Why does the Left hate the Tea Party protesters? Why do they call these protesters fascists, racists, violent people and tea baggers (a sexual slur)? How is it that they are able to get away with these spurious insults when, in another time and place, they would be the first to protest such insults made by others? I think it is very simple. The Left is using the same thought process against Tea Partiers that racists use against other groups. Notice, I did not call the left racist. I am not “name-calling”. I said they are using the same thought process as racism. Let me explain.
Consider what real racism consists of. Racism is the idea that individuals with certain physical characteristics also contain “racial characteristics” such as ignorance, stupidity or inferiority. It is the practice of assigning negative “markers” to groups of people that are seen as threats or otherwise hated.
Racism is a type of discrimination that has exactly the same motive and result as does the attitude of the left toward the Tea Party people. To the leftists, the Tea Party people are the new inferior "breed", the people who deserve ridicule and exclusion from society because they are a threat to the "Master" establishment. Their collective markers are the characteristics that the leftists invent in order to insult them; such as uneducated, Astroturf, racist, bigots, etc. Indeed, the left’s discrimination toward the Tea Party protesters has the same motive, the same method, the same hatred, the same unfairness, the same collectivism, the same insults and the same results...which are isolation, unpopularity and exclusion: in a word, it is the same thought process as racism.
What is the connection between racist Dixiecrats and today’s left? Both groups think in terms of collectives, not individuals. The only difference between the two is that the hated collective for the left, the new hated “race” is made up of individuals in the Tea Party Movement.
In ridiculing the Tea Party Movement, the left is looking for a scapegoat to blame for its own mistakes. Leftists today lead a very precarious existence for several reasons. Their government solutions are not working. The jobs bill has failed, the American people do not support the Health Care bill, and their poll numbers keep going down…but worst of all those Tea Party people keep raising issues for which the left has no answer. Tea Partiers tell us that the left does not deserve the moral upper hand that it assumes for itself. The Tea Partiers say that the left’s coercive activities violate the Constitution. Such criticisms are so alien to their thought process and, frankly, they didn’t expect to be opposed on such grounds. So they call such arguments reactionary, fascist and right wing.
But that doesn’t help their insecurity. The Tea Party people won't stop saying that it was the progressives who caused the financial collapse, not capitalism. They say that socialism has failed due to the Community Reinvestment Act (that caused faulty loans to be approved) and the Federal Reserve (that caused the housing bubble). In fact, the Tea Party people insist that the sub prime financial debacle was a direct result of the left’s re-distribution schemes not the fault of a free market.
But there is a more important issue that encourages massive discrimination against people in the Tea Party Movement. It is not only that the Tea Party people stand opposed to the loss of their individual rights, certainly this is true, but consider the tremendous amount of power and money that the progressives and their oligarchic friends stand to lose if they are defeated politically. Though they know they will rule over a diminished economy, it is still a huge economy made up of some of the most talented and productive people in the world – and what is most disheartening for the left is that those very productive people are, in large measure, in the Tea Party...and they don't like the idea of being enslaved.
Think about how this complicates their new form of “political” profiling (as opposed to racial profiling) and how they define the enemies of society; not only does the American public not want the left's massive programs that are intended to benefit and enrich politicians and oligarchs; but the left has spent decades of taxpayer money concocting huge problems such as CO2 emissions, insurance company profits and financial “greed” in order to ‘sell’ their re-distribution scams; not only have they invested huge sums of their own money (that they made from selling short in the stock market) but they've also invested stolen money from government grants and other boondoggles, and, after all of that investment, they may not be able to enrich themselves after all. Can you feel the anger building?
If anything will generate hate among looters and plunderers it is the tremendous problem created when the very productive people who are being looted do not buy into the “sacrifice” scam. This means huge losses to the leftists. Do you wonder why they are passing their legislation in spite of the opposition of the American people? Do you wonder why they are verbally attacking the Tea Parties? They must engage in massive amounts of vitriol and hatred because there is too much on the line…so much that, well, there are going to be some very unhappy "investors" if the leftist schemes fail - people who don’t like to be disappointed, if you know what I mean.
So, like the Dixiecrats of the old south who once hated and ridiculed Blacks, the left must now accuse the Tea Parties of corrupting social cohesion, because for them it is true, the society they need, a society ripe for exploitation, may not actually be so ripe for exploitation. Those pesky Tea Party people have stood up against their plundering of the American economy.
So now you understand why the left doesn’t argue on issues but instead attacks the opposition with meaningless and pointless insults. That’s all they know because they’ve lost the mantle of morality long ago. Their highest level of morality is plotted across a negative scale consisting of a community organizer who teaches them to use ridicule against their enemies and that the end (theft) justifies the means (corruption); and a politician who schemes against productive businesses for a campaign contribution; or of a union organizer whose thuggish tactics force people to join unions so he can continue to plunder his depleted pension plan; or of a hedge fund manager who organizes a timely flight from the stock market in order to steal the savings of the American people.
I'm certain that I will be accused of gross unfairness in criticizing the corruption of the left while ignoring the "good things" they are trying to do. Some of this criticism will come from the "moderates" of today who think Obama is nothing more than a good guy trying to do the right thing. I think these people have their heads in the sand and, for that very reason, they are the most intolerant of all when it comes to the Tea Parties. These are the "fair minded" people who are "too busy" to pay attention to what is happening in our country and because so they don't know the difference between a Karl Marx and a Thomas Jefferson (and they don't want to know), or a Van Jones and a Glenn Beck; they see the issues as an argument between extreme personalities and nothing more. They think the Tea Party people are too concerned about what Rush Limbaugh says (who is not a Tea Party member) or they think our problem is that we spend too much time watching Fox News. For these people the problems in our nation are caused by people who just "hate" the President, not because he is a radical bent on total domination of their lives but because he is a Democrat (or black). They are missing the point.
They can't conceive of the idea that some Americans oppose the President, not out of hate, but because they understand that re-distribution does not work and never has worked in history. In fact, the true "moderate" today is the person who stands against everything Obama does. This is because everything he does is re-distribution and it is his policies that are at the extreme. There is no malice in recognizing that, and no radicalism, except in the sense that radical thinking is thinking in terms of fundamentals.
I've written before about the fact that the people to whom money is re-distributed by government never spend that money as sensibly as the person who first earns it. And quite often, the earners save that money so it can be invested in businesses and create jobs while government recipients merely spend it on consumption. The same principle applies to the oligarchs who steal the taxpayer's money through the various government/business alliances of the politicians. That money, obtained by corrupt means, will most often be invested in poorly managed factories, hiring unconcerned employees, producing poor quality products that no one wants.
So when someone thinks that the progressives are merely trying to make things better, they betray the fact that they don't think; they are their own worst enemies because they are unable to recognize the fallacies inherent in re-distribution schemes. A good example would be someone who says he has a solution to the financial crisis. We should make banks pay some of their profits into a program that gives loans to poor people so they can buy homes. This would help people and improve the economy says the advocate of this scheme. Yet, he ignores the fact that this program caused the financial meltdown in the first place and doing more of it would not improve things but make things worse. The idea of taking money from the owners of productive companies is a violation of their rights and it gives money to people who feel entitled to it but don't have the pride of having earned it. This is the immorality that Obama supporters completely overlook.
Progressives have only one solution to our nation's problems: make productive people pay so others may benefit...and this is the very sort of "solution" that never works - and it causes our nation's problems. It is this sort of solution, and many more like it proposed by the Obama administration (financial regulation, Cap and Trade, Health Care, and more) that are bringing about the biggest looting spree in the history of our country. The real solution offered by the Tea Parties is to stop all of this foolish spending and let the people solve the nation's problems through trade and good business practices. So who's the radical? Who's looking out for the nation? The Tea Party protesters whose opinions the leftists want to silence and ignore.
The Tea Party protesters are being discriminated against unfairly because they are standing on the ramparts to fight for their freedom. These courageous people are the left's new "inferior race" that won't be shoved to the back of the bus by hateful verbal thugs.
What the progressives have failed to understand is that in a free society, every person is an individual and he cannot be looted if he and many others stand up for individual rights. What the left fails to understand is that an educated citizenry is the last stand against thievery and plunder; the Tea Parties are the last hope for civilization.
Will you join us?
Showing posts with label tea parties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tea parties. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Is there a Trojan Horse in the Tea Party Movement?
I’ve enjoyed reading the books of Thomas Sowell for many years. I became aware of him in the late ‘70s when he burst onto the intellectual scene with amazing analyses of economic trends. His defense of free markets is laudable and he has made many unique and perceptive points. Most recently he has written books that have been critical of intellectuals. I just finished his new book that brought home to me the problem for conservatives and, especially, why they have found themselves on the losing end of the political debate.
The book, entitled “Intellectuals and Society” is an excellent examination of progressive intellectuals’ inability to bridge the gap between their elitist ideas and reality. The first few chapters of the book give an excellent overview of the problems that progressive intellectuals create. According to Professor Sowell, intellectuals are wrong about social solutions because they come at problems from a limited elitist perspective that represents only a small percentage of the total knowledge available in society at large.
I find Doctor Sowell’s criticism to be excellent when it comes to analyzing the precarious position of intellectuals who are steeped in specialized knowledge but who have little understanding of the real world. Yet his argument fell apart for me when he compared today’s progressives with today’s conservatives.
“This vision of society, in which there are many “problems” to be “solved” by applying the ideas of morally anointed intellectual elites is by no means the only vision, however much that vision may be prevalent among today’s intellectuals. A conflicting vision has co-existed for centuries—a vision in which the inherent flaws of human beings are the fundamental problem and social contrivances are simply imperfect means of trying to cope with that problem—these imperfections themselves being products of the inherent shortcomings of human beings.”[1]
Professor Sowell takes for himself the position of the conflicting vision. His is “...the tragic vision of the human condition that is very different from the vision of the anointed.”[2] And, indeed, he joins a long tradition of philosophers and intellectuals who have shared that vision of human beings that are inherently flawed. Unfortunately, this vision includes that of the progressives.
You have to ask yourself what is the point of taking the position that man is inherently flawed? Why would conservatives want to start with this premise? And more importantly, why do they think that this position provides a better argument for limited government and capitalism?
As a former Catholic, I am familiar with this view. Man is a sinner who would wreak havoc if left to his own “selfish” devices. His only moral constraint is that given to him by God and the church. According to this view, man must follow the Ten Commandments handed down to him by God through Moses. If men do not follow God’s Commandments, God will punish them on this earth and after death. Men will only do right because of fear of God’s wrath.
Sowell asserts that the vision of contemporary intellectuals (progressives) today is based on an ages old view that sees problems as an outgrowth of social institutions. “In this vision, oppression, poverty, injustice and war are all products of existing institutions—problems whose solutions require changing those institutions, which in turn require changing the ideas behind those institutions.”[3] Is Professor Sowell saying that progressives are wrong because they are right about our social institutions? Are we to assume that progressives’ criticisms of institutions such as capitalism and the church are valid? Is he perhaps giving them too much credit?
In fact, progressives today threaten to destroy the most advanced, the most just and the most affluent civilization in the history of the world because the solutions offered by progressives for the problems of capitalism and the church involve collective coercive remedies that enslave individuals. These solutions are offered because progressives also see man as flawed and incapable of being moral.
Whether you receive your view of man’s nature from Hobbes or Hume, you cannot derive the principles of a free society and the anti-principles of a slave society from the same source, from the view that man is imperfect. The logic of ideas in practice is inexorable; you cannot get around it. If the conservatives and the progressives both have the same basic view of man, the result will be the same.
Yet, the question regarding man’s nature is the foundation upon which all human action must be based. The answer to that question indicates not only how intellectuals think men will act but how governments will treat them. Does man have rights? Is he to be a slave to the needs of others? These questions are important. The only difference between conservatives and progressives is not that progressives see certain institutions as needing change and that conservatives do not; the vital question is "from where does man derive his mandate for moral action?" Political debates and revolutionary change are not about merely changing institutions; they are about understanding man's nature and dealing with him accordingly.
When Barack Obama says he believes in service to the community, working for and dying for others, the conservatives can only say, ‘so do we’. They may counter the progressives with arguments for faith, hope and charity, but the progressives also talk about faith, hope and charity. The dilemma for the conservatives is that they are on the same side as the progressives. They both advocate altruism as their fundamental principle. They have failed to recognize that man’s true nature is not that he is imperfect but that he is a creature of reason, a creature perfectly suited for survival and success. The result: the conservatives have nothing to offer against the views of the progressives.
To continue with Doctor Sowell, “In the tragic vision, barbarism is always waiting in the wings and civilization is simply “a thin crust over a volcano.” (This quote is from Havelock Ellis. The full statement is “All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.”) The metaphor, “a thin crust over a volcano” used to describe the position of civilization versus barbarism is illustrious of the problem that conservatives create for themselves. If civilization is truly a thin crust over a volcano, then what is the point of trying to create a better society? Eventually, the volcano will erupt (into revolution) and destroy that thin layer. If this is our choice, then why should we continue living on that thin crust? Better red than dead. This argument is a prescription for nihilism.
Unfortunately, this is the false alternative that conservatives create for themselves. A “thin crust” versus an inevitable explosion is hardly a choice. When they create such false alternatives based on non-essentials, they end up rationalizing false views and eventually they take the same side as the other haters of man, the progressives. To place one’s enemies, the enemies of freedom, in the position of “a volcano”, means you know they will win.
Is civilization truly “a thin crust over a volcano”? Or are the principles of a proper society based upon something more fundamental in man's nature that must be recognized and accommodated by government; facts and principles that endure and never explode. Shouldn’t we instead strive for a vision of man that will acknowledge his value and thereby help in the creation of a bulwark against the explosion of violence and barbarism? I submit that this bulwark is what the Founders of our nation attempted to create and their vision of man was not at all “tragic”.
“In the tragic vision, social contrivances seek to restrict behavior that leads to unhappiness, even though these restrictions themselves cause a certain amount of unhappiness. It is a vision of trade-offs, rather than solutions, and a vision of wisdom distilled from the experiences of the many rather than the brilliance of a few.”[4]
This means that civilization is nothing more than “social contrivances” designed to restrict immoral living in order to make a trade-off, to create a balance between immorality (selfishness) and self-sacrifice (the good). What is being traded here is your decision to be productive in return for the government getting a piece of your production. Your punishment for committing the crime of surviving is that you have to pay people who cannot survive. Remember, this is the conservative view. And, to prove it, notice that the desire of President Obama to “re-distribute” wealth is considered by the conservatives to be “the brilliance of a few”.
And to prove that they have no understanding of their own position, Doctor Sowell says, “The conflict between these two visions goes back for centuries. Those with the tragic vision and those with the vision of the anointed do not simply happen to differ on a range of policy issues. They necessarily differ, because they are talking about very different worlds which exist inside their minds. Moreover, they are talking about different creatures who inhabit that world, even though both call these creatures human beings, for the nature of those human beings is also fundamentally different as seen in the two visions.”[5]
Professor Sowell does not seem to recognize that both philosophical skeptics and conservative philosophers such as Hobbes and Burke saw man in essentially the same way. They both saw man as incapable of understanding reality, in other words, as imperfect. How can the same basic view of man lead to two different solutions in politics? They can't; progressivism and conservatism are two contrary ideas based on the same premise that will inevitably lead to the same result: enslavement. And this is the danger of accepting the stated goal of conservatives (limited government) without identifying their contradictory premise (that man is flawed) and its inevitable consequence.
The reason the conservatives use non-essentials (tragic vision versus anointed vision) in separating conservatives from progressives is that they must evade the hidden motive of the conservative vision. I doubt that Professor Sowell and other conservatives know that their argument on the issue of man’s nature is weak and I doubt that they have an ulterior motive. I think they truly want freedom, but even they cannot escape the logical consequences of their arguments. The truth is that their view of man is a false attack on him and it implies government action against him that would control his individual moral choices. The real goal of religious conservatives, since our founding as a nation, has been to make room for faith in a world that is constantly being transformed by the power of reason. Politically that goal can only be accomplished by authoritarian theocracy.
Since religious conservatives want to restrict what they consider to be immoral acts, their advocacy of capitalism necessarily leaves much to be desired. The conflict takes place when you attempt to graft the control of immoral acts (determined by God in the Bible) on a system that is based on the individual's right to decide for himself what is moral action. What the conservative considers to be immoral and selfish may actually be moral and life-serving when viewed from the perspective of the individual and his life. Where does that leave capitalism and man's rights? Economic conservatives therefore must avoid discussions of morality and stick religiously to economic statistics and the cause-and-effect consequences of central planning. It also takes some of them to pragmatism, realpolitik, neo-conservatism and, you guessed it, the inevitability of progressivism (the old "thin crust of the volcano").
In fact, the conservatives have managed to proclaim the superiority of their own stated enemies. “The two visions differ fundamentally, not only in how they see the world but also in how those who believe in these visions see themselves. If you happen to believe in free markets, judicial restraint, traditional values and other features of the tragic vision, then you are just someone who believes in free markets, judicial restraint and traditional values. There is no personal exaltation resulting from those beliefs. But to be for “social justice” and “saving the environment,” or to be “anti-war” is more than just a set of beliefs about empirical facts. This vision puts you on a higher moral plane as someone concerned and compassionate, someone who is for peace in the world, a defender of the downtrodden, and someone who wants to preserve the beauty of nature and save the planet from (pollution). In short, one vision makes you somebody special and the other vision does not. These visions are not symmetrical.”[6] In short, progressives are good and conservatives are evil. (parentheses mine)
Why aren’t conservatives good?
“They favor capitalism and self-interest”, say the progressives.
“No we don’t” say the conservatives. “We want capitalism because we believe that it is the best way to achieve “the highest good.” We're just like you.”
“How is that possible? Isn’t capitalism about greedy acquisition and theft from the poor?” ask the progressives.
“Yes, it is,” say the conservatives. “But we can control that through regulations and Antitrust. We just want to manipulate the market so it can achieve “the highest good.””
“So do we,” say the progressives. “That’s why we want to re-distribute wealth.”
“But that will create distortions in the marketplace. We don’t want any distortions, do we?”
“See,” say the progressives. "You really don’t mean what you say. You are really just working for those greedy capitalists.”
This is called “the moral argument” and it is based on the premise that all human action should be without self-interest; that it should be “for others”. The conservatives have no answer except to say they agree; they just want to accomplish social well being in a different way, a way that works.
“Trickle down,” say the progressives. “Capitalism has failed. We’ve got a better way. Let’s just take the money.”
The problem for the conservatives is that pesky little word “self-interest”. Because of their altruistic (utilitarian) premises, they just can’t get around the idea that capitalism is really about self-interest. They wish that it weren’t so.
"But the Founders established our traditions and those are good, aren't they?"
The progressives just chuckle at the hypocrisy.
Indeed, self-interest is a pretty bad motivation if you believe that man's duty is to sacrifice for others. The conservatives are stuck with the contradiction. And the dubious utilitarian argument just doesn’t seem to work when you’ve got those left-wing protesters out on the streets in front of television cameras complaining about greed and riches and theft and MONEY, even wild parties and lots of sex too. Once you lay that guilt trip on them, conservatives shut up and vote the way the progressives want.
The progressives have been successful in manipulating the conservatives into being the agents of “self-interest”. Not only have they painted the conservatives into the corner as stealthy advocates of it, but they are also the teachers who have put the proverbial dunce caps on them as well. The conservatives simply cannot get out of that corner until they learn to claim the moral high ground. They are evading the moral arguments for capitalism, the very arguments that hard working Americans in the Tea Party Movement would champion and support. These are the arguments that they need if they are to establish the moral fervor necessary to withstand the same progressive arguments that have silenced the conservatives for so long - and that make the conservatives into weaklings hardly worth getting out of bed to vote for.
How do they find that moral high ground? You might be surprised to hear that they can't do it by quoting God at every turn. No voter is going to get excited about "moral contrivances" designed to restrict immoral actions. Voters are only going to get excited about a bright new future that liberates men to solve their own problems through hard work and that protects their earnings from thieves who call themselves representatives of the people. They will only get excited about the possibility of working hard and keeping their earnings so they can benefit themselves (and their families). They need a "selfish" reason to vote.
They have to reject the view that man’s nature is part of any “tragic” vision. They must stop focusing their arguments on the idea that man is fallible, that he can only survive by sacrificing for others; they must stop implying that men will always make the wrong moral decisions and that government is there to hold him back. These arguments do not justify freedom; they justify coercion against individuals. Under this view, choosing to live, to create values, to trade values, to organize companies, to be productive, to think, to produce, to make a (huge) profit, to flourish and to enjoy life are all immoral decisions. Conservatives must learn to embrace morality by embracing the pursuit of happiness and by being guiltlessly proud of it. It is not a sin to declare that man is a creature with the ability to reason, to choose and to enjoy life.
As I wrote in my recent blog, “The Immoral Roots of Anti-capitalism”, “Altruism is not the moral base of a capitalist system. We can’t have a successful capitalist system if we just want to help people. Capitalism requires an independent mind. We must want men to be successful, we must know that it requires work, we must honor the independent mind and we must give credit where credit is due. Altruism requires a mind ruled by the edicts of superiors and it tells man that to be moral he only needs to follow the easiest path of all: the road that preaches sacrifice as virtue. Capitalism requires integrity. Altruism requires that man fight his bodily nature with his spiritual self-sacrificial code. Capitalism requires honesty. Altruism requires that one deceive one's own mind. Capitalism requires justice. Altruism requires that justice be suspended among men, that men do society's work by being unjust towards those who refuse to sacrifice. Capitalism requires productiveness. Altruism requires that the productive are not as important as those who give away the confiscated money of the productive. Capitalism requires pride. Altruism requires both humility in some men and pretentiousness in others. Capitalism requires principled action based on abstract concepts that are tied to reality. Altruism requires Kantian mush, vague, disconnected equivocation, switching contexts, unintelligibility, one reality that is inaccessible by the mind and a second mental universe that is incompetent. Capitalism is a challenge to the individual and it demands his best effort. Altruism demands only envy and hatred of capitalism.”
The Founders understood that man should be free to make a better life. They knew that he can only do so by identifying reality, understanding what is in his best interest, knowing or discovering how to achieve it and then taking action. They understood that man was good because they had themselves achieved success in life by means of study, practical action and reason. This is the source of our “rugged individualism”; the source of a unique image of a man with the self-confidence and the ability to survive in the wilderness. “Daniel Boone was a man!” This is why they based our society upon the principles of “life, liberty and the pursuit happiness”. This is why they limited the power of government to violate those rights.
The Founders understood that freedom makes possible the unhindered pursuit of values. And in order to produce values, a man must have the ability to identify what values are, what human purposes they achieve and not only how to create them but also how to price them, deliver them and discuss their features and benefits in terms of value for the purchaser. A value can only be created as an outgrowth of a rational process, a thinking process that identifies what is in the maker's and the buyer's mutual self-interest.
Values must be proudly selfish because their creation depends upon a person’s choice, and in order for you to choose a life-enhancing value, it must first be validated by a process of reason that justifies it in terms of benefit to the life of the valuer. There is no other way to think about values. Conservatives will never argue for capitalism on this basis and this is why you see Professor Sowell attempting to explain the differences between conservatives and progressives on grounds other than an individual’s moral right to the pursuit of his own, individual happiness.
Contrast the politician of today with an architect such as Frank Lloyd Wright and you will see the difference between a valuer and a nihilist. Wright and his designs are pro-man, pro-life, pro-value. The architect expressed his love of life and of values by means of manipulating natural resources to express in his buildings a concept of priceless utility combined with ultimate beauty and the enjoyment of both. The designs of his buildings expressed so much more than just lines and corners; they expressed the beauty of nature, the organization of natural resources and the feelings of comfort and relaxation. The emphasis on values is so implicit yet so real that you must grow intellectually in order to comprehend the beauty within the mind of the architect. He brings you to a new evaluation of man and all that is possible through him. This is what America and American business is all about, this love of values, this moral high ground, not the sleazy smile of a person who has done nothing notable except write grants for non-profit (and unprofitable) organizations, write books about nothing that he has done and became famous for writing books about nothing that he has done. Contrast a Wright with an Obama and you’ll see the difference between a person who creates values and one who re-distributes them. One is a businessman who creates life as a natural outgrowth of loving life and the other creates poverty through flim flam and manipulation. One inspires the upward glance; the other inspires the glance of hatred and envy aimed at any man with a mind.
This refusal by the conservatives to defend capitalism on proper moral grounds has created a situation where there is no opposition to the progressives; and it opens the door to the vilest forms of nihilism. At every turn, President Obama destroys values. Whether it is American free enterprise, the sacredness of contract, the rewarding of failure, the bailouts, the dismissing of our allies (and especially of Israel), the hand (full of cash) extended toward dictators, unilateral nuclear disarmament, the unwillingness to take on Iran, socialized medicine, Cap and Trade, Union Card Check – everything he does destroys values.
• The President’s antipathy toward free enterprise moves businessmen to hold off investment in the future, freezes cash expenditures and destroys economic recovery.
• His violation of the Chrysler contract with investors has established the precedent that destroyed the sacredness and inviolability of contract, a pillar of all great civilizations.
• His boondoggles and “social justice” programs have taken money from the hands of honest working people, lowering their standards of living and creating poverty and hunger.
• His bailouts of banks and other companies has turned these companies into oligarchs, harmed their competitors, slowed their growth, caused them to lay off employees and spend inordinate amounts of money in campaign contributions to Democrats.
• His dismissing of our allies on various occasions will harm international cooperation for years into the future and give dictators a stronger reason to attack our troops, our citizens and our long-time friend Israel, creating a more unsafe world.
• His outreach to dictators and his bowing before potentates sends a clear signal that the United States is now under the control of a person who has offered it up as a sacrificial lamb to be bled by sundry third world non-entities.
• His unilateral canceling of the nuclear defense shield has put Poland and other former Soviet satellites inside the gun-sights of Russia and it has emboldened Iran in her pursuit of nuclear weapons.
• His “ObamaCare” program will destroy the medical profession, reduce the number of hospitals, reduce the quality of health care, put insurance companies out of business and increase costs while also raising taxes and rationing care.
• His Cap and Trade Bill will create a large oligarchy of companies that will milk money from the taxpayer to build unproductive factories, producing unwanted products, lowering energy consumption, reducing the output of other factories, destroying jobs, raising taxes and lowering our standard of living.
• Union Card Check will give unions the upper hand in shaking down businesses, destroying production, increasing graft and corruption and destroying jobs while raising wages that will put companies out of business or cause them to move to other countries.
This "victory of nihilism" that Obama has wrought is clearly the fault of conservatives who did not fight for capitalism and freedom in a way that defended the rights of Americans to live, succeed and enjoy life. It has destroyed our ability to produce abundance, but more importantly, it may have destroyed our futures. And because conservatives have too easily attempted bi-partisan cooperation with progressives for so many decades, Americans will wonder if the conservatives they elect to save our country will not merely continue to do what they’ve always done – promise smaller government but deliver bigger budgets.
In order to defend limited government, we must defend the capitalist system that is its product. In order to defend the good men who are living moral lives by being productive, we must have a different view of man, a view that sees man, not as a tragic joke who needs to be free because he is stupid - but as a healthy, strong and independent thinker who can make the right decisions about this life and actions – and who needs to be free because it is his right to use his mind. Only when we defend man’s competence, can those who advocate limited government and individual rights capture the moral high ground.
But here’s the nagging question for me and it should give those in the Tea Party Movement some thought. It is understandable that freedom of religion is a fundamental right and it should be fought for whenever it is being threatened. It is a fundamental right because a belief in religion comes from a decision made by each individual mind and, if a person chooses to believe, that right is his alone. But in making a big issue about freedom of religion in the Tea Party Movement, are we perhaps putting ourselves in danger of having religious conservatives co-opt the movement and turn it into a Trojan Horse for theocracy? Are we inadvertently making room for the kind of system that is antithetical to a free society? Is it possible that these arguments are being inserted into the Tea Party debate by those who would take over the Tea Parties and use them to create a national religion established by the government? These are important questions.
In my view, the Trojan Horse could come into the Tea Party Movement under the guise of traditional values, family values, charity and sacrifice. The emphasis on faith, hope and charity is conservatism, a veiled effort to square religious collectivism with individual freedom. The result would be the destruction of individual freedom. Religious collectivism is as great a threat to our freedoms as is progressive collectivism.
How will they do this? They will continue to argue, like many conservative speakers in the past, that our freedoms are from God (rather than leaving the individual alone to decide about the source of his freedoms). They will continue to advance issues around legislated morality rather than individual freedom and they will attempt to divert the Tea Party passion for freedom toward the conservative insistence on religion in government. Once they win politically, by associating with the success of the Tea Party Movement, there may be no opposition to the establishment of a national religion. Just like the progressives who are attempting to hide their fundamental goal which is a totalitarian society, the theocrats are hiding their fundamental goal which is a theocracy, a form of totalitarian society that was defeated by the American Revolution.
Should the Tea Party Movement make common cause with the conservative movement? I say no. The Tea Party Movement should only make common cause with individuals. It should be about what America is about; freedom for every individual; freedom of thought, speech, property, self-defense, limited government and constitutional protections. It should welcome every person regardless of color, creed or origin. We must stand on the inviolability of the individual not the collective. If individual conservatives want to change their basic principles and become champions of freedom and individual rights, that should be welcomed. They can join the Tea Party movement. But the Tea Party Movement should never allow the conservative movement to take over the debate and replace it with a veiled argument for theocracy. In addition, we should scrutinize conservative political candidates and insist on their adherence to individual rights and constitutionally protected liberties. And they should tell us what they will do specifically to change the institutions of government to reflect those principles.
I think it is critical to the success of constitutionally protected liberty that we not become champions of religious collectivism. We must honor the individual and his rights.
The Founders did not create a society that was based on the imperfectability of man. If any of them expressed that view, they were wrong. In fact, they created a society based on the Enlightenment view of man as a creature of reason and they established the governmental machinery that protected man's mind from the encroachment of unreason. They wanted to foster free expression, free thought, free choices, free markets, in short, liberty; the right of man to live as he chooses without the imposition of government – including without the imposition of a religion.
Jefferson said, “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity (of religious thought). What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves.”[7] (Parentheses mine)
Many of the original settlers of our country were concerned about finding a place where they could practice their religion. Few of them were concerned about spreading their faith to other men. They had experienced too much of that imposed upon them in Europe. They wanted the freedom to experience and practice their religious principles in their own way. In fact, many of these sects saw religious faith as an individual choice to be contemplated and enjoyed individually in the wondrous and scenic nature that our new land provided. Many of them clearly understood the importance of religious tolerance. We should follow their example.
I think the insecurity of many conservatives stems from a feeling that religion will someday go away. I think they are afraid that they don’t have an argument against science and reason and they want to convince us that if religion goes away so will freedom. Many of them probably believe this. Their insistence that reason and science (secularism) will turn man into a wild wanton sinful brute is the flaw in their argument. Their belief that man cannot be good without God is intolerant and insulting to many Americans who have fought for the principle of religious freedom while also holding to their own philosophies or religions. In truth, only free men want to think the highest thoughts; they want to traverse the frontiers of the planet and the universe. If they discover God at the end, it is their right to think as they wish. If they do not, that is their right as well. In truth, only free men can be perfect and that perfection is not a threat to God.
I would like to state that I admire Thomas Sowell immensely. His defense of capitalism through these many years has undoubtedly required heroic courage and intellectual honesty considering our present political climate. He is truly an admirable man who deserves the highest praise. With that said, I think he is wrong on this crucial issue. If you believe that man is tragically imperfect, the logical conclusion is that you should not leave him free; you should restrict his freedom. And this is clearly what Doctor Sowell advocates when he says that “social contrivances seek to restrict behavior that leads to unhappiness, even though these restrictions themselves cause a certain amount of unhappiness.”
In fact, the correct view of man is that he is a perfect being, fully capable of survival and success using his own considerable and wonderful attributes. He is a creature that should be allowed to discover his perfection through his freely chosen thoughts and actions. Because man is perfect, he must be free. If there is anything in this world to "believe" in, it is the glorious possibilities of man.
Only a free man can be moral.
[1] Intellectuals and Society, Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, hardcover page 77
[2] Ibid page 77
[3] Ibid, Page 76
[4] Ibid page 78
[5] Ibid page 78
[6] Ibid page 79-80
[7] Thomas Jefferson, The Notes on Virginia
The book, entitled “Intellectuals and Society” is an excellent examination of progressive intellectuals’ inability to bridge the gap between their elitist ideas and reality. The first few chapters of the book give an excellent overview of the problems that progressive intellectuals create. According to Professor Sowell, intellectuals are wrong about social solutions because they come at problems from a limited elitist perspective that represents only a small percentage of the total knowledge available in society at large.
I find Doctor Sowell’s criticism to be excellent when it comes to analyzing the precarious position of intellectuals who are steeped in specialized knowledge but who have little understanding of the real world. Yet his argument fell apart for me when he compared today’s progressives with today’s conservatives.
“This vision of society, in which there are many “problems” to be “solved” by applying the ideas of morally anointed intellectual elites is by no means the only vision, however much that vision may be prevalent among today’s intellectuals. A conflicting vision has co-existed for centuries—a vision in which the inherent flaws of human beings are the fundamental problem and social contrivances are simply imperfect means of trying to cope with that problem—these imperfections themselves being products of the inherent shortcomings of human beings.”[1]
Professor Sowell takes for himself the position of the conflicting vision. His is “...the tragic vision of the human condition that is very different from the vision of the anointed.”[2] And, indeed, he joins a long tradition of philosophers and intellectuals who have shared that vision of human beings that are inherently flawed. Unfortunately, this vision includes that of the progressives.
You have to ask yourself what is the point of taking the position that man is inherently flawed? Why would conservatives want to start with this premise? And more importantly, why do they think that this position provides a better argument for limited government and capitalism?
As a former Catholic, I am familiar with this view. Man is a sinner who would wreak havoc if left to his own “selfish” devices. His only moral constraint is that given to him by God and the church. According to this view, man must follow the Ten Commandments handed down to him by God through Moses. If men do not follow God’s Commandments, God will punish them on this earth and after death. Men will only do right because of fear of God’s wrath.
Sowell asserts that the vision of contemporary intellectuals (progressives) today is based on an ages old view that sees problems as an outgrowth of social institutions. “In this vision, oppression, poverty, injustice and war are all products of existing institutions—problems whose solutions require changing those institutions, which in turn require changing the ideas behind those institutions.”[3] Is Professor Sowell saying that progressives are wrong because they are right about our social institutions? Are we to assume that progressives’ criticisms of institutions such as capitalism and the church are valid? Is he perhaps giving them too much credit?
In fact, progressives today threaten to destroy the most advanced, the most just and the most affluent civilization in the history of the world because the solutions offered by progressives for the problems of capitalism and the church involve collective coercive remedies that enslave individuals. These solutions are offered because progressives also see man as flawed and incapable of being moral.
Whether you receive your view of man’s nature from Hobbes or Hume, you cannot derive the principles of a free society and the anti-principles of a slave society from the same source, from the view that man is imperfect. The logic of ideas in practice is inexorable; you cannot get around it. If the conservatives and the progressives both have the same basic view of man, the result will be the same.
Yet, the question regarding man’s nature is the foundation upon which all human action must be based. The answer to that question indicates not only how intellectuals think men will act but how governments will treat them. Does man have rights? Is he to be a slave to the needs of others? These questions are important. The only difference between conservatives and progressives is not that progressives see certain institutions as needing change and that conservatives do not; the vital question is "from where does man derive his mandate for moral action?" Political debates and revolutionary change are not about merely changing institutions; they are about understanding man's nature and dealing with him accordingly.
When Barack Obama says he believes in service to the community, working for and dying for others, the conservatives can only say, ‘so do we’. They may counter the progressives with arguments for faith, hope and charity, but the progressives also talk about faith, hope and charity. The dilemma for the conservatives is that they are on the same side as the progressives. They both advocate altruism as their fundamental principle. They have failed to recognize that man’s true nature is not that he is imperfect but that he is a creature of reason, a creature perfectly suited for survival and success. The result: the conservatives have nothing to offer against the views of the progressives.
To continue with Doctor Sowell, “In the tragic vision, barbarism is always waiting in the wings and civilization is simply “a thin crust over a volcano.” (This quote is from Havelock Ellis. The full statement is “All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.”) The metaphor, “a thin crust over a volcano” used to describe the position of civilization versus barbarism is illustrious of the problem that conservatives create for themselves. If civilization is truly a thin crust over a volcano, then what is the point of trying to create a better society? Eventually, the volcano will erupt (into revolution) and destroy that thin layer. If this is our choice, then why should we continue living on that thin crust? Better red than dead. This argument is a prescription for nihilism.
Unfortunately, this is the false alternative that conservatives create for themselves. A “thin crust” versus an inevitable explosion is hardly a choice. When they create such false alternatives based on non-essentials, they end up rationalizing false views and eventually they take the same side as the other haters of man, the progressives. To place one’s enemies, the enemies of freedom, in the position of “a volcano”, means you know they will win.
Is civilization truly “a thin crust over a volcano”? Or are the principles of a proper society based upon something more fundamental in man's nature that must be recognized and accommodated by government; facts and principles that endure and never explode. Shouldn’t we instead strive for a vision of man that will acknowledge his value and thereby help in the creation of a bulwark against the explosion of violence and barbarism? I submit that this bulwark is what the Founders of our nation attempted to create and their vision of man was not at all “tragic”.
“In the tragic vision, social contrivances seek to restrict behavior that leads to unhappiness, even though these restrictions themselves cause a certain amount of unhappiness. It is a vision of trade-offs, rather than solutions, and a vision of wisdom distilled from the experiences of the many rather than the brilliance of a few.”[4]
This means that civilization is nothing more than “social contrivances” designed to restrict immoral living in order to make a trade-off, to create a balance between immorality (selfishness) and self-sacrifice (the good). What is being traded here is your decision to be productive in return for the government getting a piece of your production. Your punishment for committing the crime of surviving is that you have to pay people who cannot survive. Remember, this is the conservative view. And, to prove it, notice that the desire of President Obama to “re-distribute” wealth is considered by the conservatives to be “the brilliance of a few”.
And to prove that they have no understanding of their own position, Doctor Sowell says, “The conflict between these two visions goes back for centuries. Those with the tragic vision and those with the vision of the anointed do not simply happen to differ on a range of policy issues. They necessarily differ, because they are talking about very different worlds which exist inside their minds. Moreover, they are talking about different creatures who inhabit that world, even though both call these creatures human beings, for the nature of those human beings is also fundamentally different as seen in the two visions.”[5]
Professor Sowell does not seem to recognize that both philosophical skeptics and conservative philosophers such as Hobbes and Burke saw man in essentially the same way. They both saw man as incapable of understanding reality, in other words, as imperfect. How can the same basic view of man lead to two different solutions in politics? They can't; progressivism and conservatism are two contrary ideas based on the same premise that will inevitably lead to the same result: enslavement. And this is the danger of accepting the stated goal of conservatives (limited government) without identifying their contradictory premise (that man is flawed) and its inevitable consequence.
The reason the conservatives use non-essentials (tragic vision versus anointed vision) in separating conservatives from progressives is that they must evade the hidden motive of the conservative vision. I doubt that Professor Sowell and other conservatives know that their argument on the issue of man’s nature is weak and I doubt that they have an ulterior motive. I think they truly want freedom, but even they cannot escape the logical consequences of their arguments. The truth is that their view of man is a false attack on him and it implies government action against him that would control his individual moral choices. The real goal of religious conservatives, since our founding as a nation, has been to make room for faith in a world that is constantly being transformed by the power of reason. Politically that goal can only be accomplished by authoritarian theocracy.
Since religious conservatives want to restrict what they consider to be immoral acts, their advocacy of capitalism necessarily leaves much to be desired. The conflict takes place when you attempt to graft the control of immoral acts (determined by God in the Bible) on a system that is based on the individual's right to decide for himself what is moral action. What the conservative considers to be immoral and selfish may actually be moral and life-serving when viewed from the perspective of the individual and his life. Where does that leave capitalism and man's rights? Economic conservatives therefore must avoid discussions of morality and stick religiously to economic statistics and the cause-and-effect consequences of central planning. It also takes some of them to pragmatism, realpolitik, neo-conservatism and, you guessed it, the inevitability of progressivism (the old "thin crust of the volcano").
In fact, the conservatives have managed to proclaim the superiority of their own stated enemies. “The two visions differ fundamentally, not only in how they see the world but also in how those who believe in these visions see themselves. If you happen to believe in free markets, judicial restraint, traditional values and other features of the tragic vision, then you are just someone who believes in free markets, judicial restraint and traditional values. There is no personal exaltation resulting from those beliefs. But to be for “social justice” and “saving the environment,” or to be “anti-war” is more than just a set of beliefs about empirical facts. This vision puts you on a higher moral plane as someone concerned and compassionate, someone who is for peace in the world, a defender of the downtrodden, and someone who wants to preserve the beauty of nature and save the planet from (pollution). In short, one vision makes you somebody special and the other vision does not. These visions are not symmetrical.”[6] In short, progressives are good and conservatives are evil. (parentheses mine)
Why aren’t conservatives good?
“They favor capitalism and self-interest”, say the progressives.
“No we don’t” say the conservatives. “We want capitalism because we believe that it is the best way to achieve “the highest good.” We're just like you.”
“How is that possible? Isn’t capitalism about greedy acquisition and theft from the poor?” ask the progressives.
“Yes, it is,” say the conservatives. “But we can control that through regulations and Antitrust. We just want to manipulate the market so it can achieve “the highest good.””
“So do we,” say the progressives. “That’s why we want to re-distribute wealth.”
“But that will create distortions in the marketplace. We don’t want any distortions, do we?”
“See,” say the progressives. "You really don’t mean what you say. You are really just working for those greedy capitalists.”
This is called “the moral argument” and it is based on the premise that all human action should be without self-interest; that it should be “for others”. The conservatives have no answer except to say they agree; they just want to accomplish social well being in a different way, a way that works.
“Trickle down,” say the progressives. “Capitalism has failed. We’ve got a better way. Let’s just take the money.”
The problem for the conservatives is that pesky little word “self-interest”. Because of their altruistic (utilitarian) premises, they just can’t get around the idea that capitalism is really about self-interest. They wish that it weren’t so.
"But the Founders established our traditions and those are good, aren't they?"
The progressives just chuckle at the hypocrisy.
Indeed, self-interest is a pretty bad motivation if you believe that man's duty is to sacrifice for others. The conservatives are stuck with the contradiction. And the dubious utilitarian argument just doesn’t seem to work when you’ve got those left-wing protesters out on the streets in front of television cameras complaining about greed and riches and theft and MONEY, even wild parties and lots of sex too. Once you lay that guilt trip on them, conservatives shut up and vote the way the progressives want.
The progressives have been successful in manipulating the conservatives into being the agents of “self-interest”. Not only have they painted the conservatives into the corner as stealthy advocates of it, but they are also the teachers who have put the proverbial dunce caps on them as well. The conservatives simply cannot get out of that corner until they learn to claim the moral high ground. They are evading the moral arguments for capitalism, the very arguments that hard working Americans in the Tea Party Movement would champion and support. These are the arguments that they need if they are to establish the moral fervor necessary to withstand the same progressive arguments that have silenced the conservatives for so long - and that make the conservatives into weaklings hardly worth getting out of bed to vote for.
How do they find that moral high ground? You might be surprised to hear that they can't do it by quoting God at every turn. No voter is going to get excited about "moral contrivances" designed to restrict immoral actions. Voters are only going to get excited about a bright new future that liberates men to solve their own problems through hard work and that protects their earnings from thieves who call themselves representatives of the people. They will only get excited about the possibility of working hard and keeping their earnings so they can benefit themselves (and their families). They need a "selfish" reason to vote.
They have to reject the view that man’s nature is part of any “tragic” vision. They must stop focusing their arguments on the idea that man is fallible, that he can only survive by sacrificing for others; they must stop implying that men will always make the wrong moral decisions and that government is there to hold him back. These arguments do not justify freedom; they justify coercion against individuals. Under this view, choosing to live, to create values, to trade values, to organize companies, to be productive, to think, to produce, to make a (huge) profit, to flourish and to enjoy life are all immoral decisions. Conservatives must learn to embrace morality by embracing the pursuit of happiness and by being guiltlessly proud of it. It is not a sin to declare that man is a creature with the ability to reason, to choose and to enjoy life.
As I wrote in my recent blog, “The Immoral Roots of Anti-capitalism”, “Altruism is not the moral base of a capitalist system. We can’t have a successful capitalist system if we just want to help people. Capitalism requires an independent mind. We must want men to be successful, we must know that it requires work, we must honor the independent mind and we must give credit where credit is due. Altruism requires a mind ruled by the edicts of superiors and it tells man that to be moral he only needs to follow the easiest path of all: the road that preaches sacrifice as virtue. Capitalism requires integrity. Altruism requires that man fight his bodily nature with his spiritual self-sacrificial code. Capitalism requires honesty. Altruism requires that one deceive one's own mind. Capitalism requires justice. Altruism requires that justice be suspended among men, that men do society's work by being unjust towards those who refuse to sacrifice. Capitalism requires productiveness. Altruism requires that the productive are not as important as those who give away the confiscated money of the productive. Capitalism requires pride. Altruism requires both humility in some men and pretentiousness in others. Capitalism requires principled action based on abstract concepts that are tied to reality. Altruism requires Kantian mush, vague, disconnected equivocation, switching contexts, unintelligibility, one reality that is inaccessible by the mind and a second mental universe that is incompetent. Capitalism is a challenge to the individual and it demands his best effort. Altruism demands only envy and hatred of capitalism.”
The Founders understood that man should be free to make a better life. They knew that he can only do so by identifying reality, understanding what is in his best interest, knowing or discovering how to achieve it and then taking action. They understood that man was good because they had themselves achieved success in life by means of study, practical action and reason. This is the source of our “rugged individualism”; the source of a unique image of a man with the self-confidence and the ability to survive in the wilderness. “Daniel Boone was a man!” This is why they based our society upon the principles of “life, liberty and the pursuit happiness”. This is why they limited the power of government to violate those rights.
The Founders understood that freedom makes possible the unhindered pursuit of values. And in order to produce values, a man must have the ability to identify what values are, what human purposes they achieve and not only how to create them but also how to price them, deliver them and discuss their features and benefits in terms of value for the purchaser. A value can only be created as an outgrowth of a rational process, a thinking process that identifies what is in the maker's and the buyer's mutual self-interest.
Values must be proudly selfish because their creation depends upon a person’s choice, and in order for you to choose a life-enhancing value, it must first be validated by a process of reason that justifies it in terms of benefit to the life of the valuer. There is no other way to think about values. Conservatives will never argue for capitalism on this basis and this is why you see Professor Sowell attempting to explain the differences between conservatives and progressives on grounds other than an individual’s moral right to the pursuit of his own, individual happiness.
Contrast the politician of today with an architect such as Frank Lloyd Wright and you will see the difference between a valuer and a nihilist. Wright and his designs are pro-man, pro-life, pro-value. The architect expressed his love of life and of values by means of manipulating natural resources to express in his buildings a concept of priceless utility combined with ultimate beauty and the enjoyment of both. The designs of his buildings expressed so much more than just lines and corners; they expressed the beauty of nature, the organization of natural resources and the feelings of comfort and relaxation. The emphasis on values is so implicit yet so real that you must grow intellectually in order to comprehend the beauty within the mind of the architect. He brings you to a new evaluation of man and all that is possible through him. This is what America and American business is all about, this love of values, this moral high ground, not the sleazy smile of a person who has done nothing notable except write grants for non-profit (and unprofitable) organizations, write books about nothing that he has done and became famous for writing books about nothing that he has done. Contrast a Wright with an Obama and you’ll see the difference between a person who creates values and one who re-distributes them. One is a businessman who creates life as a natural outgrowth of loving life and the other creates poverty through flim flam and manipulation. One inspires the upward glance; the other inspires the glance of hatred and envy aimed at any man with a mind.
This refusal by the conservatives to defend capitalism on proper moral grounds has created a situation where there is no opposition to the progressives; and it opens the door to the vilest forms of nihilism. At every turn, President Obama destroys values. Whether it is American free enterprise, the sacredness of contract, the rewarding of failure, the bailouts, the dismissing of our allies (and especially of Israel), the hand (full of cash) extended toward dictators, unilateral nuclear disarmament, the unwillingness to take on Iran, socialized medicine, Cap and Trade, Union Card Check – everything he does destroys values.
• The President’s antipathy toward free enterprise moves businessmen to hold off investment in the future, freezes cash expenditures and destroys economic recovery.
• His violation of the Chrysler contract with investors has established the precedent that destroyed the sacredness and inviolability of contract, a pillar of all great civilizations.
• His boondoggles and “social justice” programs have taken money from the hands of honest working people, lowering their standards of living and creating poverty and hunger.
• His bailouts of banks and other companies has turned these companies into oligarchs, harmed their competitors, slowed their growth, caused them to lay off employees and spend inordinate amounts of money in campaign contributions to Democrats.
• His dismissing of our allies on various occasions will harm international cooperation for years into the future and give dictators a stronger reason to attack our troops, our citizens and our long-time friend Israel, creating a more unsafe world.
• His outreach to dictators and his bowing before potentates sends a clear signal that the United States is now under the control of a person who has offered it up as a sacrificial lamb to be bled by sundry third world non-entities.
• His unilateral canceling of the nuclear defense shield has put Poland and other former Soviet satellites inside the gun-sights of Russia and it has emboldened Iran in her pursuit of nuclear weapons.
• His “ObamaCare” program will destroy the medical profession, reduce the number of hospitals, reduce the quality of health care, put insurance companies out of business and increase costs while also raising taxes and rationing care.
• His Cap and Trade Bill will create a large oligarchy of companies that will milk money from the taxpayer to build unproductive factories, producing unwanted products, lowering energy consumption, reducing the output of other factories, destroying jobs, raising taxes and lowering our standard of living.
• Union Card Check will give unions the upper hand in shaking down businesses, destroying production, increasing graft and corruption and destroying jobs while raising wages that will put companies out of business or cause them to move to other countries.
This "victory of nihilism" that Obama has wrought is clearly the fault of conservatives who did not fight for capitalism and freedom in a way that defended the rights of Americans to live, succeed and enjoy life. It has destroyed our ability to produce abundance, but more importantly, it may have destroyed our futures. And because conservatives have too easily attempted bi-partisan cooperation with progressives for so many decades, Americans will wonder if the conservatives they elect to save our country will not merely continue to do what they’ve always done – promise smaller government but deliver bigger budgets.
In order to defend limited government, we must defend the capitalist system that is its product. In order to defend the good men who are living moral lives by being productive, we must have a different view of man, a view that sees man, not as a tragic joke who needs to be free because he is stupid - but as a healthy, strong and independent thinker who can make the right decisions about this life and actions – and who needs to be free because it is his right to use his mind. Only when we defend man’s competence, can those who advocate limited government and individual rights capture the moral high ground.
But here’s the nagging question for me and it should give those in the Tea Party Movement some thought. It is understandable that freedom of religion is a fundamental right and it should be fought for whenever it is being threatened. It is a fundamental right because a belief in religion comes from a decision made by each individual mind and, if a person chooses to believe, that right is his alone. But in making a big issue about freedom of religion in the Tea Party Movement, are we perhaps putting ourselves in danger of having religious conservatives co-opt the movement and turn it into a Trojan Horse for theocracy? Are we inadvertently making room for the kind of system that is antithetical to a free society? Is it possible that these arguments are being inserted into the Tea Party debate by those who would take over the Tea Parties and use them to create a national religion established by the government? These are important questions.
In my view, the Trojan Horse could come into the Tea Party Movement under the guise of traditional values, family values, charity and sacrifice. The emphasis on faith, hope and charity is conservatism, a veiled effort to square religious collectivism with individual freedom. The result would be the destruction of individual freedom. Religious collectivism is as great a threat to our freedoms as is progressive collectivism.
How will they do this? They will continue to argue, like many conservative speakers in the past, that our freedoms are from God (rather than leaving the individual alone to decide about the source of his freedoms). They will continue to advance issues around legislated morality rather than individual freedom and they will attempt to divert the Tea Party passion for freedom toward the conservative insistence on religion in government. Once they win politically, by associating with the success of the Tea Party Movement, there may be no opposition to the establishment of a national religion. Just like the progressives who are attempting to hide their fundamental goal which is a totalitarian society, the theocrats are hiding their fundamental goal which is a theocracy, a form of totalitarian society that was defeated by the American Revolution.
Should the Tea Party Movement make common cause with the conservative movement? I say no. The Tea Party Movement should only make common cause with individuals. It should be about what America is about; freedom for every individual; freedom of thought, speech, property, self-defense, limited government and constitutional protections. It should welcome every person regardless of color, creed or origin. We must stand on the inviolability of the individual not the collective. If individual conservatives want to change their basic principles and become champions of freedom and individual rights, that should be welcomed. They can join the Tea Party movement. But the Tea Party Movement should never allow the conservative movement to take over the debate and replace it with a veiled argument for theocracy. In addition, we should scrutinize conservative political candidates and insist on their adherence to individual rights and constitutionally protected liberties. And they should tell us what they will do specifically to change the institutions of government to reflect those principles.
I think it is critical to the success of constitutionally protected liberty that we not become champions of religious collectivism. We must honor the individual and his rights.
The Founders did not create a society that was based on the imperfectability of man. If any of them expressed that view, they were wrong. In fact, they created a society based on the Enlightenment view of man as a creature of reason and they established the governmental machinery that protected man's mind from the encroachment of unreason. They wanted to foster free expression, free thought, free choices, free markets, in short, liberty; the right of man to live as he chooses without the imposition of government – including without the imposition of a religion.
Jefferson said, “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity (of religious thought). What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves.”[7] (Parentheses mine)
Many of the original settlers of our country were concerned about finding a place where they could practice their religion. Few of them were concerned about spreading their faith to other men. They had experienced too much of that imposed upon them in Europe. They wanted the freedom to experience and practice their religious principles in their own way. In fact, many of these sects saw religious faith as an individual choice to be contemplated and enjoyed individually in the wondrous and scenic nature that our new land provided. Many of them clearly understood the importance of religious tolerance. We should follow their example.
I think the insecurity of many conservatives stems from a feeling that religion will someday go away. I think they are afraid that they don’t have an argument against science and reason and they want to convince us that if religion goes away so will freedom. Many of them probably believe this. Their insistence that reason and science (secularism) will turn man into a wild wanton sinful brute is the flaw in their argument. Their belief that man cannot be good without God is intolerant and insulting to many Americans who have fought for the principle of religious freedom while also holding to their own philosophies or religions. In truth, only free men want to think the highest thoughts; they want to traverse the frontiers of the planet and the universe. If they discover God at the end, it is their right to think as they wish. If they do not, that is their right as well. In truth, only free men can be perfect and that perfection is not a threat to God.
I would like to state that I admire Thomas Sowell immensely. His defense of capitalism through these many years has undoubtedly required heroic courage and intellectual honesty considering our present political climate. He is truly an admirable man who deserves the highest praise. With that said, I think he is wrong on this crucial issue. If you believe that man is tragically imperfect, the logical conclusion is that you should not leave him free; you should restrict his freedom. And this is clearly what Doctor Sowell advocates when he says that “social contrivances seek to restrict behavior that leads to unhappiness, even though these restrictions themselves cause a certain amount of unhappiness.”
In fact, the correct view of man is that he is a perfect being, fully capable of survival and success using his own considerable and wonderful attributes. He is a creature that should be allowed to discover his perfection through his freely chosen thoughts and actions. Because man is perfect, he must be free. If there is anything in this world to "believe" in, it is the glorious possibilities of man.
Only a free man can be moral.
[1] Intellectuals and Society, Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, hardcover page 77
[2] Ibid page 77
[3] Ibid, Page 76
[4] Ibid page 78
[5] Ibid page 78
[6] Ibid page 79-80
[7] Thomas Jefferson, The Notes on Virginia
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