Reverse Think, The Progressive's Disease

Reverse Think is a neurological disease, a sort of knee-jerk reaction that afflicts progressives. The first symptom of Reverse Think is when a person says that re-distribution of income will make society better. Once you accept this principle everything else you say becomes true in reverse. Let’s look at some other examples to see how pervasive Reverse Think is in our society. When you say that the health care program will improve health care, you are a victim of Reverse Think. The opposite is true; health care will be worse. When they tell you that the public option in the health care bill is a "win-win" you can be sure it is a lose-lose.

In education, Reverse Think happens when you say that Progressive educators will make our children smarter. The truth is that under these educators our children will actually fall behind students in other countries. The reason for the decline in educational levels is because the vast majority of unionized teachers are suffering from Reverse Think too. They teach our kids that capitalism is evil, that America is evil, that the military is full of war mongers, that math is not important but helping others is better and that Barack Obama is going to save our country and create jobs. All of these statements are examples of Reverse Think.

Politicians also suffer from Reverse Think. Whenever they tell you that government can make things better, you can be sure that it will make things worse. When they tell you that re-distribution will create a more just society, you can be sure it will result in injustice. When they tell you that Tea Party protesters are racists and violent, you can be sure they are not. When they tell you that violent leftist protesters are merely exercising their freedom of speech and trying to create a better country, you can be sure they are trying to tear down the country and use their freedom of speech to destroy freedom of speech.

You can be sure that whatever a progressive says will be the opposite of the truth. This even applies to what they say about money. For instance, they will tell you that profits in private industry represent a waste of the nation’s resources because the rich are allowed to keep them. At the same time, they will tell you that money taken from the rich somehow becomes effective in the hands of government. You can be sure that money kept by the rich will be better spent and money taken by the government will be wasted.

How do progressives catch this deadly disease? It happens when they concoct schemes to divert tax dollars away from productive citizens toward progressive money laundering schemes. They promise people that major problems (that they have no intention of solving) will be solved by throwing more taxpayer dollars at them. The promise is only a ruse designed to give more and more power to the progressives...they just want all that money. They'll worry about the problem later when they've gotten the money. That's why everything they say is true in reverse. They must promise that problems will be solved when they have no intention of solving them.

When they tell you that the best economists recommend spending money to create jobs, what they mean is that the worst economists have suggested it and that jobs will be destroyed. When they tell you unemployment is George Bush's fault, that's the clue that it is their fault.

How can we cure progressives of Reverse Think? I think a good place to start would be to vote them out of office. Certainly they’ll tell us that their election losses are really victories, but we can just wink at them and pretend we actually believe them. They can’t help it.

Can you think of any other examples of Reverse Think?

Anti-capitalism - The Evil Idea

September 12th in Washington DC was an amazingly beautiful, sunny day with a mild temperature, one of the most beautiful days I have ever experienced. There I was on this historic day walking down Pennsylvania Avenue with thousands of other freedom loving people. Their ages ranged from babies in carriages to 97-year old seniors. On the horizon, the Capitol Building was a small dot that slowly grew in size as we approached. It was the first time I had ever seen this building with my own eyes. This day was more than a teachable moment; it was a realization that I was not alone, that there were millions of Americans like me who did not want to transform our country into a socialist state, millions of people who understood that the freedoms acknowledged by our Constitution should be left alone rather than replaced by the proposed communal degradation of our society.

Yet, the walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, as wonderful as it was, as eye-opening as it was, did help me see the enemy more clearly too. The enemy is also our educational system. Yes, that enemy was on display on the sidewalks leading to the Capitol Building.

As we got closer, I noticed about 10 young men walking in formation on the sidewalk. Each of them wore a black business suit and tie while the group chanted, “Capitalism works…for us. Capitalism works...for us.” There it was in front of my eyes: ignorance and stupidity coming from young people who should have been educated better. The message these young men were sending is that capitalism only works for the rich, and that the poor are destroyed by the system. Why is the economic system that has made our country a world leader in virtually every field, being denigrated and lied about in our schools? When did our schools become bastions of anti-capitalism? When did our schools become the promoters of lies?

Is capitalism good only for businesspeople as these young men implied? Who are these businesspeople for whom capitalism works? They are Americans born into families like those into which these young men were born. For instance, I’m a small businessperson who was born of a poor family. I experienced poverty first hand and because my father was able to work out of poverty, I too had an opportunity to be successful. I was one of the “us” for whom capitalism works. I don’t know anyone that I’ve exploited in the process.

Today’s anti-capitalists believe that profits are stolen from those who did not earn it. Is this true? Are profits theft? The best way to answer this question is to identify how profits are generated. The entrepreneurial capitalist must not only come up with a great idea that people will want to buy; but he must also finance and organize the operation of the business so expenses are less than the revenue. How does he do it? He has a business plan that enables him/her to perform a particular activity for a given price. If people see a benefit in purchasing the product, they will give up some of their money for it. This benefit for the consumer might involve saving time, energy or money.

Where does the money come from that makes up the capitalist’s profit? It does not come from theft. On the contrary, it comes from the value that the entrepreneur makes possible for the consumer. The consumer values the saved time, saved energy, additional convenience or leisure that comes from the use of the product, so much so that he is willing to give his money to the entrepreneur in trade. In other words, the benefit of buying the product is worth more to the buyer than the money in his pocket. Whether the product consists of a labor saving device such as a car, a faster way to mow the lawn, such as a new lawn mower, the relaxation and better health that comes from a massage, or a plane ticket to Cancun, the value gained by the purchaser is worth more than the money spent. It is the idea that creates value.

Marxist theory states that the only value added to a product is the labor expended on it by the worker. According to this view, the capitalist’s profits are stolen from the worker. Since Marx and Engels first wrote on this topic, many economists have thoroughly discredited the labor theory of value. If you want to decide for yourself, I would suggest the works of Böhm-Bawerk and Mises for starters.

Who would teach our children the lie that capitalism is an evil system? Obviously it is people who have been accredited as teachers and who think that their studies have confirmed the conclusion that capitalism is evil. But do their studies really prove the point? What about the fact that we have one of the most advanced standards of living in the world?

What is inside the soul of an anti-capitalist? Is it the desire to make a better world? Does the elimination of capitalism actually make a better world? What was the world like before capitalism? No, I think the anti-capitalist has a different motivation; it is the motivation of a soulless person, someone who sees the image of a thinker, an independent mind, a person striving for success and, rather than admiring that image, hating it; and more, rather than merely hating it, wanting to see it suffer and die.

Yes, hatred of the good, the clean, the intelligent is at the heart of anti-capitalism. It takes great men (and women) to create great industries. It takes independence to put one’s savings on the line and bring a great new idea to market. It takes intelligence to come up with a great idea that would make the lives of people better, and it takes self-confidence to offer people a product that improves life. Only hatred would want to stop better living. Only hatred could move a person to scream that the capitalist is a thief, a charlatan and a deceiver. In fact, it takes a thief, a charlatan and a deceiver to be an anti-capitalist.

All one has to do is look around to see that capitalism’s success is unprecedented in the history of the world. No anti-capitalist has ever given an explanation for this affluence. No anti-capitalist has convincingly proposed another system that will create the level of affluence we have achieved with capitalism. And they never will because their goal is not to learn how to improve life; their goal is to bring down capitalism; to bring down life.

Anti-capitalists, including these young men walking in tandem, do not realize their role in history as destroyers. Once you outlaw the bases of capitalism, individual rights and property rights, you are left with only coercion, government force. You are left with central planning which has never worked through out history. Their anti-capitalist hatred makes them dupes who ignores the most atrocious and immoral acts that happen in the name of anti-capitalism; they have put themselves in the position where they have become blind to the damage done by re-distribution, corruption, nepotism, force and plunder.

Our educational system is making ignoramuses of our young people. And because of the education they have been given, because they have been taught what to think rather than how to question, it is these young people whose futures are being washed down the proverbial drain by the spending of the Obama administration. Someday they will look at the decay and despair in society and they will not realize that it was their own anti-capitalism that caused it.

My Community Organizer

Below is a fictional scenario. This scenario may be starting now all over our country and may be the outcome of the strategies being put into effect by President Obama. It is happening under the guise of creating a better world, but it requires the acceptance of the idea of collectivism which has historically been a very destructive idea. The beginning stages today involve the government’s takeover of financing of all college loans and the government's creation of massive government-funded volunteer programs. It represents a future that must not become reality.

I received a visit today from a disheveled young man who asked me if I would support President Obama’s plans for healthcare. I asked him which organization he represented and he said that he had just graduated from college with a political science degree and was being considered for the post of community organizer of the local “Citizens” group.

I told him that I disagreed with the government being responsible for health care. He told me that was a lie; that the health care program would only provide more choice for Americans.

I shut the door in his face.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit today from the same young man who had come before. He was now wearing a suit and had cut his hair to look more “business-like.” He told me that he was now the local community organizer and he wanted to sign people up to come to an event supporting the President’s Cap and Trade Bill. He asked me if I wanted a cleaner planet. I told him “No”; that I disagreed with the President’s policies on climate change and didn’t think it was necessary for the government to interfere in our energy choices.

He told me that was a lie; that the President was only trying to be a good global citizen of the planet.

I shut the door in his face.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit today from a man who asked me to volunteer for the local Citizens group. They were gathering over the weekend to clean up the local homeless shelter. He stated that we should all volunteer to help the homeless. I told him this was a free country and I did not have to volunteer for anything. He asked me if I cared for the homeless. I told him I had more important things to do. He told me that the homeless should be more important than anything. They are homeless, he said, because of the greed of big corporations.

I began to shut the door in his face and he stuck his foot in the door. He told me that I was being talked about by other volunteers, it was being said I was not a good citizen and there were certain reports being made about me.

I planted my hand firmly on his chest and pushed him away from my door and closed it.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit today from our community organizer. He told me he was collecting information about every home in order to determine what the community group could do to improve the neighborhood. He asked me if it was ok if he took a walk around my home to take some notes. I told him “No”. He said that he had an order from the mayor to conduct the survey. I shut the door in his face and watched him as he took a walk around my property and made notes on a clipboard.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit from my community organizer and was told that he was collecting information about the inside of every home to assess whether there were any possible conditions that might contribute to disease in the neighborhood. He showed me an order from the mayor that authorized him to conduct the survey. I tried to shut the door in his face but he wedged his body in the door and stopped it from closing. He told me the survey was mandatory and was for the good of the community. He pushed me back and I fell onto the floor. He came into my home and began taking notes. After he finished, he told me he would be back.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit from my community organizer and was told that the local women’s shelter needed a television set. He reminded me that during his last visit he had noticed I had a nice television set. He wanted to know if I’d like to donate it to the shelter and I said “No.” He told me that I was being very anti-social and that the entire neighborhood hated me for being so negative about having a better community. I told him that this was a free country and he told me that I was being old fashioned.

Fast Forward:

I came home from work to find 10 people in front of my house carrying signs. They began yelling at me that I was anti-social. One of the signs said that “Anti-social behavior is strictly punished.” Another said, “We are watching you.” Another said, “Obama wants you.” I looked at the community organizer and he said, “It may be mean but it is very clever.”

When I got into my house I noticed that my television set was gone.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit from my community organizer and he told me that his previous visit had discovered some violations in my home and that he had gotten a court order to evict me and confiscate my possessions for the sale of the neighborhood. He was going to move a family into my home that had a more “socially acceptable” attitude. He told me that he had talked to my boss and they had fired me from my job and I had 30 minutes to get out of the neighborhood. I protested that I had rights and he said that no one had rights who was unwilling to help others.

I asked, “Who’s going to help me now that I’m homeless?” He told me I should have thought about that the first time I was asked to volunteer. He pointed to the local highway and said there were some places under the overpass.

You may think the above could not happen here. I’d like to point out that similar things have taken place in other countries when the government was empowered to impose “collective” solutions for individual problems. Collectivism empowers a government to destroy any individual who is not willing to sacrifice his time, energy and property to the collective.

Collectivism invalidates individual rights, contract rights and property rights. It creates a government with no limits. Under the guise of making better communities, collectivism demands sacrifice and, through this demand, destroys society and the basis of civil cooperation. In a collectivist society, all citizens are required to do what the government demands or suffer the ostracism that goes with “anti-social” behavior. Beware of community organizers.

Certainly, many people think that the above scenario betrays a tinge of paranoia and fear about what are often considered valuable programs that make for a better community. But I remember a time when the idea of the government doing anything other than defending the rights enumerated in the Constitution was a matter for grave concern. Today, many of us have been indoctrinated to accept the idea that the government is our caretaker rather than our protector. We've taken the idea of "the common good" and used it to empower government to do, at first, benign things, while we set the precedent that opens the door for the use of coercive force to expropriate our time, energy and property. Do we really want to lose our freedoms? When we get beyond benign things like cleaning homeless shelters, we may not like what we are required to do.

You may not agree, but I think it is true that Barack Obama is the leader of a totalitarian movement. Anyone who pushes a large number of collectivist programs, like those pushed by the President, who demands that we impose those programs without question, without debate, without even reading the bills, as a matter of historical timeliness ("Now's the time..."), is trying to deceive us; is trying to bring totalitarian control without giving us the time or the right to stop it. Anyone who denigrates and belittles principled opposition, who claims that such opposition is nothing more than political obstruction, cannot have our best interests at heart. In her famous book, Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, she writes:

“Totalitarian movements are mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals. Compared with all other parties and movements, their most conspicuous external characteristic is their demand for total, unrestricted, unconditional, and unalterable loyalty of the individual members. This demand is made by the leaders of totalitarian movements even before they seize power. It usually precedes the total organization of the country under their actual rule and it follows from the claim of their ideologies that their organization will encompass, in due course, the entire human race.”(1)

There is hope. We can stop the future that Obama wants for us, the organized community-based collectivism that will make slaves or homeless people of us all. If we do not stop it we will be plunged into decades of resistance and drudgery that will destroy many lives. As Arendt says:

“Nothing is more characteristic of the totalitarian movements in general and of the quality of fame of their leaders in particular than the starling swiftness with which they are forgotten and the startling ease with which they can be replaced.”(2)

(1) Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich
(2) Ibid

President of the World

Yesterday, US President Barack Obama became the President of the World. After his eloquent speech to the nations, many of them made up of thugs who obtained and keep power at the point of a gun, the world has learned that the American President agrees with them that American capitalism is a scourge.

In other speeches, using the worldwide platform of the UN, leader after leader informs us that capitalism is dead. Now our esteemed leader makes no defense of America. It is more important for his strategic plan to find common ground with Hamas, Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Putin, Zelaya and every other brutal thug on this earth. Our former allies must now ally against us and the thugs. Our President now implies what we know he is thinking: to Hell with England, Poland, the rest of Eastern Europe, the people of Honduras and the people of Iran.

Do you think the world will now accept Obama as the leader of the world when he represents a nation that is considered to be the scourge of the world; after he has apologized, bowed, shaken hands with and tried to convince the thugs of the world that he too has a third world viewpoint? What do you think will happen after he has unilaterally prostrated his country before the machine gun-wielding part of the world?

When a nation’s leader thinks that the lies told about his nation are true, he has surrendered it to the world. That nation is no longer a leader but the sacrificial lamb whose carcass will now be eaten by vultures of the UN. Is it possible that our President is living through his own “Gorbachov moment”? Indeed, there can be no national pride left when our esteemed leader tells us we are greedy and un-self-sacrificial and that this greed has caused all the world's problems. How much applause does he want...really?

I think it is reprehensible that Obama and his supporters start with the caricatures of Bush that they have invented...things they were saying about Bush that he never did, that he was not about. In fact, Bush was none of the things Obama claims he was because he did nothing but try to disprove the left's caricatures of him. What does this mean about Obama's knowledge of the world, his knowledge of world history and about what he will do to rectify the problems that he has invented in his own minds? More importantly, what will our enemies do about them? They'll realize that the path is open and they can walk right in and take over whatever they want. The path is clear to attack Israel. The path is clear to re-take Eastern Europe. The path is clear to destroy America by calling in the bonds. We are a sitting duck.

Didn’t we just arrest a guy who wanted to kill lots of Americans? I think that’s the answer we can expect from the thugs of the world after our President admits we are the most evil nation on earth.

Is it possible that the President of the World has just elected himself as the Patsy of the World?

Why Capitalism Works

That the main business of American industry is production, not theft or forgery, should have been noticed long ago. Only a philosophy of anti-capitalism could cloud people's minds to the exacting kind of virtue required of those who choose to be productive. And it is this same philosophy that damns man for being too concerned with materialistic things; that tells man that he has produced too much and he should give away his production. It tells us that to produce is so easy, but to give so hard. It is blind to man's true greatness because it refuses to regard production as an essential, necessary, and highly desirable virtue.

It is this same anti-capitalist philosophy that advocates a welfare-state to forcibly divest men of their incomes for the sake of the nonproductive. And, finally, it is the same philosophy that refuses to consider that a capitalist society can do more good than any welfare society. To prove this last point, we will analyze four essential characteristics of capitalism, their cause, and their consequences. They are mass production, the division of labor, capital accumulation, and corporate organization.

MASS PRODUCTION
A uniquely capitalist invention is the concept of mass production that lowers the cost of production and spreads the benefits to all parties in society. A key characteristic of capitalism, and this is exactly the opposite of the anti-capitalist interpretation, is that capitalism is for the "masses."

The individual, unlike in any other time in history, for the first time in history, is the beneficiary of capitalist mass production. The anti-capitalist radicals in our government who continuously proclaim that capitalism is for the rich and that there is a separation, in capitalism, between rich and poor, have completely missed the point that capitalism makes the lives of "the lower classes" better by making products (that in past ages would have benefited only the rich) available at lower prices to every man. Capitalism is truly the system that bridges the gap between rich and poor because it elevates the standard of living of every man.

Businessmen like Henry Ford and many others recognized that by lowering the costs of production and prices; by making their products available to the average man, they increased the number of customers. Automobiles, oil and gas, household appliances, and in our time, computers have made the lives of all people better. Mass production has made it possible for the average man today to live a life better than the kings and lords of the past.

A side benefit of mass production is that the movement toward more customers and more products makes it possible for other businessmen to utilize those products too. For instance, J.D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil, in his successful efforts to bring down the cost of producing petroleum-based products, created an opportunity for Henry Ford who needed an inexpensive fuel for the new Ford automobiles. Had not Rockefeller found ways to make oil in larger quantities for lower prices, Ford would never have been able to sell his cars at lower prices to the masses.

Ford’s cars needed a cheap fuel and, before Standard Oil, petroleum was not cheap. There was no private agreement between Rockefeller and Ford to do this; there was only the common principle of mass production that made it possible for both men to improve the lives and toil of average men to an incredible extent, releasing at the same time the energies that other men could use to further improve their lives. None of this could be possible in a socialist system intent on preventing evil capitalists from making profits.

Yet, capitalism is constantly vilified for creating a gap between rich and poor while many more people previously poor are now millionaires due to innovative ideas and ingenuity. Capitalism is the only system that opened up production and the ability to be productive to every citizen willing to work. Capitalism even provided, free of charge, the new machines that created the new jobs for the previously poor. And if you were frugal in your spending, you could make money in a factory, save some of it and invest in other businesses that were growing. Eventually, you could take your money, start your own business and join the economic push for better products and services. You could become rich.

To quote from Ludwig von Mises:
"This is the fundamental principle of capitalism as it exists today in all of those countries in which there is a highly developed system of mass production: Big business, the target of the most fanatic attacks by the so-called leftists, produces almost exclusively to satisfy the wants of the masses. Enterprises producing luxury goods solely for the well-to-do can never attain the magnitude of big businesses. And today, it is the people who work in large factories who are the main consumers of the products made in those factories. This is the fundamental difference between the capitalistic principles of production and the feudalistic principles of the preceding ages."

The reason capitalism overtook communism is because capitalism improved the lives of more people, made them happier, freer, more affluent and more productive. Communism, mired in the separation of classes, between bureaucrats and party leaders over the working classes, produced no such improvements. The workers, the people whom the violent communist revolutions were supposed to have given power, merely toiled in poorly maintained factories and dangerous working conditions. They refused to be productive for people who were skimming the fruits of their labor in order to have better apartments, better vodka and caviar.

Communism tried to steal the benefits of capitalism, mass production, and create a system to beat capitalism but they forgot that the essential element of capitalism was freedom not the machines of mass production that the communists wanted to expropriate. And since the masses were not free, not adequately paid, they were seldom able to purchase the products of mass production, were perennially disappointed because the "managers" chose to produce products they did not demand. The system was inefficient because it was not focused on production for the "masses" but instead was focused on mass production of unwanted inferior products. The result, long lines, inferior products and cynicism.

As the Obama administrations advances towards its new economy, it will encounter the same contradictions. None of its anti-capitalist rhetoric will be proven to be true. When a government is at war with freedom the first casualty of that war is the individual. The second casualty will be mass production.

THE DIVISION OF LABOR
At the base of any civilization is the division of labor. The complexity that this division achieves, if the divisions are based upon production, is the complexity and extent of that society's success as a civilization. A tribe whose basic division is that of chief, witch doctor, hunters, and child raisers can hardly achieve the diversity necessary for a trip to the moon, although they often find good reason to worship the moon.

The advanced use of the division of labor must be distinguished from the crude forms found in primitive societies. The advanced forms of division of labor represent more than an economic advance; an intellectual advance is required, an advance that is achieved by the man who realizes that specific resources can be much more efficiently employed if he devotes more time and study to them. It also requires the knowledge that, should he devote his time and skills exclusively to one type of task, he will create more valuable goods for trade with others who benefit from the higher quality of those goods.

In its advanced uses, the division of labor represents an intellectual achievement which realizes the potential benefit of an idea and puts it to use. The idea becomes an established asset of the society, and if the division of labor is allowed to flourish without regulation, it adds increasing benefit to the life of every individual in that society.

What is the main enemy of the division of labor in an anti-capitalist society? The enemy of the division of labor is the man who walks into a factory and smashes all the equipment. He does this by ensuring that the businessman cannot afford to repair and upgrade the equipment. There are four tools that the destroyer uses:

1. Taxes
Taxes basically steal the peoples’ money. If the individual were allowed to keep your money, you are going to spend it on making your life better. You will either buy more things that improve your domestic life or you will invest it in businesses that will create better and more products. Either way, if you keep your money your life is better.

The reason people never “miss” the money taken from them by taxes is because they seldom visualize what their lives would be like had they been able to keep the money they earned. And, they also buy into the notion that the money is going to a cause that makes society better. In fact, taxes are spent in ways that the individual would not and that means they are almost always wasted.

Taxes are wasted in a number of way such as in creating jobs that are less productive than your job, in giving the money away to people who did not earn it and who have less pride about how they spend the money (simply because they did not earn it). If you are on the dole, you have less pride about yourself; it doesn’t matter how you spend the money the government gives you - so you might be frivolous where the person who earned it might have been frugal. If it were true that the poor are exploited, why don’t they become rich after receiving the money taken from the rich? Instead, they stay poor for some reason.

A lot of tax money is spent on programs that are nothing more than money laundering schemes where large amounts of tax dollars are taken from tax payers to achieve a so-called “social” goal. Less money in the hands of the producers means that more people will demand the money back through government services. This strains the programs as more people seek to apply for this money. The strain on the program means the government must reduce services in order to “spread out” the benefit. All government programs require rationing.

Taxes destroy seed money needed by the economy to grow. As such they are a drain on the society and they destroy the people they are intended to help.

2. Inflation
When the government needs more money than they can get from taxation, or when deficits get too high to tax any more, they resort to monetary inflation. In order to do it and get away with it, they have to create propaganda that denies the harmful effects of money inflation. The people need to think that inflation will stimulate the economy and make everybody richer. They must be sold on the idea that inflation is a good thing.

Inflation only dilutes the value of the currency in the economy which has the long-term consequence of raising prices for businesses and individuals. Although there may appear to be a temporary stimulus from inflation, the dilution of money will eventually raise prices for capital purchases, raise the interest rates on borrowing and have serious impacts on economic efficiency as well as the values of homes, buildings, factories and capital equipment. The impacts in these areas are sometimes difficult to detect for a time but the result, eventually, is lower production and unemployment as companies seek to adjust to the higher prices.

The more extreme the level of money inflation in an economy; the more extreme will be the results. High levels of inflation have been known to destroy national economies, precipitate wars and create scapegoats, concentration camps and genocide. Money inflation can even destroy entire civilizations.

3. Regulations
The purpose of business regulations is to restrict the business activity of smaller businesses on behalf of larger corporations that can afford the cost of regulations. The goal is to reduce the number of companies in a particular industry so the larger corporations can corner the market. Often regulations are offered to the public as a way of fixing a problem supposedly caused by the free market. Regulations are intended to control business practices, create opportunities for criminals and steer business activity toward social goals rather than the goals of businesses to make a profit.

The basic justification of a regulation is that the business would not otherwise do the “right” thing so it must be forced to do so through regulation. The outcome is to disrupt normal business transactions, criminalize businesses who are unable to comply with the reporting requirements and otherwise give to government control of the business.

Government seldom considers that it is the cause of a poor economy; but it goes without saying that business regulations are the means of introducing inefficiencies into the business world. In order to mitigate the effects of government regulations, large businesses pay politicians through bribes or campaign contributions in order to obtain favorable treatment. Large corporations with the resources to “grease the wheels” of government benefit while they claim to be working with the government to accomplish the government’s social goals. The result is reduced competition, increased prices and fascism.

4. Nationalization
After destroying an important industry through high taxes, inflation and regulations, government has only two options: 1) eliminate all regulations on the industry or 2) nationalize the industry. Since politicians have an inherent distrust of freedom and they never want to admit that they caused the demise of an industry by means of their meddling, they will cover their tracks by nationalizing the industry to keep it alive.

Once an industry is nationalized it is destroyed. It will never again be a viable business and any products and services that it provides will lose value. In addition, in order for the nationalized business to survive, the government must outlaw competition. If it does not, then the nationalized companies will go out of business. This is because government intrusions eliminate their ability to compete with other freer companies.

CAPITAL ACCUMULATION
Capital accumulation works hand in hand with the division of labor. It is also an idea derived from an advanced intellectual level of society. The society that grasps this crucial economic principle and decides to allow capital accumulation - that is, protect property rights - is the most moral of societies.

Through capital accumulation, men are able to invest their savings in ever more ambitious projects, and by producing hitherto unheard of goods and services, they are able to create more wealth, jobs, and higher standards of living. The entire society advances when those few who are able to accumulate vast amounts are given the freedom to do so. In fact, capital accumulation is not restricted to the rich. Anyone can save his money and invest it. In fact, it is the small investor, through his banks and savings institutions, who does most of the investing in a capitalist economy.

Consider the low intellectual level of a government that holds that any kind of profit is exploitation, that only hard labor creates value and that the workers are exploited by the owners of capital and capital resources. Any such society would be for expropriation and re-distribution to such a degree that capital accumulation is destroyed – which means that society is destroyed. This is the low intellectual level of the Obama administration.

CORPORATE STRUCTURE
Corporate structure is the individualization of a group of people involved in a voluntary association. It involves a system of organization that maximizes productive output with the least amount of input. It organizes its resources into unique and efficient productive processes, staffed by well-trained and well-educated employees who are also well paid.

Managing an efficient corporate structure requires a genius of its own. The corporation heads must discover and integrate the tools that will help in the achievement of the organization's goals. The structure is like a mini-machine with each part performing a different function. If the heads are good engineers, they can keep the machine running smoothly while improving, altering, and adjusting it for more output. Some changes have to be made on the spot and require a special skill, the ability to integrate new knowledge as quickly as possible with the tried-and-true.

The corporation is the ultimate vehicle through which division of labor and capital accumulation are brought to maximum effectiveness and benefit. Anyone who sees corporations as evil villains who practice racism, exploitation and shoddy practices does not understand the important and vital influence that economic freedom plays in the life of a nation. The thugs and brutes who claim to represent the poor, the workers and the aged are killing the very institutions (corporations) that make our nation and economy stronger. These busy bodies who think they know what makes a society run are nothing more than destroyers. They have yet to learn that a society which defends individual rights is a capitalist society. To give these professional parasites power over our economic decisions is tantamount to doing the opposite of what our society needs.

Capitalism is the only system that can make effective use of the division of labor, mass production, capital accumulation and corporate structure. No other economic or political system can generate the inter-action between these four essentials of economic life like capitalism. The reason is that these essentials function effectively only when individuals are allowed to make their own value choices and to keep the fruit of their labor. They function erratically or not at all when governments attempt to control, for the benefit of thieves and charlatans, various aspects of this free-flowing system.

Plucking Out the Parasites

The criminal who presumes he has a right to cheat others out of their property is not so different from the professional parasites who ask for handouts from the government. The criminal is only more honest in his hatred of those who "presume" to own property that he can easily take.

Consider the “incrementalist” approach taken by many radicals today. Their goal is to establish the ideological framework (economically and educationally) for a complete radical change of our society; they want to start with small steps that first establish the principle that it is proper to “adjust” capitalism for the sake of the poor. They want to move toward ever larger government intrusions into our lives until they’ve stressed the system enough to collapse. Then, with the groundwork established, they’ll invalidate the Constitution, kill their enemies and begin their reign. Incrementalism will make the people too ignorant to challenge their authority since the people won’t notice that the small steps were part of a pattern leading to a complete takeover.

Along the way, they must destroy capitalism. They know, from history, that capitalism improves the lives of people. A happy, affluent people will not want to lose the economic and Constitutional foundations that create their good lives; so their prosperity has to be reduced slowly until they are no longer happy. Re-distribution is the means toward reaching this goal. Re-distribution is not the goal. The destruction of capitalism is the goal.

Capitalism must be destroyed because it is too good. So they promise affluence over the next few years while they chip away at that affluence through re-distribution. When the economy falters, they will tell us it is because man is too greedy; so the solution is more re-distribution. The strategy against affluence continues. Eventually, people will be so poor and so disenchanted with capitalism, that it will be willingly discarded.

This strategy requires that young people be educated as anti-capitalists. Toward this goal, businesspeople are portrayed as concerned with getting money at any cost. The caricature of an evil monster with distorted face and ugly nose who is interested only in exploiting the innocent for the sake of jewels and gold is just that; a caricature. The businessperson in a capitalist country is you and me, people who have worked our way up and done it through honest work and honest trade; people whose genius has been released through the possibility of living a better life.

The radicals, through their anti-capitalist propaganda in our schools and in the media, have placed businesspeople in a position where regulations, rules and arbitrary standards make it difficult to be honest. This is part of their strategy to corrupt all values, especially economic values. Government intrusions allow men who would otherwise be criminals a chance to legitimize their plunder by controlling and manipulating government bureaucrats. They seek to portray themselves as builders who care passionately for people. The truth is, in order for these radicals to “care” for others, they need the money made by honest people.

And this is where the Tea Party protesters come in. We are made up of producers who are being denigrated and minimized by media and government spokespeople…because we are the very people who provide the banquet for the professional parasites. They want us to think of ourselves as a minority of slaves that has no real power. They want us to feel guilty for defending capitalism.

What happens if we refuse to accept the guilt? What happens if we stand up for our right to prosper and succeed? What happens if we withdraw our sanction from these parasites? What happens if we refuse to provide the money for all these government boondoggles and social engineering schemes? What happens if we refuse to give power to professional thieves?

What happens?

They lose the ability to control the debate. They lose the docile slaves they thought they were educating. When men refuse to buy into the idea of service to the collective, when they stand up for their right to pursue happiness, the professional parasites will lose their university seats, their government jobs, their grants and their stimulus bills. If men refuse to be enslaved in their own minds, then the schemes of the parasites will not work.

What they don’t realize is that the parasite always dies when the host plucks him out.

Capitalism, the Perfect System

Political systems are based on ethical systems. Ethical systems are based upon our view of man as either autonomous or incompetent. If you think that man is autonomous, you celebrate his individuality and his nature as a thinking being who is essentially good and capable. You develop a system that honors that nature. If you think that man is incompetent, you question man’s ability to think and understand reality as well as his ability to choose correct action. You become a critic of man and you seek a society that is intent on ensuring that man takes those actions you (or God) deem to be correct.

These are the two choices in establishing society. Do you create a society that leaves man free to be his own moral agent; or do you create a society that uses government to ensure that man serves the collective good as prescribed by the authorities. You must select either a free society, limited government, or a dictatorship, unlimited government.

A limited government, by its nature, creates a capitalist society and the dynamism that comes from freedom. An unlimited government creates an authoritarian society and all the stagnation that comes with having a few people decide for a large number. Although it may be hard for some to accept, a capitalist society unleashes self-interest while an authoritarian society restricts people to sacrifice or altruism.

Today, in our society, there is a struggle between these two systems because we have not made up our minds about our view of man's nature. We have been flailing about, so to speak, and this has created our present situation where authoritarianism no longer needs to compromise with self-interest. It is now free to move forward to full control, full dictatorship.

For instance, we’ve seen for decades in the media and the arts a pervasive negative attitude toward business, particularly big business. Intellectuals, actors and commentators are forever sneering at the giants of industry, who, in their "ruthless" pursuit of profit, are supposedly breaking laws, cheating consumers, and generally, but successfully, making life miserable for us all. From the philosophical arena we are taught that those who seek self-interest necessarily must seek it at the expense of others. Such attitudes reach their lowest point in practice when a President of the United States scorns businessmen for not sacrificing themselves to the inflationary policies of the government and instead insist that in spite of the President's wishes they are going to make a profit. (See Kennedy vs. U.S. Steel or Obama vs. just about everybody)

The difference between those who favor authoritarianism and limited government is that authoritarians slice reality up into hundreds of out-of-context critiques of capitalism where nothing connects and anything goes. For instance, an authoritarian develops no universal principles that relate to man except that he is an economic creature. As a child of empiricism, the authoritarian believes that man is incapable of learning from his sense experience and, because so, we can only try different approaches to social organization in order to define those that work.

An empiricist might be a Marxist who sees no connection between one era of history and another. He would say that during an earlier agricultural age, private property developed out of a need to protect crops from being trampled. According to this view, the idea of property might have been valid in that context, but when industrial society took shape, the idea became obsolete in favor of collective rights. These critiques of capitalism created whole new branches of so-called social science each taking off in different directions yielding a myriad of conclusions and social engineering. The question was not how to establish a universal principle that was valid fundamentally through the ages but how to manipulate one idea in a hundred different ways. You could study thousands of books about just this one issue and learn nothing more than that man must be coerced for his own good. Imagine filling up your brain with that one idea and studying example after example. What a life that must be.

A different view might hold that property rights developed in one age to solve a particular problem but that the solution was based upon a new discovery about man. If property rights helped during an agricultural age and made for a stronger society, then the principle had application to man universally…specifically it helped him find increasingly better methods of survival. If property rights were instrumental in one age, then they would apply in all ages for all time. We might not have to study every example like the Marxists. We could get around to enjoying life.

What you have in these two views is the genesis of two basic systems of government, one that came out of European intellectual circles and the other that came out of American intellectual circles. One created dictatorship and the other the United States of America. The clash between these two views played out in two different periods; the first during the American Revolutionary War where a free society won and the other during World War I and World War II where the two sides fought to a stalemate. Although freedom won the wars during the previous century, the ideas of Europe prevailed intellectually and today European style totalitarianism is on the verge of taking over our country. We may soon experience the devastation that rocked Europe last century.

Today, once again, capitalism is under attack. The diluted forms of capitalism today; forms that are more mixed economies rather than true capitalism, are about to be wiped out and forever disappear. The reason for this is that intellectuals in our society hate the individualism and egoism that are an intricate element of capitalism. The progressives' adherence to the Marxist critique of capitalism, and their hatred of profit, has left capitalism with almost no defense. Few are willing to fight for the right of the individual to be an egoist. Yet, that is what it would take for capitalism to be defended.

In practically every philosophical discussion of egoism we hear something like this: Is it right to seek one's self-interest in disregard for the interests of others? Yet, this is a loaded question. It is based upon a Marxist critique that I call scarcity metaphysics, the idea that one man's good is another man's harm, that profit is theft. Such a view implies a total ignorance of property rights, and of the fact that what is rightfully owned by one man cannot in any way relate to the well-being of another.

The idea that egoism requires harm to someone neglects the basic principle of human interaction, the principle that makes economic coexistence possible; the principle of trade for mutual benefit. When people engage in trade they each expect to gain from the transaction. The standard of living in those countries that have free trade policies is evidence that mutual benefit does take place and that the capitalist world is not a den of thieves.

The ancient idea that those who engage in trade for a living are evil only reveals a bias by authoritarians against self-interest and effectively removes them from serious consideration. That such thinking takes place in view of the obvious evidence against its veracity is another example of the extent to which the idea of collective sacrifice has corrupted our culture.

One problem with anti-capitalists and their arguments, almost to a man (woman), is that they assume capitalism to be steeped in conflict and contradiction. Perhaps this comes from their childhoods or from their mentors, but for some reason, they project a state of conflict into the very essence of capitalism. Yet, capitalism is about, indeed requires, a high level of cooperation, good will and a synthesis between the economic demands of some people and need fillers, between those who are willing to buy and those whose jobs it is to develop the products and services to sell.

Capitalism creates the most efficient matching of need and need fulfillment. In contrast to the cooperation inherent in capitalism, we have the "command" method of the controlled economies, where bureaucrats make economic decisions, often guessing wrongly about supply and demand, then expropriating the funds from society to correct economic problems that they have created.

Capitalism is a demand system where capitalists are free to fill real and immediate demands using their own or borrowed funds and getting their reward when success is achieved - success that comes from successfully meeting the consumer's needs. Socialism, the command economy, is inefficient because it is based on bureaucratic decisions that are almost always wrong, too late, aimed at the wrong people or corrupt.

Capitalism is a perfect economic system because it allows the consumer to choose what he needs and then find the products to fill those needs, and in the process tipping off the capitalist about where to invest for future production. Everyone wins. Socialism is full of inefficiencies because the goal is not the satisfaction of requested needs but of "social" needs that a central authority deems proper, fulfilled by unwilling providers and presented in a “take it or leave it” way with little concern for the desires of the consumer. The only “satisfied” party in a socialist transaction is the central authority.

In a sense, every man is a Robinson Crusoe. And this fact is what makes every man a capitalist and every capitalist an egoist. Every man must find ever more efficient methods for improving his survival. For Robinson Crusoe, his goal was a better life on a desert island. For modern man, his goal is a higher standard of living. But like Robinson Crusoe, modern man must find a way to lighten the effort needed for bare survival. He does it through production. Production creates the profit that yields the opportunity for a higher standard of living. If a man's productive efforts yield him more than he needs for bare survival, he can then look around for those products that help in raising the quality of his life; he creates demands for such products and thereby stimulates more production; he creates a need for advertising and promotion of products so he can be made aware of what is available.

In contrast, the controlled economy is based on production only. By destroying property rights, this system thinks that it can obtain the results that derive from property rights by taking over the machines. Their critique that the principle of property rights worked in an agricultural society but are not necesarry in an industrial society is the reason why they cavalierly dismiss capitalists and expropriate the machines. What they don't understand is that machines don't run themselves, they need human intelligence and the only person willing to apply his intelligence to machines is the person who has a stake in them. Collectivist beneficiaries of stolen production don't really care about making sure the machines are run well as long as they are running. When the machines run out of oil or electricity, they stand around waiting for someone to give them a new machine.

Nature tells us that machines do not eliminate the need for property rights. In fact, property rights are a concept that recognizes an enduring trait of man; that he is a thinker who functions better when his right to keep what he creates is recognized. Property rights worked in a primitive society of two people five million years ago, in an advanced society of millions today and in a spaceship in some distant future transporting hundreds of colonists to a new planet. Property rights do not become obsolete with new machines; they become more necessary as the machines become more advanced. Better machines do not create collectivism.

This means that every man is a businessman and every businessman is a worker: in order to survive, he must produce, and in order to survive well, he must produce more than is necessary for bare subsistence. This law applies all across the economic spectrum from Robinson Crusoe to Bill Gates. To preach that profits are exploitation is not only an attack on disembodied corporations; it is an attack on every person.

Man is not merely a creature mired or chained to bare subsistence. He is also a creature of pleasure, a creature that yearns for rest, enjoyment and celebration. He needs to produce more than he consumes because he needs to experience the totality of being human. By nature, man is an egoist…and this is not a bad thing; it is a wonderful quality that makes enjoyment and higher thinking possible.

Subsistence economics, as is the economics of socialism, is nothing more than a scheme to subvert man's happiness, undertaken by those who would dictate his choices and steal the surplus that he produces. It is no accident that authoritarians take little consideration of man's ability to choose for himself, and that they preach their theories in the midst of the most technologically advanced economy in human history. They preach it, not in spite of the greatness of the productive U.S. citizen, but because of it. They have to find a way, through deception, to convince the American citizen that he has the most corrupt system ever devised…not so they can make things better but so they can take over his machines. It is a conman’s game they are playing. Like the savages they are, when the machines stop, they'll point their guns at the closest person and tell him to fix the machines, or else.

Why Van Jones Had to Go

One thing is certain, Van Jones was a political liability. But that is not why he should have resigned. Van Jones had to go because he is a communist and communists can do no good for this country. In fact, communists can do no good for any country. Communist philosophy is wrong in every respect, philosophically, economically, Constitutionally, historically, and most importantly, on the facts. There is no possible way that a person operating on the principles of Karl Marx could accomplish anything of value for a country.

First of all, in spite of what Marx said, Marxism is wrong because it is predominantly an economic theory rather than a theory of man. No economic theory can trump the Constitution. That document is not a document of economics; it is a philosophical and political document that defends individual rights. As such, hierarchically, it trumps any economic theory.

Marxism starts with a theory of historical development that sees class and economics as fundamental factors in history rather than man and his rights. The critique of capitalism that Marxism advances is wrong historically, philosophically and economically. For instance, a Marxist can claim to understand everything about you by means of identifying the economic class to which you belong. He assumes, under this premise, that you will always seek to defend your class and if you are a capitalist, you have no place in the future; you must be eliminated. Anyone who has this position is blind to reality. This view is completely untenable, it is discriminatory and it is a clear indication that the Marxist is going to make many bad decisions.

The Marxist critique of capitalism is supported by several intellectual tricks; one is called polylogism, the idea that every economic class has its own logic that cannot be understood by people of other classes. This view destroys intellectual debate and assigns some classes to the category of being wrong. The other trick is called historical materialism that assigns the class of “the rich” to a historical role that is supposedly being dissolved by history in favor of “the proletariat” that represents socialism or communism. On this basis alone, how could a Marxist create a “green jobs” program that accomplishes anything lasting or meaningful? At the outset, he is prejudiced about people with skills, training and genius because they are categorically on the wrong side of history.

The Marxist critique destroys intellectual intercourse between rich and poor and opens the door for some of the most vile lies and moral outrage by the Marxists. The intent of this anti-capitalist outrage is to ensure that “workers” (capitalists) who create affluence are not allowed a voice in society and to justify their exploitation or exclusion in society.

There are only two kinds of economic creatures that have a place in a “green jobs” program; oligarchs and racial minorities.

Oligarchs: Only companies that use government to capture markets can participate. These tend to be less productive companies that want to use government to overcome competitive weakness due to poor management or the adoption of obsolete technologies (Remember, the morning before this bill was proposed, an amendment was added to it that earmarked a large portion of new tax revenues for companies that would invest in green jobs specifically in the Midwest. Who are these companies? They are all companies that are involved in research and development of green technology, some of them financed by oligarchs from Russia, who expect to receive large infusions of investment capital from the Stimulus Package and government grants. None of these companies expect to compete in the open market. In fact, they will be propped up by the government that has a stake in their success. The Obama administration is hoping (beyond hope) that these new "green" companies will mitigate the negative impact of the Cap and Trade bill on coal and oil companies. The administration appears to be blind to the very real possibility that not only will this bill destroy those industries, but it will replace those companies with organizations providing less efficient energy alternatives).

Racial Minorities: A Marxist as the “green jobs” master, who has openly stated that capitalism is about white people poisoning black neighborhoods and white destruction of native tribes will operate, not like a capitalist with any eye on efficiency and profitability, but like a commissar. He will command that hiring decisions be based on social goals rather than job skills. He will ensure, specifically, that few competent white people will be given new "green" jobs. This will institutionalize racism as government policy and force these new green companies to hire people who will, in many cases, be less productive union employees with guaranteed jobs. Using Marxist theory, those people who are the "proletariat", meaning racial minorities, will be given preference for those jobs...which amounts to a re-distribution of jobs from coal and oil industry employees, who will not find jobs in the new eco-economy, to previously "excluded" groups. These will be permanent jobs paid for out of tax payer money.

A program like Cap and Trade can only collapse - forcing the government to backtrack on hundreds of unworkable policies in order to "fix" the myriad problems it has created, not to mention the resulting economic devastation and unemployment.

Although Marxists claim to be “scientific” due to their belief that religion is the opium of the masses; they are very religious in some major ways. First, their allegiance to science is really pseudo-science, a fake science that seeks to validate the “historical factors” that they have accepted on faith. For a Marxist, as a polylogist, all truth is “proletarian” while anything that comes from a true inductive process is “bourgeois” meaning capitalist and unworthy of consideration. Under this view, Van Jones would have been focused on science provided by "scientists" living off of government grants, people with a vested interest in bad global science; people who will act to solve a non-problem that has not been scientifically proven - in the name of science. If you don't understand the harm of this policy, you don't realize that real science, when it is free, discards false notions as soon as the facts disprove them. Our government will cling to global warming "science" forever because it will help them achieve "social" goals, not economic goals.

Yet, even though most Marxists reject religion, they have accepted a basic tenet of religion that “man is his brother’s keeper”; that it is man’s duty to sacrifice for the sake of others. This premise creates some of the most vicious cruelty that any political ideology has ever mustered. If you are a capitalist, in this view, you are a thief (exploitation theory), a liar (polylogism) and a throwback to the past (historical process). The solution for the Marxists is brutal repression and re-distribution. But, as has always been the case when Marxists rule a country, the money re-distributed becomes a shrinking pot that shrivels to nothing and throws the nation into chronic poverty.

This means that Marxist principles result in catastrophe for man. Classism is wrong because it seeks to identify an individual by means of whether he is part of a group. Marxists claim to be against racism of any kind but when they say that white people are the scourge of mankind, they don’t consider that kind of statement to be racist. Yet, the result of this view is the same regardless of whether the excluded group is made up of Jews or white people: social decline and genocide. By this view, you can make any individual into an enemy and justify his destruction. You can do it to Jews, to white people, to Hispanics, to businesspeople or any group that you decide is ripe for hatred. Mr. Jones' statements about white people expose the cruelty and exclusion that is to come from his view of history.

An even worse aspect of Marxism is the contention that Marxism is the only truth; that it can’t be denied, that a defender of individual rights is an enemy of the people, a cruel heartless fascist intent on subjugating mankind and stopping the advance of the next historical phase that belongs inexorably to socialism. Marxists insist that true freedom consists of sacrificing for the collective. Marxists do not question this lie; they act on it ruthlessly, making themselves into some of the most vicious man-hating advocates for the so-called “good” in history.

To justify their brutal repressions, Marxists have another argument to support their altruistic premises. This is called “exploitation theory”. It holds that any form of profit from land, money interest, labor, etc., is theft. For the Marxist, economic value comes only from the labor that is being expended on the capitalist’s property and this means that the capitalist, the owner of machines, factories, housing units, farms, etc. is nothing more than a robber. According to this view, the capitalist exploits the people he hires to work on his property and, because he expends no labor, he has no right to the surplus value created by the worker.

This doctrine created two of the most brutal and hateful dictatorships in human history. It justified the expropriation of every factory in Russia and China and the brutal suppression, murders and other forms of discrimination against the people who once owned these properties. Armed with exploitation theory, Marxists have historically destroyed the very people they need to create a working economy. These wrong headed policies have left Marxist societies without the benefit of the organizing skills and management genius needed to create affluence and prosperity. The result was a society that routinely operated according to the whims of ignorant savages like Stalin and Mao; as well as the decisions of "commissars" who routinely disregarded the principles of supply and demand, creating in the process massive waste, fraud and corruption. All of this in order to ensure that no worker was exploited.

Exploitation theory is a lie. Labor is a factor in production but there are other more important factors. These include capital accumulation (savings), management skills, efficient resource allocation, production planning, technology planning, business process planning and implementation, leadership, effective market planning, logistics, not to mention having the foresight to create and offer the best products for the best price; all of these are skills necessary for efficient production; all of which add value and justify the profits created by capitalists. Property in the hands of efficient managers is what creates value. The recognition of property rights, the very enemy of Marxist theorists, is the single most important factor in the creation of a society that works.

Yet, intellectuals like Van Jones praise themselves with romanticized notions about their being righteous defenders of downtrodden minorities who have been victimized by capitalism, forgetting, in the blindness of fanatics, that the supposed downtrodden also have a right to be left alone, that they have rights, that they should not be required to attend group meetings every night to be indoctrinated and evaluated; that they have a right to the results of their labor but no right to the results of the labor of property owners, and that forcing them to give up most of their production for the collective is immoral. Marxist intellectuals, for some reason, are blind to the fact that the real oppressors of men, the real slave drivers, the real imperialists and militarists, are Marxists.

We have a basic choice going forward as a nation. Should we have an expanding role for government, creating ever larger welfare programs for rich and poor alike? Should we accept the premises of Marxist ideologies while we wonder why things are getting worse and why our “bosses” don’t give a damn about us? Or should we roll all these nearly endless rights violations back and allow private capital and voluntary interests to predominate?

I question why we are having this debate at all. Marxism has been such a miserable failure throughout history that even a Marxist should know better...if there is any honesty left in the world. In fact, we’ve already answered these questions in our founding documents. The answer to Marxist ideas is individual and property rights. Van Jones? You've got to be kidding.

What Makes a Society Work

“When you’re a radical, what you are thinking of is power. It’s about power. You adopt this position, you take up that issue, but it’s all about advancing the power. They never think about what it’s going to look like or how they’re going to put it together. I can tell you, a radical never spends five seconds on thinking what makes a society work.”(1)

I have been saying since the 2000 election that the present crop of Democrats, those that are now in power, are not the same as Democrats of the past. They are not people who want to make society better, though they claim to know what it will take. They only want to gain power. They will lie, cheat, steal, distort and subvert. They have no moral stops. They would cause us to lose another war if it will help them win an election. They will precipitate an economic collapse if that will discredit their enemies.

When our founders were creating the documents that today underpin our society, they thought very hard about how to establish political institutions that would prevent coercive powers from dictating to the people. Today, the advocates of radical reform who are in charge of our government are doing everything possible to advance coercive power and dictate to the people. Our Constitutional protections are under attack. The very types of people our founders fought in the revolutionary war have now taken over.

We thought that Marxism was part of the past, but now it has arisen again with the political victory of President Barack Obama. Certainly, the President is not an avowed, open Marxist. He is a soft Marxist, a flimflam man who will bring in Marxism while pretending to be a mainstream “liberal”.

Indeed, the cold war was replete with many people who bought the Marxist party line about American imperialism and the so-called evils of capitalism. It was Herbert Marcuse who once blamed capitalism for the slow progress of socialism. His view was that capitalism duped and blinded people to the corruption of the system by giving them ever better products. This capitalist success forced socialism onto the defensive and made it necessary for socialism to spend more and more on military machines. Marcuse was right, but instead of realizing what was right about capitalism, he continued to believe that socialism was the better system nonetheless.

Why is capitalism superior to socialism? What is it about this system that has enabled it to survive revolutions, revulsion, criticism and hatred by virtually all major intellectuals for almost three centuries? Why has it survived against such ‘nobler’ systems as communism and socialism that have proven ineffectual? Wasn’t capitalism the system that would disappear and become communism? The answer is that the intellectuals have missed something. They were wrong in some way.

What did they miss? They missed the basic fact that capitalism is good for the individual, even the worker who is supposedly the exploited victim of the system. Capitalism gives him a better life because he has chosen to work and prosper in the freedom that capitalism provides. The communists were not successful in turning the American worker into a radical anti-capitalist who hated his so-called slave drivers. The average worker is not a radical revolutionary; he just wants to live a good life. Under capitalism we are all, factory owners and employees, just workers of the world, not born revolutionaries. This fact has destroyed the hopes and plans of the Marxists, not to mention their belief that communism was the next phase of history.

When the founders of our country developed what they hoped would be a society that worked, they instituted individual rights and property rights. These ideas liberated men to produce, to keep the product of their effort and to prosper. These ideas created a capitalist system. Radical anti-capitalists today are merely the proponents of the very dictatorship that the founders sought to hold back. The lies told about capitalism, that it is exploitive, that it steals from the worker, that it is imperialistic and militaristic, that there is an inexorable historical process that ensures socialism, that it is fascist, are all propagated for the sole purpose of establishing the old enemy of freedom that the founders fought a war to defeat: dictatorship.

Soft Marxists like President Obama have only one purpose; to ensure that we don’t realize what they are doing. His job is to make us think that everything is normal, that the Constitution is still the law of the land, while his minions dismantle our freedoms under cover of darkness. His Cap and Trade Program, green collar economy, Government Medical Care, citizen armies, diversity in media censorship, stimulus programs and a host of other programs designed to fund and advance Big Brother-style control were supposed to happen under the radar. The radicals had hoped to accomplish their revolutionary transformation of our country with immediacy and no debate – but for Fox News. They had hoped to blame the Republicans for all the economic consequences of the their own policies – but for the Tea Parties.

How is it that the Tea Party protesters, who exhort us to remember our Constitution, did not miss what the anti-capitalist intellectuals missed? Why do we see today, average people filling the streets in large numbers proclaiming that they want to be free and that the best stimulus program is capitalism? Why are these patriots laughed at by media pundits and administration representatives who see in them ignorant racists rather than thoughtful thinkers who understand our Constitution? I submit that a Tea Party protester knows more than all the radical intellectuals coming out of Harvard and Yale. This is because the protester's paycheck did not come from a university seat or government grant – but from his work. And he knows that capitalism is an opportunity to prosper, not slavery. He knows, like the founders, what makes a society work.

(1)David Horowitz (former radical) on Glenn Beck Show September 4, 2009

Ten Tea Party Rules for Radicals

By Robert Villegas
Copyright 2009 Robert Villegas

Every government program (from Cap and Trade, Obamacare, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and more) is nothing more than a re-distribution program intended to take your money and re-distribute it to people who would not otherwise be successful. These programs are money laundering schemes that are intended to make corrupt politicians, professional parasites (community organizers) and corrupt businesspeople rich using your money. These schemes are intended to steal everything you have earned so people from George Soros on down have the funds necessary to make your children into slaves. They will use “soft” arguments about your “duty” to care for others, they will try to make you feel pity about the hard lives being lived by others and the need for action to fix an emergency that they have created; but make no mistake about it; there will be nothing soft about the dictatorship that is soon to come. I’m certain that the hammer and sickle is not the change you thought you could believe in.

These may appear to be harsh words; the left and the media are doing everything they can to obfuscate and deny that total re-distribution is the goal of the administration; but make no mistake about it, our government has no intention of caring for you. All they want is to convince you that it is ok to let them use your money for a supposed good that will never come. If they get their way, you will soon be poor beyond your ability to imagine. They are working to create a crisis that will provide the pretext for a massive attack on the Constitution.

Today, we are witnessing the victory of the progressive movement; they think it is finally their day; the champagne has already been poured, they have you where they want you. They think they are smarter than you because the education they have given you has made it difficult for you to figure out what they have done. They are also certain that their strategy cannot fail. They think they can advance their goals incrementally, get you to accept their basic premises and push until they have made a complete takeover.

You have to change their minds. We have to make them stop. Your choice is either to accept progressive ideologies of sacrifice and government theft or engage in a struggle to regain your freedoms. If we are to regain those freedoms, we must become radicals unlike any before. We must become Atlases willing to shrug off the parasites.

Below is my humble attempt to develop real Rules for Radicals. These are my suggestions on how we can fight these savages and beat them off. Perhaps we can recover the original intent of our Constitution and live in a civilized society again.

1. Always argue from your basic premise – your individual rights - They have no right to take your money and give it to someone else.
- Every government entitlement program is a form of re-distribution (theft) of your money.
- No one voted this government into dictatorial power – we still expect them to honor the same Constitution that every other leader in this country has been sworn to honor, no matter how much they hate it and want to overturn it.
- You have a right to earn a living and be happy.
- They have no right to take away your property.
- They have no right to regulate your economic actions.
- They have no right to destroy your freedom of speech or any other freedoms protected under the Constitution.
- Proper government is supposed to protect each and every citizen from the violation of his rights by the government.
- Capitalism is the implementation of individual rights economically.
- Violate individual rights and you destroy the ability of people to have free and peaceful commerce.
- Any government that violates individual rights is immoral and must be stopped or changed.
- Man survives by means of his mind. He must use reason in order to survive. Using reason is an individual decision. No one has a right to decide for a man what he should do when his reason prescribes something else. Destroy freedom of action and you destroy society. You cannot have a moral society if you interfere with man’s right to be free.

2. Get them to accept your basic premise
- Do they believe in individual rights? – insist that they respect them - then show them how individual rights should be protected in any given issue.
- It is your politician’s job to ensure that the government does not violate your rights – it is not their job to lie to you about why or how the government should use your money to benefit anyone else.
- Do they protect the Constitution?
- Do they understand the Bill of Rights?

3. Never accept their basic premise- Their basic premise is that government has the right and responsibility to make you sacrifice for the sake of others. Whenever you challenge them, they will tell you that you are evil, selfish, in the pay of corporations, etc. They want you to feel guilty for living a moral life. They want to make you feel immoral if you do not go along with their wishes. Refuse to give in to this idea.
- It is not proper that you be forced by government to provide your neighbor’s results.
- They do not have the right to force you to take care of your neighbor.
- “Morality ends where a gun begins.” – Ayn Rand
- It is cruel to force a man against his will.
- You have a right to decide who gets your money. That is a private decision.
- Government is not entitled to care for any citizen with another citizen’s money.
- It is immoral to make one man the slave of another. Re-distribution enslaves the productive person to the non-productive.
- Production does not take place in a vacuum…someone has to decide to work hard and do well. What gives the government the right to invalidate that decision by means of force?
- Any government that decides to pick economic winners and losers is a fascist state.
- “Social Justice” is a euphemism for re-distribution and actually means expropriation and force against productive citizens. There is no “justice” with social justice.

4. Always look them in the eyeThis method takes the moral high ground and puts them in their place. It communicates the certainty you have in your position.

5. Always defuse their argument – stay in reality
A correct argument is based in reality and in consequences. Every form of re-distribution has unintended consequences that can often be identified by careful thought. Every government intrusion is justified by lies and distortions. Learn how to recognize them.
- Read the writings of the Founding Fathers as well as good free market thinkers like Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, Andrew Bernstein and Ayn Rand to name a few.
- Government coercion takes place whenever the government tries to prescribe for people what they should do.
- Government coercion is force. Force always replaces the individual’s mind with the government’s decision. This is immoral.
- Remember, good economic argument exposes the bad consequences that stem from the economic distortions brought about by government intervening in private decisions. The moral argument is where you take a stand for your right to act in your own self-interest without interference from the government.
- All economic problems are caused by government interference in the market place…not by private decisions made by people trying to do the right things for themselves.
- When the government wants to “fix” an economic problem, always look for what they did to create the problem and then tell them to stop doing that. That will fix the problem.
- Leave men free and they will solve their own problems.

6. Use the boycott
Don’t give them your money, don’t give them your vote, don’t give them an inch because they intend to rule and they don’t care what you think. It is either freedom or slavery…every statist politician must be disenfranchised and excised from the fabric of our society.

7. Don’t let them get away with logical fallacies.
- Ad hominem – attacking the man rather than arguing the issue – also called ridicule or personal attack.
- Changing the subject – avoiding the issue or answering a question not asked.
- Equivocation – using the same word with more than one meaning in order to confuse the opponent
- Moral outrage – pretending that someone has said something morally reprehensible. Sometimes call selective outrage or moralizing.
- Walking stick – threat of force.
- Circular reasoning – using the point you are trying to prove as part of your argument.
- Appeal to pity – engendering guilt by pointing to the suffering of others – this is not the issue. Your rights are the issue.
- Non sequiter – the conclusion does not follow from the argument
- Soliciting agreement – asking you if you accept their premise which is wrong – such as “You agree that it is right for the government to provide for the common good, don’t you?” or “You agree that something has to be done about the poor, don’t you?”

8. Know the Constitution and understand the reasons for the Bill of Rights. Especially the principle that a government should be prohibited from violating the rights enumerated in the Constitution. Progressives have struggled to invalidate the Constitution – put them back on point.

9. Know the types of governments.
- Limited government – a government limited to protecting individual and property rights. It is a government that bans force except in the areas of fighting crime and fraud against otherwise free citizens.
- Statism - a political system where the state makes all decisions and assumes the right to control all aspects of life for the individual.
- Fascist state – a government of private property where the government selectively tells people how to manage their property.
- Socialist state – a government that owns the major industries and decides production quotas for the economy.
- Communist state – a government that owns all property and makes all economic decisions.
- Welfare state – a government that is based on re-distribution of income from the producers to the non-producers – it requires a coercive state.
- Coercive state – a government that takes upon itself the right to make whatever coercive decisions it deems proper.
- Mixed economy – an economy consisting of some regulation and some freedom – sometimes also called a fascist state.
- Oligarchy – a government ruled by a group or family of property owners with the ability to create monopolies that restrict competition in favor of the ruling elite.
- Republic – a government ruled by the people but forbidden to engage in any coercive activities. The government can only function in protection of rights with most officials elected and given only limited powers - sometimes called a limited government. A Republic selects people to leadership who are presumably the most deserving and judicious.
- Democracy – a government where majority decision rules in all areas including capital punishment for any reason. Coercive governments often use the cover of a “democracy” to engage in persecution of citizens who dissent.
- Theocracy - a nation where the government is a religion.
- Monarchy - a government run by a hereditary monarch or king.
- Anarchy - a situation where there is no government.
- Plutocracy - a government where the wealthy rule - similar to an oligarchy.
- Tribal society - a society where a tribe rules all members.
- Collectivism - a political ideology where the collective makes all decisions and the individual is required to do the will of the collective.
- Capitalism - an economic system that is based on individual rights and individual autonomy.
- Totalitarianism - a political system where the rule of the government is total.
- Tyranny - a political system where the government controls with brutal disregard for the rights of citizens.
- Individualism - an ideology that holds the individual as the sovereign agent.
- Nihilism - an ideology that holds there is no value for man to pursue.

10. Understand that the enemies of freedom require you to accept the premise that all profit is theft. They ridicule the profit motive as a basic assumption. So their attacks on businesspeople, businesses, the workings of the market place, capitalism, capital accumulation, interest earnings and other forms of profit are an effort to defeat the idea that you have a right to your earnings. They want to justify their taking your money for their own uses.

Statists assert without proof that there is no such thing as an individual decision, that all decisions and economic results are collective in nature and belong to the collective. You must stand up to the evil of this and fight for the good inherent in making money. Fight for your decision to use your mind in order to survive and assert your right to be as successful as possible, to live the most affluent life possible and to be free of moralizing meddlers who claim the right to your money. If your mind created it, it is yours and you should keep it. It takes intelligence, ingenuity, planning and hard work to create profits. Profits are a sign of your ability to survive. They are created, not stolen from anyone. They are good and you should be proud of your ability to live well. Never let them tell you that profits should be a cause of guilt.

A final point: Look around you. Democrats and Republicans, the infrastructure of our society, energy plants, roads, automobiles, central heating, air conditioning, processed foods, computers, cell phones, iPods and all the other conveniences of our lives are proof that freedom works. They add years of comfort to our lives(Imagine having to ride a horse from Indianapolis to Washington DC). These things were created by free people using their minds. Our genius comes from our freedoms; the very freedoms protected by the Constitution. These are great arguments for capitalism; and they reveal, in tangible terms, the value of defending individual rights. And they show what a truly moral society can accomplish.

In spite of what President Obama tells you, the free market does work in wonderful ways. No coercive state has ever been able to create such affluence. A coercive state like that being proposed by our President eats up, first, the savings of a society, and rather than letting smart people invest those savings in making society better, it merely spends the money in non-productive ways. This kills the genius of our society and sets us on a path toward decline. The government can never make better judgments about how to spend your money than you. Do we really want to destroy our wonderful society for the sake of a false idea such as "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need"? Don't we already know that this idea destroys all motivation for the poor and the rich? What kind of leader would suggest such an idiotic idea?

Hopefully, these “rules” are a start to getting our freedoms back. We've got to stop this absurd theft of our childrens' futures. I’d welcome any suggestions.