Monday, November 30, 2009

Things That Make You Go - Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm

Now if you replaced "private sector" with "economy-destroying neomarxist activism" the Obama administration could give any presidency a run for its money!

FIRE: Think What We Tell You To - Or Else



Google Search: "Climategate" surpasses "Global Warming" in One Week

From Watts Up With That?

Note: title suffix – “autosuggest still blocked” has been removed, see update2 at bottom of story.

We’ve had the term “global warming” in the lexicon since well before the Internet became a household tool, certainly well before Google itself.

So it is with amazement that I report the rise of a new term, “Climategate” in just a little over 1 week in the Google search engine.

Here’s our old friend “global warming”... [See the article for screenshots]

Mark Twain once wrote, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its shoes on." Well, the truth has a big black boot on and it is waiting to kick the global warming lie in the bouncies once it gets all the way around in Al Gore's GulfStream 5.

The Times Runs Interference for CRU: An Escapade in Convolution

Climate change data dumped
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.
Related Links

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said.

Jones was not in charge of the CRU when the data were thrown away in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue. The lost material was used to build the databases that have been his life’s work, showing how the world has warmed by 0.8C over the past 157 years.

He and his colleagues say this temperature rise is “unequivocally” linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by humans. Their findings are one of the main pieces of evidence used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says global warming is a threat to humanity.

National Education Association Openly Advocates Reading Alinsky

"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgement to the very first radical ... the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer."

Saul Alinsky, Dedication in Rules for Radicals

NEA: Recommended Reading: Saul Alinsky, The American Organizer
http://www.nea.org/tools/17231.htm

Posted here for evidence [I have a screenshot also in case they remove it from the site]
Recommended Reading: Saul Alinsky, The American Organizer

Reveille for Radicals
by Saul Alinsky
Vintage; Reissue edition (October 23, 1989)
Buy It

Rules for Radicals
by Saul Alinsky
Vintage; Reissue edition (October 23, 1989)
Buy It

An inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!

Saul Alinsky wrote the book on American radicalism - two books, in fact: a 1945 best-seller, "Reveille for Radicals" and "Rules for Radicals" in 1971. The "Reveille" title page quotes Thomas Paine... "Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul."

Saul Alinsky, who was a labor and civil-rights activist from the 1910's until he died in 1972, has written here a guidebook for those who are out to change things. He sets down what the goal is: a society where people are free to live, and also aren't starving in the streets. A society where there is legal and economic justice. Then he sets out to say how to get there.

Alinsky spends a lot of time critiquing the idea that "The end does not justify the means." What end? What means? He feels that there are circumstances where one can and should use means that in other circumstances would be unethical. I am not sure I agree, but Alinsky certainly speaks with the voice of experience.

Alinsky's goal seems to be to encourage positive social change by equipping activists with a realistic view of the world, a kind of preemptive disillusionment. If a person already knows what evil the world is capable of, then perhaps the surprise factor can be eliminated, making the person a more effective activist. Alinsky further seems to be encouraging the budding activist not to worry to much about getting his or her hands dirty. It's all a part of the job, he seems to say.

Alinsky, the master political agitator, tactical planner and social organizer didn't mince words...

"Liberals in their meetings utter bold works; they strut, grimace belligerently, and then issue a weasel-worded statement 'which has tremendous implications, if read between the lines.' They sit calmly, dispassionately, studying the issue; judging both sides; they sit and still sit.

"The Radical does not sit frozen by cold objectivity. He sees injustice and strikes at it with hot passion. He is a man of decision and action. There is a saying that the Liberal is one who walks out of the room when the argument turns into a fight.

"Society has good reason to fear the Radical. Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the Radical. He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while Liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues, Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives.

"Radicals precipitate the social crisis by action - by using power. Liberals may then timidly follow along or else, as in most cases, be swept forward along the course set by Radicals, but all because of forces unloosed by Radical action. They are forced to positive action only in spite of their desires ...

* "The American Radical will fight privilege and power whether it be inherited or acquired by any small group, whether it be political or financial or organized creed.
* "He curses a caste system which he recognizes despite all patriotic denials.
* "He will fight conservatives whether they are business or labor leaders.
* "He will fight any concentration of power hostile to a broad, popular democracy, whether he finds it in financial circles or in politics.
* "The Radical recognizes that constant dissension and conflict is and has been the fire under the boiler of democracy. He firmly believes in that brave saying of a brave people, "Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"
* "The Radical may resort to the sword but when he does he is not filled with hatred against those individuals whom he attacks. He hates these individuals not as persons but as symbols representing ideas or interests which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people.
* "That is the reason why Radicals, although frequently embarking upon revolutions, have rarely resorted to personal terrorism."

Alinsky practiced what he preached. He said, "Tactics means doing what you can with what you have ... tactics is the art of how to take and how to give."

He uses eyes, ears and nose for examples...

Eyes
"If you have a vast organization, parade it before the enemy, openly show your power."

Ears
"If your organization is small, do what Gideon did: conceal the members in the dark but raise a clamor that will make the listener believe that your organization numbers many more that it does."

Nose
"If your organization is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place."

Alinsky devised and proved thirteen tactical rules for use against opponents vastly superior in power and wealth.

1. "Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. "Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. "Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy.
4. "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6. "A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. "Keep the pressure on.
9. "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. "Major premise for tactics is development of operations that will maintain constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. "If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
12. "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

"The real action is in the enemy's reaction. The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength. Tactics, like life, require that you move with the action."

Alinsky was hated and defamed by powerful enemies, proof that his tactics worked. His simple formula for success...

"Agitate + Aggravate + Educate + Organize"

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Ayn Rand on the Emergence of a Militant Religious Right

Now observe another influence of philosophy’s power. Observe that the mostly liberal opposition to the anti-abortion gangs is extremely weak. For many years it is the liberals who were aggressive and eloquent. (…) It is the conservatives who had no arguments. Today, on the abortion issue, their positions are reversed. The conservatives are militantly self-righteous, the liberals are arguing in terms of uninspiring non-essentials. The reason? The liberals have lost their moral base, the only defense against the abortionists is a woman’s individual rights but this clashes with the liberals’ political philosophy. As to the conservatives, their pseudo-moral fervor is derived from their religious tenets, which they are now flaunting in public. 

Ayn Rand

It's a very relevant point. Liberals and socialists, who were strong and militant until the 1970s, have since then become impotent pragmatists and now present a much smaller threat. What does present a threat, however, is the militant religious movement, which wants America to return to medieval barbarism and despotic theocracy. On the fundamental level, the Christian right and the socialist left agree - they both want to usher in a tyranny. 

Ayn Rand on Reagan

The reason for my distaste for Reagan in the role of president is the philosophy he hasn’t got. I do not mean that I disagree with his philosophy. I mean that he hasn’t any. (…) He is a pragmatist who leans to the right, which is more contradictory a position than a pragmatist who leans to the left. (…) He seems to believe that the awful, populist hodge-podge of stale patriotism and folksy sentimentality which he utters is sufficient to set this country on fire and turn it back to its original principles. Speaking of fuel shortages, no one has told him that this country is perishing from a shortage of intellectual energy, although there are no Arabs to help us out in this crisis. (…) The kind of Halloween-like creatures who are trying to take over today’s intellectual arena are not created by the Reagan administration. They exist in any period in the dark, unventillated corners of history. But in the periods of philosophical default they come crawling out into the full, open moonlight. Today they are organized under many pretentious names and slogans. The most presumptuous of the names is the Moral Majority, and the falsest of the slogans is the claim that they are pro-life. What they all have in common is that they are militant mystics who have learned to be arrogant by encountering no opposition. Their common, though unacknowledged, ideal, the embodiment of their philosophical goals is the man who has succeeded in uniting religion with politics and establishing a religious dictatorship (…) – Ayatolla Khomeini. No, the Reagan administration did not create those militant creeps but it sponsors and supports them to an embarrasing extent. (…) It is embarrasing to hear a president of the United States endorse the plain, crude, illiterate supersitions of the populists of the Middle Ages. 

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Unity is the Destruction of the State

Aristotle, in Book II chapter 1 and 2 of The Politics, seems to be speaking of the modern left's incessant drive for unity, no longer as much at the national level (that is far too unambitious) but at the supra-national or international level:

I.

Our purpose is to consider what form of political community is best of all for those who are most able to realize their ideal of life. We must therefore examine not only this but other constitutions, both such as actually exist in well-governed states, and any theoretical forms which are held in esteem; that what is good and useful may be brought to light. And let no one suppose that in seeking for something beyond them we are anxious to make a sophistical display at any cost; we only undertake this inquiry because all the constitutions with which we are acquainted are faulty.

We will begin with the natural beginning of the subject. Three alternatives are conceivable: The members of a state must either have (1) all things or (2) nothing in common, or (3) some things in common and some not. That they should have nothing in common is clearly impossible, for the constitution is a community, and must at any rate have a common place -- one city will be in one place, and the citizens are those who share in that one city. But should a well ordered state have all things, as far as may be, in common, or some only and not others? For the citizens might conceivably have wives and children and property in common, as Socrates proposes in the Republic of Plato. Which is better, our present condition, or the proposed new order of society?

II.

There are many difficulties in the community of women [possibly a poor translation]. And the principle on which Socrates rests the necessity of such an institution evidently is not established by his arguments. Further, as a means to the end which he ascribes to the state, the scheme, taken literally is impracticable, and how we are to interpret it is nowhere precisely stated. I am speaking of the premise from which the argument of Socrates proceeds, 'that the greater the unity of the state the better.' Is it not obvious that a state may at length attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state? since the nature of a state is to be a plurality, and in tending to greater unity, from being a state, it becomes a family, and from being a family, an individual; for the family may be said to be more than the state, and the individual than the family. So that we ought not to attain this greatest unity even if we could, for it would be the destruction of the state. Again, a state is not made up only of so many men, but of different kinds of men; for similars do not constitute a state. It is not like a military alliance The usefulness of the latter depends upon its quantity even where there is no difference in quality (for mutual protection is the end aimed at), just as a greater weight of anything is more useful than a less (in like manner, a state differs from a nation, when the nation has not its population organized in villages, but lives an Arcadian sort of life); but the elements out of which a unity is to be formed differ in kind. Wherefore the principle of compensation, as I have already remarked in the Ethics [rough synopsis], is the salvation of states. Even among freemen and equals this is a principle which must be maintained, for they cannot an rule together, but must change at the end of a year or some other period of time or in some order of succession. The result is that upon this plan they all govern... And since it is better that this should be so in politics... is clear that while there should be continuance of the same persons in power where this is possible, yet where this is not possible by reason of the natural equality of the citizens, and at the same time it is just that they should share in the government (whether to govern be a good thing or a bad), an approximation to this is that equals should in turn retire from office and should, apart from official position, be treated alike. Thus the one party rule and the others are ruled in turn, as if they were no longer the same persons. In like manner when they hold office there is a variety in the offices held. Hence it is evident that a city is not by nature one in that sense which some persons affirm; and that what is said to be the greatest good of cities [or the nation - ed.] is in reality their destruction; but surely the good of things must be that which preserves them. Again, in another point of view, this extreme unification of the state is clearly not good; for a family is more self-sufficing than an individual, and a city than a family, and a city only comes into being when the community is large enough to be self-sufficing. If then self-sufficiency is to be desired, the lesser degree of unity is more desirable than the greater.

[Emphases added.]

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

What Patton Would Say About The War On Terror

Dive! Dive!


It was only a matter of time. Leftism is a failure every time it is tried. Fast leftism is just fast failure.

Falling Polar Bear Ad Illustrates Desperate Envirowackos



Someone needs to go in and replace the polar bears with suicidal climate researchers.

The Time to Defend Freedom is Now

Dear fellow Americans:

Action is required by all patriotic citizens given the urgency of the political and economic situation in this country.

The most pressing issues facing ourselves and our posterity are rampant corruption, profligate spending, unsustainable debt, oppressive taxes and regulations, and an increasingly brazen patron-client government.

An avalanche of public pressure is needed to send the message to Congress and the President that we are citizens of the United States of America.

We are not servants of government to be tax-farmed out for the gain of political benefactors who magnanimously bestow our rights, our security, and our livelihoods.

We are not the means to the ends of scheming politicians or instruments enlisted to subsidize quixotic, wasteful, ever-expanding, and increasing government programs.

The entitlements or contrived, non-natural "rights" of one class of citizens necessarily requires the coercion of others. A free people cannot live in bondage to the incessant demands of oligarchs or even of a tyrannical majority cobbled together under the patronage of politicians dispensing the public treasury.

The United States Constitution was written to preserve the status of the citizenry as freeholders of a liberty-preserving republic. The document that brought the country into existence was intended to provide the government with the legal-rational authority required to preserve the people's freedom.

Political office is therefore a trust executed on behalf of the people of the United States. If a politician obviates from the strictures of his office he is to be removed and his unconstitutional actions rendered null and void.

It is our responsibility and our duty as citizens to actively reassert limited government as specified in the Constitution, lest the tyranny of oligarchy or democracy ensues and the republic be dissolved.

The message needed to be sent to the usurpers of Constitutional authority in the current government is that we are autonomous individuals, co-equals by virtue of our births as free men and women as stressed throughout the history of natural law.

We are the granters of political power and authority. The American people giveth, and the American people can taketh away.

[Please use the website Dear Politician [https://www.dearpolitician.org/index.php] to compose emails or free faxes, or find the phone numbers for the politician in charge of your state or congressional district. The agenda Congressional Reform Act of 2009 would be an excellent start to reforming the government, and I encourage anyone to copy it and mail it to their Senator, Congressman, or the President of the United States.]

The Pitter-Patter of Truth Catching Up to Leftist Liars

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Bernanke Caught Red-Handed - Must See TV

Empirical Confirmation of Left's Collaboration in Global Warming Lie


Score one for the good guys. To quote James Inhoffe: We win - you lose - get a life.

Three Critiques of Ayn Rand

Big Sister Is Watching You by Whittaker Chambers, who was a communist and spied for the Soviets.

On the 50th Anniversary of Atlas Shrugged by Gary North, who advocates stoning for blasphemy and abortion.

The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult by Murray Rothbard, who plagiarized Ayn Rand's political philosophy without giving her any credit and cooperated with New Leftist fans of mass murderers Chairman Mao and Che Guevara.

Of these three critics, who criticized Ayn Rand for her alleged totalitarianism (i.e. they stupidly confused her integrity and adherence to abstract principles with totalitarianism), two were themselves totalitarians (a communist and a Christian totalitarian), and one cooperated with a totalitarian movement (the New Left).

Ayn Rand on Abortion

Today's anti-abortion campaign is so obscenely evil a phenomenon that I find it difficult to understand or to believe it. One might ascribe this campaign to the psychology of medieval gargoyles but in the 20th century, in the United States... There is only one essential question in this issue. Since the woman is not an animal and, if she is conscientious, cannot abandon her young, the matter of childbirth means the surrender of her entire life to the drudgery of rearing a child and the surrender of her man's life as well if he, too, is conscientious. By what infernal privilege do some females assume the right to dispose of the rights of others in this manner? Don't tell me about an eight-month old fetus. What is involved here is an embryo who is a piece of protoplasm to which a human lifetime is to be sacrificed. Don't tell me about that protoplasm's rights - it hasn't any. And don't tell me that that abominable movement, which seeks to immolate the lives of countless human beings, is called a pro-life movement. That is merely an instance of the Big Lie if you ever saw one. (...) Half of their motive is hatred - a frightened kind of hatred of the good for being the good - specifically, hatred of happiness. That hatred comes from tribalist conformity, from the brain of a rotten person thinking "since I obeyed my tribe and bore children, let every woman do the same, let no woman have a happy, successful or significant life." Or, sure, some mothers can have significant lives but those are mothers by choice and they do not join the anti-abortion movement. It is truly shameful that this particular violation of rights is perpetrated by today's conservatives. It is one more proof of the fact that, whatever the conservatives want to conserve, it is not capitalism nor freedom nor individual rights.

Interview With a Climate Pimp

"Bitch better have my money," so responded a UN official to the latest research suggesting that climate change is forcing young women into prostitution.

Sporting a purple-feathered cap to show solidarity with Philippino ladies of the night (or "flips" as they're known in the industry) Jonny "Climate Pimp" Jones escorted me into the UN building, red snakeskin boots clacking, and a glitzy "broad" on each arm.

"And unlike the latest climate change models, these babies are real," Jonny smirks, jiggling the endowments of his bubble-gum smacking entourage as he leads me to where Climate Truth happens.

We enter the wing for the UN Department of Creative Financing and walk by the offices for Weather, CO2, Carbon Credits, and Jonny opens a door with a shiny engraved plaque labeled "Prostitution." The girls remove his hat and sunglasses and the pimp sits down. He stares intently; one eye is red and the other is green, his pupils are thin slivers like a reptile's. The green eye shoots off to the left. It makes for an eerie effect.

"Let's talk bizness," Jonny hisses through his gold tooth. The climate pimp vaguely resembles Billy Dee Williams, but clean-shaven, with a close-cropped reddish afro. His skin is pale and wan. The girls behind him giggle and continue smacking their gum. One is a dyed redhead with a slightly impudent face and a turned up nose. From afar she looks incredibly beautiful, even noble, but upon closer inspection the facade falls apart: There are scattered lines and the crimson lipstick at the corners of her mouth is smeared. The other is a raven-haired beauty with a blank expression and blinking eyes. There is nothing especially remarkable about her, except when you gaze at her she is the most fascinating of creatures, but when you turn away she is instantly forgotten.

"Excuse me for being rude," I started off, brushing off the surreal nature of the settings. "But don't you think going around with ditzy models is a bit unbecoming for a climate expert?"

Jonny threw his boots up on the cherry-finished desk and appeared slightly angered. "Man, what you talking about? Denise here has a degree from the Harvard school of climate relations and Julie - well, she's my special assistant. She can be a little cold sometimes, but in my estimate, she's as smoking hot as they come. Isn't that right you little minx?" The girls squealed in delight. "But enough small talk, what's on your mind?"

"Well sir, there's this report that suggests that climate change is forcing women in the Philippines into prostitution..."

"Oh that," his laughter burst out so quickly it immediately turned into a cough. Between you, me and the two walls, that's just a way for the UN to muscle in on some turf in Manila that we've been eyeballing for some time now. These ladies of the night have been rendering their services in an unregulated market down there, and we want a cut. So we claim that climate change is making all these fine young things available," one of the girls snorted, "and we charge their customers a special fee for 'facilitation of services.' It's our little way of giving back to the communities."

Jonny turned away and admired his quite impressive collection of plaques and awards, including signed pictures with Kofi Annan, Al Gore, and Ashton Kutcher. "Cavasier?" he offers as he dexterously pulls out a bottle of absynthian colored liquid and a glass tumbler. "Sorry, but - no ice."

"No...thank you. I'm a bit puzzled here. How will making money off the sex trade do anything for global climate temperatures?"

"Well, no one in the press has ever asked me that question before." Jonny's expression went from amused to exasperated. The girls glanced at one another nervously.

"That's not the point. It doesn't matter, man, what's really going on out there. We're saving the planet. We're the good guys...the good guys! Some big oil company didn't send you here, did they?" Suddenly, Jonny appeared agitated and he fiddled impatiently. Then he produced a big box of cigars from a drawer as quickly as a street magician. "Cuban?" The climate pimp whipped out a gold zippo, snapped open the lid, and shot a flame to the tip of his cigar. The end glowed a bright red, and as Jonny puffed, the flames from the lighter shot up over his face. One, two, three times, and for a moment his face looked maniacal, even demonic.

"No. No!" I shot out not really believing the scene that had just unfolded before me. "Like I said, I am a beat reporter that covers the United Nations and happenings on the international scene."

"Oh, so - that's fascinating. Chocolate-covered cherry?"

"Really Jonny, I'm not interested in all that. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this story. The U.N. claims that global climate temperatures are going up - where is it getting this data from and how can people verify it? There's a lot on the line for countries economically."

Jonny lifted his head up from a laptop computer, which seemed to have appeared from out of thin air. The pimp was was grinning sardonically from ear to ear. Just as quickly, he closed the laptop and stowed it at his feet. "Excuse me, did you say something about data?"

"Global temperatures appear to be steady or declining for the last ten years, according to satellite time series data. Would you like to comment?"

"Sure, I would like to comment." The climate pimp all of a sudden pulled out a remote control and pressed the big red button in the middle. The sound of gears engaging filled the room and a wall to his left bearing an obvious fake of Jacques Louis-David's The Death of Marat began to move towards me and revealed a hidden room. Lights flicked on from overhead as if in a museum. In the center of the room, a giant circular bed with red satin sheets and bronze fluting beckoned. There were candles on lamp stands that flickered and the scent of cinnamon incense wafted into his nostrils. Two leafy ferns stood in the corner, and inset in the wall behind them were burbling lava lamps. The floor was marble with an obsidian and cyanthine checkered pattern. For some bizarre reason, Mack the Knife played in the background.

"Perhaps Denise and Julie can shed some light on the subject?" Jonny grinned and a golden light beamed from beneath him onto his joyous triumphal face. It wasn't immediately clear if one was looking upon the most beautiful of angels or the most hideous of devils.

"That won't be necessary," I gasped. Immediately, the music shut off, the lights from the room dimmed, and the wall closed back up.

"Perhaps I can write you a check? Money is no object." A gleaming pen and a leather-bound checkbook were extended before me and the pimp smirked. He insistently forced the pen into my left hand, scratching it.

I jerked my hand back and bit it to quell the pain. "If you don't mind, I'd just like some answers."

Jonny glanced down at his Rolex and tapped it twice. "Will you look at the time? Sorry, I'm a busy man." The climate pimp yanked his legs down from his desk, jumped up, and the redhead set a feathered cap on his head while the blonde laid a fur coat over his shoulders.

"You'll have to excuse me. I'm off to the Phillipines to meet with a promising young upstart. People are murmuring that he could be The One, but I must disabuse him of this notion. Good day."

And with that, I found myself in a brightly lit solarium staring at a swirling cup of espresso. Men and women resembling fashion models strolled through the capacious lobby of the UN with an air of unthinking purpose. Unexpectedly, my cell phone rang. Clumsily I reached into my pocket, flipped open the lid, and held it up to my ear. "Hello?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Jones has to cancel the interview and I'm afraid that it is impossible to reschedule at this time."

"Oh. OK, " I mumbled. I clapped the cell phone shut. This was all a bit too weird, even for the UN.

Had the interview been a dream? The scratch on my hand itched and a trickle of blood fell to the ground. The interview was real, and yet it seemed an illusion. But somehow I knew - it couldn't be both.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

An Axial Year

Isn't it a wonderful coincedence that Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, the first bestseller advocating a free-market economy, and the Declaration of Independence, which ushered in the first truly free political society on Earth, were published in the same year?

A funny postscript: a year before (in 1775) Immanuel Kant, who subsequently plunged the world into an abyss of unreason, published a paper called On the Different Races of Man. In the paper, he proposed the silly hypothesis that the entire Solar System was populated with aliens, and the closer they were to the Sun, the more stupid they were. That makes us earthlings pretty stupid, eh?

Sports as Inherently Western

Inspired by a post by RJ, I came to the conclusion that sports (in the strict sense of the word) is an inherently Western institution. Sports in its modern sense was conceived in Ancient Greece – the bastion of reason and “this-wordliness.” That’s why the first thing Christian fascists did when they took over the Roman Empire was to ban the Olympic Games – that great manifestation of human beauty and pride. When humanism, as opposed to mysticism, came to dominate the Western civilization again in the modern period, it was the Anglo-Saxons, the most rational and libertarian culture that has ever existed, who revived that noble institution and invented most modern sports. 

Friday, November 20, 2009

Facing the Truth

Measureless as is the power of God, nevertheless it can be said that there are certain things over which that power does not extend. . . . Just as even God cannot cause that two times two should not make four, so He cannot cause that which is intrinsically evil be not evil.
Hugo Grotius, De Iure Belli ac Pacis (1625)

After grasping this concept, the Western civilization ascended to greater heights than any culture had done ever before. The words echo the famous line below: 

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

United We Slave: The National Fascist League Backs Obama Policy



The Obama administration is running a left-wing sweep on the National Football League. Recently, the political correctness police banned Rush Limbaugh from partial ownership of the St. Louis Rams, and now the White House has released a new video that has the NFL backing the seemingly benign Obama program "United We Serve."

What are we to make of this hilarious yet disturbing propaganda, which has Obama running a crossing route and catching a lofty toss thrown by New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees? Are we to infer that Obama is also a Saint?

There is practically nothing more conceivably antithetical to the left's worldview than American football. This makes it a sitting target, kind of like Barack Obama coming across the middle on Ray Lewis. [How would Obama talk his way out of the reality that he would get smoked?] The left is therefore working to co-opt the NFL and put it in the service of socialism.

One might object that the NFL has partnered with "charitable" organizations in the past. The league has maintained a long and mutually beneficial relationship with The United Way. But United We Serve is no charitable organization, it is a political policy designed to get Americans used to the well-established socialist dream of everyone working for free. Sounds like slavery - with a smile.

For those who believe this is no more than right-wing pontification, observe the language on the White House "blog" describing United We Serve: "It's going to take all of us working together to build a new foundation for America and it will happen one community at a time." Yeah, kind of like ACORN - does the NFL want a piece of that action? [Furthermore, did we just survive a nuclear holocaust that the mainstream media didn't report? Or is the White House simply describing the economic after-effects of government intervention into the housing market?]

There is always the possibility that the NFL is simply clueless and sees nothing wrong with inviting a politically divisive figure to serve as representative of the league. But what is not believable is that the Obama administration is simply promoting a seemingly worthy cause in good faith. Obama is targeting the NFL and watering down its cultural significance with the leftist ethos of altruism, because the NFL represents a defiance of the socialist narrative virtually en toto.

Does anyone think that leftists fail to grasp how important professional football is to American culture? The NFL has all the traits that effete modern liberals despise. There is capitalism, manliness, and competition - making the league a perennial institution of solid American values so provocative that neomarxist shock-troops cannot help but try to co-opt it.

Professional football is an inherently conservative institution. Teaching both individual greatness and teamwork, football brings out the best in men through competition.

Best of all, in football results matter. This makes a football game a test of two teams: There is a superior team and an inferior team on any given Sunday. This black or white, up or down way of evaluating superiority clashes mightily with the left's morally relativist worldview.

The National Football League is also a powerful indictment of the Marxian myth that there are two classes in a capitalist society, haves and have-nots, and that the former class unremittingly and perpetually exploits the latter. Professional football players come from all socioeconomic backgrounds (in fact usually lower and middle class ones) and they work their butts off to make the most of their talent; there is no free ride, and no excuses here. The NFL, without any affirmative action policy and simply through the standard of open competition, confirms an argument that conservatives have been making for years: That a true market is colorblind. In the NFL, the rule is simple: Either you are a great football player or you are a fan.

Football players sell themselves and their unique set of skills to the NFL - and if successful, they become millionaires. The ultimate reason they become millionaires? Because the middle class has the time, the technological means, and the money to financially support the game.

The NFL constitutes a running threat to the leftist narrative. The Gramscian march through all the institutions of the culture in order to subvert the economy continues, and professional sports is merely the last of American bastions to resist the left's creeping program.

Here's a hail Mary, keep the ubiquitous President Obama and his socialist program out of my Sundays. If you think Tea Party activists are bad, you haven't seen thirty thousand angry Cleveland Browns tailgaters.

Global Warming Fraud Exposed: You've Been Punked Climate Hacks!

There are hacks and there are hacks. Watts Up With That? reports that a series of emails exposing the plots of neomarxist climate change operatives have been hacked.

It was only a matter of time before the left's Goebbelesque big lie of anthropogenic climate change would be patently exposed. Of course, anyone with an ounce of scientific understanding has known that the left's entire climate change argument was ridiculous and simply an excuse to expropriate control over the economy for political ends.

Here is a particularly choice excerpt [see Hot Air for more]:

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@[snipped], mhughes@
[snipped]
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@[snipped],t.osborn@[snipped]
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers, Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit

The left's climate change lies need to be exposed to the greatest degree possible because it shows the entire modus operandi of the left (and indeed many on the so-called "right") - to take over the industrial economy and put it at the disposal of politicians.

Wanted: National Jobs Czar

As advertised in the Wall Street Journal:

Wanted: National Jobs Czar

Employer: The Democratic Party

Job Type: Crisis Management/Complex Mathematics/Mental Health Professional

Start Date: Now. Like, Right Now.

Description: The Democratic Party seeks a wildly optimistic individual to oversee a national jobs-creation program. Jobs can be real, or not, so long as the public thinks the party is "doing something." The National Jobs Creator will have at his disposal Congress to pass new "jobs legislation" (aka The It-Is-Not-Another-Stimulus Act of 2009).

The NJC will oversee a dynamic team whose side responsibilities include selling this to the public and saving our behinds in next year's election. This is a potential career status position.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Masters Degree from an accredited program in communications/spin. Candidate must be able to explain to the public why "new jobs legislation" is necessary despite assurances the "old jobs legislation"—a $787 billion "stimulus"—is working. Applicant must demonstrate ability to explain why, despite a global recession, we continued socializing health care, and only just noticed that, wow, Houston, we have a problem. (Candidate might consider researching McDonnell, Bob, Gov.-elect of Virginia, who just kicked us in an election and did it talking about "jobs." That got us wondering.)

Candidate must explain the "new jobs legislation" to a wary public. Candidate must clarify how extending unemployment benefits will create jobs; how extending health insurance for the unemployed will create jobs; how taxing financial transactions to pay for this will create jobs. Candidate is responsible for immediately restoring party credibility on this issue, despite all past failed Keynesian spending and, let's be honest, some (holy moly!) embarrassing stimulus "job counting."

• Ph.D. in imaginary numbers: Candidate must demonstrate a better ability than those currently in charge to translate past stimulus pork into current countable jobs. Applicant must show working knowledge of fictitious congressional districts. (Example of interview question: Show how, using the white board and string theory, an $890 shoe order creates nine new jobs.) Candidate must be able to dismantle audits showing the White House's 640,000 "saved or created" jobs are as real as the Easter Bunny. These skills will also prove necessary in outlining the benefits of "new jobs legislation." Candidate must be able to explain, numerically and cosmically, why 10.2% unemployment is no different than the 8% ceiling we promised.

[Continued]

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Hey Kids! How's That Hope and Change Working For You?

Earth to Gore: I'm Only 5,000 Degrees - Not "Millions"

Enforcing God's Law on Earth

Below is a dialogue from Gary North's libertarian Taliban-run future world:

-Hi, Arphaxad, praise be to Jehovah.
-Hello, Hazar-maveth, Jehovah be praised.
-Seen the awesome stoning yesterday?
-Yeah, man, that was great. You know, I bought some popcorn, thought it would be the usual kind, just whack, whack and all done. But, man, that one was a lot of blood. The sinner suffered for his sins for real, man! I enjoyed it.
-I've just come from a bookstore, you know, the one down at the Abraham Tavern. It's a cool one. There's all sorts of Bibles - you know, red, green, gray ones, Bible Lite, the Bible for Dummies, Bible Reloaded. Real diversity! Not like in the olden times when the secular establishment had a monopoly on the media.
-Yeah, right. What's up at college?
-Cool, we've got some exchange students from Al Qaeda who came to teach us how to enforce God's will on Earth.
-Man, come to think of it, our satanic leadership used to fight these honest, God-fearing people!
-Are you going to the party tonight?
-Yeah, it's gonna be great, right?
-Oh, God be praised, sure! We're gonna have some group prayer!
-I've never done this. I've done a threesome once though.
-You should do it! Are you skillful at foreprayer?
-Yeah, my prayer partners haven't complained. By the way, I got a great Jesus job last night.

A Libertarian Taliban

Ayn Rand's insights on the libertarian movement are proven true day by day. If one had doubted that the crisis of libertarianism could have gotten worse, well, it freaking well can.

You've probably heard of round squares and married bachelors. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you… a totalitarian libertarian!

Christian Reconstructionist Gary North, who wrote one of those fashionable critiques of Ayn Rand, is in with the Mises Institute crowd and hangs out with the Austrian School people. Cool, innit? So far, so good. There's one "but" though - this guy is… a theocrat. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in the literal sense of the word - it's not a metaphor. In North's libertarian paradise, society would be run by the churches:

In this structure of plural governments, the institutional churches serve as advisors to the other institutions (the Levitical function). (…) Thus, each of the three covenantal institutions is to be run under God, as interpreted by its lawfully elected or ordained leaders, with the advice of the churches.

"Freedom" in that society would only be granted to the believers, while the sinners, North argues, would not enjoy the fruits of liberty:

Protection, in this theocratic perspective, is not by state controls but by the might of the "Great God", who is "Our King." (…) Man the sinner, however, is a slave, and his freedom is in essence a freedom to sin.

George Grant, another Reconstructionist, clearly outlines what exactly these Christian Bolsheviks are after:

"World conquest," proclaims George Grant, in what by Reconstructionist standards is not an especially breathless formulation. "It is dominion we are after. Not just a voice... not just influence...not just equal time. It is dominion we are after."

North elaborates on the means that would be used to achieve "dominion":

In winning a nation to the gospel, the sword as well as the pen must be used.

This self-styled libertarian has no qualms about cracking down on the freedom of speech and freedom of religion: 

As a tactic for a short-run defense of the independent Christian school movement, the appeal to religious liberty is legitimate. Everyone who is attempting to impose a world-and-life view on a majority (or on a ruling minority) always uses some version of the liberty doctrine to buy himself and his movement some time, some organizational freedom, and some power. Still, nobody really believes in the whole idea. Politics always involves establishing one view of the 'holy commonwealth,' and excluding all other rival views. The Communist Party uses the right of free association to get an opportunity to create a society in which all such rights are illegal. The major churches of any society are all maneuvering for power, so that their idea of lawful legislation will become predominant. (…) Everyone talks about religious liberty, but no one believes it.
So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God. "


This Pol Pot of the libertarian movement also says a presumably "libertarian" Inquisition would eradicate heresy and sin:

The State must protect Christian civilization from rival religious views which would destroy the state. (…) Pornography and abortion will be illegal. God's law will be enforced.

Greg Bahnsen, another Reconstructionist, is not mincing words either:

"When someone tries to undermine the commitment to Jehovah which is fundamental to the civil order of a godly state--then that person needs to be restrained by the magistrate...those who will not acknowledge Jehovah as the ultimate authority behind the civil law code which the magistrate is enforcing would be punished and repressed,"

According to Christian Reconstructionism, the practice of non-Christian religions would only be allowed in "the privacy of your own home" but they would not be publicly practiced, and proselytism would be prohibited.

North also wants the Christian KGB to enforce a single moral system:

There is no doubt that Christianity teaches pluralism, but a very special kind of pluralism: plural institutions under God's single comprehensive law system. It does not teach (…) a pluralism of moralities (…).
The Bible tells us which acts are to be prohibited from the public places. (…)


Man, it gests nastier. What we have here is a Christian Taliban. North advocates the capital punishment for women who undergo abortion and those who advise them to do so, as well as for cursing parents and blasphemy:

"When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime," he writes. "The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death." Likewise with blasphemy, dealt with summarily in Leviticus 24:16: "And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him."

Reconstructionists also support the death penalty for homosexuality, heresy, apostasy, premarital sex, adultery and juvenile delinquency.

As an aside, there are three kinds of religious fanatics in the US. Fundamentalists seek to isolate their communities in medieval-style ghetto worlds "protected" from the benefits of science, progress and civilization. Evangelicals advocate moderate involvement in politics to bully and coerce innocent people into complying with the ramblings of a 1st century Galilean madman. Reconstructionists, which are the worst of the three, seek to usher in a "Kingdom of God" on Earth by basing the entire political and social structure on the archaic scribbles of Middle Eastern barbarians.

Why is the Mises Institute coddling a Christian jihadist? If I may venture a guess, this has something to do with many libertarians' explicit or implicit rejection of reason as the ultimate foundation of knowledge. Reconstructionist Andrew Sandlin puts it quite clearly:

"Reason itself is not an objective `given' but is itself a divinely created instrument employed by the unregenerate to further their attack on God." The "appeal to reason as final arbiter" must be rejected; "if man is permitted autonomy in one sphere he will soon claim autonomy in all spheres....We therefore deny every expression of human autonomy--liberal, conservative or libertarian."

If we do not want to revert to medieval barbarism or, worse, be literally stoned into the Stone Age by the likes of Gary North, we must take an uncompromising, hardcore stance on the relation of reason to faith. Faith - any faith in any degree whatsoever - is a rejection of reason, and even a tiny bit of mysticism (such as going to church on Sunday) provides an opportunity for a North-style Taliban. In questions of ideology, no centrism or moderation has any long-term chance. Ideas, when followed to their logical conclusions, tend to lead to a radicalism of one kind or another. It is up to you to be a radical for freedom or a radical for medieval savagery. No compromise between faith and reason is possible.

P.S. The quotes are taken from here and the books cited here.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Reason Magazine Illustrates FedEx vs. UPS

Churchill's Mass-Murdering Buddy

 I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin.

These are the words from which the Cold War started? Gimme a freaking break... Though the speech is beautiful and composed in a "classical" (i.e. Greco-Roman-derived) style, I'm having a lot of troubles with many f**ckups like this. 

Sen. Graham Dresses Down National Disgrace Eric Holder

A Heavenly Despot Exempt from Natural Law

Article 5. Whether the natural law can be changed? (…)

Objection 2. Further, the slaying of the innocent, adultery, and theft are against the natural law. But we find these things changed by God: as when God commanded Abraham to slay his innocent son (Genesis 22:2); and when he ordered the Jews to borrow and purloin the vessels of the Egyptians (Exodus 12:35); and when He commanded Osee to take to himself "a wife of fornications" (Hosea 1:2). Therefore the natural law can be changed. (…)

Reply to Objection 2. All men alike, both guilty and innocent, die the death of nature: which death of nature is inflicted by the power of God on account of original sin, according to 1 Samuel 2:6: "The Lord killeth and maketh alive." Consequently, by the command of God, death can be inflicted on any man, guilty or innocent, without any injustice whatever. In like manner adultery is intercourse with another's wife; who is allotted to him by the law emanating from God. Consequently intercourse with any woman, by the command of God, is neither adultery nor fornication. The same applies to theft, which is the taking of another's property. For whatever is taken by the command of God, to Whom all things belong, is not taken against the will of its owner, whereas it is in this that theft consists. Nor is it only in human things, that whatever is commanded by God is right; but also in natural things, whatever is done by God, is, in some way, natural, as stated in the I, 105, 6, ad 1. (…)

(Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas) 

I respect the Peripatetic part of Thomism but abhor its Christian part. The twisted logic of this argument would be similar if the Government were substituted for God. We have often heard that it is not theft when the Government does it (taxation), it is not murder when the Government does it (wars of aggression, executions of innocent people) and it is not fraud when the Government does it (paper money, the Fed). Thus, the logic of religious savagery and the logic of modern statism are pretty much the same. 

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Perils of Paper Money

The full implications of adopting a national fiat currency has not been well thought-out by the majority of the American citizenry. But we can clearly see the effect of rampant inflation with the soaring of gold and other commodity prices. It is my opinion that the purpose of the practice of issuing fiat (that is, imaginary) currency is to facilitate the theft of the nation's wealth, to provide a means for politicians to manipulate the economy, to usher in the collapse of the American economy, and to transition the world to communism, if the issuance of fiat currency is not in effect a form of communism already.

This grand theory is beyond the scope of this current post, but suffice it to say, that the adoption of paper currency and pursuant inflation of the money supply is ruinous to a country's economy. A few choice selections will illustrate this point and provide sources for the interested but otherwise uninitiated reader.

Once money ceases to be what Ludwig von Mises defined - "a store of wealth" - and is instead a manifestation of exchange-debt, then the collapse of the economy is imminent indeed. Money under a fiat system is no longer property and one is no longer entitled to a set amount of property (gold or silver, or specie currency) in exchange for it. This system is reflective of a point of view where the government owns the people and arbitrarily controls the value of their labor, as well as gives the government the ability to manipulate the economy for political purposes.

There have been variations of this theme throughout history. To demonstrate the perils of a paper money system, I can do little better here in a reasonable amount of space than to select one of a number of relevant passages from Murray Rothbard's A History of Money and Banking in the United States:

"Apart from medieval China, which invented both paper and printing centuries before the West, the world had never seen government paper money until the colonial government of Massachusetts emitted a fiat paper issue in 1690...

Suspecting that the public would not accept irredeemable paper, the government made a twofold pledge when it issued the notes: that it would redeem them in gold or silver out of tax revenue in a few years and that absolutely no further paper notes would be issued. Characteristically, however, both part of the pledge went quickly by the board: The issue limit disappeared in a few months, and all the bills continued unredeemed for nearly 40 years. As early as February 1691, the Massachusetts government proclaimed that its issue had fallen 'far short' and so it proceeded to emit £40,000 of new money to repay all of its outstanding debt, again pledging falsely that this would be the absolute final note issue.

But Massachusetts found that the increase in the supply of money, coupled with a fall in the demand for paper because of growing lack of confidence in future redemption in specie, led to a rapid depreciation of new money in relation to specie. Indeed, within a year after the initial issue, the new paper pound had depreciated on the market by 40 percent against specie.

By 1692, the government moved against this market evaluation by use of force, making the paper money compulsory legal tender for all debts at par with specie and by granting a premium of 5 percent on all payment of debts to the government made in paper notes. This legal tender law had the unwanted effect of Gresham’s Law (think 1933 gold seizures and 1971 closing of the "gold window"): the disappearance of specie circulation in the colony. In addition, the expanding paper issues drove up prices and hampered exports from the colony. In this way, the specie “shortage” became the creature rather than the cause of the fiat paper issues. Thus, in 1690, before the orgy of paper issues began, £200,000 of silver money was available in New England; by 1711, however, with Connecticut and Rhode Island having followed suit in paper money issue, £240,000 of paper money had been issued in New England but the silver had almost disappeared from circulation.

Ironically, then, Massachusetts’s and her sister colonies’ issue of paper money created rather than solved any 'scarcity of money.' The new paper drove out the old specie." (51-52)

I could continue to quote Rothbard's magisterial tome at length, but instead will recommend to anyone who has not done so to read the book online for free. It is one of those rare works that one can pick up and put down with ease. Each page has sufficient intellectual sustenance to digest for hours on end.

Of course, another work that illustrates the futility of manipulating the currency to create the illusion of generating wealth is Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations:

"In all countries, however, men seem at last to have been determined by irresistible reasons to give the preference, for this employment, to metals above every other commodity. Metals can not only be kept with as little loss as any other commodity, scarce any thing being less perishable than they are, but they can likewise, without any loss, be divided into any number of parts, as by fusion those parts can easily be reunited again; a quality which no other equally durable commodities possess, and which more than any other quality renders them fit to be the instruments of commerce and circulation.

Different metals have been made use of by different nations for this purpose. Iron was the common instrument of commerce among the antient Spartans; copper among the antient Romans; and gold and silver among all rich and commercial nations...

The use of metals in this rude state was attended with two very considerable inconveniencies; first with the trouble of weighing; and, secondly, with that of assaying them. In the precious metals, where a small difference in the quantity makes a great difference in the value, even the business of weighing, with proper exactness, requires at least very accurate weights and scales. The weighing of gold in particular is an operation of some nicety. In the coarser metals, indeed, where a small error would be of little consequence, less accuracy would, no doubt, be necessary. Yet we should find it excessively troublesome, if every time a poor man had occasion either to buy or sell a farthing's worth of goods, he was obliged to weigh the farthing. The operation of assaying is still more difficult, still more tedious, and, unless a part of the metal is fairly melted in the crucible, with proper dissolvents, any conclusion that can be drawn from it, is extremely uncertain. Before the institution of coined money, however, unless they went through this tedious and difficult operation, people must always have been liable to the grossest frauds and impositions, and instead of a pound weight of pure silver, or pure copper, might receive in exchange for their goods, an adulterated composition of the coarsest and cheapest materials, which had, however, in their outward appearance, been made to resemble those metals. To prevent such abuses, to facilitate exchanges, and thereby to encourage all sorts of industry and commerce, it has been found necessary, in all countries that have made any considerable advances towards improvement, to affix a public stamp upon certain quantities of such particular metals, as were in those countries commonly made use of to purchase goods. Hence the origin of coined money, and of those public offices called mints; institutions exactly of the same nature with those of the aulnagers and stampmasters of woollen and linen cloth. All of them are equally meant to ascertain, by means of a public stamp, the quantity and uniform goodness of those different commodities when brought to market.

For in every country of the world, I believe, the avarice and injustice of princes and sovereign states, abusing the confidence of their subjects, have by degrees diminished the real quantity of metal, which had been originally contained in their coins. The Roman As, in the latter ages of the Republic, was reduced to the twenty-fourth part of its original value, and, instead of weighing a pound, came to weigh only half an ounce. The English pound and penny contain at present about a third only; the Scots pound and penny about a thirty-sixth; and the French pound and penny about a sixty-sixth part of their original value. By means of those operations the princes and sovereign states which performed them were enabled, in appearance, to pay their debts and to fulfil their engagements with a smaller quantity of silver than would otherwise have been requisite. It was indeed in appearance only; for their creditors were really defrauded of a part of what was due to them. All other debtors in the state were allowed the same privilege, and might pay with the same nominal sum of the new and debased coin whatever they had borrowed in the old. Such operations, therefore, have always proved favourable to the debtor, and ruinous to the creditor, and have sometimes produced a greater and more universal revolution in the fortunes of private persons, than could have been occasioned by a very great public calamity." (See Ron's cited passage James 5:1-6).

Finally, one can touch upon the comparisons of the decline of the American republic and the collapse of the Roman empire, which vary from the superficial to the profound. A sober, and quite sobering, synopsis can be found in Ludwig von Mises' lecture "The Rise and Decline of Civilization":

"What had taken place? What was the problem? What was it that caused the disintegration of an empire which, in every regard, had attained the highest civilization ever achieved before the eighteenth century? The truth is that what destroyed this ancient civilization was something similar, almost identical to the dangers that threaten our civilization today: on the one hand it was interventionism, and on the other hand, inflation. The interventionism of the Roman Empire consisted in the fact that the Roman Empire, following the preceding Greek policy, did not abstain from price control. This price control was mild, practically without any consequences, because for centuries it did not try to reduce prices below the market level.

But when inflation began in the third century, the poor Romans did not yet have our technical means for inflation. They could not print money; they had to debase the coinage, and this was a much inferior system of inflation compared to the present system, which--through the use of the modern printing press-can so easily destroy the value of money. But it was efficient enough, and it brought about the same result as price control, for the prices which the authorities tolerated were now below the potential price to which inflation had brought the prices of the various commodities.

The result, of course, was that the supply of foodstuffs in the cities declined. The people in the cities were forced to go back to the country and to return to agricultural life. The Romans never realized what was happening. They did not understand it. They had not developed the mental tools to interpret the problems of the division of labor and the consequences of inflation upon market prices. That this currency inflation, currency debasement, was bad, this they knew of course very well.

Consequently, the emperors made laws against this movement. There were laws preventing the city dweller from moving to the country, but such laws were ineffective. As the people did not have anything to eat in the city, as they were starving, no law could keep them from leaving the city and going back into agriculture. The city dweller could no longer work in the processing indus­tries of the cities as an artisan. And, with the loss of the markets in the cities, no one could buy anything there anymore...

There are enormous differences between present-day conditions and those that prevailed in Rome, in that the measures that caused the disintegration of the Roman Empire were not premeditated. They were not, I would say, the result of reprehensible formalized doctrines."

Compassionate Leftists In Action



Oh yes, whities we looters will take what's ours, even if we have to beat you down!

Americans Must Never Compromise Their National Sovereignty

The American people are slowly being stripped of their sovereignty and prepped for submission to a world government. The process may take several generations, but there can be no doubt that this is the ineluctable outcome the statists in the government have pre-determined. The individual, in the fullest sense, must take a stand with his fellow patriots against the state if this grave threat to freedom is to be thrown back.

The lubrication for the integration of the United States into the machinery of the new internationalist world order is moral relativism, and by extension, cultural relativism, which hold that there are no appreciable differences between the moral systems of nations. Moral relativism at the individual-societal level is destructive of a man's ability to judge (or to use Evan Sayet's term to "discriminate") what values are conducive to his life and success. Cultural relativism attempts to suppress the resistance of peoples to the idea of unification in a supra-national world government.

The program for the internationalist vision is two-fold: first, the annihilation of "dogmatic" (meaning unyielding) religious and moral values; and second, reprogramming.

In the state-run education system, people are not taught true critical thinking skills; and those academic subjects conducive to developing them (specifically, mathematics and science) are limited to the most rudimentary and superficial of expositions. Furthermore, the core curriculum of reading and writing is grounded in the post-modernist, that is to say, subjectivist school of literary criticism, which is corrosive of traditional social norms; while the key aspect of writing is not communication to others and therefore a recognition of the external world (and thus the development of one's identity through the process of reflecting on one's external environment), but rather is a self-indulgent exercise in "expression" with little or no standards exercised upon the writer.

The effect of the educational program of the left (that is to say of the State and in turn of the internationalist elite - in a Trotskyist hierarchy of "fusion") is the fueling of a narcissism complex; the leftist program feeds a sense of alienation in individuals and subsequently makes them pliable towards "joinerism," or the willingness to join (triumphal or salvationist) mass movements to fill a barely perceptible void in their lives (one that they are not mentally equipped to critically analyze). Ironically, this has the additional effect of irrational self-confidence in one's cause, and no amount of reasoning or persuasion can deter the devout collectivist-altruist, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. (In contrast, conservative intellectuals cannot have the same charge of being "doctrinaire" levied against them, as they have to thoroughly know both sides of any argument.) The label of "narcissism" is further substantiated by the behavior of collectivist-altruists, which tends to be as "selfish" as any other person's, if not more so (because they tend to take that which does not belong to them, rather than offer goods and services in exchange for capital). The feel-goodism of the leftist is usually carried out at someone else's expense.

The leftist program of emptying the minds of individuals can be equated to reformatting the hard drives of computers (though this is an imperfect analogy because the reprogramming is done simultaneously with the reformatting). The goal of the left is to foster a worldview that holds that all judgment is by nature morally reprehensible, and the worst sin a person can commit is to "act in full" as an independent, self-actualized human being. (This is why Nietzsche is just as instructive a man of the left to study as Marx). Men that cannot be manipulated are the perpetual thorns in the side of the leftist; and they treat them as such, ostracizing them, ridiculing them, and belittling them as narrow-minded or "selfish" rubes every opportunity they get.

Reinforcing this program of "emptying" the culture is reprogramming using mass indoctrination and propaganda. This entails everything from historical revisionism to the reinforcement of leftist (non-) values in the media. It is important to realize that this program need not be a coordinated effort; the beauty of ideological subversion is that if one is oblivious to the power of philosophy to animate the mind and thus to provoke certain responses and actions, no "conspiracy" per se is needed.

The basically nihilistic, morally relativistic propaganda in the media is further reinforced by two other factors, one controlled by the left, the other not fully controlled. The first factor is a culture war that seeks to dishonor religion, to promote a culture of death, to decry and to defile the economic system, and to create as much perceived chaos as possible. This generally provokes a radical and by turns reactionary environment unless carefully managed. This is why Fabian socialism has been a much more successful means of subverting the United States than radical socialism (we can observe this with the current turn in public sentiment against the radical socialist-cum-pragmatist President Obama.) The second factor, which the left only partly controls (but one that it most certainly wants to dominate) is the means of mass communication. (President Obama's recent comment in China regarding his desire to control information so that he "doesn't have to listen to criticism" is not as much of a joke as he lets on.)

So are leftists insidious men and women looking to enslave their fellow human beings? No. They tend to be useful idiots for aspiring oligarchs, who are truly shrewd but obviously cannot control all the variables. So how are seemingly bright and otherwise ingenious men and women manipulated in such fashion? The answer lay in philosophy. First of all, academics in America tend to be "half-baked" intellectuals (as KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov intimates in one of his videos) who have a one-sided reading of history, economics, and politics. Secondly, social scientists have persuaded themselves that they are true "scientists," even as they abstract away all the biology and individuality of human beings and replace people with numbers or immerse them in collectivist organizing principles. The idea that mankind can be "managed" by a scientific-technocratic elite intrigues intellectuals, who nonetheless tend to hold to the mystical transcendental collectivist vision of marxists and neomarxists. The internationalist vision of marxism is remarkably robust and resilient, even emotionally nurturing to its adherents; this is the case even as marxists have ceased to convince themselves that it is "scientific."

The attraction of intellectuals to marxism is perhaps no better summarized that in Schumpeter's masterwork Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy:

"Thus the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the World War of 1914, the French Frondes, the great French Revolution, the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, English free trade, the labor movement as a whole as well as any of its particular manifestations, colonial expansion, institutional changes, the national and party politics of every time and country - all this enters the domain of Marxian economics which claims to find theoretical explanations in terms of class warfare, of attempts at and revolt against exploitation, of accumulation and of qualitative change in the capital structure, of changes in the rate of surplus value and in the rate of profit. No longer has the economist to be content with giving technical answers to technical questions; instead he teaches humanity the hidden meaning of its struggles...No - politics itself is being determined by the structure of the state of the economic process and becomes a conductor of effects as completely within the range of economic theory as any purchase or sale.

Once more, nothing is easier to understand than the fascination exerted by a synthesis which does for us just this. It is particularly understandable in the young and in those intellectual denizens of our newspaper world to whom the gods seem to have granted the gift of eternal youth. Panting with impatience to have their innings, longing to save the world from something or other, disgusted with textbooks of undescribable tedium, dissatisfied emotionally and intellectually, unable to achieve synthesis by their own effort, they find what they crave for in Marx. There it is, the key to all the most intimate secrets, the magic wand that marshals both great events and small." (HarperPerennial, 47)

It is clear to intellectuals themselves that pure Marxism (or to use the nouveau phrase - "vulgar" Marxism) has outlived its usefulness as a "scientific" theory of everything; yet the power of its vision is held aloft by neomarxist balloons in the sky, even as the foundation has crumbled. The left is willing to lie to everyone, including themselves, to perpetuate their fantasies; this is a phenomenon that men of learning and genuflection have seen before, and one that strikes any sober person as extremely dangerous.

The theoretical keystone to understanding how marxism is conducive to fostering an international oligarchy instead of worldwide liberation is two-fold. The first is the recognition that property is essentially command over the usage of land, labor, or resources (including "capital"; but one must be careful here to recognize that what we call "capital" can be fiat issued by governments to signify mutual debt - a very communistic notion in and of itself). The second is that every political system tends towards oligarchy; this is because every order requires leadership and organization. The control over the instrument of coercion that is government tends towards co-optation and manipulation for personal gain. Even spontaneous orders, like those found in nations that respect liberty, still require protection by a class of specialists. This is what is meant by the Jeffersonian phrase, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

How do we judge if a moral system is deleterious of liberty? The method and standard of judging the rightness or wrongness of any moral position is to ask how it affects the individual. Not society, not the transcendental "greater good," not even the nation. America exists as a nation to defend liberty, liberty does not exist to serve the nation.

The individualist has a very specific view of totalitarian or collectivist movements of any kind. It can rightly and steadfastly be held that there has been no nation in world history that has respected individual rights as America has that has also committed mass atrocities, enslaved foreign peoples, or has tolerated the slavery of its own people for any appreciable time on any appreciable scale compared to those of collectivist or authoritarian regimes. This is a truth that cannot be bludgeoned away by doctrinaire marxists for any man of historical vision. The tradition of individual rights and liberty should be preserved by the American people in the face of tyranny finally arriving to its shores; even if quietly and even if by cover of treason.

Monday, November 16, 2009

ONN: Obama’s teleprompter malfunctions during family dinner


Obama's Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

Please Help the Poor Guy

If you’ve never read an article by a mentally retarded person (LITERALLY), you have this opportunity now: 

As a political ideology, Objectivism, which has exerted a tremendous influence on the American right, is a vulgar inversion of vulgar Marxism; it teaches that all economic (and moral) value is the creation (and province) of rich people, while everybody and everything else (the poor, of course, but also workers and the government) is in every way a parasite. The proof of the superiority of the rich? They have more money.

P.S. Look, guys, can you collect some dough and send to this poor mentally challenged fellow for treatment? We have this duty to our fellow men, right? 

The Russians Go All In On Green

In a direct challenge to the decadent United States, the Russians have suddenly gone all in - on green. It is clear to the Russians that Obama isn't familiar with the their own particular brand of roulette, hence the resounding chorus from the left of "Oba mao! Oba mao!"

Has the flaky green left infiltrated this former superpower? Have the Russkies suddenly switched from goose-stepping menaces to cappuccino-sipping recycle-fairies? Why would a former Soviet titan whose manufacturing base is a smoke-belching industrial wasteland deign to lecture the U.S. on the "dangers" of manmade climate change?

Because the Copenhagen Treaty would put the Second-World back in business, that's why.

Ever since the USSR went out with a whimper (instead of the "bang" predicted by such military-bashing films as Dr. Strangelove) the Russians have stayed under the radar, preferring to watch the United States and the rest of the West implode in quite spectacular fashion.

Unwilling and even unable to identify their enemies, the West gets attacked by terrorist groups, which are sponsored be Islamist regimes like Iran, which are in turn supported by Russia herself - and America's response? Like Chris Farley of Tommy Boy, with a biff to the forehead and a self-flagellating "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" (Speaking of which, here is Chris Farley as Al Gore and David Spade as Obama doing their rendition of going to the UN to beg for contributions to the global climate change fund).

The Russians and the Chi-Coms have no real interest in "greening the planet" - unless you mean they want to spread the American middle class' wealth around. Unfortunately for these parasites, the good old days of easy credit have come to an end (as Billy Preston put it in terms that even "Helicopter Ben" can understand "Nothing from nothing leaves nothing). Obama is finding out personally that the only drawback to "grinding the middle class between the millstones of taxation and inflation" (as Lenin put it) - the middle class tends to get cranky.

So as Al Gore and other eco-wackos lay out the buffet - (why yes, the Russians will help themselves to some pyelmini, thank you very much. And did I mention Chinese egg rolls? Sure, as long as you yankees brought the visa card...) the left has not gotten the memo that the U.S. cannot afford to prop up the world economy because of most countries' unwillingness to promote market-friendly policies such as the protection of private property and the rule of law. Global poverty will not be solved by expropriating wealth from America and redistributing it from "North to South" as a magazine called "The Ecologist" proposed. It will only result in more global poverty (as oxymoronic as that phrase bears out under scrutiny).

What underdeveloped countries need to "cure" their poverty is to actually produce something instead of having their tinpot dictators run to the UN with their hands out. And global climate change legislation (which is basically what the Copenhagen "treaty" is) will harm backwards countries far more than help them by putting them in a perpetual state of dependence on global government, and more specifically, on the United States. {This strategy seems familiar, doesn't it American taxpayers?)

At its very ideological core, the green movement is not about saving the planet, social justice or even "fairness" - this is just a carefully crafted veneer. It is about damaging the industrial bases of those countries who are naive enough to adopt the green agenda. The hardcore environmentalist movement might as well have been concocted by the KGB (if indeed, it wasn't). It is the Frankfurt School critical theory movement par excellence and everyone except the Americans seem to get it. Radical environmentalism is not designed to save the world, but to destroy the West.

So will there be any serious commitment from other countries at Copenhagen to adopt environmentalist policies - as the Russians toss back shots of Stoli and nibble on Oreos? Of course not. But there is the chance that the Americans will lay down a real monster - one that in turn will bite their own heads off, man.

Even in the face of creating a Leviathan that will devour the U.S economy, the left continues to trumpet the manmade climate change hoax (which is so patently absurd, I sincerely don't know how the purveyors of the myth keep a straight face) as the key to redeeming mankind from the excesses of industrial society. Ya-ta-ya-ta-ya-ta - that's all well and good for fans of the Platonic-noble-lie-cum-Goebbels-big-lie variety. But what good will the left's totalitarian scheming be if America goes to the big dance alone?

When Obama arrives at the Copenhagen ball with glass slipper in hand, courtseying to every dictator he meets, will he be able to find his Russian Prince Charming to dance with? More likely we will find Obama after the ball, smeared lipstick and tattered dress askew, in the back of Medvedev's Russian Volga.