About This Blog

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was the greatest economist of my time. His greatest works can be accessed here at no charge.

Mises believed that property, freedom and peace are and should be the hallmarks of a satisfying and prosperous society. I agree. Mises proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the prospect for general and individual prosperity is maximized, indeed, is only possible, if the principle of private property reigns supreme. What's yours is yours. What's mine is mine. When the line between yours and mine is smudged, the door to conflict opens. Without freedom (individual liberty of action) the principle of private property is neutered and the free market, which is the child of property and freedom and the mother of prosperity and satisfaction, cannot exist. Peace is the goal of a prosperous and satisfying society of free individuals, not peace which is purchased by submission to the enemies of property and freedom, but peace which results from the unyielding defense of these principles against all who challenge them.

In this blog I measure American society against the metrics of property, freedom and peace.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Maximum Leader Obama's Fatal Conceit

In Socialism's "Fatal Conceit," Ralph R. Reiland writes:
The appeal of socialism, wrote Nobel-winning economist F. A. Hayek, “depends on the instinctual appeal of promised consequences.”

The problem, argued Hayek, is that “socialism cannot possibly do what it promises.”

Socialism fails, unavoidably, because it is based on the flawed concept, the “fatal conceit,” that one man or one group, one cabinet of commanding officials or one central committee, or one team of planners from Harvard and Yale, can gather and understand enough information in order to reshape the world around them according to their wishes, reshape human nature, and design an economic system that can outstrip the overall and long run performance of the decentralized and basically self-ordering and spontaneous processes of the marketplace.
Hayek's "fatal conceit" is not unique to the economic ideology of socialism. It is rather unique to men who are particularly arrogant, men who believe their exceptional intuition and intelligence allow them to know and understand what is incomprehensible to the rest of us. Usually this knowledge and understanding focuses on the the future and on the establishment of some utopian vision of a society that will satisfy all in society even though individuals in that society cannot themselves see it or know it.

John Law was such a man. He presided over the great paper money inflation in France in the early 18th century. Wikipedia tells us that Law "was responsible for the Mississippi Bubble and a chaotic economic collapse in France."

Obviously, such was not Law's intention. He was a well-meaning reformer who sought to bring unlimited prosperity to all Frenchmen by fundamentally changing French money and commerce according to his particular vision. In his book, Money and Man, Elgin Groseclose describes Law's attempt:
Law, meantime, was working at a furious rate remodeling everything in the kingdom. He was not content with printing notes with dangerous obstinacy; he was also busy concerning matters of trade and agriculture. He had in mind the idea of depriving the clergy of their uncultivated lands and giving them to the peasants. He wanted asylums for the poor built in all parts of the country. He encouraged fisheries, and helped manufactures with substantial loans. He took an interest in large undertakings and furnished funds for building the bridge at Blois and for digging the canal at Briare. He wanted to have barracks built in the provinces in order to spare the inhabitants from having to house the troops...

...The latter part of 1719 saw Law at the height of his greatness. He was the most prominent figure in Europe. He visited the street where millions were made daily out of his enterprises, and was received with an enthusiasm such as could hardly have been accorded a sovereign... ...Law was declared to be a minister whose merits exceeded anything that the past had known, the present could conceive or the future would believe.
Law's efforts ushered in a short but grand period of apparent wealth creation and accumulation, what we would today call a "boom." Commoners and princes were leveled by their reckless speculation in Law's equity market. Waiters became millionaires virtually overnight. But Law's boom led to the inevitable bust and his vision was never realized. Groseclose writes:
On January 5, 1720, Law was made Comptroller General of France. He and his System had reached the zenith of their fortunes. Law surveyed a world inflated in an enormous bubble, as delicate and insubstantial as froth, a world gone mad in speculation, everywhere feverish activity, but activity of an unhealthy sort, concerned with the making of money rather than the creation of wealth, concerned with stocks and shares rather than ships and goods. Law must have been perplexed, dismayed at what he saw. He had conceived a "state within a state," an edifice of commerce and trade and industrial activity within the political state, a structure which would support and strengthen the degenerate and enfeebled state without; enterprise which
would absorb the energies and interests of the people rather than the hollow and hectic life of the court. 
Somewhere his plans had gone astray. Instead of creating a condition of industry and trade, geared and lubricated by the device of commercial credit, he found the same old interests and pursuits, but heightened and intensified by a spirit of gambling and speculation.
Fiat currency allowed Law to monetize the wealth of France. Control of that fiat currency allowed him to direct that wealth into avenues of his own choosing. It all seemed perfectly reasonable. After all, Law knew better than anyone else what must be done in the future to satisfy all.

Today we have a Maximum Leader who, like John Law, believes he knows better than anyone else -- certainly far better than the ignorant individuals who comprise the hoi polloi -- what must be done to satisfy all. Maximum Leader visualizes a future powered by algae and the sun rather than the crude and earthy resources of coal and oil. He visualizes a society wherein all enjoy the best of health care, education, and bullet-train transit, wherein the disparity between rich and poor is minimal, wherein each individual benefits according to his need and each individual produces according to his ability.

Maximum Leader is able to steer the country down this avenue of his enlightened vision only because he and his government control our fiat money supply which monetizes the wealth of America, not by means of some elaborate Louisiana stock venture, but by means of debt, the promise of future prosperity and production. Debt allows Maximum Leader and company to move the country's wealth around like pieces on a chess board, from individuals who produce wealth to individuals, favored by the government, who promise to produce wealth in the future based on the enlightened vision of Maximum Leader.

The problem is that Barack Obama is no more enlightened than John Law, and his circle of favored sycophants are no less greedy and immoral than the circle of sycophants that surrounded John Law and became rich due to his efforts. For this reason, Maximum Leader Obama will suffer the same fate as Law. He will inevitably fail in disgrace, but not without visiting poverty and chaos on the rest of us.

The interests of those who honestly produce and own wealth, and of those who dishonestly seize and redistribute wealth according to their enlightened vision are inevitably opposed. When private property is respected, the effects of greed, immorality and reckless speculation are localized on the shoulders of the owners of private property. Waste and loss is dispersed among them and limited to them. When private property is disrespected, when the wealth of the nation is monetized, concentrated in Washington and disbursed to pet projects and favored sycophants, the wages of greed, immorality and reckless speculation are imposed on the entire population via the depreciating monetary unit.

Groseclose describes the turn of events in Law's France:
By making interchangeable the shares in his company, in which was absorbed most of the commercial activity
of the country, and the paper of the bank, Law achieved a perfect assimilation, in theory, between money and wealth, and achieved the ideal still so eagerly sought of making capital wealth perfectly liquid and money perfectly representative of commercial activity.

The actual results were, of course, quite the contrary. The share market continued to fall, and shares were converted into bank money in enormous quantities. The shares which had been issued at from 500 to 5,000 livres, were now repurchased at 9,000. More than the wealth of the West and the East Indies would have been required to sustain such an operation. Over 2,000,000,000 livres were paid out, without effect, in an effort to sustain the market, and the currency was inflated to an extent far exceeding the issues of the year before. By the close of the era the amount of bank issues outstanding totaled 3,000,000,000 livres.

The general eagerness of holders to convert their shares into money was tempered only by the fact that the notes which they received in payment were rapidly becoming as worthless as the shares. Investors had to choose between an investment that would yield nothing, and notes that would buy nothing. The attempt to make money and commercial wealth synonymous was a fiasco. This perhaps most audacious attempt in history at managed currency overlooked one vital fact: when trade is bad good money is more than ever necessary. The state of money cannot be made to depend on the state of the market.
To stem the disastrous effects of Law's monetary "System," the government resorted to the usual methods: exchange controls, restrictions on gold ownership and the like. Eventually, the government devalued Law's bank money by 50%. Groseclose documents the consequences of the devaluation:
This was, of course, a mere juggling of words, which made no man either richer or poorer, but to such a degree were wealth and money confused in the public mind that the effect of the decree was cataclysmic. The man who had a hundred livre note saw it worth, in six months, but fifty livres. The operator who had lulled himself with the belief that he was worth a million saw his property to be only five hundred thousand. The wealth represented by billions of shares and notes had been, indeed, but a dream, but it was a stern awakening to have a royal edict proclaim the fact that it was worth only half what it professed to be.

The edict was repealed after having been in effect but six days, but the damage had been done past repair. From then on there remained only the ghastly work of gathering together the broken and shattered bits of the System, and the thankless task of reconciling a disillusioned public that for a year had been living in a fool's paradise.

The depreciation of the currency had caused such serious disturbances as, later in the century, might have ripened into revolution. Butchers, bakers, grocers, and other tradespeople were unwilling to receive paper money at all. Specie had been driven out of circulation. There arose a fierce demand for something
with which one could buy bread to eat, wood to burn, clothes to wear. What had been a condition of physical need bade fair to become a condition of physical distress. Toward the end of May the prohibition of the use of the precious metals as currency was repealed, but as the metallic reserve of the bank was not 2 per cent of the amount of its circulation, the effort to restore convertibility resulted in a series of new disasters. The value of gold and silver was alternately raised and lowered... ...The weight of gold was the same, but the sum for which the government would issue or receive it fluctuated with startling rapidity. Such measures had no effect. In a condition of panic the only desire was to lay hold of a piece of gold, whether it was called ten livres or fifty. It would buy something for daily needs, or it could be put aside with the assurance that ultimately it
would command its real value.

The formal close of the System was marked by a decree of October 10, 1720, declaring the notes of the bank no longer currency, and requiring contracts to be discharged and payments to be made in gold and silver. The paper currency of the state, after an experience of less than two years, was extinguished. The experiment of a managed currency, of a currency that should expand with the needs of trade, was abandoned. In December, 1720, Law was forced to flee the country....
The American electorate should not make the mistake of believing that what happened in Law's France will not and could not happen in Obama's America. The consequences of monetizing wealth and inflating fiat currency are inevitable and inexorable. Do not buy into Obama's managed vision of the future.

Do not allow Maximum Leader's fatal conceit to become yours.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Obama: "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon..."

No he wouldn't, Maximum Leader. If you had a son, he'd look like this:


 h/t to American Phoenix

Read this great article, written presciently May 28, 2008: Our First Marxist President?

The Wages Of Sin

Over at Political Realities LD Jackson has posted an excellent essay: "Barack Obama – Dishonesty In Cushing."

Jackson describes Maximum Leader Obama's recent campaign stop in Cushing, Oklahoma:
I'm not sure if I have ever seen such a blatant and dishonest attempt by any politician to spin the facts and weave a web of lies around the truth."
LD is too much the gentleman to say it plainly. I've never been accused of being a gentleman, so I'll say it: Barack Obama is a bald-faced liar.

This is not news, of course. Anyone who follows the Drudge Report or Weasel Zippers or Fox News is exposed to a daily barrage of lies dripping from the flapping lips of Maximum Leader and his cronies. Naturally, leftists will say these news sources are tainted with the bias of conservative hatred and dissembling, which is itself a lie.

The point is lying has become the modus operandi of Maximum Leader and his administration. Why? It's due to a variety of moral hazard perpetrated by the mainstream media. If those charged with reporting the news fail to report lies, it becomes that much easier for liars to tell lies. They are enabled to lie with impunity.

The Bible tells us that "the wages of sin is death..." In this case it is not the officious liar who will suffer death, i.e., the loss of eternal life, but our society.

Here's a case in point, reported again by the nefarious evil-doers at Weasel Zippers and CNS News, "Pelosi: Obamacare Allows You to Quit Your Job and Become 'Whatever:'"
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that Obamacare facilitates the type of “liberation” that the “Founders had in mind” because it allows you to quit your job and become a “photographer,”  a “writer,” a “musician”--or “whatever.”
Of course, Pelosi's statement is a blatant lie. Don't get me wrong. Obamacare does allow Americans to "quit" their job, do "whatever" and still get health insurance and health care, at the expense of the rest of us slobs who remain working and paying taxes. Pelosi's lie is that this type of welfare statism is what the "Founders had in mind."

If pressed by the media, Pelosi couldn't produce a single word from a single Founder who endorsed this type of "liberation." But Pelosi's lie will never be challenged by a member of the mainstream press. However, that same press will see to it that Pelosi's lie is broadcast to every nook and cranny of the country multiple times.

At her press conference Pelosi added that under ObamaCare: "You won’t have to be job locked." Again, this is not a lie per se. It seems the goal of every piece of legislation that issues forth from Obama and Pelosi is meant to free Americans from the hell of being "job locked," meant to allow them the freedom to do "whatever" and still eat well and live well...at the expense of others. This last part is the part the media and Pelosi and Maximum Leader never emphasize. It is their lie of omission.

To be fair, Maximum Leader and company have been truthful about their intention to soak the 1% of super-rich Americans with new taxes to pay for their job unlocking schemes. The lie is that the numbers don't add up. Confiscate all the wealth of the evil one or two or three percent and you come up short a few trillion dollars!

No matter. What's the harm of another unreported and unexposed lie here and there? The wages of this sin is hardly the death of society.

Wait. The death comes later, when those who believe the lies cast their votes for Maximum Leader and company, when those eager constituents demand that this newly elected, wondrous group of liars actually reproduce the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

Nancy Pelosi articulated the lie better than anyone. She said that ObamaCare incorporates...
"a cap on your costs, but no cap on your benefit."
Don't laugh, you Doubting Thomases. It's essentially what Christ said at the sermon on the mount, isn't it? A cap on your tithes, but no cap on the free fish and bakery?

We all know the Founders said basically the same thing at Independence Hall a couple of hundred years ago when they were founding this great nation: A cap on your job-locked, pioneering misery, but no cap on the neat stuff your new government can extort from your rich bastard neighbors.   

What a great country! What could possibly go wrong?

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Why The Constitution?

Allow the man responsible for writing it, James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, to answer that question:
“In framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce. An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts have yet been made in this country, but symptoms of a leveling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarters to give notice of the future danger.”
This quote and many other Madison quotes can be found at "What Would The Founders Think?" Here's two more that put the mindset of the founders into modern perspective:
“A mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.”

“A remedy must be obtained from the people who can, by the election of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers.”
Read and follow "What Would The Founders Think?," one of the most valuable and timely resources on the internet. The more one studies the founders, the more one comes to believe that, if reincarnated today, they would be uncompromising advocates of liberty and would count progressives as their deadliest enemies, no less dangerous than their British overlords of the 18th century.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Read Something Else!

Today I'd like to encourage patrons of this blog to read something else, two somethings else in fact, namely: Robbing America and The Country Thinker. I recommend these blogs because of their consistently excellent posts on matters economic. If you are interested in knowing the truth about the financial mess this country has worked itself into, you will get the absolute lowdown with detail at these two blogs.

About three weeks ago John at Robbing America posted an article that summarized Maximum Leader Obama's extensive and destructive tax policy scheduled to take hold in 2013: Your "Fair Share" For 2013 - Obama Is Coming To Collect.

This week John published another article which outlined three lethal threats to America's economic future: The Coming Triple Pronged Attack On the Nation.

Over at The Country Thinker Ted has recently published a two part article on the debt bomb that threatens to blow up in our faces unless our politicians wise up pronto: America’s Interest Time Bomb, Part 1, and America’s Interest Time Bomb (Conclusion). It's scary stuff.

Over here at Property...Freedom...Peace there is a strong belief that Americans must learn the truth, not only about economic theory but also about the specific economic policies our politicians over the years have embarked on, policies which are sure to make life in these United States a living hell for all but the very well off or the very politically connected insiders (two groups, often the same people). There is still time to do something about our dire situation if people become informed voters. You owe it to yourself and your family not to stick your head in the sand and hope this latest "economic crisis" blows over.

Make no mistake, this is not wacky, right wing conspiracy theory, or political scare tactics, or exaggerated financial nonsense that has nothing to do with you! The economic straight jacket our politicians have fitted us with is real; its consequences will be painful. Your life will change significantly because of it, and not for the better. Most every oppressive government, most every totalitarian state, most every dust bowl and famine in human history grew from roots planted in stupid and destructive economic policy. 

Read Robbing America and The Country Thinker. For that matter, visit "My Blog List" on the right hand margin of this page. Click on the links to the blogs and websites I've provided. Read them. Follow them. They all are coming from the same place. They all value truth. Become informed. Stay informed. Vote accordingly.

Now for my two cents worth...

Maybe it's me, but I get the feeling there are an awful lot of politicians in Washington who don't give a rip about the dire economic situation John and Ted describe. Either these politicians, for some reason unknown to me, believe that the United States is economically immune to the consequences of their bad policies -- sort of "bulletproof," if you will -- or they are whistling in the dark past the graveyard, trusting that the economic danger will pass without incident, hoping that economists like John and Ted are mistaken.

The United States of America has weathered many financial storms. Americans have always been the world's most industrious and resourceful people. American business, especially American small business, has always been resilient, able to take body blow after body blow without going down for the count. The sheer size of the American economy, the size of its fundamentally free market, the power of the US military, the depth of our technological infrastructure, the basic optimism and wealth of the American middle class -- all these characteristics tend to make Americans feel bulletproof.

The problem is many of these characteristics either no longer apply to America  or are weakening and changing. A good portion of Americans are no longer industrious and resourceful. They depend on government for food, shelter and health care. Many are meth heads. American business is shackled by a growing plethora of government regulations (work rules, hiring rules, anti-discrimination rules, safety rules, environmental rules, etc. etc.) and government obligations (health insurance and taxes, taxes and more taxes). There is a limit to how much businessmen will take before they decide they've had enough.

Furthermore, the free market in this country is shrinking due to ever more massive government interventions, both federal, state and local. Our military is exhausted. Our middle class is struggling to keep its head above water. iPads, Twitter and cell phones won't put food on grocery market shelves or keep hyperinflation at bay.

What irks me most is while we Twitter away are time, Rome is burning. And no one seems to care. Virginia counties surrounding the District of Columbia are among the wealthiest in the nation. Wall Street brokers and bankers are making money hand over fist. Why? Because times are good in government and among the friends of government. The insiders are getting rich by being the first in line to get those freshly printed new dollars.

Perhaps that's why so many politicians feel as though they're bulletproof. They've all got a plan B set up, an escape route predetermined for when the shit hits the fan.

It's as though Republicans and Democrats are engaged in a fatal game of chicken, but neither party believes it's really fatal. They are like duelists who believe they're immortal. The Republicans say no new taxes and dare the Democrats to spend. The Democrats keep spending and dare the Republicans to raise taxes. To them it's truly a game of chicken without consequences.

But the truth is there will be consequences. Inflation. Exchange controls. Monetary collapse. Severe shortages of goods and services. Panic in the streets. A government crackdown. Martial law.

See? It's just as I thought. You don't really believe such things are possible here in the United States of America. In Greece, maybe, but not here. In Spain, in Portugal, in Italy, in Europe...maybe there, but not here. Those countries are old world, vulnerable. We're insulated here. We're Americans. We're special.

We're bulletproof!

Wake up, knucklehead!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

More Hints Of Obama's Economic Illiteracy And Propensity To Demagogue

(All links via Weasel Zippers)

Obama: “Do Not Tell Me That We’re Not Drilling, We’re Drilling All Over This Country”

The money quote: "There are a few spots we’re not drilling. We’re not drilling in the national mall. We’re not drilling at your house." By "we're not drilling" Maximum Leader Obama means, of course, that private oil companies are not drilling. The US government doesn't drill for a drop of oil. The implication is that private oil companies are exploiting every known oil reserve in this country, which is a lie. Obama might also have said that that "we're not drilling" on public lands in Alaska or in areas of the Gulf of Mexico wherein significant oil reserves are known but where drilling is prohibited by the US government.

Not News: Obama Rips Republican Predecessor – News: 19th President Rutherford B. Hayes…

Maximum Leader criticizes Hayes for not seeing the potential of Alexander Graham Bell's newly invented telephone. Politico explains: "Obama was speaking about the need to be forward-thinking in developing new sources of American energy — and how "unnamed" Republicans running for a "certain office" had positioned themselves against alternative energy." Maximum Leader apparently can't distinguish between innovation demanded and supported by the free market and innovation subsidized by a dictatorial government with dollars coercively hijacked from the free market. Coincidentally, Rutherford B. Hayes presided over this nation when government was a small fraction of the size it is now, when the private market was vastly freer and when the nation experienced the greatest advancement in prosperity of individuals in its history. No, Mr. Maximum Leader, this was not mere coincidence.


New CBO Report: Obamacare May Cause 20 Million To Lose Coverage…

Am I wrong? Didn't Maximum Leader tell us during the ObamaCare debate that no one would lose coverage?
No, I guess I'm not mistaken. I'm mindful also of what another, political demagog said during the ObamaCare debate, Ms. Nancy Pelosi: Obama care means...
"a cap on your costs, but no cap on your benefit."
Sheer economic brilliance!



Obama Mocks Republicans As “Flat Earth Society” For Not Buying Into His Failed Green Energy Strategy…

Maximum Leader knows so much better than the rest of us freely acting by expressing our wishes by means of our dollars spent in the private market. The implication is not only are Republicans ignorant Luddites and troglodytes, but so is the American consumer, in short, you and I.  


Obama’s Solution To Soaring Gas Prices: “Set Up A Task Force To Look Into Speculation”…

Ah, that old chestnut! First it was disreputable and untrustworthy doctors who'd amputate a patient's foot rather than treat his diabetes because Medicare pays more for amputation than preventative care. Then it was the evil insurance companies who had to be kept honest by the creation of a "public health insurance option" in ObamaCare. Now it's the robber baron oil companies and commodity speculators that must be held in check by our oh so virtuous and honest Maximum Leader and company. How did we ever survive without his help?  


CBO: Obamacare Will Cost Taxpayers $1.76 Trillion Over 10 Years…

Oops. This is, as Zip tells us, "only $820 billion or 87% more than we were told when the law passed." Chalk it up to the price of economic ignorance and demagoguery.


Obamanomics: Government On Pace For First $1 Trillion Yearly Deficit…

Oops again. Well, it costs scads and scads of borrowed money to "fix" the mess created by that pesky law of supply and demand working in the free market. I'm sure things will work out better for our children now that Maximum Leader has bitten the bullet and saved us from our own free market foolishness.

How To Debate A Progressive On Economics

Avoid analogies, personal experience, anecdotes, economic statistics, economic "research" and morality.

Why morality?

Because economics is not about how human beings should act; it is about how human beings do act: with purpose.

Why avoid economic statistics and the rest?

Because economics is an abstract, rational science. Economic truth is discovered by means of ratiocination. Logic is the final arbiter. And because economics is a rational science, its discoveries cannot be disproved by the empirical evidence of sociological or historical "facts." This is a difficult concept for most people to understand and accept. However, the essence of it is quite simple.

Just as the rational science of mathematics is the tool by which we understand natural phenomena, the rational science of economics is the tool by which we understand human action and human history, which is simply the record of individual human actions in the past.

We assume that there exists in natural phenomenon a regularity in the concatenation of events. If a physicist observes an apple fall from a tree to the ground, he does not assume apples have a mind of their own and that this particular apple wanted on this occasion to fall to the ground rather than fall up to the sky. He assumes that all apples fall from trees to the ground. He formulates a theory which seeks to explain why this is so. He tests his theory by experimenting in the laboratory by isolating all related variables and observing the outcomes. His observations either conform to his theory or contradict it. In a properly conducted experiment, a single instance of theory contradicted by empirical observation is evidence that the theory is not true. In physics, observation of real world phenomenon is the final arbiter of truth.

In the realm of human action this is not so. Unlike inanimate objects in the physical world human beings act with purpose, i.e., they conceive of ends and use means available to them to attain those ends. Moreover, the ends sought by human individuals are not uniformly the same. Humans actors are not mindless apples that are inexorably pulled to the ground by the immutable forces of nature. Human actors use the forces of nature to satisfy their own individually conceived purpose. The purpose or end of individual human action cannot be observed or detected by means of laboratory experimentation.

Run a thousand rats through a complicated maze and virtually all of them will behave in a uniform manner to any given stimulus because, even though rats are animate, their behavior is pushed and pulled along by the immutable forces of nature in much the same way as an apple is pushed and pulled along. Based on a careful study of the behavior of these thousand rats in the maze, a biologist can induce a theory about the forces of nature, both within and without the rat, which affect the behavior of all rats. Not so with humans. Human beings do not behave, they act with purpose.

Put a thousand human actors in a complicated maze and virtually all of them will act differently because each human actor in the maze has a separate and individual purpose in mind which motivates his action. Each individual human will use the means available to him in the maze to satisfy his purpose. Any conformity of action detected by an outside observer, say a biologist, has more to do with the conformity of the means available to the human beings in the maze than it has to do with some conformity of purpose. The biologist may suspect that the purpose of most of the human beings in the maze is the same, i.e., to escape the maze, for example. However, this suspicion cannot possibly be learned by observation alone. It can only be formed by the human biologist's subjective and prior understanding of what it is like to be a human and how most other humans of his acquaintance have acted in the past in similar circumstances.

The only regularity in the concatenation of events in the maze that the biologist might subjectively recognize that applies equally and always to all the human actors is that they all act with individual purpose. However, this regularity of purpose could not be observed by the biologist, it could only be subjectively assumed as the premise of human action, a premise that is subjectively assumed by all human actors to be self-evidently true.

Is there any human being in the universe who really believes that he speaks, writes and thinks without purpose? If so, the rest of us should ignore what is spoken, written and thought by such a creature by reason of his own argument!

All of the economist's theories with regard to human actions are deduced from the single, self-evident premise that man acts with purpose. Thus, correctly reasoned economic truth is as true as the mathematical certainty that one plus one equals two.

And so we see that economic truth is the product of logical reasoning not of the gathering and observation of "economic" statistics, which are, after all, nothing but history, i.e., the accumulated observations of individual human events in this most complicated of mazes imaginable: human life in society here on earth.

Some say that human beings are no different than rats in a maze, that they are not motivated by different and individual ends, that they do not seek to attain these unique ends by the varied means available to them. They say that human beings are merely biological machines, far more complicated than rat machines, but machines nevertheless, driven by biological impulses such as genes and DNA. They say human beings considered in the aggregate are no different than any animal species considered in the aggregate, or any inanimate phenomena considered in the aggregate, like weather, for instance. They say if man's tools or technology becomes powerful enough and fine enough not only will scientists be able to forecast individual human behavior, they will be able to mold individual human behavior into something more peaceful and likeable by tweaking the social forces that push and pull man's behavior this way and that.

The goal of some scientists is to manipulate the weather, which has always been the unpredictable bane of man's existence. These scientists theorize that weather, properly considered in the aggregate, is nothing more than the system of accumulated atoms in the atmosphere the world over pushed and pulled by various natural sources of heat, radiation, animation and the like. They imagine, probably correctly, that if they could construct a computer powerful enough, and software intelligent enough, to account for every, single variable which causes what we know as "weather," they could learn to control weather by manipulating these variables.

Scientists who compare human beings in society to atoms in weather, who claim that the actions of human beings might eventually be predicted and altered just as, with the proper tools, weather might be predicted and altered, fail to consider that each human being does have a mind and a will and purpose of his own. No scientist in his right mind, equipped with the most advanced and powerful computer, would claim he could predict and control the weather if each atom in the universe had a mind and a will and a purpose of its own. So no "social scientist" can predict and control human action unless, that is, the mind, will and purpose of each human being can be coerced to act in common purpose.

Modern liberals and progressives are, as Ayn Rand would say, "concrete-bound." They see the world and everything in it in materialistic terms of cause and effect. There is no difference between a human being and a rat in a maze or a hydrogen atom in the atmosphere. All are inexorably subject to the laws of nature which science can learn to manipulate in man's favor. Progressives endlessly quote economic studies and statistics. They exist in the world of "macro" economics where individual mind, will and purpose are pushed and pulled by the immutable, political forces of "society" which direct and control the "macro" economy. Of course, we understand this direction and control is accomplished by means of state coercion, but progressives would never face up to that truth.

When debating a modern liberal or a progressive, this mindset that individual men are no more than nature-directed animals must be challenged. The debate must immediately be brought around to the abstract, to the individual, to individual purpose, and to ends and means.

Economists have "discovered" the inevitable effects of the laws of supply and demand over centuries of extensive and arduous ratiocination. Progressives believe they can void these reasoned economic truths by citing the results of an economic survey of West Virginia coal miners conducted by an obscure Harvard professor in 2002. Over the years economists have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that minimum wage laws, for instance, create unemployment when the enforced minimum wage is set above the wage rate that would otherwise obtain in a free and unhampered market. Progressives seek to discount this truth by citing the results of a "study" of a small town in Vermont where a minimum wage law was imposed and the results predicted by economists were not "scientifically" observed.

It never occurs to these progressive social "scientists" that employed and unemployed human beings are not rats in a maze, and that a small town in Vermont is not a hermetically sealed scientific laboratory in which every single variable that influences human action, save one, can be controlled and isolated or neutered. Real human beings live their lives in an ever-changing sea of variable and interconnected means and influences that motivate their action. No observer could possibly detect, let alone isolate and control these variables.

When debating economics with a progressive the best tact is to begin the conversation with a question: Do you believe in unfettered capitalism? In other words, Do you believe in an economic system in which each human individual uses the means available to him as he sees fit, free from state or individual coercion, to seek in peace after his own particular and unique ends?

Perhaps the vast majority of progressives will answer with a flat "no." This is fine. At least you will know where you stand with your opponent and you will be able to decide how much, if any, of your valuable time you want to spend exploring the depths and sources of this progressive's intransigence and/or ignorance.

Perhaps a few will answer with a qualifyied "maybe," or even with a more hopeful "well sure, but...." These are the few progressives who might still be open-minded and worth your time. When they say they would support a free market but only if it were regulated, you can easily point out the absurdity of what they just said.

When they object that corporations and other successful individuals become greedy and powerful in the free market and are able to control and exploit others who are less greedy and successful, you can ask them to explain to you the nature of the "power" of which they speak, and how such power could be wielded in a system in which the only legitimate means of commerce are persuasion and uncoerced trade.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

What The Hell????

This story blows my mind:

Marines Ordered To Disarm Before Panetta Speech Because “Somebody Got Itchy”

There are two problems here.

First, this quote from the article relative to the man who gave the order to disarm, Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus:
He said he had given the order because the two dozen Afghan soldiers also there were unarmed and he did not want to treat them differently.
This just doesn't sit well with me. No way is there an equivalence between "Afghan soldiers" and US Marines!

Second, the episode says something about Leon Panetta, the current military brass and this administration. They really don't believe in the mission or the US Marines. Or they are gutless weasels. I tend to believe it's all three.

The Obama administration wants Netanyahu and Israel to believe the US "has their back," yet this administration is not even convinced US Marines have its back!

You know what, people? These leftist elitists are scared! They're scared of ordinary fly-over-country Americans. They're scared of the Tea Party. They're scared of the US Marines!

They're like the little man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. They know they're all smoke and mirrors. They know they're out of their depth. They don't really believe in what they're doing at home or abroad.

They're little men scared shitless whistling in the dark. They're capable of anything. That's why they're so dangerous.

On Believing In Something Greater Than Self

My wife and I had a long and deep discussion last night. It was occasioned by my father's depression. He's in his upper 80's and in failing health. He had seen a television report on euthanasia and had asked me to research the possibility for euthanizing him.

As you can imagine, such a request could spur a whole range of topics, but the one we got stuck on was the "why" of my father's depression. Yes, when health breakdowns begin to severely restrict an elderly person's options for life activities, depression is understandable. However, as my wife and I talked, we began to realize that different people react to such circumstances in different ways. Many elderly people we know are dealing with old age and it's vicissitudes quite admirably.

My mother, for instance, is only two years younger than my father, but she does not tend to be depressed. She is upbeat and outgoing. She is also deeply religious, which my father is not.

My wife and I concluded that in general not only the elderly but also people in general handle life's curve balls in different ways. It seems the common denominator, at least by my and my wife's reckoning, is a committed belief in something or Someone greater than one's self.

Both my father and her mother, who is quite younger, are prone to fits of depression or, more accurately, periods when they are mad at the world for one reason or another. They are both self-centered individuals who are quick to blame others or circumstances for their misery. Neither is the type who will accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Neither can see the world for what it is with a healthy perspective that they are a small part of that world. They take life's bumps and bruises personally. Neither is able to love unconditionally, or commit themselves to a specific philosophy of life greater than their own ego. As a consequence, they tend to be needy. When they get in one of their moods they can drain the energy out of whoever is nearby because they feel the world owes them a better shake.

Unfortunately, my dad is an old dog and adopting a healthy belief in a God greater than himself or even a philosophical principle greater than himself is not going to happen. Such attitudes must be learned and committed to early in life, or at least early enough to be sincerely cultivated in order to deal with the ravages of advancing age.

My wife and I then realized something profound, but extremely scary. Many of our young people today are being brought up in an environment where they are catered to and coddled. They are being taught in our schools to be self-centered egoists with an entitlement mentality. The further they advance in our educational institutions, the more they are trained by leftists who disparage family, religion, self-reliance, self-responsibility, meekness and humility. They begin to feel the world literally owes them things, if not a living, at least an education, health care and security in their old age.

In short, many young people today are being groomed and trained to be individuals exactly like my dad and my wife's mom, bitter individuals unable to see any Being or principle greater than their own self.

It's a sad situation that doesn't bode well for either their future or the future of our society.

NOTE: Unfortunately, it is necessary to point out to over sensitive readers that I am not saying ALL young people are self-centered and heading for an unhappy old age. Many young people today have excellent parents with their heads screwed on straight. Consequently, these young people have acquired strong morals and a healthy sense of prospective and self. They are our hope for a healthy future society.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Politicians Better Learn The Difference Between A Problem And A Pet Peeve

I was listening to the radio today and a local talk show guy was expounding on something called a "Food Desert." Well, I got home and went to work on Google. Sure enough, the United States Department of Agriculture Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) Working Group has designated certain areas of the country Food Deserts. What's a Food Desert? Here's the definition provided by the USDA:
While there are many ways to define a food desert, the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) Working Group considers a food desert as a low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store. To qualify as low-income, census tracts must meet the Treasury Department's New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program eligibility criteria. Furthermore, to qualify as a food desert tract, at least 33 percent of the tract's population or a minimum of 500 people in the tract must have low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.

The NMTC program defines a low-income census tract as: any census tract where (1) the poverty rate for that tract is at least 20 percent, or (2) for tracts not located within a metropolitan area, the median family income for the tract does not exceed 80 percent of statewide median family income; or for tracts located within a metropolitan area, the median family income for the tract does not exceed 80 percent of the greater of statewide median family income or the metropolitan area median family income.

Low access to a healthy food retail outlet is defined as more than 1 mile from a supermarket or large grocery store in urban areas and as more than 10 miles from a supermarket or large grocery store in rural areas.
Good grief!!!! "While there are many ways to define a food desert..." Are you kidding me? I must really be out of it. Until this morning I never knew there was such a thing as a food desert and now I learn there are many ways to define it!

In essence, I guess, a food desert is an area which is more than one mile from a food store and in which there are poor people. I guess the morons in the government worrying about such things are deeply concerned that poor people won't get enough to eat. (Last time I checked most poor people were obese, but that's a topic for another discussion.)

You want to know if you live in a food desert? Luckily, the USDA has spent billions of dollars coming up with a Food Desert Locator! Just click here and knock yourself out. (Can you imagine spending 40 hours a week 52 weeks a year in a USDA cubicle in Washington, DC slaving away over such garbage? Talk about useless!) 

The radio talk show host had a clip of Kathleen Sebelius, the current Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, saying that these food deserts are a problem because these low income people don't have access to fresh and healthy foods.

You know, Sebelius and all the rest of our politicians and Washington bureaucrats have to learn the difference between a "Problem" and a "Pet Peeve." Everybody has a pet peeve. My pet peeve is people who litter public beaches and parking lots with soiled, disposable baby diapers. (I'm telling you if I ever catch a perpetrator in the act, there will be hell to pay, but that's another discussion as well.)

But my pet peeve is my problem, not the government's.

The problem with government is that those in government turn their pet peeves into everybody else's problem. Sebelius' pet peeve may be that low income people (however the hell she wants to define low income) may live over a mile away from a grocery store. But that doesn't give Sebelius the right to make her pet peeve the government's problem. I'm pretty damn sure the Constitution does not have a Clause in it which allows politicians to eliminate their pet peeves with taxpayers' money!

Maximum Leader Obama's pet peeve is that we're using too much oil and not enough algae to make jet fuel. So he makes his pet peeve the government's problem, the Navy's problem and the taxpayers' problem by forcing the Navy to stop buying jet fuel refined from oil for $4 per gallon in favor of jet bio-fuel made from algae for $26 per gallon!

Mr. Maximum Leader sir, poor people living over a mile from a grocery store is NOT a problem! The Navy burning jet fuel refined from oil is NOT a problem!

The TSA strip searching 90-year-old grandmas at our airports in direct violation of our Constitution IS a problem! Forcing individual Americans to buy health insurance through the government IS a problem! Running up an annual budget deficit of $1.5-trillion IS a problem! Incurring a public debt of over $10-trillion IS a problem! Allowing a pseudo-governmental bank called the Federal Reserve to inflate the currency to the point where stealing Tide detergent becomes a profitable enterprise IS a problem! Allowing this same FED to keep interest rates at zero until the end of 2014 IS a problem!

Mr. Maximum Leader, you and people like you who don't know the difference between a problem and a pet peeve ARE THE PROBLEM!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

UPDATED: Who Is It?

American singer and actress of stage, film and television...



UPDATED: Some more hints...

Ah, yes. It's Mrs. Partridge herself, Shirley Jones. A very beautiful and multi-talented lady. My wife met Ms. Jones at an airport gift shop once up close and personal. She said Shirley was more stunningly beautiful in person, not to mention gracious, friendly and down to earth. A role model for young women today.

A YouTube tribute...

Here's one of my favorite scenes from Oklahoma! The song is "People Will Say We're In Love." What a wonderful voice. 


Here's a few, more recent recordings. She will always be a grand lady.

An interview with an older Shirley Jones.

Please visit Luis' Shirley Jones Page at his wonderful website. Luis has beautiful quality photos of not only Shirley Jones, but such classic movie legends as Sophia Loren, Jacqueline Bisset, Kim Novac, Ann-Margret, Jeanne Crain, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe and many more. Don't miss it.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Critical Race Theory = Marxist Bullshit

I've been doing some web surfing this afternoon via Google and YouTube. Critical Race Theory has been in the news and I wanted to learn something about it.

But first, here's an interview I found via YouTube featuring the infamous Harvard Professor, Derrick Bell:
Midway through the clip, Bell says this:

Racism is an important stabilizing function…serves as a stabilizing function in a society that is built on property. And in a society where a great many whites don’t have any property to speak of…certainly don’t have as much as those on the top…what this [American] society has given them from the time of slavery to the present is a sense of property in their whiteness, that their skin color enables them to somehow identify and live vicariously the lives of those on the top…
This is little more than Marxist economic theory blended with amateur psycho-babble. As the proprietor of a blog devoted to Property, Freedom and Peace, Prof. Bell's contention, that racism and property were directly connected in America (not merely in the warped mind of the racist, but also in America's cultural, social, political and legal institutions), perked my ears. I wanted to find out more about Critical Race Theory.

Another interview featuring Prof. Bell, including transcripts, can be found here. In this interview, Bell pretty much seconds everything he said in the first video. He seems to say that racism is permanently engrained in our American social conventions and legal system, and that there is virtually no way to fix it, which in my mind implies the only other alternative: ending American society as it is currently structured. (Transforming America? Hmmm.)


Continuing to search YouTube, I found the following series of videos which explain Critical Race Theory:
Wow, really heavy stuff. Not only psycho-babble but abstract, sociology-babble. In short, meaningless doublespeak. However, it does offer insight into what our kids are learning in college and why leftists and the Occupier movement talk and think (for lack of a better word) the way they do.

Here's another gem. This video features a talking moron named Robin Garcia who is a graduate student in "Cultural Studies." More on her shortly. In the meantime I want to focus on Dr. Phyllis Jackson who, apparently, teaches the course Ms. Garcia is describing.

Googling Dr. Jackson lead me to this article: The Black Panther Party...from a Sister's Point of View. The article begins:
Sis Phyllis Jackson is a professor at Pomona College and former member of the Black Panther Party. Through this interview, we better understand why this sister and many people joined the struggle, gave their lives for the struggle of liberation and came out better for it.
Make your own judgement of "Sis Phyllis." Now to Ms. Garcia and her video below.

In case you missed it, Ms. Garcia begins her presentation with the following words:
Our course, "Critical Race Theory: Representation and the Rule of Law," explores the way law constructs race, gender, class and sexual orientation in legal jurisprudence...the slides and visual images serve to connect the themes I mentioned with visual renderings they simultaneously produce their own narrative of the relationship between text and discourse and the production of individual subjectivities."
Sorry, it doesn't get any better. It's complete leftist gibberish. However, Ms. Garcia does quote extensively from something called "The Combahee River Collective Statement," which was produced by The Combahee River Collective which is "a collective of Black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974." If you want more you can read about the collective here.

Below is a quotation taken directly from the Statement in question [emphasis is mine]:
Although we are feminists and Lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. Our situation as Black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors. We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism.

We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not for the profit of the bosses. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources.
Well, at least these people speak plainly. There you have it: Marxist bullshit in the flesh. No wonder Maximum Leader Obama embraces it and its famous pioneer, Derrick Bell.

I rest my case.

As for racism and imperialism, here's a YouTube video that explains it very well, thank you. Any questions?

Renaissance Man About To Fix Stupid!

What is it Ron White says? Here's a reminder...

Au contraire, Mr. White! Yes you can! You can fix stupid, and here's "Renaissance Man" who is about to prove it...
You see, the White House (no pun intended!) just announced a billion dollar government program guaranteed to "improve the nation’s manufacturing industry" which, apparently, is too stupid to improve itself on its own.

How is our modern day Leonardo da Vinci going to fix stupid in US manufacturing?

He's going to build a national "network of up to fifteen Institutes for Manufacturing Innovation around the country, serving as regional hubs of manufacturing excellence that will help to make our manufacturers more competitive and encourage investment in the United States."

Wow! I have to say that's super impressive. Remember, this is the same Renaissance Man who fixed stupid in our American energy industry earlier this year for a measly $14-million. Remember? In Florida? Earlier this year? Maximum Leader said: "You’ve got a bunch of algae out here, right? If we can figure out how to make energy out of that, we’ll be doing all right."

Our course we'll be all right. He's our Renaissance Man. If he can't do it, no one can!

Well, now it's on to bigger and better things than the energy crisis. The Renaissance Man's new plan will "encourage insourcing, support investment in our manufacturing sector, and create good jobs here in the United States." We'll be all right. He's got it figured!

(More good jobs created as an added bonus! I like that too.)

Renaissance Man could hardly contain his excitement yesterday as he explained his $1-billion plan by exclaiming: “These are going to be institutes of manufacturing excellence where some of our most advanced engineering schools and our most innovative manufacturers collaborate on new ideas, new technologies, new methods, new processes..."

KISS, right? Keep it simple, stupid! Collaboration!?! (Frankly, the plan is so simple I'm kind of surprised American manufacturers didn't think of collaborating with our most advanced engineering schools all by themselves. That's why the federal government needs to tax these bozos through the nose. Smart guys in Washington can make better use of private industry's capital every day of the week and twice on Sunday.)

Anyway, Renaissance Man and company aren't dilly-dallying around waiting for Congress to fund the plan. "We’re not going to wait," he said confidently. "We’re going to go ahead on our own later this year." Apparently, the White House found $45-million gathering dust in the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce and the National Science Foundation. They're using it to set up a pilot program.

Why a pilot program, you ask? Don't they know what they're doing?

Hey, don't fret. Renaissance Man's brilliant ideas don't come to him fully fleshed out! However, his plan for fleshing out his plan is even more brilliant: competition. You know, like "American Idol" for inventors! “We’re going to choose the winner of a competition for a pilot institute for manufacturing innovation," Renaissance Man explained excitedly, "help them get started. With that pilot in place, we’ll keep on pushing Congress to do the right thing because this is the kind of approach that can succeed. We’ve got to have this all across the country.”

Duh! It never occurred to the stupid manufacturing bigwigs themselves that competition just might bring out the best in them?

Renaissance Man says his new proposal is sure to bring about a new golden age of American innovation, a "new renaissance of American inventiveness," as he put it.

No doubt! Remember, this is the same genius who in January of last year appointed a bunch of high powered, big business executives to "to counsel him on job creation." That little group has been up and running for over a year now. It's called the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

And we all know how that's working out.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Where Will You Be When The Lid Blows Off?

We live today in a pressure-cooked society of do-or-die politics, and the politically vanquished have no place to go. 

In 1900 the population of the United States was about 76 million. In 1901 the federal government spent $525-million (and the budget was in surplus), that's about seven federal dollars spent for every man, woman and child in the country. In 1900 there were 45 sovereign states. US Senators were appointed by state legislatures. At the turn of the century only 17 million people lived in the American West and most of those resided in California.

In short, at the turn of the century, America was a wide open country. In fact, at the turn of the century America was not a country, not really. America then was a hodgepodge of local and regional communities that were more or less distinctive cultural enclaves. Yes, the country had suffered through a bloody Civil War that ended in 1865. The War settled some Constitutional issues and paved the way for the strong federal government we have today. However, at the turn of the century that federal government was in its infancy.

The point is that individuals who found themselves in uncomfortable social or cultural surroundings had options in 1900. They could move west and homestead. They could relocate to communities that offered more tolerant surroundings or that were comprised of more like-minded individuals. The much ballyhooed American "melting pot" was a myth. Towns and cities were not ethnically diverse communities wherein residents of different cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs could be found residing side-by-side on every block. Far from it. In 1900 America was a conglomeration of neighborhoods and regions that were, for the most part, culturally, ethnically and religiously distinctive. These neighborhoods and regions were loosely united under the American flag, but each had its own peculiar idea of what it meant to be an American.

This all changed in the 20th century. Americans elected politicians like Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson who were not only nationalists but, in many ways, internationalists. They embarked on programs and policies that served to break down the ethnic and regional sectionalism that characterized the nation. In 1913 they passed the Federal Reserve Act which unified the country's currency. People often forget that until the passage of the Act the country's monetary system was comprised in the main of gold and silver coins, along with notes from a wide variety of regional banks. The new Federal Reserve System would standardize the dollar and Federal Reserve Notes and Gold Certificates as the country's common units of exchange.

In 1913 the country was further united under the federal umbrella with the passage of the 16th and 17th Amendments which provided for a national, federal income tax and the direct election of US Senators respectively. The consequence of these actions was a well-funded and more powerful federal government and vastly weaker states.

Of course, in 1917 Woodrow Wilson lead the nation into the first World War. The effect on the nationalization of the country by means of this war cannot be underestimated. Young men from distinctive regions of the country were conscripted into the army and forced to fight shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches of Europe. Social and cultural regional barriers were gradually exposed and broken down. America began to homogenize.

Moreover, on the home front, federal politicians were eagerly doing what they could to consolidate federal power and force the nation's wide variety of distinctive communities to conform to federal edicts. In 1919 the federal government passed the 18th Amendment which prohibited the sale of alcohol across the nation. In 1920 the 19th Amendment was passed which provided for national women's suffrage. America was no longer a conglomeration of sectional hamlets, but was being forced to become a nation of uniform laws and customs. America's entry into World War II sealed the deal. Americans were one people united by a vastly expanded and powerful central, federal authority.

Today the population of the United States is roughly 313 million. The federal government spends about $3.6-trillion annually (taking in only about $2.3-trillion). That means the federal government spends not $7 but about $11,500 for every man, woman and child in the country! And that's not including the federal Gross Public Debt, which works out to about $52,000 per capita. This explosion in federal government spending per capita is mirrored by a similar explosion in federal government rules, regulations, laws and taxes which command and control virtually every nook and cranny of an individual American's life.

During the Bush and Obama administrations federal intrusion into the lives of individual Americans has mushroomed out of control. The War on Terror with its nefarious Patriot Act and the establishment and subsequent expansion of the Department of Homeland Security has granted the federal government vast new powers to monitor and arrest American citizens. The TSA has carte blanche power to literally get in the pants of American citizens as they travel by air, sea, rail and automobile. During the first years of the Obama administration politicians passed the Affordable Health Care Act which will regulate and standardize the American health care and health insurance industries, a sixth of the United States economy.

The means used by the federal government to abrogate the personal liberty of individual Americans and arrogate to itself the right to conform and standardize American social and cultural life is coercion. Today the US Constitution is mocked as antiquated and is virtually ignored by our politicians. Ironically, minority rights have virtually disappeared as the majority seeks to guarantee all manner of rights and privileges for minorities. Individual Americans are cowed by the awesome and intrusive power of the federal government to tax, to regulate, to rule and, ultimately, to imprison individuals who do not conform to the wishes of federal bureaucrats. Another tragic irony is that fully half of the American electorate consistently supports and defends this continuing federal power grab.

Why?

Half of individual Americans have come to realize that by joining with federal politicians, officials and bureaucrats they are able to get what they want from the other half. If they want grants and subsidies for food, shelter and clothing, the federal government can mandate them and send the bill to the taxpaying half. Special treatment under the law is easily arranged if your friends hold positions of power in Washington, DC.

The power of intimidation works just as well in matters of faith and culture as it does in matters of economics. If you don't like your neighbor's "disgusting" habit of smoking or drinking or using marijuana or preaching against abortion, homosexuality, public lewdness and indecency, you simply petition your friends in Washington to pass a law which will outlaw such habits or tax them to death. In this new era of absolute federal authority it seems it is possible to have your cake and eat it too, so long as your friends stay in charge.

That is the game now and it is totally understandable. Those who have power in Washington decide who wins and who loses in American society. Is it any wonder why politicians fight like rabid dogs to gain power in Washington? Is it any wonder why the news media is obsessed with federal politics? Or why politics is heatedly discussed among American individuals at work, at play and on the internet? If your man or woman wins the federal election, you stand to benefit by receiving a whole range of rights, privileges and gratuities. If your man or woman loses, you lose and you wind up paying through the nose for the spoils doled out by the victors. Not only that, you will wind up being forced to conform to the social and cultural mores decreed as the new American standard by the victors.

In America today there is no refuge for the politically defeated, the plundered and the dispossessed, no place to go for the social, cultural or religious nonconformist. The former Western frontier is as dominated by Washington as our largest eastern cities. Although we now have 50 states, they are all uniformly emasculated, unable to resist the siren call of federal "revenue sharing," unable to fight the massive and well-funded federal legal system, and unwilling to test the wrath of federal power scorned.

The only choice allowed the nonconformist is to enter the political fight in order to force his will down the throats of the other half of Americans which stands ready to deny his liberty. If he fails to fight, he'll be picked clean by his political opponents and their pals in Washington, the federal vultures.

Those of us who advocate for Constitutional government, state sovereignty and a vastly reduced federal government are slowly but surely being pressed into a corner. Without Constitutional protection of our property and state protection of our preferred way of life, and with no suitable place to go for refuge, we -- the oppressed -- will soon be forced to demand what rightfully belongs to us: our property, our freedom and our right to live in peace.

Will you oppose us? Will you deny us our wish to simply provide for ourselves and our families while truly hurting no one, oppressing no one? Will you stand against us based only on your easy and flimsy philosophy of collectivism, selfishness, sloth and greed?

You can't really believe that the socialized, nationalized and politicized America of today is preferable to that country of god-fearing, industrious and pioneering individuals that existed prior to 1900. You must be able to see the discontent bubbling beneath the surface of this pressure-cooked, oppressive society you've forced upon us.

If you can't, you will, unfortunately, suffer the inevitable consequences when the lid finally blows off.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Progressives Are Right About One Thing

They understand their political opponents are enemies who must be "crushed:" MSNBC's O'Donnell: 'I Want to See Hard Core Republican Conservatism Crushed.'
(via Weasel Zippers)

Far, far too many conservative Republicans believe the goal of politics is to compromise with your political opponents on the other side of the philosophical spectrum. These Republicans need to wake up. The game has become serious and has progressed well beyond such rank naivete.

If you disagree, please tell me how we go about compromising with the likes of Lawrence O'Donnell without giving away the store?

Make no mistake about it. Hard Core Progressives want you silenced and, since they believe that the end justifies the means, they will stop at nothing to see that you are silenced. Don't tell me there is no difference between O'Donnell, Obama and, say, the most maligned of Republican candidates, Mitt Romney!
O'Donnell calls for a return to the good old days of Bill Clinton:
And it might start to look more like what it looked like in the early 1990s when you had very strong conservatives like Newt Gingrich and others, but you had people from states like Missouri, states like Rhode Island who were Republicans who were willing to find a spot to compromise so that you could govern, and you never, ever had standoffs over things like: Should we raise the debt ceiling? Ever. Because there was a sense of responsible governance.
Do you understand what O'Donnell means when he says he wants to "govern" you? He calls for "responsible governance" which in his warped understanding of the term means that RINO Republicans would never "Ever" oppose Progressive attempts to raise the debt ceiling! In short, he longs for the day when conservativism is devoid of meaning, and Republicans are devoid of conscience. He longs for the day when Republicans, conservatives and all his political opponents voluntarily, nay willingly, place their necks in the Progressive guillotine.

How does the mindless, talking ass, Chris Matthews, interpret "responsible governance?"  
It'll be an immediate impact when they [the Republicans] lose control of the government. And that could be good for the country, very good. Because you would then have a ruling moderate to liberal Democratic party running the country for a couple of years and seeing if they can get the job done. That would be good for the country.
In short, Matthews sees "responsible governance" as absolute rule by "liberal" Democrats!
 
Wake up, conservatives! Unless you want human sewage like O'Donnell and Matthews to conduct a running experiment on the country for the foreseeable future with you playing the part of the lab rat, wake up! These morons must be crushed themselves like the rat-master wannabees they are!
 
Liberty never is so dear as when you lose it!

News Item: Despite Slowdown 35% Of US Oil Imports Come From Venezuela

From El Universal:
Venezuelan oil sales to the United States have slowed since 2007. Concomitantly, the Venezuelan government is moving closer to China and other Asian consumers.

Nonetheless...
...in 1992, Venezuelan oil sales accounted for 45% of US imports. In 2011, the proportion sank to 35%, as evidence of Venezuelan's lower profile as energy supplier for the United States.

UPDATED: The Inherent Goodness Of Government

I had a discussion with a co-worker yesterday about laissez-faire capitalism. Call him Jim. Jim is somewhat of a fundamentalist Christian conservative. He told me he believed in capitalism, but he also believed that capitalism must always be regulated by the government so as to protect people from scam artists and con men who cheat and steal.

I asked Jim if he considered himself a gullible man. He said he didn't. I then asked him why he needed a government regulator to protect himself from con men. Jim said he didn't need such protection. Other people, more gullible than he, needed the regulators.

After agreeing with him that some people were scam artists and con men and other people were gullible, I asked Jim what makes him think such people do not also work for the government as regulators. I pointed out that it's common knowledge that corrupt and stupid bureaucrats exist in virtually every regulated industry. "Greasing a palm" to get what you want from a building inspector is not unheard of. Block-headed, naive and gullible bureaucrats are commonplace. Corrupt policemen who regulate gambling and the drug trade are in the news virtually everyday. Other co-workers around us who were eavesdropping on our conversation quickly agreed with me.

Jim countered that at least the people have recourse with a corrupt government regulator. They can monitor his activities and report him to higher authorities, he said. Wait a second, I said, you can't have it both ways. If people are so gullible that they can't recognize scams perpetrated by businessmen, how are they able to recognize scams perpetrated by government regulators?

Jim said that less gullible people like himself could police the police. I asked Jim if maybe it wouldn't be easier for smart people like himself to police industry by forming trade organizations like the local Chamber of Commerce, or private consumer watchdog companies, such as Consumer Reports or the Better Business Bureau, to educated the gullible and expose con men. That way corrupt people wouldn't be entrusted with guns and legitimate authority with which to harass the public, and gullible people could learn their lesson and become less gullible in peace.

Jim wasn't convinced, but our discussion got him to stop and think about his blind faith in the inherent goodness of government.

The problem with our political candidates, especially most of those on the Republican side, is that they really don't believe in laissez-faire capitalism. They are suspicious of it; they can't defend it. In a one-on-one discussion they are more apt to take Jim's side of the argument than mine.

So long as our political candidates believe in the inherent goodness of government, how can we rationally expect to exorcize government from our lives by voting for them?

UPDATED: Congressman Ron Paul, a current Republican candidate for President, is definitely not a political candidate who believes in the inherent goodness of government. Paul is not only aware of Ludwig von Mises and Austrian economics, he also understands.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute just posted on its blog an old essay by Ron Paul called Mises and Austrian Economics: A Personal View. The essay is a good primer on the subject for those who are not aware and do not understand.

The Republican rejection of Ron Paul's candidacy is truly the nation's loss.