What We Believe Part III: Wealth Creation

Bill Whittle's Part III of the explanation of Tea Party/conservative beliefs:



It's worth it to follow this up with Francisco D'Anconia's money speech from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. In part:

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality."

Fiction or Reality

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The following quote is from the book, "Atlas Shrugged," see if this doesn't put some things in perspective when considering the actions of our federal government.

"Do you really think we want laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts your up against.... We're after power and we mean it.... There's no wat to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many thing to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

In this quote, Dr. Ferris, a government bureacrat, is explaining to Hank Reardon, an industrialist the intentions of those in power in Washington D.C. For those of you who haven't had a chance to read the book, the world is filled with "People's States," that are socialist in nature. The United States is on the brink of becoming one of these types of nations as well. The government destroys business at every level, while people themselves are entranced by being "progressive" and "socially responsible." Wealth in this world is redistributed by the government and businesses alike and a total breakdown in society ensues.

This quote is important because it reveals that those in power in the book, and those in the halls of power in Washington D.C. aren't really "progessive" nor "socially responsible." It's about pure control and power of those they claim to represent. They want the power and they mean to have it. Look at what is happening, healthcare decisions are going to be taken away from you and your doctor, the government is moving to regulate how much salt your allowed to eat, they continually raise taxes on both alcohol and cigarette's taken advantage of people's desires to use those things.

Mr. Reardon in the quote above is basically being told, that he better comply or they will come for him. Eventually they do with excessive regulations against the steel industry in general and while the steel industry crumbles they blame Reardon himself for their legislation and its failures.

Being regulated and dictated to means loss of freedom. How much more can the citizens of this country take?

(The bold emphasis in the quote is mine.)

Cash For Clunkers*

(*Ruining Used Cars Poorer Folks Can Afford)

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/01/just-a-reminder-cash-for-clunkers-requires-destroying-perfectly-usable-cars/

A new, perfectly good Volvo that would make a wonderful, affordable, reliable family car in the used market.

Murdered.

A running, functional, Chevy SUV, perfect for a growing family or even a work vehicle.

Murdered.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2304-DC-Republican-Examiner~y2009m8d1-Video-The-Vaguely-Disturbing-Death-of-a-Clunker

A running, functional Jeep. Beat up, needing new tires, but well within the price range and mechanical ability of someone who needs a good vehicle to get to and from work in the winter.

Murdered.

...

There are families out there that need cars. There are mechanics who work on them that need jobs. There are auto parts stores that exist to keep them running. Environmentally, they're already built, so maintenance work consumes fewer ecological resources than building a toxic-battery death-trap hybrid.

Emotionally (yes, this is very indicative of my age here) this is like watching the Transformers movie as a kid and seeing characters I'd known for years killed. This is like watching Optimus Prime die.

From an objective standpoint, it's like God is tearing pages from Atlas Shrugged and they're coming true. When John Galt says he will "Stop the motor of the world," he means men's minds... and all Galt does is let idiot moocher/looter/statist/leftist barbarians grind the world to a halt as he steps out of the way.

Now we see those same savages sacraficing the progress of thousands of years in the name of their proven-to-be-lies pagan religion of Global Warming. Even that poor Jeep could take a man on a full tank of gas hundreds of miles down the road in a day - further than any ox-drawn cart ever could. It could save huge amounts of labor that could never be done by hand, it could drive faster than any horse can ride and get a wounded man to help or a pregnant woman to a doctor.

Now, it's a destroyed hulk...

Nothing but a shrine to the destructiveness of the filthy statist tyrant philosophy of regression and their primitive sky-worshipping religion.

Each one of these vehicles is a masterwork of engineering - of designers, engineers, chemists, physicists, miners, smelters, oilworkers, assemblymen - all of their collective labor being built into a mechanical triumph. The engineer who designs it, the chemists who make the plastic to make the bodies lighter, the physicists who've designed the smaller generators, the miners and smelters who make the steel, the oilworkers and chemists who make the plastics, and the assemblymen who put it together. From thousands of miles apart, they've worked together to provide a vehicle that transports a man at higher speeds than man has ever seen before - giving mobility and giving freedom to millions! They save lives, they bring lives together... and now...

They're murdered for some regressive quackery religion that masquerades as truth by consensus of lies and attacks anyone who questions it. They're murdered by a government that's become corrupt enough to do quantifiable harm to its own citizens by seizing the money earned by the sweat of their brow and using it to take the very vehicles they seek to own and destroy them. Taxed, destroyed, murdered.

Damn them.

A man on horseback riding all day until exhaustion could maybe manage a hundred miles.

A man in a car can drive a thousand miles in a day in comfort - heat or cool, sitting and resting - and with lights leading his way when the sun goes down. We used to hang horse theives. Now the horse theives tax us to kill our own horses.

Damn them.

Some Light Reading

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JBH is on a little hiatus. It's almost Memorial Day (which I surprisingly have off - go fig). For those of you out looking for something to read while sitting on the boat waiting for the fish to bite, or something to read while you're watching the kids frolic and play, or something to read while you're grumbling that you have to go to work on Tuesday but you're privately thankful that you're still employed, here are a couple of ideas:

ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
It's the story of what happens when a government of moochers and looters crack down on men and women of intellect, from whose minds spring the wealth of man's existence. When the fountainhead of man's creative and productive ability is diminished, society becomes diminished. But those with drive don't simply accept that the state of man is one of decrepitude.

(From what I understand, it's also the second-longest novel in the English language.)

In the linked article that provides more modern context, it's also telling the future day by day. I've heard the Cliff's Notes are often recommended as a way to make sure you're able to digest all the huge ideas thrown about.

Ayn Rand's stark moral and philosophical judgements on good and evil lend themselves to harsh criticism by relativists. Most criticism of Ayn Rand is groundless, the criticisms of her philosophy being made by people trying to justify their own vices and immoral "looter" ideals, and angry at being portrayed accurately in the novel as villains. It's frightening to see her most intentional parody and ridicule of collectivist/leftist/statists (moochers & looters) being used by popular figures and accepted by the public as legitimate debate positions to hold today.

Ayn Rand lived in and escaped from the USSR. Anyone who has lived in a socialist/communist/collectivist country usually has little good to say about them. Canadians, contrary to popular belief, aren't big fans of their health care system. Those who stood in bread lines in the former Soviet Union, or who lived in flats with their entire family, quite often have good things to say about the American system. Former Soviet subjects are rarely fans of disarmament, either. They are intimately familiar with what the "good intentions" of what non-productive people seeking to redistribute wealth of the productives results in.

This is often overlooked by people who haven't been lucky enough to speak in depth with former subjects of the USSR. There is a distinct political gap between a witless US-raised professor who's been insulated in academia all his life and never had to live in the real world and those USSR-raised professors who've had colleagues vanish in the night for saying the wrong thing. Those who've escaped the perfect collectivist/leftist/socialist/communist system have the wisdom of experience. The other keeps insisting "socialism/collectivism/communism will work this time, they just did it wrong" - this is the logic that leads them to believe it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

When Rand's work sheds light on the turd in their hand, the collectivist/leftist/statist/looter will invariably try to defend the mess they're holding and justify their own idiocy, or at best try misdirection. Illuminating and thus abolishing the failed ideas of fools is something my other suggestion for light reading also does rather well. Also, this one is a light read in volume, but very heavy in content.

LIBERTY & TYRANNY
A Conservative Manifesto
by Mark Levin

Levin's most recent book (which was #1 on both the Amazon and NYT Bestseller lists for several weeks, and is #2 on Amazon as of this post) is surreptitiously sweeping the nation. Listeners to his radio program are already familiar with many of his opinions and ideas, but it takes a fair amount of listening to hear his reasoned opinions on such an array of topics.

He starts in the first few pages by breaking down what conservatism is. In America, conservatism is adherence to the principles of the constitution - which was founded on classical liberalism. Classic liberalism, American conservatism, are founded on the preservation individual liberty being the function of the State.

The state (especially the federal state) is not there to regulate how people live, nor how they should worship - or not worship. The state is not there to take from one group and give to another. The state is not there to redistribute wealth. The state's purpose is to protect individual liberty and protect one's ability to earn wealth and to keep it. The state is not to dictate how one group must live, or how the people are to be "cared for" by the state. The state, in America, is to be a model of the social contract - government exists by the consent of the government - government of, by, and for the people. Government does not exist to rule the people.

When the Founding Fathers wrote our Declaration of Independence, it was from the king's state that sought to redistribute from the colonies to the king, where the king ruled the people of the colonies.

Winston Churchill famously said "“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” Classic liberalism and conservatism are the same, allowing both a heart to care for the individual and a brain to know it's historically proven to be the best for the individual. Both reject a king dictating to free people.

Today, "liberalism" is the doctrine of taking from one group to give to another group. A narrative is written, and one group is portrayed as the villain, while the other is the victim - always to justify the consitutency/perpetuety of office of the "liberal". In the recent banking scandals, the bankers have been portrayed as "predatory lenders" - giving loans to people who couldn't pay them back. The government forced these loans through the CRA. Now the government, under the guise of "liberal" empathy takes over the banks and buys the banks. This is but one example.

Levin identifies this and strips it away. This is not liberalism, it is a course of action that is solely supporting the state and expanding state interests - it is statism. He identifies that the first issue in understanding conservatism is understanding what it is - supporting individual liberty and individual rights and limiting the state.

It's a good primer for a newcomer to classic liberalism/conservatism, or anyone who thought they were a liberal, but found themselves suddenly made outcasts when they said they were voting for Hillary in the primary.

Levin's Liberty & Tyranny comes in at around 200 pages, but is well written and concise. Rand's Atlas Shrugged comes in at around 1100 pages or more, and is exceedingly well written and well paced to allow ideas to sink in. It is considered a literary masterpiece of importance second only to the Bible.