Category Archives: Progressivism

OWS and the Tea Party: In the Ball Park But Haven’t Found Their Seats

As the 2012 elections approach, there is now a left wing protest movement to mirror the right wing Tea Party. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and its many offshoots claims to represent “the 99%” of Americans who are not among the richest 1%. Like the Tea Party, OWS sees economic catastrophe ahead if America’s economic system is not fundamentally changed. Unlike the Tea Party, which places the blame for America’s economic woes on the doorstep of politicians, OWS points the finger squarely at Wall Street – and anyone else who makes enough money to qualify for a “1%” membership card.

It is actually refreshing to see Americans from both sides of the political spectrum interested enough to actually object to something. Whether marching around and carrying signs actually accomplishes anything is debatable. However, the Tea Party has already shown that political careers can be made or ended when enough people get both fed up and organized. While OWS is not as politically organized as the Tea Party was at this point in 2009, it has already made it over the toughest hurdle – getting a critical mass of people off the couch and out into the streets. As labor unions and other left wing special interests get more involved, it is likely that a bona fide political movement will emerge from the present confusion. Like the Tea Party, OWS might even change a few seats on their side of the aisle. But what then?

If the results of the Tea Party Congress are any indication, the answer to that question is “nothing.” Yes, the new Congress made some symbolic statements, like requiring the members to read the Constitution aloud during the opening session. But when it came to actually advancing their supposed agenda in a substantive way – cutting the size of the federal government and reigning in deficits – not much happened. A proposal emerged to cut $100 billion out of the $1.6 trillion deficit, which would have been meaningless even if it passed. Beyond that, it’s been business as usual inside the Capitol, with Congressmen from both sides of the aisle continuing to spend money the federal government doesn’t have and kicking the can a little further down the road.

Left wing Americans should already know the electoral process is unlikely to produce substantive change. As the third year of Obama’s presidency draws to a close, there is almost nothing of substance either his supporters or his critics can point to that differentiates his presidency from that of George W. Bush. Both championed and got passed an expansion of government involvement in the health care system that costs taxpayers about $100 billion per year directly and likely causes distoritions in the health care market that are far more costly than that. Both started a few new wars in the Middle East. Both expanded the federal government’s power to spy on its own citizens. Both passed “sweeping regulatory reforms” that further crippled America’s already weak economy. Both expanded executive power unconstitutionally. Both set new precedents in attacking the Bill of Rights.

But the similarity between the two that should resonate most with OWS supporters is this: both filled their cabinets with Wall Street and corporate insiders and never made a move those special interests didn’t like. Sure, Obama made some populist, anti-business statements early in his presidency, but when it came to “Change” in the healthcare system, his program turned out to be a half trillion pear year handout to the health insurance industry. That wasn’t exactly what the true believers had in mind, but it was business as usual for corporate-owned Washington.

In short, two hugely trumpeted “revolutions” in American politics – a leftwing one in 2008 and a right-wing one in 2010 – have failed to move the needle one degree in Washinton, D.C. A lot of articles were written and a lot of television talk shows were provided with material about both, but absolutely nothing has changed. Sooner or later, one has to answer the question: Why not?

The answer is even the genuine grassroots members from both the left and the right don’t understand what is ailing America. They know something is wrong, but decades of government propaganda bolstered by shoddy education have left most Americans unequipped to figureout what it is. In fact, both the Tea Party and OWS share the same fundamental misconceptions about The Problem.

Both the Tea Party and OWS believe Republican presidents, especially Ronald Reagan, had somehow created a laissez faire capitalist economy during their presidencies. The Tea Partiers believe America must get back to Reaganomics, while OWS believes it was the root cause of today’s problems. Both of them are wrong. Neither Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush signed one bill that substantively made the American economy more laissez faire. In fact, Bush actually signed Sarbanes-Oxley, which he himself called “the most sweeping regulatory reform since the New Deal.” Even what the media called “deregulation” during the Reagan years was mostly regulatory tweaks that were passed under Carter. Tom Woods covers this in detail in Rollback, so I won’t attempt to reconstruct the whole argument here. In short, “deregulation” never happened. It was just one huge, Jedi mind trick, similar to “hope and change.”

That brings us to misconception number two: regulation itself. Both movements misunderstand the relationship between our present corporate economy and government regulation. The Tea Party believes getting rid of regulations as Reagan supposedly did would “get the government out of the way” of America’s corporations, resulting in huge gains in productivity and employment. OWS believes more regulations will reign in “corporate greed” and protect the little guy from those same rapacious corporations. Again, both of them are wrong.

A truly unregulated free market would not result in a few, large corporations controlling every economic sector. Nor would it result in most of society’s wealth being concentrated within a small percentage of the population. While no one alive has ever lived under such a system in terms of the entire economy, we have seen it in a particular sector within the last two decades. As Bill Bonner pointed out, the high tech industry existed for a time as an unregulated free market. Did this result in entrenched corporations getting bigger and concentrating even more wealth in the hands of a few? Absolutely not. As Bonner reminds us, “They created an entirely new industry…with new companies nobody had ever heard of. And then, they destroyed some of the biggest businesses in America.”

Government regulation creates barriers to entry for new firms and dampens innovation. In other words, it insulates entrenched corporations from competition, causing the very consolidation and concentration of wealth OWS objects to. That’s why established corporations never object to new regulations. Why should they? They end up writing the regulations themselves with one thing in mind – protect their position from the competition that would occur in a free market. That’s what makes left wing support for increased government regulation so tragically ironic. It’s like they are rushing to the scene of a fire with a sistern full of gasoline.

The Tea Party purports to favor less government regulation, but they have no idea what the results would be. They, too, do not understand the difference between our present corporatist system and a free market. Were the economy truly deregulated, most of the corporate giants they hold up as symbolic of the free market would be gone. Only those which could deliver better products at lower prices in the face of unrelenting competition would survive – and only for as long as they could continue to do so. Upward mobility would return. Large fortunes would again be made by “college drop-outs, computer nerds, products of teenage mothers and broken marriages” (Bonner again), just as the misnamed “robber barons” largely came from the ranks of the poor. Conservatives didn’t like that in the 19th century – and they might not like it now, either. But that’s what the free market does. It rewards innovation, productivity, and achievement, regardless of the social pedigree of the innovator.

Neither OWS nor the Tea Party recognizes how economically destructive the gargantuan U.S. military establishment is. There were some left wing protests against the Iraq War during the Bush years, but that is a non-issue for OWS. Now that there is a Democrat running the empire, the left seems to have made its peace with war. The left never objected to the continuation of the decades-long occupations of Europe, Japan, Korea, or the 130 or so other countries the U.S. government currently has troops in. In purely economic terms, those programs dwarf the active wars.

Of course, support for this trillion-dollar-a-year abomination is a key plank of the Tea Party movement, which is against taking money from one American and using it to buy healthcare for another American, but has no problem taking money from one American and using to (supposedly) buy “freedom” for people in other countries. Not only is this direct transfer of wealth draining America of scarce resources, but it has completely skewed what’s left of American manufacturing towards producing products that don’t increase wealth. Wealth is only increased when products are produced that people voluntarily buy. No one voluntarily buys weapons or the services of military personnel. And those resources in turn don’t produce anything at all.

Both the left and the right view imperialism as somehow part and parcel of laissez faire capitalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. The foundation of capitalism is voluntary exchange. There is nothing a military force can do under the guise of “protecting America’s vital interests” or “opening up markets for American companies” that has anything to do with capitalism or voluntary exchange. Even if an army really did influence people in other countries to trade with American companies, that would not be capitalism any more than Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac influencing people to take out loans was capitalism. When it’s not voluntary, it’s not a free market. Whatever its true purpose is (and there are a lot of theories), the U.S. government’s massive military establishment is just another large, bankrupt government program.

However, the most harmful misconception OWS and the Tea Party share is not really a misconception at all. It is the failure to recognize the most destructive element in the American economy – the Federal Reserve. The failure of either movement to make the Federal Reserve a priority or even acknowledge its existence explains many of the other misconceptions. Both the artificial booms each attribute to their presidents of choice – Clinton for liberals, Reagan for conservatives- and the inevitable busts each blame on presidents of the other party- Carter and Obama for conservatives, Bush 1 and Bush 2 for liberals – can all be traced back to the predicable results of Federal Reserve monetary policy. Even if all of the other economic interventions were eliminated and this one intervention were left in place, most of the economic problem would still exist.

The Tea Party claims to oppose Obama’s “socialism,” but fails to see the Federal Reserve as a fundamentally socialist institution. Its stated purpose is to transfer wealth from one individual or group to another at the direction of central economic planners. It doesn’t get much more socialist than that. A few conservatives might object to the way a particular Fed chairman conducts the business of the Fed, but almost none object to the Fed itself. Yet compared to the transfer of wealth that occurs when the Fed inflates the currency, all of the U.S. government’s welfare programs combined pale in comparison. Since the Fed transfers wealth to Wall Street and corporate America, one might understand their reluctance to oppose that aspect of it. But what about a small group of government hacks attempting to direct the entire economy? If that’s not “socialism,” then what is?

OWS is similarly disinterested in the Federal Reserve, even though it exists to transfer wealth from the 99% to the 1%. For both groups, ignorance is probably the majority of the problem. The Fed has managed to stay out of the spotlight for most of the past century, taking the credit for supposed recoveries and avoiding all blame for the business cycle itself. Yet, even if it did what it purported to do, it should still be Public Enemy No. 1 to both OWS and the Tea Party. Until most Americans understand how destructive this institution is, no amount of “reform” is going to make our economic problems go away.

So, the next election will be influenced by two grassroots movements committed to solving America’s problems. One says the problem is government. They are right. The other says it is corporations and the financial elite. They are also right. As a friend of mine likes to say, both groups “are in the ball park, but they haven’t found their seat.” One can only hope for a moment of clarity on both sides. If they could only see things as they really are, they’d be marching side by side.

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Perry vs. Romney? What Do Conservatives Really Want?

9 Replies

According to the left-leaning media and punditry, the race for the Republican nomination for president is dominated by right wing extremism. Positions as frightening as phasing out Medicare and getting rid of the Department of Education are being bandied about, with the only solace for liberals being the knowledge that those positions will moderate once the primaries are over and the Republican candidate tries to appeal to voters beyond the Republican base.

Supposedly, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney represent this “hard shift to the right” within the Republican Party, which is why they are in first and second place, respectively, in national polls. However, given the histories of these two men and their present stand on the issues, that narrative just doesn’t jibe with reality. In fact, if average conservative Americans really believe what they say they believe, it is difficult to figure out how any of them could cast a vote for Perry or Romney.

By “average conservative Americans,” I mean those people not in public office and unconnected to the political machine who vote in polls this early in the election cycle. Everyone knows these people. We work with them, socialize with them, live with them. Unlike most people we know, they feel strongly about politics and identify themselves as conservatives. They care enough to follow the nomination races over a year before the general election and can articulate an opinion, as opposed to the majority of Americans who will say something like “I haven’t made up my mind yet” to cover for the fact that they have no idea what any of the candidates in either party stand for.

I think that most would agree that this group of people generally say they believe in small government, free enterprise, traditional family and religious values, and (let’s face it) unqualified worship of the U.S. military, no matter how it is employed. These are the things that conservatives say that they are for.

It is not so much what they are for as what they are against that brought the Republican Party back from the brink in 2010. The Tea-powered victory in 2010 rode a wave of conservative backlash against Barack Obama and his socialist agenda of big government healthcare, environmentalism, and wealth redistribution. More than anything else, it was Obamacare that served as the rallying point. Anyone who attended a Tea Party event can attest to the fact that the overwhelming majority of the signs and speeches (when not glorifying the military) represented opposition to this evil, Marxist scheme. If only Obamacare could be repealed, America would return to the capitalist paradise
that it was under George W. Bush.

With that in mind, one has to ask how Mitt Romney is even in the race. After all, it was the Massachusetts healthcare plan supported and signed into law by Governor Romney that inspired Obamacare in the first place. Despite Romney’s insistence that there are “major differences” between the Massachusetts plan and Obama’s, the only tangible difference that he has been able to cite is that his plan was run at the state level and not forced on every American citizen as a “one-size fits all solution.” Other than that, I don’t believe that Romney or anyone else has been able to point out a fundamental difference between Romneycare and Obamacare.

So that’s what all of the noise was about in 2010? The Tea Party rallies, the signs, the angry town hall meetings? I thought that conservatives objected to the fundamental socialist principles embodied in Obamacare: the central economic planning, the government-enforced mandate, and the wealth redistribution. I don’t remember signs saying “let the states run Obamacare.” It was get rid of government-run healthcare (except for Medicare) or we’ll be living in the 1960’s-era Soviet Union before the next election.

“People can change,” some supporters might tell you, and that is certainly true. But has Romney really changed? As of this writing, the issues page on his website says, “States and private markets, not the federal government, hold the key to improving our health care system.”

Not just “private markets,” but “states and private markets” hold the key. It would seem that Romney hasn’t changed his mind at all about his state-run, big government socialist healthcare program. If Romney’s only defense of his plan is that it was run at the state level rather than the national level, then average American conservatives should be automatically vetoing his candidacy on Romneycare alone. Yet Romney led the race until Rick Perry entered, and is still a solid second.

That brings us to Rick Perry. He has also convinced his conservative supporters that he has changed his views since previously being a Democrat. That is certainly not unprecedented. Conservative icon Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat before becoming what most conservatives perceive as the quintessential conservative president. However, Perry wasn’t just a Democrat.

If there is any one person in second place to Obama as the arch-villain in conservative mythology, it is Al Gore, (or Algore as Rush Limbaugh refers to him). Gore is the undisputed leader of the liberal environmentalist movement, which lays the blame for the global warming that conservatives don’t even believe exists at the feet of free enterprise. If Obamacare was the peanut butter of the present administration’s platform in 2008, then Cap and Trade was the jelly. Conservatives wanted no part of either, and see Gore as every bit the evil Marxist that Obama is because of his leadership on this issue.

Believe it or not, it was this Conservative Public Enemy No. 2 that Perry supported as a Democrat in the 1988 primaries. He not only supported Gore, but actually chaired his campaign in Texas. He could have supported the eventual Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis, whose most striking difference to Gore was his refusal to bow to environmental interests at the expense of economic development, as documented in the New York Times. In other words, even as a Democrat, Perry backed a radical environmentalist extremist instead of a somewhat more moderate centrist.

Again, people can change their minds, but has Perry changed his? Does he oppose Cap and Trade on principle, as most conservatives say they do? Apparently he does not, according to his actions as governor. As with Romney on healthcare, Perry is completely supportive of a policy that conservatives say they are fundamentally opposed to, as long as the evil is perpetrated by the state governments rather than the feds. The chief difference between the Cap and Trade imposed on Texans and that imposed by the federal government seems to be that Texas measures emissions limits on the whole facility while the EPA measures it on every smokestack. Is that the sole objection that average conservatives have to Al Gore and his global warming (excuse me, climate change) agenda?

As with Romney, Perry’s support for a key plank in the socialist-liberal agenda should be a deal killer for anyone remotely describing themselves as conservative. Yet not only has Perry been able to sidestep any criticism on this position, he’s currently leading the nomination race by a comfortable margin.

So, what do conservatives really want? If these polls are any indication, they want a good-looking former governor with a suspiciously liberal background who is good at spouting hardcore conservative rhetoric and then doing exactly the opposite once he gets into office. In other words, they want Ronald Reagan, the former New Deal Democrat who suddenly became a libertarian-leaning ultra-conservative and rode that rhetoric into the White House, where he promptly doubled the size and power of the federal government, raising taxes six times and further empowering the Department of Education that he promised to abolish.

It’s not as if there are not alternatives. Ron Paul, currently running third, actually believes in the principles conservatives say they hold dear and has voted consistently according to them as a 12-term Congressman. He is on the record vowing to get rid of the Department of Education, along with Energy, Commerce, and most of the others. You won’t hear anything like that from Romney or Perry, yet it’s an uphill battle for Paul, supposedly because of his foreign policy positions.

But what about Herman Cain and Gary Johnson? As a libertarian, I don’t buy into the “government should be run like a business” philosophy, but most conservatives do. Both Cain and Johnson take this approach, with Johnson promising to deliver a balanced budget proposal in his first year, including abolishing the Department of Education. Yet these two candidates aren’t even on the map with conservative voters.

With several nationally-televised debates completed and plenty more coming, conservative voters have plenty of alternatives in selecting a candidate. According to their most fiercely-held beliefs, conservatives should be voting “anybody but Perry or Romney,” yet those two lead the race. One has to wonder where all of these supposed “right wing extremists” are hiding.

Contrary to the liberal media narrative that the Republican Party has shifted hard to the right and is fielding “extremist” candidates to run against Obama, the primary race looks more like business as usual. Former liberals and big government conservatives are railing against government to energize their conservative supporters, while at the same time openly supporting cornerstones of the liberal agenda. If Perry and Romney are an indication of where conservative voters are headed in 2012, then the Democrats have nothing to worry about, even if Obama loses.

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

What’s So Hard to Understand About Ron Paul?

16 Replies

Ron-Paul This time things are going to be different for Ron Paul’s presidential run. After correctly predicting the collapse of the housing bubble and the resulting financial and economic crisis, Paul has become a mainstay on business talk shows, especially on the conservatively-oriented Fox News. One can almost sense the resignation in the voices of talk show hosts and reporters as they acknowledge that Paul will not be ignored by the media this time around – which is ironic because it is these same people who ignored him in 2008.

However, while supporters will rejoice at the increased quantity of coverage of Paul’s campaign, they should be realistic about the quality of the coverage. Namely, supporters should expect that conservatives will agree with him on most of his economic positions, including cutting down the welfare state and rolling back government regulations, but disagree with him on foreign policy.

Similarly, supporters should expect that liberals will agree with Paul on foreign policy (although somewhat reservedly while there is a Democrat running the empire) and civil liberties, but disagree with him on economic policy, especially when it comes to Paul’s positions on responsibly ending Social Security and Medicare.

Watching Paul’s appearance on The View, one could already see this dynamic in action. While the ladies on the show were very gracious to the congressman, Whoopi Goldberg took the lead in asking some policy questions and demonstrated the liberal take on Paul perfectly. She first stated that she agreed that she would like to see the wars end, but wanted to know how Paul could get us out of them (a concern that never would have arisen with a Republican running the empire). After Paul gave his customary answer, “we marched right in there, we can march right out,” Goldberg then challenged Paul on his position that healthcare is not a right. She truly looked baffled that any politician could be both anti-war and anti-entitlement.

On the conservative side, media figures have been doing the opposite routine with Ron Paul for years. Glenn Beck (pre-blackboard) routinely had Paul on during the economic crisis and always emphasized his agreement with Ron Paul’s economic positions and his disagreement on foreign policy. Ann Coulter has also weighed in on Paul in this way, as have countless other media figures.

Neither conservatives nor liberals agree with Ron Paul that the Federal Reserve should be abolished.

Conservatives believe that along with what they would call “free market capitalism” (their version including privileges and subsidies for big business), one must support a large military establishment and an aggressive foreign policy. For conservatives, it is just inconceivable that anyone could support one and not the other. This is not a position that can be supported by reason. Rather, it is closer to an article of faith to which conservatives have developed a deep emotional attachment. The conservative philosophy still has its roots in the “ancien regime,” whereby the king/executive and a wealthy elite control commerce and support a large, active military establishment, both for the aggrandizement of the empire.

Liberals believe this, too. They share the mistaken perception of conservatives that free market capitalism is dependent upon an imperialistic foreign policy. However, instead of wholly supporting it, they wholly oppose it, confusing the state capitalism supported by conservatives with a truly free market. Therefore, liberals oppose imperialism and free markets as if one cannot exist without the other and cannot conceive of anyone who could disagree. As with conservatives, their positions are not reasonable. They are likewise articles of faith, rooted in the ideals of ancient democracies in which the majority had unlimited power over the life and property of individuals, taken to new extremes by Marx and other socialists in the modern era.

Ron Paul’s positions do not fit into either one of these belief systems, nor does he seem to “compromise” between the two. Conservatives accuse him of being too liberal. Liberals accuse him of being too conservative. For both groups, many of his positions seem completely unexplainable.

To his supporters, Paul’s positions are so obviously consistent that they often attribute genuine confusion about them to some sort of media conspiracy. Paul bases all of his positions on what we today call “the non-aggression axiom,” which Thomas Jefferson and his supporters called “the law of nature.” This is a very simple principle which states that because we are all created equal, no one individual or group has the right to initiate force against another. Consistently applied, this principle prohibits the government from running welfare programs, regulating commerce beyond prohibiting aggression, or waging war unless the nation is actually attacked.

Paul insists that the military only be used after a declaration of war because in order for Congress to issue this declaration, the president has to cite the overt acts of war committed by the other nation against the United States. The Congress then deliberates and votes to determine whether or not a state of war already exists. That process binds the government’s use of the military to the law of nature. That is the way the declaration of war power has been exercised in every case in American history.

The main reason that conservatives and liberals do not understand Paul’s reasoning is that they have never heard of the non-aggression axiom. Despite the fact that it was the founding principle of the United States, it is not taught in schools. It is not discussed in the media. Instead, 100% of political debate revolves around results. “If the government does A, will B or C be the result?” Conservatives argue B, liberals C. Neither discusses the rights of the parties involved. Paul bases all of his positions upon these rights, which is how all political decisions should be made.

On May 5, Paul will participate in the first debate among candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president. One should not expect the objections to his positions to be substantively different than they were in 2008. While he may get more respect and stage time from the media, conservatives will still try to attack Paul’s foreign policy positions. The most that supporters should expect is the grudging admission that he may be right on economic policy, but that his foreign policy would be some sort of disaster. This follows logically from the fact that conservatives apply the tenets of their political faith and Paul follows the law of nature. He may be right, but don’t expect most conservatives or liberals to have caught up with him yet.

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Why Progressives Will Enjoy Atlas Shrugged, Part I

27 Replies

I had the opportunity to see Atlas Shrugged, Part I on Saturday in the only theater in which it is being shown in Tampa, FL. It is running at Cinebistro, a specialty theater where you can enjoy a high-end meal and fine wine served at your seat, which is very similar to a first class airline seat. Admittedly, it is just the kind of venue that progressives might associate with an elitist gathering of selfish capitalists. However, the movie itself tells quite a different story than they might expect if their understanding of Rand is limited to her interviews with Phil Donahue or Mike Wallace.

Like libertarians, Rand’s Objectivist economic theory was rooted in what we today call “the non-aggression axiom,” which Thomas Jefferson and the liberal faction of America’s founders called “the law of nature.” According to this philosophy, each individual has an inalienable right to keep the product of his labor and to dispose of it as he sees fit. The non-aggression axiom forbids any individual or group from using force to take away the justly acquired property of another. Neither does it allow for anyone to interfere with voluntary contracts, as long as those contracts do not involve the initiation of force against anyone else.

This prohibits the government, which is by definition the societal use of force, from redistributing wealth or enacting laws which go beyond prohibiting aggression. Establishment media figures who interviewed Rand immediately focused on the implications of her philosophy for social safety net programs, charging that Rand’s philosophy would not allow for programs for the poor or handicapped. While this is true, it obscures the most important implications of Rand’s philosophy for economic policy in the United States.

What would likely startle progressives watching the film is its emphasis on the evils of what free market proponents would call “crony capitalism.” This is completely consistent with the novel, which demonstrates that the beneficiaries of government regulation supposedly enacted for “the common good” or “the benefit of society” are really the super-rich. Indeed, the film never criticizes the beneficiaries of social programs. Instead, it spends all of its time demonstrating the difference between those “capitalists” who acquire their wealth through government privileges and those true capitalists who acquire their wealth by producing products that consumers voluntarily buy.

This is a crucial distinction that has eluded progressives from Woodrow Wilson to Michael Moore. After seeing Moore’s film, Capitalism: A Love Story, I pointed out in my review of that film that there was very little that libertarians would disagree with. All of Moore’s criticisms of what he calls capitalism are really the result of crony capitalism. The biggest culprit in the economic collapse of the last decade was the Federal Reserve, a central planning/wealth redistribution institution that Rand explicitly condemns in her novel. Unfortunately, Moore incorrectly concludes that the economic distortions, inequitable distribution of wealth, and widespread harm to middle and lower income Americans were the result of a free market.

Rand would agree completely with progressives on the injustice of today’s American corporate state. That might also surprise progressives who probably assume that Rand would have supported the mainstream Republican policies of George W. Bush. Not only would Rand have condemned Bush’s version of state capitalism, but she was openly critical of Republican hero Ronald Reagan. When asked by Phil Donahue about Reagan during his administration, Rand said in so many words that he should have stuck to acting.

The only opportunity that progressives might have to disagree with anything in the film is the portrayal of the labor union official who tries to sabotage Dagny Taggarts launch of a new railroad line. This encounter takes all of about 3 minutes of the 113 minute film and is not a condemnation of labor unions in principle, but rather the illegitimate power that corrupt union officials can wield because of government privileges.

However, the true villains in the film are not union officials, beneficiaries of entitlement programs, or any other group associated with progressive philosophy. The villains are exclusively corporate executives and the government officials they get in bed with to illegitimately acquire wealth. The heroes are those who acquire their wealth by productive achievement and voluntary exchange. If one had to sum the film up in one sentence, it is an effective demonstration of the evils of crony capitalism and its difference from a truly free market.

I encourage progressives to see this film and to read Rand’s novel. If there is one thing that I hope they take away, it is that even great wealth can be acquired legitimately, when it is the result of human beings trading the products of their labor with the mutual, voluntary consent of all parties. Once progressives begin making the distinction between legitimately acquired wealth and wealth acquired because of government privilege, they will find libertarians and all other proponents of truly free markets standing by their side, fighting the evil corporate state.

Release the Kraken

1 Reply

Titans_Kraken I prefer the 1981 film version of Clash of the Titans for many reasons. Among them is its nuanced portrayal of Zeus’ decision to release the Kraken upon the city of Joppa. He clearly does this reluctantly due to the immense power and possible unforeseen consequences of letting loose this uncontrollable force. When Poseidon opens the undersea gate and watches the creature emerge, he is clearly awestruck by the size and destructive potential of the beast. One can imagine what question must have been preeminent on his mind. “How am I going to get this thing back into the cage?”

There is no better metaphor for the United States and its government since the turn of the 20th century. It was at that time that government was released from its chains – and it has been on a rampage ever since.
In his seminal book, The New Freedom, Woodrow Wilson wrote,

“We used to say that the ideal of government was for every man to be left alone and not interfered with, except when he interfered with somebody else; and that the best government was the government that did as little governing as possible. That was the idea that obtained in Jefferson’s time. But we are coming now to realize that life is so complicated that we are not dealing with the old conditions, and that the law has to step in and create new conditions under which we may live, the conditions which will make it tolerable for us to live.”

While Wilson’s unqualified dismissal of America’s founding principle of government might startle 21st century readers, the reasoning he employs to justify it is even more incredible. Just a few pages after declaring that Jefferson’s system is no longer viable, he goes on to say that the Americans of his time are actually living under Alexander Hamilton’s system. He is to a great extent correct on this. By 1912, the Republican Party, philosophical descendants of Hamilton’s Federalists, had indeed made great strides in establishing the Hamilton platform of corporate welfare, protectionism, and a large and adventurous military establishment.

However, this system was completely antithetical to Jefferson’s truly free market, whereby the government merely enforced contracts and protected individuals from aggression against their rights. Here, Wilson has made a colossal non sequitur – that Jefferson’s system should be scrapped because Hamilton’s system isn’t working. The confusion – between crony capitalism and truly free markets – persists to this day.

Thus, we have not only released the Kraken, but we have done so for completely illogical reasons. It has been rampaging over our lives, liberties, and properties now for over a century and shows no signs of tiring. It is time to either get it back in its cage or find a man on a flying horse to save us.

>The Who Sing to the Obama Faithful

8 Replies

>I must admit that as soon as I heard that The Who would be the halftime entertainment at the Super Bowl, the timeliness of what would likely be their last song immediately crossed my mind. However, that didn’t lessen the impact of seeing the aging rockers belt out their classic, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” although this time with more significance for America than at any time since the song was written. The enthusiastic crowd – thousands of whom undoubtedly sport Obama/Biden bumper stickers on their vehicles – joined Townshend and Daltrey in thunderous unison each time the line “We don’t get fooled again” was sung. Ironically, the extent to which the song indicts Obama was probably lost on all, save the venerable old Englishmen themselves, who hail from a bygone era when the left was actually anti-establishment.

Certainly, there has not (yet) been “fighting in the street” here in America, but most of the Obama faithful do believe that the “change” he has promised represents a “new revolution,” whilst opponents certainly object to the “new constitution.” I’m not sure why, since as Jay Leno quipped a few years back, we’re not using the old one anyway. In any case, as Townshend says to begin the second verse, “the change it had to come.” What we are changing from and what we are changing into are questions that Townshend leaves to us to answer.

Fittingly, the word “change” is used five times during the song. However, the real message of the song is summed up in the last verse.

“There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, bye the bye.
And the parting on the left
Is now parting on the right,
And the beards have all grown longer overnight.”

It is hard to believe that these words were written in the early 1970’s, as well as they describe the Obama campaign and presidency. Certainly, the slogans have been replaced. Obama started his presidential campaign as an anti-war candidate. Upon receiving the Democratic nomination for president, he subtly changed his stance from being anti-war to arguing that America was merely “in the wrong war.” Now, as he escalates the war in Afghanistan, expands that war into Pakistan, and revives his predecessor’s antagonism towards Iran, we find that even Iraq is not such a wrong war that we will not be leaving thirty to fifty thousand troops there after our combat mission officially ends. Haven’t we heard this strategy before?

Regarding “parting on the left now parting on the right,” the neo-conservatives that Obama was supposedly the antithesis of during his campaign couldn’t be cheering his war-mongering any more enthusiastically. While there is obligatory criticism by Republicans towards some of his tactical decisions or supposed hesitation in making them, they do not fail to dutifully commend the emperor for his overall strategic plan: more war, more debt, and – just as in every year of the Bush administration – the largest total DOD budget in American history (counting the actual on-budget Defense budget, the appropriations for the active wars, and the Homeland Security expenditures on the war formerly known as “The War on Terror”).

Domestically, those who hoped that “Change” meant an end to or at least a decrease in corporate welfare have been disappointed as well. In a classic bait-and-switch, it turns out that his signature health care “reform” plan is nothing more than a gift-wrapped half trillion dollars per year presented to corporate health insurance giants, courtesy of American taxpayers who will now have no choice but to buy their insurance. It is hard to imagine how any self-respecting progressive can “smile and grin” at this change, but so far they still do. The hypnotized may never lie, but they also seem completely unable to tell when they are being robbed blind.

Of course, President Obama did at least do something about the Bush administration’s practices of spying on its own citizens, tapping their phones, and reading their e-mails (to keep them safe). He sent a team of lawyers to court to defend all of these abominable practices, hoping to solidify his legal sanction to do exactly the same thing. This shouldn’t have surprised anyone, since while still in the U.S. Senate, Obama voted to grant immunity to telephone companies who complied with the Bush administrations invasions. Perhaps they were expecting Obama himself to “change” on this issue once he became president.

Finally, Obama had promised to go through every one of President Bush’s executive orders and overturn any that “trampled upon liberty.” Having completed his review, the only executive orders overturned or considered relate to stem cell research, oil drilling on federal land, and Bush’s “gag order” on international aid organizations regarding abortion. Conspicuously absent from the list are the infamous orders wherein Bush granted his office vast new powers during a state of emergency, which the hysterical Keith Olbermann quite justifiably wet himself over during several of his anti-Bush diatribes.

To summarize, let us review what liberals/progressives said they hated about the Bush administration. Unless memory fails, it was his immoral and unfunded wars, his preferential treatment of Wall Street and large corporations at the expense of Main Street, his illegal spying on and wiretapping of American citizens in the name of security, and his assumption of dictatorial powers via executive orders and a rubber-stamp Republican Congress. For all of those who voted for Obama to protest and end these atrocities, the last lines of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” couldn’t be more appropriate.

“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”

Indeed he is. We have been fooled again, and if we simply put the neo-conservative Republicans back into office, it won’t be much different the next time, either. Isn’t it time we stopped doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

Home

>The Democrats Privatize Wealth Redistribution

8 Replies

>George W. Bush redistributed more wealth during his presidency than any president had since Lyndon Johnson. Republicans really have never had any problem with redistributing wealth as long as the proceeds go to the right people. Since Medicare benefits senior citizens, a constituency that no election can be won without in the baby boomer retirement era, Republicans had no problem using the force of government to take money from one individual and use it to buy “healthcare” for another – as they did with their Medicare prescription drug benefit. Neither do they hesitate to redistribute to bankers, under the cover of “saving the financial system.” God help us if there is ever a constituency of senior citizen bankers.

In fact, if one looks at the federal budget as it existed before the massive bailouts started – pre-TARP – at least 80% of the almost $3 trillion budget amounted to wealth redistribution. Always there was some rationalization for why this or that group must receive federal funds “for the good of all.” The farmers must be subsidized because there is absolutely no way to sustain farming in a market economy. If large farming corporations weren’t subsidized, we would all starve. Medical research must be subsidized because we will eventually all die of cancer, AIDS, and other horrific diseases if the government doesn’t subsidize medical research. Corporations in general must be subsidized because if one were to go out of business, everyone would be unemployed.

The Democrats typically attempt to characterize the Republicans as racist or elitist because the Republicans have traditionally resisted wealth redistribution for the poor or minorities. However, the reality is that Republicans do this for the same reasons that Democrats resist redistribution to bankers and corporations (or at least they used to). The poor and minorities don’t vote Republican. That is the only reason that Republicans attempt to leave them out.

No one in America seems to know any American history. Following the American Civil War, when black voters universally supported the Republicans due to their perception that the “party of Lincoln” had set them free, it was the Republicans who promised “40 acres and a mule” to blacks and the Democrats who proclaimed themselves “the party of white men.” Enslaved by their former ruling class and now used as pawns in a political power game by the new one, the freed black voters of post-Civil War America serve as a perfect metaphor for the supposed “beneficiaries” of all government redistribution schemes. Whether it is elderly people trying to scrape by on a Social Security Check, poor people trying not to starve on public welfare, or Iraqi citizens enjoying their newly provided “freedom,” the so-called beneficiaries of government wealth redistribution are never the winners. It takes an alarming lack of skepticism not to ask who the real winners are.

As this new century has “progressed” (pun intended), even the blurry lines separating the two parties have begun to melt away. Remember that George Bush’s redistribution schemes also included stimulus “tax refunds” to everyone, whether they actually paid taxes in the first place or not. “Compassionate conservatism” was nothing more than a euphemism for attempting to blend traditional Republican rhetoric about “free markets” and “limited government” with thinly-veiled redistribution schemes. By doing so, Bush’s Republicans hoped to hold onto their own base while chipping away at the Democratic voting blocks by promising them other people’s money, just as the Democrats do.

Throughout the 20th century, the two parties employed this strategy of “borrowing a page from the other’s playbook” over and over, always hoping to win voters away from the opposition while retaining the loyalty of their own traditional supporters. It was this that caused many liberals to criticize Bill Clinton for being “too much like a Republican.” Why George Bush has managed to hold on to his image as an “extreme conservative” defies explanation.

Until now, there has always been at least one thing to say in favor of the Democrats. They have been honest about their intentions. They have come right out and said that their intention was to redistribute wealth in order to achieve “equality” or “social justice” or some other utopian goal. Certainly, no lucid American can deny that the Democratic platform has been a socialist one for at least the last century. It has been the Republicans who have deceived their followers to a much greater extent by promising them liberty and property rights and then redistributing almost as egregiously as the Democrats.

One hallmark redistribution strategy used by the Republicans was “privatization.” Somehow, they managed to successfully characterize forcibly extracting money in taxes from their citizens and redistributing it to private corporations as “free enterprise,” as if “private” and “free” were synonymous. Alexander Hamilton must have smiled in his grave.

However, the Democrats have truly broken new ground during this presidential administration. Not only have they managed to outspend the voracious Bush administration in just ten short months, but they have taken a page from the Republican playbook and actually privatized wealth redistribution. Formerly, however transparent the scheme, the money at least made it into the federal treasury for a moment before being paid out to the special interest that had bought it with votes. However, H.R. 3962, the so-called “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” dispenses with this formality. Now, using the coercive power of government, private citizens will be forced to pay their money directly to government supported health insurers whether they wish to or not. The veneer that this is “public money” being spent for the “public good” has been completely stripped away. There is now simply a government pointing a gun at its citizens and forcing them to pay directly to the special interest that has successfully lobbied for their money. Even King John of the Robin Hood tales did not extort for his friends this overtly.

A more perverse merger of left and right political corruption is unimaginable. Using the government’s numbers, this will provided coverage for 36 million uninsured Americans at a minimum of $15,000 per covered life. Assuming these numbers to be at least “in the ball park,” President Obama and his so-called liberals have just handed over a half a trillion dollars a year to corporate America (the health insurance companies). What true progressive could possibly support this?

The price of this corporate welfare, of course, is that any remaining vestiges of voluntary contracts between insurer and insured that health insurance still retained has been eliminated. Insurers are no longer allowed to determine rates demographically and based upon a real risk model. They are no longer allowed to offer diverse coverage packages to compete with one another for different customer groups. They now must offer low rates and uniform benefits to everyone as entitlements. Like individual welfare recipients, they have surrendered all of their liberty and property rights in return for other people’s money. They are now just one more arm of the state bureaucracy.

The worst aspect of this great fraud is the implications it has for the liberty of every American. The closest parallel to this heretofore has been automobile insurance. Americans have been forced to buy auto insurance directly from an auto insurer in order to exercise the “privilege” of driving on the government’s roads. This was of course enacted for the public good, to ensure that poor drivers could not bankrupt the innocent by demolishing their cars or saddling them with exorbitant hospital bills. However, as hostile to liberty as these laws are, they still leave the driver a choice. He can choose not to drive, however impractical or unrealistic that choice might be.

However, with this new bill, even that smattering of liberty is ripped away. Americans are now forced to purchase insurance from a government-protected and subsidized health insurance company merely because they are alive. Worse yet, they are not merely forced to make a single payment of tribute to satisfy their “individual responsibility.” They must go on paying, year in and year out, for as long as they live. They cannot decline. They cannot conscientiously object. There is no escape from this tyranny save one: death. For those individuals that can demonstrate that they are completely incapable of paying, someone else will be forced to pay for them. No matter what, the government’s corporation will be paid. Even life is no longer a right, but a privilege that the government extends to its subjects for a fee.

From 2001-2006, the Republicans controlled all branches of government. It was an horrific period of utter destruction of American liberty. The Democrats have now been given their chance and in ten short months they have far outdone the Bush Republicans for this dubious distinction. Make no mistake. If the Republicans regain power, they will be worse still. Americans should understand that they will affect no “change” in their government by electing either of these two parties. The federal government is a monster that has taken on a life of its own. Both parties are now its minions and are indistinguishable from one another.

Our Declaration of Independence says that “mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Are we there yet?

Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

Home

Michael Moore Wants to End the Fed (He Just Doesn’t Realize It)

10 Replies

“You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

– Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride (1987)

It is ironic that Michael Moore’s latest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story features two appearances by writer and comedic actor Wallace Shawn. There is even a clip of Shawn exclaiming “Inconceivable!” in his hilarious turn as Vezzini in The Princess Bride. However, the most appropriate clip from that movie would have been Inigo Montoya uttering the words quoted in the prologue of this article. Using one of Moore’s staple filmmaking techniques, he could have cut to the clip immediately after one of his own pronouncements about capitalism. For although Moore says the word over and over throughout the movie, it is apparent that it “doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.”

The closest thing to a definition of capitalism that Moore provides to his audience comes early on when he remarks, “Capitalism: a system of giving and taking – mostly taking.” He goes on to show a half dozen or so clips of people extolling capitalism for providing “the freedom to succeed and to fail” or hailing the virtues of competition. However, the common mistake made by both Moore when attacking capitalism and the Republican politicians he depicts defending it is their mutual failure to recognize the central tenet of capitalism: property rights.

True capitalism is based upon one simple principle: that all exchanges of property are made with the voluntary consent of all parties. Private ownership of property and competition – the other two components of capitalism in most traditional definitions – are actually results of this foundational principle. As all governments are institutions of coercion, there is no way for them to acquire property through voluntary exchange. Further, with all exchanges being voluntary, sellers must by definition compete with one another in order to sell their products. So, the foundation of “capitalism” is really the non-aggression principle applied to property. Capitalism requires that no one’s property can be taken from them without their consent.

However, Moore’s film does not examine anything close to that system, which Adam Smith called “a system of natural liberty” (the word “capitalism” was not coined until nearly a century later). There is a good reason for that – it doesn’t exist. What Moore mistakes for capitalism is really the soft fascism that has been increasing in intensity in the United States since the Federal Reserve and income tax were created and property rights were destroyed. He makes the same mistake that Republican voters make when they vote Republican politicians into office. They believe the politicians when they say that they support “free markets,” despite the fact that they go on to govern in exactly the opposite way.

The injustices that Moore depicts in his film are without exception caused by government. Not one can be traced to people voluntarily exchanging their goods and services with one another. What Moore represents as “capitalism” is really what Thomas Dilorenzo described as “Hamilton’s Curse” in his 2008 book of the same name. Without attempting to reduce Dilorenzo’s treatise to a few sentences, he generally describes the economic system whereby the government allies itself with the wealthiest segment of society in order to plunder the wealth of everyone else in pursuit of “national greatness” or “the common good.” The hallmarks of the system are corporate welfare, deficit spending by government, protectionist tariffs, and most importantly, a central bank with a government-granted monopoly on the creation of money.

This system purports to benefit society by encouraging the growth of domestic industry and thereby increasing the power and standing of the nation as a whole, as well as providing employment for the working class. However, like socialism, it must achieve “societal goals” by violating the fundamental principle of capitalism. It must violate the non-aggression principle by taking property away from people without their consent and redistributing that property to others. Some of this is accomplished through taxation. A much greater part is accomplished through monetary inflation.

It is astounding that most people are able to ignore the fact that the central bank is an instrument of theft and thereby completely antagonistic to capitalism. It takes an incredible dearth of healthy skepticism not to question the reason for legal tender laws, which force people to use the central bank’s currency. There is only one reason for these laws: without them no one would choose to accept an un-backed paper currency in exchange for their real goods or services. People are forced to use Federal Reserve Notes so that the government and its corporate allies can use inflation (expansion of the money supply) to transfer wealth from everyone in society to the privileged few who benefit from the transfer. The beneficiaries include corporate defense contractors, large farming corporations, Wall Street banks, and other “pillars of the economy.” It is inflation more than anything else that widens the gap between rich and poor. It is the chief vehicle for what Bastiat described as “the few plunder the many.”

However, Michael Moore does not recognize the right to the fruits of one’s labor and so he is completely blind to the difference between capitalism and the system promoted by Republican politicians (in deed if not in word). He fails to see that every aspect of our financial meltdown was caused by some violation of property rights, representing a departure from capitalism.

The money needed to extend all of those “deceptive mortgages” was created by the Federal Reserve out of thin air, thus diluting the value of all existing U.S. dollars. This was a theft from the holders of those existing dollars. Most of the loans themselves were guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie Mac, which uses the coercive power of government to force taxpayers to put up their money as collateral for people who would either not receive those loans or who would pay a much higher interest rate without it. Again, this is not capitalist voluntary exchange but instead wealth redistribution and a distortion of the free market. Similarly, the hundreds of billions paid out to defense contractors and other beneficiaries of President Bush’s wars in the Middle East were also funded by inflation, which the Republicans overtly flaunted by cutting taxes while skyrocketing government spending.

Since he fails to recognize that it was violation of property rights that truly caused our economic meltdown, he doesn’t recommend the restoration of property rights as the solution. Moore blindly accepts the traditional “progressive” fallacy that free market participants can only benefit at someone else’s expense, instead of recognizing that people who exchange voluntarily do so to their mutual benefit. As a result, he accepts government’s role as plunderer of property and merely suggests dividing up the loot differently. He promotes the bogus idea that the government can grant rights to people, and suggests that the coercive power of government no longer be used to redistribute to the wealthy, but instead be used to redistribute to everyone else. He objects to a system wherein the few plunder the many, but suggests it be replaced with a system where “everybody plunders everybody.”

Moore asserts that FDR had the answer when he proposed a “Second Bill of Rights,” granting Americans the right to a reasonable wage, health care, a pension, and other entitlements. Again, as the concept of property rights is foreign to him, Moore is able to ignore the fact that granting a right to these things means that those who provide them have no rights. He extols the “justice” of labor unions, but ignores the fact that it was the unions that destroyed the U.S. automakers by claiming exactly these rights. It was actually an alliance between government and these unions – identical in principle to the alliance between government and Wall Street – that turned his beloved Flint into a ghost town. He suggests that we should set these forces loose upon all of society. His ability to ignore reality is, to quote Mr. Shawn, “inconceivable.”

Like all of his movies, Capitalism: A Love Story is very well made. Moore is exceptionally good at what he does, bringing wit, comedic timing, and emotional power to the screen. Also like all of his movies, he identifies real injustices and expresses appropriate outrage at them. However, throughout his distinguished career he has made the classic mistake of misidentifying the cause of the problems he depicts so poignantly on the screen.

He compares the United States to Rome and points to the similarities between our problems and theirs. He correctly identifies half of the cause of Rome’s decline and ours: the government’s unholy alliance with a landed aristocracy that plunders the wealth of the people for redistribution to the privileged few. However, he fails to recognize his solution as the other half of the cause of both Rome’s decline and ours: the rest of society attempting to share in the plunder by means of majority vote (democracy). It was both of these forces acting together which destroyed Rome’s currency and led to her eventual collapse. Like Rome, we are also afflicted with both of these ills.

The only real solution to our predicament is to implement a system that supports Bastiat’s third alternative – “where nobody plunders anybody.” It is only by following this principle that justice can truly prevail. The most significant step in achieving such a system would be to eliminate the Federal Reserve System. Neither the Republican system of plunder for the wealthy nor the Democratic system of plunder for everybody is possible without monetary inflation. There is no way that government could ever achieve either through direct taxation.

I believe that Michael Moore’s intentions are good. At the end of his film, he asks Americans to join him. I have an alternative proposition for him. If he truly wants to see justice restored in America, along with equal opportunity for all Americans to pursue their happiness, he should call off his misguided attack on capitalism and join us to End the Fed.

Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

Home

Next They’ll Have Us Salivating

6 Replies

“Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”

– Frank Sinatra as Major Bennett Marco in The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

For anyone who has seen the film classic, The Manchurian Candidate, the quote in the prologue should bring back the subtle horror of the premise of the film. Using experimental methods of operant and classical conditioning, the villains of the film – the intelligence community from the eastern communist bloc – were not only able to control the actions of their subjects, but their thoughts and feelings as well. While the most horrific scenes in the film are those in which Raymond Shaw is forced to kill people he loves or respects, the control exerted over the other members of Shaw’s unit is equally disturbing and much more relevant to our political discourse today.

For those who have not had the opportunity to see the film, Marco and the other characters who repeat the adoring words about Raymond Shaw only do so because they are conditioned to for the purpose of covering up the massive plot that constitutes the story line of the movie. Marco later says, “It’s not that Raymond Shaw is hard to like. He’s impossible to like!” He tells his superior officer that while praising Shaw he really believed what he was saying, even though deep down he knew it wasn’t true. He had been trained to respond emotionally in a way that contradicted his reason. A more appropriate metaphor for American politics is hard to imagine.

The United States of America was born during the Age of Reason. Its founders believed that reason was the law of nature itself, and that the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were logical conclusions based upon observable facts. Further, they believed that reason was a duty and a prerequisite of those rights – one could only be entitled to liberty if one followed the law of nature, which requires non-aggression in return for the natural right to do as one pleases. This is why children do not have a natural right to liberty. They must first develop their reason sufficiently to be able to responsibly claim that right. As Locke said,

“The power, then, that parents have over their children, arises from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their off-spring, during the imperfect state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall take its place, and ease them of that trouble, is what the children want, and the parents are bound to: for God having given man an understanding to direct his actions, has allowed him a freedom of will, and liberty of acting, as properly belonging thereunto, within the bounds of that law he is under. But whilst he is in an estate, wherein he has not understanding of his own to direct his will, he is not to have any will of his own to follow: he that understands for him, must will for him too; he must prescribe to his will, and regulate his actions; but when he comes to the estate that made his father a freeman, the son is a freeman too.”[1]

So, it is not surprising that an absence of reason has accompanied the loss of liberty, for it is only the former that makes possible the latter. No one would logically conclude they would benefit by placing their life, liberty, or property under the arbitrary power of anyone else, for to do so is profoundly illogical. Yet, every generation, Americans have surrendered more of their rights to a government that has grown into the most pervasive institution of power that has ever existed in human history. They have done so for the most part because they have allowed their passions to replace their reason. Until we recognize this, every “change” we make is going to be for the worse.

Third parties and other tiny constituencies aside, American political discourse is dominated by our two major political parties. Their primary goal in any debate is not to reach the truth, but to enlarge their voting base. Having discovered long ago that appealing to the voters’ feelings is more effective than appealing to their reason, there is little more to most political dialogue coming out of politicians and activists than ad hominem attacks against their opponents and empty jingoism that similarly appeals to conditioned emotional responses rather than any rational position or argument (and once in a while, they cry). Perhaps this has always been true in politics; perhaps it will never change.

However, what is truly frightening is how successfully these parties have been able to train average Americans to think and act as they do, and ultimately to cast their votes likewise. For anyone that has given their allegiance to either of the major parties, no dissent or even discussion of that party’s platform is permissible.

If you are talking with someone who identifies him or herself as a Republican or a “conservative,” the mere suggestion that the United States government should consider decreasing military spending or changing their nation-building foreign policy results in a vitriolic, ad hominem assault of the most vicious nature. Often, the response will reference positions that you not only did not take but were not remotely related to the discussion you were having before you questioned party dogma. You may criticize the war in Iraq and find yourself attacked as “godless” or an atheist or even a traitor, while your subject goes on to tell you why you are so wrong about supporting amnesty for illegal aliens, regardless of the fact that the subject of illegal aliens was never heretofore mentioned and you happen to oppose amnesty for illegal aliens.

Similarly, when talking with someone who identifies him or herself as a Democrat or a “liberal,” any mention of support for a free market will elicit a similar attack. You may be called a racist, a fascist, selfish, or greedy amidst a blustering diatribe about the importance of the separation of church and state and religious tolerance, which are likewise subjects that heretofore were not part of your conversation and which you may well agree with wholeheartedly.

One must recognize at this point that you are not engaged in a debate. The person you are talking to is no longer reasoning, but instead giving conditioned responses to words he or she has been trained to react to with abhorrence and intolerance. In most cases, you can expect no chance to redirect the person back to the discussion you were having nor any chance to make a further point, as your opponent will likely continue to cut you off and ultimately withdraw from the conversation, having heard nothing beyond the trigger word(s) that set the absurd reaction in motion.

If the whole encounter seems bizarre, consider the associations that were likely revealed during it. Anti-war equals godlessness (is God pro-war?). Free market equals racism. Property equals greed. Neither Orwell nor Burgess could have imagined a victory over reason so complete. Soon, like the iconic Dr. Pavlov, our masters will need to do no more than ring a bell to direct our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Without reason, there can be no liberty. Reason – the law of nature – is what allows us to discover the natural, non-aggression limit to human action. It is what defines liberty and distinguishes it from the state of war. It is doubtful that any one of us has not been guilty of abandoning reason at one time or another, although there are some that are certainly guiltier than others. It is also clear that there are those who would go on exhorting our passions in order to cloud our reason and therefore rob us of our liberty, for their own gain at our expense.

There is only one way that we can regain our freedom. We must “pull out the wires,” as Major Marco said to Raymond Shaw. We must break the links that we have allowed others to implant within our minds and begin to listen to one another again, even when we disagree. Pacifism is not communism, freedom is not racism, and property is not greed. These associations are as insane as “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”[2] We should be disgusted with our political class for manipulating us this way and ashamed of ourselves for allowing them to train us like dogs.

Until we break free from this irrational partisanship, we are like the children that Locke describes above, without the understanding that qualifies us for liberty. There are plenty in our political class that prefer us this way, so that they may “will for us” in regard to every aspect of our lives. However, unlike wise and loving parents, they have demonstrated throughout all of history that they will teach us nothing but nonsense and guide us nowhere but to war and economic destruction. Even a small child will stop touching the stove after he has burned his hand a time or two. Are we not even as intelligent as this?

There are a few simple things to keep in mind as you attempt to fight the good fight. If you are conscientiously arguing a position that you believe in but find yourself being called a racist, a satanist, a right-wing extremist, or a traitor, keep doing what you are doing. You are very likely winning. On the other hand, if it is you that is resorting to calling your opponent names, ask yourself, “Why am I attacking my opponent? Am I unable to refute his argument?” Maybe it is time to consider the other side.

If you find yourself saying anything that you heard a politician or any of the politicians’ lapdog media hounds say, think very carefully about whether you really agree with it or not. It is likely that further thought will change your mind.

Finally, if you hear a bell ring and find your mouth starting to fill up with water, be aware that there is something very, very wrong.

——————————————————————————–

[1] Locke, John Second Treatise of Government Hackett Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN (1980) pg. 32

[2] Orwell, George 1984 New American Library (Penguin Group) New York, NY (1961) pg. 4

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

>A Nation of Hyenas

3 Replies

>One never knows where one will find profound metaphors for human existence and society, and I certainly wasn’t looking for one while channel surfing last weekend after a morning of yard and house work. However, I had the good fortune to flip on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and observe a perfect analogy to what our once-great society has become.

That episode was about the cheetah, the fastest land animal on earth. The cheetah is a beautiful creature. As the show pointed out, it is literally built for speed at the expense of brute strength, of which it has relatively little compared to other predators in its habitat. While unfortunate for the antelope, it was nonetheless quite inspiring to watch a high-speed pursuit of that animal by the cheetah, exhibiting gracefulness which rose to the level of poetry. Having made her kill, the cheetah brought the antelope back to feed herself and her young.

However, the story was not to end so happily for this family. The smell of blood in the air had attracted a pack of one of the cheetah’s competitors, the hyena. While the aforementioned lack of brute strength would probably not allow the cheetah to fight off even one hyena, that fact was irrelevant in that it was ten or twelve hyenas which now threatened her. Why? They were after the antelope – the fruits of the cheetah’s labor – and were going to use their greater numbers to take it from her by force. They weren’t intent upon killing the cheetah or her young, but were willing to do so, if necessary, to obtain her property without her consent. The cheetah weighed the risks to herself and her cubs and retreated, left to try to make up the loss elsewhere to provide for her family.

A few nights later I broke an embargo of sorts and actually watched a “news” program. I tuned in Cavuto on Fox News[1], which is one of the few shows where actual journalism seems to occur occasionally, despite its network affiliation with right wing propagandists Hannity and O’Reilly.

Cavuto’s regular panel of guests is arguably the most libertarian one can find anywhere in the “mainstream media,” regularly featuring Jonathan Hoenig, Peter Schiff, and even Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute.

That night, the auto company bailouts were again on the docket, and familiar arguments were made by Hoenig and the other panelists about why the results would be worse if the government took control of the auto industry. Cavuto’s token panelist from the left[2] (a female panelist whose identity I have been unable to verify), made the now also-familiar argument that “we bailed out Wall Street and now Main Street is demanding that the government do something for them.” Most of the panelists answered correctly that they were against the Wall Street bailouts as well, a point that was left unemphasized due to several people talking at once. However, the real chance for a meaningful debate still lay ahead. The boisterous Cody Willard set the stage when he said, “if you want to help them, send them your money, but don’t hold a gun to my head.”

The reply from the panelist arguing the liberal perspective was monumental:

“That’s why we have a democratically-elected government and the people want the government to do something.”

When she gave that answer, it was time to stop the quips, the witticisms, and even delay going to a commercial, if necessary. Despite the fact that the host trivialized the exchange by talking over part of both her and Willard’s comments, the exchange between the two was enormous beyond what most viewers probably realized.

There are many who would probably consider Willard’s statement a half-facetious exaggeration for effect. It was not. It is the horrifying reality of what any government bailout or other redistribution of wealth represents. We as Americans have forgotten that all government action is exercised under exactly these circumstances: at gunpoint. That is the purpose of government, to exercise brute force on behalf of its constituents when it becomes necessary to do so. That is why our government was originally so limited. The founders of our nation believed that brute force was only justified in self defense. Therefore, government action was limited to protecting its constituents from harm by other people, whether it was harm by a fellow citizen or a foreign army.

However, when the government undertakes to “do something” about a failed bank or auto company, it really means that We the People have decided to apply brute force to the problem, even though it is not a matter of self defense. Willard was completely accurate: a government bailout of a distressed auto company, whether it saves jobs or not, is really the people using their collective means of brute force (the government) to take property from one group of people and give it to another. This exchange is done at gunpoint – there is no consent by the party being taken from. Had the managers or the employees of the auto company armed themselves and sought to raise the funds themselves by stealing them at gunpoint from the people directly, they would have been arrested and prosecuted for armed robbery. However, Willard’s opponent in the debate argues that there is some ethical difference because a “democratically-elected government” acts as the armed robber in their stead. What can the difference possibly be?

This is the fundamental question that we as a society must answer if we are ever going to reverse the downward spiral we find ourselves in. Do we believe that individuals have inalienable rights or do we believe that a majority vote can take those rights away?

If one takes an objective look at our society as it has evolved over the past century, one must conclude that we have already answered it. Stripped of euphemism, almost every government institution in our society amounts to us using the brute force of government to violate the inalienable rights of our neighbors. Let us consider just a few examples.

Government involvement in healthcare has driven the price so high (through the artificial demand it creates) that the poor and elderly cannot afford it. Our answer is to apply the brute force of government to steal the money at gunpoint from one group of people to provide healthcare to another. In a truly bizarre development, that practice has now resulted in such high prices that almost no one can afford healthcare. So, we will now steal from everyone to provide healthcare for everyone. Lewis Carroll couldn’t have dreamed of anything quite so mad.

In order to be able to stop working but still enjoy the quality of life we feel we deserve after a certain age, we use the brute force of government to steal from those who are still productive to support those who are not. We could save for our retirement, but we choose instead to steal. We call this “Social Security.” It should be called, “Anti-Social Insecurity.”

Similarly, in order to afford to buy a house without saving the necessary down payment and establishing superior credit, we use the brute force of government to compel our neighbors to guarantee our mortgage loans with their money. When the inevitable tsunami of defaults occurred last summer, some objected to the government stealing the money to cover the losses of the banks. In truth, the money had been stolen decades ago, the minute that Fannie Mae was established.

Rather than saving the money for college tuition or allowing our children to work their way through college if we cannot afford to pay the tuition in full, we use the brute force of government to compel our neighbors at gunpoint to guarantee our student loans with their money. As with healthcare, this evil practice has driven the price of college tuition so high that not only are students going into long-term debt just to pay for their education, but their parents are taking out decades-long loans as well.

Should fortune not smile upon us or should we not develop marketable skills with which to obtain employment, we use the brute force of government to steal the money needed to sustain us from our fellow citizens. We call this the “social safety net,” but it also should be recognized as “anti-social.”

If we believe that we have a scientific theory that could lead to a new discovery that will benefit society (and enrich ourselves), we do not seek out capital to research it from those who can provide it voluntarily. We use the brute force of government to steal the money from our neighbors with the flimsy justification that “federal funding of research” will “benefit all of society” with a new medicine or a new technology.

This is by no means the length and breadth of the ways in which we violate each other’s rights on a daily basis. Every program funded by government, besides those that have the express purpose of defending our rights (police forces, the courts, the military), amount to the same thing: using our collective means of brute force to extract money from one group and give it to another.

What should be obvious is that it is not one evil group (the poor, the elderly, the corporations, Wall Street, etc.) that engages in this morally repugnant practice. Politicians will pick their scapegoats to play to their own power bases. The Republicans will blame the poor to get votes and campaign contributions from their base, the corporations and the rich. The Democrats will blame the rich and the corporations to get votes and campaign contributions from their base, the unions, average Americans, and the poor (the poor have only their votes to give and get back only the most miserable portion of the loot).

However, we must wake up to the fact that we all have a hand in this. The steady growth of one redistribution scheme after another has made it virtually impossible to function in our society without in some way participating in the looting of our fellow citizens, while we are at the same time looted ourselves. We have established all of these redistribution schemes through the democratic process. This past century has not been a progressive century. It has been a regressive one. We have regressed from a society of free people that respect each other’s inalienable rights to a society that is based upon competing groups stealing from one another through the brute force of government. We use only the support of greater numbers (majority vote) to justify the institution of each new crime. We have regressed to the brutal law of the jungle. We have become a nation of hyenas.

This has all followed logically from one fundamental break we made from our founding principles. We have elevated democracy to an ideal, at the expense of the individual rights that our government – and any government of free people – was constructed to protect. We have convinced ourselves that anything a majority vote sanctions is just, even if it violates those rights. Once we accepted that premise, the seeds of our destruction were sown.

As one might expect, this is something that the founders of our nation warned us specifically against. When one takes an objective look at our founding documents, the first thing that should jump off the pages is how little democracy there really was in our original government. Only the House of Representatives was chosen directly by the people, with the president and senate chosen indirectly by electors or the state legislatures, respectively.

More importantly, it is vital to realize what all of the limits, checks and balances, and even the Bill of Rights were intended to protect us from. They were intended to protect us from democracy.

One does not need to engage in interpretation to support this claim. The founders said it explicitly on more occasions that one could count. Here are just a few examples:

“Democracy is the most vile form of government … democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths,”[3]

“The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”[4]

“There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.”[5]

These vitriolic attacks upon democracy and majority vote from the founders of our nation would probably surprise most Americans. Nevertheless, there they are. The founders understood that democracy was a means, not an end. Their end was protection of the inalienable rights of each individual. Democracy was only good and just insofar as it helped to defend those rights. Furthermore, it must be prevented from being used to violate them. Again, the founders said this explicitly.

“In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”[6]

This passage elucidates another conclusion that proceeds from natural law. Not only is each individual prohibited from using the majority vote to violate the rights of his fellow citizens, he is prohibited from using that vote even to relinquish his own rights. That is because rights are not granted by society. They are inherent in man’s nature itself. They are non-transferable. They cannot be taken or even given away. That is the meaning of “inalienable.”

It was at the turn of the last century that we made the fundamental change in our philosophy. Since that time, we have held democracy up as our ideal at the expense of our natural rights. We did this primarily to justify the routine violation of one specific right: property. It is no accident that as democracy has become more and more extolled as an ideal, property has become more and more reviled. We have even had professors in American universities teach their students that “property is theft.”

Of course, like the hyena, we really do not care what our fellow citizens say or believe. We will not expend much energy in violating their rights to free speech or freedom of religion, because in the end we have nothing to gain from violating those rights. However, by violating their rights to the fruits of their labor, we do gain enormously at their expense. This is the true danger of democracy. We must face up to this plain fact and stop talking about everything but property. As Adams also said, “Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent?”

We are at a crossroads. The system we have built upon the brutal law of the jungle is about to collapse. We are presently suggesting even more brute force (government) to try to preserve it. If we continue on this course, the relationship between predator and prey on the African savannah will seem civilized compared to the state of our society. Unfettered democracy – not unfettered capitalism – has brought us here. We must choose respect for our inalienable rights over the loot that unfettered democracy can provide us with. If not, we must admit to ourselves that the way in which we live and deal with one another is no different from that of the savage beasts of the jungle. A return to our founding principles is our only hope.

Are we not men?

Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

Home

[1] “Cavuto” Fox Business News May 27, 2009.
[2] While hard-core progressives might call her a “Fox News Liberal” for even appearing on the hated network, her role on this telecast was without question to argue the liberal side of the issue.
[3] Madison, James Federalist #10
[4] Jefferson, Thomas To Dupont de Nemours Washington ed. vi, 591 1816
[5] Madison, James Letter to James Monroe October 5th, 1786
[6] Samuel Adams The Rights of the Colonists (1772) The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772 Old South Leaflets no. 173 (Boston: Directors of the Old South Work, 1906) 7: pg. 419.