependence Effect,’” republished here) that for over a hundred years socialists had argued that “the problem of production” had been solved, so that “only the problem of distribution remains.” At the time, the “latest form of this old contention” was in the form of numerous books by the socialist Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, the best known of which was The Affluent Society. Galbraith argued in books and articles that all “essential needs” are already met, and that most of what people think are other “needs” are really fake needs created by the brainwashing effects of advertising. Only “innate” needs that we think of ourselves are useful, said Galbraith; everything else that is brought to our attention by others is therefore useless and wasteful. Therefore, the argument went, government should tax more and spend more for what it deems to be our genuinely useful needs. What is genuinely useful would of course be determined by politicians—presumably with the assistance of John Kenneth Galbraith.Hayek called this argument “a complete non sequitur.” It implies for one thing that “the whole cultural achievement of man is not important.” The only genuinely innate human needs, said Hayek, are food, shelter, and sex. Everything else is brought to our attention by someone. Hayek’s article is a complete demolition of the Galbraithian system and his life’s work of promoting what Hayek called increasing “the share of the resources whose use is determined by political authority and the coercion of any dissenting minority.”In 1949 Hayek authored “The Intellectuals and Socialism” in The University of Chicago Law Review. His argument is as relevant today as it was then—if not more relevant. Contrary to the common argument that “intellectuals” have little influence on day-to-day discussions about public policy, Hayek argued that “over somewhat longer periods they have probably never exercised so great an influence as they do today.” He pointed out that socialism was never a “working class” movement but was always hatched from the utopian dreams of “theorists” who spent 10 decades preaching their socialist utopianism in university classrooms and all throughout the culture. In many countries the result of this decades-long propagandizing for socialism was that the views held by socialist intellectuals became “the governing force of politics,” wrote Hayek. The “intellectual” spreaders of socialist ideas were not just academics but also “journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists,” among many others, including “scientists and doctors.” It is “the intellectuals in this sense who decide what views and opinions are to reach us.”Eventually, so many institutions are taken over by socialists that an intellectual who espouses the philosophical foundations of a free society, by contrast, “soon discovers that it is unsafe to associate too closely with those who seem to share most of his convictions and he is driven into isolation.” This sounds like a perfect description of today’s American university world. Nevertheless, all is not lost, Hayek concluded. What is needed is education about a classical “liberal Utopia” to counter the endless promises of socialist utopias—not a “diluted kind of socialism,” he wrote, but a “truly liberal radicalism” that does not pull punches to please any special interest group. Leave the compromising to the politicians, he advised.Hayek was relentless in his devastating critiques of socialism and interventionism, and nowhere is this more on display than in his essay “The Meaning of Competition.” By the 1940s the academic economics profession had adopted a straw-man argument version of competition. Rather than the Austrian School conception of competition as a dynamic, rivalrous discovery process, competition was newly defined as a static situation where “many” business firms all produced a homogeneous product and charged identical prices in a world where all market participants had “perfect knowledge” of everything—what consumers wanted, how to minimize costs and maximize profits, and so on. They called it “perfect competition.” In his essay Hayek explained that “‘perfect’ competition means indeed the absence of all competitive activities” because all of it—product differentiation, price cutting, mergers, advertising—was all assumed away by the perfect competition “model.”This method of analysis was later labeled a “nirvana fallacy” by UCLA economist Harold Demsetz. Positing a utopian never-never land and comparing it to the real world, and then condemning real-world markets as “failed” because they are “imperfect,” is one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated by the economics profession.In “Choice in Currency” Hayek did not oppose government issuance of money but instead opposed governmental monopoly and governments’ “power to limit the kinds of money in which contracts may be concluded.” Competing currencies could be valued “in seconds” with “electronic calculators,” Hayek wrote, long before the invention of the cell phone. Competition in currencies would be the path to honest money, for “even the slightest deviation from the path of honesty would reduce the demand for their product.” It is little wonder that Hayek’s writings on competing currencies have become enormously popular among advocates of cryptocurrencies.Hayekian Political PhilosophyOddly enough, despite all of his contributions to economic science and his Nobel Prize, what Friedrich Hayek is most known for among the general public is his writings on political philosophy, in particular his infamous book The Road to Serfdom, a critique of collectivism in all its forms. Hayek did not distinguish between fascism and socialism, the former being just a variant of the latter, with a common hatred of private property, free enterprise, economic freedom in general, constitutionalism, and the rule of law. The most famous chapter of The Road to Serfdom is chapter 10, “Why the Worst Get on Top,” republished here. Since any kind of socialism requires a central plan for all of society, it also requires the use of massive governmental force (and censorship of critics) to implement the plan. Consequently, the kind of people who would rise to the top of such a system are those with the fewest qualms about coercing, imprisoning, and brutalizing (or worse) their fellow citizens, wrote Hayek. That is why, he wrote, “the practice of socialism is everywhere totalitarian.”Hopefully, this brief introduction has helped the reader to understand why the journalist John Cassidy was so inspired by the power of Hayek’s scholarship and writings that he made a case that the entire twentieth century (the good parts of it, anyway) should be thought of as “the Hayek century.” Ludwig von Mises was surely right when, he said that “Doctor Hayek . . . will be remembered as one of the great economists of all time”.Thomas J. DiLorenzoQuotes & Memes“From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time”― Friedrich August von Hayek, Constitution of Liberty“Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.”― Friedrich von Hayek“The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.”― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine the can design.”― F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism“Probably it is true enough that the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another. In any society freedom of thought will probably be of direct significance only for a small minority. But this does not mean that anyone is competent, or ought to have power, to select those to whom this freedom is to be reserved. It certainly does not justify the presumption of any group of people to claim the right to determine what people ought to think or believe.”― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom“The more the state “plans” the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”― Friedrich A. Hayek“Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his absolute mercy. And an authority directing the whole economic system of the country would be the most powerful monopolist conceivable…it would have complete power to decide what we are to be given and on what terms. It would not only decide what commodities and services were to be available and in what quantities; it would be able to direct their distributions between persons to any degree it liked.”― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom“It is true that the virtues which are less esteemed and practiced now–independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks, the readiness to back one’s own conviction against a majority, and the willingness to voluntary cooperation with one’s neighbors–are essentially those on which an individualist society rests. Collectivism has nothing to put in their place, and in so far as it already has destroyed then it has left a void filled by nothing but the demand for obedience and the compulsion of the individual to what is collectively decided to be good.” ― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom“I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.”― F.A. Hayek“I was quite depressed two weeks ago when I spent an afternoon at Brentano’s Bookshop in New York and was looking at the kind of books most people read. Once you see that you lose all hope.”― Friedrich August von Hayek“Emergencies” have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.”― Friedrich Hayek“While an equality of rights under a limited government is possible and an essential condition of individual freedom, a claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.”― Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Mirage of Social Justice“Our faith in freedom does not rest on the foreseeable results in particular circumstances but on the belief that it will, on balance, release more forces for the good than for the bad.”― Friedrich A. Hayek“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.”― Friedrich Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism“It is because every individual knows little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.”― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty“From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.”― Friedrich A. von Hayek“It is one of the saddest spectacles of our time to see a great democratic movement support a policy which must lead to the destruction of democracy and which meanwhile can benefit only a minority of the masses who support it. Yet it is this support from the Left of the tendencies toward monopoly which make them so irresistible and the prospects of the future so dark.”― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom“To act on behalf of a group seems to free people of many of the moral restraints which control their behaviour as individuals within the group.”― Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom“Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.”― Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty“Although we had been warned by some of the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism.”― Friedrich Hayek, The Road to SerfdomGet a paperback copy of Hayek for the 21st Century for FREEAs part of the Art of Liberty Foundation’s Tribute to Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek, in cooperation with the Mises Institute and the US Justice Charitable Foundation who provided free copies, the Art of Liberty Foundation is helping promote and distribute the book to anyone who “Goes Paid” as an annual member on Substack OR makes a purchase at ArtOfLiberty.org/Store.Go paid at the $5 a month level, and we will send you both the PDF and e-Pub versions of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many, the PDF of Hayek for the 21st Century and a coupon code for 10% off anything in the https://artofliberty.org/store/.Go paid at the $50 a year level, and we will send you a free paperback edition of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many OR “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! OR a 64GB Liberator flash drive PLUS a paperback copy of Hayek for the 21st Century if you live in the US. If you are international, we will give you a $10 credit towards shipping if you agree to pay the remainder.Support us at the $250 Founding Member Level and get a signed high-resolution hardcover of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! + Liberator flash drive + a signed high-resolution hardcover of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many PLUS everything else in our “Everything Bundle” of the best in voluntaryist thought PLUS a paperback copy of Hayek for the 21st Century delivered domestically. International pays shipping. Our only option for signed copies besides catching Etienne @ an event.

FiveMemeFri-Consumer prices rose 3.8% annually in April, the highest since May 2023

by editor Art Of Liberty | May 16, 2026 | AoLF Important News, Five Meme Friday

+ Trump Family Collected $59 MILLION From Americans For Phones That Don’t ExistEtienne Note: If the images aren’t visible, please try this browser LINK.Dear Subscribers,Short letter this week as I am at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA at my son’s college graduation.I made inflation the headline story this week because we are now at a RED FLAG level inflation rate especially since the Bureau of Labor Statistics is undercounting the true rate of inflation in the specific ways we discuss in our expose: THE GREATEST THEFT IN HUMAN HISTORY! How the Banks and “Government” Will Steal At Least $2.73 Million From Every Working American… “Legally”. The organized crime banks and “government” have stolen the value out of our money with Fractional Reserve Banking and it is starting to become evident that we have been robbed.Don’t be distracted by Iran, fake “assassination attempts” or aliens. We are being robbed and the organized crime “government” is waging economic warfare against us.. slowly and surely bankrupting the population… We are at war… How are YOU fighting back? https://artofliberty.org/sponsorship-program/Finally, I am rolling through Nashville on the way home on Monday or Tuesday… It looks like Shawn Ryan is just going to let me, figuratively, walk right past him…Top Stories of the WeekShawn Ryan – Etienne de la Boetie2 Debate Challenge UpdateSo I am rolling through Nashville, where Shawn Ryan’s studio is, next week on the way to my son’s college graduation and the following week on the way back. I had sent Shawn Ryan’s team an invitation to debate the legitimacy of “government” and the fact that the organized crime “government” is using unethically manipulative tricks and techniques to create “order-followers” (Soul-diers) willing to set their morality aside and kill whomever they are told while living off money stolen from others at the point of a gun. He or his team have not responded so I wanted to double down and make it clear I am calling him out.Shawn Ryan swore an oath to defend the Con-stitution from “All Enemies Foreign and Domestic.” Here I am, the biggest “Enemy of the Con-stitution” since Lysander Spooner and I am about to figurative walk right past Shawn Ryan the same way the German soldier walked past the cowardly American soldier in the movie Saving Private Ryan.I’ve got almost 10,000 hard copy book sales to 25+ countries, almost 50,000 book downloads, and I appear on dozens of podcast and radio shows each year pointing out the scam of the Con-stitution and “government:”“We the People” can’t delegate rights they don’t have themselves (stealing/extorting money (taxes), making up rules for everyone, etc.) to a “representative” or a “government” to “represent them” doing something they don’t have the ability to do themselves.Continue reading…Videos of the WeekCatherine Austin Fitts: “The Government Isn’t in Charge—The President Is Doing What He’s Told”by Lioness of Judah MinistryCatherine Austin Fitts argues that soaring deficits and inconsistent policy decisions point to a deeper reality: elected officials may not be in control.Drawing on the gap between public messaging and actual outcomes, she questions who is truly directing policy.In her view, the visible leadership operates within constraints set by more powerful financial forces behind the scenes.The result is a system that appears chaotic on the surface, but may be more coordinated than it looks.Continue reading…“Government”, Media and AcademiaCriminality ExposedThese articles also appears in “Government”, Media and Academia Criminality Exposed, A digest of HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of articles exposing and suggesting inter-generational organized crime’s control of the “Government,” Media and Academia by the Art of Liberty Foundation. You can view the other articles or subscribe on Telegram: https://t.me/Government_ScamsTrump Family Collected $59 MILLION From Americans For Phones That Don’t Existby Books Behind BordersIn June 2025, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump launched Trump Mobile. The flagship product was a gold Android smartphone called the T1, priced at $499. Buyers were asked to pay a $100 deposit to reserve one.590,000 people paid that deposit.That’s $59 million collected.They promised delivery by late summer 2025.Then November.Then December.Then Q1 2026.Now? The release date has been quietly DELETED from the website entirely.The phone was marketed as “proudly American” and “Made in the USA” with an etched American flag. That branding was quietly removed from the website within days of launch.Continue reading…The Art of Liberty Foundation… in Spanish!We are adding a new section to Five Meme Friday to promote our new Substack, Telegram group, Instagram, and translations of To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many in Spanish. Please tell your Spanish speaking friends! “Go Paid” on our Spanish Substack to support getting voluntaryist ideas, books, and memes translated into Spanish AND get a free paperback copy of To See the Cage is To Leave It in Latin American Spanish.¡Por qué es fundamental usar efectivo! (¡Y criptomonedas, oro/Goldbacks, plata e incluso monedas de cinco centavos!)Con los bancos empezando a fallar, hay algunas cosas fáciles y específicas que usted puede hacer para fortalecer la capacidad de su comunidad local para sobrevivir a un colapso bancario o a una devaluación del dólar.Use efectivo físico¡Por qué deberíamos pagar con efectivo en todos los lugares que podamos con billetes en lugar de una tarjeta de crédito! — Adaptado de la publicación viral en “Fedbook” de Wren Hope RoseContinuar leyendo…“Daily News of The Week”Getting Jacked is Simpleby Chaotic NeutralIt’s actually really simple to get jacked. That’s not to say it’s easy- just that the complexity of the challenge is trivial, requiring only time and energy to succeed.Now, you’re probably raising your eyebrows at this claim. Everywhere you look, there are personal trainers, fitness influencers, nutritionists, and even exercise scientists with conflicting information. Go to any gym, and you’ll see different people doing wildly different exercise routines. Surely, that implies building muscle is a complicated subject? Well, no. For 2 reasons:The fitness industry thrives on misinformation, because all the money is made in selling supplements, accessories, and ‘personal training expertise’ that have no scientific legitimacy1Most people are cognitive misers who actively avoid mentally demanding tasks and refuse to read anything academic2Continue reading…Surveillance Tools Intended for Border Control Are Being Used Against Americansby J.D. TuccilleIt goes without saying that any tool or power government acquires for addressing some crisis of the moment will eventually—often, almost immediately—be deployed against the general public. So it is with border enforcement and the crackdown on immigrants. Surveillance technology ostensibly intended for the enforcement of laws regulating migration is being turned against Americans.“In the battle against illegal immigration, the U.S. is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on tools that give federal agents easy access to the home and workplace addresses of American citizens, their social-media accounts, vehicle information, flight history, law-enforcement records and other personal information, as well as data to track their daily comings and goings,” The Wall Street Journal‘s Shane Shifflett and Hannah Critchfield reported last week.The article opened with the story of Liz McLellan, a Maine resident who photographed federal agents participating in an immigration crackdown. Agents went to her home and told her, “This is a warning. We know you live right here.” Understandably, she took that as a threat.In fact, McLellan was well within her rights to record federal agents. As Freedom Forum notes, “Courts have protected a general right to record law enforcement when the officers are performing official actions in a public space, such as a street or park. This right is protected under both freedom of speech as free expression and freedom of the press, which includes protection for gathering information about the government and for sharing it with others.”Continue reading…What percent of autism cases are attributable to vaccines?by Toby RogersEditor’s note: Steve Kirsch and I independently arrived at the same estimate for the Population Attributable Fraction (PAF) of autism cases caused by vaccines. I previously missed his groundbreaking work on this topic (see 1, 2, and 3). That being said, this is an extremely important facet of the autism causation conversation so I want to shine a light on it and build the case piece by piece so that readers will understand the revolutionary implications of this finding.I. What is it?The Population Attributable Fraction (PAF) answers a specific and important question: if we could eliminate a particular exposure from the entire population, what fraction of all cases of a particular disease would disappear?It bridges the gap between two different ways of thinking about causation:Continue reading…US Firm Unveils Ground Bot With Enough Power To Fire Laser Gunsby Tyler DurdenUtah-based defense tech firm Hypercraft has unveiled a 300 hp diesel-hybrid-electric unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that can power directed-energy weapons, charge drones, and sustain a forward command post, all autonomously.Defense Blog’s Dylan Malyasov reports that Hypercraft’s Razorback UGV can travel 280 miles on a single charge, reach speeds of 60 mph, and export 38 kilowatts of power, which is enough to power laser weapons and recharge drones.Razorback is being positioned as a critical energy source for forward operating units that need power for drones, electronic warfare, ISR, counter-UAS systems, and communications. The UGV is also designed to move supplies and support infrastructure on the modern battlefield.The role of UGVs on the battlefield is still being shaped in real time by the Russia-Ukraine war, where robots, whether ground bots or drones, are increasingly removing infantrymen from harm’s way as the grinding fight evolves into a war of attrition fought by machines.Continue reading…“They’ll Be Laughing No Longer”: Trump Rejects Iran Peace Deal Response As “Totally Unacceptable”by Tyler DurdenTrump calls Iran’s peace proposal response “totally unacceptable”Iran warns of ‘decisive, immediate’ response to British or French warships approaching Hormuz Strait.Iran responds Sunday to US peace proposal, finally submitting something official to Pakistan. Details not initially disclosed. Trump TS: Iran “playing games with the United States.”IRGC new warning: will unleash “heavy attack” on US bases in region if more Hormuz aggression persists.Continue reading…The Mystery of Falling FertilityEtienne Note: Check out our monograph: Solving Covid – The Covid 19 Eugenics, Vaccine/Drug Scam Timeline at and its companion article: The Covid 19 Suspects and Their Ties to Eugenics and Population Control/Reduction to understand who is behind “The Covid”by Tomas FürstThis analysis originated as a student project in my Data Science course at Palacky University, Czech Republic. Several students contributed, with Michal Malcik doing the most. It might be one of the more consequential pieces of coursework.At the beginning of 2022, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in many European countries started to decrease dramatically. A rapid and unexpected decline in TFR has occurred in all the Baltic states, across Northern Europe, Central Europe, and in all major countries of Western Europe. Only Greece, Spain, Italy, Croatia, and Romania did not exhibit such dramatic declines, while Portugal and Bulgaria even experienced TFR growth (see Figure 1).This dramatic and unexpected change in TFR dynamics that occurred synchronously across most of Europe begs for an explanation. Several mechanisms have been proposed in the mainstream media.Continue reading…New York Mandates Kill Switch and Surveillance Software in Your 3D Printer – Violations are a Felonyby Matt AgoristThe political class in New York has just mandated a digital panopticon inside your living room, slipping draconian provisions into the Fiscal Year 2027 State Budget. Stripped of the political spin, the state has cemented what Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration enthusiastically brands as “first-in-the-nation” safety requirements, legally ordering manufacturers to install surveillance software on private 3D printers. It is a calculated move to monitor the private activities of peaceful individuals under the guise of public safety.The state is attempting to sell this massive overreach to the public as a heroic crusade against the phantom menace of “ghost guns.” According to Hochul’s official press releases, untraceable 3D-printed firearms are the fastest-growing threat to public safety and demand immediate legislative intervention. The political establishment believes this manufactured panic grants them the moral authority to require a digital permission slip just to operate a machine sitting on a workbench in your own home.Continue reading…The FCC Wants Your ID Before You Get a Phone Numberby The Free Thought Project(Reclaim The Net) The era of the anonymous phone number could be ending. On April 30, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved a proposal requiring telecom providers to verify customers’ identities before activating service.Government-issued ID, physical address, legal name, and existing phone numbers would all be included. The stated goal is stopping robocalls. The result would be an identity-verification regime covering one of the last semi-anonymous communication tools available to ordinary Americans.The proposal applies to nearly every voice provider in the country, from traditional carriers and mobile operators to VoIP services. The FCC is seeking public comment on specifics, but the direction is clear.FCC Chairman Brendan Carr framed it around negligent carriers. “As we have continued to investigate the problem of illegal robocalls over the last year, it has become clear that some originating providers are not doing enough to vet their customers, allowing bad actors to infiltrate our U.S. phone networks,” he said. Some providers, he added, “do the bare minimum (or worse) and have become complicit in illegal robocalling schemes.”Continue reading…When the Persian Gulf Supply Shock Meets the Warsh Fed: Stagflation and the Coming AI Bubble Bustby David StockmanHere is a salient place to start regarding the economic impact of the Donald’s misbegotten war on Iran: To wit, approximately 7 billion ton-miles of freight moves by truck each and every day in the USA, which heavy truck fleet consumes upwards of 2.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) of diesel fuel.Alas, the price of diesel fuel was about $3.55/gallon both a year ago and as of early January 2026, but has since soared by more than+$2.00 per gallon to around $5.60 recently. That’s a 56% rise in the cost of pumping goods and commodities through the arteries of the US economy. On an annualized basis, the diesel fuel bill for the US truck fleet went from $155 billion per year to $250 billion per year at current oil prices.The big question, of course, is through which channel these drastically higher fuel acquisition costs will be absorbed—in higher prices or reduced output?And that pertains not just to the microcosm of the trucking sector, but the entire GDP now being battered by the Donald’s elective war-based dislocation of the world’s 175 million BOE/day oil and natural gas markets.Continue reading…Why Medicine Won’t Cure You (and What’s Final y Changing)by A Midwestern DoctorStory at a Glance:No industry, organization, or cause tasked with solving a problem will actually solve it, because the problem disappearing threatens their economic livelihood or political power—a dynamic visible everywhere from non-profits which constantly seek donations but never produce results to dating apps that deliberately prevent users from finding partners and leaving the platform.The pharmaceutical industry has perfected this model: drugs are designed to be taken perpetually rather than cure, side effects create demand for additional drugs, and the entire regulatory apparatus is structured to protect this status quo by suppressing affordable natural therapies like DMSO that challenge it.SSRIs epitomize this dynamic—massively overprescribed, frequently life-ruining, and nearly impossible to withdraw from—yet for decades, the industry successfully kept all criticism of them out of mainstream discourse.Continue reading…Consumer prices rose 3.8% annually in April, the highest since May 2023Etienne Note: This is RED FLAG level inflation especially since the Bureau of Labor Statistics is undercounting the true rate of inflation in the specific ways we discuss in our expose: THE GREATEST THEFT IN HUMAN HISTORY! How the Banks and “Government” Will Steal At Least $2.73 Million From Every Working American… “Legally”. The organized crime banks and “government” have stolen the value out of our money with Fractional Reserve Banking and it is starting to become evident that we have been robbed. Don’t be distracted by Iran, fake “assassination attempts” or aliens. We are being robbed and the organized crime “government” is waging economic warfare against us.. slowly and surely bankrupting the population… We are at war.. How are YOU fighting back? https://artofliberty.org/sponsorship-program/by Jeff CoxThe consumer price index rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the one-year pace at 3.8%, the highest since May 2023.Excluding food and energy, the core CPI increased 0.4% and 2.8%, respectively, keeping inflation well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal.Though energy and in particular gasoline has been much of the headline story, inflation pressures also came from a variety of other areas.Continue reading…Three New Studies Show Harm From Ultra Processed FoodsEmerging research continues to link ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) to major health risks. Three recent studies found troubling connections. One found that higher UPF consumption is associated with increased fat in thigh muscles linked to knee osteoarthritis. Learn more here. Another found measurable declines in attention and processing speed. Learn more here. And last but not least, a third found a 5% higher risk of stroke, heart attack, or cardiac arrest for each additional daily serving consumed. Learn more here.Looking for a snack? Grab an organic apple instead of an Oreo.by Julia Musto, The Independent in New YorkEating a diet dominated by ultraprocessed foods like cookies and fries has long been tied to harms for many areas of human health.Now, researchers say people who regularly eat a lot of ultraprocessed foods need to worry about another health hazard: poor muscle health.Continue reading…The Multi-Layered Poison Operation: How Leaving the Mainstream Lands You in a Hunting Groundby Tim TruthThere are two layers of a large-scale poison operation happening at once, in service of the NWO depopulation agenda.The first layer is the more obvious one: mainstream media, institutional messaging, and conventional consumer culture encouraging people to harm themselves through medical interventions that shorten lifespan. Mainstream systems push people toward dependency, weakness, illness, and premature decline.BUT escaping the mainstream does not automatically mean escaping manipulation.The same mainstream sources can manage both groups by using opposite psychological levers. For the mainstream audience, the mechanism is direct instruction: “trust the experts,” “follow the guidance,” “take the recommended intervention,” “do not question the institutions.” This works on people who still accept institutional authority as legitimate. But for those who have lost trust in mainstream messaging, the same system can use reverse psychology: “they don’t want you to know,” “this is suppressed,” “the banned poisons must be the real cure,” “if the establishment attacks it, it must be good.” In that second case, the person believes they are rebelling, when in fact their rebellion has been harnessed and hijacked.Continue reading…The Massive Housing Market Risks Nobody Talks Aboutby Brandon SmithPerhaps the most common economic commentary circulating today is the fear that the average American family has been priced out of the housing market for the rest of their lives. Gen Z and even Gen Alpha teens are already planning for a future in which buying a home is impossible. This is not only happening in the U.S.; all across the western world from Australia to Canada to Europe, people are facing the worst home price inflation in decades.However, just as in physics, there are rules of motion that still apply to markets regardless of government or central bank intervention. What goes up must inevitably come down.There’s been an interesting development in the past year, specifically on the seller’s side of the housing equation. During the pandemic, the relocation panic, Covid stimulus and corporate buyers drove up prices across the board and the average cost of a home skyrocketed by 50% from 2019 to 2024.A large portion of this buying was internal migration (mostly away from blue states). At the same time, there were a lot of speculators trying to play the market and make a quick buck in the expectation that prices would continue rising.Continue reading…What the Fuck is Going On? – Expandedby A Lily BitThere is a certain kind of British conversation that takes place in a quiet room with two cups of tea going cold on the table, the kind where one man tells another that the country he was born in has been gutted from the inside, that the elections he votes in are theatre, that the pension he has been paying into is collateral for a debt nobody intends to repay, and the other man, who already half-believed it, sits there and feels the last of his civic optimism leave the room like steam off the tea. That conversation has been happening more often lately. It is happening in pubs in Bedford, in coffee shops in Manchester, in the spare bedrooms of men in their fifties who have stopped sleeping properly and have begun reading books their fathers would have called crank literature, and it is happening because the official explanations no longer fit the visible facts.The visible facts are these. The British state cannot build a hospital on time or on budget. It cannot guard its own borders. It cannot keep the lights on without buying gas from people who hate it. It cannot prosecute the obvious crimes committed in the open against children in its northern towns. It cannot house its own citizens, who now hand over more than half their take-home pay for a flat they will never own, and it cannot stop importing several hundred thousand new claimants on those flats every year.Continue reading…BREAKING: Landmark Peer-Reviewed Study Finds Vaccination Is a Major Risk Factor for Autismby Nicolas Hulscher, MPHFor decades, scientists have debated what drives the relentless rise in autism. Some have claimed it’s simply due to “increased screening” while others insist vaccines play no role whatsoever. Thousands of studies have explored genetic, environmental, and perinatal factors—but very few have ever evaluated vaccine and non-vaccine determinants together within a unified analytical framework.Now, our peer-reviewed study titled Determinants of Autism Spectrum Disorder, officially published in the Journal of Independent Medicine, provides one of the most comprehensive syntheses on the possible causes of autism to date.Most importantly, by systematically evaluating all known autism risk factors side by side, we found that combination and early-timed routine childhood vaccination represents a significant modifiable risk factor for autism within a broader multifactorial framework. We found 79% of studies evaluating vaccines or their components (107 of 136) reported evidence consistent with a vaccine–autism link. The evidence converged across epidemiologic, clinical, mechanistic, toxicologic, and neuropathologic domains.Continue reading…Tokenization: A Seventh Grade Explanationby UnbekomingThe True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, first published in 1951, is one of the strangest and most enduring works of twentieth-century political thought. Strange because of who wrote it — a self-educated longshoreman with no university degree, no academic post, no institutional sponsor — and enduring because, more than seventy years after it appeared, no one has yet written a better short book on why ordinary people throw themselves into religious revivals, nationalist crusades and political revolutions with a willingness to die that defies every assumption of self-interest. Eisenhower kept it on his desk and recommended it publicly. It has never gone out of print. Each new generation rediscovers it during whatever upheaval happens to be theirs, and finds the old longshoreman waiting with most of the answers already worked out.Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) lived a life almost calculated to disqualify him as a public intellectual. He worked in restaurants, picked crops as a migrant in California’s fields, prospected for gold in the mountains, and after Pearl Harbor settled into twenty-five years on the San Francisco docks loading and unloading ships. He read philosophy on his lunch breaks — Montaigne, Pascal, Dostoyevsky, Bagehot — and he wrote in spiral notebooks during the hours other men spent at home. The True Believer was his first book, written largely in the evenings after shifts on the waterfront, and dedicated to Margaret Anderson, an editor whose persistent prodding from across a continent finally pried it loose from him. He went on to write nine more books. In 1983 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He never gave up the docks.Continue reading…Simplicius Iran War Update: Another Blow to Pentagon Hype: 90% of Iran’s Missile Sites Remain According to NYT Findingsby SimpliciusAnother day brings us new revisions to Iran’s putative “losses” in the failed US war.The New York Times now finds that 30 out of 33 Iranian missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz are still intact:The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities.Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.Continue reading…Eight pivotal facts about Covid-period excess mortalityby Denis RancourtEight pivotal facts about Covid-period (2020-2025) excess mortality are described:Fact #1: The scale of excess all‑cause mortality during the Covid period was 0.13 % of population per yearFact #2: The Covid-period excess mortality was not caused by a spreading respiratory pathogenFact #3: Most Covid-period excess mortality in young adults and the youth is not assigned to respiratory conditions (COVID-19)Continue reading…King Charles Announces Introduction of UK Orwellian Digital ID Systemby Redacted and Alex Jones LiveUK monarch King Charles III announced the rollout of the nation’s digital ID system, claiming that it will allow more citizens to access government services online. There has been massive opposition.Many are concerned that it will usher in programmable digital currency. The system would effectively do away with internet anonymity and comes as the UK government has also announced new crackdowns on antisemitic speech, much of which is communicated online.While the government professes the system will enhance access to social services, many fear the digital ID scheme could become a precursor to a system resembling China’s social credit score model, which tracks citizens via facial recognition and denies or restricts services based on AI assessments.BREAKING: King Charles: “My ministers will also proceed with the introduction of Digital ID” pic.twitter.com/gWLjA15zAJContinue reading…Unitree Unveils $650,000 Real-Life Transformer Robot (Mech Suit) While Encouraging Responsible Useby Tyler DurdenChinese robotics firm Unitree, known for its robot dogs and humanoids, has unveiled a production-ready “manned mecha”: a large robotic machine piloted by a human.Unitree wrote on X that the manned mecha costs $650,000 and weighs as much as a car. The bipedal mecha is piloted by a human operator who sits in its belly.The machine looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. And it tranforms into a giant robo-dog.Chinese media outlet Global Times reported that Unitree Robotics CEO Wang Xingxing piloted the bipedal mecha in the promotional video, calling it the “world’s first production-ready manned mecha.”Continue reading…Minnesota ‘Culture Of Fraud’ Enabled More Than $9 Billion In Misused Taxpayer Funds, Panel Saysby Tyler DurdenAuthored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),A “culture of fraud” infected Minnesota state agencies, resulting in more than $9 billion in taxpayers’ money squandered, a new legislative report says.o“We finally pulled the curtain back—and the public is grateful,” state Rep. Kristin Robbins, chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee, said May 13 during a session that summarized 16 months of investigative work.Many fraudsters “came to believe that fraud was tolerated and paid in a big way,” according to a report that Robbins released at the meeting. The report summarizes the committee’s attempts to dissect how state agencies became so mired in fraud.Continue reading…Upcoming Liberty EventsDerrick Broze – The 2026 Activation Tour, Multiple Cities, US, May 1st – July 26th, 2026Constellation Anarchist Festival, Montreal, Canada, May 14th – 20th, 2026Derrick Broze w/ Prezence in Sedona – May 16th, 2026Porcupine Freedom Festival – June 21st-28th, 2026Why Is The Healthcare System Broken? – Windham, New Hampshire – June 27th54th Annual Rainbow Gathering, Northern California, US, July 1st – 7th, 2026FreedomPalooza 2026 – July 8th – 13th 2026, Northumberland, NHMidwest Peace & Liberty Fest, Lake Satoshi, MI, US, August 6th – 9th, 2026Liberty International World Conference, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 7th – 9th, 2026Northeast Unschooling Conference, Pittsfield, MA, US, August 15th – 18th, 2026International Conference for Anarchist Studies, Manchester, UK, August 26th – 28th, 2026Free Cities Conference, Roatan, Honduras, September 3rd – 6th, 2026VonuFest, Illinois, US, September 21st – 28th, 2026AnarCon, Gore, VA, US, September 25th – 27th, 2026Memes BonanzaTruth Music of the WeekIlluminati Congo Drops New Album: Don’t Lose Your SoulThis week in Truth Music, we are featuring the latest release from Illuminati Congo and K33P: ‘Don’t Lose Your Soul’. This album is more than just great rhythm; it serves as a vital reminder for our times: in a world designed to distract and divide us, the most revolutionary act you can perform is keeping your essence intact. Essential listening for those who seek music with both message and spirit.libertarian Intentional Community Rounduplibertarian Intentional Community Roundup is where we cover libertarian and voluntaryist intentional communities and free private cities including Prospera (Honduras), The Free State Project (New Hampshire), Liberstad (Norway), Montelibero (Montenegro), Los Propietarios, (Argentina), Liberland (Croatia/Serbia border), Network States in general and Sea Steading (The Oceans). I am also covering secession movements including Greater Idaho, Please send details of any new happenings, projects or projects I am missing!Suspected Fed/Free State Project Agent Provocateur Jeremy Kauffman Charged After Alleged Racist IncidentEtienne Note: As part of our support of the Free State Project, we have been covering Jeremy Kauffman’s divisive tactics, most recently in our article: What is the Deal with the Free State PARTY in New Hampshire? Kauffman is now back in the news dragging libertarianism in NH through the mud…By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.orgAs prominent New Hampshire Libertarian Jeremy Kauffman mounts an effort to dissolve the national Libertarian Party, he’s also dealing with a legal drama for his alleged racist behavior in a grocery store parking lot.Kauffman, 41, is scheduled for trial in July on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing government administration stemming from an April 4 incident in which he allegedly tried to fight several people while hurling racist insults, according to Manchester Police reports.Police were called to the Elm Street Market Basket parking lot around 2 p.m. on April 4 to deal with reports that a man hit another car in the parking lot with his car, fought with several people, and then went inside the store and continued yelling. One witness told police the suspect, later identified as Kauffman, immediately started making racist statements after the fender bender, and tried to fight people. When a bystander, who is Black and from Jamaica, walked by the incident, Kauffman reportedly directed his ire toward that man.Continue reading…The Facebook Group Jeremy Kauffman is a fed sent to destroy the liberty movement is now up to 157 membersThe LiberatorGet a NEW 2026 Liberator for “Going Paid” (or upgrading from monthly) as a $50 Yearly Subscriber to This Substack.We just announced the BRAND NEW 2026 Liberator (Version 2.3), which includes the ePub versions of “Government” – The Biggest Scams in History Exposed! AND To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many, Important books in PDF, truth documentaries, dank liberty memes, and music from the Liberty movement’s hottest artists.The Liberator is available from ArtOfLiberty.org/Store and Amazon.com.Individual Liberator are $30 – Art of Liberty Store – Amazon.com5 Pack Liberators are $65 – Art of Liberty Store – Amazon.com10 Pack Liberators are $115 – Art of Liberty Store – Amazon.comGet The Liberator Bundled with:”Government” in paperback = $45”Government” in High-Resolution Hardcover = $65”Government” + To See the Cage in paperback = $60”Government” + To See the Cage in High-Resolution Hardcover = $100The Everything Bundle (paperback copies of the best of voluntaryist thought) = $115How to Support the Art of Liberty Foundation1. Become an Art of Liberty Foundation Sponsor at ArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor – The best way to support us is to become a sponsor of the foundation. We have some great perks to say Thank You! including copies of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed!, Liberator Flash Drives, Signed Hard Copies, calls with Etienne, and even the ability to have an Art of Liberty Foundation event with tier one Liberty speakers in your City or Town for your friends, family and neighbors!2. Go Paid on Substack! – We simply couldn’t do what we do without the support of our sponsors and paid subscribers on Substack! If you are enjoying the Daily News, Important News, or Five Meme Friday on Substack we hope you will consider “Going Paid” on Substack. All it takes is a click and we have some great premiums to say: Thank You! WE ARE NOW BEING HEAVILY CENSORED ON SUBSTACK. See my Subscriber Letter Here.3. Buy Us a Coffee… Err Juice! at https://ko-fi.com/artofliberty – Support us for as little as $5… We really, really appreciate it! OR Buy Us a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/etienne2 BTW, right now coffee and juice are tied!4. Get a Pop Up Guerrilla Bookstore and Earn Profit from Distributing Copies of “Government” in Your Town / City – Do you (or a friend) have a retail location? Open up a Pop Up Guerrilla Bookstore and share in the profits. We have everything you need to attractively merchandise “Government” and Liberators in a small footprint. Details here: https://government-scam.com/bookstore5. Buy Books and Merchandise at ArtOfLiberty.org/store – Our store has become one of the biggest distributors of Voluntaryist and peaceful anarchist titles. Especially popular is our “Everything Bundle” – The Sampler of Liberty!To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many is now IN-STOCK and shipping from our distribution center. Order OR get a free teaser copy where you can see a list of all 25 techniques and the Table of Contents at https://SeeTheCage.com/Thanks for joining us for Five Meme Friday. Please feel free to forward this email to friends and colleagues.Sincerely,Etienne de la Boetie2Executive Director,The Art of Liberty FoundationAuthor of: To See the Cage is to Leave It & “Government” The Biggest Scam in History … Exposed!!Five Meme Friday is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

FiveMemeFri-How to Interact with People Who Fall for the HantaVirus Scam

by editor Art Of Liberty | May 12, 2026 | AoLF Important News, Five Meme Friday

+ THIS is What Happens When You Call the Cops! Etienne Note: If the images aren’t visible, please try this browser LINK.Dear Subscribers,The main story this week is a video from the Corbett Report where I participated in a panel discussion with other voluntaryists and libertarians including Larken Rose, Derrick Broze, Kit Knightly, Ryan Cristian, Hakeem Anwar, and others where we discussed WHEN you should call the cops, when you should NEVER call the Cops and How to handle situations where people usually call with cops without having to call the cops.Just to set the stage… Here is an amazing Rob Hustle music video to help you understand why you Almost NEVER want to call the cops… entitled… appropriately enough:This is What Happens When you Call the Cops! The YouTube version is being soft-censored with age-verification so clicking on the image or HERE takes you to the Bitchute version. You can find the actual panel discussion where we discuss the alternatives in my article: Etienne on The Corbett Report – #SolutionsWatch – How to Deal with “Authorities” In the discussion I detailed one of my strategies for home defense: One of my home defense weapons is a Saiga 12 Combat Shotgun. A combat shotgun is a shotgun that takes a magazine that can be speed loaded in a gun fight. In my shotgun, the 1st two rounds are something known as “Bean Bag Rounds” which are known as “less lethal” in the sense that they are still dangerous and could kill someone if you hit them in the throat, thorax, or head but a shot to the shoulder, legs, chest, etc. would most likely stop any intruder cold without killing them. It would knock them to the ground fairly instantly. Why do I use and suggest the bean bag rounds?1. Even though it is “legal” to defend your home with lethal force in the US under Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground, I have Zero (0) interest in killing anyone I don’t absolutely have to. Also…2. I don’t want to clean up the mess3. I don’t want to do the paperwork4. I don’t want to be in the newspaper5. And, finally, after after I knock someone to the ground for trying to burglarize my home, we are going to have a discussion about the choices they made with their life and how they came to be in this situation!I might not call the police, especially if it is a dumb kid, and if it was a dumb kid then I definitely wouldn’t make the situation worse by sending him to one of the organized crime “governments” dungeons (criminal universities) known as “prisons”This alternative to calling the Cops was just one of the many fascinating solutions that we discussed vs. involving the organized crime “government” in your life… even in situations where most people would probably call the cops!The other main story this week is that I am challenging Shawn Ryan to a debate. I am rolling through Nashville, where Shawn Ryan’s studio is, next week on the way to my son’s college graduation and the following week on the way back. I had sent Shawn Ryan’s team an invitation to debate the legitimacy of “government” and the fact that the organized crime “government” is using unethically manipulative tricks and techniques to create “order-followers” (Soul-diers) willing to set their morality aside and kill whomever they are told while living off money stolen from others at the point of a gun. He or his team have not responded so I wanted to double down and make it clear I am calling him out. You can find the story HERE.Top Stories of the WeekEtienne on The Corbett Report – #SolutionsWatch – How to Deal with “Authorities”When DO you call the cops and when (and HOW!) can you deal with situations without them. A listener wrote in to The Corbett Report to ask when, if and how voluntaryists and the liberty minded should engage with representatives of the state. James recruits some voluntaryists and special guests to respond. The panels includes: James Corbett of corbettreport.com, Ryan Cristian of TheLastAmericanVagabond.com, Derrick Broze of TheConsciousResistance.com Steve Poikonen of AM Wakeup, Hakeem Anwar of AbovePhone.com, Kit Knightly of Off-Guardian.org, Ernest Hancock of FreedomsPhoenix.com, Etienne de La Boetie2 of TheArtOfLiberty.org, Larken Rose of TheRoseChannel.comFor a Reminder of WHY you almost NEVER want to Call the Cops, here is some Truth Music from our uncensorable flash drive of Freedom: The LiberatorThis is What Happens When You Call the Cops! by Rob Hustle feat. Bump It is being soft-censored with age restriction on YouTube. Get the non age restricted version on Bitchute here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/ciEp8IvXzuDB/The sequel video to: This is What Happens When You Call the Cops by Rob Hustle in response to all the folks who said: “But What About All the Good Cops”?The THICKREDLINE Project is an effort to restore respect for law enforcement by abolishing victimless crime. Victimless crimes are not really crimes… and make the cops the criminals. A real crime, by definition, has a perpetrator and a victim: murder, assault, rape, theft, and extortion are all obvious crimes because there is a victim. Politicians and bureaucrats frequently institute illogical, immoral and counter-productive “laws” (politician scribbles) that penalize peaceful, non-violent people for “crimes” that have no victim. Drug possession, gambling, and making arrests for ignoring Covid-19 lockdown and social distancing orders are examples of victimless crimes where politicians attempt to get the police to use violence immorally and preemptively on overwhelmingly peaceful people frequently to raise revenue or enforce their version of morality on a population. When the police use violence and coercion against peaceful people for victimless crimes (there is simply no way to sugar-coat this) it makes the cops the criminals who are engaged in kidnapping and extortion under the color of law. The THICKREDLINE Project is organizing the police to say: NO! to the organized crime “government” on lockdowns, mask mandates and other victimless crimes.Continue reading…Shawn Ryan – Etienne de la Boetie2 Debate Challenge UpdateIs Shawn Ryan Going to Let Etienne Drive Right Past Him?So I am rolling through Nashville, where Shawn Ryan’s studio is, next week on the way to my son’s college graduation and the following week on the way back. I had sent Shawn Ryan’s team an invitation to debate the legitimacy of “government” and the fact that the organized crime “government” is using unethically manipulative tricks and techniques to create “order-followers” (Soul-diers) willing to set their morality aside and kill whomever they are told while living off money stolen from others at the point of a gun. He or his team have not responded so I wanted to double down and make it clear I am calling him out.Continue Reading…Videos of the WeekGreg Reese: The New World Order – Arctic Trade Routes & Programmable Digital Currenciesby Greg ReeseThe United Nations emblem uses a projection map which is centered on the North Pole. This projection was chosen in 1945 when the UN was founded and the Arctic was strategically irrelevant. Today it has become the world’s most contested zone. The center of the UN’s map is precisely the terrain that every major power is now scrambling for.The Russian narrative is that a coming Pole Shift will thaw parts of Siberia and the Arctic coastline, of which Russia controls approximately 53%. This Northern Sea Route, the NSR, saves 15 days of travel compared to the Suez Canal route. Russia has already invested over $35 billion dollars developing this area for a future Arctic civilization.The narrative in the United States, which has a limited Arctic footprint compared to Russia, has been more desperate. Its story began as man-made “global warming,” now simplified to “climate change.” The U.S. is hurrying to meet a 2030 deadline, and is looking to acquire Canada and Greenland which would give it the ability to dominate the Northwest Passage, the alternative Arctic trade route to Russia’s NSR.The European Union has expanded NATO to include Arctic states, Sweden and Finland. In January 2025 the EU established the European Polar Coordination Office (EPCO) in Sweden’s Arctic region.Continue reading…“Government”, Media and AcademiaCriminality ExposedThese articles also appears in “Government”, Media and Academia Criminality Exposed, A digest of HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of articles exposing and suggesting inter-generational organized crime’s control of the “Government,” Media and Academia by the Art of Liberty Foundation. You can view the other articles or subscribe on Telegram: https://t.me/Government_ScamsTrump scam cost MAGA devotees over $4B: expertby DNYUZDuring an appearance on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” Ratner came armed with charts that show a dramatic plunge in value in the Trump meme coin since its inception to a point where it is almost worthless.“Generally speaking, what he did was he [Trump] created something called a $Trump coin,” he said.“And you’ll also remember there was a $Melania coin a little bit later. It is a coin that means nothing. It is like buying a pet rock, except you don’t even get a rock; it has no value. It has no trading value, it’s not used in commerce — nothing. They sold them initially at $7 and went all the way up to $45. Not surprisingly, it crashed.”Continue reading…ICE has not paid for detainee medical care for 7 monthsby Judd LegumOn October 3, 2025, the Trump administration abruptly stopped paying third-parties for medical care provided to detainees in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Third-party providers are used to provide “medically necessary” care including “dialysis, prenatal care, oncology, [and] chemotherapy,” according to ICE.A document posted to an official government contracting website by ICE on November 12, described the situation as an “absolute emergency” that needed to be resolved “immediately” to “prevent any further medical complications or loss of life.”According to the ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC), payments to third parties were supposed to resume on April 30, 2026. ICE has contracted with a private firm, Acentra Health, to process reimbursements.Continue reading…Somali Fraud Is Only A Drop In The Bucket [Compared to H1-B Visa Fraud & Fake Indian College Degrees]by Carla Sands and Samantha FlaniganThe Somali fraud is only a drop in the bucket, as it compares to the elaborate Indian fraud and scam networks that are taking American tech jobs and hurting the American economy, through H-1B visas, bought degrees and fake certifications.Since COVID, 90% of the net gain in American jobs have gone to foreign workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (RELATED: Betrayed American Workers Expose Dark Underbelly Of H-1B Visa Scheme)Tech companies are passing over American college students for foreign workers, many of whom have scam degrees and certifications. In a study conducted by the Institute for Sound Public Policy, 60% of American citizens and 86% of foreign Computer Science Master’s graduates got jobs six months after graduation from UMass Amherst in 2022.Continue reading…Ilhan Omar Refuses to Provide Documents Related to $250M ‘Feeding Our Future’ Scandalby Fox News and Avery DayUS Representative Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., refused to respond to a request from a Minnesota committee seeking more information on her ties to the massive fraud scandal in the state that is predominantly Somalian, prompting a subpoena vote that failed.A Minnesota State representative said, “We have endeavored in multiple ways to get access to [information] because, as everyone knows, Representative Omar had had some role, whether inadvertent or not. She passed the MEALS Act in March of 2020, and that took the guardrails off the federal school nutrition program, which created the conditions for fraud.”Omar has been in the news in recent weeks over an “accounting error” in which she claimed her husband was worth millions, but amended her financial disclosure filing and now claims their assets are worth less than $95,000 after the filing came under scrutiny. His wine business has been shuttered.Continue reading…The Art of Liberty Foundation… in Spanish!We are adding a new section to Five Meme Friday to promote our new Substack, Telegram group, Instagram, and translations of To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many in Spanish. Please tell your Spanish speaking friends! “Go Paid” on our Spanish Substack to support getting voluntaryist ideas, books, and memes translated into Spanish AND get a free paperback copy of To See the Cage is To Leave It in Latin American Spanish.¡Por qué es fundamental usar efectivo! (¡Y criptomonedas, oro/Goldbacks, plata e incluso monedas de cinco centavos!)Con los bancos empezando a fallar, hay algunas cosas fáciles y específicas que usted puede hacer para fortalecer la capacidad de su comunidad local para sobrevivir a un colapso bancario o a una devaluación del dólar.Use efectivo físico¡Por qué deberíamos pagar con efectivo en todos los lugares que podamos con billetes en lugar de una tarjeta de crédito! — Adaptado de la publicación viral en “Fedbook” de Wren Hope RoseContinuar leyendo…“Daily News of The Week”Ft. Knox Full of Impure Gold Unfit for International Transactionsby Jp CortezThe bulk of the US gold reserves held in Fort Knox are made up of impure “non-standard” bars that don’t qualify for use in international settlements. In practice, this means that most of America’s massive gold stockpile is illiquid and wouldn’t be readily accepted on the international market should the need arise:“It’s a decrepit relic just like our monetary policy is. With respect to America’s gold stockpile, we hold ourselves to a lower standard than the rest of the world,” Money Metals CEO Stefan Gleason said.The French central bank recently sold 129 tonnes of similar non-standard gold that was stored in New York and replaced it with higher-quality bars that will remain in France.Notwithstanding the lack of any credible physical audits for decades, US gold reserves are reported to be 8,133.5 metric tons. That’s roughly 261.5 million troy ounces. About half of that (147.3 million ounces according to the US Mint) is stored at Fort Knox. The rest is spread out between the Denver Mint, the West Point Bullion Depository, and the Federal Reserve vault in New York.Continue reading…28% of Breast Cancer Cases Linked to 6 Modifiable Risk Factorsby Dr. Joseph MercolaNearly 1 in 3 breast cancer cases is linked to daily habits like diet, blood sugar control, body weight, activity level, alcohol use, and tobacco exposure, which means your everyday choices directly influence your long-term riskPoor metabolic health, especially high blood sugar and excess body fat, creates an internal environment that disrupts normal cell function and increases the likelihood of abnormal growthWhat you eat plays a major role in risk, with diet identified as the largest contributor among modifiable factors, making each meal an opportunity to either support or harm your healthProgress has been uneven, with reductions in smoking and alcohol-related risk but worsening trends in metabolic factors like obesity and blood sugar, which continue to drive rising case numbersContinue reading…Stripe updates Link, a digital wallet that autonomous AI agents can use, tooby Sarah PerezFinancial services platform Stripe is introducing a digital wallet specifically built for the AI era, where autonomous agents can perform tasks that include shopping, paying for reservations, buying tickets, and more.At its annual conference this week, the company introduced an upgraded version Link, its digital wallet that allows you to connect various payment methods, track your spending, and view your recurring subscriptions. Now, it also lets you integrate your AI agents so they can spend on your behalf, securely.Link, which is available on the web, iOS, and Android, offers many things that you might expect from a digital wallet. You can connect payment methods, including cards, banks, crypto wallets, and buy now/pay later services, as well as store important details for online checkout, like your billing and shipping information.The wallet offers other handy features, too, like the ability to see what you’re spending, and track your recurring subscriptions — even updating the payment method the services have on file, as needed. It also offers 90 days of protection on eligible purchases from select merchants.Continue reading…BREAKING STUDY: Infant Mortality Surged 37% and Birth Defect Deaths Jumped 46% After COVID-19 “Vaccine” Rolloutby Nicolas Hulscher, MPHA major new peer-reviewed study we just published in Medical Research Archives has uncovered a shocking reversal: after two decades of steady progress, infant mortality surged 37% since 2020, congenital abnormality deaths jumped 46%, and registered live births collapsed by 24% — all coinciding with expanded vaccination campaigns in the Philippines.The study is titled Global Implications of Vaccination and Rising Infant Mortality in the Philippines, authored by Sally A. Clark, Claire Rogers, Mila Radetich, Nicolas Hulscher (myself), Kirstin Cosgrove, Breanne Craven, M. Nathaniel Mead, and James A. Thorp.Using official Philippine Statistics Authority data on 41.7 million births and over 546,000 infant deaths from 2000–2024, plus Department of Health vaccination records, we documented a sharp turnaround after two decades of steady progress.Infant mortality rate fell to a historic low of 11.05 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2020. Then it rose 37% to 15.11 by 2024 — a statistically significant jump (p < 0.0001) that erased more than 20 years of gains in just five years.Continue reading...The US Spends More On ‘Defense’ Than The Next 8 Countries Combinedby Tyler DurdenFor the first time on record, the top 15 military spenders allocated more than $2 trillion to defense in 2025.Total global defense spending also reached a record $2.6 trillion, signaling a major shift in geopolitical priorities.Using data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, this visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, ranks the 15 countries driving this surge in military spending.While the U.S. still operates on an entirely different scale, the biggest shift is happening in Europe, where countries are no longer just maintaining military capacity but expanding it significantly.Continue reading...The Extreme Hypocrisy of Arrogant Americans Concerning Immigrationby Gary D. Barnett“Imagine if the U.S. invaded a country, conquered it after a savage conflict and gained about half of that nation’s territory in the treaty that ended the fighting.”Ric Anderson: August 26th, 2018 article in the Las Vegas SunConsidering all the complete insanity now happening, this subject would not seem important to most at this time, but it should be a vital part of the education process, instead of being purposely and intentionally eliminated from American history. Maybe if dumbed down Americans actually understood even a modicum of historical fact about this brutal nation-state and its past, the ludicrous notion of ‘exceptionalism’ would never have raised its ugly head. What a different world we would live in now had most been taught their real history.As is evident today, most all Americans would prefer it seems, to not allow anyone the ability to come here, raise families, and work. Of course, these attitudes are based on long-term indoctrination, propaganda, and lies, all meant to cause mass division and hatred. Most of the hate, at least initially, was aimed at those below the southern border, Mexicans in particular. What is so astonishing about this, is that if accurate history about U.S. aggression was known by this population, maybe things would never have gotten to such an horrendous state, and a more harmonious situation would have been the result.Continue reading...Visualizing Europe’s Birth-Rate Collapseby Tyler DurdenEurope’s population is no longer replacing itself.Across the continent, fertility rates have fallen below the 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain stable population levels, with no country meeting that threshold as of 2024.The map below, via Visual Capitalist’s Gabriel Cohen, shows the number of live births per woman across Europe using the most recent data from Eurostat, FRED, and the UK’s Office for National Statistics.From Ukraine (0.99) to Spain (1.1), some of Europe’s largest countries now rank among those with the lowest birth rates, highlighting how widespread the decline has become.Continue reading...Report: US To Close Military Base Meant to Oversee Gaza Ceasefire Deal That Israel Has Constantly Violatedby Dave DeCampThe Trump administration is set to shutter a US-led military base in southern Israel meant to oversee the Gaza ceasefire deal, which Israel has constantly violated, according to a report from Reuters.The Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) was established after the Gaza ceasefire deal was signed in early October 2025, and 200 US troops were initially deployed. Since then, the US has done and said nothing as Israel continued killing Palestinians, restricting aid, and taking additional territory in Gaza.Sources told Reuters that the CMCC’s responsibilities would be handed over to the International Stabilization Force (ISF), which was supposed to be established and deployed to Gaza under President Trump’s Gaza plan, though it’s unclear what that means since an international force to deploy to Gaza never actually materialized.The report said that under the US plan to shutter the CMCC, the US would reduce the number of troops at the outpost from 190 to 40 and wants civilian staff from other countries to fill the roles left vacant by US military personnel.Continue reading...Trump Renews Call for Israel to Give Netanyahu a Pardonby Kyle AnzalonePresident Donald Trump is ramping up pressure on Tel Aviv to grant a pardon to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader is battling multiple corruption charges.Trump told the Israeli outlet Kan News on Sunday, “Tell your president to pardon Bibi [Netanyahu’s nickname]. He’s a wartime prime minister. They wouldn’t have Israel if it wasn’t for me and Bibi in that order. You want to have a PM that can focus on the war, not focus on nonsense.”Netanyahu and his wife are facing multiple corruption charges. Israel’s President Issac Herzog has the power to grant Netanyahu a pardon. Last week, Trump said Herzog could become an Israeli hero by granting Netanyahu a pardon. “I like the guy, Herzog,” Trump said. “He will be a national hero if he gives Bibi a pardon. I will very much appreciate it.”Herzog says he does not plan to make a decision until negotiations with Netanyahu’s legal team are concluded. Israel will hold elections in October. If Netanyahu’s Likud does not win the election, the chance that the Prime Minister could go to jail increases.Continue reading...Hantavirus Hoaxby Jamie AndrewsGonna smash this Emergency article out (apologies for any more than usual frequency of typos and terrible grammar) as I think it works best when challenging the narrative as we saw was put to good effect with the Meningitis Hoax in the UK. I think as a collective we managed to counter extremely quickly and hopefully save some kids from getting the toxic vaccines or even worse submitting themselves to the allopathic death cult of Modern Western Hospitals.Understood—and in that context, the key point is:If this is a non-Andes hantavirus outbreak (as is overwhelmingly the case in Europe and similar cruise-related investigations), then:No — it is not considered contagious human-to-human, even in close settings like a cruise ship.Continue reading...Key U.S. yield at 5% highlights mounting pressure in bond marketby Alice GledhillThe yield on 30-year U.S. government debt hovered around five per cent after breaching the key level for the first time since July at the start of the week — suggesting pressure in the world’s biggest bond market isn’t letting up.It’s a threshold that carries special importance, with some viewing it as a “line in the sand” and traders watching for signs it could shift higher. The yield was at 5.01 per cent as of 6:42 a.m. after hitting 5.03 per cent on Monday.At the heart of the selloff is a fresh bout of concern over inflation and the possibility of fewer interest-rate cuts as oil prices soar with the Strait of Hormuz still shuttered. A torrent of company spending on artificial intelligence is also raising fears price growth could accelerate in the short term.A yield of five per cent or beyond is important because it makes fears about the budget and the growing debt-servicing costs for the U.S. government more urgent. It also has significant implications for other financial markets and the real economy, potentially raising mortgage rates and hurting consumers.Continue reading...Economics of a Megawatt of AI Data Centerby Brian WangCruseo CEO Lochmiller broke down the inputs/outputs with high precision (April 2025 contract pricing and the talk)Upfront capex is ~$59M per MW of developed capacity.Roughly half (~$30M) is IT (GPUs, CPUs, networking, storage, etc.).The rest covers data center build, power plant/generation, and other infrastructure.Annual revenue (pure infrastructure lease/IaaS layer) is ~$15M per MW.Higher-value managed services/cloud layer can add another ~$15M+ per MW in revenue.Annual opex is Only ~$1–1.1M per MW (power + other).Continue reading...How Iran Defeated Israelby Kit KlarenbergA stunning investigative report by Hebrew-language outlet Ynet has laid bare the embarrassing cataclysm not only of the US-Israeli war on Iran, but the Zionist entity’s effort throughout to end the Islamic Republic via covert and overt military and intelligence operations. Violent Mossad-orchestrated protests, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s murder, and a Kurdish invasion were intended to produce regime change and “total victory” over Tehran. Yet, as Ynet concludes: “what started as a far-reaching Israeli move, rich in imagination, final in its solution, ends in heartache.”In granular detail, the investigation tracks how the Zionist entity’s deranged scheme germinated in the minds of Israeli intelligence, military, and political chiefs, before the Trump administration was comprehensively sold on the plot. Along the way, Ynet exposes extraordinary and dangerous levels of delusion and imperial hubris at the highest levels of Tel Aviv and Washington. For example, Benjamin Netanyahu sincerely - and dangerously - believed Israel’s criminal September 2024 assault of Lebanon, and the June 2025 12 Day War, had decimated Hezbollah and Iran.This perspective was shared by Mossad, which had been building a vast, dedicated anti-government army in Tehran since 2022. The Zionist entity was wholeheartedly convinced its forces had the power to collapse the entire Islamic Republic. “Fostering mass protest” and encouraging “armed resistance of minorities” - specifically, Kurds within and without Iran - in “parallel” with assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khameinei were all dedicated parts of a three-pronged coup d’etat strategy. Netanyahu truly believed “total victory” over the Resistance was in grasp across every West Asian theatre. Ynet reports:“Overthrowing the regime was the heart of Israel’s overall war plan.”Continue reading...The monetary system is designed to enslave you and your governmentEtienne Note: To better understand the fraudulent monetary system, see our article THE GREATEST THEFT IN HUMAN HISTORY! How the Banks and “Government” Will Steal At Least $2.73 Million From Every Working American… “Legally”. Download the PDF at ArtOfLiberty.org/Inflationby Rhoda WilsonThe creation of money by central banks is not what you have been led to believe.As the Bank of England has confirmed, money is created when a loan is signed, and this system funnels wealth upwards to the bankers while keeping the masses in debt.To break free from this system, people can take personal action, such as getting debt-free, saving and stopping the use of mortgages and credit cards, ultimately making the old system obsolete through small changes.Continue reading...Five Publishers and Scott Turow Sue Meta and Mark Zuckerbergby Alexandra AlterFive major publishers — Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier and Cengage — and the best-selling novelist Scott Turow have filed a class-action copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta and its founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg.The complaint, which was filed on Tuesday morning in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, accuses Meta and Zuckerberg of illegally using millions of copyrighted works to train their artificial intelligence program Llama, and of removing copyright notices and other copyright management information from those works.The lawsuit asserts that Meta’s engineers relied on pirated books and journal articles to train the program by downloading unlicensed copies through websites like Anna’s Archive, an open source search engine for piracy sites including LibGen and Sci-Hub. The suit also claims that “Zuckerberg himself personally authorized and actively encouraged the infringement.”“A.I. is powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and courts have rightly found that training A.I. on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use,” a Meta spokesman, Dave Arnold, told The Times. “We will fight this lawsuit aggressively.”Continue reading...A Terrain Study for the Battle of the Strait of Hormuzby Matt BrackenAfter following the latest news from both sides, and listening to this morning’s Pentagon brief, it’s becoming clear to me that the new American “safe passage guidance” plan is to steer shipping through the inshore southern “local traffic” channel near Oman. Jazirat Salamah is the northernmost outcropping of Omani Territory, and guards this inshore shipping channel.This chart shows the entire Strait of Hormuz. The old official inbound and outbound channels ran through the middle. The current Iranian “toll route” is on the northern side in Iranian waters, and inbound ships must gain approval and then pass between the two Iranian islands shown. Outbound ships must also gain approval, and then pass near to Larak Island. Iran has implied that the center of the Strait of Hormuz has been mined, and the only safe route is the Iranian toll route.This morning General Caine wasn’t explicit, citing operational security reasons, but it seems clear to me that he is suggesting that shipping will be kept safe if it passes through Oman’s inshore channel. For now it appears we will not be sending our warships through it, but we will put a total safety zone above and around it using our persistent surveillance and air power. It remains to be seen if any non-U.S. ships will take up the offer to run through the inshore passage, without the physical presence of U.S. warships confidently escorting them, and sharing their danger.Continue reading...The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951)by UnbekomingThe True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, first published in 1951, is one of the strangest and most enduring works of twentieth-century political thought. Strange because of who wrote it — a self-educated longshoreman with no university degree, no academic post, no institutional sponsor — and enduring because, more than seventy years after it appeared, no one has yet written a better short book on why ordinary people throw themselves into religious revivals, nationalist crusades and political revolutions with a willingness to die that defies every assumption of self-interest. Eisenhower kept it on his desk and recommended it publicly. It has never gone out of print. Each new generation rediscovers it during whatever upheaval happens to be theirs, and finds the old longshoreman waiting with most of the answers already worked out.Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) lived a life almost calculated to disqualify him as a public intellectual. He worked in restaurants, picked crops as a migrant in California’s fields, prospected for gold in the mountains, and after Pearl Harbor settled into twenty-five years on the San Francisco docks loading and unloading ships. He read philosophy on his lunch breaks — Montaigne, Pascal, Dostoyevsky, Bagehot — and he wrote in spiral notebooks during the hours other men spent at home. The True Believer was his first book, written largely in the evenings after shifts on the waterfront, and dedicated to Margaret Anderson, an editor whose persistent prodding from across a continent finally pried it loose from him. He went on to write nine more books. In 1983 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He never gave up the docks.Continue reading...Aside From Funding Hate, SPLC Helped to Corrupt Education & Brainwash Childrenby Alex NewmanWhile the nation digests the bombshell federal indictment handed down against the Southern Poverty Law Center on April 21, 2026, most Americans are rightly focused on the hypocrisy. But the SPLC’s giant and malign influence in U.S. “education” should be under the microscope, too.A grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama, just charged the self-styled “civil rights” outfit with 11 counts for secretly funneling more than $3 million in donor funds to key figures within the very groups it claims to fight. The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and even the National Socialist (Nazi) Party of America benefited from the largess.Criminal charges so far include wire fraud, false statements to banks, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. In short, prosecutors say the SPLC defrauded donors by paying extremists to “infiltrate” and then promote the very organizations it publicly denounced. Longtime critics of the SPLC were not surprised.In fact, in 2018, this writer wrote an extensive report for the Law Enforcement Intelligence Brief warning about the SPLC’s dangerous lies and deception tactics. The report went to every police chief and sheriffs in America. The SPLC repeatedly attacked this writer, too, most recently in a hit piece on Charlie Kirk published just a couple of months before Kirk was assassinated.Continue reading...The Dementia Mythby Vernon ColemanDr Vernon ColemanThe diagnosis, treatment and reporting of dementia is a massive and previously unrecognised scandal. The staggering fact is that most cases of dementia could probably be cured in a week or two – maybe a little longer with some patients. Anyone who says otherwise is either woefully misinformed or a drug company mouthpiece.Around the world there are estimated to be around 50 million people suffering from dementia – though this figure is probably on the low side. One half of all the patients admitted to nursing homes are said to be suffering from dementia of one sort or another.Continue reading...Iran has hit far more US military assets than reported, satellite images showby Evan Hill, Jarrett Ley, Alex Horton, Tara Copp, Dan LamotheIranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment, according to a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery. The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government or previously reported.The threat of air attacks rendered some of the U.S. bases in the region too dangerous to staff at normal levels, and commanders moved most of the personnel from these sites out of the range of Iranian fire at the start of the war, officials have said.Since the start of the war on Feb. 28, seven service members have died in strikes on U.S. facilities in the region — six in Kuwait and one in Saudi Arabia — and more than 400 troops have suffered injuries as of late April, the U.S. military said. While most of the wounded returned to duty within days, at least 12 suffered injuries that military officials classified as serious, according to U.S. officials who, among others, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.Satellite imagery of the Middle East is unusually difficult to acquire at present. Two of the largest commercial providers, Vantor and Planet, have complied with requests from the U.S. government — their biggest customer — to limit, delay or indefinitely withhold the publication of imagery of the region while the war is ongoing, making it difficult or impossible to assess Iran’s counterstrikes. Those restrictions began less than two weeks into the war.Continue reading...Make Way for AI Agents - What Are They?by Ina Fried, Madison MillsAI makers have trained agents to use software like people do. Now the industry is starting to build software for agents first.Continue reading...The Longevity Secrets Helping Athletes Blow Past the Limits of AgeBy Devin Gordon Photographs by Dina LitovskyDevin Gordon spoke with more than two dozen pro athletes, coaches, team executives, trainers, agents, surgeons and wellness entrepreneurs for this article.It was just over three decades ago that the Hall of Fame third baseman Wade Boggs did something remarkable, possibly unmatched in baseball history. For much of his career, Boggs’s routine for bouncing back after games — his preferred postgame recovery modality, in the parlance of modern sports science — was pounding cans of Miller Lite. And according to Boggs, during one flight from Boston to Los Angeles in 1994 (or possibly 1992 or 1989; the dates are understandably fuzzy) he drank 73 beers.Boggs was in his mid-30s at the time and still reliably batting well over .300, which would be exceptional even for a pro player in his late-20s physical prime, but he was also playing in a different era. Suffice it to say that in modern baseball — a power game predicated on tape-measure home runs and 100-mile-per-hour fastballs — there’s no way Boggs would bat above .300 at an advanced age with 73-beer hangovers. Pro athletes now, especially older ones, are more like round-the-clock recovery droids who occasionally play sports. They’re not guzzling Miller Lites on those cross-country flights; they’re drinking cherry juice for the melatonin to get ahead of the jet lag and wearing Normatec compression sleeves on both legs to stimulate lymphatic drainage and reduce inflammation.Continue reading...Trump Pauses Project Freedom Amid “Great Progress” Towards ‘Complete & Final’ Agreement With Iranby Tyler DurdenTrump announce ‘pause’ to Project Freedom amid optimism of a “complete and final” deal with Iran; French ship confirmed hit in cruise missile attack, crew members injuredRubio declares ‘offensive’ actions of Operation Epic Fury are over, and now Project Freedom is in swing. Another vessel comes under attack in Hormuz.UAE under attack again, confirmed in state sources - however which Iran denies doing - instead saying its actions were directed at the United States. White House still hasn’t declared end of ceasefire.Pentagon addresses whether ceasefire over or violated: Caine says Iran’s Monday operations were “all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point.“Continue reading...Can you tell which countries were the 10 most vaccinated vs. 10 least COVID vaccinated?by Steve KirschThere is a 39X difference in the average number of COVID “vaccine” doses per 100 people between the 10 most vaccinated countries and the 10 least vaccinated countries in the OWID data.Below I graph the cumulative COVID deaths per million in the top/bottom 10 countries.Can you tell which countries the “vaccine” worked by looking at the curves?If the vaccine worked, the COVID deaths should nearly flatline right after rollout.Continue reading...Alcohol At Any Dose Causes Cancer, Violence, And Shrinks Your BrainEtienne Note: In Jason Christoff’s documentary Planet Mind Control he breaks down how Hollywood is subliminally advertising drugs like caffeine and alcohol into their content to weaken the population so they can be effectively tax farmed. In my review of the documentary, Planet Mind Control - Documentary on What Hollywood is Inserting Subliminally into Movies and TV, I break down how they are inserting Statism into movies and tell-a-vision as well.by Robert Yoho, MD• Alcohol kills roughly 178,000 Americans per year, more than all illicit drugs combined, yet its producers spend $2 billion annually on advertising with almost no regulatory pushback.• The “safe at moderate doses” doctrine, often cited as 1 to 3 drinks per day, has been systematically dismantled by the 2018 Global Burden of Disease study and subsequent research confirming that no safe level of consumption exists.• Alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States; it drives cancer at 7 distinct tissue sites, atrophies the brain with as few as 1 to 2 drinks per day in women, and triggers cardiovascular damage that the industry’s “French paradox” mythology long concealed.Continue reading...Insane Pre-Crime Strategy Unveiled for Leftist “Extremists” including “Anarchists”Etienne Note: The organized crime “government” has deceitfully lumped anarchists, people who don’t believe in the legitimacy, desirability or necessity of “government” in with Leftist Extremists and Anti-Fascists. It is deceitful because as I have broken down in detail, in my article: The Fake Left-Right Paradigm - What is the REAL Political Spectrum the Monopoly Media is Hiding?, how the organized crime “government” and monopoly media present a fake-left right political spectrum to hide the REAL political spectrum from the population because it exposes the authoritarian nature of the “government” in relation to REAL freedom (vs. the Fake Freedom taught in the mandatory schools and extoled by the monopolized media.Insane Pre-Crime Strategy Unveiled for Leftist “Extremists” including “Anarchists”by Ken KlippensteinThe White House declared war on the American people today, labeling its political opponents as terrorists, including “Left-wing extremists.” The new label also claims that there are “deepening alliances” between “the far-left and Islamists” — or pro-Palestinian protesters.The language is contained in the White House’s newly released National Counterterrorism Strategy. It is the first National Strategy to be unveiled since 2021, when the Biden administration issued its document. The Strategy identifies the “left-wing,” “anti-Fascists,” “Anarchists” and “radically pro-transgender” ideologies as threats equivalent to jihadi groups like al Qaeda and ISIS, or narco-traffickers.The Strategy is the brainchild of White House counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka, an eccentric figure I have reported on, who last year hinted at terrorism charges being levied for political opponents of the administration. The document makes clear he got his wish. Gorka called the Strategy “my life’s work,” and apparently waxed so poetic in previous drafts that his superiors told him (by his own account): “Cut it down, Gorka!”Continue reading...US’s Latest “Project Freedom” Boondoggle Sinks in Less Than a Dayby SimpliciusThe carnival is in its last season, and it’s beginning to show its age, appearing at times both erratic and woefully rehearsed to exasperated audiences.The latest spectacle saw Trump launch an ill-fated and ill-planned ‘Project Freedom’, a kind of freedom of navigation gimmick in Hormuz, which immediately flopped hours later when US destroyers attempting to cross the strait were targeted by Iran.The entire charade was particularly confused: for instance, the US official “guidance” for this bizarro stunt essentially told daring vessels to “chance it” through Omani territorial waters in the hopes it would avoid Iranian strikes.This was a desperate US ploy, used before, to try and give the strait an appearance of being “opened” by begging commercial traffic to volunteer as guinea pigs and meatshields-in-one in the hopes that nothing is hit.Continue reading...The truth about State Farmby Judd Legum and Rebecca CrosbyIn an ad campaign that has blanketed the airwaves this year, State Farm compares itself to a sleazy fictional competitor, Halfway There Insurance. The commercial features two popular comedic actors, Danny McBride and Keegan Michael Key, riffing to the Bon Jovi classic, Livin’ on a Prayer.“There’s damage to your home on this block,” McBride and Key croon. “We won’t make things right, cuz filing a claim is tough.” The comedy duo stresses that, unlike State Farm, their pretend company will not live up to its promises and does not care about customer satisfaction. “So forget what we told you. It ain’t worth squat. It doesn’t make a difference if you’re happy or not,” they sing.A website created by State Farm, HalfwayThereInsurance.com, jokes that Halfway There Insurance will just claim that home damage is not their responsibility. For “actual home protection,” the website advises, “we’d say go with State Farm.”No expense is spared on the campaign, which debuted during the Super Bowl. The ad concludes when Jon Bon Jovi himself, riding in a red convertible with State Farm pitchman “Jake,” offers a disgruntled Halfway There customer, played by actress Hailee Steinfeld, a lift. “Stop living on a prayer and get State Farm,” Jake says.Continue reading...The greatest theft in history (part 2)by Darby JonesIn The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it took Deep Thought 7.5 million years to calculate the answer to life, the universe, and everything. I discovered the answer this year at the age of 42.* That asterisk is crucial. It’s actually the answer, but it means nothing if you don’t ask the right question.Nothing will stop the mega-rich from controlling their political puppets and distracting us from looking up. Look around. Neighbors fighting over jobs, healthcare, housing — your brother-in-law skipped Thanksgiving … again. Half your Facebook feed has written off the other half as deplorable monsters.The world’s a mess, but the reason your dollar can’t buy a nickel has nothing to do with the Left or Right. Follow the money. Look up at the power keeping us down.Power /pau̇(-ə)r/: 1. Fractional reserve banking. 2. The Fed. 3. Global “mafia.”Continue reading...Plastic Is Building Up In Human Brains, And Junk Food May Be Making It WorseBy StudyFinds Analysis - Reviewed by John Anderer - Research led by Dr. Julio Licinio (Genomic Press)Human brain tissue has been found to contain far more microplastics than other organs, with the highest levels in people diagnosed with dementia.Ultra-processed foods, which make up more than half of calories consumed in the United States, are a major delivery vehicle for these plastic particles.A blood-filtering medical procedure shows early promise as a way to remove microplastics from the body, but scientists say more measurement tools are needed before it can be confirmed to work.A plastic spoon’s worth of tiny fragments, quietly accumulating inside the human brain. That image is no longer science fiction, it’s where a new scientific perspective begins, and it argues that the growing buildup of plastics in the human body is one of the most pressing brain health questions of the moment.Continue reading...Upcoming Liberty EventsDerrick Broze - The 2026 Activation Tour, Multiple Cities, US, May 1st – July 26th, 2026Constellation Anarchist Festival, Montreal, Canada, May 14th – 20th, 2026Derrick Broze w/ Prezence in Sedona - May 16th, 2026Porcupine Freedom Festival - June 21st-28th, 2026Why Is The Healthcare System Broken? - Windham, New Hampshire - June 27th54th Annual Rainbow Gathering, Northern California, US, July 1st – 7th, 2026FreedomPalooza 2026 – July 8th – 13th 2026, Northumberland, NHMidwest Peace & Liberty Fest, Lake Satoshi, MI, US, August 6th – 9th, 2026Liberty International World Conference, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 7th – 9th, 2026Northeast Unschooling Conference, Pittsfield, MA, US, August 15th – 18th, 2026International Conference for Anarchist Studies, Manchester, UK, August 26th – 28th, 2026Free Cities Conference, Roatan, Honduras, September 3rd – 6th, 2026VonuFest, Illinois, US, September 21st – 28th, 2026AnarCon, Gore, VA, US, September 25th – 27th, 2026Memes BonanzaTruth Music of the WeekThis is What Happens When You Call the CopsHere is an amazing Rob Hustle music video to help you understand why you Almost NEVER want to call the cops… entitled… appropriately enough:This is What Happens When you Call the Cops! The YouTube version is being soft-censored with age-verification so clicking on the image or HERE takes you to the Bitchute version. You can find the actual panel discussion where we discuss the alternative my article: Etienne on The Corbett Report - #SolutionsWatch - How to Deal with “Authorities”A video from the Truth Music folder from our “Flash Drive O Freedom”: The Liberator (ArtofLiberty.org/Liberator). This is the rebuttal video for the Rob Hustle song/video: This is What Happens When You Call the Cops. In this video Rob addresses: “But What About the “Good Cops” This is bonus material for the panel discussion I just did on The Corbett Report: How to Deal With Authorities – #SolutionsWatch.libertarian Intentional Community Rounduplibertarian Intentional Community Roundup is where we cover libertarian and voluntaryist intentional communities and free private cities including Prospera (Honduras), The Free State Project (New Hampshire), Liberstad (Norway), Montelibero (Montenegro), Los Propietarios, (Argentina), Liberland (Croatia/Serbia border), Network States in general and Sea Steading (The Oceans). 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