Happy Thanksgiving! Reasons to be Thankful…

Since the beginning of my tenure as a blogger here a few weeks ago, I’ve done a lot of complaining and a lot of criticizing. It’s easy for those of us who are awake to the menace of central banking and monetary collapse to lose heart, feel cynical or despondent, and come off as extremely gloomy, but that’s really not true about us at all. In fact, the reason I complain and criticize so much is because I’m so grateful for the life I have, the prosperity I enjoy, and the freedom I exercise every day and I don’t want to lose these things. I fight because I have something to fight for. The social experiment in liberty and free enterprise that started in this country so many, many years ago has been a positively stellar success! Tomorrow, we can turn our vigilant attention back to what we’re fighting. Today, it is my purpose to take a brief sanity break and look at what it is we’re fighting for:

While holding the line against police brutality and overreach, we should absolutely acknowledge that in many ways, America is still a shining bastion of civil liberties. While we point out violations of our Bill of Rights each week, I am thankful that we have a Bill of Rights to point to in the first place, and one which is followed and respected at least as often as it isn’t. For the most part, police in America don’t simply bust down your door, drag you away to a detention center, and interrogate you with their fists. In many other countries of the world– and not just third world or developing countries– dealing with the police is often a far nastier affair than it is in America. I’m glad I don’t live in one of those countries.

While I bemoan the growth of the expensive, ineffective, liberty-strangling, law-defying cradle-to-grave welfare state in America, I am certainly thankful that it isn’t as bad as the European social welfare states which have hindered their nations’ economic growth and contributed to their historically high structural unemployment rates. I’m also thankful that Mr. Obama’s most recent expansion of our welfare state encountered such fierce and widespread opposition, that many Americans still favor its repeal, and that many of them still have the heart to oppose the idea that Washington should take care of us from cradle to grave. It’s encouraging. There’s still a fight left in us. I’m thankful for that.

I’m thankful for the conversation we’ve been having about monetary policy as a nation. It is something truly unprecedented since the creation of the Federal Reserve. I criticize the Fed every week, but I’m thankful that I know enough about it to criticize it, and that people are listening. I’m thankful that this has become a regular part of the national political dialogue. You’ve got Republican presidential candidates– and not just Ron Paul or Gary Johnson– taking shots at Ben Bernanke, at “printing money,” and at the Federal Reserve. That is a sea change, people. There’s never been anything quite like it before. The Fed Chairman is now a political figure and monetary policy has become a political issue. We got a partial audit of the Fed in the recent Dodd-Frank financial bill and we learned a lot from it! People on cable news like Glenn Beck have been talking about the Fed, monetary policy, and economists like F. A. Hayek, who was a trending Google topic last summer after Beck talked about one of his books. We are making progress! We are starting to change the conversation and even policy. I am thankful for this.

Finally, I’m thankful beyond what words can describe for the Internet and the millions who use it. Whenever I begin to lose heart, I think about the Internet. We can’t lose now because there’s this Internet, and there’s nothing the government can do about it. There’s no putting it back. A handful of technology nerds over the last half century sneezed and the whole world has caught a cold. During Mousavi’s green revolution in Iran, I was delighted to behold as an army of twenty-somethings continued to show the world via Twitter and YouTube what was happening in their country while the government frantically and futilely tried to turn off the Internet. They couldn’t do it. The Internet is the reason this is all happening. The Internet has enabled the various popular movements throughout the world to organize, disseminate their views, and shame their governments for any attempt at forcibly stopping their resistance. You can’t hide the truth any longer. Not with the Internet. And for that I am thankful.

On that note, I am thankful for the opportunity to be heard in this little corner of the Internet. I am thankful for The Silver Underground blog, the Silver Circle Movie, and all the many modern marvels that have made the 21st century the most fertile time in history for the production and promotion of independent film and other independent arts. I am thankful for all the readers and commenters in this robust, anti-Fed, art-loving online community. Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Be thankful. Be vigilant. But don’t worry. Be happy.

Don’t forget to visit our official website for Silver Circle: http://SilverCircleMovie.com