The Created Union

The gay marriage debate is stuck and has descended into a political war. I’ve not been attracted to this debate nor the idea of a civil union. A civil union brings up for me a lot of negativity – mainly that the union is nothing more than two people going to a dusty office in a court house and getting a legal document which creates two people into a legal unit. All the romance is reduced to that very unromantic legality. I suspect that the fight may at some level be about the lack of romantic parity that the two terms, marriage and civil union, conjure.

Thus it is easy to relegate the civil union to something of lesser value. And this is a problem. Even though two gays love each other deeply and want to spend the rest of their lives together, the idea of a civil union does not feel like that. It feels unimportant, like a distorted step-child next to marriage, the rich value-laden, full-of-life real thing.

Let’s get clear about one thing. Two adults as free individuals have the right to create a contract to live together and be seen and legally dealt with as a unit in a particular context. That is inherent in individual rights, the thing that the government is designed to protect. Neither one has a right to create such a contract unilaterally. Thus one person doesn’t have the right to create a slave of the other in any form. Therefore each has the right to legally nullify the union if it has evolved into a stuck state whereby the value of being in the union has gone out of it.

A marriage, traditionally conceived, is a union of two people which contains within it the possibility of creating a child. It holds a biological aspect different than two people of the same sex joined in a union. For this it needs to be acknowledged.

But at the same time, it is not just about that. History shows us marriages that are unable to fulfill their biological possibility or are really for other reasons. Perhaps the two people of the opposite sex are unable to conceive a child. Their marriage will be barren, as the term is used, unless they create a child in some extra-marital way. (By extra-marital I mean a means outside of one man, one woman having sex, conceiving a child that is carried to term and is born an individual human being all inside the marriage.) Their marriage, although it looks like a regular marriage, does not hold the possibility of a biological union.

Then there are marriages for financial purposes and professional purposes. For example, I think it would have been much smarter when Bill Clinton got himself into trouble over sex and Hillary played the hurt wife, had they told us that theirs is a “power marriage.” They were not in a union primarily for the purpose of having a child, even though they did.

Gays, even though decried by many, have long been a possibility for people. They do not see life in terms of the same categories that straight people do. Because of this, they have made many contributions in art and all other fields because they are able to open the human culture to other possibilities – other ways of seeing things. This is a good thing because even if a person does not ultimately choose to see the world through the opening that was created by them, they now can know more precisely what they do choose in a wider context and therefore a fuller meaning of their choice. Knowledge and the culture advances because of gays contribution.

I would like to offer a new name for all of these unions that are not grounded in biology: The Created Union.

This name offers all kinds of possibilities and all kinds of romance. It offers creating unions, both biological and non-biological, based on values. The first question that arises is “Why are you creating THIS union?” And that is something the two people of every union should know.

This reformulation would then place gays back in their valuable role of breaking down old ways of thinking and seeing the world in wider, more conscious and potentially more meaningful terms. Instead of relegating gays to the epistemological trash heap of the confused as to how sex really works or the moral trash heap of inverted values, they actually have here a possibility of offering the world something of value – a new way of looking at lifelong unions that can be a source of positive purpose producing growth and happiness.

I can see all people wanting a Created Union. It’s a possibility that is that attractive.

Thanksgiving and the Declaration of Independence

The Founding Fathers were deists, not Christians, in the conventional sense of that term. They believed that God created a person but that when he was born, his life was his responsibility and should be free to make it whatever he could.

On Thanksgiving eve, driving to the grocery, I listened to Herman Cain, a local talk show host on WSB radio.

In honor of Thanksgiving, he was going through the Declaration of Independence pointing out the clauses that have sourced this country to be great. The one that piqued my interest is highlighted. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Notice the word before creator: THEIR! It is not the word THE nor OUR. ONE'S CREATOR IS WHOEVER OR WHATEVER THE INDIVIDUAL PERSON CLAIMS IT TO BE!! This is indeed great and puts the lie to the idea that we were formed as a Christian nation. We are a nation formed to honor the rights, not the circumstances, of each individual human being.

Mr. Cain, for his part, didn't rise to the occasion regarding his explanation of UNALIENABLE RIGHTS. Unalienable means inseparable. These Rights are absolutely necessary in order to be fully human to the limit of that possibility and live in a society of human beings.

The Rights which are unalienable are those necessary for a man to function as man. If he were on a desert island, he would act using them although in that situation they wouldn't be distinguished. He would be pursuing the aims of his life in full freedom for his happiness. He cannot be a human being in the full meaning of that term without them.

Ultimately this boils down to MAN MUST BE FREE TO USE HIS FORM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, his rational mind. He must be free to use his means of survival, the attribute that distinguishes him from the other animals.

I thank Herman Cain for his emphasis on the word THEIR. I had never noticed this before and it increased my respect for the Founding Fathers' consistency in grounding this country in a new vision for mankind on this side of a line drawn in the sand - inside the borders of this country there shall be a new possibility for man. And to the extent we have been consistent with that vision, our people armed with this possibility and our union have fluorished.

But don't let it go.

There are forces at work to overthrow or move us away from this vision. Positive Rights, e.g., mean enslavement to not freedom from other men. More than ever, if you choose to live as man, I urge you to espouse, speak for, argue for and stand for these principles lest this vision pass from the possibility for man.

The Immorality of Fractional Reserve Banking

Here's a 40 minute lecture by Paul McKeever on fractional reserve banking and Ayn Rand's ethics of rational self-interest. Paul is especially good at explaining banking in everyday common sense terms.

When I call the fractional reserve banking practice immoral, I mean that the bank does not obtain your consent in order to use your money for its purposes. Thus in this way it sets up the boom/bust cycle since you, the original owner of the money, have no check on the bank if you see it doing something stupid with your money. (There may be other causes of the boom/bust cycle. I'm not an economist. But I bet that at root they are always caused by an immoral action, not a lack of nor inability to obtain knowledge.)

This is another example that the use of force, which is what is going on when the bank uses your money without your consent, nullifies responsibility. It nullifies the individual's responsibility, i.e., to look ahead at potential consequences and take appropriate action to either accept or reject those potential consequences, for the safekeeping of his money by the bank.

Reasoning for Human Freedom

I wrote this to a friend regarding some political issues. He brought up the issue of abortion so I spoke to that. Then I spoke to the issue of the economy and political freedom in general.
__________________________

The current politics and categories are so polluted with conflicting positions that it is impossible to even use the terms liberal and conservative and convey any meaning. Further, both parties are statist and therefore fascist in the philosophical meaning of that term. I hate those terms and wince whenever anyone applies them.

I've finally come down to this. "I'm for individual rights and that's it. You sort it out!"

Individual rights include the right of a woman to her body. The minute she gets pregnant, she isn't to be a slave to government's edicts the next 9 months - forced to gestate a fetus. She has to evaluate whether she wants or is able to raise a child or to provide for the child in some other way. Sometimes abortion is the appropriate choice.

The entire idea of life beginning at conception, the position of many conservatives, is a major injustice to women and their closest piece of property, their body, and it causes a big legal mess. Rights are something that apply to independent, living human beings. Ultimately they are grounded in the fact that a man has a particular kind of consciousness that requires freedom to think and choose. The creation of a right by the government on the part of a fetus now places the pregnant woman legally in conflict with her own body. Whose rights dominate? The woman or her fetus? How ridiculous is that?

The entire regulation of the economy is a sham too. All the economy is at root is a person responding to his circumstances in order to make a living and survive as a human being to the best of his ability. Some people find a job which someone else has created when he started a business. Other people start a business and perhaps create a job. Their existence depends on them continually responding to their circumstances. This is especially true for the business owner who has more at stake in that he has to keep his business going which, as a consequence, keeps his employees going.

The idea that a government can pass laws that will work to improve this process is ludicrous with a minute's thought, yet no one questions this. The individual must respond to his circumstances and the government says it has to be a certain way. For the individual, this just becomes another part of his circumstances and so he seeks a way to survive given that.

Since the government's regulations are for purposes other than any particular individual's survival, they never match because the government cannot operate at the level of looking at the situation on the ground, so to speak. Further they introduce the issue of force and this sets off another, very harmful factor.

Given that a human being has free will, he depends on his mind to determine the best course for his well-being, in the fullest possibility of the meaning of that term. He is constantly making plans and choosing among alternatives. Once force is introduced, he is no longer fully able to do that. His plans become distorted by the fact that he has to do a particular thing that the government forced upon him. Thus the choices available become different and they become limited and skewed from what they could have been had he been free. This is the consequence of compulsion.

(By the way, if the government is so all powerful and wise and our leader-in-waiting practically deified, why are they and he not taking responsibility for the effects of their actions? Ever think about that?)

Responsibility is only possible if a man is able to choose. What this means is that he has to deal with the consequences, the effects, of his choices. If he is forced to do something, then there is no question of right or wrong or of a good or bad choice. He is compelled to comply. (It is free will, by the way, that gives rise to morality, the science of right and wrong, good and bad. A moral code is a set of principles that guide a person in making sound choices for his life, a human life.)

Thus force deprives a man of responsibility in a particular area. In one respect, he is no longer human. A being without free will is not a human being.

(And this gives us an insight as to why our leaders are never really responsible for their choices. Force present anywhere in a society dehumanizes all who allow it. As Martin Luther King so aptly said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." It is actually more than just a threat. To the degree it is allowed, it becomes man's inhuman being.)

Thus we see an increasing amount of human life not being responsible - not being fully human, if you get my drift. The more force is involved in a society, it means that increasingly people are unable to be responsible because they are not able to evaluate alternatives and then choose what they consider is the best one given their situation. Thus we see, and will increasingly see, human beings acting more like the lower animals rather than human beings. They don't think because it is not a value in a force dominated society. Since it is less and less possible to be fully human, then why bother. Bring on the sex, drugs and rock & roll.

Thus, I am for the complete separation of church and state, health and state, education and state, architecture and state, economy and state, everything and state. The purpose of the state is to protect individual rights and the right of every human being to freely choose the course of his life and thus be responsible for the consequences of his choices.

So called "helping" people then is not the role of the government. It is the role of private individuals and their organizations who want to do that. In a free society, the standard of living rises increasingly quickly over time and is real since the dead weight of government is not present. Thus increasingly there are resources to help the poor and the least among us. But to use the government to force this result ultimately means that all of us become dependent on the government. At that point, we are all poor and the "least among us." In fact, we are not really human beings although we may look like and talk like human beings do.

It is one of the great ironies of human society that the more force is lived with in a society, the more the calls for benevolence, generosity, love for one's fellow man and all kinds of calls for taking care of each other.

The turning point for any man occurs when he accepts it. It isn't the enforcer that makes the essential difference. Evil has no ultimate power. It can exist only as long as his victim accepts his power. It is essentially parasitic. So long as a man fights against force with every fiber of his being, his spirit is still that possible to a human being. The minute he accepts it, he's done. He's a "dead man walking."

If that isn't radical, I don't know what is. Call me a radical for freedom. I stand for the possibility of all people realizing, to the fullest extent possible, what it is to be human.

Does this make sense to you?

Don’t Say Grace, Say Justice

An op-ed from The Objective Standard.

by Craig Biddle

The religious tradition of saying grace before meals becomes especially popular around the holidays, when we all are reminded of how fortunate we are to have an abundance of life-sustaining goods and services at our disposal. But there is a grave injustice involved in this tradition. It is the injustice of thanking an alleged God for the productive accomplishments of actual men.

Where do the ideas, principles, constitutions, governments, and laws that protect our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness come from? What is the source of the meals, medicines, homes, automobiles, and fighter jets that keep us alive and enable us to flourish? Who is responsible for our freedom, prosperity, and well-being?

Is freedom a gift from God? It is not. Freedom, the absence of physical coercion, is a political condition resulting from the rational, principled thought and action of men—men such as Aristotle, John Locke, the Founding Fathers, Frederick Douglass, and American soldiers.

Did God make the ambrosia that melts in your mouth, or the asthma medicine that keeps your child alive, or the plush recliner in which you relax, or the big-screen TV on which you watch your favorite show? Did God create the jetliners that bring friends and family from afar, or the stealth bombers that keep the barbarians at bay, or the music that warms your heart and fuels your soul?

Since God is responsible for none of the goods on which human life and happiness depend, why thank him for any such goods? More to the point: Why not thank those who actually are responsible for them? What would a just man do?

Justice is the virtue of judging people rationally—according to what they say, do, and produce—and treating them accordingly, granting to each man that which he deserves. If someone spends the day preparing a wonderful meal, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for doing so. If someone provides his family with a warm, safe, comfortable home, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for providing it. If a policeman or fireman or doctor saves someone’s life, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked. If a loving spouse or child or parent or friend provides you with great joy, justice demands that he, not God, be acknowledged accordingly. If a philosopher discovers the principles on which freedom depends—and if others put those principles into practice—justice demands that they, not God, be given credit.

To say grace is to give credit where none is due—and, worse, it is to withhold credit where it is due. To say grace is to commit an act of injustice.

Rational, productive people—whether philosophers, scientists, inventors, artists, businessmen, military strategists, friends, family, or yourself—are who deserve to be thanked for the goods on which your life, liberty, and happiness depend. This holiday season—and from now on—don’t say grace; say justice. Thank or acknowledge the people who actually provide the goods. Some of them may be sitting right there at the table with you. And if you find yourself at a table where people insist on saying grace, politely insist on saying justice when they’re through. It’s the right thing to do.

The Answer to Marxism

With Obama saying "I want to grow the economy from the bottom up" and "I want to increase taxes in order to spread the wealth around" he is advocating and says he intends to carry out the Marxist principle, namely the Labor Theory of Value. (See Karl Marx's book: Das Kapital.) It is crucial for all of us - especially those at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder - that this be answered.

Thanks to Ayn Rand, it has already been answered. I quote her from Atlas Shrugged delivered by the character, John Galt, who stopped the motor of the world.

"Look beyond the range of the moment, you who cry that you fear to compete with men of superior intelligence, that their mind is a threat to your livelihood, that the strong leave no chance to the weak in a market of voluntary trade. What determines the material value of your work? Nothing but the productive effort of your mind - if you lived on a desert island. The less efficient the thinking of your brain, the less your physical labor would bring you - and you could spend your life on a single routine, collecting a precarious harvest or hunting with bow and arrows, unable to think any further. But when you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.

"When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom you spend your time denouncing.

"The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time. If you worked as a blacksmith in the mystics' Middle Ages, the whole of your earning capacity would consist of an iron bar produced by your hands in days and days of effort. How many tons of rail do you produce per day if you work for Hank Rearden? (Hank Rearden was the premier steel producer in novel.)

"Every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but it's only the degree to which he thinks that determines the degree to which he'll rise. Physical labor as such can extend no further than the range of the moment. The man who does no more than physical labor, consumes the material value-equivalent of his own contribution to the process of production, and leaves no further value, neither for himself nor others. But the man who produces an idea in any field of rational endeavor - the man who discovers new knowledge - is the permanent benefactor of humanity. Material products can't be shared, they belong to some ultimate consumer; it is only the value of an idea that can be shared with unlimited numbers of men, making all sharers richer at no one's sacrifice or loss, raising the productive capacity of whatever labor they perform. It is the value of his own time that the strong of the intellect transfers to the weak, letting them work on the jobs he discovered, while devoting his time to further discoveries. This is mutual trade to mutual advantage; the interests of the mind are one, no matter what the degree of intelligence, among men who desire to work and don't seek or expect the unearned.

"In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns. But the man who works as a janitor in the factory producing that invention, receives an enormous payment in proportion to the mental effort that his job requires of him. And the same is true of all men between, on all levels of ambition and ability. The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus all of all their brains. Such is the nature of the 'competition' between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of 'exploitation' for which you have damned the strong.

"Such was the service we had given you and were glad and willing to give. What did we ask in return? Nothing but freedom. We required that you leave us free to function - free to think and to work as we choose - free to take our own risks and to bear our own losses - free to earn our own profits and to make our own fortunes - free to gamble on your rationality, to submit our products to your judgment for the purpose of a voluntary trade, to rely on the objective value of our work and on your mind's ability to see it - free to count on your intelligence and honesty, and to deal with nothing but your mind. Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high. You decided to call it unfair that we, who had dragged you out of your hovels and provided you with modern apartments, with radios, movies and cars, should own our palaces and yachts - you decided that you had a right to your wages, but we had no right to our profits, that you did not want us to deal with your mind, but to deal, instead, with your gun. Our answer to that, was: 'May you be damned!' Our answer came true. You are."

She also penned an answer to socialism, Marx's dream society based on his Labor Theory of Value and view of political economy. (See Marx & Engels' The Communist Manifesto. This is based on the pernicious idea that history is fundamentally the struggle of economic classes against each other and that the good society would get rid of all the means of one man getting ahead of another. Capitalism, on the other hand, demonstrates that there is no actual class struggle because each man participates in society at the level he chooses. Thus we have numerous stories about people who rose from the lowest of circumstances to the upper reaches of society and those at the top descending to the bottom.)

You can read her answer here. A former employee of the now ruined Twentieth Century Motor Company tells what the community became organized according to Marx's vision.

Regulation Means Totalitarianism

I was so disgusted with Alan Greenspan when he testified before the House Oversight Committee. I had always held the hope that he was a free market man and that he would do the right thing in order to protect markets. I hadn't paid enough attention to him and what he had been saying all along.

Alas I was wrong.

What was Greenspan's fatal flaw?

I went back to the article he wrote in 1962, "Assault on Integrity" which appeared in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, published by The New American Library in 1966.

"Since the market value of a going business is measured by its money-making potential, reputation or "good will" is as much an asset as its physical plant and equipment. The loss of reputation through the sale of a shoddy or dangerous product would sharply reduce the market value of the company, though its physical resources would remain intact.

"Reputation, in an unregulated economy, is thus a major competitive tool.... It requires years of consistently excellent performance to acquire a reputation and to establish it as a financial asset. Thereafter, a still greater effort is required to maintain it: a company cannot afford to risk its years of investment by letting down its standards of quality for one moment or one inferior product; nor would it be tempted by any potential 'quick killing.'

"Government regulation is not an alternative means of protecting the consumer. It does not build quality into goods, or accuracy into information. Its sole 'contribution' is to substitute force and fear for incentive as the 'protector' of the consumer. At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun. What are the results?

"To paraphrase Gresham's Law: bad 'protection' drives out good. The attempt to protect the consumer by force undercuts the protection he gets from incentive. First, it undercuts the value of reputation by placing the reputable company on the same basis as the unknown, the newcomer, or the fly-by-nighter.

"The government's 'guarantee' undermines this necessity; it declares to the consumers, in effect, that no choice or judgment is required - and that a company's record, its years of achievement, is irrelevant.

"Regulation - which is based on force and fear - undermines the moral base of business dealings."

So, Greenspan understood that government intervention into markets takes away the businessman's concern for his level of quality in every respect that he is responsible for in a completely free market.

Thus, if Greenspan knew that the businessman didn't have to worry about quality in the same way, what was he to do? He had but one choice. Force the businessman to provide whatever quality he identified as missing.

But this would then change the businessman again as force always removes responsibility. The necessary end result would have to be totalitarianism - total economic planning and regulation - in short, total enslavement of the businessman.

Greenspan's fatal flaw was that he did not go into his position as regulator of finance as a totalitarian from the outset.

Thus we witnessed the spectacle of a tiny little coward. A coward, no matter what he has done to cause a businessman to act without the same responsibility that he would in a free market, would always blame the businessman as greedy. And that's what he did.

Ayn Rand's nickname for Alan Greenspan when he was a part of her circle of intellectuals was The Undertaker. So apt.

Cartoon by John Cox. Here.

Capitalism Without Guilt

Yaron Brook, Director of the Ayn Rand Institute located in Irvine, California gave a speech last week at the National Press Club to kick off the opening of ARI's new office in Washington D.C.: The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He makes perfectly clear the moral battle that must be won if political freedom, i.e., capitalism, is to survive.

With the battle lines clear, this becomes the battle - for spiritual and material values in living one's life on earth - we all must fight provided, of course, you choose to take it up. This battle is the one that has been going on for 2000 years with each side having its historical periods of dominance.

It is now reaching its climax.

Intellectually, the battle lines at the underlying moral level were drawn 51 years ago when Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. The stakes? Reason, political freedom and the thriving of billions of human beings around the globe or irrationality (meaning ignorance and superstition), political tyranny and impoverishment of billions around the globe.

Go here to listen to the speech. The introduction is OK, a little faulting. Brook is excellent.

Freedom is Dead, Long Live Freedom

After waiting in line for almost 3 hours and having the experience of voting in a third world country (There were people who couldn't read and people helped them vote - not a trained election volunteer, mind you - just a friend who was reading and explaining the ballot and maybe making sure that they voted the right way), I had the sudden picture of what would happen if McCain won. Just as the mortgage boondoggle has been blamed on the Republicans, everything that was going wrong would be blamed on McCain. Without any consistent position to defend nor the personality for consistency, McCain would certainly have done even more muddling damage to the cause of freedom. I did vote, but it was all I could do to keep from running from the room.

Obama has worked to place himself at the center and not be too radical, which is his past. Now that he has been elected, the jubilation wears off and things get serious, where do you think he will go when he gets serious? I don't see that it can be anywhere but to those socialist/Marxist community organizing ideas which have been his love for over 20, almost 30, years. Those things which he believes in are not going to suddenly disappear. This is and remains my concern about Obama.

My hope is that he be consistent and clearly advocates his non-freedom ideas. This will give new life and new meaning in today's terms to the eternal truths of individual rights and political freedom. As his ideas are seen for what they really are, a new opening for freedom becomes possible. The public voices who love freedom, understand the ideas of freedom and can present them effectively will be able, against the background of an Obama presidency, show the difference. I fully expect the opportunity to be there before long - within the first 100 days.

Who those public voices are, I don't know. The times will call them forth. They will be heard unless free speech is removed as a right of individuals.

Freedom is dead; long live freedom.

Is America Ready to Roll Over?

Is it true that we are ready to roll over?

Are Americans ready to give up the ideal of working, accumulating a nest egg, investing it and have it turn into something really great for their future?

Are Americans ready to invest their future as a country in a man who they feel will talk to our enemies and hopefully find some bridge between A and non-A? Right and wrong? Good and bad – according to OUR standards?

This is the basic question that is before us, as I see it. It is a moral question.

We are presented with two candidates neither of which are good candidates. McCain is a pragmatist (what works today may not work tomorrow so let's be flexible) that is all over the place, crossing the aisle when he shouldn’t and harnessing Americans where he has no right. Where in the First Amendment, the Right to Free Speech, is there any right given to the government to FORCE people to shut up when it comes to advocating for their political favorites? (McCain-Feingold) Or where in the Constitution does it say that the government has the right to force a man to use a different fuel if the one he is using makes more sense? And for no good, harmful-to-man reason? I’m talking about McCain’s advocacy of the Cap and Trade bill to destroy America’s industrial power and hence, the achievement of its standard of living. Remember, there is no proof and facts are being discovered that industry has no essential effect on the earth’s climate.

I’ve often wondered why the Library of Congress which Thomas Jefferson advocated for the need of a solid intellectual framework in the building of a new nation isn’t moved to some city where they might actually use it? If there is one word that applies to the Congress and the Presidency in our age, it is IDIOCY: Zero learning, zero thinking.

Obama is not a pragmatist in the fundamental sense that McCain is. He is a radical socialist: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” He openly advocates spreading the wealth around. It would be one thing if he were a private citizen enrolling people into being more charitable. But he isn’t. He is going to be Top Gun and he’s going to use it.

All government depends, at the bottom of all the rhetoric, on the gun. The only question is ON WHOM they use it. The Constitution is designed to limit government so it doesn’t turn its gun on innocent citizens. We have over a 100 year history of the government misusing its gun. But now, at this time, using the government to violate its own citizens is openly advocated.

This brings me to Obama.

Not only does Obama want to harness “Joe the Plumber,” - everyman USA - but he wants to use what he steals from him to give to those who set in front of the TV set, munch potato chips and expect “Joe” to pay their mortgage. (I use set as in "placing an object.") What does Obama think is going to happen when “Joe” and the millions upon millions of “Joes” say SCREW YOU!

“I guess I will go have some potato chips. Oh, and send me my favorite movie.”

What about Obama’s total lack of principle in standing for the country? You notice he has never mentioned that he would fight for our country or even stand for it in a contest where we or our important freedom allies are threatened. If the recent Georgia incident is any measure, the best he can offer is, “I think everyone should calm down.” In fact he wants to give the store away. He offered a bill in Congress to give Africa almost a trillion dollars in aid over the next ten years. And we know where that goes: Certainly not to any of the real “people on the ground.” Rather, into the hands of tyrants so they can send it to Switzerland.

Obama says our Constitution is fatally flawed. (Listen to the audio clip in my previous blogpost.) Instead of harnessing the government, telling it what it cannot do to the citizens, leaving them free to live their lives, which is their precious Right, he wants to unleash the government to do ANYTHING IT WANTS to the citizens so that the guy who isn’t doing so well can get a start. Talk about something that just “ain’t” right!

And if you think Obama is a good guy, you are woefully mistaken. He was mentored by a communist in his teenage years; sought out the Marxist professors who, by ideology, feed on the envy of class warfare (He says this in his book); has a long term relationship (which most likely began when he was at Columbia University) with Bill Ayers and has participated with him in several projects for the purpose of instituting his anti-capitalist ideas; sat in a church for twenty years listening to a rabidly racist preacher who says America is the most evil country on earth, Reverend Wright, who he said is one of the best men leading one of the best that the African-American church has to offer; who worked with ACORN in Project Vote, defended them in a lawsuit and hasn’t said a word to put a stop to their rampant fraud in voter registration; and on top of all of this, he lies, lies, lies! He will say anything if he thinks it may not fly with his audience du jour. (And if you say “that’s politics,” you are one cynical bastard.)

This man is as immoral as a man can get. He's raised hustling to a high art.

And you think he’s cute? Or you think that because he is half black, this kind of mistake will be good for the black community? It will open America to the black man like nothing heretofore has? Maybe not. Obama may close that door for another hundred years.

Is this what America is ready to do: Rollover? Is it ready to consciously negate the principles on which the country is founded and which have given rise to the most positive, creative, entrepreneurial, wealthiest society in the history of man? Even a homeless man in America can find a meal. Not so in many countries where people live in whole neighborhoods of shacks made of leaky cardboard and tin, and open theft is a way of life. This is the ultimate end of Obama’s ideal.

Given this choice, I’m voting for an old man that ideologically stumbles around over a man whose purpose, either in big steps or baby steps, is to transform this country into a banana republic where the gun is on the table in every meeting. Contrary to Obama, I believe McCain loves America and will defend her.