Las Sutilezas del Totalitarismo

Sin excepción, los gobernantes (los políticos en general) son todos corruptos, delincuentes, ladrones y criminales. Este, es un hecho que se observa a diario y sobre el cual no quedan dudas. No es que los humanos deseamos gobiernos con esta clase de gobernantes, sino que estos señores han tomado el control de los gobiernos. No será sencillo destituirlos, pues ellos acceden a poderes absolutos pervirtiendo la ley. Estos agentes de la destrucción, han transformado la ley en una sutil secuencia acumulativa de dictados totalitarios que les permite, progresivamente, tomar el control del gobierno y, desde allí, someter a todos los habitantes del mundo. Se vuelven ricos y poderosos. La ley y el dinero los vuelve intocables, mientras el resto de la humanidad queda expuesta a perderlo todo. Así lo ejemplifica Ron Paul.

In addition to funding for a border wall and other border security measures, immigration hardliners are sure to push to include mandatory E-Verify in any immigration legislation considered by Congress. E-Verify is a (currently) voluntary program where businesses check job applicants’ Social Security numbers and other Information — potentially including “biometric” identifiers like fingerprints — against information stored in a federal database to determine if the job applicants are legally in the United States.

Imagine how much time would be diverted from serving consumers and growing the economy if every US business had to comply with E-Verify. Also, collecting the relevant information and operating the mandatory E-Verify system will prove costly to taxpayers.

Millions of Americans could be denied jobs because E-Verify mistakenly identifies them as illegal immigrants. These Americans would be forced to go through a costly and time-consuming process to force the government to correct its mistake. It is doubtful employers could afford to keep jobs open while potential hires went through this process.

A federal database with Social Security numbers and other identifying information is an identify thief’s dream. Given the federal government’s poor track record for protecting personal information, is there any doubt mandatory E-Verify would put millions of Americans at risk for identity theft?

Some supporters of E-Verify deny the program poses any threat to civil liberties, as it will only be used to verify citizenship or legal residency. They even claim a system forcing individuals to have their identities certified by the government is not a national ID system. These individuals are ignoring the history of government programs sold as only affecting a particular group or being used for a limited purpose being expanded beyond initial targets. For example, Americans were promised that only the wealthiest Americans would ever pay income taxes. And some of the PATRIOT Act’s worst provisions that we were told would only be used against terrorists are routinely used to investigate drug crimes.

E-Verify almost certainly will be used for purposes unrelated to immigration. One potential use of E-Verify is to limit the job prospects of anyone whose lifestyle displeases the government. This could include those accused of failing to pay their fair share in taxes, those who homeschool or do not vaccinate their children, or those who own firearms.

Unscrupulous government officials could use E-Verify against those who practice antiwar, anti-tax, anti-surveillance, and anti-Federal Reserve activism. Those who consider this unlikely should remember the long history of the IRS targeting the political enemies of those in power and the use of anti-terrorism laws to harass antiwar activists. They should also consider the current moves to outlaw certain types of “politically incorrect” speech, such as disputing the alleged “consensus” regarding climate change.

Claiming that mandatory E-Verify is necessary to stop illegal immigration does not make it constitutional. Furthermore, having to ask the federal government for permission before obtaining a job is a characteristic of authoritarian societies, not free ones. History shows that mandatory E-Verify’s use will expand beyond immigration enforcement and could be used as a tool of political repression. All those who value liberty should oppose mandatory E-Verify.

Read All... Leer Todo...

Men are Altogether Unequal

Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition

1. The Foundations of Liberal Policy

4. Equality

by Ludwig von Mises



Nowhere is the difference between the reasoning of the older liberalism and that of neoliberalism clearer and easier to demonstrate than in their treatment of the problem of equality. The liberals of the eighteenth century, guided by the ideas of natural law and of the Enlightenment, demanded for everyone equality of political and civil rights because they assumed that all men are equal. God created all men equal, endowing them with fundamentally the same capabilities and talents, breathing into all of them the breath of His spirit. All distinctions between men are only artificial, the product of social, human—that is to say, transitory—institutions. What is imperishable in man—his spirit—is undoubtedly the same in rich and poor, noble and commoner, white and colored.

Nothing, however, is as ill-founded as the assertion of the alleged equality of all members of the human race. Men are altogether unequal. Even between brothers there exist the most marked differences in physical and mental attributes. Nature never repeats itself in its creations; it produces nothing by the dozen, nor are its products standardized. Each man who leaves her workshop bears the imprint of the individual, the unique, the never-to-recur. Men are not equal, and the demand for equality under the law can by no means be grounded in the contention that equal treatment is due to equals.

There are two distinct reasons why all men should receive equal treatment under the law. One was already mentioned when we analyzed the objections to involuntary servitude. In order for human labor to realize its highest attainable productivity, the worker must be free, because only the free worker, enjoying in the form of wages the fruits of his own industry, will exert himself to the full. The second consideration in favor of the equality of all men under the law is the maintenance of social peace. It has already been pointed out that every disturbance of the peaceful development of the division of labor must be avoided. But it is well-nigh impossible to preserve lasting peace in a society in which the rights and duties of the respective classes are different. Whoever denies rights to a part of the population must always be prepared for a united attack by the disenfranchised on the privileged. Class privileges must disappear so that the conflict over them may cease.

It is therefore quite unjustifiable to find fault with the manner in which liberalism put into effect its postulate of equality, on the ground that what it created was only equality before the law, and not real equality. All human power would be insufficient to make men really equal. Men are and will always remain unequal. It is sober considerations of utility such as those we have here presented that constitute the argument in favor of the equality of all men under the law. Liberalism never aimed at anything more than this, nor could it ask for anything more. It is beyond human power to make a Negro white. But the Negro can be granted the same rights as the white man and thereby offered the possibility of earning as much if he produces as much.

But, the socialists say, it is not enough to make men equal before the law. In order to make them really equal, one must also allot them the same income. It is not enough to abolish privileges of birth and of rank. One must finish the job and do away with the greatest and most important privilege of all, namely, that which is accorded by private property. Only then will the liberal program be completely realized, and a consistent liberalism thus leads ultimately to socialism, to the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.

Privilege is an institutional arrangement favoring some individuals or a certain group at the expense of the rest. The privilege exists, although it harms some?perhaps the majority?and benefits no one except those for whose advantage it was created. In the feudal order of the Middle Ages certain lords had the hereditary right to hold a judgeship. They were judges because they had inherited the position, regardless of whether they possessed the abilities and qualities of character that fit a man to be a judge. In their eyes this office was nothing more than a lucrative source of income. Here judgeship was the privilege of a class of noble birth.

If, however, as in modern states, judges are always drawn from the circle of those with legal knowledge and experience, this does not constitute a privilege in favor of lawyers. Preference is given to lawyers, not for their sake, but for the sake of the public welfare, because people are generally of the opinion that a knowledge of jurisprudence is an indispensable prerequisite for holding a judgeship. The question whether a certain institutional arrangement is or is not to be regarded as a privilege granted to a certain group, class, or person is not to be decided by whether or not it is advantageous to that group, class, or person, but according to how beneficial to the general public it is considered to be. The fact that on a ship at sea one man is captain and the rest constitute his crew and are subject to his command is certainly an advantage for the captain. Nevertheless, it is not a privilege of the captain if he possesses the ability to steer the ship between reefs in a storm and thereby to be of service not only to himself, but to the whole crew.

In order to determine whether an institutional arrangement is to be regarded as the special privilege of an individual or of a class, the question one should ask is not whether it benefits this or that individual or class, but only whether it is beneficial to the general public. If we reach the conclusion that only private ownership of the means of production makes possible the prosperous development of human society, it is clear that this is tantamount to saying that private property is not a privilege of the property owner, but a social institution for the good and benefit of all, even though it may at the same time be especially agreeable and advantageous to some.

It is not on behalf of property owners that liberalism favors the preservation of the institution of private property. It is not because the abolition of that institution would violate property rights that the liberals want to preserve it. If they considered the abolition of the institution of private property to be in the general interest, they would advocate that it be abolished, no matter how prejudicial such a policy might be to the interests of property owners. However, the preservation of that institution is in the interest of all strata of society. Even the poor man, who can call nothing his own, lives incomparably better in our society than he would in one that would prove incapable of producing even a fraction of what is produced in our own.

Read All... Leer Todo...

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)

Elon Musk, el CoFundador de PayPal, Tesla Motors y SpaceX, ha anunciado que dentro de pocos años estará lista una interfaz que permitirá comunicación directa entre la mente del hombre y una computadora. Este evento será el inicio de los Cyborg. Más allá de esta figura hombre-máquina y la polémica ética que conlleve, el empleo de la interfaz tendrá consecuencias prácticas importantes.

Hasta hoy, el hombre se comunica con el universo de las máquinas por la intermediación de los sentidos del tacto, la vista y el oído. Accedemos a las máquinas, a la web y a la blockchain empleando alguna combinación de dichos sentidos. Por ejemplo, cuando nos sentamos frente a un ordenador, o mediante un dispositivo móvil, accedemos a la información contenida en su interior, tecleando, mirando y escuchando; igualmente es el acceso al contenido alojado en la web y en la moderna blockchain.

Con el auxilio de BCI, tanto computadoras, como web y blockchain se transformarán en apéndices de la mente humana. La mente accederá a sus contenidos directamente, sin intermediar sentido alguno, sólo pensando en ello. Por ejemplo, se podrá acceder a una cuenta alojada en un banco con sólo pensar en el sitio web de la entidad, el nombre de usuario y la clave de acceso. Y así será para todo. Para verificar los saldos y movimientos de fondos de una wallet, bastará pensar en la dirección de la wallet. Al enviar un mensaje tipo WhatsApp, bastará pensar en la App, el destinatario y el mensaje.

Una pregunta obvia es: ¿cómo reaccionará la mente humana ante semejante shock externo?. Nuestra mente, posee sus propios intérpretes fundamentales adaptados para procesar lo que le comunican los sentidos, mientras estos sentidos actúan como la única interfaz conocida desde el nacimiento de la persona. Si bien el cerebro, al igual que las máquinas, emplea electrones como medio para almacenar y mover información, éste no está acostumbrado a usar interfaz intercambiable, ni mucho menos una totalmente desconocida luego de formada la conciencia. ¿Rechazará la mente, una nueva interfaz al considerarla extraña y desconocida?. ¿La nueva experiencia, tendrá consecuencias en la salud del cerebro y la mente?. Veremos lo que ocurre, después del año 2020, cuando esté lista la Brain-Conputer Interface.

Read All... Leer Todo...