s the U.S. dollar was in days of yore when it was backed by gold. The message is that you, as an individual gifted with a human brain, can do a whole lot to lead a prosperous, happy life even as your lemming neighbors insist on following evil, ignorant, and/or confused politicians and “good cause” advocates over the Cuckoo Cliffs.

I recall an acquaintance of mine in the early eighties, after reading some of my dire prognoses for the future of Western civilization, saying to me, “What’s the point in trying to make money or striving to achieve if there is no hope for Western civilization?” He felt nothing but despair as a result of the plethora of so-called doom-and-gloom books that were on the market at the time.

From Harry Browne’s How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation to Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing to Gary North’s newsletter Remnant Review, the truth was pretty ugly. But the average person simply did not want to believe that the collapse of Western civilization was as imminent as so many “extremists” were predicting.

And they were right. Western civilization did not collapse

If you’re familiar with my works, you know that I’m a proponent of embracing change through action. Homeostasis, the tendency to live with existing conditions and avoid change, is a curse that paralyzes a majority of the human race.

While it’s true that we live in a rapidly changing world, it’s important to recognize that the daily changes we witness are changes in form only. The real substance of our universe, and thus of life itself, is comprised of universal principles. These universal principles, also known as axioms, truths, or natural laws, form the infrastructure for the stage of life on which each of us performs.

When the weather changes dramatically, as it has in the past several years, the universal principles (euphemistically referred to as “science”) that cause such radical changes remain firmly in place. Likewise, the economy may change, but, no matter how much mischievous politicians try to manipulate it, the free-market principles that underlie the workings of the economy do not change one iota.

Morally superior political-action groups can create fictions such as “hate crimes” — and even pressure weak-kneed politicians into making such fictions illegal — but human nature is such that people go right on hating anyway. It’s axiomatic that a human being’s thoughts cannot be forcibly repressed.

Technology changes on a daily basis before our very eyes. However our vanity blinds us to the reality that all we are really doing is rearranging atoms. Video games and iPods aside, the laws of molecular structure are the same today as they were in prehistoric times.

This is not just an academic discussion I’m engaging in here. On the contrary, it has everything to do with how you lead your life on a day-to-day basis. Any civilized religion has built into it, at least through implication, the sanctity of universal principles. (As always, my statement is meant to include the religion of atheism.)

Universal principles are omniscient and omnipotent. Whether they are omnibenevolent is subject to debate and beyond the scope of this article. My focus here is on the importance of living your life in harmony with universal principles as the only possible way to retain your sanity in an increasingly insane world

Everyone — with the possible exception of Howard Dean, Dan Rather, and Homer Simpson — is familiar with George Santayana’s famous words, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Even a casual student of history is painfully aware that, notwithstanding how far mankind has advanced technologically, we continue to make the same mistakes today that our ancestors have made throughout history.

Sadly, when idealistic lads and lasses bid farewell to their clueless profs at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, they have learned almost nothing about the lessons of history. Worse, the pudding heads who were in charge of teaching them have likely perverted the lessons of history to ensure that these future leaders of our society will make the same mistakes as their predecessors.

The great Thomas Sowell explained it even better than Santayana when he said, “Everything is new if you are ignorant of history. That is why ideas that have failed repeatedly in centuries past reappear again, under the banner of ‘change,’ to dazzle people and sweep them off their feet.”

Which in turn is why the words of Will Durant are so painfully accurate: “It may be true ... that ‘you can’t fool all the people all the time,’ but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.” To appreciate just how true Durant’s words are, I suggest you go back and reread the fictional tale about two warring tribes on a faraway island on pages 54 and 55 of my most recent book, Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves.

How does all this relate to you and your ability to lead a full and meaningful life? To provide for your family? To achieve your most cherished goals?

Simply that if you guide your actions in accordance with what you see and hear around you — particularly on television, and most particularly on newscasts — you’re likely to spend your life in a state of waking dreams. Harry Browne, one of my earliest teachers through his insightful writings, summed up the solution more than 30 years ago in the title of his heretical book How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.

I don’t agree with everything Harry says in his book (and, perhaps presumptuously, suspect that he no longer does, either), but its basic message is still as sound as the U.S. dollar was in days of yore when it was backed by gold. The message is that you, as an individual gifted with a human brain, can do a whole lot to lead a prosperous, happy life even as your lemming neighbors insist on following evil, ignorant, and/or confused politicians and “good cause” advocates over the Cuckoo Cliffs.

I recall an acquaintance of mine in the early eighties, after reading some of my dire prognoses for the future of Western civilization, saying to me, “What’s the point in trying to make money or striving to achieve if there is no hope for Western civilization?” He felt nothing but despair as a result of the plethora of so-called doom-and-gloom books that were on the market at the time.

From Harry Browne’s How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation to Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing to Gary North’s newsletter Remnant Review, the truth was pretty ugly. But the average person simply did not want to believe that the collapse of Western civilization was as imminent as so many “extremists” were predicting.

And they were right. Western civilization did not collapse

ak-kneed politicians into making such fictions illegal — but human nature is such that people go right on hating anyway. It’s axiomatic that a human being’s thoughts cannot be forcibly repressed.

Technology changes on a daily basis before our very eyes. However our vanity blinds us to the reality that all we are really doing is rearranging atoms. Video games and iPods aside, the laws of molecular structure are the same today as they were in prehistoric times.

This is not just an academic discussion I’m engaging in here. On the contrary, it has everything to do with how you lead your life on a day-to-day basis. Any civilized religion has built into it, at least through implication, the sanctity of universal principles. (As always, my statement is meant to include the religion of atheism.)

Universal principles are omniscient and omnipotent. Whether they are omnibenevolent is subject to debate and beyond the scope of this article. My focus here is on the importance of living your life in harmony with universal principles as the only possible way to retain your sanity in an increasingly insane world

Everyone — with the possible exception of Howard Dean, Dan Rather, and Homer Simpson — is familiar with George Santayana’s famous words, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Even a casual student of history is painfully aware that, notwithstanding how far mankind has advanced technologically, we continue to make the same mistakes today that our ancestors have made throughout history.

Sadly, when idealistic lads and lasses bid farewell to their clueless profs at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, they have learned almost nothing about the lessons of history. Worse, the pudding heads who were in charge of teaching them have likely perverted the lessons of history to ensure that these future leaders of our society will make the same mistakes as their predecessors.

The great Thomas Sowell explained it even better than Santayana when he said, “Everything is new if you are ignorant of history. That is why ideas that have failed repeatedly in centuries past reappear again, under the banner of ‘change,’ to dazzle people and sweep them off their feet.”

Which in turn is why the words of Will Durant are so painfully accurate: “It may be true ... that ‘you can’t fool all the people all the time,’ but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.” To appreciate just how true Durant’s words are, I suggest you go back and reread the fictional tale about two warring tribes on a faraway island on pages 54 and 55 of my most recent book, Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves.

How does all this relate to you and your ability to lead a full and meaningful life? To provide for your family? To achieve your most cherished goals?

Simply that if you guide your actions in accordance with what you see and hear around you — particularly on television, and most particularly on newscasts — you’re likely to spend your life in a state of waking dreams. Harry Browne, one of my earliest teachers through his insightful writings, summed up the solution more than 30 years ago in the title of his heretical book How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.

I don’t agree with everything Harry says in his book (and, perhaps presumptuously, suspect that he no longer does, either), but its basic message is still as sound as the U.S. dollar was in days of yore when it was backed by gold. The message is that you, as an individual gifted with a human brain, can do a whole lot to lead a prosperous, happy life even as your lemming neighbors insist on following evil, ignorant, and/or confused politicians and “good cause” advocates over the Cuckoo Cliffs.

I recall an acquaintance of mine in the early eighties, after reading some of my dire prognoses for the future of Western civilization, saying to me, “What’s the point in trying to make money or striving to achieve if there is no hope for Western civilization?” He felt nothing but despair as a result of the plethora of so-called doom-and-gloom books that were on the market at the time.

From Harry Browne’s How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation to Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing to Gary North’s newsletter Remnant Review, the truth was pretty ugly. But the average person simply did not want to believe that the collapse of Western civilization was as imminent as so many “extremists” were predicting.

And they were right. Western civilization did not collapse

— with the possible exception of Howard Dean, Dan Rather, and Homer Simpson — is familiar with George Santayana’s famous words, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Even a casual student of history is painfully aware that, notwithstanding how far mankind has advanced technologically, we continue to make the same mistakes today that our ancestors have made throughout history.

Sadly, when idealistic lads and lasses bid farewell to their clueless profs at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, they have learned almost nothing about the lessons of history. Worse, the pudding heads who were in charge of teaching them have likely perverted the lessons of history to ensure that these future leaders of our society will make the same mistakes as their predecessors.

The great Thomas Sowell explained it even better than Santayana when he said, “Everything is new if you are ignorant of history. That is why ideas that have failed repeatedly in centuries past reappear again, under the banner of ‘change,’ to dazzle people and sweep them off their feet.”

Which in turn is why the words of Will Durant are so painfully accurate: “It may be true ... that ‘you can’t fool all the people all the time,’ but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.” To appreciate just how true Durant’s words are, I suggest you go back and reread the fictional tale about two warring tribes on a faraway island on pages 54 and 55 of my most recent book, Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves.

How does all this relate to you and your ability to lead a full and meaningful life? To provide for your family? To achieve your most cherished goals?

Simply that if you guide your actions in accordance with what you see and hear around you — particularly on television, and most particularly on newscasts — you’re likely to spend your life in a state of waking dreams. Harry Browne, one of my earliest teachers through his insightful writings, summed up the solution more than 30 years ago in the title of his heretical book How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.

I don’t agree with everything Harry says in his book (and, perhaps presumptuously, suspect that he no longer does, either), but its basic message is still as sound as the U.S. dollar was in days of yore when it was backed by gold. The message is that you, as an individual gifted with a human brain, can do a whole lot to lead a prosperous, happy life even as your lemming neighbors insist on following evil, ignorant, and/or confused politicians and “good cause” advocates over the Cuckoo Cliffs.

I recall an acquaintance of mine in the early eighties, after reading some of my dire prognoses for the future of Western civilization, saying to me, “What’s the point in trying to make money or striving to achieve if there is no hope for Western civilization?” He felt nothing but despair as a result of the plethora of so-called doom-and-gloom books that were on the market at the time.

From Harry Browne’s How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation to Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing to Gary North’s newsletter Remnant Review, the truth was pretty ugly. But the average person simply did not want to believe that the collapse of Western civilization was as imminent as so many “extremists” were predicting.

And they were right. Western civilization did not collapse

ully accurate: “It may be true ... that ‘you can’t fool all the people all the time,’ but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.” To appreciate just how true Durant’s words are, I suggest you go back and reread the fictional tale about two warring tribes on a faraway island on pages 54 and 55 of my most recent book, Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves.

How does all this relate to you and your ability to lead a full and meaningful life? To provide for your family? To achieve your most cherished goals?

Simply that if you guide your actions in accordance with what you see and hear around you — particularly on television, and most particularly on newscasts — you’re likely to spend your life in a state of waking dreams. Harry Browne, one of my earliest teachers through his insightful writings, summed up the solution more than 30 years ago in the title of his heretical book How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.

I don’t agree with everything Harry says in his book (and, perhaps presumptuously, suspect that he no longer does, either), but its basic message is still as sound as the U.S. dollar was in days of yore when it was backed by gold. The message is that you, as an individual gifted with a human brain, can do a whole lot to lead a prosperous, happy life even as your lemming neighbors insist on following evil, ignorant, and/or confused politicians and “good cause” advocates over the Cuckoo Cliffs.

I recall an acquaintance of mine in the early eighties, after reading some of my dire prognoses for the future of Western civilization, saying to me, “What’s the point in trying to make money or striving to achieve if there is no hope for Western civilization?” He felt nothing but despair as a result of the plethora of so-called doom-and-gloom books that were on the market at the time.

From Harry Browne’s How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation to Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing to Gary North’s newsletter Remnant Review, the truth was pretty ugly. But the average person simply did not want to believe that the collapse of Western civilization was as imminent as so many “extremists” were predicting.

And they were right. Western civilization did not collapse

s the U.S. dollar was in days of yore when it was backed by gold. The message is that you, as an individual gifted with a human brain, can do a whole lot to lead a prosperous, happy life even as your lemming neighbors insist on following evil, ignorant, and/or confused politicians and “good cause” advocates over the Cuckoo Cliffs.

I recall an acquaintance of mine in the early eighties, after reading some of my dire prognoses for the future of Western civilization, saying to me, “What’s the point in trying to make money or striving to achieve if there is no hope for Western civilization?” He felt nothing but despair as a result of the plethora of so-called doom-and-gloom books that were on the market at the time.

From Harry Browne’s How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation to Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing to Gary North’s newsletter Remnant Review, the truth was pretty ugly. But the average person simply did not want to believe that the collapse of Western civilization was as imminent as so many “extremists” were predicting.

And they were right. Western civilization did not collapse. It simply faded away through a phenomenon known as “gradualism.” An accelerating gradualism, to be sure, but gradualism nonetheless.

So, those who are awaiting the collapse of Western civilization will have a long wait, because the truth of the matter is that they’ve already missed its demise. Western civilization, as we once knew it, no longer exists. It faded away as Americans were watching “Monday Night Football,” guzzling Bud Light, and stuffing themselves with Big Macs.

They simply ignored the whole event, because to comprehend it would have required accepting truth. And most people hate truth, especially when it threatens to interfere with their daily fix of instant gratification.

Of course, the disappearance of Western civilization was easy to ignore, because it was a quiet revolution. It was, in fact, a moral revolution. And it was the success of that moral revolution that was the real cause of the disappearance of Western civilization.

However, the financial ruin of the U.S. does not equate to the end of time. On the contrary, sober-minded individuals can profit even during bad economic periods. Still, I don’t make flat-out predictions about coming events, because there are far too many intricacies to know precisely what the future holds.

There are five factors that make it impossible to predict the future, and it is these five factors that allow politicians and their sign-pumping cheerleaders to carry on long after the inevitable results of their actions should have already come to pass. Three of these factors have always existed: government guns, government printing presses, and the ignorance of the masses.

The fourth and fifth, however, are relatively new. They are modern technology and virtually unlimited borrowing. So long as a guy can spend more than his already artificially inflated income can buy, he can live in a nice house, drive a new car, and surround himself with electronic gadgets that are the equivalent of Aldous Huxley’s somas in his classic novel Brave New World.

Technology is the politician’s ace in the hole, because, as the late Bennett Cerf, one-time president of Random House Inc., once purportedly said to Nathaniel Brandon, “You have to throw the masses a piece of red meat once in a while or they’ll kill you.” (Let’s call that a paraphrase, because I don’t have quick access to the book — My Years with Ayn Rand — from whence the quote came, but I am confident that my words are pretty close.)

To be sure, the masses do want red meat. Marie Antoinette suggested cake, and discovered that her joke wasn’t appreciated. A lack of red meat also prompted the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. And the masses aren’t averse to rising up against anyone or anything else that threatens to keep them from their red meat.

Of course, red meat now comes in the form of electronic toys — mostly from China, Japan, and India. Keep the electronic toys coming, keep the borrowing channels open, and who knows how long the inevitable can be postponed?

So, you should neither try to predict the future nor let the madness of the crowd discourage you. Instead, relentlessly focus on the infrastructure of life —universal principles — and take actions accordingly. This is the secret to finding freedom — and happiness — in an unfree world, because universal principles will never fail to support you over the long term.

Old Charlie Dickens was right on target clear back in 1859 when he said, in the very first (and very long) sentence of his classic work A Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

In other words, it was pretty much like any other time.

The same can be said of today. As I pointed out in Action!, crises come and go, but only one time in history is the world going to come to an end — and you won’t be around to remember it. That said, make it a point to spend most of your time on those things o