Locke, Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson--
their cause hijacked, collectivism won;
"A republic, if you can keep it,"--
Ben must surely be having a fit!;
Aristotle knew, Von Mises did,
Ayn Rand had a clue, the people hid;
God, religion, and mysticism,
Tyranny hasn't produced much wisdom;
The Declaration of Independence,
of which the Religious Right took offense;
The Constitution was written as a taper,
Dubya said, "It's just a god-damn piece of paper!";
Do you remember the Bill of Rights?
"Sorta," and flicks the cigarette light;
War and imperialism were enacted,
our youth were forced into being drafted;
Abroad we fought Russia and Communism,
at home the Smoking Ban equates to Nazism;
Oil prices, healthcare, and gay rights,
stems from which suit has the most might;
The Blues & Reds take credit for being the ones,
but it is closer to the Libertarians;
"All for One, and One for All,"
the saying has been our fall;
We live under a doctrine of hate,
no answers, just circles of debate;
Like droids marching in a world of denial,
our best attempt is to give a plastic smile;
Billy Joel said "We Didn't Start the Fire,"
that depends on if Frank Luntz is for hire;
Where have I heard this song before?
Oh yes, in the pages before.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Democrats are overachievers; Republicans are underachievers
The RNP are failures. Our fore fathers built America on a Republic, and it is anything but today. Republicans really don’t even comprehend what America once was. Their really only goal is to be “less worse” than the Democrats. The Constitution, liberty, etc. is a bunch of passé blah to them. (“The Constitution is just a god damn piece of paper.” –George W. Bush)
On the other hand, the Democrats are winners. Not in head-to-head principles per se, but they’ve won the emotional debate. (No? Then ask yourself why Republicans often call themselves “compassionate conservatives.”) Democrats own the media, too. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc. all have liberal leanings. The main conservative channel out there is really only FOX.
Despite opposition accounts, Republicans are more unpredictable. It’s true Democrats will not confront their socialism at times, but everyone knows they’re tax & spenders. Everyone basically knows they’re socialists. Democrats really have an internationalist agenda with Europe as its model. Should a Democrat get in office, nobody is really that surprised if spending and/or social programs should explode to the point of setting new records. But if a Republican spends a bunch or becomes decidedly liberal, people are like, WTF?!
Republicans are usually predictable when it comes to giving you more of your tax dollars back. But many other areas you cannot be for certain. Spending is even open game now (if it ever wasn’t in the first place?). You cannot be for certain a Republican will be true to their conservancy. That knowingness of who they truly are isn’t as inherent as it is with the Democrats.
Democrats, like Obama, pride themselves on socialist terms like “we” and greater environmental protections. Republicans kinda hang onto the ends of the blue coattails because they fear losing the compassion debate. Democrats tend to spout all kinds of social ideals on various subjects. As Ayn Rand notes, Republicans still tend to use the jargon “faith” and “tradition.” In that regards, the Blues have better jargon for they think in terms of “future” and “progressive.” Republicans call to the past – whatever that means? But they don’t comprehend what their past is. They just take pride in knowing that polls like approval ratings from say two years ago are a 30-20 percent in favor of them. They’d say, “Well, hahaha, at least we’re not as bad as the Democrats!” The idea that they should have great principles, first, is secondary to the one of being mildly better than the Democrats. The Blues tend to win more by evasion since they know their ideas cannot be debated in the open. The Reds – oh boy! – know they can win the open debate but in the end follow suit many times.
Since the Democrats know their ideas cannot be openly debated, they win the emotions debate, or the vagueness of media and pictures, to get an edge. Republicans haven’t really figured out with any consistency how to beat them over the years. It’s true the RNP have held more presidential offices. That would, to them, account as impressive, worthy of a moral victory. But when you think about what America was built on, and how a party that can offer nothing has slowly transformed America into something other than its beginnings, it is they who are the overachievers.
On the other hand, the Democrats are winners. Not in head-to-head principles per se, but they’ve won the emotional debate. (No? Then ask yourself why Republicans often call themselves “compassionate conservatives.”) Democrats own the media, too. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc. all have liberal leanings. The main conservative channel out there is really only FOX.
Despite opposition accounts, Republicans are more unpredictable. It’s true Democrats will not confront their socialism at times, but everyone knows they’re tax & spenders. Everyone basically knows they’re socialists. Democrats really have an internationalist agenda with Europe as its model. Should a Democrat get in office, nobody is really that surprised if spending and/or social programs should explode to the point of setting new records. But if a Republican spends a bunch or becomes decidedly liberal, people are like, WTF?!
Republicans are usually predictable when it comes to giving you more of your tax dollars back. But many other areas you cannot be for certain. Spending is even open game now (if it ever wasn’t in the first place?). You cannot be for certain a Republican will be true to their conservancy. That knowingness of who they truly are isn’t as inherent as it is with the Democrats.
Democrats, like Obama, pride themselves on socialist terms like “we” and greater environmental protections. Republicans kinda hang onto the ends of the blue coattails because they fear losing the compassion debate. Democrats tend to spout all kinds of social ideals on various subjects. As Ayn Rand notes, Republicans still tend to use the jargon “faith” and “tradition.” In that regards, the Blues have better jargon for they think in terms of “future” and “progressive.” Republicans call to the past – whatever that means? But they don’t comprehend what their past is. They just take pride in knowing that polls like approval ratings from say two years ago are a 30-20 percent in favor of them. They’d say, “Well, hahaha, at least we’re not as bad as the Democrats!” The idea that they should have great principles, first, is secondary to the one of being mildly better than the Democrats. The Blues tend to win more by evasion since they know their ideas cannot be debated in the open. The Reds – oh boy! – know they can win the open debate but in the end follow suit many times.
Since the Democrats know their ideas cannot be openly debated, they win the emotions debate, or the vagueness of media and pictures, to get an edge. Republicans haven’t really figured out with any consistency how to beat them over the years. It’s true the RNP have held more presidential offices. That would, to them, account as impressive, worthy of a moral victory. But when you think about what America was built on, and how a party that can offer nothing has slowly transformed America into something other than its beginnings, it is they who are the overachievers.
Religion's socialist tyranny
The Bible was written by many authors over a long period of time, but it was written during a period known for its “Holy Wars.” This was a period of bloodshed and tyranny. It’s important to note many of The Bible’s tones were created by people who wanted to control humanities conduct by injecting fear in the text to prevent/scare people into submission of their supposed sins. (An entry into God’s Kingdom for being good is just one of them, though no one has actually empirically been able to prove this.)
Religious prophets and/or authoritarians have a history of upper class. They seek to find answers that are not necessarily there in the text, justifying biblical tones that contradict logic and common sense. For some it’s based on emotional vices; the need to cling onto their beliefs at all costs. They are special people who are praised for their foresight and desire an everlasting legacy. They seek that attention because to a certain extent it’s natural to want to be loved and appreciated. However, the foundation of their religious values lives in some contradiction.
For instance, Genesis 1:3-5, “On the first day God created light,” but then later in 1:19, “And the evening and the morning were the fourth day,” implying a contradiction since it’s impossible scientifically to have a morning created three days after the sun was created – for light is morning (!). Or from the Infidels website: “In the Bible, words having to do with killing significantly outnumber words having to do with love.” “If the Bible were really the work of a perfect, all-powerful, and loving God, one would reasonably expect it to be obviously superlative in every respect – accurate, clear, concise, and consistent throughout – as compared to anything that could possibly be conceived by human intellect alone.”
Now I could sit here and go through every biblical contradiction, but the reality is some minds just are not going to be changed. Religion is predicated on tribalism (social groups). Caste systems are designed to protect people from reality. Therefore there is a strong association of reality denial between The Bible, religion, and prayer. They seek to engulf the individual’s mind to a higher power, but it usually isn’t God. Rather it’s usually a religious authoritarian claiming to be the cipher of an Almighty. They provide no empirical evidence for their second sight – and they seek none for they loathe the scientific method. They might dismiss the examples above because science asks them to prove their positions. They want not to because otherwise their beliefs start to fall apart at the seams. And yet at the same time they try -- though fail – to use the scientific method to claim the Bible is the truth because the Bible exists and therefore is the truth. No other visible requirement is necessary.
Religionists/prayerists stubbornly adhere to socialism. Neither really believes in the individual. You might hear a religious person talk about how they’ve spoken with God, that they speak “tongues” with their Creator. It rarely – if ever – is questioned what they said, or why they are given special gifts to talk with God while the rest of us are not. They say that you have to be a deep believer in order to communicate with God, though their communications are vague and never given the detail necessary to solidify their position. Notice how some believe prayers are answered while there are a whole host of other examples that are not answered. Disease has been cured. Therefore it was by God’s hand. It had nothing to do with human engineering. But many of the other instances of good Christian people who die of disease-related ailments are simply discarded.
The kind of people I want to be around are the cancer patients who believe they will beat the disease. Those who place their life in God’s hands are essentially saying they do not have the strength to confront their condition. Whatever conclusion they reach, they determine themselves. The man who called his wife on his cell phone right before his hijacked plane hit one of the World Trade Center’s essentially gave his life up because he didn’t have the strength to confront reality and fight back. That of course isn’t suggesting he would’ve lived anyway, but the terrorist pilots course might have been altered had he decided to try and break down the door of the cockpit. In essence, prayer is a good in the sense that it lifts the human spirit. The dark side is that prayer lifts people away from reality.
If a religious person said that they believe religion creates better people, better values, and more peaceful communities—that’s great. But it needs to be left at that. Religion is a private institution, and the unseen, the mystical revelations, the claiming of God’s word, can never be entered into political law for liberty can only be run on the conscious. Since religions quota is socialism, it is always seeking to engulf the individual no matter how kind its intentions. (Religion is anti-individual, anti-mind.) Religionists never really get around to answering that if God is The Almighty power, why does God need humans to speak on its behalf in the first place? Otherwise their socialist tyranny comes into question. The idea that God created humanity with a free will to choose its own fate explains to me that it isn’t religion I fear, but people in religion I fear.
Religious prophets and/or authoritarians have a history of upper class. They seek to find answers that are not necessarily there in the text, justifying biblical tones that contradict logic and common sense. For some it’s based on emotional vices; the need to cling onto their beliefs at all costs. They are special people who are praised for their foresight and desire an everlasting legacy. They seek that attention because to a certain extent it’s natural to want to be loved and appreciated. However, the foundation of their religious values lives in some contradiction.
For instance, Genesis 1:3-5, “On the first day God created light,” but then later in 1:19, “And the evening and the morning were the fourth day,” implying a contradiction since it’s impossible scientifically to have a morning created three days after the sun was created – for light is morning (!). Or from the Infidels website: “In the Bible, words having to do with killing significantly outnumber words having to do with love.” “If the Bible were really the work of a perfect, all-powerful, and loving God, one would reasonably expect it to be obviously superlative in every respect – accurate, clear, concise, and consistent throughout – as compared to anything that could possibly be conceived by human intellect alone.”
Now I could sit here and go through every biblical contradiction, but the reality is some minds just are not going to be changed. Religion is predicated on tribalism (social groups). Caste systems are designed to protect people from reality. Therefore there is a strong association of reality denial between The Bible, religion, and prayer. They seek to engulf the individual’s mind to a higher power, but it usually isn’t God. Rather it’s usually a religious authoritarian claiming to be the cipher of an Almighty. They provide no empirical evidence for their second sight – and they seek none for they loathe the scientific method. They might dismiss the examples above because science asks them to prove their positions. They want not to because otherwise their beliefs start to fall apart at the seams. And yet at the same time they try -- though fail – to use the scientific method to claim the Bible is the truth because the Bible exists and therefore is the truth. No other visible requirement is necessary.
Religionists/prayerists stubbornly adhere to socialism. Neither really believes in the individual. You might hear a religious person talk about how they’ve spoken with God, that they speak “tongues” with their Creator. It rarely – if ever – is questioned what they said, or why they are given special gifts to talk with God while the rest of us are not. They say that you have to be a deep believer in order to communicate with God, though their communications are vague and never given the detail necessary to solidify their position. Notice how some believe prayers are answered while there are a whole host of other examples that are not answered. Disease has been cured. Therefore it was by God’s hand. It had nothing to do with human engineering. But many of the other instances of good Christian people who die of disease-related ailments are simply discarded.
The kind of people I want to be around are the cancer patients who believe they will beat the disease. Those who place their life in God’s hands are essentially saying they do not have the strength to confront their condition. Whatever conclusion they reach, they determine themselves. The man who called his wife on his cell phone right before his hijacked plane hit one of the World Trade Center’s essentially gave his life up because he didn’t have the strength to confront reality and fight back. That of course isn’t suggesting he would’ve lived anyway, but the terrorist pilots course might have been altered had he decided to try and break down the door of the cockpit. In essence, prayer is a good in the sense that it lifts the human spirit. The dark side is that prayer lifts people away from reality.
If a religious person said that they believe religion creates better people, better values, and more peaceful communities—that’s great. But it needs to be left at that. Religion is a private institution, and the unseen, the mystical revelations, the claiming of God’s word, can never be entered into political law for liberty can only be run on the conscious. Since religions quota is socialism, it is always seeking to engulf the individual no matter how kind its intentions. (Religion is anti-individual, anti-mind.) Religionists never really get around to answering that if God is The Almighty power, why does God need humans to speak on its behalf in the first place? Otherwise their socialist tyranny comes into question. The idea that God created humanity with a free will to choose its own fate explains to me that it isn’t religion I fear, but people in religion I fear.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
biblical flaws -- miscellaneous
Jesus is God's Son
Either Jesus was a fictional character or he took far too much credit for being the eyes of God. Mysticism places more value in the unseen than seen. It becomes a problem when one (authors of scripture) claims to be the spokesperson of a higher power that really doesn't require the assistance of its creation(s). It would seem God, The Almighty, can emit the message clearly to its people at any time. That thought either cannot or rarely is ever challenged in biblical circles. Because, to them, "God works in many ways" but the one direct example of just appearing in front of us all on the doorstep. Again this appears to be another creation debate, but in fact I'm suggesting that "God's Plan" is simply a hands-off approach in which humanity is to figure out life's obstacles for themselves. Many of these ideas were self-generated by religious icons who took empowerment too seriously.
Hell
If God is forgiving and loving, then a belief in Hell is contradictory. It establishes once again that God is vengeful and therefore no better than humanity. For God created humanity with a free will to decide the path they so choose. Not to punish them when God had the choice and power to create a same-face collective.
The Devil
The belief in such implies that an entity consumes people whole. However, to believe that people get their evilness from a Devil is to imply they are not responsible for their actions. For example, if a criminal commits a crime, it is deemed the evil spirit caused the problem because they consumed their soul. In effect modern jurisprudence doesn't need to exist for individuals are not responsible for their own conclusions.
Either Jesus was a fictional character or he took far too much credit for being the eyes of God. Mysticism places more value in the unseen than seen. It becomes a problem when one (authors of scripture) claims to be the spokesperson of a higher power that really doesn't require the assistance of its creation(s). It would seem God, The Almighty, can emit the message clearly to its people at any time. That thought either cannot or rarely is ever challenged in biblical circles. Because, to them, "God works in many ways" but the one direct example of just appearing in front of us all on the doorstep. Again this appears to be another creation debate, but in fact I'm suggesting that "God's Plan" is simply a hands-off approach in which humanity is to figure out life's obstacles for themselves. Many of these ideas were self-generated by religious icons who took empowerment too seriously.
Hell
If God is forgiving and loving, then a belief in Hell is contradictory. It establishes once again that God is vengeful and therefore no better than humanity. For God created humanity with a free will to decide the path they so choose. Not to punish them when God had the choice and power to create a same-face collective.
The Devil
The belief in such implies that an entity consumes people whole. However, to believe that people get their evilness from a Devil is to imply they are not responsible for their actions. For example, if a criminal commits a crime, it is deemed the evil spirit caused the problem because they consumed their soul. In effect modern jurisprudence doesn't need to exist for individuals are not responsible for their own conclusions.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
biblical flaws
Deuteronomy is unfortunately one of my least favorite chapters because it is riddled with tyranny, injecting fear, racism, and the occasional promotion of murder. Hopefully the examples I give will explain why.
This parallels "Worshiping Other Gods." The reason this doesn't hold true is relatively simple: Scientific evidence proves that with each new birth creates a seperate, new mind to think and act for one's self (free will). No descent Creator would destroy the very thing, the human mind, that was designed to make those religious choices for themselves. To a Creator, they've already accepted that each human can except or reject creation. Therefore, this was a human-influenced ideal and certainly not a higher power-guided prophet.
Words like "must" and "commanded" are force. If in fact the lord demands these things, why doesn't he come out in the open, in the visible, and physically prove his wishes with spoken word? Hence the enclosed system of belief in tyranny amongst religious dogmas.
In religion this should read to not have idols superior to God. In terms of progress and ingenuity, if humanity didn't have models in achievements in arts, technology, etc., there would be no reason to expand our knowledge.
Pretty self-explanatory really. Children should be punished for things that are out of their control.
In a savage period, religion still cannot be excused for acts of murder. A is A. The Bible is the only book historically that can get away with such grotesque promotions. However, if a pagan forced their values that threatened the survival of a Christian(s), of course defending ones self is right and moral. But neither paragraph really attempts to detail such, possibly due to blind obedience. The first paragraph doesn't even attempt to at all. Hence why their guilty of the promotion of murder. The second, the interpreter, is nearly as guilty. The author acknowledges the offense, mildly, but quickly by-passes it for the upholding of the Bible's principles of tyranny and self-sacrifice. There is no difference between secular and non-secular force. Both deem to engulf the individual. Blind abidance to the Bible is dangerous considering the flawed nature of its authors: humans, who have used it to protect believers from the reality of their customs of tyranny and violence. A "middle ground" is unacceptable to them for threat of divisions in religious circles (an act Morman's practice, amongst others).
"Messengers of God" or "God's agents" were authoritarians who actively promoted the use of force and to suppress secular liberty. (It was secularism, not religion, that attained liberty.) Prophets used their intelligence to overstep their boundaries to acquire power. "God's word" by now is simply a phrase to draw attention to the Bible as the bearer of all morals versus human knowledge that is acquired through experience. These quotes instill fear into people, which is the entire point of religious prophetising. It implies God should be feared for God is vengeful. The problem is if God is so, then God is no better than humanity for we are vengeful. It doesn't quite make logical sense to fear God when God is superior in every way to humanity.
Moses Urges Israel To Obey - 4:3-4
You saw what the Lord did to you at Baal-Peor, where the Lord your God destroyed everyone who had worshiped the god Baal-Peor. But all of you who were faithful to the Lord your God are still alive today.
This parallels "Worshiping Other Gods." The reason this doesn't hold true is relatively simple: Scientific evidence proves that with each new birth creates a seperate, new mind to think and act for one's self (free will). No descent Creator would destroy the very thing, the human mind, that was designed to make those religious choices for themselves. To a Creator, they've already accepted that each human can except or reject creation. Therefore, this was a human-influenced ideal and certainly not a higher power-guided prophet.
4:5
You must obey these laws and regulations when you arrive in the land you are about to enter and occupy. The Lord my God gave them to me and commanded me to pass them on to you.
Words like "must" and "commanded" are force. If in fact the lord demands these things, why doesn't he come out in the open, in the visible, and physically prove his wishes with spoken word? Hence the enclosed system of belief in tyranny amongst religious dogmas.
4:25
...do not corrupt yourselves by making idols of any kind.
In religion this should read to not have idols superior to God. In terms of progress and ingenuity, if humanity didn't have models in achievements in arts, technology, etc., there would be no reason to expand our knowledge.
The Ten Commandments - 5:9
I do not leave unpunished the sins of those who hate me, but I punish the children for the sins of their parents to third and fourth generations.
Pretty self-explanatory really. Children should be punished for things that are out of their control.
Worshipping Other Gods 13:6-10
If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods (god that neither you nor your fathers have known, god's of the people around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. And then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
The Layman's Bible (interpretations):
It must, however, be remembered that idolatry struck at the very foundations of Hebrew national life as founded on the Covenant at Horeb. The religions of the Canaanites and sorrounding peoples was a debased from of nature worship, with revolting moral standards and practices. We may not like the exact way in which the Hebrews sought to deal with their subversives, but we can recognize the legitimacy of their abhorrence of the offense and of their desire to guard against it. They were anxious, therefore, to keep out any marks of pagan customs, even mourning rites of bodily mutilation and shaving of the head. The barriers against standards and practices must be high and thick, lest the nation eventually be engulfed by them.
In a savage period, religion still cannot be excused for acts of murder. A is A. The Bible is the only book historically that can get away with such grotesque promotions. However, if a pagan forced their values that threatened the survival of a Christian(s), of course defending ones self is right and moral. But neither paragraph really attempts to detail such, possibly due to blind obedience. The first paragraph doesn't even attempt to at all. Hence why their guilty of the promotion of murder. The second, the interpreter, is nearly as guilty. The author acknowledges the offense, mildly, but quickly by-passes it for the upholding of the Bible's principles of tyranny and self-sacrifice. There is no difference between secular and non-secular force. Both deem to engulf the individual. Blind abidance to the Bible is dangerous considering the flawed nature of its authors: humans, who have used it to protect believers from the reality of their customs of tyranny and violence. A "middle ground" is unacceptable to them for threat of divisions in religious circles (an act Morman's practice, amongst others).
The Prophet 18:15
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from amongst your own brothers.
Layman's Commentary:
(excerpt)
The Deuteronomists -- to whom Moses was a figure of colossal proportions, to say the least -- certainly regarded him as the standard by which all messengers of God must be measured.
"Messengers of God" or "God's agents" were authoritarians who actively promoted the use of force and to suppress secular liberty. (It was secularism, not religion, that attained liberty.) Prophets used their intelligence to overstep their boundaries to acquire power. "God's word" by now is simply a phrase to draw attention to the Bible as the bearer of all morals versus human knowledge that is acquired through experience. These quotes instill fear into people, which is the entire point of religious prophetising. It implies God should be feared for God is vengeful. The problem is if God is so, then God is no better than humanity for we are vengeful. It doesn't quite make logical sense to fear God when God is superior in every way to humanity.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Liberty in the 21st Century
http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/117...176&wid=117
Tibor R. Machan
The Libertarian Perspective #75 Tue, 24 Oct 2006
The Common Good
Liberal Democrats are having a conniption fit about the lack of any vision that unites the Democratic Party. So several of their pundit-philosophers are writing essays in which they lament this situation and propose remedies.
Among those doing this is Michael Tomasky, who, in a recent piece for The American Prospect, suggests that "Democrats need to become the party of the common good." Then he goes on to write, as one of his critics put it, "breathlessly," that "We are all in this . . . together, and . . . we have to pull together, make some sacrifices, and, just sometimes, look beyond our own interest to solve our problems and create the future."
I have a better idea. Let Democrats, Republicans, and the rest recover the powerful idea that got the country going in the first place, one laid out pretty neatly in the Declaration of Independence. This idea is that the common good is pursued precisely when government does what justifies its existence—namely, secure our rights. That, indeed, is THE common good in the American political tradition.
There are millions of disparate "goods" that individuals pursue, but only one unites them, only one is their common good: the protection of their fundamental individual rights. This was part of the revolutionary idea that animated the Founders and put the country in opposition to so many others, including those in Europe from which so many of its initial population fled.
In most countries throughout human history the idea was promoted that there is a rich common good, a whole slew of objectives that everyone must pursue. In other words, the common good was really the collective goods of all the people, as if they really did share goods galore that they needed to promote. The one-size-fits-all mentality was encouraged by rulers, monarchs, tsars, and the rest who needed to hoodwink us into thinking that their goals are really our goals and we cannot really, individually, have goals of our own. That was the common good–the leaders' good peddled for the rest as their good, too.
The American Founders, guided by the classical liberal social-political philosophies of John Locke and company, saw through this. They realized that in a big country, the millions of inhabitants share but very few goods. (Of course, small associations—churches, clubs, corporations, professional groups and so forth—can have some common objectives all right. But no such common good or objective exists for the millions of us!) And the most important—probably, in fact, only—common good we share is the protection of our individual rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It's the one good that's indeed good for us all, that we have in common.
If government, which is instituted to secure these rights, does its job right, it will stick to little more than making sure that everyone's liberty is safe. Why? Because then all the millions of different individuals, and some of the groups they voluntarily form amongst themselves, will quite successfully embark on the task of pursuing all those goods that suit them. Securing our rights does that for us!
But today's public pundit-intellectuals don't get it. They want to find some thick public good—a whole, humongous basket of allegedly common goods—that government will set out to achieve. And they are surprised that there isn't such a basket; in a largely free society people have their own basket of proposed goods they want to obtain for themselves. And this isn't because they are selfish and will not make sacrifices—notice how looking out for yourself is being demeaned in Tomasky's call to arms—but because even in what they consider appropriate objectives for which sacrifices should be made the citizenry differs significantly. They don't need having one idea of what's worthy of a sacrifice shoved down their throats. No, they want to choose those objectives, as well as the ways of making the sacrifices for them if need be.
Maybe the Democrats—and Republicans—ought to recover the Founders' vision. Then they wouldn't have to concoct an impossible one behind which they cannot manage to unite folks.
---------------------------
http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/hancock/hancock1.html
(excerpt)
Libertarians in general knew government had every motivation to grow in size and intrusiveness and lacked any real deterrent against doing so. The Libertarian Party represented a growing understanding that force or the threat of force, in whatever form, was required to maintain control of a population increasingly aware of the illegitimacy of so much government in their lives. Most people simply wish to be left alone, but government cannot leave them alone. Men in uniforms with shiny badges and seal-embossed parchments demanding service to “The King” have always been accompanied by the threat of violence for non-compliance.
The Revolution between the ears won’t take place all at once, but it will take place overnight. One morning everything will be different. Government actions against the people in the form of laws like the USA PATRIOT Act, surveillance of the innocent, controls on communications and the supposed dominion over one's body are creating an explosive environment, and the central planners know it. These police state tactics are not for our protection from outside threats, but for the protection of government from the American people. Government limits on our ability to seek redress and physically defend against tyranny are increasing -- an outcome predicted for decades by libertarians.
There are reasons to avoid being in public office these days. I firmly believe there will be at least a metaphorical guillotining of public officials responsible for destroying the American Dream for tens of millions of Americans. And I do not wish to be affiliated with those standing in line for their turn to have the lever pulled on their fate. I have absolutely no political goal other than to be left alone. My whole family and large circle of friends have invested a great deal of time, effort and money to that end. But I don't see wielding the power of elective office as a path to that goal.
While content to focus my efforts at home in Arizona , I have become increasingly aware of those with a great desire to be a “respected member” of the very system we oppose. The claim that one needs positions of power in order to free individuals is very troubling. We should be the Hobbits who do not seek power over others, and are willing to make great investments to ensure being left alone. Changing the hands on the levers of power won’t eliminate the levers. The abandonment of the principled foundation of libertarianism now would be disastrous and leave us with nothing of value to distinguish us from our ideological competition.
And while most libertarians would welcome a return to the size of government allowed by the US Constitution as championed in the Federalist Papers, many recognize that this document created the opportunity for the powerful central government we oppose today. The liberty-minded people of the American Revolution were profoundly ambivalent about the US Constitution, and detailed their concerns in the Anti-Federalist Papers. What good are checks and balances when all three branches of government are aligned against the rights of the individual? The Bill of Rights was the libertarian compromise. These ten “Thou Shalt Nots” of government was the deal made to avoid conflict. But the document has proven to be binding only on the people, in our forced support of our present government, while every single one of the Bill of Rights is constantly violated without hesitation by government. I am certain that I am not the only one wondering when this “social contract” will finally be declared null and void. –Ernest Hancock
---------------
Every generation has one or two philosophers that transcend time. From Aristotle (The Father of Logic) to Thomas Aquinas. From the Founding Fathers (Creators of the first free nation) to Ludwig Von Mises (The Father of “True” Economics). From Ayn Rand (The Mother of Liberty) to her heir, Leonard Peikoff, and on to the Libertarian Party.
In the 21st Century, I believe there is the beginnings of another. Lo Bastido’s two keystone contributions are essential as not only a guide, but for all of time.
The term "socialism" is not merely an economic term; it has other aspects, which all relate back to its very name.
Any government measure designed to manipulate society into what is deemed to be the ideal is socialism. Leftists -- no matter how moderate -- are socialists, since they support the manipulating of the economy to decrease economic inequality, and thus, presumably, social distinctions between rich and poor. Naturally, they also support some -- but not all -- permissions in regards to non-economic activities, such as marriage. Note that I said permissions, instead of rights. There are no civil rights for individuals under socialism, because socialism takes it for granted that "society" -- whether in the form of all individuals, a majority of individuals, or even some individuals as a group -- is superior to the individual qua individual. Those who call themselves "liberals" do not believe in rights; their perceived entitlements to welfare are certainly not rights; groups of individuals cannot have their own rights as a group; the overall principle is that the individual must kneel before the whims of society (although actually the ruling elite in charge of the government).
We must take into account the wide scope of socialist activities. Economic measures designed to manipulate society are a form of socialism, as we have seen. But there are many justifications for socialism, and Marxism is only one of them. (The term "Marxism" may reasonably be applied to the general concept of wealth redistribution from the wealthy to the poor, with the underlying assumptions that under capitalism there is no middle class; that the rich are always getting richer while the poor are always getting poorer; and that the rich can only get rich at the expense of the poor.)
Another justification for socialism is the vague concept of "virtue." Under this kind of socialism, society is manipulated toward the goal of creating a society based on certain religious ideals. The individual is largely left alone in his economic activities, but his non-economic activities are regulated if not banned, even though those activities are conducted between consenting adults with a clear and honest agreement regarding their association.
This form of socialism is as destructive of individual liberty as the more recognized Marxist form of socialism. Bizarrely, the proponents of virtue socialism refuse to recognize their socialism, despite their constant invocation of terms like society, the greater good, and the majority, in the context of manipulating them using government fiat -- classic rhetoric of all socialists.
Any system which aims to respect individual liberty must accept that society (or the greater good, or the majority) is built up from the basic unit of the individual. There must also be the recognition that no group of individuals -- be it a group of only two individials, or of all other individuals -- has any special rights of its own; and it certainly has no superior rights over the individual. Put briefly: society has no rights; government has no responsibility to safeguard society. The term "social contract" clouds the truth that government is basically a contract between the individual and his government; society itself has no political-cum-legal substance, with no rights, privileges, or responsibilities of its own.
Society must be allowed to take whatever course it will, regardless of the outcome. Representative government is founded on the principle that the constituency deserves whatever it votes for, and should be allowed to freely choose its fate. Society must be treated -- respected -- in the same way: whatever society as a whole wants, society as a whole should get.
Now, socialists believe the worst in humanity: they must, otherwise their policies cannot be justified. They take for granted that, if not for their interventionism, society will collapse into unspeakable horror. This belief is based on a bedrock of rank misanthropy. The prediction just mentioned requires the average individual to be a reckless, cruel idiot with no real ability to control himself: a slave to his own impulses and desires. Socialists justify the enslavement of the individual on the grounds that the individual is already a slave to his own passions. This is true no matter how vigorous a socialist's policies are in enslaving the individual: even if a policy only slightly enslaves the individual, it is assumed that the individual is only slightly a reckless, cruel idiot with a reduced ability to control himself. They call this misanthropy pragmatism, as if pragmatism were an ideal which lifts humanity to its greatest heights. (It only lifts those in charge to the greatests heights, which is the entire point of socialist politics.)
There is no real cure for misanthropy. And socialists refuse to acknowledge the value of liberty -- or if they do, they insist that it is inferior as an ideal to misanthropic pragmatism. For them it is better, in other words, to treat their fellow individuals as irresponsible slaves than to allow them to destroy themselves.
Note irresponsible: liberty and responsibility are inseparable halves. Both Marxist socialists and virtue socialists pay at least some superficial homage to responsibility -- more so with the latter -- but in the end neither truly believes in it. Even if an individual will destroy himself if given the freedom to do so, he must be respected in that choice. And if he hurts someone else's property or person, then he must be respected enough to be prosecuted for it. Socialist fiat is essentially preemptive: it seeks to prevent what are deemed criminous actions before they occur. Some activities often lead to other, harmful activities; it certainly feels good to prevent the latter by banning the former. But what such emotion-driven policy neglects is that freedom-based justice cannot survive under such prosecutorial policy. By preventing action B by banning action A, one has essentially declared all actors of A -- all of them! -- to be guilty ahead of the fact. Thus two sacred principles of Western jurisprudence are violated: prosecution on an individual basis, with the opportunity to confront one's accuser; and the presumption of innocence until one has been proven guilty. Briefly: socialism replaces proof of guilt with presumption of guilt.
Assume that, say, 80% of crack users will commit robberies while high, or to support their habit, or both; government still has no right to use statistics to prosecute all crack users. (It should use actual evidence, something which socialists tend to dismiss as irrelevant.) One of the defining qualities -- and evils -- of socialism is that it punishes the innocent (those who would not commit other crimes) along with the guilty (those who were going to commit other crimes). Modern jurisprudence should not run on statistics; a prosecutor should not charge someone with the possibility that he might mug someone in the future. (Those of you whom I am describing in this post, please take a moment to re-read the previous sentence objectively; and ask yourself honestly if such a system as described horrifies you.)
Thus, the man who snorts coke in his apartment, and has no inclination to hurt anyone else or their property, is as wicked as the man who stabs someone on the street to pay for his next heroin fix. No socialist can claim that absolutely all users of such hard drugs commit secondary crimes; and even a 99% possibility of a future crime is no justification for prosecution. It is scarcely appreciated by socialists that people should be prosecuted as individuals for the crimes they have already committed, using evidence collected against them, and with the chance to confront their accusers. No, that whole irrelevant -- to them -- rigamarole should be avoided by simply preventing people from doing things which often lead to those other crimes.
These socialist policies on criminal justice are an indication of how hostile socialism is to responsibility. If an individual manages to get his hands on cocaine, and goes on a shooting spree using a prohibited firearm, socialists studiously avoid putting the responsibility on the individual: the Marxist socialist blames the firearm, while the virtue socialist blames the cocaine. From that kind of perspective, it's not the individual who failed in his responsibilities (for he has none, since he deserves none), it's the government who failed in its responsibilities! No socialist commentator would say "Well, it's his own fault; he chose to do the coke, and so he's responsible for whatever he does even if he's hopped up." Instead a socialist would say "Government failed this man, and failed the people he shot; government must work harder to live up to its responsibilities."
In other words, government is assumed to be more responsible than the individual -- even though the enormous mass of human history has proven the reverse. Misanthropists-as-socialists do not trust people; and since according to human nature they must trust in something to make things right, they place their trust in government. Beware those who would take away responsibility from the individual, for they are putting responsibility into the one human institution which least deserves it: government, which has the power to arrest or even kill those who dare violate the tyranny guarding the current social ideal. –Lo Bastido
---------------------------
- Murder
- Assault
- Property damage and theft
- Copyright and patent infringement
- Breach of contract
All these activities violate one fundamental precept: that we all have the rights to our own bodies and property, and nothing else. (None of us, of course, have any rights toward other people's bodies and property.) The principle is that adults of sound mind may consent to activities with other adults with no interference from government except as an arbiter in case of dispute. –Lo Bastido, on the only areas of government intervention
Tibor R. Machan
The Libertarian Perspective #75 Tue, 24 Oct 2006
The Common Good
Liberal Democrats are having a conniption fit about the lack of any vision that unites the Democratic Party. So several of their pundit-philosophers are writing essays in which they lament this situation and propose remedies.
Among those doing this is Michael Tomasky, who, in a recent piece for The American Prospect, suggests that "Democrats need to become the party of the common good." Then he goes on to write, as one of his critics put it, "breathlessly," that "We are all in this . . . together, and . . . we have to pull together, make some sacrifices, and, just sometimes, look beyond our own interest to solve our problems and create the future."
I have a better idea. Let Democrats, Republicans, and the rest recover the powerful idea that got the country going in the first place, one laid out pretty neatly in the Declaration of Independence. This idea is that the common good is pursued precisely when government does what justifies its existence—namely, secure our rights. That, indeed, is THE common good in the American political tradition.
There are millions of disparate "goods" that individuals pursue, but only one unites them, only one is their common good: the protection of their fundamental individual rights. This was part of the revolutionary idea that animated the Founders and put the country in opposition to so many others, including those in Europe from which so many of its initial population fled.
In most countries throughout human history the idea was promoted that there is a rich common good, a whole slew of objectives that everyone must pursue. In other words, the common good was really the collective goods of all the people, as if they really did share goods galore that they needed to promote. The one-size-fits-all mentality was encouraged by rulers, monarchs, tsars, and the rest who needed to hoodwink us into thinking that their goals are really our goals and we cannot really, individually, have goals of our own. That was the common good–the leaders' good peddled for the rest as their good, too.
The American Founders, guided by the classical liberal social-political philosophies of John Locke and company, saw through this. They realized that in a big country, the millions of inhabitants share but very few goods. (Of course, small associations—churches, clubs, corporations, professional groups and so forth—can have some common objectives all right. But no such common good or objective exists for the millions of us!) And the most important—probably, in fact, only—common good we share is the protection of our individual rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It's the one good that's indeed good for us all, that we have in common.
If government, which is instituted to secure these rights, does its job right, it will stick to little more than making sure that everyone's liberty is safe. Why? Because then all the millions of different individuals, and some of the groups they voluntarily form amongst themselves, will quite successfully embark on the task of pursuing all those goods that suit them. Securing our rights does that for us!
But today's public pundit-intellectuals don't get it. They want to find some thick public good—a whole, humongous basket of allegedly common goods—that government will set out to achieve. And they are surprised that there isn't such a basket; in a largely free society people have their own basket of proposed goods they want to obtain for themselves. And this isn't because they are selfish and will not make sacrifices—notice how looking out for yourself is being demeaned in Tomasky's call to arms—but because even in what they consider appropriate objectives for which sacrifices should be made the citizenry differs significantly. They don't need having one idea of what's worthy of a sacrifice shoved down their throats. No, they want to choose those objectives, as well as the ways of making the sacrifices for them if need be.
Maybe the Democrats—and Republicans—ought to recover the Founders' vision. Then they wouldn't have to concoct an impossible one behind which they cannot manage to unite folks.
---------------------------
http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/hancock/hancock1.html
(excerpt)
Libertarians in general knew government had every motivation to grow in size and intrusiveness and lacked any real deterrent against doing so. The Libertarian Party represented a growing understanding that force or the threat of force, in whatever form, was required to maintain control of a population increasingly aware of the illegitimacy of so much government in their lives. Most people simply wish to be left alone, but government cannot leave them alone. Men in uniforms with shiny badges and seal-embossed parchments demanding service to “The King” have always been accompanied by the threat of violence for non-compliance.
The Revolution between the ears won’t take place all at once, but it will take place overnight. One morning everything will be different. Government actions against the people in the form of laws like the USA PATRIOT Act, surveillance of the innocent, controls on communications and the supposed dominion over one's body are creating an explosive environment, and the central planners know it. These police state tactics are not for our protection from outside threats, but for the protection of government from the American people. Government limits on our ability to seek redress and physically defend against tyranny are increasing -- an outcome predicted for decades by libertarians.
There are reasons to avoid being in public office these days. I firmly believe there will be at least a metaphorical guillotining of public officials responsible for destroying the American Dream for tens of millions of Americans. And I do not wish to be affiliated with those standing in line for their turn to have the lever pulled on their fate. I have absolutely no political goal other than to be left alone. My whole family and large circle of friends have invested a great deal of time, effort and money to that end. But I don't see wielding the power of elective office as a path to that goal.
While content to focus my efforts at home in Arizona , I have become increasingly aware of those with a great desire to be a “respected member” of the very system we oppose. The claim that one needs positions of power in order to free individuals is very troubling. We should be the Hobbits who do not seek power over others, and are willing to make great investments to ensure being left alone. Changing the hands on the levers of power won’t eliminate the levers. The abandonment of the principled foundation of libertarianism now would be disastrous and leave us with nothing of value to distinguish us from our ideological competition.
And while most libertarians would welcome a return to the size of government allowed by the US Constitution as championed in the Federalist Papers, many recognize that this document created the opportunity for the powerful central government we oppose today. The liberty-minded people of the American Revolution were profoundly ambivalent about the US Constitution, and detailed their concerns in the Anti-Federalist Papers. What good are checks and balances when all three branches of government are aligned against the rights of the individual? The Bill of Rights was the libertarian compromise. These ten “Thou Shalt Nots” of government was the deal made to avoid conflict. But the document has proven to be binding only on the people, in our forced support of our present government, while every single one of the Bill of Rights is constantly violated without hesitation by government. I am certain that I am not the only one wondering when this “social contract” will finally be declared null and void. –Ernest Hancock
---------------
Every generation has one or two philosophers that transcend time. From Aristotle (The Father of Logic) to Thomas Aquinas. From the Founding Fathers (Creators of the first free nation) to Ludwig Von Mises (The Father of “True” Economics). From Ayn Rand (The Mother of Liberty) to her heir, Leonard Peikoff, and on to the Libertarian Party.
In the 21st Century, I believe there is the beginnings of another. Lo Bastido’s two keystone contributions are essential as not only a guide, but for all of time.
The term "socialism" is not merely an economic term; it has other aspects, which all relate back to its very name.
Any government measure designed to manipulate society into what is deemed to be the ideal is socialism. Leftists -- no matter how moderate -- are socialists, since they support the manipulating of the economy to decrease economic inequality, and thus, presumably, social distinctions between rich and poor. Naturally, they also support some -- but not all -- permissions in regards to non-economic activities, such as marriage. Note that I said permissions, instead of rights. There are no civil rights for individuals under socialism, because socialism takes it for granted that "society" -- whether in the form of all individuals, a majority of individuals, or even some individuals as a group -- is superior to the individual qua individual. Those who call themselves "liberals" do not believe in rights; their perceived entitlements to welfare are certainly not rights; groups of individuals cannot have their own rights as a group; the overall principle is that the individual must kneel before the whims of society (although actually the ruling elite in charge of the government).
We must take into account the wide scope of socialist activities. Economic measures designed to manipulate society are a form of socialism, as we have seen. But there are many justifications for socialism, and Marxism is only one of them. (The term "Marxism" may reasonably be applied to the general concept of wealth redistribution from the wealthy to the poor, with the underlying assumptions that under capitalism there is no middle class; that the rich are always getting richer while the poor are always getting poorer; and that the rich can only get rich at the expense of the poor.)
Another justification for socialism is the vague concept of "virtue." Under this kind of socialism, society is manipulated toward the goal of creating a society based on certain religious ideals. The individual is largely left alone in his economic activities, but his non-economic activities are regulated if not banned, even though those activities are conducted between consenting adults with a clear and honest agreement regarding their association.
This form of socialism is as destructive of individual liberty as the more recognized Marxist form of socialism. Bizarrely, the proponents of virtue socialism refuse to recognize their socialism, despite their constant invocation of terms like society, the greater good, and the majority, in the context of manipulating them using government fiat -- classic rhetoric of all socialists.
Any system which aims to respect individual liberty must accept that society (or the greater good, or the majority) is built up from the basic unit of the individual. There must also be the recognition that no group of individuals -- be it a group of only two individials, or of all other individuals -- has any special rights of its own; and it certainly has no superior rights over the individual. Put briefly: society has no rights; government has no responsibility to safeguard society. The term "social contract" clouds the truth that government is basically a contract between the individual and his government; society itself has no political-cum-legal substance, with no rights, privileges, or responsibilities of its own.
Society must be allowed to take whatever course it will, regardless of the outcome. Representative government is founded on the principle that the constituency deserves whatever it votes for, and should be allowed to freely choose its fate. Society must be treated -- respected -- in the same way: whatever society as a whole wants, society as a whole should get.
Now, socialists believe the worst in humanity: they must, otherwise their policies cannot be justified. They take for granted that, if not for their interventionism, society will collapse into unspeakable horror. This belief is based on a bedrock of rank misanthropy. The prediction just mentioned requires the average individual to be a reckless, cruel idiot with no real ability to control himself: a slave to his own impulses and desires. Socialists justify the enslavement of the individual on the grounds that the individual is already a slave to his own passions. This is true no matter how vigorous a socialist's policies are in enslaving the individual: even if a policy only slightly enslaves the individual, it is assumed that the individual is only slightly a reckless, cruel idiot with a reduced ability to control himself. They call this misanthropy pragmatism, as if pragmatism were an ideal which lifts humanity to its greatest heights. (It only lifts those in charge to the greatests heights, which is the entire point of socialist politics.)
There is no real cure for misanthropy. And socialists refuse to acknowledge the value of liberty -- or if they do, they insist that it is inferior as an ideal to misanthropic pragmatism. For them it is better, in other words, to treat their fellow individuals as irresponsible slaves than to allow them to destroy themselves.
Note irresponsible: liberty and responsibility are inseparable halves. Both Marxist socialists and virtue socialists pay at least some superficial homage to responsibility -- more so with the latter -- but in the end neither truly believes in it. Even if an individual will destroy himself if given the freedom to do so, he must be respected in that choice. And if he hurts someone else's property or person, then he must be respected enough to be prosecuted for it. Socialist fiat is essentially preemptive: it seeks to prevent what are deemed criminous actions before they occur. Some activities often lead to other, harmful activities; it certainly feels good to prevent the latter by banning the former. But what such emotion-driven policy neglects is that freedom-based justice cannot survive under such prosecutorial policy. By preventing action B by banning action A, one has essentially declared all actors of A -- all of them! -- to be guilty ahead of the fact. Thus two sacred principles of Western jurisprudence are violated: prosecution on an individual basis, with the opportunity to confront one's accuser; and the presumption of innocence until one has been proven guilty. Briefly: socialism replaces proof of guilt with presumption of guilt.
Assume that, say, 80% of crack users will commit robberies while high, or to support their habit, or both; government still has no right to use statistics to prosecute all crack users. (It should use actual evidence, something which socialists tend to dismiss as irrelevant.) One of the defining qualities -- and evils -- of socialism is that it punishes the innocent (those who would not commit other crimes) along with the guilty (those who were going to commit other crimes). Modern jurisprudence should not run on statistics; a prosecutor should not charge someone with the possibility that he might mug someone in the future. (Those of you whom I am describing in this post, please take a moment to re-read the previous sentence objectively; and ask yourself honestly if such a system as described horrifies you.)
Thus, the man who snorts coke in his apartment, and has no inclination to hurt anyone else or their property, is as wicked as the man who stabs someone on the street to pay for his next heroin fix. No socialist can claim that absolutely all users of such hard drugs commit secondary crimes; and even a 99% possibility of a future crime is no justification for prosecution. It is scarcely appreciated by socialists that people should be prosecuted as individuals for the crimes they have already committed, using evidence collected against them, and with the chance to confront their accusers. No, that whole irrelevant -- to them -- rigamarole should be avoided by simply preventing people from doing things which often lead to those other crimes.
These socialist policies on criminal justice are an indication of how hostile socialism is to responsibility. If an individual manages to get his hands on cocaine, and goes on a shooting spree using a prohibited firearm, socialists studiously avoid putting the responsibility on the individual: the Marxist socialist blames the firearm, while the virtue socialist blames the cocaine. From that kind of perspective, it's not the individual who failed in his responsibilities (for he has none, since he deserves none), it's the government who failed in its responsibilities! No socialist commentator would say "Well, it's his own fault; he chose to do the coke, and so he's responsible for whatever he does even if he's hopped up." Instead a socialist would say "Government failed this man, and failed the people he shot; government must work harder to live up to its responsibilities."
In other words, government is assumed to be more responsible than the individual -- even though the enormous mass of human history has proven the reverse. Misanthropists-as-socialists do not trust people; and since according to human nature they must trust in something to make things right, they place their trust in government. Beware those who would take away responsibility from the individual, for they are putting responsibility into the one human institution which least deserves it: government, which has the power to arrest or even kill those who dare violate the tyranny guarding the current social ideal. –Lo Bastido
---------------------------
- Murder
- Assault
- Property damage and theft
- Copyright and patent infringement
- Breach of contract
All these activities violate one fundamental precept: that we all have the rights to our own bodies and property, and nothing else. (None of us, of course, have any rights toward other people's bodies and property.) The principle is that adults of sound mind may consent to activities with other adults with no interference from government except as an arbiter in case of dispute. –Lo Bastido, on the only areas of government intervention
Does prayer work?
Does prayer work?
I personally believe prayer has subverted reason for the mystical. Now I want to make it clear that I believe prayer is important to lifting one's spirit; but not when mysticism has been passed over as concrete evidence throughout religionist history. For example: if a cancer survivor is so certain in the power of prayer, the power to heal from God's hands, why did they need radiation treatments in the first place? It would seem to me, at most, that a Creator created humanity with the tools to develop said radiation treatment; but any medical successes are to the credit of human knowledge and free will. These "miracles" are more likely works of invention than any purported hand from God.
The big question that is asked by religionists is: "Why does God allow evil to happen?" He doesn't. Humanity does. In fact, you could say to a certain extent religion has. Because prayer (mysticism) often suspends thought--and more importantly, action--"faith" offers complacency, and hiding, as comfort. Those believing evil emanates from secularism also allow the most heinous of tyranny to go on untouched. ("If we all just pray, things will get better.") In the 20th Century, we've been through two World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the globe is under the constant threat of teetering on a nuclear World War III. We have the tools to choose, to think, and to act for ourselves. Yet mysticism hides in an impenetrable bubble of reality denial to which reason disintegrates.
If my biblical knowledge is correct, "The Great Flood" was an invention passed over from generation to generation by the mystic intellectuals, in order to scare the non-believers into believing God unleashed his wrath upon human sin. Yet weather patterns by some religionists are deemed to be "set in motion" with no true discrimination in mind other than just the right elements of cool and warm temperatures creating natural disasters. (If the American central belt is under constant tornado threat, are these people greater "sinners" than the rest of Americans?) Those who unfortunately are in the wrong place at the wrong time lose their life--and not by predicted design. On a global weather scale, the earth is trying to keep a constant yin and yang balance. Those geographs lacking or having an abundance of moist/dry or cool/warm temperatures, will eventually have enough, or an extreme, of the other. Yet we're suppose to be sensitive to the religionist's beliefs; but why does the non-believer not deserve the same sensitivity when unsubstantiated mysticism is shoved down our throats via creation stories and biblical-as-legislated-people-control-rule? (Namely forced prayer in schools.)
A dear friend of mine had brain cancer. Her treatments had cured her--or so we thought. She claimed "God saved her." Later, the doctors found more cancer, and she died. Where are the prayerists now? No reply. Even worse, a friend of mine is battling in a custody case. She believes--get this--that "God is amongst" her lawyer, but she isn't preparing herself, or more immediately, the case, for appropriate action. Meaning, again, that individual responsibility is subverted for prayer in hopes everything will turn out in the end. Whatever positive outcomes are gifts from God; whatever negatives are deemed Devil worship, or simply are forgotten in the context of prayer.
So if you want prayer in your life, that's great; but please don't replace it with free will and the power of the human mind.
I personally believe prayer has subverted reason for the mystical. Now I want to make it clear that I believe prayer is important to lifting one's spirit; but not when mysticism has been passed over as concrete evidence throughout religionist history. For example: if a cancer survivor is so certain in the power of prayer, the power to heal from God's hands, why did they need radiation treatments in the first place? It would seem to me, at most, that a Creator created humanity with the tools to develop said radiation treatment; but any medical successes are to the credit of human knowledge and free will. These "miracles" are more likely works of invention than any purported hand from God.
The big question that is asked by religionists is: "Why does God allow evil to happen?" He doesn't. Humanity does. In fact, you could say to a certain extent religion has. Because prayer (mysticism) often suspends thought--and more importantly, action--"faith" offers complacency, and hiding, as comfort. Those believing evil emanates from secularism also allow the most heinous of tyranny to go on untouched. ("If we all just pray, things will get better.") In the 20th Century, we've been through two World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the globe is under the constant threat of teetering on a nuclear World War III. We have the tools to choose, to think, and to act for ourselves. Yet mysticism hides in an impenetrable bubble of reality denial to which reason disintegrates.
If my biblical knowledge is correct, "The Great Flood" was an invention passed over from generation to generation by the mystic intellectuals, in order to scare the non-believers into believing God unleashed his wrath upon human sin. Yet weather patterns by some religionists are deemed to be "set in motion" with no true discrimination in mind other than just the right elements of cool and warm temperatures creating natural disasters. (If the American central belt is under constant tornado threat, are these people greater "sinners" than the rest of Americans?) Those who unfortunately are in the wrong place at the wrong time lose their life--and not by predicted design. On a global weather scale, the earth is trying to keep a constant yin and yang balance. Those geographs lacking or having an abundance of moist/dry or cool/warm temperatures, will eventually have enough, or an extreme, of the other. Yet we're suppose to be sensitive to the religionist's beliefs; but why does the non-believer not deserve the same sensitivity when unsubstantiated mysticism is shoved down our throats via creation stories and biblical-as-legislated-people-control-rule? (Namely forced prayer in schools.)
A dear friend of mine had brain cancer. Her treatments had cured her--or so we thought. She claimed "God saved her." Later, the doctors found more cancer, and she died. Where are the prayerists now? No reply. Even worse, a friend of mine is battling in a custody case. She believes--get this--that "God is amongst" her lawyer, but she isn't preparing herself, or more immediately, the case, for appropriate action. Meaning, again, that individual responsibility is subverted for prayer in hopes everything will turn out in the end. Whatever positive outcomes are gifts from God; whatever negatives are deemed Devil worship, or simply are forgotten in the context of prayer.
So if you want prayer in your life, that's great; but please don't replace it with free will and the power of the human mind.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
John Roberts on Homosexuality and AIDs
After reading Roberts' column on AIDs, it wasn't the issue of the disease spreading that scared me most, but John Roberts himself. I'll explain why as I comment on his ideas.
There's no denying Roberts is an intelligent person and holds many fine values I'm sure. But it's the idea he claims to have such experience with homosexuals that bothers me. ("During a lifetime of working with people, I have met many homosexual people.") Then Roberts says:
First he acknowledges that some cases of homosexuality are "genetic" and "naturally effeminate," and then proceeds to say:
Almost as though there are "other" justifiable times when 'stones can be thrown' at people who do not have the same moral code. (I'm probably overpicking on this one, but in the Old Testament there are instances in the scripture, like in Deuteronomy 16:17 "Worshiping Other Gods," when stone throwing is deemed an acceptable action to those who worship "other" God's. A local priest once told me part of reading the Bible is how you "interpret" the scripture, as though there is anything to interpret with mandated killing.)
On top of that - and after acknowledging the "genetic" makeup of homosexuals - he says this is a problem for geneticists and psychologists. He essentially contradicts his own words with whisking away the problem off to two of the areas (science and mind) that have never been able to "cure" something that has never been scientifically or psychologically curable. Maybe it just is. But no...
Religionists do not have an "ordain" right of any kind over anyone else. This is the extremist religious view: they believe secular law is totalitarian but ordain law isn't.
Which is where he can only fail. Legislated virtues are force (aka tyranny), and with government mandating and removing laws at the device of the two-party system, the values John Roberts enacts might also be removed by another who doesn't share those values. Morality cannot be legislated because everyone has their own moral code.
If Roberts wants to do something, he's better off educating people and legislating to remove all discrimination laws. (Because discrimination laws only candy over the truth: human racism. Believe it or not, the individual is within their rights to discriminate against whomever and for whatever reasons. The individual is entitled to their liberty.)
Roberts is a pragmatist. Here's why:
----------
You homosexuals out there. Innit good to know yer nothing more than "dead twigs." Hmmm...lovely.
Not much. Education. But the reality is it has always existed. Roberts just doesn't want to accept it and let liberty run its course. Unless you want to turn the world into a police state - which usually ends in gang warfare because virtuists want to mess with freedoms.
Virtuists subconsciously are trying to create a heaven on Earth by controlling people. They are acting as 'messengers from God', and they do not believe their force of others is a "sin". It would be deemed an acceptable virtue to turn the landscape into something which ironically mirrors Nazi concentration camps; a police state with hired gunmen slapping their rifles on their hands because they love power over others. This vision comes from the same people who believe they have a seat reserved for them in heaven.
Because there are a few bad apples out there who consciously are spreading the contagion doesn't mean others should suffer with fisticuffs. Evil does not emanate from the majority, but the minority who want to control the majority. This is why I fear John Roberts more than AIDs: He would rather control and reduce liberties - which has a direct 'trickle down effect' on "other" freedoms by developing the mindset that force is acceptable - than believe the good nature of the majority will keep the contagion contained.
There's no denying Roberts is an intelligent person and holds many fine values I'm sure. But it's the idea he claims to have such experience with homosexuals that bothers me. ("During a lifetime of working with people, I have met many homosexual people.") Then Roberts says:
1 The genetically sexually indeterminate. (Chromosome abnormality).
2 The emotionally homosexual. Those naturally effeminate (or female masculinity).
First he acknowledges that some cases of homosexuality are "genetic" and "naturally effeminate," and then proceeds to say:
It will be apparent that those persons coming within the first category may be regarded as unfortunate individuals. Those who suffer from a distinctly biological condition are deserving of public compassion. One can throw no stones at these people: nor does it appear that much can be done, medically speaking, to alleviate the condition. It is a problem for geneticists and psychologists."
Almost as though there are "other" justifiable times when 'stones can be thrown' at people who do not have the same moral code. (I'm probably overpicking on this one, but in the Old Testament there are instances in the scripture, like in Deuteronomy 16:17 "Worshiping Other Gods," when stone throwing is deemed an acceptable action to those who worship "other" God's. A local priest once told me part of reading the Bible is how you "interpret" the scripture, as though there is anything to interpret with mandated killing.)
On top of that - and after acknowledging the "genetic" makeup of homosexuals - he says this is a problem for geneticists and psychologists. He essentially contradicts his own words with whisking away the problem off to two of the areas (science and mind) that have never been able to "cure" something that has never been scientifically or psychologically curable. Maybe it just is. But no...
That is my belief: the personal responsibility for all human activity
Religionists do not have an "ordain" right of any kind over anyone else. This is the extremist religious view: they believe secular law is totalitarian but ordain law isn't.
The hidden, concealed and underhand nature of the "evil" makes it incumbent upon legislatures to carefully consider the alternatives.
Which is where he can only fail. Legislated virtues are force (aka tyranny), and with government mandating and removing laws at the device of the two-party system, the values John Roberts enacts might also be removed by another who doesn't share those values. Morality cannot be legislated because everyone has their own moral code.
Has anything been done to limit or control such behaviour? By no means! One must not comment upon the moral perversity of such behaviour. Society must not interfere with the lawful right of these people to engage in their obnoxious, disease-spreading activities. However, it has a weighty obligation to do all in its power to find a cure for this disease, which is a continuous threat to all mankind.
If Roberts wants to do something, he's better off educating people and legislating to remove all discrimination laws. (Because discrimination laws only candy over the truth: human racism. Believe it or not, the individual is within their rights to discriminate against whomever and for whatever reasons. The individual is entitled to their liberty.)
Roberts is a pragmatist. Here's why:
Now, socialists believe the worst in humanity: they must, otherwise their policies cannot be justified. They take for granted that, if not for their interventionism, society will collapse into unspeakable horror. This belief is based on a bedrock of rank misanthropy. The prediction just mentioned requires the average individual to be a reckless, cruel idiot with no real ability to control himself: a slave to his own impulses and desires. Socialists justify the enslavement of the individual on the grounds that the individual is already a slave to his own passions. This is true no matter how vigorous a socialist's policies are in enslaving the individual: even if a policy only slightly enslaves the individual, it is assumed that the individual is only slightly a reckless, cruel idiot with a reduced ability to control himself. They call this misanthropy pragmatism, as if pragmatism were an ideal which lifts humanity to its greatest heights. (It only lifts those in charge to the greatests heights, which is the entire point of socialist politics.)
There is no real cure for misanthropy. And socialists refuse to acknowledge the value of liberty -- or if they do, they insist that it is inferior as an ideal to misanthropic pragmatism. For them it is better, in other words, to treat their fellow individuals as irresponsible slaves than to allow them to destroy themselves.
Note irresponsible: liberty and responsibility are inseparable halves. Both Marxist socialists and virtue socialists pay at least some superficial homage to responsibility -- more so with the latter -- but in the end neither truly believes in it. Even if an individual will destroy himself if given the freedom to do so, he must be respected in that choice. -Lo Bastido
----------
Some wise person once described homosexual people as, 'The dead twigs on the tree of life'.
You homosexuals out there. Innit good to know yer nothing more than "dead twigs." Hmmm...lovely.
Conclusion: What then, is to be done about the problem of Homosexuality and Aids?
Not much. Education. But the reality is it has always existed. Roberts just doesn't want to accept it and let liberty run its course. Unless you want to turn the world into a police state - which usually ends in gang warfare because virtuists want to mess with freedoms.
Governments must discourage all forms of sexual activity that are likely to result in the spread of the contagion. In the absence of a cure, there will, sooner or later, have to be some control over the extent of homosexual practices. Amongst the alternatives are :
1 Greater discipline and segregation in Prisons.
2 Compulsory Aids testing before international travel.
3 Segregation of sexually active Aids patients. Use of mental hospitals (now empty) as Aids hospitals for these patients.
4 Public education as to the manner in which Aids is spread and as to the dangers of homosexual conduct.
5 Compulsory registration of Aids carriers.
6 A Public denial of the “normality” of homosexual conduct and a public rejection of the suggestion that homosexual relationships are proper or acceptable to Society as a whole. There can be no such status as that of homosexual or lesbian "marriage", which is an affront to Society. Nor should consideration be given, under any circumstances, to the adoption of children by persons living in such relationships.
Virtuists subconsciously are trying to create a heaven on Earth by controlling people. They are acting as 'messengers from God', and they do not believe their force of others is a "sin". It would be deemed an acceptable virtue to turn the landscape into something which ironically mirrors Nazi concentration camps; a police state with hired gunmen slapping their rifles on their hands because they love power over others. This vision comes from the same people who believe they have a seat reserved for them in heaven.
Because there are a few bad apples out there who consciously are spreading the contagion doesn't mean others should suffer with fisticuffs. Evil does not emanate from the majority, but the minority who want to control the majority. This is why I fear John Roberts more than AIDs: He would rather control and reduce liberties - which has a direct 'trickle down effect' on "other" freedoms by developing the mindset that force is acceptable - than believe the good nature of the majority will keep the contagion contained.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Beginning of the end of Freedom to Speech
Picture a kid on a sled reaching the tipping point of a tall snow hill, and this is the end of America as we've known it, heading slowly, than faster, downhill. It was nice knowing you, Americans.
Congress Wants to Blame the Grassroots for Its Own Corruption
MANASSAS, Va., Jan. 16 /
PRNewswire-USNewswire/
-- The following is a
statement by Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com,
regarding legislation currently being considered by Congress to regulate
grassroots communications:
"In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart's Daily Show, but
isn't, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on
grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress.
"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the
Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to
500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report
quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220
would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive
intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history,
critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.
"The bill would require reporting of 'paid efforts to stimulate
grassroots lobbying,' but defines 'paid' merely as communications to 500 or
more members of the public, with no other qualifiers.
"On January 9, the Senate passed Amendment 7 to S. 1, to create
criminal penalties, including up to one year in jail, if someone 'knowingly
and willingly fails to file or report.'
"That amendment was introduced by Senator David Vitter (R-LA). Senator
Vitter, however, is now a co-sponsor of Amendment 20 by Senator Robert
Bennett (R-UT) to remove Section 220 from the bill. Unless Amendment 20
succeeds, the Senate will have criminalized the exercise of First Amendment
rights. We'd be living under totalitarianism, not democracy.
"I started GrassrootsFreedom.com to fight efforts to silence the
grassroots. The website provides updates in the legislation and has a
petition to sign opposing Section 220.
"Thousands of nonprofit leaders, bloggers, and other citizens have
hammered the Senate with calls in opposition to Section 220, which seeks to
silence the grassroots. The criminal provisions will scare citizens into
silence.
"The legislation regulates small, legitimate nonprofits, bloggers, and
individuals, but creates loopholes for corporations, unions, and large
membership organizations that would be able to spend literally hundreds of
millions of dollars, yet not report.
"Congress is trying to blame the grassroots, which are American
citizens engaging in their First Amendment rights, for Washington's
internal corruption problems."
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
defending individual liberties
These are examples of how the American political system has lost sight of what the Founders intended decades ago. The only true freedom is individual freedom, and gov't was established only for the purpose of defending our individual liberties.
Words Get Around II
Then...
Words Get Around II
Free Market News
Tibor R. Machan
The Libertarian Perspective #75 Tue, 24 Oct 2006
The Common Good
Strike the Root
I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.
I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.
-Ayn Rand, Anthem
Words Get Around II
The following is something I posted at RN in response to this article:
(Mad dope props to Ayn Rand for inspiration)
(excerpt)
Any system which aims to respect individual liberty must accept that society (or the greater good, or the majority) is built up from the basic unit of the individual. There must also be the recognition that no group of individuals -- be it a group of only two individials, or of all other individuals -- has any special rights of its own; and it certainly has no superior rights over the individual. Put briefly: society has no rights; government has no responsibility to safeguard society. The term "social contract" clouds the truth that government is basically a contract between the individual and his government; society itself has no political-cum-legal substance, with no rights, privileges, or responsibilities of its own.
Society must be allowed to take whatever course it will, regardless of the outcome. Representative government is founded on the principle that the constituency deserves whatever it votes for, and should be allowed to freely choose its fate. Society must be treated -- respected -- in the same way: whatever society as a whole wants, society as a whole should get.
Then...
In other words, government is assumed to be more responsible than the individual -- even though the enormous mass of human history has proven the reverse. Misanthropists-as-socialists do not trust people; and since according to human nature they must trust in something to make things right, they place their trust in government. Beware those who would take away responsibility from the individual, for they are putting responsibility into the one human institution which least deserves it: government, which has the power to arrest or even kill those who dare violate the tyranny guarding the current social ideal.
-Lo Bastido, on individual freedom and the negatives of socialism
Words Get Around II
- Murder
- Assault
- Property damage and theft
- Copyright and patent infringement
- Breach of contract
All these activities violate one fundamental precept: that we all have the rights to our own bodies and property, and nothing else. (None of us, of course, have any rights toward other people's bodies and property.) The principle is that adults of sound mind may consent to activities with other adults with no interference from government except as an arbiter in case of dispute.
-Lo Bastido, on the five areas gov't are needed
Free Market News
Tibor R. Machan
The Libertarian Perspective #75 Tue, 24 Oct 2006
The Common Good
I have a better idea. Let Democrats, Republicans, and the rest recover the powerful idea that got the country going in the first place, one laid out pretty neatly in the Declaration of Independence. This idea is that the common good is pursued precisely when government does what justifies its existence—namely, secure our rights. That, indeed, is THE common good in the American political tradition.
There are millions of disparate "goods" that individuals pursue, but only one unites them, only one is their common good: the protection of their fundamental individual rights. This was part of the revolutionary idea that animated the Founders and put the country in opposition to so many others, including those in Europe from which so many of its initial population fled.
In most countries throughout human history the idea was promoted that there is a rich common good, a whole slew of objectives that everyone must pursue. In other words, the common good was really the collective goods of all the people, as if they really did share goods galore that they needed to promote. The one-size-fits-all mentality was encouraged by rulers, monarchs, tsars, and the rest who needed to hoodwink us into thinking that their goals are really our goals and we cannot really, individually, have goals of our own. That was the common good–the leaders' good peddled for the rest as their good, too.
The American Founders, guided by the classical liberal social-political philosophies of John Locke and company, saw through this. They realized that in a big country, the millions of inhabitants share but very few goods. (Of course, small associations—churches, clubs, corporations, professional groups and so forth—can have some common objectives all right. But no such common good or objective exists for the millions of us!) And the most important—probably, in fact, only—common good we share is the protection of our individual rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It's the one good that's indeed good for us all, that we have in common.
If government, which is instituted to secure these rights, does its job right, it will stick to little more than making sure that everyone's liberty is safe. Why? Because then all the millions of different individuals, and some of the groups they voluntarily form amongst themselves, will quite successfully embark on the task of pursuing all those goods that suit them. Securing our rights does that for us!
But today's public pundit-intellectuals don't get it. They want to find some thick public good—a whole, humongous basket of allegedly common goods—that government will set out to achieve. And they are surprised that there isn't such a basket; in a largely free society people have their own basket of proposed goods they want to obtain for themselves. And this isn't because they are selfish and will not make sacrifices—notice how looking out for yourself is being demeaned in Tomasky's call to arms—but because even in what they consider appropriate objectives for which sacrifices should be made the citizenry differs significantly. They don't need having one idea of what's worthy of a sacrifice shoved down their throats. No, they want to choose those objectives, as well as the ways of making the sacrifices for them if need be.
Maybe the Democrats—and Republicans—ought to recover the Founders' vision. Then they wouldn't have to concoct an impossible one behind which they cannot manage to unite folks.
Strike the Root
Libertarians in general knew government had every motivation to grow in size and intrusiveness and lacked any real deterrent against doing so. The Libertarian Party represented a growing understanding that force or the threat of force, in whatever form, was required to maintain control of a population increasingly aware of the illegitimacy of so much government in their lives. Most people simply wish to be left alone, but government cannot leave them alone. Men in uniforms with shiny badges and seal-embossed parchments demanding service to “The King” have always been accompanied by the threat of violence for non-compliance.
The Revolution between the ears won’t take place all at once, but it will take place overnight. One morning everything will be different. Government actions against the people in the form of laws like the USA PATRIOT Act, surveillance of the innocent, controls on communications and the supposed dominion over one's body are creating an explosive environment, and the central planners know it. These police state tactics are not for our protection from outside threats, but for the protection of government from the American people. Government limits on our ability to seek redress and physically defend against tyranny are increasing -- an outcome predicted for decades by libertarians.
There are reasons to avoid being in public office these days. I firmly believe there will be at least a metaphorical guillotining of public officials responsible for destroying the American Dream for tens of millions of Americans. And I do not wish to be affiliated with those standing in line for their turn to have the lever pulled on their fate. I have absolutely no political goal other than to be left alone. My whole family and large circle of friends have invested a great deal of time, effort and money to that end. But I don't see wielding the power of elective office as a path to that goal.
While content to focus my efforts at home in Arizona , I have become increasingly aware of those with a great desire to be a “respected member” of the very system we oppose. The claim that one needs positions of power in order to free individuals is very troubling. We should be the Hobbits who do not seek power over others, and are willing to make great investments to ensure being left alone. Changing the hands on the levers of power won’t eliminate the levers. The abandonment of the principled foundation of libertarianism now would be disastrous and leave us with nothing of value to distinguish us from our ideological competition.
And while most libertarians would welcome a return to the size of government allowed by the US Constitution as championed in the Federalist Papers, many recognize that this document created the opportunity for the powerful central government we oppose today. The liberty-minded people of the American Revolution were profoundly ambivalent about the US Constitution, and detailed their concerns in the Anti-Federalist Papers. What good are checks and balances when all three branches of government are aligned against the rights of the individual? The Bill of Rights was the libertarian compromise. These ten “Thou Shalt Nots” of government was the deal made to avoid conflict. But the document has proven to be binding only on the people, in our forced support of our present government, while every single one of the Bill of Rights is constantly violated without hesitation by government. I am certain that I am not the only one wondering when this “social contract” will finally be declared null and void.
-Ernest Hancock
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Terri Schiavo, Part 3
Another important Schiavo column on what really went down.
QandO (see column for links)
Michael Schiavo’s Evolution into a Republican Kos Kid: Harbinger for Libertarians?
GUEST POST by Mona
We libertarians are frequently caricatured as “Republicans who just want to smoke dope and have orgiastic sex.” Actually, we hold fealty to many serious general principles, including: the rule of law, basic human rights, federalism, and, yes, the individual adult’s liberty interest in making all manner of personal decisions sans interference from the state; we are also usually skeptical of moralistic social crusades. Many of us, historically, have concluded that our principles and attitudes are best, if imperfectly, upheld by the GOP. Political conditions, however, have changed, and today’s GOP violates libertarian values with promiscuous abandon (but this post focuses on only one of myriad examples of such abandonment). Most intriguingly, we are receiving what could be taken as an invitation from soi disant “libertarian Democrat” Markos Moulitsas that has excited some discussion in our ranks.
Well, I am one libertarian who is cautiously receptive to the Donkey Team’s lure. The canary in the GOP coal mine for me was Michael Schiavo and the (predominantly) GOP grotesqueries imposed on him, his family and his friends during the jihad to “save” his former wife, Terri Schiavo. Not surprisingly, life-long Republican Michael himself seems to agree that the contemporary GOP has become malignant, and he has been both posting a diary at Daily Kos , and last week attended the YearlyKos Convention. What libertarian could blame him? (And please don’t suggest that he could make recourse to the Libertarian Party; Michael is obviously interested in a political force potent enough to evict the current, populist GOP extremists from some branches of the federal government, as am I.)
Let us recall how the Bush/Frist GOP utterly savaged Michael, gleefully joined by its handmaidens at Fox news, the latter of which virtually drove the hysteria , with no little bit of assistance from some pro-Bush blogs. Armed with absurd conspiracy theories, pure lies and faux experts, as well as outrageous and repugnant accusations (“Sean Hannity accused Schiavo of abusing and possibly killing his wife while broadcasting Hannity & Colmes from outside Terri Schiavo's Hospice”), the GOP and its media minions turned a family tragedy that was being competently and properly adjudicated in the Florida Courts by a Republican probate judge, into a fevered national circus.
Most of the Bush-worshipping denizens of the leading conservative journal, National Review, were on board with "saving Terri." But there was one dissenter in the NR stable, and that is John Derbyshire, whose acid review of NR senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru’s execrable book, Party of Death, is as scathing as it is accurate. (Do read the whole thing, and note it was not published at NR.) (h/t David Weigel at Hit ‘n Run) Writes Derb:
Does Ponnuru denounce his co-ideologues’ deranged atmosphere that generated hatred and death threats against Michael Schiavo? Derb again (emphasis in original):
About the medical charlatanry peddled by the GOP regarding Terri Schiavo’s status, another life-long Republican — physician Elizabeth Whelan, president and founder of the American Council on Science and Health — had this to say at TCS:
The GOP-led federal madness that ensued in the wake of Frist and Fox’s reprehensible antics is well-described by Reason’s Ron Bailey:
And, just as life-long Republican Dr. Whelan deplored the medical codswallop of the Bush/Frist GOP spewed forth during l’affaire Schiavo, arch-conservative, pro-life, Republican Constitutional Law scholar Douglas Kmiec rejected the GOP’s attack on both the rule of law and federalism as “a constitiutional abomination”:
Michael certainly will find no GOP restraint from the "federalist lawyers" at Powerline, which declared:
Nor would he encounter anything but shrill, hyperbolic contempt from pro-Bush blogger LaShawn Barber, who, in a post titled Death Culturists Say Michael Schiavo ‘Vindicated’ wrote:
And in another post, instead of denouncing death threats directed at Michael, and the climate that produced them, Barber more than hinted that he deserved them and excuses the “emotions” that drive some to such lawless and vicious behavior:
(In fairness, it must be noted that a comparative handful of pro-Bush bloggers were disgusted by the Schiavo mania and the slander of Michael Schiavo, as reflected by these collected quotes and links at The Politburo Diktat. And, pro-Bush blogger Jeff Goldstein, with whom I disagree about a great deal, wrote: “…an autopsy could very well prove that Michael Schiavo abused his wife—or, more likely, such a procedure will clear Michael Schiavo of some of the more pernicious pieces of conjecture I’ve heard floated during the ongoing coverage of this case.” )
But, it was it was a left-of-center blogger, Matt Stoller, who interviewed the Republican Michael Schiavo at Stoller’s MyDD blog, and from that interview I leave newly minted Kos Kid, Michael Schiavo, with both a challenge to Republicans (which might also apply to libertarians), and the last word:
QandO (see column for links)
Michael Schiavo’s Evolution into a Republican Kos Kid: Harbinger for Libertarians?
GUEST POST by Mona
"They [the “Save Terri!” movement] asserted that Schiavo's coma may have been caused by abuse from her husband, Michael. With their cries of "medical terrorism" and their comparisons to Nazi Germany, these so-called champions of life created an atmosphere in which some of their supporters made death threats not only to Michael Schiavo but to judges and legislators who had been on the "wrong" side of the dispute.
-Cathy Young
Reason
We libertarians are frequently caricatured as “Republicans who just want to smoke dope and have orgiastic sex.” Actually, we hold fealty to many serious general principles, including: the rule of law, basic human rights, federalism, and, yes, the individual adult’s liberty interest in making all manner of personal decisions sans interference from the state; we are also usually skeptical of moralistic social crusades. Many of us, historically, have concluded that our principles and attitudes are best, if imperfectly, upheld by the GOP. Political conditions, however, have changed, and today’s GOP violates libertarian values with promiscuous abandon (but this post focuses on only one of myriad examples of such abandonment). Most intriguingly, we are receiving what could be taken as an invitation from soi disant “libertarian Democrat” Markos Moulitsas that has excited some discussion in our ranks.
Well, I am one libertarian who is cautiously receptive to the Donkey Team’s lure. The canary in the GOP coal mine for me was Michael Schiavo and the (predominantly) GOP grotesqueries imposed on him, his family and his friends during the jihad to “save” his former wife, Terri Schiavo. Not surprisingly, life-long Republican Michael himself seems to agree that the contemporary GOP has become malignant, and he has been both posting a diary at Daily Kos , and last week attended the YearlyKos Convention. What libertarian could blame him? (And please don’t suggest that he could make recourse to the Libertarian Party; Michael is obviously interested in a political force potent enough to evict the current, populist GOP extremists from some branches of the federal government, as am I.)
Let us recall how the Bush/Frist GOP utterly savaged Michael, gleefully joined by its handmaidens at Fox news, the latter of which virtually drove the hysteria , with no little bit of assistance from some pro-Bush blogs. Armed with absurd conspiracy theories, pure lies and faux experts, as well as outrageous and repugnant accusations (“Sean Hannity accused Schiavo of abusing and possibly killing his wife while broadcasting Hannity & Colmes from outside Terri Schiavo's Hospice”), the GOP and its media minions turned a family tragedy that was being competently and properly adjudicated in the Florida Courts by a Republican probate judge, into a fevered national circus.
Most of the Bush-worshipping denizens of the leading conservative journal, National Review, were on board with "saving Terri." But there was one dissenter in the NR stable, and that is John Derbyshire, whose acid review of NR senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru’s execrable book, Party of Death, is as scathing as it is accurate. (Do read the whole thing, and note it was not published at NR.) (h/t David Weigel at Hit ‘n Run) Writes Derb:
... the grotesque carnival surrounding the death of Terri Schiavo last year, when a motley menagerie of quack doctors, bogus “Nobel Prize nominees,” emoting relatives, get-a-life monomaniacs, keening mobs of religious fanatics, death-threat-hissing warriors for “life,” dimwitted TV presenters straining to keep their very best my-puppy-just-died faces on while speaking of “Terri” as if they had known her personally from grade school, pandering politicians, and shyster lawyers all joined forces in a massive effort to convince the American public that [Right to Life] was a thing no sane citizen ought to touch with a barge pole while wearing triple-ply rubber gloves.
Does Ponnuru denounce his co-ideologues’ deranged atmosphere that generated hatred and death threats against Michael Schiavo? Derb again (emphasis in original):
In fact, Ponnuru has nothing to say at all about the monstrous character assassination, carried out by utterly unscrupulous RTL propagandists, of a decent man [Michael Schiavo] who coped humanely and well with a terrible life calamity. Well, not quite nothing: “It cannot be denied that pro-lifers were guilty of some excesses,” Ponnuru murmurs. Some excesses? I would say. Here the author sounds like nothing so much as a Soviet Communist Party apparatchik, circa 1960, offering a grudging admission that Stalin and his cronies might, just once or twice, have been a tad over-zealous in dealing with class enemies…I came away more convinced than ever that Michael Schiavo is a good man criminally traduced by brutal, unprincipled RTL fanatics, from whose number, on the evidence of this chapter, Ponnuru cannot with certainty be excluded.
About the medical charlatanry peddled by the GOP regarding Terri Schiavo’s status, another life-long Republican — physician Elizabeth Whelan, president and founder of the American Council on Science and Health — had this to say at TCS:
While the family video [of Terri] repeatedly shown on television suggests otherwise, her non-functioning cortex precludes cognition, including any ability to interact or communicate with people or show any signs of awareness. Dozens of experts over the years who have examined Ms. Schiavo agree that there is no hope of her recovering — even though her body, face and eyes (if she is given food and hydration) might continue to move for decades to come.
Those are the harsh facts.
Thus it was shocking that Sen. Bill Frist — a heart surgeon before becoming Senate majority leader — went to the Senate floor twice last week to argue that Florida doctors had erred in saying that Terri is in a "persistent vegetative state." How did Frist arrive at this diagnosis? From watching the family videotapes.
Frist's comments were picked up by journalists, including FoxNews's Fred Barnes, who cited Sen. Frist as an authority in a debate with Morton Kondracke on The Beltway Boys last week.
The GOP-led federal madness that ensued in the wake of Frist and Fox’s reprehensible antics is well-described by Reason’s Ron Bailey:
After making their video diagnoses, our legislators got busy. After all, a leaked memo from a Republican staffer had also diagnosed Schiavo's plight as "a great political issue" that would help the GOP rally conservative Christians for the 2006 election. In March, three Senators during an extraordinary Palm Sunday session passed "emergency" legislation to throw the Schiavo case into the federal courts by a "unanimous" vote. The members of the House of Representatives rushed back from their Easter holiday to vote 203 to 58 for the bill. Those voting in favor included 156 Republicans and 47 Democrats. And President George W. Bush melodramatically flew back from his Texas ranch to sign the legislation. All for naught, because the federal courts all quickly ruled in favor of Michael Schiavo.
And, just as life-long Republican Dr. Whelan deplored the medical codswallop of the Bush/Frist GOP spewed forth during l’affaire Schiavo, arch-conservative, pro-life, Republican Constitutional Law scholar Douglas Kmiec rejected the GOP’s attack on both the rule of law and federalism as “a constitiutional abomination”:
... Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University and prominent conservative, called it a "constitutional abomination," because, he said, Congress had overstepped its authority.
The Constitution grants to Congress only certain powers, leaving the rest to the states. Kmiec said nothing in the Constitution gave Congress the power to pass the law, which, he said, sets a troubling precedent that Congress can simply order a federal judge to direct a person's fate.
"What Congress has said is, 'We can take that away from you. We can make the decision not yours, but that of a federal judge,'" Kmiec said. "That is a profound thing to say, and not just for the Schiavo case."
Michael certainly will find no GOP restraint from the "federalist lawyers" at Powerline, which declared:
Disgusting... That's the only word to describe the conduct of Michael Schiavo and his crusade to end the life of his wife Terri.
Nor would he encounter anything but shrill, hyperbolic contempt from pro-Bush blogger LaShawn Barber, who, in a post titled Death Culturists Say Michael Schiavo ‘Vindicated’ wrote:
Look at the thing itself, to paraphrase a fictional man-eater paraphrasing Marcus Aurelius. What is it in itself? What is its nature, this culture of death?
It is dark, dank, and putrid. And hungry....
And in another post, instead of denouncing death threats directed at Michael, and the climate that produced them, Barber more than hinted that he deserved them and excuses the “emotions” that drive some to such lawless and vicious behavior:
A man has been arrested for making threats against Michael Schiavo via the Internet. In that case, he shouldn’t be the only one. How many people have said or written such things about Schiavo in the past week out of emotion? Should they all be arrested?”
(In fairness, it must be noted that a comparative handful of pro-Bush bloggers were disgusted by the Schiavo mania and the slander of Michael Schiavo, as reflected by these collected quotes and links at The Politburo Diktat. And, pro-Bush blogger Jeff Goldstein, with whom I disagree about a great deal, wrote: “…an autopsy could very well prove that Michael Schiavo abused his wife—or, more likely, such a procedure will clear Michael Schiavo of some of the more pernicious pieces of conjecture I’ve heard floated during the ongoing coverage of this case.” )
But, it was it was a left-of-center blogger, Matt Stoller, who interviewed the Republican Michael Schiavo at Stoller’s MyDD blog, and from that interview I leave newly minted Kos Kid, Michael Schiavo, with both a challenge to Republicans (which might also apply to libertarians), and the last word:
Interfering with families' rights to make private, personal decisions shouldn't be any politician's platform.
There are many good Republicans - where I work, in my family and all over the place. And many of them were sickened by what they saw their party doing to the rights of individuals and families. But the people leading the Republican party in Washington D.C. and in Florida today aren't like the Republicans I know.
The leaders of that Republican party are, in my opinion, out of touch, mean spirited and very selfish. To do what they did just so they can win re-election is the lowest kind of politics. And it cost them the support of at least this Republican.
I have gotten hundreds of letters and emails from other Republicans who agree with me and many of them have joined me in leaving the party.
My message to moderate Republicans is: Pay attention. Learn what these people are doing in your name and with your votes.
Terri Schiavo, Part 2
Over time I have lost my luster for Dennis Prager, the most well-known religious moralist on the right. This is a person who stands by a pro-life position on the Schiavo case, but on his radio program has openly admitted to being for early-term abortions, a contradiction right there.
atheism.about.com (see column for links)
Facts and Lies about Religion in the Terri Schiavo Case
The forces opposed to removing Terri Schiavo's gastric tube are almost uniformly religious in their perspective. Unfortunately for them, a significant number of those who support Michael Schiavo are also religious in their perspective. How can the Christian Right attack others in the usual manner, i.e. pretend that they are immoral and godless?
Dennis Prager rummages around in the trash and comes up with:
"[C]hances are that if you affirm Judeo-Christian values, you have opposed pulling the feeding tubes from the severely brain damaged woman's body. Why? Because if there is anything that Judeo-Christian values stand for, it is choosing life and rejecting death."
If this is even vaguely true, then why do most people in a population that is primarily Christian agree that they would want the tubes removed if they were in Terri Schiavo's condition and would act similarly to how Michael Schiavo has done? Why do so many people in a population that is primarily Christian make similar decisions about removing gastric tubes and ventilators every single day?
Perhaps Dennis Prager would argue that all those people don't "really" affirm "Judeo-Christian values" (because he's just the person to determine what qualifies as genuine and false adherence, genuine and false interpretations). Well, if anyone were to be thought of as affirming "Judeo-Christian values," it would probably be a Jesuit priest — right?
Well, here's what the Rev. John J. Paris, a bioethics professor at Boston College, has to say:
"The church doctrine, and it’s been consistent for 400 years, is that one is not morally obliged to undergo any intervention. ... What the right-to-lifers want to say is the pope said you must always use artificial nutrition and fluids for patients in persistent vegetative state—and there’s no exception. The Florida bishops say that’s not what the church has taught and that’s surely not what this means.
Richard McCormick, who was the great Catholic moral theologian of the last 25 years, wrote a brilliant article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1974 called “To Save or Let Die.” He said there are two great heresies in our age (and heresy is a strong word in theology—these are false doctrines). One is that life is an absolute good and the other is that death is an absolute evil. We believe that life was created and is a good, but a limited good. Therefore the obligation to sustain it is a limited one. The parameters that mark off those limits are your capacities to function as a human."
I've caught Dennis Prager misrepresenting the truth before — he's not above ignoring facts in order to serve his religious or political agenda. His misrepresentations are naturally popular with religious conservatives who, it seems, don't bother to think critically about what he says.
In this case, the agenda is both religious and political: he and others need to portray themselves as the only ones defending "real" religious morality while their opponents are, by implication, godless and immoral secularists. They can't come right out and say that last bit because they know that most of the people opposing them are anything but godless or secularists, but they can push their position by claiming (without supporting arguments) that their position is the only truly moral one.
atheism.about.com (see column for links)
Facts and Lies about Religion in the Terri Schiavo Case
The forces opposed to removing Terri Schiavo's gastric tube are almost uniformly religious in their perspective. Unfortunately for them, a significant number of those who support Michael Schiavo are also religious in their perspective. How can the Christian Right attack others in the usual manner, i.e. pretend that they are immoral and godless?
Dennis Prager rummages around in the trash and comes up with:
"[C]hances are that if you affirm Judeo-Christian values, you have opposed pulling the feeding tubes from the severely brain damaged woman's body. Why? Because if there is anything that Judeo-Christian values stand for, it is choosing life and rejecting death."
If this is even vaguely true, then why do most people in a population that is primarily Christian agree that they would want the tubes removed if they were in Terri Schiavo's condition and would act similarly to how Michael Schiavo has done? Why do so many people in a population that is primarily Christian make similar decisions about removing gastric tubes and ventilators every single day?
Perhaps Dennis Prager would argue that all those people don't "really" affirm "Judeo-Christian values" (because he's just the person to determine what qualifies as genuine and false adherence, genuine and false interpretations). Well, if anyone were to be thought of as affirming "Judeo-Christian values," it would probably be a Jesuit priest — right?
Well, here's what the Rev. John J. Paris, a bioethics professor at Boston College, has to say:
"The church doctrine, and it’s been consistent for 400 years, is that one is not morally obliged to undergo any intervention. ... What the right-to-lifers want to say is the pope said you must always use artificial nutrition and fluids for patients in persistent vegetative state—and there’s no exception. The Florida bishops say that’s not what the church has taught and that’s surely not what this means.
Richard McCormick, who was the great Catholic moral theologian of the last 25 years, wrote a brilliant article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1974 called “To Save or Let Die.” He said there are two great heresies in our age (and heresy is a strong word in theology—these are false doctrines). One is that life is an absolute good and the other is that death is an absolute evil. We believe that life was created and is a good, but a limited good. Therefore the obligation to sustain it is a limited one. The parameters that mark off those limits are your capacities to function as a human."
I've caught Dennis Prager misrepresenting the truth before — he's not above ignoring facts in order to serve his religious or political agenda. His misrepresentations are naturally popular with religious conservatives who, it seems, don't bother to think critically about what he says.
In this case, the agenda is both religious and political: he and others need to portray themselves as the only ones defending "real" religious morality while their opponents are, by implication, godless and immoral secularists. They can't come right out and say that last bit because they know that most of the people opposing them are anything but godless or secularists, but they can push their position by claiming (without supporting arguments) that their position is the only truly moral one.
Terri Schiavo, Part 1
Like I said before, now seems like a good time to jump off the Republican ticket, let alone the abyss called the two-party system.
Blatherwatch
No Rush Limbaugh--liberals are not “gleeful” about the death of Terri Schiavo.
We have not “gotten our wish,” that she be dead nor, as Big Pants accused, will we see this shameful event as freeing us up to work on “saving Scott Peterson,” the convicted killer at the locus of the last prurient 24/7 cable channel snore-orgy.
It’s not glee that fills my heart today, but relief. Relief that Terri Schiavo’s poor carcass will finally be put to rest.
Relief that her family, now useless to the political and media axe-grinders, ox-gorers and ideological opportunists, can simply be grieving husband, parents and siblings.
These shameful opportunistic ghouls propped up this woman like Frankenstein and used her body like a whore’s. It was top-down equal opportunity opportunism.
President Bush: rushed back early to DC from Texas like Roy Rogers riding Trigger all night bringing the doc to the rancher’s dying wife. As usual from the faux Texan--it was all hat, no cattle--or, as Frank Rich wrote in the NY Times:
The same Mr. Bush who couldn't be bothered to interrupt his vacation during the darkening summer of 2001, not even when he received a briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," flew from his Crawford ranch to Washington to sign Congress's Schiavo bill into law. The bill could have been flown to him in Texas, but his ceremonial arrival and departure by helicopter on the White House lawn allowed him to showboat as if he had just landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
Tom Delay: a moral midget with a heart of carnival glass and a meanstreak the width of the Rio Grande, needed a values-rich issue to change the subject from his disturbing and deepening ethics problems in Congress.
Dr. Bill Frist: is Senate Majority Leader, a heart surgeon, who stunningly made a grave neurological diagnosis of Schiavo from videos of her running relentlessly on Fox News. And oh yeah--he’s running for President.
Randall Terry: slithered out from under his rock to flack his pro-life point of view by spokespeeping for the parents. You’ll remember him as the anti-abortion media whore of Operation Rescue, repeatedly jailed in the ‘90’s for well-publicized attacks on abortion clinics. The clownish, homophobic, evangelical Christian needed press redemption after his IRS problems; his son’s very public coming out as a gay; and, according to the Washington Post, his censure by his Binghamton, NY church in 2000 for a "pattern of repeated and sinful relationships and conversations with both single and married women."
Sean Hannity: is always on the lookout for stories that he can give the appearance of controlling. With skillful earnestness, tiny Irish lips, deeply-felt smarm, great hair, and a lot of impressive sheeves of paper, he seemed to be in charge of the moral, legal, and family matters for the Schindlers. I almost felt sorry for MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough pitifully begging over the air to the Schindlers to talk to him. As a "friend of the family," Hannity had them exclusively, heartbreakingly, endlessly, tediously. The sad part is that Fox drove the so-called story that highjacked real news for the better part of two weeks.
Jesse Jackson: It was revolting to see the craven Jackson, and Hannity fellating each other in a circle of mutual self-promotion. He's usually Hannity's favorite example of liberal depravity, flawed black leadership. and here’s-what’s-wrong-with-the-Negros. Jackson, stranger to neither media whoring nor pimping, insinuated himself at the last minute into the Schiavo case sucking the air out of the room for the lifeless politicians and media suck-ups milling about hoping to get some juice from the circus. The Rev got his face in front of every camera; and in the end, gained nothing but some very temporary favor from the religious right.
Blatherwatch
No Rush Limbaugh--liberals are not “gleeful” about the death of Terri Schiavo.
We have not “gotten our wish,” that she be dead nor, as Big Pants accused, will we see this shameful event as freeing us up to work on “saving Scott Peterson,” the convicted killer at the locus of the last prurient 24/7 cable channel snore-orgy.
It’s not glee that fills my heart today, but relief. Relief that Terri Schiavo’s poor carcass will finally be put to rest.
Relief that her family, now useless to the political and media axe-grinders, ox-gorers and ideological opportunists, can simply be grieving husband, parents and siblings.
These shameful opportunistic ghouls propped up this woman like Frankenstein and used her body like a whore’s. It was top-down equal opportunity opportunism.
President Bush: rushed back early to DC from Texas like Roy Rogers riding Trigger all night bringing the doc to the rancher’s dying wife. As usual from the faux Texan--it was all hat, no cattle--or, as Frank Rich wrote in the NY Times:
The same Mr. Bush who couldn't be bothered to interrupt his vacation during the darkening summer of 2001, not even when he received a briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," flew from his Crawford ranch to Washington to sign Congress's Schiavo bill into law. The bill could have been flown to him in Texas, but his ceremonial arrival and departure by helicopter on the White House lawn allowed him to showboat as if he had just landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
Tom Delay: a moral midget with a heart of carnival glass and a meanstreak the width of the Rio Grande, needed a values-rich issue to change the subject from his disturbing and deepening ethics problems in Congress.
Dr. Bill Frist: is Senate Majority Leader, a heart surgeon, who stunningly made a grave neurological diagnosis of Schiavo from videos of her running relentlessly on Fox News. And oh yeah--he’s running for President.
Randall Terry: slithered out from under his rock to flack his pro-life point of view by spokespeeping for the parents. You’ll remember him as the anti-abortion media whore of Operation Rescue, repeatedly jailed in the ‘90’s for well-publicized attacks on abortion clinics. The clownish, homophobic, evangelical Christian needed press redemption after his IRS problems; his son’s very public coming out as a gay; and, according to the Washington Post, his censure by his Binghamton, NY church in 2000 for a "pattern of repeated and sinful relationships and conversations with both single and married women."
Sean Hannity: is always on the lookout for stories that he can give the appearance of controlling. With skillful earnestness, tiny Irish lips, deeply-felt smarm, great hair, and a lot of impressive sheeves of paper, he seemed to be in charge of the moral, legal, and family matters for the Schindlers. I almost felt sorry for MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough pitifully begging over the air to the Schindlers to talk to him. As a "friend of the family," Hannity had them exclusively, heartbreakingly, endlessly, tediously. The sad part is that Fox drove the so-called story that highjacked real news for the better part of two weeks.
Jesse Jackson: It was revolting to see the craven Jackson, and Hannity fellating each other in a circle of mutual self-promotion. He's usually Hannity's favorite example of liberal depravity, flawed black leadership. and here’s-what’s-wrong-with-the-Negros. Jackson, stranger to neither media whoring nor pimping, insinuated himself at the last minute into the Schiavo case sucking the air out of the room for the lifeless politicians and media suck-ups milling about hoping to get some juice from the circus. The Rev got his face in front of every camera; and in the end, gained nothing but some very temporary favor from the religious right.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
'Decline of the Republican Party' Part 5
It was Reagan, not Congress
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
National Debt by President
The national debt peaked at 120% of GDP in 1946 due to the war effort, but Roosevelt, Truman, Ike, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon and Carter all did their part to bring the national debt back to pre-war levels. By the beginning of 1981, the national debt had fallen to 32.5% of GDP. Then, Reagan took office and the national debt took off. It rose non-stop for 12 years to 66.3% at the end of Bush's term, erasing 25 years of progress in paying down the national debt.
From the White House: The Reagan-Bush Debt Explained
The traditional pattern of running large deficits only in times of war or economic downturns was broken during much of the 1980s. In 1982, [Reagan's 1st budget year] partly in response to a recession, large tax cuts were enacted. However, these were accompanied by substantial increases in defense spending. Although reductions were made to nondefense spending, they were not sufficient to offset the impact on the deficit. As a result, deficits averaging $206 billion were incurred between 1983 and 1992. These unprecedented peacetime deficits increased debt held by the public from $789 billion in 1981 to $3.0 trillion (48.1% of GDP) in 1992.
http://zfacts.com/p/55.html
The most popular national-debt web sites continue the same confusions that caused Reagan to believe the national debt was higher than ever when it was at its lowest point since before World War II. Here is what you see when you look at the debt in nominal dollars.
Brillig (named for Alice in Wonderland) has been reminded of inflation and has corrected for it by adding the following graph. But this still ignores population growth and that fact that the country has gotten a lot richer in the last 50 years. The result is still tremendously misleading, but you can see the Reagan rise and the Clinton dip.
The nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) takes all of these effects into account. It grows with inflation, population and increased income. By comparing the national debt to GDP, we get a fair check on whether it is growing or shrinking relative to what we can afford. That is why the White House web site give gross national debt as a percentage of GDP, which is what I have plotted on the page above.
The Heritage Foundation
Historical Context
The 7.9 percent of GDP spent on discretionary programs in 2005 was not far off the historical average. Discretionary spending topped 10 percent of GDP from World War II through the early 1980s, before falling to 6.3 percent in 2000, and then spiking back up to 7.9 percent in 2005.
Defense spending has driven much of these fluctuations. From 9.3 percent of GDP in 1962, it typically remained over 5 percent until the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Then, after dropping all the way down to 3.0 percent of GDP in 2000, the War on Terrorism has pushed it back up to 4.1 percent.
Non-defense discretionary spending has remained more stable over the past few decades. After dropping to 3.2 percent of GDP in 1999, it has since surged to 3.9 percent in 2005.
Recent Large Spending Increases
Conventional wisdom holds that non-defense discretionary spending has been cut to make room for defense spending increases. Conventional wisdom is wrong. According to OMB Historical Table 8.2, non-defense discretionary outlays – adjusted for inflation –surged by 34 percent between 1999 and 2005. That is the largest six-year expansion since the 1970s.
One way to compare current discretionary spending trends is by presidential administration:
Overall discretionary outlays rose 2.3 percent annually under President Clinton, compared to 9.7 percent annually under President Bush. Defense was virtually frozen in nominal dollars under President Clinton, and has averaged 12 percent annual growth under President Bush. Non-defense discretionary outlays rose 4 percent annually under President Clinton, versus 8 percent annually under President Bush.
Let me re-emphasize that last point: Non-defense discretionary spending has grown twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton. Examples of discretionary spending increases between 2001 and 2006 include the following:
Education is up 62 percent, or 10 percent annually; International affairs is up 74 percent, or 12 percent annually; Health research and regulation is up 57 percent, or 9 percent annually; Veterans’ benefits are up 46 percent, or 8 percent annually; Science and basic research is up 40 percent, or 7 percent annually. and Overall non-defense discretionary outlays are up 46 percent, or 7.8 percent annually.
Budgets are about making trade-offs among competing priorities, and these recent guns and butter budgets raise serious questions about federal priorities. To enact the largest six-year non-defense discretionary spending hike, at the same time funding a war, has placed federal spending on an unsustainable path. Last week’s harsh reactions to the President’s budget proposal shows that certain constituencies have now grown accustomed to large annual spending increases, and consider even a temporary freeze at these higher spending levels to be out of bounds.
Large Entitlements Threaten Discretionary Programs
Discretionary spending faces a perilous future. The reason is not because the President’s budget proposal forecasts discretionary spending cuts through 2011. Discretionary spending is budgeted on a yearly basis, and any projected discretionary spending numbers after 2007 hold no statutory weight, but serve only as temporary placeholders to make future budget deficits appear smaller. These out-year numbers are typically dismissed by the White House when writing subsequent budget requests.
The real reason for concern comes from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, whose steep growth will likely crowd out all other spending.
The math is simple. Annual spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – what I call the “big three entitlements” – is projected to leap by 10.5 percent of GDP between now and 2050. That money will have to come from somewhere. The entire 7.9 percent of GDP currently spent on discretionary programs will be at risk.
It is possible that Congress will raise taxes to pay for this spending. However, Congress would have to keep raising taxes every year until they reach the current equivalent of $11,000 per household above current levels to fund those entitlement costs.
Assuming that Congress balks at such large tax hikes, it becomes more likely that discretionary spending will have to be substantially reduced to make room for those entitlements. Competition for scarce budget resources will become increasingly intense, and the big three entitlements will leave smaller and smaller crumbs for discretionary spending. Overall, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending increases are projected to squeeze out the entire non-defense discretionary budget by 2020, and the entire discretionary budget (including defense) by 2034.
The message is clear: If you prioritize spending on education, health research, veterans’ health care, homeland, security, defense or the environment – the single biggest threat to these programs is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that within a decade, the big three entitlements will be growing $172 billion each year – which will be more than the entire combined budgets of the Departments of Education and Justice at that time. At that point, it will become difficult to maintain even a shell of current discretionary programs. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will swallow almost all of the tax dollars.
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
National Debt by President
The national debt peaked at 120% of GDP in 1946 due to the war effort, but Roosevelt, Truman, Ike, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon and Carter all did their part to bring the national debt back to pre-war levels. By the beginning of 1981, the national debt had fallen to 32.5% of GDP. Then, Reagan took office and the national debt took off. It rose non-stop for 12 years to 66.3% at the end of Bush's term, erasing 25 years of progress in paying down the national debt.
From the White House: The Reagan-Bush Debt Explained
The traditional pattern of running large deficits only in times of war or economic downturns was broken during much of the 1980s. In 1982, [Reagan's 1st budget year] partly in response to a recession, large tax cuts were enacted. However, these were accompanied by substantial increases in defense spending. Although reductions were made to nondefense spending, they were not sufficient to offset the impact on the deficit. As a result, deficits averaging $206 billion were incurred between 1983 and 1992. These unprecedented peacetime deficits increased debt held by the public from $789 billion in 1981 to $3.0 trillion (48.1% of GDP) in 1992.
http://zfacts.com/p/55.html
The most popular national-debt web sites continue the same confusions that caused Reagan to believe the national debt was higher than ever when it was at its lowest point since before World War II. Here is what you see when you look at the debt in nominal dollars.
Brillig (named for Alice in Wonderland) has been reminded of inflation and has corrected for it by adding the following graph. But this still ignores population growth and that fact that the country has gotten a lot richer in the last 50 years. The result is still tremendously misleading, but you can see the Reagan rise and the Clinton dip.
The nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) takes all of these effects into account. It grows with inflation, population and increased income. By comparing the national debt to GDP, we get a fair check on whether it is growing or shrinking relative to what we can afford. That is why the White House web site give gross national debt as a percentage of GDP, which is what I have plotted on the page above.
The Heritage Foundation
Historical Context
The 7.9 percent of GDP spent on discretionary programs in 2005 was not far off the historical average. Discretionary spending topped 10 percent of GDP from World War II through the early 1980s, before falling to 6.3 percent in 2000, and then spiking back up to 7.9 percent in 2005.
Defense spending has driven much of these fluctuations. From 9.3 percent of GDP in 1962, it typically remained over 5 percent until the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Then, after dropping all the way down to 3.0 percent of GDP in 2000, the War on Terrorism has pushed it back up to 4.1 percent.
Non-defense discretionary spending has remained more stable over the past few decades. After dropping to 3.2 percent of GDP in 1999, it has since surged to 3.9 percent in 2005.
Recent Large Spending Increases
Conventional wisdom holds that non-defense discretionary spending has been cut to make room for defense spending increases. Conventional wisdom is wrong. According to OMB Historical Table 8.2, non-defense discretionary outlays – adjusted for inflation –surged by 34 percent between 1999 and 2005. That is the largest six-year expansion since the 1970s.
One way to compare current discretionary spending trends is by presidential administration:
Overall discretionary outlays rose 2.3 percent annually under President Clinton, compared to 9.7 percent annually under President Bush. Defense was virtually frozen in nominal dollars under President Clinton, and has averaged 12 percent annual growth under President Bush. Non-defense discretionary outlays rose 4 percent annually under President Clinton, versus 8 percent annually under President Bush.
Let me re-emphasize that last point: Non-defense discretionary spending has grown twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton. Examples of discretionary spending increases between 2001 and 2006 include the following:
Education is up 62 percent, or 10 percent annually; International affairs is up 74 percent, or 12 percent annually; Health research and regulation is up 57 percent, or 9 percent annually; Veterans’ benefits are up 46 percent, or 8 percent annually; Science and basic research is up 40 percent, or 7 percent annually. and Overall non-defense discretionary outlays are up 46 percent, or 7.8 percent annually.
Budgets are about making trade-offs among competing priorities, and these recent guns and butter budgets raise serious questions about federal priorities. To enact the largest six-year non-defense discretionary spending hike, at the same time funding a war, has placed federal spending on an unsustainable path. Last week’s harsh reactions to the President’s budget proposal shows that certain constituencies have now grown accustomed to large annual spending increases, and consider even a temporary freeze at these higher spending levels to be out of bounds.
Large Entitlements Threaten Discretionary Programs
Discretionary spending faces a perilous future. The reason is not because the President’s budget proposal forecasts discretionary spending cuts through 2011. Discretionary spending is budgeted on a yearly basis, and any projected discretionary spending numbers after 2007 hold no statutory weight, but serve only as temporary placeholders to make future budget deficits appear smaller. These out-year numbers are typically dismissed by the White House when writing subsequent budget requests.
The real reason for concern comes from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, whose steep growth will likely crowd out all other spending.
The math is simple. Annual spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – what I call the “big three entitlements” – is projected to leap by 10.5 percent of GDP between now and 2050. That money will have to come from somewhere. The entire 7.9 percent of GDP currently spent on discretionary programs will be at risk.
It is possible that Congress will raise taxes to pay for this spending. However, Congress would have to keep raising taxes every year until they reach the current equivalent of $11,000 per household above current levels to fund those entitlement costs.
Assuming that Congress balks at such large tax hikes, it becomes more likely that discretionary spending will have to be substantially reduced to make room for those entitlements. Competition for scarce budget resources will become increasingly intense, and the big three entitlements will leave smaller and smaller crumbs for discretionary spending. Overall, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending increases are projected to squeeze out the entire non-defense discretionary budget by 2020, and the entire discretionary budget (including defense) by 2034.
The message is clear: If you prioritize spending on education, health research, veterans’ health care, homeland, security, defense or the environment – the single biggest threat to these programs is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that within a decade, the big three entitlements will be growing $172 billion each year – which will be more than the entire combined budgets of the Departments of Education and Justice at that time. At that point, it will become difficult to maintain even a shell of current discretionary programs. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will swallow almost all of the tax dollars.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
'Decline of the Republican Party' Part 4
A recent local Minnesota pre-poll showed 52 percent would vote within the two-party system, and the other 48 percent would vote either independent or not at all. An interneter told me the RNP is a "bad idea" while the DNP has "no ideas". I responded with, "Promoting a bad idea on the basis of no idea is not a good idea." I've come to realize the RNP's vision is simply to not be Democratic. Blah. Third party, or any "other" party, anyone? Lets really shake up the political format.
Townhall
What next for conservatives
Nov 17, 2005
by George Will
(excerpt)
The conservative coalition, which is coming unglued for many reasons, will rapidly disintegrate if limited-government conservatives become convinced that social conservatives are unwilling to concentrate their character-building and soul-saving energies on the private institutions that mediate between individuals and government, and instead try to conscript government into sectarian crusades.
But, then, the limited-government impulse is a spent force in a Republican Party that cannot muster congressional majorities to cut the growth of Medicaid from 7.3 percent to 7 percent next year. That "cut'' was too draconian for some Republican "moderates.''
But, then, most Republicans are moderates as that term is used by persons for whom it is an encomium: Moderates are people amiably untroubled by Washington's single-minded devotion to rent-seeking -- to bending government for the advantage of private factions.
Conservatives have won seven of 10 presidential elections, yet government waxes, with per household federal spending more than $22,000 per year, the highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. Federal spending -- including a 100 percent increase in education spending since 2001 -- has grown twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton, 65 percent of it unrelated to national security.
In 1991, the 546 pork projects in the 13 appropriation bills cost $3.1 billion. In 2005, the 13,997 pork projects cost $27.3 billion for things like improving the National Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio (Packard, an automobile brand, died in 1958).
Washington subsidizes the cost of water to encourage farmers to produce surpluses that trigger a gusher of government spending to support prices. It is almost comforting that $2 billion is spent each year paying farmers not to produce. Farm subsidies, most of which go to agribusinesses and affluent farmers, are just part of the $60 billion in corporate welfare that dwarfs the $29 billion budget of the Department of Homeland Security.
Brian Riedl of The Heritage Foundation reports that Congress responded to the Korean War by setting priorities, cutting one-fourth of all nonwar spending in one year. Recently the House failed to approve an unusually ambitious effort to cut government growth. This is today's ambitiousness: attempting -- probably unsuccessfully -- to cut government growth by $54 billion over five years.
That is $10.8 billion a year from five budgets projected to total $12.5 trillion, of which $54 billion is four-tenths of 1 percent. War is hell but, on the home front, it is indistinguishable from peace, except that the government is more undisciplined than ever.
Lew Rockwell
Four Years Growth
by Laurence M. Vance
(excerpt)
The Republicans gained control of the Congress in the third year of Clinton’s first term. They had complete control of the 104th Congress (1995–1997), held on to control in the 105th Congress (1997–1999), and remained in power during the 106th Congress (1999–2001) through the end of Clinton’s presidency. After George Bush was inaugurated in 2001, he had a Republican-controlled 107th Congress (2001–2003) until May 24, 2001, when Jim Jeffords (R-VT) switched from Republican to Independent, changing the Senate from 50/50 to 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 1 Independent. The House remained in Republican hands. The 108th Congress (2003–2005) was once again solidly Republican, giving the Republicans an absolute majority in Congress and the White House for the last two years of Bush’s first term.
This means that the Republican Party has no excuse for the size and scope of the federal government as it exists right now. Republicans can’t blame anything on the Democrats like they did for the fifty years before they gained control of the Congress.
Now that we are at the end of Bush’s first four years, a simple question needs to be asked: Is the government at the end of Bush’s first term in any way smaller or less expensive than the government at the beginning of his first term. If it is, then Bush and the Republican Party told the truth, but if it isn’t, then Bush’s rhetoric was just hot air and the 2000 Republican Party Platform wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. (See also What a Republican Majority Has Not Meant.)
Milken Institute
How Republicans Became Defenders of Big Government
by Stephen Slivinski
(excerpt)
The Price of United Government
Why the big change under W? Because the Republicans own both the House and Senate. Divided government, with at least one house of Congress controlled by the President's opposition, tends to keep spending under control. As a onetime Reagan economic advisor William Niskanen noted, "The only two long periods of fiscal restraint [since World War II] were the Eisenhower administration and the Clinton administration, during both of which the opposition party controlled Congress."
Townhall
What next for conservatives
Nov 17, 2005
by George Will
(excerpt)
The conservative coalition, which is coming unglued for many reasons, will rapidly disintegrate if limited-government conservatives become convinced that social conservatives are unwilling to concentrate their character-building and soul-saving energies on the private institutions that mediate between individuals and government, and instead try to conscript government into sectarian crusades.
But, then, the limited-government impulse is a spent force in a Republican Party that cannot muster congressional majorities to cut the growth of Medicaid from 7.3 percent to 7 percent next year. That "cut'' was too draconian for some Republican "moderates.''
But, then, most Republicans are moderates as that term is used by persons for whom it is an encomium: Moderates are people amiably untroubled by Washington's single-minded devotion to rent-seeking -- to bending government for the advantage of private factions.
Conservatives have won seven of 10 presidential elections, yet government waxes, with per household federal spending more than $22,000 per year, the highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. Federal spending -- including a 100 percent increase in education spending since 2001 -- has grown twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton, 65 percent of it unrelated to national security.
In 1991, the 546 pork projects in the 13 appropriation bills cost $3.1 billion. In 2005, the 13,997 pork projects cost $27.3 billion for things like improving the National Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio (Packard, an automobile brand, died in 1958).
Washington subsidizes the cost of water to encourage farmers to produce surpluses that trigger a gusher of government spending to support prices. It is almost comforting that $2 billion is spent each year paying farmers not to produce. Farm subsidies, most of which go to agribusinesses and affluent farmers, are just part of the $60 billion in corporate welfare that dwarfs the $29 billion budget of the Department of Homeland Security.
Brian Riedl of The Heritage Foundation reports that Congress responded to the Korean War by setting priorities, cutting one-fourth of all nonwar spending in one year. Recently the House failed to approve an unusually ambitious effort to cut government growth. This is today's ambitiousness: attempting -- probably unsuccessfully -- to cut government growth by $54 billion over five years.
That is $10.8 billion a year from five budgets projected to total $12.5 trillion, of which $54 billion is four-tenths of 1 percent. War is hell but, on the home front, it is indistinguishable from peace, except that the government is more undisciplined than ever.
Lew Rockwell
Four Years Growth
by Laurence M. Vance
(excerpt)
The Republicans gained control of the Congress in the third year of Clinton’s first term. They had complete control of the 104th Congress (1995–1997), held on to control in the 105th Congress (1997–1999), and remained in power during the 106th Congress (1999–2001) through the end of Clinton’s presidency. After George Bush was inaugurated in 2001, he had a Republican-controlled 107th Congress (2001–2003) until May 24, 2001, when Jim Jeffords (R-VT) switched from Republican to Independent, changing the Senate from 50/50 to 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 1 Independent. The House remained in Republican hands. The 108th Congress (2003–2005) was once again solidly Republican, giving the Republicans an absolute majority in Congress and the White House for the last two years of Bush’s first term.
This means that the Republican Party has no excuse for the size and scope of the federal government as it exists right now. Republicans can’t blame anything on the Democrats like they did for the fifty years before they gained control of the Congress.
Now that we are at the end of Bush’s first four years, a simple question needs to be asked: Is the government at the end of Bush’s first term in any way smaller or less expensive than the government at the beginning of his first term. If it is, then Bush and the Republican Party told the truth, but if it isn’t, then Bush’s rhetoric was just hot air and the 2000 Republican Party Platform wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. (See also What a Republican Majority Has Not Meant.)
Milken Institute
How Republicans Became Defenders of Big Government
by Stephen Slivinski
(excerpt)
The Price of United Government
Why the big change under W? Because the Republicans own both the House and Senate. Divided government, with at least one house of Congress controlled by the President's opposition, tends to keep spending under control. As a onetime Reagan economic advisor William Niskanen noted, "The only two long periods of fiscal restraint [since World War II] were the Eisenhower administration and the Clinton administration, during both of which the opposition party controlled Congress."
Friday, May 19, 2006
'Decline of the Republican Party' Part 3
The American Enterprise
Unlimited Government
by Christopher DeMuth
(excerpt)
Government bloat 1980-2005
Well, what difference does all of this make? Why in the age of the Internet, globalization, and al-Qaeda should we attend fastidiously to a document written more than two centuries ago, in radically different circumstances, that itself contains many artful fudges and reflects many political compromises on issues that long ago lost their salience? Here are three reasons why we should be much more fastidious than we are.
First, the American political order is very old and very successful, and tolerable Constitutional adherence has already seen us through many epochs and crises. Have you heard the joke about the student who went to the reference librarian and asked for a copy of the French Constitution? “I’m sorry,” the librarian replied, “we don’t keep periodicals here.” Ours is the oldest written Constitution, and our nation, for all of its problems and shortcomings, has been an unprecedented success. For most of our 216 years, other countries have been places of continuous political upheaval and oppression, punctuated by periods of mass violence. Progress and stability are cardinal virtues where political systems are concerned; when you find yourself in possession of them, hold fast to your institutional inheritance.
Second, the principle of limited government is not a bit less urgent today than it was two centuries ago. It has now been 25 years since Ronald Reagan arrived in Washington announcing his intention to “check and reverse the growth of government.” That quarter century has been governed mainly by Republican Presidents, and increasingly by Republican legislatures, and even the one Democratic President declared that “the era of big government is over.” Yet the federal government’s annual domestic spending doubled during the period, from about $900 billion to about $1.8 trillion (in 2000 dollars). Today the federal government’s fiscal imbalance—the excess of projected future expenditures over projected future revenues—is close to $70 trillion. About $20 trillion of this enormous sum was tacked on just in 2003, with the addition of a massive, unfunded Medicare entitlement to prescription drug benefits. Increasing taxes to pay for our standing policy commitments would move U.S. rates to the levels prevailing in today’s socialist European nations.
In recent years, with the Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, domestic expenditures (even excluding post–9/11 “homeland security” spending) have been growing faster than during the previous two decades of divided government, and the incidence of pork-barrel projects has reached an all-time high. The 2001-2005 period marks the transformation of the Republican Party from its traditional role as a win-or-lose guardian of limited government to that of a majority governing party just as comfortable with big government as the Democrats, only with different spending priorities.
Perhaps the best illustration of this transformation is the Department of Education. Following the Department’s creation under President Jimmy Carter in 1980, Republican leaders routinely called for its abolition, and the 1996 GOP platform did so explicitly on Constitutional grounds. Then, in 2000, the party dropped its platform pledge. And by 2004 the Bush administration was campaigning for re-election boasting of a “huge, historic, gargantuan increase in federal education spending.” The claim was correct: the Department’s annual budget grew 83 percent after inflation during President Bush’s first term, by far the greatest rate of increase since its creation.
And the expenditure and debt figures offered here seriously understate the extent of recent government growth. That is because they ignore the burst of regulations whose costs are borne largely by the private sector. As with domestic spending, off-budget regulatory growth has been particularly pronounced in the recent years of unified Republican government. Examples include the institution of national “corporate governance” and accounting regulation under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, national school testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s issuance of a profusion of new rules throughout the financial services sector, the Department of Justice’s use of aggressive new legal theories to prosecute “economic crimes” and establish new forms of federal crime, and the national regulatory regimes established by state attorney general litigation described earlier. In 2005, political leaders of both parties proposed national price controls for gasoline, heating oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals. The bipartisan deregulation movement of the late 1970s and ’80s has been supplanted by new, equally bipartisan enthusiasm for regulation.
These developments have not come without resistance, but the nature and futility of that resistance is highly instructive. With the decline in Constitutional adherence, political leaders (mainly Republican) have been searching for several decades now for substitute, sub-Constitutional devices for curbing government growth. During President Reagan’s first term, I participated in lively White House debates where some promoted a “starve the beast” strategy of continuous tax reductions (reasoning that swelling government deficits would produce pressure for spending restraint), while others favored a “serve the check” strategy of matching taxes to current spending (on the theory that charging voters the full costs of government, rather than bucking some of them to our grandchildren through borrowing, would create a constituency for spending control). Reagan came down unhesitatingly for tax reductions, with auspicious political and economic results that made tax cutting the new mantra among all practicing Republicans.
In the Congress, Senator Phil Gramm devoted much of his public career to devising budget rules that would oblige his colleagues to make difficult spending choices they would rather avoid. More recently, House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s theme of an “opportunity society” and President George W. Bush’s theme of an “ownership society” have aimed to popularize the personal benefits of shifting insurance and subsidy programs from government administration to private institutions and markets. But these and other expedients have had little durable effect. It seems that, when accepted external constraints on government action are abandoned, there is no solution within the political system to the problem of government’s turning “every contingency into an excuse for enhancing power in itself.”
Unlimited Government
by Christopher DeMuth
(excerpt)
Government bloat 1980-2005
Well, what difference does all of this make? Why in the age of the Internet, globalization, and al-Qaeda should we attend fastidiously to a document written more than two centuries ago, in radically different circumstances, that itself contains many artful fudges and reflects many political compromises on issues that long ago lost their salience? Here are three reasons why we should be much more fastidious than we are.
First, the American political order is very old and very successful, and tolerable Constitutional adherence has already seen us through many epochs and crises. Have you heard the joke about the student who went to the reference librarian and asked for a copy of the French Constitution? “I’m sorry,” the librarian replied, “we don’t keep periodicals here.” Ours is the oldest written Constitution, and our nation, for all of its problems and shortcomings, has been an unprecedented success. For most of our 216 years, other countries have been places of continuous political upheaval and oppression, punctuated by periods of mass violence. Progress and stability are cardinal virtues where political systems are concerned; when you find yourself in possession of them, hold fast to your institutional inheritance.
Second, the principle of limited government is not a bit less urgent today than it was two centuries ago. It has now been 25 years since Ronald Reagan arrived in Washington announcing his intention to “check and reverse the growth of government.” That quarter century has been governed mainly by Republican Presidents, and increasingly by Republican legislatures, and even the one Democratic President declared that “the era of big government is over.” Yet the federal government’s annual domestic spending doubled during the period, from about $900 billion to about $1.8 trillion (in 2000 dollars). Today the federal government’s fiscal imbalance—the excess of projected future expenditures over projected future revenues—is close to $70 trillion. About $20 trillion of this enormous sum was tacked on just in 2003, with the addition of a massive, unfunded Medicare entitlement to prescription drug benefits. Increasing taxes to pay for our standing policy commitments would move U.S. rates to the levels prevailing in today’s socialist European nations.
In recent years, with the Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, domestic expenditures (even excluding post–9/11 “homeland security” spending) have been growing faster than during the previous two decades of divided government, and the incidence of pork-barrel projects has reached an all-time high. The 2001-2005 period marks the transformation of the Republican Party from its traditional role as a win-or-lose guardian of limited government to that of a majority governing party just as comfortable with big government as the Democrats, only with different spending priorities.
Perhaps the best illustration of this transformation is the Department of Education. Following the Department’s creation under President Jimmy Carter in 1980, Republican leaders routinely called for its abolition, and the 1996 GOP platform did so explicitly on Constitutional grounds. Then, in 2000, the party dropped its platform pledge. And by 2004 the Bush administration was campaigning for re-election boasting of a “huge, historic, gargantuan increase in federal education spending.” The claim was correct: the Department’s annual budget grew 83 percent after inflation during President Bush’s first term, by far the greatest rate of increase since its creation.
And the expenditure and debt figures offered here seriously understate the extent of recent government growth. That is because they ignore the burst of regulations whose costs are borne largely by the private sector. As with domestic spending, off-budget regulatory growth has been particularly pronounced in the recent years of unified Republican government. Examples include the institution of national “corporate governance” and accounting regulation under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, national school testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s issuance of a profusion of new rules throughout the financial services sector, the Department of Justice’s use of aggressive new legal theories to prosecute “economic crimes” and establish new forms of federal crime, and the national regulatory regimes established by state attorney general litigation described earlier. In 2005, political leaders of both parties proposed national price controls for gasoline, heating oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals. The bipartisan deregulation movement of the late 1970s and ’80s has been supplanted by new, equally bipartisan enthusiasm for regulation.
These developments have not come without resistance, but the nature and futility of that resistance is highly instructive. With the decline in Constitutional adherence, political leaders (mainly Republican) have been searching for several decades now for substitute, sub-Constitutional devices for curbing government growth. During President Reagan’s first term, I participated in lively White House debates where some promoted a “starve the beast” strategy of continuous tax reductions (reasoning that swelling government deficits would produce pressure for spending restraint), while others favored a “serve the check” strategy of matching taxes to current spending (on the theory that charging voters the full costs of government, rather than bucking some of them to our grandchildren through borrowing, would create a constituency for spending control). Reagan came down unhesitatingly for tax reductions, with auspicious political and economic results that made tax cutting the new mantra among all practicing Republicans.
In the Congress, Senator Phil Gramm devoted much of his public career to devising budget rules that would oblige his colleagues to make difficult spending choices they would rather avoid. More recently, House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s theme of an “opportunity society” and President George W. Bush’s theme of an “ownership society” have aimed to popularize the personal benefits of shifting insurance and subsidy programs from government administration to private institutions and markets. But these and other expedients have had little durable effect. It seems that, when accepted external constraints on government action are abandoned, there is no solution within the political system to the problem of government’s turning “every contingency into an excuse for enhancing power in itself.”
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