A friend of mine recently wrote that there is no such thing as the “common good”, that the idea has no cognitive meaning. He argued that a society is a collection of individuals each with his own idea of what is “good”, each pursuing life according to his or her judgments and values. Fostering the common good, as government today claims to do, means that the interests of some individuals are to be sacrificed to the interests of others; an idea that requires coercion by the government.
You cannot argue that government re-distribution is really best for the public. There are no facts to support such a view, no examples in history to prove it. What is good for one group of citizens may actually be bad for another. In fact, an argument can be made that this does not result in any good at all if we look at the results of re-distribution in the many failed societies that have tried the idea. It is impossible to measure such a good and, as my friend says, the idea is cognitively meaningless. There is no such thing as a public good.
I agree with these points, but there is a “sense” in which the term “common good” has a real meaning; and I think this is the sense the Founders meant when they used the term in our founding documents. A case can be made that the Founders thought government promotes the "common good" only by protecting individual rights; in other words, it did not get in the way of the individual’s pursuit of his own happiness and this created a common good, a condition of society that was good for all citizens individually. For those who had succeeded, no one would take their wealth. For those yet to succeed, no one would stop them, and for those who had failed, the possibility of success was still open if they worked hard. So, in this sense, cognitively, the common good is a smoothly running peaceful society based on individual rights.
To support this idea, you must understand that the Founders lived it. They were steeped in their own local communities and they had learned first hand the difference between tyranny and freedom. These ideas didn't just spring up from the Enlightenment alone; they sprang up among these thousands of people living in the wilderness and small communities, many of whom came here to escape tyranny, and who learned to love the freedom found in that wilderness. When they came together to fight for freedom, they already agreed on many of these ideas. It rang true to them from experience.
They would not have used such a term as the “common good” lightly without giving it a lot of thought. They labored over the words in their founding documents and they debated them vigorously. And their experiences made them much more intellectual than we might think. They were thinkers and doers and they experienced first hand the success that comes from living and thinking freely. I think their other statements and their willingness to fight for freedom confirm this view of the common good; a view that is 100% removed from that which is presented by progressives and statists of many varieties. Had the founders thought the term held within it any tinge of sacrificing for the sake of others, they would not have used it. It was completely outside their experience to see the term used in that way.
Their slogan “Don’t Tread on Me” says it well. Collectivists they were not.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
A Lesson from My Father
When I was a child, we were a struggling family. While moving to Indianapolis in the early 1950s, we stopped at a roadside market and my father bought the first bottle of Dr. Pepper that I had ever seen. It was a big shiny glass bottle holding a strange looking black liquid. There were 4 of us, me, my two brothers and my sister. As he handed it to me, he told us to share the bottle. My first sip of Dr. Pepper woke me up to the wonders that could be found in a market.
Since that time 58 years ago, Dr. Pepper has been my favorite drink and for many years while growing up I yearned to buy my own bottle that I would not have to share. It happened when I got my first paper route. With that first money I had earned I bought myself a cheap bronze horse...my very first possession(that I still have)...and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. It was exquisite.
Since then, I've drank thousands of bottles/cans of Dr. Pepper and I must admit, that strange taste does not amaze me today as it did with that first bottle. With time, familiarity, age and perhaps a different formula, Dr. Pepper does not give me the amazing experience I felt with that first sip. That was a moment of catharsis for me, an epiphany that brought an explosion of taste to my 4-year old brain, an awakening, almost a religious experience. It was a wonderful day that I'll never forget.
Yesterday, President Obama was shopping in a store with his daughters. He asked them if they wanted anything and one of his children asked for a pack of chewing gum. He asked the other daughter if she wanted anything and she said she wanted a pack also. He bought one pack and told them they had to share. What was the point of two daughters of a wealthy man having to share a simple pack of chewing gum? To teach them to share with each other; to teach them that as individuals they were unimportant; but as sisters they were part of something bigger.
Was my father trying to teach us to be kind to each other when he insisted that we share the bottle of Dr. Pepper? No, he could not afford to buy us each a bottle of our own. It was not a lesson in sharing, it was not a guideline to follow for the rest of our lives...he simply could not afford it. I took no lesson from it and I don't fault my father. In fact, it was very loving of him to buy us this wonderful, delicious liquid that we HAD to share.
Obama's lesson is a different lesson from that taught by my father. My father wanted to simply quench our thirst with a delicious drink...and in the process he taught us that there are more pleasures in life than mere water. Inadvertently, he taught us about enjoying our sense experiences. Obama, on the other hand, forces his daughters to share in order to ensure that they cannot each enjoy a full pack of gum. They have been forced to comply with a moral idea of sharing when there is absolutely no reason that they should have to share. He is punishing them for being wealthy.
The real lesson in these two examples(I think)is that people don't share out of kindness; they share out of need; but being needy is not a condition to which we should aspire, nor is sharing a moral imperative. Sometimes there is simply no reason to share and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it is fully moral to let a child enjoy a full pack of gum or drink their own bottle of Dr. Pepper. If you have the means to buy a full pack of gum then you should proudly buy a full pack of gum.
To a great extent, however, Obama is acting his own version of 'the father' for the whole nation. He is telling us all to share; pretending to be the moral authority who will force us to live as equals in his version of a Marxist community where all will sacrifice to all and each will share equally in the poverty that will result. He is the community organizer of the largest community project every enacted in the history of our country. And he fully intends to make sure that, one way or another, we are all enlisted in his version of community service; a community without individuals, a community where each person is evaluated according to how hard he works for others, a community where everyone is leveled to the condition of poverty.
In spite of this, I still don't agree that he should start with his own daughters. It is a bad lesson for everybody.
If we are to save our society; if we are to defeat the advance of the brutal dictatorship that looms closer; if we are to ensure the survival of our way of life, of our freedoms, of our Constitution and of our right to make it on our own, we must challenge at every step the idea that it is a moral imperative that we 'share' our production. We must expose this false ideal as nothing more than what it is: a conman's effort to steal everything we have created. The productive citizen must fight for his right to be productive and to be free of governmental intrusions - no matter how nicely such intrusions are propagated and no matter how softly they are advanced. Obama is not our father and we are not his children. He may talk about trying to help people but I suggest that, if this is his goal, he do it out of the royalties from his books...not from our hard earned work, not with our properties that do not belong to him. The idea that we must share our productive results is the very idea that will bring the jackboots, the rifle butts and the bullets to our doorsteps. It is time to take a stand against the impractical and futile effort to turn us into our brother's keepers. We must insist on the sovereignty of the individual...as a matter of right.
By the way, I think I had the better father. Thanks, Dad.
Since that time 58 years ago, Dr. Pepper has been my favorite drink and for many years while growing up I yearned to buy my own bottle that I would not have to share. It happened when I got my first paper route. With that first money I had earned I bought myself a cheap bronze horse...my very first possession(that I still have)...and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. It was exquisite.
Since then, I've drank thousands of bottles/cans of Dr. Pepper and I must admit, that strange taste does not amaze me today as it did with that first bottle. With time, familiarity, age and perhaps a different formula, Dr. Pepper does not give me the amazing experience I felt with that first sip. That was a moment of catharsis for me, an epiphany that brought an explosion of taste to my 4-year old brain, an awakening, almost a religious experience. It was a wonderful day that I'll never forget.
Yesterday, President Obama was shopping in a store with his daughters. He asked them if they wanted anything and one of his children asked for a pack of chewing gum. He asked the other daughter if she wanted anything and she said she wanted a pack also. He bought one pack and told them they had to share. What was the point of two daughters of a wealthy man having to share a simple pack of chewing gum? To teach them to share with each other; to teach them that as individuals they were unimportant; but as sisters they were part of something bigger.
Was my father trying to teach us to be kind to each other when he insisted that we share the bottle of Dr. Pepper? No, he could not afford to buy us each a bottle of our own. It was not a lesson in sharing, it was not a guideline to follow for the rest of our lives...he simply could not afford it. I took no lesson from it and I don't fault my father. In fact, it was very loving of him to buy us this wonderful, delicious liquid that we HAD to share.
Obama's lesson is a different lesson from that taught by my father. My father wanted to simply quench our thirst with a delicious drink...and in the process he taught us that there are more pleasures in life than mere water. Inadvertently, he taught us about enjoying our sense experiences. Obama, on the other hand, forces his daughters to share in order to ensure that they cannot each enjoy a full pack of gum. They have been forced to comply with a moral idea of sharing when there is absolutely no reason that they should have to share. He is punishing them for being wealthy.
The real lesson in these two examples(I think)is that people don't share out of kindness; they share out of need; but being needy is not a condition to which we should aspire, nor is sharing a moral imperative. Sometimes there is simply no reason to share and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it is fully moral to let a child enjoy a full pack of gum or drink their own bottle of Dr. Pepper. If you have the means to buy a full pack of gum then you should proudly buy a full pack of gum.
To a great extent, however, Obama is acting his own version of 'the father' for the whole nation. He is telling us all to share; pretending to be the moral authority who will force us to live as equals in his version of a Marxist community where all will sacrifice to all and each will share equally in the poverty that will result. He is the community organizer of the largest community project every enacted in the history of our country. And he fully intends to make sure that, one way or another, we are all enlisted in his version of community service; a community without individuals, a community where each person is evaluated according to how hard he works for others, a community where everyone is leveled to the condition of poverty.
In spite of this, I still don't agree that he should start with his own daughters. It is a bad lesson for everybody.
If we are to save our society; if we are to defeat the advance of the brutal dictatorship that looms closer; if we are to ensure the survival of our way of life, of our freedoms, of our Constitution and of our right to make it on our own, we must challenge at every step the idea that it is a moral imperative that we 'share' our production. We must expose this false ideal as nothing more than what it is: a conman's effort to steal everything we have created. The productive citizen must fight for his right to be productive and to be free of governmental intrusions - no matter how nicely such intrusions are propagated and no matter how softly they are advanced. Obama is not our father and we are not his children. He may talk about trying to help people but I suggest that, if this is his goal, he do it out of the royalties from his books...not from our hard earned work, not with our properties that do not belong to him. The idea that we must share our productive results is the very idea that will bring the jackboots, the rifle butts and the bullets to our doorsteps. It is time to take a stand against the impractical and futile effort to turn us into our brother's keepers. We must insist on the sovereignty of the individual...as a matter of right.
By the way, I think I had the better father. Thanks, Dad.
Friday, August 28, 2009
The Case for Boycotts
You might think that street protests and economic boycotts are the province of the left and/or union agitators; but that is not the case. The first major protest in our country was itself a form of boycott.
Wikipedia:
“The Boston Tea Party was a direct action protest by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and has often been referenced in other political protests.
The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. He apparently did not expect that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature in which they were not directly represented.”(1)
Returning taxed tea to Britain was a means of boycott. American colonists had refused to purchase tea whose taxing by Britain represented a coercive act with which they disagreed.
Yet, the Boston Tea Party protesters took their boycott even further. Since the Royal Governor refused to return the tea to Britain, it was dumped into the Boston Harbor in an even more overt type of boycott.
As Wikipedia points out, there were other protests in the colonies. One of those protests had a surprising author. The sitting Governor of Virginia, upset at the revolutionary fervor of the Virginia House of Burgesses over the Stamp Act, decided to cancel the assembly. Thus duly cancelled the representatives, including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Washington and Henry Lee, decided it was time to act against the Crown.
I’ll let Alf J. Mapp, Jr. describe the event:
George Washington advanced a plan that “called for the organization of associations whose members would be pledged to import no British goods except a few specified necessities.”(2)
Needless to say, the purpose of the plan, which would cause great hardship to the people of Virginia, was to hit the Crown where it hurt and let them know that the colonists did not do business with a dictator.
Today the Tea Party protesters and other leaders of their movement have been the victims of boycotts by leftists who are trying to silence our voices. And there are businesses working to profit from the massive spending of our tax dollars by the Obama administration.
It is time to do more than make signs, participate in town halls and march on State Houses. It is time to hit the left where it hurts. The Tea Party protesters are the only group that can mount effective boycotts because we are the most productive sector of our economy. We still work, we still earn money and we can direct our money into areas that promote free markets and freedom of expression. Why should we finance our enemies through our purchases?
Below is a list of company types that are ripe to be defeated by effective boycotts.
1. Companies whose owners have given substantial contributions to far left organizations. These people make huge profits by means of “insider” information gotten from the government and by means of being given the “privelige” to participate in the planning of government boondoggles and other forms of re-distribution (theft). They have donated to leftist causes and leftist politicians. Why are we buying their hedge fund services, their insurance policies and their products? Why should we give them the money they need to erode our freedoms? Why do we donate to their foundations that fund anti-capitalism in the universities and government?
2. Far left organizations. These organizations need to be exposed – especially in the area of where they get their money. They should be ostracized and their protests should be protested.
3. Companies openly seeking to “partner” with the government in the hope of gaining significant business from government programs, expenditures, grants or other contracts. There are many companies in bed with the government in the hopes of cornering markets. These companies are seeking to beat their competition by using political campaign contributions, advocating government programs and paying lobbyists to represent their interests. Many of the jobs they will create will go to friends of the left and will result in a waste of money.
4. Labor unions are seeking to muscle in on capitalism and they have paid dearly for a favored status with the government. They seek to use the government to protect them while they shake down and extort millions in the forms of union dues, high wages and unfair rules that tie the hands of private firms.
5. Companies that join in boycotts of Tea Party members, authors, private citizens and/or public speakers. Whenever a company buys the line of the far left and pulls advertising and support from people like Glenn Beck, they should in turn be boycotted.
There are other forms of boycott. The association suggested by George Washington is a way of organizing boycotts and other forms of resistance. In addition, petitions, letters to the editors, letters and phone calls to elected representatives and to the heads of corrupt businesses can improve the effectiveness of boycotts. We also need journalists who are willing to stand up for truth by exposing the corrupt and often illegal practices that are being engaged by many people in government today. If they look closely enough they will find bribery, threat, extortion, insider trading, shady deals and oligarchy at the heart of our government. These practices need to be exposed to the light of day. Who has the courage to do this?
Tea Party protesters should put their money to work helping to create a free society. We cannot support with our hard earned dollars companies that are part of the problem. We should not work for or buy the products of companies and organizations that have declared war on the American way of life. This includes the White House, Congress, so-called community organizations, Far-Left Foundations and favor-seeking corporations.
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
(2)Thomas Jefferson by Alf J. Mapp, Jr. Madison Books
Wikipedia:
“The Boston Tea Party was a direct action protest by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and has often been referenced in other political protests.
The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. He apparently did not expect that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature in which they were not directly represented.”(1)
Returning taxed tea to Britain was a means of boycott. American colonists had refused to purchase tea whose taxing by Britain represented a coercive act with which they disagreed.
Yet, the Boston Tea Party protesters took their boycott even further. Since the Royal Governor refused to return the tea to Britain, it was dumped into the Boston Harbor in an even more overt type of boycott.
As Wikipedia points out, there were other protests in the colonies. One of those protests had a surprising author. The sitting Governor of Virginia, upset at the revolutionary fervor of the Virginia House of Burgesses over the Stamp Act, decided to cancel the assembly. Thus duly cancelled the representatives, including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Washington and Henry Lee, decided it was time to act against the Crown.
I’ll let Alf J. Mapp, Jr. describe the event:
George Washington advanced a plan that “called for the organization of associations whose members would be pledged to import no British goods except a few specified necessities.”(2)
Needless to say, the purpose of the plan, which would cause great hardship to the people of Virginia, was to hit the Crown where it hurt and let them know that the colonists did not do business with a dictator.
Today the Tea Party protesters and other leaders of their movement have been the victims of boycotts by leftists who are trying to silence our voices. And there are businesses working to profit from the massive spending of our tax dollars by the Obama administration.
It is time to do more than make signs, participate in town halls and march on State Houses. It is time to hit the left where it hurts. The Tea Party protesters are the only group that can mount effective boycotts because we are the most productive sector of our economy. We still work, we still earn money and we can direct our money into areas that promote free markets and freedom of expression. Why should we finance our enemies through our purchases?
Below is a list of company types that are ripe to be defeated by effective boycotts.
1. Companies whose owners have given substantial contributions to far left organizations. These people make huge profits by means of “insider” information gotten from the government and by means of being given the “privelige” to participate in the planning of government boondoggles and other forms of re-distribution (theft). They have donated to leftist causes and leftist politicians. Why are we buying their hedge fund services, their insurance policies and their products? Why should we give them the money they need to erode our freedoms? Why do we donate to their foundations that fund anti-capitalism in the universities and government?
2. Far left organizations. These organizations need to be exposed – especially in the area of where they get their money. They should be ostracized and their protests should be protested.
3. Companies openly seeking to “partner” with the government in the hope of gaining significant business from government programs, expenditures, grants or other contracts. There are many companies in bed with the government in the hopes of cornering markets. These companies are seeking to beat their competition by using political campaign contributions, advocating government programs and paying lobbyists to represent their interests. Many of the jobs they will create will go to friends of the left and will result in a waste of money.
4. Labor unions are seeking to muscle in on capitalism and they have paid dearly for a favored status with the government. They seek to use the government to protect them while they shake down and extort millions in the forms of union dues, high wages and unfair rules that tie the hands of private firms.
5. Companies that join in boycotts of Tea Party members, authors, private citizens and/or public speakers. Whenever a company buys the line of the far left and pulls advertising and support from people like Glenn Beck, they should in turn be boycotted.
There are other forms of boycott. The association suggested by George Washington is a way of organizing boycotts and other forms of resistance. In addition, petitions, letters to the editors, letters and phone calls to elected representatives and to the heads of corrupt businesses can improve the effectiveness of boycotts. We also need journalists who are willing to stand up for truth by exposing the corrupt and often illegal practices that are being engaged by many people in government today. If they look closely enough they will find bribery, threat, extortion, insider trading, shady deals and oligarchy at the heart of our government. These practices need to be exposed to the light of day. Who has the courage to do this?
Tea Party protesters should put their money to work helping to create a free society. We cannot support with our hard earned dollars companies that are part of the problem. We should not work for or buy the products of companies and organizations that have declared war on the American way of life. This includes the White House, Congress, so-called community organizations, Far-Left Foundations and favor-seeking corporations.
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
(2)Thomas Jefferson by Alf J. Mapp, Jr. Madison Books
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Michael Steele doesn't get it!
Mr. Steele, today I read the following words in the Washtington Post:
"Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care."(1)
At a time when our country is falling into a socialist abyss; when the real "Bill of Rights" is being trampled with impunity; when the word "massive" cannot adequately describe the level of spending undertaken by our government; when this outlandish level of spending threatens a collapse of the dollar and a collapse of the world economy, you have decided to cavalierly pander to Seniors. At a time when the survival of our way of life is in doubt, when economic depression and starvation are looming over the horizon, you have proven that Republicans cannot save the country.
How do you expect Americans to understand the difference between an unalienable right and a political promise when you use language so loosely? How can you re-establish Constitutional protections and save this country from Socialism when you diminish the meaning of the term "rights"? A "Bill of Rights" should refer only to unalienable rights, natural rights, rights derived from nature, not rights that some politician just makes up to score political points. When you consider the care and precision with which the Founders attempted to install the real Bill of Rights as a fundamental American institution, your use of the term is reprehensible, an insult to the Founders and our country.
Your use of the term "Bill of Rights" on the issue of Healh Care makes it more difficult for people to distinguish between unalienable rights and politically made up rights. Your improper use of these "foundational" words proves that you don't get it; that you are just another socialist me tooer. In fact, you inadvertently encourage the Democrats to come up with all kinds of other idiotic "rights" that are not derived from nature.
Apparently you think you can co-opt the Democrats by using terms they have tried to corrupt. This approach is a formula for political disaster that not only affects your ability to elect Republicans but also harms our country terribly. The only thing you are co-opting is the proper meaning of the term. Please study history. Roosevelt already tried to create an economic "bill of rights" that Republicans correctly criticized for not referring to unalienable rights. FDR tried to steal the power of the enumerated rights protected by the Constitution through these false economic rights. No one should ever use a term such as "Bill of Rights" over an issue like health care because health care is not a right.
You have no sense of history, no sense of how to use the language of freedom; no sense of how to preserve unalienable rights and you have proven that you cannot beat the Democrats. I'm glad I protested against you in the streets when you spoke in Indianapolis.
(1) Protecting Our Seniors by Michael Steele, Chairman of the RNC, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/23/AR2009082302036.html
"Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care."(1)
At a time when our country is falling into a socialist abyss; when the real "Bill of Rights" is being trampled with impunity; when the word "massive" cannot adequately describe the level of spending undertaken by our government; when this outlandish level of spending threatens a collapse of the dollar and a collapse of the world economy, you have decided to cavalierly pander to Seniors. At a time when the survival of our way of life is in doubt, when economic depression and starvation are looming over the horizon, you have proven that Republicans cannot save the country.
How do you expect Americans to understand the difference between an unalienable right and a political promise when you use language so loosely? How can you re-establish Constitutional protections and save this country from Socialism when you diminish the meaning of the term "rights"? A "Bill of Rights" should refer only to unalienable rights, natural rights, rights derived from nature, not rights that some politician just makes up to score political points. When you consider the care and precision with which the Founders attempted to install the real Bill of Rights as a fundamental American institution, your use of the term is reprehensible, an insult to the Founders and our country.
Your use of the term "Bill of Rights" on the issue of Healh Care makes it more difficult for people to distinguish between unalienable rights and politically made up rights. Your improper use of these "foundational" words proves that you don't get it; that you are just another socialist me tooer. In fact, you inadvertently encourage the Democrats to come up with all kinds of other idiotic "rights" that are not derived from nature.
Apparently you think you can co-opt the Democrats by using terms they have tried to corrupt. This approach is a formula for political disaster that not only affects your ability to elect Republicans but also harms our country terribly. The only thing you are co-opting is the proper meaning of the term. Please study history. Roosevelt already tried to create an economic "bill of rights" that Republicans correctly criticized for not referring to unalienable rights. FDR tried to steal the power of the enumerated rights protected by the Constitution through these false economic rights. No one should ever use a term such as "Bill of Rights" over an issue like health care because health care is not a right.
You have no sense of history, no sense of how to use the language of freedom; no sense of how to preserve unalienable rights and you have proven that you cannot beat the Democrats. I'm glad I protested against you in the streets when you spoke in Indianapolis.
(1) Protecting Our Seniors by Michael Steele, Chairman of the RNC, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/23/AR2009082302036.html
Monday, August 24, 2009
The "Inevitable" Victory of Socialism
There has never been a time for our generation when war was not a constant threat. Today we may be ending one war while we are in the throes of another in Afghanistan that may take years to win. The cause of these two wars is not the United States but dictatorship. In Iraq, we had a dictatorship that openly sought to weaken the USA. Saddam supported terrorists and financed attacks against Israel. He was taken out by the freest country in the world. Yet, we were wrong, says the left, when we sought to depose Saddam.
In Afghanistan, we are fighting a brutal gang known as the Taliban; a group that gave refuge to Al Queda and Osama bin Ladin. The Taliban refused to help the United States bring these terrorists to justice so they were removed from power by the militaries of freer nations. This is a just war, we are told by the left, because we are trying to kill bin Ladin. Today, the Taliban continue their fight as they vie to restore their brutal domination over the country.
The key question, however, is what made Iraq a wrong war and what makes Afghanistan a right war? The real answer is that Iraq was engaged by a Republican administration and Afghanistan is supported by Democrats. This means that only Democrats have the right to engage in wars and Republican wars are to be used to politically disenfranchise Republicans. Simply put the Democrats consider any military move they make to be part of their inevitable victory over capitalism. It is part of the dialectical process that the left rules the future. According to this process, the left can't be wrong; the right is always wrong.
Yet, most governments during the last century have been statist (and leftist) in nature and it is hard for us to recognize the most common cause of war; most often, wars are started by authoritarian governments over weaker or freer countries. Wars are started by anti-capitalism.
The representatives of authoritarian governments gain credibility when they posture as defenders of peace while criticizing the United States as a warlike nation. It is a common scam that has been run by countless dictators from the Soviets to the Taliban. Blame the United States for being a war monger and you can thereby make war against the United States without having to actually declare war. How do they get away with it? They believe they rule the future. It is part of an inevitable historical process.
The question is: why were most of the wars of the last two centuries started by dictatorships or authoritarian governments? The best way to understand this is by analyzing the types of governments that start wars and the types that are warred upon.
For instance, why would a country that has open trade with the world want to go to war? As long as free markets prevail there is every incentive for peace. Free people want to make a profit and they can’t make a profit if their customers or suppliers are dead. On the other hand, a government that keeps a cold hand on the activities of its citizens, that wants to muscle in on the profits of businesses, will find every reason to restrict free trade and dishonor other countries. One such type of government is called an oligarchy where rich families use the government to control major industries and restrict free competition. These governments covet other resource-rich territories because they want to monopolize those resources and charge prices above the level of the free market. If they can corner the markets for such resources as oil, minerals, diamonds, etc., they can charge exorbitant prices and make millions. They instigate wars so they can add these countries to their control. Such oligarchs divide the country into two factions: 1) their friends and 2) the impoverished and neglected masses. Within their countries they fight a constant war against the citizens, and outside their countries, they fight constant wars against the citizens of other countries.
Understanding the cause of wars today is difficult because of the influence of Marxism. This philosophy seeks to mask the need of socialist countries for plunder by claiming to fight for the supposed “victims” of capitalism. Using doublespeak and the Big Lie, they convince people that capitalist production is theft. American college professors are routinely teaching college students from around the world that wars are caused by capitalism. Routinely, they tell us that capitalist countries have a penchant for captured markets and resource theft. It is typical of the left to accuse the opposition of doing the very things the left is doing.
How do they get away with teaching these lies? Early Marxists created the perfect scam to convince people that there was indeed something evil about capitalism. It is called the dialectical process or dialectical materialism which was a mystical assertion that capitalism was the thesis that was being replaced by the antithesis which is socialism. This idea of an inevitable historical process that would cause the replacement of capitalism by socialism was not to be doubted, they told us, and, they claim, there is no reason to fight it; instead we should hurry the process along. This is the perfect way to convince people that they have no choice about the coming socialism. Educate the people about the inevitability of socialism and you destroy opposition to socialism.
In fact, the "change" that Obama promises, according to this theory, is the road to the next step of the dialectical process. Change is the new term that will usher in the socialist antithesis to capitalism.
Over the last several decades, however, something seems to have gone wrong with the dialectical process. For some reason, socialism has not yet replaced capitalism. Since the big war, Marxists such as Herbert Marcuse and others have been frustrated that the dialectical process did not work as they had thought it would. To explain this failure, they assert that "reactionary" forces, strengthened by the economic power of the capitalist countries, have tempted the masses away from communism with products that improved their lives...created by mass production and mass marketing (This is why the Marxists (environmentalists and others) are always trying to stop industrial progress and why they hate Madison Avenue). Further, according to this view, the capitalist military industrial complex has built massive weapons that have kept the socialist axis at bay. For them, only something as evil and powerful as capitalism could thwart the efforts of the “good” people (murderous dictators) seeking to stop dastardly “exploitation” of the workers. It seems the masses under capitalism aren’t smart enough to understand they have been duped into thinking they are really happy. Capitalism has supposedly created an artificial form of happiness through material acquisition of goods and leisure. It is all a lie, they tell us, and we should instead choose the happiness (drudgery) of a collective existence in a non-industrial socialist state.
For the Marxists, the reason that socialism could not defeat capitalism was the power of capitalism; which is strange since their theory had said unequivocally that it would collapse of its own weight. Rather than admit they were wrong about this mysterious and inevitable historical process, they clung to their guns and old time Marxist religion. Even after the collapse of the socialist state of all socialist states, they retrenched and plotted the destruction of capitalism by their own hands. Their new goal is to cause capitalism to collapse by stressing it with socialist programs, false charges of Imperialism, apologies to the world for keeping it safe and free, reduced military expenditures and ginned up scandals. The administration that promised unprecedented transparency is keeping its promise by being transparent only about its political enemies.
Don't you think it is curious that the Obama administration never discusses dialectical materialism or even Marx or Hegel, yet it is operating on the basis of Marxism? Implicit in everything they do is the idea that socialism is the next form of government for us...while they tell us that it is not really socialism. These guys came out of Columbia University, for God's sake. What else do you expect?
The problem for the Marxists is that the dialectical process, because it is a false idea accepted without proof, will not create a successful socialist state...it will do what it has always done...create economic decline and slavery. It will bring us back to barbarism by destroying the only bulwarks ever invented against dictatorship: individual rights and limited government.
There is only one spark of hope on the horizon. The Tea Parties will save America because we have the power to stop the advance of socialism...we can make them stop all the spending that would collapse our economy. We can say “No” because our production fills the money bags they need in order to rob us of our freedom and dignity. We can insist that they create no more entitlement programs, no more social engineering programs, no more ACORN, SEIU, Americorps, no more lies and hate. The Tea Party protesters are the only people who know that our choices going forward are either socialism or freedom; either the rule of the gun or the rule of the free trade and peace. There is no middle way...not any more.
This is why everyone who can possibly make it to DC in September should go. We've got to get the message across loudly and clearly.
In Afghanistan, we are fighting a brutal gang known as the Taliban; a group that gave refuge to Al Queda and Osama bin Ladin. The Taliban refused to help the United States bring these terrorists to justice so they were removed from power by the militaries of freer nations. This is a just war, we are told by the left, because we are trying to kill bin Ladin. Today, the Taliban continue their fight as they vie to restore their brutal domination over the country.
The key question, however, is what made Iraq a wrong war and what makes Afghanistan a right war? The real answer is that Iraq was engaged by a Republican administration and Afghanistan is supported by Democrats. This means that only Democrats have the right to engage in wars and Republican wars are to be used to politically disenfranchise Republicans. Simply put the Democrats consider any military move they make to be part of their inevitable victory over capitalism. It is part of the dialectical process that the left rules the future. According to this process, the left can't be wrong; the right is always wrong.
Yet, most governments during the last century have been statist (and leftist) in nature and it is hard for us to recognize the most common cause of war; most often, wars are started by authoritarian governments over weaker or freer countries. Wars are started by anti-capitalism.
The representatives of authoritarian governments gain credibility when they posture as defenders of peace while criticizing the United States as a warlike nation. It is a common scam that has been run by countless dictators from the Soviets to the Taliban. Blame the United States for being a war monger and you can thereby make war against the United States without having to actually declare war. How do they get away with it? They believe they rule the future. It is part of an inevitable historical process.
The question is: why were most of the wars of the last two centuries started by dictatorships or authoritarian governments? The best way to understand this is by analyzing the types of governments that start wars and the types that are warred upon.
For instance, why would a country that has open trade with the world want to go to war? As long as free markets prevail there is every incentive for peace. Free people want to make a profit and they can’t make a profit if their customers or suppliers are dead. On the other hand, a government that keeps a cold hand on the activities of its citizens, that wants to muscle in on the profits of businesses, will find every reason to restrict free trade and dishonor other countries. One such type of government is called an oligarchy where rich families use the government to control major industries and restrict free competition. These governments covet other resource-rich territories because they want to monopolize those resources and charge prices above the level of the free market. If they can corner the markets for such resources as oil, minerals, diamonds, etc., they can charge exorbitant prices and make millions. They instigate wars so they can add these countries to their control. Such oligarchs divide the country into two factions: 1) their friends and 2) the impoverished and neglected masses. Within their countries they fight a constant war against the citizens, and outside their countries, they fight constant wars against the citizens of other countries.
Understanding the cause of wars today is difficult because of the influence of Marxism. This philosophy seeks to mask the need of socialist countries for plunder by claiming to fight for the supposed “victims” of capitalism. Using doublespeak and the Big Lie, they convince people that capitalist production is theft. American college professors are routinely teaching college students from around the world that wars are caused by capitalism. Routinely, they tell us that capitalist countries have a penchant for captured markets and resource theft. It is typical of the left to accuse the opposition of doing the very things the left is doing.
How do they get away with teaching these lies? Early Marxists created the perfect scam to convince people that there was indeed something evil about capitalism. It is called the dialectical process or dialectical materialism which was a mystical assertion that capitalism was the thesis that was being replaced by the antithesis which is socialism. This idea of an inevitable historical process that would cause the replacement of capitalism by socialism was not to be doubted, they told us, and, they claim, there is no reason to fight it; instead we should hurry the process along. This is the perfect way to convince people that they have no choice about the coming socialism. Educate the people about the inevitability of socialism and you destroy opposition to socialism.
In fact, the "change" that Obama promises, according to this theory, is the road to the next step of the dialectical process. Change is the new term that will usher in the socialist antithesis to capitalism.
Over the last several decades, however, something seems to have gone wrong with the dialectical process. For some reason, socialism has not yet replaced capitalism. Since the big war, Marxists such as Herbert Marcuse and others have been frustrated that the dialectical process did not work as they had thought it would. To explain this failure, they assert that "reactionary" forces, strengthened by the economic power of the capitalist countries, have tempted the masses away from communism with products that improved their lives...created by mass production and mass marketing (This is why the Marxists (environmentalists and others) are always trying to stop industrial progress and why they hate Madison Avenue). Further, according to this view, the capitalist military industrial complex has built massive weapons that have kept the socialist axis at bay. For them, only something as evil and powerful as capitalism could thwart the efforts of the “good” people (murderous dictators) seeking to stop dastardly “exploitation” of the workers. It seems the masses under capitalism aren’t smart enough to understand they have been duped into thinking they are really happy. Capitalism has supposedly created an artificial form of happiness through material acquisition of goods and leisure. It is all a lie, they tell us, and we should instead choose the happiness (drudgery) of a collective existence in a non-industrial socialist state.
For the Marxists, the reason that socialism could not defeat capitalism was the power of capitalism; which is strange since their theory had said unequivocally that it would collapse of its own weight. Rather than admit they were wrong about this mysterious and inevitable historical process, they clung to their guns and old time Marxist religion. Even after the collapse of the socialist state of all socialist states, they retrenched and plotted the destruction of capitalism by their own hands. Their new goal is to cause capitalism to collapse by stressing it with socialist programs, false charges of Imperialism, apologies to the world for keeping it safe and free, reduced military expenditures and ginned up scandals. The administration that promised unprecedented transparency is keeping its promise by being transparent only about its political enemies.
Don't you think it is curious that the Obama administration never discusses dialectical materialism or even Marx or Hegel, yet it is operating on the basis of Marxism? Implicit in everything they do is the idea that socialism is the next form of government for us...while they tell us that it is not really socialism. These guys came out of Columbia University, for God's sake. What else do you expect?
The problem for the Marxists is that the dialectical process, because it is a false idea accepted without proof, will not create a successful socialist state...it will do what it has always done...create economic decline and slavery. It will bring us back to barbarism by destroying the only bulwarks ever invented against dictatorship: individual rights and limited government.
There is only one spark of hope on the horizon. The Tea Parties will save America because we have the power to stop the advance of socialism...we can make them stop all the spending that would collapse our economy. We can say “No” because our production fills the money bags they need in order to rob us of our freedom and dignity. We can insist that they create no more entitlement programs, no more social engineering programs, no more ACORN, SEIU, Americorps, no more lies and hate. The Tea Party protesters are the only people who know that our choices going forward are either socialism or freedom; either the rule of the gun or the rule of the free trade and peace. There is no middle way...not any more.
This is why everyone who can possibly make it to DC in September should go. We've got to get the message across loudly and clearly.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Hate Speech
It is hypocritical of the left to ostracize Tea Party protesters. The language they use when criticizing this grass roots movement is vitriolic and hateful. One could say that it amounts to hate speech.
Hate speech is not new. It fits into the general category of logical fallacy called ad hominem which means to ignore the issue by personally attacking the opponent. It is like saying your opponent is wrong because he's a jerk. When the left uses it, for some reason, few in the media point out that such a tactic does not win the argument. It is nothing more than an indication that the attacker does not have an argument in the first place.
Today the Tea Party protesters are being vilified all over the media. In addition, the Obama administration is littering the streets with paid protesters from ACORN and SEIU to make it look as if the administration has broad-based support for it's health care plans. I think it is unprecedented in our country that the President of the United States now has available to him a cadre of professional protesters (supposedly representing "the people") who threaten and intimidate his political opponents. One could say that this tactic is immoral and coercive; that the government has no business using muscle to shakedown the American people. Indeed, the protesters of Obama's health care plans are innocent victims of a government that is engaged in a deliberate effort to minimize their import and correctness. This article on www.hotair.com spells it out:
“The political atmosphere crackles with charges of racism. President Obama’s functionaries and allies make dark insinuations about the racial motives behind all opposition to his agenda. Tea party protests against Big Government are portrayed as thinly veiled Klan rallies. The boycott of Glenn Beck’s TV show is based on the idea that calling a black liberal Democrat racist is, itself, an act of indefensible racism. The hilariously incompetent and biased MSNBC network was so desperate to portray town hall protesters as racists that it framed the image of a black man holding a rifle to obscure his face, then tried to pass him off as an armed white supremacist.
It’s not surprising to see desperate Democrats throw gasoline on America’s simmering racial fires, in a last-ditch effort to reverse their political fortunes. The Left believes debates are won when the other side is silenced, not when those listening to the debate are persuaded. Charges of racism would not be one of their preferred weapons, if a climate of tension didn’t exist to make them effective. Racism consistently ranks near the top of issues Americans say they are concerned about. Reducing racial tensions will require building a society that is the exact opposite of the one Barack Obama favors. No system of politics and economics is more hostile to racism than classical liberalism combined with free-market capitalism… and none provides a more fertile breeding ground for tension between races, sexes, religions, and other groups than big-government socialism.”(1)
The Democrats apparently believe that crafted imagery represents the will of the people; that “social” justice justifies the means and that hateful speech is justified if the enemy is an individual or a businessman who thinks for him or herself.
What is hate speech? Wikipedia:
“Hate speech is a term for speech that attacks or disparages a person [or] group of people based on their social or ethnic group, such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or lack there of, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, skin color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability. The term covers written as well as oral communication and some forms of behaviors in a public setting.”(2)
One must ask if the following statements are hate speech according to this definition.
Keith Olbermann: “Congratulations, Pensacola teabaggers. You got spunked. And despite the hatred on display, a few of you actually violated the penal code. But teabagging is now petered out, taint what it used to be. And when you co-opt the next holiday, Fourth of July, try to adopt a holiday food that does not invite the double entendres like, you know, franks and beans. On a more serious note, we're now joined by actor, activist Janeane Garofalo. Good to see you.”(3)
What is truly offensive here is the sexual innuendo that insults the Tea Party protesters with the term “tea bagging.” Is this not hate speech? Garofalo starts:
“You know, there's nothing more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at a speech they're not quite certain what he's saying. It sounds right and then it doesn't make sense. Which, let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks.”(4)
These kinds of statements made by anyone of any other political persuasion (than the left) would be the subject of outrage and even boycott in the public arena. Considering that hate speech involves racial statements(rednecks) and sexual statements (tea baggers), should Garofalo's words be considered hate speech? They certainly are hateful. I thought it was progressives who claim to be improving the dialogue by banning hate speech? We do mean what we say, don’t we? We do intend to practice what we preach, don’t we?
But hate speech is not just an isolated idea that hangs out there without a broader context. Hate speech requires prejudice and collectivism. Prejudice is the assignment of negative characteristics toward an individual that you presume to be part a group. With prejudice, you insult the individual as well as the group to which you claim he belongs.
To say that a Tea Party protester is a racist is a form of prejudice. And, as is all predjudice, it is false. There is absolutely no proof that the Tea Parties are based upon any racial consideration whatsoever. Furthermore, if you say that all Tea Party protesters are racists, you must include anyone who disagrees with Obama on any issue. You must certainly include liberals who disagree with Obama about Health Care. With this line of reasoning, you have destroyed all political disagreements of any kind. Obama has a blank check to do what he wants.
But we are missing the real hate here. The real enemies for the liberals are not Tea Party protesters or Republicans. The real enemy is reality. Liberals committed to the idea of “social justice” are at war with reality. Today’s progressive is insecure because, deep down in the bottom of his soul, he fears that his ideas will not work. He fears that the political opposition may actually be right when they say that central planning is an impractical idea. What his nightmares scream to him is that his idea of “social justice” is a laughing, screaming evil villain who will burn you alive if you give in to him.
These people, from Obama on down to ACORN and SEIU, have taken a massive “bold leap” into socialism; what they fear more than anything is to come face-to-face with the realization that they really don’t want a better society; that in the depths of their souls what they really want is to destroy the society that has fared so well under their hated capitalism. They need to destroy their imagined form of evil; a laughing, screaming evil businessman who wants to make a profit. They want to destroy, through manufactured imagery, manufactured majority opinion, manufactured protests and media lies, the real people who think that virtue consists of building, thinking, living, investing and enjoying life; they want to destroy the people who actually earn their living through honest work…and who don’t want to see their earnings squandered through false hopes offered by Faustian prophets.
Today’s progressive fears that the Tea Party protesters might actually have a better handle on reality than his Harvard educated heroes in the administration. After all, they are the people who actually produce the wealth that the left wants to re-distribute. They are the people who have some magical way of knowing how to survive - and the fact that they don't want to serve the collective willingly must be pretty scary for the progressive. It puts him in the precarious position of hating the very people who must willingly sacrifice for Obama's collective goals.
The left has to create a false moral equivalence between themselves and the people who want to see individual rights respected. This is where ACORN, SEIU and other sundry paid left radicals come in. This moral equivalence would give them the cover they need to cosmetically smooth over the differences between the Founding Fathers and nihilism, between builders and destroyers. As the real destroyers of civilization, the left must treat hard working Tea Party dissenters as if they were the most crudely vicious destroyers of all…and they must destroy them crudely and viciously.
But there is a problem with this strategy. Fake protest against capitalism might be a way to gain power, but what happens when you've destroyed the capitalists? Through out history the left has used protest against capitalism and the profit motive to gain power...while they destroyed the capitalists and plunged their societies into poverty. They are doing it again today through their hypocritical hate speech against the Tea Party people. This time, the capitalists, the Tea Party protesters, understand the game and they are standing up for their right to be left alone.
(1)http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/08/20/capitalism-versus-racism/
(2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
(3)http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/04/16/garofalo-tea-partiers-are-all-racists-who-hate-black-president
(4)Ibid
Hate speech is not new. It fits into the general category of logical fallacy called ad hominem which means to ignore the issue by personally attacking the opponent. It is like saying your opponent is wrong because he's a jerk. When the left uses it, for some reason, few in the media point out that such a tactic does not win the argument. It is nothing more than an indication that the attacker does not have an argument in the first place.
Today the Tea Party protesters are being vilified all over the media. In addition, the Obama administration is littering the streets with paid protesters from ACORN and SEIU to make it look as if the administration has broad-based support for it's health care plans. I think it is unprecedented in our country that the President of the United States now has available to him a cadre of professional protesters (supposedly representing "the people") who threaten and intimidate his political opponents. One could say that this tactic is immoral and coercive; that the government has no business using muscle to shakedown the American people. Indeed, the protesters of Obama's health care plans are innocent victims of a government that is engaged in a deliberate effort to minimize their import and correctness. This article on www.hotair.com spells it out:
“The political atmosphere crackles with charges of racism. President Obama’s functionaries and allies make dark insinuations about the racial motives behind all opposition to his agenda. Tea party protests against Big Government are portrayed as thinly veiled Klan rallies. The boycott of Glenn Beck’s TV show is based on the idea that calling a black liberal Democrat racist is, itself, an act of indefensible racism. The hilariously incompetent and biased MSNBC network was so desperate to portray town hall protesters as racists that it framed the image of a black man holding a rifle to obscure his face, then tried to pass him off as an armed white supremacist.
It’s not surprising to see desperate Democrats throw gasoline on America’s simmering racial fires, in a last-ditch effort to reverse their political fortunes. The Left believes debates are won when the other side is silenced, not when those listening to the debate are persuaded. Charges of racism would not be one of their preferred weapons, if a climate of tension didn’t exist to make them effective. Racism consistently ranks near the top of issues Americans say they are concerned about. Reducing racial tensions will require building a society that is the exact opposite of the one Barack Obama favors. No system of politics and economics is more hostile to racism than classical liberalism combined with free-market capitalism… and none provides a more fertile breeding ground for tension between races, sexes, religions, and other groups than big-government socialism.”(1)
The Democrats apparently believe that crafted imagery represents the will of the people; that “social” justice justifies the means and that hateful speech is justified if the enemy is an individual or a businessman who thinks for him or herself.
What is hate speech? Wikipedia:
“Hate speech is a term for speech that attacks or disparages a person [or] group of people based on their social or ethnic group, such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or lack there of, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, skin color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability. The term covers written as well as oral communication and some forms of behaviors in a public setting.”(2)
One must ask if the following statements are hate speech according to this definition.
Keith Olbermann: “Congratulations, Pensacola teabaggers. You got spunked. And despite the hatred on display, a few of you actually violated the penal code. But teabagging is now petered out, taint what it used to be. And when you co-opt the next holiday, Fourth of July, try to adopt a holiday food that does not invite the double entendres like, you know, franks and beans. On a more serious note, we're now joined by actor, activist Janeane Garofalo. Good to see you.”(3)
What is truly offensive here is the sexual innuendo that insults the Tea Party protesters with the term “tea bagging.” Is this not hate speech? Garofalo starts:
“You know, there's nothing more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at a speech they're not quite certain what he's saying. It sounds right and then it doesn't make sense. Which, let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks.”(4)
These kinds of statements made by anyone of any other political persuasion (than the left) would be the subject of outrage and even boycott in the public arena. Considering that hate speech involves racial statements(rednecks) and sexual statements (tea baggers), should Garofalo's words be considered hate speech? They certainly are hateful. I thought it was progressives who claim to be improving the dialogue by banning hate speech? We do mean what we say, don’t we? We do intend to practice what we preach, don’t we?
But hate speech is not just an isolated idea that hangs out there without a broader context. Hate speech requires prejudice and collectivism. Prejudice is the assignment of negative characteristics toward an individual that you presume to be part a group. With prejudice, you insult the individual as well as the group to which you claim he belongs.
To say that a Tea Party protester is a racist is a form of prejudice. And, as is all predjudice, it is false. There is absolutely no proof that the Tea Parties are based upon any racial consideration whatsoever. Furthermore, if you say that all Tea Party protesters are racists, you must include anyone who disagrees with Obama on any issue. You must certainly include liberals who disagree with Obama about Health Care. With this line of reasoning, you have destroyed all political disagreements of any kind. Obama has a blank check to do what he wants.
But we are missing the real hate here. The real enemies for the liberals are not Tea Party protesters or Republicans. The real enemy is reality. Liberals committed to the idea of “social justice” are at war with reality. Today’s progressive is insecure because, deep down in the bottom of his soul, he fears that his ideas will not work. He fears that the political opposition may actually be right when they say that central planning is an impractical idea. What his nightmares scream to him is that his idea of “social justice” is a laughing, screaming evil villain who will burn you alive if you give in to him.
These people, from Obama on down to ACORN and SEIU, have taken a massive “bold leap” into socialism; what they fear more than anything is to come face-to-face with the realization that they really don’t want a better society; that in the depths of their souls what they really want is to destroy the society that has fared so well under their hated capitalism. They need to destroy their imagined form of evil; a laughing, screaming evil businessman who wants to make a profit. They want to destroy, through manufactured imagery, manufactured majority opinion, manufactured protests and media lies, the real people who think that virtue consists of building, thinking, living, investing and enjoying life; they want to destroy the people who actually earn their living through honest work…and who don’t want to see their earnings squandered through false hopes offered by Faustian prophets.
Today’s progressive fears that the Tea Party protesters might actually have a better handle on reality than his Harvard educated heroes in the administration. After all, they are the people who actually produce the wealth that the left wants to re-distribute. They are the people who have some magical way of knowing how to survive - and the fact that they don't want to serve the collective willingly must be pretty scary for the progressive. It puts him in the precarious position of hating the very people who must willingly sacrifice for Obama's collective goals.
The left has to create a false moral equivalence between themselves and the people who want to see individual rights respected. This is where ACORN, SEIU and other sundry paid left radicals come in. This moral equivalence would give them the cover they need to cosmetically smooth over the differences between the Founding Fathers and nihilism, between builders and destroyers. As the real destroyers of civilization, the left must treat hard working Tea Party dissenters as if they were the most crudely vicious destroyers of all…and they must destroy them crudely and viciously.
But there is a problem with this strategy. Fake protest against capitalism might be a way to gain power, but what happens when you've destroyed the capitalists? Through out history the left has used protest against capitalism and the profit motive to gain power...while they destroyed the capitalists and plunged their societies into poverty. They are doing it again today through their hypocritical hate speech against the Tea Party people. This time, the capitalists, the Tea Party protesters, understand the game and they are standing up for their right to be left alone.
(1)http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/08/20/capitalism-versus-racism/
(2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
(3)http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/04/16/garofalo-tea-partiers-are-all-racists-who-hate-black-president
(4)Ibid
Friday, August 21, 2009
Tea Party Journal Volume 1 Now Available
I’ve been blogging since the days of the first Tea Party on April 15th, 2009 and I’ve produced thousands of words of which I’m very proud. I believe that the Tea Parties represent the new American Revolution and I’ve tried to set the tone around the basic principles of our nation’s Founding.
I’ve spent a large part of my life studying about these principles that make the USA the greatest place on earth. I have just published Volume 1 of these articles in expanded versions in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. Each volume is short, about 60-70 pages with clear philosophical arguments that defend our way of life.
Articles in this Volume 1 include:
How We Lost our Freedoms
Do You Know Your Rights?
Collectivism vs. Individualism
A Matter of Perspective
The Solution to Galloping Socialism
Pragmatism is Killing You
Altruism and Pitchforks
Selfishness and Greed, Oh My
Polylogism and Empathy
Honoring Life on Memorial Day
The Professional Parasite
Total Victory or Total Defeat
Tea Party Protesters: America's Only Hope?
Anti-"Rules for Radicals"
If you would like to receive a free copy of Volume 1, please send me an email at
Email to Request Tea Party Journal
Your email address will not be used in any way except to send you the document.
I’ve spent a large part of my life studying about these principles that make the USA the greatest place on earth. I have just published Volume 1 of these articles in expanded versions in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. Each volume is short, about 60-70 pages with clear philosophical arguments that defend our way of life.
Articles in this Volume 1 include:
How We Lost our Freedoms
Do You Know Your Rights?
Collectivism vs. Individualism
A Matter of Perspective
The Solution to Galloping Socialism
Pragmatism is Killing You
Altruism and Pitchforks
Selfishness and Greed, Oh My
Polylogism and Empathy
Honoring Life on Memorial Day
The Professional Parasite
Total Victory or Total Defeat
Tea Party Protesters: America's Only Hope?
Anti-"Rules for Radicals"
If you would like to receive a free copy of Volume 1, please send me an email at
Email to Request Tea Party Journal
Your email address will not be used in any way except to send you the document.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Anger over Health Care
One thing is certain, many of the people who want me to have better health care insurance; the same people who claim they love to serve humanity, will soon be unionized, un-fireable, unconcerned civil servants who will tell me with blank, un-empathetic stares to fill out a form and wait until my number is called.
Let's think through this. Who doesn't want better health care insurance? Who doesn't want to live 20 years longer? Who doesn't want their health care paid for by others? Who doesn't want to have all their health problems solved all at once without having to make a lot of decisions? Who doesn't want to be taken care of under any circumstances? Why can't someone just pay all my bills for me?
Really, these are a lot of silly questions. Of course, I want my life to be easier. In fact, why can't the government make it possible for me to live forever? We have the technology. Who is keeping immortality away from us? Probably some greedy company that wants to make a profit. Please, Mr. President, help me.
So why can't government employees love their jobs and be nice to the cattle? No one who obtains money without effort, whether he is a government employee or a beneficiary can change the laws of reality - laws that say someone has to work productively in order to give me my free lunch, laws that say a doctor has to want to make lots of money and go to school for years so he/she can solve my complicated health problems; laws that say a government cannot just expropriate peoples' money indefinitely and expect that the society won't collapse. These pesky laws get in the way when we are at war with reality. Wishing doesn't make it otherwise.
In fact, these government cronies who are sure to get jobs when the health care bill passes are putting out a lot of dis-information about the bill because they do not want you to figure out that it is full of a lot of social engineering. They love you now because they want to engineer you into grateful voters. In a few years, they'll be blaming free marketers for wanting to take away your free health care.
The politicians who think they can take any position and dodge any issue have finally confronted voters who have heard enough lies. This time we are saying “No” as a matter of individual rights. We're also saying "No" because we know that the politicians are not being truthful about the bill, how much it will cost and how our lives will be affected by it. We are saying "No" because we know when we're being talked down to, played for suckers and dismissed.
We the people have turned into radical mobsters because we disagree with people who tell us they want to help us live better lives - and who actually think our lives will be better as soon as we give them another blank check. We are saying "No" because we are not stupid and we refuse to be engineered into happy voters. We are saying "No" because the laws of reality will always veto poorly conceived government laws. We are saying "No" because we know that having socialized medicine is not the same thing as winning the lottery.
Yes, there are such things as rights, natural laws of reality. I’m not talking about the proverbial right to a job or welfare or health care. I’m talking about something that the politicians think is silly. I’m talking about an “unalienable” right that is not created by politicians but is part of my nature as a human being. I’m talking about a theory of government that prohibits government from advancing the common good through taxation and expropriation. I'm talking about a government that advances the common good by leaving people free to solve their own problems.
Now that Obama has begun to bash private insurance companies, he thinks he’s cleverly turning the debate in his favor…as if bashing business will get the people on his side. Mr. President, that’s not smart at all.
What are the health care protesters saying that the President and his paid cronies aren’t getting? It is really simple: we don’t want another government program.
Look at every the other government entitlement program now in place. Look at Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, just to name a few, and you will see a mess, poor service, uncaring service providers, massive bureaucracies, unhappy beneficiaries and huge, unsustainable budgets.
After this history staring us in the face, we should want another entitlement program? This President has the audacity to advance such an idea after spending more money than all Presidents in the history of our nation before him. What kind of genius would advance an entitlement program that will further bankrupt our country? He may not think that's a problem but I'll guarantee him that there are millions of people in this country who are smart enough to know better.
My advice for you, Mr. President, is that you stop bashing private insurance companies. It is not becoming of the leader of what used to be the freest nation on the planet that he attack his own free citizens. Stop demonizing the free market and other companies that have a right to make a profit. Stop using the politics of division. We see through it. We’re on to your gimmick, Mr. President, and we know you are telling us lies. Face it, the honeymoon is over. You aren’t going to stuff another boondoggle down our throats.
Just stop. No more spending. Read my lips: NO MORE SPENDING. Leave us alone. Stay out of our lives. Are we angry over the proposed health care bill? You bet.
Let's think through this. Who doesn't want better health care insurance? Who doesn't want to live 20 years longer? Who doesn't want their health care paid for by others? Who doesn't want to have all their health problems solved all at once without having to make a lot of decisions? Who doesn't want to be taken care of under any circumstances? Why can't someone just pay all my bills for me?
Really, these are a lot of silly questions. Of course, I want my life to be easier. In fact, why can't the government make it possible for me to live forever? We have the technology. Who is keeping immortality away from us? Probably some greedy company that wants to make a profit. Please, Mr. President, help me.
So why can't government employees love their jobs and be nice to the cattle? No one who obtains money without effort, whether he is a government employee or a beneficiary can change the laws of reality - laws that say someone has to work productively in order to give me my free lunch, laws that say a doctor has to want to make lots of money and go to school for years so he/she can solve my complicated health problems; laws that say a government cannot just expropriate peoples' money indefinitely and expect that the society won't collapse. These pesky laws get in the way when we are at war with reality. Wishing doesn't make it otherwise.
In fact, these government cronies who are sure to get jobs when the health care bill passes are putting out a lot of dis-information about the bill because they do not want you to figure out that it is full of a lot of social engineering. They love you now because they want to engineer you into grateful voters. In a few years, they'll be blaming free marketers for wanting to take away your free health care.
The politicians who think they can take any position and dodge any issue have finally confronted voters who have heard enough lies. This time we are saying “No” as a matter of individual rights. We're also saying "No" because we know that the politicians are not being truthful about the bill, how much it will cost and how our lives will be affected by it. We are saying "No" because we know when we're being talked down to, played for suckers and dismissed.
We the people have turned into radical mobsters because we disagree with people who tell us they want to help us live better lives - and who actually think our lives will be better as soon as we give them another blank check. We are saying "No" because we are not stupid and we refuse to be engineered into happy voters. We are saying "No" because the laws of reality will always veto poorly conceived government laws. We are saying "No" because we know that having socialized medicine is not the same thing as winning the lottery.
Yes, there are such things as rights, natural laws of reality. I’m not talking about the proverbial right to a job or welfare or health care. I’m talking about something that the politicians think is silly. I’m talking about an “unalienable” right that is not created by politicians but is part of my nature as a human being. I’m talking about a theory of government that prohibits government from advancing the common good through taxation and expropriation. I'm talking about a government that advances the common good by leaving people free to solve their own problems.
Now that Obama has begun to bash private insurance companies, he thinks he’s cleverly turning the debate in his favor…as if bashing business will get the people on his side. Mr. President, that’s not smart at all.
What are the health care protesters saying that the President and his paid cronies aren’t getting? It is really simple: we don’t want another government program.
Look at every the other government entitlement program now in place. Look at Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, just to name a few, and you will see a mess, poor service, uncaring service providers, massive bureaucracies, unhappy beneficiaries and huge, unsustainable budgets.
After this history staring us in the face, we should want another entitlement program? This President has the audacity to advance such an idea after spending more money than all Presidents in the history of our nation before him. What kind of genius would advance an entitlement program that will further bankrupt our country? He may not think that's a problem but I'll guarantee him that there are millions of people in this country who are smart enough to know better.
My advice for you, Mr. President, is that you stop bashing private insurance companies. It is not becoming of the leader of what used to be the freest nation on the planet that he attack his own free citizens. Stop demonizing the free market and other companies that have a right to make a profit. Stop using the politics of division. We see through it. We’re on to your gimmick, Mr. President, and we know you are telling us lies. Face it, the honeymoon is over. You aren’t going to stuff another boondoggle down our throats.
Just stop. No more spending. Read my lips: NO MORE SPENDING. Leave us alone. Stay out of our lives. Are we angry over the proposed health care bill? You bet.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Obama's Role in the Economic Crisis
The economic fiasco which started in Sept 2008 represents the failure of socialism; the idea that you can take from capitalists the money to "help the poor." The crisis was not caused by Bush's deregulation (Bush did no such deregulation); deregulation is merely the scapegoat; a package deal designed to discredit capitalism and hide the fact that the cause of the problem was re-distribution. In that sense, it was a successful program; almost 40% of the value of the stock market was re-distributed to someone hiding in the wings.
Truly, the problem that created this crisis was government intervention in the economy. Today, we are attempting to "fix" this problem by capitalizing worthless loans, sending good money after bad and making the good money worthless.
It is no coincidence that the original TARP bill proposed by Bush and the Democrats included a provision to provide additional funding to ACORN. ACORN was an Obama supporter and a voter fraud organization (for Obama) that “helped” people get loans they could not afford. ACORN was very active in shaking down the banks and pressuring them to offer more loans to the poor. In other words, ACORN operatives threatened to boycott and hold public protests against banks unless they donated to ACORN and offered low interest loans to unqualified borrowers (sent to them by ACORN).
These tactics were taught at ACORN by Barack Obama back in the 1990s. They are the tactics of the community organizer. To the extent that he advocated the immoral shakedown tactics of ACORN, he is just as responsible for the economic fiasco as are Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, ACORN, Bill Clinton and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).
Recently, in an article sent to me by a friend, I read the following:
"Most significantly, Penny Pritzker, the current Finance Chairperson of Obama's presidential campaign helped develop the complicated investment bundling of subprime securities at the heart of the meltdown. She did so in her position as shareholder and board chair of Superior Bank. The Bank failed in 2001, one of the largest in recent history, wiping out $50 million in uninsured life savings of approximately 1,400 customers. She was named in a RICO class action law suit but doesn't seem to have come out of it too badly.
As a young attorney in the 1990s, Barack Obama represented ACORN in Washington in their successful efforts to expand Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). In addition to making it easier for ACORN groups to force banks into making risky loans, this also paved the way for banks like Superior to package mortgages as investments, and for the Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite them. These changes created the conditions that ultimately lead to the current financial crisis."1
What is wrong with increased sub-prime lending? The idea of providing more home ownership seems like a laudable goal. Isn’t it good for the economy that more people can buy homes? Isn’t it good that the government seeks to “level the playing field”?
If you encourage more loans to people with poor credit, you tranfer massive amounts of money from banks to government bureaucrats at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What about people with good credit ratings who could have borrowed that money and made a profit for the banks? In addition, the government-created housing bubble attracted investors into housing construction and derivatives who could otherwise have been investing in viable opportunities? Did this not drag the rest of the economy down too?
The principle of re-distribution is “from each according to his ability to each according to his need.” Consider that, in the case of sub-prime lending, the poor were not helped. When they defaulted on their loans most of them were evicted while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives gained bonuses in the millions of dollars. The companies that bought the derivatives, including those that insured those derivatives, were left holding worthless assets.
When you use political action to influence economic decisions, like that under the CRA, you must attack banks by calling them racists. You must regulate banks and bring every day business decisions under the purview of the government. You must attack and eliminate self-sufficiency by calling it selfish.
Socialists don't think their policies cause economic collapse; they have convinced themselves that helping the poor is more important than fostering free trade. It is a perfect scam, the dream of a flim-flam man. Imagine how they will feel when the people blame them for the economic collapse. Look at the YouTube videos of town hall meetings and you will see their look of bewilderment over being blamed.
The Tea Party protestors, confronted by the demand to sacrifice, refuse to capitulate to the takeover of society by government. These protestors, unlike the media, have concluded that the ideas advocated by Obama to justify his organizing work, have today become a Presidential administration operating on the same premises, methods and goals...but now supported by an even more powerful shakedown and racketeering scheme. What began as a program of supposedly benign re-distribution becomes a criminal gang making billions of dollars through extortion and racketeering. Al Capone would be proud.
(1)http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
Truly, the problem that created this crisis was government intervention in the economy. Today, we are attempting to "fix" this problem by capitalizing worthless loans, sending good money after bad and making the good money worthless.
It is no coincidence that the original TARP bill proposed by Bush and the Democrats included a provision to provide additional funding to ACORN. ACORN was an Obama supporter and a voter fraud organization (for Obama) that “helped” people get loans they could not afford. ACORN was very active in shaking down the banks and pressuring them to offer more loans to the poor. In other words, ACORN operatives threatened to boycott and hold public protests against banks unless they donated to ACORN and offered low interest loans to unqualified borrowers (sent to them by ACORN).
These tactics were taught at ACORN by Barack Obama back in the 1990s. They are the tactics of the community organizer. To the extent that he advocated the immoral shakedown tactics of ACORN, he is just as responsible for the economic fiasco as are Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, ACORN, Bill Clinton and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).
Recently, in an article sent to me by a friend, I read the following:
"Most significantly, Penny Pritzker, the current Finance Chairperson of Obama's presidential campaign helped develop the complicated investment bundling of subprime securities at the heart of the meltdown. She did so in her position as shareholder and board chair of Superior Bank. The Bank failed in 2001, one of the largest in recent history, wiping out $50 million in uninsured life savings of approximately 1,400 customers. She was named in a RICO class action law suit but doesn't seem to have come out of it too badly.
As a young attorney in the 1990s, Barack Obama represented ACORN in Washington in their successful efforts to expand Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). In addition to making it easier for ACORN groups to force banks into making risky loans, this also paved the way for banks like Superior to package mortgages as investments, and for the Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite them. These changes created the conditions that ultimately lead to the current financial crisis."1
What is wrong with increased sub-prime lending? The idea of providing more home ownership seems like a laudable goal. Isn’t it good for the economy that more people can buy homes? Isn’t it good that the government seeks to “level the playing field”?
If you encourage more loans to people with poor credit, you tranfer massive amounts of money from banks to government bureaucrats at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What about people with good credit ratings who could have borrowed that money and made a profit for the banks? In addition, the government-created housing bubble attracted investors into housing construction and derivatives who could otherwise have been investing in viable opportunities? Did this not drag the rest of the economy down too?
The principle of re-distribution is “from each according to his ability to each according to his need.” Consider that, in the case of sub-prime lending, the poor were not helped. When they defaulted on their loans most of them were evicted while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives gained bonuses in the millions of dollars. The companies that bought the derivatives, including those that insured those derivatives, were left holding worthless assets.
When you use political action to influence economic decisions, like that under the CRA, you must attack banks by calling them racists. You must regulate banks and bring every day business decisions under the purview of the government. You must attack and eliminate self-sufficiency by calling it selfish.
Socialists don't think their policies cause economic collapse; they have convinced themselves that helping the poor is more important than fostering free trade. It is a perfect scam, the dream of a flim-flam man. Imagine how they will feel when the people blame them for the economic collapse. Look at the YouTube videos of town hall meetings and you will see their look of bewilderment over being blamed.
The Tea Party protestors, confronted by the demand to sacrifice, refuse to capitulate to the takeover of society by government. These protestors, unlike the media, have concluded that the ideas advocated by Obama to justify his organizing work, have today become a Presidential administration operating on the same premises, methods and goals...but now supported by an even more powerful shakedown and racketeering scheme. What began as a program of supposedly benign re-distribution becomes a criminal gang making billions of dollars through extortion and racketeering. Al Capone would be proud.
(1)http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
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