Tea Party Journal

The Truth About the President’s Economic Policy Conclusion

2012-01-24T11:17:00.000-08:00

So, if none of our leaders will provide the truth about the President’s speech in Kansas, someone else will have to do it.

Yet, the President is correct. The issue of capitalism versus regulation is the defining issue of our time and we must resolve this issue once and for all. The debate, in essence, is about morality and politics because it involves basic questions about man’s nature and the purpose of government. I have written about this extensively in other blog posts.

The discussion, in this blog post, is about the proper role of government about which the President’s speech also pretended to be. The basic questions include: Should government have the authority to use force against citizens in order to advance goals that are contrary to the citizens? What should happen when the actions of government conflict with the needs of human survival? Does the government have the authority to coerce people who are not criminals? What should be the role of individual rights in framing the government?

And more specifically: Does the President have a respect for the rule of law? Does he understand that the government was created to protect individual rights and that there is no authority in the Constitution (and in reality) that gives one man the power to dictate to others how they will act, which products they will choose and what they will do with the money they have earned through their own work? What is the moral justification for expropriating the money of citizens and spending it on projects and programs that the Constitution does not authorize? How can the morality of altruism be practiced by a government prohibited from violating freedoms?

At every turn, it seems the President has an answer. But it is an answer that hangs in the ether without foundation and justification. He thinks it is perfectly within his realm of authority to act as the sole judge of these issues because the election gave him that authority. But it did not. His campaign proclamation to bring forth “change” does not invalidate the Constitution. His intent to engage in unilateral action violates the rules of Republican government. For a man who is supposedly a Constitutional scholar, his actions represent a strange twist on the concept of Presidential power. We did not elect him to make his own laws. We elected him to be the President of the United States, not the dictator of the United States. There are constraints on his power which he cannot violate.

The President thinks that in order to govern, he need only declare an “emergency” and then act unilaterally. This is one of the worst arguments for Presidential Power ever to land in the White House. Forget that this approach is an invitation to “create” the emergencies that supposedly require direct action. Forget that he is inventing emergencies virtually at will. Forget that his policies violate the principles of separation of powers and check and balances. Forget that individual rights have gone virtually out the window. What baffles most people is that the President thinks he is the only person who understands the causes of our problems (self-interest) and that the only solution is altruism and re-distribution. One could not write a serious analysis of the President’s theory of Presidential power; one could only write a comedy.

Yet, this is a deadly serious issue. The President has subordinated our very survival to the absolute necessity of his election in November. Consider what this means for your life: You will have to endure this low economy, possibly lose or never get a job, possibly lose your home if you haven’t already lost it, possibly endure runaway inflation and higher taxes, just so we can have President Obama as our leader for the next four years. Look within your soul and ask yourself whether you will be able to survive the next four years of the Obama administration?

Capitalism means survival for our citizens and our nation. The President denigrates capitalism as if the act of trying to survive is somehow immoral. Capitalism allows for the free flow of capital and investment into better ideas that make better lives. The President calls capitalists “those at the top” and he demands that more taxes be paid by the rich while he ignores the simple fact that the rich do not have enough money to pay for the massive over-spending he has done. And, when the results of the President’s policies are manifest, the President asks for more sacrifice, not just from the rich, but from the very people he claims to be helping: the middle class. The squeeze is on and we are the lemons.

Yet, the real tax on the middle class is not found on a tax return. It is the tax of inflation which will come down hardest on the aged and the poor. This tax is accomplished by printing fiat money to pay for the massive debt the President continues to build. New printed money added to the economy dilutes the value of existing money and this creates inflation. When that inflation in the form of higher and higher prices (called runaway inflation) hits and people notice they don’t have enough money to survive, many will not know that it is the President who did this to them.

So the talk of raising taxes on the rich, because it would do nothing to eliminate the deficit, is nothing more than rhetoric. The President is using the “bash the rich” class warfare mantra, not to expose an evil player on the scene, the rich, but to hide the real evil player, himself. The President would drag the nation down rather than build it up. He would rather create conflict and discord among Americans in order to set the stage for the system of government that creates poverty.

To further understand this, I’d like to quote another speech by the President, the speech he gave on the night he was elected in 2008:

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

There’s that “defining moment” line again, or should I say, this speech is the genesis of that defining moment that he later talked about in his Kansas speech. Since we're talking about "defining" moments, why didn't the President “define” “change” when it would have helped the voters decide?

But some of us have figured it out. His actions have shown us what change means and we say, ‘No, thank you, Mr. President.” We've figured out that the defining moment the President hoped for is the moment when the American people decide to make sacrifice the motivating principle of their society; the moment when they decide to loot the wealth of those who made prosperity possible; the moment when we become a society of cannibals. That is the change he has brought to America.

Many of us have also figured out that, in practice, the President’s “change” meant full-blown fascism; the massive looting of society by the government. I’ve written about our country’s movement toward fascism and I’ve defined the term while few others have. Fascism is the worst, ugliest system to come out of the last century. It holds that the government can make people do whatever it wants while leaving to them the responsibility for the failures of its policies. It means spending taxpayer money to bailout corporations and their unions. It means spending taxpayer money to fund the creation of new industries regardless of whether the people want those industries. It means printing money which steals peoples’ savings and creates the hidden tax of inflation. It means massive government debt imposed upon people without their consent. It means using taxpayer money to fund organizations that the government favors but which the people do not. It means putting the competitors of friends out of business through regulations and picking winners and losers. Fascism is runaway government. This is the change the President promised and his actions prove it.

We must ask ourselves a very important question: Why did fascist Germany lose the war in Europe? This question is important to us because almost all the things the President is doing today were done by the German fascists before him. The German people lost that war because they had been worn down by their own government. They were educated constantly on the vibrant future that would come about through their sacrifice for the Volk. They were promised a 1,000 year Reich and a brilliant future of world power and affluence. As time went on, the toil of the entire society, by means of aggressive war, became necessary so they could win “living space” for Germany. This goal required unceasing work and commitment from every member of society. It meant that they had to "donate" their money, time, effort and minds to a collective goal defined by the government. The German's "defining moment" came when they voted Hitler into power; when they declared that they would be a society of sacrifice for the collective.

Eventually, these people began to see the sinister nature of fascism; the regimentation, the slave labor, the blood and the death it created. Those that did not know the evil going on, at the very least, began to suspect that the speeches of Hitler were intended to steal from them their life blood and their children for the sake of the biggest sacrifice in history, not only their own self-sacrifice but the sacrifice of entire nations and whole peoples all over the world. The inflationary policies of the government that built huge highways, powerful armies and massive government buildings were not seen as victories by the people but as the cause of rising prices and increasing misery. Before Germany was defeated by the allies, the spirit of the people had collapsed from within due to the demanding policies of the government. The end result is that Hitler blamed the German people for not being good enough for the future he promised.

Fascism always collapses because eventually it requires total sacrifice and this makes life impossible. The lies lead to failures and more lies; the failures lead to more taxes. More taxes lead to reduced standards of living and eventually to slave labor and collapse. We are not there yet, but we are on the tipping point. Once high taxes on the rich destroy future investment, and once inflation causes a collapse of the currency, poverty will have reached a level so low that society will collapse. The destruction of America will be complete and the hordes of plundering Armies from other countries will have their way. Will someone be able to look back and see that the genesis of our destruction was that we allowed altruism and sacrifice to plunder us before the Armies descended? Only the victors write the history books and you can be assured of a long dark age of misery if we don’t recognize now that the defining issue of our time is capitalism and freedom versus fascism and slavery.

How do the President and his fellow travelers respond to the charge of fascism? They laugh and tell us that anyone who would think such a thing is ignorant and worthy of ridicule. Do they define the type of government they stand for? No, they refuse to discuss ideology because they hold ideology to be an outdated way of defending their plans for society. They evade the discussion of principles in order to evade telling people the truth about what they are doing. As plunderers and thieves, they must tell people that everything is normal, as it was, and that they are just asking for a little bit of sacrifice. They use a “we versus them” approach that denigrates anyone who would disagree with them, dropping intellectual debate to the level of the street fighter, the public opinion poll and the man with the gun. They hope that people ignore the deeper philosophical issues that they must confront if they are to save themselves. Cheap character assassination and cheaper criticisms of capitalism are their stock in trade. Rumor-mongering and scandal-mongering are their political weapons. They masquerade as objective critics doing their best to understand the “facts” but they base their criticisms on an unacknowledged Marxist ideology which they pretend is scientifically proven and beyond question.

Yet, their true political ideology, the reason that the President did not define what “change” meant during his election campaign, is fascism. Their pragmatism requires that they masquerade as good people who must defend us against the “bad” people out for a profit. Just as the Nazi’s vilified the industrious Jews and other capitalists as the enemies of society, today’s fascists in the administration are vilifying business executives and rich people as the enemies of society.

Remember, that altruism, sacrifice, is a characteristic of fascism. Remember, that it has caused our economic collapse…and now consider…that the President plans on winning the next election by appealing to the very philosophical principle that is dragging our nation into the ditch…altruism. If he can get you to compromise and agree with him that we need more “giving”, he has won the debate and the rest is merely a matter of implementation via force. He wants you to blame yourself for not sacrificing enough and he wants you to vote for him because he’s the altruistic leader “fixing” America (with your dollars taken from you by force).

Yet, the guilty secret that the President refuses to acknowledge is the fact that re-distribution and altruism actually make things worse for all Americans. It is a flight of fancy to think taking from some Americans and giving to others will actually do any good. Re-distribution does not create new wealth; it steals wealth from producers and gives it to people who will merely consume it. This creates a net decline in the economy regardless of how efficient the technocrats are in re-distributing it. Eventually, the people from whom the money was taken will realize that their work yields them a poor result so they slow their effort and reduce their savings.

The flaw in the President’s system is that there will never be an end to the call for sacrifice. In spite of declining economic conditions caused by too much sacrifice, the President will call for more sacrifice. That the people are impoverished, that they are starving, poorly clothed and in poor living conditions is never blamed on the government. The government is good it is thought. It is only trying to help the poor they tell us. Yet, when people sacrifice their total production to the goals of the government, they have nothing to eat, to wear, to enjoy. We are getting there and when we reach the bottom level of misery, we’ll be told that our misery is the result of our greed and self-interest and that we have not sacrificed enough. It is an old story.

When we have eaten the productive citizens alive, we must find new scapegoats to eat, the greedy ones that have been “stealing” from the people who have nothing to steal. When we’ve destroyed the last factory, looted the last grocery store in the name of “the people”, then we’ll have reached the dead end. Some might remember hearing that “the best sacrifice is total sacrifice” and they’ll wonder why this idea didn’t make things better. Weren’t they trying to do the right thing? And some few might vaguely remember the words of the President about a defining moment when we “changed” into the “right” kind of society and we’ll wonder what happened. When we remember that someone “told you so” and warned you what was coming, you’ll vaguely remember that these people were bad. At this point, it is time to start eating shoe leather if you can find it.

Leaders such as President Obama, as did the leaders of Nazi Germany, are perennially waiting for their failed policies to someday succeed. They put off far into the future, the affluence of the coming great society they claim to be building. Today, we are told, it will happen after the election and we must stay the course.

We started this series of blog posts by recognizing our need to have honest leaders who are willing to admit the truth. But when the leaders are lying to the people; when their policies are creating rather than solving the problems of the nation, a free people has only one option; and that is to vote out the people who refuse to be honest with them.

Fascism is the worst possible system for mankind. Because it is constantly manipulating the people and their institutions, a fascist government is always on a collision course with reality. Today, one regulation is proposed to fix a problem caused by yesterday’s regulation. Tomorrow a new regulation will fix the problems created by today’s regulation and so on until there are more umpires than players, more policemen than citizens, more regulators than regulated, more dead than living.

In the past, many Americans realized that fascism was so bad they were willing to die in battle to defeat it. Today, we are being counseled by our leaders to accept it without even being told that it is fascism. We must face the fact that these leaders have accepted corruption as “practical” and they think the best way forward is to turn every man into a dependent waiting for the next handout taken from the honest work of a few slaves. This is the system they want and this is the system they tell your children is moral.

It should have been no surprise that the Nazis would eventually descend into the gutter. The murders of millions and the concentration camps are only some of the atrocities possible to a government which does not recognize individual rights. We must understand that our government, by not recognizing the right of people to their own production, by arbitrarily raising taxes, printing money, creating massive budgets, practicing crony capitalism and engaging in government corruption is on a collision course with reality as well.

No one can "regulate" prosperity into existence. No one can manipulate a people into responding positively to coercion. No one can lie themselves into power and expect that no one will know the truth. Sooner or later, someone will mumble under his breath the complaint that the leaders are bumbling idiots.

Yet, the brutal truth is that one can’t use force and “hope” for anything. One does not use force against disarmed citizens in the hope that things will get better. In order to be willing to use force against other men, a man must first hate those other men. In order to invoke policies that destroy people, one must want to destroy those people. This is not something that a person can do in ignorance. This is true of the man who gives the order, the politician who votes for it and the stormtrooper who enforces it with his bayonet. No one gets to the point of murdering innocent people without first deciding to murder someone.

The truth about the President’s economic policy is that it is a policy of deliberate destruction. The sooner we put a stop to this madness, the sooner we will be able to restore our liberties and begin living again.

There is only one way to plant the seed of prosperity in a people and that is to leave them free and protect them in their freedom. Let them think for themselves, express their own true thoughts, work according to the truth and let them trade without restriction and you will build the basis of a great society. When we recognize this again, it will be the true defining moment for a great society.

Where is George Washington when you need him?

The Truth about the President’s Economic Policy Part 7

2012-01-12T05:40:00.001-08:00

So, if none of our leaders will provide the truth about the President’s speech in Kansas, someone else will have to do it.

The collectivists in our universities who taught the President and his friends will tell you that the intellectual enemies of mankind are the ideas of reason and freedom. They will tell you that our economic salvation can be found only in collective joining by all members of society; that the able should sacrifice to lift up the group.

They may not tell you this outright. They may actually tell you that they value reason and freedom, but their definitions of these concepts are convoluted and distorted compared to the views of the Founders. They will hold out a promise of a better tomorrow while you, the average American, know, perhaps subconsciously, that a better tomorrow, on these terms, can only come if you work hard while others do nothing. You, the producer, are being vilified as the cause of the nation’s problems while those who do not work hard are being called the victims of your drive for profit. You’ll know that the decks are stacked against you, the rules are designed to punish you and, in spite of your being punished, you are supposed to accept the “justice” that represents your enslavement. As you watch while your freedom and prosperity are slipping away, you are supposed to believe that nothing has changed, that collectivism really works and that the able sacrificing to the unable is a desirable moral ideal.

Our politicians and university professors tell us that capitalism is the problem and we need to replace it with a system that fosters sacrifice for the collective; otherwise known as social justice. Is capitalism the problem? Does capitalism really mean that each person is left to fend for himself? Yes, and that is what makes it possible for capitalism to foster the creation of incredibly efficient products and services that immeasurably improve the lives of people. That principle means that you can live in security, affluence and enduring economic abundance.

Capitalism, as we’ve discussed, is a system that fosters cooperation. People use their minds to decide which products they will purchase and which they will offer for sale. As long as each individual is free to make his own rational judgments he can constantly improve his life. On the other hand, the financial crisis was caused by the requirement that bank managers drop their rational judgment and not evaluate prospective mortgage applications on their merits. Capitalism would have required that they make a rational evaluation of each loan, identify the borrower’s ability to pay and make a decision based upon the expectation that the bank would make money on the loan. This process would not have allowed the banking crisis; it would have prevented the banking crisis.

Does capitalism countenance people to play by their own rules? What does the President mean when he accuses people of playing by their own rules? The President uses the term in order to falsely equate production with theft and it results in the restriction of production and the liberation of theft. The destruction of society comes when you force people to do what government wants rather than what they want. To let people play by their own rules is to liberate them to use rational means to accomplish their survival. It is this that the President and his friends destroyed in 1994 with the strengthened CRA rules. The real prejudice was not that aimed at the poor or black or brown; it was the prejudice aimed at bank managers who were unfairly called racist bigots because they were making loans according to rational standards.

How does an honest businessman, playing by his own rules, enable his customers to survive? He does so by means of correctly ascertaining reality and developing viable products that improve their lives. This is not dog-eat-dog but human cooperation and trade. This is not playing by your own irrational rules but playing according to reality and the requirements of survival. It is survival that capitalism makes possible, not cheating, not thieving and not lying.

By characterizing capitalism as evil, the President creates for himself a powerful political weapon. By means of this prejudice against capitalism and banks, he can take advantage of envious hatred to loot banks of their capital. But there is one idea that makes anti-capitalism powerful and successful as a political tool. This tool is altruism. It would not be possible to vilify capitalism were it not for the pervasive influence in society of altruism. Were it not for the moral dominance of the idea of sacrifice, there would be no argument that could be used to gain coercive power in a free society.

The President knows that whenever someone advocates free markets all he has to do is point out that unchecked capitalism would take money from the poor and put it in the hands of ruthless profit-chasers. Whenever Tea Party protesters complain about massive spending by the President, all he has to do is tell us about our duty to help the poor and especially those exploited by Big Business. Whenever people demand that the spending stop all he has to do is accuse them of wanting to hurt the poor and take away services that help them survive in a world where jobs are lacking.

The truth is that the President's economic policy is nothing but song and dance that touts the value of sacrifice as a means to picking peoples' pockets. The idea that the poor need homes; that they need the “American Dream” at the expense of people who have worked hard and saved their money is a travesty and a lie. Only those people who diligently work, diligently save their money and who have the ability to pay their loans should be allowed to own homes. Only by applying a rational standard can banks make money.

Yet, the Republicans are incapable of defending capitalism and of proving that self-interest is the best, most productive, most moral idea today. They seldom point out that capitalism has created virtually all of the good in our society; that capitalism is, in fact, good. Instead, they cringe whenever someone accuses them of being in the pay of capitalists and of seeking only to advance greedy interests. They are afraid to stand up and argue that capitalism is the most moral economic system in history because it gives people the power to make rational choices and take moral actions that benefit their lives. Republicans are afraid to say that the most moral way to have an affluent society is to leave people alone.

In fact, Republicans agree with the Democrats that force is necessary to make capitalism “work”. They propose huge government programs to prove to the voters that they too believe the lie that government can do great things for people, denying to the public that they are contradicting themselves. To appeal to the voters, they pull out the “populist” message of Teddy Roosevelt, promising a “trust buster” attitude to make greedy businesspeople pay for their crimes, hoping that people will think the Republicans are principled fighters for the people against greedy acquisition.

In advocating regulations, in vilifying businesspeople, in promising to punish trusts, Republicans are helping the progressives establish the terms of economic debate. By refusing to take a moral stand for capitalism and for the right of people to make a living without interference, they make profits impossible and punish people for hard work and innovation. All they have to do is open their eyes to see the proof of the morality of capitalism. All they have to do is notice the hotels, limousines and airplanes that they get around in, visit the restaurants and factories and the teeming cities with tall buildings to get a sense of what it means to be free. Like the proverbial busy-body who never stops to smell the roses, the Republicans never stop to notice that freedom creates abundance and moral living.

And because of this, they are helpless in the face of the President's morality of sacrifice and re-distribution. They are just as much responsible for the mess we are in.

-to be continued.

The Truth about the President’s Economic Policy Part 6

2012-01-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

So, if none of our leaders will provide the truth about the President’s speech in Kansas, someone else will have to do it.

In his speech, the President avers:

“But, Osawatomie, this is not just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what's at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement. Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that's happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.”

What does the President mean when he says that some “want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess”? He should be referring to the practices of socialism since it was re-distribution of bank mortgages that caused the crisis. But the President is actually referring to the practices of capitalism and the people who want to return to it are the Tea Party people and some Republicans. The President and his Occupy friends are blaming capitalism for the crisis and hoping that you buy into the lie. To be sure, they don’t want you to think very deeply about the causes of the crisis.

The President holds that the “practices” of capitalism involve making money at any cost, by any means and through any deception possible. Certainly, then, these practices must have caused our financial crisis – not those of his best friends. Yet, this view is not new. It is one of the most long-running non-sequiturs in the history of economics. It is caused by using a false moral evaluation as the foundation for a “factual” conclusion.

The question of what caused our economic collapse is one for science, not morality. An astute analyst would ask about the specific actions men made that caused a specific economic result. Only by identifying the individual players and the specific actions they took can we can arrive at an identification of the specific moral premises that caused the economic result. Moral premises, when practiced politically, can have economic consequences but it is important to understand the facts first. The President's approach starts with the premise that men will always do wrong if they are left free to act. And since capitalism leaves people free to act, then the causes of a specific bad economic result must always be capitalism. This approach obfuscates the actors, the actions and the philosophies that actually caused the collapse. It is another example of thinking in non-essentials.

The result of this thought process is deception on the part of the President. His view of capitalism is wrong and this leads to a distorted opinion about the causes of the collapse. In fact, because of his own moral premises, he is the one individual still engaging in the kinds of "practices" that got us into the mess. For instance, I don’t see the Tea Party people asking for more sacrifice of the taxpayer’s money for the sake of those people harmed by the financial collapse. I see the President asking for more sacrifice. I don’t see the Tea Party people asking that people whose loans are being foreclosed be allowed to stay in their homes. I see the President demanding this. I don’t see the Tea Party people asking for loan extensions or other forms of re-financing of unpaid mortgages. I see the President creating programs to affect this. I don’t see the Tea Party people asking for bailouts of banks and AIG and Goldman Sachs and General Motors. I see the President bailing them out.

So who wants to return to the practices that got us into the mess? The answer is quite simply, the President.

By now, you should see that the President, in framing the debate as a sort of gang warfare, is hoping his words can create the reality he desires. The result is that everything he says winds up being true in reverse and takes on the nature of a lie. When he looks for villains, he does not look at his own gang, he looks at those who would stop his gang. When making an economic analysis, he does not identify the facts; he consults his own pre-conceived moral evaluation of capitalism. Only thinking in non-essentials will enable this form of thinking in reverse.

Yet, most of us know that wishes don’t make it so and the negative economic numbers don’t support the argument that the President has the solution to our economic mess. Those who make an actual effort to understand reality know that the President is the destroyer of the middle class and that the “practices” which caused the collapse were those of the President and his friends. The actual “greed” responsible for the collapse was that of people who schemed to steal the taxpayer’s money by means of collectivist and class warfare policies.

Yet, he is right that this is the defining issue of our time. This is a make or break moment for all of us, not just those of us in the middle class. Most of us know that the best way to “raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure (our) retirement” is for America to move back to Constitutional liberties and capitalism. That isn’t collective amnesia; that’s recognizing the fact that only freedom can create the kind of prosperity necessary for the middle class to exist. Unfortunately, for the President, reality will not bend to his wishes.

The real debate that has raged for the last 200 plus years, has been between collectivist philosophies that bind man in slavery and the philosophy of the Enlightenment that declared man a free sovereign individual. In fact, this is the debate started by John Locke and the Founding Fathers. They analyzed the various forms of society and concluded that a new idea could settle the debate: a limited government that defends individual rights. The Founders knew it; the Tea Party members know it; the President and his looting friends are still having the debate as they muddle along in non-essentials about balance and fairness and making sure that no one can fend for themselves.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression was caused by the policies the President espouses, the idea of “re-distribution”. The critical, massive mistake; the most egregious thing that the President said in this speech is that Tea Party members and many other pro-capitalists believe “we are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.” This statement shows an utter lack of understanding of what capitalism is and it justifies the fear of many in the Tea Party movement that the President is a Marxist who sees capitalism as evil.

The truth is that we are better off “to fend for ourselves and play by our own rules”; but it is important to understand what it means to advocate freedom against tyranny and dictatatorship. The President is criticizing freedom; a concept that most credible historians have identified as the very concept that has created our prosperity. Indeed, if one believes that freedom is wrong, then one can only seek to control men and ensure that freedom of action is curtailed. The President has joined forces with King George and taken us back to an economic policy of sacrifice and enslavement.

The Founders and many Americans would never have described freedom using those words: “to fend for themselves”. These are the words a collectivist would use to criticize freedom and capitalism. It is more of the same terminology that the President used when he talked about fairness and balance. It is based upon a hatred of the “voluntary cooperation” that Rand used when describing capitalism. A collectivist would call freedom “fending for ourselves” because he wants to ensure that you view freedom as a negative, predatory concept.

Collectivists don’t want you to discover that freedom means freedom of the mind. They don’t want you to recognize the “voluntary cooperation” that is characteristic of capitalism. They don’t want you to see yourself as “an island” responsible for your own economic results; rather they want you to view yourself as helpless without someone else’s sacrifice; helpless to think, to live, to love and to enjoy life.

Collectivists think they have a better idea; the pursuit of togetherness and commonality and sacrifice, a society that will drag us screaming and kicking into the coercive imposition of altruism - with smiles and lies to make us think we are doing it voluntarily. Collectivist dogma proclaims it a crime to be proud, to stand alone; to think with your own mind and to judge based upon your values and standards. A collectivist President would attempt to be the moral authority for all people. He would cast an evil eye toward anyone acting independently. He would use non-essentials to pass judgment upon those who “play by their own rules” and he would ensure that the scales are tipped in favor of those who can’t fend for themselves. Who pays for the tipping of the scale? Those who can fend for themselves.

But we can’t lose sight of the full reality. Collectivism has two symbolic hands: The first is the hand held out asking for your help, reminding you with a smile that you have an obligation to help others, that we should work together to make a better world, while the other hand is picking your pocket. That's what you get for thinking collectivism is a good idea in theory.

- To be continued.

The Truth about the President’s Economic Policy Part 5

2011-12-29T06:59:00.000-08:00

So, if none of our leaders will provide the truth about the President’s speech in Kansas, someone else will have to do it.

In his speech, the President said:

“And ever since, there's been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness. Throughout the country, it's sparked protests and political movements – from the Tea Party to the people who've been occupying the streets of New York and other cities. It's left Washington in a near-constant state of gridlock. It's been the topic of heated and sometimes colorful discussion among the men and women running for president.”

It is true, the debate has raged, but the President's words are deliberately deceiving. He is actually attempting to set the terms of the debate to favor a long-standing Marxist agenda. His use of the words, "the best way to restore growth and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness" is intended to establish false Marxist package deals in your mind. He wants you to conclude with him that we need more government controls and regulation of the economy.

First of all, today's Marxists do not care to "restore growth and prosperity". They have known for decades that Marxist re-distribution does no such thing. They use the words to pull you into their world of lies. They want you to think that they are as concerned about prosperity as you are concerned. They are not; they only want power and they use these words to fool you into thinking they actually want to make things better. In addition, their use of these terms is designed to make you think that they actually know how to restore growth and prosperity when they know nothing of the kind. They want you to think they are a vital part of the debate about prosperity and that they merely have a different view on it; that their solution, which is to create more government coercion, is just as good as your solution which is to restore capitalist principles of freedom.

The other terms: "restore balance, restore fairness" are also pure Marxist myths. They assume the premise that balance and fairness are actually proper goals of social policy (meaning goals of government force) and that you, like they, want a balanced and fair society. What they want you to ignore is that their solutions for achieving balance and fairness are nothing more than more coercion, more government force.

The other false implication of this word usage is that capitalism creates imbalance and unfairness which it does not. The Marxist idea of "imbalance" in capitalism means that some people become rich and others descend further into poverty. But, in capitalism, this does not actually happen. The accumulation of large amounts of capital enables the investment in larger and larger companies such as utilities, national transportation companies, etc., all of which create a higher standard of living for everyone especially the poor. Such successes result, not because of greed, but because some people work harder and/or smarter than others. Those who come up with the best solutions to human problems in a capitalist system are necessarily going to get richer than those who don't. The Marxist argument ignores the fact that, in capitalism, the beneficiaries of those bigger companies are the people who buy from them and that includes the poor and middle class.

The idea that capitalism is "unfair" is based upon a similar argument; that capitalism unfairly rewards people with money and punishes those without money. Again, the Marxist myth is that this is a problem. The truth is that there is nothing unfair about a person who creates great goods for trade and gains lots of money in the process. The individual has earned it. The idea that such people should pay higher taxes because they have unfairly taken more from the system than they put into it is pure collectivist hogwash. They have, in fact, put more into the system than they receive in terms of riches. The value they have created is worth much more than the profits they make. There is no way to put a price upon the long-term benefits of a system like capitalism that is constantly improving and making peoples' lives better. What is unfair, however, is the Marxist system that rewards people who use government force to put more able competitors out of business.

In spite of these ages-old myths used by the President, it is true that the debate about a proper economic system has raged. The Tea Party phenomenon began to develop after the politicians “saved” the economy by means of a massive infusion of fiat money into the banking system, most of which went to the banking institutions that contributed the most to Democratic politicians. These were institutions that had become “over-leveraged” in mortgage derivatives bundled by the Democrats at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

While the politicians insisted that TARP was necessary to “save capitalism” back in 2008, the American people gave the politicians a clear signal: “Don’t do it! Don’t bail out the companies that made these bad investments.” Congress, after first defeating the bill to authorize TARP, came back a week later to pass it. We are still struggling with the consequences of this mistake. When the American people saw that their politicians were doing things, massive things, without their approval, the genesis of the Tea Party took shape. Later, when they saw that President Obama was engaged in massive payoffs to his political cronies under the name of “stimulus” for the economy, they knew that it was time to unite against these massive violations of their rights.

However, we should not be confused about the so-called “Occupy” movement that the President mentioned. This movement is an invention of the Obama administration and the unions, not to mention the holdovers from ACORN. Union money, laundered by the administration, is behind this movement and their goal is to support the President. There is nothing grassroots about this movement. It is by, about and for the Obama administration…ostensibly aimed at the very people who support the Obama administration, the crony capitalists…but clearly it is an anti-capitalist movement (Remember, there is a difference between “crony capitalism” and capitalism). This movement is nothing more than a cynical effort by the unions and the President to gin up support for their legislative agenda and to instill in the American public an anti-capitalist attitude. It is an effort to create a faux-movement to "replace" and discredit the Tea Party movement.

Don’t be fooled when the President insists that the “Occupy” movement is a genuine reflection of real attitudes. This so-called movement is nothing more than the President’s effort to develop the pitchforks that he will need for the coming election. These people are practicing for the street riots and disruptions that will be let loose on society by the administration during the lead up to the election. This movement is nothing more than Obama’s effort to directly inject himself into the opposition’s politics so he can control the debate. The President is the Occupy movement's creator and leader and they support his goals. The unions have paid for these demonstrations with laundered money from government. This means the unions are colluding with the government in a way that is corrupt and evil – and this fact alone is a clear reason that the Democrats should be rejected wholesale in the coming elections. We must stop the unions' efforts to corrupt government. Theirs is fake outrage, fake protest and fake principles. There is nothing democratic about the so-called Occupy movement except that they are Democrats pretending to be a grassroots movement.

And should the President not be able to control his opposition, and should he somehow lose the election, these people will be ready to riot in every major city. It will be the left’s last stand and it won’t be pretty. Their goal is to create as much havoc as possible in order to save their own skins; as if this would actually save their skins. The left knows that it is due for a total repudiation by the American people and their only hope is to instill a defeatist attitude among Tea Party members.

The President is also trying to blame “gridlock” for his inability to advance his fascist agenda. Today’s gridlock is a result of Tea Party efforts to stop the President’s massive spending programs. It is, in fact, a good thing. By electing fiscal conservatives and budget hawks, the Tea Party is blocking the President’s efforts to move our nation further into fascism through massive spending and interference in the economy. The President's response is that the Tea Party movement is blocking the progress necessary to solve our economic problems. His goal is to counter the Tea Party opposition by disenfranchising it and drawing attention to the Occupy "message" of more government spending and re-distribution.

We have now discovered the next reason why the President does not want to speak in terms of essential principles. He must avoid his own essential principles because they have always been rejected by the American people. These principles are those of socialism, re-distribution and forced altruism. The President’s solution to the rejection of these principles is to discuss politics as if it were a matter of “our gang versus their gang”. This deliberate effort to obfuscate principles is the only way the President and the Democrats can run for election while at the same time moving the nation headlong into full-blown socialist re-distribution. If the President can turn the debate into a sort of “gang warfare” then he need not discuss principles; he need only throw dirt and mud at his opponents in an effort to “brand” them as evil while he pretends to be the enlightened protector of the middle class.

Can this approach win? The President supposedly has $1 billion dollars to prove that it can. The question is: Can money replace principles in a political campaign? Can money buy principles? Can the constant repetition of lies and spurious charges win an election? Can it help politicians deceive people?

Not if they are paying attention.

-to be continued

The Truth about the President’s Economic Policy Part 4

2011-12-22T20:57:00.000-08:00

So, if none of our leaders will tell the truth about the President’s speech in Kansas, someone else will have to do it.

In his speech, the President said:

“Now, for many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over this harsh reality. But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We all know the story by now: mortgages sold to people who couldn't afford them, or even sometimes understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. Huge bets – and huge bonuses – made with other people's money on the line. Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn't have the authority to look at all.

It was wrong. It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility all across the system. And it plunged our economy and the world into a crisis from which we're still fighting to recover. It claimed the jobs and the homes and the basic security of millions of people – innocent, hardworking Americans who had met their responsibilities but were still left holding the bag.”

The implication here is that the house of cards collapsed because of…wait for it…irresponsible greed. It was because people wanted to make money that the house collapsed, and, the President thinks, it was wrong. But let’s look a little deeper. The President talks about the fact that mortgages were sold to people who couldn’t afford them. Who was responsible for that? Issuing these bad mortgages was caused by a regulatory scheme set up to re-distribute bank loans from credit-worthy borrowers to non-credit-worthy borrowers. Certainly, these bad mortgages would not have been given by a rational bank manager seeking to make money; he would have known that the loans were questionable and that issuing so many of them could potentially destroy his bank. Why did "rational" bank managers seeking to make money issue so many bad loans? Dig deeper and you find that this was done because of government regulations that forced banks to issue and solicit these bad loans.

Which group of people created and favored these programs? The answer is progressives of the “New Deal” variety. In fact, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which was passed in the ‘70s, was strengthened in 1994 after a law suit that claimed banks were guilty of racial discrimination when deciding who got home loans. The goal of these lawsuits was to force the banks to issue more loans to poor people. The strengthened CRA demanded that banks prove they were not discriminating against blacks under threat of prosecution by the Clinton Justice Department. And it was a willing ACORN that encouraged poor people to take these loans and they had a working scheme in place to take advantage of the CRA regulations. In addition, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought these loans and bundled” them into investment packages to be sold to financial institutions as top-rated securities. Certainly, there was some fraud involved here.

It was a failed re-distribution scheme fostered by progressives that caused the stock market to collapse, TARP to be created and the literal theft of almost one half of the savings of many middle class Americans. Yet, not one government official has been charged with a crime. It was the government, not capitalism, that was responsible for the collapse and it was progressives, including President Obama, who lobbied and sued the government to create this entire scheme. So now, one of the architects of the fiasco (the President), tells us that it was not caused by the people who forced the banks to issue the mortgages (the Clinton administration), or the people who shook down the banks (ACORN), forced banks to prove they weren’t racist (ACORN) and solicited (pressured) poor people to apply for the loans (again ACORN). And, in spite of this, we are supposed to believe that the real problem was “greed”. Is the President fingering his own greed or that of his employer ACORN? I don't think so.

Understand what I am saying: all of these bad decisions that the President criticizes were decisions made by people who share the President’s philosophy of re-distribution and they were undertaken by institutions created to effect that re-distribution. These include Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, government appointed heads of those companies, Countrywide, a Democratic Congress, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, ACORN; all of whom claimed to be working on behalf of the “poor”. Yet, this sounds like altruism to me, not greed.

Why isn't the altruism inherent in these programs blamed for the economic collapse? It was not greed but socialist principles that sacrificed the savings of the middle class in order to give homes to the lower class. The actors whose philosophy caused the collapse were involved in socialist irresponsibility, not capitalism. Why didn't the media pick up on this?

The answer is pretty simple: socialism doesn’t work and they are invested in socialism. The cold, hard truth is that socialism is the means through which a smart criminal can cover up the fact that he is stealing money. All he has to do is say he is doing it for the poor. And rather than expose the charlatan scam that caused the financial collapse of the most powerful economy in history, the media looks the other way. And they allow the President to blame the fiasco on an institution, capitalism, that was raped and violated by the scam.

It should be no surprise that one of the lawyers involved in changing the CRA back in 1994, President Obama, is the one person who benefited most from the economic collapse. Not only was he able to skim some of the stolen money for his Presidential campaigns (he is one of the largest recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign contributions), but when the economy collapsed, it paved the way for his election as President. Although he and his progressive friends caused the collapse, the Republicans got blaimed. In fact, Obama may have lost the election were it not for the collapse made possible by the failed policies he advocated. Is it a coincidence or a plot? I’ll let you decide.

Needless to say, the President won’t blame himself for the financial collapse, nor does he want to blame his own philosophy. But his denials don’t change the truth. And this is a time when honesty and truth are required (as if there is ever a time when they are not). Rather than tell you the brutal honest truth, the President would rather play politics and continue to assert in a major economic speech that capitalism is the cause of the problems that he created.

The truth is that the philosophy destroying our economy is altruism, the philosophy of the President. Does he care that re-distributing money violates the rights of hard working Americans? Does he care that it makes virtual slaves of the very people he claims to be defending? Apparently not, since he is not willing to admit that he is the real destroyer of the middle class. It is not his fault, he says. He inherited the situation, feigning innocence.

Are you now beginning to see why the President does not want to think in terms of essentials and why it is not possible for him to tell you the truth? If he were truly an honest man, he’d admit that his philosophy is bankrupt and that socialism has failed.

Apparently, judging from the President's words and actions, this is not the time for the truth. According to the President, it is the time for posturing, for pretending to be an honest critic. It is a time for telling lies and for accusing his political enemies of doing the very things that he is doing, and, if that isn’t enough, he now intends to spend $1 billion dollars (that he got from someone) to convince the American people that the real culprit is the greed of “fat cats”.

On the contrary, I think it is the time for telling the truth. We cannot survive without it.

-to be continued

The Truth about the President’s Economic Policy Part 3

2011-12-19T16:19:00.000-08:00

So, if none of our leaders will provide the truth about the President’s speech in Kansas, someone else will have to do it.

In his speech, the President said:

“Today, we're still home to the world's most productive workers. We're still home to the world's most innovative companies. But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments – wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren't – and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.”

Here the President is attempting to provide a reason why the “optimism” of the previous statement (Part 2) has been “eroded”. Yes, the President says, we still have the most productive workers and the most innovative companies, but the “basic bargain” has been eroded, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. What does this mean? Who eroded the “basic bargain”? What was that basic bargain? How was it brought about? Who made it possible?

The basic bargain to which the President refers was a sort of implicit contract that if you “give it your all” you have some assurance that you’ll be able to take care of your family, have your health care taken care of and put away money for retirement. It is this “bargain” that has been eroded, according to the President. The “middle class” is no longer receiving the benefit of the “basic bargain” and someone is responsible for that: “those at the top”.

Before we go back to the President’s speech, we must establish the full context. First of all, we should understand what made possible those “most productive workers” and “most innovative companies” to which the President refers. I think it is important to have this background if we are to think in essentials. Indeed, you can’t decide what to do in the future if you don’t know the essential principles that got us where we are.

How does a nation accomplish productive workers and innovative companies? Not every nation has been able to do this and it is important to be clear about the ideas and values that create prosperity. In other words, what must we have in the way of economic principles in order to build a vibrant economy?

History has provided an answer: capitalism. Capitalism is the prerequisite of prosperity. Remove capitalism from a nation and you lose it. Why is this? What is so good about capitalism that it creates such tremendous abundance?

As Ayn Rand has pointed out: “Capitalism is the system that made productive cooperation possible among men, on a large scale—a voluntary cooperation that raised everyone's standard of living—as the nineteenth century has demonstrated.”(1)

The fact that capitalism enables voluntary cooperation is missed by the President and his economic advisers. And they have no idea why voluntary cooperation is accomplished more effectively by capitalism than by their vaunted collectivism that requires cooperation through shared sacrifice. Capitalism must be inferior to them because it is only about “playing by your own rules” and stealing from people. This view sees exploiters everywhere and it misses the spectacle of millions of individual acts of mutually beneficial cooperation that take place every day under capitalism.

Rand also provides the definition of capitalism:

“Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man's rights, i.e.., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man's right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.”(2)

According to progressives, capitalism is not about the banishment of physical force; it is about the use of physical force through government to create monopolies, get special privileges and steal from the consumers who have no choice but to work in the factories and use the products. They ignore the men who rose from poverty to become some of the most successful industrialists in the world; whose enterprises provided virtually all of the luxuries we enjoy today. They ignore the elevating standards of living, the longer life-spans, the mobility and self-confidence that people develop because they hold their destinies in their own hands. They ignore the millions of morally proper decisions that people make daily. They ignore the fact that capitalist systems tend to be more peaceful and secure because people who earn their own livings do not feel compelled to violate the property rights of others.

Leftists cannot think in terms of essentials. They don’t understand that survival is about work and that any system that liberates man to pursue survival through production and trade is one that creates a million mutually beneficial trades every day. They confuse production with force and criticize production as if it means a zero-sum transaction where one person wins and gets rich and the other person loses and becomes poor. They ignore the fact that it is capitalism, and nothing else, that created the middle class. So they proclaim themselves champions of the middle class while they seek to destroy or undermine the source of voluntary cooperation: capitalism. And they countenance physical force by government in order to rectify what they consider to be problems created by capitalism (that are actually created by their own coercive policies).

Progressives act as if they are righteous defenders of the average man, protectors of the rights of man, as if they were fighting dictators not industrialists. They posture as courageous critics of a corrupt system while ignoring the fact that the capitalist “dictators” they denigrate are merely clear thinking men who have mastered the art of production, not the art of conquest. They don’t understand what it takes to create and manage a thriving corporation because they have never done it and they let their altruist morality cloud their minds to the fact that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any of the sundry dictators they admire. Where capitalism enables thriving, socialism enables murder; and yet they don’t see it – they don’t see the killing fields and mass graves.

They don’t see the beautiful cities of capitalism, the tall buildings, the bustling factories and the brilliant shops offering stunning products. They don’t see the automobiles and the jet airplanes and the HDTVs, the 5-speaker sound systems and the iPods and iPhones. Instead, they imagine dead bodies and starving children in the clutches of a blood thirsty capitalist eager for plunder. They proclaim that capitalism would just as soon let people starve for the sake of profit without noticing that the real starving people in the world are those trapped by the progressives' view of the world.

And what is their view of the world? Like all altruists, they believe man is evil at base and incapable of being moral. They send out this teaching through every pronouncement and judgment of men. They treat individuals as expendable and particularly worthy of ridicule. Since their morality holds that man should sacrifice for others, they see man’s inability to be totally self-sacrificial as a black mark on man. Therefore, the most successful, those who practice sacrifice the least, are viewed as particularly evil and deserving of forced sacrifice, control and punishment. If you notice a similarity between this view and the views of some of the most brutal tribal leaders of the past including some of the most monstrous dictators, the similarity is not a coincidence.

What is the greatest threat to capitalism, peace and cooperation? It is the progressives' view of man coupled with the idea of collectivism, the modern form of tribal organization; the idea that people must cluster into bands or tribes and battle one another for political power. Anti-capitalism is essentially anti-reason and anti-man in the same way that collectivism is anti-individual. It is a desire to destroy the good because the good is unwilling to grovel at the altar of self-sacrifice.

Don’t proclaim that altruists really want to do good things for people. There are two sides to the altruism coin. One side is protestations of love for man while the other side is protestations of hatred for everything. One side, the side of professed love, is the outward expression of altruism that keeps altruists in the game of acting on their hatred. And this brings us back to the President’s speech.

The President, by proclaiming a love and support of the middle class, declares that the enemy of the middle class is the very system that created the middle class: capitalism.

Yet, capitalism can only exist in a nation where the government protects individual rights and the rule of law. Its basic principle is that the individual is free to use his own mind, create his own survival and keep the results of his work. It declares that man is essentially good, capable of reason and that he acquires his survival through production and trade with others, by means of reason. What does capitalism require? Capitalism requires freedom, freedom to think, freedom to evaluate reality, to make judgments, to develop products, to obtain capital, to trade and to keep the results of one's work. The President will have none of that.

Remember what I said about the character of the American people in the pre-war and wartime period; that their victories were made possible by the fact that they were free. Their freedom meant they were free to live, to think, to invest and to create…they were not regulated into prosperity; their Constitution liberated them to create that prosperity because the Founders knew that their hard work and thought would directly benefit them and that a government that protected their rights is the most advanced government possible.

Because of capitalism, the American spirit was free to win the war and this spirit, this sense of life, released upon the world a “can do” attitude that says anything is possible if you are free to act. Capitalism means freedom to survive; not just for “those at the top” but for all Americans. Americans become “those at the top” compared to the rest of the world by producing and investing their own savings (for retirement). The middle class was created when Americans were liberated to work in the factories; liberated to become the workers, middle managers and the upper managers. Without capitalism you do not have productive workers, innovative companies or a middle class.

How can the President be a defender of the middle class when he does not seem to understand this critical point about freedom - and especially about capitalism? How can he, on the one hand, champion freedom and on the other champion re-distribution of the income of producers? Isn’t he turning the producers into slaves through re-distribution? How can he, on the one hand, claim to be liberating producers, “those at the top”, while on the other hand raising taxes upon them? How can he, on the one hand, praise the free market, while on the other hand creating oppressive regulations that stifle economic activity? How can he, on the one hand, recognize that Americans are productive and our factories innovative while on the other hand not even acknowledging that it was capitalism that brought it about? And if it was capitalism that brought this situation about, how can he, on any hand, claim that “playing by your own rules” is what brought capitalism down and ended the "basic bargain"?

So the real question is not how did we lose our optimism and the “basic bargain”. The real questions should be “how did we lose capitalism?” and “how can we get it back?” And the real answer should be, by eliminating regulations, letting people keep what they earn and returning to the Bill of Rights.

-to be continued

1)How To Read (And Not To Write), The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. 1, No. 26 September 25, 1972
2)What is Capitalism, Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand

The Truth about the President’s Economic Policy Part 2

2011-12-15T06:39:00.000-08:00

So, if none of our leaders will provide the truth about the President’s speech in Kansas, someone else will have to do it.

At the beginning of his speech the President builds up his first key concept: optimism.

“My grandparents served during World War II. He was a soldier in Patton's army; she was a worker on a bomber assembly line. And together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed over the Great Depression and over fascism. They believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried – no matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter how you started out.

And these values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world has ever known. It was here in America that the most productive workers, the most innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth. And you know what? Every American shared in that pride and in that success – from those in the executive suites to those in middle management to those on the factory floor. So you could have some confidence that if you gave it your all, you'd take enough home to raise your family and send your kids to school and have your health care covered, put a little away for retirement.”

One thing that characterizes most of the President’s speeches, and I’ve noticed it since his first “important” speech in 2004, is that he thinks in non-essentials. What this means is that the principles that underlie his statements are not based on fundamentals but quite often on derivatives of fundamentals. To elaborate; was “optimism” really what made depression-era Americans successful? Or is optimism merely a characteristic derived from a more fundamental characteristic such as the fact that they possessed the uncompromising characteristics of a free people?

You might ask why is this question important? How does it impact the values the President is trying to explicate? First of all, a lack of conceptual clarity, thinking in non-essentials, influences decisions and proposed solutions. If the President is going to talk about what made Americans succeed during that period when his grandparents lived, shouldn’t he refer to their basic characteristics rather than non-essential characteristics? Secondly, it is important to ensure that we aren’t being manipulated in some way. Thinking in non-essentials is a characteristic of leaders who don’t understand where they are and where they are going. In other words, they may be leading you down the wrong road for the sake of their own agendas rather than yours.

This is the problem of thinking in non-essentials: you develop an inability to know, in terms of essentials, what you should do. For instance, if you accept “optimism” as a key characteristic of past Americans you cannot then decide which type of government people should establish. Optimism, not being a fundamental principle, does not explain how man survives. It does not explain how people determine their core values, their core philosophies, their needs, desires and ideas. With optimism as your guide, you cannot identify which essential measures the government should take in order to secure the safety and rights of individuals. The term is without content, standards and meaning.

Optimism is not the key characteristic that made our grandparents’ generation successful. This generation suffered greatly and they were poorly served by their political leadership. Most were not highly educated and they certainly did not have a sense of optimism about the future. In fact, they had been beaten down by poverty and unemployment, hunger and homelessness. Those not completely destroyed by it learned how to survive; they became rugged, practical and dedicated to the survival of their families. What they did have was the ability to survive and the determination to overcome incredible obstacles. This was a legacy of the freedom they possessed and the ethical standards made possible by that freedom. Yes, they were strong, resilient and committed to their families; but they were also free during a period of history when the world was moving toward fascism. They saw this trend and decided they wanted no part of it. They did not want to live as slaves.

Certainly, one could say, in a sense, that they were optimistic about the future, they had many of the traits of their ancestors and they certainly hoped for a better day. But to say that their optimism was their critical character trait is to focus only on one aspect among many that made up the American psyche.

The implication of the President’s statement is that no other characteristic of the American psyche is responsible for those successes. The President, and many others, would have you believe that it was because Americans were collectively minded, that they sacrificed for others and fought to save their communities – these were the goals Americans sought – stronger communities.

But, here’s the problem of thinking in non-essentials: if the President is going to be genuine, truly lead and inspire, he must identify the real fundamental principles that our forefathers held, not some Dale Carnegie course approximations. If the President wants to inspire people, he must deal in universal principles that ring true. The idea that “optimism” is what gave people the courage to win is false. Can you imagine a soldier heading into battle, with mortar shells going off all around him, saying to his buddy: “I’m going to kill those Germans because I’m optimistic about the future.”

Our grandparents succeeded because they were free thinkers, individualists, who refused to live as slaves. Individualism has many consequences. For instance, an individualist has the ability to think and speak as he deems fit. He can act and be goal-oriented. He has the freedom and the desire to succeed. Individualism releases a person to “be himself” so to speak and, in another respect, to create his own character and live a moral life. The individualist has a strong desire to be self-reliant and to keep the results of his work. In fact, the individualist does not like to be ruled, preached too, commanded or directed. The American individualist will fight when you threaten his freedom. And this is what helped Americans defeat the depression and the war.

But individualism is not the idea toward which the President is aiming. His goal is not to release you to defeat an enemy but to ensure that you vote for him; and toward this goal, he’d prefer that you have “optimism”, collective pride and a willingness to sacrifice. He’d prefer that you think in non-essentials because that is his only hope of keeping his job.

-to be continued

The Truth about the Obama Economic Policy Part 1

2011-12-14T04:52:00.000-08:00

“I am not one of those whom one may ask about their why” – Nietzche (Thus Spake Zarathustra)

Whenever a nation faces a great challenge, the leader of that nation must tell the truth. He must stand upon a lectern so high that the entire nation can hear and ponder his words. He must carefully explain the situation, how the nation got there and what must be done to correct the mistakes of the past. To use a cliché, only the whole truth can help a people muster the courage necessary to save the nation. Only the whole truth can clear minds and establish the proper agenda for victory.

For a true leader, this is not a problem. Truth and honesty are part of his life. He became successful by correctly assessing a number of situations and he has proven his leadership under fire, among real people and on the battlefield that is the real world. He also knows that he cannot solve human problems by lying to the people. He must be sufficiently analytical and self-critical that he is able to discover the flaw, even in his own philosophy, that has caused the nation’s problems; and he should be forthcoming about that flaw. Times of crisis are not times for rationalization, excuse making and narcissism. If a leader thinks he can rationalize his own failings, then the nation will not be well-served.

But the truth requires more than just a statement of fact. The correct context must be established and the leader must understand that the unseen is often the cause of the seen. He must grasp the fact that it is his responsibility to be dispassionate, even self-critical, if he is to earn the trust of the people. Such a person must have a commitment to the truth and he must express it clearly, with the dignity that makes him trustworthy. He is the embodiment of the people's struggle, the repository of their hope and the representative of their aspirations for a better life. He must know that he holds the survival of the nation in his hands and that the lives of people are at stake. Only a great leader can clarify the moral issues upon which a nation is founded and only a great leader can muster the honesty necessary to point out the moral principles upon which survival will be based.

Our nation is on the precipice of disaster. Millions of individuals are without jobs, many of them have lost their homes and many live in homes worth less than the amount owed on them. The cost of transportation is going up. The cost of food is going up and there is no end in sight to the suffering. Society will collapse if the negative trends continue. Government policies have caused these sufferings and only a change in government policy will rectify them.

In the midst of this suffering, our President gave a speech in Kansas recently, in the virtual center of the country, in which he spelled out what he considers to be the truth; how he thinks we got to this position, the principles we have disregarded and the solution to our problems. He wanted the nation to rally around him and accept his philosophy as our best hope. He also wants us to reelect him so he can do more of what he has been doing to “solve” our problems.

As I will show, the speech was full of lies and any rational person can see that this man is not up to the task of leadership. The speech was full of so many rationalizations, so many fallacies, so many excuses and false solutions that any clear thinking individual can see that this man must be removed from power in the next election (if not sooner).

Yet, the aftermath of the speech exposed the fact that our situation is worse than we had thought. It exposed a leadership vacuum, not only with the President, but with his opposition as well. There appears to be no one who can answer the President; there is no one who is capable of telling the truth; no one who can rise to the occasion; no one who can tell us why we are bankrupt monetarily and morally. The President’s speech may have given us lies, but the opposition to him has been silent.

Why is that? I think it is because the opposition cannot refute what the President said in his speech. The opposition is swimming in the same river, so to speak. Republican politicians agree with every major premise the President accepts and because there really is no opposition, there is no one in the public arena who can save the nation. Where are Gingrich and Romney on this speech? Why haven’t they spoken up? Where is the response that will answer the President in clear, believable terms? Certainly, in the midst of all this nihilism, there is a person who can clearly articulate the flaws in the President's economic policy. Where is the opposition leader who is up to the challenge of history?

So, if none of our leaders will provide the truth, someone else will have to do it.

-to be continued

Your Voice May Save the Country

2011-11-21T07:16:00.000-08:00

It seems that every Presidential election is important. Looking back, some were more important than others. For instance, the election of Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter was important. It corrected, at least in some respects, the mistake of electing a weak and indecisive President.

This coming election will be a similar election, and it is very likely that the incumbent President will have so much fraudulent control over the election process, so much money (most likely obtained illegally) and a bully pulpit in the media, that he will be able to tell the most outrageous lies and wind up the winner by default.

This President will be able to make the issue whatever he wants. He will say that the Republicans represent big business (when it is he who represents crony capitalism), or he will say that the Republicans are fascists (when it is he who has enabled fascism), or he will say that the Republicans want to dismantle entitlements for seniors, Veterans and the poor. He could, and likely, will get away with this because many people already believe that the Republicans are cruel and inconsiderate of a large numbers of voters.

Yet, the real issue in this coming election should be that the President is a communist who is instituting fascism in America. He is destroying the economy by looting productive citizens and stealing their wealth. Not only has the President handed the middle east to radical Muslims, he has virtually set up the next war in the region which could mean the destruction of Israel and the next holocaust. This is bad enough, but he has also weakened America to such a degree that the hordes of communists in league with him could bring revolution, destruction and Marshall Law to our cities.

Our situation is really more like that in 1968 when Nixon ran against Humphrey. During that election, the American people, including myself, saw the rise of the new left, a group of young people who wanted to destroy America and turn it into a colony of the Soviet Communists. This group exposed themselves as destroyers, haters and anti-Americans. The American people saw it and reacted appropriately. The result was a victory for Richard Nixon. The American people had had enough in 1968 and the “silent majority” spoke loudly. When McGovern came along in 1972, expressing a similar agenda, he was defeated in a landslide.

We are back in the '60s again and the silent majority has become the Tea Party movement. It is time that the American people make their convictions clear once and for all. Capitalism, limited government individual rights and pro-Americanism can never be defeated by liars, freeloaders, cheaters, crony capitalists and phony protest movements. This next election must make the principles of America clear; not sacrifice, not re-distribution, not government entitlement programs, not freeloading and theft of taxpayer money, not some people living off of others. The next election should be a vote for limited government. It should be about having a government that protects rights and liberties - not one that violates them routinely.

We must make sure that we drown out the media and make Obama run on his record. We want him to run the most negative campaign in history and to spend billions in lying and deceiving and insulting. We need to defeat progressivism under the worst circumstances...or else we will never get rid of it. We have to have a bi-partisan citizens' campaign made up of individual truth-tellers who are willing to take on the lies and deceptions of the left, and, once and for all, rid the world of government coercion. We must defeat progressivism as a philosophy of government. We must expose the immorality and the failure of this philosophy. We must expose, not the failure of capitalism, but the failure of socialism/fascism. We have to purge, through the vote, the dishonesty and corruption of the progressive movement, crony capitalism and the idea that one man owes a living to another.

Please make sure you make yourself heard by voting in 2012. And if you can, join the citizen army of truth-tellers. Speak your mind, wear t-shirts that express your views, talk, write blogs and letters to the editors and be part of a movement that intends to put the government back into the hands of the people. Your vote and your voice may be the one that saves our country.

The Cult of Sacrifice

2011-11-18T11:22:00.000-08:00

President Obama’s recent Press Conference in Hawaii can provide us with a “light-bulb” moment about the President’s mindset. It provides a microcosm of insight into a pattern of thinking that has characterized mankind for centuries to its detriment. I call it the Cult of Sacrifice. Here is the President’s statement regarding the “need” for Congress to pass his “American Jobs Act”:

“This doesn’t require radical changes to America or its way of life. It just means that we spread out the sacrifice across every sector so that it’s fair; so that people don’t feel as if once again people who are well connected, people who have lobbyists, special interests get off easy, and the burden is placed on middle-class families that are already struggling. So if other countries can do it, we can do it — and we can do it in a responsible way.

I’m not going to comment on whether I’d veto a particular bill until I actually see a bill, because I still hold out the prospect that there’s going to be a light-bulb moment where everybody says “Ah-ha! Here’s what we’ve got to do.””

As the President indicates, “what we’ve got to do” is sacrifice, spread out the suffering so that no one person suffers too much. Yet, one thing he overlooks is that the debt of this country cannot be dealt with even if you took all the money made by the richest in America. In fact, the debt is so massive that it would barely put a dent into the deficit. Even spreading out the suffering would accomplish no negligible benefit to our society. More sacrifice will not work.

One would think that the President’s logic is flawless. Certainly, as patriotic Americans we all want to make things better in our society. And, some think, considering the present circumstances, our leaders are only trying to encourage Americans to do their part to lift society out of the doldrums. But, I think that the President’s remarks are nothing more than a ritualized (in other words, automatized) response that has been repeatedly imposed upon mankind for centuries and that it has never worked. In fact, it is a form of “sleight of hand” where the President offers great benefits to the people if they would only sacrifice; but, historically, in other similar cases, those benefits were never accomplished. The only thing we did is lose people, energy and time.

In fact, our deficit problem was created by the very same thinking in which the President is asking us to engage. He asks us to sacrifice for our fellow man. Yet, the trigger for the economic collapse, the subprime crisis was caused by a former President Clinton who asked the banks to sacrifice so that more people could buy homes. The result was a massive number of foreclosures; and those people who got homes are now sacrificing whatever money they have left to the banks that were decimated by the original sacrifice. It seems that someone has figured out how to use sacrifice to convince people to re-distribute lots of money. It is an old game.

Along the way, President Obama’s biggest supporters have become exceedingly wealthy by taking in more sacrifice from the tax payers, creating a crony capitalist scheme that rewards his supporters with stimulus dollars so that they can do it all over again in 2012. Everyone gets rich but the taxpayers who are sacrificing. This is the ancient Cult of Sacrifice made contemporary.

It appears that Ayn Rand, in her novel Atlas Shrugged was correct in her assessment of crony capitalism. In the universe she created, it was the crony capitalists that were using the language of duty, of collective salvation and of love in order to justify their thefts. They used this language to condition society to the necessity of sacrifice, all the while, destroying their industrial enemies in order to keep their grip on power. As each new producer rose up, he was immediately seized upon as by vultures and eaten alive by laws, government programs and regulations. Each new sacrifice was supposedly engaged in for the good of society, to save society, to get us out of the doldrums. And the argument was always: “we should spread the sacrifice around”.

In spite of the fact that Atlas Shrugged was a fictional story, today we are seeing it come to life as if it were a prophesy. And, as happened in Ayn Rand’s fictional universe, our universe keeps descending into more poverty and more calls for sacrifice. How could she get it so right? How could she know that cronyism is the hallmark of collectivism, of communism, of socialism and of fascism? Her answer was “Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future.” (1) Today, the dominant philosophy of society is “The Cult of Sacrifice”.

Today, cronyism has exposed itself as a “bubble” and it is ready to burst. The entire house of cards built by the President, a house made up of “looters” as Ayn Rand would call them, is beginning to collapse around the President. The cronies have taken over the economy and no one is safe until the American people put a stop to it. They must restore the Constitution by limiting the power of the President.

Everyone knows that the President is lying with virtually every sentence he utters and that nothing he says or does will bring about an economic resurgence. His words are more of the same; more calls for the very sacrifice that got us into the situation. What is the Cult of Sacrifice; and how is it destroying us? It is not something new, but something very old, like a dusty old skeleton dug up after centuries in the sand…propped up as the source of life when it is merely old and dead.

Let’s begin at the beginning; somewhere in a distant past, before history was being written. It is within this past that we can see the remnants of the Cult of Sacrifice. Imagine that archaeologists have just dug up a group of people who had not gone through the Industrial Revolution, whose level of knowledge was miniscule compared to ours. These people knew so little that they interpreted everything they saw from a primitive perspective. They saw the influence of “spirits” everywhere and their most fundamental principle is that there were two dimensions of reality, the world of the spirits and the world of reality in which they lived. One realm was superior, active and real (the world of the spirits) and the other was full of fear, terror and catastrophe (the reality in which they lived). These people yearned for the paradise of the spiritual world and wanted to escape the drudgery of the real.

Everywhere the archaeologists dig, they uncover bodies without heads in one place, and in another place, heads without bodies. They find children buried at the cornerstones of buildings and the tombs of kings with hundreds of dead “attendants” including people, animals, chariots of war and even whole horses. They find a “cemetery” with bodies thrown in as in a mass grave and they find votive offerings with statues of ancient gods whose names are long lost to history. Everywhere, they find the Cult of Sacrifice.

The gods and spirits were everywhere for the men in this society, influencing their daily lives and sometimes even raining down disaster, hurricane and earthquake as punishment for not honoring them. The archaeologists find layer upon layer of dust in the village and layer upon layer of buildings built upon older buildings as if periodic destruction came to this society. And with each destruction layer, they found more bodies.

For these people, the spirits lived, not only in the heavens, but in the animals and objects of nature, everything had an animating spirit and everything that happened on this earth was influenced by their interventions. Understanding what the gods demanded was a daunting task that could only have been accomplished by the priest/rulers who presumed to have a deep connection to the gods and spirits.

We must understand that these people had no science. They had no view of reality that informed them of cause and effect and they had only their trust in their leaders. If their leaders told them that in order to save society, they must offer up their children in sacrifice to the gods, they believed it. If they were told that in order to ensure that earthquakes did not destroy their buildings, they had to bury a living child at the cornerstone of each building. If they were told that the gods were angry at them and could only be appeased through the brutal murder of some of their citizens, they believed such sacrifice was necessary. If they were told that, as servants of the king, they must continue their service by being buried with him upon his death, they believed that as soon as they died en masse they would resume a new life of service to the king.

This new archaeological find, however, is not so different from other finds which have been discovered all over the world, on every continent, in virtually every country and river bank on the planet. And, as we examine the writing of recent history and explore our planet, we see strains of human sacrifice, even up to modern times. The brutal truth is that the Cult of Sacrifice has informed the lives of people for century upon century.

Throughout these many centuries, most men believed that all causes were enacted by the gods and all men must live in their service. Did any of them notice that sometimes their devout sacrifice did not accomplish the end they sought? Yes, but they were told that they had not sacrificed enough. Did any of them question their religion for asking them to give up their highest values? Yes, they were soon offered up as the next to be sacrificed. Did any of them offer their own bodies in order to save the lives of their children? Yes, but they were told that only the sacrifice of children could appease the gods. At each questioning of the wisdom of the ruling elites, there was an argument ready and one thing they did not question: the belief that the gods existed and that they could rain devastation upon them.

The cult of sacrifice was so engrained in men during past ages that even today men believe they have to sacrifice to God or Allah in order to live moral lives. Sacrifice, today called altruism, is a remnant of the human sacrifice that was practiced by our ancient forebears. And all the negatives of ancient ritual sacrifice are with us today in lost human energy, lost dignity and lost love; in devastated societies and people resigned to suffering and death. It has come down to us by means of religion and those philosophers influenced by Plato who preached a two-dimensional universe. We can see how ingrained sacrifice is today if we understand the meaning and purpose of ritual.

Ritual is the scripted reenactment of mythological tales about the lives of the gods. Ritual is the ancient version of moral thinking. In fact, ritual is the method by which ancient leaders kept the “people” in line, controlled their activities and instituted their sacrificing. A ritual was both a commemoration of the lives of the gods and a moral lesson on how to act at all times. Ritual told men how to live, how to be god-like. Ritual always included obedience and sacrifice and was the means through which ancient rulers earned their booty or “made their living” so to speak. Ritualized practices were the means of maintaining the Cult of Sacrifice.

Many people think that very few cultures actually engaged in ritual human sacrifice. In fact, the practice took many forms throughout pre-history and was practiced in almost every culture of the past. Those forms we read about from ancient Egypt and ancient Greece were some of the most brutal form of sacrifice that had been practiced for centuries before as archaeology has borne witness. The only changes men saw throughout pre-history were the various different forms of sacrifice, some more brutal than others, with different sacrificial objects to accomplish different results. Religious reformation was slow but sometimes it was more deadly and at other times more benign. Eventually, many cultures were told that the gods no longer interfered in the affairs of men. It was no longer necessary to fear catastrophe at their hands. Brutal deadly sacrifice was slowly replaced by animal and money sacrifice. The gods became fatherly and motherly figures teaching love, knowledge and piety. Still the means of control were ritual reenactments of the lives of the gods that became morality. The Cult of Sacrifice has always been alive and well.

We obtain a hint at how religious reformations came about if we look at how the reformation of Greek myths slowly evolved into secular philosophy. Early Greeks began to question the premises of their brutal religious practices by inventing some key questions about the nature of the universe. These questions challenged the view of the gods as brutal masters who demanded human sacrifice. The Greeks asked such questions as what is the relationship between the one and the many. What principles create change? Is it the spirits or earth-bound processes such as air, water, fire and earth? What is the role of the individual as an autonomous thinker and what of the collectives that demanded various forms of human sacrifice? As they grappled with these questions, their society developed along two tracks, one religious demanding sacrifice and another secular demanding that the individual mind be allowed to question and investigate without the influence of religion. To a great extent, Ancient Greece was very much like our society in that both societies experimented with various forms of social structure and investigated such issues as a separation of church and state, the role of the individual in solving his own problems and the role of government in the lives of individuals.

If you examine the writings of Greek philosophers, you see the tension between secular analysis and religious dominance. Their example reminds us of the many intellectuals during our Enlightenment period that experienced a similar tension as they strove to understand the difference between a free mind and one enslaved by doctrine. A new vision once again strove to remove men from the slavery of the mind. These issues continue to influence us today as we question the viability of sacrificing the individual to the demands of the state. We ask whether it is society or religion to which we should sacrifice our minds, our time, our possessions; and some of us ask whether there should be any sacrificing at all. Some of us think that the legacy of the Enlightenment, what thinkers like Locke and others struggled to understand was the issue of freedom versus tyranny. Should society defend and protect the human mind seeking to understand, prosper and flourish or should it be the instrument of enforcing sacrifice? This is the Founding Fathers versus the progressives.

Through the influence of the progressives today, the residue of the demand for human sacrifice looms as a deep threat. According to the progressives, it is immoral to be for “yourself” and moral to think of the whole. It is immoral to seek profit and moral to sacrifice for the good of the group. Indeed, the statement by President Obama quoted above is nothing more than an echo of the ideas that confounded the Greeks so many centuries ago and still confound us today. The Cult of Sacrifice is alive and well among the President’s allies in the “Occupy Wall Street” pseudo-movement, while others, the true historical radicals in the Tea Party movement, cry out for capitalism, freedom and individual rights.

Some would say that connecting ancient human sacrifice to modern calls for altruism is unfair. Yet, one of the most ancient examples of the tension between the one and the many has come down to us today in the form of Greek tragedy, a ritualized recreation of the lives of the gods and demigods. These plays helped people experience catharsis by seeing for themselves, as we see today on television and in the theater, how the gods lived and how they acted. Greek plays were virtual examples, morality plays if you will, on how ancient Greek citizens were supposed to live their lives.

You can observe two basic themes in Greek plays that you can also observe today in American theater and movies. These themes make up the “natural resources” so to speak of both Greek and American story telling. They are the “suffering savior” and “the battle of the sexes”. These themes are repeated constantly in our stories today as they were in the plays of Greek tragedy. Each theme represented an ancient religious perspectives; they were primitive forms of religion, so to speak, that laid the foundation for modern religion and political theory today.

Stories of Prometheus, Atlas, Hercules, Theseus, Odysseus, Oedipus, Perseus and more provided for the Greeks the examples that taught them how a creature like man, all too human and frivolous, could participate in world consuming events, suffer, struggle and fight against the gods and nature, take on tremendous challenges and defeat violent enemies, sometimes to die (sacrifice himself) as an offering or scapegoat for the good of the earth or the people.

Likewise, today, actors such as Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis and others play heroes who suffer and die to save the planet, America and little children. They participate in world consuming events, suffer, struggle and fight against the odds and nature, take on tremendous challenges and defeat violent enemies, sometimes to die (sacrifice themselves) as an offering or scapegoat for the good of the earth or the people. The images of these sacrificial offerings, these virtuous men, are intended to elicit admiration and a desire to live as they lived, to experience the "magnificence" of life as a successful sacrifice. These tragedies are the symbols of the Cult of Sacrifice.

These stories, both ancient Greek and contemporary American, are derived from the earlier rituals and myths of pre-history where men were called upon to give up their lives, their children and their possessions for the sake of setting the world right. They represent the constantly repeating themes of the Cult of Sacrifice, the idea that was more than a mere suggestion but a demand for sacrifice made upon all men, of all parts of the world and almost for all time.

The Cult of Sacrifice has gone through many reformations throughout history. As the Enlightenment began taking shape, many philosophers realized that religion had come under attack because of the new focus on reason inaugurated by the Enlightenment. Men began seeing that life could be “lived”, enjoyed and that reason was the means of that enjoyment. Men began to question the religious life of self-sacrifice, humility and self-denial and liberated themselves from the shackles of religious intolerance. As some have observed, Ayn Rand for one, the backlash against the ideas of the Enlightenment took the shape of a “new” morality invented by Kant, but based upon the dusty old skeletons of the past, the Cult of Sacrifice. Kant’s goal was to save religion from the Enlightenment and he did it by elevating “duty” as prime motivation, turning it into an "imperative" built into the structure of the mind. Through this “new” morality, we have the effort of the Cult of Sacrifice to throw off the dust of the past and redeem itself by once again controlling man’s mind and actions. When Comte began to elaborate upon the principles of “altruism”, otherism, the victory of Kant was sealed and the Enlightenment was killed. The Founding Fathers never had a chance.

Yet, the Enlightenment left us one legacy; the Constitution of the United States that defined liberty and rights for man. This document rescued one nation from the Cult of Sacrifice and provided, for a couple of hundred years, an example of the magnificence possible to a nation built on reason. For the next few centuries the struggle was between a new morality of freedom and the reconstituted but still dusty Cult of Sacrifice now championed by Kant and the pragmatists. Because the thinkers that ruled the universities were essentially Kantians and their descendents, the victory of the Cult of Sacrifice is near complete. Today, the President can say, as if it is a foregone conclusion, that he will not accept a bill (that is supposed to solve our problems) unless there is some sacrifice in the bill. In fact, because of the resurgence of the Cult of Sacrifice, you cannot be considered a good person unless you convince people that you are pious practitioner of duty, altruism and “love”. The suffering savior is back on the ash.

Let’s look back to the past again so we can identify the one fact that centuries of world leaders, witch doctors, kings, queens and prime ministers have missed. With every demand of sacrifice that has been made, there has always been a presumption that something good would happen; earthquakes would be mild, the gods would be fed and appeased, the world would be set right. Just as our President promises a prosperous economy if there is more sacrifice, men have always been promised that each and every sacrifice will save men, quiet the seas, bring good fortune and generally make things better. When the feared consequences did not come, the sacrifice was considered to have worked. The rulers were please at their accuracy and demanded more loot. When the feared consequences came anyway, the rulers told men that they had not sacrificed enough, that next time they would need to sacrifice more people, more goats and chickens and more money. They demanded more blood and loot.

What did we miss through all these centuries of sacrificing? There was seldom a thought that the dreaded catastrophes had nothing to do with whether men sacrificed or not; that no matter what men did or gave up, the consequence that eventually came, good or bad, would have come anyway. The sacrificing was irrelevant, a brutal, sad waste of human energy and love. It was sacrifice for the sake of sacrificing...as is the call for sacrifice today by the President.

It also did not occur to many men in the past to question the rulers who proclaimed themselves proficient at knowing what the gods wanted from men. They did not notice that the demand for sacrifice kept the rulers alive while they, the pious ones, lost their loved ones, even their goats and chickens not to mention their passion for life. And it does not occur to us today that President Obama is seeking sacrifice, not because he knows it will solve our problems, but because he knows it will not solve our problems. President Obama is a high priest of the Cult of Sacrifice doing what other high priests before him have done: he is faking a moral superiority and making it possible for him and his cronies to loot the substance of society.

The Cult of Sacrifice has never solved our problems and perhaps it is time to stop the sacrificing, recognize that the thinkers of the Enlightenment were on the right track. We should complete their work and profess again the idea that men do have rights and that the first purpose of government should be to prevent sacrifice, to protect the lives and property of the people.

If we want to solve our problems as a nation, we should look at the practitioners of the Cult of Sacrifice and “throw them all out”.

(1)quoted in “Ayn Rand – The Prophesy of Atlas Shrugged

What is Executive Power?

2011-11-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." – Lord Acton

Recently, the President made the following statement: “I’m here to say that we can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will.”

This statement is intended to reflect the image of an increasingly gridlocked Congress so ineffectual that only an American President can act. Is it true? Is Congress dysfunctional or is the President seeking to denigrate reasoned opposition to his policies? And, more importantly, is the President’s goal really to get something done, to win the next election or to turn our nation into a dictatorship?

Is the President the only person today who has the moral power to act? Is it really as simple as that? Will the history books tell future students about the courage of our President or his deviousness? Will they examine his deep personal struggle on behalf of the poor or his cynical power play?

We must remind voters that in times past, in particular, during the days leading up to World War II, the European nations had a similar debate. Parliamentary bodies in several European countries were vilified by radicals who favored sweeping aside parliamentary government in favor of dictatorship. During those times, the idea of dictatorship did not have the negative connotation that it does today; it was viewed as a viable option for some nations. Some argued that one man, with the power and charisma to move people, could better implement the will of the people. This man, freed from the shackles of parliamentary weakness, could be the key to making things happen.

Needless to say, two of these men, Mussolini and Hitler, wreaked havoc on Europe, joining a small group of the most hated and murderous men in world history. The absolute power they were given corrupted the entire planet absolutely. Today, we see one-man-rule, not as a saving idea but as a deadly one. At least we did until we got our own charismatic leader with a will of his own. So let’s look a little closer at the issue of whether we are becoming a dictatorship.

First, let’s examine some important principles upon which our government was founded. The first principle is called “checks and balances”. Merriam-Webster.com defines checks and balances as “a system that allows each branch of a government to amend or veto acts of another branch so as to prevent any one branch from exerting too much power.”(1)

Keep in mind that the goal of checks and balances is to limit power. No branch of government should have the power to dictate government action, which means to unilaterally write laws without approval and input from the other branches and from the source of government, the people. In short, unilateral action by any branch or individual is prohibited by the framers of the Constitution. If the President cannot get Congress to act as he would like, then he must desist until he can convince the people of the wisdom of his recommendations. He cannot simply go ahead and act. To do so would violate the purpose of government which is to protect the rights of citizens. Ours is a system of laws, not of men.

You might say that the present situation is too dire to allow Congress to dawdle while people suffer. You must ask yourself, if the President knows this, why doesn’t the Congress also know it? Why don’t they see the wisdom of the President’s position and make an effort to act; to do their job? The truth is that Congress also realizes that the situation is dire and has passed several proposals that are presently being blocked by the Senate. What the President calls dysfunction is nothing more than checks and balances. The Congress does not agree with the President’s “solutions” to the crisis and is therefore blocking his proposals. By doing little about the President’s proposals, the Congress is checking the power of the President to act in a way they do not approve. In fact, the Senate is blocking the actions of the House of Representatives and both houses are blocking the proposals of the President. Doing nothing is sometimes a legitimate response in a free country. This means the checks and balances are working.

Consider that the President’s proposal, his so-called American Jobs Act, has a strong re-distribution component that many in Congress see as harmful to our nation. They point to numerous examples of re-distribution in the past to show that re-distribution causes economic distortions and lost jobs. In fact, a case can be made that re-distribution, as for instance in the sub-prime crisis, is what caused our economic troubles in the first place. For the President to introduce more re-distribution is analogous to a doctor trying to cure a poisoned patient by giving him more poison.

As Thomas M. Cooley wrote in 1908, "The theory of our political system is that the ultimate sovereignty is in the people, from whom springs all legitimate authority."(2)

This means that legitimate authority does not spring from the President alone but from the governmental body closest to the people; the Congress. If the legislative bodies refuse to pass something the President wants, it in no way means that they are dysfunctional. They are, in fact, performing their constitutional responsibility.

To carry the President’s logic forward, he is saying that the people are dysfunctional, that they have lost control of their representatives and that he alone should act. Is this true? Remember, in 2010 the people elected a new Congress and Senate and they brought into government a large number of people who campaigned against President Obama’s policies of deficit spending, health care and stimulus programs. If Congress is opposing the President’s policies and legislative agendas, then Congress is doing what the voters instructed them to do; which is to obstruct the President in advancing his agenda. It is the President’s responsibility to acquiesce to the will of the people, to get the message of the last election and to desist from deficit spending, regulatory programs and his health care program.

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories." – Thomas Jefferson 1781

The second principle is called “separation of powers”. This is “the principle or system of vesting in separate branches the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of a government.”(3) In our system, the executive branch is responsible for seeing to it that the laws of the land are enforced. The House of Representatives is responsible for writing those laws while the Supreme Court is responsible for interpreting those laws. The Senate is responsible for advice and consent to the Executive.

If one branch of government attempts to operate in an area which is not within its range of powers, legal procedures as well as the Supreme Court should intervene and put a stop to it.

There is nothing in the Constitution about any form of unilateral Executive Power. For instance, Section 2 of Article 1 delegates to the Executive the power to issue writs of election to fill vacancies of elected representatives. Section 3 of Article 1 discusses additional Executive powers regarding Senatorial vacancies.

Article 2 Section 1 spells out the nature of Executive Power.

“1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows”… It goes on to discuss the procedures for the election of the President and Vice President.

At this point in our examination of the Constitution, we’ve only been told that there is such a concept as “Executive Power” but the Constitution has not yet defined that power. There is no implication that such power is in any way like the power of any other branch or that there are overlapping powers.

We find out what real Executive Power is in the next paragraph Article 2 Section 2:

“Section 2

1: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

3: The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section 4

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

There is nothing here that gives the President the power to make law, to issue decrees or otherwise make decisions that overlap with decisions that are the Constitutional province of any other branch. It says, simply, that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. We still do not have any justification for unilateral Presidential action.

It has been argued that the mere mention that the President has “Executive Power” is a justification for unilateral action. There is no reason to make that assumption and any effort to act upon that assumption should be roundly challenged.

A major “power” or responsibility of the President is discussed in Section 7:

“2: Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.”

Again, we have no justification for unilateral action by the President. There is no mention of an “Executive Order” in the Constitution. Yet, we read elsewhere:

“The president:
• is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. He or she has the power to call into service the state units of the National Guard, and in times of emergency may be given the power by Congress to manage national security or the economy.
• has the power make treaties with Senate approval. He or she can also receive ambassadors and work with leaders of other nations.
• is responsible for nominating the heads of governmental departments, which the Senate must then approve. In addition, the president nominates judges to federal courts and justices to the United States Supreme Court.
• can issue executive orders, which have the force of law but do not have to be approved by congress.
• can issue pardons for federal offenses.
• can convene Congress for special sessions.
• can veto legislation approved by Congress. However, the veto is limited. It is not a line-item veto, meaning that he or she cannot veto only specific parts of legislation, and it can be overridden by a two-thirds vote by Congress.
• delivers a State of the Union address annually to a joint session of Congress.”(4)

What happened? Where did this come from? The only mention of “executive orders” I find in the Constitution is the power to issue pardons and reprieves. Our friends at Cornell try to explain:

“In times of emergency, the president can override congress and issue executive orders with almost limitless power. Abraham Lincoln used an executive order in order to fight the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson issued one in order to arm the United States just before it entered World War I, and Franklin Roosevelt approved Japanese internment camps during World War II with an executive order. Many other executive orders are on file and could be enacted at any time.”(5)

So, it appears that “Executive Orders” are justified by precedent alone. Lincoln just began issuing them and no one challenged him (except the south, of course). The fact that Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt issued Executive Orders is given as a justification for the acts of any President who thinks it is appropriate to issue an Executive Order. Yet, these Executive Orders, according to Cornell, are issued only during times of emergencies.

It appears that the framers of the Constitution wanted the legislative authority to reside with the people; so they determined that the power to make law was vested in the House of Representatives. It was not given to the Executive for a good reason; they knew that eventually the Executive would turn that power into a dictatorship. Thomas Jefferson said it best:

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories." 1781

and “Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust.” 1812

As Martin and Caul explain:

“The greatest fear the founders of this nation had was the establishment of a strong central government and a strong political leader at the center of that government. They no longer wanted kings, potentates or czars, they wanted a loose association of States in which the power emanated from the States and not from the central government.

John Adams advocated that a good government consists of three balancing powers, the legislative, executive and the judicial, that would produce an equilibrium of interests and thereby promote the happiness of the whole community. It was Adams' theory that the only effectual method to secure the rights of the people and promote their welfare was to create an opposition of interests between the members of two distinct bodies (legislative and executive) in the exercise of the powers of government, and balanced by those of a third (judicial).”(6)

To understand why “Executive Orders” were not countenanced by the Constitution, we must understand that the Constitution, apart from being a “legal” document is also a moral document. It holds implicitly that the moral is the practical; that free people have the power to make their own decisions and act on their own behalf.(7) It held that individual rights were not only moral but also practical. They were inviolable. Living independently of government control meant living morally and therefore, no single man, not even the President, could hold the authority to unilaterally dictate to any other man. Dictatorship was viewed as an immoral form of government that had disastrous consequences for society.

The Founders saw that individual rights, political freedom and the other rights they acknowledged in the Constitution were issues of morality, issues that reflected the individual's responsibility to himself. So, in order to protect the rights of men to live freely, without coercion, the branches of government had to be restricted and controlled, powers had to be separated and balanced…as a matter of having a government that respected the freedom of individuals to make their own moral decisions. Coercion, the forcing of a man against his will, was considered immoral and improper, not only when done by one individual to another but also when done by government toward citizens. The idea of one man, not accountable to the people, with the power to issue unilateral orders, to make laws, was considered coercive and dictatorial. Such unilateral action was outside the bounds of proper government. Further, the final check against government power is the power of the people to approve or reject the proposals of the government. Executive Orders eliminate that important check and corrupt the broad principles of the Constitution.

Yet, it was Andrew Jackson who began usurping the Constitution, not Lincoln.

“President Andrew Jackson used executive powers to force the law-abiding Cherokee Nation off their ancestral lands. The Cherokee fought the illegal action in the U.S. Supreme Court and won. But Jackson, using the power of the Presidency, continued to order the removal of the Cherokee Nation and defied the Court's ruling. He stated, "Let the Court try to enforce their ruling." The Cherokee lost their land and commenced a series of journeys that would be called The Trail of Tears.

President Abraham Lincoln suspended many fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He closed down newspapers opposed to his war-time policies and imprisoned what many historians now call political prisoners. He suspended the right of trial and the right to be confronted by accusers. Lincoln's justification for such drastic actions was the preservation of the Union above all things. After the war and Lincoln's death, Constitutional law was restored.

In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson could not persuade Congress to arm United States vessels plying hostile German waters before the United States entered World War One. When Congress balked, Wilson invoked the policy through a Presidential Executive Order.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066 in December 1941. His order forced 100,000 Japanese residents in the United States to be rounded up and placed in concentration camps. The property of the Japanese was confiscated.

Both Lincoln's and Roosevelt's actions were taken during wartime, when the very life of the United States was threatened. Wilson's action was taken on the eve of the United States entering World War One. Whether history judges these actions as just, proper or legal, the decision must be left to time. The dire life struggle associated with these actions provided plausible argumentation favoring their implementation during a time when hysteria ruled an age.”(8)

An argument can be made that none of these acts were proper; that they represented a usurpation of the powers delegated to the President and they violated the intent of the Constitution as well as the oath of office. Certainly, today, most of us see the actions of Jackson as unjustified. He clearly violated the individual rights of the Cherokee people. He used government force against individual Americans which was a criminal act every bit as evil as anything done by Hitler. He should have granted to the Cherokee nation their victory under the Constitution. Through his unilateral decision, Jackson put our nation on a “slippery slope” that is getting more slippery by the day.

But Lincoln had a unique situation. He was involved in the only civil war ever to hit the United States of America. The very survival of the Union, as it was founded, was at stake. One could say that Lincoln needed to protect the integrity of our system and that harsh measures were needed against those who would destroy our nation. Yet, one could also argue that the Civil War would have been won without these Executive Orders. The industrial might of the North and the specific battles won by the North would probably have been won without those orders by Lincoln. Shutting down newspapers may have made little difference to the outcome of the war.

Yet, we must ask ourselves: "If the principles of the Constitution are made to apply during peace time, why don’t they apply during war?" If the moral is the practical, aren’t emergency situations times when we need our principles the most? Were there other legal options that Lincoln could have taken to accomplish the goals behind his Executive Orders? Would these not have been preferable to establishing a precedent that violated the Constitution? Remember, an Executive Order violates the individual rights of every citizen purely on the basis of the fact that it circumvents the power of the people to approve laws. By circumventing this power, the President is circumventing the individual rights of the citizens.

One could also argue that Wilson’s order was entirely within his responsibility as Commander in Chief of the military and that an Executive Order was not necessary. One could also say that Roosevelt’s order, though a violation of the Individual Rights of Japanese citizens, was also within his mandate to protect the borders of the country (I disagree with that position). Perhaps, not wise, these orders may have been defensible before the Supreme Court due to the responsibility of the President to be Commander in Chief.

What is an emergency that is so important that the Constitution can be disregarded? One has to understand why it is important that government powers cannot overlap; why did the Founders believe the principle was so important that they virtually prohibited the Executive from violating these divisions of powers? And, since they did not identify any circumstance that could be an “emergency” or “exception to the rule”, why do we think that such emergencies or exceptions give us the authority to violate the Constitution today?

An Executive Order, if it constitutes anything other than a pardon or reprieve by the Executive, is unconstitutional. The Founders did not intend that the separation of powers and checks and balances should EVER be violated. Furthermore, the violation of these principles was undertaken without justification, without a law enacted by Congress and without the advice and consent of the Senate and, when it was tested by the Cherokee Nation, the Supreme Court agreed that Jackson’s Executive Order was unconstitutional.

When a people considers the violation of the separation of powers to be necessary, what is it saying? What is the philosophical implication of such an idea? As mentioned before, the Constitution holds that individual rights are inviolable. It holds that a moral government is one which honors the rights of the people to life, liberty and the pursuit of property. It holds that no emergency could ever justify the violation of individual rights. So how could Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt and Obama think that they could violate individual rights by a mere Executive Order?

The flaw in their reasoning is a long-standing principle that has brought much evil into the world. Those Presidents who issue Executive Orders operate according to a philosophy that holds the moral to be impractical. They hold morality to be self-sacrificial and therefore impractical. They see anyone living a "moral" life to be inept and unworthy. In other words, they do not understand that the principles of the Constitution are universal principles that apply to all men for all times and that they work to create a better, practical and affluent society. They see the moral person as weak. They believe that the principles of the Founders are inferior to a broader, and to them more practical, principle. Their view that the end justifies the means enables them to brush aside the rights and morality of individual men trying to live good lives. They hold, implicitly, that it is proper to violate peoples’ rights because only force is practical; only force can accomplish anything worthwhile.

They should ask themselves the question asked by the Founders: Are the coercive acts practiced by potentates, generals, kings, queens and emperors superior to those of individual freedom and the universal rights of man? Isn’t our Constitution telling us that there are no circumstances where individual rights take second place to force exerted by government? Aren’t the Founders telling us that there is never a proper time to disrespect men?

We cannot merely say that because Jackson and other Presidents established the precedent of Executive Powers we should not quibble about our present office holder when he continues the precedent. On the contrary, a bad precedent must be overturned and the integrity of the system must be restored lest dictatorship become the order of the day. We must tell our leaders that there is no circumstance that justifies the arbitrary and artificial suspension of our rights. The end does not justify the means.

To understand the danger of Executive Orders and why we must restore the integrity of our system, let’s look at some of the Executive Orders that have been issued over the last few years. These examples are provided by Martin and Caul.

“A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not, becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry. Congress is by-passed. Here are just a few Executive Orders that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen:

• EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.“(9)

These orders listed above were issued by previous Presidents. Let’s look at some issued by President Obama.

2009 Executive Orders Disposition Tables
Barack Obama – 2009

Executive Order 13489 Presidential Records
Executive Order 13490 Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel
Executive Order 13491 Ensuring Lawful Interrogation
Executive Order 13492 Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and Close of Detention Facilities
Executive Order 13493 Review of Detention Policy Options
Executive Order 13494 Economy in Government Contracts
Executive Order 13495 Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts
Executive Order 13496 Notification of Employee Rights Under Federal Labor Laws
Executive Order 13497 Revocation of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Regulatory Planning and Review
Executive Order 13498 Amendments to Executive Order 13199 and Establishment of the President's Advisory Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Executive Order 13499 Further Amendments to Executive Order 12835, Establishment of the National Economic Council
Executive Order 13500 Further Amendments to Executive Order 12859, Establishment of the Domestic Policy Council
Executive Order 13501 Establishing the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Executive Order 13502 Use of Project Labor Agreements for Federal Construction Projects
Executive Order 13503 Establishment of the White House Office of Urban Affairs
Executive Order 13504 Amending Executive Order 13390
Executive Order 13505 Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells
Executive Order 13506 Establishing a White House Council on Women and Girls
Executive Order 13507 Establishment of the White House Office of Health Reform
Executive Order 13508 Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration
Executive Order 13509 Establishing a White House Council on Automotive Communities and Workers
Executive Order 13510 Waiver Under the Trade Act of 1974 With Respect to the Republic of Belarus
Executive Order 13511 Continuance of Certain Federal Advisory Committees
Executive Order 13512 Amending Executive Order 13390
Executive Order 13513 Federal Leadership on Reducing Text Messaging While Driving
Executive Order 13514 Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance
Executive Order 13515 Increasing Participation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Federal Programs
Executive Order 13516 Amending Executive Order 13462
Executive Order 13517 Amendments to Executive Orders 13183 and 13494
Executive Order 13518 Employment of Veterans in the Federal Government
Executive Order 13519 Establishment of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force
Executive Order 13520 Reducing Improper Payments
Executive Order 13521 Establishing the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues
Executive Order 13522 Creating Labor-Management Forums to Improve Delivery of Government Services
Executive Order 13523 Half-Day Closing of Executive Departments and Agencies on Thursday, December 24, 2009
Executive Order 13524 Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a Public International Organization Entitled To Enjoy Certain Privileges, Exemptions, and Immunities
Executive Order 13525 Adjustments of Certain Rates of Pay
Executive Order 13526 Classified National Security Information
Executive Order 13527 Establishing Federal Capability for the Timely Provision of Medical Countermeasures Following a Biological Attack

To be “fair” here’s a list of how many Executive Orders were issued by President Bush:

Disposition of Executive orders signed by President George W. Bush:
• Subject Index
• 2009 - E.O. 13484 - E.O. 13488 (5 Executive orders issued)
• 2008 - E.O. 13454 - E.O. 13483 (30 Executive orders issued)
• 2007 - E.O. 13422 - E.O. 13453 (32 Executive orders issued)
• 2006 - E.O. 13395 - E.O. 13421 (27 Executive orders issued)
• 2005 - E.O. 13369 - E.O. 13394 (26 Executive orders issued)
• 2004 - E.O. 13324 - E.O. 13368 (45 Executive orders issued)
• 2003 - E.O. 13283 - E.O. 13323 (41 Executive orders issued)
• 2002 - E.O. 13252 - E.O. 13282 (31 Executive orders issued)
• 2001 - E.O. 13198 - E.O. 13251 (54 Executive orders issued)

291 Total Executive orders Issued by President Bush.(10)

Do we have an enormous problem here? Were you informed of any of these Executive Orders? Would you have approved them had you been asked? Shouldn't there have been open debate about these orders? Doesn't the issuance of these Executive Orders circumvent the responsibility of Congress to write the laws of the land? Don't they circumvent the responsibility of the Senate to advise and consent? Where is the Supreme Court on this? Doesn't the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution state: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” It does not state that they are reserved to the President.

How is it possible that we have forgotten a key principle of government, the unraveling of which threatens our very freedoms and survival? How can we survive as a free people when the government can do whatever it wants?

Did the Constitution want the Congress to be dysfunctional? The answer is “yes”. It did not countenance a Congress that was efficient because it saw "efficient force" as a violation of the rights of the citizens. The framers saw the citizens as the main protectors of their own freedoms and they sought to give the most power to the people as a check on the acquisition of power by the other branches of government.

The framers intended that the government be, in a sense, gridlocked, incapable of doing anything not checked by the people. If the people tell their representatives (through the vote) “no more deficit spending” that meant the Congress could not approve deficit spending. It could not write or pass any laws that enabled such spending. This is the simple practical protection of the Constitution; but the principle that made this possible is the philosophical idea that “all men are created equal”, that it was the responsibility of the government to protect, not violate, individual rights. Any violation of the Constitution was a dereliction of responsibility on the part of the violator.

We must understand this issue; so I’ll state it again: Any violation of the Constitution is a violation of individual rights. Whenever Executive Orders are issued, the rights of the citizens to approve or reject the actions of government are violated. The Constitution is written to protect individual rights and, one of those rights is the right to check the power of government. An Executive Order constitutes a deliberate dictatorial act against the people.

The proper action for the President, when he decides that a specific government action should be taken, should not be whether to write an Executive Order or ask Congress to write a law. The President's power extends only to the act of convincing the people to act through the legislature. That is the proper challenge put forward by the Constitution. If he cannot convince the people, he cannot issue an Executive Order. This is demanded by his oath of office to defend the Constitution.

Put another way: the Constitution is intended to provide the protocols that guide the proper actions of government. First, the President is required to report on the State of the Union to joint sessions of Congress and he is required to present, during this speech, any proposed legislation he would like to put forward. There is no provision in the Constitution for the President to declare that Congress is dysfunctional and therefore he will act alone. Such a declaration violates the constitutionally mandated protocol for making change; it is a declaration that the people are no longer wise enough to run their government and that their representatives are inept. The statement made by the President that he will act alone is improper. There is no accommodation for such action in the Constitution.

The early Executive Orders of past Presidents added fuel to one of our nation's oldest debates about government powers. We cannot base governmental action on emergencies and I submit that there are other “legal” ways to accomplish proper action without violating the Constitution. Those methods include honoring the intent and procedures established in the Constitution.

Government action is supposed to be slow. Most often, deliberation and open debate make for better laws, more thoughtful laws, and they prevent a demagogue from steamrolling his or her own agenda. Having a proper government is important and we must take the time necessary to respond to real problems without creating additional other problems through hasty action. The power of the President to issue Executive Orders must be abolished.

President Obama is the only President in modern times who has openly declared his intent to circumvent Congress. In many respects, especially in his unwillingness to compromise with Congress before and after the 2010 elections, he is involved in an intense war against the Constitution and against freedom. The crisis the President declares is one of his own making; one undertaken, either as a deliberate strategy, or as a haughty response to the outrage expressed by the Tea Party over his deficit spending and Health Care Programs. This makes him a dangerous President who must be confronted in the voting booth and made to desist. The American people must intervene, or should I say, they should take their government back.

The President is declaring that Congress is dysfunctional because members of Congress disagree with his policies. The President is using his bully pulpit to insult the intelligence of the American people. To declare that he is the only adult while the rest of the nation is acting like children is to paint over the real ideological and economic principles that divide left and right today. To paint over the disagreement on the proper use of government power denies the real debate we should be having; the debate between those who would use coercion against man (the left) and those who would respect man’s rights and freedoms (Tea Party members).

To answer the question, “Are we a dictatorship?” the answer is “almost”. The President is making a serious effort to defeat his “loyal opposition” by discrediting its motives and continuing with his coercive agenda in spite of the will of the people. By declaring Congress dysfunctional, the President is playing politics with our Constitution. If he truly wants to act for the sake of the nation, he will desist from issuing Executive Orders that advance his unpopular agenda. The people have spoken; it is time for him to listen.

As citizens, we must be vigilant and watch every move made by the Executive Branch. At the present time, the precedent for dictatorship is in place. The President now has the authority to do anything he desires regardless of Constitutional constraints, division of powers and checks and balances. There is nothing that can stop him from declaring Marshall Law, cancelling the elections and declaring his intent to rule by decree. The only political force that can stop him is the people.

The first thing they should do is ensure that this election is a fair one. They should challenge the cadre of vote fraud experts that the President has unleashed. They should monitor the election and ensure that the registration process is not fraught with registration fraud. This leads to stuffed ballots. They should vote in huge numbers to declare their opposition to dictatorship and to ensure that the left is completely disenfranchised. And, once we regain our government, they should fight against any conservatives and neo-cons who want to take advantage of the situation to install a theocracy. Finally, they should advance two Constitutional Amendments: 1)to abolish the power of the President to issue Executive Orders, to submit all previous Executive Orders to the Congress for a vote, and 2)to declare a separation of government and economics; to get the government out of the cronyism business.

They should also institute a new rule in Congress that prohibits Congress from handing over its power to write laws to other agencies or departments of the government.

We can thank the Tea Party movement for standing up. So far, they have slowed the advance of dictatorship. The real political battle is ahead.

(1)http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/checks%20and%20balances
(2)Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations…p. 56

(3)http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/separation+of+powers
(4)http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/executive_power
(5)Ibid
(6)“The Executive Order” http://dmc.members.sonic.net/sentinel/gvcon5.html
(7)For an excellent discussion of the idea that the moral is the practical, read "Capitalist Solutions" by Andrew Bernstein
(8)Ibid
(9)Ibid
(10)All data found at: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/

The Fascism of Today's Left

2011-11-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

"I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble." -Franklin D. Roosevelt (about Mussollini)

Progressives today are in a deep quandry. Their suggestions for improving the economy cannot be explained in terms that people understand. The left can tell us what they want to do for the economy but not the general principles upon which these actions are based. They don't want to use words like socialism, fascism, and corporate welfarism because of the negative connotations of these words. The result is that they can't admit that they absolutely love fascism.

You might think this is a specious charge. But there are only so many things you can call a system of government. You might as well call it what it is.

In a past post, I listed many types of governmental systems:

“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.”

The original list was much longer but this is sufficient to indicate that there are different names for different systems. All we have to do is find the right name for our system.

These names mean something; and if people want to learn how to think correctly, they should be willing to identify systems according to the characteristics that a given system displays, not according to the propaganda with which advocates wish to align.

The leftists, in particular, have given us only a rambling discourse about what they represent. Sometimes, they call themselves liberals, progressives, democrats, and while their opposition dutifully follows along; they are totally oblivious to the fact that none of these names represents what they really stand for.

The left has resorted to using focus groups to produce messages that avoid negative words, framing the discussion so they can avoid saying what they really are. Knowing that the opposition will jump on anything that has been discredited, they attempt to find new ways to say things so that the public does not get alarmed. They painfully remember when Presidential candidate George McGovern promised income equality and was branded a communist. The resulting election defeat almost killed the Democratic Party.

Today, they resolve not to tell us anything. They prefer to hint at things, furtively saying words that mean one thing to one group and another thing to another, avoiding whole topics lest people become offended. Their candidates are slick, well trained, with lots of buzz words that make people feel comfortable. No mask will fall to reveal any form of hatred except hatred of the rich. They don't want to use words like communism or fascism unless they can use them to describe their opposition. In this case, words like racist, haters and fascists are ok to use.

Shouldn't political debate be about saving our society and doing the right things to accomplish that goal? That is the motive of the Tea Party protests. For them, isn’t about blaming the Republicans for the problems created by leftist policies such as subprime lending. It isn’t about complaining that the Republicans are playing politics while President Obama plays politics. It isn’t about moral triangulation that seeks to blame the political opposition for everything evil. It isn't about accusations of racism, Nazism, xenophobia, gerontophobia and prefering rape to fiscal responsibility. It isn’t about motivating your base; it is about saving our society from unending deficit spending and the massive institution of bigger and more coercive government. In this sense, the Tea Party people are the only adults in the room who are decidedly not playing politics. They know that in order to save our country, there are many people on the left and the right, who must be removed from power. This is not a game. It is a matter of saving civilization.

I think people would prefer knowing about the broad principles that leftists hold. Why doesn't the left tell us that they want to move toward fascism? Why don’t they tell us that they have a love affair with the idea of regulating and manipulating the economy? Why do they only make out of context assertions designed to hide what they really stand for? People want answers, not vague generalizations. Indeed, progressives are walking a fine line trying to tell us what they are not; it is time to call their bluff and demand an answer. Are they socialists? Why don't they say so? Are they communists, fascists, welfare-statists? Just what are they? As I said, there are only so many “isms”. It shouldn’t be that hard to answer the question.

As Americans concerned about our country, shouldn't we know the broad principles upon which the progressives want to build the future? After all, every "system" has a broad context of argument and knowledge that is intended to support it. Why doesn't the left admit what it stands for? If it is communism, why not say so? If it is fascism, why not say that this is the best system and provide reasons for it? Why do they never discuss the system they advocate? The Tea Party protestors, in spite of all the negative criticism of capitalism in the media today, at least have the courage to tell people that they stand for capitalism. Only the neo-cons, the leftists pretending to be conservatives, are afraid to say what they stand for. What does the left stand for? Is this not a discussion that we need to have out in the open?

Imagine an election cycle where politicians tell us what they really stand for. They could tell us which system they advocate and why they think it is good for us, what they will do consistent with that system and what we can expect in terms of policy and government action. It would simplify the choice so people wouldn't have to be in the dark. Candidate A says he is a fascist and he'd create massive new government businesses to solve our major problems. Candidate B says she's a capitalist and would eliminate government interference in the economy. That would be a clear choice, society could decide and move forward. The people would be in control of their government again. Why all the secrecy and silence on these issues?

Indeed, when trying to explain to leftists that the broad principle they appear to be following is fascism, I can't get a word in edgewise. How could I say such a thing? How could I accuse our leaders of being fascists? I must be an uneducated right wing radical who doesn't know anything. Our leaders are good people trying to make things better. For them, anyone who would say such a thing is an insane twisted fool. The least you could expect is for them to stop telling you what they are not and give you an explanation of what they are.

Many people, both progressives and conservatives, say they have no problem with a benign mixture of freedom and compulsion. The government can and should decide when to use compulsion in order to advance collective goals, they think. What they ignore is that there is no such thing as a benign compulsion. Compulsion violates the fundamental right of people to use their minds. Compulsion is the opposite of freedom. Mixed government still requires citizens to acquiesce even when their rights are violated. This “social contract” argument means that the government picks winners and losers and decides when someone should be sacrificed for the sake of others. To have a mixed society is to have a collectivist society and to eliminate the principle of individual rights from men’s dealings. Some commentators have shown that this sort of mixture inevitably leads to totalitarianism. As the government attempts to deal with the failures of “a little” control, it must move toward more and more control, until inevitably society becomes totalitarian and collapses.

To prove that our system is fascism, let's look at the situation we are establishing today under the President. What are the basic premises of fascism? What basic ideas make it possible?

1) Fascism is anti-capitalist and crony capitalist
2) Fascism denies individual and full property rights
3) Fascism jails or kills the most productive people in society
4) Fascism uses pseudo-science to justify itself in its broadest policies
5) Fascism engages in group warfare
6) Fascism requires altruism, sacrifice of the individual, and collectivism, sacrifice for the state

Let’s look at each point and identify the similarities with our present system.

1) Fascism is anti-capitalist and crony capitalist. Because fascism must “justify” its actions, it must first accuse businesspeople who seek profit of being against society (as it is doing today against the Tea Party protesters and Wall Street (and sometimes Jews)). It also enlists the aid of the largest business organizations to control the rest of society. It creates cronies who are kept in business by government and who enrich themselves in the process. These cronies are often called "useful idiots".

2) Fascism denies individual and full property rights. It must take the income of the rich in order to partially pay its deficits while expressing a fake populism (that’s what the Occupy Wall Street people are advocating). It assumes the right to do whatever it likes with any citizen, his property and his rights. In a fascist society, the citizen who does not go along with the state is admonished for his selfishness and “anti-social” behavior.

3) Fascism jails or kills the most productive people in society. In a fascist state, there is no due process or it is selective based upon the desires of the state. Anyone who is deemed “self-interested”, as opposed to properly socialized, is considered a criminal worthy of public chastisement and ridicule, even imprisonment (that is also what the Occupiers want).

4) Fascism uses pseudo-science to justify itself in its broadest policies. The government uses fake science to provide a “scientific” argument to justify the government’s coercive actions (note the left’s statements that all the best economists have blessed their policies?).

5) Fascism engages in group warfare. They pretend to act as representatives for the largest collective (or race) that will be used to purify the society of the profit-makers (racism and multiculturalism).

6) Fascism requires altruism, sacrifice of the individual, and collectivism, sacrifice for the state. It uses these broad ideas to demand that people sacrifice for the state (listen to the speeches of President Obama who counsels community service and shared sacrifice and spreading the wealth).

Although some other coercive systems have tendencies in these areas, fascism is distinctly a mixture of coercive elements and property rights. In fact, our representative government, the government founded upon the Constitution was explicitly created to eliminate all tendencies found in coercive-style governments.

I mentioned that today’s leftists have a love affair with fascism and one need only look at the history of the last century to see this. Progressives have always engaged in the practices listed in my six characteristics; and where they have refused to praise fascism by name, they still praise, in glowing phrases, the ideas that support fascism, the anti-capitalism, the ridicule of profit, the selective disregard for property rights, the crony capitalism, the pseudo-science, the collectivism and the calls for sacrifice to the group. What they do not praise in name, they praise in practice.

The opposite of fascist society is capitalism. Yet, the left accuses capitalism of needing the government; while the left uses and needs the government to achieve its coercive ends. The left accuses capitalism of being zero-sum; of choosing winners and losers; yet it is the left who uses government to create winners and losers, through the cronies who receive government bailouts, grants and loan guarantees. The left accuses capitalism of fostering corporate welfare; yet it is the left that practices and demands corporate welfare and cronyism.

Most leftists assume that their premises are correct, scientific and moral. The truth is their ideas are incorrect, unscientific and immoral. Fascists have always sought the destruction of civilizations built up by human values as well as the destruction of individuals. Those people who think that the coercive measures of the Obama administration are intended to do good, do not understand that these very ideas are the same that guided the rulers of brutal and murderous fascist dictatorships. Leftists think they are good people; yet they have countenanced for decades the very form of fascism that caused the holocaust and concentration camps. The Jews were sacrificed because they were good, prosperous and educated…just as capitalists throughout history have been sacrificed, vilified and hated…because they are good, prosperous and educated.

Leftists attempt to portray themselves as advancing a moral ideal, sacrifice for the collective, when this very idea caused the atrocities and wars of the last century. And they are animating and justifying the wars of our existing President through the self-sacrificial idea of “responsibility to protect” which is nothing more than the sacrifice of young Americans for the sake of the President’s next election.

The ideas of the left are so wrong, so disconnected from society, that they cloud the left’s ability to operate according to the principles upon which our society was founded. This makes them enemies of civilization who demand that the rights of some must be violated in order to create artificial rights and dubious entitlements for others.

We must understand what the progressives have been hiding and obfuscating for decades. They don't want you to understand that they advocate coercion as a basic principle. They advocate the violation of individual rights, some more than others, but in essence; that is progressivism. This is true of all progressives, even those who long for the old days of being called "liberals". All progressives are against the Constitution as it was originally intended. When you understand this, you understand why they are so dangerous...particularly this band of gangsters in charge today.

When it comes to society, there are only two options, freedom or coercion. It is your choice.

A society based upon freedom outlaws all forms of coercion especially the selective violation of property rights. Properly, capitalism does not allow the government to interfere in the economy as a matter of protecting individual rights. And, more importantly, a free society, over time, not only becomes freer, but also more civilized and morally superior. Fascism will always be less productive and morally inferior to capitalism. The advocacy of fascism borders on insanity. History has shown this.

Some people mistakenly think that some coercion is proper. This is the mistake they make that turns them into compromisers for fascism. They believe that government should regulate certain parts of the economy, not because of some realistic evaluation of capitalism but because they believe man is a predator who must be controlled. Their view of capitalism as dog-eat-dog, which is wrong, moves them to make forced adjustments to the economy, each of which results in violations of the rights of individuals. All coercive societies such as communism, fascism, socialism and welfare-statism require that some citizens be forced to support other citizens. In fact, the controls and regulations that leftists want, do no good, make things worse and create inefficiencies. Almost all the problems in our nation today are the result of leftist ideas intended to “correct” the capitalist system that needs no correction.

The left is responsible for all of our problems and it is time to get rid of them so society can advance, once again, to freedom and prosperity.

Vote them out. Vote them all out.

The Death of the Fascist Left

2011-10-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

The “Occupy Wall Street” protests sweeping the country are the harbingers of a new and powerful grassroots movement. The outrage expressed in these demonstrations is aimed at the insidious influence of “fat cats”. I say, not so fast, American media.

The intention of these protests is to hide one simple fact; that our economic problems are the fault of the Democrats. Their purpose is not only to deflect blame but to wrongly accuse capitalism for the problems caused by too much government regulation. This same tactic was used by Democrats during the last great depression when, in fact, the depression had been caused by government regulation, instituted primarily by Democrats.

For instance, the argument that the housing collapse was caused by deregulation of the mortgage industry is simply not true. The players who caused the collapse were quasi-governmental agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act which forced banks to lend to unworthy loan applicants (under threat of prosecution by the government) and the work of organizations like ACORN and Democratic Party cronies who overwhelmed the system with bad loans. The only private institutions involved were Wall Street investment firms that were sold bad loans as good investments. What opinion makers ignore is that the banking and investment industries are two of the most heavily regulated industries in the country. It wasn't deregulation that caused the housing collapse; it was government money laundering schemes instituted primarily by the Democrats.

The protests, sometimes called the “American Spring” (taking place in the fall) are patterned after the Arab Spring that changed the Middle East; not necessarily for the better. It appears that the original intent of the protesters was to take the Middle East in the Spring, the United States in the Summer and then to bask in the glory of having fulfilled the socialist dream in a mere few months - not bad work for a genius President. Yet the demonstrations scheduled for May in the USA did not take place due to news coverage that identified the instigators of these protests as George Soros, the unions and sundry communist bomb throwers from the 60s (also known as friends of President Obama). In any event, the May takeover of America was not attempted until the fall.

In spite of the embarrassing delays, the Occupy Wall Street protests are being touted by the media as a new (and real) anti-crony capitalist groundswell. At the same time, many of the protesters support the policies of the President who happens to be the biggest crony capitalist in history. The protesters' demands for new “controls" on Wall Street have exposed the weakness of the left and its inability to offer a counter argument against the pro-capitalist Tea Party movement. In the past, leftist protesters rioted against the system, breaking windows and enciting police in a wave of violence and revolution. These protesters today are rioting somnambulistically for more government, crying because the cronies are the more beloved of Obama. It is a protest against unrequited love. Lenin is laughing in his grave.

In fact, the protests strangely follow the Cloward-Piven strategy, the idea that the best way to bring down capitalism (and institute socialism) is to overwhelm the system. I suspect that these protesters are prepared to stay on the streets until the government appeases them in some way. (Have you wondered where they are getting their money? I'll bet it is coming from stimulus dollars paid to unions and then funneled back from the unions to support and pay the organizations holding the protests.) And if the Wall Street protesters are not allied with President Obama, why are all the organizers allied with him?

Yet, these protests are doomed to fail. Eventually, most of the protesters will go home to answer to their parents. America will not be brought down. The protests will have become an embarrassment to the left which will become an embarrassment to President Obama who will have no answer to the Tea Party movement. President Obama will not grow in popularity; he will become desperate for a way to launder more money. But the left will have shot its last shot. It will be out of ideas, out of lies and out of money. Why?

I think the answer is that the left has been on cruise control for several decades. They are like school children repeatedly reciting formulas not connected to reality.They are doing all the things that leftists do but nothing is working with the American people. They believe they can still undermine capitalism and gain power, but the American people are decidedly more intelligent and knowledgeable than they. President Obama is in the same position. He will become a laughing stock as his arguments continue to be unimpressive. The American people have heard it all before.

The truth is that the left is out of ideas and they don't know it. They don't even realize that the hated capitalists and Tea Party protesters know a lot more than they. They know that capitalism is the greatest, most productive, fairest and most powerful productive machine in history; so productive that it has already swallowed the protesters by providing products that they cannot do without.

The left relies primarily on the implication that capitalism creates predators and greedy people who would do anything to make money, even kill their customers if it meant a profit. According to them, capitalists are polluters, thieves, racists, rapists, baby killers and gangsters who ride in jet airplanes, contribute money to conservative causes, smoke cigars and fornicate all the way to the bank. This prejudice against business people is their Achilles Heal because reality does not conform to their faith.

The left's attacks on capitalism are like the arguments of an ungrateful child who is not happy with the size of his allowance. Mom and Dad are immoral, selfish, wanting to keep their money to themselves, refusing to help others and hoarding money they will never spend, did not earn and should not have. Yet, in today's world, it takes more than an ungrateful child to make a valid argument for the total destruction of the greatest productive system in history. Somebody should tell that to the protesters.

If you look at the history of the progressive movement, there has never been an inferiority complex on the left until today. The left has always considered itself to be better educated, more logical, more knowledgeable of history and morally correct. This is why they have ruled the universities. So what has happened to the left? Where did they lose it? I think they lost it long ago when they closed their eyes to the fact that their progressive movement has always been based in fascism.

For instance, early progressives, in the early part of the last century, loved Hitler and saw him as a prophet, a genius and a master at building the German economy. It was only after the start of World War 2 that Hitler became an embarrassing pariah for them. And even Mussolini was once considered a superman whose fascist policies and controls were thought of as master strokes of genius. Even some American intellectuals openly preached fascism as a new kind of government, better, more advanced, more intelligent and more productive. The left has always loved fascism; and they still love it today; they just don't want to admit it.

Early leftist favorites, Hitler and Stalin devastated their countries and the world while Americans remained relatively protected against government treachery and violent revolution. As time went on, after the defeat of the dictatorships in Germany, Italy and Japan, fascism, in name, became discredited; but not fascism in practice; the idea that government should control the economy and force citizens to work toward "social justice" was still considered a positive social ideal.

This explains why leftist politicians, college professors and journalists never tell you what they actually stand for, and in fact, most of them don't know that their advocacy of a mixed economy is a roadmap toward full control; and that the end of the road is actually fascism. I would call this epistemological sleight of hand, word games where people don't know the actual nature of the systems they advocate. During World War 2, we knew we were fighting fascism. Today, the left does not know that it is advocating fascism.

This means that the basic principle of fascism was not defeated by World War 2. In spite of all the war dead, we did not defeat the idea that governments had a right to control and manipulate the economy. This mantra for citizen-sacrifice was repeated over and over, taught to us and our children, and slowly, the fabric of our constitution was unravelled. Today, because of our educational system, it is possible for the President of our country to say that the Constitution is inadequate. He can declare with little debate that our founding document was wrong because it did not allow for income-redistribution. So, while people are afraid to use the “f” word, we are quickly moving toward systematic government control of every aspect of our economy. In fact, those with the courage to speak the word are called unpatriotic, stupid and uneducated for doing so. Yet, today, the left is in the streets again asking for fascism.

Fascism is the system of government that allows the government the power to regulate the economy for the sake of “social” goals. This is what the word meant before World War 2, it is what the word meant while we were fighting World War 2 and this is what fascism means today…whether we admit it or not. Those Americans hiding their heads in the sands, refusing to acknowledge reality, who think that life will always be free in America, are hiding from the truth. Fascism will mean the same devastation to their lives that it meant to Europe with its concentration camps, racism, anti-capitalism, anti-individualism, collectivism, pseudo-science and war. They will come to this rude awakening only after feeling the muzzle of a gun poking their behinds.

The Tea Party protestors are watching the OWS protests with more than mere interest. These demonstrations are a coordinated effort by the left to protest the very conditions that the left's policies have created, and to blame those policies and their results on the capitalist system. One will note that fascists, anarchists and communists from all over the world are throwing their support behind this newly invented “movement”. This is no coincidence. The radical leftists that run the unions and organize these college students are fascists, anarchists or communists themselves. Their goal is to steamroll governments, and hopefully, the government of the United States, to respond to their demands by instituting more government controls and regulations of the few free market institutions left. The final government control that they seek is the silencing of the Tea Party movement through purges and political disenfranchisement. In other words, they want to get rid of any vocal opposition that would prove the left's intellectual bankruptcy and barbarism. We have time to stop them but not much.

The left has created so many non-existent straw men regarding capitalism that their view of the world seems surreal and phony. That is why it is hard for honest Americans to understand their outrageous behaviour and the faked moral certitude of their anti-capitalism. Their ideas lead to the destruction of real people who just want to make a living. And now, those real people know what they are up to.

The Tea Party protesters know that Marxism is a system of lies. They know that the Obama administration, through associates in the unions, as well as the communists and far-leftists, have been orchestrating these demonstrations. They know that Obama is seeking to use these demonstrations to win the next election. This is the left's last stand before the progressive movement fades away into the pages of history as another wrong turn for man and society.

The two biggest problems today for the left are that its policies have brought our nation to the point of collapse and the Tea Party protesters have realized it and tried to stop them. The Tea Party movement has brought the left to the point of hysterical panic. Their "revolution" was destined to win until the Tea Parties came along. Hence, the OWS protests.

The attacks against the Tea Party movement, the lies, the guilt by association, the anti-capitalism of the left are designed to steamroll the Tea Party movement out of existence. The leftists have willing accomplices in the Republican power elites and the neo-cons. The comments made by Republican Congressman Eric Cantor on Fox News Sunday on 10/16/11 that he understood the “frustration” of the protestors is a case in point. If Cantor does not recognize that these protests are manufactured, that they are leftist in nature, how can Republicans represent an opposition movement to the left? How can they fight for freedom? He is signalling that the Republicans are willing to jettison their support of capitalism for the sake of winning second class status to the Democrats. Not so fast, Mr. Cantor.

While President Obama cynically tried to tie his spending policies to the civil rights movement, the neo-con Bill Kristol declared that the best policy for fighting the idiotic Wall Street protestors is surrender to the idiots:

“A surge is in fact the way to go—an intellectual, policy, and political countersurge to both the Obama administration and to Occupy Wall Street. The protesters don't like crony capitalism? Offer bold proposals to reform it. They don't like Wall Street? Conservatives should offer policies to benefit Main Street and seek to curb Wall Street abuses. The protesters don't like the glorification of money? Nor do conservatives, who put God, country, and family before business, and who respect the military, churches, active citizens, and stay-at-home moms more than bond traders (no offense, bond traders!).”(1)

You'd think this is a joke, but this advice to surrender government policy to a manufactured protest is why the Republicans of the Karl Rove variety are as bad for our country as are the radical leftists. The radical leftists admit they hate America while the neo-cons agree that in order to save America we must destroy capitalism. That’s a real “countersurge” for you. Again, not so fast, Mr. Kristol.

The Occupy Wall Street protests represent an effort by the crony capitalists who have a stake in fascism to take over the system before their movement fizzles and dies. The situation is similar to that after the riots in Chicago in the late 60s that caused the “silent majority” backlash exploited by Nixon. Only this time, the backlash will be different. The real countersurge will be a principled demand for capitalism’s resurgence and a total "intellectual" defeat of the left and its ideology.

The left is losing the battle of ideas. They have only violence to offer the American people and the American people are not buying.

The Tea Party movement is winning. The only thing we have to fear…really…are the Republican elites who will try to stuff their surrender down our throats.

Beware of Romney.

(1) http://www.npr.org/2011/10/14/141348700/weekly-standard-taking-idiocy-seriously

Is Capitalism Evil? Part 5, Conclusion

2011-10-12T00:45:00.000-07:00

Several common economic fallacies are constantly broadcast around the world. The goals of these fallacies are to denigrate, defeat and destroy capitalism. I mentioned four of these fallacies in the first post under this title. In this post, I will be discussing the following fallacy:

Fallacy 4. Capitalism is decadent and immoral

Many people think that anything damned by God and Karl Marx must be evil. Many religions, across the centuries, have discriminated against merchants and money lenders because they felt that these careers represented a focus on “this world” rather than the spiritual realm. They have regulated these practices and exhorted men to help the poor rather than pursue individual profit. Even today, the idea that capitalism is decadent is another myth that anti-capitalists hold as an unquestionable fact.

Certainly free men exercising their volitional capacities are going to do harmful things. But, this can happen in any country; it is not something that happens only under capitalism. Some acts, particularly those of a sensual nature, are considered immoral simply because they bring physical pleasure. Moralists attribute these acts to a wholesale abandonment of religious morality and to the acceptance of a secular, anti-religious mindset. Yet, many supposedly immoral acts are not an outgrowth of capitalism but of the conflict between religious morality and the need of men to enjoy their lives in a world that dispenses guilt too easily.

So where is the decadence of capitalism? Most dictionaries define decadence as a deterioration of morals. But the question we should ask is whether morality actually deteriorates in a capitalist society. Religionists and even Marxists say they do. Yet, as we have seen, almost everything said about capitalism by Marxists has been shown to be wrongheaded. We must not be afraid to ask the questions: Is capitalism really immoral? What if it is moral?

Consider the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations. Notice the angry and vehement expressions of disapproval of Wall Street and capitalism. What is the missing ingredient that gives these people the “moral power” to be on the street demonstrating? Clearly, they disapprove of capitalism. They think it is immoral. To these college students, Wall Street executives are thieves, pariahs, rich fat cats who deserve to be thrown in jail, or as one recent entertainer said, “beheaded”. Without this moral energy and hate, there would be no protests. What if that anger is totally wrong?

The basic flaw of the protestors is that they continue to follow Karl Marx in his critique of capitalism and the rich. Marx held that capitalists, by nature, use government to put down the worker. The mistake in this view is that it fails to distinguish between crony capitalism and true capitalism, between theft and honest work. Most of the production accomplished today comes from honest work and honest trade, not from government corruption. Only a small minority of capitalists are crony capitalists who dishonestly use the state to help them make up for their lack of productivity. The vast majority of capitalists in our mixed economy are honest people who do not deserve to be vilified. In fact, they are the most moral people in America today.

Marxists and the Wall Street protesters advocate government interference in the economy; the power of the state to violate individual rights. They claim that this is the best way to ensure "social justice", to manipulate the system so that it is fair. What they don't understand is that without this power there would be no crony capitalism against which to protest. In fact, crony capitalism requires the ideology and the existence of socialism in order to exist at all.

Consider the following: would a crony capitalist be able to bribe a politician to create laws and regulations that benefit him if the government had no power to create such laws and regulations? Would a crony capitalist give huge campaign contributions to a politician who had no power to affect his business positively or negatively? If the government did not have the power to interfere in the economy, would a crooked politician go into public service to benefit his buddies? And, imagine, of all things, a government whose job is to protect the individual rights of citizens; a government limited by a constitutional prohibition against being involved in any economic transaction. This would eliminate the cronyism that the Wall Street protesters complain about.

Marx failed to distinguish between political power and productive power and he charged that capitalists needed government coercion to maintain an unfair edge over the workers and consumers. He failed to realize that productive power was not coercive at all; it required reason, planning, risk taking, honesty and mutual trade for mutual advantage. The Wall Street protesters make the same mistake and because they unquestioningly follow Marx, they find themselves protesting against the moral as well as the immoral actors in our economy. They would destroy the very productivity that they must rely upon for jobs; and more importantly, they would disenfranchise the very people who provide them with the products and sustenance that they need in order to survive.

The Occupy Wall Street protestors have no desire to limit government power. They see it as the way to re-distribute income. They are thieves as are the unions that are paying them. They don't want to destroy crony capitalism. They want to tap into capitalism, the honest people, so they, the protesters, can be the next group of cronies.

The truth is that capitalism releases the individual to make his own moral choices and men are most likely to make the right decisions rather than follow a fixed demand for sacrifice. Is it immoral for a man to freely make the correct decisions about his actions? Isn’t it moral for a person to be productive, to buy products that improve life, to learn about the world and to make decisions using knowledge rather than faith? If so, then there are millions upon millions of moral acts done each day by free individuals living under economic freedom.

If the Wall Street protestors want to make their demonstrations viable, well-founded and effective, they would not fight against Wall Street; they would not fight against capitalism; they would fight against crony capitalism, and the only way to do that is to advocate full laissez faire capitalism that prohibits government interference in the economy. This is the only way to keep the cronies from using government to cheat consumers and taxpayers. They should be demonstrating at the White House and halls of Congress. They should be protesting Dodd-Frank, the SEC, FANNIE and FREDDIE, the CRA, a jobs commission made up of campaign contributors to President Obama's re-election campaign and they should refuse to be paid off by the unions that are the biggest crony capitalists of all. Short of this, they are just useful idiots totally unaware that they are in league with the actual crooks they claim to be protesting.

The view that capitalism is decadent is common to many religions. Many religious leaders rail against capitalism and exhort their followers to avoid the carnal and “this worldly” mindset in favour of the spiritual life. They disapprove of anyone who does things for himself; some even see decadence in the clothes a person wears, whether they cover their faces or not, what they say, how they act and whether they express a devout enough submission to God. But do these “choices” represent the full range of possible human action? I think not. In fact, there is a whole range of choices that have little moral import under this “spiritual” view. Most of these choices fall under the category of “the pursuit of happiness”.

Both secular progressives and religious teachers preach a form of anti-capitalism that enables them to manipulate their followers. Progressives glorify the state and teach students that sacrifice for the state is a magnificent act especially if one is fighting selfishness and capitalism. This revolutionary form of sacrifice creates attitudes that adversely affect the lives of people and, in particular, young people, turning them into anti-establishment radicals who choose to avoid productive work. They are taught that it is “not cool” to become a member of the “bourgeoisie”.

The progressive glorification of sacrifice gives followers the ability to declare their “self-esteem”, mitigating for them the negative psychological consequences of their basic destructive frame of mind. Socialist propaganda and lies, accepted as truth, justify destruction of the capitalist system and capitalists in particular. These justifications also enable the spurning of mere money-making in favour of mooching off of parents. Behind every non-productive “superior” mind is another hard working person who must provide the food and shelter.

The anti-capitalist arguments discussed in this series of posts, provide the outlet for destructive revolutionaries who think it is appropriate to kill in the name of “the people”; while religious fanatics, who obtain their self-esteem from association with their religion, feel justified in blowing up public sites and causing the deaths of families and children in the name of God. They tell themselves and others that they are destroying in order to build a “better” world. Religious self-sacrifice has the added "benefit" that the “martyrs” think they are earning a reward in heaven. The propaganda and lies that they accept merely result in the abdication of their minds and bodies. They no longer need to think about the moral import of their actions and the consequences for real human beings. The result: the biggest murderer rises to the top.

The revolutionary soldier and the soldier of God must imagine the virtual magical presence of God (or Karl Marx) while they do their killing. And, after years of ascetic devotion to God or society on this earth, they look forward to an afterlife similar to that which they imagine to be the lives of the infidels they kill. The ultimate altruistic sacrifice is the giving of one’s own life for the sake of taking lives - under the absurd belief that the enemies of God or the state must die for the sin of wanting to live.

For the religious fanatic, an infidel is any person who does not believe in the fanatic’s religion. It matters not that the infidel works hard, loves his family, provides for his family and deals with others honestly. The infidel is worthy of death, the killer believes, because God wants to cleanse the world of non-believers. So the fanatic will dedicate his life to finding a clever way to kill people.

For the Marxist revolutionary, the enemy lives and works in the capitalist system or advocates it. It matters not that the capitalist works hard, loves his family, provides for his family and deals with others honestly. He is worthy of death because he is a capitalist. The revolutionary believes that this person is a thief and must be destroyed because Karl Marx has proven definitively that capitalism is a zero-sum game. Those who cannot be re-educated must be killed so they don’t sabotage the revolution.

The values of both the religious fanatic and the radical revolutionary are not of this world. They are in heaven or in the future new world. Anything associated with today’s world is corrupt and must be destroyed in order to make way for God’s dominion or the state’s. To these fanatics, both infidels and capitalists possess no value; they are worthless compared to God or the utopian state of the future. Killing a few Americans is nothing to them. Neither is killing a few million.

Religious and political leaders are human beings capable of poor thinking. Most have never learned how to organize their thoughts logically. They derive their understanding from what they are taught… by people capable of poor thinking. And, as we’ve seen, most of them have accepted their anti-capitalist views without question. Most are content to follow the ideas of others so long as they can pretend to have self-esteem in the process. These people are fallible men following the opinions or whims of fallible men.

It is true that secular progressives are at war with religion. But this war is a political tactic, not a position based upon principles or knowledge, and especially not science. Progressives merely want to replace God with the state; they religiously hold to a determinist view of reality; a pseudo-scientific view that sees everything as mechanistic and without value. They think of men as if they were machines whose buttons must be pushed in order for the state to get what it wants from them. They seek the same basic power structure as does organized religion including the same moral imperatives; but they want men to mechanically adhere to the collective rather than God. So they denigrate the church and capitalism in order to undermine the values that these institutions have built up over time. They offer nothing new. Even the progressive principle of sacrifice to the collective is almost as old as religion.

Any religion that claims to represent a more “spiritual” and “pure” form of morality, but which also mutilates and punishes people for “crimes” of personal choice, cannot claim to be “pure” by any means. A lynching or public rock pelting, under any circumstance, and for any reason, is cruel and immoral. Such public punishments are not an indication of the punishers’ devotion to God and any religion that claims to be dispensing “justice” in such a manner cannot be an advanced body of thought but is instead primitive and barbaric.

But capitalism does not destroy values. In fact, it makes them possible. Free people develop their values differently, individually, not collectively, for themselves, not for the state. Values in a capitalist system enhance life and pleasure. Capitalism fosters the idea that all human action should be based upon reason and self-interest. When people are free to use reason and act upon their own decisions, the results are constantly improving decisions, better products and a higher standard of living. This is because, in a capitalist system, people are free to be moral.

Look around you at the freest countries on the planet. You see clean cities, paved roads, tall buildings, clean, smiling well-dressed, well-groomed people and highly educated professionals enjoying their lives. How could this be if capitalism is decadent? How did these people become self-confident and secure in their lives; by theft, treachery or immoral activities? Are they secretly evil people putting on a front for the rest of the world in order to hide the decline that they have brought about? The values these people have created are real. And they were created because they are moral.

Trying to understand the mentality that considers capitalism decadent is a difficult task. Such a mentality starts with the acceptance of ideas on faith. Most people who think like this imagine that the world really works the way they have been taught. They see the influences of gods and demons everywhere. Their saints tell them that the world is moved by the presence of the ineffable. Miracles and the actions of fantastical world-processes are dominated by the gods who are ever-present but seen only in dreams, trances and epileptic fits. They strive to devoutly experience the presence of these deities at all times, constantly conversing with them and imagining that the world can be impacted directly by the spiritual world and their devotion to it. They hold a split between the spiritual and the real and consider the spiritual to be superior while the world around them is imperfect and evil. They learn to hate the real and love the unreal. This is as true of Marxists as it is of devout believers.

Yet, philosophical issues and their discussion are not a matter for anger and hatred; they are a matter for discussion and learning. The dialectical method is the process of drawing out the implications of ideas and understanding them and their real impact in the world. The scientific method is a process for learning about how things really work in the real world. It is a method for arriving at truth. It is a noble endeavour that only someone who is indoctrinated in the unreal would reject.

Yet, the truth about capitalism (and American society) is that capitalism is based upon good living, doing things according to rational standards, getting educated, being well-rounded, working hard, thinking well, providing good services and products to customers, creating happy better-off customers, intelligently investing one’s earnings and using those earnings to create companies that provide ever-improving standards of living. Capitalists obey laws, drive carefully, eat well and live clean happy lives raising clean happy children.

Honest Americans, the overwhelming majority of people, seek to live in peace in a society where the best ideas win and people are free to disagree so long as they don’t resort to force or violence. In early America, no one had a right to force another human being in any way. That principle made capitalism the most civilized system in the world.

The outcome of capitalism for the thinking individual includes the ability to live in better, cleaner homes, the ability to live free of guilt and to enjoy life, to think higher thoughts, listen to beautiful music, read great books, make one’s own sexual choices and strive to enjoy those choices to the best of one’s ability. In a capitalist system, people admire and respect the beauty of a new thought and the mind capable of discerning it. This is the type of living that most of the major religions of the world consider decadent and evil…yet you see no evil here, you see no treachery and no harmful deeds. In fact, the hope and wish of millions around the world is to live the way Americans live, to go to America and be free. Most people in the world do not want to live in hovels full of filth, perpetually enslaved to the wishes of treacherous dictators and living in perpetual danger of having part of one’s body removed for doing something so evil as to enjoy the expression of love.

Fanatic religious groups fear that Americans will not be cowed into submission by their interpretation of the word of God, that Americans are not willing to give up their happiness for the sake of an ascetic view of life. They even fear that young women will want to dress nicely and marry the men of their choice, live the way they want and not be dominated by their fathers all their lives. Progressives, on the other hand, fear that Americans will not love the all-mighty state and that they will refuse to obey the decrees of the progressives.

The truth is that people in America are the most moral people in the world. America brings about more good than any other country in history. Americans live cleaner, healthier lives. Is this what religious fanatics fear? Is this what they want to knock down? Yes, but there is more to it than that; they fear that Americans are too free-thinking and that they will fight to keep the benefits of their Constitution. And they are right.

That’s why they want to kill us.

If the four myths discussed in this series are wrong, as I have indicated, you have to ask: What is the basis of anti-capitalism and Marxism? What is the basis for religious fanatics who want to destroy America? Why have we given them the benefit of the doubt and mistakenly believed that they represent a mere difference of opinion? Is their wanting to destroy freedom something we are willing to negotiate about or compromise with? If they have no legitimate intellectual foundation, if they are wrong in their basic arguments, then they are nothing more than haters and liars. They follow a corrupt view of human value and human freedom. Why do we let them mount the speakers' platforms? Why do we listen to them? Why do we pay them money and give them positions of leadership? Why are they "educating" our children if they are teaching them to hate us?

When will we liberate ourselves from the worst among us?

Is Capitalism Evil? Part 4

2011-10-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

Is Capitalism Evil? Part 3

2011-10-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

Is Capitalism Evil? Part 2

2011-10-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

Several common fallacies are constantly broadcast around the world. The goals of these fallacies are to denigrate, defeat and destroy capitalism. I mentioned four of these fallacies in the last post. In this post, I will be discussing the first fallacy:

Fallacy 1. Capitalism is individualistic rather than collectivist

This fallacy is in the form of a charge against capitalism. It happens to be true. However, the fallacy is made up of the argument that individualism (and therefore capitalism) is evil and collectivism is good.

One of the key points made by religious and Marxist critics is that capitalism lets loose a “dog-eat-dog” predation in men through which the most aggressive and vicious “animals” survive. This criticism, thought by some to derive from “Social Darwinism”, is a misapplication of Darwin’s principle of the “survival of the fittest”. It assumes that the “law of the jungle” is the basic premise of capitalism and that bad things happen when capitalism is not controlled. Anti-capitalists prefer to interpret individualism as vicious predation. In fact, whenever you state that you are an advocate of individualism you are immediately equated with Nietzche as an advocate of dictatorship.

The basic premise of capitalism’s detractors is collectivism. Most people are raised on collectivism which is one of the most common ideas in history. Many are taught to feel guilty if they advocate anything other than collectivism. Collectivists are so hateful of individualism that few people want to admit they are individualists. Many are treated as pariahs for doing so. Yet, collectivism is based upon certain false notions about man’s nature and some misconceptions about the requirements of survival.

For instance, collectivists hold that sacrifice for the collective is a positive act that creates good in society. I have written extensively about the fact that sacrifice to the collective is harmful to every individual because it removes his mind (and the effort necessary for survival) from the decision-making process and demands that the individual actually “lose” something of value in order to avoid the ire of others. The atrocities of history are actually caused, not by individualism, as is commonly charged, but by the demands of collectivism for sacrifice. The dead bodies in the mass graves are those of people deemed unwilling to sacrifice for the collective; the individualists.

Sacrifice is justified by the philosophy of altruism and it insists that the only good act is the act of living for others. Even today, this primitive idea is considered to be correct in spite of the centuries of hate and theft it has imposed on innocent people. It assumes that transactions between men are “zero-sum”, some men win and others lose, and that the only way to address this disparity is for the government to intervene and make sure that the “loser” “wins”. What this view ignores is that the exploitation of the productive individual will discourage him (or her) from participating in such a society.

The view that mutual trade is "zero-sum" is so unrealistic that regulators who make trade and policy decisions on its basis do tremendous damage. Capitalism and freedom release men to make correct economic decisions for the sake of living better lives. Each individual has a right to pursue his happiness and wellbeing and to produce the abundance necessary for survival. This includes the right to property and other individual rights. Capitalism is about peace and cooperation among rational men, not about predators and prey in the hunt. When regulators attempt to regulate economic activity they wind up regulating rational action and criminalizing profit.

According to the “zero-sum” view of Marxists, there is always an exploited and an exploiter, a predator and a prey. If you adhere to this view, you develop a negative and false view of capitalism’s nature as well as a false view of the nature of free society. You interpret free societies to be full of conflict and exploitation by the strong when this is not the case. In fact, in a fully capitalist system that is allowed to flourish, the “weak” benefit from new products as well as the “strong”.

The premise that capitalism is “dog-eat-dog” creates a cognitive split between the Marxist view of business and reality. The Marxists develop the view that government needs to regulate and restrict freedom in order to keep the capitalist from exploiting the workers. I recently watched a movie(1) that tried to explain the 2008 stock market collapse from this perspective. Its conclusion was that there were not enough regulations on the financial services industry - which is the most regulated sector of the economy. It virtually ignored the government's coercive role as the sole cause of the fiasco and indicted capitalism when the real culprits were government regulations of the housing industry, government backing of FDIC, FANNIE MAE and FREDDIE MAC, the Community Re-investment Act (CRA), Barnie Frank and Chris Dodd.

Marxists of the communist variety would wrongly disenfranchise the capitalists and put the government in charge of production in order to eliminate the non-existent predation. Old-style progressives and socialists whoe advocate mixed economies, foster a combination of freedom and coercion in which government must restrain and control the capitalist (presumably) in order to keep him from taking advantage of his customers. All varieties of Marxists advocate coercion and this is their basic flaw that invalidates all of their prescriptions for society; Coercion is never a solution to any problem because it is a violation of free will; it forces people to do things they would not otherwise do. That progressives and Marxists have no problem with forcing people is an issue each of them should address in the privacy of their own mind.

Capitalism, it is thought, keeps the weak person down, making him constantly struggle for survival with no ability to build his own capital base. The predator presumably uses his position as a controller of capital to keep the little guy down and exploit his work. The “system” supposedly offers the weak no chance of enjoying the luxuries that have been created for the rich.

Capitalism does no such thing to the weak and history has shown that capitalism enables any man or woman to develop the capital necessary to become rich. For instance, capitalism requires that the “worker” be trained and educated so he can be more productive and this makes him more valuable as an employee, enables him to earn more money, develop a surplus and even learn how to start and run a business of his own.

Marxists ignore the fact that the “little guy” is actually in a strong position in a capitalist system. If he finds cheaters and elitists who use government to get rich, he can merely withdraw his support for them by refusing to do business with them. Once the “cheaters” are put out of business, the field is left to those who have rightly earned the trust of the “little guy” and who have provided benefits that improve his life.

The deceptive tactic of the Marxists consists of taking specific transactions that don’t go right as indications of a flaw in capitalism that must be addressed coercively. They ignore the full context of capitalism and human nature because they want to find flaws in capitalism in order to justify interference. Had they left the economy free of their manipulations, the consumer would have fixed the problem by seeking out honest businessmen offering more value for better prices. There is no flaw in capitalism that can’t be fixed by free choice.

Another supposed flaw in capitalism is that workers are exploited by the capitalist. This view holds that collectivism, solidarity and collective bargaining are the only way that workers can keep from being exploited. Not only does this argument assume that the capitalist exploits his employees, but it ignores the fact that an astute capitalist will want to have the best relationship possible with his workers. He will also want to train his best employees and educate them about how to perform their jobs better. In order to be successful, he will ensure that his most productive employees are given better treatment with bonuses, promotions, higher wages and other benefits.

Collective bargaining destroys the relationship between an employer and his employees. Unionism is a form of collectivism that is destructive of a system based upon individual achievement. It requires a form of solidarity that creates a bad relationship between workers and business owners. Union leaders will do all they can to poison that relationship in order to use it as a wedge to justify the existence of the union.

Let’s understand this more fully by examining what a good employee would do when he is hired to work for a business. First, this employee would seek to ensure that he can secure his job by demonstrating the ability to do quality work. This brings in more income for the employer than the employee is paid. This is as it should be because the goal of the employer is to utilize capital resources and combine them with labor in order to make a profit for himself and his shareholders. The employee's competence along with the employer's planning and management skills create a viable business that makes a profit. The employee recognizes that he would be of no value to the business, to himself or to his family if he demonstrates that he does not deserve the position to which he has been hired.

Companies that are saddled with unions offer a different motivation to the prospective employee. At first, he or she will do everything he can to convince management that he will be a hard-working contributor to the success of the company. He will work very hard until he qualifies to join the union, whereupon he no longer has to worry about working as hard, he can learn the union contract and file grievances whenever he feels he can and if he gets fired, he may get his job back through a union/management procedure. For this worker, the union adds significantly to the cost of employee management for the company.

When the good employee in the non-union shop is asked to change a work process or use a new piece of equipment, his first thought is how he can help the business be more successful, what can he do to make himself more valuable to the employer. The employer appreciates the good attitude because it means being able to get on to other issues without having to deal with disagreements or arguments.

On the other hand, in the union shop, the employee argues with his boss, pretends to know more about running the business and otherwise accuses his boss of wanting him to work “too hard”; he will eventually convince the employer that having him employed is more trouble than it is worth.

A union would not tell the employee that the success of the business is paramount. It would tell him, right or wrong, that he is the reason for the success of the business and that he should resist whenever he thinks he is being exploited. He tells the employee that he should join a collective bargaining effort to force the employer to do what he thinks is right. All of these suggestions from the labor leader are intended to involve the union in the running of the business and are costly for the company.

A labor union would tell this troublesome employee that he is right in his hatred of the company and that the company is seeking to make money off of his work without giving him a fair wage. The union would ask him to join in solidarity to negotiate a fair wage and keep the company from firing him unfairly (which is most often a fair firing). It would tell him that his length of service in the company entitles him to a job over people who have not been there as long. It would ridicule and ostracize the employee who is "too productive" and accuse him of stealing jobs from other workers.

If the company attempts to defend its legitimate property rights and keep the union from entering the premises, unions typically take the position that the company has no legitimate property rights and sends goons to trespass on the company premises. Later, it asks government to force the company to deal with the union. These regulations presumably are justified by collectivist and anti-capitalist lies that capitalist organizations are cheating employees and customers. The government and unions use these lies to convince people that the corporations are doing something to the workers instead of defending their own legitimate property rights.

The basic flaw of unionism is the Marxist premise called the "labor theory of value". This premise holds that the labor expended on the manufacture of a product is the only significant factor influencing the value of that product. This theory justifies unions in accusing capitalists of exploitation because it nuetralizes the influence on value from such factors as intelligence, labor saving devices, production lines, capital expenditures and production line improvements, etc.

Yet, the capitalist, in his pursuit of profit, is trying to increase the value of products so they are acceptable to willing customers. He does not merely hire more workers to do menial tasks. He realizes that in order for a business trade is to be a win for both parties, he must work hard. And he realizes, more importantly, that in a free society, each party to a transaction has the right to withhold participation if he sees that the trade is not good for him. And, this also applies to employees who disagree with corporate policies. They have a right to withhold their support by refusing to work for the company and supporting other employers with “better” policies.

In fact, unions cannot bring benefits to the workers that the companies don’t have the ability to pay for in the first place. Unions can not exist without the companies and they bring nothing to the equation except the ability to restrict production and cause needless and unnecessary costs to the companies. These additional costs place the companies in an unfair competitive situation and require that they find ways to mitigate me in order to stay viable against competitors.

The entire basis of unionism, the idea that capitalism is “dog-eat-dog”, is a myth invented by Marxists. It represents a cognitive disconnect for anyone who believes the myth. And, because of this “cognitive” mistake, we have the spectacle of anti-capitalist economic policemen (regulators), union officials and their politicians seeking to limit and control business trades. Marxists see cheating, lying, stealing and defrauding everywhere and, when they get control of government, they disrupt economic activity, jail honest businessmen, distort free economic activity and create huge losses to both producers and consumers – in the name of protecting against exploitation that does not take place.

Unions and Marsists generally have no problem with government interference in the economy. This makes them advocates of statism, the same types of governments that caused so much havoc in our previous century. Statism is coercive society justified in its manipulations by the anti-concept of “social justice”. When government puts its hand on the scales between “predatory” capitalism and the poor, the result is not a fair society but an unfair society in which the productive and moral people are exploited and punished for their abilities.

Statism, not capitalism, is the basic cause of exploitation. To assume that a person should be punished for offering good products for sale is a reversal of morality and a travesty of justice. To claim that a person should act only for the sake of others is to destroy the foundation for action and to sentence men to lives of inactivity, despair and slavery. Coercion accomplishes only theft and cruelty.

Marx and other critics did not understand that capitalism operates upon a rational view of self-interest, not the Social-Darwinist view of conflict. They followed the trends of the time and accepted the idea that man is essentially an evil creature whose self-interests are detrimental to others. Today, the “zero-sum” view does tremendous damage to society. The critics of capitalism did not realize that there are transactions, those based upon self-interest and the pursuit of values, where two individuals can exchange money, which is a neutral form of value, and both can win. They do not realize that in a capitalist system, the overwhelming majority of transactions are “win/win”.

The critics also operate under the false assumption that, in a capitalist system, the individual who cheats others, does not win. Any individual, businessperson or otherwise, who cheats his customers (or employees) will suffer a loss of trust and business. It is not rational for an individual to think that he benefits by cheating or harming others.

The critics also ignore the fact that capitalism is not a system. No one has to create rules to implement it. The only thing the government must do is protect properly conceived constitutional rights. In this case, acts that are considered theft, fraud, breaking contracts, etc. are violations of individual rights and can be handled by the judicial system. No additional government agencies, departments, programs or regulations are necessary. This is because capitalism is what happens naturally in society when men ban force in their dealings.

Capitalism is the economic expression of human freedom. It is not dog-eat-dog in any way and any capitalist who thinks so will soon learn that he can’t get ahead by being a predator, Hollywood fiction and Gordon Gekko notwithstanding. Greed is not good, self-interest is good.

Anti-capitalists assume (with only anecdotal evidence) that the entrepreneur is a criminal by nature. This is because they do not understand that man must use reason in order to survive. If men are free to use reason without interference, then each man will operate according to a singular truth in any given context and, since all men function in the same reality, they are able to agree upon whether a given transaction is in their respective self-interest. All workers’ strikes, government regulations and government interventions are based upon a lie that the capitalist is an irrational predator. And, even more importantly, there is no justification for overthrowing capitalism. Such efforts are anti-reason, anti-mind, anti-freedom and pro-poverty. When you overthrow a system that is based in freedom, you can only replace it with a system based on force and anti-reason. You can only replace it with statism.

Those people who assume that capitalists are predators fail at understanding reality. By assuming a negative nature to people, they treat capitalists and individuals as if they were evil – and in the process, engage in inappropriate ridicule, pass unworkable regulations and make life difficult for people who are merely trying to trade value for value. The communists, and those who agree with them, have blinded themselves to the true nature of a system that enables cooperation and peace and improves the lives of millions of people.

What does this make of the communists, socialists and other haters of capitalism? It makes them enemies of man who are operating on false premises and creating havoc with society in the process. It makes them afraid of a system that is not evil but benevolent. Their fear of capitalism is ill-founded, destructive and conflict-ridden. The critics of capitalism are not saviors, benefactors nor patriotic. They are fearful haters of a system that brings rewards and opportunities to all men who freely and honestly participate.

In an age of high technology and advanced communications, I find it amazing that the arguments of the anti-capitalists are made up of ancient Marxist lies that are inappropriate for modern times. These "revolutionaries" are apparently oblivious to the advances that capitalism has brought about in their own lives. Rather than look around at the improvements in society, they spend their time talking to each other and repeating ideas that were never relevant in the real world. Perhaps it is time those of us who actually produce value realize that these losers are not trying to create a better world...but are the reason why people suffer. Perhaps it is time that we ask them to stop living off of us.

(1) Inside Job, Sony Pictures Classic

Is Capitalism Evil? Part 1

2011-09-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

For many people around the world, America is a feared nation. Americans are considered arrogant and self-centered, always after profit and eager to win at all costs. Why are we so hated and feared? Why do so many wish to destroy us? Why do so many celebrate when we die?

We are told by many on the left that we deserved to be attacked on September 11th because we have decimated the lives of people all over the world. We are told we should be more inclusive of the Palestinians and stop stealing the resources of other nations. We are told that the terrorists are merely paying us back for all of the atrocities we have committed.

When you see demonstrations held in other countries against America you can’t help but notice the intense anger expressed by these people toward our country. The media has no problem broadcasting these demonstrations worldwide but they seldom attempt put them into context. The question you have to ask is: what do these angry people know about America? Have they ever met an American? Have they ever been exploited and cheated by an American? Were any of their family members treated cruelly by an American? I would say, probably not. So why are they so angry? Is it real anger?

I call it political anger and it is fake. These people will go home to watch American movies and wear American blue jeans and learn about the latest American fad or gadget. But you never see these people protesting against Luxembourg or any other nations. Why America?

There are essentially two related reasons why America is the most hated country on earth and neither of them has anything to do with what America has done. First, is the dominance of the philosophy of altruism around the world. Altruism is the belief that the highest moral purpose of life is to sacrifice for others. Altruists hate America because capitalism has made Americans wealthy by almost any standard. Americans do not see themselves as sacrificial offerings but as autonomous beings with the right to enjoy their wealth. Second, any nation that is not based on altruism is considered evil in the same way that any person who seeks to accomplish things for his own sake is considered selfish.

America is considered evil because of what it stands for even though American principles have created much good in the world. There is a cognitive disconnected between the greatness of America and the moral judgement of America. Who or what group is responsible for propagating this cognitive disconnect? Who benefits from this dominant moral judgement of America?

To answer this question, we must look at the originators of moral outrage against America. They are the communists, anarchists and anti-capitalists who foment revolution. They were educated in American and European universities and picked up their ideas from Marxist and socialist university professors. With the help of the media, that was also educated in the same universities, the anti-American and anti-capitalist lies are repeated over and over. People whose life experiences seldom come into contact with America or capitalism are then taught to hate America.

I call the fear of America “Ameriphobia”. As I wrote in my blog post of the same title, “The source of Ameriphobia is predominantly Karl Marx. Marx’s critique of capitalism is reputed to spell out certain flaws in capitalism that have their solution in socialism. Marx’s anti-capitalism parallels religious ideas found in a number of prominent religions. It is based upon a general antipathy toward commerce, profit and usury expressed by many religions. In fact, the critique of capitalism in Karl Marx’s writings is also similar to and parallels the critiques of America expressed by terrorists and many radical Imams today.“

The anti-capitalism drum of Marxists and other critics must be constantly beaten in order to avoid discussing the very real truth that Marxist and socialist solutions to the so-called flaws of capitalism are worse than capitalism. To quote again from “Ameriphobia”:

“These beliefs about capitalism are repeated constantly all over the world and especially in American universities where many Muslims come to be educated. They create a massive prejudice among average people all over the world toward America and American businesspeople. They are expressed in American movies by American actors and they create prejudice against anything American. They justify countless unnecessary and restrictive regulations of capitalism and they justify and animate many anti-capitalist and anti-American groups that foster and commit violence around the world. These groups and their false ideas poison the world against self-interest, justify dictatorships and foment hate and destruction. They have devastated and impoverished the 20th Century and stand poised to destroy our economies today. Because they are connected to the left, they implicate the leftists in America who use these ideas to run our nation into the ground.”

Several common fallacies are constantly broadcast around the world. The goals of these fallacies are to denigrate, defeat and destroy capitalism. These fallacies can be expressed by the following statements:

Fallacy 1. Capitalism is evil because it is individualistic rather than collectivist
Fallacy 2. Capitalism is inefficient and socialism is efficient
Fallacy 3. Capitalism is Imperialistic and warlike
Fallacy 4. Capitalism is decadent and immoral

In the rest of this post, I will analyze these fallacies in order to show that they are false and destructive of civil society - and that they are the source of most of the world’s problems.

The people who believe in these fallacies, through their actions, have destroyed countless nations and are responsible for the destruction of trillions of dollars in property and millions of lives.

What Does Elizabeth Warren Owe?

2011-09-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

An excellent example of the basic flaw in the progressive philosophy is the assumption that progressives have the moral authority to make decisions for us. Progressives, as they teach in the universities today, want to ensure that “collectivism” is the preferred form of society and that sacrifice is the highest moral value. With these assumptions in place, they assume the power to make people obey. To accomplish obedience, they have no problem castigating, humiliating and insulting anyone who does not seem to go along.

An excellent expression of this view was given recently by Elizabeth Warren who is considering a run for national office as Senator from the state of Massachusetts:

“I hear all this, you know: "Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever." No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

According to Elizabeth Warren, you owe your life and your money to society because someone forced taxpayers (including you) to pay for the roads to do business upon. You owe some of your profits to the government that forced parents to send children to government-run schools – some of whom you had to re-educate because of the abominable job government did of educating them. The government protects you against the “marauding bands” (except for the marauding band of the government) so you should pay forward to the next generation so the government can use your money to force the next kid to sacrifice too. In order to pay forward, you have to be force-fed the idea that we are one big efficient collective operating according to a social contract that someone else has forced upon you. All this good you did with your factory; well, God bless, go ahead, keep a hunk, but don’t forget; you are really a slave to Elizabeth Warren who has decided what your social contract will demand of you. And her virtue consists of what?

I call this flaw in the liberal ideology the "moral authority" fallacy. You see, in reality, we are each autonomous. We are adults with the responsibility to think for ourselves. This is because our lives are determined by the individual choices we make. Our successes, our failures, our pleasures and our pains are all determined by our volitional choices. We take credit for our chosen actions or we take the blame for them. No one else can be blamed for the bad we do and likewise no one else deserves the credit for the good we do. Each individual, in nature, is responsible for himself and no one has the ability, the right or the authority to decide for us. In fact, there has never been a valid argument that "justifies" "moral authority". Neither God nor the gun confer it.

Ms. Warren is saying, look at all the good that collectivism provides for you. You should be grateful for the government's actions and you should continue to give so the next generation can benefit. The problem is that Ms. Warren, as a government appointee, also holds the threat of force in her arsenal of persuasion. All the benefits of government are provided by force and they increase the government's ability to control us. For instance, the roads are used by the military for quick transport. They could be used against citizens. The schools indoctrinate children to the government view rather than teach marketable skills. The police and fire departments could easily be used against the citizens. In fact, citizens pay for these "benefits" to their detriment. There is no end to the "good" that the government can think up and there is no end to the sacrificing that it requires. Will they ever tell you when it is time to stop sacrificing? When it makes you pay more for schools, you have to adjust your life to a loss of income and you lose a little bit of your autonomy...while the schools get worse. Eventually, the number of things the government does for you are so numerous that you have no choices left to make for yourself. You've become a slave to the monster that keeps telling you how lucky you are.

Collectivists like Elizabeth Warren make a huge mistake when they attempt to brow beat us into obedience. They assume that this authority to criticize us has been bestowed upon them by means of their position. That's why they go to great lengths to muster as many university degrees as possible, write as many collectivist books as possible and do everything they can to tell people that they should sacrifice their lives to their fictional vision of reality. They become bitter after a time because people just won't accept their leadership. For some reason, to them, people are too stupid to realize that they should allow progressives to tell them what to do. Their last desperate monuments to history are the mass graves made up of people who would not give their lives to the revolution.

Elizabeth Warren has no right to tell people what they owe. She simply has no authority to do it. Who has that authority to give to her? How did they get it? What gives her the right to appropriate that authority? Even in an election, we can't vote that authority to her? We vote for people who will uphold the Constitution not to enforce a government-defined social contract that enslaves us.

Apparently, Elizabeth Warren does not know that each voter is autonomous. She assumes that she has the authority to decide how much the voter owes to society. And the idea that the government is providing all these "values" in an efficient manner is a lie that most politicians would avoid lest they be ridiculed. In fact, her argument is based on a twisted form of circular reasoning. It uses a falsely conceived collectivism to justify collectivism. She equates force with the good by intellectually replacing the actual result (the violation of individual rights) with the supposed intention. She is propagandizing for force in spite of the visible evidence that force is harming society. What she really means is that we owe our success to coercive society and we should allow government to coerce us even more. Who would vote for self-enslavement?

Elizabeth Warren is the kind of overbearing, hateful progressive who can only be appointed to positions in government. Few voters would willingly support her candidacy given her views. Most do not want to be punished for their success. Most feel a shudder of revulsion at the sight of a speaker who tells them they do not deserve anything they have worked for; that they owe their success to those who have not worked for it and that the non-productive socialist planner is morally superior to them because he does not earn his income…but they do.

All progressive planners think they have the “brilliance” and intelligence to know what we should do. They draw a connection between the mistaken idea that collectivism is good to the mistaken notion that they, the advocates of collectisivm, are also good. The consequence is that arrogant and immoral people take upon themselves the authority to decide who is moral. Their conclusion is that they, the advocates of sacrifice, are moral and everyone else, especially those whose work and intellect make life possible, are selfish and immoral. The truth is that Elizabeth Warren is not smart enough to tell us how to live, and the failures of the President’s policies are the clue to the failures of the coercive society they are building together. No one has the authority to decide anything for any other autonomous individual especially how much of his earnings he should give up. Lives are being ruined all over this country by this arrogance. The responsibility for that ruination belongs to people like Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama because of their disastrous decisions.

Ms. Warren may be intelligent with impressive university degrees but, on her premises, any thug is as smart. The thug at least realizes that all you need to make people give up their values is a gun (the power of government) pointed at them. Would you vote for that?

As I wrote in an article on the morality of capitalism: "Socialist planners think one-dimensionally. First, they don’t realize that their plans (in the forms of regulations and decrees) violate the individual rights of the people they are manipulating. They don’t realize that they are dictating to these people, many of whom would prefer not to have their lives interfered with. Secondly, they think they can make a decision, let’s say to keep prices low (because low prices are good) and that this decision will make things better for the people. But they don’t see the other dimension of the decision which involves the money losses to those who make the product. Once those losses are felt, and there is not enough money for more production, both buyer and producer lose. The planner, in his infinite one-dimensionality, refuses to blame his own decision for causing the problem and decides to put profiteers in jail for not being willing to sacrifice their profits to the collective. This is how Keynesian and progressive planners think even today under the leadership of President Obama. They have “no problem” taking more in taxes from the rich or providing bailouts for companies supposedly producing “socially necessary” goods but they ignore the fact that the consequences of their policies are lost jobs and dead industries. They don’t realize that their problem is that they have “no problem” with themselves."

Elizabeth Warren ignores the fact that all production is a result of human intelligence and independence. Production would be impossible without the freedom of the businessperson to make money. Just as the President told Americans that under his health care plan, they could keep their insurance policies – knowing full well that under his plan, insurance companies would go out of business, Elizabeth Warren is telling businesspeople that they can keep “a hunk” of their profits – knowing full well that in her America, there would be no profits. She ignores the fact that those factories do not come about through the contributions of an enslaved collective but from the innovative mind that seeks to create value. And she ignores the fact that the businessperson builds that factory to make a profit; and he has a right to that profit just as any other citizen has that right.

The businessperson owes nothing to society. In fact, society owes him; they owe him the rationality that judges his products for the real value they bring. Customers don’t say, give us great products and then give us our money back. They say, “Thank you.” They make him rich because he provides value and deserves to be rich. In fact, progressive university professors like Elizabeth Warren owe that businessman their jobs…and they’ve done a poor job of giving value in return.

Morally speaking, the only people who owe anything to society are the non-productive; those people who skate along in life, criticizing and vilifying creative people and demanding that government expropriate more and more to pay for ridiculous programs that bring nothing but waste and fraud.

I would like to suggest that Elizabeth Warren withdraw her candidacy for the Senate, get a job in a factory and learn what it means to be productive…for the first time in her life. If she can qualify for such a job, she would make a better contribution to society. Perhaps then she can pay back society for the damage she has done.

Every criminal should pay for her crimes.

The Buffett Rule, the Obama Rule and the Oprah Rule

2011-09-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

Warren Buffet is receiving the kiss of death today. Touted as the "Buffett rule" by President Obama, a new calculation has been developed to determine how much more the rich should pay in taxes. The inspiration for these new taxes is billionnaire Warren Buffett, who has given the President the ammunition he needs for the next phase of class warfare. The blow in this case will do significant harm to the economy and further exacerbate joblessness and depressed economic conditions - all for the sake of giving President Obama an election year issue that will gain him votes.

Most people know that new taxes on the rich will do little to reduce deficits since the government will use any new money to increase spending and that the rich are already paying the vast bulk of taxes today. The idea that they are not doing their "fair share" already is an insult to the concept of "fair share" (which itself is an insult to reality).

For the next year, the "Buffett rule" will be repeated constantly as a campaign slogan, like a football passed between Republicans and Democrats. In a manner that is reminiscent of Oprah Winfrey (who had the "courage" to support candidate Obama in a highly publicized fashion), Warren Buffett has placed himself and his business interests in the cross hairs. This is not a good position for any rich person in "the age of envy". Mr. Buffett would do well to discover, finally, the concept of "individual rights" because his are about to be abused.

By naming the principle behind these new taxes the "Buffett rule" Mr. Obama seeks to honor Mr. Buffett and give him credit for being courageous enough to engage in "shared sacrifice". Mr. Obama tells us that if Warren Buffett, an investment genius, is willing to sacrifice for the government's policies, then everyone else should too. This is a conman's dream. Apparently, the President thinks that his praising someone for sacrifice will make other people want to sacrifice too. Many think it is stupid and only a fool would ask for more punishment. In a time where the government is "taking" virtually everything through outrageous and corrupt deficit spending which leads to inflation, only an idiot would blame himself for not giving enough. Unfortunately, both Obama and Buffett are forgetting something that has been true of all sacrificial victims throughout the ages. The victims usually wind up deceased...or at the very least, impoverished.

And Mr. Buffett, in accepting the honor, has just walked into a trap that I call the "Obama rule" from which there is no escape. Ask Solyndra what happens when President Obama makes you the subject of a photo op. Ask Chrysler, ask Chevrolet, ask Bank of America, ask countless other companies that are touted as examples of the future by the government.

Buffett is being Obama's fool...the capitalist who thinks he can work with the Marxists. It won't be long before his "financial empire" collapses and he'll wonder what he did wrong. Buffett simply doesn't know that, by putting a target on the backs of all successful people, he's drawing all these people away from doing business with him.

Here's how the Buffett rule will work in America: As more and more money is re-distributed from rich to government, the economy will be harmed to the extent that the rich are harmed. For instance, let's assume that for every ten million dollars taken from the rich, that 1 new factory employing 25 people is lost. So if the "Buffett rule" removes 1.5 trillion dollars from the economy, then 150,000 new factories are lost along with 3,750,000 jobs. Of course, these numbers are estimates selected to show the magnitude of the potential loss to the economy from the Buffett rule. They are not intended for accuracy. And since we know that the government is not capable of identifying a good investment, we can only expect that a large part of those new revenues will be wasted or stolen. Thanks, Mr. Buffett.

As for the "Oprah rule", ask Oprah what happens when you lose your credibility.

Ameriphobia

2011-09-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

Americans are constantly being told by the left to be more tolerant of people from different cultures; and, especially, not to fear people from Islamic countries. Yet, many Americans have a deep sense of suspicion of some Muslims solely because of the way the 9/11 terrorists infiltrated our country. These monsters insinuated themselves into our lives and took advantage of our tolerance with deadly result. Are terrorists lurking among us still, acting westernized yet working to kill us? Are some of the people who immigrate to America today “sleepers” who will do the same as the 9/11 terrorists? Or are we Islamophobes unduly fearful of outsiders?

I don’t think our fear of being attacked again is unfounded. It is a genuine fear based upon the fact that many Americans have been killed by religious fanatics in the name of Islam. And I find it curious that we are told by many on the left that there really is no terrorist threat, that the entire issue is stoked up by the right to create paranoia among us to generate political support for increased military and homeland security spending.

The terrorists were educated by religious leaders, men of God, who breathed venomous hatred toward Americans. Is this still happening? We are told that a lot of this anti-American speech still takes place in many mosques in America. Is our generosity being taken advantage of again? No, we are told, we should realize that our fear of Islamic radicals is a sickness based on our past racist tendencies. Too many of us are Islamophobes they tell us.

Yet, the question I would ask is “Are we more afraid of them than they are afraid of us?” What makes so many in the Muslim world want to kill us? Is it their love of humanity or pure unadulterated hatred? Many in the left tell us it is not as simple as that; that there are many factors that contribute to the fear of Muslims and the Muslim religion, much of which is related to our latent and past racism toward blacks and other minorities. According to this view, our past and present racism is responsible for our unfounded views toward Muslims.

In pursuit of answers to these questions, I recently read a booklet published jointly by the Council on Islamic Relations (CAIR) and The University of Berkeley Center for Race and Gender entitled “’Same Hate, New Target’ Islamophobia in the United States , January 2009, December 2010”. This booklet provided an interesting perspective on the question of Islamophobia. In fact, it was more than merely interesting; it was frightening – not for what it revealed about Islamophobia but for what it revealed about Ameriphobia, the unfounded fear of America.

First of all, the article made no effort to scientifically document the existence of Islamophobia in America. There were several anecdotes about anti-Muslim incidents but much of that can be dismissed as non-representative of the vast majority of Americans. Just as you cannot cite a few instances of racism in America to prove racism among the vast majority, you cannot point to a few examples of anger directed at Muslims to indicate a general fear of Islam. It simply isn’t fair. But that doesn’t stop the CAIR and Berkeley writers of this booklet.

For instance, CAIR’s National Director, Mr. Nihad Awad, in his letter published in the article, calls Islamophobia “close-minded prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims…”

This is a flawed definition of Islamophobia. Prejudice is not a phobia. Prejudice is making judgments about a certain person without having all the facts. A “phobia” is an irrational fear. And I submit that no one can provide a scientific study that definitively proves that Americans are irrationally afraid of Islam or that they are fundamentally racist.

What is the point of this definition if it defines nothing? Fear is usually aimed at a person or object that is a threat to the individual’s life. Fear of having ourselves or our fellow Americans killed by terrorists is a real fear. But if you can call a rational fear a “phobia”, you make a person question his fear while you do nothing to alleviate it. You create moral paralysis; you make it impossible for the rationally fearful person to do anything about his fear; you create a clear road for the terrorist and for political groups who seek to undermine America's values and principles.

Add Islamophobia to the tactics of the left and you get the use of the BIG LIE against political enemies. If you constantly repeat the lie that Americans are irrationally fearful of Muslims, it is thought, they will come to believe it. What happens when the "chickens come home to roost"? Mr. Awad’s final paragraph tells you, “I pray that in the future, this report will be seen as one element in the movement to push back against individuals and institutions who promote hatred and fear of Islam as an American value.” Push back? In what way? With what force? For what purpose? How big is this group that must be pushed back and who will do the pushing back? Government, CAIR, Berkeley, terrorists? Will anyone be sent to prison? Will there be street fights and beatings in the push back?

Who are those individuals and institutions who must be pushed back? The report tells us:

• Pamela Geller and Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA)
• Robert Spencer and Jihad Watch
• Brigitte Gabriel and Act! For America
• Frank Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy (CSP)
• Steven Emerson and the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)
• Newt Gingerich
• The four members of Congress who called for an investigation of Muslim Capitol Hill interns
• Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and other violent extremists
• Daniel Pipes

I’m not going to give you the biographies of these people. You can look them up yourself. However, I will state that most of these people are critics of Islam who draw a connection between the premises of Islam and the justifications used by terrorists for killing Americans. In other words, they are critics of Islam involved in the effort to understand why we were attacked on 9/11/2001. In fact, none of these people appear to fear Islam. There is no evident prejudice in the arguments of these people; most have made a thorough study of Islam and its tenets. And, with the exception of bin Ladin, most of these people are politically conservative.

Yet, the writers of this pamphlet say this:

“A critical study of Islam or Muslims is not Islamophobic,” former CAIR Research Director Mohamed Nimer wrote in 2007. “Likewise, a disapproving analysis of American history and government is not anti-American…One can disagree with Islam or with what some Muslims do without having to be hateful.”

Try disagreeing with Islam in Saudi Arabia (without being hateful) or in Iran or Syria or Pakistan or any nation dominated by Islam. And try disagreeing with Islam in America without being called Islamophobic by CAIR.

Who do they consider to be the good people?

• New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
• Loonwatch (www.loonwatch.com)
• Congressional Tri-Caucus
• Rep. Keith Ellison (a Muslim) (D-MN)
• Jon Stewart, Aasif Mandvi and The Daily Show
• Keith Olbermann and Countdown with Keith Olbermann
• Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report
• Media Matters for America
• Interfaith Leaders
• Rachel Maddow and The Rachel Maddow Show

This list speaks for itself; but one thing is obvious. Few of these people have ever criticized Islam and some of them are comedians known for making fun of conservatives.

There is no proof that America is a fundamentally racist nation. In fact, it sets the standard for rationality when it comes to judging people according to their character as individuals. Americans, overall, should not feel guilty for their treatment of any group today. The idea of Islamophobia is a concoction of the left intended to impose guilt upon Americans and convince them that they should treat Muslim immigrants differently than they treat American citizens and other immigrants. Rather than analyzing a real issue, offering real solutions that improve society; CAIR and its allies on the left are instead trying to frame the issue to their own political advantage while disregarding true analysis based upon rational standards. They want to politically defeat someone and the key to identifying that someone is our purpose. Who or what do CAIR and Berkeley leftists fear?

In fact, a good case can be made for the existence of Ameriphobia in both CAIR and Berkeley. This Ameriphobia is not something new, however. These organizations are grounded in a form of anti-Americanism that has existed since the advent of socialism during the 19th Century. One of the biggest reasons that CAIR and Berkeley are afraid of America is that they accept several myths about our system and those myths are founded, not on reality, but on the views, ideas and fears of the enemies of freedom.

These myths represent a strategy designed to denigrate both capitalism and America in order to set the stage for the lynching of America in front of the world. The fact that the strategy is not new is an indication that the members of CAIR do not want to foster understanding and fair treatment. They prefer to mimick commonly used fallacies against America in order to drive a wedge into American society so they can advance their own anti-American agendas.

The source of Ameriphobia is predominantly Karl Marx. Marx’s critique of capitalism is reputed to spell out certain flaws in capitalism that socialism is designed to correct. Marx’s anti-capitalism parallels religious ideas found in a number of prominent religions. It is based upon a general antipathy toward commerce, profit and usury expressed by many religions. In fact, the critique of capitalism in Karl Marx’s writings is also similar to and parallels the critiques of America expressed by terrorists and many radical Imams today.

These fallacies can be expressed by the following statements:

1. Capitalism is individualistic rather than collectivist
2. Capitalism is inefficient and socialism is efficient
3. Capitalism is Imperialistic
4. Capitalism is decadent and immoral

I will not go into the debates over these critiques of capitalism here but I will state that they are all false. They are based upon a fundamental idea that self-interest is evil. These statements about capitalism are repeated constantly all over the world and especially in American universities where many Muslims come to be educated. They create a massive prejudice among average people all over the world toward America and American businesspeople. They are expressed in American movies by American actors and they create prejudice against anything American. They justify countless unnecessary and restrictive regulations of capitalism and they justify and animate countless violent anti-capitalist and anti-American groups around the world. These groups and ideas poison the world against self-interest, justify dictatorships and foment hate and destruction. They have devastated and impoverished the 20th Century and stand poised to destroy our economies today. They implicate the leftists in America today who are using these ideas to run our nation into the ground.

If you read the arguments of CAIR, Usama bin Ladin, anti-capitalist Christians, President Obama, Van Jones and others on the left, you will hear these arguments openly, some advocating violence, others advocating government expansion. You seldom read explicit arguments for socialism which are implied by anti-capitalism. The anti-capitalists don’t want you to know that their solution to capitalism is worse than capitalism. They talk about what’s wrong with capitalism and what they are doing to fix it, but ignore the fact that what’s wrong with capitalism is that they are interfering with it.

For instance, in the article from CAIR and Berkeley, you hear no criticism of the violations of individual rights in Iran, about Iran’s efforts to destroy Israel and destabilize the Middle East. You hear nothing about Saudi Arabia’s efforts to foment jihad around the world and especially in America. You hear nothing about how individuals are being killed and maimed all over the world as an expression of “justice” under Islam. You hear nothing about the racism directed at Jews all over the world but especially in the Middle East. You hear nothing about the riots in the Middle East against Christians or about the treatment of Christians who, in many countries, are not allowed to build churches. You hear nothing about the dictatorships in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories that are destroying the lives of millions of their own citizens. You only hear that America is evil because it is based on self-interest; that it was once a racist country and that it must reform itself and accept into citizenship many people who are decidedly anti-American. And because of the moral implications of anti-capitalism, you seldom hear a protest from American conservatives.

If there are (and I’m sure there are) any truly rights-respecting people within Arab communities in America, they must surely be people who have rejected the barbarism found in their home nations and who have come to America to live as Americans. These people do not like the religious intolerance they have found in their land of birth and they see America as an opportunity to live truly free lives…free of religious dominance and brutality. They come to America to be Americans not Muslims who want to turn America into a Muslim nation. They don’t come to America to hate America. Nor do they fear America.

CAIR thinks that paying lip-service to American values and expressing an opposition to terrorism, will help them fool the American public. They think they can justify their Ameriphobia and anti-Americanism by fighting a false image of a racist America. One thing is true: you can only hope to get away with this kind of deception with the help of American university professors.

The title of the pamphlet “Same Hate, Different Target” implicates America as fundamentally racist. To what “same hate” does the title refer? To the struggle by many whites to win equality for Blacks in America? To the many whites, Asians, Hispanics and blacks who have died for the freedom of oppressed people around the world? To the freedom and economic equality sought by millions of immigrants to America? To the Constitutional protections that have been extended to people of all colors in America? No…the article prefers to focus on the racism in America. That’s it…we’re a racist nation with a cloud of guilt hanging over us. They call us the oppressors of other nations and we must therefore not be prejudiced and hateful toward them by allowing Shariah Law in America.

The title of this document is an insult to Americans. It rings like an insider comment intended only for people who have a particular point of view. It is a statement that would only be made by someone whose ideology contains a strong anti-American bias. Who are the racists according to this ideology? Why, they’re conservatives and Tea Party protestors.

The important question to ask is “What happens when you call American free thinking by the name of ‘racism’?” You get a political package deal that gives you the ability to call a difference of opinion full-blown racism. It gives you the ability to demonize people who have no racist intent. For instance, in America, if you make a valid point about Christianity from a philosophical perspective, you are not always called anti-Christian. Nor are you called Christian-phobic. But if you say that most racists during the Civil War were Christians, and this proves that all Christians are racists, you are doing a disservice to religion and to Christianity and you will be roundly criticized for such unfairness. However, this is exactly what CAIR and Berkeley are saying about Americans who happen to disagree with progressives.

The cultural clash between Islam and America is not between Christianity and Islam. It is between Islam and freedom. The leaders of CAIR appear to know it. Yet, it is true that Christianity is much more acceptable to the average American than Islam and this is a problem for groups like CAIR who are intent on instituting Shariah Law in America. Their strategy is to convince Americans that Shariah can exist side by side with Constitutional Law and that it does not represent a threat. But this is not true, the two cannot coexist. The cultural clash is too severe and CAIR knows that Shariah Law represents an attitude that can never be accepted in a society that defends individual rights. Shariah Law assumes that good Muslims must submit to God and that God is government. Islam was established through warfare and it insisted that any conquered people convert to Islam or be killed. This perspective that Islam is superior to all other religions and all other governments is a direct threat to any nation that has not accepted Islam as government. And, more importantly, in America, it is a direct challenge to the separation of church and state that is vital to our Republic. This conflict can only be resolved by one form of Law replacing the other.

For decades, in America, religion was not allowed into government in order to avoid the tendency of religion to dominate morality and institute religious ritual as mandated practice. The Constitution sought to liberate man from any influence that would circumvent his natural ability to think for himself and it forbade religion from participating in government…even among religious men in government. In other words, religion in America had to accommodate the liberty of man and not seek to impose itself by means of government force. This changed Christianity and made it peaceful. People could be Christian without having to feel that their freedoms were being undermined.

Islam did not have to learn how to “behave” as did Christianity. Today, Islam has burst upon the scene, without the filtering processes inherent in the Constitution, not as a religion of peace, but as a religion of conquest that considers the secular nature of our society to be decadent, this-worldly and evil. Islam did not have to temper itself to accommodate the Constitution because it was not a commonly accepted form of religion when the Founders created our country; hence the cultural clash. Throughout history Islam has practiced the ritual of cleansing by forcing other nations to become Muslim. It considers itself to be the true government of man and does not respect the original intent of the Founding Fathers to prohibit religion from being the government. It sees this idea as ludicrous because to them Islam is society.

The result of this approach is not only a disrespect for the principles of America but a belief that America is evil because it has not accepted Islam. Many Muslims see Americans as infidels who sin against God, not because they do truly evil things, but because they live secular lives. The manner of acting common to Americans, their self-assertiveness, their self-confidence, their outspokenness, their way of dress, grooming, their lack of religious piety, even their way of enjoying life, are all problematic for many Muslims. These characteristics are considered an insult to God. This is a clash of civilizations for which there can be no compromise. For CAIR, Americans must realize the devout spiritual nature of Islam, see it as superior morally and decide to submit to it. For many Muslims, there is no other choice for America.

Is it possible that CAIR is trying to use the progressive movement in America as a cover for insinuating Shariah Law? Is it possible that CAIR is asking Americans to consider Islam, a religion that must certainly be in crisis today (due to its inability to control the radical murderers and gangsters among them), as just another group of good citizens who happen to have their own legal system? Is this why we are accused of unfairly fearing Islam?

The most important consequence of accepting a poorly defined term such as Islamophobia is that it keeps people from acknowledging their justified fears. It blocks intellectually the real fear people have about terrorism, anti-Americanism and hateful lies spouted by religious fanatics, Islamic fascists and progressives alike. For instance, why does CAIR say that conservatives are Islamophobic when they question the actual implications of Islam and, at the same time, why do they say that Americans must stay silent and listen to all forms of criticism to avoid being called racist? And further, why are conservatives’ questions about Islam considered to be Islamophobic but CAIR’s mimicking of progressive criticisms of America considered to be patriotic? The article says,

“Among a certain segment of the population, the Tea-Party and right-wing Republicans, anti-Islam bigotry has become mainstream and lost any taboo. People are unabashed and open in their displays of Islamophobia. In large part, this is in reaction to President Obama’s election. Many bigots are upset that we have a black president. But because of the taboo associated with anti-black racism, they are constrained from openly expressing it. So they falsely declare Obama is a Muslim and feel comfortable denigrating him for that,” said a Muslim who has held elected office.”

This is an unabashed lie, a repetition of lies told about the Tea Party movement by the left. Another charge made by progressives that black Congressmen were spat upon and endured racist comments during the health care debate was also untrue. Yet, if CAIR claims to be inclusive of all American opinions, why does it make the same baseless political criticisms as the left makes against a large group of Americans? And what are we to think of the many intellectuals who have made reasoned, scholarly arguments that refute the practicality of the very same policies that are today being advanced by President Obama...intellectuals who lived in the 1930s. Are they also racists? How is it that they resented President Obama's blackness before he was born? What are we to think about the people responsible for this report if they are willing to make spurious and false charges such as these?

Remember the list of enemies that CAIR and Berkeley presented in the document? Remember that this list included people and groups that CAIR considered to be Islamophobic? Ask yourself why that list included some conservatives but not the Tea Party movement whose “anti-Islam bigotry has become mainstream”. Does this not qualify the movement for that list of Islamophobes? Is it possible that the list was a decoy designed to hide the real enemies who are mainstream Americans?

By now the left knows that it is not going to be able to turn the US government into a coercive state without serious opposition. They realize that the Tea Party movement and many conservatives are, to a large extent, a reasoned, principled opposition that will not allow the destruction of the Constitution. They know that there are too many people who understand the reasons and thinking that went into founding our country, too many who understand the meaning of individual rights, and who will not be silenced or steamrolled by invented “emergencies” and outright lies.

Further, organizations like CAIR see the American left as the authors of the cultural diversity ideology that CAIR needs in order to import Shariah Law. They know that they must exploit this ideology in order to succeed; and if Americans reject the concept of cultural diversity, they are in trouble. The Tea Party will not fall for the ploy that a group of people should be allowed to violate the rights of individuals within its group because of their "divine" law. The Tea Party, for the most part, is decidedly individualistic. They do not consider our nation to be made up of warring collectives vieing for control of the government, eager to use government to bash their enemies. Tea Party members judge individuals and encourage individual achievement and freedom. It is a movement of individuals fighting for individuals and because of this, it is an enemy to the numerous collectivists who foster collective solutions, collective sacrifice and collective punishment.

CAIR also knows that American independents, conservatives and Tea Party members will not "go silently into the night". They will not submit to Islam and they will not be cowed by statements of collective guilt. Tea Party members, because they defend individuals, are naturally opposed to Shariah Law and they will not pretend that accommodations can be made between American jurisprudence, group rock peltings and the exploitation and abuse of women. To Americans, women are individuals and they cannot be summarily abused and controlled.

Our nation is moving into territory that is not new for nations that have descended into dictatorship. Before a dictatorship can take over a country, there must be chaos, violence in the streets and a breakdown of social institutions. This breakdown provides the cover necessary so that the coming dictators can jail, imprison and kill political opposition. To accomplish this, the prospective dictators invent “crimes” that the opposition has committed in order to justify destroying them. Today, we see the hints of the coming dictatorship in the actions of the Obama administration and the things it is doing regarding the Tea Party movement and Republicans in Congress, not to mention the increasing number of unilateral and unconstitutional decisions made by President Obama. The left has found a scapegoat in the Tea Party movement in the same way that the Nazis hated the Jews and intellectuals among them, and in the same way that the Soviet communists hated the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals in Russia.

As a participant in Tea Party protests and a Tea Party blogger, as well as an American with Hispanic descent, I find it offensive that CAIR and Berkeley claim to be inclusive, while they criticize without basis a group that is made up of the entire demographic of the American populace. That CAIR aims its accusations of Islamophobia at people whose issues are budgets and spending should make you wonder at the real issue.

CAIR and Berkeley fear average Americans. They fear us because we are free to think and judge them. They fear us because we represent a very large swath of mainstream America. They fear us because they cannot credibly call us ignorant anymore; they cannot simply imply that we should be ignored and circumvented. They know we won’t allow it. They are playing politics about the very serious issues of our debt, government spending and waste (the real Tea Party issues).

Berkeley leftists know that the political strategy of the left is to marginalize the right by unfairly associating anyone on the right with as many negative concepts as possible including the spurious charge of racism. This is a political strategy that apparently CAIR has no problem with, yet it claims to want fairness and openness toward Muslims and other minorities. We know that no one can fight for the rights of some individuals without fighting for the rights of all individuals. There are no group rights. Apparently, CAIR does not know this.

Most right-leaning intellectuals and even average citizens understand that these tactics are based upon strategies of deception. It is dishonest to demonize your political opponents by means of lies. It accomplishes nothing positive and it deflects honest Americans from the important work of solving our very real problems. The left would prefer to play politics rather than solve problems. Why would CAIR want to be part of this deception?

Where is the Islamophobia in the Tea Party argument? In the very fact that it is an argument based upon the principles of our Founding Fathers. In the very fact that the Tea Party movement is anti-progressive. In the implication that Tea Party Americans are so principled that they will not allow Shariah Law to be practiced in America. CAIR knows that with the Tea Party movement around, they can’t undermine the Constitution, not now, and maybe never.

The emergence of the Tea Party movement has put a panic into all progressives and CAIR. They didn’t expect that anyone would rise up to defend the Constitution. Now they realize that there is a principled movement against them that will not compromise on fundamental principles; and it is a huge movement. They realize that all their arguments for the coercive state no longer work especially the arguments for collectivism and shared sacrifice. They know that eventually they will be swept out of power by this movement in such a large wave that they will be on the outside looking in for the next several generations if not forever. This explains why CAIR and Berkeley kept the Tea Party movement off its list; they didn’t want to admit that they feared the Tea Party movement more than any other group.

CAIR and Berkeley are participating in political games, picking winners and losers, sticking with the progressives and name-calling (Islamophobe and racist) against one of the largest political groups in the country. Instead of calling for objectivity, refusing to take sides in the political struggle, really meaning what they say about fairness, CAIR chooses instead to get into the political fray and attempt to disenfranchise people who care about budgets and Constitutional rights. CAIR and Berkeley are not fighting Islamophobia; they are exposing their own Ameriphobia.

CAIR and the progressives are doomed to fail. This is because past dictatorships have succeeded in gaining power only by tearing down society and cutting off all lines of communication. Today, that would mean they have to destroy mass communication systems such as cable television, the Internet, ebooks, social networking and wireless communications. The freedom that these media rely upon, the freedom of speech, is something Americans are not willing to give up, even if they have no opinion about dictatorship. And, even more importantly, because of its anti-intellectuality, the left has been reduced to a few multi-billionaires who waste huge amounts of money into funding failed campaigns and bad ideas. The left needs mass communication in order to multiply by several degrees the amount of drivel they need to drown out the truth.

The Tea Party movement is a beacon of hope. In a few short years, the movement has accomplished phenomenal results; they have brought us much closer than ever to restoring the principles of limited government and individual rights. But, unfortunately, it is not an intellectual movement. Although there are strong influences from Ayn Rand and Austrian economics in the movement, it is primarily an alliance of disparate groups that converge on the issues of limited government, spending reductions and capitalism/constitutionalism. These are not bad issues around which to converge but they are not enough to create a free society that endures. In order to establish a proper society, it will take an intellectual movement that effectively defines the philosophical bases of these concepts. That was the work that the Founders, in spite of their superlative accomplishments, left to future generations. It is critical today that our generation do this work.

The Tea Party may succeed in disenfranchising, discouraging and removing from power the radical progressives in government, but before these people can be removed as a cultural force, they must be ousted from the universities as well. We must win the battle of ideas in order to create a better society.

Are You a Selfish Monster?

2011-08-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

“John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic. You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.”*

Are you a selfish monster? Do you always feel as if you are doing something wrong because you work hard and want to earn as much as possible? Are you guilty because you want to enjoy your life and get the most out of it? Are you constantly striving to do well only to have people criticize you for being selfish? Are you paying ransom to people who expect you to give your money away?

I think it is immoral and manipulative to make a person feel guilty for making his best effort and succeeding. It has been done to me countless times. In fact, demanding that I sacrifice for others is the best way for someone to lose my friendship. Some people call it “Guilt-Tripping” and I think that’s a good way to say it.

How does “Guilt-Tripping” work? I first experienced it when I was too young to understand how insidious it is. It started for me when I was told that I should consider other people to be more important than me; that my purpose in life should be to help others.

Like many young people, I struggled with the question of what is moral. I initially sensed that the advice to live for others was intended to help me be a good person. Yet, the idea made me wonder how I fit in, how could I decide what was right, and what about those people who were not living for my sake (which included the very people telling me to live for others)? I had not understood how it was possible that I should always think of others while never thinking of myself. How did that work?

So I thought that maybe my teachers didn’t really mean what they were saying. Did they just want me to be nice to others or to be a good citizen? Maybe they were saying it because they loved me; they didn't want me to be anti-social. But no, I was told, the sign of piety and love of God is to be totally self-sacrificial. I should live like the saints such as St. Francis who dedicated his life to others.

Somewhere along the line, I even heard that true sacrifice should be all-consuming – if I really loved God, I should be like Jesus who died for man's sins on the cross. Jesus had sacrificed himself completely and suffered; so should I. I also heard that, in order to be moral, I should derive no personal pleasure from self-sacrifice but do it merely because it was right regardless of how much I suffered.

When I read Ayn Rand, I developed a new view of self-interest and morality. Her critique of altruism revealed to me that the method of promoting altruism involved the denigration of the individual and self-interest. She averred that the purpose of life was to live and be happy, not to suffer and die. Almost, without exception, she taught, the entire history of ethics had been founded on the idea of sacrifice. The manipulation was real and they meant their attacks on self-interest.

As a youngster, I did not know that “Guilt-Tripping” was based upon an entire philosophical system that had dominated men’s societies for centuries. I was just another hapless young victim walking into the carnival’s House of Horrors not knowing what terrors I would find. Needless to say, Rand has exposed the scam being played by moralists. From Plato to Kant, the ritual of sacrifice had been nurtured and protected until the 20th Century when Hitler, Mao and Stalin managed to kill millions in the name of sacrifice for others.

Today, I’m amused when I hear people say that the rich should pay higher taxes and give more money to charity. Most rich people accept the guilt and give in because they have been “guilt-tripped”. They can't figure out who's right; they for wanting to do well or their critics who accuse them of "thinking they're so good". They are going through the house of horrors too and eventually they decide that the best way to handle the guilt is to buy heaven. Do you feel better, Warren?

Over the years, as I’ve said, due to the influence of Ayn Rand, I have developed a different conception of proper human action. According to this view, what is important about a man is not that he dedicates his life to others but how he uses his mind. What does he do to develop and enhance his intellectual capacities, how correct is his thinking and how has he used knowledge to advance his own flourishing? This is what I admire: not how many people a person has fed, but how well he has fed himself?

“Guilt-Tripping” is a form of moral intimidation. It is cruel and unfair and no person should go through life thinking there is something wrong with him if he decides to enjoy his life and revel in his ability to produce wealth. Too many of these men lack the intellectual stamina to understand that they have been “Guilt-Tripped”, duped into feeling guilty for doing well and loving their success. They have done nothing wrong.

There is only one difference between the “Guilt-Tripped” average person and the “Guilt-Tripped” rich person. The rich person gets rich in spite of his unearned guilt while the average person doesn’t get rich because of his unearned guilt.

Unearned guilt is a destroyer and too many good people fall for it. They should learn that their “Guilt-Trip”, imposed upon them by people who supposedly love them, has caused them serious psychological and monetary damage. And they should learn that there is nothing about which to feel guilty. If they decide to spend their money in the most ostentatious display of wealth, they should not be afraid of what people think. Even if they decide to have the most lustful parties, spending millions on ice sculptures, enjoying the most beautiful and expensive toys, automobiles, electronic goods, mansions, etc.; good for them. They should enjoy it; they deserve it. They should get more of it and look envy straight in the eye and say, “You’re jealous because you can’t afford it”.

Of course, I know the "Guilt-Tripper's" standard response to the above statement: "How could you live so ostentatiously when so many are starving?" The correct answer to this "Guilt-Tripper" should be "It is my money. If people are starving, that's your fault not mine. Your ideas created the victims of poverty. You feed them."

Yet, whenever I advocate for this view of man, the old “Guilt-Trip always seems to come up. It is, in fact, a cultural institution. Say that you advocate individuality and you’ll hear, “I hate that person”, “How cruel”, “He must be in favor of “dog-eat-dog” capitalism” and “I’ll bet he loves Nietzche”.

Lately, I’ve realized how hateful it is to criticize a person for not giving to or “caring” about others. The recent statements made by billionaire Warren Buffet that rich people should pay higher taxes are cases in point. I think Buffet is totally wrong. Somewhere along the line he has lost a respect for how difficult it is to become rich, how hard most rich people work and, especially, that the money they earn belongs to them. They should not apologize for it nor should they give it away. Buffet, who should know better, has somehow forgotten that “unused” money usually goes into a bank or investment vehicle. Doesn't he know that such investments return more money and do more good compared to money that buys food for consumption? When money is invested in creating companies, jobs, better products and better lives, the result is long-term benefits to people rather than a mere block of cheese.

Why should a person who knows how to invest money give that money to people who did not make it and who have no right to it, and more importantly, who don’t know how to improve peoples’ lives with it? The capitalist investor is the one who cares about people because he treats them with respect and expects them to make buying decisions with their self-interest in mind. That is true love for mankind because it starts with a love for the self and extends to a respect for the human mind. Sacrifice is not necessary to prove that you love mankind. To fall for the “Guilt-Trip” only means that you don’t realize you’ve been conned by people who trade in guilt. They give you guilt; you give them money.

But the most dastardly aspect of "Guilt-Tripping" is what it does to young people who are struggling to learn about morality. It is a travesty of justice to give a child "sacrifice" as a moral injunction. To call a young person selfish; to excoriate, vilify and insult him for seeking accomplishment and pride is the worst form of evil. For parents, peers and teachers to punish children for wanting to do well is akin to murder. These children, all children, should learn the value of self-respect and should be praised, not vilified, for doing well. In fact, those rich who have earned their wealth are the most moral people on the planet.

On the topic of the rich, I was recently involved in some Facebook bantering about Buffet’s statements and was making some pretty good arguments for letting rich people keep their money when someone I did not know made the following statement:

“You guys are funny, in the end [we’ll] ask what did you do for your fellow man, not how much did you get from your fellow man. Yeah funny as a heart attack.”

My response:

[Name], your post is an example of how to induce guilt in honest people. I'm not falling for it. Rich people have a right to their money and they do not NEED to give it to anyone. I don't care what you ask "in the end"...it makes no difference and I don't think successful people should feel guilty for making, earning and enjoying their wealth. They deserve every pleasure they can buy. Most rich people get rich not by "getting" from their fellow man but by offering products and services that improve their fellow man's lives. If their fellow men buy from them, then their fellow men "get" improved lives for their money. For those who want to take money from the rich and have not earned it, I say, "in the end" we'll ask whether you were self-sufficient or a parasite. If there is a Hell, the lowest rung should be reserved for people who think they have the moral authority to tell other people what they should do with their lives and property. Your guilt-inducing game is coming to an end. People are wising up to the scam. I dare you to go to your bank, draw out every penny and give it to the first person you meet. If you don't, you're a hypocrite.”

Interestingly, another person monitoring the thread responded with the following:

“Yes, and if he does not give all his money away voluntarily, he is a hypocrite. After all, it doesn't belong to him according to his philosophy. He stole it from them and quite readily admits it. If he stole it, he should give it back... all of it. He should practice what he preaches.”

I enjoyed this thread and I’ve decided that when every leftist in the world gives away every penny he owns, regardless of how much he got from his government job or government grant, I will then give away all my money. Until then, anyone who wants to be successful should practice his or her selfishness as selfishly as he or she can – proudly and without guilt.

Go ahead, say it.

*Senator Barack Obama

Society in Conflict - Conclusion

2011-08-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

The first step necessary for a proper society is the removal of force as a functioning principle. Force is the enemy of voluntary exchange and it distorts the personal and economic decisions of people by imposing sacrifice as the moral base. Sacrifice is immoral because it re-distributes value from one person who has honestly earned it to another who has not. This is a form of theft that violates the rights of the productive citizen and forces people to function against their self-interest.

How does man outlaw force in society?

First, he must define what it would mean to outlaw force. How does a country do it? What premises must it hold philosophically before it can begin to think about such an issue and move toward practical implementation?

Ayn Rand, again, provides the answer:

“Reason is the only means of communication among men, and an objectively perceivable reality is their only common frame of reference; when these are invalidated...in the field of morality, force becomes men’s only way of dealing with one another.”

The role of government as a protector of individual rights, means protecting citizens against the initiation of force and fraud against them. This protection leaves people free to use reason in order to affect their own survival. Individual rights relate to how man survives. Individual rights is a principle that acknowledges the human mind as the critical factor that must be accommodated in order to have a society without conflicts of interest.

No amount of “good intentions” can ever be more important than the practice of leaving men free to make their own decisions and practice their own moral precepts.

To accomplish this free society, an intellectual and philosophical movement must take place that recognizes the value of the individual mind in society. It involves “respect for human beings”.

Respect for human beings means recognizing that each human being, by his nature, has rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of his own moral code. He has a right to think for himself and to respect himself without the interjection of a ‘moral authority’. When people respect each other’s rights, they recognize that they can only use persuasion and reason when dealing with each other. They also recognize that the only way to make an honest living is by offering products and services to people that actually improve their lives. And they recognize that attempting to profit from dishonesty, deception and lies is not a way to survive.

In fact, one of the most common misconceptions about capitalism is that it allows the unscrupulous to get ahead. It is precisely the unscrupulous who lose when the right of people to make their own decisions is liberated. Simply put, you don’t expect me to do business again with someone who has cheated me in some way. The quickest way for a businessman to go out of business is for him to take the attitude that his customers are stupid and that he gets ahead by cheating them. That is not respect for human beings.

Respect for human beings is at the heart of Rand’s trader principle. Those who live by values, she says, not by loot, must use reason in order to provide values in trade with others. This is the principle that eliminates conflict in society. When disagreements arise, contracts must be reviewed and reasonable people must agree on the terms of the contract. When this does not work, a law court operating on rational principles is consulted. The process is free of violence, free of demands for sacrifice, free of vitriol and conflict. As long as the government does its job of fairly protecting the rights of individuals, society can be civil, relationships can be mutually beneficial and people can live safely, happily and creatively.

Today, under the leadership of President Obama, the collective principle wrongly holds that conflicts of interests rule society. Under this view, there is an evil capitalist behind every corner who must be taxed, regulated and forced to operate without a profit. The President's collective principles demand allegiance and loyalty to the principle of "shared sacrifice" and it asserts that sacrifice is demanded by morality. President Obama's collective principle insists that the productive, the rich, should be forced to sacrifice their earnings for the sake of unions, crony capitalists and leftist government departments and grant recipients that provide no value to American citizens. The enemy of the collective for the President and his cronies is the individual who must be fought, isolated and ostracized if he does not comply with collective demands.

The collectivist idea that capitalism creates a "dog-eat-dog" society is a myth. The truth is that even the low level of freedom that exists today has less conflict than virtually any society in history. More people work together, reason together and come up with better solutions to problems together than during any time in world history. In spite of oppressive government, capitalist systems are the most peaceful, most advanced and most improving societies on earth - and they are the last to start wars. This is because the idea of respecting people establishes a social environment that engenders peace and this brings about a constantly improving society (Remember, it was the communists who claimed that capitalism would die and collapse – it was communism that collapsed because it did not respect people. In retrospect, we can now see that it was not capitalism that was the most exploitive system ever. It was communism and the conflict it created in society.).

Ayn Rand advocated respecting human beings as a fundamental principle of human interaction and she declared that men, using reason and living in political freedom, can get along just fine. When reality proves her case millions of times every day, she is vilified and accused of being in favour of fascism and exploitation. It should make you wonder about the motives and the intellectual dishonesty of her critics. Certainly, the fact that progressives tend to advocate sundry rotting conflict-ridden systems that are exploitive and disrespectful of people should make you wonder why they call their coercive systems “social justice”.

In order to have a society without conflict, we should study the Constitution and learn how the system was intended to work. We should understand the purpose and role that individual rights played. We should understand that individual rights, when protected, were intended to liberate men to use their minds and keep the results of their labors. We should understand the purpose and role of a limited government restricted to protecting individual rights. We should understand the Bill of Rights and why the framers sought to separate religion and state.

And we should understand that the principles of the Founders have been hijacked by progressives who want to turn us into slaves to a coercive state. The best answer we can give the progressives is a Constitutional Amendment that creates a separation of economics and state, a prohibition that keeps the government from economic intervention into the private business relationships, decisions and actions of free citizens.

Society in Conflict Part 3

2011-08-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Rand qualifies her statement about conflicts of men’s interests:

“The symbol of all relationships among such men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader. We, who live by values, not by loot, are traders, both in matter and in spirit. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. A trader does not ask to be paid for his failures, nor does he ask to be loved for his flaws. A trader does not squander his body as fodder or his soul as alms. Just as he does not give his work except in trade for material values, so he does not give the values of his spirit—his love, his friendship, his esteem—except in payment and in trade for human virtues, in payment for his own selfish pleasure, which he receives from men he can respect. The mystic parasites who have, throughout the ages, reviled the traders and held them in contempt, while honoring the beggars and the looters, have known the secret motive of their sneers: a trader is the entity they dread—a man of justice.”

The trader principle can arise only in a society in which force is banned from the dealings of men. This means that there is no agent of force to intervene and impose collectivist or altruist considerations in society. When men must deal with reality (rather than government) in order to survive, the trader principle begins to function. But most importantly, the banning of force leaves people free to express their deepest values and to pursue them without fear of government intervention.

An unfortunately excellent example of the destruction of the trader principle occurred immediately after President Obama’s inauguration during the time of the restructuring of Chrysler Corporation. A group of investors in Chrysler had contractual agreements with the company that protected their investment if the company should go into bankruptcy. Essentially, they were to be the first to recover their assets. This provision in their contracts was intended to provide additional security for these investors in order to induce them to provide funds to the company. President Obama, on the other hand, decided to unilaterally violate this agreement by placing other parties at the head of the list and disenfranchising these investors. Not only was this an unprecedented violation of the trader principle and the sanctity of contract but it introduced altruism and sacrifice into the negotiations by insisting that Chrysler’s private investors sacrifice their investments in violation of their written agreements. President Obama even explicitly commented that he was not “with” these investors because they had not been willing to sacrifice in order to save Chrysler.

Obama’s goal, this early in his Presidency, was to establish the principle that shared sacrifice was actually a viable principle for guiding a massive economy like ours, and even more astoundingly, that self-interest was no longer to be its guiding principle. This move exposed a strikingly naïve approach to economics and to government. To institute the principle of sacrifice as a guiding principle for his Presidency, he signalled that American society would no longer be based upon self-interest but instead upon the idea of altruism. The President ignores the entire histories of socialism, communism and fascism (societies based upon collectivism and sacrifice) that created nothing but decline and destruction. He even ignores the history of capitalism that has created more affluence, wealth and prosperity than any collectivist system in the history of the world. Yet this President is considered to be a scholar and student of history.

Contract law in the USA is not about sacrifice and only a pragmatist like the President would even consider introducing it into a situation where it is not relevant. Investors expect their legal contracts to be honored. President Obama’s decision to disenfranchise Chrysler investors means that a politician, at any time and for any reason may decide to play politics at the expense of their plans for the future. How can an investor or anyone who signs a contract expect that his contract will be honored today? What does this do to the trader principle and how can an economy operate when there are no rules except the arbitrary rules of President Obama? This principle not only threatens investment in this country but it weakens the economy and the kind of long-term planning necessary for major investments in the future.

A government official should be the first suspect when identifying the true criminals in society. Next is a common criminal. Both would interject force into human relationships and this makes mutual trade to mutual benefit impossible (the trader principle). Such force destroys the principle of “respect of human beings” that Rand mentions.

A proper society respects human beings by not interfering in their private dealings. To understand this more fully, we will analyze moral implications of government intervention such as government regulations, re-distribution of income (taxation), inflation of the currency and government financed businesses to name a few.

Government Regulation

A government regulation, in essence, tells two citizens that they must transact business together according to rules that accomplish government goals. Usually these rules are justified by a false critique that one of the parties holds an unfair advantage in the transaction. The regulation is intended to force the regulated party to act in a way the government deems fair according to a collective standard. Such coercion represents the introduction of altruism into business transactions where one of the parties is being forced to sacrifice for the sake of the other party.

The government insists that both parties deal with one another on terms the government decides rather than those the parties would decide on their own. A government regulation makes it a crime to do business on terms agreeable to both parties. The government effectively invents a conflict of interest and then uses force to impact the profits of both parties and turns those profits into a loss for one party and a boondoggle for the other.

The practical effect of a government regulation is to change the terms of any transaction and create winners and losers. When the government invents exploiters and exploited, it uses force to cause losses to the “so called” exploiters and rakes off a big part of the loot to pay for government busy bodies that produce no tangible products or services.

Government regulations may or may not be the rules under which individual businessmen would operate in normal circumstances. If men are free to transact business without government interference, the two parties to any transaction would come to mutually beneficial terms or go elsewhere. There would be no conflict of interest since each wants something that the other party is providing. Government regulations adversely affect costs and sometimes the quality and availability of goods. The result: every party becomes aggrieved. Conflict is created all around, jobs are lost and the economy declines.

Re-distribution

Re-distribution of income (taxation used to pay for government welfare programs) involves the forcible taking of money from one citizen and giving it to another. The government force exerted in re-distribution is engaged through the taxing structure of the nation and creates several conflicts.

Re-distribution creates a reaction among both producers and beneficiaries. Regarding the producers, some of them decide to produce less in protest of high taxes. They see that they are working harder and receiving less of their own money due to higher taxes. So they slow their effort. Other producers who decide to work harder eventually tire and produce less over time. They lose motivation and start hating their jobs because they are not benefiting from their own work. They become too fatigued to affect their own success. In addition, because they pay more taxes, the money they would have invested in the economy is instead spent on consumption by beneficiaries. This makes the producer less wealthy and reduces the amount of money available to invest in the economy. The government, not wanting to reduce benefits, will print more money which inflates the currency and reduces the value of money.

The government beneficiary likes the idea of being "entitled" to his benefits. He demands more from the government or else he will vote for another politician in the next election. Further, the beneficiary realizes that the less he produces, the more he can justify higher benefits. Then when he sees that his newly inflated dollars are buying less, he demands a “cost of living” adjustment so he does not “lose” his benefits.

Yet, we often ignore the altruism at work in the relationship between producer, government and beneficiary. The government tells the beneficiary that he is poor because of capitalist greed and that the successful should "give back" what they have stolen from the poor. This serves to somewhat ameliorate any negative moral feeling for the parasites. Yet, whenever one group considers it the height of morality to be productive and another group considers that they deserve the money created by the productive, the result is conflict and negative feelings on both sides. That this whole process is a corrupt lowering of moral standards (a destruction of morality) is hardly noticed in the futile effort to make sacrifice and theft into a moral activity.

What are the practical results when the government is allowed to forcibly divest citizens of their hard earned money? Debt increases, prices rise, interest rates go up, the cost of doing business goes up and both jobs and profits are lost. With increasing debt, the government finds another way to raise taxes; it prints more money and thereby steals value from the money in circulation. They call inflation "stimulus" but there is nothing stimulated when the printing press merely re-distributes money from those who hold it to those that the government favors. Once the printing press starts, there is no stopping the decline in the economy.

The government refuses to recognize its role in harming the economy through a number of rights-violating interventions such as regulations, re-distribution and debasing the currency. To compensate for the economic consequences of it policies, it re-distributes money to struggling industries that it deems “vital to the public interest”. These actions are always blamed on the failure of capitalism without mention of the direct role of government intervention.

Whenever force creates a problem in society(and it can only create problems), the solution given by the government is always more force against productive citizens. The arguments of altruism and collectivism will continue to be used to hide what is really happening; the looting of the American producer. The trader principle is destroyed and men descend to the level of lying and cheating each other. Running society becomes of matter of manipulating these corrupted factors and re-distributing as much money as possible. Values, standards, justice and truth are all subject to political considerations and the best liars rise to the top. The best producers fade away. Eventually, the productive citizen will give up (as happened in Soviet Russia in the early ‘80s) and the society will collapse.

In a system where the government creates massive conflicts of interest, who are the agents of force? Regulations and re-distribution programs are passed by Congress and administered by the Executive Branch. Money inflation, another form of re-distribution, is authorized by the Federal Reserve and administered by a cabal of crony capitalists with an interest in getting more money from the government. The Executive Branch (the President) uses Executive Orders, which are a violation of the Constitution, to circumvent the other branches and move the country closer to a dictatorship. For whom do these people work? They work for you, the voter. Which voters are responsible for this travesty of the laws? Productive citizens who create the multi-trillion dollar pie that these politicians re-distribute. What should these productive people do? They should realize that a coercive society is immoral. They should understand the roles that collectivism and altruism have played in justifying coercion. They should join the Tea Party and protest this corrupt scheme.

Another name for a coercive society is "statism". Statism is the idea that the state has ultimate control of the people and that the people belong to and work for the state. If you want to fight for freedom, you must fight against the coercion of the state that has infiltrated our once free society. You must fight government force and the conflicts it creates in society. Government force is justified by means of collectivism and altruism. You must fight the philosophical premises that give rise to these political and moral concepts. You must understand individual rights and how to fight for them.

If you want to eliminate conflicts in society you should establish the trader principle by getting the government out of the business of economic intervention.

To be continued.

Society in Conflict Part 2

2011-08-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

There are essentially two types of organized society with the key issue for each type being the question of how force is used by government. These types are coercive government (based on collectivism) and a free republic (based on individual rights). You can look at societies throughout history and see that most of them were based on the coercive principle. Even today, the modern examples of coercive governments are considered to be the fount of all good societies. Yet, coercive governments are based upon the view that man is a subject of the decisions of the state and that he is beholden to sacrifice for the group under threat of force. This false view must be changed if mankind is to have a future worth living.

The fundamental question to ask when seeking to understand any society is “How does it view the individual, his nature and his value?” The coercive view of society sees the individual as morally incapable of doing the right thing. It is made up of leaders who presume to know what the right thing is and who see themselves as moral authorities responsible for ensuring that it is done. This view assumes the position that men belong to the state, that they are not sovereign individuals capable of thinking for themselves and that they must be forced to do what is right. You might call it the “men are cattle” view of man’s nature.

A positive view of man's nature (a proper theory of man's value) is based upon two basic principles that Ayn Rand taught in her writings: 1) that man survives by means of reason and, 2) that there are no conflicts of interest among rational men. These principles mean that men are capable of deciding moral action and that their thinking determines how they will survive. It also assumes that men are not cattle but sovereign thinking beings who have a right to pursue property and happiness and keep the results of their work.

This view creates the idea that men should recognize each other’s individual rights. A right refers to the recognition of certain facts about man and how he survives in nature. In other words, in nature, man would survive by making tools to improve his efficiency and production. He would use reason. And, because man would not be able to survive without the exercise of reason, in nature or in society, this process must be respected by other men through a government that protects man’s free exercise of his mind. This society would respect his “natural” rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of property and happiness.

When a society operates on the principle of individual rights, you learn that there are no conflicts of interest among rational men. A proper society recognizes that in any conflict, there must be a wrong and a right and that reality, facts, truth and reason can be applied so that men can live peacefully. Rational men do not need the interference of government. They can cooperate among themselves and agree upon mutually beneficial transactions. Only when misunderstandings arise does the specter of irrationality come forward; in which case a competent third party, a judge, should be delegated to resolve the conflict.

I first became aware of this principle at the age of 18 when I read a book called Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Here’s the quote from the novel:

"Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury or the favor of others, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires—so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal's lust, men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them.”

Everything I had been taught before my 18th year told me that this idea could not possibly be correct. As a Catholic, I had been taught that selfishness is evil and that men can’t help themselves in doing wrong because of Original Sin – and yet he had free will. The contradiction was not supposed to bother me – yet it did.

In my reading about economics, Marx had averred that capitalism was evil because capitalists were driven by self-interest and that the most unscrupulous of businessmen would always work to take advantage of workers and consumers. Then after reading Ayn Rand’s statement in Atlas Shrugged, my view of morality was shaken. I wondered, how could rational men avoid conflict and what was a rational man?

As my life went forward, I began to ask more questions and I learned that Rand’s rational man was not someone who did what religious leaders and parents told him to do - unless they could make a valid case - he thought it through himself and decided what was right for him. He also did not act whimsically or without deliberate thought. She was offering a view of man entirely different from what I had known. A rational man knew that the good related to the method he used for selecting values. Rand held that values should be based upon the standard of man’s life and that the sacrifice of his values did not meet that standard. I began to see that reason was something real and achievable – but I realized that living up to this view was difficult, especially for a person influenced by prevailing ideas. Later, I learned that in some important respects using reason made life easier because it helped me shed a lot of incorrect ideas that I had accepted up to that point.

Eventually, as I integrated more knowledge, I began to understand what Ayn Rand meant. I realized that, in my youth, I had understood the principle “conflicts of interest” only as it related to one-on-one relationships and had accepted the false Marxist view that all human interchange involved theft and exploitation.

Eventually, I saw that individual business transactions, multiplied thousands of times each day were impacted by the need of businesspeople to “be right”, that in each transaction both parties had obtained something that served their interests. There are no conflicts of interest among rational men. Human interaction is not a “zero-sum” proposition.

The dynamic nature of this principle, operating in a vast economic context, resulted in an always improving economy, not only for individual businesspeople but for consumers who benefitted from constantly improving products, constantly lowering prices and new conveniences made possible by more advanced new product solutions. All of these were outgrowths of free human interactions and, more importantly, of the principle that there are no conflicts of interests among rational men.

You’ll notice that a key application of this principle for Ayn Rand, when it comes to a proper society, is that men should “neither make sacrifices nor accept them.” If one wants to understand what this means in practice one would have to see that man survives by means of his mind, that the quality (or logical accuracy) of his thinking determines how well he survives and that no one can properly make any decision for a man except himself. The individual is the source of his own values and of his own methods for achieving those values – and it is his responsibility to be right if he wants to achieve happiness. No one can properly presume that he has the authority to decide for another individual what is moral – neither religious leaders, politicians nor Presidents of the United States.

According to Ayn Rand, the moral imperative to sacrifice is the wedge into human relations that destroys cooperation and goodwill. Ask any businessperson to sell his or her products at a loss because he “owes” it to society and you’ll learn that a business cannot survive for long on those terms.

Conflict occurs when one person in a transaction or relationship expects the other to do something that the other party would not otherwise do. For instance, in a marriage, if one party expects the other to do something that violates the integrity of the marriage, then this demand puts the two partners at odds. To resolve this conflict, they might go to marriage counselling or simply review the marriage agreement. If the parties cannot resolve the conflict, the rational thing would be for them to part. The same would go in a business contract where one party agreed to provide a given number of product units in return for an agreed-upon price. If one party to the agreement violates the agreement, then the other party will lose money. A judge in a court of law would be needed to review the contract and then decide which party needs to “make the other party whole” and fulfill the original agreement.

However, what happens most often in these cases is that both parties consistently fulfill their end of the bargain and continue doing business. This is because a free society operates without the need for intervention by any third party. The vast majority of business agreements are conducted through purchase agreements, warranties, sales receipts and even verbal agreements because most people understand the terms of the transaction and fulfill their agreements. The only time it becomes necessary for one party to sue another is when one of them has wrongly assessed what is in his or her self-interest. There is a price to pay in any broken agreement; usually the price comes in terms of broken trust and the refusal to do business again.

Rand’s principle that there are no conflicts of interests among rational men does not mean that men will never disagree. Rather, it means that all men are capable of understanding reality. So if two men look at reality and correctly ascertain the facts, there will be no conflict of interest between them. The principle, then, is based upon a view of the nature of reality. It holds that there is only one reality and both men acknowledge that reality when they engage in a voluntary transaction. Each has decided what is in his best interest and agree to pursue it or not. This is the only proper form of cooperation among men. Anything else would involve a sacrifice of one man for the sake of the other.

What does it mean to say that coercive governments create conflicts? When the government dictates that a person should do something other than what he thinks is proper, it must initiate force against the individual or use the threat of force. And, it uses a “collective good” as the justification for its "need" to force the individual. So the sign of corruption in society, the act that causes conflict, is for the government to demand that a person give up his production for the sake of others.

A coercive society is based upon conflict created by the “stronger” to control the weaker or disarmed. In such a society, there is nothing that restricts the stronger from doing anything it wants to others. A leader with the power to create conflict by means of initiating overt force against others is adept at using force but cannot survive by productive means. He needs others because of his own inner isolation. In a twisted sense, he begins to feel that in order for society to “function” properly, force must be the means of control. He believes that sacrifice is the only "practical" way to get things done.

Power lust is the motivation of every “leader” who uses the threat of force to motivate people. This leader sees himself as deserving of any value he coerces people into giving him and he enjoys watching people as they cower in fear before him. He enjoys toying with them, manipulating them and watching their utter fear as he sits above them on his seat of power.

As the powerluster develops his skills of manipulation, he learns that the best way to rule the group is by obtaining the tribe’s willing agreement without using the threat of overt force. Toward this goal he seeks to create a more docile and obedient tribesman who will obey. He learns to drive home relentlessly the ideas that “duty toward the collective” and “sacrifice” are moral ideals”.

He notices that others in society have developed the ability to control men by means of religion and he realizes that religion has a moral component which prescribes what people should do. He enlists the “witch doctor” as his aid in “running society”. He adds altruism and sacrifice to his arguments for collectivism and pretends to be a devout believer even to the point of making sure that everyone sees him practicing religious rites.

Another form of corruption that is often missed in the argument for altruism is that, by doing altruistic deeds, the individual has given up his key faculty for deciding correct action. Not only is his individual judgment compromised through altruistic deeds but so is the quality and accuracy of any decision he might otherwise make. His energy, his integrity, his property and his motivation are all compromised to avoid a conflict with the demands of others. He must also lie to himself that he is doing the right thing while he directly suffers from his loss. The most devastating loss is that he has turned his life into a mere pebble upon a path which the leader walks. He is a willing slave.

A rational person would know that he needs his rational faculty in order to survive, and even to enjoy life. Any suggestion that he should sacrifice it would mean his destruction either slowly or immediately. Further, he knows that only rational people, when they cooperate and trade, are able to improve their own lives. This is one reason, I think, why Ayn Rand saw altruism as evil. No “self-respecting” person who is aware of this issue and the harm it does would consent to having his independence and self-sufficiency compromised in such a way. He would rebel most vociferously at the suggestion that sacrifice is somehow practical.

Coercive society creates a vast number of conflicts. The leader is in conflict with anyone who would challenge him. He deals with it by means of killing and imprisonment. The leader is also in conflict with each citizen who would do other than what he demands. He deals with it by means of killing and imprisonment. The citizens are not only in conflict with the leader but with other citizens who receive their labor and property. They are also in conflict with other groups within and without society who must be scapegoated in order create sacrificial wars and expand the leader's territory. The citizen is required to work according to government decrees without the right to make his own decisions and this puts him in conflict with reality. This is why you see more random violence in a socialist society, more crime and more poverty. Conflicts of interest are created when force is an element in the lives of all citizens. Not only does it create stress and uncertainty about survival, but it creates fear of other people; and this often creates a desire to lash out.

The real scandal of coercive societies is revealed when we see the killing fields of hundreds, thousands and even millions of dead whose lives were ended by the command of coercive leaders such as Mao, Hitler, Stalin and Castro to name a few. Apologists tell us that these murders had nothing to do with socialism (coercive government) but were in spite of it. This is not true. It was no coincidence that millions have died at the hands of socialists and fascists. The murders are endemic to the coercive system of government. Any government that assumes people to be property is a slave society. Such societies consider individuals expendable and any citizen who wants to live freely becomes a victim of that society. Murder is the end result of these societies because coercion never gets nicer; it always gets more coercive and murder is the harshest form of coercion. This principle applies, especially to our society today which endures countless demands for sacrifice by our President, politicians and religious leaders. The President, especially, does everything he can to infuse into every new law, every regulation, every policy and every Executive Order, the demand that someone must sacrifice in order for his policies to work. The opposite is true. Altruism is impractical. It does not work and the killing fields come closer to us the longer altruism and sacrifice are the guiding principles of our society.

To the extent that individual rights are violated in a society, that is the extent to which conflicts arise between individuals and government. A society in which government picks the winners and losers by means of arbitrary force is a society in decline morally and economically. It is a corrupt society.

To be continued in Part 3

Society in Conflict Part 1

2011-08-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

Imagine that you are a space traveler who has landed on a planet where the people are constantly in conflict. As you observe the society, you notice that all male children are raised to be warriors. Fathers teach their sons to have a warrior mentality and to always be suspicious of outsiders.

Society is based upon a pecking order. The strongest member of the tribe must win his dominance by beating any challengers in a fight to the death. Every tribesman is subject to the dictates of the strongest man and they are considered to be his property. The leader dictates the rules and others must do as they are told or be killed.

The more you look around this planet, the more you learn that there is much resentment in society over the demands of the powerful leader. And you notice that these resentments are the very reasons the people are starving AND why they can’t seem to agree about anything. They starve because everyone thinks he should be the tribal leader; but no one has the power to physically overcome the leader or do as he would prefer.

You also notice that the societies on this planet are tribal collectives. For centuries, these men have been told that man could survive only by collective joining and cooperation; otherwise, it is thought, he would die by nature’s wrath. These people believe that man can't survive through his own resources but must rely on collective efforts and total sacrifice to the group.

Needless to say, primitive societies like these have existed on our planet for centuries. They are societies that have not learned how to handle conflict because they value it as a survival tactic. For these societies, life is about dog-eat-dog, about the survival of the fittest who must force all others to obey or die.

In fact, the collective approach to human organization has always countenanced sacrifice as the most practical means of ensuring social success. Even on our planet, many people advocate collectivism as the best way to ensure "justice" and equality of result for all men. Collectivism is supposed to lead to utopia and peace and happiness and eternal salvation...if only men would sacrifice totally to the collective...and do so with energy and hard work and love for mankind.

Yet, we must understand the difference between free cooperation among individuals and the ideology of social collectivism. The former creates peace, the later creates conflict.

Cooperation among individuals is voluntary. Those who agree to join a group effort do so with full freedom to leave the effort at any time. Voluntary cooperation is usually also joined by selected individuals who bring particular skills or knowledge to the group. It is not a group made up of just anyone. And it is the specific skills of the individuals chosen to work in the group that are the keys to the success of the group.

In a voluntary association, there is no demand that the individual must participate or that he is doing something evil by not participating. There is no specter of total social failure looming on the horizon if someone decides not to participate. In fact, cooperation can work only in voluntary associations where each individual has agreed to contribute something specific in order to accomplish an agreed-upon result. Once that result is reached there is no need for the group to continue to function. Yet, the power and success of such cooperation is made possible only because each individual is committed to the outcome for a personal reason. There is no implication that the individual must accept the leadership, must do as told or that he cannot leave the group.

Social collectivism, on the other hand, is based upon an ideology that views collective action as necessary for human survival. Collectivism offers a system of organization in which the leaders have ultimate decision-making powers while individuals must do as instructed. An aspect of collectivist ideology is that the individual is “drafted” into the collective without choice. He is either born into the collective and cannot leave or he is bound by circumstances of territorial origin, ethnic origin, even language or dress. To solidify this membership, the individual member is told that sacrifice to the collective is the highest moral attainment. To dissent, or to express individualistic tendencies, is considered worthy of ridicule and punishment.

There are many forms of social collectivism including fascism, communism, monarchy, socialism, welfare-statism and democracy. Collectivist groups of this type can be small, consisting of a mere few individuals or as large as nations spreading across vast stretches of land. Each form of collective, however, contains an ideology of collective survival, altruism/sacrifice as a moral imperative and hatred of self-interest.

A collectivist society sabotages the free mind. First of all, people with the ability to threaten the life of the individual often decide for him what he should do. These decisions, based upon a collective standard, may not be proper for the individual in his particular context. So when an individual is forced to do something that he would not otherwise do, the negative consequences of this action redound only upon him...he suffers, others do not. This is why collectivism does not work; it always harms the individual by insisting that he do as told.

In a free society, man thrives when he is allowed to use his mind to affect his survival. A free person can certainly make mistakes but he has the freedom to learn from his mistakes and change his behaviour. The knowledge he develops from his successes and failures makes it possible for him to improve his life over time. And because he is able to keep the results of his thought and work, there is nothing holding him back and stealing his production. The only thing that harms a free man in a free society is poor thinking and poor planning.

With social collectivism, serious harm afflicts the individual when he is forced to work for the “state” without payment; or as is more often the case, when he is forced to give up some of the product of his work to the state. Since the decisions of the leaders are often wrong, and since a collective standard benefits some but takes from others, conflict necessarily results. The person forced to give up his product or energy is essentially a slave who is conscripted against his will and this creates the negative consequences that are known to proceed from slavery. No slave will work with vigour and excellence to benefit the slave master. The result is always less production from the slave, “cheating”, poor motivation and wasted energy.

Throughout modern history, collectivists have claimed to be imposing “justice” on people who “sabotaged” their revolutions by not enthusiastically sacrificing. Former capitalists, political dissenters, underground revolutionaries or even people who laugh or smirk at a government official receive the "justice" of the firing squad, the prison or the concentration camp.

Yet, propagandists for collectivism keep promising that all those dead bodies from Soviet Russia, Communist China, Communist Cuba and many other failed experiments, don’t really mean that there is something wrong with collectivism; on the contrary, “this time” they are going to make it work because they will do it right. What so many people ignore about this argument is that it was also made by the leaders of the Soviet and Chinese experiments too. They promised to “do it right”, and the result was millions of dead killed to rid the world of capitalist thinking.

Today, collectivists justify their actions behind a presumed collective “social contract”. According to this view, when we join society, we make an informal pact with other members of society to be loyal to the group in which we are born. Collectivists tell us that part of being civilized includes agreeing to allow the government to re-distribute a portion of our incomes for the benefit of others, as a sort of insurance policy or “social safety net” to be used only when necessary.

Many collectivists ignore the history of ancient Greece where democracy implied a social contract that had devastating effect in the Greek city-states. These governments required that the individual do whatever the majority decided. The result was the hatred that many people still feel about a system that determines life or death according to a mere vote of the majority. Democracy is collectivism run wild; a system where conflict rules and the majority exploits and destroys the minority.

The idea that the individual should accommodate the “will of society” is nothing more than a justification for legalized theft and murder.

One notable characteristic of those who run collectivist governments is the elitism they exhibit when they discuss how to “run” a society. These “planners” think they have the ability to pull the right levers (regulations) and otherwise dictate to citizens what they should do. They obtain college degrees in business law or economics and pretend that they have the knowledge and skills that enable them to control whole swaths of American economic life. The difficulty is that these manipulations affect the lives of real people and they always accomplish the opposite of their intent, decide winners and losers and violate the rights of citizens to freely transact business with their own property. Interventionist economics (Keynesianism) is nothing more than modernized collectivism with the same deadly consequences as tribal collectivism.

For government elites, there can never be enough sacrificing and most of the sacrificed goods or money is spent on feeding or pampering people who do not deserve it. The re-distributed goods are destroyed by mere consumption which means that profits are destroyed and there is often no money left to invest in making new goods to sell. This is the declining society brought about by collectivism. We are seeing this decline happening today.

Many of these elites, after they see the killing fields they have created, wind up bitter that men were not “good enough” to fulfill their vision of a great society – this squalor is not what they had in mind, they scream, and it is not their fault. Their litany of "blame" has no end...because they know, deep down, that they are responsible. Their morning mirror is their hated enemy.

But the real moral failure of a collectivist society is not the "travesties" done by people who are unwilling to sacrifice. The real wrong of collectivism is the immorality of the "elites" who think they have the right to "legally" force people against their wills. By supporting the arguments for sacrifice and justifying theft, these men commit the grossest acts starting with the stealing of money through taxation and ending with wholesale slavery (and sometimes murder).

There is no moral justification for taking from any man what he has earned with his own work. The protestations of people who “have no problem” with it should be roundly met with boos, resistance and defeat in the ballot box.

The lie of the social contract and the call to sacrifice (as expressed by President Obama and progressives) is the belief that proper government is about controlling man, forcing him to do right and ensuring that he does not violate the demands of "duty" or "social justice" – as deemed proper by the elites. To exhort men to sacrifice just a little more when that sacrifice means they must give up their lives and energies is a travesty of true justice.

They ignore the fact that the conflicts they create between productive citizens and society are the very conflicts that, next time, will mean imprisoning and enslaving those people who do not go along, who cheat or who, according to them, make “too much” money. Such is the lynch mob that develops when men embed conflict into their societies.

There is only one type of society that does not create conflict; a republic with constitutionally limited government whose sole purpose is the protection of individual rights. This system enables the citizenry to live without fear of theft or exploitation by government. If a republic is instituted without contradictions, a peaceful, safe society can be created. This is a society where men are left free to make their own decisions and to keep the results of their labor.

To be continued in Part 2.

Dear Mr. President

2011-08-12T13:35:00.000-07:00

When asked by Neil Cavuto on his daily Fox News television show (8/12/2011) what he would tell the President if he had an opportunity, Mr. T. J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductors said the following:

“The government has to get smaller. We have to take a smaller fraction of the money [that is in] unproductive government investments where they are investing in green energy which is a long shot investment, which has a low return on investment. We have to put that money back with companies and people. Let me take myself. I’m one of those wealthy people [from whom] they say you should take more money. Well, ok, I have a lot of unused money. 95% of my money is unused. I have it invested. The question is: Is the country going to get better off if the government, for example, takes a million dollars from me in the form of taxes. My money is invested in companies in Silicon Valley, battery companies that are going to make the next generation of batteries in the world, semi-conductor companies, electronic companies that I know personally in Silicon Valley. So when the government taxes me, it takes a million dollars of my money which is invested and it goes to Washington and I’ll just ask a rhetorical question: Is that money going to be better invested in Washington? And therefore, if we raise taxes on the wealthy which is one of the suggestions, we will simply be moving money from productive investments from the wealthy who know how to make investments to unproductive investments and pork barrel projects and overall the country will be less competitive.”

-T.J. Rodgers Cypress Semiconductor CEO – on Neil Cavuto Show 8/12/11

The New Racism

2011-06-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

What is racism?

Many people have a general idea of what racism is. For instance, many people think that racism is cruelty toward people of color engaged in by white skinned people. Some even think that people of color cannot be racists because they are the traditional victims of racism.

With this “historical view” of racism, the suffering of ancestors is somehow inflicted on their living descendants too. It is not uncommon to hear a person, who has seldom experienced racism, complain about his suffering when he is actually referring to the suffering of his ancestors. And, to carry it further, according to this view, it is the living descendants of now dead racists who are somehow guilty of and must pay for the racism of their ancestors. Shame on them!

Yet, fostering racism is a deliberate strategy of the left. The left needs the existence of racism and they demagogue the issue to get the moral upper hand on conservatives. It is their strategy for earning the black vote. In fact, if racism were to be eliminated, the left would begin losing elections. The “race card” is nothing more than a cynical political gambit for stoking up moral outrage against conservatives while at the same time doing nothing to actually eliminate racism.

But if we really want to understand racism, the idea that racism is cruelty isn’t enough. Racism has a source and in order to evaluate issues of race we must be informed by definitions that provide broad principles that apply consistently. And once we understand how racism works, we’ll see that racism is the secret political weapon of the left, not a problem the left is seeking to eliminate.

Ayn Rand has given the best definition of racism.

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage—the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors."(1)

Rand held that racism is wrong because of the collectivism of it, the idea of “pre-judging” people according to superficial "collective" characteristics rather than their character traits as individuals. It means that the judged person is inferior or superior because of the group into which he was born. Collectivism not only breeds prejudice (judging before you have all the facts) it is the very prejudice itself. Examples of collectivism are all around us. Here are a few:

"I was trying to raise myself to be a black man in America, and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant."

It is a shame that this person had to “raise” himself without parental help. Perhaps the reason why it seemed that no one around him knew what being a “black man” meant is that this is, for the most part, a society of individuals. In fact, ours is the only society where a person can distinguish himself as an individual rather than as a member of a group. Consigning oneself to the position of a “black man”, accepting membership in a collective of people with black skin, is to take a very limited view of what being “American” means. Americans do not “join groups”, they are not assigned a caste when they are born; they are part of a melting pot where people can make their own way by means of distinguishing themselves as individuals. To tie oneself down to a group, to assume a group identity, to think like a group thinks and then to act politically as a group, is not American at all, it is collectivist.

Some people may think, “Yeah, so what? We are members of races. Can’t you see that?” Many people have accepted the propaganda that collective membership is good, that collective joining can protect the individual, provides cohesion and power; but this is not good; it breeds conformity, ignorance, political chauvinism and racism. It is slavery. More than this, it forbids the individual from rising socially and economically in society without the approval of the collective.

In my view, the very idea that races exist is racism. Certainly, there are "ethnic groups" consisting of people with similar physical characteristics, but the range of those characteristics are limited to skin, hair, body types, sometimes language and habits (traditions), none of which determine character and reasoning ability. They are superficial and ever-changing among members of these "groups". There are no races, there are only individuals. Another quote:

"There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs," he wrote. "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, TO SHOW YOUR LOYALTY TO THE BLACK MASSES, TO STRIKE OUT, and name names."

It is apparent from this quote that the writer saw his college experience from a collectivist viewpoint, even a tribal viewpoint more akin to the view of what is considered to be African rather than American. One is reminded of movies where a person from a remote tribe is thrust suddenly into a civilized environment. He continues to use tribal principles in the midst of the new society and interprets all situations and relationships from this tribal perspective. He sees an older person and wonders if he is the chief of the white tribe. He sees a woman and is startled about her independence and disrespect for her husband when she does things according to her own judgement. He thinks that since collective identity is considered a normal premise of his own society that it must be a normal premise of all others. Eventually, he will discover the individuality that is part of his adopted culture and he may learn to see it as a special advancement from tribalism or he will continue to connect his own identity with that of his tribe. The success of his life will hang in the balance of this connection. Another quote:

"You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people’s struggle. Wake up, black man!"

This is a statement of pure collectivist thinking. It has been engaged by some of the most deadly societies in the world. The idea of pitting a group of people against the rest of society when that society is organized around the principle of individual rights (and extends those rights to every individual regardless of color) is so old fashioned, so ancient that it exposes this person as one without knowledge of the historical and moral significance of the society in which he lives. To pit one’s “group” against society is a declaration of war against freedom, individual rights and due process of law. It declares animosity against some of the most advanced and civilized, even the most benign, ideas ever invented by man and throws society into a perpetual struggle of group against group where the winners become masters and the losers become slaves. And another quote:

"To avoid being mistaken for a white sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy."

In short, he chose his friends by whether they were collectivists or not. He took a decidedly Marxist orientation and strove to ensure that anyone who knew him saw him as an opponent of everything that America stood for. America was capitalist; he saw capitalism as an enemy of his collective. America was based upon individual rights; he saw individual rights not as a liberating concept, a general principle that applied in all political and moral contexts, but as responsible for oppression.

And this is the key to what collectivists want to propagate; the idea that freedom is the bringer of dictatorship because it allows some people, those with money, white people, to enslave and dominate other collectives. The truth, the missing truth, is that capitalism does no such thing; capitalism is about individuals and their freedom to create; capitalism gives them an even playing field and those who understand the nature of capitalism also understand that they are free to create products (in free exchange) that make the lives of people better.

Collectivists create an inversion of values through their anti-capitalist propaganda; they invented the myth of class (collective) warfare. Once they established this collectivist myth in the universities, society became a war and this war liberated the most brutal of thugs who pretended to be the defenders of collectives and haters of capitalism. And once they established a collectivist base, it was an easy step to the principle of racial war where races replaced classes. This created the deadly groundwork for the next lethal inversion, the idea that it was the responsibility of the productive, the white people in this scheme, to take care of their invented collective victims. The truth is that tribalism leads to collectivism and collectivism leads to altruism which leads to forced altruism which leads to enslavement and dictatorship...genocide, concentration camps and mass graves. That is the legacy of collectivism not the legacy of capitalism.

There is only one way to eliminate racism in society and that is by eliminating the thinking that creates it. The basic premise of racism is collectivism and as long as collectivism is dominant in our society, particularly among intellectuals on the left and the right; and especially among the people who are considered victims of racism, we will not be rid of this virulent idea. You can bet that the left doesn’t want to be rid of it under any circumstances.

To understand what the left is doing in crying wolf about racism, one must understand that the only way to stop racism is to educate people about the evil of collectivism. But the left does not do this; it is collectivism that the left fosters; it suggests to minority groups that they should stick together to fight against capitalism; it suggests that the “fight” against racism is not merely economic, but moral and economic, that the only emotion to feel about capitalism is outrage, and that capitalism deserves sabotage and tearing down. With this foundation, any outrageous act is justified and any act of civility is a show of weakness. The solution is to enslave the capitalists, to kill them, to imprison them and to parade them in chains as examples of the worst among mankind. I submit that this is the exact opposite of the truth; leftist intellectuals and politicians are the wolves crying wolf.

No leftist countenances individuals to become more productive. This would be working according to the “white man’s” rules. Production, education, hard work? That’s the stuff of Uncle Toms’. Hatred and anger at the “white” collective has become hatred and violence toward companies and the entire capitalist system, such as it is. Only collectivism could countenance violence, protests, riots and murder of people who are part of a system that enables men, all men, to survive in peace through mutual cooperation.

You can see how far down the left has taken society by reading an excellent article written by Economist Walter Williams. In it, Professor Williams informs us of how racist some collectivist groups have become:

“Last year, four black Skidmore College students yelled racial slurs while they beat up a white man because he was dining with a black man. Skidmore College's first response was to offer counseling to one of the black students charged with the crime. In 2009, a black Columbia University professor assaulted a white woman during a heated argument about race relations. According to interviews and court records obtained and reported by Denver's ABC affiliate (12/4/2009), black gangs roamed downtown Denver verbally venting their hatred for white victims before assaulting and robbing them during a four-month crime wave. Earlier this year, two black girls beat a white girl at a McDonald's, and the victim suffered a seizure. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered an emergency shutdown of the beaches in Chicago because mobs of blacks were terrorizing families. According to the NBC affiliate there (6/8/2011), a gang of black teens stormed a city bus, attacked white victims and ran off with their belongings.

Racist black attacks are not only against whites but also against Asians.

In San Francisco, five blacks beat an 83-year-old Chinese man to death. They threw a 57-year-old woman off a train platform. Two black Oakland teenagers assaulted a 59-year-old Chinese man; the punching knocked him to the ground, killing him. At Philly's South Philadelphia High School, Asian students report that black students routinely pelt them with food and beat, punch and kick them in school hallways and bathrooms as they hurl racial epithets such as "Hey, Chinese!" and "Yo, Dragon Ball!" The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund charged the School District of Philadelphia with "deliberate indifference" toward black victimization of Asian students.

In many of these brutal attacks, the news media make no mention of the race of the perpetrators. If it were white racist gangs randomly attacking blacks, the mainstream media would have no hesitation reporting the race of the perps. Editors for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune admitted to deliberately censoring information about black crime for political reasons. Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern recently said that the paper's reason for censorship was to "guard against subjecting an entire group of people to suspicion."

These racist attacks can, at least in part, be attributed to the black elite, who have a vested interest in racial paranoia. And that includes a president who has spent years aligned with people who have promoted racial grievance and polarization and appointed an attorney general who's accused us of being "a nation of cowards" on matters of race and has refused to prosecute black thugs who gathered at a Philadelphia voting site in blatant violation of federal voter intimidation laws. Tragically, black youngsters — who are seething with resentments, refusing to accept educational and other opportunities unknown to blacks yesteryear — will turn out to be the larger victims in the long run.”(2)

Professor Williams, however, misses the real point. The political elite want racist attacks to take place in order to engender fear and cowering, as well as acquiescence to leftist political programs, not because they want to make society better but because they want power. They don’t want people to know that this racist anger could not exist in a society that rejects collectivism and altruism. These thugs could not kill and rob innocent citizens without the idea that a collective must fight other collectives. And without the idea that "man is his brother's keeper", they would not be able to muster the moral outrage that justifies open hatred toward whites. Whites are selfish, they make money, they dress well, they educate themselves, they speak clearly, they work within the system and this means they exploit the poor. This racism toward whites could not exist without the idea of altruism. And most importantly, they would not be able to target and hate capitalism were it not for the fact that capitalism is about individuals acheiving their own success...which every collectivist group considers to be evil. Altruists and collectivists (racists) must destroy capitalism because capitalism is the one system that enables the individual to succeed in life.

The left wants to destroy all values because values, and this is something the conservatives have missed too, are what capitalism is about…creating them, trading them and thereby making better lives. If people of different colors decide they want better lives through productive jobs rather than re-distribution, then it would be the end of the left’s political life.

What is the left’s strategy? Rand said it again:

“The inversion of all standards—the propagation of racism as anti-racist, of injustice as just, of immorality as moral, and the reasoning behind it, which is worse than the offenses—is flagrantly evident in the policy of preferential treatment for minorities (i.e., racial quotas) in employment and education. If there is a quicker way to destroy people than by preaching brotherly love while spreading blind, inter-racial hatred, you name it.”(3)

Capitalism requires people of quality, individuals with their own minds. Collectivism requires unquestioning conformity. Capitalism requires production of values, collectivism requires destruction of values. Capitalism requires individualism. Collectivism requires uniformity in looks, habits, speech and victimhood. Capitalism requires the desire to survive and be happy; collectivism requires envy, hatred and the desire to destroy the values created by capitalism…those values are reason, clear thinking, morality, productive activity, workers, engineers, factories, machines, banks and the products that improve peoples’ lives. Collectivists can’t stand to compare socialism to capitalism…so they lie, discriminate against individuals, beat, bomb and destroy in order to keep people from discovering that capitalism is the only system that means life for people of all colors. Capitalism would destroy racism and the racist collectivists in power today can’t allow that.

The leftist scheme of fostering collectivism, altruism and force against individuals is a house of cards. All one has to do is remove the collectivist base and the left can no longer justify the altruist "solution" of re-distribution, violence and forced theft.

Each of us is an individual and we don't like being defined and herded like cattle. The President insists on deciding who we are but it is a definition based on collectivism and altruism. That is not what built this nation and it is not who we are. When he implies through his books and speeches, as he did yesterday in his press conference(June 29, 2011), that collectivism and altruism are the correct solutions, and that we should each sacrifice so that he can spend incessantly, I say I understand what you are saying, Mr. President. You want to make us into slaves. Apparently, you don't realize that your version of morality is corrupt and it doesn't work, just as your deficit spending these last two years has not worked. I say, check your premises, Mr. President. You can solve all the problems of this country by leaving us alone - not by spending like there is no tomorrow.

(1)Ayn Rand, The Return of the Primitive (Racism)
(2)http://www.creators.com/conservative/walter-williams.html
(3)The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. III, No. 14 April 8, 1974 Moral Inflation--Part III

Note: All other quotes are taken from Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama

Are Americans Empty?

2011-06-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

We’ve heard this before: Capitalism has made man into a robot, an unfeeling machine who knows no pleasure and who cares only about work. Capitalism devalues man and turns him into a tool of the capitalists, unrewarded and unthinking.

These criticisms come from progressive thinkers who invent “reasons” to attack capitalism and cause people to hate it. They want to destroy capitalism and if they can convince people that it is evil, they can dismantle it through re-distribution. Why? They know that capitalism helps people individuate and makes them too smart to melt into a collective. Progressives need collectives in order to march men into a future where each sacrifices to all.

Any human being who attacks the capacity of man for enjoyment is a killer; a hater who would slit the throats of millions of people with his own hand. He is the equivalent of men in history who killed dissent. Anyone who criticizes capitalism is just as evil as the murderous mass killer because of the good that he forbids to come into existence and the lies he tells young people; lies that send them on paths of self-destruction and revolution against the most civilized and benign economic system in history.

Progressives need to make sure that people never realize that capitalism is about values; that capitalism releases man to trade value for value. They want to make sure you never understand the nature of capitalism and the freedom that it creates. They don’t want you to know that capitalism is the most profound and spiritual economic system ever created. So they denigrate the values created by capitalism and the spiritual, valuing nature that is released by it. Progressives need to destroy values in order to win by default as proponents of the only non-value that they advocate: sacrifice. So they denigrate the individual mind, individual choice, individual pleasure, enjoyment and especially pride and self-respect. Any human trait that creates values is ridiculed, especially those that bring about human convenience, enjoyment and self-understanding.

I don't agree that Americans are empty. On the contrary they are free to make of themselves what they like and this requires self-confidence and an ability to stand alone. The reason that progressives criticize Americans for being "empty" is that many Americans are not about sacrificing their minds and dreams for the sake of progressive goals. Therefore, since Americans live for themselves, to the progressive, they must be empty. But Progressives don't recognize, nor do they honor the fact that freedom makes it possible for Americans to specialize in areas that relate to their working lives. Since Americans are able to develop their knowledge into specialized areas, this creates a situation where they do not "know" a lot of things the progressives think they should know such as their duty to sacrifice for the collective. But they do know lots of things that relate more deeply to their individual lives.

Specialization requires that the individual develop his mind in the direction of a specific area of knowledge. Progressives want man to think only of the collective and have a "we" philosophy. But specialization is something only an "I", an ego, can accomplish. Because Americans are free, they can do whatever they choose to do as long as it is peaceful. And this is the reason progressives think Americans are empty. In fact, it is progressives who are empty because they can think of no moral principle but one: sacrifice to the collective--one of the worst and most deadly ideas in history.

Helping the Poor

2011-06-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

“I think he is a good man.” This was said about President Obama by an individual in a Facebook post about Sarah Palin. He explained that we should consider all opinions about Sarah Palin and keep an open mind about whether she was good enough to be President but that it was indisputable that President Obama is a good man.

Why would anyone consider that President Obama is a good man in a world run by realpolitik, corruption and crony capitalism (fascism)? Obviously, it must be because the President has his heart in the right place. He's just trying to help people, especially the poor and other victims of greed and self-interest. He's just trying to make the world a better place. Anyone with those goals in mind must be a good man.

My response:
“Do you mean that there are still people out there capable of hiding their heads in the sand? "Good man" in what respect? In the desire to take peoples' money away from them and spend it by giving it to his liberal friends and set the foundation for a society that rules our lives as in a dictatorship? Good in the sense that he has no problem using your money to feed his friends? What is your definition of "good"? A thief?”

Of course, I got no answer to my question; just the following:

“I will never understand why helping the poor is so hard for some people.”

There you have it. I’m sure this person is no pol, no lurker paid by the administration to frustrate the Tea Party. He’s probably just an average person with a dishonest mind who sees no problem with re-distributing other peoples’ money. What a nice guy.

Do you understand what he is saying? He has no problem with people taking your money. Well, that's nice of him. He has no problem with making sure that the rich pay “their fair share” as if there is such a thing as a fair share. When it comes to your hard earned money, there is no fair; there is no share; your money is yours to do with as you please; you have no obligation to do what someone else thinks you should do with your money. Yet, this is what goes for an irrefutable argument with the left and the right today. Demand that someone has a duty to give up his money and somehow there is moral power there. I beg to differ.

But what is a worse scandal than the left making these spurious demands is that the right has no argument against it. They simply say, well, you shouldn’t take so much. Here’s my response:

I don't mind helping the poor. I do it when I give them jobs. If I want to donate to them it should be voluntary and not forced through government. What he is really saying is that he doesn't understand why I would protest about having my money taken from me by force. You see, I DO understand THE REAL ISSUE; my individual right to my income should not be violated by anyone even if it would help someone (which it won’t). The idea that theft is being undertaken in order to help someone does not keep the thief out of jail. Why should it justify the state’s confiscation of property or taxes?

There is no social compact, no obligation upon anyone to sacrifice life, time, energy or money at the point of a gun or a law. There is no argument based on reality that can properly justify one man being forced to do anything against his will. It is a proper society that recognizes man's rights and creates freedom. It is a proper society that recognizes that man survives by means of his mind and that any effort to force him to do anything violates his right to the use of his mind and to make his own decisions. Force destroys reason; it invalidates any reason that the individual would have for the pursuit of his values, his life and his pleasures.

Whenever you hear someone say, "I have no problem" about using other peoples' money to solve so-called problems, you are hearing the voice of arrogance and collectivism. Collectivism is not a benign idea that asks people to join in order to solve a common problem. If collectivists were to merely ask people to join, any decision to join would be a voluntary one. Collectivism does not ask; collectivism demands and takes; and in order to take, it must denigrate and insult anyone who dissents. This is why they are always making statements such as: “I will never understand why helping the poor is so hard for some people.”

Look at all the collectivist societies in history and you'll see two related themes, guns pointed at honest citizens and mass graves. This is the collectivism that promises to solve problems. Yet what most people miss is that collectivism is the method for causing the problems the collectivists claim to be fixing. Collectivism creates the poverty it promises to solve and then offers more collectivism and more sacrifice as the solution to new problems it creates.

Today, we are moving headlong into collectivism. Our President admonishes us about private choices and promises to solve "our" collective problem if we would only take on "the spirit of sacrifice". Yet, the economic problems that he blames on capitalism are caused by his own collectivist policies, by the very "spirit of sacrifice" that he offers as the solution. For that reason he should be removed from office in the next election.

This is a nation based on rights and your right to your property should not be violated. Collectivism can only violate rights; it never protects them and it never solves problems. It is immoral for the thief and the government to take your money against your will. It was the Nazis who sent Jews into mass graves because they were considered selfish capitalists who had caused the defeat of Germany in World War 1. It was Stalin who sent businessmen into mass graves because they would not help the poor under his murderous form of welfare state.

It is attitudes that bring people to say "I don't know why you don't want to help the poor" that create those mass graves or destroy peoples' lives slowly by means of bleeding men to death. It is Obama and his policies that are bleeding this country dry because he has support from people who see no problem with forcing others to help the poor (while making a whole nation poor in the process).

Is it that hard for people to understand that no one is being helped through re-distribution especially the poor? Don’t they see that altruism demands that people sacrifice; and that the idea of sacrifice creates the political climate where some people HAVE NO PROBLEM with forcing other people to part with their life blood? It doesn't matter if the sacrifice is the life of the most beautiful virgin or the most productive citizen; it is evil either way. Only thinking men can stop the propagation of ancient ritual sacrifice and the death that it has done for centuries.

Why can’t people see that no one has a right to think it is ok for someone to take YOUR money?. What gives ANYONE the right to be so shallow about YOUR earnings and their use? No one has that right and only an arrogant person/leftist could think he has that right. He did not earn it and no one should vote on what should be done with another person’s earnings.

Republicans should stop agreeing with the liberals on this point and this goes for the Republicans trying to save Medicare and Social Security. They are nothing more than welfare statists; thieves who pretend to themselves that force and coercion can help someone.

"Generation We"

2011-05-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

If you’ve seen this video,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vknHKTy1MLY&feature=youtu.be

you may have been inspired by its message. Isn’t it great that “Generation We” has learned to take responsibility, unlike their parents who were a bunch of selfish brutes? Isn’t it inspiring to see our young people planning on using government the right way to make the world a better place? Will they make history? You bet.

"Generation We” is about everyone getting together, it is about collecting human souls and human energy; about every individual sacrificing for the sake of the world. They congratulate themselves for being the first generation to “get it”, to understand that for the first time, they are going to take socialism seriously and really make it happen. It is time to stop exploitation and start sacrificing, they tell themselves. What a noble ideal! Only if you are “Generation We” are you wise enough to know better than your parents, wise enough to know that it is about time that "we" got serious about making a better world through universal sacrifice of all too all. How revolutionary! How new! How totally brilliant you are! Why didn't my generation think of that?

Do you know that you have swallowed the tripe preached by your teachers and that you’ve accepted it without question? Your teachers did not tell you the whole story; they forgot to tell you about the consequences of demanding, at the point of a gun, that people sacrifice. They forgot to tell you about the very real consequences that happened every time collectivism (We-ism) has been tried in the past.

Why haven’t your teachers told you the whole story? If they had told you, then they wouldn’t have been able to create “Generation We” out of you. You see, your teachers are from my generation and I know that they know that collectivism has always failed. What does that make of you? Something special? No, it makes you a dupe who will follow the collectivists from my generation into oblivion…literally. It makes you into a robot unable and unwilling to originate a single individual thought with your own mind. No one really thinks that you came up with this "Generation We" idea all by yourselves. It sounds so much like my generation, so Madison Avenue, so focus grouped, so communistic, so 60s radicals, so Soviet, you know, my generation...the generation too stupid to "get it".

Collectivism has never ended well throughout history and yet our young people think that, somehow, this time, "we" will solve all the world’s problems. What they don’t know is that collectivism has been tried before. Yes, it has been tried by other generations who thought they were "Generation We". The skulls of their victims have been buried for decades now.

Today’s children don’t realize that the answer to the world’s problems was discovered with the Founding of our nation; through the principle that the government should not force people into herds of unthinking fools who do only what they are told. "Generation We” foolishly thinks that the answer to the world’s problems is for a supposedly benign government to forcibly ensure that everyone sacrifices for the collective. They fall for the lies about collective duty, about “giving back”, about loving mankind, about helping the poor, about helping the planet, about destroying capitalism - and they don’t realize that their teachers are nothing but nihilists bent on destruction of the only truly great nation in history, the first nation of free people whose once capitalist nation gives them one of the highest standards of living in history. They've swallowed the tripe that capitalism is evil and must be destroyed. And they don't realize that once capitalism is destroyed, so will that standard of living be destroyed. So Righteous they are in "Generation We". For them, the good society comes with poverty, starvation and slave labor.

"Generation We" doesn't realize that collectivism is the cause of slavery and that collectivism always requires that someone be forced to produce the wealth that is to be re-distributed. They always ignore the question that asks them what happens when the sacrificers refuse to have their energy drained from their bodies with no reward? What happens when people are forced to work for others and wind up starving too? The answer is that those who refuse to sacrifice must be punished, ostracized, killed or enslaved. In response, ”Generation We" self-righteously says that they don’t care about the rich, the able, the strong…they only care about the weak. There! There! There is the secret that they refuse to face: they don’t care about other human beings.

That is the flaw in the collectivist “Generation We”. They profess to love mankind but ignore the fact that they love only part of mankind – the rest of mankind, the strong part, is to be enslaved and vilified and killed. They ignore the fact that their philosophy of collective sacrifice intends to destroy men as a matter of course. And they refuse to acknowledge that they don’t really love the weak…they profess that love only because it gives them a “reason” and an excuse for hating the strong.

What is the outcome of thinking like "Generation We”, those strong, intelligent, better-educated-than-their-parents young people? Read the history of a past “Generation We” that was also unaware that their attitude destroyed Soviet Russia and other countries.

"Generation We" will destroy more nations, kill more people and leave a trail of destruction like none ever seen before—because they have swallowed the lies of anti-capitalism. Any generation of people who thinks capitalism is the world's worst problem is destined to destroy capitalists...people trying to survive by trade. It starts with anti-capitalism as in Soviet Russia, Communist China, Nazi Germany, Cuba, Venezuela... and many more nations, and it ends in concentration camps and mass graves...every time. If you think your love for humanity will not allow slavery and imprisonment of innocent people, remember, Stalin and Mao were considered humanitarians during their lifetimes and they killed millions...of capitalist "traitors". Even Che, that hero of humanitarianism, had no problem summarily executing former capitalists in Cuba - that means without trial.

Remember that when you declare that all we have to do is “get together”. Collectivism, your "Generation We" philosophy, is the starting point for destruction...every single time. So take a lesson, young people, because when "we", your parents and grandparents, are gone, you'll be on your own to learn the consequences of your ideas. Yes, you are going to make history...bloody history.

Learn the lesson now before you find yourself in a mass grave.

We Did It!

2011-04-15T17:57:00.001-07:00

I remember the first time I read Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged. Fort Gordon, GA; I was eighteen years old, waiting for orders to tell me where I would spend my Army tour of duty. It was 1968, November. I had been drafted into the military during the Vietnam era and was away from my family for the first time. I did not know what the future held, but I had two weeks and nothing to do but wait, so I went to a bookstore and bought the paperback version of the novel.

I was already familiar with Rand’s work. She had been recommended to me by a student from Butler University who responded to my question: “Who is the greatest philosopher in history?” His answer: Ayn Rand.

Because of this recommendation, I soon read Rand's book, “The Virtue of Selfishness” which had found a home in my dufflebag along with a notebook that I used to plan my life; a life inspired by the ideas in this book.

In spite of my Catholic upbringing, Ayn Rand had taught me to question everything. My parish priests had tired of me years before and told me to stop asking questions in front of other students.

What struck me about "Atlas Shrugged" is that it contained real ideas, not the mish mash of unintelligibility that I had found with Russell and Hume. I was inspired by the heroic characters that acted in the real world and did things of monumental importance; I liked their courage, their depth of knowledge and their ability to live without guilt and sacrifice. It was a different universe, a universe that said you can accomplish anything if you use your mind; live with integrity and stand on your convictions. It changed my life and started a new path for me, with new values and intellectual foundation. It provided me with a life time worth of moral fuel.

Now that I’ve seen the movie, “Atlas Shrugged Part 1,” I’ve been thinking again about how much the novel changed my life and I’m hoping that many young people will be equally impressed after watching the characters on the screen. Now there is a visual, artistic representation of the story, a circumstance that has not existed until now. The impressive characters are on display, not just on paper, but on the movie screen.

I think we don't yet know the impact of it. I'm sure the haters will hate even more and there will be many who will say the characters are cutouts and that people like that don’t exist. I’ve heard it all my life and it doesn’t phase me. Ayn Rand taught me to question everything, especially those with opinions they can’t support.

Now the average person will be able to judge for him or herself. Now, more people will see into the world of "Atlas Shrugged" and hopefully want to read the full story in the novel. I hope the movie will do for the world what other great movies have done, create its own culture, its own terminology and draw people into a new vision of man as a hero.

I was overwhelmed when I realized that this movie, low budget and flawed as it is, came about in my lifetime, in my world. And I was pleasantly surprised when I heard Dagny tell Rearden, after the successful run of the John Galt line, "We did it." Yes, they did it, they accomplished their vision, their goal. They had succeeded.

These words struck me because, just yesterday, I watched a "youTube" video with photos and music from the movie; the last picture in the video was of Taylor Schilling (Dagny) smiling and holding the wooden slats they use to mark the beginning of a scene, and I thought she must be saying, "We did it." What a coincidence. That's how I felt about the movie: We did it. Atlas Shrugged is now a movie.

I saw the performance with my daughter Dagny and it was touching to hear her name being used on the screen...and represented by an actress who looked and acted like I had always pictured Dagny Taggart. Her strength and perseverance will appeal to young women for generations. Now they know it is possible for a woman to run a railroad. And I’m proud of how hard my daughter works to accomplish her college degrees. I recall, the day she got her Bachelors Degree. She looked at me and said, "Thanks, Dad. You did it." Yes, she did.

At the theater, I noticed a couple walking in; a very old lady, being assisted by a man 20 years her junior...and it occurred to me that she must be in her late nineties, almost decrepit and barely able to walk. I watched her as she slowly inched toward a seat. I wondered what her life had been, why she had insisted on making this effort to see this movie...it made me think, in a sense, she represented the late Ayn Rand. So wise, so perceptive, so certain that she is right; so convinced that the world needs a vision of the heroic, so willing to spend some of her last energy to see this movie.

I admired that elderly lady for making such an effort. She is a hero too. She did it...and so did Ayn Rand.

Thanks, Ms. Rand for giving so many the fuel to live an inspired life.

You did it.