Mar
16
Communist Homework
Filed Under Education | Leave a Comment
Last month, Moonbattery linked to An Englishman’s Castle post about his child being assigned to read Trees Belong To Everyone by Diana Noonan. Follow the link to see some pages. They’re infuriating.
The synopsis of this cute little story is a woman named Miss Brooks who uses her hard-earned money to buy a home, and then the government forces her to cede ownership of it to be used by the community. Government officals directly occupy the domicile on the land. The worst character in the story is Mr. Pennyfeather, who not only takes Ms. Brooks’ money for the land, but then demands that it is still used in a manner of his choosing.
The book is a little frightening if you ask me. How would you feel about a county commissioner demanding he use your home for an office and that the townfolk climb in your tree? I’m sure if one of those little eco-thugs fell out of that tree your homeowner’s insurance would have to pay any and all damages, huh?
This is communism, plain and simple. The community owns the property. If my child were sent home with this Marxist propoganda, I would make the school famous, and probably start homeschooling my children. Then again, maybe that’s why the commie libs have such a problem with homeschooling.
Feb
20
Random Thought…
Filed Under Liberalism | Leave a Comment
The word liberal is very similar to the word football in the fact that both words, while associated throughout the world with one concept, mean something completely different and antithetical in the United States.
Feb
16
Gay Mexicans Should Vote Republican
Filed Under Civil Liberties | 3 Comments
Group identity politics seem to be all the rage now, especially with the Democrat Party in charge in Washington. No longer viewed as individuals, people are now seen as members of large, homogeneous groups, rife with societal grievances and ripe for political exploitation. The American population can be split along any lines imaginable in regards to race, skin color, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, geographical distribution, income, occupation, etc.
Many affiliated with the Republican Party see the last two elections as the party’s “failure” to “reach out” to groups in this manner. Much has been made about the impact of the Hispanic vote given recent demographic changes. Immigration and social welfare issues are seen as very important to these groups, and those who espouse collectivist ideals want to tailor the conservative movement to accommodate such groups.
Another growing political trend has been the rise of the gay rights debate. Many have likened the movement to legalize gay marriage to the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
For reasons that are beyond my understanding, the Democrat party has been seen as the allies to immigrant and homosexual rights proponents, while the evil Republicans are seen as the enemies of liberty to these disadvantaged groups.
Regarding the issues of gay rights and immigration, I am a strict libertarian. Regarding the former, I cannot see how being homosexual is harming anyone else, and therefore do not support laws discriminating against it. As for marriage, I don’t believe it is any of the government’s business.
When it comes to immigration, I believe that it is not government’s job to manage demographics over a given geographical area (in other words, immigration quotas), nor is it a function of the state to manage our ‘culture’. As long as you are not a criminal, terrorist, or have an extremely dangerous communicable disease, come on in. Just don’t live off of my dime (which will be the idea of this post). Coyoteblog has a very good piece concerning immigration here.
Arguing my side of these two points would be more than this post is intended for. What this post is meant to do is illustrate that both the Democrat and Republican parties are enemies to the freedoms of gays and immigrants, and that people who already agree with me should vote for the lesser of two evils and for what will realistically bring about the reforms we support. So, if I grouped people into political identities instead of free-thinking individuals, I would, as my (I think rather catchy) title says, urge that gay Mexicans should vote Republican.
It’s easy to say the Republican party is against gay rights and immigration. Democrats are generally for relaxing immigration standards, while Republicans are generally for strict immigration enforcement and sometimes reducing immigration altogether. Proponents of legalizing gay marriage tend to be Democrats or liberals, whereas Republicans oppose gay marriage and support a constitutional ban.
The first thing I can’t stand is why Democrats seem to have the default support of immigrant and gay-rights groups when they differ very little from Republicans. For instance, as this article points out, all of the major 2008 Democrat presidential candidates opposed gay marriage, although they supported civil unions. Then-candidate Barack Obama:
“When you’re a black guy named Barack Obama, you know what it’s like to be on the outside,” said the Illinois senator at the nationally televised forum in Hollywood. “And so my concern is continually to make sure that the rights that are conferred by the state are equal for all people.”
The love may have been flowing at a forum specifically for gay rights, but political realities bogged down Obama when he actually became president. Homosexual blogger Perez Hilton lamented Obama’s decision to cut out of an HBO broadcast a prayer by a gay bishop and also to invite Rick Warren to attend the inauguration. Over a picture of Obama, the blogger scribbled “He’ll let u down too.”
While such politically-motivated moves may shock gays who are liberals like Perez Hilton, it doesn’t shock conservatives or libertarians like me. We realize that statists like the Democrat party employ a strategy of lumping people into groups, promising them things in order to gain power, and rob freedom from everyone, including the groups they claim they’re helping.
Another dark side of statism is that it gives legitimacy to government control of things like marriage and immigration, because costly social welfare programs give the federal government a vested interest in restricting such things. Case in point, the rise of welfare, Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security have only strengthened the argument to limit the amount of people eligible for American citizenship and equal recognition under the law.
I understand that xenophobia has always and will always exist. However, as civilization progresses, we begin to become more tolerant and see people as individuals, not as members of stereotypical groups whose needs and qualities are all alike. Then how are issues like immigration and gay marriage still significant in modern political discourse?
Take immigration, for example. In a completely free country with a government as the constitution intended, citizenship would mean little more than where you lived. The only argument against open immigration would be that some ethnic groups are undesirable. As I said, such a xenophobic stance has become less and less popular. But what legitimizes an argument towards limiting immigration? Massive (and massively expensive) government entitlement programs like welfare, Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security, all programs supported by the statist Democrat party. We cannot expect citizens who have been paying into such programs for decades to accept immigrants taking benefits after being here for a fraction of the time. Not only is it not right morally, it is not fiscally feasible. Libertarians like me cannot accept open immigration, as it would bankrupt taxpayers. The Republicans are completely right when they say that immigration restriction and reform are top priorities. Without governmental largess created by Democrats, there would be no need to restrict these freedoms, and xenophobic policies would begin to politically ring hollow in a nation of immigrants. LBJ and FDR did more to restrict immigration than Tom Tancredo could ever hope to.
The argument that Democrat big-government programs are an enemy to civil rights causes is even more blunt when dealing with gay marriage. The error of gay-marriage proponents, with whom I agree, is that their strategy is to make gay marriage acceptable in society. Unfortunately, not only do we have no right to force our viewpoints on others, such a task is not plausible. A Quinnipiac University poll gave the following three choices:
1. Same-sex couples should be allowed legally to marry
2. Same-sex couples should be allowed legally to form civil unions but not marry
3. Same-sex couples should not be allowed to obtain legal recognition of their relationships
The results of the poll show that 62% opposed legalizing gay marriage. The respondents had varying degrees of support for a either a constitutional ban on gay marriage or allowing some civil rights to gay couples. However, these are all the wrong questions. The question should be why the hell the government has a vested interest in who the hell gets married anyway. That answer is simple - Social Security.
Social security not only pays disability, unemployment, and a contributor’s own retirement benefits, it will also pay spousal benefits. In the event of a spouse’s death, the survivor will receive either their own benefit amount, or half that of their deceased spouse’s, whichever is greater. Because of government control of retirement, the feds have a vested interest in what kinds of relationships are recognized as marriage.
Take the following example: There are two relationships, one homosexual, the other heterosexual. In each, one member makes a very good living at their job, so that the other one has no need to work and devotes their time to a local charity and has no reported earnings. After 30 years of marriage, the high-earning member dies in a car accident. The difference between the two relationships? Well, under the current system that the Democrats favor, while the heterosexual survivor would receive half of their spouse’s benefit to live on, the homosexual survivor would be out of luck and the government would pocket their partner’s sizable contributions. If the government would get out of the business of running people’s retirements and left it to private accounts, similar to what Republican George W. Bush tried to implement, the homosexual earner could have designated their partner as the beneficiary in case of death. In a 401(k), you can designate whomever you wish as a payee if you kick off, including your mother, brother, dog, live-in girlfriend, or even a charity. With Social Security? No dice.
But wait, wail the “progressives,” if we legalized gay marriage, wouldn’t that get rid of the problem? Yes, but as that poll cited earlier, its going to be a bit of a stretch politically. The truth of the matter is that that which you give the government control of will also be under the control of whoever is in power and the political whims of the day. It’s all well and good when your guy is in power, but it won’t always be that way. A much wiser policy is to give others, government included, as little control over your own life and earnings as possible.
In the cases of both immigration and gay rights, Republicans are the party of less government control. The knee jerk reaction of freedom advocates, from libertarians like myself and progressives, may be to try to change the view of the world. But that is not a prudent course. It is best to allow a system where people are allowed control over themselves, and themselves alone. While Republicans may be doing things for reasons we disagree, they may be the right course of action after all.
Postscript: Pajamas Media had a great piece explaining why Dick Cheney was the most pro-gay VP in history. In the article, he is quoted as saying:
We live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody. We shouldn’t be able to choose and say you get to live free and you don’t. That means people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. It’s no one’s business in terms of regulating behavior in that regard. The next step then, of course, is the question you ask of whether or not there ought to be some kind of official sanction of the relationships or if they should be treated the same as a traditional marriage. … I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that’s appropriate. … We ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into.
I guess those evil Republicans (even Cheney!) aren’t so bad, are they?
Feb
2
It is stories like this that made me start this blog:
HOUSTON - Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago.
The previous record for annual profit was $40.6 billion, which the world’s largest publicly traded oil company set in 2007.
In light of all of the companies laying off employees and seeking corporate welfare from American taxpayers, Exxon Mobil should be earning our praises.
However, plenty of liberals and people that are simply ignorant sought to antagonize Exxon Mobil even though they clearly have very little knowledge about the company, the industry, or economics. The discussion section at Newsvine was rife with ignorant comments such as this gem from “Luu”:
I always say, those making a grand profit NOW - must be screwing some one…US!!or should I say U.S..
Or this from “BLNEWL”:
Unbelievable. The government should buy this company instead of the banks!
Morons who say such dangerous things are lacking three basic principles relating to Exxon Mobil’s profits: perspective, cause, and consequences.
First, the profits of Exxon Mobil need to be put into perspective. Sure, $42.5 billion sounds like a lot. And it is. But put in perspective of the sheer size of a business like Exxon Mobil, the “raping of the consumer” or “price gouging” accusations start to ring hollow. Exxon Mobil’s profit margin, or how much profit they make in relation to gross revenues, is 10.57%.
Maybe it’s because I’m from western New York, but I always like to use apple metaphors to illustrate basic economic principles. Suppose it costs Jack and Jill ten cents to produce an apple, and Jack sells ten apples for fifty cents each and Jill sells eighty apples for twenty cents each. Jack has $5 in revenues and $4 in profit, for a profit margin of 80% (for every dollar Jack takes in, $.80 is profit). Jill has $16 in revenue and $8 in profit, for a profit margin of 50% (for every dollar Jill takes in, $.50 is profit). If we just look at profits without any perspective, we might look at that fat cat Jill and her fortune, double that of poor Jack! But if one of these two is really screwing their customers, which one is it? The one whose profit margin is highest! Jack, you greedy bastard! You’re making an 80% profit! But we usually won’t see MSN or AP writing about Jack because he is easy to miss. Jill, on the other hand, stands out when she reports her “record profits” of $8, double that of Jack, even though she sells each unit at a cheaper price and therefore has a lower margin.
Also, many will say that Exxon Mobil can garner these huge profits because of some oligarchy or price-fixing scheme for which no evidence is ever offered for. In fact (as of 2006) Exxon Mobil is the world’s 17th largest oil company, so the logic behind that argument really doesn’t work with me.
Secondly, we need to examine the cause of Exxon Mobil’s profits. When it comes down to it, Exxon supplies a very useful product that has huge demand. I don’t know about you, but I love oil. Because of oil, I can live in a rural community with lower prices, and commute to the city to earn a wage and occasionally have fun. Yes, I could work at the grocery store in town for $8 an hour, or live in the city where I would fight with traffic every day and never see open green spaces, but it is because of oil that I can have the best of both worlds.
Plus, petroleum is used to manufacture countless other products, including plastics, which not only give me extra perks in life, but are vital in such aspects as medical technology and food preservation. Before the advent of oil, human existence was somewhat destitute. However, since the advent of ‘fossil fuels’ and the industrial revolution, human standards of living have exploded all over the world (with the exception of places where government has weighed down the progress of the free market).
So, we agree that we need oil (for those who don’t agree, the following arguments can be applied to solar, wind, geothermal, and ostrich power as well). Well how are we going to get it? With the capital, technology, and know how of professionals of course. Listen, if you put me in Saudi Arabia and gave me 10,000,000 years, I wouldn’t have a clue how to give you a gallon of gas. It is because of the hard work of thousands of employees, researchers, executives, and investors that human beings can go out to the desert or an ocean, drill a hole, extract some smelly black stuff out of the ground, refine it, turn it into plastics and gasoline, and we can run cars, heat homes, and have plastic heart valves. Or, in my apple analogy, someone has to buy the land, plant the orchards, water the trees, harvest the apples, and man the apple store. Before producers like Jack, Jill, or Exxon Mobil, we had none of these products. Now, because of their hard work and ingenuity, ours are the most cushy and plentiful lives in the whole of human history. It is a bit of a stretch to say that we are being “exploited” or have inherent rights to these products all along.
Also, the central theme of this story and all of free-market economics is that a firm is successful because of the conscious decisions of consumers acting in their own interests. Some people say they are ‘forced’ to buy gas at high prices. Bull shit. As we saw over the summer, consumers can and will curtail their consumption of oil if it is not in their own self interest. Some people may say they have to buy gas to get to work and get around their daily lives. Lord knows I was hurting when oil was $147 a barrel. But I didn’t have to work or live where I did. I cut down on unnecessary trips, turned my car off at stop lights, and drove slower. So did millions of Americans because such behavior was in their own self interest. The purchase of any product at a price is voluntary (unless someone has a gun to your head or they lie to you about the terms). The only reason Exxon Mobil is so big is because consumers repeatedly made the decision that buying their product at the advertised price was better than the alternative, which is either finding another supplier or going without the gas altogether. No one bought it just to be nice to the company. A voluntary, free-market transaction will only go through if the result is a better alternative for both parties involved than if the transaction had never happened at all.
There is nothing wrong with this. In my Jack and Jill example above, an apple consumer was faced with four choices. They could go produce their own apples. In the real world, people do this all the time when they grow their own food, do their own taxes (just don’t pull a Geithner), or change their own oil. But maybe their time is better spent at work or with their family. So then the consumer could go without an apple. However, this would lower the consumer’s standard of living as opposed to having the apple. We are left with the last two choices, buying an apple from Jill at twenty cents, or buying an apple from Jack at fifty. The choice is obvious here - no wonder in my example Jill sold eighty apples! So is it schocking or wrong that Jill and the consumers of apples would simply repeat this decision over and over again, ending up with Jill having profits in the billions? But what about a monopoly, you ask? Couldn’t Jill just be forcing Jack out of the game to (no pun intended) jack up the prices on the consumers? While I disagree with this logic (Coyote has a nice piece on so called “robber barons” here) I don’t think this is the case if Jill is the 17th largest producer of apples.
The cause of such large profits is because Exxon Mobil has provided a product that consumers were willing to exchange money for to raise their standard of living.
Lastly, we need to consider the consequences of “doing something” about Exxon Mobil’s record profits. It seems the “solutions” to this “problem” are:
- Enacting a “windfall profits” tax
- Enacting price controls on oil
- Government takeover by:
- Nationalization
- Force
The first two options simply lower the incentive to produce a product, leaving us with lower supply and higher prices, and also shortages (e.g. the Jimmy Carter days). Of course, we could just force the oil companies to produce the product without compensation, but that is generally referred to as slavery, which was outlawed in 1865.
That leaves us with nationalization, a tactic employed by our buddy Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (if nationalization proponents are uncomfortable with the comparison, too bad). First of all, as Katrina, Social Security, and TARP have shown, government is a grossly incompetent steward of resources and only rarely makes good decisions. Having them in charge of something as important as oil (or health care, or retirement, or anything) is a risky proposition at best. Secondly, I have a problem with the logic behind the government buying up companies as an instrument of stopping “big business crooks” from harming America. If this is supposedly what they do, couldn’t they just take the money they got from the government, go start another business, and do the whole thing all over again? So the only option left would be to take the assets by force, which is generally referred to as stealing.
Also, Exxon Mobil is owned by many mutual funds and government pension plans. In my 401(k), XOM is the largest single stock holding. Sticking it to the owners of this oil company would be sticking it to a lot of regular folks.
To recap, the consequences of not accepting Exxon Mobil’s record profits are:
- Lowering the supply and raising the price of a vital product,
- Enslaving tens of thousands of employees, or
- Robbing the assets of millions of working Americans
If you do not prefer any of those solutions, maybe you should just join me in congratulating Exxon Mobil in their success and hoping they keep right on chugging along.
Jan
22
Liberal Mind Puzzle
Filed Under Liberalism | 2 Comments
Modern American liberalism is probably the most inconsistent set of beliefs in the history of political philosophy. More than an ideological dogma, most mainstream liberals seem to substitute what sounds nice as opposed to a principle based on consideration and thought.
What I mean by this is that modern liberalism holds for somewhat free markets, but at times for large-scale government intervention, and protection of civil liberties but strong state control over economic activities. In a way, I respect full out communists more than liberals, because at least they’re consistent. They don’t try to have it both ways. Communists let you know right up front they are for total control of individual behavior by the state and society. Liberals try to cover this up.
That’s not to say that modern conservatives don’t have their contradictions when standing for freedom. There are many on the religious right who hold very statist views in regards to personal behavior and the basis of law on biblical doctrine. However this is more often a knee-jerk reaction to progressives who seek to demonize social conservatives. Left alone, these types will usually come down on the side of freedom.
That leads me to the point I alluded to in the title. For any self-described liberals reading this, I’d like to try a little thought experiment on you.
Liberals like to fancy themselves as staunch defenders of civil liberties and the separation of church and state. Yet they will then support strong government action in economic affairs, motivated by some sense of compassion. Don’t they realize these are two wholly inconsistent positions?
Let’s go with the separation of church and state. Americans United for Seperation of Church and State is an organization making several very good arguments to protect this sacred barrier between public and private institutions. On the Our Issues page (specifically the government-sponsored religion section), AU states:
When the government or government officials get behind one religious message, it sends the message to adherents that they are more valuable, and all others are less valuable, members of the political community. Leaving religious expression to private citizens ensures that the government will treat everyone equally.
Bravo. No libertarian or freedom loving conservative could disagree. I certainly don’t. Essentially what the above quote is saying is that when government picks a certain organization to serve the people, not only are the competing organizations prevented from succeeding, but the very people the government planners are trying to help are left with less choices. Here’s an excerpt from the Faith-Based Initiatives section, a policy most notably supported by George W. Bush but also by Barack Obama:
Americans in need of social services, such as welfare support, job training, emergency shelter and food/clothing supplies, should be able to get the help they need without being pressured to take part in religious activities. “Faith-based” initiatives, which propose turning the provision of social services over to religious groups, threaten individual rights and could lead to taxpayer support of religious ministries.
Bingo. Citizens on the taxpayers dime should not be in an indoctrination camp where they are forced to subscribe to a certain set of beliefs in exchange for aid.
So up to this point, I hope liberals and I have found a good deal of common ground on the ills of government intervention in matters of the soul. This is because even when government is trying to act in the best interest of its citizens, Calvin Coolidge’s warning rings true: “Government control cannot be divorced from political control.” That is, that which is under the sphere of government influence will also fall prey to the political whims of the time.
But can’t the arguments made in favor of the separation of church and state also be made for the separation of economy and state? Take my first argument above, about government picking one organization over the interests of another. Both potential competitors and regular people are harmed. So when liberals wish to protect the auto companies with bailouts, seek regulation over banks, give unionized workers an advantage over efficient businesses and those who are unemployed, and raise the minimum wage and therefore price the lowest paid workers out of the market, aren’t they always going to favor their political allies and campaign contributors? One need only to look at the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacle or this article to see the answer is yes.
My second argument could very well apply to President Obama’s plans for “national service,” which has yet to really be defined. The moral hazzard also exists for whatever kind of “green jobs” Obama wishes to create. Will we really be helping youths and those out of work? No. Their economic livelihood will become linked with that of the state and the re-election of certain officials. That is not empowerment. That’s slavery. As I said earlier, “Citizens on the taxpayers dime should not be in an indoctrination camp where they are forced to subscribe to a certain set of beliefs in exchange for aid.”
Government intervention harms the entity they are trying to assist by making them dependant on the government. Government aid may, at times, help a person or company get back on its feet, but it never ends there. They are indebted to the state and when faced with a decision between their own interest and those of the state, cannot bite the hand that feeds it. The same argument could be made for churches. For instance, the AU site warns about church electioneering:
Every weekend, millions of Americans attend houses of worship to hear sermons, study scripture and participate in other religious activities. If some politicians and Religious Right activists have their way, however, people in the pews might soon be doing other things during services — listening to partisan political speeches, being solicited for campaign contributions and getting instructions about whom to vote for on Election Day.
This can happen not only because a particular candidate agrees with the church’s views, but because the church will become dependant on more government support. I must take issue with AU’s singling out of “Religious Right activists” however. I seem to remember a little liberal church electioneering going on during the 2008 election.
In the end, whether its government intervention in religion or the economy, the key question to be asked is who should be left to make decisions. Whether liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, you have to support decision-making by individuals or the state. Because, like it or not, statists always believe they know how to run people’s live better than the person them self. A statist will support a national religion because people cannot manage their own soul, and a statist will also support social security because people cannot manage their own retirement. A statist supports regulations on what kind of content in movies we can see because we shouldn’t be exposed to sinful messages, and a statist will also support regulations on what kind of mortgages we can buy because we shouldn’t be exposed to ‘predatory lending.’ In any case, the statist always believes we are too stupid to make decisions for ourselves.
You cannot have it both ways, liberals. You are either on the side of the individual, or government. I hope you will join me on the side of the individual and that of freedom.
