"not a point of view but virtue itself"

Melanie Phillips is a brilliant, intellectually honest, British journalist and author. I've been following her blog for years. Being British and middle age, Ms. Phillips has a unique perspective. She's experienced the Left's conquest of Britain. She recognizes what is happening and about to happen in the United States. She writes about it rationally and analytically.

Today Ms. Phillips published an article on her website titled "The New Intolerance." The article is worth reading in its entirety. It cogently describes the "war of religion" which is currently raging in both Britain and the United States. The article expertly dissects this war and lays bare its philosophical and psychological roots. What I found especially revealing was her description of the individuals who are waging this war. Of course, I am referring to those on the philosophical Left.

Ms. Phillips writes:

Medieval Christianity — like contemporary Islamism — stamped out dissent by killing or conversion; Western liberals do it by social and professional ostracism and legal discrimination. It is a kind of secular Inquisition. And the grand inquisitors are to be found within the intelligentsia — the universities, the media, the law and the political and professional classes — who not only have systematically undermined the foundations of Western society but are heavily engaged in attempting to suppress any challenge or protest.

It is hard to overstate the influence of these left-wing doctrines on our culture. They form the unchallengeable orthodoxy within academia, from which base-camp they have set forth on their "long march through the institutions" which they have colonised with stunning success. They have managed, furthermore, to shift the centre of political gravity so that anyone who does not share these values is defined as extreme.

For the Left believes that its secular, materialistic, individualistic and utilitarian values represent not a point of view but virtue itself. No decent person can therefore oppose them. Anyone who does so is automatically "right-wing". In fact, such opponents may have no ideological position. But the Left cannot acknowledge such a possibility. In Manichean fashion it divides the world into two opposing and exclusive camps, good and evil; and so it creates as the sole alternative to itself a demonic political camp, to which everyone who challenges it is automatically consigned. Since anything that is not the Left is therefore "the Right", and since "the Right" is by definition evil, to challenge any left-wing shibboleth is to be labelled "right-wing" and put oneself totally beyond the moral pale.

So there can be no dissent or argument at all. Only one world-view is to be permitted and all other views are to be suppressed or destroyed. And because all that is evil is "right-wing" and all that is "right-wing" is evil, anyone who supports Israel or the Americans in Iraq, is sceptical of anthropogenic global warming, opposes multiculturalism or utilitarianism, supports capitalism or is a believing Christian is not only evil but also "right-wing". [Emphasis mine]

Ms. Phillips has put her finger on an issue that has troubled me for quite some time: Why are leftists and progressives so intransigent in their beliefs even when they are presented with a logical argument or empirical evidence that exposes the absurdity of their position?

We've all seen it. We've all experienced it. Gone are the days in academia or in polite society when logic and evidence hold sway in an argument and those with intellectual integrity recognize their error and accept the truth. Leftists today barely engage anymore in argument. When presented with one, they respond with timeworn and disproved memes. When the memes are challenged, they are likely to immediately respond with an arrogant indifference and, if pressed, with an ad hominem attack. I could never quite understand this nasty habit.

Yesterday, Erick Erickson at Redstate posted an article called "The Second Coming of American Liberal Fascism?" The article describes what happens when leftists gain political power. They no longer have to bother with making ad hominem attacks on their opponents because they have beaten their opponents, not by force of reason, but by the political force of majority rule. So they become righteous and absolutely intolerant of dissent. They ostracize those who persist in dissent and even imprison them. Erickson points out that this is not new. It's happened before in the era of Woodrow Wilson's presidency.

Melanie Phillips explains the nature of this vicious behavior. Leftist ideology is not a political idea but a belief, as religion is a belief. Leftists are exactly the same as medieval Christians and modern day Islamists: There mission is to stamp out evil, i.e., opposing opinion, by any means possible. Forced conversion of the evil dissenters or killing them is impossible in polite society, so leftists resort to the next most effective means, coerced participation, enforced silence or imprisonment.

Politics in America today is no longer a sport in which both sides agree to engage in friendly governance once the election is over. Politics today is a blood sport. The stakes are high. Not only are the livelihoods of politicians threatened by an adverse, electoral outcome, but individuals on the losing political side are at risk of being literally and legally pillaged and plundered or incarcerated for their dissent. Principles upon which this country was founded are at stake in our modern elections, principles like the rule of law, individual liberty and private property. Modern day politics has literally become a life and death proposition.

This is what so many who are immersed in politics today do not understand. They view politics as a panacea. They naively expect their political opponents to graciously concede political defeat and work with them in the future in common cause. They expect all will be well and good provided the right candidate -- the wise and conciliatory leader -- is elected to office. This was possible in times past when political differences were honest and principled, when political argument turned upon alternate means to attain the same end. Today, most on the left do not share the goals of their political opponents. They consider politics a war in which the spoils belong to the victors and in which the defeated have no rights at all.

The truth is that a society that relies on this kind of politics to resolve disputes cannot long survive. The end game will not be pretty.

The only peaceful means I see of preserving our Constitutional republic is to turn over the rock under which these vermin on the left and the right are hiding. That rock is an ideology that is impervious to logic and evidence. As Ms. Phillips suggests, the left-wing especially has taken cover under an "unchallengeable orthodoxy within academia," which shelters it from truth. The solution is to speak that truth relentlessly and fearlessly, and to remind these vermin of the fate that awaits them should they not discard their anti-cooperative religious ideology.

The other day legal expert Professor Alan Dershowitz appeared on the Glenn Beck show. Prof. Dershowitz and Mr. Beck represent opposite sides of the political spectrum. Prof. Dershowitz is a moderate leftist. Despite his political ideology, Prof. Dershowitz courageously stood up against the left's demagoguery of the Trayvon Martin murder case in Florida.

All rational people recognize that it was their ideology that drove leftists, like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Rep. Bobby Rush, President Obama and others to rush to judgement in this unfortunate incident. They were quick to accuse Mr. Martin's admitted killer, George Zimmerman, of "racism." They made the accusation comfortably and forcefully before hardly any evidence had come to light. The leftist media mindlessly publicized their accusations. The Florida prosecutors, apparently, knuckled under to public pressure and produced charges against Mr. Zimmerman that the evidence does not support. Prof. Dershowitz condemned the prosecutor's action as "unethical" and possibly "criminal." He calmly explained the legal principles involved and how the prosecution had violated them.

This is the way to crack the dome of orthodox ideology that protects the left. Not only did Prof. Dershowitz expose that orthodoxy for what it is, he courageously disavowed it by his appearance on Beck's program.

It's useless to argue with leftists. Our job is not to persuade them by means of logic and evidence. Such a thing is impossible. Our mission should be to expose them as fervent ideologues and challenge those among them who have any remnant of intellectual honesty and integrity to disavow their cultish belief system.

As I said, if these ideologues persist in their quest for dominating power, the consequences will not be pretty. Their victims will eventually act to defend themselves and the fundamental principles that enable a cooperative society to exist in the first place. 

     

Help Me Change The Lexicon: Government = Parasite

As of this moment I will no longer use the word "government" in this blog. In all future posts I will substitute the word "parasite" instead. I invite all bloggers who value individual liberty to follow suit.

Why? 

The answer is obvious. The relationship between individual citizens and the elitists who rule us from Washington, D.C., our respective state capitols, county seats and city halls is identical to the relationship between host and parasite.

Imagine a group of like-minded individuals who want to live peacefully and cooperatively on their own in some far off corner of, say for example, the Alaskan wilderness. Imagine these individuals purchased the property on which they intend to settle. Imagine further that they wish to secede in every sense from the nation-state known as the United States of America. By "secede" I mean sever all ties: renounce their citizenship; refuse all local, state and federal "services;" and disavow all local, state and federal law enforcement and legal jurisdictional ties. In short, imagine this group of individuals wants to cooperate without parasitic interference by anyone.

Would such a thing be possible?

I think the obvious answer is no.

Parasites at all political levels would probably claim jurisdiction over this group of settlers and refuse to allow them to live freely without intervention. But why?

"Because you're skipping out on your obligations," the elitists might accuse the settlers, "obligations to your fellow citizens like pending tax liabilities, pending legal actions, lawsuits, etc. etc. etc.

So let's imagine our intrepid group of individual cooperators pay off all imaginable and legitimate outstanding debts to their former American countrymen.

It's a sure bet that the elitists in Washington would still intervene, i.e., they would predictably use force to prevent this group of individual cooperators from severing, existing political ties.

But why? A group of individual cooperators living free in the Alaskan wilderness presents no danger to any other American, no burden to anyone. So why would Washington interfere?

Because the parasites in power do not want to lose that power. They must hold sway over their individual hosts in order to feed off them. Without this parasitic sustenance they will suffer or perish.

Individuals cooperate in society to attain ends they share in common. Cooperative action is mutuality of purpose. How does a society of cooperative individuals morph over time into a colony of parasites and hosts?

The short answer is by means of lies and coercion. Cooperative action in society is a long and complicated process which is dependent upon mutual trust, i.e., a mutual agreement among all cooperating individuals to avoid certain anti-cooperative actions in order to attain ends shared in common. This mutual agreement to avoid proscribed anti-cooperative actions like murder and theft implies that cooperative action is voluntary.

For example, trade is a rudimentary form of cooperative action. Two traders agree to voluntarily exchange goods or services they each value differently. Peaceable, voluntary exchange is the means; mutual satisfaction is the common end sought. However, mutual satisfaction is impossible if, once the goods or services are exchanged, the traders may murder each other or employ force or coercion in order to steal back what has been traded.

It follows, then, that cooperation and coercion are incompatible and contradictory actions. Yet, in American society cooperation and coercion exist side by side. How can this be?

Successful cooperative action in society, i.e., institutionalized cooperation, requires some means of institutionalized justice. Men are not angels. Murderers and thieves exist and some may masquerade as cooperators. If these murderous and thieving masqueraders go unchecked, the institutionalized cooperative society will quickly crack up. Why? Because cooperative action in society rests upon a foundation of trust. Once that foundation is broken, cooperative action cracks and crumbles.

The advantage of institutionalizing cooperative action in society is that members of that society do not have to vet their trading partners prior to each exchange. Therefore, exchange is vastly expanded and facilitated because all members of the institutionalized, cooperative society are assumed to be trustworthy. This is accomplished by establishing, by mutual agreement, an institutional means of enforcing the societal prohibition against murder and theft. That is, cooperative partners empower certain, trustworthy members of their society to act as an authority that will enforce prohibitions against murder and theft, and that will penalize and punish murderers and thieves.

A society ceases to be a cooperative society when the individuals empowered to enforce prohibitions against murder and theft use their power illegitimately to enforce and coerce other proscriptive and prescriptive individual actions which have not been mutually agreed upon. The empowered individuals and their sycophants become parasites who attain their sustenance by preying on other cooperators -- their "hosts" -- by means of lies and coercion. These parasites lie that their unauthorized, coercive actions are in the best interests of all cooperators. They coerce those cooperators who object to their parasitic actions. This coercion assumes the veil of legitimized murder and theft ostensibly committed in and for the "common good."

As a consequence of parasitic lies and coercion, a society gradually develops wherein a large segment of formerly cooperative individuals sanction the anti-cooperative actions of the parasites. As a consequence of this sanction, the segment of true and legitimate cooperators are coerced into accepting their role as hosts. So long as the parasites do not make the attainment of mutual ends totally impossible, these legitimate cooperators tolerate the parasites. They consider the parasite's feeding on them as the price they pay to attain the cooperative ends they seek.

However, since it is an undeniable truth that cooperative action is and must be voluntary, and since it is also true that cooperation and coercion are incompatible and contradictory actions, the cooperative society which has been infected by parasitic action cannot survive for long. It must and will crack up as soon as the true and legitimate cooperators turned hosts have had enough.

This is the tipping point at which we find ourselves in American society today. The mutually agreed upon, cooperative pact of hundreds of years ago, which sanctified private property and which outlawed murder and theft, has been broken. Our once vast, cooperative society has been divided by sanctimonious, deceitful and increasingly brutal parasites who will stop at nothing to ensure that their supply of hosts is plentiful and uninterrupted.

The black truth is, however, that it is this very parasitic feeding frenzy, accompanied by patriotic music and tints of red, white and blue that will, in the end, inexorably lead not only to the destruction of the parasites but also, at the same time, to the destruction of our once cooperative society.

It is for this reason that I implore all honest men of good will to help save our cooperative society by calling a spade a spade. The elitists in power in Washington are not our guardian angels protecting us from all manner of enemies foreign, domestic and environmental.

These elitist and all-powerful politicians are simply and purely parasites who are slowly but surely eating away our substance. Perhaps labeling them as what they are will somehow allow us to collectively shake them loose from us once and for all.       

Who's To Blame?

The recent farce, known as the Debt Ceiling Crisis, was typical Washington spin and pin. Supposedly, politicians struggled for months to do the right thing: reduce spending and decrease the debt. In reality they spun abstruse schemes that would allow them to have their cake and eat it too, all the while pinning blame for the trumped up “crisis” on political rivals. In short, nothing has changed. It’s still business as usual in Washington, DC.

But surely someone must be truly to blame for the sorry state of this country’s finances. Is it a malevolent President? A crooked, self-serving Congress? An engorged Washington bureaucracy feeding at the trough of government largesse? The infamous, favor-seeking corporate lobby? The biased and incompetent mainstream media?

No. In truth all the above are mere henchmen of the true villain of our national melodrama: ourselves. This country, despite its slide into statism, is still a democracy. The President, Congress and their hangers on are in Washington for one reason: we put them there; we allow them to stay there. In short, in the United States we get the government we deserve.

If lovers of property, freedom and peace are looking for someone to blame for the political defeat of their principles, they should start by looking in the mirror. How often have we rationalized not voting? By forfeiting our vote we cede political power to the other side. We invite the collectivism, regulation and conflict that the other side is eager to visit upon us.

There is a sizeable segment of Americans who are ignorant of the principles of property, freedom and peace. Such individuals are not ideological. They live in a perpetual fog of fear and uncertainty. They remind me of savages who believe that their fate is in the hands of some inscrutable, evil force that must be appeased lest they suffer sickness, accident or famine. Totally unaware of how reality works, they turn to their protectors in government who promise to care for them from cradle to grave. They willingly trade property and freedom for promises of welfare and security never realizing that such a course must inexorably lead to the loss of both.

It is incumbent upon us to educate these sleepwalking Americans on the principles of property, freedom and peace every chance we get. When they spout nonsense, we must challenge them – no matter who they are, no matter what the consequence. 

There is another sizeable segment of Americans who despise the principles of property, freedom and peace. These rabid ideologues believe that American society is akin to a living on a lifeboat. As a result, they conclude that resources, goods and services must be shared and rationed so that each individual has an equal chance of survival. The believe that any individual who refuses to share what he possesses with others, whether it be food, water or productive talent and ambition, is a threat to the survival of all. They believe such “uncooperative” individuals must be censored and controlled, in short, forced to go along, to live according to the will of the majority. They are willing to cede the use of force to a strong and charismatic “Captain,” a leader who can and will maintain harmony, law and order by threat if possible, by violence if necessary.

The only problem with this analogy is that it is false! We do not live in a lifeboat. Cooperation among people in society is a voluntary human action. Involuntary cooperation is a contradiction in terms.

Again, when we are confronted by such ideologues we must confront them with the truth. If they continue to spout their party line, then we must stand our ground and disassociate ourselves from them.

During the spectacle of the “Debt Crisis,” pundits of all stripes were fond of berating representatives of The Tea Party for not compromising. Tea Partiers were called terrorists and accused of holding the country’s economy hostage to their rigid demands.

Pray tell, how does someone who believes in private property and individual liberty compromise with a “lifeboat progressive” who believes in wealth redistribution and intense government regulation of the individual? How does someone who believes in peace compromise with the Captain of the Lifeboat who is eager to rule by force, violence and fiat?

Please, folks, stand on principle! There is no such thing as property that is a little bit private, or freedom that is a little bit repressive. The only sane rule for society is: What's mine is mine and what's yours is yours! And the only way that what's mine can become yours is by means of a free and uncoerced trade. If any man accepts that another man has some imagined "right" to violate the principles of property and freedom in whatever small way, he has conceded the "right" of the thief to steal and the “right” of the dictator to dictate.

"But all property cannot be absolutely private," screams the collectivist. "And all individuals cannot be absolutely free. We can't have anarchy. We must have rules and a police force!”

Don't fall for such sophistry! Yes, voluntary cooperation in society is impossible without self-imposed and self-enforced taboos against murder and theft, but does this fact of reality prove that involuntary cooperation is possible? Does it justify the imposition on the people by means of force and violence any rule – no matter how banal or arbitrary?

When does a society based on voluntary cooperation become a society based on involuntary servitude? I say that tipping point is reached when citizens of that society compromise away the principles of private property and freedom.

Why are we living in a political free-for-all, wherein each individual sides with a particular political faction to wrest goods and services from individual members of another political faction? Why in these United States is there no peace, only political conflict and turmoil?

The answer is obvious. The principles of property and freedom are the only means to the ends of societal harmony and peace and, as lovers of these principles, we have compromised away both once too often.