What is America about?

After getting into two highly acrimonious debates with individuals who are more interested in promoting political correctness than to listen to reasoned dissent, I have to ask myself what Americans think their country is about. 

The political division that currently exists suggests that there are three possible answers. The liberal would argue for economic, or redistributive “justice,” the neo-conservative would argue for power, and the libertarian for individual freedom. 

I have come to realize that constitutional and libertarian arguments will only make sense to those who value personal freedom – and it appears that for many Americans, that value is expendable. Those who see America in terms of economic equality or military power will support the notion that Ron Paul is an old crank who is off the rocker they think he should be seated on.  

"From each according to his gullibility,
to each according to his greed!"

The economic redistributionist rejects free enterprise, because it entails risk. Risk is unacceptable to the poor because they cannot, of course, accept financial loss; and is unacceptable for the rich because it creates wealth that (in their view) is not earned. Without risk, there is no opportunity, but for them that is a small price to pay. The end game, though, is to replace an elite based on wealth with one based on political correctness. For them, the goal is not really justice -- it is power for those who toe the party line. Their means is to write more extensive and tighter regulations to discourage anyone from taking any initiative that has not been blessed by their government.  

For such people, the charge of racism is a handy way to bully those who disagree with them. If you want to replace the welfare state, you are a racist. If you want an educational system that teaches young people how to find the truth, you are a racist. If you believe in the Anglo-American heritage of rule by law and would insist on using the English language so that everyone can fully understand that heritage, you are a racist. 

Those who see America’s purpose as being a military power see personal freedom as expendable to protect our “national security.” They cannot be persuaded by reasonable arguments that trade, diplomacy, and taking the moral high road can be effective levers to promote our national interest. They think applying the Golden Rule to international relations is ridiculous and perhaps even dangerous, and then they wonder why the Iraqis and the Afghans are intent on getting us out of their countries – after all, we came on a mission to build free and fair societies – according to our customs and standards. Ask the neocons about how they would feel if, for example, the Chinese invaded this country on the same basis, and they will mutter something about “American exceptionalism.” 

To a reasonable person, “American exceptionalism” is nothing more than arrogance, pure and simple. 

As I was recently reminded, those who see America in terms of power cannot understand any argument that undermines their almost religious belief that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest (or maybe second greatest) of Presidents. Yes, he preserved the Union, but was it really worth the cost: 660,000 battlefield casualties, the mass murder of Georgia’s civilians during Sherman’s March to the Sea, his blatant hypocrisy on slavery? The surrender at Appomattox began a process of consolidation into an all-powerful federal government that continues to this day. We had a Constitution to protect our rights. Why did he find it necessary to destroy it in order to save the Union? If the issue was slavery, he could have followed the lead of Britain and France (which Brazil later followed) and simply bought out the slaveowners, which would have been cheaper than going to war. If he valued freedom, he could have shown good faith to the Southerners who were willing to negotiate a settlement to prevent their secession.

When looking at mysteries of this kind, some wise people have said, “Follow the money.” Prior to the Civil War, wealth was fairly evenly spread across the land – North and South. Lincoln was backed heavily by New York bankers, who greatly benefitted from his rule. In the 1870s, wealth heavily concentrated in New York City, while the South was reduced to abject poverty, and would remain so for nearly a century.

Fergit, hell!

The evidence for each of my statements is easy enough to find in any standard history of the Civil War or Reconstruction; but of course, my bringing it up is “revisionist.” And, of course, the neocons join the liberals in promoting the notion that any white male whose family has resided in the South more than a generation or two is the absolute scum of the earth. That notion is completely contrary to reason if you believe that people are individuals who deserve to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin or the accent of their voice; but Lord, don’t let Martin Luther King, Jr.’s beliefs stand in the way of those who loudly sing his praises! And Christians should keep their religion to themselves if they aren’t willing to idolize the state, support foreign wars, and promote social conservatism!

Just before I wrote this, I asked myself how anyone could believe in personal freedom and not let those who feel they have been wronged to form their own nation; especially when they respected law enough to follow due process as it was understood prior to 1865.

I thought I didn’t get it. Unfortunately, I do now. The way the Republican Presidential primary is shaping up, it is becoming clear that America is not about personal freedom. If President Obama is defeated in November, we will establish that America probably is not about redistribution of wealth, at least not the way the Democratic and Socialist idealists look at it. So I guess it's about power. We will continue to be ruled by those who have the most to gain from holding power.

It’s enough to make a grown man cry.

I’m finished ranting now. Please return to your regularly-scheduled programming.

Exposing Progressive Capitalism

... is an interesting new page in Facebook. Its purpose, as well expressed by its logo (left), is to inform the American people how the leftist-sounding rhetoric actually serves a few large corporate interests. Republicans will not like the site, but all of us need to think about whom government is meant to serve.

For myself, I would prefer a Jeffersonian nation of farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans to the society we have now -- it would be much more satisfying physically and spiritually, and require far fewer resources to maintain. This graphic from that page neatly summarizes how corporate cronyism works, at both the federal and state level:

Now the truth is out

... for anyone who still had doubt that the Occupiers were preaching Socialism. Note the Ché Guevara graphic...

Capitalism isn't the problem. Corporate cronyism with government is.

I wonder how the young lady will feel if she gets her way -- and then discovers that she will not be allowed to protest the new régime.

Virtual buckeye to Terri Lynn Dewell.

"Leftist intellectual" now an oxymoron

And I'm tempted to take the "oxy" off of that last word.

Years ago, during the Vietnam protests, the socialist intellectual was a force to be reckoned with. You had to be sharp to come up with good conservative arguments to counter their positions.

Forty years later, having mostly gotten their way, the left has gotten soft in the head, as evidenced by these "Occupiers" of Wall Street, as reported in Rebellion.

Exhibit A: 

Inteviewer: "Why should I pay your college tuition?"
Occupier: "I can say what I want!"

Uh, I need a stronger case than that, kid.Obviously you don't have the smarts to get a scholarship...

Exhibit B:

This dude was probably motivated by that childish retort to an insult, "It takes one to know one."

Exhibit C:
I'll have to quote Old Rebel himself on this one:

Gee, who said the Occupy "Fill in the blank" protesters were a little fuzzy about their goals? Oh, yeah, I said that.

Well, this should clear things up. First, this group of Occupiers protests the banks and their influence in the central government.

But this leader of the Occupiers goes ballistic when he sees an "End the Fed" sign and rips it up. (Warning: Language.) Um, the Federal Reserve is the mother of all banks -- it's a privately owned megabank that controls the money supply. Sounds like a whole lotta unaccountable power to me.

To summarize in three words: Dumb and Dumberer.

Quotation of the day

Common sense, actually (via Robert Owens, restating what I said Sept. 15):

Waters over the damn

Mohandas Gandhi, one of the wisest men of the last century, once said, "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

Evidently threatened by President Obama's plummeting approval ratings, and utterly unwilling to read the 6" high printing on the wall, the Congressional Black Caucus leadership has decided to start the attack phase against Tea Parties and other libertarian Americans.

Being one of those allegedly "racist" crackers myself, there isn't much I can say that would help, so I will defer to Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Allen West (R-Florida), as reported in The Hill:

Rep. West

"When you start using words such as lynching ... that's a reprehensible word and I think we should we should move away from that language." West said on "Fox & Friends."

"One of the things I'm starting to think about is reconsidering my membership in the Congressional Black Caucus, because I don't think they are moving in the right manner toward solving the problems in not just the black community, but all of America."

After making his comments, West sent a letter to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri), chairman of the CBC, demanding that he denounce comments by Carson and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California), At a town-hall meeting earlier this month, Waters said the Tea Party "can go straight to hell."

"I believe it is incumbent on you to both condemn these types of hate-filled ocmments, and to disassociate the Congressional Black Caucus from these types of remarks," West wrote. "Otherwise, I will have to seriously reconsider my membership within the organization."

West went on to argue that Carson's charges against the Tea Party were "racist."
"Congressman Carson's desire to generally criticize a large grassroots group as racist is baseless and desperate," West wrote. "When individuals believe they are defeated in a political disagreement, they normally resort to race-baiting, which in my opinion is itself racist."

Since Rep. Waters represents a district in Southern California, she might want to think about this.

Not to mention the contempt they are heaping on the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom they profess to idolize.

I can only imagine what the late Elizabeth Wright would have said about all this...

Southern Poverty Law Center puts Jason Rink on hate watch

Until now, I have had no quarrel with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

However, to put Michael Boldin at the Tenth Amendment Center and my friend Jason Rink (Foundation for a Free Society) on the Hatewatch list is... is... well, there is no word to convey just how ridiculous this is. The Hatewatch site also watches "anti-government" and militia sites, and is associating the TAC and Mr. Rink with them.

I have always been careful about the people I associate with in the liberty movement -- and there is no question in my mind that neither of them deserve this kind of treatment. They are not racists, and they have never advocated overthrow of the United States government by any means. To my knowledge, neither Mr. Boldin nor Mr. Rink are even secessionist.

The SPLC's modus operandi seems to be to find people with whom they disagree and to contrive a series of arguments and guilt-by-association tricks to persuade their followers that such people are dangerous racists or neo-Nazis.

I agree that some organizations on the Hatewatch list do indeed need to be watched. The SPLC likes to deride the John Birch Society for looking for Communists behind every bush, while ignoring the fact that they themselves are desperately searching for racists behind every bush. But to go after people who seek to change our country through lawful and peaceful means suggests that the SPLC is pursuing an agenda that is not limited to identifying hate groups, and the way they link those who favor lawful means to nullify federal laws to highly marginal militia groups ought to expose them to a libel suit. Or at least draw some hard questions from contributors who are concerned with the genuine hate groups.

Update May 3: Jason Rink comments with wit and style in The Liberty Voice.

The irony is almost too much

A few days ago, Texas Governor Rick Perry called for the people of his state to take this weekend to pray for rain.

Andrew Leonard, writing for Salon.com, finds this quite amusing. After all, we know for a fact that we are in global warming, don’t we?  And Texans in particular are such rubes, if one is to believe this paragraph:

[The proclamation] bring[s] us to an ironic crossroads, particularly insofar as God might be concerned. As befits the national headquarters of the energy industry, Texas has long been a flag bearer for climate skepticism, from the halls of Congress to the pages of public school textbooks. And just across the border in Oklahoma we have Sen. James Inhofe, perhaps the single most dedicated critic of climate science in the entire U. S. Congress. It's almost too classic -- let's ignore all the science that might help prepare us to confront the challenges of the future, and then, when disaster hits, we'll just do a rain dance! It's not like we're, uh, civilized or anything.

So I ask the good citizens of Texas to consider whether, as they bow their heads in prayer, they might not have it all backward. God isn't going to alleviate their misery. On the contrary, God is punishing them for their flagrant disregard of the human impact on his (or her) beauteous creation!

Mr. Leonard presents us with a stupendous display of intellectual arrogance: first, by asserting that “global warming” is a fact, not a theory; secondly, that he has some kind of inside knowledge of the nature of a God that he comes perilously close to making fun of; and thirdly, in thinking that people so unlike him could not possibly have an intellect. He laughs at religion, while he has the same kind of childlike faith in global warming that the Left charges the faithful of having in God – and very much like others on the Left have in evolution which, again, is only a theory, not a fact. **

Yes, I am taking offense – but beyond that, on Good Friday, it is deliciously ironic that he sounds so much like the crowds assembled in front of the Cross who jeered to Jesus, “He trusts in God, let God rescue him” (Matthew 27:43).

A God who has created the universe, given it life, and established it with the physical laws we have discovered through science is far too complex for human understanding – at least  for those humans who are wise enough to understand the limitations of intellect. The faithful speak of God in human terms, because it is the only way most of us have to communicate God’s nature. *

I respect the right of anyone to be an atheist, and certainly, that decision can be made in good conscience; but I have to ask: What makes you so certain? What if you’re wrong, and you finally find yourself face to face with the God you denied? Is it worth the risk? What does your common sense tell you?

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish (Psalm 1).

One more thing. For fifteen years, I was pulled down by depression, and there were times that I would have committed suicide, but for indecision as to how to do it. Only by accepting God’s grace could I recover; and only by continuing to accept His grace can I write this blog and speak boldly in defense of human freedom.  I find this Biblical truth to be literal: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Jesus was speaking about his teaching; but experience has shown me that the one who does not seek truth will be enslaved to those who would take advantage of their ignorance.

Make fun of such a power at your peril.

* “Most of us” because Buddhism and some other religions believe in a pure spiritual force which is not a God in the anthropomorphic sense that we envision Him in the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

** I define theory as an explanation for scientific observations. It cannot itself be a fact, because further observation may disprove it.

There is a right way and a wrong way to protest...

... and this definitely is the wrong way:




Since I am a secessionist who has no problem with singing a foreign national anthem, I have no problem with singing the Star-Spangled Banner, either (but I have it in my head that I _am_ singing a foreign national anthem). However, I do refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The way I express that is to remain seated and pray silently. If enough people would just remain seated and let everyone else sing or pledge, the growing numbers would get the message through much more effectively and much less offensively.

Don't believe dis information

NewsBusters has a video of a speech made by Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, in which he asserts to a student audience at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh that FoxNews habitually lies to the American people, and is not really a news organization, but a "a very expensive, incredibly well-funded, right-wing propaganda organization." (Comment by FoxNews's Greta Van Susteren)

Standard liberal rhetoric. But then he compounds his error by telling four obvious lies of his own:

1. "The top one percent of Americans owns twice as much as the percentage of America than they did 20 years ago, and that of course has to come from somebody else, and it comes from the people who aren't in the top one percent." Liberals see the economy as a zero-sum game. To them, wealth cannot be created, only taken from those who are less wealthy. Ever hear of investments, Howard? I'd even bet that he has some himself.
2. Mr. Dean claims that the Republicans controlled Congress for six years while George W. Bush was President. In fact, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress less than 4½ years, in part because a Senator from Mr. Dean's home state of Vermont, Jim Jeffords, switched from Republican to an independent usually voting with the Democrats.
3. He then claims that more people under 35 voted in the 2008 Presidential election, than people over 35. The truth? According to CNN exit polls, 64% of voters in that election were 40 or older.
4. Finally, he claims that charter schools were invented by Southern whites to perpetuate segregation. The truth is, charter schools originated in Massachusetts in 1988, when Prof. Ray Budde suggested that small groups of teachers be given contracts or "charters" by their local school boards to explore new approaches. Even the not-so-ultra-right-wing New York Times agrees with this.

We are locked in a war for the very souls of the American people, and as we all know, "in war, truth is the first casualty" (Aeschuylus). We also know that only "the truth will make us free" (John 8:32). We must all have the knowledge to identify the lies when we hear them, and the courage to publicly resist them.