In looking over some of the leftist blogs, it seems that the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party is still clinging to its feigned superiority and Marxist religion. Once again they are insulting the people who voted “No” against their superior solutions that somehow didn’t work again.
This time it is really bad for them. And they are so depressed again. Their counselors appear to be laughing under their breath again to see them on the couches again crying that the American public has rejected them...again. All they’re trying to do is make things better. Why don’t things get better and how could those hicks vote them out again? What’s wrong with the world?
The Tea Parties have been instrumental in creating a Republican majority in the House, in spite of the left’s efforts to marginalize them. So with that failure under their belt, they continue to marginalize them. Where did these people come from?
ACORN has been defunded by Congress and they've filed for bankruptcy. They were too busy defending themselves in the courts from the last election and they couldn't take Obama's money this time to register fraudulent voters so they could claim a grass roots surge of support from the bottom up. So much for the idea of "the poor man's revolution."
The media was not able to swing many votes this time and so they engage in character assassination of newly elected Republican politicians while decrying character assassination toward themselves.
Our educational system continues to indoctrinate our children with leftist anti-capitalist propaganda while the left ignores the fact that they have failed to educate those children in how to read, write and calculate. So they tell us it is better for America if we continue to let them run the schools.
The global warming scam has been exposed and so they spew fire about how stupid the deniers are in rejecting real impending global disaster that seems never to come.
Glenn Beck is causing George Soros to be exposed for the nation killer that he truly is which causes Soros to lose billions…and the press stands in line to get more of Soros’ money.
The unions are on the verge of going bankrupt because the Republicans are poised to stop the deficit spending necessary to bail them out; and to make things worse, they plan on investigating their ties to Obama.
The cities and states run by Democrats for decades are going bankrupt so they elect the Democrats back into power because they are experienced in government. But Obama will soon not be able to bail them out.
Barney Frank got re-elected and looks forward to the investigation into his role in the sub-prime fiasco.
President Obama wonders how he is going to advance the Alynsky strategy that his college buddies insist upon. Should he just rule by Executive Decree, create an emergency so he can declare Marshall Law or just take dictatorial power while he has the chance?
Everywhere the leftists are talking about the evils of capitalism and how they intend to fight the corporate interests that they’ve been partnered with over the last two years. They complain that the capitalism they tried to destroy has failed, and they even pretend that they are defending the middle class by raising taxes on the people who hire them.
In order to pretend to be courageous, some of them are outing themselves as socialists and calling their collaborators cowards for not standing up and saying it out loud. I think they regret not coming out when they had the chance to mainstream themselves. Now they are looking at another 40 years before they can deceive another generation of Americans into thinking that they are just nice fellows who happen to admire Mao.
What do the leftists have to do to make people think that they are really just a bunch of cuddly nice furry little people who want to make things better with other peoples’ money? Why do Americans always associate them with Stalin and Mao and Castro?
Just watch, one of them is going to start a new company selling little cuddle-bears named Josef, Mau Mau and Fidel. Maybe that’ll help.
That’s the problem with the left. They just can’t sell socialism to the American public – no matter how hard they try to indoctrinate the children. They are now convinced that the right move after Obama’s victory in 2008 would have been to outlaw the Constitution and the elections and just declare Obama ruler for life.
I’m sure George Soros would be sleeping better had they done that.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Reflecting
Today President Obama told us he would be reflecting on the meaning of yesterday’s election defeat. I don’t know if anyone noticed the irony in that promise. One would have thought that a man of his education and intelligence, particularly a constitutional scholar, would already know the limits of his office before he decided to run for it.
Is he really just learning on the job? Did he really think the oceans would fall and the skies would open when he became President? Does it take an election defeat to teach him a lesson that he should have already known? Why didn't he know that it is his job to protect American citizens not confiscate their earnings? He should certainly have known that free people do not like being treated like draft animals.
Well, if we must educate our President on the job, we have certainly made a mistake in electing him. How could so many educated citizens, who certainly know their own limitations, elect to the highest office in the world a person who does not know his own limitations?
Well, if we have to teach you to be a grown up, Mr. President; here goes:
Mr. President, you should reflect on the education you received in your youth from people like your mother, from Frank Marshall Davis and perhaps even from your father. These people taught you that capitalism is evil and that it should be destroyed. And we know that your socialist friends and fellow radicals in the various schools you attended held the same Marxist belief. Perhaps you should reflect on that; and you should ask yourself the following questions: is it possible that you and all your radical friends are wrong about capitalism? Is it possible that your job is not to create a crisis in our economy but to protect our freedom to make our own decisions?
Is it possible that all your friends, the William Ayers, the Reverend Wrights and many others in your life were wrong? What if they don’t have the knowledge of history (or of economics) that you think they do? Perhaps they have miscalculated in thinking that they have the right to decide what is a proper society or who should pay taxes and who should not?
What if their idea of social justice is an excuse for slavery; and, most importantly, what if you do not have the authority to decide who gets taxed, who gets fired, who gets bailed out, who can drill for oil; who should “nudge” us in any direction whatsoever? What if all this moral authority you assume for yourself was not really given to you by the election of 2008? What if you really have no authority to violate the individual rights and the individual choices of citizens and business people?
Mr. President, perhaps you don’t understand as much as you think you do. Perhaps you are revealing to the world your utter inability to lead; perhaps you are embarrassing yourself for all to see. The point is, the office of President of the United States does not give you the authority to make arbitrary, unilateral decisions that everyone else must follow because you won an election. We live in a constitutional republic that limits every office of the government including yours. The government is limited in what it can do and prohibited from dictating individual choices and decisions. For lack of a better word, this is what they call "freedom."
Perhaps your constitutional scholarship did not teach you that, properly, you cannot make arbitrary decrees, that only Congress can write laws, not you. Perhaps you missed the point that our government was limited to only those actions authorized by constitutionally drafted laws and that you have no right whatsoever to violate the Bill of Rights. I feel like I'm talking to a second grader.
Where did you come up with the idea that being elected President meant you could do whatever you want? We are not your subjects, you are not a god, and we won’t accept your efforts to turn us into slaves, no matter how much Michelle says you are going to require of us.
What if your belief that you hold a moral authority over other individuals is actually a “reflection” of your immaturity, your poor education, perhaps even your arrogance?
Is he really just learning on the job? Did he really think the oceans would fall and the skies would open when he became President? Does it take an election defeat to teach him a lesson that he should have already known? Why didn't he know that it is his job to protect American citizens not confiscate their earnings? He should certainly have known that free people do not like being treated like draft animals.
Well, if we must educate our President on the job, we have certainly made a mistake in electing him. How could so many educated citizens, who certainly know their own limitations, elect to the highest office in the world a person who does not know his own limitations?
Well, if we have to teach you to be a grown up, Mr. President; here goes:
Mr. President, you should reflect on the education you received in your youth from people like your mother, from Frank Marshall Davis and perhaps even from your father. These people taught you that capitalism is evil and that it should be destroyed. And we know that your socialist friends and fellow radicals in the various schools you attended held the same Marxist belief. Perhaps you should reflect on that; and you should ask yourself the following questions: is it possible that you and all your radical friends are wrong about capitalism? Is it possible that your job is not to create a crisis in our economy but to protect our freedom to make our own decisions?
Is it possible that all your friends, the William Ayers, the Reverend Wrights and many others in your life were wrong? What if they don’t have the knowledge of history (or of economics) that you think they do? Perhaps they have miscalculated in thinking that they have the right to decide what is a proper society or who should pay taxes and who should not?
What if their idea of social justice is an excuse for slavery; and, most importantly, what if you do not have the authority to decide who gets taxed, who gets fired, who gets bailed out, who can drill for oil; who should “nudge” us in any direction whatsoever? What if all this moral authority you assume for yourself was not really given to you by the election of 2008? What if you really have no authority to violate the individual rights and the individual choices of citizens and business people?
Mr. President, perhaps you don’t understand as much as you think you do. Perhaps you are revealing to the world your utter inability to lead; perhaps you are embarrassing yourself for all to see. The point is, the office of President of the United States does not give you the authority to make arbitrary, unilateral decisions that everyone else must follow because you won an election. We live in a constitutional republic that limits every office of the government including yours. The government is limited in what it can do and prohibited from dictating individual choices and decisions. For lack of a better word, this is what they call "freedom."
Perhaps your constitutional scholarship did not teach you that, properly, you cannot make arbitrary decrees, that only Congress can write laws, not you. Perhaps you missed the point that our government was limited to only those actions authorized by constitutionally drafted laws and that you have no right whatsoever to violate the Bill of Rights. I feel like I'm talking to a second grader.
Where did you come up with the idea that being elected President meant you could do whatever you want? We are not your subjects, you are not a god, and we won’t accept your efforts to turn us into slaves, no matter how much Michelle says you are going to require of us.
What if your belief that you hold a moral authority over other individuals is actually a “reflection” of your immaturity, your poor education, perhaps even your arrogance?
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The President's Achilles' Heel
President Obama has told us once again that his Health Care program is unpopular because he hasn’t done a good job of communicating the benefits of the program. And, once again, he recites the same litany of arguments that didn’t sway opinions the first time.
He is probably asking himself some hard questions: why don’t the American people want these benefits? What makes people want to repeal the entire bill?
His solution is to put Andy Griffith on the air.
Is it possible that the people are wiser than President Obama on this issue?
The Founding Fathers, particularly Jefferson and Madison, were political philosophers of the highest caliber. They engaged in far-reaching studies of governments around the world and through out history. They wanted to create a new form of government that retained all the best attributes of the better systems but which also restricted the negative attributes. They understood the flaws in communism(1), theocracy, monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, to name a few, and they found these systems wanting in their ability to protect men against the development of tyranny. Their solution was a republic that instituted strong restraints on the government such as effective divisions of power, checks and balances, a written Constitution, a bill of rights and the pursuit of happiness.
The Founders saw any system of government that sought to exploit given groups for the sake of other groups as tyranny. For instance, they did not want the un-propertied mass of people, by vote, to expropriate the property of the rich (re-distribution) and they did not want the rich to use influence with the government to get even more rich (oligarchy). They wanted all groups to be left to their own devices and free of any form of coercion from any direction.(2)
Our President, on the other hand is not a political philosopher; he is an ideologue who thinks that (in essence) a fascist oligarchy with elements of communism (re-distribution) is the best system. He minimizes the studied views of Madison and Jefferson and criticizes the Constitution because it does not re-distribute wealth. His “system” would bring into government the negative attributes of both democracy and oligarchy – as if it represented something new that has never been tried. Not only does he hope for the ignorance of the American people about the damage that these systems have caused in the past, he accepts the invalid verdict of Marxist critics that capitalism is exploitation. He considers capitalism to be selfish, wasteful and coercive while at the same time he seeks to retain in his own government these same negative attributes.
If he were to look at his own economic program, in particular his Stimulus Program, that has produced not a single net job, he would be asking himself why the jobs are not coming, why he has to tamper with the numbers, why he has to call government hiring for the census an indication of an improving economy. Instead of lying to us, he should be asking why his policies aren’t working. But he doesn’t ask that question. Why?
The answer is because the President is a committed statist.
A statist adheres to the principle that the government has the moral authority to use force against citizens for any reason whatever. A citizen is considered the property of the state and it is his duty to do as he is told; to sacrifice himself, if the state demands it, for a “higher” good. Further, if the state determines that a particular social goal is a priority, the citizen must dedicate himself to that goal. There is no choice in this matter; the collective rules and the individual’s wants, needs or goals are unimportant. If some people have to starve for the sake of the “greater good”, that is fine.
Statists consider that leadership consists of passing laws or issuing decrees that the rest of society must obey. They assume that citizens “know” that their decisions are the will of the people. The pragmatic statist thinks that his leadership skill is to be found in intelligently manipulating the elements of society in order to accomplish “good” results. He uses college professors who are adept at statistics, and who claim to have a deep knowledge of how society works, to advise him on how to pull the levers of the social machine, to prime the pump, so to speak, and create abundance and happiness all around.
A statist adheres to the principle of collectivism which claims that people, working together, sacrificing for each other, can accomplish great things. They consider that collectivism is the key to winning wars, defeating poverty, eliminating waste and improving the morale of the nation. This too is considered practical. The statist envisions a world of happy workers, each laboring for the goal of the collective, and contributing to the total product which keeps growing larger.
Which brings us to the third principle of the statist and that is altruism. Altruism is the idea that it is the duty of each individual to participate in the collectivist dream; in fact, that he must participate or else he is an enemy of the people. The altruist thinks that if people do not willingly contribute their work, their time and their lives to the collective vision, they are criminals; they must be punished and ostracized.
The problem for statists like the President is that they are fraught with cognitive blind spots. Their visions blur when it comes to anticipating the final outcome of statism, the point when the gross product is supposed to keep getting larger. The vision of a happy, affluent society, for some reason, never materializes. It must always be pushed off into a further distant future…while the wise leaders figure out how to manipulate the society even more. They look for situations where men are not performing their duties, and they determine how the government can “nudge” them so society can be improved. Each intervention creates more problems and breeds more interventions and takes society to the point where the leaders lose track of what caused what and how to fix what. The brilliant scholars, now called dunces, are hauled off to prison or summarily purged as enemies of the state. What none of the statists realize is that when you combine altruism with collectivism you end with slave labor, concentration camps and genocide...or revolution.
The most basic blindspot of statists is found in their theory of man’s nature. To them, man is an ignorant brute who will always do the wrong thing unless a “benevolent” authority keeps them on the right path. The truth that statist authorities do not see is that man is not a brute, he is a being with volition and the ability to survive by means of his mind. In other words, man has the ability to thrive if he is left alone. This is the fact that the statists refuse to accept and this is why every statist society in history has been a dismal failure.
Which brings us to the President’s Achilles' Heel.
The American people did not vote for the President’s Health Care program, his jobs stimulus bills, his interventions, his unilateral decrees, his lawlessness. This is because most of the people are rational. They are not mere brutes who follow any lie told to them. They know that these programs are not in their self-interest. They know that their future hard work (in the form of debt) is merely being re-distributed; nothing is being added to the gross product…which means no “stimulation” is being accomplished. They are smarter than the President and all his professors combined.
The rationality of the American people represents the President’s Achilles Heel, his deadly weakness within his perceived strength as a leader. It doesn’t matter how cleverly he tells a lie; it is still a lie and people can see through it. The fantasy that you can create economic well-being by giving to some people other peoples’ money does not wash. You cannot indefinitely spend tomorrow’s money; sooner or later you lose your credit rating and you are destitute.
The American people are reading between the lines of the President’s actions and statements. Though many of them don’t know what statism is, they can see that there is something wrong with the President’s manner of speaking. They ask themselves whether he is a communist, a socialist, a fascist, a welfare statist and they debate with themselves (endlessly) the meaning of what he does not say, the nature of the people that he brings into his administration, the decrees he issues, the laws he disregards and they know that the principles he claims to espouse, free markets and capitalism, are clearly not what he advocates.
They see clearly that he advocates a government of men…and not of laws.
(1) Via Aristotle’s writings on communism, holding all property in common.
(2) See Federalist Paper #10 by Madison
He is probably asking himself some hard questions: why don’t the American people want these benefits? What makes people want to repeal the entire bill?
His solution is to put Andy Griffith on the air.
Is it possible that the people are wiser than President Obama on this issue?
The Founding Fathers, particularly Jefferson and Madison, were political philosophers of the highest caliber. They engaged in far-reaching studies of governments around the world and through out history. They wanted to create a new form of government that retained all the best attributes of the better systems but which also restricted the negative attributes. They understood the flaws in communism(1), theocracy, monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, to name a few, and they found these systems wanting in their ability to protect men against the development of tyranny. Their solution was a republic that instituted strong restraints on the government such as effective divisions of power, checks and balances, a written Constitution, a bill of rights and the pursuit of happiness.
The Founders saw any system of government that sought to exploit given groups for the sake of other groups as tyranny. For instance, they did not want the un-propertied mass of people, by vote, to expropriate the property of the rich (re-distribution) and they did not want the rich to use influence with the government to get even more rich (oligarchy). They wanted all groups to be left to their own devices and free of any form of coercion from any direction.(2)
Our President, on the other hand is not a political philosopher; he is an ideologue who thinks that (in essence) a fascist oligarchy with elements of communism (re-distribution) is the best system. He minimizes the studied views of Madison and Jefferson and criticizes the Constitution because it does not re-distribute wealth. His “system” would bring into government the negative attributes of both democracy and oligarchy – as if it represented something new that has never been tried. Not only does he hope for the ignorance of the American people about the damage that these systems have caused in the past, he accepts the invalid verdict of Marxist critics that capitalism is exploitation. He considers capitalism to be selfish, wasteful and coercive while at the same time he seeks to retain in his own government these same negative attributes.
If he were to look at his own economic program, in particular his Stimulus Program, that has produced not a single net job, he would be asking himself why the jobs are not coming, why he has to tamper with the numbers, why he has to call government hiring for the census an indication of an improving economy. Instead of lying to us, he should be asking why his policies aren’t working. But he doesn’t ask that question. Why?
The answer is because the President is a committed statist.
A statist adheres to the principle that the government has the moral authority to use force against citizens for any reason whatever. A citizen is considered the property of the state and it is his duty to do as he is told; to sacrifice himself, if the state demands it, for a “higher” good. Further, if the state determines that a particular social goal is a priority, the citizen must dedicate himself to that goal. There is no choice in this matter; the collective rules and the individual’s wants, needs or goals are unimportant. If some people have to starve for the sake of the “greater good”, that is fine.
Statists consider that leadership consists of passing laws or issuing decrees that the rest of society must obey. They assume that citizens “know” that their decisions are the will of the people. The pragmatic statist thinks that his leadership skill is to be found in intelligently manipulating the elements of society in order to accomplish “good” results. He uses college professors who are adept at statistics, and who claim to have a deep knowledge of how society works, to advise him on how to pull the levers of the social machine, to prime the pump, so to speak, and create abundance and happiness all around.
A statist adheres to the principle of collectivism which claims that people, working together, sacrificing for each other, can accomplish great things. They consider that collectivism is the key to winning wars, defeating poverty, eliminating waste and improving the morale of the nation. This too is considered practical. The statist envisions a world of happy workers, each laboring for the goal of the collective, and contributing to the total product which keeps growing larger.
Which brings us to the third principle of the statist and that is altruism. Altruism is the idea that it is the duty of each individual to participate in the collectivist dream; in fact, that he must participate or else he is an enemy of the people. The altruist thinks that if people do not willingly contribute their work, their time and their lives to the collective vision, they are criminals; they must be punished and ostracized.
The problem for statists like the President is that they are fraught with cognitive blind spots. Their visions blur when it comes to anticipating the final outcome of statism, the point when the gross product is supposed to keep getting larger. The vision of a happy, affluent society, for some reason, never materializes. It must always be pushed off into a further distant future…while the wise leaders figure out how to manipulate the society even more. They look for situations where men are not performing their duties, and they determine how the government can “nudge” them so society can be improved. Each intervention creates more problems and breeds more interventions and takes society to the point where the leaders lose track of what caused what and how to fix what. The brilliant scholars, now called dunces, are hauled off to prison or summarily purged as enemies of the state. What none of the statists realize is that when you combine altruism with collectivism you end with slave labor, concentration camps and genocide...or revolution.
The most basic blindspot of statists is found in their theory of man’s nature. To them, man is an ignorant brute who will always do the wrong thing unless a “benevolent” authority keeps them on the right path. The truth that statist authorities do not see is that man is not a brute, he is a being with volition and the ability to survive by means of his mind. In other words, man has the ability to thrive if he is left alone. This is the fact that the statists refuse to accept and this is why every statist society in history has been a dismal failure.
Which brings us to the President’s Achilles' Heel.
The American people did not vote for the President’s Health Care program, his jobs stimulus bills, his interventions, his unilateral decrees, his lawlessness. This is because most of the people are rational. They are not mere brutes who follow any lie told to them. They know that these programs are not in their self-interest. They know that their future hard work (in the form of debt) is merely being re-distributed; nothing is being added to the gross product…which means no “stimulation” is being accomplished. They are smarter than the President and all his professors combined.
The rationality of the American people represents the President’s Achilles Heel, his deadly weakness within his perceived strength as a leader. It doesn’t matter how cleverly he tells a lie; it is still a lie and people can see through it. The fantasy that you can create economic well-being by giving to some people other peoples’ money does not wash. You cannot indefinitely spend tomorrow’s money; sooner or later you lose your credit rating and you are destitute.
The American people are reading between the lines of the President’s actions and statements. Though many of them don’t know what statism is, they can see that there is something wrong with the President’s manner of speaking. They ask themselves whether he is a communist, a socialist, a fascist, a welfare statist and they debate with themselves (endlessly) the meaning of what he does not say, the nature of the people that he brings into his administration, the decrees he issues, the laws he disregards and they know that the principles he claims to espouse, free markets and capitalism, are clearly not what he advocates.
They see clearly that he advocates a government of men…and not of laws.
(1) Via Aristotle’s writings on communism, holding all property in common.
(2) See Federalist Paper #10 by Madison
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Changing Change
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
"Change doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington."
“The change we seek has always required great struggle and great sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.”
“So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. Change will take time. There will be setbacks and false starts and sometimes we’ll make mistakes.”
“We’ve done this before: Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done. Today we are called once more, and it is time for our generation to answer that call. For that is our unyielding faith that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.”
“I recognize that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity, to this announcement. I know that I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”
“The genius of our Founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because we’ve changed this country before.”
“When I hear the cynical talk that blacks and whites and Latinos can’t join together and work together, I’m reminded of the Latino brothers and sisters I organized with and stood with and fought with side by side for jobs and justice on the streets of Chicago. So don’t tell us change can’t happen.”
“And so if we do not change our politics � if we do not fundamentally change the way Washington works � then the problems we’ve been talking about for the last generation will be the same ones that haunt us for generations to come.”
One thing that President Obama never talks about is what he means by the word “change”. The question is, what is he changing America into; specifically, what is the “system” he wants for us? Is it a system of constant change such as socialism or fascism? It is certainly not the kind of slow, deliberate change that created the domestic tranquility for which our Founders strove.
Believe it or not, this issue of changing our government was critical to the discussions during our Constitutional Convention in 1787. Our Founders wanted a government that could be changed but only in a very limited, slow, deliberate and thoughtful way; they wanted to secure and strengthen freedom not change it on a whim. They wanted a government based on sound and true principles that corresponded with the real world in which men lived. And, more importantly, they sought to institute “protections” against the government changing into a dictatorship. They created the separation of powers, checks and balances, regular elections, property rights, judicial review and even freedom of speech in order to ensure that society did not change into a system where factions such as economic or religious groups could turn the government into a tool of oppression. They wanted a government that secured “domestic tranquility” rather than revolutionary change. They created a republic.
The real issue for the Founders was not how to re-distribute income. They established a government that, for the first time in recorded history, allowed and protected the pursuit of happiness; a system that allowed hard working people to keep the results of their work…by right. They were philosophically grounded in Enlightenment ideas, the development of parliamentary government in England, the experiments of the Ancient Greeks and Roman forms of government; and they carefully pondered how to create something so good and so well constituted that it could not be changed easily. Many of their arguments revolved around the question of how to ensure domestic tranquility.
Something tells me that President Obama would probably give lip-service to the idea of domestic tranquility. I think he wants to ensure that people don’t correctly understand that the “change” he refuses to define is really revolutionary change; the kind of change that obliterates and unravels all the work done by the Founders. Revolutionary change destroys domestic tranquility because it is an assault on the Constitution and individual rights.
Why is President Obama’s “change” the opposite of domestic tranquility? First of all, any undefined concept can only do harm. The fact that it is undefined means that those in charge of it can “change” the definition to suit their needs at any time. It is reminiscent of George Soros’ “Open Society”; a full democracy where a majority can enslave the productive minority without opposition. In such a “democratic” system, we find that few honest citizens can garner the support necessary to defeat or amend the plundering of their property. A government that has a free hand to disregard individual rights and Constitutional protections can do virtually anything it wants in the name of changing the system to something that it decides is “fair”. What you get is what we’ve got; a government whose leader rules virtually by decree without reference to laws or the Constitution.
This “change” society destroys economic activity because business people and private citizens are effectively prohibited from planning their futures. As a matter of survival, they must refuse to invest in the future until domestic tranquility is restored. If they have only plunder of their property to look forward to, they will not produce very much. This is a law of nature, not something you can fix about man. It is a form of justice where honest people refuse to feed parasites.
The truth is that a revolutionary government like ours does not see domestic tranquility as a value. Its highest value is change. Change is necessary because the leaders do not know what to do and they must have the flexibility necessary to change policies and conditions unilaterally and without debate. Their greatest enemy is the man who expects to be reasoned with and treated honestly. This is why revolutionary governments have always made an enemy of capitalism and capitalists. They have committed virtually every form of crime against these people including murder and imprisonment, disenfranchisement and plunder. Capitalists are the proverbial scapegoats of history, damned by altruism because they pursue happiness and want to live better lives.
Revolutionary government needs the ability to steal value through re-distribution, progressive taxation, debt, expropriation, violation of contracts and outright nationalization…in order to get the money it needs to build oligarchs, regulatory agencies, secret police and armies. Revolutionary government requires altruism and self-sacrifice among those it intends to loot and, therefore, it cannot be constrained by such ideas as individual rights and reasoned debate. So the “change” that revolutionary government requires is the destruction of domestic tranquility.
Revolutionary governments, seeking change, necessarily make bad decisions. For instance, our government, under the Obama administration, has accepted Keynesian economic fallacies that recommend government re-distribution (through debt) to stimulate demand for products. The false premise of Keynesianism is that government can spur economic activity by giving money to consumers who will then buy from producers. But the money given to the consumers has been taken from the producers, capitalists, factory workers, service employees; and this means that the government is not creating wealth…it is only moving it around (This is why the Stimulus Programs have not created any new jobs). Where producers would otherwise invest their money in production, thereby increasing domestic products, wealth is reduced due to re-distribution.
In fact, the government is destroying what would otherwise be rational expenditures of money, diverting those expenditures from the purchase of production capacity to the purchase of snacks, alcoholic beverages and candy. The economy declines because it has been “changed” into a less efficient system. A perfect example of this, if it is implemented, will be the so-called “Cap and Trade” program that will move even more money around and destroy one of the most vital industries we have; our energy industry. This program will tax today's most efficient uses of energy and re-distribute money to oligarchs paid by the government to develop inefficient energy products whose prices will be subsidized by the government in order to encourage their consumption. If you thought Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were failed re-distribution schemes (that brought about a financial collapse) you haven’t seen anything yet. This is what you can expect from President Obama’s vision of change in America.
The basic fallacy of Keynes and Obama is best expressed by Jean Baptiste Say, "...it is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption."(1) How does good government stimulate production? It establishes domestic tranquility and leaves people alone to make their own economic decisions.
Domestic tranquility is promoted when the government is prohibited from violating individual rights, and more importantly, when the government is constrained, into the distant future, from interfering in the private decisions of citizens. When the government can never “change” into a rights-violating government, then the people can freely plan their lives, invest their money, produce abundance and make profits…into the distant future. They require domestic tranquility in order to survive.
It is not likely that President Obama will ever admit that his “change” is the cause of our economic problems. He would prefer to blame capitalism and small business people for being selfish than to admit that his policies have upset our domestic tranquility. He pretends not to see what is in front of his eyes, that his government is doing exactly the opposite of what is necessary for a vibrant economy. His government is “changing” so fast and regulating so much that people do not know how to prepare for the future. He is destroying their rights so fast, spending their money so fast at a level unheard of in the history of the world, that you can validly ask whether he is deliberately destroying our nation.
The re-establishment of domestic tranquility is not about being a Republican or a Democrat. The Founding Fathers did not think of party divisions or of winning elections when they sought to create the circumstances that enabled citizens to perennially live without the interference of government. Today, we have no such tranquility and the actions of our change-prone government are pushing us further and further into decline. Not only is the private citizen under siege by his own government but the consequences of President Obama’s policies will likely make our nation vulnerable to enemies intent on destroying us.
We need to restore the time-honored principles that created our society, not because they are traditional but because they are true; they lead to the kind of society where citizens can plan their lives; where they can live secure in the knowledge that they are protected from tyranny.
In this sense, we need to change change back to the original change.
(1) Jean Baptiste Say, Traite d'Economie Politique (Say's Law, that supply creates its own demand was originated in 1803).
"Change doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington."
“The change we seek has always required great struggle and great sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.”
“So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. Change will take time. There will be setbacks and false starts and sometimes we’ll make mistakes.”
“We’ve done this before: Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done. Today we are called once more, and it is time for our generation to answer that call. For that is our unyielding faith that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.”
“I recognize that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity, to this announcement. I know that I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”
“The genius of our Founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because we’ve changed this country before.”
“When I hear the cynical talk that blacks and whites and Latinos can’t join together and work together, I’m reminded of the Latino brothers and sisters I organized with and stood with and fought with side by side for jobs and justice on the streets of Chicago. So don’t tell us change can’t happen.”
“And so if we do not change our politics � if we do not fundamentally change the way Washington works � then the problems we’ve been talking about for the last generation will be the same ones that haunt us for generations to come.”
One thing that President Obama never talks about is what he means by the word “change”. The question is, what is he changing America into; specifically, what is the “system” he wants for us? Is it a system of constant change such as socialism or fascism? It is certainly not the kind of slow, deliberate change that created the domestic tranquility for which our Founders strove.
Believe it or not, this issue of changing our government was critical to the discussions during our Constitutional Convention in 1787. Our Founders wanted a government that could be changed but only in a very limited, slow, deliberate and thoughtful way; they wanted to secure and strengthen freedom not change it on a whim. They wanted a government based on sound and true principles that corresponded with the real world in which men lived. And, more importantly, they sought to institute “protections” against the government changing into a dictatorship. They created the separation of powers, checks and balances, regular elections, property rights, judicial review and even freedom of speech in order to ensure that society did not change into a system where factions such as economic or religious groups could turn the government into a tool of oppression. They wanted a government that secured “domestic tranquility” rather than revolutionary change. They created a republic.
The real issue for the Founders was not how to re-distribute income. They established a government that, for the first time in recorded history, allowed and protected the pursuit of happiness; a system that allowed hard working people to keep the results of their work…by right. They were philosophically grounded in Enlightenment ideas, the development of parliamentary government in England, the experiments of the Ancient Greeks and Roman forms of government; and they carefully pondered how to create something so good and so well constituted that it could not be changed easily. Many of their arguments revolved around the question of how to ensure domestic tranquility.
Something tells me that President Obama would probably give lip-service to the idea of domestic tranquility. I think he wants to ensure that people don’t correctly understand that the “change” he refuses to define is really revolutionary change; the kind of change that obliterates and unravels all the work done by the Founders. Revolutionary change destroys domestic tranquility because it is an assault on the Constitution and individual rights.
Why is President Obama’s “change” the opposite of domestic tranquility? First of all, any undefined concept can only do harm. The fact that it is undefined means that those in charge of it can “change” the definition to suit their needs at any time. It is reminiscent of George Soros’ “Open Society”; a full democracy where a majority can enslave the productive minority without opposition. In such a “democratic” system, we find that few honest citizens can garner the support necessary to defeat or amend the plundering of their property. A government that has a free hand to disregard individual rights and Constitutional protections can do virtually anything it wants in the name of changing the system to something that it decides is “fair”. What you get is what we’ve got; a government whose leader rules virtually by decree without reference to laws or the Constitution.
This “change” society destroys economic activity because business people and private citizens are effectively prohibited from planning their futures. As a matter of survival, they must refuse to invest in the future until domestic tranquility is restored. If they have only plunder of their property to look forward to, they will not produce very much. This is a law of nature, not something you can fix about man. It is a form of justice where honest people refuse to feed parasites.
The truth is that a revolutionary government like ours does not see domestic tranquility as a value. Its highest value is change. Change is necessary because the leaders do not know what to do and they must have the flexibility necessary to change policies and conditions unilaterally and without debate. Their greatest enemy is the man who expects to be reasoned with and treated honestly. This is why revolutionary governments have always made an enemy of capitalism and capitalists. They have committed virtually every form of crime against these people including murder and imprisonment, disenfranchisement and plunder. Capitalists are the proverbial scapegoats of history, damned by altruism because they pursue happiness and want to live better lives.
Revolutionary government needs the ability to steal value through re-distribution, progressive taxation, debt, expropriation, violation of contracts and outright nationalization…in order to get the money it needs to build oligarchs, regulatory agencies, secret police and armies. Revolutionary government requires altruism and self-sacrifice among those it intends to loot and, therefore, it cannot be constrained by such ideas as individual rights and reasoned debate. So the “change” that revolutionary government requires is the destruction of domestic tranquility.
Revolutionary governments, seeking change, necessarily make bad decisions. For instance, our government, under the Obama administration, has accepted Keynesian economic fallacies that recommend government re-distribution (through debt) to stimulate demand for products. The false premise of Keynesianism is that government can spur economic activity by giving money to consumers who will then buy from producers. But the money given to the consumers has been taken from the producers, capitalists, factory workers, service employees; and this means that the government is not creating wealth…it is only moving it around (This is why the Stimulus Programs have not created any new jobs). Where producers would otherwise invest their money in production, thereby increasing domestic products, wealth is reduced due to re-distribution.
In fact, the government is destroying what would otherwise be rational expenditures of money, diverting those expenditures from the purchase of production capacity to the purchase of snacks, alcoholic beverages and candy. The economy declines because it has been “changed” into a less efficient system. A perfect example of this, if it is implemented, will be the so-called “Cap and Trade” program that will move even more money around and destroy one of the most vital industries we have; our energy industry. This program will tax today's most efficient uses of energy and re-distribute money to oligarchs paid by the government to develop inefficient energy products whose prices will be subsidized by the government in order to encourage their consumption. If you thought Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were failed re-distribution schemes (that brought about a financial collapse) you haven’t seen anything yet. This is what you can expect from President Obama’s vision of change in America.
The basic fallacy of Keynes and Obama is best expressed by Jean Baptiste Say, "...it is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption."(1) How does good government stimulate production? It establishes domestic tranquility and leaves people alone to make their own economic decisions.
Domestic tranquility is promoted when the government is prohibited from violating individual rights, and more importantly, when the government is constrained, into the distant future, from interfering in the private decisions of citizens. When the government can never “change” into a rights-violating government, then the people can freely plan their lives, invest their money, produce abundance and make profits…into the distant future. They require domestic tranquility in order to survive.
It is not likely that President Obama will ever admit that his “change” is the cause of our economic problems. He would prefer to blame capitalism and small business people for being selfish than to admit that his policies have upset our domestic tranquility. He pretends not to see what is in front of his eyes, that his government is doing exactly the opposite of what is necessary for a vibrant economy. His government is “changing” so fast and regulating so much that people do not know how to prepare for the future. He is destroying their rights so fast, spending their money so fast at a level unheard of in the history of the world, that you can validly ask whether he is deliberately destroying our nation.
The re-establishment of domestic tranquility is not about being a Republican or a Democrat. The Founding Fathers did not think of party divisions or of winning elections when they sought to create the circumstances that enabled citizens to perennially live without the interference of government. Today, we have no such tranquility and the actions of our change-prone government are pushing us further and further into decline. Not only is the private citizen under siege by his own government but the consequences of President Obama’s policies will likely make our nation vulnerable to enemies intent on destroying us.
We need to restore the time-honored principles that created our society, not because they are traditional but because they are true; they lead to the kind of society where citizens can plan their lives; where they can live secure in the knowledge that they are protected from tyranny.
In this sense, we need to change change back to the original change.
(1) Jean Baptiste Say, Traite d'Economie Politique (Say's Law, that supply creates its own demand was originated in 1803).
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Weighing in on Freedom of Religion
The Cordoba Initiative to build an Islamic "community center" a few blocks from the Ground Zero site in New York has hit a nerve with Americans. The more coverage the media gives to this issue, the higher the level of anger. Yet, I think many Americans do not yet realize the real issues; they just know, in their gut, that there is something wrong and that building this mosque is not about freedom of religion or property rights for Muslims. The real issue is the Muslim religion and the ideas it offers to mankind.
This mosque is an open and deliberate attack on American values. First of all, a piece of the Airplane that destroyed one of the Twin Towers fell on the building where the mosque will be built. This makes the land for this building sacred to many Muslims because it represents the "martyrs" (read murderers) who were in that plane. They were as "gods fallen from the sky" and where they landed was determined, for them, by God. In the same way that other Muslim Mosques around the world have been built at places of great military victories, this plane hitting this Park51 building represents "the hand of God" to many Muslims. It represents a miracle from God, divine intervention in the affairs of men. Even the name "Cordoba Initiative" is symbolic of the practice of building Mosques at places of great Muslim victories. Read about the history of the Cordoba, Spain Mosque and the symbolism it holds among Muslims even today.(1)
I think most Americans know that there is something very wrong with the insistence of progressives and "moderate" Muslims that this mosque be built at this particular spot. You have to ask yourself why the government of the freest nation on earth is spending tax dollars to enable Muslim Imams to travel the world on behalf of their religion. Is this not a violation of the separation clause of the Constitution? Why is our government enabling the leaders of any religion to travel the world on taxpayer dollars? Why is our government taking up common cause with people who will not criticize Hamas as a terrorist organization? When will our leaders begin to expose the racism, bigotry and genocide of people who think, in the name of their religion, that they can shame Americans by killing them?
Americans were not born yesterday. We know that refusing to answer a direct question means that the worst is true. And we know the significance and the meaning of having our rights trampled by government; and when we recognize it, as we did with the original Tea Parties before our Revolutionary War, we will express our opinions. We will not stand by idly and pretend that we are not being insulted.
And worst of all, we recognize that so-called moderate Muslims are not important when it comes to building the mosque. What is important are the terrorists hiding in Pakistan who will celebrate when they learn that Americans have allowed a mosque to be built a mere two blocks from the site of their brutality. This mosque, to the terrorists, is not about building bridges of understanding among moderate people; it is about the capitulation of America.
There are many reasons why Americans should question this project
- Project leaders are not willing to listen to the objections of those who oppose the mosque.
- They refuse to come clean about where they are getting the money for this building.
- They tell us they want to build bridges with Americans but give every indication that Americans should change their minds about Islam (and Israel?) and convert to Islam. This is not building bridges; this is the beginning of Muslim evangelism, brainwashing, political spin and lying to the American people.
- Project leaders have not expressed a desire to learn about such concepts as separation of powers, separation of church and state, individual rights and even the suffering of those who were victimized by the September 11 attacks.
- The Muslim religion has a political component that insists that Sharia law be the law of the land for Muslims regardless of where they live. This is a clear violation of the American principle of separation of church and state.
It seems that the bridges they want built, the understanding they seek is our understanding of their need to impose their religion on us and their fervent belief that anyone who is not a Muslim is an infidel worthy of punishment.
With this in mind, I posted the following on Daniel Pipes' blog today.
"I think the basic differences between Islam and Christianity are that Christianity had to go through the Enlightenment and had to moderate itself in order to survive in a secular society where the government was prohibited from establishing a religion. The brutal forms of altruism in Islam were not expunged from the religion because Islam never had to survive in a free society with secular laws. This is why this issue is becoming so important today. (The brutality of Islam comes to us full bore straight from the Middle Ages into a modern, secular, technologically advanced society built by reason and respect for the rights of individuals. Islam has come into the modern world without the mediation of reason and knowledge, without a recognition of the value of man and of what it means to be free. People should come to America for their own freedom, not to enslave free people.)
If Islam wants to survive, we must tell (those who want to "build bridges") in no uncertain terms that they must accommodate our system of government, (they must recognize) the separation of church and state and (know) that Sharia law will never be allowed in this country...period. (If they want a dialogue with us about our values, we must tell them that their idea of a God who rules people is anti-thetical to our way of life, that there is no authority over us that can demand obedience and submission. We must let them know that we will not submit to anyone.)
If they don't like this, then they will forever be resisted by free people in this society. The more debate we have about this issue, the more we secure the right of all people to think as they will. Victory for Americans after the first Tea Party was the victory of reason against the imposition of ideas based on faith, supernaturalism and force - and the more open debate we have on this issue, the more secure will be our liberties. What a shock that the left doesn't understand this...
Yet, we must realize that the basic premise that Islam shares with all other forms of religion is altruism. This morality demands the sacrifice of more than "material" possessions. It demands that men give up their minds and their most basic critical faculties (as well as their values). (Altruism) is the (moral) crime that accounts for the utter ignorance and brutality of so many who practice Islam. Altruism negates the human mind in the name of "the good". When a group of people give up their minds to faith all they have left is brute muscle and cruelty." (parentheses and small edits added)
(1) For an excellent article on this issue, see http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-cordoba-house-and-the-myth-of-cordoban-ecumenism/
Friday, July 30, 2010
Hey, Man! That's a Cool T-shirt!
If you admire a killer, by implication, that makes you a killer too. At the very least it makes you so stupid that you don’t understand what it means to admire such a monster, that you are oblivious to the devastation that he or she wrought as well as the attitude toward man and life that the killer expressed.
To those people who wear the symbols of totalitarianism, I'd like to ask, "Do you really have such little regard for life that you can rationalize your way into believing that a cold-blooded killer is a humanitarian…or worse, that he is in some way cool? Grow up. Look around you for a change."
If you want a cool image to put on your T-shirt, there are plenty of handsome Hispanic men from which to choose. Some of them are actually pretty cool guys. But if you think it's cool to advertise ideas that have killed untold millions around the world, really, what are you thinking? Communism is not cool, anti-capitalism is not cool, murder in the name of these ideas is not cool. Would you murder your next door neighbor who runs a factory and employs your father?
A few years ago, I watched a boxing match where Mike Tyson sported a tattoo on his arm of Mao Tse Tung. I thought to myself, “What an idiot.” Yet, even today there are many highly educated people who praise Mao. How is it that they ignore the atrocities he committed in the name of communism? How is it that they consider him a hero? Do they also want millions of Americans to be murdered for the sake of a “socialist” state? One would have to conclude that they do.
The same goes for those of you who admire and are inspired by Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary known for the murder of thousands of Cubans without trial. One would have to wonder why you don’t also sport images of Hitler and Stalin.
If you think monsters like Che are cool, perhaps you should visit Miami and talk to some of the families whose relatives were killed at Che’s command. Or talk to those whose relatives were killed by Che's own hand. If you think Che was justified in these murders ask yourself whether these people at least had a right to due process and trial by jury. Do you really advocate murder by the whim of people like Che? Is this what you are about?
Ask yourself how you would feel if it had been your grandfather who had been killed by Che. As the “cool” Che told a cheering UN General Assembly in 1964, “Certainly we execute!. And we will continue executing as long as it is necessary! This is a war to the death against the revolution’s enemies!” You may not know that those enemies included Americans and that Che would not have hesitated to use nuclear weapons against American cities. Pretty cool, huh? I think not.
Did you know that Che also took long-haired teenagers off the streets of Havana and put them in prison camps replete with machine guns and watch towers? His was not a typical American summer camp. You would have come out of such a camp, if you came out, a different person.
I quote from Humberto Fontova’s article: “…Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets from the firing squad shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro’s and Che’s theft of their humble family farm.
Rigoberto Hernandez was 17 when Che’s soldiers dragged him from his cell in La Cabana, jerked his head back to gag him and started dragging him to the stake. Little “Rigo” pleaded his innocence to the very bloody end. But his pleas were garbled and difficult to understand. His struggles while being gagged and bound to the stake were also awkward. The boy had been a janitor in a Havana high school and was mentally retarded. His single mother had pleaded his case with hysterical sobs. She had begged, beseeched and finally proven to his “prosecutors” that it was a case of mistaken identity. Her only son, a boy in such a condition, couldn’t possibly have been “a CIA agent planting bombs.”
“Fuego!” and the firing squad volley riddled Rigo’s little bent body as he moaned and struggled awkwardly against his bounds, blindfold and gag. Remember the gallant Che Guevara’s instructions to his revolutionary courts: “Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail.” And remember that Harvard Law School’s invitation to Fidel Castro to speak on campus, and rollicking ovation he received, happened in the very midst of this appalling and lawless bloodbath.”(1)
Yet, I think one of the most telling stories about Che involves how this "brave knight" of the revolution died. From Fontova again: “One day before his death in Bolivia, Che Guevara—for the first time in his life—finally faced something properly describable as combat. So he ordered his guerrilla charges to give no quarter, to fight to their last breaths and to their last bullet. With his men doing exactly what he ordered (fighting and dying to the last bullet), a slightly wounded Che snuck away from the firefight and surrendered with fully loaded weapons while whimpering to his captors: “Don’t Shoot! I’m Che. I’m worth more to you alive than dead!” His Bolivian captors viewed the matter differently.”(2)
Che was an evil murderer of bound innocents and a wimpering coward when it came to his own life. That wasn't cool. He did not go down like a proud revolutionary convinced of the righteousness of his cause - with bullets flying and screaming to the top of his voice "Viva la revolucion!". The real Che was a slobbering, sniveling, cockroach begging to be spared from the very same death he had so easily dished to others. Remember that when you wear his cool T-shirt, man.
To learn more about the real Che, go to: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2054.
(1)http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/cuba-castro-che-and-change/blog-291826/
(2)Ibid
To those people who wear the symbols of totalitarianism, I'd like to ask, "Do you really have such little regard for life that you can rationalize your way into believing that a cold-blooded killer is a humanitarian…or worse, that he is in some way cool? Grow up. Look around you for a change."
If you want a cool image to put on your T-shirt, there are plenty of handsome Hispanic men from which to choose. Some of them are actually pretty cool guys. But if you think it's cool to advertise ideas that have killed untold millions around the world, really, what are you thinking? Communism is not cool, anti-capitalism is not cool, murder in the name of these ideas is not cool. Would you murder your next door neighbor who runs a factory and employs your father?
A few years ago, I watched a boxing match where Mike Tyson sported a tattoo on his arm of Mao Tse Tung. I thought to myself, “What an idiot.” Yet, even today there are many highly educated people who praise Mao. How is it that they ignore the atrocities he committed in the name of communism? How is it that they consider him a hero? Do they also want millions of Americans to be murdered for the sake of a “socialist” state? One would have to conclude that they do.
The same goes for those of you who admire and are inspired by Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary known for the murder of thousands of Cubans without trial. One would have to wonder why you don’t also sport images of Hitler and Stalin.
If you think monsters like Che are cool, perhaps you should visit Miami and talk to some of the families whose relatives were killed at Che’s command. Or talk to those whose relatives were killed by Che's own hand. If you think Che was justified in these murders ask yourself whether these people at least had a right to due process and trial by jury. Do you really advocate murder by the whim of people like Che? Is this what you are about?
Ask yourself how you would feel if it had been your grandfather who had been killed by Che. As the “cool” Che told a cheering UN General Assembly in 1964, “Certainly we execute!. And we will continue executing as long as it is necessary! This is a war to the death against the revolution’s enemies!” You may not know that those enemies included Americans and that Che would not have hesitated to use nuclear weapons against American cities. Pretty cool, huh? I think not.
Did you know that Che also took long-haired teenagers off the streets of Havana and put them in prison camps replete with machine guns and watch towers? His was not a typical American summer camp. You would have come out of such a camp, if you came out, a different person.
I quote from Humberto Fontova’s article: “…Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets from the firing squad shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro’s and Che’s theft of their humble family farm.
Rigoberto Hernandez was 17 when Che’s soldiers dragged him from his cell in La Cabana, jerked his head back to gag him and started dragging him to the stake. Little “Rigo” pleaded his innocence to the very bloody end. But his pleas were garbled and difficult to understand. His struggles while being gagged and bound to the stake were also awkward. The boy had been a janitor in a Havana high school and was mentally retarded. His single mother had pleaded his case with hysterical sobs. She had begged, beseeched and finally proven to his “prosecutors” that it was a case of mistaken identity. Her only son, a boy in such a condition, couldn’t possibly have been “a CIA agent planting bombs.”
“Fuego!” and the firing squad volley riddled Rigo’s little bent body as he moaned and struggled awkwardly against his bounds, blindfold and gag. Remember the gallant Che Guevara’s instructions to his revolutionary courts: “Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail.” And remember that Harvard Law School’s invitation to Fidel Castro to speak on campus, and rollicking ovation he received, happened in the very midst of this appalling and lawless bloodbath.”(1)
Yet, I think one of the most telling stories about Che involves how this "brave knight" of the revolution died. From Fontova again: “One day before his death in Bolivia, Che Guevara—for the first time in his life—finally faced something properly describable as combat. So he ordered his guerrilla charges to give no quarter, to fight to their last breaths and to their last bullet. With his men doing exactly what he ordered (fighting and dying to the last bullet), a slightly wounded Che snuck away from the firefight and surrendered with fully loaded weapons while whimpering to his captors: “Don’t Shoot! I’m Che. I’m worth more to you alive than dead!” His Bolivian captors viewed the matter differently.”(2)
Che was an evil murderer of bound innocents and a wimpering coward when it came to his own life. That wasn't cool. He did not go down like a proud revolutionary convinced of the righteousness of his cause - with bullets flying and screaming to the top of his voice "Viva la revolucion!". The real Che was a slobbering, sniveling, cockroach begging to be spared from the very same death he had so easily dished to others. Remember that when you wear his cool T-shirt, man.
To learn more about the real Che, go to: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2054.
(1)http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/cuba-castro-che-and-change/blog-291826/
(2)Ibid
Friday, July 23, 2010
Does it take a Bigot?
Before I post this blog, I want to inform the reader that I speak only for myself. Do not take my views as, necessarily, the views of many people in the Tea Party Movement.
Recently, there have been several media attacks against Tea Party organizations. I have explained the basis for these attacks in my blogs entitled “Understanding Obama”, “The Altruism Bomb” and “Whose Shilling for Dictatorship?” to name a few. Finally, some American citizens have stated openly that President Obama is a socialist. More and more intelligent people are saying it. This is progress for the fight against slavery. But, in my opinion, the truth is that he is destroying the capitalist system and replacing it with a fascist dictatorship.
One point the left keeps making is that it represents the height of bigotry to connect Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler. They claim that only a bigot would make such a connection. I say we are in the “smiley face” stage of the coming dictatorship, when the leader must make us think he is really just a nice person who loves his country and wants to make a better world. This is the stage when the killer disarms his intended victim so he can strike.
Leftists all over the country are howling at people who think that the Obama administration is moving us toward a fascist state. Yet, I’m certain that many responsible people have been thinking similar thoughts and they wonder at what Dr. Leonard Peikoff called “The Ominous Parallels” between post-Weimar Germany and our country in his famous book.
You should wonder, like me, why, even today, we have a tremendous curiosity about Nazi Germany. Thousands of documentaries have been made about Hitler and the Nazis during the 65 years since we defeated them in World War II. We ask ourselves, how did this madman manage to fool one of the most advanced and sophisticated cultures in history? Remember, we are an advanced and sophisticated culture too. How did he get away with his blind barbarous murder of innocents? Is this sort of thing in our future? Why didn’t anyone stop him as he gained more and more power? No one seems able to stop President Obama while his policies increase government power. How was he able to just take over and rule by decree? President Obama seems to be making lots of unilateral rulings too. Why did the Germans allow Hitler to violate the rule of law? Why are we allowing President Obama to violate the rule of law?
We tell ourselves that we want to understand what caused Hitler’s ascendancy so we don’t repeat the same mistakes. Dr. Leonard Peikoff has told us about the basic premises of the Nazis and how they exploited the cultured philosophy of the Germans. He tells us of their view of morality, that they considered proper action to be based in sacrifice. He tells us of their collectivism, and how they tied German morality to sacrifice for the collective. He tells us of the Nazi’s aversion for capitalism and how they used anti-capitalism in order to denigrate, isolate and murder the Jews. And he tells us of the various ideas and principles that enabled the Nazis to argue for dictatorship. In fact, the book is peppered with quotes from Hitler and leading intellectuals of the age that sound remarkably similar to the ideas being broadcast today in the media.
Today’s intellectual and political establishment, like that of the Nazis, practices a grim pragmatism that sees all issues and events as merely about politics. They tell us that those who question the administration just hate the President. They tell us that in our time, in our country, it is not possible for an American leader to be a fascist.
While the Nazi’s preached sacrifice as the highest ideal, President Obama speaks of shared sacrifice as the highest ideal. While the Nazi’s preached anti-capitalism and denigrated successful Jewish businessmen and intellectuals, President Obama preaches anti-capitalism and promises to make the rich pay more taxes (and he is thought to favor the Palestinians and Iranians over the Jews). While the Nazis created emergencies in order to justify their pursuit of dictatorial power, President Obama proclaims numerous emergencies that justify immediate action without the support of law or the Constitution. While the Nazis sought out large industrial enterprises to help build its massive army, President Obama seeks out large industrial enterprises to fight a "collective" war against carbon emissions. While the Nazis used propaganda to justify their power grabs, President Obama uses a compliant and propagandistic media to keep the facts from reaching the public. While the Nazis sought to enlist and educate youth in Nazi principles, President Obama uses the educational system to teach young people that the Democrats are cool and the Republicans are in the pay of capitalists. And he suggests that young people should choose to serve (sacrifice) for the sake of the collective rather than pursue productive careers.
The left tells us, through countless articles and blogs, that using the “fascist” charge is a vicious political slur. They want to ensure that the American people do not discover that the term is really a description of a sinister political and economic system that has destroyed several societies. Fascism is a political and economic system that allows private property but determines, through government, how that property will be used. They don’t want you to know that fascism is the actual system that we have in our nation today. They are afraid that if you recognized it, you will reject them wholesale.
And they don’t want you to predict the future. If you truly knew the direction in which they are taking us you will see the coming nightmare. You see, fascism requires an evil enemy…the group or person who is to be made responsible for all the “emergencies” that the fascists promise to fix. Fascism needs you to hate this enemy and see him as someone who must be crushed (as the Nazis crushed the Jews). The enemy who the fascists offer up for you will be the successful, the rich and the intelligent. They need you to hate this person so they (the fascists) can make you into slaves. And since this enemy is really the individual who provides value in society, you are destined to starve when he is destroyed. This is the future they don’t want you to predict.
We are in the midst of a new McCarthy era. Once again, the fighters for freedom are being denigrated and disenfranchised in order to protect the advance of tyranny. Today, they call us bigots and racists in order to silence our voices. Today, in the midst of the one administration that has gained unprecedented control over our lives, they tell us everything is getting better, nothing really has changed and it is a crime to say that our leaders are fascists.
This effort to silence and discredit the Tea Party protesters has nothing to do with black and white, Democrat or Republican; it is an effort to bury the individual rights for which the protesters stand. It is an effort to establish a fascist dictatorship.
There I’ve said it and I won’t take it back.
Does it take a bigot to see the truth today?
Recently, there have been several media attacks against Tea Party organizations. I have explained the basis for these attacks in my blogs entitled “Understanding Obama”, “The Altruism Bomb” and “Whose Shilling for Dictatorship?” to name a few. Finally, some American citizens have stated openly that President Obama is a socialist. More and more intelligent people are saying it. This is progress for the fight against slavery. But, in my opinion, the truth is that he is destroying the capitalist system and replacing it with a fascist dictatorship.
One point the left keeps making is that it represents the height of bigotry to connect Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler. They claim that only a bigot would make such a connection. I say we are in the “smiley face” stage of the coming dictatorship, when the leader must make us think he is really just a nice person who loves his country and wants to make a better world. This is the stage when the killer disarms his intended victim so he can strike.
Leftists all over the country are howling at people who think that the Obama administration is moving us toward a fascist state. Yet, I’m certain that many responsible people have been thinking similar thoughts and they wonder at what Dr. Leonard Peikoff called “The Ominous Parallels” between post-Weimar Germany and our country in his famous book.
You should wonder, like me, why, even today, we have a tremendous curiosity about Nazi Germany. Thousands of documentaries have been made about Hitler and the Nazis during the 65 years since we defeated them in World War II. We ask ourselves, how did this madman manage to fool one of the most advanced and sophisticated cultures in history? Remember, we are an advanced and sophisticated culture too. How did he get away with his blind barbarous murder of innocents? Is this sort of thing in our future? Why didn’t anyone stop him as he gained more and more power? No one seems able to stop President Obama while his policies increase government power. How was he able to just take over and rule by decree? President Obama seems to be making lots of unilateral rulings too. Why did the Germans allow Hitler to violate the rule of law? Why are we allowing President Obama to violate the rule of law?
We tell ourselves that we want to understand what caused Hitler’s ascendancy so we don’t repeat the same mistakes. Dr. Leonard Peikoff has told us about the basic premises of the Nazis and how they exploited the cultured philosophy of the Germans. He tells us of their view of morality, that they considered proper action to be based in sacrifice. He tells us of their collectivism, and how they tied German morality to sacrifice for the collective. He tells us of the Nazi’s aversion for capitalism and how they used anti-capitalism in order to denigrate, isolate and murder the Jews. And he tells us of the various ideas and principles that enabled the Nazis to argue for dictatorship. In fact, the book is peppered with quotes from Hitler and leading intellectuals of the age that sound remarkably similar to the ideas being broadcast today in the media.
Today’s intellectual and political establishment, like that of the Nazis, practices a grim pragmatism that sees all issues and events as merely about politics. They tell us that those who question the administration just hate the President. They tell us that in our time, in our country, it is not possible for an American leader to be a fascist.
While the Nazi’s preached sacrifice as the highest ideal, President Obama speaks of shared sacrifice as the highest ideal. While the Nazi’s preached anti-capitalism and denigrated successful Jewish businessmen and intellectuals, President Obama preaches anti-capitalism and promises to make the rich pay more taxes (and he is thought to favor the Palestinians and Iranians over the Jews). While the Nazis created emergencies in order to justify their pursuit of dictatorial power, President Obama proclaims numerous emergencies that justify immediate action without the support of law or the Constitution. While the Nazis sought out large industrial enterprises to help build its massive army, President Obama seeks out large industrial enterprises to fight a "collective" war against carbon emissions. While the Nazis used propaganda to justify their power grabs, President Obama uses a compliant and propagandistic media to keep the facts from reaching the public. While the Nazis sought to enlist and educate youth in Nazi principles, President Obama uses the educational system to teach young people that the Democrats are cool and the Republicans are in the pay of capitalists. And he suggests that young people should choose to serve (sacrifice) for the sake of the collective rather than pursue productive careers.
The left tells us, through countless articles and blogs, that using the “fascist” charge is a vicious political slur. They want to ensure that the American people do not discover that the term is really a description of a sinister political and economic system that has destroyed several societies. Fascism is a political and economic system that allows private property but determines, through government, how that property will be used. They don’t want you to know that fascism is the actual system that we have in our nation today. They are afraid that if you recognized it, you will reject them wholesale.
And they don’t want you to predict the future. If you truly knew the direction in which they are taking us you will see the coming nightmare. You see, fascism requires an evil enemy…the group or person who is to be made responsible for all the “emergencies” that the fascists promise to fix. Fascism needs you to hate this enemy and see him as someone who must be crushed (as the Nazis crushed the Jews). The enemy who the fascists offer up for you will be the successful, the rich and the intelligent. They need you to hate this person so they (the fascists) can make you into slaves. And since this enemy is really the individual who provides value in society, you are destined to starve when he is destroyed. This is the future they don’t want you to predict.
We are in the midst of a new McCarthy era. Once again, the fighters for freedom are being denigrated and disenfranchised in order to protect the advance of tyranny. Today, they call us bigots and racists in order to silence our voices. Today, in the midst of the one administration that has gained unprecedented control over our lives, they tell us everything is getting better, nothing really has changed and it is a crime to say that our leaders are fascists.
This effort to silence and discredit the Tea Party protesters has nothing to do with black and white, Democrat or Republican; it is an effort to bury the individual rights for which the protesters stand. It is an effort to establish a fascist dictatorship.
There I’ve said it and I won’t take it back.
Does it take a bigot to see the truth today?
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