May, 2009
For month’s, our Canadian governments have done nothing to correct the growing aggressiveness of the supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam. (L.T.T.E.) With each aggressive move, the confused city of Toronto has allowed a voice to this terrorist support group.
Now, under the guise of crying, “genocide”, the Tamil supporters are raising their voice, no, demanding a voice with not only the municipal government, but our Provincial and Federal governments as well. As our governments wring their hands instead of putting these terrorist supporters in jail, the Tamil Tiger supporters are growing in confidence at this indecision.
The first premise that over-rides all other considerations is these Tiger supporters are supporting terrorism. The Tamil tigers have for years adopted the same suicide bombing tactics as the Palestinian terrorists.
Canada’s confused history
The Snow Tigers, (Canadian branch of this terrorist support group) fund-raise for weapons right under the nose of government. “Canada is their bank” states Rohan Gunaranta, a leading world expert on the LTTE. The LTTE’s chief accountant, Ponniah Anandarajah, lived in Canada for many years. When it comes to fund-raising, the Tamil tigers are unrivaled. They have used every conceivable tactic – government grants, front companies, fraud of every type, migrant smuggling, and drugs. A CSIS report estimates that $2 million a year in collections is funneled to the Tigers from Canada to support the war effort. Another CSIS study puts it at a million a month. Millions more in crime proceeds also swell the war chest. “Canada is the LTTE’s largest foreign base of operations, - Canadian intelligence agents in a May 1999 report states. “Its main activities in Canada focus on fundraising and propaganda.” Canada is a support base for a terrorist organization that has killed more than a hundred politicians, assassinated the leaders of two countries – India and Sri Lanka – and carried out more suicide bombings than any other militant group in the world.
Our governments should give them no voice whatsoever. These Tamil Tiger supporters should have been immediately removed from blocking the Gardiner expressway, from blocking Canadians from going about their honest business and then Canada needs to go on high alert since the Tamil Tigers are losing the war in northern Sri Lanka, and may easily try desperate tactics here in Canada, including suicide tactics. Canada may well pay for being so politically confused about terrorism.
Sri Lanka is doing the right thing by showing terrorists no mercy. They are fighting a war on terrorism how a war should be fought against terrorists. The deaths of innocent civilians, the women and children in northern Sri Lanka are solely the moral responsibility of the Tamil Tigers who initiated the terrorist activities in that war.
It is no wonder that large protests are held here in Canada since Canada was the largest financial support network for these terrorists and Canada is so tolerant, even towards terrorists. It must stop now. Even though Canada has, after some education and lobbying, made certain Tamil non-profit organizations illegal, - all support for terrorist activities must be stopped.
Ted Harlson.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
X-Ray Machines see through Your Clothes at Canadian airports
The latest move by Canada to "test" implement X-Ray
machines that see through clothes at airports is another
step to using full monitoring devices domestically.
We do not have a capitalist society in North America.
We have had for centuries, a mixed economy, - an
economy of some freedoms grossly undermined by
government clever intervention at all levels of
economic and social activity. Each decade gets worse.
We are now at the social stage of near complete domination
of government, a quiet, fascist society that pretends
respect for rights and property - with strings
yoked to bureaucrats, held by political officials.
Business Association leaders follow in tow like obedient
puppies.
Pragmatism disallows corporate principles.
Looking back through the decades, an ever slow, but ever
sure smothering of freedom has created apathy, economic
disintegration and needless loss of human lives.
Society, like a person who is losing his reason, is
wavering, crumbling, and like an insane person, has
to be fully controlled in behavior through drugs, through
enforced physical rules, and not through self – generated
volition. The sickness appears in many forms. The latest
$700 billion dollar injection, shot through our cultural
artery’s will feel good, but only until the next relapse.
The only answer is freedom, a full lassez-faire capitalist
revolution. Government needs to stop 90% of its activities
and leave people alone. Let people free.
An intellectual revolution is also needed by this bankrupt
continent to sustain proper freedoms and growth.
An immediate example would be, stop trying to build up the
Middle East countries and take care of Canadian citizens
first and only! Demolish terrorist havens and warn terrorist
countries like Iran. Give them a three week deadline to
stop all their terrorist activities or suffer immediate
bombing, including nuclear bombing if necessary. Our
governments aim should be to protect OUR security and our
freedom only! Period.
Our country is suffering needlessly by global give-a-ways,
and forced give-a-ways and needless economic sacrifice
and needless sacrifice of our soldiers.
Completely humiliating and destroying the states that
sponsor terrorism will eliminate the need for domestic
“protection and security” like X-Ray machines.
If a thief robs your house you call the police. If that
policeman then tells you, you need to barricade your
premises and buy a flak jacket just in case things get
worse, you’d rightly say he has abdicated his job of
providing security. You’d rightly think the police should
go after the criminal with all his skills, not burden you
with unnecessary prohibitions.
It is exactly – exactly – the same with international
Security. The principle does not change with more people.
Bring the criminal states to justice.
X-Ray machines for North American airports will be
implemented by politicians with black hearts who have not
and cannot stand up as free men.
machines that see through clothes at airports is another
step to using full monitoring devices domestically.
We do not have a capitalist society in North America.
We have had for centuries, a mixed economy, - an
economy of some freedoms grossly undermined by
government clever intervention at all levels of
economic and social activity. Each decade gets worse.
We are now at the social stage of near complete domination
of government, a quiet, fascist society that pretends
respect for rights and property - with strings
yoked to bureaucrats, held by political officials.
Business Association leaders follow in tow like obedient
puppies.
Pragmatism disallows corporate principles.
Looking back through the decades, an ever slow, but ever
sure smothering of freedom has created apathy, economic
disintegration and needless loss of human lives.
Society, like a person who is losing his reason, is
wavering, crumbling, and like an insane person, has
to be fully controlled in behavior through drugs, through
enforced physical rules, and not through self – generated
volition. The sickness appears in many forms. The latest
$700 billion dollar injection, shot through our cultural
artery’s will feel good, but only until the next relapse.
The only answer is freedom, a full lassez-faire capitalist
revolution. Government needs to stop 90% of its activities
and leave people alone. Let people free.
An intellectual revolution is also needed by this bankrupt
continent to sustain proper freedoms and growth.
An immediate example would be, stop trying to build up the
Middle East countries and take care of Canadian citizens
first and only! Demolish terrorist havens and warn terrorist
countries like Iran. Give them a three week deadline to
stop all their terrorist activities or suffer immediate
bombing, including nuclear bombing if necessary. Our
governments aim should be to protect OUR security and our
freedom only! Period.
Our country is suffering needlessly by global give-a-ways,
and forced give-a-ways and needless economic sacrifice
and needless sacrifice of our soldiers.
Completely humiliating and destroying the states that
sponsor terrorism will eliminate the need for domestic
“protection and security” like X-Ray machines.
If a thief robs your house you call the police. If that
policeman then tells you, you need to barricade your
premises and buy a flak jacket just in case things get
worse, you’d rightly say he has abdicated his job of
providing security. You’d rightly think the police should
go after the criminal with all his skills, not burden you
with unnecessary prohibitions.
It is exactly – exactly – the same with international
Security. The principle does not change with more people.
Bring the criminal states to justice.
X-Ray machines for North American airports will be
implemented by politicians with black hearts who have not
and cannot stand up as free men.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Ayn Rand Lecture April 8, 2009
Elan Journo, resident speaker of the Ayn Rand Institute will give a lecture on:
What is America's stake in the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Many people claim that U.S. policy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict has been destructive of our security--and that a change in direction is urgently needed. Echoing many of his predecessors and legions of commentators, President Obama has announced plans to make dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict a “key diplomatic priority” of his administration.
What kind of policy toward that ongoing conflict is actually in America’s interests? What policy can enhance U.S. security? What in fact have been the effects of Washington’s policy? Has it been unfair? If so, to whom--the Arab-Palestinian side, or Israel? In a presentation addressing these and other questions, Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute will offer a secular, moral case for principled U.S. support of Israel.
Schedule and location of lecture
Where: Travelodge Hotel 925 Dixon road (Dixon / Carlingview Drive / Toronto airport)
Time: Wednesday April 8, 2009
Doors will open at 7:00 pm lecture begins 7:30 - 11:00 pm. The lecture is approximately 45 minutes. Q & A will follow.
Eatonville Room: 1 & 2 (On the main floor lobby)
Entrance: $25 dollars at the door Students: $10 Dollars
Coffee and Tea provided
Parking: Discounted rate of $6 dollars per vehicle for the evening. Please let the front desk know you are there for the lecture and the parking discount will apply for the evening.
Contact person: Ted Harlson: tharlson@hotmail.com
What is America's stake in the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Many people claim that U.S. policy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict has been destructive of our security--and that a change in direction is urgently needed. Echoing many of his predecessors and legions of commentators, President Obama has announced plans to make dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict a “key diplomatic priority” of his administration.
What kind of policy toward that ongoing conflict is actually in America’s interests? What policy can enhance U.S. security? What in fact have been the effects of Washington’s policy? Has it been unfair? If so, to whom--the Arab-Palestinian side, or Israel? In a presentation addressing these and other questions, Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute will offer a secular, moral case for principled U.S. support of Israel.
Schedule and location of lecture
Where: Travelodge Hotel 925 Dixon road (Dixon / Carlingview Drive / Toronto airport)
Time: Wednesday April 8, 2009
Doors will open at 7:00 pm lecture begins 7:30 - 11:00 pm. The lecture is approximately 45 minutes. Q & A will follow.
Eatonville Room: 1 & 2 (On the main floor lobby)
Entrance: $25 dollars at the door Students: $10 Dollars
Coffee and Tea provided
Parking: Discounted rate of $6 dollars per vehicle for the evening. Please let the front desk know you are there for the lecture and the parking discount will apply for the evening.
Contact person: Ted Harlson: tharlson@hotmail.com
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The Great Global Warming Swindle notice.
I have come across....
The Great Global Warming Swindle. It is always something I have suspected since I have little respect for deceitful politicians and the swarms of disgruntled socialists educating them. I have kept in mind a very short view of a Russian scientist who mentioned wryly that he had seen "global warming" on Mars. Then, "Its only the sun" I thought to myself. With the little scientific knowledge I had, I could only argue with others of my peers with as little knowledge as they had. I fully stood by the idea global warming was natural.
Now, with this documentary (with DVD), I can proudly say, I was right. The socialists hatred for material achievements and progress with politicians in bed with them have produced a great global warming swindle where millions, no, billions have been swindled from honest, hard working people in an effort for power and control. The tiniest socialist taint can be nothing less since socialism has collapsed and there is absolutely no reason to keep those death inducing ideas.
First, the wonderful website:
http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk/
I have the DVD and its absolutely amazing! Scientists have spoken and show Co2 is not and cannot be a cause in temperature increases. Co2 rather FOLLOWS temperature changes (that makes sense - hot weather produces more dead leaves, living organisms, etc., which produces more carbon - carbon gases). They then show the main and proven reason for temperature changes is…….
……. drum roll………………… sun spot changes. i.e. natural.
I love it!
I love it when intelligent reasoning people speak up and show the left wing fools who want nothing more than to stop the economy! Stop industry. Stop man.
Live life my friends! Gobble up and enjoy your your heat, your gasoline, your paper and plastics! Tell your politicians off who know of the swindle and want nothing more than power. Tell ‘em you want freedom!
Do it before they cut off and censor the Internet! Canada is reviewing Canadian Internet activity for more “Canadian content.” The beast is on the prowl. Those wicked men and women usually always do more than mere reviews. Government reviews are usually laden with more legislative power and stifling controls - as communist's sit back and smile.
Friday, February 13, 2009
I think you know what I mean
I look across my Canadian border and see American politicians openly, willingly and with a sense of unquestioned righteousness, over-ride their founding constitution of individual rights, rights to property use, and squelch the future prospect of America.
It’s so wrong. I was thinking, it’s not time yet, but perhaps time to begin thinking about a revolution. I mean a real, physical revolution towards freedom based on America’s “alter or abolish” principle. It certainly time for Americans to stand up for their own selfish lives and stop being sacrificial animals.
American Republicans and now Democrats are busy socializing the country in ever more areas of work and thought. Honest good businessmen are viciously being hammered.
Recently, the American money supply has been taken over by government force and control, more than ever before. The American money supply now from creation to every step of spending is monitored and controlled by government. Government control of credit comes purely from Karl Marx and the bloody Bolshevik killers.
The Russians and Chinese communists must be laughing. They must look at the directions and actions of the North American leaders and say, “No need for another cold war. In a generation or two, North America will be socialist. We will just sit and wait.”
All the spiritual content needed for communism or fascism is already prevalent in academia and politics; denial of reality, destruction of certainty, power by force, control, disregard for actual human potential, and unquestioned “moral” principle of sacrifice, against development and movement.
Americans and Canadians drudge along, knowing the idiocy of many of the plans and pogroms and just try to make a living in spite of it.
Americans have a better sense of justice and needed corrective action than Canadians. A revolution for individual rights is more possible there.
It’s always been right, but I think it’s more crucial now for Americans to look after their own lives and loved ones. To hell with the rest of the world! With the exception of a few civilized countries, most of the despotic third world only wants the collapse and death of America anyways. I’m talking primarily about the third world intellectuals and Harvard.
As for politicians, please be graceful and step down. Except for the necessary protection of individual rights and freedom of action, dismantle your unnecessary administrative departments and let’s get on with freedom! I don’t know. Get a job. You’ll win my respect.
With freedom, we all can get on with work again and prosper. We will continue to show the rest of the world how to build.
It’s so wrong. I was thinking, it’s not time yet, but perhaps time to begin thinking about a revolution. I mean a real, physical revolution towards freedom based on America’s “alter or abolish” principle. It certainly time for Americans to stand up for their own selfish lives and stop being sacrificial animals.
American Republicans and now Democrats are busy socializing the country in ever more areas of work and thought. Honest good businessmen are viciously being hammered.
Recently, the American money supply has been taken over by government force and control, more than ever before. The American money supply now from creation to every step of spending is monitored and controlled by government. Government control of credit comes purely from Karl Marx and the bloody Bolshevik killers.
The Russians and Chinese communists must be laughing. They must look at the directions and actions of the North American leaders and say, “No need for another cold war. In a generation or two, North America will be socialist. We will just sit and wait.”
All the spiritual content needed for communism or fascism is already prevalent in academia and politics; denial of reality, destruction of certainty, power by force, control, disregard for actual human potential, and unquestioned “moral” principle of sacrifice, against development and movement.
Americans and Canadians drudge along, knowing the idiocy of many of the plans and pogroms and just try to make a living in spite of it.
Americans have a better sense of justice and needed corrective action than Canadians. A revolution for individual rights is more possible there.
It’s always been right, but I think it’s more crucial now for Americans to look after their own lives and loved ones. To hell with the rest of the world! With the exception of a few civilized countries, most of the despotic third world only wants the collapse and death of America anyways. I’m talking primarily about the third world intellectuals and Harvard.
As for politicians, please be graceful and step down. Except for the necessary protection of individual rights and freedom of action, dismantle your unnecessary administrative departments and let’s get on with freedom! I don’t know. Get a job. You’ll win my respect.
With freedom, we all can get on with work again and prosper. We will continue to show the rest of the world how to build.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Live Free Or Die! 2008.
I've copied this very good article for the sake of those too young, never been told the truth of politics and for those too old and too guilty for never having told the truth of politics.
With governments over-powering all aspects of our lives, freedom is severely lost and in the coming chaos, all that remains, like Russia before the coming of the Reds, is to fight from pitiful pockets of last resistance.
North America is turning fascist and we must speak up. (Fascism is complete government control with a loss of individual liberty, yet with a pretense of property ownership and trade).
If you don't know how - or even why you should speak up, below will give you a glmpse of better ideas. Indiviual Rights pertains to Canada as much as America, so I hope you find your voice.
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Why We MUST Invoke Our Individual Rights—Now, By Gen LaGreca
America today is a nation in trouble. The great fortress of liberty, the country of the most productive, prosperous, and happy people in the world, is now in grave danger. America is under siege by the Dark Side, the forces of statism, while its Knights of Liberty are disarmed, demoralized, and suffering near-fatal wounds.
The country that once elected leaders whose ideas upheld liberty now elects leaders whose sweet-sounding platitudes and woozy promises are all that is required, and whose actual, dangerous ideas need not be examined until after Election Day.
The country that defended property rights now seizes 40-percent of our income in a myriad of taxes imposed by all levels of government—with even larger levies on incomes, profits, investments, and savings on the horizon.
The country that championed capitalism now vilifies our industries, cripples them with regulations, seizes their profits, then declares that the free market has failed and government must take over.
The country that made possible the great industrial titans—the Henry Fords, Thomas Edisons, and others whose productive genius moved mankind forward—now thinks that government can run things better, and that government should own, operate, and finance our corporations, deciding which will survive and which will die, creating a new kind of soup kitchen where emaciated companies stand in a bread-line waiting for their bailout.
The country that protected the individual now protects polar bears, spotted owls, caribou, and the wilderness at the expense of human life.
The country that fought a revolution to end the abuse of power now elects politicians who wallow in power like hippos in mud, such as members of congressional subcommittees who hold hearings threatening the prosperity or very existence of American business firms, and then let the hearings end with little or no result when the hapless firms make sufficient contributions to the reelection campaigns of the congressmen.
The country of the American eagle, flying proud and free, now pens its people up like chickens in a coop, waiting to feed at the welfare state’s trough.
America is a nation whose government is on the ascent and whose people, consequently, are on the descent.
What can explain our alarming plunge into statism? At the dawn of our country we held a powerful weapon to fight our first battle for liberty, an ideological weapon that emboldened an upstart group of colonists, against all odds, to topple the British Goliath and to ignite a firestorm of liberty that in time led to the abolition of slavery, the suffrage of women, and the spread of freedom around the globe. What ideal ushered in a glorious new age for mankind?
This year’s award-winning mini-series on HBO, “John Adams,” captures the answer. It portrays the moment when Adams reads the stirring document that is the soul of the new nation, the Declaration of Independence, and exclaims to its author, Thomas Jefferson: “This is not only a declaration of our independence, but of the rights of all men!”
The weapon that toppled a king and transformed the world, America’s shining sword, was the doctrine of individual rights.
Our Founding Fathers were imbued with the spirit of the Enlightenment, with the glory, power, and moral rightness of the individual unshackled and free. America’s great distinction is that it reined in government to unleash individual liberty.
The result was amazing. America triggered an explosion of scientific and industrial advancement and a standard of living unmatched in history. The American Dream became the worldwide symbol of boundless opportunity and achievement. A great civilization arose, a country of confident, resourceful, hard-working, wealth-creating, and life-loving people.
All of this rested on a bedrock of liberty—on a government that protected the rights of the individual.
But things changed. The doctrine of individual rights was not always expressed unambiguously or applied consistently in our founding. Cracks in our armor, such as clauses in the Constitution allowing Congress to regulate interstate commerce and to promote the general welfare, gave the Dark Side of Statism an opening to enlarge government far beyond its original purpose.
And our enemies on the Dark Side got stronger as Western thought turned its back on the individual and his right to exist unencumbered by the state. Later thinkers claimed that a person must serve a purpose allegedly higher than his own life and happiness, a purpose dictated by the government. This notion led to communism and fascism. Sadly, it has now spread across America.
Barack Obama states in the Chicago Reader, “[I]ndividual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.” John McCain urges in his speeches that Americans serve “a national purpose that is greater than our individual interests.” Is there any fundamental difference between these exhortations of the candidates of our two major parties and that of the Nazi Party’s “the common good before the individual good”?
Today America has dropped its saber of individual rights. We stand disarmed and vulnerable to what could be fatal wounds to our liberty. This is why we urgently need to rediscover the meaning of our rights and rekindle our devotion to them. Then we must define a strategy for picking up our sword again, sharpening it, shining it, and using it adroitly to win the most important battle of our age, the battle to rescue our lives and liberty from the Dark Side of Statism. So, let us begin.
The Meaning of Our Individual Rights
The Declaration of Independence proclaims that our rights include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” or as described in one state document, the 1784 Constitution of New Hampshire, our rights include “enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; and in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness.” What does this really mean? The following are ten characteristics of individual rights.
1. Our Rights are Unalienable
They are inherent in our nature as human beings. No government gives us our rights, and no government can take them away. In Jefferson’s Summary View of the Rights of British America, he states that free people claim their rights “as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate.” Exercising our rights is like breathing. We need not ask the government’s permission to breathe, nor to exercise our rights.
Remember this when you the hear statists like Mr. Obama say in a speech in Roseburg, Oregon: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say okay.” How can we claim our unalienable rights if we can be prevented by the state from enjoying a standard of living that somehow offends another country?
2. Our Rights are Rights to Take Action
They are not entitlements to the free goods and services of other people. In a letter to Isaac Tiffany, Jefferson defines liberty as “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” This means we may work for the things we want. We may earn money and buy a house, but we may not expect the government to seize taxpayers’ money to provide us with a house for free.
As James Madison said on the floor of our country’s newly formed Congress: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” According to the Father of the Constitution, charity is a private matter. You may spend your own money to help your fellow man, but the state cannot seize your money and force you to be charitable. How can we fail to conclude that today’s entire welfare state and the redistribution of wealth fueling it are illegitimate and must be stopped?
3. The Pursuit of One’s Own Happiness is a Right
A person is not a pawn in the service of the state’s aims. When Hillary Clinton, echoing her party’s platform, declares in a San Francisco speech, “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the public good,” how can this mean anything other than her intention to seize your property and infringe on your happiness so that she and her party’s voting base can pursue their happiness at your expense?
4. The Majority Cannot Violate the Rights of the Individual
Because individual rights are unalienable, they are not subject to any majority vote. Our Founders were as suspicious of democracy, or unlimited majority rule, as they were of monarchy. In a letter to P.S. Dupont de Nemours, Jefferson states: “[T]he majority oppressing an individual is guilty of a crime . . . and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.” If you have a bigger bank account than your neighbors, they cannot steal your money and redistribute it among themselves. By the doctrine of individual rights, neither can the government. If Congress votes to increase your taxes to pay for a prescription drug plan for seniors, or a mortgage bailout for homeowners, it is telling you that a majority can rob you of your rights. When a neighborhood gang steals your money, you can call the police; but when the perpetrator is Congress, who can you turn to for help?
5. There are No Rights of Groups
Rights belong to individuals. If pizza eaters lobby Congress for a “right” to a free pizza every Thursday, and if Congress, out of concern for their nourishment or their votes, grants their wish, it acts illegitimately. There are no special rights of seniors, workers, farmers, women, minorities, people with blue eyes, left-handed people, etc.
The Founders tried to protect the individual not only from the tyranny of a monarch, but also from the control of what they called “factions,” i.e., special interest groups seeking government privileges and entitlements to benefit their members at the expense of other citizens. In the Federalist Papers, Number 10, Madison addresses the danger of a democracy bringing factions into power: “[S]uch democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property . . .” How can we fail to see how today’s Godzilla-like factions have invaded our country, crushing the individual under their massive feet? How can we fail to realize that today we have a government of the factions, by the factions, and for the factions?
6. Our Rights Include the Right to Property
Without property rights, no rights are possible. If the state can seize the fruits of your labor, doesn’t that make you “a laborer legally bound to and obliged to serve a master,” which is the definition of a serf? And if you are a business owner, with the state now regulating virtually every aspect of your enterprise, doesn’t that make you “someone whose actions are controlled by the will of others,” which is the definition of a puppet?
Consider Mr. Obama’s answer to the now-famous Joe the Plumber, who questioned the senator’s plan to tax him: “I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.” How can it be clearer that Mr. Obama intends to punish success, seize the money of productive people, and give it away to those who haven’t earned it?
Does a rich person have less of a right to property than a poor one? John Adams writes in A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States, “[I]t must be remembered that the rich are people just as well as the poor; that they have rights as well as others; that they have as clear and as sacred a right to their large property as others have to theirs which is smaller; that oppression to them is as possible and as wicked as to others.” By the doctrine of individual rights, how must we rate the endless schemes of today’s politicians to “tax the rich”? Doesn’t this seem like a pack of wolves and a few lambs deciding what to have for lunch?
And what are we to make of the recent YouTube-captured lament by U.S. congressman Jim Moran of Virginia, who says, “[W]e have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in this simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it and they have an antipathy towards the means of redistributing wealth”? Isn’t the loot-and-plunder agenda of the statists becoming more blatant than ever before? Is this the civilized society in which people’s rights have Constitutional protection?
7. Our Rights Include the Right to Intellectual and Spiritual Independence
Our rights rest on the fundamental freedom of every person to use his own mind, think for himself, form his own beliefs, and the liberty to act on these judgments. Jefferson’s Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia was an achievement he valued so highly that he had it acknowledged on his tombstone. This bill stopped the government’s practice of paying clergy with public funds because, in Jefferson’s words, “to compel a man to furnish . . . money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.”
Jefferson fought for a “wall of separation between church and state” and was “against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.” By the doctrine of individual rights, what must we conclude about today’s faith-based initiatives, which allocate public funds to religious organizations, and the attempts by religious lobbyists and elected officials to dictate public policy based on their faith? What must we conclude about the America-damning Chicago pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who, according to Fox News, received $15 million in federal grants for his organization? Why should people who disagree with his vile preaching be taxed to support Jeremiah Wright, or any other person or organization—religious or secular—whose beliefs, values, and causes they do not share?
Our right to intellectual freedom extends to all beliefs, be they in science, art, philosophy, or any other field, including politics. In an address to the Danbury Baptist Association, Jefferson makes clear that “the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions.”
With our newly elected Democratic Congress already planning to pass a law that will suppress commentators on talk-radio who oppose them, how can we fail to see the emboldened, Hugo Chavez-like force now being unleashed in the halls of our government? How can we fail to see that the statists’ euphemistically named “Fairness Doctrine” is really a “Censorship in America Doctrine”? How can we fail to realize that this vile scheme must be defeated before it takes away the most potent weapon we have in our fight, our sacred right to freedom of speech?
8 Our Rights Rest on Reason
People are capable of self-government because they possess reason. Says Jefferson in a letter to Peter Carr: “Fix reason firmly to her seat and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.” Our Founders expected people to use their own minds to control their own lives. For example, Jefferson gently chastised his teenage daughter, Martha, when she relied on her teacher’s help to read an ancient Roman history text. He wrote her in a letter: “If you always lean on your master, you will never be able to proceed without him. It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate—to surmount every difficulty . . . ” Contrast this call for self-sufficiency to today’s welfare state, which destroys our capacity to think and act for ourselves and transforms us into helpless dependents.
9. Our Rights are Violated Only by Force
Only acts of physical force or fraud violate our rights. In Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia he states: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.” If I pick your pocket, break your leg, or breach a contract with you, then I violate your rights and the government can and must stop me.
But if I draw a cartoon that offends you, I haven’t violated your rights. If I make a windfall profit on Wall Street, I do not violate the rights of people who didn’t invest as I did. If I offer you a job at a wage lower than you would prefer, I haven’t violated your rights. You are free to seek a better job. However, the government certainly violates my rights if it compels me to hire you on terms I don’t accept. The peaceful economic and personal activities of private persons exercising their liberty do not violate the rights of others and cannot be abridged by the state.
10. Government’s Sole Job is to Protect Individual Rights
Wise government, explains Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address, “shall restrain men from injuring one another . . . shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” And that’s it. That’s the whole of the job of government.
Bear this in mind when you consider Mr. Obama’s views on American government, given in an uncharacteristically candid 2001 interview with WBEZ radio in Chicago. He expresses regret that the Supreme Court “never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth” because it “didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.” However, Mr. Obama sees a way around these Constitutional constraints: “[O]ne of the, I think, tragedies of the civil-rights movement . . . was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.” How are we to interpret this? Will pressure-group warfare and intimidation by community thugs be the means of bypassing the Constitution and bringing about the “major redistributive change” that Mr. Obama envisions? How can we not be alarmed by these statements? How can we not see that government today has become the greatest threat to our lives, liberty, and property?
Six Strategies for Using Individual Rights in the Fight for Freedom
To win the battle for freedom, we must invoke individual rights, and we must invoke them now, before it’s too late. The statists have become emboldened by their recent election victories; their ranks have degraded to include officials that talk like thugs; their attacks on our rights have become more open and virulent. This brings us to what could be a watershed moment in American history. We must invoke individual rights because they bring morality to our side, and the moral argument is the most powerful weapon of all. The person whose position stems from correct and compelling moral principles will win any argument, just as our Founders won their cause in establishing America. Let’s examine six strategies for employing individual rights in the fight for freedom. These six points will be formulated using the word RIGHTS, which, conveniently for us, contains six letters.
R = Reason with Moral Principles, Not Just Practicality
For example, consider the draft (and the same arguments would hold for other forms of obligatory “national service,” which Mr. Obama seems to be entertaining). When we periodically hear calls for a military draft, the friends of freedom often argue that a volunteer army is more efficient. This is true and definitely deserves to be said. However, giving only the bad consequence (the inefficiency) of an act of government usurpation without explaining why the policy is wrong in principle reduces the argument to a mere practical discussion of the effectiveness of different armies, with no pressing moral issue at stake to rally the public to one side or the other. If the statists can raise plausibility that the draft is efficient, then the friends of liberty have no leg to stand on.
Giving the practical argument from the inefficiency of a draft is like trying to walk with one leg. Adding the moral argument from individual rights gives us two legs—plus a spine. The argument from individual rights asserts that the draft is wrong because it represents involuntary servitude, i.e., it violates a person’s right to life and liberty. A person has the right to decide for himself what he wants to do with the precious years of his life. Government exists to protect that sacred right, not to violate it. A person is free to chose his employment, including a job with the government, especially one that could risk his life. It would be clearly tyrannical for the state to draft its public school teachers, police officers, or mail carriers against their will. How then can the government claim the power to compel someone to serve in the military?
Furthermore, the argument from rights strengthens the practical argument by giving the underlying reason why the draft is inefficient, namely, because people do not perform well when their rights are violated and they are working under compulsion.
The argument from rights deals a mortal blow to the statists. It elevates the issue from a technical matter of military efficiency to a moral issue involving nothing less than our fundamental Constitutional rights. The moral argument is unanswerable, unless you want to be on the side that violates individual rights. This is what we are aiming at—a moral crusade for the sanctity of individual rights as our answer to the statists.
I = Invoke Private Solutions to Life’s Problems
Living in a free society means that we citizens take care of ourselves, and we relish doing so. We’re Americans, the most resourceful people on earth. Each of us is master of our fate and captain of our soul, and that’s the glory of life. Because the nanny state destroys self-esteem and self-reliance, we need to help people discover that they can blow their noses without the nanny holding the handkerchief. Here are just a few self-help tips for living in a free society:
—If you don’t go to school and don’t work hard to get ahead, then don’t expect the same rewards as those who do. You haven’t earned them.
—If you default on a loan, lick your wounds and don’t make the same mistake again. But don’t expect the government to bail you out with money fleeced from taxpayers who pay their debts on time.
—If you want to develop a new enterprise, invention, or source of energy, then work for the removal of all government regulations standing in your way and convince private investors to support you, but don’t try to get a billion-dollar government boondoggle. Be an entrepreneur, not a leech.
—In short, don’t expect any free lunches. Everything worth having in life requires effort to obtain. And there are no guarantees. You can lose your job, your investments can fail, and your fiancé can leave you. Stop trying to use the government to shield you from life’s risks. Take the plunge and feel the tingle of life.
In fighting for freedom, hold people responsible for their own lives.
G = Get Behind Capitalism
We must defend the free market because it is the expression of our individual rights in the economic and material sphere of life. By pursuing profit, we further our lives and happiness. By engaging in economic activities unfettered by the government, we exercise our liberty. As Ayn Rand observed: “[A] free mind and a free market are corollaries.”
The Dark Side’s resentment of capitalism is unrelenting. Capitalism is to a socialist what a stake in the heart is to a vampire. It is the living proof of the power of freedom to create unlimited wealth and prosperity, without the need for power-hungry politicians to run things for us. This is why the Dark Side’s attacks on capitalism are so virulent, and why we must resoundingly defeat them.
For example, consider a CEO’s pay. The statists call for government to limit a CEO’s compensation. Friends of freedom explain that a company is unable to attract the best candidate for CEO with a salary lower than the person can obtain elsewhere. Furthermore, they explain, CEOs deserve their salaries because they bring additional revenue into the company that vastly surpasses their pay, revenue that expands the business, creates more jobs, increases wages of employees, and lowers prices for customers. This argument is crucial in educating the public on the remarkable benevolence of the free market and on its unmatched effectiveness in bringing prosperity to everyone. We need to disseminate this information in order to combat the countless misconceptions of capitalism and ignorance of economics that poison our culture.
But, we can’t stop there. We need to strengthen our case for capitalism by adding the argument from individual rights, which asserts the following: Any government regulation to cut a CEO’s pay sends a message to all Americans to beware. If you make too much, you’re no longer covered by the Constitution; your rights to your life and property are no longer protected; they’re subject to seizure by the police force of the state. Where would it stop? What about a baseball player, or a rock star, or a brilliant surgeon—are they too successful? Does their pay also need chopping by Congress? Will the government seize their livelihood and destroy the American Dream for them, too? CEOs are citizens, which means they have rights, including the right to accept any compensation offered to them. Would the government use its police power to cut the salary of a janitor? If the janitor is free to work for the highest possible salary he can get, then why would the Constitutional rights be different for a company executive? Why would the janitor’s rights be protected, but the CEO’s rights trampled?
The argument from rights shows how government tampering with anyone’s pay represents a tampering with the Constitution and bedrock of America.
H = Hammer the Government for Using Force Against Innocent Citizens
The more we unmask the use of force, the more people will see the thuggery involved in the regulated state.
During a Congressional hearing with oil company executives, Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California castigated them for the rise in gasoline price and threatened a complete government takeover of their industry. Based on this incident, can anyone fail to see the thin line that exists between the welfare state and the police state? The answer to Maxine Waters should be something like this:
The property rights of the millions of shareholders who own these corporations are guaranteed by the Constitution and are unalienable. That means there is never a situation in which you could expropriate that property, even if the price of gasoline hit $1,000 a gallon. This hearing should be adjourned and another one started to remove you from office because you are threatening a level of tyranny characteristic of communism, namely, a police-state seizure of an industry. The rights of every American are at risk with you in office.
If enlightened citizens speak out like this, maybe next time a company executive will have the courage.
T = Talk Straight and Unmask the Enemy’s Evasions
We must translate the honey-coated language of the Dark Side into plain English.
“Redistributive justice” means looting and plundering those who produce in order to give benefits to those who haven’t earned them.
“Government investments in new technology” means replacing real investments—private people taking careful risks with their own money and expecting results—with government squandering of taxpayers’ money in subsidies, grants, and boondoggles that need never turn a profit, that need never show results, with every special-interest group under the sun in line for the bounty.
The most honey-coated of all the statists’ expressions, their constant refrain, is: “We just want to help people.” The notion of government, the exclusive wielder of police force, as a helper in the peaceful affairs of citizens is absurd. Government intrusion necessitates the use of compulsion. As George Washington is reputed to have said: “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
When politicians say they just want to help people, they neglect to mention that they are garnering dangerous, unchecked powers for themselves and destroying our liberty in the process. We must not allow them the excuse of good intentions. No one can take away our rights, be their intentions good or bad.
For example, the daughter of a presidential candidate appears on television to say: “My dad is a wonderful man. He wants to give free healthcare to the people.” What’s the answer to this? What about giving their rightful freedom to the people? What about the freedom of doctors? Are they now excluded from the Constitution? Do they no longer have the liberty to practice their profession by their own judgment and conscience? Under state-run medicine, doctors lose this freedom and must take orders from bureaucrats.
Another scenario involves farm subsidies. I saw a kind and gentle Republican senator say on television: “We only wanted to help farmers.” She didn’t realize that ethanol mandates for gasoline would contribute to rising prices of gas and food and would lead to food riots in the world. We must translate her words into plain English for the good senator: You mean you only wanted to rob the taxpayer to pander to the farm vote. You wanted to pass regulations favorable to farmers but disastrous to other citizens. The Constitution does not give you the power to take money out of my pocket and put it into a farmer’s pocket. And the Constitution does not give you the power to meddle in somebody’s business, mandating what goes into a product.
We need to find principled public officials to defend our rights, rather than the typical Republicans, who accept the statists’ premises because they want to please everyone and never raise eyebrows. The first Americans had the courage to face the enemy musket to musket. The least that officials on our side can do is summon the courage to raise a few eyebrows.
S = Stand as One People Against the State, Not as Pressure Groups Against One Another
Today the vast majority of politicians are invested in their special interest groups, which means they are intensifying the welfare state and stifling our liberty. They are breaking us into warring tribes—pitting the seniors against the young, the patients against the doctors, the consumers against the oil companies, the home buyers against the mortgage companies—with more and more government regulation as the alleged answer to our woes. We must see beyond this scam. We must take up the sword as one people in one fight against statism.
Defending any person’s individual rights is scoring a point for all of us. Therefore, we need to be the one non-special interest group that places the individual in the center of the battle for liberty. In each instance in which we want to fight for freedom, we need to ask ourselves two questions:
—1. Whose individual rights are being violated?
—2. What can I say or do to defend them?
For example, instead of the typical practice of businesses lobbying for regulations favorable to their enterprises or detrimental to their competitors, imagine if a consortium of companies banned together in a massive media campaign addressed to the public, not to the legislators, asserting the individual rights of each of them to operate without government interference. How shocking it would be to learn that business owners have Constitutional rights and they are asserting them! The consortium must risk vehement denunciations by the Dark Side and hold its ground. Such a battle would refocus the American people on the true meaning of rights, educate the young (who apparently never learned of America’s greatest legacy in school), and eventually win the country. Wouldn’t that be a better way to spend millions of dollars than to obtain some range-of-the-moment concession from the statists while reinforcing their system of political pull?
And in education, instead of parents’ groups fighting each other over what curriculum should be taught in public schools, what if the enlightened among them banned together to fight for the right and responsibility of every parent to control his child’s education? This would be a fight to privatize schools and establish a free marketplace of education. Such a fight would rescue the precious minds of the young from the control of the state.
We have now refreshed our understanding of individual rights, the only doctrine that stands between us and tyranny and that makes a civilized society possible.
There is much concern that we are losing our distinctive American values, and we are right to feel this concern, because we are losing them. However, the exact nature of the values that made us the greatest country in the world often eludes us. Let us always remember with pride that our unique American values are: a respect for individual rights and all that implies—i.e., limited government, personal liberty, and laissez faire capitalism.
We have established six strategies for asserting and defending our rights in the battle for freedom. These six strategies can be condensed into a single battlecry: Argue from individual rights. In your letters to the editor, op-eds, articles, calls to radio talk-shows, e-mails to television news shows, discussions with your town councils, neighbors, family, and friends, argue from individual rights. For those holding or seeking public office, in your campaign speeches, in the positions you take, and in your presentations in the halls of government, argue from individual rights. It is the only way to win the battle for freedom. It is the only way to rescue our lives and country. And may the force of this powerful and noble weapon be with you.
Copyright © 2008 by Genevieve LaGreca.
Gen LaGreca is the author of Noble Vision, a ForeWord magazine Book-of-the-Year award-winning novel about liberty. Permission is given to post or publish this article with attribution to the author and to www.georgereisman.com/blog/.
Labels: capitalism, Declaration of Independence, freedom, individual rights, individualism, Liberty, limited government, Obama, redistribution, socialism, statism, Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Constitution
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A very good website if you want more information on rational ideas is found at:
www.aynrand.org
I posted this because I agree with the dangers the author sees and wish to counter government moves towards total control with a pretense of ownership. --- Ted.
With governments over-powering all aspects of our lives, freedom is severely lost and in the coming chaos, all that remains, like Russia before the coming of the Reds, is to fight from pitiful pockets of last resistance.
North America is turning fascist and we must speak up. (Fascism is complete government control with a loss of individual liberty, yet with a pretense of property ownership and trade).
If you don't know how - or even why you should speak up, below will give you a glmpse of better ideas. Indiviual Rights pertains to Canada as much as America, so I hope you find your voice.
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Why We MUST Invoke Our Individual Rights—Now, By Gen LaGreca
America today is a nation in trouble. The great fortress of liberty, the country of the most productive, prosperous, and happy people in the world, is now in grave danger. America is under siege by the Dark Side, the forces of statism, while its Knights of Liberty are disarmed, demoralized, and suffering near-fatal wounds.
The country that once elected leaders whose ideas upheld liberty now elects leaders whose sweet-sounding platitudes and woozy promises are all that is required, and whose actual, dangerous ideas need not be examined until after Election Day.
The country that defended property rights now seizes 40-percent of our income in a myriad of taxes imposed by all levels of government—with even larger levies on incomes, profits, investments, and savings on the horizon.
The country that championed capitalism now vilifies our industries, cripples them with regulations, seizes their profits, then declares that the free market has failed and government must take over.
The country that made possible the great industrial titans—the Henry Fords, Thomas Edisons, and others whose productive genius moved mankind forward—now thinks that government can run things better, and that government should own, operate, and finance our corporations, deciding which will survive and which will die, creating a new kind of soup kitchen where emaciated companies stand in a bread-line waiting for their bailout.
The country that protected the individual now protects polar bears, spotted owls, caribou, and the wilderness at the expense of human life.
The country that fought a revolution to end the abuse of power now elects politicians who wallow in power like hippos in mud, such as members of congressional subcommittees who hold hearings threatening the prosperity or very existence of American business firms, and then let the hearings end with little or no result when the hapless firms make sufficient contributions to the reelection campaigns of the congressmen.
The country of the American eagle, flying proud and free, now pens its people up like chickens in a coop, waiting to feed at the welfare state’s trough.
America is a nation whose government is on the ascent and whose people, consequently, are on the descent.
What can explain our alarming plunge into statism? At the dawn of our country we held a powerful weapon to fight our first battle for liberty, an ideological weapon that emboldened an upstart group of colonists, against all odds, to topple the British Goliath and to ignite a firestorm of liberty that in time led to the abolition of slavery, the suffrage of women, and the spread of freedom around the globe. What ideal ushered in a glorious new age for mankind?
This year’s award-winning mini-series on HBO, “John Adams,” captures the answer. It portrays the moment when Adams reads the stirring document that is the soul of the new nation, the Declaration of Independence, and exclaims to its author, Thomas Jefferson: “This is not only a declaration of our independence, but of the rights of all men!”
The weapon that toppled a king and transformed the world, America’s shining sword, was the doctrine of individual rights.
Our Founding Fathers were imbued with the spirit of the Enlightenment, with the glory, power, and moral rightness of the individual unshackled and free. America’s great distinction is that it reined in government to unleash individual liberty.
The result was amazing. America triggered an explosion of scientific and industrial advancement and a standard of living unmatched in history. The American Dream became the worldwide symbol of boundless opportunity and achievement. A great civilization arose, a country of confident, resourceful, hard-working, wealth-creating, and life-loving people.
All of this rested on a bedrock of liberty—on a government that protected the rights of the individual.
But things changed. The doctrine of individual rights was not always expressed unambiguously or applied consistently in our founding. Cracks in our armor, such as clauses in the Constitution allowing Congress to regulate interstate commerce and to promote the general welfare, gave the Dark Side of Statism an opening to enlarge government far beyond its original purpose.
And our enemies on the Dark Side got stronger as Western thought turned its back on the individual and his right to exist unencumbered by the state. Later thinkers claimed that a person must serve a purpose allegedly higher than his own life and happiness, a purpose dictated by the government. This notion led to communism and fascism. Sadly, it has now spread across America.
Barack Obama states in the Chicago Reader, “[I]ndividual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.” John McCain urges in his speeches that Americans serve “a national purpose that is greater than our individual interests.” Is there any fundamental difference between these exhortations of the candidates of our two major parties and that of the Nazi Party’s “the common good before the individual good”?
Today America has dropped its saber of individual rights. We stand disarmed and vulnerable to what could be fatal wounds to our liberty. This is why we urgently need to rediscover the meaning of our rights and rekindle our devotion to them. Then we must define a strategy for picking up our sword again, sharpening it, shining it, and using it adroitly to win the most important battle of our age, the battle to rescue our lives and liberty from the Dark Side of Statism. So, let us begin.
The Meaning of Our Individual Rights
The Declaration of Independence proclaims that our rights include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” or as described in one state document, the 1784 Constitution of New Hampshire, our rights include “enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; and in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness.” What does this really mean? The following are ten characteristics of individual rights.
1. Our Rights are Unalienable
They are inherent in our nature as human beings. No government gives us our rights, and no government can take them away. In Jefferson’s Summary View of the Rights of British America, he states that free people claim their rights “as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate.” Exercising our rights is like breathing. We need not ask the government’s permission to breathe, nor to exercise our rights.
Remember this when you the hear statists like Mr. Obama say in a speech in Roseburg, Oregon: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say okay.” How can we claim our unalienable rights if we can be prevented by the state from enjoying a standard of living that somehow offends another country?
2. Our Rights are Rights to Take Action
They are not entitlements to the free goods and services of other people. In a letter to Isaac Tiffany, Jefferson defines liberty as “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” This means we may work for the things we want. We may earn money and buy a house, but we may not expect the government to seize taxpayers’ money to provide us with a house for free.
As James Madison said on the floor of our country’s newly formed Congress: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” According to the Father of the Constitution, charity is a private matter. You may spend your own money to help your fellow man, but the state cannot seize your money and force you to be charitable. How can we fail to conclude that today’s entire welfare state and the redistribution of wealth fueling it are illegitimate and must be stopped?
3. The Pursuit of One’s Own Happiness is a Right
A person is not a pawn in the service of the state’s aims. When Hillary Clinton, echoing her party’s platform, declares in a San Francisco speech, “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the public good,” how can this mean anything other than her intention to seize your property and infringe on your happiness so that she and her party’s voting base can pursue their happiness at your expense?
4. The Majority Cannot Violate the Rights of the Individual
Because individual rights are unalienable, they are not subject to any majority vote. Our Founders were as suspicious of democracy, or unlimited majority rule, as they were of monarchy. In a letter to P.S. Dupont de Nemours, Jefferson states: “[T]he majority oppressing an individual is guilty of a crime . . . and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.” If you have a bigger bank account than your neighbors, they cannot steal your money and redistribute it among themselves. By the doctrine of individual rights, neither can the government. If Congress votes to increase your taxes to pay for a prescription drug plan for seniors, or a mortgage bailout for homeowners, it is telling you that a majority can rob you of your rights. When a neighborhood gang steals your money, you can call the police; but when the perpetrator is Congress, who can you turn to for help?
5. There are No Rights of Groups
Rights belong to individuals. If pizza eaters lobby Congress for a “right” to a free pizza every Thursday, and if Congress, out of concern for their nourishment or their votes, grants their wish, it acts illegitimately. There are no special rights of seniors, workers, farmers, women, minorities, people with blue eyes, left-handed people, etc.
The Founders tried to protect the individual not only from the tyranny of a monarch, but also from the control of what they called “factions,” i.e., special interest groups seeking government privileges and entitlements to benefit their members at the expense of other citizens. In the Federalist Papers, Number 10, Madison addresses the danger of a democracy bringing factions into power: “[S]uch democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property . . .” How can we fail to see how today’s Godzilla-like factions have invaded our country, crushing the individual under their massive feet? How can we fail to realize that today we have a government of the factions, by the factions, and for the factions?
6. Our Rights Include the Right to Property
Without property rights, no rights are possible. If the state can seize the fruits of your labor, doesn’t that make you “a laborer legally bound to and obliged to serve a master,” which is the definition of a serf? And if you are a business owner, with the state now regulating virtually every aspect of your enterprise, doesn’t that make you “someone whose actions are controlled by the will of others,” which is the definition of a puppet?
Consider Mr. Obama’s answer to the now-famous Joe the Plumber, who questioned the senator’s plan to tax him: “I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.” How can it be clearer that Mr. Obama intends to punish success, seize the money of productive people, and give it away to those who haven’t earned it?
Does a rich person have less of a right to property than a poor one? John Adams writes in A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States, “[I]t must be remembered that the rich are people just as well as the poor; that they have rights as well as others; that they have as clear and as sacred a right to their large property as others have to theirs which is smaller; that oppression to them is as possible and as wicked as to others.” By the doctrine of individual rights, how must we rate the endless schemes of today’s politicians to “tax the rich”? Doesn’t this seem like a pack of wolves and a few lambs deciding what to have for lunch?
And what are we to make of the recent YouTube-captured lament by U.S. congressman Jim Moran of Virginia, who says, “[W]e have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in this simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it and they have an antipathy towards the means of redistributing wealth”? Isn’t the loot-and-plunder agenda of the statists becoming more blatant than ever before? Is this the civilized society in which people’s rights have Constitutional protection?
7. Our Rights Include the Right to Intellectual and Spiritual Independence
Our rights rest on the fundamental freedom of every person to use his own mind, think for himself, form his own beliefs, and the liberty to act on these judgments. Jefferson’s Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia was an achievement he valued so highly that he had it acknowledged on his tombstone. This bill stopped the government’s practice of paying clergy with public funds because, in Jefferson’s words, “to compel a man to furnish . . . money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.”
Jefferson fought for a “wall of separation between church and state” and was “against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.” By the doctrine of individual rights, what must we conclude about today’s faith-based initiatives, which allocate public funds to religious organizations, and the attempts by religious lobbyists and elected officials to dictate public policy based on their faith? What must we conclude about the America-damning Chicago pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who, according to Fox News, received $15 million in federal grants for his organization? Why should people who disagree with his vile preaching be taxed to support Jeremiah Wright, or any other person or organization—religious or secular—whose beliefs, values, and causes they do not share?
Our right to intellectual freedom extends to all beliefs, be they in science, art, philosophy, or any other field, including politics. In an address to the Danbury Baptist Association, Jefferson makes clear that “the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions.”
With our newly elected Democratic Congress already planning to pass a law that will suppress commentators on talk-radio who oppose them, how can we fail to see the emboldened, Hugo Chavez-like force now being unleashed in the halls of our government? How can we fail to see that the statists’ euphemistically named “Fairness Doctrine” is really a “Censorship in America Doctrine”? How can we fail to realize that this vile scheme must be defeated before it takes away the most potent weapon we have in our fight, our sacred right to freedom of speech?
8 Our Rights Rest on Reason
People are capable of self-government because they possess reason. Says Jefferson in a letter to Peter Carr: “Fix reason firmly to her seat and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.” Our Founders expected people to use their own minds to control their own lives. For example, Jefferson gently chastised his teenage daughter, Martha, when she relied on her teacher’s help to read an ancient Roman history text. He wrote her in a letter: “If you always lean on your master, you will never be able to proceed without him. It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate—to surmount every difficulty . . . ” Contrast this call for self-sufficiency to today’s welfare state, which destroys our capacity to think and act for ourselves and transforms us into helpless dependents.
9. Our Rights are Violated Only by Force
Only acts of physical force or fraud violate our rights. In Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia he states: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.” If I pick your pocket, break your leg, or breach a contract with you, then I violate your rights and the government can and must stop me.
But if I draw a cartoon that offends you, I haven’t violated your rights. If I make a windfall profit on Wall Street, I do not violate the rights of people who didn’t invest as I did. If I offer you a job at a wage lower than you would prefer, I haven’t violated your rights. You are free to seek a better job. However, the government certainly violates my rights if it compels me to hire you on terms I don’t accept. The peaceful economic and personal activities of private persons exercising their liberty do not violate the rights of others and cannot be abridged by the state.
10. Government’s Sole Job is to Protect Individual Rights
Wise government, explains Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address, “shall restrain men from injuring one another . . . shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” And that’s it. That’s the whole of the job of government.
Bear this in mind when you consider Mr. Obama’s views on American government, given in an uncharacteristically candid 2001 interview with WBEZ radio in Chicago. He expresses regret that the Supreme Court “never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth” because it “didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.” However, Mr. Obama sees a way around these Constitutional constraints: “[O]ne of the, I think, tragedies of the civil-rights movement . . . was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.” How are we to interpret this? Will pressure-group warfare and intimidation by community thugs be the means of bypassing the Constitution and bringing about the “major redistributive change” that Mr. Obama envisions? How can we not be alarmed by these statements? How can we not see that government today has become the greatest threat to our lives, liberty, and property?
Six Strategies for Using Individual Rights in the Fight for Freedom
To win the battle for freedom, we must invoke individual rights, and we must invoke them now, before it’s too late. The statists have become emboldened by their recent election victories; their ranks have degraded to include officials that talk like thugs; their attacks on our rights have become more open and virulent. This brings us to what could be a watershed moment in American history. We must invoke individual rights because they bring morality to our side, and the moral argument is the most powerful weapon of all. The person whose position stems from correct and compelling moral principles will win any argument, just as our Founders won their cause in establishing America. Let’s examine six strategies for employing individual rights in the fight for freedom. These six points will be formulated using the word RIGHTS, which, conveniently for us, contains six letters.
R = Reason with Moral Principles, Not Just Practicality
For example, consider the draft (and the same arguments would hold for other forms of obligatory “national service,” which Mr. Obama seems to be entertaining). When we periodically hear calls for a military draft, the friends of freedom often argue that a volunteer army is more efficient. This is true and definitely deserves to be said. However, giving only the bad consequence (the inefficiency) of an act of government usurpation without explaining why the policy is wrong in principle reduces the argument to a mere practical discussion of the effectiveness of different armies, with no pressing moral issue at stake to rally the public to one side or the other. If the statists can raise plausibility that the draft is efficient, then the friends of liberty have no leg to stand on.
Giving the practical argument from the inefficiency of a draft is like trying to walk with one leg. Adding the moral argument from individual rights gives us two legs—plus a spine. The argument from individual rights asserts that the draft is wrong because it represents involuntary servitude, i.e., it violates a person’s right to life and liberty. A person has the right to decide for himself what he wants to do with the precious years of his life. Government exists to protect that sacred right, not to violate it. A person is free to chose his employment, including a job with the government, especially one that could risk his life. It would be clearly tyrannical for the state to draft its public school teachers, police officers, or mail carriers against their will. How then can the government claim the power to compel someone to serve in the military?
Furthermore, the argument from rights strengthens the practical argument by giving the underlying reason why the draft is inefficient, namely, because people do not perform well when their rights are violated and they are working under compulsion.
The argument from rights deals a mortal blow to the statists. It elevates the issue from a technical matter of military efficiency to a moral issue involving nothing less than our fundamental Constitutional rights. The moral argument is unanswerable, unless you want to be on the side that violates individual rights. This is what we are aiming at—a moral crusade for the sanctity of individual rights as our answer to the statists.
I = Invoke Private Solutions to Life’s Problems
Living in a free society means that we citizens take care of ourselves, and we relish doing so. We’re Americans, the most resourceful people on earth. Each of us is master of our fate and captain of our soul, and that’s the glory of life. Because the nanny state destroys self-esteem and self-reliance, we need to help people discover that they can blow their noses without the nanny holding the handkerchief. Here are just a few self-help tips for living in a free society:
—If you don’t go to school and don’t work hard to get ahead, then don’t expect the same rewards as those who do. You haven’t earned them.
—If you default on a loan, lick your wounds and don’t make the same mistake again. But don’t expect the government to bail you out with money fleeced from taxpayers who pay their debts on time.
—If you want to develop a new enterprise, invention, or source of energy, then work for the removal of all government regulations standing in your way and convince private investors to support you, but don’t try to get a billion-dollar government boondoggle. Be an entrepreneur, not a leech.
—In short, don’t expect any free lunches. Everything worth having in life requires effort to obtain. And there are no guarantees. You can lose your job, your investments can fail, and your fiancé can leave you. Stop trying to use the government to shield you from life’s risks. Take the plunge and feel the tingle of life.
In fighting for freedom, hold people responsible for their own lives.
G = Get Behind Capitalism
We must defend the free market because it is the expression of our individual rights in the economic and material sphere of life. By pursuing profit, we further our lives and happiness. By engaging in economic activities unfettered by the government, we exercise our liberty. As Ayn Rand observed: “[A] free mind and a free market are corollaries.”
The Dark Side’s resentment of capitalism is unrelenting. Capitalism is to a socialist what a stake in the heart is to a vampire. It is the living proof of the power of freedom to create unlimited wealth and prosperity, without the need for power-hungry politicians to run things for us. This is why the Dark Side’s attacks on capitalism are so virulent, and why we must resoundingly defeat them.
For example, consider a CEO’s pay. The statists call for government to limit a CEO’s compensation. Friends of freedom explain that a company is unable to attract the best candidate for CEO with a salary lower than the person can obtain elsewhere. Furthermore, they explain, CEOs deserve their salaries because they bring additional revenue into the company that vastly surpasses their pay, revenue that expands the business, creates more jobs, increases wages of employees, and lowers prices for customers. This argument is crucial in educating the public on the remarkable benevolence of the free market and on its unmatched effectiveness in bringing prosperity to everyone. We need to disseminate this information in order to combat the countless misconceptions of capitalism and ignorance of economics that poison our culture.
But, we can’t stop there. We need to strengthen our case for capitalism by adding the argument from individual rights, which asserts the following: Any government regulation to cut a CEO’s pay sends a message to all Americans to beware. If you make too much, you’re no longer covered by the Constitution; your rights to your life and property are no longer protected; they’re subject to seizure by the police force of the state. Where would it stop? What about a baseball player, or a rock star, or a brilliant surgeon—are they too successful? Does their pay also need chopping by Congress? Will the government seize their livelihood and destroy the American Dream for them, too? CEOs are citizens, which means they have rights, including the right to accept any compensation offered to them. Would the government use its police power to cut the salary of a janitor? If the janitor is free to work for the highest possible salary he can get, then why would the Constitutional rights be different for a company executive? Why would the janitor’s rights be protected, but the CEO’s rights trampled?
The argument from rights shows how government tampering with anyone’s pay represents a tampering with the Constitution and bedrock of America.
H = Hammer the Government for Using Force Against Innocent Citizens
The more we unmask the use of force, the more people will see the thuggery involved in the regulated state.
During a Congressional hearing with oil company executives, Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California castigated them for the rise in gasoline price and threatened a complete government takeover of their industry. Based on this incident, can anyone fail to see the thin line that exists between the welfare state and the police state? The answer to Maxine Waters should be something like this:
The property rights of the millions of shareholders who own these corporations are guaranteed by the Constitution and are unalienable. That means there is never a situation in which you could expropriate that property, even if the price of gasoline hit $1,000 a gallon. This hearing should be adjourned and another one started to remove you from office because you are threatening a level of tyranny characteristic of communism, namely, a police-state seizure of an industry. The rights of every American are at risk with you in office.
If enlightened citizens speak out like this, maybe next time a company executive will have the courage.
T = Talk Straight and Unmask the Enemy’s Evasions
We must translate the honey-coated language of the Dark Side into plain English.
“Redistributive justice” means looting and plundering those who produce in order to give benefits to those who haven’t earned them.
“Government investments in new technology” means replacing real investments—private people taking careful risks with their own money and expecting results—with government squandering of taxpayers’ money in subsidies, grants, and boondoggles that need never turn a profit, that need never show results, with every special-interest group under the sun in line for the bounty.
The most honey-coated of all the statists’ expressions, their constant refrain, is: “We just want to help people.” The notion of government, the exclusive wielder of police force, as a helper in the peaceful affairs of citizens is absurd. Government intrusion necessitates the use of compulsion. As George Washington is reputed to have said: “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
When politicians say they just want to help people, they neglect to mention that they are garnering dangerous, unchecked powers for themselves and destroying our liberty in the process. We must not allow them the excuse of good intentions. No one can take away our rights, be their intentions good or bad.
For example, the daughter of a presidential candidate appears on television to say: “My dad is a wonderful man. He wants to give free healthcare to the people.” What’s the answer to this? What about giving their rightful freedom to the people? What about the freedom of doctors? Are they now excluded from the Constitution? Do they no longer have the liberty to practice their profession by their own judgment and conscience? Under state-run medicine, doctors lose this freedom and must take orders from bureaucrats.
Another scenario involves farm subsidies. I saw a kind and gentle Republican senator say on television: “We only wanted to help farmers.” She didn’t realize that ethanol mandates for gasoline would contribute to rising prices of gas and food and would lead to food riots in the world. We must translate her words into plain English for the good senator: You mean you only wanted to rob the taxpayer to pander to the farm vote. You wanted to pass regulations favorable to farmers but disastrous to other citizens. The Constitution does not give you the power to take money out of my pocket and put it into a farmer’s pocket. And the Constitution does not give you the power to meddle in somebody’s business, mandating what goes into a product.
We need to find principled public officials to defend our rights, rather than the typical Republicans, who accept the statists’ premises because they want to please everyone and never raise eyebrows. The first Americans had the courage to face the enemy musket to musket. The least that officials on our side can do is summon the courage to raise a few eyebrows.
S = Stand as One People Against the State, Not as Pressure Groups Against One Another
Today the vast majority of politicians are invested in their special interest groups, which means they are intensifying the welfare state and stifling our liberty. They are breaking us into warring tribes—pitting the seniors against the young, the patients against the doctors, the consumers against the oil companies, the home buyers against the mortgage companies—with more and more government regulation as the alleged answer to our woes. We must see beyond this scam. We must take up the sword as one people in one fight against statism.
Defending any person’s individual rights is scoring a point for all of us. Therefore, we need to be the one non-special interest group that places the individual in the center of the battle for liberty. In each instance in which we want to fight for freedom, we need to ask ourselves two questions:
—1. Whose individual rights are being violated?
—2. What can I say or do to defend them?
For example, instead of the typical practice of businesses lobbying for regulations favorable to their enterprises or detrimental to their competitors, imagine if a consortium of companies banned together in a massive media campaign addressed to the public, not to the legislators, asserting the individual rights of each of them to operate without government interference. How shocking it would be to learn that business owners have Constitutional rights and they are asserting them! The consortium must risk vehement denunciations by the Dark Side and hold its ground. Such a battle would refocus the American people on the true meaning of rights, educate the young (who apparently never learned of America’s greatest legacy in school), and eventually win the country. Wouldn’t that be a better way to spend millions of dollars than to obtain some range-of-the-moment concession from the statists while reinforcing their system of political pull?
And in education, instead of parents’ groups fighting each other over what curriculum should be taught in public schools, what if the enlightened among them banned together to fight for the right and responsibility of every parent to control his child’s education? This would be a fight to privatize schools and establish a free marketplace of education. Such a fight would rescue the precious minds of the young from the control of the state.
We have now refreshed our understanding of individual rights, the only doctrine that stands between us and tyranny and that makes a civilized society possible.
There is much concern that we are losing our distinctive American values, and we are right to feel this concern, because we are losing them. However, the exact nature of the values that made us the greatest country in the world often eludes us. Let us always remember with pride that our unique American values are: a respect for individual rights and all that implies—i.e., limited government, personal liberty, and laissez faire capitalism.
We have established six strategies for asserting and defending our rights in the battle for freedom. These six strategies can be condensed into a single battlecry: Argue from individual rights. In your letters to the editor, op-eds, articles, calls to radio talk-shows, e-mails to television news shows, discussions with your town councils, neighbors, family, and friends, argue from individual rights. For those holding or seeking public office, in your campaign speeches, in the positions you take, and in your presentations in the halls of government, argue from individual rights. It is the only way to win the battle for freedom. It is the only way to rescue our lives and country. And may the force of this powerful and noble weapon be with you.
Copyright © 2008 by Genevieve LaGreca.
Gen LaGreca is the author of Noble Vision, a ForeWord magazine Book-of-the-Year award-winning novel about liberty. Permission is given to post or publish this article with attribution to the author and to www.georgereisman.com/blog/.
Labels: capitalism, Declaration of Independence, freedom, individual rights, individualism, Liberty, limited government, Obama, redistribution, socialism, statism, Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Constitution
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A very good website if you want more information on rational ideas is found at:
www.aynrand.org
I posted this because I agree with the dangers the author sees and wish to counter government moves towards total control with a pretense of ownership. --- Ted.
Friday, October 17, 2008
2008 Economic Crisis and Rejection of Thought, Principles and Reality.
There are occasions in life where it is important to dress up in suit and tie and present ones best. It’s not to look good for others, but the occasion is important and crucial as to warrant one’s best effort in behavior and thought.
I attended such an occasion – I thought - when invited to hear a senior and renowned economic advisor to a major bank and money lenders. The presentation was on America’s and the worlds credit crises and stock market volatility.
The Talk was,
“The [sub-prime] Crises in Perspective”
The purpose of the talk was to better understand the “American economic crises and its relation to Canadian housing lending markets to reduce fear and uncertainty of clients.”
I’ll be writing this verbatim, as I remember the words and the notes I took. I’ll touch on some of the highlights.
“Has the economic cries we are experiencing bottomed out? I won’t pretend to know it all. No one can know it. However, looking at history, this is the worst crises since 1929. This is serious! Taking over [American] banks was the last thing governments do, but government is taking over banks.” Take over” were the words used.
In the 1929 depression there were mistakes made which we have learned from. In 1929, they suffered a similar crisis, but ended up in not enough liquidity being made. That was the policy error. Today, we want to ensure there is enough liquidity. We must do everything to prevent the take over of banks. It’s the last thing to do but there was nothing more to do. The government has tools, but with this crisis, there was nothing left to do but take over the banks.
The speaker then went into how the government (central bank) bought up bank shares, - I’ll add here – at their bankrupt rate, “and will sell them later at a higher price.”
“The 700 billion dollar injection was necessary to set the conditions for recovery. There was nothing left to do. The Government has a wonderful set of economic tools. The only thing left is to lower interest rates. What they had to do, I believe they are right!”
“Europe’s in recession, so is Japan along with Britain and Australia. Ice land has collapsed. The rest of the world is down or going down. Nobody dreamt of this big issue.”
“The core of the problem was the house prices. That was the core of the problem. House prices were way out of whack! Now, for every 1% decline in the house price, there is a 25 million dollar loss on the market. Prices have fell 80% in 2006. That represents billions lost! You do the math”
House prices will stop falling and when you see house prices stop falling; then you will see recovery. You will see economic recovery.
Pre 1978, the ratio between house prices and incomes in the United States, you saw they were roughly equivalent. However, after 1978, as disposable income rose steadily, house prices sagged below the income average. By 2004, [greedy investors and borrowers] neutralized any balance that existed and house prices shot way above average incomes. The graph showed house prices shooting up from 2004 and peaking around 2006 and dropping quickly 2007/2008.” He was showing house prices created an imbalance in the relationship between average house prices and incomes.
“Now, no one cares about socialism or capitalism – only about the financial system. This is not the time to be concerned about socialism or capitalism, only about the financial system – only about this crisis! It’s not about economic philosophy.” Those are the exact words from a seasoned, experienced, senior economist - a spokesman - of one of Canada’s leading banks. Those are undoubtedly words echoed from his committee that sits with government leaders and bank leaders. In Atlas Shrugged, that exactly was the very same panic.
He then goes on to talk about how he expects the house prices to continue falling but to soon reach a balance that is in line with incomes, thus correcting the situation.
I’ll also mention the, “TED spread.” The TED spread is a three month European dollar average versus the American three month T-Bill. In 2006 it was stable, 2007 it started movement upwards, and 2008 climbed almost straight up.” He expects the spread to go back down. I missed much of this since my associates were talking to me. He continued that the Canadian banks were suffering from the spreads.
“This is a rate crisis now, a recession time. The spreads will go down. Borrowing was crazy!” The senior economist then shows a graph of U.S home equity withdrawals. The graph shows it has gone a high, to a steadily sloping from 700 billion loss in 2006, to zero in 2008.
“The good news is there is nothing left! You can’t go below zero. There is nothing there. The only way to go now is up. Everything is at the margin.”
Then car sales are shown to drop drastically from 1991 to now. He explains a 40% reduction in sales for some manufacture’s.
The difference between Canadian and American GDP drop is shown to be 1.05% (Canada) to 3.0% (America). “Canada is more stable.”
He showed commodity prices world-wide as down. He mentioned the fact that once China slowed down due to this global recession, - then commodity prices started going down. He gave oil as an example.
As far as rate cuts, he expects perhaps more but small, around half a percent or less.
“When the economy gets moving again, those cuts will be taken away just as quickly as they were given. They were emergency cuts.
Inflation, especially energy and food prices will go up. Where there is increased demand, those prices will go up. The bush Administration spent millions subsidizing corn producers in America for ethanol, but this was to subsidize the farmers. The total expected outcome of ethanol would only reduce gas dependency by 3%! The ethanol program was to subsidize the farmers. Energy prices will go up. Inflation will be the concern and higher interest rates 2011.
Recently the Bank of Canada did not cut interest rates and this was a surprise to many. Why didn’t the Bank of Canada cut rates? The difference was the growing spread between what is called the core inflation rate (rising cost of all things – food and energy because of their volatility) and the inflation rate that includes food and energy. The spread is at 6.7%. Demand is rising. Supply is diminishing. Inflation is foreseen so the rates in Canada were not cut.
For the last 7 or so years, interest rates have been the big concern for Mortgage brokers and banks. Everybody more or less took rising house prices for granted. The increase has been around 14%. Now the growth rate of houses will be 3%, 4%, 5% outstanding. That will be a more balanced growth in the industry. We want this kind of correction.
Inflation will be the governments concern with interest rate increases around 2010 – 2011. For now, interest rates may even go down by a few basis points, there is a stable housing market in Canada. Inflation will be the going concern.
We don’t want to see a “bubble.” You’ll have to work harder to get sales.”
My main disappointment was the content of the topic, which was not at all an independent judgment of the economic crisis, but mere following of political Keynesian philosophy based on consumerism.
What is particularly eye opening to me was the blatant disregard for principles in economics, especially when principles would be most needed. I would have thought at a time of crises, governments would have mustered up its best, most hard thinking economists and politicians and let the principle of freedom reign. Instead, the direction of nationalization of banks was the order of the day. The decision to take over the banks was not even pragmatic, it was mindless and literal bankrupt panic. Bankrupt ideas have led to literal bankruptcy, yet the same leaders will not let go of their empty ideas.
Ayn Rand was and is an absolute genius in her perceptions. She depicted such bankruptcy of soul decades ago. It is awe full. It is inspiring to me that she had the courage to name and identify rational principles and to call evasion the worst corrupting evil on the face of the earth.
My question now is, will America have to collapse before correcting back to its original founding principles? Or is there time? What can I do?
When this 700 billion dollar printing of money runs out, the next crisis will be higher, - in the trillions! There isn’t much time left before the west collapses into socialism or a new kind of fascism. This centuries old crisis has been building and proper principles must be spoken or we are all in dark trouble. O, let me fight! I will speak.
I attended such an occasion – I thought - when invited to hear a senior and renowned economic advisor to a major bank and money lenders. The presentation was on America’s and the worlds credit crises and stock market volatility.
The Talk was,
“The [sub-prime] Crises in Perspective”
The purpose of the talk was to better understand the “American economic crises and its relation to Canadian housing lending markets to reduce fear and uncertainty of clients.”
I’ll be writing this verbatim, as I remember the words and the notes I took. I’ll touch on some of the highlights.
“Has the economic cries we are experiencing bottomed out? I won’t pretend to know it all. No one can know it. However, looking at history, this is the worst crises since 1929. This is serious! Taking over [American] banks was the last thing governments do, but government is taking over banks.” Take over” were the words used.
In the 1929 depression there were mistakes made which we have learned from. In 1929, they suffered a similar crisis, but ended up in not enough liquidity being made. That was the policy error. Today, we want to ensure there is enough liquidity. We must do everything to prevent the take over of banks. It’s the last thing to do but there was nothing more to do. The government has tools, but with this crisis, there was nothing left to do but take over the banks.
The speaker then went into how the government (central bank) bought up bank shares, - I’ll add here – at their bankrupt rate, “and will sell them later at a higher price.”
“The 700 billion dollar injection was necessary to set the conditions for recovery. There was nothing left to do. The Government has a wonderful set of economic tools. The only thing left is to lower interest rates. What they had to do, I believe they are right!”
“Europe’s in recession, so is Japan along with Britain and Australia. Ice land has collapsed. The rest of the world is down or going down. Nobody dreamt of this big issue.”
“The core of the problem was the house prices. That was the core of the problem. House prices were way out of whack! Now, for every 1% decline in the house price, there is a 25 million dollar loss on the market. Prices have fell 80% in 2006. That represents billions lost! You do the math”
House prices will stop falling and when you see house prices stop falling; then you will see recovery. You will see economic recovery.
Pre 1978, the ratio between house prices and incomes in the United States, you saw they were roughly equivalent. However, after 1978, as disposable income rose steadily, house prices sagged below the income average. By 2004, [greedy investors and borrowers] neutralized any balance that existed and house prices shot way above average incomes. The graph showed house prices shooting up from 2004 and peaking around 2006 and dropping quickly 2007/2008.” He was showing house prices created an imbalance in the relationship between average house prices and incomes.
“Now, no one cares about socialism or capitalism – only about the financial system. This is not the time to be concerned about socialism or capitalism, only about the financial system – only about this crisis! It’s not about economic philosophy.” Those are the exact words from a seasoned, experienced, senior economist - a spokesman - of one of Canada’s leading banks. Those are undoubtedly words echoed from his committee that sits with government leaders and bank leaders. In Atlas Shrugged, that exactly was the very same panic.
He then goes on to talk about how he expects the house prices to continue falling but to soon reach a balance that is in line with incomes, thus correcting the situation.
I’ll also mention the, “TED spread.” The TED spread is a three month European dollar average versus the American three month T-Bill. In 2006 it was stable, 2007 it started movement upwards, and 2008 climbed almost straight up.” He expects the spread to go back down. I missed much of this since my associates were talking to me. He continued that the Canadian banks were suffering from the spreads.
“This is a rate crisis now, a recession time. The spreads will go down. Borrowing was crazy!” The senior economist then shows a graph of U.S home equity withdrawals. The graph shows it has gone a high, to a steadily sloping from 700 billion loss in 2006, to zero in 2008.
“The good news is there is nothing left! You can’t go below zero. There is nothing there. The only way to go now is up. Everything is at the margin.”
Then car sales are shown to drop drastically from 1991 to now. He explains a 40% reduction in sales for some manufacture’s.
The difference between Canadian and American GDP drop is shown to be 1.05% (Canada) to 3.0% (America). “Canada is more stable.”
He showed commodity prices world-wide as down. He mentioned the fact that once China slowed down due to this global recession, - then commodity prices started going down. He gave oil as an example.
As far as rate cuts, he expects perhaps more but small, around half a percent or less.
“When the economy gets moving again, those cuts will be taken away just as quickly as they were given. They were emergency cuts.
Inflation, especially energy and food prices will go up. Where there is increased demand, those prices will go up. The bush Administration spent millions subsidizing corn producers in America for ethanol, but this was to subsidize the farmers. The total expected outcome of ethanol would only reduce gas dependency by 3%! The ethanol program was to subsidize the farmers. Energy prices will go up. Inflation will be the concern and higher interest rates 2011.
Recently the Bank of Canada did not cut interest rates and this was a surprise to many. Why didn’t the Bank of Canada cut rates? The difference was the growing spread between what is called the core inflation rate (rising cost of all things – food and energy because of their volatility) and the inflation rate that includes food and energy. The spread is at 6.7%. Demand is rising. Supply is diminishing. Inflation is foreseen so the rates in Canada were not cut.
For the last 7 or so years, interest rates have been the big concern for Mortgage brokers and banks. Everybody more or less took rising house prices for granted. The increase has been around 14%. Now the growth rate of houses will be 3%, 4%, 5% outstanding. That will be a more balanced growth in the industry. We want this kind of correction.
Inflation will be the governments concern with interest rate increases around 2010 – 2011. For now, interest rates may even go down by a few basis points, there is a stable housing market in Canada. Inflation will be the going concern.
We don’t want to see a “bubble.” You’ll have to work harder to get sales.”
My main disappointment was the content of the topic, which was not at all an independent judgment of the economic crisis, but mere following of political Keynesian philosophy based on consumerism.
What is particularly eye opening to me was the blatant disregard for principles in economics, especially when principles would be most needed. I would have thought at a time of crises, governments would have mustered up its best, most hard thinking economists and politicians and let the principle of freedom reign. Instead, the direction of nationalization of banks was the order of the day. The decision to take over the banks was not even pragmatic, it was mindless and literal bankrupt panic. Bankrupt ideas have led to literal bankruptcy, yet the same leaders will not let go of their empty ideas.
Ayn Rand was and is an absolute genius in her perceptions. She depicted such bankruptcy of soul decades ago. It is awe full. It is inspiring to me that she had the courage to name and identify rational principles and to call evasion the worst corrupting evil on the face of the earth.
My question now is, will America have to collapse before correcting back to its original founding principles? Or is there time? What can I do?
When this 700 billion dollar printing of money runs out, the next crisis will be higher, - in the trillions! There isn’t much time left before the west collapses into socialism or a new kind of fascism. This centuries old crisis has been building and proper principles must be spoken or we are all in dark trouble. O, let me fight! I will speak.
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