Pharaoh's Dream

A familiar pattern in history is where the ruling class, complicit with the bankers, manipulate the law to become an instrument of plunder.. so the wealth & property of the nation becomes concentrated with those in power.

This is a bit long, but it is mostly a biblical quote. I could have used a more current example, but this is an old one, to show the pattern of human behavior. Also, whether you see this as actual history, or just a parable, the principles are the point.

Gen.41:17 So Pharaoh told him the dream. “I was standing upon the bank of the Nile River,” he said, 18 “when suddenly, seven fat, healthy-looking cows came up out of the river and began grazing along the riverbank. 19 But then seven other cows came up from the river, very skinny and bony—in fact, I’ve never seen such poor-looking specimens in all the land of Egypt. 20 And these skinny cattle ate up the seven fat ones that had come out first, 21 and afterwards they were still as skinny as before! Then I woke up.
22 “A little later I had another dream. This time there were seven heads of grain on one stalk, and all seven heads were plump and full. 23 Then, out of the same stalk, came seven withered, thin heads. 24 And the thin heads swallowed up the fat ones! I told all this to my magicians, but not one of them could tell me the meaning.”

25 “Both dreams mean the same thing,” Joseph told Pharaoh. “God was telling you what he is going to do here in the land of Egypt. 26 The seven fat cows (and also the seven fat, well-formed heads of grain) mean that there are seven years of prosperity ahead. 27 The seven skinny cows (and also the seven thin and withered heads of grain) indicate that there will be seven years of famine following the seven years of prosperity.
28 “So God has showed you what he is about to do: 29 The next seven years will be a period of great prosperity throughout all the land of Egypt; 30 but afterwards there will be seven years of famine so great that all the prosperity will be forgotten and wiped out; famine will consume the land. 31 The famine will be so terrible that even the memory of the good years will be erased. 32 The double dream gives double impact, showing that what I have told you is certainly going to happen, for God has decreed it, and it is going to happen soon. 33 My suggestion is that you find the wisest man in Egypt and put him in charge of administering a nationwide farm program. 34-35 Let Pharaoh divide Egypt into five administrative districts,[a] and let the officials of these districts gather into the royal storehouses all the excess crops of the next seven years, 36 so that there will be enough to eat when the seven years of famine come. Otherwise, disaster will surely strike.”

37 Joseph’s suggestions were well received by Pharaoh and his assistants. 38 As they discussed who should be appointed for the job, Pharaoh said, “Who could do it better than Joseph? For he is a man who is obviously filled with the Spirit of God.” 39 Turning to Joseph, Pharaoh said to him, “Since God has revealed the meaning of the dreams to you, you are the wisest man in the country! 40 I am hereby appointing you to be in charge of this entire project. What you say goes, throughout all the land of Egypt. I alone will outrank you.”

...47 And sure enough, for the next seven years there were bumper crops everywhere. 48 During those years, Joseph requisitioned for the government a portion of all the crops grown throughout Egypt, storing them in nearby cities. 49 After seven years of this, the granaries were full to overflowing, and there was so much that no one kept track of the amount.
...53 So at last the seven years of plenty came to an end. 54 Then the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had predicted. There were crop failures in all the surrounding countries, too, but in Egypt there was plenty of grain in the storehouses. 55 The people began to starve. They pleaded with Pharaoh for food, and he sent them to Joseph. “Do whatever he tells you to,” he instructed them.

56-57 So now, with severe famine all over the world, Joseph opened up the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians and to those from other lands who came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph.
47:13 The famine became worse and worse, so that all the land of Egypt and Canaan was starving. 14 Joseph collected all the money in Egypt and Canaan in exchange for grain, and he brought the money to Pharaoh’s treasure-houses. 15 When the people were out of money, they came to Joseph crying again for food.
“Our money is gone,” they said, “but give us bread; for why should we die?”
16 “Well then,” Joseph replied, “give me your livestock. I will trade you food in exchange.”
17 So they brought their cattle to Joseph in exchange for food. Soon all the horses, flocks, herds, and donkeys of Egypt were in Pharaoh’s possession.
18 The next year they came again and said, “Our money is gone, and our cattle are yours, and there is nothing left but our bodies and land. 19 Why should we die? Buy us and our land and we will be serfs to Pharaoh. We will trade ourselves for food, then we will live, and the land won’t be abandoned.”

20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; all the Egyptians sold him their fields because the famine was so severe. And the land became Pharaoh’s. 21 Thus all the people of Egypt became Pharaoh’s serfs. 22 The only land he didn’t buy was that belonging to the priests, for they were assigned food from Pharaoh and didn’t need to sell.
23 Then Joseph said to the people, “See, I have bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Here is grain. Go and sow the land. 24 And when you harvest it, a fifth of everything you get belongs to Pharaoh. Keep four parts for yourselves to be used for next year’s seed, and as food for yourselves and for your households and little ones.”

25 “You have saved our lives,” they said. “We will gladly be the serfs of Pharaoh.”

This is the pattern for most of human history. The nobles, bankers, royalty, & those in power use that power to slowly take what the people have worked for, until they are serfs of the ruling class. The statists want to own everything, & have complete power over everyone.

America was founded on a different principle. The ruling class were to be the citizens, not a greedy elite. The govt was to dedicate itself to preserving freedom & dispensing justice, not taking the labors of the people.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. ~James Madison

These things do not happen overnight. Pharaoh did not own all the property of egypt overnight. But slowly, deliberately, the power of the state increases its holdings, until the bankers & ruling elite own everything, & the people are reduced to indentured servitude to those in power.

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." ~Thomas Jefferson

“We will gladly be the serfs of Pharaoh.” This is music to the ears of the statists. They promote the false narrative that they hold the power of life & death, & we exist at their pleasure. They build a dependency.. not by producing anything themselves, but by TAKING from the producers & then benevolently dribbling it out, after enriching themselves. This dependency & looking to govt to provide is part of the absorption process, until we are all serfs of pharaoh.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. ~Thomas Jefferson 

In the biblical illustration, pharaoh did not sow, cultivate, or harvest any of the grain, yet by taxation he acquired everything, & all the people became his serfs. This is a consistent pattern in human history, interrupted by an occasional revolution, with the usual beheadings of the ruling class.

In america, we seem to be somewhere at the end of this pattern. The elite ruling classes have usurped the democratic republic, founded as a nation of self rule, & hijacked it to plunder the producers of the nation. Greedy & self serving charlatans have wormed their way into power & influence, & are systematically manipulating the currency, the markets, our homes & savings until it is owned by a small elite. Freedom & opportunity are dying concepts, while dependency & subservience are promoted as the new american ideal.

The American

My wife's ancestors are from new amsterdam (new york), & palatinate refugees from germany & holland. The dutch in New York were mostly indentured servants.. they worked for an investor who was making a business venture in the new world. The palatinate were religious refugees, fleeing papal persecution along the french border. This was reformation times, followed by a more enlightened thought time with science & human worth. My ancestors had massachusetts bay colony roots. They were primarily religious, almosts cult like.. a collectivist experiment that did not work (as usual!). The other side was scotch irish.. presbyterians fleeing the church of england & the pope. Then there were the virginians, the spanish in florida, georgia, & the other early colonies. They each had a part in shaping the new identity of the new nation.

But there was also the influence of the native peoples in all of these sub cultures, along with the enlightened thinkers of locke, rousseau, hobbes, bacon, & eventually jefferson & the other american founders. From this primordial soup was born the American.. not really european.. not native american.. a hybrid between the noble savage & the absolutist. This did not happen in mexico, even though there was a blend of spanish conquistadors, jesuits, & the native people, nor did it happen in canada, where the natives were kept more distant than in the us. The british monarchist system was clung to, there, & the wild natives had less influence on them. You also did not see it in s. africa, where dutch & british settlers kept very much apart from the native africans.

I'm sure that there are blends of culture in every emigration situation. None of us live in a vacuum, or are unaffected by other people. Our culture & ancestry are unique, & have made us into what we are today. It is also constantly in flux, & changing in every generation. We are moving away from a more individual, independent culture, to a more collectively centered one.. very eurocentric. Some is unavoidable, perhaps, as open land dwindles & populations increase. The time of the Historical, Traditional American may be winding down, but it was a unique evolution of a culture & governance in all of human history.

Anarchy & the non aggression principle.

Anarchy & the non aggression principle.

The whole concept is so anti human.. they do not have a realistic view of humanity.  Peace? Non aggression? We're talking humans here, right? We are warlike, brutal, & animalistic.. a lot more than we like to admit. The whole reason we have organized ourselves into regional governments is to protect us, collectively, from other brutal, aggressive humans, & their collectives. The entire history of mankind is one story after another of this aggression. So they can drone on about some utopian 'non aggression principle', but NO human throughout history has been able to live in that kind of state. There ALWAYS has to be a deterrence for any society to live in peace.

That is why i see the major flaw at the root of this ideology being the need for a 'new man'.  It is an idealistic, unrealistic dream of humanity, that ignores our basic nature. IF you could change the human animal, you might be able to make us into peaceful, harmonious beings. But we are predators. Humans have few natural enemies in the wild, but other humans have always been the most deadly ones. It is like caribou deciding that they are going to live in peace with the wolves. They can decide that all they want, or eloquently describe their perfect world, where caribou & wolves live together in peace. But it won't work, because the wolves are still wolves. They might nod in agreement, at first, but they will NOT keep the pact, & they will begin to kill & eat the caribou. So the caribou better use what they have as defense mechanisms for this kind of natural behavior, or they will go extinct.

It is the same with people. If there are some altruistic humans out there, they are dependent on other more violent defenders to keep their personal peace. The quakers & amish come to mind. They cannot live under brutal totalitarian rule, but must flee it.

Some of my wife's ancestors were from the border of germany & france, during the reformation. They were palatinates, from that region in s. germany. They were persecuted, along with the french huguenots. They fled to holland, england, ireland, & eventually, america. Mostly PA. They would have preferred to live in peace & harmony, but Louis 14th would not let them. He didn't care about their peaceful ways or desires. So they needed the protection & sympathy of reformers who had equally sharp swords, to defend them from religious annihilation.

That is what the history of man is.. one man's or group's aggression toward another.. for whatever reason. We cannot just 'declare' that nature to be null & void, & say, 'why can't we all just get along?' There is only one way to live in peace: Strength. There is only one solution for human aggression: deterrence. We can speak softly, but we better carry that big stick.