KBR to Get No-Bid Army Work as U.S. Alleges Kickbacks
By Tony Capaccio
May 6 (Bloomberg) -- KBR Inc. was selected for a no-bid contract worth as much as $568 million through 2011 for military support services in Iraq [under the Obama administration], the Army said.
The Army [whose Commander-in-Chief is Barack Obama] announced its decision yesterday only hours after the Justice Department said it will pursue a lawsuit accusing the Houston-based company of taking kickbacks from two subcontractors on Iraq-related work. The Army also awarded the work to KBR over objections from members of Congress, who have pushed the Pentagon to seek bids for further logistics contracts.
The Justice Department said the government will join a suit filed by whistleblowers alleging that two freight-forwarding firms gave KBR transportation department employees kickbacks in the form of meals, drinks, sports tickets and golf outings. [Continued]
Plausible deniability is not just for international spooks anymore. It's for the Obama administration to look more leftist than it actually is.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
James Madison on the Welfare State
1-I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.
2-The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
P.S. I'm getting more and more convinced that Madison was the most libertarian of the Founding Fathers, far surpassing Jefferson, Hamilton and others.
2-The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
P.S. I'm getting more and more convinced that Madison was the most libertarian of the Founding Fathers, far surpassing Jefferson, Hamilton and others.
Georgia Against Antitrust
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Collectivism is Moral Decay
What seems lost on many people about the dangers of collectivism is the inter-connection of ideas, political systems, and morality.
Let us compare the predominate ideal-forms of modern polities: Communism and capitalism. Fascism is not an ideal-form because it is a mixed form of capitalism and socialism; one might say it is the corruption of capitalism by socialism; fascism obviates private property through coercive control of the economy. Socialism is parasitical on capitalism and is not predicated on the creation of goods, only on the redistribution of them.
Socialism is merely a watered-down form of communism and, if it is not eliminated, it will drown a capitalist economy. Socialism is like the crack in the edifice of the dam against communism; once it begins to appear, one must patch it at the philosophical source or it will flood the society with ever-increasing demands on the life and labor of productive individuals. This will proceed until it becomes a moral imperative for individuals to cease creating and producing to subsidize the inherently inhumane and oppressive regime.
Capitalism reinforces an appreciation of the individual by necessity through its legal-rational structure. Private property is intended to deter greedy citizens and power-hungry governments from forcing their will onto individuals in the economy. This leads to the formation of a "civil society," since the legal arrangement of human beings provokes at a minumum what Immanuel Kant referred to as "unsocial sociability" and if capitalism is combined with Jeffersonian local self-governance, the spontaneous cooperation of human beings to solve "collective action problems."
Collectivism, alternatively, necessarily centralizes decision-making in a small body of oligarchs. This is an arrangement ripe for the abuse of all under the body's control, due to man's inherent nature as a self-interested being.
Capitalism in its ideal-form does not lead to mass murder; this is especially true if Jeffersonian republican political forms prevail. In a capitalist system with assumptions of private property, execution of a person is the murder of an actual human being. A person ultimately owns himself.
Under communism, since one does not love individuals, only humanity, the execution of a troublesome person is a small "sacrifice" for the benefit of the common good. After all, one cannot execute humanity.
Under socialism, the same perverse logic applies on a milder scale, and it is crucial to recognize the same ultimate conclusion as communism on the moral continuum. Under socialism, the government doesn't line people against the wall, they withhold medical care until the burdernsome old people expire. Again, small sacrifice for the "common good."
This is why socialism, fascism, communism, all forms of collectivism, are extremely dangerous ideologies. Human morality is wont to degrade in the absence of legal-rational reinforcement. Pragmatism, as a philosophy, may be one of the most dangerous "isms" of all. This is because pragmatism subsumes morality by posing social and political questions in the form of cost-benefit analysis; this is often a psychological necessity when chalking up the cold calculations of acceptable "sacrifices" for the "common good" in altruistic collectivist systems.
People tend not to see themselves as evil as they are committing great atrocities. They see themselves as well-intentioned or motivated by expediency, dire circumstances, or grave danger. It takes rationalization to attenuate the guilt that ensues from the violation of another human being's life. Pragmatism, as applied to the coercive manipulation of human beings, provides such rationalization. Pragmatism holds the door open wide for collectivist ideologies.
That is why Ayn Rand's Objectivism might be said to oppose pragmatism writ large; pragmatism formulates a misunderstanding of long-term causes and effects and the interrelationship of ideas, reality, and morality in society. Objectivism reinforces life, liberty, and property with a consistent philosophy resistant to collectivist corruption.
Let us compare the predominate ideal-forms of modern polities: Communism and capitalism. Fascism is not an ideal-form because it is a mixed form of capitalism and socialism; one might say it is the corruption of capitalism by socialism; fascism obviates private property through coercive control of the economy. Socialism is parasitical on capitalism and is not predicated on the creation of goods, only on the redistribution of them.
Socialism is merely a watered-down form of communism and, if it is not eliminated, it will drown a capitalist economy. Socialism is like the crack in the edifice of the dam against communism; once it begins to appear, one must patch it at the philosophical source or it will flood the society with ever-increasing demands on the life and labor of productive individuals. This will proceed until it becomes a moral imperative for individuals to cease creating and producing to subsidize the inherently inhumane and oppressive regime.
Capitalism reinforces an appreciation of the individual by necessity through its legal-rational structure. Private property is intended to deter greedy citizens and power-hungry governments from forcing their will onto individuals in the economy. This leads to the formation of a "civil society," since the legal arrangement of human beings provokes at a minumum what Immanuel Kant referred to as "unsocial sociability" and if capitalism is combined with Jeffersonian local self-governance, the spontaneous cooperation of human beings to solve "collective action problems."
Collectivism, alternatively, necessarily centralizes decision-making in a small body of oligarchs. This is an arrangement ripe for the abuse of all under the body's control, due to man's inherent nature as a self-interested being.
Capitalism in its ideal-form does not lead to mass murder; this is especially true if Jeffersonian republican political forms prevail. In a capitalist system with assumptions of private property, execution of a person is the murder of an actual human being. A person ultimately owns himself.
Under communism, since one does not love individuals, only humanity, the execution of a troublesome person is a small "sacrifice" for the benefit of the common good. After all, one cannot execute humanity.
Under socialism, the same perverse logic applies on a milder scale, and it is crucial to recognize the same ultimate conclusion as communism on the moral continuum. Under socialism, the government doesn't line people against the wall, they withhold medical care until the burdernsome old people expire. Again, small sacrifice for the "common good."
This is why socialism, fascism, communism, all forms of collectivism, are extremely dangerous ideologies. Human morality is wont to degrade in the absence of legal-rational reinforcement. Pragmatism, as a philosophy, may be one of the most dangerous "isms" of all. This is because pragmatism subsumes morality by posing social and political questions in the form of cost-benefit analysis; this is often a psychological necessity when chalking up the cold calculations of acceptable "sacrifices" for the "common good" in altruistic collectivist systems.
People tend not to see themselves as evil as they are committing great atrocities. They see themselves as well-intentioned or motivated by expediency, dire circumstances, or grave danger. It takes rationalization to attenuate the guilt that ensues from the violation of another human being's life. Pragmatism, as applied to the coercive manipulation of human beings, provides such rationalization. Pragmatism holds the door open wide for collectivist ideologies.
That is why Ayn Rand's Objectivism might be said to oppose pragmatism writ large; pragmatism formulates a misunderstanding of long-term causes and effects and the interrelationship of ideas, reality, and morality in society. Objectivism reinforces life, liberty, and property with a consistent philosophy resistant to collectivist corruption.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Brain-Dead Retard Takes on Ayn Rand
A leftist retard has written an article asserting that Ayn Rand is to blame for Goldman Sachs’ alleged fraud:
When Britain and other countries were engulfed in the flood of defaults and derivative losses that emerged from the collapse of the American housing bubble two years ago, few people understood that the crash had its roots in the lunatic greed-centered objectivist religion, fostered back in the 50s and 60s by ponderous emigre novelist Ayn Rand.
Only an imbecile can believe that everything that doesn’t fit into his narrow worldview is “lunatic.” There have been honest and clever socialists (such as Orwell) - and I wouldn’t mind seriously debating with them. But this moron is just a stupid parrot who repeats words he doesn’t understand.
P.S. I haven’t delved into the Goldman Sachs case but it sure smells funny. I suspect that the real culprit in the fraud is the government, which is running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, and scapegoating Goldman is the usual way for self-righteous bureaucratic parasites to escape the blame.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Democracy is Socialism. Socialism is Democracy. Any Questions?
The apparent incredulity of self-styled progressives that the tea party is a "grass roots movement" (as opposed to radical environmentalism, a true grass roots movement) stems from the left's strident belief in redistributive justice and its perfect association with "democracy"; all democracy being of course "socialist democracy" ("liberal" democracy being a canard for us men and women who work and prosper in capitalist "false consciousness").* By the left's demented version of "reasoning," there cannot be a "democratic" movement based on individualism, since individualism is just a fraud of the founders and corporations to keep us divided against ourselves and immobilized in the face of capitalist "exploitation" (in translation from Newspeak, against companies that provide us jobs and products to buy).
What the left is seeing in front of them in the tea party movement must be truly surreal - Constitutionalists protesting on behalf of individual rights - not spoils, perquisites, social welfare programs, bailouts, revenge against banks (there is a bit of that, but most involved are oriented enough to see the government is the prime mover of the bailouts), or some other exclusive group benefits. Why, that is what democracy is for! If the government doesn't divvy up the spoils for client groups, where are the people going to turn, to themselves and the market? Scofflaws, to be sure. You see, to the left, individualism is theoretically impossible to mobilize in spontaneous self-organized protest (as a Tocqueville or Hayek or Knight has described), it must therefore be another collective "ism": Racism, fascism, corporatism...etc. orchestrated by the puppet masters of people who are literally incapable of thinking for themselves (all knowledge being social knowledge extracted from the collective consciousness, a sort of metaphysical Encyclopedia Brittanica as it were...).
So as the race fire keeps racing due to the actions, and more importantly, inactions, of the supreme agitator Barack Obama, it is lost on the squishy left that the radicals' intention is to realize the racial antagonism that has only flourished in the rhetorical under our great uniter. While many think the blase recourse to decrying a vast white-wing conspiracy is a form of defense against melanin-challenged oppressors the likes that charmed Harvard scholar and U. of Chicago lecturer Barack Obama has sought to escape from (does everyone here know that the greatest donor to the founding of the U. of Chicago was John D. Rockefeller?), it is actually a well-worn socialist strategy that goes back to the pioneers of revolutionary manipulation, namely, the young bolsheviks (also, incidentally, the name of an indie ska band out of L.A.).
Many forget or have missed the page in history that the Russian "Revolution of 1905," which Lenin called the Great Rehearsal, was fueled largely by ethnic and racial conflict, not by socialist ideology, per se. The upheaval of that period was punctuated by the massacre of thousands of Christian Armenians by Muslims who were unwittingly armed by the hapless Tsar Nicholas II. These conflagrations (quite literally in oil-drenched Baku) were generally prodded along by the Georgian Robin Hood and future mass murderer known as "Koba," in that day, Iosef "Stalin" Djugashvili.
Am I saying that Barack Obama is Joseph Stalin? No, I am saying he is Barack Obama. And we best sleep with one eye open, because when a sitting president starts ever so gently pushing for racial "minorities" to "get in the face" of the other citizens - the knocking on the door of the hell-bent radical left starts getting that much louder.
*Editorial notes
1. For clarification on the political concept of democracy, see Reagan X's "The Founding Fathers Against Jacobinism."
2. What most people refer to as "liberal democracy" usually implies individual rights, such as private property rights and freedom of association.
What the left is seeing in front of them in the tea party movement must be truly surreal - Constitutionalists protesting on behalf of individual rights - not spoils, perquisites, social welfare programs, bailouts, revenge against banks (there is a bit of that, but most involved are oriented enough to see the government is the prime mover of the bailouts), or some other exclusive group benefits. Why, that is what democracy is for! If the government doesn't divvy up the spoils for client groups, where are the people going to turn, to themselves and the market? Scofflaws, to be sure. You see, to the left, individualism is theoretically impossible to mobilize in spontaneous self-organized protest (as a Tocqueville or Hayek or Knight has described), it must therefore be another collective "ism": Racism, fascism, corporatism...etc. orchestrated by the puppet masters of people who are literally incapable of thinking for themselves (all knowledge being social knowledge extracted from the collective consciousness, a sort of metaphysical Encyclopedia Brittanica as it were...).
So as the race fire keeps racing due to the actions, and more importantly, inactions, of the supreme agitator Barack Obama, it is lost on the squishy left that the radicals' intention is to realize the racial antagonism that has only flourished in the rhetorical under our great uniter. While many think the blase recourse to decrying a vast white-wing conspiracy is a form of defense against melanin-challenged oppressors the likes that charmed Harvard scholar and U. of Chicago lecturer Barack Obama has sought to escape from (does everyone here know that the greatest donor to the founding of the U. of Chicago was John D. Rockefeller?), it is actually a well-worn socialist strategy that goes back to the pioneers of revolutionary manipulation, namely, the young bolsheviks (also, incidentally, the name of an indie ska band out of L.A.).
Many forget or have missed the page in history that the Russian "Revolution of 1905," which Lenin called the Great Rehearsal, was fueled largely by ethnic and racial conflict, not by socialist ideology, per se. The upheaval of that period was punctuated by the massacre of thousands of Christian Armenians by Muslims who were unwittingly armed by the hapless Tsar Nicholas II. These conflagrations (quite literally in oil-drenched Baku) were generally prodded along by the Georgian Robin Hood and future mass murderer known as "Koba," in that day, Iosef "Stalin" Djugashvili.
Am I saying that Barack Obama is Joseph Stalin? No, I am saying he is Barack Obama. And we best sleep with one eye open, because when a sitting president starts ever so gently pushing for racial "minorities" to "get in the face" of the other citizens - the knocking on the door of the hell-bent radical left starts getting that much louder.
*Editorial notes
1. For clarification on the political concept of democracy, see Reagan X's "The Founding Fathers Against Jacobinism."
2. What most people refer to as "liberal democracy" usually implies individual rights, such as private property rights and freedom of association.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
The Founding Fathers Against Jacobins
The imbecile belief that America is the world’s “greatest democracy” is so naive and ignorant that it is almost beyond belief. It was clearly the intention of the framers of the U.S. Constitution to eliminate the democratic excesses of state governments. It is mentioned so many times in the records of the Philadelphia Convention and the Federalist Papers that one wonders if democracy-peddlers have read anything at all:
Our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions. It is a maxim which I hold incontrovertible, that the powers of government exercised by the people swallows up the other branches. None of the constitutions have provided sufficient checks against the democracy. The feeble Senate of Virginia is a phantom. Maryland has a more powerful senate, but the late distractions in that State, have discovered that it is not powerful enough. The check established in the constitution of New York and Massachusetts is yet a stronger barrier against democracy, but they all seem insufficient.
Edmund Randolph (governor of Virginia in 1786-1788)
Our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions. It is a maxim which I hold incontrovertible, that the powers of government exercised by the people swallows up the other branches. None of the constitutions have provided sufficient checks against the democracy. The feeble Senate of Virginia is a phantom. Maryland has a more powerful senate, but the late distractions in that State, have discovered that it is not powerful enough. The check established in the constitution of New York and Massachusetts is yet a stronger barrier against democracy, but they all seem insufficient.
Edmund Randolph (governor of Virginia in 1786-1788)
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Why the New World Order Will Fail
The New World Order business is overblown because countries like Russia and China are nationalistic and are not about to cede their sovereignty to an Anglo-Saxon-led "New World Order." It might be more accurate to call it a "Half-World Order."
The ambitions of the Tri-Lat Commission, Bilderburgers, Soros et al. and CFR will fail for the same reasons that a republic without a strong centralized government would fail, as the Federalist Papers explain so well.
There is always jealousy for power and a scramble at the top with such schemes. The quarreling parties eventually part ways and there is either a retraction from the alliance or war. People are fundamentally self-interested; this is a truth that transcends the scheming of socialists, whose alleged vision of a world of altruists is unfounded.
By extension, when you have a "democracy" of nations, it will fail, because it merely turns into the type of anarchy that characterizes international relations as we see it now.
Other alternatives - a dictatorship led by an Obama-like figure who heads a world communist union would lead to the Ubermachtfuehrer's murder by one of his Praetorian guards or rebellion by jealous parties.
Tyrannies and democracies are both short-lived, as Aristotle points out.
The more centralized the power the greater the struggle at the top, and more chaos resulting from unintended consequences occurs on the periphery.
Without a market system and a transparent pricing mechanism, control-freak bureaucrats are flying blind when it comes to the allocation of resources to satisfy demand. And demand is more than what people want, it is what they require to prevent them from alienation, a decline in productivity, and ultimately, revolt.
So we can adapt this theoretical framework to the situation we see now on a microcosmic scale in the United States.
As Washington centralizes power over the states and economy, it alienates states as scarce resources are not allocated justly to satisfy demand, and the economy is divied up for patron-client reasons. Ultimately, this means unions and blue states receive the lion's share of resources stolen from taxpayers.
The process typically terminates in secession and civil war, which establishes a tyranny or rival states and/or confederations.
What it takes to forecast what happens in a given state in this state of crisis requires a great deal of military analysis, and the assessment of loyalty and commitment to fighting for a given cause. One has to be able to gauge and project the future morale and resources of both military troops and civilians. Even the best generals fail to predict what happens when the theoretical turns into actual armed open conflict.
It should be pointed out that in the American revolution, less than twenty percent of colonialists were involved in the supplying and fighting of British troops and Hessian mercenaries in the colonies' secession from Great Britain. Morale and supply lines played a crucial role.
The point is that the Republicans and Democrats are playing a dangerous game if they think they can pull off a New World Order by fiat. It is not the fait accompli that some people perceive it to be.
The ambitions of the Tri-Lat Commission, Bilderburgers, Soros et al. and CFR will fail for the same reasons that a republic without a strong centralized government would fail, as the Federalist Papers explain so well.
There is always jealousy for power and a scramble at the top with such schemes. The quarreling parties eventually part ways and there is either a retraction from the alliance or war. People are fundamentally self-interested; this is a truth that transcends the scheming of socialists, whose alleged vision of a world of altruists is unfounded.
By extension, when you have a "democracy" of nations, it will fail, because it merely turns into the type of anarchy that characterizes international relations as we see it now.
Other alternatives - a dictatorship led by an Obama-like figure who heads a world communist union would lead to the Ubermachtfuehrer's murder by one of his Praetorian guards or rebellion by jealous parties.
Tyrannies and democracies are both short-lived, as Aristotle points out.
The more centralized the power the greater the struggle at the top, and more chaos resulting from unintended consequences occurs on the periphery.
Without a market system and a transparent pricing mechanism, control-freak bureaucrats are flying blind when it comes to the allocation of resources to satisfy demand. And demand is more than what people want, it is what they require to prevent them from alienation, a decline in productivity, and ultimately, revolt.
So we can adapt this theoretical framework to the situation we see now on a microcosmic scale in the United States.
As Washington centralizes power over the states and economy, it alienates states as scarce resources are not allocated justly to satisfy demand, and the economy is divied up for patron-client reasons. Ultimately, this means unions and blue states receive the lion's share of resources stolen from taxpayers.
The process typically terminates in secession and civil war, which establishes a tyranny or rival states and/or confederations.
What it takes to forecast what happens in a given state in this state of crisis requires a great deal of military analysis, and the assessment of loyalty and commitment to fighting for a given cause. One has to be able to gauge and project the future morale and resources of both military troops and civilians. Even the best generals fail to predict what happens when the theoretical turns into actual armed open conflict.
It should be pointed out that in the American revolution, less than twenty percent of colonialists were involved in the supplying and fighting of British troops and Hessian mercenaries in the colonies' secession from Great Britain. Morale and supply lines played a crucial role.
The point is that the Republicans and Democrats are playing a dangerous game if they think they can pull off a New World Order by fiat. It is not the fait accompli that some people perceive it to be.
Friday, April 23, 2010
The Ideology of the Infantile
In the eyes of "progressives," without a paternal god or maternal state to nurture his every emotional and spiritual need, man would crumple up into a fetal position and accept the fate of living on borrowed time at the expense of others, including those not even born yet.
But the conceit of altruism is that it does not ultimately lead to the benefit of all, but exclusively the political class. If only man would agree to legalize theft for his own benefit, instead of living his own life and trading his goods and labor as he sees fit, then the parasitical middle men of the state could get their cut for directing the utopian technocratic state of their machinations.
What a glorious day that will be when we all bow down and worship the bureaucrats who assist us in our self-sacrifice for the nebulous "common good"!
By extension, the crux of the leftist worldview is that the non-action of withholding one's life and labor from the state or the mob is inherently "evil" by association with the epithet "selfish."
One can infer this moral outlook by the visceral reaction of the parasites to the hubris of a man claiming to live for himself alone; the affirmation of one's individuality is an act of defiance too much to bear for those who would mold the shapeless mass of humanity like so much clay.
All barriers must be broken down if we are to realize the progressive's high ideal of a passive, collectivist, fatalistic blob of feckless humanity - rationality, the self, the desire to achieve by one's own standards, these must all be jettisoned; along with judgment, standards, and morality itself.
In direct opposition to the presumptions of the self-defined intelligentsia is the idea that we individuals don't really need these presumed elites at all. We have our own minds, and we intend to use them.
Beyond the individualism that is a principle tenet of Rand's philosophical system, at the very core is the bedrock assumption that there is a reality that exists outside the self. This even more directly threatens the free hand of the scheming parasites who would have us erect a Tower of Babel to their god of equality.
Such "arrogance" that objective reality opposes our wishes and whims is what really drives the existentialists over the edge. They are emotionally unable to deal with the implications of this view, that is, Aristotelian ontology; and instead cling to the passive teleology of Marx and Hegel, who quite brazenly assert that mankind will progress whether he likes it or not. All the individual has to do is sit back and let the statists and the socialists dictate terms for his surrender, and all will be paradisaical.
Well, I reject such a view, and subscribe to that of the 'flat' character of John Galt, who has curiously picked up quite a following as of late. Ayn Rand made a hero of the individual who seeks to live according to rationality, labor and trade to sustain his own life, leave his fellow man to succeed or fail in his own personal quest to achieve happiness, to fail on the merits or due to the inherent limits of objective reality itself.
But the conceit of altruism is that it does not ultimately lead to the benefit of all, but exclusively the political class. If only man would agree to legalize theft for his own benefit, instead of living his own life and trading his goods and labor as he sees fit, then the parasitical middle men of the state could get their cut for directing the utopian technocratic state of their machinations.
What a glorious day that will be when we all bow down and worship the bureaucrats who assist us in our self-sacrifice for the nebulous "common good"!
By extension, the crux of the leftist worldview is that the non-action of withholding one's life and labor from the state or the mob is inherently "evil" by association with the epithet "selfish."
One can infer this moral outlook by the visceral reaction of the parasites to the hubris of a man claiming to live for himself alone; the affirmation of one's individuality is an act of defiance too much to bear for those who would mold the shapeless mass of humanity like so much clay.
All barriers must be broken down if we are to realize the progressive's high ideal of a passive, collectivist, fatalistic blob of feckless humanity - rationality, the self, the desire to achieve by one's own standards, these must all be jettisoned; along with judgment, standards, and morality itself.
In direct opposition to the presumptions of the self-defined intelligentsia is the idea that we individuals don't really need these presumed elites at all. We have our own minds, and we intend to use them.
Beyond the individualism that is a principle tenet of Rand's philosophical system, at the very core is the bedrock assumption that there is a reality that exists outside the self. This even more directly threatens the free hand of the scheming parasites who would have us erect a Tower of Babel to their god of equality.
Such "arrogance" that objective reality opposes our wishes and whims is what really drives the existentialists over the edge. They are emotionally unable to deal with the implications of this view, that is, Aristotelian ontology; and instead cling to the passive teleology of Marx and Hegel, who quite brazenly assert that mankind will progress whether he likes it or not. All the individual has to do is sit back and let the statists and the socialists dictate terms for his surrender, and all will be paradisaical.
Well, I reject such a view, and subscribe to that of the 'flat' character of John Galt, who has curiously picked up quite a following as of late. Ayn Rand made a hero of the individual who seeks to live according to rationality, labor and trade to sustain his own life, leave his fellow man to succeed or fail in his own personal quest to achieve happiness, to fail on the merits or due to the inherent limits of objective reality itself.
NY toughens rules on gas drilling in watersheds | recordonline.com
NY toughens rules on gas drilling in watersheds | recordonline.com
Posted using ShareThis
Maybe we can heat our homes on warm thoughts of three toed frogs and spotted loons?
Posted using ShareThis
Maybe we can heat our homes on warm thoughts of three toed frogs and spotted loons?
Governments Will 'Bankrupt Us': Marc Faber - CNBC
Governments Will 'Bankrupt Us': Marc Faber - CNBC
"Bankrupt" is such a harsh word - maybe "change" from a prosperous economy to a third-rate banana republic is more politically correct? After all, who's to say that the U.S. is better than banana republics?
"Bankrupt" is such a harsh word - maybe "change" from a prosperous economy to a third-rate banana republic is more politically correct? After all, who's to say that the U.S. is better than banana republics?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
What Does It Mean to Be a Racist?
What does it mean to be a racist?
Historically, this means that one actively discriminates against a person because of his or her race.
But what does it mean to discriminate? Does it entail the requirement to forfeit one's property, speech, and other individual rights on demand of any allegedly offended race?
The Democrats would have you believe yes.
Racism is the left's bully tactic to get Americans to accept socialism out of the white man's original sin of having owned slaves in this country - 150 years ago. White men whom neither you or I know. But because I share the same general level of skin pigmentation as some white people in the past, apparently I am culpable for all our "race's" misdeeds.
One might ask a leftist: Is this is not a form of racism, in and of itself? Be prepared to elicit blank stares.
Yet if it is the case that all dead white men's sins are to be laid at my feet, can I take credit for all of dead white men's positive deeds? By the left's flawed logic, couldn't I argue that I deserve credit for discovering that lightning is electricity, for inventing flight, and for developing the polio vaccine?
But such is the twisted and seemingly incomprehensible nature of the race narrative. If you aren't for socialism on behalf of blacks, then you are no different than a slave-master or a Klansman. If you are opposed to illegal immigrants raiding the welfare state on your dime, then you are a backwards ultra-nationalist xenophobe whose primary concern should be to keep one's knuckles from scraping the ground.
In other words, if you are against policies that damage the economy by punishing productivity and prosperity, oppose providing incentives for government dependence, and reject behavior that causes social dysfunction, then you, my friend, are a reactionary, and a racist one at that.
At the heart of the progressive narrative is a simple and perverse truism: That the non-action of withholding one's life and labor from the state or the mob is inherently "evil" by association with the instant epithet "selfish." If one withholds one's property or labor from those of a different race, then that person naturally must be a racist.
If you are white and believe in the Constitution, limited government, and the market system, then by the left's twisted reasoning, you are a racist. It doesn't matter how many black friends you have, how many intellectuals and politicians who happen to be so-called "minorities" you admire, or how you ignore race in everything from Hollywood movies to professional sports.
If you aren't down with socialism, you might as well be burning crosses.
Historically, this means that one actively discriminates against a person because of his or her race.
But what does it mean to discriminate? Does it entail the requirement to forfeit one's property, speech, and other individual rights on demand of any allegedly offended race?
The Democrats would have you believe yes.
Racism is the left's bully tactic to get Americans to accept socialism out of the white man's original sin of having owned slaves in this country - 150 years ago. White men whom neither you or I know. But because I share the same general level of skin pigmentation as some white people in the past, apparently I am culpable for all our "race's" misdeeds.
One might ask a leftist: Is this is not a form of racism, in and of itself? Be prepared to elicit blank stares.
Yet if it is the case that all dead white men's sins are to be laid at my feet, can I take credit for all of dead white men's positive deeds? By the left's flawed logic, couldn't I argue that I deserve credit for discovering that lightning is electricity, for inventing flight, and for developing the polio vaccine?
But such is the twisted and seemingly incomprehensible nature of the race narrative. If you aren't for socialism on behalf of blacks, then you are no different than a slave-master or a Klansman. If you are opposed to illegal immigrants raiding the welfare state on your dime, then you are a backwards ultra-nationalist xenophobe whose primary concern should be to keep one's knuckles from scraping the ground.
In other words, if you are against policies that damage the economy by punishing productivity and prosperity, oppose providing incentives for government dependence, and reject behavior that causes social dysfunction, then you, my friend, are a reactionary, and a racist one at that.
At the heart of the progressive narrative is a simple and perverse truism: That the non-action of withholding one's life and labor from the state or the mob is inherently "evil" by association with the instant epithet "selfish." If one withholds one's property or labor from those of a different race, then that person naturally must be a racist.
If you are white and believe in the Constitution, limited government, and the market system, then by the left's twisted reasoning, you are a racist. It doesn't matter how many black friends you have, how many intellectuals and politicians who happen to be so-called "minorities" you admire, or how you ignore race in everything from Hollywood movies to professional sports.
If you aren't down with socialism, you might as well be burning crosses.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
How Altruistic Cults Become Inhumane, Self-Loathing, Self-Destructive Mass Suicide Movements
Call it the next logical step in the unfolding of the big lie of manmade global warming. As if mountains of evidence had not already cleared away the smoke of neomarxist propaganda to heap anthropogenic climate change on the ash-heap of history, along comes Mount Enywayuwannalookatit to signal to us what we've known all along: Radical environmentalism is nothing but an inhumane, self-loathing, self-destructive cult hell-bent on the destruction of all mankind. Oh, and Happy Earth Day.Iceland, of all places (hey, how'd all that ice get on that thar terra firma?), just witnessed a real mother of a catastrophic volcanic eruption, and the first reaction by green groups is to throw an herbal tea party. You read me right. The earth goddess Gaia has heard the hippie internationale's supplications and after an all-out PMS-driven binge on Taco Hell with an extra helpin' of Fire Sauce belched millions of tons of sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and methane gas into the atmosphere just to provide us lowly hominids a little parasol to cower under. Awww. And just in time to save us from one of the least scorching-hot winters on record. Thank you, mommy!
So while Greenpeace volunteers are doing their otter claps over such innocuous fun facts as the comparison of volcanic CO2 emissions and non-existent grounded jet emissions, ninety percent are apparently unaware that CO2 is one of the weakest greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and incidentally, in gargantuan volcanic ash-clouds. Can't be obstinately strident and informed at the same time, can we?
Yet we are only scratching the surface here at how low, or perhaps how high, the green left can go. We are trajecting upwards toward the per-optimum heights of idiocy, gently sweeping into a parabolic curve towards lunacy, and onwards to the crescendo of ritual suicide, all of us crammed into a hemp-and-clove emitting Ford Focus hurtling at a brisk 40 mph over a cliff with bumper-sticker bon mots like "Love Me - Love the Earth" slapped onto our collective ass-ends. We should be hitting rock bottom any day now.The important point not to miss is that thousands of hippies and their love children actually grateful for man-made disasters that harm or kill thousands of people, since they somehow expunge us of our original sin of actually being born alive, is a logical, necessary extension of altruistic movements. Ayn Rand so brilliantly pointed out long ago that the drive for self-sacrifice can never be fulfilled - until we're all dead.
Until that time, we can only ponder the last thought that goes through an enviro-nutter's mind before he is encapsulated in a petrified molten magma slab like Han Solo's carbonite chamber in Empire: Is it: "It's not easy being green" or "If only I would have hung more earth-beads on my rear-view" or maybe "Mommy?!?"
Someone get on the horn to the Goracle and tell him we should move Earth Day from Lenin's b-day to the anniversary of the Jonestown massacre. And someone pass me a Kickin' Kiwi-Lime.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
National Day of Prayer Demonstrates Right's Willingness to Use Government for Christian Agenda
I'm pretty certain we are screwed as a nation because those on the left think they can ram atheism down everyone's throats and those on the right think they can ram religion down everyone's throats. Neither side is able to distinguish the realm of government, or coercion, from the realm of civil society, where people interact with one another in a free market of ideas.
See comments at HotAir.
"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all."
-- Frederic Bastiat
Are those on the religious right a breed of socialist?
America Commits Historic National Suicide
The nation's historic first post-American president declared November 2nd the National Day of Suicide to an applauding White House press corps.
The Democratic Party leader will commemorate the historic occasion by replacing all nationwide election ballots with an autographed picture and booklet of food stamps, along with a coupon for a free strawberry milkshake at McDonald's.
In a speech given from his trademark teleprompter, affectionately referred to in beltway circles as "Telly," America's elected dictator laughed off suggestions that this was the end of democracy as we know it.
"What is democracy but giving the people what they want? Who doesn't like strawberry milkshakes?"
Super Two-fer Tuesday will also see a Unilateral Disarmament Festival with a bonfire of American weaponry that will be viewed from outer space by a Democrat delegation aboard the International Space Station.
The delegation will be served beluga caviar and Cristal champagne while being ferried by a Soyuz space capsule.
Meanwhile, free universal healthcare will be dispensed at government outlets by state-authorized bureaucrats. Inside every 500-page stack of paperwork will be a Golden Ticket, good for a tour of the magic healthcare factory that dispenses the free healthcare.
Doctors will be treated for their service to their country by a free round of miniature golf. If the doctor hits the red ball into the mouth of the forty foot Rush Limbaugh figure, he wins a syphilis bypass voucher, good for one skip of the drip.
Following the evening's festivities, the nation's right-wing radio hosts will be rounded up for a public execution. But this won't just be any public execution. There will be shark tanks, boiling-in-oil, and pyrotechnics - hosted by Dancing with the Stars special guest Mario Lopez and American Idol social butterfly Ryan Seacrest.
The night promises to be truly historic. So get off the couch and make your way to your local government office for your all-expense paid ticket. You might feel a little sting.
The Democratic Party leader will commemorate the historic occasion by replacing all nationwide election ballots with an autographed picture and booklet of food stamps, along with a coupon for a free strawberry milkshake at McDonald's.
In a speech given from his trademark teleprompter, affectionately referred to in beltway circles as "Telly," America's elected dictator laughed off suggestions that this was the end of democracy as we know it.
"What is democracy but giving the people what they want? Who doesn't like strawberry milkshakes?"
Super Two-fer Tuesday will also see a Unilateral Disarmament Festival with a bonfire of American weaponry that will be viewed from outer space by a Democrat delegation aboard the International Space Station.
The delegation will be served beluga caviar and Cristal champagne while being ferried by a Soyuz space capsule.
Meanwhile, free universal healthcare will be dispensed at government outlets by state-authorized bureaucrats. Inside every 500-page stack of paperwork will be a Golden Ticket, good for a tour of the magic healthcare factory that dispenses the free healthcare.
Doctors will be treated for their service to their country by a free round of miniature golf. If the doctor hits the red ball into the mouth of the forty foot Rush Limbaugh figure, he wins a syphilis bypass voucher, good for one skip of the drip.
Following the evening's festivities, the nation's right-wing radio hosts will be rounded up for a public execution. But this won't just be any public execution. There will be shark tanks, boiling-in-oil, and pyrotechnics - hosted by Dancing with the Stars special guest Mario Lopez and American Idol social butterfly Ryan Seacrest.
The night promises to be truly historic. So get off the couch and make your way to your local government office for your all-expense paid ticket. You might feel a little sting.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Power or Truth: The Fatal Choice
The Fascist Power Cult
American citizens who love their country, cherish freedom, and believe in Christian values are continually perplexed by the nature of an enemy within that never ceases in its endeavors to destroy the nation as it was founded.
When they look out upon the nation, they see an insidious form of tyranny creeping over the land, befalling the country as the shadow of a totalitarian future. They see their fellow countrymen lust for power over the nation, in shades of an ideology that was once thought to be vanquished - fascism.
Fascism is thought to be the hallmark of petty racist or nationalist minds, but this is not necessarily the case. It is more properly thought of as an inexorable drive to unite a collective - obliterating the barriers between the political, economic, social, and private spheres of human activity. It is the introduction of power and coercion into all realms of life.
Fascism, and its Americanized form, progressivism, is not projected into a nation from out of nowhere. It must attach itself in the minds of the people. A process of receptivity to the allure of power of man over man, a drive to make the world right by fraud or force, must be embedded in the collective conscience.
This form of totalitarianism proceeds by the destruction of the old to prepare the path for the new. Its harbinger is a messianic figure who will baptize the nation by fire.
Destruction precedes redemption, so the fascist followers believe. All institutions, traditions, morality, customs, culture, religions, Constitutional order, the rule of law, private property, children's attachment to parents, romantic love, the family, any place where a man's mentality is anchored outside the collective, must be swept away in the progressive tide of history.
The fascist mentality is not personally authoritarian, it is vacuous and rootless. It is perfectly conducive to manipulation by power elites.
The power elites are quite different in psychology - their "rootlessness" of morality lubricates their narcissistic pursuit of power. The symbiosis of the power elites and the "liberating" indoctrinated can be an "altruistic" sado-masochistic dance of destruction across all of society.
The process of "breaking down all barriers" is perceived by the secular faithful as "liberation." Those who call themselves progressives feel they are being "liberated" from criticism, and thus internal self-reflection, by removing ideological competition, relentlessly and even childishly attacking their enemies without care for the truth; "liberated" from status guilt with the establishment of class equality; "liberated" from religious judgment by eliminating God from the social sphere; "liberated" from social norms by participating in facile rebellion; "liberated" from material reality by ignoring economic scarcity and believing that the rich are an eternal source of wealth to be redistributed; and even "liberated" from themselves by joining mass movements and collectivist causes.
The "liberating" process finally culminates in an existential crisis that resolves itself in revolution. There is no bridge of understanding between the "liberators" and those who love liberty.
The power elites unleash the social forces of self-destruction through "education" and indoctrination and wait patiently to snatch the free people up in a totalitarian restoration when chaos presents itself. They thus purposefully distort the economic, social, and political system until all faith in the existing way of things is broken. The redeemers who appear are the self-anointed saviors, blessed and christened by the pervasive cultural and dis-information media.
It is no coincidence that two of the most powerful bastions against the totalitarian tyranny of the would-be enslavers, the guns and religion to which the people "cling," are targeted explicitly by such a redeemer. To be swept up in the rushing tide of history, there must be nothing left to which the conservatives can "cling."
Rogues and Reactionaries
It is easy to see that anyone who opposes the progressives are in the minds of the secular faithful backwards rubes or reactionaries to be scorned and ridiculed. Conservative intellectuals, on the other hand, see the progressives as drones, deployed to do the bidding of the power elite. Mutual misunderstanding can easily lead to dehumanization if one is not well-versed in the reasons for the divergence of views.
Conservatives tend to be individualists who believe in morality, and thus they are very difficult to mobilize to oppose progressives. In America, conservatives give the benefit of the doubt to others in regards to intentions - a Christian belief system leads them to believe that others can be "saved" or "converted," and that they should not judge lest they be judged.
Ultimately, most Americans believe in right and wrong, and this is the one thing that can trigger a massive conservative uprising. Rampant theft, corruption, habitual lies, and actions that endanger the nation can trigger a conservative backlash if not hidden well enough by the complicit media, and assumes the power elites' near monopoly of control over mass communications.
But by relying on institutions such as voting, conservatives bank on the incorruptibility of this political recourse over the long-term, which historically is not a well-founded assumption.
The ultimate underlying long-term problem for conservatives is their eternal struggle to preserve institutions from corruption and deterioration, while dismissing the deeper philosophy and morality that undergirds the social and political order.
A shallow understanding of religion can lead to a tendency to relegate all the unexplained and disliked to the realm of faith; the ideas that God will provide and everything will continue on as is seem to be associated here with a relaxed "to each his own" attitude towards amorality and immorality.
Social conservatives and especially evangelicals see the amorality and immorality as a call to arms in a Holy War, which they may fight with proselytizing - in a free society, this is an appropriate response as long as it is confined to the social sphere. But the danger is that social conservatives will rise to power and use the government as the progressives do to seek retribution, this is ultimately incompatible with freedom of conscience. The problem is that crises of conscience compel action, and are not always circumscribed in a way that is consonant with individual freedom. A dilemma arises in that individual freedom may also dissipate the cultural and social cohesion needed to sustain a political order that is conducive to respecting such freedom.
Conservatives' perpetual rear guard fight can only be transferred to a cultural and political offensive if armed with the proper philosophy, which is comprehensive and rooted in "self-evident" truth.
Objectivism or Religion: The Last Best Hope for Man?
The ultimate solution for the establishment of a free society (putting aside fascistic "progressivism" and the socialist model of Trotskyism or "eternal revolution") pits the philosophy of ordered liberty versus social conservatism. The foundation of liberty is held by most Americans to be natural rights endowed by God, but there is a philosophical school that holds out the possibility that liberty can be established as the just morality for man rationally and self-evidently. This philosophical school is Objectivism.
Misapprehensions of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism abound, and this is not a coincidence, since it directly threatens the power elite. Ayn Rand rooted her philosophy in several fundamental truths: There is an objective reality (that exists outside the mind); man's mind can know objective reality using rationality; reality does not contradict itself, A = A, and if it appears that it doesn't, check your premises; human life is the means and the ends of a just morality; and the individual is the ultimate standard (but not possessor) of justice, since only an individual can have life.
Objectivism holds that in a just political and social order, the individual is responsible for his own life, and this order is sustained by certain rationally determined eternal truths. These truths are expounded upon more fully by Ayn Rand herself.
The primary objection to Ayn Rand's philosophy among conservatives is that it is too "selfish." But we should recognize that Rand's Egoism is not Egotism; in other words, Egoism, or recognizing one's psyche and individuality, and internalizing one's moral code, is not the same as Egotism, which holds that one man is above the law, is entitled to subjugate his peers, and that the ends justify the means.
Religion would play the role of establishing eternal truth in society, if only it could be established that one religion were the one true religion as a self-evident truth. Yet there are many religions and sects of religions, and it is impossible to determine the truth of one using rationality. The ultimate recourse over the question of religious truth historically nearly always seems to be war and bloodshed, in other words, to kill the non-believers who pollute the imagined paradise.
Objectivism holds that one can believe in religion, but that is a matter of personal conscience; in a free society one is allowed to discuss what religion is the true religion and why one should convert. Unfortunately, it is difficult to establish a morality of individual freedom when people believe that the non-believers will go to eternal hell if they don't believe likewise, or alternatively, that backwards conservatives are in the way of establishing a paradise on earth - if only they would just believe.
Individualism and collectivism, of the secular and religious kinds, are therefore destined to be at odds as long as there are men who desire to possess their own lives, and those who would seek to control them. Individuals believe that power rests in the individual, but how to mobilize this power while respecting other individuals is a difficult ordeal, especially when faced with a "democratic" mob intent on depriving individuals of property or freedom.
The exceptional nature of the American founding is that the Christian code of protestantism religiously reinforced individualism. This has forestalled the clash of ideologies that Americans are now experiencing more intensely. While some believe that it is a fatal flaw of the founding that Christianity was not established as the nation's religion, objectivists hold that the crucial problem is that the moral and philosophical code of individualism was not systematized and made more explicit.
That the moral code of individualism may very well perish by the same assumptions of freedom that individualists hold dear appears to be a distinct possibility; cultures are not self-regenerative, and the enemies of freedom are many. Progressives and other collectivists can and do destroy individualism in open daylight by perverting and eroding the culture.
Without a solid philosophical understanding of a moral system that preserves individual freedom, those who love America will always be undoing the misdeeds of destructive progressives, repealing unjust legislation, struggling to keep ever-expanding altruistic government in check.
Contrary to popular misconception, an objectivist government would not be an anarchist government; it would be one of self-government. Such a government would require that each person suffer the consequences of his own actions. It would also relegate love back to its proper place - in the heart of the individual who feels it. Love and coercion would thus be parted philosophically and politically; religion and progressivism would no longer be empowered to "help" people using coercion and against the will of individual citizens.
Only by establishing self-government can the conscience of each citizen be rejuvenated; can rational self-interest be reestablished; can human history and knowledge become relevant again; can love be benevolent in all its manifestations; and can freedom of conscience be respected by all, as is required for an ongoing human search for truth. For ultimately it is truth, and mans' search for it, that must animate a free society.
American citizens who love their country, cherish freedom, and believe in Christian values are continually perplexed by the nature of an enemy within that never ceases in its endeavors to destroy the nation as it was founded.
When they look out upon the nation, they see an insidious form of tyranny creeping over the land, befalling the country as the shadow of a totalitarian future. They see their fellow countrymen lust for power over the nation, in shades of an ideology that was once thought to be vanquished - fascism.
Fascism is thought to be the hallmark of petty racist or nationalist minds, but this is not necessarily the case. It is more properly thought of as an inexorable drive to unite a collective - obliterating the barriers between the political, economic, social, and private spheres of human activity. It is the introduction of power and coercion into all realms of life.
Fascism, and its Americanized form, progressivism, is not projected into a nation from out of nowhere. It must attach itself in the minds of the people. A process of receptivity to the allure of power of man over man, a drive to make the world right by fraud or force, must be embedded in the collective conscience.
This form of totalitarianism proceeds by the destruction of the old to prepare the path for the new. Its harbinger is a messianic figure who will baptize the nation by fire.
Destruction precedes redemption, so the fascist followers believe. All institutions, traditions, morality, customs, culture, religions, Constitutional order, the rule of law, private property, children's attachment to parents, romantic love, the family, any place where a man's mentality is anchored outside the collective, must be swept away in the progressive tide of history.
The fascist mentality is not personally authoritarian, it is vacuous and rootless. It is perfectly conducive to manipulation by power elites.
The power elites are quite different in psychology - their "rootlessness" of morality lubricates their narcissistic pursuit of power. The symbiosis of the power elites and the "liberating" indoctrinated can be an "altruistic" sado-masochistic dance of destruction across all of society.
The process of "breaking down all barriers" is perceived by the secular faithful as "liberation." Those who call themselves progressives feel they are being "liberated" from criticism, and thus internal self-reflection, by removing ideological competition, relentlessly and even childishly attacking their enemies without care for the truth; "liberated" from status guilt with the establishment of class equality; "liberated" from religious judgment by eliminating God from the social sphere; "liberated" from social norms by participating in facile rebellion; "liberated" from material reality by ignoring economic scarcity and believing that the rich are an eternal source of wealth to be redistributed; and even "liberated" from themselves by joining mass movements and collectivist causes.
The "liberating" process finally culminates in an existential crisis that resolves itself in revolution. There is no bridge of understanding between the "liberators" and those who love liberty.
The power elites unleash the social forces of self-destruction through "education" and indoctrination and wait patiently to snatch the free people up in a totalitarian restoration when chaos presents itself. They thus purposefully distort the economic, social, and political system until all faith in the existing way of things is broken. The redeemers who appear are the self-anointed saviors, blessed and christened by the pervasive cultural and dis-information media.
It is no coincidence that two of the most powerful bastions against the totalitarian tyranny of the would-be enslavers, the guns and religion to which the people "cling," are targeted explicitly by such a redeemer. To be swept up in the rushing tide of history, there must be nothing left to which the conservatives can "cling."
Rogues and Reactionaries
It is easy to see that anyone who opposes the progressives are in the minds of the secular faithful backwards rubes or reactionaries to be scorned and ridiculed. Conservative intellectuals, on the other hand, see the progressives as drones, deployed to do the bidding of the power elite. Mutual misunderstanding can easily lead to dehumanization if one is not well-versed in the reasons for the divergence of views.
Conservatives tend to be individualists who believe in morality, and thus they are very difficult to mobilize to oppose progressives. In America, conservatives give the benefit of the doubt to others in regards to intentions - a Christian belief system leads them to believe that others can be "saved" or "converted," and that they should not judge lest they be judged.
Ultimately, most Americans believe in right and wrong, and this is the one thing that can trigger a massive conservative uprising. Rampant theft, corruption, habitual lies, and actions that endanger the nation can trigger a conservative backlash if not hidden well enough by the complicit media, and assumes the power elites' near monopoly of control over mass communications.
But by relying on institutions such as voting, conservatives bank on the incorruptibility of this political recourse over the long-term, which historically is not a well-founded assumption.
The ultimate underlying long-term problem for conservatives is their eternal struggle to preserve institutions from corruption and deterioration, while dismissing the deeper philosophy and morality that undergirds the social and political order.
A shallow understanding of religion can lead to a tendency to relegate all the unexplained and disliked to the realm of faith; the ideas that God will provide and everything will continue on as is seem to be associated here with a relaxed "to each his own" attitude towards amorality and immorality.
Social conservatives and especially evangelicals see the amorality and immorality as a call to arms in a Holy War, which they may fight with proselytizing - in a free society, this is an appropriate response as long as it is confined to the social sphere. But the danger is that social conservatives will rise to power and use the government as the progressives do to seek retribution, this is ultimately incompatible with freedom of conscience. The problem is that crises of conscience compel action, and are not always circumscribed in a way that is consonant with individual freedom. A dilemma arises in that individual freedom may also dissipate the cultural and social cohesion needed to sustain a political order that is conducive to respecting such freedom.
Conservatives' perpetual rear guard fight can only be transferred to a cultural and political offensive if armed with the proper philosophy, which is comprehensive and rooted in "self-evident" truth.
Objectivism or Religion: The Last Best Hope for Man?
The ultimate solution for the establishment of a free society (putting aside fascistic "progressivism" and the socialist model of Trotskyism or "eternal revolution") pits the philosophy of ordered liberty versus social conservatism. The foundation of liberty is held by most Americans to be natural rights endowed by God, but there is a philosophical school that holds out the possibility that liberty can be established as the just morality for man rationally and self-evidently. This philosophical school is Objectivism.
Misapprehensions of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism abound, and this is not a coincidence, since it directly threatens the power elite. Ayn Rand rooted her philosophy in several fundamental truths: There is an objective reality (that exists outside the mind); man's mind can know objective reality using rationality; reality does not contradict itself, A = A, and if it appears that it doesn't, check your premises; human life is the means and the ends of a just morality; and the individual is the ultimate standard (but not possessor) of justice, since only an individual can have life.
Objectivism holds that in a just political and social order, the individual is responsible for his own life, and this order is sustained by certain rationally determined eternal truths. These truths are expounded upon more fully by Ayn Rand herself.
The primary objection to Ayn Rand's philosophy among conservatives is that it is too "selfish." But we should recognize that Rand's Egoism is not Egotism; in other words, Egoism, or recognizing one's psyche and individuality, and internalizing one's moral code, is not the same as Egotism, which holds that one man is above the law, is entitled to subjugate his peers, and that the ends justify the means.
Religion would play the role of establishing eternal truth in society, if only it could be established that one religion were the one true religion as a self-evident truth. Yet there are many religions and sects of religions, and it is impossible to determine the truth of one using rationality. The ultimate recourse over the question of religious truth historically nearly always seems to be war and bloodshed, in other words, to kill the non-believers who pollute the imagined paradise.
Objectivism holds that one can believe in religion, but that is a matter of personal conscience; in a free society one is allowed to discuss what religion is the true religion and why one should convert. Unfortunately, it is difficult to establish a morality of individual freedom when people believe that the non-believers will go to eternal hell if they don't believe likewise, or alternatively, that backwards conservatives are in the way of establishing a paradise on earth - if only they would just believe.
Individualism and collectivism, of the secular and religious kinds, are therefore destined to be at odds as long as there are men who desire to possess their own lives, and those who would seek to control them. Individuals believe that power rests in the individual, but how to mobilize this power while respecting other individuals is a difficult ordeal, especially when faced with a "democratic" mob intent on depriving individuals of property or freedom.
The exceptional nature of the American founding is that the Christian code of protestantism religiously reinforced individualism. This has forestalled the clash of ideologies that Americans are now experiencing more intensely. While some believe that it is a fatal flaw of the founding that Christianity was not established as the nation's religion, objectivists hold that the crucial problem is that the moral and philosophical code of individualism was not systematized and made more explicit.
That the moral code of individualism may very well perish by the same assumptions of freedom that individualists hold dear appears to be a distinct possibility; cultures are not self-regenerative, and the enemies of freedom are many. Progressives and other collectivists can and do destroy individualism in open daylight by perverting and eroding the culture.
Without a solid philosophical understanding of a moral system that preserves individual freedom, those who love America will always be undoing the misdeeds of destructive progressives, repealing unjust legislation, struggling to keep ever-expanding altruistic government in check.
Contrary to popular misconception, an objectivist government would not be an anarchist government; it would be one of self-government. Such a government would require that each person suffer the consequences of his own actions. It would also relegate love back to its proper place - in the heart of the individual who feels it. Love and coercion would thus be parted philosophically and politically; religion and progressivism would no longer be empowered to "help" people using coercion and against the will of individual citizens.
Only by establishing self-government can the conscience of each citizen be rejuvenated; can rational self-interest be reestablished; can human history and knowledge become relevant again; can love be benevolent in all its manifestations; and can freedom of conscience be respected by all, as is required for an ongoing human search for truth. For ultimately it is truth, and mans' search for it, that must animate a free society.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Government - by Frederic Bastiat
What an immense service it would confer on society !
The Government! what is it? where is it? what does it do? what ought it to do? All we know is, that it is a mysterious personage; and, assuredly, it is the most solicited, the most tormented, the most overwhelmed, the most admired, the most accused, the most invoked, and the most provoked of any personage in the world.
I have not the pleasure of knowing my reader but I would stake ten to one that for six months he has been making Utopias, and if so, that he is looking to Government for the realization of them.
And should the reader happen to be a lady: I have no doubt that she is sincerely desirous of seeing all the evils of suffering humanity remedied, and that she thinks this might easily be done, if Government would only undertake it. [...]
In the midst of this tumult, and now that the country has again and again changed the administration, for not having satisfied all its demands, I wanted to show that they were contradictory. But, what could I have been thinking about? Could I not keep this unfortunate observation to myself!
I have lost my character forever! I am looked upon as a man without heart and without feeling - a dry philosopher, an individualist, a plebeian - in a word, an economist of the practical school. But, pardon me, sublime writers, who stop at nothing, not even at contradictions. I am wrong, without a doubt, and I would willingly retract. I should be glad enough, you may be sure, if you had really discovered a beneficent and inexhaustible being, calling itself the Government, which has bread for all mouths, work for all hands, capital for all enterprises, credit for all projects, oil for all wounds, balm for all sufferings, advice for all perplexities, solutions for all doubts, truths for all intellects, diversions for all who want them, milk for infancy, and wine for old age - which can provide for all our wants, satisfy all our curiosity, correct all our errors, repair all our faults, and exempt us henceforth from the necessity for foresight, prudence, judgment, sagacity, experience, order, economy, temperance, and activity.
What reason could I have for not desiring to see such a discovery made? Indeed, the more I reflect upon it, the more do I see that nothing could be more convenient than that we should all of us have within our reach an inexhaustible source of wealth and enlightenment - a universal physician, an unlimited treasure, and an infallible counselor, such as you describe Government to be. Therefore it is that I want to have it pointed out and defined, and that a prize should be offered to the first discoverer of the phoenix. For no one would think of asserting that this precious discovery has yet been made, since up to this time everything presenting itself under the name of the Government has at some time been overturned by the people, precisely because it does not fulfill the rather contradictory conditions of the programme.
I will venture to say that I fear we are, in this respect, the dupes of one of the strangest illusions which have ever taken possession of the human mind.
Man recoils from trouble - from suffering; and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose, then, between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the satisfaction from preserving their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the satisfaction that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be - whether that of wars, imposition, violence, restrictions, frauds, &c. - monstrous abuses, but consistent with the thought which has given them birth. Oppression should be detested and resisted - it can hardly be called absurd.
Slavery is disappearing, thank heaven! and, on the other hand, our disposition to defend our property prevents direct and open plunder from being easy.
One thing, however, remains - it is the original inclination which exists in all men to divide the lot of life into two parts, throwing the trouble upon others, and keeping the satisfaction for themselves. It remains to be shown under what new form this sad tendency is manifesting itself.
The oppressor no longer acts directly and with his own powers upon his victim. No, our conscience has become too sensitive for that. The tyrant and his victim are still present, but there is an intermediate person between them, which is the Government - that is, the Law itself. What can be better calculated to silence our scruples, and, which is perhaps better appreciated, to overcome all resistance? We all therefore, put in our claim, under some pretext or other, and apply to Government. We say to it, " I am dissatisfied at the proportion between my labor and my enjoyments. I should like, for the sake of restoring the desired equilibrium, to take a part of the possessions of others. But this would be dangerous. Could not you facilitate the thing for me? Could you not find me a good place? or check the industry of my competitors? or, perhaps, lend me gratuitously some capital which, you may take from its possessor? Could you not bring up my children at the public expense? or grant me some prizes? or secure me a competence when I have attained my fiftieth year? By this mean I shall gain my end with an easy conscience, for the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the advantages of plunder, without its risk or its disgrace!"
As it is certain, on the one hand, that we are all making some similar request to the Government; and as, on the other, it is proved that Government cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labor of the others, until I can obtain another definition of the word Government I feel authorized to give it my own. Who knows but it may obtain the prize? Here it is:
"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
[Continued]
The Original Purpose of the Federal Government
This general government, I believe, is the first upon earth which gives checks against democracies or aristocracies.
Luther Martin on the unique historical role of the U.S. federal government (Philadelphia Convention, 1787).
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Scottish Enlightenment Philosophers Discuss Taxation
V.2.24
Before I enter upon the examination of particular taxes, it is necessary to premise the four following maxims with regard to taxes in general. [...]
V.2.26 II.
The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person. Where it is otherwise, every person subject to the tax is put more or less in the power of the tax-gathered, who can either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious contributor, or extort, by the terror of such aggravation, some present or perquisite to himself. The uncertainty of taxation encourages the insolence and favours the corruption of an order of men who are naturally unpopular, even where they are neither insolent nor corrupt. The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great importance that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty.
V.2.27 III.
Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it. A tax upon the rent of land or of houses, payable at the same term at which such rents are usually paid, is levied at the time when it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay; or, when he is most likely to have wherewithal to pay. Taxes upon such consumable goods as are articles of luxury are all finally paid by the consumer, and generally in a manner that is very convenient for him. He pays them by little and little, as he has occasion to buy the goods. As he is at liberty, too, either to buy, or not to buy, as he pleases, it must be his own fault if he ever suffers any considerable inconveniency from such taxes.
V.2.28 IV.
Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state. A tax may either take out or keep out of the pockets of the people a great deal more than it brings into the public treasury, in the four following ways. First, the levying of it may require a great number of officers, whose salaries may eat up the greater part of the produce of the tax, and whose perquisites may impose another additional tax upon the people. Secondly, it may obstruct the industry the people, and discourage them from applying to certain branches of business which might give maintenance and unemployment to great multitudes. While it obliges the people to pay, it may thus diminish, or perhaps destroy, some of the funds which might enable them more easily to do so. Thirdly, by the forfeitures and other penalties which those unfortunate individuals incur who attempt unsuccessfully to evade the tax, it may frequently ruin them, and thereby put an end to the benefit which the community might have received from the employment of their capitals. An injudicious tax offers a great temptation to smuggling. But the penalties of smuggling must rise in proportion to the temptation. The law, contrary to all the ordinary principles of justice, first creates the temptation, and then punishes those who yield to it; and it commonly enhances the punishment, too, in proportion to the very circumstance which ought certainly to alleviate it, the temptation to commit the crime. Fourthly, by subjecting the people to the frequent visits and the odious examination of the tax-gatherers, it may expose them to much unnecessary trouble, vexation, and oppression; and though vexation is not, strictly speaking, expence, it is certainly equivalent to the expence at which every man would be willing to redeem himself from it. It is in some one or other of these four different ways that taxes are frequently so much more burdensome to the people than they are beneficial to the sovereign.
V.2.29
The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended them more or less to the attention of all nations. All nations have endeavoured, to the best of their judgment, to render their taxes as equal as they could contrive; as certain, as convenient to the contributor, both in the time and in the mode of payment, and, in proportion to the revenue which they brought to the prince, as little burdensome to the people. The following short review of some of the principal taxes which have taken place in different ages and countries will show that the endeavours of all nations have not in this respect been equally successful. [Link]
II.VIII.2
When a tax is laid upon commodities, which are consumed by the common people, the necessary consequence may seem to be, either that the poor must retrench something from their way of living, or raise their wages, so as to make the burden of the tax fall entirely upon the rich. But there is a third consequence, which often follows upon taxes, namely, that the poor encrease their industry, perform more work, and live as well as before, without demanding more for their labour. Where taxes are moderate, are laid on gradually, and affect not the necessaries of life, this consequence naturally follows; and it is certain, that such difficulties often serve to excite the industry of a people, and render them more opulent and laborious, than others, who enjoy the greatest advantages. For we may observe, as a parallel instance, that the most commercial nations have not always possessed the greatest extent of fertile land; but, on the contrary, that they have laboured under many natural disadvantages. TYRE, ATHENS, CARTHAGE, RHODES, GENOA, VENICE, HOLLAND, are strong examples to this purpose. And in all history, we find only three instances of large and fertile countries, which have possessed much trade; the NETHERLANDS, ENGLAND, and FRANCE. The two former seem to have been allured by the advantages of their maritime situation, and the necessity they lay under of frequenting foreign ports, in order to procure what their own climate refused them. And as to FRANCE, trade has come late into that kingdom, and seems to have been the effect of reflection and observation in an ingenious and enterprizing people, who remarked the riches acquired by such of the neighbouring nations as cultivated navigation and commerce.
II.VIII.3
The places mentioned by CICERO, as possessed of the greatest commerce in his time, are ALEXANDRIA, COLCHUS, TYRE, SIDON, ANDROS, CYPRUS, PAMPHYLIA, LYCIA, RHODES, CHIOS, BYZANTIUM, LESBOS, SMYRNA, MILETUM, COOS. All these, except ALEXANDRIA, were either small islands, or narrow territories. And that city owed its trade entirely to the happiness of its situation.
II.VIII.4
Since therefore some natural necessities or disadvantages may be thought favourable to industry, why may not artificial burdens have the same effect? Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, we may observe, ascribes the industry of the DUTCH entirely to necessity, proceeding from their natural disadvantages; and illustrates his doctrine by a striking comparison with IRELAND; "where," says he, "by the largeness and plenty of the soil, and scarcity of people, all things necessary to life are so cheap, that an industrious man, by two days labour, may gain enough to feed him the rest of the week. Which I take to be a very plain ground of the laziness attributed to the people. For men naturally prefer ease before labour, and will not take pains if they can live idle; though when, by necessity, they have been inured to it, they cannot leave it, being grown a custom necessary to their health, and to their very entertainment. Nor perhaps is the change harder, from constant ease to labour, than from constant labour to ease." After which the author proceeds to confirm his doctrine, by enumerating, as above, the places where trade has most flourished, in ancient and modern times; and which are commonly observed to be such narrow confined territories, as beget a necessity for industry.
II.VIII.5
The best taxes are such as are levied upon consumptions, especially those of luxury; because such taxes are least felt by the people. They seem, in some measure, voluntary; since a man may chuse how far he will use the commodity which is taxed: They are paid gradually and insensibly:c They naturally produce sobriety and frugality, if judiciously imposed: And being confounded with the natural price of the commodity, they are scarcely perceived by the consumers. Their only disadvantage is, that they are expensive in the levying.
II.VIII.6
Taxes upon possessions are levied without expence; but have every other disadvantage. Most states, however, are obliged to have recourse to them, in order to supply the deficiencies of the other.
II.VIII.7
But the most pernicious of all taxes are the arbitrary. They are commonly converted, by their management, into punishments on industry; and also, by their unavoidable inequality, are more grievous, than by the real burden which they impose. It is surprising, therefore, to see them have place among any civilized people.
II.VIII.8
In general, all poll-taxes, even when not arbitrary, which they commonly are, may be esteemed dangerous: Because it is so easy for the sovereign to add a little more, and a little more, to the sum demanded, that these taxes are apt to become altogether oppressive and intolerable. On the other hand, a duty upon commodities checks itself; and a prince will soon find, that an encrease of the impost is no encrease of his revenue. It is not easy, therefore, for a people to be altogether ruined by such taxes.
II.VIII.9
Historians inform us, that one of the chief causes of the destruction of the ROMAN state, was the alteration, which CONSTANTINE introduced into the finances, by substituting an universal poll-tax, in lieu of almost all the tithes, customs, and excises, which formerly composed the revenue of the empire. The people, in all the provinces, were so grinded and oppressed by the publicans, that they were glad to take refuge under the conquering arms of the barbarians; whose dominion, as they had fewer necessities and less art, was found preferable to the refined tyranny of the ROMANS.
II.VIII.10
It is an opinion, zealously promoted by some political writers, that, since all taxes, as they pretend, fall ultimately upon land, it were better to lay them originally there, and abolish every duty upon consumptions. But it is denied, that all taxes fall ultimately upon land. If a duty be laid upon any commodity, consumed by an artisan, he has two obvious expedients for paying it; he may retrench somewhat of his expence, or he may encrease his labour. Both these resources are more easy and natural, than that of heightening his wages. We see, that, in years of scarcity, the weaver either consumes less or labours more, or employs both these expedients of frugality and industry, by which he is enabled to reach the end of the year. It is but just, that he should subject himself to the same hardships, if they deserve the name, for the sake of the publick, which gives him protection. By what contrivance can he raise the price of his labour? The manufacturer who employs him, will not give him more: Neither can he, because the merchant, who exports the cloth, cannot raise its price, being limited by the price which it yields in foreign markets. Every man, to be sure, is desirous of pushing off from himself the burden of any tax, which is imposed, and of laying it upon others: But as every man has the same inclination, and is upon the defensive; no set of men can be supposed to prevail altogether in this contest. And why the landed gentleman should be the victim of the whole, and should not be able to defend himself, as well as others are, I cannot readily imagine. All tradesmen, indeed, would willingly prey upon him, and divide him among them, if they could: But this inclination they always have, though no taxes were levied; and the same methods, by which he guards against the imposition of tradesmen before taxes, will serve him afterwards, and make them share the burden with him. They must be very heavy taxes, indeed, and very injudiciously levied, which the artizan will not, of himself, be enabled to pay, by superior industry and frugality, without raising the price of his labour.
II.VIII.11
I shall conclude this subject with observing, that we have, with regard to taxes, an instance of what frequently happens in political institutions, that the consequences of things are diametrically opposite to what we should expect on the first appearance. It is regarded as a fundamental maxim of the TURKISH government, that the Grand Signior, though absolute master of the lives and fortunes of each individual, has no authority to impose a new tax; and every OTTOMAN prince, who has made such an attempt, either has been obliged to retract, or has found the fatal effects of his perseverance. One would imagine, that this prejudice or established opinion were the firmest barrier in the world against oppression; yet it is certain, that its effect is quite contrary. The emperor, having no regular method of encreasing his revenue, must allow all the bashaws and governors to oppress and abuse the subjects: And these he squeezes after their return from their government. Whereas, if he could impose a new tax, like our EUROPEAN princes, his interest would so far be united with that of his people, that he would immediately feel the bad effects of these disorderly levies of money, and would find, that a pound, raised by a general imposition, would have less pernicious effects, than a shilling taken in so unequal and arbitrary a manner. [Link]
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Butchering the Free Market
From the Daily Mail:
Butchers banned from using knives
Butchers at Sainsbury's have been banned from using knives - because of health and safety.
Shopper John Wilkinson was shocked when a meat counter worker at the supermarket said he could not de-bone a joint of lamb.
The businessman was told: 'My bosses won't let me - in case I cut myself and I'm not insured.'
Commanding butchers not to use knives is kind of like telling Obama he can no longer use his teleprompter.
Butchers banned from using knives
Butchers at Sainsbury's have been banned from using knives - because of health and safety.
Shopper John Wilkinson was shocked when a meat counter worker at the supermarket said he could not de-bone a joint of lamb.
The businessman was told: 'My bosses won't let me - in case I cut myself and I'm not insured.'
Commanding butchers not to use knives is kind of like telling Obama he can no longer use his teleprompter.
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