Where Are We This Fall in America?

I think the thing America has yet to get is that we have been taken over and are being directed by an enemy within comprised largely of “non-American” beings who see her as nothing except to dominate and loot. The philosophy of the rest of the world, and some Americans even, is dominate or be dominated. America has been the beacon of the trader principle - that we can each pursue our own ends and in the process of trading, be bound together into a whole where we can find or create what we need to live our lives.

When I say "non-Americans," who I'm thinking of are people who may be citizens but who do not identify themselves as individuals, i.e., the American principle, in their soul. I’ve run into immigrants who do not get the soul of Americans. (On the other hand, I’ve run into many who know perfectly well who America is and her soul, her organizing principle, is theirs.)

In particular I am thinking of Obama and Soros as two prominent non-Americans, two men who ruthlessly feast on domination as their life blood. A free trader limits his domination to peaceful competition focusing on his own perfection and thereby keeping open the avenues for further trade. A "dominator,” as the determinant of his soul, is a killer. He stalks and drains the blood of his enemies. The best at his craft are dressed in sheep's clothing appearing to carry out his enemy’s own moral principles; stealth in plain sight.

(Notice how Obama invokes America's Declaration of Independence or the Bible whenever he needs to keep us in check and people don't believe him. He doesn’t show us these ideals are HIS ideals. In other words, he's a fraud. Same with Soros and his humanitarianism. Soros funds “humanitarian” organizations except they all are directed to undermining America’s pro-human-life ideals, not humanitarian as I see it.)

This leaves us either to check our premises and determine whether our moral ideals are correct (something not many people are willing to do) or fight for a moral principle which ensures our demise. As a country, we find ourselves stretched on the horns of this dilemma. Do I (and America) pursue a rational, self-interested course where I have the right to my life and my happiness, or do I (and she) think that making sure my neighbor is fed is more important? Do I (and America) think that moral ideals must, by necessity, be voluntary or can they be forced upon me (us)? (Remember Obama does his work with the gun. He isn't even pretending to carry out the people's will. He's doing that which is GOOD for us - against our will – hence his insufferable moralizing and arbitrary dictates.) Does America let our tall poppies rise and point the way or does she cut them off to make sure they are all even, Chinese Olympics style?

America is in crisis - at a tipping point. We know this. I say we FIRST get clear WHAT (as opposed to who) the enemy is. NEXT, WHO is enacting the enemy's program? Move them out of here. (I think exile may be the best expression: “We erred; these ideas don’t work for this country.”) This election will tell the story. It, however, may not be revealed by the election results. The people's values cannot be perfectly translated into political representatives. But the real story will be in there somewhere.

The ultimate leaders are those who get us clear which ideas are the enemy (actually human life’s enemy) and which ideas provide our values (those which provide for human life given that human beings exist as individuals). Then they show us who is working for the enemy and who is working for our values. We can do the rest.

The Forgotten Man

I Love the Rich.

I love the RICH* and of all the classes of people who ought to be preferred with tax policy, it is the rich.

Why? First of all, it is their money and so long as they earned it by not resorting to force or fraud of another human being, they deserve every penny they earned.**

Second of all, they invest their money in the economy and this is our most valuable resource for creating jobs. My work comes from people who are creators of business. None of it comes from those who are simply workers for businesses.

Obama and the Democrat's position that the RICH should be punished for their success is a neanderthal attitude that wealth is limited and ill-gotten, and thus its existence is somehow unjust. In some people's minds, the workers are the ones who are the just recipients of wealth. They are the ones who exerted the physical labor and thus really earned it and deserve it.

Man does not survive simply by physical labor. Without thinking, he's as good as dead. It's the mind and the mental work that makes all the difference. Those, such as this Administration and the labor unions, who seek to rob those who use their minds to give what they earned to those who only use their bodies commit a massive injustice.

The headlines tell us poverty is up. The one thing certain to happen and continue under these ideas and values is that poverty will increase. This Administration and Congress has willfully been killing the creative fountainhead of successful living at every point possible. Instead they reward needy consumers who are net drains on the resources required for all of our successes to occur.

It is difficult to listen to such incredible stupidity. But stupidity it is, and it is motivated by one thing: An appeal to envy. Envy is the hatred of the good for no reason except that it is the good. Our "vaunted" leaders think all the dumb gun-clingers are motivated by envy. They are mistaken. They aren't that dumb.

So under the Obama Administration anyone with talent, wealth, intelligence, success of any kind is hereby forewarned that they may become subject to Obama's axe to the good. Envy chops off every tall poppy. It cannot stand excellence in any form.

Envy thrives on pity, suffering, and guilt. Does anyone believe that Michelle Obama's campaign against obesity will make a measurable difference? Hell no. Anyone cued into how modern politics operates already knows that the value of that campaign is the guilt it instills in people. Michelle gets to be Mother Superior and we get to be guilty Doughboys.

It's this incessant trotting out of sob stories and the whole quality of this Administration that is so disturbing and toxic. It really is anti-life - or at least anti any life worth living.

If you are interested in a life worth living, check out The Order of The Heldhigh Torch, a moral community committed to having its members' lives thriving and happy. We have nothing against the rich.

*Wealth in and of itself does not indicate whether a man earned it by moral or immoral means. One thing for sure, a white-washing of the rich is inappropriate and many rich people are legitimately wealthy people. Those that aren't are people that gained their wealth because they or their business is protected in some way by the government, or they were dishonest and predatory. All those that depend on free trade of value for value earned their wealth properly and should be lauded and rewarded for their enormous ability and talent.

**See Comment 1 below.

How to Advance Liberty

This is the very best lecture I've seen on how to advance liberty. Leonard Read shaped his life for discovering how people learn about liberty and to becoming a person who lives to advance it. This is moving, inspiring, eye-opening.

Will The People Call America to Account?

This fall's election will tell the tale for America. Will the people call our politicians to account and restore integrity with America's purpose or not?

I THINK THEY WILL to the degree they can at this point in time.

And what will be the verdict?

We will assert some form of our love of freedom, clear that we are not willing to give it up. It may have ennobled moments; it may be mangled in places, but it will be this assertion none the less. Perhaps sweeping aside the things that don't work will be our biggest achievement as we buy time to get our heads together - collect our thoughts and arguments so we can be strong for our liberty once again.

So what will be swept aside?

The Democratic Party as we know it will be dead for at least a generation.

People, myself included, and others I talk to, will never again in their lives vote Democrat. It is one thing to have a President and Congress that do the wrong things and even bad things. It is another to foist upon the American people a President who hates America and does not have her in his heart. This betrayal cannot live in the hearts of the Americans I know. As a consequence, Hillary may as well go play her flute to the moon. She's finished. All of them are.

The Democrats will either be a Far Left party (America's version of a Communist or Socialist Party) and get few votes because people are clear they don't want you. Or it will send the Far Left packing into some splinter group.

Government planning of the economy, which by the way, has not been even the pretense of the Democrat's actions, has failed. The Democrats have looted the economy, another name for redistribution. They could care less whether it works. Even Castro, much to the chagrin of Michael Moore, I'm sure, said this week that central planning and socialism have not worked for Cuba.

People who stay in the know have known that socialism in any form is a failure ultimately and finally since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the installation of some freedom in Communist China. The consequences in Greece have now collapsed any pretense that the Welfare State is the proper mixture of freedom and slavery. The truth is now in: Government fingers in the economy are toxic. Period.

Other things being realized are:

1) GOVERNMENT REGULATION is another form of SLAVERY. You can't have some person whose only purpose is to boss you around directing your life and you remain a human being in the full sense of the word. It kills creativity doornail dead.

2) Elitism and double-standard morality (the entitlement attitude) do not work. They are a throw-back to the "Us vs. Them" mentality, the zero-sum game of the pre-Enlightenment days. The just man, the man who wants equality under the law, despises those premises. Free trade, voluntary trade, works - and rocks.

3) Racism as a tactic of intimidation is over. It's been worn out. Not every objection is because a person is racist. If someone calls a person a racist, its about to become laughable and it is almost there. Collectivism is ignorant and passe. Only elitists think that way. People are individuals and we know that.

4) Thug politics, politics by manipulation, is out. Obama is going to be the last of the basically ignorant, smooth-talking con men (liars) for power for awhile. Being real, true and honest is IN and what people are looking for. This is an individual quality. No political Party, City, University, race or ethnic group has a claim on this quality. It has to be earned. In the meantime, avoid Chicago unless you like being a second class citizen manipulated by thugs.

5) Post-modernism as the mother-lode of ideas is out. It's dead. In fact all the philosophies descended from Kant will be re-looked at and discarded or recast in terms of the objective. Combine this with anti-elitism and Harvard will have to struggle to regain its former repute or become an outpost for antiquated PC dictates which serve arthritic elitists. We need people who know. But they have to earn their status. There is no elite group who by right gets to direct things. A PhD may open a door. It doesn't grant you staying power.

6) The sycophant press is finished. People will find the reporters they trust on the internet. The press is the major reason America blundered into this mess. The press didn't do its job and they will now be punished. Justice is like that. It's cosmic and not personal although it seems to know exactly who deserves what.

Whatever happens, the direction is not back to some conservatism which itself struggles with arthritic joints. It's ahead to the Second American Revolution - the one that puts America on a moral base consistent with the vision of the Founders of this country. That moral base is ethical egoism - rational self-interest - the only moral code that is discovered by science and works for the happiness that is yours for the earning, and builds a sane society, a joy to be part of.

A Guest Editorial for September 11

In Defense of Western Civilization
Opinion Editorial by Marsha Enright & Gen LaGreca - Sep 10, 2010

As September 11th approaches, it is a fitting time to consider the true nature of the societies that collided that day in 2001. We must assert the moral superiority of Western civilization, or lose it entirely.

As September 11th approaches, Americans remember the morning in 2001 when the World Trade Center turned to rubble. It is a fitting time to consider the nature of the civilizations that collided that day — and how to defend ours.

In their quest to establish a worldwide caliphate, radical Islamists invoke morality, claiming they have God’s sanction for performing their barbarous acts.

To defend Western civilization, we, also, need to invoke morality. But although the world envies the wealth we’ve achieved, it is widely seen as the product of soulless materialism, of unbridled “greed,” of unscrupulous self-indulgence.

What moral claim, then, can we make for our way of life?

To understand the moral values of the West, let’s turn to its beginning. In her prescient 1943 work of political philosophy, The God of the Machine, Isabel Paterson chose as the symbol of Western man a figure from Ancient Greece: Pytheas. This enterprising merchant left his homeland to explore Britain and beyond, seeking tin to make bronze. Insatiably curious, Pytheas also discovered the relationship between the moon’s phases and the tides, and was the first to describe the aurora and other phenomena.

Pytheas epitomizes the Western spirit: a self-directed man whose free will determines his life’s course, a thinker who employs reason and science to understand the world around him, and a producer who seeks to sell goods in peaceful trade.

From its founding, America was intended to be the country where Pytheas could flourish — the first nation established to protect the life, liberty, and property of the individual. It did so by curbing government power over the peaceful activities of its citizens.

In this, the contrast between America and radical Islam could not be greater.

Whereas Thomas Jefferson exhorts us to “Question with boldness even the existence of a God,” militant Islam kills people for apostasy.

Whereas James Madison proclaims a man has “a right to his property” and equally “a property in [all of] his rights,” Palestinian Islamists strap suicide belts on five year-olds, seizing their young lives to fight ancient vendettas.

Whereas the Declaration of Independence affirms America’s devotion to life, Osama bin Laden declares: "We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the difference between us two."

“The excellence of the West” lies in its “respect for the human being, the recognition of his individuality, the liberty it has granted him,” observes Saudi Shura Council member and Muslim reformist Ibrahim Al-Buleihi.

“Humans are originally individuals,” he continues, “but cultures (including Arab culture) have dissolved the individual in the tribe, sect, or state.” It is only “with the diffusion of philosophical ideas from [Ancient] Greece” that “the human being became an individual of value for himself . . . and not merely a means for others.” (Profile of Al-Buleihi, The Aafaq Foundation, July 6, 2010)

Thus, in our civilization, a person is born free to live for his own sake and to pursue happiness. In radical Islam, a person must obey a central authority and sacrifice his life to its aims. Which society is better?

Granted the West’s superiority, why is radical Islam advancing? Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim, cites “an active propaganda campaign” in which “the Saudis invested at least $2 billion a year over a 30-year period to spread their brand of fundamentalist Islam.” (Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2010)

Why aren’t we passionately defending our civilization? Certainly, money isn’t the obstacle. Is it because we don’t understand the nobility of our individualist foundation, including the virtue of private advancement and profit?

We must never forget that we carry the legacy of Pytheas: a people of free will, free minds, and free enterprise. Our spectacular prosperity is not our dishonor, but the glory of our liberty.

It is said that Ground Zero is “sacred ground.” In truth, all of America is sacred ground — because the individual is sacred here.

We must assert the moral superiority of our civilization — or lose it to our enemies.


Marsha Familaro Enright is president of the Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute, the Foundation for the College of the United States. Gen LaGreca is author of Noble Vision, an award-winning novel about the struggle for liberty in health care today.

The Deadly Hand of Our Politics

Going to an Alpha Chi Alpha sorority’s event at Atlanta University last night to have people running for political office tell us who they are and what they stand for, I was struck by one thing. Everyone except one was screaming UNCLE at today’s problems. To the man, they gave us a sob story. They started by telling us how they had failed at government education. Our children are less educated than they need to be and if we don’t do something about it, businesses won’t want to come to Georgia to establish their business. We are just "gonna" be too dumb down here.

Then they told us that because of the lack of funds, police departments are being cut. Criminals are running loose to the point where our communities are no longer viable places to live. We are just too cheap down here.

Then we learn (and all know) that Georgia is suffering massively from the loss of jobs and that people simply are unable to make a living here. By this time we were all sobbing uncontrollably.

And how do we fix this? More money. Georgia’s governments have to find more money. The politicians who were there and have been in office told us that they’ve been trying to find more money but it is hard to come by. It just isn’t available.

Oh my, oh my, what are we to do?

One told us that Georgia has a lot of pine trees and that the way out of this is green jobs – jobs which will convert those renewable pine trees to useful matter. Another told us that we need the light rail system, that the absence of that is preventing Georgia from attracting businesses and jobs. One told us we have to find more money to take care of children who find themselves in dire circumstances – from crime, from broken homes, from death of a parent or guardian. (I wasn’t clear how this was going to solve our problems, but someone apparently thinks it does.) The solutions came rolling out. Everyone was very sincere. Don’t tell me I saw yawning and heard snoring!

Am I the only one clear that we are talking about a major institution – Georgia government – that is broke and begging for money? Are we so blinded by this all-encompassing institution that we are willing to let it force us to eat the foods it wants, buy health insurance we don’t need, pay it some money before I can cut your fingernails, force us to send our neighbors’ kids to school, force us to pay for people who don’t work. Force, force, force and more force. So what is the answer to human life, the thing that makes it all work? Force?

Do you thrive when you are forced to do something? Are you filled with the thrill of living if someone is forcing you? Does it occur to anyone that it might just be force itself that is the problem?

Force is something that must be used judiciously with human beings. Given their particular consciousness, they don’t do well if they don’t get emotionally committed to their own projects. Thriving is certainly out of the question. If they succumb to allowing themselves to be bossed around (known as regulated), they become the walking dead, life reduced to the lowest level.


When I say judiciously, I mean that one can never initiate it against another human being and can only use it to stop another’s initiating it against you or another person. In other words, when government uses force to stop the initiation of force, it is our friend. When it initiates force, it is our enemy. And, today, government is initiating force against us in every aspect of our lives.

Humans do not do well when we accept and put up with being forced by the government. We find ourselves either sapped of our energy or left with the angry coals of allowing ourselves be treated less than who we are. The evidence for this is all around the globe.

So this places us in the presence of a principle which can make a difference for us. The government should only use force to control, i.e., retaliate against, the initiation of force by a citizen, a group of citizens or an outside invader. When we abandon the initiation of force, life thrives and prospers. When we indulge it, it shrivels and dies.

The one candidate who came up with something different, to his credit, was Dan Barber, businessman, co-founder of The Order of the Heldhigh Torch, and now candidate for Lieutenant Governor on the Libertarian Ticket. “Because we are operating under an incorrect conception of the role of government, we are destroying ourselves.” Rather than the government paying for everything and running everything and having to take all of this money out of whatever the citizens may have, what if the government backed away from providing anything except justice – except stopping initiated force.

What then would our world look like? Given that we have provided so much with the government heavy on our back, what would be possible if it weren’t?

This, I’m sure, is just the start of many questions. But at least they are the good questions – the right questions. Let’s start asking these questions. What would be possible with freedom?

Taxes Should Be Cut - But Not for the Wealthy!

And what, Mr. President, did we, the people, get from this pronouncement?

Speaking for no one but myself, I got that it doesn't pay to succeed - to be wealthy. I got that you seek to punish the wealthy even though they are in a position to be the most helpful for the economy to recover and thrive.

I got that if a person creates jobs - which the wealthy with money to invest do - he will be punished. Only those who do not generally create jobs should be rewarded with tax cuts.

Now, tell me, Mr. Obama, what is wrong with this picture? If you say "nothing," then what ARE you up to?

Ground Zero Mosque - the Final Answer

My Final Answer, the one to end this discussion, regarding the fate of the Ground Zero mosque:

"The United States Government re-declares its purpose to protect the individual rights of the people of the United States of America. There shall be no competition with this purpose inside the borders of this country. Sharia Law, which arrogates unto itself the right to determine the life, death and punishments of people living inside the borders of the United States is illegal.

"The Mosque at Ground Zero then, if it wants a home in the United States, shall align itself with the purpose of this government and protect, not violate the rights of the citizens of the United States in accordance with our laws. Failure to do so will result in its immediate shut down and the prosecution of all parties who commit crimes."

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Including blocking the streets!

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And this every Friday in New York City no less!


Islam is not a good neighbor. None of this by some outside religion would be possible in the countries where they dominate. They use the peaceful methods of Ghandi and MLK in service of jihad just as they use women and babies as shields in battle. When the West can overcome its horror at their methods, their power will be snapped like a twig.