Prepare for Unforeseen Consequences

 

There's an excellent line of dialog from a favorite video game series of mine from perhaps one of the most unique and mystic fictional characters I've ever come to know and love. The game is called Half-Life, which tells the story of how what should have been a routine science experiment leads to a chain of events which results in the entirety of Earth being enslaved by an inter-dimensional alien military empire.

The main players are Doctors Gordon Freeman, Eli Vance, Isaac Kleiner, and Wallace Breen.

We, as the witness of this grand tale, see the catastrophe unfold through the eyes of Freeman. Freeman is the main catalyst in this tragic tale, because were it not for his hands, none of the following events could take place. Freeman himself places "The Sample" into the experimental mass spectrometer machine that causes a Resonance Cascade and allows the invasion of the alien empire to take place.

Eli Vance himself, also bears responsibility. As one of the engineers of the experiment, Eli notices a few things aren't quite right before the experiment begins. However, he allows his companion Isaac Kleiner, the stereotypical, well-intentioned absent-minded genius professor, to coax him into allowing the experiment to continue.

Wallace Breen, the administrator of the Black Mesa facility where these events take place, uses his power to influence the experiment from afar. We learn later in the story that Breen had ordered the Sample changed just before the experiment was to begin, and after the invasion, manages to curry favor with the oppressors and becomes Earth's satrap dictator.

And of course, there is that strange man, known only as "The G-Man", whom utters the fateful words into Eli Vance's ears on the eve of the Resonance Cascade, "Prepare for Unforeseen Consequences". From there on, the G-Man can be seen observing the events of the disaster from afar, never intervening and entirely unaffected personally.

I know you may think I'm stretching a bit, but this story can serve as a lesson for the crusade against the Federal Reserve system.

I'll now translate the characters into reality, and explain why I think Auditing or Ending the Fed is an exercise in Unforeseen Consequences.

First, I will identify the G-Man as the ghostly voice of Frédéric Bastiat, crying out to humanity from the past in his essay, circa 1850 "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen." Bastiat warns us of unforeseen consequences that result from State intervention, giving many contemporary examples. His words are powerful and wise, and since of course Bastiat has long since passed, he has no direct influence on events today, aside from the words he left behind.

Next, we have Gordon Freeman. Gordon Freeman is young, highly intelligent having graduated from MIT, and in fit physical condition. He is quick about his wits, but not experienced like his colleagues. I think Freeman represents the new blood in the liberty movement, hordes of young men and women, all highly intelligent and highly studied for their demographic (which incidentally does not seem to be a hard feat to accomplish today), all full of youthful power, and all lacking worldly wisdom in various degrees. It is this force, the Freeman, that gives a huge boost of vital energy to liberty, but it can (and is being) guided unwittingly to a nefarious purpose.

Freeman is good friends with Eli Vance and Isaac Kleiner, whom in our reality are representative of older libertarians and academia in the liberty movement. Eli better represents the wiser half of this group, whom are cautious, world weary, but also easily coaxed by the more naive and idealistic half represented by Kleiner. I think Kleiner is, dare I say, a picture perfect Paulian, as he is infinitely kind, a genius in his field, but also very confused. Our libertarian Kleiners think that everything with the current experiment, the End the Fed campaign, is working just fine, even if there are a few hiccups here and there. Kleiner convinces the Eli Vances of the world who are taking the warning signs more seriously to go ahead with it anyway. "Well within acceptable parameters".

There is also Breen, whom on his face appears to be just as much a member of the faculty as anyone else. He is the Administrator, he holds political power in the Black Mesa institution, and is always desirous of ever more power for himself. But he his subtle about this, and uses the achievements of those like Kleiner and Vance (whom happily contribute) to further his power. Breen dips his finger into the experiment, here the End the Fed campaign, and turns it to his own purposes. In the story, Breen replaces the Sample at the last moment. So too, our real life Breen's, the political establishment that waxes libertarian, has surreptitiously changed out the Sample. We learn later in Half-Life that Breen may have had some knowledge of the alien empire, and changing out the Sample was a chessboard move in gaining a position of power.

How has Breen accomplished this? The original goal, the Sample as it were, was to remove State intervention in the economy by ending the monopoly the private Federal Reserve has on currency production in the United States. As any libertarian worth his salt knows, the issue is that if there were a free market in money production, the Federal Reserve would be forced by economic laws to either produce a valuable good (sound money) or go the way of the Do Do bird.

But there's been a subtle trick here, you see. Breen has managed to direct the efforts of Kleiner, Vance, and Freeman, not towards a free market in money, but returning control of the monopoly on production of money to Congress.

Not only are the heroes now accidentally engaged in a campaign to petition the State to use it's violence against a private institution (End the Fed), they are also petitioning the State to take direct control of the monopoly of money (Constitutional, "sound" money").

This is a massive violation of the Non-Aggression Principle that has far reaching Unforeseen Consequences.

Large swaths of the liberty movement have been conned into pushing for a socialist agenda, that is, direct and central State control over the production of money.

Let me take you back to the testing chamber in Half-Life for a moment, as we see through the eyes of Gordon Freeman.

Ensconced in his Hazardous Environment Suit, Freeman waits patiently in the test chamber as Vance, Kleiner, and their assistants prepare and power up the machine that will strike the Sample with some directed energy beam. The Sample is now coming up a freight elevator, and Freeman at this stage has sole control over whether or not the experiment continues. Freeman must push the Sample with his own hands into the mass spectrometer. If Freeman dawdles, he is urged to hurry up over the intercom by his colleagues. He is kept ignorant of the origin of the Sample, he has no reason to suspect something may be wrong.

As the player of the game, controlling Freeman like a puppet, you have the option to either push the Sample into the spectrometer, setting off a violent explosion that sets off a chain of death, destruction, carnage, military involvement, and the ultimate enslavement of all of mankind to an undefeatable alien foe. Of course, if the player does nothing, the game will simply wait forever for Freeman to do what's expected.

Fortunately, in our real life, we do not exist inside a virtual construct that cannot move forward in time until we begin the epic tragedy. The many young libertarians who compose my analogous Freeman can simply choose to walk away. They can quit their job as a cart-pusher for the State at any time and walk out of that room.

 

So I put the question to you supposed freed men and women of the liberty movement. Are you going to thrust that political object forward and energize it, starting a chain of events that can only end in violence ( as all State actions do). Are you willing to continue in ignorance, whilst your mentors are too busy being unawares, blissfully ignorant, or bullied into compliance?

Are you prepared for Unforeseen Consequences?