Trouncing CREDO With Capitalism

CREDO is the name of a political activist organization that has replaced ACORN.

It has an nice web site---http://www.workingforchange.com/ Using only black and a soft blue-green pastel, it looks fresh and clean and invites easy reading without many distracting colors, boxes and bars. The layout is simple and easily navigated, the content is provided in a good size font easy to read.

On the left side of the site is a list of current events with brief paragraphs stating what CREDO is against or for, and includes admonitions to take various actions. On the right side of the site is a feature entitled "Mobile CREDO."

Here's an overview of some of the "issues" on the site. The lead paragraph links to a blog entitled "Praying for Palin." The blog post is a sanctimoniously cowardly attack blaming Mrs. Palin for the Tucson shooting. The site writer then hops to filibuster reform, then abortion, then declares that "We must put a stop to the escalating hate rhetoric of the right and its very specific calls to armed violent act." Then back to filibuster reform, to the riots in Egypt, to bashing John Boehner and the Tea parties. Next it's the Koch brothers "and their Tea Party funding cabal," then over to "U.S. evangelicals spreading hate in Uganda," and on to the Chamber of Commerce. And so forth and so on.

The funniest statement on this site is the charge that Ayn Rand "secretly applied for Medicare and Social Security." The statement is, of course, merely the writer's public announcement of the absence of gray matter between his own ears.

The Left's "argument" boils down to the claim that those who were forced to pay into a system over which they had no say and no control may not request return of their money in the form of Social Security payments, nor seek redress of funds through Medicare. In other words, the robbed has no right to request a return of his money from the robber.

To the Leftists, to want your money back "contradicts" your view that Social Security and government health care is wrong. That point of view certainly squares with Leftist's philosophy, which is that only those who did not pay into the system should be given government money.

As in almost everything else, Leftists do not have a grasp of principles. Their frantic demand to be taken care of has caused in them a serious break with reality. The extent of that break is evident in CREDO's harangues to run from "crisis" to "crisis." Let them.

Meanwhile, those of us who advocate individual rights, limited government and free-markets will make significant strides. How? By showing people how capitalism works, and that it is for them as individuals---not as a nest of ants.

I started doing that on Twitter some months ago. I was surprised that the number of followers jumped from zero per day to 2 a day. A lot of people are interested in learning how capitalism works and why it's the only moral system devised by man.

Here are some Tweets I posted in the past and will be posting in the future:

Capitalism allows men to rise by choice---not by force--to whatever level they can. The ambitious create large markets.

The welfare state hampers the ambitious through regulation.

In capitalism, small businesses proliferate, supported by large businesses. Support industries surrounding large companies are an example.

The welfare state hinders small business employment by taking money from the able to give to the less able, thus encouraging stagnation.

Capitalism frees men to function to the best of their ability.

The welfare state penalizes the able through regulation and progressive taxes and forces the less able into dependency.

To phase out gov't interference in the economy and to phase in capitalism, the first step is to de-regulate.

---End Tweets-------

FYI: An acquaintance of mine reminded me of the following quote, which identifies a principle that is applicable to many contexts. Because I have touched on differences between capitalism and the welfare state, it is highly appropriate here.

“The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.” --- St. Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274, Italian Scholastic Philosopher and Theologian

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Ideas and the Coming Election

Polls measuring the political concerns of grassroots Americans consistently show that a majority is "extremely angry about government intrusion into personal lives." Despite that finding, a parochial, anti-conceptual view of politics predominates among political party officials, politicians and candidates.

For instance, as the Tea Party movement was born in March 2009 discussion groups proliferated around the nation. Grassroots Democrats, Republicans and Independents, candidates for political office, ranking political party officers attended the meetings. So did many activists, bloggers and Tea Party supporters. The discussions tended to revolve around political corruption, excessive spending, budget deficits, the bailouts, government take-overs, and so forth. Grassroots attendees seemed to be looking for something that would tie together all of their concerns.

But when one stated that the growing intrusion into American lives shows that "we must demand a restoration of individual rights," political party officials and political candidates declared that "Voters are turned off by that philosophical stuff." One candidate said, "The only way you can get elected is to talk about fiscal accountability and transparency. Talking about ideas is a waste of time. Philosophical ideas are too abstract. People don't understand them. What they understand is their pocketbook."

Such fatuous remarks reveal the magnitude of the speaker's ignorance. Bookstores are doing a booming business selling books that deal with ideas. For example, "Total sales of Ayn Rand's novels reached 1.1 million in 2009.
. . . Nearly half of those total sales were Atlas Shrugged," a novel that deals with philosophical ideas. During the first quarter of 2010, sales had not slowed. Her non-fiction work, such as the Virtue of Selfishness, is also reaching new highs in sales. Libraries have long wait lists for books that deal with ideas. Bloggers dealing with ideas have good-size followings. Articles posted on the net by columnists who deal with ideas generate hundreds of comments. Talk radio has grown large, with steady audiences. The questions phoned in are predominately thoughtful.

The majority of American voters characteristically have worked hard all their lives to improve themselves financially and intellectually. One does not improve oneself financially and intellectually by reading exclusively the comics, the society page or the tabloids. Americans are looking for ideas.

They know it is not right for government to confiscate their money and give it to those who have not earned it. What idea makes them know that such action is robbery? The right to property. They know that it is not right for government to set salaries. What idea gives substance to that knowledge? The right to life. They know it is not right for government to demand homeowners have a license to sell their home. What idea is behind that? The right to property and liberty.

Rights are the foundation of our Republic and of men's well being. Only the restoration of our rights can stop the descent into collectivism---and it does not matter if you call it socialism, progressivism, fascism or communism, all are expressions of collectivism, the fundamental political principle guiding the Obama government.

The opposite of collectivism is individualism. Morally, individualism is the doctrine that says man has the right to live for his own sake. Politically, it espouses the individual's right to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Economically, it results in the free-market. Under individualism, men are free to pursue the shape and meaning of their own happiness as long as they do not violate another's rights. Under individualism, men are free to choose the work that interests them, earning their own way, minding their own business, helping those they wish to help. These are some of the aspects of individual rights that need to be discussed, advocated and made the center of a political platform.

The political party that does, will be the winning party in 2010 and in 2012 will sweep the collectivists out of office. The candidates who do, will be statesmen returning this country to the land of freedom it once stood for.

Alinsky & Obama

Recently I finished reading Rules for Revolution, by David Horowitz.* There, Mr. Horowitz discusses to some extent Saul Alinksy's influence on Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton. But his main thesis is identifying some aspects of Alinsky's goal to destroy the United States---as discussed in Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.

Alinsky is not a philosopher. He is a political activist who holds the same premises of every collectivist. He believes that the individual and his work belong to the group. He goes farther. He seeks to destroy everything in the name of establishing heaven on earth. In other words, Alinsky is a nihilist.

Ayn Rand identified Herbert Marcuse as the philosopher behind the 1960 uprisings. But unknown to most, including the media, Alinsky was training those who were at the forefront of police-baiting, street riots, campus destructiveness and howling down university speakers. All the while, he successfully stayed in the background during the 1960 upheavals.

Mr. Horowitz reports that Alinsky was the friend and student of the notorious gangster Frank Netti, Al Capone's first lieutenant. Putting to use what he learned from Netti, Alinsky began to organize and train community leaders in Chicago, himself participating in that city's political corruption. Years later, he trained Barack Obama, said to have been his star pupil.

As President, Obama has placed Alinsky followers in key positions, some as "czars," un-elected, un-appointed---and therefore unquestioned through congressional hearings---accountable to no one.

Mr. Obama has flawlessly absorbed Alinsly's teachings, one of which is the technique to never say what you mean, always evade the entire context, never identify your actual goals. As an Alinsky student, for instance, if you bow to a foreign ruler, you know your motive is to belittle the country you represent. But you do not admit that. If you apologize for your country's alleged wrongs, you must ignore the wrongs done to your country. But never admit this. If you criticize a loyal ally, you must never admit you do so to destroy that alliance. Your wife can help out. For instance, if she calls Americans "mean-spirited," she must evade knowledge of their unmatched generosity. If she is proud of your country only because Americans elected Alinsky's student, she must never admit that that is what is meant.

The truth does not matter. Facts do not matter. The only thing that matters is how much you can get away with. You can spend $7,000 "out of your own pocket"---a pocket filled by taxpayers---to buy your children a swing set but express indignation that some executives are paid bonuses for work performed.

You can let your wife and children use Air Force One---a jet owned by the American public---to shop in Paris and go to lunch in London but chastise distinguished American executives for flying in their private jets to a Washington D.C. meeting.

You can encourage hatred of the rich while confiscating middle class wealth. You can agitate distrust between unions and management. You can take over banks and large companies in the name of the employed, while "saving" financial institutions by inflating the currency.

The goal is to destroy trust, to undermine cooperation, to confuse those who like you and to obliterate those who do not. As Alinsky taught: "The issue is not the issue. The issue is the revolution." And the revolution is to polarize Americans, wreck the American economy, reduce the United States to poverty by destroying the rich and giving political power to the "Have Nots." The technique is not original to Alinsky, or Obama.

Consider the murderous havoc of the French Terror, for instance. Or recall the slaughter of millions and the suffering of the Russian people under the Soviet Communists. Remember the Nazi Holocaust. That is what happens when the desire for prosperity is called "greed" and a man's refusal to earn his own way is said to "entitle " him to the worker's paycheck.

Although neither Alinsky nor his student Obama would ever admit it, the refusal to earn your own way is the mark of the "Have Nots;" earning your own way is the mark of the Haves.

What is it the "Haves" have? Money. Property. Where does money and property come from? From economic power. From the power of thought, of ideas, of putting ideas to work, of creating jobs and making money and earning a living.

What is it that the "Have Nots" have not? Political power. What is political power? It is not influence. It is not wealth or others' approval or admiration or a large following ready and willing to do your bidding. The essence of political power is the gun. It is the gun that the "Have Nots" will be given. The power of the gun will physically coerce the "Haves" to obey the "Have Nots" and the "Have Nots" will be ruled by irrationality. The result is heaven on earth.

The destruction of a civilization is not the nuking of many cities. It is a gun in the hands of the thoughtless, which make laws and enforces them.

Whatever happens on November 2, 2010 will indicate whether we have time to re-vitalize the principles and the ideals of our Founding Fathers---or not.

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*David Horowitz will be the speaker at an Albuquerque Tea Party event in May 2010. For details access www.abqteaparty.com

A Comment on Rational Egoism

Rational egoism refers to an entire ethical system originated by Ayn Rand. The system rests on the recognition that man's means of survival is his mind. It identifies the ruling values a man should hold and the virtues his life requires.

In essence, rational egoism recognizes that in order to support his life, man must think. He must figure out what he needs (his values) in order to live, and how to gain them (his virtues). The rational egoist is the individual who recognizes that he must exert intellectual and physical effort in order to survive and that it is good and right for him to keep and dispose of the result of his efforts as he chooses.

An essential aspect of Ayn Rand's ethics is the nature and meaning of the self. Miss Rand's view of the self is revolutionary. For millennium all religions and all ethical systems, have viewed the self as born sinful, evil by nature and pre-determined. The self, it was asserted, must be whipped and controlled by the state or religious authorities in order to curb, if not crush, vicious thoughts and demonic actions. Such a view of the self is in essence the Nietzschean brute, the only difference being that Nietzsche said such a creature is good, while other ethical systems said such a creature is bad. In all cases, the self was commanded to live for others in order to be moral. And if one did not choose to live for others, the state and/or the church saw to it that one was forced to do so. The initiation of force, inherent in any advocacy that man must live for others, was thus made into a moral good.

Miss Rand, in contrast, showed that the self is that aspect of the individual that thinks and judges and chooses and acts, and that the self is formed by one's own choices and actions. One's choices and actions reflect the thinking one has done, or has not.

Concern with one's choices and actions is concern with one's own interests, which means one cares about one's life and its quality. To be concerned with one's own interest on a fundamental level is to be concerned with one's own estimate of the moral stature of one's self, which is egoism. To evade such concern is to be guided by other's say-so, which is anti-egoism, or as Miss Rand's coined description: the second hander.

A fascinating dramatization of the essential qualities of the rational self is Howard Roark in The Fountainhead. The abstract meaning of the self is neatly summed by Gayle Wynand, in the same novel, during the battle over Cortland Homes.

Ideas and Politics

It is not unusual to hear politicians express contempt for philosophical ideas while simultaneously claiming they are Progressives and Pragmatist---as if those words did not give title to volumes of philosophical ideas---each resting upon the most lethal premise in man’s history.

While many Republicans---conservative and liberal alike---steep themselves in social issues of highly charged emotionality, such as abortion, they evade or ignore fundamental ideas. Some fail to distinguish between concretes and fundamentals completely, thus disarming themselves for a battle that requires intellectual clarity and moral certitude.

Fundamental ideas give rise to, make possible and color every concrete with which an individual deals. To evade or ignore them is to invite disaster. That’s what has happened to the Republican Party. They have for too long mouthed the same Democrat pap that we’ve heard scores of times. If the Democrats, for instance, say they want to provide universal health care, the Republicans do not denounce such a flagrant attack on individual rights. Instead they say, “Yes, we do too, but not your way.” On this issue as on every other, the Republicans are on the same page with the Democrats, singing the same tune, using the same chords, merely in a different key.

Some politicians claim that voters are not interested in ideas. This is patently false. The grassroots assuredly are interested in ideas, as witness the avalanche of interest in Ayn Rand’s books---which deal exclusively with the dramatization of ideas. American voters are not indifferent to ideas as the lines at libraries, the sales in bookstores and the explosion of blogs attests. At present they are looking for ideas more eagerly than ever before.

The Republican Party has said that it wants to figure out how to re-invigorate the GOP. They can do it if they throw out collectivist ideas. This will disassociate the party from past mistakes. In lieu of discarded collectivism, the GOP should rally Americans to the restoration of individual rights, the only effective way to counteract the Obama government's collectivist assault on the American people. The restoration of our individual rights protects our freedoms, makes possible limited government, and leads to capitalism.

The grassroots recognizes the validity and importance of the right to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They understand the connection between their individual rights and their choice of work, keeping what they earn, disposing of their income as they see fit, choosing their own doctor and paying their own way. They are fully aware that when one takes from the producer/earner to give to the non-earner, one is depleting savings. They know that reducing savings reduces investment in productive enterprises, which chokes growth, which reduces the standard of living.

Collectivism holds that the individual exists for the state. For decades Democrats have advocated taking from the earner and giving to the non-earner. They have advocated enforced unionization, enforced medical care, enforced social security, enforced public education, enforced business regulation. Obama’s Administration has crystallized this practice.

The grassroots has been clearly shown the irresponsible spending that blasts through the stratosphere, the disastrous regulations and take-overs of companies, the harassment and intimidation of businessmen, the support of corrupt union leaders against the membership, the appeasement of our enemies and the snubbing of our allies, the attempts at “fishy” censorship, and now, recently, the attempt to shut down free expression on the net. They have been told the topsy-turvy collectivist line that a rich nation is a bad nation, that producers/earners are demonical threats to society, that those who create jobs are exploitative, that dissent is unpatriotic (now, but wasn't during the 1960s), that supporting countries that deserve it is intolerant but kissing thugs and bowing to savage rulers is sensitive diplomacy.

The preceding are all concrete expressions of a fundamental idea: statism. Statism is the culmination of collectivism, the rule of brute force, in which the state is supreme, the individual subservient to the ruler in all respects and instances. Statism is the complete destruction of the individual and his rights.

To stop the Obama Administration’s giddy plunge toward statism, the Republican Party would be foolish---and self-destructive---not to join the grassroots and commit itself to the restoration of individual rights. The GOP could seek no greater re-generation than to re-establish the abstract ideas this country was founded on: individual rights, limited government and capitalism, and their concrete social expression, our constitutional freedoms: freedom of speech, of press, of assembly, of worship, and to keep and bear arms.

Collectivists say might makes right. But it does not. Rights make right. If the Republican Party wants to be a viable political party, they must self-righteously proclaim the practical virtue of individual rights, a moral principle that assures peace and prosperity. Nothing more than this is needed. Nothing short of this will win.

The Undisclosed Danger of Government Health Care

Government health care is not concerned with patients. Politicians' interest is primarily focused on the productive---in the U.S., about one-third the population. Government has no income other than what it confiscates from the productive. So, promises of "affordable health care" depend on the able while devouring life from them. In other words, parasitism.

Some people seem oblivious to this. A man wrote on Twitter, "I'm a socialist and proud of it." Whatever he may feel about being a socialist, pride is not a virtue possible to a looter and a parasite. Blood lust is.

State planning demands obedience. For example, Organizing for America held a meeting in Belen, New Mexico on government health care. OFA would not allow any expression of opposition. They told dissenters to "Sit down!"-meaning: "and shut up!" They became angry when questioned. They spoke to one of the dissenters using coarse language. They put obscene notes in other dissenters' vehicles and ignored those who complained about such conduct.

Such creatures abound in government health care. It is common knowledge, for instance, that those in state-run sanitariums, asylums, and senior care centers are sickeningly abused. Little is done about it. The government is in charge.

Interfering with impunity in other people's lives and property is characteristic of those who advocate government health care. Some time ago, Wal-Mart announced its support of socialized medicine. It wrote, "[T]he best way to lower costs is by managing the supply chain [meaning the medical professions] and encouraging efficiencies of scale [meaning medical rationing]."

"Managing" those who aren't employed by you is a euphemism for violating others' individual rights. Those who took over Sam Walton's extraordinary achievement are helping to destroy what made it possible. They are evading the importance of individual rights, which protects private property and promotes innovative thinking.

They're not the only ones evading facts. The AARP declares "need is a right," while seeking to deny rights to those they plan to force to fill those needs. But need is not a right. No one has a right to other peoples' work and effort wrested from them by force-legalized or not. Yet the AARP says force is a proper means of dealing with individuals. They say might makes right.

So does Mr. Obama. He declared that he will set doctors' fees based not on how many patients the doctor treats, not on his specialty, not on how many hours he works, but on the patient's improvement. Mr. Obama evidently does not grasp that medical problems characteristically are replete with numerous variables and that results of medical treatment are not as predictable as sunrises. Should we trust such stupefying ignorance?

Mr. Obama has no understanding of the free market. In a free-market, the patient judges a doctor's performance, not a politician. If the patient is dissatisfied with the doctor's performance, he can sue for malpractice. He can seek out another doctor. He can persuade others to boycott the doctor and drive him out of business. He can write to newspapers describing the doctor's performance. He can complain to whatever associations the doctor is a member of.

Government health care offers no alternatives. The state dictates. The doctor must obey. And so must the patient. Like the doctor, the patient under government health care is frozen into a system that is riddled with irrational requirements dreamed up by politicians and their lackeys. The dream revolves around control of the able.

Whether doctor, businessman, blue or white-collar worker, it is the able that make life worth living. It is the able that stand with the facts of reality against fallacies and falsehoods. It is the able that earn the money that pay politicians salaries. It is the able that politicians seek to control.

Government officials seek to force their edicts between doctor and patient, declaring that their force is superior to your choice. They seek to insert ignorance and suspicion between knowledge and trust, declaring that their say-so is superior to a physician's knowledge and judgment honed by medical experience, and to a patient's evaluation and decision.

But the mind cannot be ruled by force. Those that can, are incapable of creating anything. They can only destroy. Such minds are those of thugs and goons, the lowest ranks of society.

Thought does not function efficaciously under threats. Minds that are able, shut down under force or the threat of force. In medicine, force discourages interest in a medical career. The number of doctors declines; the quality of medicine follows suit. Research and development becomes sluggish, eventually ceasing altogether. This is the undisclosed danger of government health care.

Destroying another's rights does not guarantee health care. A right yoked to a bureaucrat's whim is not a right. "A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context." (Ayn Rand, "Man's Rights.") To destroy one man's rights is to destroy all men's rights. To destroy the rights of doctors and patients is to turn a nation into warring camps and those needing medical attention into numbers on a waiting list.

Either doctors are free to work unfettered by government edict or they are not. Either we are free to choose our doctor or we are not. Either each of us is free to earn our own way, keep what we earn and decide how to dispose of it, or we relinquish that freedom to government officials---which means, we relinquish our individual rights of life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

America At A Crossroads

Today's political mix includes liberal and conservative Republicans, and liberal and conservative Democrats. The Republican and Democrat tags no longer accurately identify political doctrine. The designations liberal and conservative have also changed from their original meaning.

Today's liberalism is a perversion of Classical Liberalism, which stressed the essential goodness and rationality of man and his ability to recognize and solve problems, all of which led to systematic improvement in man's life, exemplified by the Enlightenment.

The corruption began in 1848. Karl Marx and Friedich Engels, ignoring the vast improvements the Enlightenment made possible, argued that the state should advance the welfare of individuals. Since the state has no income except by taxing those who produce, those who produce were sentenced to provide for those who did not, violating the rights of producers.

The corruption spread in the 1930s when Roosevelt signed into law the minimum wage, progressive taxation, Social Security and established Fannie Mae to provide low-interest mortgages. Classical Liberalism was dead. Liberalism and the welfare state became one: socialism.

Conservatism originally supported limited government and free enterprise. But it also held that political, social and religious institutions represented ageless wisdom and that the source of individual rights were "gifts from God," not man's nature. Rights, therefore, were considered privileges meted out in obedience to God.

The communist victory in Russia disarmed conservatives. They recognized that their own views did not contradict communism. Politically "You are your brother's keeper" was collectivism. Seeking to disassociate themselves from communism, conservative patriotism devolved into "my country right or wrong." By 2008, John McCain solidified this view explicitly with the campaign slogan "Country First," stressing duty and placing the group above the individual: nationalism.

In the decades following World War II, liberal and conservative doctrine continued to draw closer. Both attempted to defend the nation against communism using questionable methods. During the 1950s, conservatives used abrasive, sometimes intrusive investigative methods. In the 1960s liberals attempted to assassinate a communist head of state.

During his inauguration speech John F. Kennedy, sounded the conservatives nationalist theme scolding Americans to "Ask what you can do for your country," then in his liberal role doubled the number of government regulatory agencies. Two decades later, conservative Ronald Reagan continued Kennedy's big government policies and signed Affirmative Action into law, violating the rights of businessmen by telling them whom to hire.

In 1965, liberal Lyndon Johnson established Medicare and Medicaid, violating the rights of doctors, the medical profession and those requiring its services. In 2003 conservative George W. Bush violated another large segment of the medical profession with the Prescription Drug Act.

By such actions as these and many, many more, conservatism and liberalism merged to become nationalist-socialism, hardly distinguishable from each other in their violations of individual rights.

Nationalist-socialism is fascism, a form of collectivism that shuns individual rights and the division of political power, leading to dictatorship. Fascism is government ownership of the means of production, with private enterprise ordered to do the work and take responsibility for it.

In 1970, Lyndon Johnson re-structured Fannie Mae, then added Freddie Mac, exempting both from taxation and oversight. Currently, Freddie and Fannie Mae---i.e. the government---control 90 percent of the nation's secondary mortgage market. Today, a government-created financial crisis is blamed on "greedy" businessmen and "capitalism," while the government orders CEOs to resign and to conceal vital information from shareholders.

Liberals claim they are not socialist. They merely want to force rich people to feed poor people. But individual rights determined by other people's wishes are not rights.

Conservatives claim they are not theocratic nationalists. They merely want to force people to do their duty to church and state. But rights dictated according to a group's desires are not rights.

Liberals claim they do not seek to violate individual rights---except when the violation is for a cause they deem "good," such as forcing men to practice socialized medicine. But rights restricted by some people's needs are not rights.

Conservatives claim they do not seek to violate individual rights---except when the violation is for a cause they consider morally sound, such as forcing women to have children they do not want. But rights predicated on the assumption of women's inferior status to force them into unchosen actions are not rights.

"A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context." [Ayn Rand, "Man's Rights"] To claim that a moral principle is at the mercy of another's wish is blasphemous. Rights do not include the "right" to violate another's rights---no matter what the need, wish, demand, or assumption.

America has been pushed toward a cross roads where she must choose between force and freedom, between government edict and individual rights. If we choose freedom and rights then we must dismantle the welfare state and abjure fascism. In place of the welfare state we must establish genuine free enterprise for once---Laissez-faire capitalism---which means protection of individual rights and limited government. Nothing short of this will free us. Nothing more than this is worth fighting for.
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Suggested Reading:
Ayn Rand, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Tea Parties - America's New Direction?

On April 15, 2009 Tea Parties protesting the government's fiscal irresponsibility took place throughout the nation. A second Tea Party is being planned for July 4.

Rejecting socialism, Tea Party participants are acting fundamentally on the principle of individual rights. It is right to earn a living. It is wrong to give our earnings to those who don’t. It is right to benefit from one’s own efforts and actions. It is wrong to "bail out" companies which the government caused to fail in the first place, then make us pay for the government's mistakes.

Government-created Fannie and Freddie Mae unleashed Barney Frank's "Affordable Housing" program and pressured banks and insurance companies to give loans and coverage to those who could not afford it. Yet the government claims that capitalism has failed and more government intervention is required. But the present economic system is not capitalism and it is not free.

We live in a "mixed economy"---one with some freedom and many controls. We are still free to start a business, but not free to run it the way we see fit. Government regulations presently control every size business on every level---federal, state and city. We are still free to own some property and visit stores of our choice, but the government controls and regulates virtually every product and service we buy, including entertainment, energy, land, fuel and the air waves.

We have been misinformed about the nature of an economic system that is founded on the individual's right to his own life, to benefit from his own effort, to dispose of what he earns as he chooses. We have been misled about an economic system that despite continuous government interference has resulted in the creation of the richest nation on earth, filled with the most generous individuals on earth. It is an economic system that has been vilified, maligned, distorted and made the scapegoat of every government failure and disaster caused by government regulation since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. That system is capitalism.

"Capitalism," novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand wrote, "is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."

In a completely free society, the government's role is solely to protect individual rights. It leaves men free to produce or not as they choose, to work to the best of their ability or not as they choose, to trade with others, to benefit from their own effort, to save and invest and support charities as they choose.

But over many decades government has increasingly violated our rights and eroded our freedom. Today we are seeing the culmination of that erosion in an open assault on individual freedom. Kennedy's bill, for instance, to make "volunteerism" mandatory for all Americans, from children to seniors, is as flagrant a contradiction in terms as it is a blatant attack on individual rights of life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

To safeguard the individual and thereby the nation, men must be left free to think and act and work without government controls and regulations. Tea Parties may be the catalyst that will help to shift our country toward a genuinely free and morally sound direction. They may be the beginning of a grass roots movement to tell government to leave us alone. Get out of our lives. Limit government. Protect individual rights. Let us implement a truly free enterprise system of economics. Let us for once practice genuine laissez-faire capitalism.

Suggested Reading:
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal
Ayn Rand, Philosophy Who Needs It

The Bumpy Road to Individualism - Conclusion

By the end of the Italian Renaissance the battle remained horrifically one-sided. Collectivism is the political expression of altruism, i.e., that each man should live for others. Altruism is a known and widely accepted moral code. It has been the foundation of the world's religions for over two thousand years.

Individualism had no explicit moral base. Those who attempted to ground it in the self, or the ego, corrupted the meaning of the self, the ego and individualism. Nietzsche's view, for instance, of the egoist as a destructive brute determined to achieve his own ends without regard for means and indifferent to human misery is the widely accepted view of selfishness, of egoism and of individualism. To change that view, certain crucial questions had to be raised and answered to establish the factual base of the science of ethics, which would give substance to egoism and to individualism. But for over 400 years no one knew the right questions to ask. Meanwhile the battle between implicit individualism and collectivist raged.

In art history, the baroque period (1550 to 1750) follows the Italian Renaissance. In many ways baroque art reflects the same conflicts that troubled the Renaissance. In the visual arts---the swirling drapery and disturbed poses in sculpture, the sometimes overly ornate curving forms in architecture, the clash between so-called "Romanticism" and Classicism in painting---indicated the fermenting undercurrents, which continued to swell without resolution. The same powerful stirrings were also taking place in music and literature.

Given the two hundred years attributed to the baroque, its expression in Italian art was understandably much different from its expression in, say, the art of England or Holland at a later date. Yet a common thread linked them. The philosophical underpinning of the times was in flux and men's actions showed it. It's not surprising, therefore, that the characteristic that defines the essential meaning of the period was agitation---agitation in thought, agitation in action, agitation in values and goals.

Agitation was evident in the long-brewing controversies preceding the Protestant Reformation. But it had nothing to do with individual men's personal relation to their religion. Rather, it was like a family squabble over methodology, a conflict among mystic tribalists who shared the same basic view of man. The individual continued to be viewed as merely an undifferentiated part of a group. Agitation preceded the reign of Elizabeth I (1533-1603) much of which she inherited and resolved to the benefit and glory of England. Nonetheless, the essence of the individual's relationship to the state did not change. He remained a subject, servant to the state.

Agitation colored the exploration and settlement of the New World. Thousands of men were leaving the Old World to make a new life on an uncharted continent. While Church and state forced collectivism upon the New World, agitation continued between the individual and the group in the Old as Dutch financial establishments worked to seed numerous business enterprises struggling to disentangle themselves from the guild system.

Amidst this turmoil John Locke (1632-1704) completed his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It was published in 1690. In the same year his Two Treatises on Civil Government was also published. This, Locke's political philosophy, is among the most crucial works in man's history. Locke argued that all men were equal before the law, that each man had inalienable rights of life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that possession of these rights obligated a man to not violate the rights of others. His work heralded in the Enlightenment in England, which then spread to the continent and across the Atlantic to the New World. There, Locke's ideas were the rock upon which the United States was born. His views comprised the first explicit identification of individual rights. And it turned the collective view of man on its ear.

Politically, the concept of individualism is the doctrine that government exists for the individual and that government's only role is to protect individual rights. Economically, individualism is expressed by laissez-faire capitalism, which entails limited government. Socially, individualism is the recognition that the individual is the primary unit of action. He may choose to cooperate with others, but it is understood that no man can think for another as no man can digest another's food. A man may persuade other men to work for him, to help him realize an idea. But in all cases, each man is an autonomous, sovereign unit of thought and action. Therefore, a particular form of government is required to protect and defend individual rights.

Locke's brilliant achievement and America's Founding Fathers' valiant implementation of his ideas combined to form a government for the people and by the people: a government to serve the individual, to insure individual freedom by protecting individual rights. For the first time in history---for a dazzling but all too brief period---the individual was recognized as the proper center of government. The see-saw between individualism and collectivism began a shaky back and forth teeter with individualism on a slow upswing although still badly weighted by mistaken perceptions.

The upswing was the torrent of productive energy that Locke's ideas unleashed. The United States entered into one of the most extraordinary periods in man's history. For about one hundred years individual rights were protected with little government interference. The result was increasing productivity and prosperity as Americans created the richest nation in history and the most generous people on earth. The benevolence that is the result of freedom achieved through the protection of individual rights vindicated Locke's deep conviction that man by nature was good.

But the Constitution included some grave errors. The errors led to a steady erosion of individual rights. Through those errors individualism was in continual jeopardy.

Although the preamble to the Constitution has no political power, two phrases in it allowed collectivists to gain unjustified power over American citizens. Those two phrases are "We the people" and "promote the general welfare." The first has been interpreted to augment Federal government power, draining state power. The second has been interpreted to justify welfare programs and the Federal government's authority over same.

Both interpretations commit the fallacy of dropping the context of man's rights. If one holds individual rights sovereign "We the people" simply refers to the voluntary agreement of individuals to cooperate for a specific purpose. It is merely a re-statement of the fact that "the people" is composed of individuals. It is not a license to subordinate the individual to the collective.

In a similar way, only by dropping the context can the phrase "promote the general welfare" be used to justify destruction of individual rights. It is precisely the protection of individual rights that promotes the general welfare. "Promoting the general welfare" is merely a re-stating that the government's job is to protect individual rights, not usurp them.

The third error is the so-called commerce clause, Article 1, Section 8, in particular point 3: "The Congress shall have the power . . . to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes . . ." Although many other points in Section 8 permit government intervention in the economy, it was point 3 that allowed collectivists to legislate laws that hamper free enterprise and expand Federal power. Article 1, Section 8 became the battleground for and against increased regulation of business.

Aided by the errors in the U.S. Constitution, European rulers also inspired collectivists' goals. Between 1883 and 1887 Bismark inaugurated the welfare state as a weapon against his enemies. Less than thirty years later, the Federal Reserve in the United States (1913) was established. It was a powerful blow against the rights of bankers and all who dealt with bankers, which meant of course every individual who had an account with a bank, invested in stock or dealt with those who did. Legislating how banks should operate was the collectivists means of controlling the life-blood of the nation.

By 1917 collectivists took over the government of Russia. Over two million peasants were slaughtered to force agrarian collectives. In the cities, the life's work of countless individuals was taken over in the name of the re-distribution of wealth. As Russians were herded together to march in celebration of collectivism's triumph, they were starving---like hundreds of thousands more throughout the Soviet Union.

The collectivist tsunami swept across the European continent. Money was printed by the truckload to fund welfare programs. By 1923 a widespread, exceptionally severe inflationary depression crushed the German people, setting the stage for the rise of German fascism.

In 1929, the United States entered what has become known as the Great Depression, an economic disaster caused by the Federal Reserve's "easy money policies." The manipulation of the money supply without goods and/or services to back the printed dollars resulted in expansion of credit without any backing, installment buying without any concern for repayment and wild speculation in the stock market. Nothing could contain the empty dollars. And nothing did. The economy collapsed.

During the 1930s the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt sunk America deeper into the welfare state. The government interfered more often and more deeply in more businesses and more markets. Collectivism was on a binge, flying high, its praises sung almost everywhere while people suffered and prosperity declined. Nothing seemed able to stop it.

One individual alone rose to challenge collectivism. One individual alone saw the fundamental cause for the continual victories of collectivism and of the inability of individualism to combat it. One individual without allies, without great wealth, without social or political connections saw the missing ingredient that individualism desperately needed to sustain itself and forge a proper foundation for a free society.

In 1934, a book entitled We the Living was published for the first time. It was the work of a young woman who had emigrated from the Soviet Union to become an American citizen. It was published in Italian and Mussolini thought it was an attack on his enemies; so, he permitted its circulation. When someone in his gang observed that the novel was stirring individuals against his regime, he ordered it taken out of circulation. We the Living is a novel showing the destructiveness of all forms of totalitarianism.

In 1943, in the midst of the Second World War, Ayn Rand, the author of We the Living, finally found a publisher for her second novel The Fountainhead. The beginning of a significant turnaround toward individualism was launched. It was a slow beginning. Advertising for The Fountainhead was modest and restrained. Only one critic saw its monumental importance. The novel, dramatizing the value of individualism and the source of creative thought, was made into a movie. It was not highly promoted. Nonetheless, sales of the novel continued and remained steady. In 1958, Miss Rand's masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged, was published. Left and right, liberals and conservatives alike, all attacked the book. Altruists/collectivists at root, they saw the threat of Atlas Shrugged.

Nonetheless, the novel found a receptive audience. The audience was comprised largely of those who were NOT politicians, media, or college professors. Interest in Miss Rand's work grew yearly. Today Atlas Shrugged is at the top of the literary marketplace.

Ayn Rand raised and answered basic questions regarding man's moral code. She identified the proper standard of the good and identified the moral code at the base of individualism. It is the ethics of rational self-interest---also known as rational egoism---or as she titled one of her non-fiction works, The Virtue of Selfishness. Miss Rand demonstrated that selfishness is concern with one's own interests, that according to man's nature as a rational, volitional being his interests are shaped by the fundamental values of reason, purpose and self-esteem and that his actions are guided by virtues in keeping with those fundamental values. Rational selfishness is the necessary and essential foundation of capitalism. Laissez-faire capitalism requires the free exercise of one's rights, which is individualism.

Individualism has been given a mighty leg up.

Yet the struggle continues. On the one hand, big government corruption and fiscal irresponsibility are causing many Americans to recognize that collectivism is an effort to enslave them. On the other hand, collectivists are exploiting Americans' present fears and anger by blaming individual businessmen for government's faults and calling for wider government powers.

Beneath this surface, a fundamental, long-range change is taking place. It is real. It is happening. It is seen in several clues. For instance, collectivists' ridicule and insult has replaced substantive argument, showing that their arguments have grown from thin to empty. The eminent collapse of Newsweek, a self-proclaimed socialist magazine, is another clue that collectivism is all but dead. What sustains it is only the moral code of altruism.

The best way to show the manipulative destructiveness of altruism is to advocate the positive benefits and importance of individual rights. The Ayn Rand Institute and the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights are engaged in this education process. http://www.aynrand.com/ In addition, a number of informed activists are working in areas of their own interest to counter government's increasing disregard of individual rights.

It's likely that years from now when individualism is taken for granted many will wonder what was all the fuss about. "Of course," they will say in the future, "individualism is the only doctrine proper to man. It could not be otherwise." And they will be right.

Ayn Rand and the Financial Crisis

In this time of financial crisis and the Democrats' irrational response to it, Americans are showing a growing interest in Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Increasing sales of her masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged, have been reported around the United States. Reports in The Economist indicate the same is happening in Great Britain.

People are looking for better answers than the Democrats' frenzied bacchanal of print and spend. Surely appointing tax evaders to cabinet posts have raised many a temper. Even Democrats at the important grass roots level are disenchanted by the proposal to raise taxes on those making $250,000 or more per annum. Such a proposal affects every small businessperson in the country, and many of the self-employed. In protest, one such small businessperson coined the phrase "Going Galt," which has gained considerable publicity.

Raising dividend and capital gains taxes will increase the penalty on those who've worked and struggled a lifetime to save for their retirement. The shamefully dictatorial mindlessness of universal health care will break the back of doctors, the medical profession as a whole, their patients and every hard-working American and their children who will be forced to pay for it. The unbridled insolence of the current administration proposal to "cut back" on doctor's "pay" reminds one of Caligula's mental state.

The only people who will benefit from this orgy of print, spend and dictate will be the corrupt.

This is not what most Americans want. And so we are looking for answers. Answers are available. They lay in our moral base.

The morality, or ethics, one accepts gives rise to the politics one accepts. This is true of every individual whether he is aware of it or not. Since a nation is composed of many individuals, their combined choices will sum to a majority accepting a given ethical system. In this way, the predominating choices shape the nations' politics---its practices if not its principles.

One of the leading questions of ethics is: who should be the beneficiary of a man's actions? Should a man live for himself, or should he live for others?

If he lives for himself he keeps the result of his efforts and uses his property for his own purposes. Our own past history shows that the greater the freedom to live for one's own benefit, the more will men prosper, and so will the nation. Objectivism holds that this is moral. It is called rational selfishness. Individualism, free-enterprise and limited government are its political expressions.

If a man lives for others, then whatever he earns must be given to someone else---inevitably to those who earn less than he does. In this way, as the Soviet Union demonstrated, the standard of living declines radically and the nation as a whole spirals down into poverty and destruction. Objectivism holds that this is immoral. It is called altruism. Collectivism is its political expression. Socialism is an instance of collectivism.

We presently have a "mixed economy," with some freedom and many controls, regulations, restrictions and intrusions into our economic activity and private lives. This has led to many socialistic practices, and if Obama and Pelosi have their way, socialism will surely engulf this nation ever more extensively.

The first step out of this government-created financial mess is to CUT taxes. We are taxed at every level of government. Taxes should be CUT across the board---federal, state and city---and of every kind including property and sales taxes. Leave more money in the hands of those who've earned it. Whatever one may think about the current government's policies, most Americans agree that taxes are too high and too many and they are becoming increasingly onerous.

The first step toward recapturing the original meaning of our nation---a nation of free men---is to recognize the inviolate right of the individual to his life and property, which is based on the ethical system of a man's right to live for himself---i.e., rational selfishness. Once this point of view is adopted, we shall begin to experience a far better future.

Ayn Rand's ethical system rests upon reason and individual rights. To discover the true meaning of capitalism, to establish genuine free-enterprise and authentic limited government, it is her ethical system the United States should adopt.

To learn more, you might care to visit The Ayn Rand Institute web site: http://www.aynrand.org/

At web site of The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights are some interesting articles on the financial crisis: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_financial_crisis

Suggested Reading:
Atlas Shrugged
The Virtue of Selfishness
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
Philosophy Who Needs It

LITERATURE: Ayn Rand and John Dunning

This is the first of comments that I will make from time to time on art. It deals with an example of current fiction that is slightly different from the usual naturalism with which we are today inundated.

The following is a quote from John Dunning's The Bookman's Wake (p.421-422). The speakers are the hero, Cliff Janeway, and Eleanor, a bookscout, he is helping. (A bookscout is one who searches for certain kinds of books.)

-------------BEGIN QUOTE--------------
I had worked my way around the edge of the front room and had reached the door to the back when I heard Eleanor say, "Good grief, look at this." She had dropped to her hands and knees, out of sight from where I stood. I asked what she had and she said, "You'll have to come look, you'll never believe it."

I found her near the door, holding a near-perfect copy of The Fountainhead.

"It's a whole bag of stuff," she said. "All Ayn Rand, all in this condition."

There were two Fountainhead firsts, both binding states, red and green, in these lovely crisp red jackets. There was an Atlas Shrugged, signed Ayn in old ink and inscribed with endearment as if to an old friend. Finally there was the freshest copy of We the Living that I ever hoped to see in this lifetime. A Rand specialist had once told me that there were probably only a few hundred jacketed copies of We the Living in existence.

Six, seven grand retail, I thought. Sitting by the door in an open bag, in an unattended store.

"It doesn't make much sense does it?" Eleanor said.

I shook my head.

"If the door blew open, they'd get screwed by the rain in a minute," she said. "Jesus, Otto must've really lost it."

"Look, you know this guy---do you think he's so far gone that he wouldn't know what he could get for these?"

"I doubt that. Otto might not know about the new guys---the Graftons, Paretskys, Burkes---but he'd sure as hell know about Ayn Rand."

We stood there for a minute and touched them.

--------------END QUOTE-------------

Sylvia Bokor Comments:
FYI on Mr. Dunning's hero, Cliff Janeway: He is an ex-cop turned book dealer, specializing in rare and scarce books, with particular emphases on items interesting to collectors. He is involved with bookscouts, with other book dealers and with good and bad guys of many types.

John Dunning tells an interesting story---primarily if not exclusively through creating interesting characters. In regard to the two novels named above, the stories themselves are not unusual, although the style is arresting. It grips the reader. The stories deal basically with good v. evil. There is little to no moral ambivalence, and the moral premises indicated are not offensively (or consciously) altruist/collectivist.

Upon reading his first novel, it seemed clear that Mr. Dunning, like virtually all fiction writers today, was a naturalist. The most overt evidence of this being name-dropping of those actually living or having lived.

In Mr. Dunning's case, I was initially disappointed to discover that this practice was used to near-suffocation. Every writer that most avid readers had read or heard of was mentioned---except the romantics. However, given his hero's profession I accepted this as part of the hero's interests.

Nonetheless, I was curious whether Mr. Dunning's work contained evidence of the usual relation between the naturalist and the political liberal, which is usually in the same relationship as Siamese twins. I was therefore surprised when I came to the above quoted reference to Miss Rand's works in his second novel.

The surprise evaporated when it occurred to me that Mr. Dunning in the guise of Janeway may not be interested in content at all, or in book design, book publishing or even book manufacturing. The center of his interest apparently seems to be merely the current condition of a book that some people are interested in collecting.

I say 'apparently' because it may be that a publicized center is a diversion to conceal an actual center---as in many individuals unwilling (or presently unable) to disclose their true self. In any case, it's necessary to read all of an author's works in order to make determinations of this kind. And I haven't yet.

So, in the meantime, I will give Mr. Dunning much credit for telling an interesting story. It's hard to do and he does it nicely. Unfortunately, like all naturalists, Mr. Dunning does not dramatize ideas---save those implicit in his style, story line and characterizations.

Dramatizing an idea is extremely difficult. To do it at all is praiseworthy. To do it well deserves high marks. To do it with the panache and revolutionary literary techniques of an Ayn Rand is an achievement of the first magnitude, beyond comparison.

While I would recommend Mr. Dunning's first two novels to those who love books, I must do so with the warning that he is not a romantic in the usual sense. He appears to be a "closet romantic" who, at present, is concealing himself with a number of the techniques of the current day naturalist. Too bad. Maybe his later work is different. I don't know yet. I shall check it out soon.