The Future of Liberty

Mark Noonan24 Comments

Roger Kimball – a genuinely smart guy and a great writer – has a long article up over at Pajamas Media entitled The Anglosphere and the Future of Liberty.  It is a good article and well worth reading, but I do think it misses a very important point.  The gist of it is that the Anglosphere – those nations which share the English language and precepts of English law and government – have led the world in to liberty and are likely to save and restore liberty in the future.  In as much as it asserts that the English-speaking world has had a unique desire for liberty, it is correct.  It is also correct in the assertion that it is the English desire for local rule which is the basis for this liberty.  But if anyone is thinking that because of this heritage that there is a future for liberty in the world, then he’s gravely mistaken.

Kimball is smart enough to out a large “if” on the whole concept – if we do what is right and necessary, then we may save and restore liberty.  But I believe that most in the Anglosphere don’t understand fully what is right – what, that is, needs to be done.  And this is because we fail to understand why liberty is dying: it is dying because people work for others, rather than themselves.

Liberty is not an outgrowth, tyranny is.  Liberty is the natural condition of all mankind, until the corruptions of the world come along and wreck it.  We don’t actually run from tyranny to liberty, but it is always from liberty to tyranny.  You can’t have a revolution – a real one, that is, as opposed to the mere replacing of one tyranny with another – without there being a democracy; without, that is, a free people who are possessed of liberty and thus willing to fight to preserve it.  The Founders were not slaves – they were free men, and so fought when they perceived that someone was proposing to take their freedom away.  And here’s the thing – you can’t have a democracy unless a majority of the people are independent of all others.  For there to be liberty, most people must be able to take care of themselves without let or hindrance from anyone else.  

In olden times, this was done by trying to have at least a majority be free farmers, working their own land.  That is not terribly practical today, but the fact of the matter is that liberty started to atrophy in the Anglosphere at the same time that a majority of people stopped being owners of the means of their own livelihood.  As we were ever more crammed in to cities to work in factories and offices owned by others, we became unfree – and ever more willing to listen to people who proposed to take from some and give to others.  It made more sense, don’t you see?  When you’re a free man or woman working your own farm you know what “re-distribution” is – it is the taking of what you’ve worked very hard for and giving it away.  When you’re a drudge in a factory or an office cubicle, it becomes less clear…its a matter of taking away from the rich SOB who runs the factory or office and, presumably, giving to you, the worker.  That it doesn’t work out like that doesn’t take away from the appeal of such a scheme in a society which has become unfree – most of the money taken from one group of rich people is just passed over to the group of rich people currently favored by the government, of course, but the rhetoric of re-distribution appeals to a sense of justice in the wage-earner.

And this is where we conservatives have failed for so long – we don’t accept that socialism has an appeal, let alone an appeal to an actual, genuine sense of justice.  But, it does.  Deep in the hearts of all men and women is a notion that you really shouldn’t have too much – certainly not too much of wealth you clearly didn’t earn by the sweat of your own brow.  This is why there is little hostility to someone who builds up even a quite successful small business and becomes a millionaire, but there is resentment against a financial shark who made his billions by sharp practice.    The socialists twist this rational sense of justice, of course.  No socialist has ever really figured out what the problem is, but they have figured they can make hay by playing upon rational resentments and twisting those emotions in to a scheme whereby the socialist now becomes the owner (as it were) of the un-earned wealth – the distributor of the fat, and thus the tyrant of society.  But for all their twisting, we must not loose sight of the fact that there is a real basis here. 

If there is to be a future for liberty we won’t find it in appeals to a Constitution that most Americans only have a hazy idea about.  We won’t find it in a rigid defense of what is called Capitalism but which has completely degenerated in to a State-run, crony-Capitalism.  If there is to be a future for liberty it will only come by a revolutionary movement determined to set up a system which will in short order get a solid majority of the people owning their own means of livelihood.  Either directly as individuals, as part of family enterprises, or as worker-owned and managed cooperatives.  Once we get 50% plus 1 of the American people working desperately hard for themselves and only enriching themselves, then all appeals to socialism will die off…people are able to be suckered in to thinking that stealing from others is a good idea until they realize the person being plundered is themselves. 

All our proposals must advance this cause.  We must seek to tear down regulations which hamper business formation.  We must reform the tax code so that it doesn’t punish someone who wants to work.  We must provide financial backing and incentives via the tax and regulatory code to make it ever more appealing for people to set up on their own.  And we must campaign among the propertyless with a vision of them owning property and working for themselves – not because we’ll get all of them, all at once, to join us, but because we’ll get some of them…and any addition to our ranks of free and independent citizens means that genuine democracy has spread, and our side is one step closer to victory.  Our campaign must be of Freedom against Slavery…while making it clear we mean real freedom: the freedom to work for one’s self and take care of one’s own. 

There is a future for freedom, IF we understand what freedom really is and then go out and fight for it.

Government Shut Down We’re All Gonna DIE!!!1!!Eleventy!!1! Open Thread

Mark Noonan103 Comments

As Matt noted on Facebook, the two worst people in America are Harry Reid and Barack Obama…bringing on crisis after crisis because, quite simply, they can’t have regular order in Congress as that would result in the whole Obama-Reid project going down in flames…remember, even Democrats don’t want this nonsense (or, at least, enough of them who are under threat in 2014 don’t want this).

But as we’re all going to die due to lack of government as of October 1st, let us just relax and enjoy our last few moments…and discuss whatever comes to mind.

UPDATE:  Have you ever been to the WWII Memorial in DC?  I have.  So has Matt.  Its a beautiful, moving monument to the men and women who sacrificed so much to win the Second World War.  Its an open park.  There is no “gate”; no entrance, as it were.  It is just there and you are free to wander through it as you will.  But for some reason the Park Service put up barricades to prevent entry this morning.  Why?  I can only surmise to make us all feel bad – in other words, on orders from on high, they decided to be rat bastards and prevent people from visiting the memorial in order to punish us and so get us to blame the bad, old Republicans for Obama and Reid shutting down the government.  Well, the veterans of WWII are equal to any task – and so they just broke down the barricades and went on in, anyway.

UPDATE II: From what I’ve read, what I thought would be a day or two shutdown until the House GOP caved looks like it might go on for a couple weeks.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s still an urge to surrender in the GOP House…but also a dawning realization that surrender won’t help the country or the party.  True, there is a risk of a national backlash against us – but I believe such a risk is small.  Most of the people who are going to really hate us over this already hate us – but, meanwhile, as long as we fight those who love us, will love us even more.  Eventually there will be a resolution of some sort – but I’m willing to go for weeks on this and see what we can get.  I bet if we hold firm we do get at least a year’s delay on the individual mandate and some other reforms.  And a year’s delay on that sets up a situation where we might even get another year’s delay…and so on.  Stand firm, GOP.

UPDATE III:  Ed Morrisey over at Hot Air notes a new CBS poll taken after the shutdown started – it is rather unsurprising.  Overwhelming majority disapproves of the shutdown and more people blame the GOP than blame Obama…but the kicker on that is that during the 1995 shutdown the blame GOP/blame President breakdown was 2 to 1 in favor of the President…now its 44% blaming GOP, 35% blaming Obama, and the poll was taken before the debacle of the WWII memorial and Reid’s comments about kids with cancer made the news in a big way.   Compromise is demanded by overwhelming majorities, and so the Obama/Reid plan to automatically reject everything unless they get 100% of what they want will probably work over time to increasing disadvantage to the President and his Democrats – they are going to have to give ground (so will the GOP, but as we’re already willing to do that, its less of a sacrifice for us).

Remember, this is not 1995 – the MSM does not control things as well as they used to. The New Media is out there.  The longer this goes on, the worse this gets for Democrats.  And, of course, the Democrats know that – which is why we’re getting so much advice that its in our interest to end this as swiftly as possible by a complete surrender.  Democrats wanted the shut down because they figured it worked best for them, and so we got it – Democrats now want this ended quickly with our surrender, because they figure that works best for them.  Don’t fall for the lies.  Stand firm!

UPDATE IV:  Mark Steyn hits a point no one has yet made:

…In fact, government by “continuing resolution” is a sleazy racket: The legislative branch is supposed to legislate. Instead, they’re presented with a yea-or-nay vote on a single all-or-nothing multi-trillion-dollar band-aid stitched together behind closed doors to hold the federal leviathan together while it belches its way through to the next budget cycle. As Professor Angelo Codevilla of Boston University put it, “This turns democracy into a choice between tyranny and anarchy.” It’s certainly a perversion of responsible government: Congress has less say over specific federal expenditures than the citizens of my New Hampshire backwater do at Town Meeting over the budget for a new fence at the town dump. Pace Senator Reid, Republican proposals to allocate spending through targeted, mere multi-billion-dollar appropriations are not only not “irresponsible” but, in fact, a vast improvement over the “continuing resolution”: To modify Lord Acton, power corrupts, but continuing power corrupts continually…

A continuing resolution is essentially a blank check to the Executive to just keep doing whatever it wishes – each department is supposed to have its own appropriation so that Congress can review what the money is going to be spent on, and make changes as appears necessary.  Just continuing things is an abdication of Congressional authority – and a nullification of the Constitution in a lot of ways.  The plain fact of the matter is that the government should be shut down right now – and should stay shut down until the House and Senate agree on a series of funding bills to send to the President…and this will take negotiations between the House and Senate, and therein lies the real reason Reid and Obama don’t want it:  such negotiations would force cuts in various Democrat proposals which are unpopular with the public, but popular with the cronies of the Democrats.

UPDATE V:  Obama kicks out a 77 and 80 year old couple who have owned their house on Lake Mead for decades.  Because it sits on federal land, Obama says “get out”, and, of course, we’re all supposed to blame the Republicans because of this.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Lake Mead but its mostly just empty land with a big lake in the middle of it.  It has a gate, of course, and they charge you $10 a car load (which means during this splendid fall weather the government is denying itself a large amount of money in entrance fees) to get in…people do live in private homes in various parts of the Lake Mead area, and there is no risk at all in them being in their homes.  But Obama and Reid just want to be creeps, and so this happens.

Second American Revolution Open Thread

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Turns out that we can rely on just 19 Senators – though I understand a couple of the GOPers who went against Cruz had genuine reasons for so doing.  Let’s call it 21 Senators who actually care about the fate of the nation…we need just 30 more to have a majority in the Senate.  To work in 2014 to increase our numbers.

That said, the battle is clearly joined – the Ruling Class wants one thing, the American people quite another.  Obama is simply too proud and too stupid to give ground.  His Democrats are too corrupt to give up their place.  The RINOs are too stupid and corrupt to give up theirs.  Fine and dandy.  We know where we are and what we need to do.  This, by the way, is not a call for abandoning the GOP…the vote in the Senate today does not, in my view, show the true strength of our side in the overall GOP.  I think we hold a majority of GOPers and GOP-leaning Independents…we just have some dinosaurs in the Senate which make it appear we’re weaker than we are.  I think we can fully take over the GOP and turn it in to the party of small business, the middle class and the working poor – a more populist and libertarian party which yet understands the vital necessity of preserving the old morality.  Perhaps I’m wrong and we’ll eventually have to go Third Party, but we shall see…we’ll know by the end of the 2016 cycle.  If the GOP Establishment gets us another “moderate” nominee then we’ll know the GOP is done for.

Have at it on this issue, or any other which comes to mind.

An Open Letter To Al Franken

Leo Pusateri7 Comments

I received an email from Senator Franken. Among his accomplishments touted was supposedly keeping college affordable for Minnesotans, accomplishing this by keeping student loan rates low, and trying to expand the issuance of Pell grants and other sources of financial aid. 

This was my response to the Senator:

Dear Senator Franken 

While I appreciate your wanting to keep the cost of education affordable for all Minnesotans, your solutions appear to be centered on only one side of the equation. 

While I applaud your efforts to keep interest on student loans low, and to expand the availability of Pell grants and other sources of financial aid, I must wonder what is being done on the other side of the equation– to keep college costs down? 

What is happening in colleges seems to be highly analogous with what is happening in health care. In health care, raises in prices are passed on to health insurance companies, who in turn merely charge higher premiums to their users. There is no competition nor pressure brought to bear on medically-related institutions to hold the line on costs, as they simply pass the costs, almost whimsically, back to the consumer. 

In the same manner, as colleges raise their tuition rates with impunity, government responds not by holding educational institutions accountable for their costs, but by increasing the levels of debt on the part of students and/or cost to the taxpayer in terms of financial aid subsidies. This necessarily keeps tax burdens on individuals and businesses elevated, and necessarily increases the already insurmountable mountain of debt incurred by students. 

What is the threshold under which government will put a ceiling on financial aid? 

If government places such a ceiling on the level of financial aid given to students, colleges will necessarily need to adjust tuition and other associated costs or face severely declining enrollment. 

In other words, competition and market-driven forces will bring pressure to keep the costs of college at affordable levels. 

And, incidentally and likewise, competition and market-driven forces will force health care providers to keep their costs at affordable levels (I present the lowering costs and higher quality and availability of laser eye surgery as a shining example of this concept). 

Senator Franken, at the beginning of this screed, I didn’t think about tying these concepts, health care and higher education, together. But now that I am typing this, I have come to the conclusion (and I hope that you can follow me) that what it comes down to is this: what is missing from Higher Education and what is missing in health care–including Obamacare–is the very thing that will alleviate issues in both of these problematic areas– the introduction of market forces to bring costs down to affordable levels. 

Sir, I have little hope that you will take this to heart, as no doubt your partisan blinders will prevent you from seeing the inherent similarities between these two out-of-control aspects of our society, and that these two sectors share a nearly identical solution (market-driven forces); but then again, one can certainly dream. 

Sincerely, 

Leo Pusateri

We Can’t Spare Ted Cruz: He Fights

Mark Noonan19 Comments

That, of course, is a paraphrase of Lincoln’s answer to critics who demanded he fire Grant after Shilo.  You can say this, that or the other thing about Cruz (and Paul) – but the main thing is that he’s fighting.  He’s doing what the Congressional GOP has pretty much refused to do since Obama became President.  The Congressional GOP is more afraid of how the MSM will characterize opposition to Obama (racist!) than they are of the people…Cruz is putting the fear of the people in to them.  And that’s a good thing.

Obama is the very worst President this nation has ever had (hey, someone even wrote a book about it) – the only rational, patriotic course is to fight him out on every issue.  If by some means this turns against us and the people rally to Obama, then so be it…clinging on to a bit of Congressional power for one more election cycle isn’t worth it if purchased at the cost of our nation.  Fight, fight and then fight some more.  Every issue.  Every vote.  Give nothing.  Shut down the government.  Let Obama and his henchmen know that we’re opponents up and down the line.

Isn’t It Against the Law to Kill an Eagle?

tiredoflibbs30 Comments

If one (except a Native American) possesses an eagle feather, it is a federal offense.  If one, kills an eagle – even accidentally – one faces jail time.

Who will face jail time for this? No one…. when leftist policies kill people the left looks the other way.  Just another example of “the path to hell is paved with good intentions”.

http://energyblog.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/12/federal-study-highlights-spike-in-eagle-deaths-at-wind-farms/

I am sure eagle deaths are more numerous than what is in the study.  My understanding is that the study relies on the REPORTING of eagle deaths and not an actual count.

Will the left protest the wind farms for killing animals?  Or, will they look the other way, since it is America’s icon (and the proggy push is to shame this country) and they feel it is a small price to pay for green energy instead of “enriching big oil”.

As Usual the Proggies Have It Wrong…. What the Pope Is Actually Saying!

tiredoflibbs3 Comments

The Proggies think they understand everything.  How can an anti-religious political ideology understand any religion, their teachings and their origins especially when the proggies cherry-pick passages from the Bible to prove their pathetic points.

Fay Voshell says it all…

HuffPo and other liberal publications can stop rejoicing. The Pope has not turned into a radical progressive.

On the contrary, he is merely affirming what every pope before him has said.

The Holy Father is merely making the proper distinction between the pastoral role of the church and the church as the Christian counterculture confronting the evils of society. He is advising the faithful not to forget the two aims of the Church, one of which is loving evangelization and discipleship; the other of which is firm confrontation of the distorted standards of the world.

The pastoral role of the Church is basically as follows: All sinners — that’s all of us — are invited to accept the forgiveness of God freely offered through the gospel of grace. Each is invited to travel on the Christian journey of sanctification, seeking every day to become more like Jesus Christ.

The countercultural role of the Church means that at the same time the Church has a pastoral and evangelistic ministry that includes anyone who is a seeker of The Way, the Church takes a radically prophetic stand against the contemporary assaults on a transcendent God, his character and his commands. The Church retains its unyielding ideals and clear, unchanging directives concerning sexual behavior, marriage, and the sacredness of life. Such ideals remain bedrock foundations.

Progressives should not, then, expect the pope to endorse their agenda in any respect. Such matters as gay marriage, eradication of the distinctions between the sexes, and abortion on demand will not soon be endorsed by the leader of the Catholic Church.

The Left should expect to be deeply disappointed in this Pope.

Thank God.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/09/what_the_pope_is_really_saying.html#ixzz2fWEej5NN

If You Suspect Obama Supporters Are, Well, Dumb…

Mark Noonan50 Comments

…well, you’ve got good reason – from The Daily Caller:

…when asked what Obama had done to promote peace, she confessed she couldn’t think of any examples.

Another student said she supported everything that he was doing. His very existence was creating peace, she said.

“I just feel like in general being a good guy, it’s just creating a lot more peace and like, mellow,” she said. “The fact that he is for the people creates peace in and of itself.”

When asked how she could support Obama’s Syrian policies but oppose Bush’s Iraq policies, she justified the contradiction by stating, “Bush, I just didn’t like him.”

I’m telling you, its getting harder and harder to support universal adult suffrage.  When you read things like that, the desire to just give up becomes very strong.  We’re dealing with people who clearly haven’t the foggiest notion of how the world works.  But, then, you remember these are college students – and 90% of them are only being prepped to work in the Government/Corporate bureaucracies…and if we can curtail those bureaucracies, these dimwits will have to enter the real world, and that will eventually bring them ’round to our way of thinking.  Or, truth be told, to the act of thinking, at all.

It is, though, going to be an uphill climb – remember, as we try to save the nation, people like this will stand idiotically in our way…not out of malice, but simply because they don’t know any better.  But there is a cure for that – it is these dimwits combined with people in the blue cities which give liberalism its electoral power…and I think there are enough working poor in the blue cities who can be moved our way and when combined with our base in suburban and rural areas, that is enough of a majority to start hacking away at government and corporate bureaucracies with a meat axe until they are small enough to be managed.

HAT TIP:  Ace of Spades

 

House GOP Grows a Backbone?

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Maybe:

House Speaker John A. Boehner said Wednesday that the chamber will pass a resolution this week to continue funding the government but to deny any funds to implement President Obama’s new health care law.

“The law is a train wreck. The president has protected American big business. It’s time to protect American families from this unworkable law,” Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said at a press conference Wednesday morning…

Obama, naturally, has said he’ll reject any bill which defunds ObamaCare.  This, as you might expect, has frightened the RINOs who have been told by the Democrats and the MSM that the shutdown of the government during the 1990’s destroyed the GOP for a generation…except for the fact that the GOP post-shut down managed to hold on to their House and Senate majorities and elected Bush President in 2000.  If we get “crushed” like that because we shut down the government over ObamaCare, then I’m all for it.  It looked for a long time like the House leadership would cave to RINO fears – but, I guess someone on Boehner’s staff decided to step an inch outside the Beltway and discovered (doubtless much to his surprise) that ObamaCare is hideously unpopular with the American people and especially with the GOP base.

This isn’t a gray area – it is a stark fact of life.  ObamaCare is a train wreck and everyone outside the White House and MSNBC can see it’s a train wreck.  People don’t want it.  They might not be sold on a free market solution to ObamaCare; they may, indeed, eventually opt for a very government-run health care system…but ObamaCare is a disaster that people have already seen too much of.  It has to go.  Only Obama’s pride and stupidity prevents him from just saying, “now that we’ve seen the complexities of health care reform, it is time for us to change the law in light of recent experience”.  If he did that, he’d probably wind up with 80% of what he wants…but, as I said: stupid and proud.

I’m just glad we’re fighting a bit…more drift like we’ve had the past 6 months and 2014 could end up a disaster for us.  Fight and win…and, heck, even if you fight and lose its better than “chicken out” and lose.

The Communist Conspiracy

Mark Noonan8 Comments

“…To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church…” – Our Lady of Fatima, 1917

You non-Catholics reading that might not be familiar, so I’ll explain.  We Catholics believe that our Blessed Mother, Mary, appeared to a few children in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 and uttered that rather dire prophecy, as well as some other things.  You can believe that Mary appeared, or not, as you like (I do believe it), but no one can argue against the particular prophecy – the poison that arose in Russia in 1917 – communism – did indeed spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church, as well as many other horrors.  I bring this up not as a lesson in theology or faith, but because there is a bit of an argument brewing on the right over a book which not only asserts the indisputable truth of the prophecy, but also goes a bit further and asserts that our government policy came largely under the control of communists and fellow travelers.

The book is called American Betrayal: the Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character, by Diana West and the premise is that communism so deeply penetrated American government that it not only swayed American government policy in a pro-communist manner, but allowed our society to be infected by communist ideology overall.  Not only did the communists get us to sell out at Yalta, they also got us to buy in to moral relativism and other communist ideas which have lead to the moral destruction we see around us today.  The first I heard of the book was when I read a very hostile review – not from some lefty, but from a prominent conservative who’s views I greatly respect, Ron Radosh.  The title of his review, McCarthy on Steroids, sets the tone for the whole piece.  Radosh’s review is excellently written and makes many good points – but I confess I was disturbed by the title: as if Radosh thinks there was something wrong with McCarthy; reading the review, I can help but believe that Radosh does think ill of McCarthy – that McCarthy had in some way gone wrong.  Not on the fact that communists had infiltrated, but I guess on some of the tactics that McCarthy is alleged by his critics to have used (being mean, browbeating, making false accusations, etc).  Trouble is, in reading accurate accounts of the McCarthy period, I find no evidence of McCarthy using any of the tactics his enemies claim.  Leaving aside McCarthy, we have a battle – between fellow conservatives and not about whether or not communism is an enemy which infiltrated, but about just how much infiltration there was and how culpable people on both the right and the left were and are.

Over at PJ Media, David Solway deplores the intramural argument – seeing in it a disintegration of the overall conservative movement as we battle internally while the leftist enemy advances.  There is much to be said for this.  We daren’t fight too much among ourselves.  I, too, deplore an argument which sets us against each other – and while one, small blogger is not likely to resolve the issue, I think I have a couple things to say which both sides may find useful.

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