Libertarian Lost in a Two-Party System

The Tea Party "Mob" is a Far Cry From Organized

What's amusing about Pelosi's astroturf comments and her wild fantasies regarding a great Republican Party (or Fox News, or sleazy corporate) conspiracy behind Tea Parties and Town Hall Meetings is that we've got to be the most de-centralized, disorganized bunch of rebels in the history of protesters. I commented to my husband the other day that it is very libertarian of this movement to have no centralized headquarters, no nationwide grand poobah organizing at the federal level. We're just a bunch of localized groups, each with a particular issue or philosophy, not all of them necessarily compatible. What brings us loosely together is a shared understanding of the corruption of big government as well as the dangers of Keynesian economics, socialized healthcare and national debts that are impossible to pay off.

Astroturf we are definitely not. In fact, I think we're more like my front lawn. Not known in the neighborhood for our lawn maintenance forte, we fumble through the task. The results are marginal. When dead spots form, my husband scatters grass seed in the hopes of preventing the inevitable. The problem is, the seeds he sows are not the same as the original grass, so we have a host of bright green, extra tall patches of grass cropping up at random intervals. Add that to the dead spots where the sprinklers don't quite reach and the grass mites triumphed and you've got an interesting mosaic of dark green, light green, and yellow. Finally, there's that stretch of sod that never quite took hold last summer. Basically, a little bit of everything. No one would mistake our yard for astroturf, and if the arrogant statists took a closer look, they wouldn't dismiss us anti-government scoundrels so readily.

I receive emails from a number of active individuals, subscribe to a variety of Youtube channels, and follow well-crafted blogs. I joined Bureaucrash, donated to the Cato Institute, participated in a national libertarian conference, and I have attended as many local events as possible. (I usually hear about them through an email at the last minute.) In addition, I send emails and links to my friends and family encouraging them to join us. If that isn't grassroots I don't know what is.

Pelosi, you have no idea what's coming. This isn't pro-football; it's backyard rugby.

Posted at Bureaucrash:

http://social.bureaucrash.com/profiles/blogs/the-tea-party-mob-is-a-far-cry

Dear Mr. President

I wanted to thank you for pursuing your programs at an unprecedented pace – pushing Congressmen to vote on legislation without careful consideration, demanding absurd escalations in government spending, and creating dozens of bureaucratic overlords.  The speed and scope of your crusade to quash prosperity has stirred into action people I thought would never emerge from a coma.

 

You must understand that free people will resist statism whenever it rears its ugly head.  We will stand up against the detractors of liberty until our hands are bound and our voices silenced.  We are not freaks, terrorists, or an angry mob.  We are dissenters.  We do not hate you, Mr. President.  We disagree with you.  In this country, last time I checked, free thought is still legal and even celebrated.

 

For most of my life, I was a dedicated member of the Democratic Party.  In my twenties I served as a precinct committee person, secretary of my district, and volunteer for so many campaigns and propositions that the names, faces and details have blurred and faded over the years.  I considered myself a socialist liberal until about seven years ago.  Only after meeting people who grew up in Europe and doing years of reading and research have I come to recognize the fallacies and dangers of the Marxist faith.  I don’t expect to change your mind, Mr. President.  It suffices to say that I changed mine.  And with the same passion I summoned in my youth for causes in which I believed, I pledge my life to those I now embrace.  If this means attending protests, distributing information and writing letters, I will do just that.  If it means being ridiculed by defamatory television ads and marginalized by sycophantic media outlets, bring it on.

 

It is our mission to halt the advancement of your statist, collectivist agenda.  Be forewarned.  Even after long periods of suppression, liberty and the spirit of individualism always prevail.  For in times of adversity – oppression, slavery, imprisonment, abuse, and abandonment – these truths remain imprinted on a human being’s soul:  “I am an individual, and it is my right to be free.”

 

Posted at Bureaucrash:

 

http://social.bureaucrash.com/profiles/blogs/dear-mr-president

The Class War is a Scam

Meticulously nurtured since the New Deal, the Democrats have it down to an art form. The Republicans, not to be outdone, are catching on and manipulating it to meet their own objectives. The class war. It's a scam.

All that is required is to pit one group of American citizens against another in a bitter rivalry that involves name-calling, character defaming, and the blurring of individuals into a subspecies of the collective. Small business owners scowl at their employees (even though, in reality, employers actually respect and value good employees.) Likewise, employees distrust "the man" (without whose investment, innovation, and risk-taking they would not have a job.) The upper five percent income earners look down on the lower forty percent, and the lower forty percent complain that the upper five percent stumbled into their fortunes by accident. A delightful cacophony of mislaid animosity and petty insults, the class war keeps us all busy on a daily basis - developing new forms of ammunition and darkening the lines that distinguish us from them.

It's brilliant! While all eyes are turned inward, one against another, the participants of the class war have little time to notice anything else, especially the growing black hole in national prosperity that looms within a five-mile radius of the Capitol Building. The real adversary works there. The parasites. They ride in limousines and private jets; enjoy fine cuisine and attend lavish parties. They never have to balance a budget - personally or professionally. They know absolutely nothing about the creation of wealth and have no clue where money really comes from. (But I'll give them a hint: It's not the Fed.) They enjoy a privileged lifestyle that they neither earned nor fully appreciate, and they pay for their extravagances by stealing from every fighting member of the class war, a war they created as a distraction.

In time, even the best-laid scams unravel. The proponents of the class war are nervous. They know we're onto them. They know it can't last forever. They know that, eventually, we will prevail.

------

Posted at Bureaucrash:

http://social.bureaucrash.com/profiles/blogs/the-class-war-is-a-scam

There Is No Classless Society

Obama wants to make everything fair. You know, some guys just have "too much money." Hell, let's spread the wealth around. A little class war is good for everyone.

When us free market folks try to explain the folly of this concept to our sentimental liberal friends, we are often greeted with hostility or an outright dismissal. All our tidy little arguments about the creation of wealth and the merits of capitalism, as well as our futile pleas that they pick up a copy of ATLAS SHRUGGED, fall on deaf ears.

So let's try a different approach. Point out the obvious. Even they will get it. THERE IS NO CLASSLESS SOCIETY. Period. And there never will be.

The moment a dashing WonderBoy declares that he is going to make everything "fair", he has planted the seeds for the new class society. WonderBoy may be a politician, a bloodthirsty revolutionary, or the neighbor running for president of the HOA. It doesn't matter. The minute he announces his "noble" quest, he has begun the process of reorganizing. The new upper class position themselves to gobble up the perks being stolen from the old upper class. Who are the new upper class? WonderBoy's friends, his loyal warriors, his supporters, his financiers, or anyone he chooses to bring into the fold.

And that's it. It happens every time. Statism creates the new HAVES. Politicians, bureaucrats, and the politically connected. The HAVE NOTs are the rest of us. Personally, I'd rather see the opportunity for wealth and ladder climbing in the hands of productive, innovative individuals, not party bureaucrats, but this is the nature of a planned economy. A little of this debauchery is always present in Washington, but the reorganizers are moving at such an alarming rate, I'm anticipating the Stasi to alight on my doorstep any moment. . .

Never mind. It was just the UPS driver, a welcome reminder that I still live in a free, capitalist society.

Meet "the Cato Guys"

I don't make New Year's resolutions. I make goals when I feel they are appropriate. For example important, self-imposed draft deadlines. Or birthday cards (to my embarrassment: typically mailed the day before.) Basically, my priorities in my own time. New Year's resolutions are annoying. Why choose a random date to make declarations you don't actually intend to keep?

2009 broke my bah-the-New-Year-humbug running streak.

My daughter, then eight, created a thoughtful New Year's celebration package, which included a banner, confetti, and bright-colored New Year's resolution note cards. Okay, when your eight-year-old hands you a bright orange resolution note card at 10pm (and she can barely keep her little brown eyes open) you have to cave. Naturally. So I wrote a resolution.

The standard "lose five pounds", "exercise more", or "end world hunger" seemed trite, so instead, feeling a tad cheeky, I wrote on line number 1: "Meet the Cato Guys." At the time, I didn't have any particular Cato "guy" in mind, because if you asked me I couldn't name one. I had vaguely familiarized myself with The Cato Institute activities, read a few newsletters, devoured THE DIRTY DOZEN, and followed the Heller Case with great interest, but Cato was Cato. As much as I admired them, they were somehow untouchable, hovering in DC-Think-Tank-Land. Still, there's something about writing a declaration on paper. It becomes real. It enters the put it out in the universe category that my entrepreneurial husband swears by. It was out in the universe and I couldn't let that little, bright-orange note card make a fool out of me. So, I set out to meet "the Cato guys."

This past week I experienced the most valuable conference I've ever had the pleasure of attending: Freedom Fest. A collection of debates, presentations, exhibits, and parties, this was the free-thinkers event of the year. Mark your calendar for July 2010. One of the things I loved about Freedom Fest was that each person did not agree 100% with any other person in attendance. . . but that was perfectly okay. What a universe! For all my years in the groupthink world of liberals, it was like emerging from Plato's Cave.

And, guess what? While I was there, I met a few "Cato guys." David Boaz, Daniel Mitchell, Randall O'Toole, and Michael Tanner. Grant it, being obscenely shy, I decided that shaking their hands, mumbling a comment about appreciating their work, and nodding counted as a "meeting," but I've come a long way since January 1, 2009.

A special thanks to David Boaz, who in his quiet, yet resounding, way prods the pessimist to remember that in 1943 it appeared as if fascism and communism would take over the world. In that same year, three brilliant women - Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand - published books about liberty and individualism. And look how far we've come since then. I will, also, be forever enchanted by the staggeringly good-looking Dan Mitchell (Youtube does *not* do the man justice) who has the unique talent of communicating the hazy world of economics in a language that even I can understand. . . Truthfully, all the presentations were amazing. I could spend hours elaborating. But I'll sum it up with this:

Put it on paper. You might be surprised what happens.

The True Hitler Parallel

For all the Hitler chants I've heard in my lifetime - "Bush is Hitler", "Obama is Hitler", "My next door neighbor is Hitler", "The dog down the street is Hitler" - I find it odd that most of the squawkers are missing the true Hitler parallel - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

When I first saw this charming little stinker saunter onto the world stage with his captivating smile and his seemingly benevolent speeches, I turned to my husband and remarked, "Now here's a brutal dictator in the making." What I don't get is why most Americans (is it possible for the Jewish people to excommunicate Larry King?) seemed to miss that Hitleresque quality about old Mahmoud. He might as well have a swastika painted on his forehead.

Denying the Holocaust. Imagine the mindset of someone who purports the repugnant "Holocaust was faked" theory. Such an individual would have to subscribe to a belief in a HUGE conspiracy of massive proportions - Roswell fly home, JFK take a back seat - because the amount of people who would need to be involved in order to maintain such a presumed colossal charade is mind boggling. And, naturally, who would be at the forefront, driving this conspiracy for their own advantage and to the detriment of the human race? The Jews, of course.

Brutalizing and slaughtering his opponents. In America, we still have the right to hold peaceful protest (e.g. Tea Parties), that are unpopular with the executive branch, and walk away unscathed. And although we empathize and pray for those half a world away who are denied such a right, we really have no clue what they are going through. People being beaten and burned in the street before their eyes. Not something we can really imagine. Our only contribution is to keep the videos and photos circling, even as voices are being silenced.

Swift turn of events. Do you suppose that any of the young men and women in the streets of Iran today would have imagined their current predicament six months ago? Probably a small handful. Two months ago? A cluster. There are always warning signs - one small freedom at a time is extinguished, one governmental edict here and there, an arrest or two for crimes that don't make sense. Most people ignore warning signs, so when the deluge comes it seems to arrive as a monsoon. History is filled to the brim with unimaginable things that "could never happen". . . until they happened.

Wake up, something's happening.  Be on the lookout for: 1) another "president for life" on the world stage, 2) a dramatic increase in sharia that the West will turn blind eyes to, 3) the birth of an Iranian gulag, and 4) nuclear weapons headed for Israel.

And where are all the supposedly progressive champions of human rights during the reign of Ahmadinejad? Stoning the "Soroya" movie.

The Shame of the Media - Tea Party Movement

I just don't even know what to say about the media's pathetic coverage of the Tea Party Movement. So I made a video:

The Forgotten Man - by Amity Shlaes

In honor of Tea Party Day, I present my review of Amity Shlaes' book, THE FORGOTTEN MAN.

Shlaes gives a thoughtful account of the 1930s while examining how governmental policies affected the outcome of The Great Depression. Forgoing personal insults and focusing instead on historical details, Shlaes' approach is both fresh and palatable. Five out of Five Stars. A must read.

Marxist Apologetics

Recently, just for the heck of it, I did a little internet surfing on the Bolshevik revolution. My God there are a lot of Marxist apologists floating around out there on the web. According to those folks, the Russian Marxist utopia didn't work because: 1) the Bolsheviks were short sighted, 2) Stalin was a murderous power monster, 3) It's hard to successfully implement communism in such a large country. The Marxist utopia didn't quite work *that* time, but we'll get it right. . . someday. 

What the apologists refuse to address is the simple fact that the Marxist utopia failed because the concept is flawed. It doesn't take more than a few minutes to think it through. The concept fails, not the execution. Peasants burned their crops because they didn't want the fruit of their labor to be taken away by the Bolsheviks. People don't WANT to work on behalf of someone else. No one does. Even if they sell themselves as a philanthropist or a champion of the rights of others, they are doing the work they do because it makes them feel good. It gives them a sense of accomplishment. It BENEFITS them, and it is something they choose to do. Some people probably play the role because they want power. Does anyone believe that Jesse Jackson ever wants to see total racial equality? Maybe on his deathbed, but until then, racial inequality is his lifeblood. What would he do without it?

As far as the "evils" of capitalism. Those arguments get old. Regurgitated by spoiled college students, living off a stipend, in adoration of their liberal professors. . . they don't mean much.

Factory Conditions. Compare Industrial Revolution factory conditions to the horrors of the Russian Gulag or the firing squads of Che Guevara. The brutality and massacres committed by the proponents of communism make IR factories look like day spas. You cannot claim to forward a cause in honor of human rights (or "the people") if you disregard the rights of those who dissent with your ideology. Factory conditions and treatment of workers improved because, in the USA, individuals have the right to protest - the right to publicize perceived injustices - without fearing for their lives.

Abuse of Workers. There is not a single person in the United States right now who is poor or abused because someone else is making a LEGAL income via a capitalist venture. Plenty of abuse festers in the domestic sector, but no one benefits from it. Why are people abusive when they're bigger, stronger, or more powerful? I have no idea, but I can guarantee you there is no profit motive in the abusive situations I've witnessed. On the other hand, I have worked for several entrepreneurs in my lifetime. Good benefits, decent wages, a win-win for everyone involved. The entrepreneur enriches society by creating wealth, jobs that wouldn't exist if he stayed home and stayed clear of capitalism. The only "abuse" of workers I've seen is people getting fired for stealing, doctoring their timecards, or just goofing off. I find it interesting that when a slacker gets fired, the general mood of the office skyrockets. Because people don't WANT to bust their butt for the benefit of their lesser motivated co-workers.

Slavery. Slavery is not a capitalist institution. Capitalism is a relatively new ideology. Slavery has been around since the beginning of recorded history and presumably before. Adam Smith denounced slavery on both moral and economic grounds. On economic grounds, slavery is not practical. It shares in common with Marxism that a man is forced to work for the benefit of others and not for himself. He is, therefore, naturally less productive. On moral grounds, the distinction is clear. If one believes in the sanctity of private property and individual rights, the conclusion is that a man belongs to himself and the work of his hands is his alone to trade. A man cannot be owned. The moment The Declaration of Independence was written, slavery was doomed.

Some people have more money than others. So what? That's the point. The person who works harder will theoretically earn more money. Are there thieves and cheaters? Of course. And that is where one of the government's legitimate functions steps into play. Punish thieves and enforce contracts.

The truth is that capitalist countries are the freest, cleanest, and wealthiest across the globe. When people are allowed to own the fruit of their labor, their inventions, and the product of their minds, EVERYONE benefits. In that way, we actually DO work for the benefit of one another when we are allowed to work for our own.

I fear the socialist experiment is already underway in the US and may be inevitable. The masses seem to be ignoring shelves and shelves of data and listening instead to their emotions. One day Marxism has to work because it "feels good". Sorry, that's not the case, but here we go again.

How The World Works YouTube Channel

This young man is one of the best debaters on youtube, imho. He has an awesome comprehension of free market theory, private property rights, and the perils of Marxism. A joy to watch: