23 March 2011

Jefferson on debt

Thomas Jefferson (one of the Founding Fathers of the United States) said, in effect, that the first duty of a government was not to let the country get into debt.

I ... place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. (Letter to William Plumer, 1816)

Realistically, one might go further and say that the first duty of a government is to ensure that the country is as rich as possible and also always increasingly so, and that its defences against invasion by other countries are as strong as possible. This will prevent it from being at the mercy of other countries in various ways.

For a time Britain and America were able to improve their position, partly as a result of being relatively difficult to invade. So long as a country is building up its capital it is having to be realistic. But when sufficient margin of advantage has been built up, this gives it the freedom to abandon realism and reduce its resources by setting up social game plans which do not need to have any relation to reality.

For a century now a game plan about social engineering and ‘education’ has been operative and has contributed significantly to the destruction of this country’s resources. Now the country is bankrupt but this does not mean that there is a return to realistic considerations. Defence is the first thing to be axed so that the ‘essential’ games, such as education, medicine, general interference and ‘aid’ to poorer countries, can continue to be played.

The relevant departments of my unfunded independent university are effectively censored and suppressed. They have been prevented for decades from publishing analyses of the complex issues involved, while misleading and tendentious representations of them have continued to flood out from socially recognised sources. I hereby apply for financial support on a scale at least adequate for one active and fully financed university research department, to all universities, and to corporations or individuals who consider themselves to be in a position to give support to socially recognised academic establishments.