The British Empire aka the American Empire Needs to Finally Die

It's been said many times that the US is really nothing more than the resurrected British Empire that lost its power and prestige post WW II when the US fanatically embraced British style militarism and empire that catapulted America to the status of the world's sole superpower because of its superior military might. Never before in human history had a sole superpower dominated for so long and without challenge. The US-British alliance has frequently been dubbed the Anglo-sphere. The British Empire at its peak:

Most of those British colonies and possessions are now gone and even Canada and Australia are sovereign nations with little attachment to the British crown.

Throughout human history, the fight for human liberty has been a revolt against government, the state, empires and their formidable military machines. The British Empire grew because its formidable navy ruled the seas for hundreds of years.

America and Britain have a lot in common, starting with the fact that America was largely settled and populated by English speaking peoples who adopted English law and culture. The English bequeathed to us some extraordinary gifts such as its system of secure property rights and a civil and criminal legal justice system (English common law). The Magna Carta is deemed one of the great treasures of western civilization because the 1215 document directly challenged absolute rule by a monarch.

However, America also adopted some of the worst features of the British, namely its perennial addiction to empire, resource exploitation and the perceived right to plunder and murder people to secure resources. Furthermore, the British were never capitalists in the true sense of the word. They were merchantilists.

Mercantilism in England

Celebrating America's Capitalist Revolution

The British system of mercantilism is not capitalism and in fact is more closely aligned with fascism, oligarchy, plutocracy, cronyism, corporatism etc., or in more simple terms the rule of the elites for their exclusive benefit, benefits that typically include monopoly powers and buying legislative bodies to guarantee protectionism from competition.

In many ways, the American Revolution was also a revolt against the British system of mercantilism but only to a degree because America during the Revolutionary period was also swimming with British loyalists and while many of these loyalists joined the Revolution, they remained addicted to the British system of mercantilism, empire, its central bank and even its system of monarchy.  Notable among American mercantilists was Alexander Hamilton.  Hamilton forever denied that he was a monarchist, although he was constantly defending himself against the charge.

A Hamilton biographer, Richard Brookheiser, wrote in a biography titled Alexander Hamilton, American:

He put up with Republican government because he had to, while laboring to transform it, or even subvert it. At heart he was an aristocrat and a plutocrat, who favored rule by an elite of the rich.

The differences between Jefferson and Hamilton couldn't be more clear. As excerpted from The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin:

JEFFERSON: “A private central bank issuing public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army.” “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

HAMILTON: “No society could succeed which did not unite the interest and credit of rich individuals with those of the state.” “A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”

Hamilton only cared about advancing the interests of the rich and the state at the expense of the individual and those further down the ladder of power and money, especially the poor and middle class whose interests were deemed expendable and irrelevant. Conversely, Jefferson vehemently opposed any bank or class of people holding power over anybody.  Hamilton's view of power was that it must be concentrated while Jefferson's view of power was that it must be diffused as far and wide as possible and to the point where political power just lacks the power to oppress.

At the end of the day it was Hamilton who won, and of course, the liberty of the American people was destined for eventual destruction.

The worst and most destructive features of Britain that America embraced were its systems of central banking and economic mercantilism because both ruthlessly combined to advance empire through debt and fascist corporatism through trade. It's a deadly combination that has wrecked havoc upon humanity and its peoples.

It took Hamilton a long time to achieve his dream, a dream that only his ghost can now gloat over. Efforts to fight off the central bank were waged ferociously, especially by Andrew Jackson, but tragically in 1913 the bankster purveyors of paper fiat money finally won, and not surprisingly, with the support of  liberal progressive Democratic President Woodrow Wilson who also gave us the income tax or 16th amendment . America has been at war practically non-stop since we got the Federal Reserve and the purchasing power of the dollars has dropped by at least 95% because, above all, a central bank is nothing more than a vehicle to transfer wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich.

The rich never suffer a loss of wealth from central banking operations, largely because mechanisms are in place to protect powerful insider financial interests from the loss of wealth by directly subsidizing any losses.  But the most ugly legacy of the Federal Reserve and the central banksters in general is that they successfully spread their poisonous central banks and mercantilism throughout the world.

While the Federal Reserve has now replaced the Bank of England as the world's most powerful central bank, its also true that Britain, its mercantilism, its empire and its fiat banking system have all survived across the the pond where these anti-liberty institutions have grown even more powerful, dangerous and deadly.

Bankster power has been absolute for quite a long time and includes the draconian powers of government to squash human liberty at every turn while waging perpetual warfare for resources to plunder. But the banksters have an Achilles' heel that was exposed in all its naked glory in the 2008 financial meltdown. While central banks scrambled to to keep the world's central banks from totally imploding, it's also quite likely that the banksters are finally on angels wings. Printing insane amounts of fiat money to bailout the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class has left the global economy tettering on the brink of collapse and $16 trillion is a most threatening pile of debt fueled fiat money.

Have You Heard About The 16 Trillion Dollar Bailout The Federal Reserve Handed To The Too Big To Fail Banks

While the dollar only survives because of its lofty and prestigious status as the world's reserve currency, it's not necessarily a guarantee or even a foregone conclusion that the dollar will remain the reserve currency of the world. The dollar isn't the world's reserve currency because it's such a great currency but because all other currencies are either much worse and/or even more unstable for purposes of international trade.

There are signs that the dollar will ultimately be challenged and such challenges will come from nations that are stockpiling gold for future use in creating gold backed currencies.

Putin is Stockpiling Gold

According to the World Gold Council, Russia has more than doubled its gold reserves in the past five years. Putin has taken advantage of the financial crisis to build the world’s fifth-biggest gold pile in a handful of years, and is buying about half a billion dollars’ worth every month.

The Hoarding Continues: China Purchases A Record 100 Tons Of Gold In April From Hong Kong

Gold imports by mainland China from Hong Kong climbed 65 percent to a record in April, advancing for a third straight month as investors sought a hedge against financial-market turmoil and an economic slowdown....

"We can’t rule out the possibility that the central bank is buying gold,” said Wang at Agricultural Bank of China, referring to the People’s Bank of China.

Rule out? You can bet on it.

The probability that gold backed currencies will rise to challenge the supremacy of the paper tiger US dollar keeps growing and now appears to be a certainty even if the timing of such events is unclear.

The bad news is that the American people will suffer greatly as the once mighty United States of America joins the heap of being nothing more than just another failed and bankrupt banana boat republic. Few Americans even understand that our $16 trillion debt mountain that sustains our fictitious standard of living is the leverage that America uses to force other nations to buy Treasuries. Effectively, America went to nations like China and said in so many words "buy our debt and we'll buy your goods. We don't even care if American domestic manufacturing ceases and desists because we only care about the continuity of the Empire, whatever the price".  This is so Hamiltonian and so anti-Jefferson.   The price was more than the cost of interest, America sacrificed its legendary domestic manufacturing, the lifeblood of any prosperous society, for the glory of an Empire of Debt that was identical the British model of empire.

The silver lining is that while there will be profound hardships for the American people as they struggle to survive amid the bankster induced carnage, hope lies in the fact that we can once again have the opportunity to rebuilt the free and prosperous nation that we once had but willingly voted to sacrifice on the alter of empire and debt.

When the British Empire finally dies, along with its model of central banking, mercantilism and empire, the world will finally have a chance at real hope, real change and a future of peace, liberty and prosperity.

In the high risk, high stakes game of geo-politics, nothing is ever static although it moves very slowly. Still, there is ample evidence surfacing that the major shift in power is underway, from the Anglo-sphere to the rise of new economic paradigms in other nations who are embracing sound money and economic liberty.

Meanwhile, I can only opine that Americans abandoned their prosperous Republic, unlike the the Swiss who kept their republic, steered clear of wars and foreign intrigues, and still remain one of the most peaceful and prosperous folks on the planet and in human history.

Americans? We had it all and blew it.

Was There an American Revolution?

Having just finished reading the books 1776 and John Adams by David McCullough, it became clear that the problems we have today are nothing new. While 1776 was an agonizing year of disappointment and profound suffering with Washington's rag tag army of yeoman farmers being constantly on the run from the British, it took another 6.5 years for the Revolution to end with the Treaty of Paris, albeit with more than a little help from the French Navy that managed to sail to the right place at precisely the time.

It's been said that at the time of the Revolution, a third of the American people were British loyalists, a third just didn't care either which way who ruled them and a third were more or less supportive of severing America's ties as a British colony. Washington became America's first president because he got the credit for winning the Revolution. There were no political parties but by the time the Constitution was written, those who led the Revolution were engaged in ferocious battles with each other as two sides emerged, the Federalists and the Republicans.

The Federalists were led by Alexander Hamilton and they sought a very strong federal government with  significant centralized powers.  The Republicans were led by Thomas Jefferson who abhorred federal powers and considered America to be a union of sovereign states and that most power should be vested with the states and not the federal government.  Jefferson greatly feared federal power which he rightfully perceived as the means erode liberty.

The Federalist were also strongly attached to Britain and many considered them to be loyalist loving royalists. Post Revolution, the Federalist sought to align America with Britain at the expense of France. Meanwhile the French were embroiled in their own hideous revolution that went horribly bad and resulted in the Reign of Terror and a bloodbath.

The Federalists were screaming for WAR with France. The French did become frightfully annoying and French ships were seizing US commercial ships and imprisoning sailors. John Adams, a Federalist, totally opposed war with France. Adams was definitely a closeted Republican at heart, at least to some degree, and he dreaded entangling America in a foreign war. In fact, the Federalists were furious with Adams because he refused to ask Congress for a Declaration of War against France because he knew he'd get it. Moreover, Adams greatly feared that Congress would simply declare war anyway. Through sheer cunning and perseverance, Adams managed to keep the warmongers at bay and his brilliant tenacity won the day, much to the chagrin of the rabid Federalists.

Hamilton was dubbed the aspiring American Napoleon by the Republicans because he sought empire as well as personal glory and power.  His untimely 1804 demise in the infamous Burr-Hamilton duel did in fact weaken the Federalists for a while.

Anyway, this very recent American Conservative piece by Robert Nisbit not only caught my eye but clearly put into focus a lot of things about America that have long tortured me.

Was There an American Revolution?

Was there in fact an American Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century? By this, I mean a revolution involving sudden, decisive, and irreversible changes in social institutions, groups, and traditions, in addition to the war of liberation from England that we are more likely to celebrate.

Clearly, this is a question that generates much controversy. There are scholars whose answer to the question is strongly negative. Indeed, ever since Edmund Burke’s time there have been students to declare that revolution in any precise sense of the word did not take place—that in substance the American Revolution was no more than a group of Englishmen fighting on distant shores for traditionally English political rights against a government that had sought to exploit and tyrannize. According to this argument, it was a war of restitution and liberation, not revolution; the outcome, one set of political governors replacing another. This view is widespread in our time and is found as often among ideological conservatives as among liberals and radicals.

At the opposite extreme is the view that a full-blown revolution did indeed take place. This is clearly what John Adams believed: “The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations … This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.” And Samuel Adams, more radical in ideology and hence more demanding in defining revolution, asked rhetorically, “Was there ever a revolution brought about, especially one so important as this, without great internal tumults and violent convulsions?”

If there was a genuine revolution in America, we shall find it not in the sphere of ideological tracts—which history demonstrates may or may not yield actual revolution—but rather in the social sphere.

Nisbit plunges into a fascinating discussion of: Feudalism in America, A Land Based Class System, Laws of Inheritance, An Inevitable Revolution, Religious Freedom, The Great Contradiction, Freedom and Slavery, Dispersion and Division, A Nation of Joiners and The American Brand of Intellects.

Then, Nisbit goes on to claim that America did indeed have a real revolution and pretty much attributed it to the fact that Americans were a simple, practical and common sense people who were not susceptible to various European intellectual movements and their convoluted social and political theories.

The intellectual leaders of the American Revolution were generally businessmen or landowners; they had a stake in society. It is inconceivable that either a Jefferson or a Hamilton could have renounced what Burke called the “wisdom of expediency” in the interest of pursuing an abstract principle. No American leader could have contemplated mass executions or imprisonments with delight, as did the millennialist intellectuals of 1649, 1793, and 1917. At no point in the American Revolution, or in its aftermath, do we find any Committee of the Public Safety after the French fashion, any Council of the People’s Commissars, any Lilburnes, Robespierres, or Lenins. Nothing so completely gave the American Revolution its distinctive character as the absence of the European species of political intellectual. It is only in the present century that we have seen this species coming into prominence in America.

In conclusion, I would argue, then, that there was indeed an American Revolution in the full sense of the word–a social, moral, and institutional revolution that effected major changes in the character of American society–as well as a war of liberation from England that was political in nature.

Who in their right mind today wouldn't welcome a true Revolution for liberty? The fact that the Federalists won the day and the original Jeffersonian Republicans got squashed is indeed a most disturbing legacy of American history.

That said, the Jeffersonian Republicans never really disappeared. While a minority, they exist as Ron Paul supporters, Libertarians, Independents and folks of various political stripes who do in fact comprehend that Hamiltonian Federalism is a Big Fail.