As the video description says:
"A conservative encounters an elitist liberal. A pleasant conversation ensues. This is that conversation."
The flat delivery of xtranormal's animated characters makes it that much more fun. Enjoy!
Showing posts with label Conservatism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservatism. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
What We Believe Part VII: American Exceptionalism
Bill Whittle's final Part VII of the What We Believe series, explaining Tea Party/conservative beliefs:
Whittle wraps up the series, and hopefully those who've watched it have gotten a little more insight - possibly into their own views and how to express them.
Picking nits:
Folks used to statistics will note that his comparison of "science units" is not done per capita, as the other nations listed are smaller. Were it done per capita (rounding to nearest million in both cases) it would look like this:
UK:______.29 science units/person (18 million science units/61 million population)
Canada:___.27 (9sci/33pop)
USA:_____.24 (75/307pop)
Germany:__.18 (15sci/81pop)
France:___.16 (10sci/62pop)
Italy:_____.11 (7mil/60mil pop)
Japan:____.09 (12sci/127pop)
Considering the VAST size of the US population, that's pretty darned decent. Couple it with the fact that the UK benefits from many very well established science centers, and that Canada has no small benefit from being a partner to both the US and UK, it's not too much of a surprise that per capita, the UK and Canada are doing very well. And good for them - but by no means is their prosperity an indictment of the fact that the US is the shining beacon of science by volume, and a very strong third per capita. That the US, with a vast population to offset in per capita comparison, still eclipses other nations is perhaps a greater support of Whittle's point of American exceptionalism in science endeavors.
Now, there are other reasons for this as well that Whittle hit on in earlier videos. One is the rule of law. Individuals who discover or invent something are probably going to have their patents, inventions, or ideas respected. Discovery and invention are generally rewarded through prosperity, and only rarely thwarted by intellectual theives or seizure by the state.
Consider Mikhael. He invented a product that's used worldwide, was adopted by his own government, and is so famous and iconic as to be recognized immediately. You probably know his last name already, and undoubtedly the initials his invention is known by.
His invention is so famous it's even on the flag of Mozambique.
Did he earn anything from it the way an engineer in the US would have? He received a lot of medals, promotions, and state handouts, but nothing along the lines of what a US inventor would receive for such a prolific creation - with about 100 million units worldwide. If he were selling records, it'd be a decuple diamond album, topped only by another Michael. Except a record cost about thirty to fifty times less.
Whittle wraps up the series, and hopefully those who've watched it have gotten a little more insight - possibly into their own views and how to express them.
Picking nits:
Folks used to statistics will note that his comparison of "science units" is not done per capita, as the other nations listed are smaller. Were it done per capita (rounding to nearest million in both cases) it would look like this:
UK:______.29 science units/person (18 million science units/61 million population)
Canada:___.27 (9sci/33pop)
USA:_____.24 (75/307pop)
Germany:__.18 (15sci/81pop)
France:___.16 (10sci/62pop)
Italy:_____.11 (7mil/60mil pop)
Japan:____.09 (12sci/127pop)
Considering the VAST size of the US population, that's pretty darned decent. Couple it with the fact that the UK benefits from many very well established science centers, and that Canada has no small benefit from being a partner to both the US and UK, it's not too much of a surprise that per capita, the UK and Canada are doing very well. And good for them - but by no means is their prosperity an indictment of the fact that the US is the shining beacon of science by volume, and a very strong third per capita. That the US, with a vast population to offset in per capita comparison, still eclipses other nations is perhaps a greater support of Whittle's point of American exceptionalism in science endeavors.
Now, there are other reasons for this as well that Whittle hit on in earlier videos. One is the rule of law. Individuals who discover or invent something are probably going to have their patents, inventions, or ideas respected. Discovery and invention are generally rewarded through prosperity, and only rarely thwarted by intellectual theives or seizure by the state.
Consider Mikhael. He invented a product that's used worldwide, was adopted by his own government, and is so famous and iconic as to be recognized immediately. You probably know his last name already, and undoubtedly the initials his invention is known by.
His invention is so famous it's even on the flag of Mozambique.Did he earn anything from it the way an engineer in the US would have? He received a lot of medals, promotions, and state handouts, but nothing along the lines of what a US inventor would receive for such a prolific creation - with about 100 million units worldwide. If he were selling records, it'd be a decuple diamond album, topped only by another Michael. Except a record cost about thirty to fifty times less.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
What We Believe Part VI: Immigration
Bill Whittle's Firewall Part VI of the explanation of Tea Party/conservative values:
There's a huge difference between legal and illegal immigration, and Whittle makes that pretty clear. For those concerned about the illegal immigration and criminal enterprises on the southern border, I suggest these internet news sites:
Borderland Beat
and
BorderReporter
Both of these sites will keep you up to speed on what the bi-coastal leftist ruling class media doesn't bother to show. Be advised, both sites sometimes feature graphic material concerning the massacres, beheadings and murders that take place along the border and into Mexico.
For folks who live considerably north of the border, and whose interaction with illegal aliens is one of hiring a day laborer, or some other innocuous, seemingly innocent activity, consider that people whose backgrounds have never been looked into could be former child soldiers from the Salvadoran civil war. Your 40 year old gardener may have been the leader of a death squad for either the leftist guerillas or the Salvadoran government. The day laborer at your house may have left Mexico because he was running from the law in Mexico. The guy at the Chinese restaurant here illegally may have been sent across in a shipping container, and he's working until his sister's debt is paid off - while she works as a "masseuse"/prostitute and her papers are held by the smuggler.
ICE has been apprehending record numbers of criminal illegal aliens this year.
Criminal illegal aliens being given a pass within the US is more the rule than the exception. While anecdotal, the story of the feds releasing an illegal alien from Bolivia who killed a nun is standard operating procedure across much of the nation.
And that's not even getting into the illegal alien criminal gangs.
That's from 2005. Click the image and notice that there are a lot of arrests far north of the border.
One more anecdote: a mutual friend of JBH and mine recently was doing a ridealong with a state trooper in a north midwestern state. They were riding in an unmarked police vehicle, and another vehicle approached them, wanting to race. The state trooper told our friend that he'd wait until the racing vehicle hit a high enough speed to take him to jail to pull him over. When the speeds reached over 100 mph, the trooper turned on his lights and pulled over the racer. The racer was an illegal alien, and was released. Not arrested and released - just released - as in "Have a nice day, sir."
The reason? That northern midwestern state is a sanctuary state. Orders from the state capital to the state police tell them to leave illegal aliens alone.
Think it's an exaggeration? Remember Massachussetts state representative Democrat Mike Moran - being hit by an illegal alien?
It's commonplace. Illegal aliens can commit crimes with impunity. And that's not even getting into the effects of a massive influx of cheap labor that depletes the job pool available to US citizens.
The republicans want cheap labor, and the democrats want cheap labor and to give handouts and make a perpetual voting bloc based on ethnic identity. Republicans are simply cheap stupid opportunists, and democrats are conniving, slithering, racist opportunists.
Tea Partiers want the rule of law, not rule by the whims of whatever political power is in charge.
There's a huge difference between legal and illegal immigration, and Whittle makes that pretty clear. For those concerned about the illegal immigration and criminal enterprises on the southern border, I suggest these internet news sites:
Borderland Beat
and
BorderReporter
Both of these sites will keep you up to speed on what the bi-coastal leftist ruling class media doesn't bother to show. Be advised, both sites sometimes feature graphic material concerning the massacres, beheadings and murders that take place along the border and into Mexico.
For folks who live considerably north of the border, and whose interaction with illegal aliens is one of hiring a day laborer, or some other innocuous, seemingly innocent activity, consider that people whose backgrounds have never been looked into could be former child soldiers from the Salvadoran civil war. Your 40 year old gardener may have been the leader of a death squad for either the leftist guerillas or the Salvadoran government. The day laborer at your house may have left Mexico because he was running from the law in Mexico. The guy at the Chinese restaurant here illegally may have been sent across in a shipping container, and he's working until his sister's debt is paid off - while she works as a "masseuse"/prostitute and her papers are held by the smuggler.
ICE has been apprehending record numbers of criminal illegal aliens this year.
Criminal illegal aliens being given a pass within the US is more the rule than the exception. While anecdotal, the story of the feds releasing an illegal alien from Bolivia who killed a nun is standard operating procedure across much of the nation.
And that's not even getting into the illegal alien criminal gangs.
That's from 2005. Click the image and notice that there are a lot of arrests far north of the border.One more anecdote: a mutual friend of JBH and mine recently was doing a ridealong with a state trooper in a north midwestern state. They were riding in an unmarked police vehicle, and another vehicle approached them, wanting to race. The state trooper told our friend that he'd wait until the racing vehicle hit a high enough speed to take him to jail to pull him over. When the speeds reached over 100 mph, the trooper turned on his lights and pulled over the racer. The racer was an illegal alien, and was released. Not arrested and released - just released - as in "Have a nice day, sir."
The reason? That northern midwestern state is a sanctuary state. Orders from the state capital to the state police tell them to leave illegal aliens alone.
Think it's an exaggeration? Remember Massachussetts state representative Democrat Mike Moran - being hit by an illegal alien?
It's commonplace. Illegal aliens can commit crimes with impunity. And that's not even getting into the effects of a massive influx of cheap labor that depletes the job pool available to US citizens.
The republicans want cheap labor, and the democrats want cheap labor and to give handouts and make a perpetual voting bloc based on ethnic identity. Republicans are simply cheap stupid opportunists, and democrats are conniving, slithering, racist opportunists.
Tea Partiers want the rule of law, not rule by the whims of whatever political power is in charge.
Friday, December 17, 2010
What We Believe Part IV: Natural Law
Bill Whittle's Part IV of the explanation of Tea Party/conservative beliefs:
Natural law means the right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
Political law means that the "authorities" decide you need to be have your limbs fettered and bound because you might swing your fists.
John Locke wrote much about Natural Law in his Second Treatise of Government, and he starts by addressing man kind in a condition of nature - wherein man is free, and left to his own devices. There is no government to determine what an individual can or cannot do - his actions are subject only to the limitations of the individual's imagination and capability. In a state of perfect freedom, an individual is subject only to the triumphs and tragedies and vicissitudes of life. Government exists as a compact between indivuduals to provide for mutual safety and improvment.
Often times, once government has established itself as a power, be it the tribal chief, the invading warlord, or the gerrymandered-district eternal senator; the government as an institution is simply a tool of power for a tyrant - not a tool for groups of individuals to provide for their common defense and well-being.
Consider this:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Governments exist by the consent of the governed, and are rejected by those who are governed, but no longer wish to be. Contracts exist by consent of those involved, and are to be honored.
Government existing at the behest of the governors - the ruling class - is tyranny.
Natural law means the right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
Political law means that the "authorities" decide you need to be have your limbs fettered and bound because you might swing your fists.
John Locke wrote much about Natural Law in his Second Treatise of Government, and he starts by addressing man kind in a condition of nature - wherein man is free, and left to his own devices. There is no government to determine what an individual can or cannot do - his actions are subject only to the limitations of the individual's imagination and capability. In a state of perfect freedom, an individual is subject only to the triumphs and tragedies and vicissitudes of life. Government exists as a compact between indivuduals to provide for mutual safety and improvment.
Often times, once government has established itself as a power, be it the tribal chief, the invading warlord, or the gerrymandered-district eternal senator; the government as an institution is simply a tool of power for a tyrant - not a tool for groups of individuals to provide for their common defense and well-being.
Consider this:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.Governments exist by the consent of the governed, and are rejected by those who are governed, but no longer wish to be. Contracts exist by consent of those involved, and are to be honored.
Government existing at the behest of the governors - the ruling class - is tyranny.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
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."
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."
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
What We Believe Part II: The Problem With Elitism
Bill Whittle's Part 2 of the explanation of conservative/Tea Party beliefs:
A few minutes to gain valuable insight into the why. It may be a "why" that many of us already intuitively know, but to examine one's own beliefs is always worthwhile.
Thomas Sowell offers this quote about traditions from his book "The Vision of the Anointed":
"For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before."
Sowell's statement, in conjunction with Whittle's explanations, is much of the reason why social and fiscal conservatism so often find themselves represented by the same individuals. The basis for much of the thinking - that individual experiences have given people decades, centuries, or millenia of good choices - remains the same, and to disregard either social conservatism (traditionalism) or fiscal conservatism without good cause, or because of elitist mandate, is foolish. It assumes that the financial or social engineer (whether to stricter or looser policies of society or finance) alone has a better idea - and the elitist engineer must therefore direct society.
The non-elitist who believes they have a better way puts forth his new ideas as an invention, which is adopted by society if it's good, and ignored or rejected by society if it is not.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if someone thinks they can do better - they can prove it themselves.
A few minutes to gain valuable insight into the why. It may be a "why" that many of us already intuitively know, but to examine one's own beliefs is always worthwhile.
Thomas Sowell offers this quote about traditions from his book "The Vision of the Anointed":
"For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before."
Sowell's statement, in conjunction with Whittle's explanations, is much of the reason why social and fiscal conservatism so often find themselves represented by the same individuals. The basis for much of the thinking - that individual experiences have given people decades, centuries, or millenia of good choices - remains the same, and to disregard either social conservatism (traditionalism) or fiscal conservatism without good cause, or because of elitist mandate, is foolish. It assumes that the financial or social engineer (whether to stricter or looser policies of society or finance) alone has a better idea - and the elitist engineer must therefore direct society.
The non-elitist who believes they have a better way puts forth his new ideas as an invention, which is adopted by society if it's good, and ignored or rejected by society if it is not.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if someone thinks they can do better - they can prove it themselves.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
What We Believe Part I: Small Government and Free Enterprise
Part 1 of Bill Whittle's 7-part breakdown of modern conservatism and the fundamental beliefs of the Tea Party.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
The Extremists Are Coming
Saw this one over at Theo Spark's blog, which is not always 100% SFW, but has a lot of good news & politic info. And pinup girls.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Dropping the Red Kool-Aid for a Spot of Tea
From the New York Post:
President Obama came out yesterday and was attempting to align himself with the Tea Party movement.
Oh yes, a definte laugh, or should this be a sign of concern for the mental state of our leader? This is the same man who TRIPLED the deficit of his not so popular republican predecessor. This is also the man that has spent more money than ALL OTHER presidential administrations combined. This is the man who has done everything he can with the support of the most liberal congress ever to centralize power in the hands of the federal government. The Healthcare bill fiasco, the 2nd stimulus, tripling the size of Americorps, attempting to shackle the populace with cap and trade all belong under this man's name. He now expects you all to believe that he is a fiscally responsible conservative president, that favors limited government and that the populace being wary of the government is a good thing? One word will some that up:
WOW.
Now he says that the Tea Party has misdirected itself. It should be angry with the republicans still in office. Guess what Mr. President.... We are. We are mad at both sides of this mess because it took both for us to be in the situation we are in. But right now YOU and YOUR party have exclusive control of the federal government. You and your party are spending out of control, yes we do know that the occasional RINO votes along with you, they are being revealed and being marked for replacement in the coming November election as well. You and your ilk, Mr. President, think the citizens of this country are stupid and cannot keep up with politics nor understand the arguments. The Tea Party itself, made up of both democrats and republicans sees right through you, your party and your lies.
Mr. President, the nation is very disappointed with you, even your misguided followers, who think you are not doing even to "fundamentally transform" these United States. Now it is the citizen's turn, Mr. President, on 2 November we intend to fundamentally transform Washington D.C.
President Obama came out yesterday and was attempting to align himself with the Tea Party movement.
Oh yes, a definte laugh, or should this be a sign of concern for the mental state of our leader? This is the same man who TRIPLED the deficit of his not so popular republican predecessor. This is also the man that has spent more money than ALL OTHER presidential administrations combined. This is the man who has done everything he can with the support of the most liberal congress ever to centralize power in the hands of the federal government. The Healthcare bill fiasco, the 2nd stimulus, tripling the size of Americorps, attempting to shackle the populace with cap and trade all belong under this man's name. He now expects you all to believe that he is a fiscally responsible conservative president, that favors limited government and that the populace being wary of the government is a good thing? One word will some that up:
WOW.
Now he says that the Tea Party has misdirected itself. It should be angry with the republicans still in office. Guess what Mr. President.... We are. We are mad at both sides of this mess because it took both for us to be in the situation we are in. But right now YOU and YOUR party have exclusive control of the federal government. You and your party are spending out of control, yes we do know that the occasional RINO votes along with you, they are being revealed and being marked for replacement in the coming November election as well. You and your ilk, Mr. President, think the citizens of this country are stupid and cannot keep up with politics nor understand the arguments. The Tea Party itself, made up of both democrats and republicans sees right through you, your party and your lies.
Mr. President, the nation is very disappointed with you, even your misguided followers, who think you are not doing even to "fundamentally transform" these United States. Now it is the citizen's turn, Mr. President, on 2 November we intend to fundamentally transform Washington D.C.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The Threat to Modern International Liberalism
Rush Limbaugh frequently comments on his show that the left will tell you who they're afraid of by who they demonize.
Charles Krauthammer (quoted in the last post), said this:
The last refuge of a liberal
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, August 27, 2010
Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat. Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the "bitter" people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging "to guns or religion or" -- this part is less remembered -- "antipathy toward people who aren't like them."
That's a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.
Yesterday, the UK Independent posted this zany piece of tripe:
The threat to American conservatism
Monday, 30 August 2010
It is always tempting to home in on the absurdity of the Republican right in America, the almost comic quality of some of their views and the ludicrous nature of the accusations they hurl at President Barack Obama.
The paranoid and hate-filled world of the "birthers", the Tea Party people and all the rest is so alien to the British experience as to be incomprehensible. We tend not to take them seriously, or assume that the Republicans' constant lurch to the right inevitably renders them unelectable. We may be making a mistake. The huge size of the rally held in Washington at the weekend – where several hundred thousand people turned up to hear the Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck announce that America was "turning back to God" – provides further disturbing proof, if any were needed, of the growing popularity of the hard right.
The paranoid, hate-filled world of leftist Hillary supporter Philip Berg? Or is it because Obama brings up the birth certificate issue every time he gets the chance as a way to ridicule people he doesn't agree with? And what better way to address the birth certificate issue than to pass a law preventing it from being conclusively addressed? It's a funny soundbite on the surface, but since the long-form certificate has been hidden rather than shown to the public, it's just another indicator that transparency isn't valued at all by Obama. (Showing it would be a 5-minute solution to what the left claims is an issue.)
Tea Party hate? Oh, that's right, Brits do tend to be in favor of high taxes on the colonies. We've seen this before.
That means you, you snotty redcoat.
The root of the problem is in the second sentence, though. They "tend not to take seriously". Why? Because (haughty brit accent) these are peasants from the flyover states! Why should we take seriously the drivel that these know-nothing serfs prattle on about. They should be groveling at our magnificence at our wondrous ability to lead them into a glorious future, rather than resenting the grandeur that we have bequeathed to them. These chattering bucolic simpletons had best mind their manners when addressing their betters.
Whatever haughty Brit or snooty ex-pat wrote this, they don't have a clue. They revel in their ignorance. Quite literally - they ignore ideas that disagree with them in their ivory towers, and are annoyed when someone disagrees with them.
The reason their ivory towers run the way they do is because the conservative, provincial flyover states feed them, the blue-collar conservative worker builds their houses, and the baby-killer soldier they readily mock defends them. The elitist left exists in an artificial environment - which is why none of the left's ideas ever stand up to reality. They're like the stereotype of spoiled teenagers who think their parents fools, but who don't understand that their parents are the ones insulating them from the world.
The fact that the rally was held on the site where Martin Luther King made his "I have a dream" speech 47 years ago has caused offence among the heirs of King's civil rights movement, who resent Mr Beck's assertion that the two causes have much in common. But ructions from that quarter will do Mr Beck and fellow star turn Sarah Palin no harm among their supporters. It is more likely to do the opposite. Overwhelmingly white, conservative, rural and religious, their constant complaint that they "want their country back" is in part a thinly-veiled snipe at Mr Obama's race.
And Krauthammer is right again. "Overwhelmingly white" and sniping at race. So they're racists. Well, at least the left is consistently unoriginal.
From the stack labeled "Community Organizer Chest".
The problem with this is that American conservatives judge people based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
American conservative values, as we've expounded upon here before, are based in conserving American virtues. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights... Kinda important things that ultimately defuse racism rather than support it.
Now, did it cause offence to the heirs of the civil rights movement? Maybe if you consider people who engineer strife and hatred to keep their race-baiting going. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would be out of business if they didn't keep racial resentments simmering.
Those who weren't heirs, but were actual movers in the civil rights movement seemed okay with it. MLK's niece, Alveda King, spoke at the rally.
Here on the other side of the Atlantic, we await two things: for so-called ordinary Americans to recoil from and disavow the right's toxic, divisive rhetoric; and for moderate Republicans to start re-asserting the very different traditions of Lincoln, Eisenhower, and George Bush senior, for that matter.
Toxic? Divisive? Lower my taxes is toxic? Divisive is "quit taking money from one group to give to another"? Really? Note the Independent has no actual "toxic, divisive" quotes to give. Since there aren't any.
Moderate republicans? Lincoln? Sure, he preserved the union. He also suspended habeus corpus. I guess that's sorta like the left. Strong central govt, individual rights don't matter in the face of "the greater good" and the modern left can use moral equivalents to Lincoln's actual war against slavery to justify their own abuse of individuals.
Eisenhower wasn't a moderate. He warned against the military industrial-complex expansion of government, as well as gigantic federal expansion in other sectors of public life. He espoused small-govt principles in his farewell speech. Watch:
And Bush Sr. was not a conservative. New world order, all that jazz.
Neither of those outcomes seems to be materialising. Centrist Republicans have become a marginalised minority in their own party – eclipsed and somehow out of place among people who have come to expect references to God's will to appear in almost every sentence. Meanwhile, Obama's fellow Democrats are heading towards mid-term elections in November in a mood of despondency, and expect a drubbing at the hands of their adrenaline-filled opponents.
The gulf from leftist statism to liberty is vast. Centrists are those willing to appease, who have no principles. The left - the international left - wants more centrists to cut down the power and autonomy of the American individual. The expansion of state control by Obama and his Mao-loving, genocidal, communist cohorts is something that the American people reject.
The left rejects religion, because it's an affront to worshipping the state. The Brit saying "people who have come to expect references to God's will to appear almost every sentence" is of the class that also says that God is not appropriate for a sacred spot.
The UK Independent sums up with this, praising Obama:
The man they chose as his successor remains what he was on day one; a decent, thoughtful patriot and a builder of bridges who still aspires to lead a country in which race is no longer the defining issue. He has given the country a measure of health reform and begun the process of disengagement from costly and unpopular military entanglements.
A decent, thoughtful, patriot and a builder of bridges who aspires to lead a country in which race is no longer the defining issue. He has given the country a measure of health reform and begun the process of disengagement from costly and unpopular military entanglements.
All true, provided you view evil as good and wrong as right.
Modern liberalism, both domestic and international, is threatened by the Tea Party, is threatened by folks like Glenn Beck and his Restoring Honor rally, and is threatened by people who believe in their own independence.
There's a socialist/communist anti-capitalist poster that says "the boss needs you, you don't need the boss".
This isn't quite representative of reality, as "the boss" is just an individual (or representative of a group of individuals) who's amassed enough capital to be able to employ you, the worker, to help him with production. Provided you're in control of your own sale of labor, you can change jobs if you like, build capital if you like, and potentially become the self-employed worker who exercises his own use of capital and doesn't need the boss, or be a boss. None of which is bad.
The free market individual who understands this has no reason to fear this propaganda piece, that, while strictly true, isn't representative of reality.
When applied like this: "the big government bureaucrat ruler needs you, you don't need the big government bureaucrat ruler" - it becomes a threat to bureaucrats both domestic and international. America was founded on less government - and every time big government is shown to be the failure it is - big government rulers get scared.
Rush is right on this. The left will tell you who they fear. They fear individuals who don't need them. They are at their wits end, as Krauthammer notes, and have reduced themselves to crying racism. The race card is maxed out. And we don't need the big government bureaucrat ruler. The left fears that.
Charles Krauthammer (quoted in the last post), said this:
The last refuge of a liberal
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, August 27, 2010
Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat. Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the "bitter" people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging "to guns or religion or" -- this part is less remembered -- "antipathy toward people who aren't like them."
That's a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.
Yesterday, the UK Independent posted this zany piece of tripe:
The threat to American conservatism
Monday, 30 August 2010
It is always tempting to home in on the absurdity of the Republican right in America, the almost comic quality of some of their views and the ludicrous nature of the accusations they hurl at President Barack Obama.
The paranoid and hate-filled world of the "birthers", the Tea Party people and all the rest is so alien to the British experience as to be incomprehensible. We tend not to take them seriously, or assume that the Republicans' constant lurch to the right inevitably renders them unelectable. We may be making a mistake. The huge size of the rally held in Washington at the weekend – where several hundred thousand people turned up to hear the Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck announce that America was "turning back to God" – provides further disturbing proof, if any were needed, of the growing popularity of the hard right.
The paranoid, hate-filled world of leftist Hillary supporter Philip Berg? Or is it because Obama brings up the birth certificate issue every time he gets the chance as a way to ridicule people he doesn't agree with? And what better way to address the birth certificate issue than to pass a law preventing it from being conclusively addressed? It's a funny soundbite on the surface, but since the long-form certificate has been hidden rather than shown to the public, it's just another indicator that transparency isn't valued at all by Obama. (Showing it would be a 5-minute solution to what the left claims is an issue.)
That part about "we don't control control every branch" sounded kinda ominous. As though he mentally punctuated it with "yet".
Tea Party hate? Oh, that's right, Brits do tend to be in favor of high taxes on the colonies. We've seen this before.
That means you, you snotty redcoat.The root of the problem is in the second sentence, though. They "tend not to take seriously". Why? Because (haughty brit accent) these are peasants from the flyover states! Why should we take seriously the drivel that these know-nothing serfs prattle on about. They should be groveling at our magnificence at our wondrous ability to lead them into a glorious future, rather than resenting the grandeur that we have bequeathed to them. These chattering bucolic simpletons had best mind their manners when addressing their betters.
Whatever haughty Brit or snooty ex-pat wrote this, they don't have a clue. They revel in their ignorance. Quite literally - they ignore ideas that disagree with them in their ivory towers, and are annoyed when someone disagrees with them.
The reason their ivory towers run the way they do is because the conservative, provincial flyover states feed them, the blue-collar conservative worker builds their houses, and the baby-killer soldier they readily mock defends them. The elitist left exists in an artificial environment - which is why none of the left's ideas ever stand up to reality. They're like the stereotype of spoiled teenagers who think their parents fools, but who don't understand that their parents are the ones insulating them from the world.
The fact that the rally was held on the site where Martin Luther King made his "I have a dream" speech 47 years ago has caused offence among the heirs of King's civil rights movement, who resent Mr Beck's assertion that the two causes have much in common. But ructions from that quarter will do Mr Beck and fellow star turn Sarah Palin no harm among their supporters. It is more likely to do the opposite. Overwhelmingly white, conservative, rural and religious, their constant complaint that they "want their country back" is in part a thinly-veiled snipe at Mr Obama's race.
And Krauthammer is right again. "Overwhelmingly white" and sniping at race. So they're racists. Well, at least the left is consistently unoriginal.
From the stack labeled "Community Organizer Chest".The problem with this is that American conservatives judge people based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
American conservative values, as we've expounded upon here before, are based in conserving American virtues. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights... Kinda important things that ultimately defuse racism rather than support it.
Now, did it cause offence to the heirs of the civil rights movement? Maybe if you consider people who engineer strife and hatred to keep their race-baiting going. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would be out of business if they didn't keep racial resentments simmering.
Those who weren't heirs, but were actual movers in the civil rights movement seemed okay with it. MLK's niece, Alveda King, spoke at the rally.
Here on the other side of the Atlantic, we await two things: for so-called ordinary Americans to recoil from and disavow the right's toxic, divisive rhetoric; and for moderate Republicans to start re-asserting the very different traditions of Lincoln, Eisenhower, and George Bush senior, for that matter.
Toxic? Divisive? Lower my taxes is toxic? Divisive is "quit taking money from one group to give to another"? Really? Note the Independent has no actual "toxic, divisive" quotes to give. Since there aren't any.
Moderate republicans? Lincoln? Sure, he preserved the union. He also suspended habeus corpus. I guess that's sorta like the left. Strong central govt, individual rights don't matter in the face of "the greater good" and the modern left can use moral equivalents to Lincoln's actual war against slavery to justify their own abuse of individuals.
Eisenhower wasn't a moderate. He warned against the military industrial-complex expansion of government, as well as gigantic federal expansion in other sectors of public life. He espoused small-govt principles in his farewell speech. Watch:
And Bush Sr. was not a conservative. New world order, all that jazz.
Neither of those outcomes seems to be materialising. Centrist Republicans have become a marginalised minority in their own party – eclipsed and somehow out of place among people who have come to expect references to God's will to appear in almost every sentence. Meanwhile, Obama's fellow Democrats are heading towards mid-term elections in November in a mood of despondency, and expect a drubbing at the hands of their adrenaline-filled opponents.
The gulf from leftist statism to liberty is vast. Centrists are those willing to appease, who have no principles. The left - the international left - wants more centrists to cut down the power and autonomy of the American individual. The expansion of state control by Obama and his Mao-loving, genocidal, communist cohorts is something that the American people reject.
The left rejects religion, because it's an affront to worshipping the state. The Brit saying "people who have come to expect references to God's will to appear almost every sentence" is of the class that also says that God is not appropriate for a sacred spot.
The UK Independent sums up with this, praising Obama:
The man they chose as his successor remains what he was on day one; a decent, thoughtful patriot and a builder of bridges who still aspires to lead a country in which race is no longer the defining issue. He has given the country a measure of health reform and begun the process of disengagement from costly and unpopular military entanglements.
A decent, thoughtful, patriot and a builder of bridges who aspires to lead a country in which race is no longer the defining issue. He has given the country a measure of health reform and begun the process of disengagement from costly and unpopular military entanglements.
All true, provided you view evil as good and wrong as right.
Modern liberalism, both domestic and international, is threatened by the Tea Party, is threatened by folks like Glenn Beck and his Restoring Honor rally, and is threatened by people who believe in their own independence.
There's a socialist/communist anti-capitalist poster that says "the boss needs you, you don't need the boss".
This isn't quite representative of reality, as "the boss" is just an individual (or representative of a group of individuals) who's amassed enough capital to be able to employ you, the worker, to help him with production. Provided you're in control of your own sale of labor, you can change jobs if you like, build capital if you like, and potentially become the self-employed worker who exercises his own use of capital and doesn't need the boss, or be a boss. None of which is bad.The free market individual who understands this has no reason to fear this propaganda piece, that, while strictly true, isn't representative of reality.
When applied like this: "the big government bureaucrat ruler needs you, you don't need the big government bureaucrat ruler" - it becomes a threat to bureaucrats both domestic and international. America was founded on less government - and every time big government is shown to be the failure it is - big government rulers get scared.
Rush is right on this. The left will tell you who they fear. They fear individuals who don't need them. They are at their wits end, as Krauthammer notes, and have reduced themselves to crying racism. The race card is maxed out. And we don't need the big government bureaucrat ruler. The left fears that.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Progressives Against Progress
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_3_american-liberalism.html
Progressives Against Progress
The rise of environmentalism poisoned liberals’ historical optimism.
by Fred Siegel
For the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, American liberals distinguished themselves from conservatives by what Lionel Trilling called “a spiritual orthodoxy of belief in progress.” Liberalism placed its hopes in human perfectibility. Regarding human nature as essentially both beneficent and malleable, liberals, like their socialist cousins, argued that with the aid of science and given the proper social and economic conditions, humanity could free itself from its cramped carapace of greed and distrust and enter a realm of true freedom and happiness. Conservatives, by contrast, clung to a tragic sense of man’s inherent limitations. While acknowledging the benefits of science, they argued that it could never fundamentally reform, let alone transcend, the human condition. Most problems don’t have a solution, the conservatives maintained; rather than attempting Promethean feats, man would do best to find a balanced place in the world.
...
American liberalism has remarkably come to resemble nineteenth-century British Tory Radicalism, an aristocratic sensibility that combined strong support for centralized monarchical power with a paternalistic concern for the poor. Its enemies were the middle classes and the aesthetic ugliness it associated with an industrial economy powered by bourgeois energies.
...
Like the Tory Radicals, today’s liberal gentry see the untamed middle classes as the true enemy. “Environmentalism offered the extraordinary opportunity to combine the qualities of virtue and selfishness,” wrote William Tucker in a groundbreaking 1977 Harper’s article on the opposition to construction of the Storm King power plant along New York’s Hudson River. Tucker described the extraordinary sight of a fleet of yachts—including one piloted by the old Stalinist singer Pete Seeger—sailing up and down the Hudson in protest. What Tucker tellingly described as the environmentalists’ “aristocratic” vision called for a stratified, terraced society in which the knowing ones would order society for the rest of us. Touring American campuses in the mid-1970s, Norman Macrae of The Economist was shocked “to hear so many supposedly left-wing young Americans who still thought they were expressing an entirely new and progressive philosophy as they mouthed the same prejudices as Trollope’s 19th century Tory squires: attacking any further expansion of industry and commerce as impossibly vulgar, because ecologically unfair to their pheasants and wild ducks.”
Neither the failure of the environmental apocalypse to arrive nor the steady improvement in environmental conditions over the last 40 years has dampened the ardor of those eager to make hair shirts for others to wear. The call for political coercion as a path back to Ruskin’s and Mishan’s small-is-beautiful world is still with us. Radical environmentalists’ Tory disdain for democracy and for the habits of their inferiors remains undiminished. True to its late-1960s origins, political environmentalism in America gravitates toward both bureaucrats and hippies: toward a global, big-brother government that will keep the middle classes in line and toward a back-to-the-earth, peasantlike localism, imposed on others but presenting no threat to the elites’ comfortable lives. How ironic that these gentry liberals—progressives against progress—turn out to resemble nothing so much as nineteenth-century conservatives.
More at City Journal.
This article interested me since it points out the leftist ruling class' environmental statist ideology. Written by a leaning-lefty, he seems somewhat dismayed by the constant push for statist rule by "liberals". This ideology quickly summed up:
1. Nature is god (whether the left believes it or it's just to get to #4 is up to the individual lefty)
2. The masses ruin nature
3. Therefore masses must be controlled (or exterminated)
4. The leaders know best and are exempt from rules for the masses
Fred Siegel's politics seem to lean left (without doing too much research into the guy), and this is shown in his ending statement.
19th Century British "conservatives" are not the same as US conservatives. Look at the top of the blog here. See where it says " helping to conserve American libertarian values"? That's US conservatism.
Conservatism within the US is often viewed as traditionalism - which is associated with religious and family groups, and while often laudible in their non-governmental efforts, conservatism is adherence to the Constitution and adherence to those principles of the Constitution. It's a document of classic liberalism - as in liberty for all, tolerance for all, and the ability for each man (and woman) to live his live how he chooses free of all but the fewest govt. restrictions.
The US is a nation of free men who came together to establish a nation of free men. They took pride in their traditions, but did not want to impose on one another. The most unifying tradition is that of a reverence for freedom.
Conservatism - as in conservation of one's original values - in other nations is a different animal. Conservatism in England may represent groups like the British National Party, which has a very pro-Anglo/pro-white/anti-everybody-who's-not-a-white-Brit bias to them. They are conserving old values of the UK, just values that are rooted in nationalism and white British ethnic supremacy.
Until a 2009 court order, they restricted their membership to "indigenous caucasian". Presumably to keep any smart-ass Chechens from joining just to fuck with them.
Conservatism in Japan may represent hard nationalist policies that are very pro-Japanese and frequently anti-Korean, anti-Chinese. Conservatism in France or Iran may represent laws that preserve the language against any change or modification, or variations against traditional morality of those nations.
Pictured: elastic loaves.
The United States, unlike most nations in the world, is a collection of different ethnic groups. The US is not represented by one cardinal national group. There is no "American" ethnicity. There is a group of people who are irish, a group who are german, a group who are russian, congolese, brazilian, mexican, japanese, chinese, etc. There is no ethnicity nor ethnic culture to match the United States.
Thus Siegel makes a big mistake in assuming that this leftist enviro-statism has anything to do with actual conservatism. The difference between British monarchists in the 19th century and American conservatives is vast. The left, which are emphatically illiberal and intolerant, despite their nom de jour "liberal", are far from American conservatism. That they may want to conserve monarchical dictatorial rule is not a surprise to those who've seen the effects of disagreeing with a "liberal." (Liberal-on-liberal violence, especially.)
That some use environmentalism and some use ethnic supremacy are simply different means to the same end: power. Some are naked in their power grab based on what they perceive as an ethnic right, some grab for power by determining that they alone can save the world from an environmental apocalypse - and that all others be damned. Neither is remotely like American conservatism. Both are statism, autocracy, and dictatorship.
American conservatism is entrenched in these words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,...
Progressives Against Progress
The rise of environmentalism poisoned liberals’ historical optimism.
by Fred Siegel
For the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, American liberals distinguished themselves from conservatives by what Lionel Trilling called “a spiritual orthodoxy of belief in progress.” Liberalism placed its hopes in human perfectibility. Regarding human nature as essentially both beneficent and malleable, liberals, like their socialist cousins, argued that with the aid of science and given the proper social and economic conditions, humanity could free itself from its cramped carapace of greed and distrust and enter a realm of true freedom and happiness. Conservatives, by contrast, clung to a tragic sense of man’s inherent limitations. While acknowledging the benefits of science, they argued that it could never fundamentally reform, let alone transcend, the human condition. Most problems don’t have a solution, the conservatives maintained; rather than attempting Promethean feats, man would do best to find a balanced place in the world.
...
American liberalism has remarkably come to resemble nineteenth-century British Tory Radicalism, an aristocratic sensibility that combined strong support for centralized monarchical power with a paternalistic concern for the poor. Its enemies were the middle classes and the aesthetic ugliness it associated with an industrial economy powered by bourgeois energies.
...
Like the Tory Radicals, today’s liberal gentry see the untamed middle classes as the true enemy. “Environmentalism offered the extraordinary opportunity to combine the qualities of virtue and selfishness,” wrote William Tucker in a groundbreaking 1977 Harper’s article on the opposition to construction of the Storm King power plant along New York’s Hudson River. Tucker described the extraordinary sight of a fleet of yachts—including one piloted by the old Stalinist singer Pete Seeger—sailing up and down the Hudson in protest. What Tucker tellingly described as the environmentalists’ “aristocratic” vision called for a stratified, terraced society in which the knowing ones would order society for the rest of us. Touring American campuses in the mid-1970s, Norman Macrae of The Economist was shocked “to hear so many supposedly left-wing young Americans who still thought they were expressing an entirely new and progressive philosophy as they mouthed the same prejudices as Trollope’s 19th century Tory squires: attacking any further expansion of industry and commerce as impossibly vulgar, because ecologically unfair to their pheasants and wild ducks.”
Neither the failure of the environmental apocalypse to arrive nor the steady improvement in environmental conditions over the last 40 years has dampened the ardor of those eager to make hair shirts for others to wear. The call for political coercion as a path back to Ruskin’s and Mishan’s small-is-beautiful world is still with us. Radical environmentalists’ Tory disdain for democracy and for the habits of their inferiors remains undiminished. True to its late-1960s origins, political environmentalism in America gravitates toward both bureaucrats and hippies: toward a global, big-brother government that will keep the middle classes in line and toward a back-to-the-earth, peasantlike localism, imposed on others but presenting no threat to the elites’ comfortable lives. How ironic that these gentry liberals—progressives against progress—turn out to resemble nothing so much as nineteenth-century conservatives.
More at City Journal.
This article interested me since it points out the leftist ruling class' environmental statist ideology. Written by a leaning-lefty, he seems somewhat dismayed by the constant push for statist rule by "liberals". This ideology quickly summed up:
1. Nature is god (whether the left believes it or it's just to get to #4 is up to the individual lefty)
2. The masses ruin nature
3. Therefore masses must be controlled (or exterminated)
4. The leaders know best and are exempt from rules for the masses
Fred Siegel's politics seem to lean left (without doing too much research into the guy), and this is shown in his ending statement.
19th Century British "conservatives" are not the same as US conservatives. Look at the top of the blog here. See where it says " helping to conserve American libertarian values"? That's US conservatism.
Conservatism within the US is often viewed as traditionalism - which is associated with religious and family groups, and while often laudible in their non-governmental efforts, conservatism is adherence to the Constitution and adherence to those principles of the Constitution. It's a document of classic liberalism - as in liberty for all, tolerance for all, and the ability for each man (and woman) to live his live how he chooses free of all but the fewest govt. restrictions.
The US is a nation of free men who came together to establish a nation of free men. They took pride in their traditions, but did not want to impose on one another. The most unifying tradition is that of a reverence for freedom.
Conservatism - as in conservation of one's original values - in other nations is a different animal. Conservatism in England may represent groups like the British National Party, which has a very pro-Anglo/pro-white/anti-everybody-who's-not-a-white-Brit bias to them. They are conserving old values of the UK, just values that are rooted in nationalism and white British ethnic supremacy.
Until a 2009 court order, they restricted their membership to "indigenous caucasian". Presumably to keep any smart-ass Chechens from joining just to fuck with them.
Pictured: elastic loaves.The United States, unlike most nations in the world, is a collection of different ethnic groups. The US is not represented by one cardinal national group. There is no "American" ethnicity. There is a group of people who are irish, a group who are german, a group who are russian, congolese, brazilian, mexican, japanese, chinese, etc. There is no ethnicity nor ethnic culture to match the United States.
Thus Siegel makes a big mistake in assuming that this leftist enviro-statism has anything to do with actual conservatism. The difference between British monarchists in the 19th century and American conservatives is vast. The left, which are emphatically illiberal and intolerant, despite their nom de jour "liberal", are far from American conservatism. That they may want to conserve monarchical dictatorial rule is not a surprise to those who've seen the effects of disagreeing with a "liberal." (Liberal-on-liberal violence, especially.)
That some use environmentalism and some use ethnic supremacy are simply different means to the same end: power. Some are naked in their power grab based on what they perceive as an ethnic right, some grab for power by determining that they alone can save the world from an environmental apocalypse - and that all others be damned. Neither is remotely like American conservatism. Both are statism, autocracy, and dictatorship.
American conservatism is entrenched in these words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,...
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Media vs Black Tea Partiers
Reporters vs black conservatives at a national press club event on 8/4/10.
HT Jawa Report & Breitbart.
HT Jawa Report & Breitbart.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, Part II
Take the ten minutes to listen to words that sound like they were spoken yesterday, not in 1961:
Change the names of the Congressmen to Pelosi, Reid, Slaughter, Waxman, Obama, and it's the same push for socialism then as is today.
Except today, the Congressmen don't bother writing back. They'll just do what they want, because they've decided they're the ruling class.
And the media lapdogs play along.
Change the names of the Congressmen to Pelosi, Reid, Slaughter, Waxman, Obama, and it's the same push for socialism then as is today.
Except today, the Congressmen don't bother writing back. They'll just do what they want, because they've decided they're the ruling class.
And the media lapdogs play along.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Sum of it All
I recently read The 5000 Year Leap, and was surprised that there was nothing earth shattering or some great conservative (or libertarian) secret waiting to be learned. What I did learn was that our country is in trouble and without some type of paradigm shift America will be lost to us as we know.
The overarching theme I have seemed to discover through my reading of book on politics, philosophy, religion etc. I have finally recognized that we, as Americans, as a general rule are missing something so simple, so obvious that we should slap ourselves for missing it.
Our nation was founded as a society of virtue, children were instructed how to be virtuous from their parents and from the elementary schools they attended. America was a place were religion was encouraged and was proliferated throughout society as a whole. Children were taught to be industrious and generous, as their parents practiced it in everything they did.
Alexis de Tocqueville said this about America during the time he visited:
"I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. In the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there. In her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits, aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
So where does that statement leave us? This is the point where Ayn Rand and I diverge, man needs to fill his spiritual hole in his heart to be complete. It can be argued that the founding fathers thought it important for Christian men and women to be involved in government. The founding fathers dictated freedom of religion for all, not the absence of Judeo-Christian principles being instilled into our government through its elected representatives.
I have thought on this for a long while, I believe that the word that comes to mind is balance. Balance in everything spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical balance. It is well and good to excel at making a living, but at the same time if you emotionally or spiritually deficient chances are you will not be happy or you may not be generous to your neighbor when he or she is in need. Is it your responsibility to help you neighbor? In America it isn't, but if you wish to and you feel led to help your neighbor then by all means do so.
An example of the virtue vacuum: Why does everyone get angry when corporate greed is exposed?
It is because greed in itself is wrong (it should not be construed as making a profit). When an example like corporate greed comes to mind, people scream for more government regulations and therefore more restrictions on the market. This in turn hampers the economy and so on and so forth. People have not realized what they have done to themselves. In asking for government protection they erode the very system that sustains them. If that corporate greed, in whatever form it manifested itself, had not occurred, the extra regulations would not have been levied and the free market system would have been left alone and allowed to function as it should. In a virtuous society (in America that usually means one espouses some type of Christian beliefs) greed is frowned upon, hard work is encouraged. Helping a neighbor in need is honorable whether it be giving aid yourself or directing them to a church with more resources than yourself.
Balance and personal responsibility are the answer to America's problems. America's churches and other not for profit organizations, no matter the religious affiliation, are the answer to solving the poverty question, not by giving the poor everything they need but giving the poor what they need to become productive members in society. Business on all levels would be cleaned up because business men and women would be concerned providing good and services for their customers while exhibiting honesty and integrity while making a profit. Government would be less involved in regulation and in taxing the citizenry and business. Government would be more fiscally responsible and accountable to its citizens.
As of now there is rampant spending by the government when there is no money in the treasury, massive entitlement programs that do not work or about to be bankrupt with more programs on the way to help the "poor" in our country, the continuous attempts by a socialist congress to cause the complete abdication of personal responsibility to the federal government, government officials involved in criminal and morally irresponsible scandals among other things.
Alexis de Tocqueville also said this:
"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
I say, "Liberty and Freedom through Virtue instead of Restraint and Servitude through Socialism!"
The overarching theme I have seemed to discover through my reading of book on politics, philosophy, religion etc. I have finally recognized that we, as Americans, as a general rule are missing something so simple, so obvious that we should slap ourselves for missing it.
Our nation was founded as a society of virtue, children were instructed how to be virtuous from their parents and from the elementary schools they attended. America was a place were religion was encouraged and was proliferated throughout society as a whole. Children were taught to be industrious and generous, as their parents practiced it in everything they did.
Alexis de Tocqueville said this about America during the time he visited:
"I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. In the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there. In her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits, aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
So where does that statement leave us? This is the point where Ayn Rand and I diverge, man needs to fill his spiritual hole in his heart to be complete. It can be argued that the founding fathers thought it important for Christian men and women to be involved in government. The founding fathers dictated freedom of religion for all, not the absence of Judeo-Christian principles being instilled into our government through its elected representatives.
I have thought on this for a long while, I believe that the word that comes to mind is balance. Balance in everything spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical balance. It is well and good to excel at making a living, but at the same time if you emotionally or spiritually deficient chances are you will not be happy or you may not be generous to your neighbor when he or she is in need. Is it your responsibility to help you neighbor? In America it isn't, but if you wish to and you feel led to help your neighbor then by all means do so.
An example of the virtue vacuum: Why does everyone get angry when corporate greed is exposed?
It is because greed in itself is wrong (it should not be construed as making a profit). When an example like corporate greed comes to mind, people scream for more government regulations and therefore more restrictions on the market. This in turn hampers the economy and so on and so forth. People have not realized what they have done to themselves. In asking for government protection they erode the very system that sustains them. If that corporate greed, in whatever form it manifested itself, had not occurred, the extra regulations would not have been levied and the free market system would have been left alone and allowed to function as it should. In a virtuous society (in America that usually means one espouses some type of Christian beliefs) greed is frowned upon, hard work is encouraged. Helping a neighbor in need is honorable whether it be giving aid yourself or directing them to a church with more resources than yourself.
Balance and personal responsibility are the answer to America's problems. America's churches and other not for profit organizations, no matter the religious affiliation, are the answer to solving the poverty question, not by giving the poor everything they need but giving the poor what they need to become productive members in society. Business on all levels would be cleaned up because business men and women would be concerned providing good and services for their customers while exhibiting honesty and integrity while making a profit. Government would be less involved in regulation and in taxing the citizenry and business. Government would be more fiscally responsible and accountable to its citizens.
As of now there is rampant spending by the government when there is no money in the treasury, massive entitlement programs that do not work or about to be bankrupt with more programs on the way to help the "poor" in our country, the continuous attempts by a socialist congress to cause the complete abdication of personal responsibility to the federal government, government officials involved in criminal and morally irresponsible scandals among other things.
Alexis de Tocqueville also said this:
"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
I say, "Liberty and Freedom through Virtue instead of Restraint and Servitude through Socialism!"
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