Walter Williams explains a Right.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Top 10 Violations of the Constitution by Obama and the 111th Congress
By Paul Skousen
Published Here: 6:14 PM 12/27/2010 | Updated: 6:41 PM 12/29/2010
At the close of the 111th Congress, America is deeply in the bog of Thomas Jefferson’s prophetic warning: “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” Unfortunately, the broken chains of the Constitution have failed to contain the federal government.
By way of review, let’s take a stroll through the junkyard of constitutional violations that have been painted fresh by President Obama and the 111th Congress. Here’s my top-ten list, highly abbreviated for length.
#10. — 9/11 Responders Relief Fund: We love and honor those who put themselves in harm’s way for our security. However, giving the 9/11 first responders money after the fact violates the Constitution. Article 1.8 gives Congress the right to expend funds for all the purposes itemized, provided it is done for the general welfare, NOT for individuals or preferred groups. The states may reward heroes if they so choose.
#9. — Checks and Balances Failure: The Chairmanship of the UN Security Council: Where was Congress when President Obama became the chairman of the powerful UN Security Council in 2009? The normal monthly rotation for that chair goes to the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. because Article 1.9 of the Constitution forbids the president (and all other office-holders) from accepting any present, foreign office or title from a foreign country or a foreign potentate unless it is specifically authorized by Congress. The Founders wanted to prevent deal-making, corruption, and foreign influence from affecting America’s internal affairs.
#8. — Net Neutrality: The government is trying to stop Internet providers from blocking or slowing some web traffic and prevent providers from showing favoritism. The FCC thinks it should be able to regulate the Internet like it regulates utility companies. This violates the property rights of Internet providers and interferes in the market’s free choice of which services receive funding. Article 1.8 makes it clear that the FCC is not constitutionally authorized to pass laws, especially those disguised as regulations.
#7. – Czars: The moniker for appointees who report to no one but the president has taken on a new and eerie resemblance to the dusty Russian tsars of old. Article 2.2 grants the president leeway to appoint managers, but those managers may not have any regulatory, legislative or law-making powers — such powers are reserved to the legislative branch. Today’s “czars” have the power of cabinet members without having to go through a vetting process or the confirmation process prescribed for cabinet members. Czars are unelected and untouchable political decision-makers — in violation of Article 1.1.
#6. — Cap and Trade: The Clean Energy and Security Act mandates greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, 42 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and 84 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. By 2020, this tax will extract an estimated $160 billion from the economy, or an average $1,870 per family. Once again, had the chains of Article 1.8 not been broken, America would be spared such tomfoolery. Cap and trade masked in any disguise whatsoever cannot be justified as a general welfare activity.
#5. — Cash for Clunkers: The government offered $4,500 rebates to people turning in their clunkers for more fuel-efficient vehicles. When the first program quickly ran out of the $4 billion allotted to it, another $2 billion was added. Follow-up analysis showed the program did nothing to stimulate the economy and put many people into additional debt by encouraging them to purchase cars that they otherwise would not have bought during these hard economic times. The government has zero authority to selectively give individuals tax
money for purchases of vehicles, according to Articles 1.2 and 1.8 — and common sense.
#4. — TARP Funding: The original 2008 act authorized $700 billion to bail out banks and other institutions. The government has no business rescuing private financial institutions from bad judgment and risky ventures. Article 1.8 excludes permission for Congress to grant financial aid or loans to private companies. Any use of Treasury funds must go toward the general welfare, not to specific groups.
#3. — Illegal Immigration: Arizona is being invaded. When that state passed SB 1070 to stem the flow of violent illegals into its sovereign territory, a derelict federal government turned around and sued. At issue was the Feds’ failure to control the border, so Arizona took it upon itself to do just that — to uphold existing federal immigration laws. It didn’t add new laws; it simply gave local authorities the power to enforce federal responsibilities. The federal government claims the right to manage immigration, but when it refuses to carry out that obligation, thereby jeopardizing the security of border states, it is derelict in its duties. Arizona should haul the federal government before the Supreme Court for malfeasance. Article 4.4 clearly states that the U.S. shall protect states from invasion — more than 400,000 illegal aliens (est.) in Arizona is, by definition, an invasion.
#2. — Economic Stimulus Bill: The $814 billion stimulus is the most backward-thinking proposition to come along since human sacrifice. Dumping borrowed money
into an over-fed, bloated and out-of-control ogre doesn’t solve anything, it simply temporarily props up with blocks of melting ice cream a failed and failing government of extravagance. Not only does it illegally take money out of the economy that could be used to provide jobs, but it’s using borrowed money — with interest due.
And the worst violation of the Constitution over the past two years is …
#1. — Health Care Reform: Health care reform was the last lever needed to lift the lid off the pot of American gold and empty it out for socialism. It required all Americans to have health insurance whether they wanted it or not. Earlier this month, Federal Judge Henry E. Hudson said that the government has no power “to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.”
The string of constitutional violations supporting the judge’s rejection is long and shocking:
For purposes of regulation, Congress invoked Article 1.8 and claimed insurance may be controlled because it falls under Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. But insurance is not interstate commerce — you can’t buy insurance across state lines.
Language in the bill says the health care law may NOT be changed or amended by anyone once signed into law. This violates the role of Congress. Article 1.1 makes it clear that only Congress is authorized to make law, meaning it has every right to alter, amend and change the health care law. To restrict Congress is to change its constitutional duty. The 111th Congress must think it can change the Constitution without amending it — a violation of Article 5, which outlines the amendment process.
The health care bill also violates the 10th Amendment because it coerces states into complying with a new national program that reaches far into state jurisdiction.
So, what do you do when you’re navigating through a blizzard of political white-out where visibility is reduced to zero, the road is slick and slippery, and disaster is strewn about in all directions? You come to a complete stop — and put on the chains.
Paul B. Skousen is a former analyst for the CIA, an intelligence officer in the Reagan White House, and staffer for Senator Orrin Hatch. He has interviewed on Fox News and was featured by Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story about smuggling Oliver North’s shredded secrets from the White House. He is a journalist and published author, and the son of W. Cleon Skousen, author of The Five Thousand Year Leap. He is a national Constitution Coach and senior editor with PowerThink Publishing, LLC. Website: www.powerthink.com. Email: paul@powerthink.com.
Published Here: 6:14 PM 12/27/2010 | Updated: 6:41 PM 12/29/2010
At the close of the 111th Congress, America is deeply in the bog of Thomas Jefferson’s prophetic warning: “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” Unfortunately, the broken chains of the Constitution have failed to contain the federal government.
By way of review, let’s take a stroll through the junkyard of constitutional violations that have been painted fresh by President Obama and the 111th Congress. Here’s my top-ten list, highly abbreviated for length.
#10. — 9/11 Responders Relief Fund: We love and honor those who put themselves in harm’s way for our security. However, giving the 9/11 first responders money after the fact violates the Constitution. Article 1.8 gives Congress the right to expend funds for all the purposes itemized, provided it is done for the general welfare, NOT for individuals or preferred groups. The states may reward heroes if they so choose.
#9. — Checks and Balances Failure: The Chairmanship of the UN Security Council: Where was Congress when President Obama became the chairman of the powerful UN Security Council in 2009? The normal monthly rotation for that chair goes to the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. because Article 1.9 of the Constitution forbids the president (and all other office-holders) from accepting any present, foreign office or title from a foreign country or a foreign potentate unless it is specifically authorized by Congress. The Founders wanted to prevent deal-making, corruption, and foreign influence from affecting America’s internal affairs.
#8. — Net Neutrality: The government is trying to stop Internet providers from blocking or slowing some web traffic and prevent providers from showing favoritism. The FCC thinks it should be able to regulate the Internet like it regulates utility companies. This violates the property rights of Internet providers and interferes in the market’s free choice of which services receive funding. Article 1.8 makes it clear that the FCC is not constitutionally authorized to pass laws, especially those disguised as regulations.
#7. – Czars: The moniker for appointees who report to no one but the president has taken on a new and eerie resemblance to the dusty Russian tsars of old. Article 2.2 grants the president leeway to appoint managers, but those managers may not have any regulatory, legislative or law-making powers — such powers are reserved to the legislative branch. Today’s “czars” have the power of cabinet members without having to go through a vetting process or the confirmation process prescribed for cabinet members. Czars are unelected and untouchable political decision-makers — in violation of Article 1.1.
#6. — Cap and Trade: The Clean Energy and Security Act mandates greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, 42 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and 84 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. By 2020, this tax will extract an estimated $160 billion from the economy, or an average $1,870 per family. Once again, had the chains of Article 1.8 not been broken, America would be spared such tomfoolery. Cap and trade masked in any disguise whatsoever cannot be justified as a general welfare activity.
#5. — Cash for Clunkers: The government offered $4,500 rebates to people turning in their clunkers for more fuel-efficient vehicles. When the first program quickly ran out of the $4 billion allotted to it, another $2 billion was added. Follow-up analysis showed the program did nothing to stimulate the economy and put many people into additional debt by encouraging them to purchase cars that they otherwise would not have bought during these hard economic times. The government has zero authority to selectively give individuals tax
money for purchases of vehicles, according to Articles 1.2 and 1.8 — and common sense.
#4. — TARP Funding: The original 2008 act authorized $700 billion to bail out banks and other institutions. The government has no business rescuing private financial institutions from bad judgment and risky ventures. Article 1.8 excludes permission for Congress to grant financial aid or loans to private companies. Any use of Treasury funds must go toward the general welfare, not to specific groups.
#3. — Illegal Immigration: Arizona is being invaded. When that state passed SB 1070 to stem the flow of violent illegals into its sovereign territory, a derelict federal government turned around and sued. At issue was the Feds’ failure to control the border, so Arizona took it upon itself to do just that — to uphold existing federal immigration laws. It didn’t add new laws; it simply gave local authorities the power to enforce federal responsibilities. The federal government claims the right to manage immigration, but when it refuses to carry out that obligation, thereby jeopardizing the security of border states, it is derelict in its duties. Arizona should haul the federal government before the Supreme Court for malfeasance. Article 4.4 clearly states that the U.S. shall protect states from invasion — more than 400,000 illegal aliens (est.) in Arizona is, by definition, an invasion.
#2. — Economic Stimulus Bill: The $814 billion stimulus is the most backward-thinking proposition to come along since human sacrifice. Dumping borrowed money
into an over-fed, bloated and out-of-control ogre doesn’t solve anything, it simply temporarily props up with blocks of melting ice cream a failed and failing government of extravagance. Not only does it illegally take money out of the economy that could be used to provide jobs, but it’s using borrowed money — with interest due.
And the worst violation of the Constitution over the past two years is …
#1. — Health Care Reform: Health care reform was the last lever needed to lift the lid off the pot of American gold and empty it out for socialism. It required all Americans to have health insurance whether they wanted it or not. Earlier this month, Federal Judge Henry E. Hudson said that the government has no power “to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.”
The string of constitutional violations supporting the judge’s rejection is long and shocking:
For purposes of regulation, Congress invoked Article 1.8 and claimed insurance may be controlled because it falls under Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. But insurance is not interstate commerce — you can’t buy insurance across state lines.
Language in the bill says the health care law may NOT be changed or amended by anyone once signed into law. This violates the role of Congress. Article 1.1 makes it clear that only Congress is authorized to make law, meaning it has every right to alter, amend and change the health care law. To restrict Congress is to change its constitutional duty. The 111th Congress must think it can change the Constitution without amending it — a violation of Article 5, which outlines the amendment process.
The health care bill also violates the 10th Amendment because it coerces states into complying with a new national program that reaches far into state jurisdiction.
So, what do you do when you’re navigating through a blizzard of political white-out where visibility is reduced to zero, the road is slick and slippery, and disaster is strewn about in all directions? You come to a complete stop — and put on the chains.
Paul B. Skousen is a former analyst for the CIA, an intelligence officer in the Reagan White House, and staffer for Senator Orrin Hatch. He has interviewed on Fox News and was featured by Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story about smuggling Oliver North’s shredded secrets from the White House. He is a journalist and published author, and the son of W. Cleon Skousen, author of The Five Thousand Year Leap. He is a national Constitution Coach and senior editor with PowerThink Publishing, LLC. Website: www.powerthink.com. Email: paul@powerthink.com.
The original publication of this article is here at The Daily Caller
A Short Trip to Economic Freedom
Or, I should say, "A short trip to the world of economic freedom and the intellectual understanding of how it works."
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The destination is the Ludwig von Mises Institute's campus in Auburn, Alabama, 110 miles from Atlanta, home of this blog. This would be (I haven't gone there yet myself) an interesting and worth-while pilgrimage. It is a journey into the world of civilization itself - an order that rests on man's individual nature rather than one that herds him as an animal, with no respect for what he is, let alone who he is.
Explore this website. They have a bookstore and offer their courses and lectures not only in Auburn but at various sites around the country.
Another resource for a free market viewpoint of economics is The Foundation for Economic Education. You can access them at www.fee.org.
View Larger Map
The destination is the Ludwig von Mises Institute's campus in Auburn, Alabama, 110 miles from Atlanta, home of this blog. This would be (I haven't gone there yet myself) an interesting and worth-while pilgrimage. It is a journey into the world of civilization itself - an order that rests on man's individual nature rather than one that herds him as an animal, with no respect for what he is, let alone who he is. Explore this website. They have a bookstore and offer their courses and lectures not only in Auburn but at various sites around the country.
Another resource for a free market viewpoint of economics is The Foundation for Economic Education. You can access them at www.fee.org.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Moral Base for Political Liberty, i.e., Capitalism
Freedom and Capitalism are not dead. If anything, people are seeing more than anytime in my lifetime the threat that government can be to every aspect of what it is to be human. Freedom and capitalism (capitalism is the system that naturally results when people are free) have never had the proper moral base even though it, right before our eyes, provides the things that people need to live whereas the non-free, socialist, controlled societies fail dramatically or limp along in damaged condition compared to what they could be. And because this moral base has not been present, people still think that to be GOOD, one must sacrifice himself to the group and other people on all scales of social living from the widest to the private interactions with friends rather than pursue his own best life whereupon all benefit from this excellence.
Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute makes this case on this video. Judge Napolitano does not interview Yaron until 6:35 minutes into the video.
Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute makes this case on this video. Judge Napolitano does not interview Yaron until 6:35 minutes into the video.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Quit Apologizing for Capitalism
This column was created by David Limbaugh and posted on his blog. Here.
December 13, 2010
Memo to Conservatives: Quit Apologizing for Capitalism
Everywhere we turn these days, it seems, leftists are undermining and attacking capitalism on moral grounds. Their criticisms are directed not at merely certain corrupt corporations or individuals who abuse the system, but at the system itself.
Sadly, few conservatives, even conservative Christians, are willing or prepared to defend capitalism's virtues. Rather than tout it in terms of liberty, they sheepishly apologize for its allegedly inherent greed.
It's a testament to the power of propaganda and the appeal of emotion over reason that a system that has produced the greatest prosperity in world history is castigated on moral grounds, while those systems that have proliferated abject misery, poverty, tyranny and subjugation are hailed as morally superior.
Granted, most leftists don't openly confess their hostility to capitalism, but they come close, especially in their endless waging of class warfare.
Surely you've heard Obama say, preposterously, "A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it." No one actually supports this straw man argument. American capitalism has always been subject to the rule of law. Even the fiercest free market proponents don't defend the license to steal or economic anarchy.
Hidden in Obama's statement (and more apparent in some of his other statements) are unmistakable implications that those who thrive in our system are immoral and don't deserve it and that the less successful have been cheated out of their just desserts. This doubtlessly proceeds from his leftist view of the relationship between government and the people.
The left doesn't seem to comprehend the indispensability of private property to liberty or the necessity of liberty to achieve prosperity. To them, it is not individuals operating in a climate of liberty who produce prosperity. Government produces (or magnanimously permits) the creation of wealth and is the most appropriate vehicle for distributing that wealth and delivering the greatest good to the greatest number of people.
America's gross national product first belongs to the government, and only that portion the government allows you, in its beneficence, to keep after taxes is your money. But even then, it is not wholly your money, for you are not free to transfer it by gift (lifetime or death) to whomever you'd like without penalty. And interest you earn on it will also be taxed.
Leftists pay lip service to America's founding ideal of equality of opportunity but honor instead the un-American idea of equality of outcomes. They fully intend to use the power of government to rectify America's inequitable distribution of resources. Don't forget that at one time, at the hands of the left, the top income tax rate was higher than 90 percent or that it was 70 percent before the Reagan cuts.
Indeed, it's ironic that leftists depict conservatives as hyperbolic and extreme for sometimes using the terms "socialist" and "Marxist" to describe Obama. They don't offer a substantive defense against the claim, but use the same argument they offer against all charges about Obama's radical behavior, namely that an elected American president couldn't possibly be a radical or a socialist and certainly couldn't be a Marxist. That's the stuff of spy novels.
Never mind Obama's actual background, his associations, his statements, his radical appointments and his unprecedented policies. Those who describe him in terms that accurately capture his extremism and divisiveness are the ones written off as extremists or divisive.
This irony is compounded by the fact that it is leftists who are guilty of hyperbole -- even paranoia -- in their attack on conservatives, their patriotism and their free market advocacy. Consider the bizarre rant of Obama's spiritual adviser, Jim Wallis, in trashing America's "conservative media" to a group of Britons.
Wallis said: "We now are controlled by the right-wing media, Fox News and all the rest, and this is the media that has an ideological point of view that America is best and the rest of you don't even count, that the rich are our salvation. ... When I say the 1 percent of the country has more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, they say that's a good thing. ... You just keep feeding the rich and the poor with their little tin cups hoping the rich are good tippers; that's a good thing for the economy."
Talk about the stuff of fiction. Conservatives don't believe foreign countries "don't count." Nor do they believe that the rich are anyone's salvation or that they are glorified benefactors of the economically less fortunate.
It is yet another irony that liberals accuse Christian conservatives of subordinating their theology to their politics, when it is their "social justice" brethren who are guiltier of conflating their politics with their ideology, idolizing redistributionism and, in my humble opinion, distorting the Gospel to conform to their political predispositions.
Posted by David Limbaugh at December 13, 2010 05:25 PM
__________________________________________
I am completely amazed at how immoral the Left is. They justify their programs as helping people and invariably they destroy them and mire them into lives of sloth where they are unable to learn what they need to thrive.
Capitalism, which has never existed in its fully effective and consistent form and is an ideal for the future, always provides the goods. The poor in a capitalist country are rich by the standards of the poor in non-capitalist countries. The fact that a conservative or a Republican would apologize for the moral superiority and incredible boon to mankind of capitalism is as immoral as is the Left. They give all the moral fire (the energy of life) to their destroyers.
I hope, in my lifetime, to see a shift in this incorrect moral orientation. The moral, by the way, is that which produces thriving, happy human beings. The immoral on the other hand causes losers, people incapable of independence and much suffering, unhappiness and envy.
Give me capitalism or give me death. SCB
December 13, 2010
Memo to Conservatives: Quit Apologizing for Capitalism
Everywhere we turn these days, it seems, leftists are undermining and attacking capitalism on moral grounds. Their criticisms are directed not at merely certain corrupt corporations or individuals who abuse the system, but at the system itself.
Sadly, few conservatives, even conservative Christians, are willing or prepared to defend capitalism's virtues. Rather than tout it in terms of liberty, they sheepishly apologize for its allegedly inherent greed.
It's a testament to the power of propaganda and the appeal of emotion over reason that a system that has produced the greatest prosperity in world history is castigated on moral grounds, while those systems that have proliferated abject misery, poverty, tyranny and subjugation are hailed as morally superior.
Granted, most leftists don't openly confess their hostility to capitalism, but they come close, especially in their endless waging of class warfare.
Surely you've heard Obama say, preposterously, "A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it." No one actually supports this straw man argument. American capitalism has always been subject to the rule of law. Even the fiercest free market proponents don't defend the license to steal or economic anarchy.
Hidden in Obama's statement (and more apparent in some of his other statements) are unmistakable implications that those who thrive in our system are immoral and don't deserve it and that the less successful have been cheated out of their just desserts. This doubtlessly proceeds from his leftist view of the relationship between government and the people.
The left doesn't seem to comprehend the indispensability of private property to liberty or the necessity of liberty to achieve prosperity. To them, it is not individuals operating in a climate of liberty who produce prosperity. Government produces (or magnanimously permits) the creation of wealth and is the most appropriate vehicle for distributing that wealth and delivering the greatest good to the greatest number of people.
America's gross national product first belongs to the government, and only that portion the government allows you, in its beneficence, to keep after taxes is your money. But even then, it is not wholly your money, for you are not free to transfer it by gift (lifetime or death) to whomever you'd like without penalty. And interest you earn on it will also be taxed.
Leftists pay lip service to America's founding ideal of equality of opportunity but honor instead the un-American idea of equality of outcomes. They fully intend to use the power of government to rectify America's inequitable distribution of resources. Don't forget that at one time, at the hands of the left, the top income tax rate was higher than 90 percent or that it was 70 percent before the Reagan cuts.
Indeed, it's ironic that leftists depict conservatives as hyperbolic and extreme for sometimes using the terms "socialist" and "Marxist" to describe Obama. They don't offer a substantive defense against the claim, but use the same argument they offer against all charges about Obama's radical behavior, namely that an elected American president couldn't possibly be a radical or a socialist and certainly couldn't be a Marxist. That's the stuff of spy novels.
Never mind Obama's actual background, his associations, his statements, his radical appointments and his unprecedented policies. Those who describe him in terms that accurately capture his extremism and divisiveness are the ones written off as extremists or divisive.
This irony is compounded by the fact that it is leftists who are guilty of hyperbole -- even paranoia -- in their attack on conservatives, their patriotism and their free market advocacy. Consider the bizarre rant of Obama's spiritual adviser, Jim Wallis, in trashing America's "conservative media" to a group of Britons.
Wallis said: "We now are controlled by the right-wing media, Fox News and all the rest, and this is the media that has an ideological point of view that America is best and the rest of you don't even count, that the rich are our salvation. ... When I say the 1 percent of the country has more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, they say that's a good thing. ... You just keep feeding the rich and the poor with their little tin cups hoping the rich are good tippers; that's a good thing for the economy."
Talk about the stuff of fiction. Conservatives don't believe foreign countries "don't count." Nor do they believe that the rich are anyone's salvation or that they are glorified benefactors of the economically less fortunate.
It is yet another irony that liberals accuse Christian conservatives of subordinating their theology to their politics, when it is their "social justice" brethren who are guiltier of conflating their politics with their ideology, idolizing redistributionism and, in my humble opinion, distorting the Gospel to conform to their political predispositions.
Posted by David Limbaugh at December 13, 2010 05:25 PM
__________________________________________
I am completely amazed at how immoral the Left is. They justify their programs as helping people and invariably they destroy them and mire them into lives of sloth where they are unable to learn what they need to thrive.
Capitalism, which has never existed in its fully effective and consistent form and is an ideal for the future, always provides the goods. The poor in a capitalist country are rich by the standards of the poor in non-capitalist countries. The fact that a conservative or a Republican would apologize for the moral superiority and incredible boon to mankind of capitalism is as immoral as is the Left. They give all the moral fire (the energy of life) to their destroyers.
I hope, in my lifetime, to see a shift in this incorrect moral orientation. The moral, by the way, is that which produces thriving, happy human beings. The immoral on the other hand causes losers, people incapable of independence and much suffering, unhappiness and envy.
Give me capitalism or give me death. SCB
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Obama Presidency, An Obituary
Well, it happened. Obama stopped carrying the bucket. He kicked it.
How?
We see Bill at the podium arguing for the tax deal that O put together, since he did something similar during his Presidency. Obama then says the First Lady is calling him (to get ready for the Christmas party) and he turns the press conference over to Bill. Bill takes the reporter's questions with a greater sense of authority than O has ever had via teleprompter. The more I think about this, the more astonished I am about what happened.
I saw a comment saying, "I knew it. Obama is not an alpha male." That's one way of expressing what happened although that isn't cognizant of the magnitude of what happened. Obama does not and has never owned the presidency in the full sense of what that means -at least in a democratic country. Instituting an agenda at the expense of people's legitimate concerns, going through the motions of the president, enjoying the benefits of the presidency and spending an outlandish amount of money because he can is not constituting oneself as The President, the creator of the "space" and quality of the Presidency.
Obama's creation - a stunted, mangled, force-fed, crying baby of a Presidency - has been by default, a default largely fashioned by a anti-capitalist, socialist agenda that requires deception to institute (see Radical-in-Chief by Stanley Kurtz for a well documented account of Obama's socialism and how it operates) and the required victims (underdogs by race and class) which socialist rhetoric must create in order to exist (I thought I would vomit if I heard another sob story - especially around Obamacare), combined with showboat arrogance surfing a tide of arranged audiences. Obama has never taken responsibility for the office and its perception by ALL the people - the entire body of Americans whose judgments he lives/dies politically by. I remember more than once, the Tea Party went to Washington and Obama went somewhere else.
By nature of community organizer, he, along with his mentors and advisers, thinks in terms of enemies and hatred.* Governing "ALL the people" is out of the question when a number of them are enemies. In a country known, believe it or not, for its integrative power which is a product of political freedom and individual rights, his thinking is immature and narrow, nowhere close to the possibility that most Americans think in terms of. I cannot help but think he is an example of how Affirmative Action and political correctness ruin people who try to gain credit they don't deserve rather than earning it on merit. He operates as though Affirmative Action provides him something when in fact it is an impediment. Knowledge is knowledge. Producing results is producing results. Being one's own moral authority is being responsible for one's choices and actions. Those do have value and they are earned. No short cuts!
Once a "leader" declares himself and shows himself to be the leader - which Obama did to a degree when he ran for and won the Presidency - people align or non-align in degrees with him. It's a matter of concern, normally held in the background, as to what the leader is initiating and calling people to participate in. (As long as his actions fall within normal bounds, those concerns remain in the background like a guardian. If things go outside those normal bounds, then those concerns growl like a guard dog - which is what has happened to Obama.) No matter what, a leader is central to the energies of the body of which he is the leader - which, in this case, is our entire country. To default on that fact of his position and what it means for the country and his future is a huge fail, probably the ultimate fail as a leader. I think Obama essentially ended his presidency, i.e., any real influence granted by his position, at this press conference.
A lot of people thought Palin did the wrong thing when she resigned as Governor of Alaska. Regardless of what you think of her decision, she did it the right way - she owned that she was governor and was fulfilling that leadership role and then she delivered her communication that she was ending that role. She gave her reasons. People may have not liked it, but she was straight with them and with herself. She honored herself as her word. Consequently, she has gone on to be a powerful influence in the politics of the nation, as demonstrated by the last election.
Obama, on the other hand has defaulted by not owning himself as his word and not owning what he has implicitly created - a spiritual/moral space in which we all live. His integrity registers zero. We have seen things all along which have raised questions about what he is doing with his presidency. He has appointed many, many socialist/communist czars whom he ran by no one to check their "bonafides". He has spent millions keeping his past hidden. He has belittled America outside the country. Rather than treat all men as equally respected as leader of their respective states, he chooses to bow - low in some cases - to show obeisance. He will stand for an underdog who cannot produce a nickel, and not stand for a person fighting for his right to exist as a free man. He will sell out anyone and everyone useful for a second. All of these matters are part of his putrefied presidency. But now it is confirmed. The Obama Presidency is over. "The Country? I don't have time for it. Yes, Michelle honey? Be right there." Talk of a lame duck? He's a broken-legged duck and he broke his own leg.
I am now clear that there is no real threat from the Progressives and the far Left although they can be very costly and fool some people a while longer. Because their politics is anti-man and anti-human life, as demonstrated everywhere it has been tried, they cannot tell the truth. They build their power on deception and as a consequence, are unable to build trust. Integrity is essential for building trust. Their word is no good on principle. For this reason, they will, although they have themselves set up in a kind of infiltrating guerrilla war mode, at least in some cities where they've had all the ACORN and SEIU groups, are increasingly unable to win over the hearts and minds of the people.
Whatever power they attempt to have now will increasingly have to rely on physical force - and that will send them completely over the edge. Moral account? Overdrawn. Political capital account? Overdrawn.
*Community organizers spend weeks listening and talking in a community to find out what the people hate and want to fight against. Usually it is turning some area in their community into a landfill or something similar. It's the anger that is the key. Later the access to that anger plus the bonding via political activism is turned into a force which the organizer uses to forward his agenda which is usually to go after bourgeois capitalists.
How?
We see Bill at the podium arguing for the tax deal that O put together, since he did something similar during his Presidency. Obama then says the First Lady is calling him (to get ready for the Christmas party) and he turns the press conference over to Bill. Bill takes the reporter's questions with a greater sense of authority than O has ever had via teleprompter. The more I think about this, the more astonished I am about what happened.
I saw a comment saying, "I knew it. Obama is not an alpha male." That's one way of expressing what happened although that isn't cognizant of the magnitude of what happened. Obama does not and has never owned the presidency in the full sense of what that means -at least in a democratic country. Instituting an agenda at the expense of people's legitimate concerns, going through the motions of the president, enjoying the benefits of the presidency and spending an outlandish amount of money because he can is not constituting oneself as The President, the creator of the "space" and quality of the Presidency.
Obama's creation - a stunted, mangled, force-fed, crying baby of a Presidency - has been by default, a default largely fashioned by a anti-capitalist, socialist agenda that requires deception to institute (see Radical-in-Chief by Stanley Kurtz for a well documented account of Obama's socialism and how it operates) and the required victims (underdogs by race and class) which socialist rhetoric must create in order to exist (I thought I would vomit if I heard another sob story - especially around Obamacare), combined with showboat arrogance surfing a tide of arranged audiences. Obama has never taken responsibility for the office and its perception by ALL the people - the entire body of Americans whose judgments he lives/dies politically by. I remember more than once, the Tea Party went to Washington and Obama went somewhere else.
By nature of community organizer, he, along with his mentors and advisers, thinks in terms of enemies and hatred.* Governing "ALL the people" is out of the question when a number of them are enemies. In a country known, believe it or not, for its integrative power which is a product of political freedom and individual rights, his thinking is immature and narrow, nowhere close to the possibility that most Americans think in terms of. I cannot help but think he is an example of how Affirmative Action and political correctness ruin people who try to gain credit they don't deserve rather than earning it on merit. He operates as though Affirmative Action provides him something when in fact it is an impediment. Knowledge is knowledge. Producing results is producing results. Being one's own moral authority is being responsible for one's choices and actions. Those do have value and they are earned. No short cuts!
Once a "leader" declares himself and shows himself to be the leader - which Obama did to a degree when he ran for and won the Presidency - people align or non-align in degrees with him. It's a matter of concern, normally held in the background, as to what the leader is initiating and calling people to participate in. (As long as his actions fall within normal bounds, those concerns remain in the background like a guardian. If things go outside those normal bounds, then those concerns growl like a guard dog - which is what has happened to Obama.) No matter what, a leader is central to the energies of the body of which he is the leader - which, in this case, is our entire country. To default on that fact of his position and what it means for the country and his future is a huge fail, probably the ultimate fail as a leader. I think Obama essentially ended his presidency, i.e., any real influence granted by his position, at this press conference.
A lot of people thought Palin did the wrong thing when she resigned as Governor of Alaska. Regardless of what you think of her decision, she did it the right way - she owned that she was governor and was fulfilling that leadership role and then she delivered her communication that she was ending that role. She gave her reasons. People may have not liked it, but she was straight with them and with herself. She honored herself as her word. Consequently, she has gone on to be a powerful influence in the politics of the nation, as demonstrated by the last election.
Obama, on the other hand has defaulted by not owning himself as his word and not owning what he has implicitly created - a spiritual/moral space in which we all live. His integrity registers zero. We have seen things all along which have raised questions about what he is doing with his presidency. He has appointed many, many socialist/communist czars whom he ran by no one to check their "bonafides". He has spent millions keeping his past hidden. He has belittled America outside the country. Rather than treat all men as equally respected as leader of their respective states, he chooses to bow - low in some cases - to show obeisance. He will stand for an underdog who cannot produce a nickel, and not stand for a person fighting for his right to exist as a free man. He will sell out anyone and everyone useful for a second. All of these matters are part of his putrefied presidency. But now it is confirmed. The Obama Presidency is over. "The Country? I don't have time for it. Yes, Michelle honey? Be right there." Talk of a lame duck? He's a broken-legged duck and he broke his own leg.
I am now clear that there is no real threat from the Progressives and the far Left although they can be very costly and fool some people a while longer. Because their politics is anti-man and anti-human life, as demonstrated everywhere it has been tried, they cannot tell the truth. They build their power on deception and as a consequence, are unable to build trust. Integrity is essential for building trust. Their word is no good on principle. For this reason, they will, although they have themselves set up in a kind of infiltrating guerrilla war mode, at least in some cities where they've had all the ACORN and SEIU groups, are increasingly unable to win over the hearts and minds of the people.
Whatever power they attempt to have now will increasingly have to rely on physical force - and that will send them completely over the edge. Moral account? Overdrawn. Political capital account? Overdrawn.
*Community organizers spend weeks listening and talking in a community to find out what the people hate and want to fight against. Usually it is turning some area in their community into a landfill or something similar. It's the anger that is the key. Later the access to that anger plus the bonding via political activism is turned into a force which the organizer uses to forward his agenda which is usually to go after bourgeois capitalists.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
"Radical-in-Chief"
I'm reading the above book by Stanley Kurtz. I am enjoying it because it goes into the socialist movement in the US and Obama's relation to it. The great thing about the book is that it places you in that world such that it is possible to see why Obama is so beholden to his agenda and the philosophy behind it. It actually is his world - the world he grew up in and began to take specific shape during his college years, specifically in New York City, when he discovered he wanted to be a Community Organizer.
One also gets how this entire movement is driven by "hatred of being a victim of the system" which begets "There is something wrong here. We must fix it."
And they just know they are right about this. The speeches I'm getting pieces of were delivered in the early 1980s. There is no responsibility for how they sought and got passed President Johnson's welfare program which trapped many blacks in permanent poverty and began to unravel the black family because it made monetary sense to do that.
I contrast that with the liberty oriented person who sees all people as fundamentally the same with different expressions of their being human and thus accepts and honors/dishonors people as they are. No one is metaphysically a victim of the system unless he makes it up that he is and no one is perfectible except as he takes on his own perfection. The liberty oriented person seeks the values a person offers and trades value for value if he chooses. It is constantly integrating itself into a whole where real agreements bind people together.
At this point in the book, I'm quite aware that the socialists want political power and it is exciting (and maddening) to learn their strategies and justifications for gaining that power. Although Obama was raised with socialist and anti-capitalists, he began budding for the "flower" he is today (not a flower I care to display in my home, by the way, but a flower none the less) in a big way during his years at Columbia in the early 80s. This set up his being a Community Organizer, another name for a socialist activist.
I have a lot yet to read, but already I get the value of getting into O's world if one wants to understand him at all; and, if one wants to see America's future if his view is left to dominate. Also it is good to get beyond the outer interpretations of socialism and get into what motivates the actors in the socialism camp. Whereas I judge socialism by its fundamentals, this book presents you with the people and their words and actions which assume socialism is good and morally justified.
Already capitalism = racism in their book. So now I get the connection. Everyone who is a non-believer in O, a socialist, is a capitalist and therefore a racist. There is no alternative to this view - in their world. There is no possibility that property is nothing more than a designation of real stuff that a person is using for the values he seeks to create in this world. A person (even a socialist) needs to own property of some kind for him to survive but what socialism does not recognize is that this is a value. (Socialist states are always attacking hoarding, the activity where a man seeks to hold on to his property - the property he needs to survive.) Man to live depends on creating values which entails property and yet in a socialist system that is all considered bad. This justifies its confiscation of property.
So far I've not read anything about when this racism will stop. I'm clear from everything I've read about socialism that it never stops because the socialist must keep the fire hot under that pot forever to keep people socialists. Where socialism dominates, every man becomes suspicious of every other man's loyalties since it is a society founded on predation. For a socialist system to survive, it must have producers and then it must take the product of the producers. Ultimately property, even the property of one's body, means nothing in a socialist world. There is no working to sustain one's own life. Hello! This is the re-institution of slavery - of all to all - and permanent war - of all against all.
I will say more about this book when I complete it.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Where Did You Come Up With the Idea?
"Where did you come up with the idea that being elected President meant you could do whatever you want? We are not your subjects, you are not a god, and we won’t accept your efforts to turn us into slaves, no matter how much Michelle says you are going to require of us." -- Robert Villegas, Jr., Tea Party Journal.
Today President Obama told us he would be reflecting on the meaning of yesterday’s election defeat. I don’t know if anyone noticed the irony in that promise. One would have thought that a man of his education and intelligence, particularly a constitutional scholar, would already know the limits of his office before he decided to run for it.
Is he really just learning on the job? Did he really think the oceans would fall and the skies would open when he became President? Does it take an election defeat to teach him a lesson that he should have already known? Why didn't he know that it is his job to protect American citizens not confiscate their earnings? He should certainly have known that free people do not like being treated like draft animals.
Well, if we must educate our President on the job, we have certainly made a mistake in electing him. How could so many educated citizens, who certainly know their own limitations, elect to the highest office in the world a person who does not know his own limitations?
Read the rest here.
When I heard Obama's Aunt Zeituni, who lives in the US illegally, from her own righteous lips say she had no compunction about living off the American people because everything belongs to God, I understood the problem of the 3rd world. She does not understand the legal concept of private property. She does not understand that property is a concept that is essential if a person's work, involving real things including land and tools, to live his life is to be observed by all others as his right to his life which means the right to live his life. It does not belong to God nor to anyone who ascribes his authority to God. It belongs to the individual man.
In western civilization, this identification of property came into being in the Magna Carta in 1215 AD and was the beginning of property in law which later led to the industrial revolution and all the things she is now enjoying. The fact that we have what we have and third world countries do not is dependent upon the establishment in law of this concept more than any other. This is why Americans would be angered by Zeituni's sense of entitlement since her assumption of property requires that whoever created it had to give it up and since it was a government project she lived in, the people who gave it up, gave it up by force. Remember, if you don't pay your taxes, you may end up in jail. Her sense of entitlement is really saying that you and I have no right to our lives since she doesn't grant you the basis upon which you can erect an independent life.
Of course that would make people mad. And Obama suffers from the same sense of entitlement and the same ignorance. In a civilized country which means a country grounded in the property right and based on laws applying equally to all men, a person can obtain property, but he has to observe certain "honorable" procedures, the primary one being that he must honor the person who owns the property right now or he must create it from raw nature that is presently unowned. Theft and fraud are not acceptable. But in a society where property is not a basic concept honored in law, he must obtain property however he can. And, a man cannot live without property - even if it is a banana. Is this why Obama is so loose about taking our money? He's got the power so it is his right as in the divine right of a king, another 3rd world idea.
Add to this sitting in Reverend Wright's church where you listen to your right to everything the white man owns (Black Liberation Theology) and pretty soon, you cannot honor all men equally under the law. And, this is where Obama is and why his words and actions continuously offend those of us who do grant this basic right to own property to every man.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Reflecting
Is he really just learning on the job? Did he really think the oceans would fall and the skies would open when he became President? Does it take an election defeat to teach him a lesson that he should have already known? Why didn't he know that it is his job to protect American citizens not confiscate their earnings? He should certainly have known that free people do not like being treated like draft animals.
Well, if we must educate our President on the job, we have certainly made a mistake in electing him. How could so many educated citizens, who certainly know their own limitations, elect to the highest office in the world a person who does not know his own limitations?
Read the rest here.
When I heard Obama's Aunt Zeituni, who lives in the US illegally, from her own righteous lips say she had no compunction about living off the American people because everything belongs to God, I understood the problem of the 3rd world. She does not understand the legal concept of private property. She does not understand that property is a concept that is essential if a person's work, involving real things including land and tools, to live his life is to be observed by all others as his right to his life which means the right to live his life. It does not belong to God nor to anyone who ascribes his authority to God. It belongs to the individual man.
In western civilization, this identification of property came into being in the Magna Carta in 1215 AD and was the beginning of property in law which later led to the industrial revolution and all the things she is now enjoying. The fact that we have what we have and third world countries do not is dependent upon the establishment in law of this concept more than any other. This is why Americans would be angered by Zeituni's sense of entitlement since her assumption of property requires that whoever created it had to give it up and since it was a government project she lived in, the people who gave it up, gave it up by force. Remember, if you don't pay your taxes, you may end up in jail. Her sense of entitlement is really saying that you and I have no right to our lives since she doesn't grant you the basis upon which you can erect an independent life.
Of course that would make people mad. And Obama suffers from the same sense of entitlement and the same ignorance. In a civilized country which means a country grounded in the property right and based on laws applying equally to all men, a person can obtain property, but he has to observe certain "honorable" procedures, the primary one being that he must honor the person who owns the property right now or he must create it from raw nature that is presently unowned. Theft and fraud are not acceptable. But in a society where property is not a basic concept honored in law, he must obtain property however he can. And, a man cannot live without property - even if it is a banana. Is this why Obama is so loose about taking our money? He's got the power so it is his right as in the divine right of a king, another 3rd world idea.
Add to this sitting in Reverend Wright's church where you listen to your right to everything the white man owns (Black Liberation Theology) and pretty soon, you cannot honor all men equally under the law. And, this is where Obama is and why his words and actions continuously offend those of us who do grant this basic right to own property to every man.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Obama Ends an Era
This article appeared on American Thinker today, October 31, 2010.
The Death of Camelot
By Bruce Walker
But Camelot is dead. We are no longer awed by glitz. We grasp that a teleprompter-in-chief needs only to read in order to sound clever. We see, moreover, the debris of Hollywood, the sickness of so much celebrity, and the grotesque invention of importance in reality television. Looking pretty in front of the camera may once have wowed us, but now it bores us instead. Talking in soundbites and catchphrases once may have seemed smart, but today, it just sounds small-minded. We see, in retrospect, that Camelot was pure spun sugar. No one, however, has told Obama yet. (Don't worry: someone will soon.)
*In 1962, Ayn Rand wrote an article "The Fascist New Frontier" which appeared in The Objectivist, her monthly publication. She was on to Kennedy's corruption of life-serving values at the time. People damned her vociferously. Now people are beginning to wake up - the Tea Party. Stay tuned.
The Death of Camelot
By Bruce Walker
Fifty years ago, American government -- even American society -- entered into a wonderland of youth, prettiness, chic, and charisma. John Kennedy had defeated Richard Nixon in the presidential debates (or at least JFK defeated Nixon in the eyes of the millions of Americans who watched the debates -- those who heard them on the radio felt that Nixon had won). The election of 1960 was incredibly close and could have torn the country apart, except that mean-spirited Nixon (unlike Nobel Prize winner Gore) chose to concede and spare the nation a political civil war.
A glorious age was about to begin! The sophisticates and academicians -- the aristocrats of the republic -- would now guide us to a new Golden Age. John Kennedy was handsome, young, and married to a wife with movie star looks. Television was endemic in American life, and color television on large screens would very soon replace the small black-and-white television in the living room. Kennedy inspired us (or at least we were told that he inspired us over and over again), but it was hard to put one's finger on exactly what Kennedy actually did.*
He quickly fumbled his meeting in quasi-summit in Vienna with Khrushchev, showing just how much less our young president knew about the world than Eisenhower, the balding older man who guided a coalition of democracies in a crusade against Hitler and then presided for eight years over a peaceful, respected America. Kennedy horribly mishandled the Bay of Pigs Invasion, leaving freedom-fighters to face Castro's Gulag so JFK would not have to face too many questions. It is ironic that the "highpoint" of Kennedy in the White House was that he brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and then "won" (which meant that we gained nothing but looked as if we did). When Oswald killed Kennedy, he also killed for decades any serious critique of the calamity which was Camelot.
We now know that Kennedy consorted with the molls of mafia dons, that his adulteries -- lying to his wife and to his family -- were almost endless, and that his personal life was well-hidden by the press. We know that he used the IRS to hound his political enemies with a vengeance that made Nixon's "enemies list" seem tame by comparison. John Kennedy had a magnificent public image but nothing at all of substance as president. Democrats since then have been trying to remake themselves into JFK and bring back a "Camelot," which was a low period in American government and politics, spiced up as something grand and special. Bobby Kennedy, another self-indulgent, adulterous, spoiled son of a rich, crooked anti-Semite, is forever lionized, like JFK, for the nobility of being gunned down by a fanatic. Teddy is the clearest example of the full life of one of these Camelot Kids, and there is nothing pretty at all about this debauch riding on his family's name and Senate seniority. (Is anyone these days claiming that he voted for health care in remembrance of Teddy? That was, recall, part of the original game plan in Teddy's Grand Political Funeral.)
John Kerry did his best to wrap the soiled robe of JFK around his neck, but Americans were not impressed. John Edwards was once hailed as being like John Kennedy, but aside from hideous adulteries and lies -- and the same surname -- the two former senators had little else in common. Surely the newest pretender to the throne in Camelot is Barack Obama. There can be little doubt that his mother must have worshiped JFK and that the lie he told about JFK bringing his father over from Kenya was influenced by that hero-worship.
Obama, if asked to compare himself to any other president, would doubtless choose -- without wasting a second -- JFK. Why? Because Obama, much more than wanting to actually do anything, wanted to be seen as doing something. Obamacare, for example, is doubtless his grand attempt at grimy socialism, but does anyone really believe that Obama is disciplined or bright enough to actually understand the law? Perception -- Camelot -- is everything to Obama. That is why Obama has a photo-op every day, why he offers opinions on everything, why he wants to be in your living room as much as he can -- and why this man-child cannot govern anything at all.
But Camelot is dead. We are no longer awed by glitz. We grasp that a teleprompter-in-chief needs only to read in order to sound clever. We see, moreover, the debris of Hollywood, the sickness of so much celebrity, and the grotesque invention of importance in reality television. Looking pretty in front of the camera may once have wowed us, but now it bores us instead. Talking in soundbites and catchphrases once may have seemed smart, but today, it just sounds small-minded. We see, in retrospect, that Camelot was pure spun sugar. No one, however, has told Obama yet. (Don't worry: someone will soon.)
*In 1962, Ayn Rand wrote an article "The Fascist New Frontier" which appeared in The Objectivist, her monthly publication. She was on to Kennedy's corruption of life-serving values at the time. People damned her vociferously. Now people are beginning to wake up - the Tea Party. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
A New Possibility for Lt. Governing the State of Geo
(This speech was given to the September meeting of The Order of the Heldhigh Torch.)Good Afternoon!
My name is Dan Barber and I am co-founder of The Order of the Heldhigh Torch.
I would like to talk about my purpose, my reasons for doing what I do. Many people struggle with finding a purpose for their lives. I propose they are already doing it, their purpose, that is. They just might not know it.
For example... When I was a child, I had this overwhelming desire to right all the wrongs that were happening around me. Yes, a child has the ability to know right from wrong instinctively. And a child is already finding more effective ways each day to achieve his purpose.
One of the best teachers I had growing up was a 10-year old thug named Scotty. He was a terrorist! Seemed like every time he was on the playground, he did something nasty to earn him a permanent spot in the principal's office, in our 100 year old brownstone grammar school. The principal would lock Scotty in the second floor office during recess. Scotty would eventually climb down the old gutter system and run through the vacant halls during class and stare in at us - menacingly - through the classroom's glass pane window. Remember those door windows with wire embedded in them? I remember his face staring right at me with the "I'm going to kill you after class" stare. He was a master at creating fear and controlling everyone. I hate it. And I could not live like that!
I loathed bullies who attempt to strike fear in the hearts and minds of the rest of us. I had no patience for them then or now, and as I said, I knew I could not EVER live inside of that fear. Something was eventually going to have to happen between us.
Every kid in that school feared being alone in the hall, alone on the playground. No one wanted to go to the rest room during classes. Scotty would pop out of the shadows. He would shoot paper clips at your head, steal your lunch money, or push you down the stairs. You know him, he was the first kid to smoke cigarettes.
I could not stand people who thought they had some God-given right to control and manipulate the innocent, and I was building a resentment to those who would always lay down and take it.
I tried chasing him down, but he was like a monkey and knew how to get away fast. I noticed, no one, not even the teachers would stand up to him. I knew it was just a matter of time before I was to be alone with him. And he had a special place in his ruined heart for me.
The boys' room in that old school was in the basement. No one was ever down there except for all the ghosts! When they installed the urinals, they decided to build a false cinder block wall to hide all the plumbing. I didn't know that was Scotty's favorite hiding place! Looking back, I could always smell the cigarette smoke. Sure enough I was alone down there when he jumped out like a demon with a pitch fork, eyes blazing, ready to kill!
The built-up fear and anger that was in me said, "I will not be held hostage to this person." I knew I would rather die than live my life this way. Poor Scotty didn't know what hit him!
I don't remember what he wanted exactly. I just know he wanted something. He probably wanted me to pay his tax for letting me live, my milk money. He needs to buy those cigarettes, you know!
I just remember how weak a kid he actually was. When I grabbed hold of that arm of his, it was easy to manipulate him anywhere I wanted, like a rag doll, so I gave him a taste of his own medicine! I pulled him into a bathroom stall and struck the fear of God into him that morning showing him his future in the reflective pool within that toilet bowl. I hope he saw the terror on his own face.
He cried for mercy and I, always the trader, offered a deal. I would spare his life for my freedom. He agreed rather quickly, and I never saw that poor kid again. I heard he was eventually moved to a special school for boys like him - where they probably ushered him into a military career. That way that destructive spirit could be harnessed for a better use. Wonder where he is now? I will go check Facebook.
Surely a bully wasn't what his parents had in mind to create, was it?
A bully is the unintended consequence of abuse. I suspect there was an excessive use of FORCE on him or just neglect, which is also an abuse of force. Neglect forces a kid to make decisions he should hot have to make at his age.
Either kind of force used on a human being, effectively KILLS a child's creative spirit. It creates a spirit of self-destruction instead, one that can only be used to destroy himself and others along the way. This was to become Scotty's purpose: Self destruction.
(As I said at the beginning, if you don't know your purpose, you may be living it. It might be one of many forms of self destruction. You don't know your purpose because you don't want to know it. Being a bully, manipulating people, or using government, religion or turning any idea into a dogma to do your bidding is a clue!)
This is the tragedy of an abusive government too. An abusive government is one that abuses its monopoly on the use of force. A moral government only uses force to protect its citizens from each other, outside threats, and the government itself.
The unintended consequence of abusive government force, force like that which the bullies' parents probably used, is the destruction of man's most valuable tool for survival - his creative mind. Man's creative mind is the source of his creative power to build, to solve problems, to foster within the desire to have skills, to find the right vehicle for achieving his purposes. Without man's creative mind, we are left with only one driving purpose: To survive!
Take away the ability to think creatively and all we can do is hold each other at bay, like a western movie standoff. My favorite was the one in Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs." Remember that scene.
We are like that, each left alone, pointing a loaded weapon at each other's temple, just nervously hoping no one fires the first shot. We become hostages to each other's fears. I think we should be linked by our strengths, our virtues, rather than held hostage by our fears and weaknesses. Don’t you?
So, here is the question: Why was I so strongly against the bully when others were not? I could say it was due to some deep unresolved issues, but it was not.
One fact about me is that I have always been a networker. I have always seen the value of having friends with many different skills. Once in class when the math teacher was encouraging me to learn some new algebraic equation, I asked him, “Why do I need to learn this when my best friend is your top student? If I need to do this, I’ll just ask him. He loves to do it. I do not.” She didn’t have an answer.
That bully was killing a free market; he was forcing people to focus on him instead of themselves and causing everyone to compromise themselves for him. Bottom line? He was destroying everything good, within everyone good - by everyone’s standard except his. And I found out in the bath room that his standard of good was the same as mine anyway. He wanted to live free too!
One of the character building things for me was that my small family moved around a few times during my formative years and this moving gave me a unique perspective on relationships.
I could see from a distance who people were and what they were good at. And I had the free choice to select individuals I admired out of the cliques they belonged to for whatever reasons they belonged to them?
I think most people that don’t move around like we did learn to accept and tolerate those with whom they happened to grow up with. I could see there was a bond within their sub groups that I was isolated from.
I was left out of those special relationships and I knew I needed to be a trader. The Libertarian was born! The creative spirit in me was cranking up. The question for me was ”What did I have of value to bring to any and all relationships?”
This is another reason I respect free choice. I needed all the choices in order to create solutions and values. Free choice drives our human value system.
Those bullies who would have our choices limited, do so not because it is good for us, but because it feels good for them. They feel rotten and blame those who don’t feel rotten. They need us to value only them - all the time. This is how they get paid, how they get attention, how they find some perverted form of respect.
Our fear is the currency they trade in. This is how to recognize a latent bully. First they create fear and then step up to cash that check! (One of the major ways to create fear is by creating unearned guilt.)
There are those who create fear and then tell us they will protect us. And we willingly grant them the power to protect us. We call these people politicians. And they never deliver us from the fear ultimately. Just a few minutes of a feeling of peace is enough for us.
We can see this principle each day. In this past week’s compromises with terrorists over the Koran burning day for example. Our leaders pleaded with that preacher in Florida to not do it because the terrorists might harm us. We are letting the bullies run our lives. Yes, burning books is stupid. But, leaders who use fear to grab more power over us are worse than the terrorist - and we let them take all of our milk money! It is the price we must pay for peace, we tell ourselves each time. As we bury our heads deeper in denial each time.
As you can see by my standing up to run to be a Lieutenant Governor, I have never lost that spirit for justice. I now have much more complicated rights to fight for: The RIGHT to liberty - the RIGHT to choose one’s way by the moral standard one chooses to live by.
I do not play God. I do not have the knowledge to choose for anyone except myself. I know that when people make the wrong choices, I know the consequence will be there. And when we infringe on another’s right to choose; a just government will stop them. An unjust government stops the innocent in the name of compromise with the bullies who demand it or else.
The RIGHT to value, to value what only you as an individual can value until the consequences good or bad befall you and you can then know how to change it or keep it. This is how we work and how we learn.
The RIGHT to create what has never been created before from what only you can imagine in your particular way.
The RIGHT to keep the profits from your efforts and creations, the primary reward for putting effort into something worth your while. There are many other rewards, but it isn’t my place to push them to want what I might want.
The prime reason to put a product or service into the market place is to get paid! And I mean paid enough to further your purpose, to reinvest in yourself and your future profit-making creations, not just to cover your expenses as the bullies would have you think. They shout names at you – and me - from behind the urinal. GREEDY!! SELFISH!!
I realize I cannot fight this battle alone. The battle lies within the spirit of every one of us. We can’t let that spirit be turned. We can’t become our own terrorist who sees danger lurking around every corner. We can’t continue to sanction an ever abusive government that continues to abuse, manipulate and destroy us as creators and as humans.
Force, and arbitrary regulations hold our creative spirit hostage.
Due to this wide scale hostage taking, we, as a culture, are voraciously seeking the only domain left for our freedom - our minds, where we can create our fantasy. Our only interest seems to be in escapism. As some of you already know, I have some very incredibly interesting books in my waiting room, and I also have “People” magazine. Which do you think is the most common choice?
We can see how this affects us, the desire to escape reality. We watch TV and movies to get away from our accepted enslavement. We read more fiction than non-fiction and fact. Our children wear head phones all day and they talk on cell phones about nothing in particular. There are dozens of sports games on in every restaurant. The art of conversation is gone, dried up. We as a people have every distraction available to us to run away from this “boring” reality, where we are to follow the regulations because we have to.
We aren’t even allowed to talk about it. Political correctness holds our minds hostage too. The creative spirit is becoming foreign to us. We push it on our kids. Our little kids become creative machines, churning out all kinds of projects for us, so that we can hang them on our refrigerators.
This is why I helped create Heldhigh Torch. I see the creative spirit the key to it all - the key to health, the key to real happiness, the key to solving the problems we face. The creative spirit is the key to finding our own moral standard that allows us to hold our purposes aloft like a torch, for all to see.
As I stand here today and for the next 50-something days fighting for those freedoms that have being given away for a false sense of security, we need to re-evaluate what the consequences really are and thusly renew our creative spirit.
We need to fight the good fight within ourselves to not become the bully or the bullied that results from force and neglect. You know, the one that is always justified by the rest of society (taking the role of the bully) to be drugged, or to be rehabilitated into a mindless robot (taking the role of the bullied) to be used at every whim of anyone who has this spirit of “thuggery” to use us in any way they please.
To me, priority one is to create the space to be free within a forceful and manipulative world - a world that I know I cannot single-handedly change.
The Order of the Heldhigh Torch is that creative space, that free place with responsibilities, the responsibility that holds us accountable to the principles that we agree to keep here together.
Freedom requires responsibility, responsibility requires principles. Principles require thinking. Thinking requires freedom. Interrupt that circle and all you get is a flat tire, and the vehicle you are using to further your own purposes in life can’t get out of the garage!
For example, at last week’s Alpha Kappa Alpha Forum, I noticed what happens to me when just a little nervousness sets in. I felt as though part of my mind just went away! It went into a bit of a survival mode of thinking and operating. It was weird! I become very relaxed. And my thinking was directed towards survival mostly. My creative spirit was zapped! I managed to get a few coherent things out. But I was not at my best.
That demonstrated this principle: Force on a man, in this case self-inflicted, destroys him. It places us into a self preserving state and all our energy is spent on “just surviving.”
For some that looks like a walking, talking zombie who just votes in an attempt to fix the unfixable - unfixable by any government regulation or new welfare program we could ever possibly come up with.
Or we just become a bully. I noticed the political bullies that were around me that night generating fear, wanting revenge, wanting the power to use abusive force for a new kind of good with more unintended consequence of course! And we now know the severity of the unintended consequences that come with all things forceful.
So this is my purpose: FREE MYSELF AND INSPIRE OTHERS - to live within the wonderful creative spirit that is possible to us all. I refuse to become the bully that my fellow Americans might have me become, unintentionally of course.
When the Libertarian party offered me this opportunity to become a leader, I jumped at the chance, not because I seek revenge or want to have a bigger stick. I want to be an example of a free mind, a free man, who shows a new possibility a better way of living. I want to point out the game of thugs and bullies. I want us to recognize what is going on here, who we are becoming and what our future will be if we continue on this path of ruin.
We are better than that, we have these wonderfully creative minds, that when set free, can work on our purposes and freely trade those new values they created.
Patrick Henry once said “Give me liberty or give me death.” I understood what he meant at a very young age, and am still working on that noble project to this day. I just have the opportunity to have a longer lever to move our great state into a better environment for growth, health and happiness.
Since I have had the moral fortitude to stand for my principles, the world has rewarded me over and over, with family and friends that I can’t tell apart. I don’t know who is family and who are friends anymore! They all trade their talents and their creative spirits with me.
It is a wonderful life to not have to do everything myself. I wish for everyone to experience the wealth created when we are set free from each other.
My campaign team is a shining example of how this works: All I had to do was say that I was going to run for office, and all my friends, willingly by their own self-interest, stepped up quickly to share their talents. All I did was ask. I have never seen them more alive and creative as I do now!
No one owes me anything, no one is doing this out of guilt or shame or for any other manipulative reasons. I am no bully, I will never initiate the use of force on another person, but I will fight for my principles and my freedom every time. I will never stop. A creative world is much too valuable to me to allow anyone to ruin it.
And only those who have tasted it, those who have seen this view, know its real value.
I wish you to get the chance to taste true freedom and the creativity and prosperity that comes within it.
Here’s to freedom! Here’s to the creative spirit inside that is our true purpose. Don’t let anyone kill it!
You are all seeking your own purpose in your own way. Thanks for finding some time to trade with me today. I hope I have given you something valuable to use for your own purposes.
Thanks to The Order of the Heldhigh Torch* for the chance to stand for mine today.I hope you all to have a great rest of the day.
(If you are interested in Dan's political campaign, you may keep up with him at www.VoteDanBarber.com.)
*The Order of the Heldhigh Torch is an organization for the purpose of people, one person at a time, making a commitment to their lives. This supports them to identify their purpose (the torch)and morally stand for it (the stiffened arm), no matter what.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Fear Rules
The Bunker Mentality has set in.If the Democrats who are now seen as the "Predator Party" wish to have a future, it ought to advocate repeal of Obamacare. It needs to own up to its usurpation of power and work to restore the idea that they represent the people. Except for a few power-lusters, bottom grubbers, businesses and unions that cannot compete except by government protection, racist get-evens, and socialist ideologues, they represent no one. (Jeez, I hope that's not a majority!) Their purpose is anti-human life (definitely will impoverish all of us) and anti-American. If Obama's vision prevails, a vision that swamps possibility, we will all be of the Bunker Mentality, scared to let you know anything about us for fear you will steal it or use it against us.
Why does O find himself in the bunker? He squandered and failed to build TRUST.
Illustration by Alex Hunter for Washington Times
Monday, October 11, 2010
Voting from Fear
Everyone is pretty scared this year.
But running from the world you don’t want is not the same as creating the world you do want. My advice: Stop voting from fear?
Most people I know don't like the Democrats anymore and would do anything to punish them. That, however, is not the same as voting for what you DO value.
If it is dependency you want, don't do anything as that is the direction we are headed. If it is liberty, vote for the lady of light wherever you find her. After awhile, things will sort themselves out.
But running from the world you don’t want is not the same as creating the world you do want. My advice: Stop voting from fear?
Most people I know don't like the Democrats anymore and would do anything to punish them. That, however, is not the same as voting for what you DO value.
If it is dependency you want, don't do anything as that is the direction we are headed. If it is liberty, vote for the lady of light wherever you find her. After awhile, things will sort themselves out.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Man is Self-Regulating
In this era of rapacious government seeking to regulate EVERYTHING, here is a blow for freedom.
My point in showing this? MAN IS SELF-REGULATING AND OF NECESSITY MUST BE IF HE CHOOSES TO LIVE.
Whatever the purpose a government may have, it cannot be for regulating man's activities (and that includes environmental activities). To do so causes harm to man (even death), directly or indirectly. What a great thesis for a book.
My point in showing this? MAN IS SELF-REGULATING AND OF NECESSITY MUST BE IF HE CHOOSES TO LIVE.
Whatever the purpose a government may have, it cannot be for regulating man's activities (and that includes environmental activities). To do so causes harm to man (even death), directly or indirectly. What a great thesis for a book.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Letter to Herman Cain, WSB 750 Atlanta
Dear Herman Cain,
Thank you for your work. I listen to you often – especially when driving in the evening.
I heard you tonight interview a Republican Congressional candidate running against John Lewis. You mentioned that you have interviewed other candidates including those for Governor. Are you interested in interviewing candidates for Lieutenant Governor? I know one who is raising the issue that no one else is raising.
What issue, you ask? Individual rights.
We have economic problems, yes we do. But our problems are not really economic, they are moral. The thing driving all of these economic problems is a deeper issue, a moral issue. As a society we have embraced a moral principle which does not work. It is impractical and cannot work. And unless we root out that principle we are doomed to die. Root out that principle and we will heal ourselves and move ahead to a thriving, success-driven America once again.
The moral principle which does not work is “you shall be your brother’s keeper.” With the government enacting laws for this purpose, “helping our neighbor” is not a matter of choice depending on our own purposes and resources. Now we are FORCED to provide for our brother at the point of a gun. The government takes what it wants of everything we earn. We have been turned into slaves, like it or not. And I sure as hell don’t like it, Herman.
We are expected to sacrifice our lives rather than thrive and prosper in our lives.
The Democrats and politicians of all stripes think that they sit atop a production machine that is an endless supply of wealth. They are mistaken. When they take the fruits of our labors, what they don’t bargain for is that they eviscerate our motive for labor. They cut us off from the “why” of our actions, and it is the “why” that ties our actions to our life energy. I’m not saying this, Herman, out of spiteful anger. All social experiments, i.e., top down dictums of this kind, require sacrifice and they have all failed. The severance of a man from his motor is the reason.
At this point in time, the fact that we would want to live our own lives, thrive and succeed is seen as evil incarnate. That horrible human impulse must be controlled, they say.
When we conquer the idiocy of this dictum and find another way to express our desire to help our neighbor – like, in the case of the government, protect the individual rights of every man so that he can live as full a life as he is able, and in the case of the individual, help those if you can and think appropriate, who you value for your life – we will at last have stepped into the possibility of a free society.
I’m sure you get my point. I’ve listened to you enough to know that you do get this.
And, the only candidate who I know who understands this and advocates it is Dan Barber. He is running for Lieutenant Governor of the State of Georgia on the Libertarian ticket. If you are interested in an interview of Lieutenant Governor candidates, I would be happy to get the two of you connected.
Thank you for your work. I listen to you often – especially when driving in the evening.
I heard you tonight interview a Republican Congressional candidate running against John Lewis. You mentioned that you have interviewed other candidates including those for Governor. Are you interested in interviewing candidates for Lieutenant Governor? I know one who is raising the issue that no one else is raising.
What issue, you ask? Individual rights.
We have economic problems, yes we do. But our problems are not really economic, they are moral. The thing driving all of these economic problems is a deeper issue, a moral issue. As a society we have embraced a moral principle which does not work. It is impractical and cannot work. And unless we root out that principle we are doomed to die. Root out that principle and we will heal ourselves and move ahead to a thriving, success-driven America once again.
The moral principle which does not work is “you shall be your brother’s keeper.” With the government enacting laws for this purpose, “helping our neighbor” is not a matter of choice depending on our own purposes and resources. Now we are FORCED to provide for our brother at the point of a gun. The government takes what it wants of everything we earn. We have been turned into slaves, like it or not. And I sure as hell don’t like it, Herman.
We are expected to sacrifice our lives rather than thrive and prosper in our lives.
The Democrats and politicians of all stripes think that they sit atop a production machine that is an endless supply of wealth. They are mistaken. When they take the fruits of our labors, what they don’t bargain for is that they eviscerate our motive for labor. They cut us off from the “why” of our actions, and it is the “why” that ties our actions to our life energy. I’m not saying this, Herman, out of spiteful anger. All social experiments, i.e., top down dictums of this kind, require sacrifice and they have all failed. The severance of a man from his motor is the reason.
At this point in time, the fact that we would want to live our own lives, thrive and succeed is seen as evil incarnate. That horrible human impulse must be controlled, they say.
When we conquer the idiocy of this dictum and find another way to express our desire to help our neighbor – like, in the case of the government, protect the individual rights of every man so that he can live as full a life as he is able, and in the case of the individual, help those if you can and think appropriate, who you value for your life – we will at last have stepped into the possibility of a free society.
I’m sure you get my point. I’ve listened to you enough to know that you do get this.
And, the only candidate who I know who understands this and advocates it is Dan Barber. He is running for Lieutenant Governor of the State of Georgia on the Libertarian ticket. If you are interested in an interview of Lieutenant Governor candidates, I would be happy to get the two of you connected.
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