Affirmative Action: The Rationale

Johnson’s “result” can never be realized because there will always be people who fail to even take care of themselves, however equal we are before the law, however level the playing field, however available opportunities for success. Humans are not—and cannot be made to be—equal in two critical areas: ability and ambition. Some people will always excel: some will always fail. But, a nation where every man has an equal opportunity to succeed, where the rules are applied fairly, where each individual is guaranteed the unfettered ability to pursue his own happiness within the boundaries set by objective law and reason…such a place is one that can and will be created in time, with effort, through education, by reason…but not by force.

Proponents of affirmative action endorse a forced solution to the social problem of racism that actually slows progress and keeps the old sores open and festering. Their solution, of course, violates the rights of all individuals and attempts to cure racism with racism, injustice with injustice. It forces universities, government offices, and business firms of every kind to lower their admissions and hiring standards in order to meet racist demands for “diversity.” Finally, their solution provides the descendants of the oppressed with an excuse for their failure.

If justice was President Kennedy’s objective when he issued Executive Order 10925, what became of affirmative action in reality is abomination. Affirmative action should never have been about correcting the past. Work to ensure that all Americans enjoy a market place free from racial bias is about setting up a better future.

Setting up a better future requires the abandonment of collectivism-altruism in all of its forms. As long as people continue to view themselves as members of some group and not as individuals with their own, self-made identity; as long as people continue to believe sacrifice is a moral duty and that there is virtue in suffering, individual rights will continue to be sacrificed to the collective. The losers will wear their bleeding sores like medals of honor, beating their chests in righteous indignation, drawing imagined power from their suffering.

Setting up a better future is about the recognition of government’s responsibility to protect the rights of individuals to pursue their own happiness. All of the laws protecting the rights of individuals have been on the books since Reconstruction, the Fourteenth Amendment and the incorporation doctrine, Gitlow v. New York, 1925. No new law need be written. [In fact both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were unnecessary, redundant and divisive.] Existing law must be enforced. Victims of discrimination should have the courts to protect them from rogue elements within our country that persist in discriminatory practices. But, sadly, the Supremes got it all wrong, too. Federal courts today use “strict scrutiny” when deciding these cases, and where the court deems necessary, affirmative action [even hiring quotas] has been employed, United States v. Paradise, 1987. In other words, the courts have opted to force violators to change their immoral practices with immoral force, rather than simply to punish violators for their illegal practices. Strict scrutiny wrongly preserves the immoral practices of affirmative action.

A government that fails to protect the rights of all individuals, i.e., each human, every citizen, has failed its primary mandate and has, therefore, lost legitimacy. If the failure is wide-spread [as it was during the 100 years of segregation in this country] then it is the peoples’ right to revolution.

…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. [Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson]

The Civil Rights Movement [1955-1965] was that revolution, and both the followers of Dr. King and the followers of Malcolm X [however different their tactics] waged and won a just war against an illegitimate government.

Clear as Christmas Day

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007712180318

Affirmative Action: The Problem

It all begins seemingly innocent enough with Executive Order 10925 issued on March 6, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy creating the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, mandating that federally financed projects "take affirmative action" to ensure that hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias. Had I been selected to chair this committee, I would have thought my job is to make sure that “hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias.”

Almost immediately, however, the mandate was misread, and thanks to Kennedy’s successor, enforced criminally. On June 4, 1965, in a speech to Howard University graduates, President Lyndon B. Johnson wrongly defined the mandate.

“…You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe you have been completely fair . . . This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity—not just legal equity but human ability—not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result."

Johnson had whittled a club of righteousness for the oppressed, arming and enabling them to turn the tables and begin the legal repression of their former oppressors. For Johnson the mandate was a means to correct past injustices leveled against black individuals in this country. How? By sacrificing the rights of contemporary and future white individuals.

This misunderstood mandate to ensure “freedom from racial bias” created a new kind of racial bias…this time blacks would enjoy preferential treatment. This mandate for justice would instead create a new kind of injustice. This time whites would be the victims. White individuals for generations would be made to suffer penance for the wrong-doing, not of their parents or grandparents necessarily, but for sins committed by the collective, white race. Just as the entire black race for a hundred years after the abolition of slavery was denied equal protection and equal opportunity, the entire white race would be denied.

In this way some feel the scales of justice will be placed in balance. Those who think know better.

You would think the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States would be listed among those who think. The Court has decided dozens of affirmative action cases over the years, and while it has struck down the most blatant violations of individual rights, the Court has utterly failed to recognize and protect the rights of individuals living and competing in a world “free from racial bias.” For example, in 1978, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supremes ruled that racial quotas are unconstitutional. The justices, however, surrendered objectivity when in the same ruling they declared that race may be used as a factor in college admissions, that “diversity” is a “compelling state interest.” A better decision in 1996, Hopwood v. University of Texas Law School, reversed Bakke’s diversity argument. For seven good years justice prevailed in college admissions when finally in June, 2003, the Supreme Court [5-4] upheld a University of Michigan Law School admissions policy, ruling that race can be one of many factors considered by colleges when selecting their students because it furthers "a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

Objectivist scholar Peter Schwartz in his essay The Racism of "Diversity" published by the Ayn Rand Institute December 11, 2003, said it best:

"The notion of "diversity" entails exactly the same premises as racism--that one's ideas are determined by one's race and that the source of an individual's identity is his ethnic heritage…According to its proponents, we need "diversity" in order to be exposed to new perspectives on life. We supposedly gain "enrichment from the differences in viewpoint of minorities," as the MIT Faculty Newsletter puts it. Admissions should be based on race, the University of Michigan's vice president insists, because "learning in a diverse environment benefits all students, minority and majority alike."

"These circumlocutions translate simply into this: one's race determines the content of one's mind. They imply that people have worthwhile views to express because of their ethnicity, and that "diversity" enables us to encounter "black ideas," "Hispanic ideas," etc. What could be more repulsively racist than that?"

Collectivism, the failure to recognize the fact that there is no such thing as “group thought” or “group rights,” that only individuals have brains and there are only individual rights, is the core element of the corrupt thinking that goes into racism as well as calls for affirmative action. Ironically, proponents of affirmative action view the world through the same eyes as their former, segregationist opponents: It’s our group against theirs. So blacks caucus in Congress to do battle with whites for the rights they have been denied for so long, as if justice is possible only to either…or, but not to all. The grandchildren of the oppressed [who themselves have never been oppressed] rage on that they have been “hobbled by chains” for centuries, that it’s not enough to simply remove the chains…

You must wear them now.

Abortion: The Solution

As I have said previously, forty states have laws banning post-viability abortions. Good, old-fashioned, American horse sense caused this phenomenon. Federalism facilitated it. However this consensus came to pass is not the issue, Mr. Huckabee. The fact that the solution I am proposing already exists is something of note.

Most of these forty states have laws designed to deter even first trimester abortion within their state. For example, 30 states require a patient to be counseled and educated about alternatives to abortion; 38 states require a minor child to get permission from a parent in order to have an abortion; 43 states require abortions be performed by licensed physicians only; 18 states require a waiting period. All of these laws place obstacles in the path of a young woman seeking an abortion. In some cases the laws are not enforced. All have been upheld by the courts.

Government has only two tools at its disposal when its goal is to shape public opinion. They are: force and persuasion. Force is the tool preferred by the religionist, extremist, Right-to-Lifer who would amend the constitution to ban all abortions. “People will be forced to be ‘moral’ whether they like it or not, regardless of the consequences.” For most Americans, of course, force is un-American and unacceptable. The road blocks [mentioned above] were created by the various states to deter abortions, to persuade women to make a different choice. However much I may wish these obstacles be lifted, I must accept persuasion as a fair exercise of governmental power. In fact, my solution will require the state to counsel every woman seeking an abortion. Woman must be educated about their options.

Access to abortion should be wholly unfettered as long as the woman is less than 20 weeks pregnant. After 20 weeks viability testing should be required by law.

If a mother does not want to have the baby, but fails [for whatever reason] to make the decision to abort before viability, she should not be forced to have the baby. No one has the right to force someone to be a parent. What options are available to the state in these cases?

1. The state may counsel the woman, encourage her to carry the baby to term, deliver, and then put the baby up for adoption.

2. If the woman refuses to carry the baby to term [as is her right], the state will accommodate the woman and remove the baby. The baby will not be aborted…it will be delivered.

3. The biological mother, father, and their families forfeit all rights to the offspring once the decision to terminate the pregnancy, to “deliver,” is made.

4. The cost of keeping the premature baby alive will be paid by the adopting parents.

My solution requires acceptance of all pre-viability abortions and an absolute ban on all post-viability abortions [with the exception of the mother’s health]. For those who believe the unalienable right to life begins at conception, this solution is unacceptable. Because their arguments rely on submission to the teachings of their ancient faith and their unsubstantiated belief that a God delivers a soul to the bundle of cells, their arguments require no consideration by the rational, objective lawmaker. The religionists are free to voice their objections to secular law and science. They are free to live their own lives in accordance with their faith, but they have no right to force their irrational faith on others.

My solution saves the lives of viable, thinking, unborn, human babies in every instance. My solution protects the privacy rights of the pregnant young woman. My solution requires no woman to carry to term an unwanted pregnancy. My solution kills no babies.

Abortion: The Rationale

The reason for most of the debate surrounding the abortion issue is our failure to properly define “human life.” Without a proper, rational definition, no solution is possible. For Ayn Rand resolving the abortion debate required only a firm recognition of the rights of individuals and a few precise definitions:

“An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only an actual human being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet living [or the unborn].

“Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the soul discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?” [AR, 1968]

But Ayn Rand went on to explain that her reasoning addressed only 1st trimester abortions. “One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue [Roe v. Wade] concerns only the first three months.”

There can be no rational argument against Rand’s position on first trimester abortions. As long as the potential life is wholly dependant upon the mother, it as much a part of her body as her heart, or her brain, or her kidneys. If a young woman chooses to give one of her kidneys to a dying, transplant recipient, she’ll be praised for the sacrifice even if the procedure leaves her own body less healthy. Her gift of living tissue will have saved another human’s life. The donor’s kidney is mindless, living tissue. It belongs to the donor. She’s free to do with it whatever she wishes. The young woman is free to refuse to donate her organ as well. The fact that her refusal could result in a kidney patients’ death is irrelevant. She will not be charged with a crime. No one would call her choice immoral. The donor’s kidney is mindless, living tissue. It belongs to the donor. She’s free to do with it whatever she wishes [except sell it. Sadly, that’s against the law in the United States].

I think it’s clear that even in America where the government has claimed the right to sample your bodily fluids before you can get a job, current law recognizes the fact that our bodies belong to us.

But what if the living tissue is not mindless? What if it doesn’t require the young woman’s beating heart for its existence?

An unborn baby 25 to 30 weeks into a pregnancy is no longer a bundle of cells or a fetus, wholly dependant upon its mother for life. It’s a baby that can be born, that can live without its mother. The unborn baby does not have rights equal to that of the mother, but once it is viable, capable of living without its mother, it must certainly have at least the right to continue its existence.

The existence of a heartbeat [which occurs only weeks into a pregnancy] is not a proper way to determine whether or not a human being is alive. The heart is a mindless muscle tasked to supply the human brain and the rest of the body with oxygen-rich blood. A human being’s existence is measured by brain activity. Everything that a human being is, is located between his/her ears. Our brains are what distinguish us from the other animals and from each other. If there is a soul, it is our conscious and subconscious mind at work. An unborn baby with a working brain exists. It can feel.

The state does have a responsibility to protect the existence of a viable, thinking, unborn baby.

Abortion: The Problem

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee rejects letting states decide whether to allow abortions, claiming the right to life is a moral issue not subject to multiple interpretations.

“It's the logic of the Civil War," Huckabee said Sunday, comparing abortion rights to slavery. "If morality is the point here, and if it's right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can't have 50 different versions of what's right and what's wrong." [AP, Nov. 18, 2007]

Mr. Huckabee would be wise to remember the old adage: “Be careful what you wish for.” Apparently this wanna-bee-president is not aware of the fact that most states’ abortion laws readily accept the federal decision to protect a woman’s right to a first trimester abortion. State legislatures are close to their people. They reflect the will of the people with greater accuracy and clarity than the federal government in Washington DC. There’s no reason to believe that federal legislation would yield a different result. Extremists like Mr. Huckabee would surely lose if abortion rights were determined by some sort of national referendum. Every woman in America 35-years-old or younger has lived her entire life with the knowledge that if necessary, abortion is a legal option. Most people—however much they deplore abortion—recognize the decision to have children belongs to the parents, not government.

If not for extremists on both sides of the abortion argument, a rational, objective solution to the problem is well in hand. In fact, 40 state legislatures have already arrived at the most essential truth, the proverbial line in the sand, the key word: viability.

Pro-life extremists, governed by their feelings and mystical revelation believe blindly that life begins at conception when a God places an undetectable, immortal soul into the microscopic embryo. From that moment on, in their minds, that potential life has as much right to exist as its 14-year-old mother struggling to pass middle school mathematics. There’s no reasoning with this group. The worst elements among them have actually bombed abortion clinics and murdered doctors who perform abortions. There is no chance this group will even consider taking a more scientific look at this question. Most are not violent, to be true, but that is only because most still retain some hope that the judiciary will reverse nearly forty years of settled law. [Roe v. Wade, protects a woman’s right to an abortion in the first trimester.] If you think these people are so far out of the mainstream that they could never achieve their goal, keep in mind our current president shares their values.

Pro-choice extremists, so determined to protect a woman’s right to reproductive choice, health, and privacy, are forced by their formidable adversaries to take indefensible positions [e.g. supporting partial-birth abortion] for fear that any concession to the right will result in a total loss down the road. They are right to oppose the religionist, extremists on the other side, but they lose credibility and their majority when they try to defend the indefensible. To kill a fully-formed, viable, unborn human being is not reasonable unless the procedure is deemed necessary to protect the life of the mother.

A compromise between these two irrational camps is not the solution. The solution is reason and objective law, law devoid of feelings, mysticism, prejudices, fear, or favorite ideas. The solution will require a truly creative, new look at the issues at stake. How is human life to be defined? When does a potential human life acquire the unalienable right to exist? How do we balance a woman’s right to privacy with an unborn baby’s right to exist?

Family Matters

Happy Birthday Leslie!
Be good.
Love,
Donn

Uncommon Sense

Dear Loyal Readers:

Posting my ideas for you to read over the past five months has been a challenge and my pleasure. I wish more of you had commented on my thinking so that I might benefit from your instruction and improve. No matter. I suppose I’m grateful that you’ve taken the time even to read my blog.

This week I am announcing phase two of my project. It’s called Uncommon Sense: My positions on issues A to Z. Now that I have explained my perspective, my philosophy—i.e. my metaphysics, epistemology, and the resulting code of ethics, political, and economic systems—I think it’s time I explain how I use my philosophy to develop rational, consistent, objective positions on the issues we read about every day in the newspapers.

To date, writing my blog each week has been relatively easy. Nearly everything I’ve written has come straight out of my head, no research, no reference books of any kind. I’ve been sharing with you what I know. Uncommon Sense is going to be much more challenging. I’m going to have to do some actual research on many issues. I will try to keep up my weekly, Sunday post, but I’m going to promise nothing.

Abortion
Affirmative Action
Capital Punishment
Censorship
Diversity
Draft
Drugs
Education
Election 2008
Energy
Environment
Faith-based Initiative
Free Trade
Foreign Policy
Gay Marriage
Hate Crimes
Health Care
Income Taxes
Iraq
Iran
Jihad
Life
Liberty
Military Spending
Pledge of Allegiance
Privacy
Russia
Smoking
Space
Venezuela
Veterans
War

List tentative.

A Secular Thanksgiving

I wish all of you could take a seat at my family’s Thanksgiving table. On the surface you’ll notice nothing particularly different from any other holiday table. There will be plenty of food—traditional foods, like: turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, smashed potatoes, dressing, corn, beans, muffins, bread, butter, beer, wine, and soft drinks. There will be family and extended family from both in and out of town seated around the table this year; there will be more people than there are chairs, so we may even have to set up a “kids table.” There will be NFL football on TV, live music on the front porch, playing catch and family board games. There will be pecan pie, and pumpkin pie, and whip cream, and vanilla ice cream. There will be laughter and gluttony, groaning and belly rubbing, drinking and afternoon naps, satisfaction and “thanks” giving.

Once the people I love are all seated around my table, I will hold hands with whoever is sitting on either side of me. Everybody else around the table will do the same. I will not bow my head. I will look at my brothers when I thank them for making the trip up to Columbia so that we could share the holiday. They will look at me and thank me for the welcome and the meal. I will thank my father-in-law for the financial support he has lent us this year. Without his help and the help of my mother and my sister L, my family would not be celebrating this year in this home. I will thank my mother and my sister and my brother, M, for the airfare he buys me with his Frequent Flier miles. I will thank my sons, Z and D, for being excellent sons, students, and big brothers. I will thank my daughter, A, for bringing so much energy and laughter into my home and my life [even if Z and D don’t appreciate it!]…how she reminds me of me. I will try to make a funny face for my twin babies, E and K. I hope I can make them laugh. I selfishly look forward to seeing their smiling faces. I will turn to my wife, L, and I will thank her for her love and support, for all of her hard work on the job and in raising our children. I will thank her for understanding my short-comings as a husband, and I will assure her that I have no regrets.

Everybody sitting at my Thanksgiving table will do the same, thanking the people who complete their lives. In this way my children will learn that anything that they might enjoy in this life was produced by somebody, if not by themselves. They will be able to identify the quality of their own contribution, determine for themselves balance and realize for themselves the morality of trade. They will feel the pleasure of being recognized and thanked and the pleasure of recognizing others and thanking them honestly and openly.

I see no point in extending my thanks to mythical beings that produced none of the abundance my family enjoys. What we have, we work for in the freest country on Earth. The help my family received this year was made possible not by some omniscient God, but rather, by people I know who worked for it and who were generous enough to help us in our time of need.

For a citizen of the United States of America to fail to identify the cause of America's success is “sin.” We should thank the Framers! Uncompromised respect for the rights of each individual to live his life in pursuit of his own happiness is the reason we are great.

I will not forget to thank the United States’ armed forces, law enforcement and intelligence services for the important and dangerous work they do.

I will thank the people who deserve my thanks. I will thank the people with whom I share life here on Earth. I will thank the people I love for reasons. I will thank them with a smile for their smiles. I will thank them with tears for their tears. They are the source of my strength, my cause. They are the people to whom I owe much thanks.

Where do jobs come from?

If something costs money, it is not a right. No individual has the right to food, clothing, shelter, or health care. All of these things cost money. Money is earned. No one has a right to the unearned.

Because everybody needs food, clothing, shelter, and health care, everybody has to work.

No individual has a right to a job. Jobs are earned by the qualified and kept through productive, hard work. Jobs that require individuals to use their brains generally pay more than jobs that require individuals to use their muscles. Brain matter is more valuable than muscle because the demand for intelligent work is high while the supply of intelligent workers is low. Anybody can mop the operating room floor; very few people can perform neurosurgery.

There is no guarantee that the job you are working today will even exist tomorrow. That is the nature of capitalism…change. Thomas Friedman [The World is Flat] defines capitalism: “creative destruction.” Innovation is a good thing. Unfortunately, for many, innovation in any market can cause jobs to be “outsourced to the past.” Think of all the jobs lost the day gas stations began to erect “Self-Serve” signs. How many millions of workers have been outsourced in the last two decades by microchips? Should something be done to stop this trend?

As the structure of the economy changes many become structurally unemployed. The government does not even factor these individuals into the unemployment rate. It is assumed that they will brush themselves off and get back to work elsewhere within a relatively short period of time. These people, after all, are not unemployed because the economy is unhealthy. They are unemployed because the definition of “productive work” changed. Most find other work. Some require upgrades: They have to go back to school and get training. Whether or not an individual has marketable skills or not is entirely their responsibility. Is there something unfair about any of this?

Ohio congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich thinks so. He finds the reality I’ve described above “shocking and dangerous.” Look what I found on his website:

Saving the Middle Class: A Real—not Rhetorical—Plan
By Dennis Kucinich

It is a shocking - and dangerous - trend in the United States over the last three decades: the plummeting rewards and respect for hard work. As a result the middle class who has produced this magnificent American engine of economic growth is under intense pressure from the governing elites – of both parties. Risk envelopes the life of the average American employee while the casino capitalists at the top prosper.

Democracy and capitalism are at risk in a system where casino capitalists earn a billion dollars or more in a year while wages and savings wither for the middle class. America’s consumer-driven capitalism will die if these Great Depression era trends are allowed to continue.

Fortunately, the American Dream and the middle class have been resuscitated before…

And Kucinich goes on to promise another FDR-type New Deal complete with government make-work projects, economic isolation, free health care for all, free college for all…all of which will be paid for by clubbing to death “those who have benefited most from our economic and legal system” and “by eliminating waste from our bloated, inefficient military budget.” In this way he will “help America resume its glorious journey…[and] correct our current detour towards fear and greed.”

Unbelievable.

I will limit myself to correcting only the most blatant “Economics 101” errors:

1. “…the middle class who has produced this magnificent American engine of economic growth…” The middle class did not produce the engine of economic growth any more than line workers in Flint produce automobiles. The middle class is the result of an economic boon created by the risk-takers, the entrepreneurs with the great ideas. Automobiles—and every job created by the birth of the auto industry—are made possible by that Idea Man, that Henry Ford, who woke up one morning and said: “I’m going to build a factory and mass produce automobiles.” The people who work in the factory wouldn’t even have jobs if it wasn’t for the Idea Man and his financial backers who risk everything. The middle class owes their existence to the “casino capitalist” [whatever that means], not the other way around. The people who assemble automobiles working the line in some factory risk nothing. They have a job. They get a pay check. They only benefit.

2. “America’s consumer-driven capitalism will die if these Great Depression era trends are allowed to continue.” [I can’t even believe this nearly-communist, collectivist-altruist, Ku-sonofabitch has the nerve to even mention saving capitalism. He knows nothing about capitalism, freedom, or justice.] There is no such thing as a consumer-driven economy, capitalist or otherwise. An economy is driven by production, by the producer. It is only by virtue of the fact that each of us works, produces, that we are able to consume anything at all. Each man’s productivity makes his ability to consume possible. Productivity is the cause. Consumption is an effect.

3. “Fortunately, the American Dream and the middle class have been resuscitated before…” The New Deal did not end the Great Depression. It prolonged it. Not once during the decade 1930-1940 did the unemployment rate fall below 14%. In fact, eight years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash, in 1938, the unemployment rate was 19%. In 1939, when FDR was running for his unprecedented 3rd term, the unemployment rate was 17.2%. [U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, 1961].

Unconvinced? Consider this: The stock market crashes that occurred on Black Monday, October 1987, the dot-com bubble bursting in March, 2000, and 9/17/01 [the day the markets re-opened after the 9/11 attacks] were much worse than the crash in 1929. The 1929 crash doesn’t even make it into Wikipedia’s “Top Ten Crashes,” yet it was 1954 before the stock market had recovered to pre-1929 levels. FDR’s government interference crippled the U.S. economy for a quarter of a century.

When the stock markets reopened on September 17, 2001, after the longest closure since the Great Depression in 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (“DJIA”) stock market index fell 684 points, or 7.1%, to 8920, its biggest-ever one-day point decline. By the end of the week, the DJIA had fallen 1369.7 points (14.3%), its largest one-week point drop in history. U.S. stocks lost $1.2 trillion in value for the week. [Wickipedia]

How did we recover so fast? Less government—cut taxes, deregulation, free trade—i.e. more capitalism.

Greed

Greed, wrongly defined, is probably the favorite tool of the altruist-collectivist for separating the materially successful from their wealth. Greedy, selfish capitalists are the cause of every ill in society by his shallow reckoning. His definition of greed is sourced by his careful reading of ancient scriptures, Neolithic texts reasoned before the Industrial Revolution, the Bill of Rights, and Capitalism; or some not so ancient texts written by Marx and Engel, who denied the rights of individuals and the value of the mind in the creation of wealth.

Of course, nearly all definitions of “greed” were drafted at a time when all wealth was produced by the impoverished and illiterate masses to benefit a tiny elite who wielded absolute power. The accumulation of wealth and power was accomplished by these elite, not through their own intellectual effort, but rather, by force. These people were greedy: Their lust for wealth and power that they had neither created nor earned defined them.

Market entrepreneurs who have achieved incredible wealth and who have done so by their own ability and ambition can never be said to be greedy. Greed is neither about how much wealth one possesses nor how one uses his wealth. Greed is about how one acquires wealth. The poorest beggar on the street is greedier than the stingiest producer. The beggar lusts for the unearned. The producer creates his own.

A terminally needy person—materially, emotionally—cannot love. They can only need, and sadly, beg and envy.

Why do Americans persist in defining wealthy producers as evil, selfish and greedy?


Actually, it’s quite possible to get a wrong definition of “greed” from Mr. Webster himself. The Webster’s New World Dictionary sitting on my desk defines greed: “excessive desire for getting or having, esp. wealth; desire for more than one needs.” My American Heritage Dictionary concurs: greed is “a rapacious desire for more than one needs…” Who the hell is Mr. Webster or you or anyone to tell me what I need? What right does anyone have to tell anyone else what their needs are? What’s enough? What’s too much?

In fact, all contemporary definers of greed concern themselves with the “accumulation of wealth” or avariciousness. Back in the day, when wealth was produced on the backs of the masses laboring in the field, these definitions of greed were close enough to the truth. But today? In America? A person who achieves incredible wealth in the United States—who has far more than they need or ever could need—is not greedy. They are successful. Their wealth is theirs. They created it. They can do with it whatever they wish. If they choose to give none of it away, their money remains the moral result of their hard work and ingenuity. Wealth is a just measure of the values you create, nothing less.

Too many Americans read the ancient and not so ancient texts and conclude wrongly that an American billionaire is the same animal as the ancient brute. Nothing could be further from the truth. These people believe [like Marx] that there is a finite quantity of wealth in the world and that it is government’s job to distribute it fairly. Again, nothing could be further from the truth.

Wealth is created by the mind of man. The mind is wider than the sky. It is limitless. Four examples: 1. A writer sits down with less than $10 worth of paper and ink, pours his mind out on to paper in sentences. If he writes a Bestseller, he’s just turned $10 worth of raw materials into millions of dollars in sales. 2. All of the oil in the Middle East sat useless under the ground for millennia. The stuff only became valuable when the mind of man grasped the chemistry of the refining process and the usefulness of kerosene. Later, gasoline and the internal combustion engine [also a product of the mind of man] create the oil industry. 3. A couple of yards of material plus the mind of a master fashion designer yields the five thousand dollar dress. The same quality and quantity of raw material in my hands creates a worthless table cloth or beach towel. 4. Computers with easy to use software enable all of us to be more productive. Bill Gates could never be paid enough to compensate him for all of the wealth that has been created by others using tools he created.

Gates deserves far more than the 60 billion he’s got. And if he didn’t give one dime of his money away to charity, he would not be greedy.

Greed is lust for the unearned.

Big Stick Economics

In a true capitalist state a business stays in business if it can produce its products, sell them on the free market, and make enough money to cover its costs. The money left over after its costs are paid is profit. Profit is the reason people go into business. It’s really that simple.

Have you listened to your countrymen lately? What are they asking for when they ask the government to punish Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart’s success is destroying mom and pop’s corner store, they cry. We must protect moms and pops from the evil mega store! These same people tried to stop Henry Ford from mass producing cheap automobiles because of the devastation his success was reaping upon the horse and buggy business. Nathaniel Brandon calls this sort of thinking “the divine right of stagnation.” American workers are led by their unions and political leaders to believe they have a right to a job, the same job for thirty years or more. Thinking of this kind squats on the face of reality in a free market economy. Change in a capitalist economy is not determined by the needs of the workers: the skill sets of the workers must change to meet the needs of a changing economy.

I pulled the following off a John Edwards' Why Wal-Mart Must Change website:

Wal-Mart has become much more than just a small corner store in rural America. In the past 10 years, Wal-Mart has grown into the largest retailer in the world -- number 1 among the Fortune 500 -- and is America's largest employer. With more than 1.4 million employees and over $10 billion in profits, Wal-Mart is a giant company with giant responsibilities. First and foremost, Wal-Mart has a responsibility to all Americans to set the standard for customers, workers and communities, and to help build a better America.

Wal-Mart has no responsibility whatsoever “to help build a better America.” Wal-Mart is not a government-owned or financed enterprise. Wal-Mart is a creation of what’s left of free enterprise in this country. Its board of directors has a responsibility to its shareholders…period. A better America will be built by free individuals acting in the pursuit of their own happiness, one Sam Walton at a time. The greatest threat to that future is a cannibal politician with a “vision” and a club.

The truth is that Wal-Mart has let America down by lowering wages, forcing good paying American jobs overseas, and cutting costs with total disregard for the values that have made this nation great. Wal-Mart has needlessly exploited illegal immigrants, faces the largest gender discrimination lawsuit in history, forced workers to work in an unsafe environment, and -- incredibly -- broken child labor laws.

There is no such thing as an “American job.” The who, what, when, where, and why of a cooperation in a free world is nobody’s business but there’s. Nobody is forced to do business with Wal-Mart. Nobody is forced to work at Wal-Mart. Every employee signs on willingly. Every employee can give notice and leave at any time. If wages are low in this country [and I believe they are], the principal cause for this problem is government interference in the first place. The minimum wage laws artificially hold down wages across the economy. It’s an arbitrary, government-created benchmark that enables companies to start employees at ridiculously low wages. “Everybody starts at the minimum wage…you’ll have a review in six months.” Wages and benefits are a private matter between the employee and the employer. If both parties agree to terms they have a contract. If the employee believes his work is worth more than he is currently being paid, he can try to renegotiate that contract. If the employer disagrees and refuses, the employee is free to leave and find better work elsewhere. An employee’s PRODUCTIVITY is what gives him leverage with his employer. Great companies can not afford to lose their most productive workers.

America's largest employer must reflect America's values. But, Wal-Mart will never change on its own. Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO, mistakenly thinks he only answers to a few wealthy shareholders who own Wal-Mart stock. Lee Scott is wrong. Wal-Mart and Lee Scott must answer to the American people.

Free enterprise, capitalism! IS an American value. Mr. Edwards, and statists like him, always forget this crucial American value when they are trying to score points with uneducated, needy voters. They use capitalism in their own personal lives to achieve great material success. Then they rise on the political stage, feeling your pain, bashing the very system that made them possible.

We are the ones who shop at Wal-Mart.

The American people are free to shop, or not to shop, at Wal-Mart. Every business must answer to its customers. Wal-Mart’s success is proof positive that they are giving consumers exactly what they want.

Together, we have the power to change Wal-Mart.

Together, we can hold Wal-Mart accountable and improve our America.

A politician promising to “hold any business” to account is an open threat. Government has only one tool at its disposal in any effort to hold any individual or corporation to account. That is FORCE. Edward’s is promising his constituency that he will club a great company to death so that the American people can collectively pick its bones.

Capitalism is Freedom

Want to end corruption in politics? Remove the economy from the of list issues about which politicians should concern themselves.

When people attack capitalism in America today, accusing government of being in bed with certain industries, they are not wrong. Government is in bed with agriculture, energy, transportation, media, insurance, pharmaceutical, and every other aspect of the health care industry. What these critics fail to understand is that what they are attacking is not capitalism. What they attack is what has become of capitalism in American.

Republicans [and Democrats] since the 1890 Sherman Anti-trust Act have been using government to destroy free-market capitalism in favor of [what Thomas J. DiLorenzo, How Capitalism Saved America calls] neomercantilism [or what Noam Chomsky calls] state capitalism, an economic system wherein most property is still privately owned but economic opportunity is doled out by politicians.

Why else would 30,000 lobbyists be working Capital Hill?

For over a hundred years Republicans, the self-proclaimed champions of the entrepreneurial spirit—have been undermining capitalism, free-enterprise, in this country by force. Their weapons? Anti-trust laws, regulatory agencies [FTC, FDA, EPA], and corporate subsidies to name three. There are dozens. Each with the power to prevent market entrepreneurs from competing in free markets, while the politicians give passes to their rent-seeking cronies, the political entrepreneurs, their patrons. [And the Democrats are even worse.]

In a true capitalist state politicians, who produce nothing, are not even at the table. All transactions in a capitalist economy are made freely by individuals exercising choice. If an airlines fails to operate profitably, the airlines goes out of business and sells off its assets. That is justice. There is no tax-payer funded bailout in the name of what’s best for consumers. Nothing a politician can think up can improve upon just, free markets. What is best for consumers is efficiently run airlines. Government bailouts do not promote efficiency in business anymore than welfare checks promote industry and enterprise among the poor. Businesses that fail should be allowed to fail. When a poorly run airline goes out of business, its assets [planes, hangers, pilots, crews, and maintenance personnel] don’t disappear. The assets of the bankrupt company are sold. Perhaps the entrepreneurs who purchase the defunct airlines [with their own money] can turn a profit. Trained pilots, crews, and maintenance personnel may have to change uniforms, but if there is a demand for people with their skills they will not be unemployed for long.

The same is true for any and every other business.

Whether or not a good or service is available for sale is determined by supply and demand. Government has no right to ban a product. Government has no right to tax business transactions, imports or exports. The government has no business interfering in the relationship between an employer and an employee. The government may charge a fee only for some service it has rendered. For example: Government has a responsibility to protect Americans from terrorists. Our government, in order to intercept plotting terrorists or enriched plutonium trying to enter the county illegally, must inspect ships arriving at ports across the country. Government may tax to cover the cost of those inspections.

Except for the courts to settle contractual disputes or to punish criminal behavior, the government has no place in the economy.

If a business fails, it fails. If a farm fails, it fails. If an individual fails, he fails. All kinds of insurance [safety nets] should be owned privately. Businesses, farms, and individuals may choose to manage risk by purchasing insurance. To ask government to stop change in the economy—manufacturers moving overseas, outsourcing, off-shore banking—is to ask the impossible if you cherish freedom.

Know Limits

Government cannot legislate compassion and expect love to result; nor can government legislate love and expect to create a compassionate society.

Charity, and whether or not to give to a charity, is a private decision made by individuals. Government should never be in the business of charity. There is no such thing as “a generous nation.” Qualities like compassion, generosity, pride, contempt, despair are qualities that can only be expressed by individuals. There is no such thing as a collective brain. Only individuals can decide to be generous, and generous individuals have the right only to distribute wealth they have created. If you want an organized relief effort then all charity should be collected from willing, private individuals and distributed by private organizations.

People who know me and my current financial situation know that I have grown considerable debt since the birth of my twins and the slump in the real estate market. I owe thousands of dollars to members of my family. Without their help over the past months, I really don’t know how I would have made it. I’m sure I would not be living in this house. I am grateful for their help and look forward to paying them back. Clearly, I have benefited from their charity. But—the important thing is—I know I have no right to their charity. And nobody, however well-off they may be, however much blood or history we share, has a moral duty to be charitable to me.

I have the right to ask for assistance in any endeavor. I have no right to demand assistance from anyone.

In fact, no one has the right to demand your charity. Any doctrine that defines charitable giving as a moral responsibility or duty has rendered all giving immoral. Without choice there is no moral question to be answered. There is no difference between giving your money to the thug who has convinced you that his gun is loaded and the preacher who has convinced you that he knows what God wants you to do.

No government has the right to tax your productivity in order to do charitable work. Governments may tax in order to fund only the limited functions of government. They are: 1. To protect the governed from enemies foreign and domestic, that is, to protect the unalienable rights of individuals; 2. To settle disputes between and among free people pursuing their own self-interest in a free, capitalist economy.

Benjamin Franklin, when asked by a group of citizens what sort of government the delegates at the Constitutional Convention had created, replied: ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’ The republic survived two wars with the greatest power on Earth in its infancy, a bloody and destructive civil war fifty years later, and was on track to unprecedented greatness one hundred years after the convention, when Republican “trust-busters” began their assault on capitalism and the intellect. By 1910, great economic enterprises in the United States would survive only with the blessings of well-fed politicians. Shortly thereafter, government acquired the immoral power to tax the incomes of American businessmen and workers, turning free men into slaves of the state a few percentage points at a time. By 1940, Democrats, who wrongly blamed the Great Depression on capitalism [which had not existed in these United States for decades], had developed socialist schemes for the redistribution of the extorted wealth. With each step the politicians grew their power over the producer, and Americans mindlessly embraced a progressively more authoritarian government.

Nobody seems to fear the limitless government they are creating, this un-kept republic.

How easy!

Catering to the needs of the very people they crippled is job security for Democratic officeholders.

Republicans are no better. Rather than rejecting on principal the entire Democratic, socialist platform, Republicans sell out capitalism, too, offering socialism-lite. They call it “compassionate conservativism.” If socialism is poison, compassionate conservatism is slow poison. Either way, liberty is dead in the end if contemporary Democrats and Republicans continue to shape public policy in this country. Like European parliaments our Congress will be deliberating over teaspoons versus tablespoons of socialism.

The Republicans, like the Democrats, are collectivist-altruists and therefore can not come up with a good reason for keeping government out of the charity business. One good reason: Placing hundreds of billions of dollars in the hands of politicians who have produced nothing may have a corrupting influence on the political process. Another good reason: When people accept imagined rights like “the right to health care,” they forfeit actual rights, like the property rights of the individuals who are sacrificed to pay for the “free” health care. Probably the best reason for objecting to any quantity of socialist-poison: Capitalism—that is, an economy free from interference by politicians—works!

The most productive and inventive period in United State’s history occurred during the relatively laissez-faire decades following the Civil War. [To read the entire argument check out Andrew Bernstein’s The Capitalist Manifesto, UPA, 2005.] A parade of geniuses from this period may be sufficient to make my point: Thomas Edison, Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Graves, James J. Hill, Andrew Carnegie, J.D. Rockerfeller, William Jenny, John Roebling, Isaac Singer, Charles Goodyear, Cyrus Field, George Westinghouse, George Eastmen, Wilbur and Orville Wright, Willis Carrier, Robert Goddard, George Washington Carver, David Sarnoff…to name a few of the better known free-thinkers unleashed during this country’s brief experiment with laissez-faire capitalism.

Contemporary Republicans need votes, and for needy voters who haven’t the patience nor inclination to read history or to reason, the socialist message, however irrational and immoral, is very seductive. Nobody doesn’t like free stuff! More importantly, the socialists have convinced the voters they care more. Nobody likes to see humans suffering. The fact that the worst genocides in human history were perpetrated by socialist states in the name of “the collective good” is lost in the cloud of tears and feelings for those in need. Politicians of both parties forget the reason for their existence, [i.e. to protect individual rights] summon up their feelings and their legislative clubs, and deliver to those in need the products of the labor of other people. To the victims of this extortion, the productive, they offer a means through which to repent their “immoral” selfish success.

Republicans define compassion in the same way Christians define love: that it is a cause, not an effect; that it is a duty, not a choice. Like the Democrats, they force this “duty” on all of us. Dripping on about how much they care about the 40 million uninsured Americans, how this reality is unacceptable and how something—anything!—must be done about it, politicians ask their public to feel. And then they act on those feelings. Nobody calls for thinking: reason. Nobody mentions the solution: capitalism. Rather they brew more of the poison that made the mess in the first place: government intervention in the economy, sacrificing individual rights, growing their own power over us.

In every industry where the government refrains from interference [DVD players and fast food, for example], the number of producers grows, availability of the product goes up, and the price of the product goes down. Health care is no different.

Politicians of both parties club productive Americans in the name of compassion. They do their compassionate work with other people’s money! How easy.

Wicked Gravity

If I decide to jump off a bridge and end up dead, that’s my business. My fellow man has no right to shield me from the consequences of my actions.

If I drop out of school even as the media, my teachers, and my parents report that the global economy offers rewards only for those who acquire 21st Century skills, who is responsible for my future poverty? U.S. Census figures for decades have shown a direct correlation between academic success in youth and material success in adulthood. An individual can be quite successful without an expensive degree, to be sure, but one’s odds are greatly improved with the piece of parchment. If I choose to ignore those figures and everything else everybody is trying to tell me, that is my choice. I have a right to my choice. And like the sad individual who jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge, I alone should bear the responsibility for my choice.

Reality explains in no uncertain terms the success or failure of one’s decision-making process. The fact that a man chooses to jump off a bridge is tragic and regrettable. The fact that the man who jumped off the bridge will soon be dead is justice. Gravity did not select this man for destruction; this man chose gravity to be his destroyer. No one would argue that this dead man did not get exactly what he deserved. His friends and family might grieve the loss of their friend and brother, but to say “gravity was unfair to him,” or “the chips were stacked against him once he let go of the rail and began to plummet,” or “corporate fat cats placed gravity there to destroy the little guy” is just ludicrous.

Socialist economic policies, like the ones supported by every Democratic candidate for the presidency, promise “economic justice” for all. But justice is not at all what they seek. In a just world productive people reap the benefits of their hard work and creativity. Whatever wealth they accumulate is theirs to do with as they please. In a just world the unproductive, unmotivated, uncreative reap considerably less. In a just world some justly succeed, others justly fail. Democrats are actually promising their constituency that if they achieve power they will work to UNDO what just, free markets have done.

People have come to expect government to save them from reality, the reality they created by exercising their right to make choices. In asking government to do these things, of course, people are willingly handing over their right to make choices. In other words, we are trading in our actual rights for imagined rights to food, clothing, shelter, and health care. You won’t find any Democrat running for president arguing against this trend: This is how the party of FDR managed to gain power in the first place. By 1972 they had built their welfare state. For decades we’ve watched their poison, socialist economic policies weaken the backbone of the once-rugged American worker, collapse the nation’s inner cities into sloth, drugs, and crime. “Progressive” public school educators stamping out “unfair” competition among students and among teachers… everybody gets a diploma! Why? Because people need diplomas. Everybody getting a paycheck... Why? Because people have bills to pay. Whether or not anything of value has actually been produced is, for them, irrelevant.

Catering to the needs of the very people they crippled is job security for Democratic officeholders.

Don’t Tread on Me

I generally enjoy the campaign season, particularly when the Oval Office is the lodestar. I read about and listen to all of the candidates running for office. I am always amazed to find that these people—who are usually much smarter than I am, who have more degrees from much better universities, who have access to the best advise money can buy—are so terribly wrong about so many things!

The conservatives among them wish to control the spiritual world, man’s soul and the products of his mind. Liberals wish to control the material world, man’s body and the products of his labor. Both usurp my freedoms and yours: both threaten immoral tyranny. Neither understands liberty even as they compete to preside over the freest people in history. Conservative tyranny comes in the form of theocracy. Liberal tyranny comes in the form of socialism.

One sacrifices his free mind and reason for the good of his imagined immortal soul…and sadly and dangerously, will use government to force you to sacrifice your freedom to “save” your soul, too. The Christian conservative wants to enforce his commanded moral code to save us all from ourselves, whether we like it or not, whether or not his code is rational, whether or not even he is able to live with it. Everything wonderful is a gift from God. Everything evil is man. He claims the power to determine whether or not you have children. He claims the power to tell two consenting adults who they can love. He claims the power to outlaw that which his holy book arbitrarily deems indecent. And he will prosecute, convict, and punish the “sinner” as readily as he will the criminal. Human beings in control of their own existence never factors into his thinking. The concept of individual rights is never mentioned in his Bible, yet he thinks even freedom is a gift from God!

Though he doesn’t speak of it as much, his opponent is also an irrational man of faith. He must have learned about Heaven—a place where everybody has everything without even having to lift a finger—growing up, and he thinks government can create that place right here on Earth. He’s a Marxist, but Americans prefer to use the term economic “liberal.” Regardless, the goal of his philosophy is to shield men from the responsibility of providing for themselves the material necessities of life on Earth. Through the tax code and the creation of the welfare state, he too enforces the altruist moral code, sacrificing the strong to save the weak. “Greedy capitalists” make everything that is terrible and unfair. Men must live and work, not for their own good, but for the good of the community. Government defines “the good,” declares it greater than you, and then forces you to cough up “the goods.” The rights of men are determined by their needs. Worth, ability and ambition, is punished by what he calls a “progressive” tax code…“progress” that rewards mediocrity and failure with free housing and health care. The concept of just consequences is left out of all of his moral equations. Human beings responsible for their own existence never factors into his thinking. Extorting, controlling, re-distributing wealth produced by others he pursues his statist ambitions growing the ranks of the dependant voters.

There are nearly twenty people running for the office of President of the United States, and once again, there is no one for whom I can cast a happy ballot. Once again, I will vote for the candidate who threatens my liberty least. Who that might be, I am not prepared to say at this time.

Is there a candidate who would agree with my platform?

My government has a responsibility to protect me from people who would try to use government to:

>shield me from the consequences of my actions;

>force the dictates of their “commanded moral code” on me;

>demand any sacrifice of me to shield them from the consequences of their actions;

>tax my productivity so that my wealth may be redistributed;

>tell me what consenting adult I may sleep with;

>tell me what I can read or view;

>tell me what I can put into my body;

>force me to acknowledge their God.

Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison would agree. Sadly, they are not on the ballot.

Family Matters

Happy Birthday David!
Happy Birthday Dude!!
Love,
Donn

The Science of Bombs

In Iraq Americans are making all kinds of sacrifices—our lives and our money—in an effort to free a couple dozen million people who know nothing about freedom, people who are so beaten down by despots and doctrine they don’t want to be free. They hate us for the effort, and we apologize for freeing them.

America demonstrates daily that limited government, capitalism, and individual rights, is the only path to 21st Century civilization. We have been demonstrating the success of these ideas for two centuries. In America individuals have rights and dignity. In America people from all over the world, of every culture and race, live to achieve their own material and intellectual success, their own Happiness. America has demonstrated that man must be free.

Does the Arab world think American achievements are the result of our geography? Has our success been handed to us? Do our leaders or some rigid, religious doctrines rule us? Is the inventiveness and productivity, wealth and longevity of Americans an accident or a gift from heaven? No. America is what she is because her people are more free to pursue their own happiness.

Why do so many of the people on this globe look upon America with contempt? What they are expressing is contempt for themselves and their own hopeless predicament. How do they not see our vivid demonstration of what works? They don’t want to see. The great ideas—limited government, capitalism, individual rights—have no meaning in the Arab world. And that is why they fail.

So, how can we explain the meaning of these ideas?

1. Never apologize for our unwavering endorsement of these ideas. For example: Insist the Iraqi constitution establish a firm separation of church and state. Freedom is not possible as long as the government and the church are holding hands.

2. Never apologize for policing their country while they are unable to provide security for themselves. In fact, make them pay for the service we are providing—at least keep a tab. After all, they must know, we have no duty to sacrifice our blood and wealth for their security.

3. Never apologize for the criminal acts of individuals [like the soldiers who abused Iraqi inmates at Abu Grabe Prison]; rather, punish the individuals who performed and authorized the criminal behavior. If I were president I would have told the world straight out: "I’m not responsible for the criminal behavior of American citizens. I offer you no personal apology. But, I am the chief law-enforcement officer. I will punish this criminal behavior. There is no such thing as collective responsibility: Individual Americans will be made to answer for their crimes."

4. Apologize for our ridiculous leaders who insist on characterizing this war as a crusade. That is, any politician who wears their Christianity on their sleeve, who says America is a “Christian Nation.” Clearly, the fact that 75% of Americans are Christian is not the reason we succeed. We succeed because we have separation of church and state. We have taken religion out of government and out of the economy. Read the First Amendment. It’s the best things the Framers did. It made America. It is why we are the world’s only super power.

5. Explain with certainty the reasons for our success: "Our best minds, dedicating their lives to the pursuit of their own happiness, land in universities and labs across the country where they discover tomorrow’s science. Your brain matter is wasted memorizing ancient dogma, crippling all creativity in the name of Allah and his anti-human, authoritarian social order."

6. Accept credit for all that our way of life has done to improve man’s life, from life-saving medicine to the cell phone you’re using to plan your terror attack...it's all possible only because the free people of this world invented it. Free people don’t have some ancient faith telling them that they can’t experiment, that they can’t do science, that man can’t know, that God only knows…. Free people defy gravity, building jet engines and planes. The minds of free people made your oil valuable. You have used our genius to destroy us. Never again.

7. Don’t apologize for explaining the science of bombs to any irrational, religionist of any stripe who would keep the world in the Dark Ages.

Sinlessness

In 1791, when the Bill of Rights was ratified, America was even more fundamentalist Christian then it is today. Gratefully, in the United States the majority does not rule. The rights of each individual trump the will of the majority. Chief Justice Roberts said it best during his conformation hearing, [9/13/2005]:

Mr. Chairman, when I worked in the Department of Justice, in the office of the solicitor general, it was my job to argue cases for the United States before the Supreme Court…I always found it very moving to stand before the justices and say, I speak for my country…But it was after I left the department and began arguing cases against the United States that I fully appreciated the importance of the Supreme Court and our constitutional system…Here was the United States, the most powerful entity in the world, aligned against my client. And, yet, all I had to do was convince the court that I was right on the law and the government was wrong and all that power and might would recede in deference to the rule of law…That is a remarkable thing.

The Bill of Rights is there to protect minority opinions and life-styles, not to preserve something the conservatives call traditional family values, i.e. Christian values. Conservatives across the country actively endorse state house legislation against [what they consider] “sin,” e.g. same sex marriage, physician assisted suicide, [and in my adopted home town] drinking beer on Sunday. They think they are working to preserve American culture and tradition when in fact their efforts are a criminal violation of the rights of individuals to choose their own thinking. Social conservatives win often, not because they are right, but because most people are dead wrong.

My only consolation is that I know in time every one of their efforts to restrict individual liberty will be overturned by some future, enlightened generation. It is my goal as an educator [and a blogger] to recover as many sovereign individuals as possible from the muck of the collectivist-altruist régime. American patriotism has never been about allegiance to a man or an administration’s policies, or some holy turf, icon, or banner. American patriotism is about the love of liberty, of each man’s right to determine the workings of his own brain while in the pursuit of his own happiness. The ideas we rally around, fight and die for, are contained within no object. Our tabernacle, our Kaaba cannot be touched. Our patriotism is the liberty that charges our hearts and cruises our free minds.

For example: I think it’s safe to say that most Americans hate flag burners and that most of us would never burn the American flag in protest of any administration’s policies. Before the 1989 Supreme Court decision in Texas v. Johnson, 48 states had laws on the books making burning the American flag illegal. All of those laws were erased June 21, 1989, when five justices had the courage to defend the freedom of expression. The majority explained beautifully that the flag represents one’s right to burn it.

“We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.”

One man, Gregory Johnson, brought down 48 state legislatures and the millions of Americans they represent. Why? Because he was right. The social conservative response? Sixteen years of failed efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban flag burning and restrict free speech.

The Left is no better. The Bill of Rights does not include any language guaranteeing anyone food, clothing, shelter, or health care, yet liberals continue to declare “health care is a right.” As we move to follow Europe’s Sicko-socialist lead, the property rights of some individuals will be sacrificed by the liberals who believe that the needs of some individuals create a right to pick the pockets of others in order to provide necessary services.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has not been so vigilant about protecting property rights.

My fellow Americans have long since forgotten the very limited role of government envisioned by the Framers. Both “liberals” and “conservatives” empower politicians to rule over aspects of man’s life, in every instance violating the unalienable rights of some individuals in the name of some non-existent “greater good.”

No Compromise

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Having spoken this truth, Barry Goldwater went on to lose his race to win the presidency in 1964. Americans will not elect an individual who is not willing to compromise. As if all ideas are equal and all men have an equal right to sit at the table of civilized men, egalitarian Americans demand their leaders compromise even our most cherish values to court thugs and assassins.

How does a free man compromise with the armed lunatic who has sworn to kill him because he drew a picture of the prophet Mohammed? How does one compromise with the thug burying a bomb in the planter at the entrance to the abortion clinic? These people aren’t interested in compromise. They seek only to force all of us to sacrifice our individual rights to their insane beliefs.

When good compromises with evil, only evil wins.

There is only one way to compromise the truth of a basic principle like “each individual is free to think for themselves,” and that is to lie and argue that there is some “greater good.” Then, use government to enforce the lie.

My only responsibility to my fellow man is to respect his life, his liberty, and his right to pursue his own happiness. Men create governments, Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “to secure these rights.” This means it is the government’s responsibility to protect me from others who would deny me the freedom to live my life in accordance with my own thinking.

To violate anyone’s unalienable rights is not a sin. It is a crime.

The Framers recognized the fact that through history the greatest violators of human rights were governments, politicians walking hand-in-hand with their symbiont, the priests. In fact, every government in the history of the man prior to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights was tyranny by some combination of church and state. The state provided the church with wealth [land], protection, soldiers, torture chambers and prisons; the church provided the state legitimacy in the eyes of the people, not to mention threats of eternal damnation for disobedience. James Madison, the “Father of the U.S. Constitution” and author of the First Amendment, was well aware of these facts when he wrote the Establishment Cause of the First Amendment. He knew that without a separation of the church and the state, freedom would not survive in the new republic.

Contrary to the thinking of our Born Again president and his media stooge Sean Hannity, holding elections is not the key to liberty. Democracy is not the key. The firm recognition and protection of the rights of individuals is the only key. Article I of the new Iraqi constitution [the one we’ve spent a half-trillion dollars and over 3,500 of our soldiers’ lives to defend] states:

"The Republic of Iraq is an independent sovereign state. Its system of government is republican, representative (Parliamentary), democratic and federal. Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established…”

The day we compromised our values and accepted this abomination—Islam is the official religion of the State—was the day we lost the war in Iraq. Any country that defines and declares only a certain kind of thinking to be acceptable, will never be free.

Core Corruption

How do Muslims witness the success of Western, secular societies, and continue to promote the spread of their mind-numbing faith? How do contemporary socialists maintain their advocacy of economic ideas that have failed repeatedly across the globe resulting in statism, poverty, and genocide? How do Christians reconcile their brutal history with their present-day claims to be the fountain of morality and compassion?

They ignore history. Christians argue, for example, that any corruption within the church hierarchy is caused by corrupt men, not a corrupt religion. To be sure, when individuals err, it is the individual who is responsible for the failure and it is the individual who should be held to account. But, what brought them there? What caused their corruption?

Their irrational philosophy. Their irrational code of ethics.

Christians damn man a wretch and a sinner upon drawing his first breath;

They ascribe any personal failing—even criminal pedophilia—to their wicked, evil human flesh;

They welcome disgrace, relish the suffering of their just punishment, beg pardon, and thank God when they are once again accepted back into the flock;

They beg [and in their minds, receive] forgiveness from the Lord. They go on to preach the goodness of the Lord’s forgiveness and their own imagined redemption. The damage done to their victims festers unabated;

Christians and Muslims believe their wishes have the power of creation;

They damn liberty promoting authoritarian government consistent with the teachings of their irrational faith;

They fail to acknowledge the immutability of the laws of nature;

They deny the validity of science;

They herd men into packs of passive followers of ancient missives;

They fail to recognize the anti-human, anti-life teachings of their altruist code;

They damn man’s best efforts to live a good life on Earth and damn the result of his hard-earned success “selfish;”

They [especially Muslims] hold unhealthy, pejorative, ugly views regarding human sexuality;

They forgive every evil and believe their God will do the same for them;

They worship death.

So, when I see our prisons fill up with believers, and Christians and Muslims committing atrocities across the globe, I am not surprised. Those of you who think the world is a mess, you must understand, this is the world your philosophy has created. Most people are religionists! Altruist-Collectivists. The problems in this world are a direct result of the ideas you promote, not mine. People with views anything like mine are a tiny minority world-wide, never elected, seldom heard.

If my advocacy of Egoism, Objectivism, [and soon] Capitalism, is extreme that is because I’m sure I have found the answers: liberty and reason. I am trying to be heard over the mass of people who bombard me daily with the irrational, majority view: duty and faith. You don’t notice the assault because you’re in the cockpit with the bombardiers.

I cannot watch the news or any Hollywood movie without being hit over the head with the altruist-collectivist messages the truth compels me to rail against. As I write, I am listening to FOX report that Democratic candidates for the presidency are falling all over each other, talking about God and how important faith is in their lives. They feel they have to do this in order to get elected after two Bush victories. I surf over to CNN and they’re promoting their upcoming news segment “Faces of Faith.” Our president is a Born Again crusader whose first Attorney General, John Ashcroft, is an Evangelical who goes off on weekends to watch people get “healed” and to speak in tongues. In fact, nearly half of the Republicans running for the high office in 2008 actually deny the evolution of life on Earth.

How can we educate the backward Muslim world about the right of individuals to think for themselves, if we are led by religionists who have more in common with the Taliban than with the Framers?

Ideas, like stones

Because a rational, free man can not initiate the use of force against anybody, I throw no stones. The only tools I have at my disposal are ideas and the power of persuasion. If I can not persuade the religionist to question his faith, I can not free him from his irrational, voluntary servitude. Fortunately, my happiness does not require his acceptance of my ideas. I require no following.

I do wish these people [particularly the Muslim extremist variety] felt the same way about the use of force, however.

Fundamentalist stone-throwers consider ideas like mine a threat, not only to the existence of their ideas, but as a threat to their existence. They are so thoroughly beaten by their book, they cannot see the possibility that a man who does not believe their stories can be moral. They never actually evaluate their code of ethics, altruism, because it was handed to them by God, and they do not recognize their right to question the ancient God. They pronounce their love for everyone all the time and publicly, even as they deny some members of the community their unalienable rights. They claim to be the lovers of humanity, but they refuse to accept the unleashed mind of a man. They fail to understand that a man who does not own his thinking is not a man, but rather, a slave. There is no free thinking in their world. There is no freedom.

These people [who are forbidden by their God to judge] have been known to judge non-believers to death. Through most of human history the men who dared to question their dogma were stoned, tortured, imprisoned, forced to change their thinking [or at least their public speech]. The magnificent minds of men like Franklin, Paine, Jefferson, and Madison would have been splattered on the unpaved, filthy street of pre-capitalist America by righteous stone-throwers had they been born even a century earlier. Stone-throwers ignore history, failing to see that when Christianity ruled the Western world [from the fall of Rome, AD 500, to the Renaissance, AD 1500,] Europe suffered through a thousand years of stagnation, filth, and brutality. They see no parallel between the pre-Renaissance Christian world and the ambitions of fundamentalist Muslims today.

How many great minds were wasted by Christian stone-throwers, Inquisitors, and witch burners before the Bill of Rights? How many minds are currently being wasted in the Muslim world in the name of Allah?

Fundamentalists of any faith don’t believe in the evolution of man’s body nor his thinking. They are people Ayn Rand characterized as people who “want their cake and eat it too.” They are the people who embrace science when it makes the cell phone, the Internet, and life-saving medicine possible, but deny it when it proves our Earth is over 4 billion years old and that humans are the best product of over three billion years of evolution of life on Earth. How is it that they can be so rational when it comes to planning financial security for their retirement and so irrational when it comes to acknowledging the validity of a theory that has survived over a century and a half of skeptical, scientific scrutiny? Who are these curious humans who wait on line for twelve hours to be the first to own the new i-phone, but drop out of view entirely when the journal Nature reports the findings of the amazing Human Genome Project?

Who are these dropouts who honestly believe that people who lived millennia ago had all the answers, that the Bible [or the Koran] is the only book? Fundamentalists, so beaten by their book they deny human growth through experimentation, trial and error, free inquiry. Who are these 21st Century humans who believe in devils and angels, heavens and hells, like our ancient, illiterate, ancestors who could know no better? They are people who hate the rational if it denies them their wish to live forever; people who worship nothing, since nothing they worship exists; people who hate the mind and human science. They declare their Book of Hearsay and mystic revelation truth: non-believers wrong and immoral. Throw a stone! Kill the infidels!

Fundamentalist dropouts weed this Garden of Eden, Earth, ripping out anything that makes them uncomfortable or asks them to question ancient, sacred doctrine. The fact that so many of them live as free people in the most rational society that ever was, is the oxymoron of the millennium!

Sticks and Stones

Fortunately, most Americans are not stone-throwers. Many for the wrong reason, i.e. Jesus told them not to judge unless they are perfect. Others for the right reason, i.e. If there’s no victim, there’s no crime; if there’s no crime, there is no just punishment.

The bottom line: Most Americans mind their own business.

Because I teach young people still living at home with mom and dad, and I live and work in the Bible Belt, from time to time I am confronted by a stone-throwing parent. The following letter was sent to my principal, who asked me to address the parent’s concerns in writing.

“According to my child, the government teacher is spending a great deal of time on his religious beliefs, or lack thereof, since he espouses atheism. As an educator, I understand that sometimes elements of my personal beliefs find there way into my classroom, however, it’s normally in a certain context. If this were a philosophy class or a literature class, I could accept his staunch position and urging the students to read RNA? However, my child is on the brink of adulthood and needs lessons in government, and thus far, I see very little of that in the notes she is taking in class…My child needs this credit and should be allowed to earn it without undue pressure and guilt for having beliefs that differ from her teacher. Please check this out for me. I hesitate to start with him because I did not want my child to feel the repercussions of my concerns if I had to go to the next level.”

This was actually a pretty polished stone compared to many others I have dodged. I hope you find my response instructional:

Dear My Principal,

Thank you for bringing this complaint to my attention and providing me with the opportunity to respond. I must say, however, that I would prefer to address this parent personally, as I am sure in a face to face encounter she would come to realize that I am in fact a conscientious teacher, a man of integrity, and no threat to their child.

In creating my lesson plans for the week, I refer first to my district standards:

Metropolitan Nashville Public School District (MNPS) Standards
GOVERNANCE AND CIVICS
I. Understands the historical development of structures of power, authority and governance.

The material that the students are required to know [see notes attached] falls under the heading “Human Societies” in the notes. This material was extracted from Jerad Diamond’s, Pulitzer Prize winning, best seller Guns, Germs, and Steel [among other sources]. Students are not required to learn the preceding notes [on the origins of life on Earth and man]. They are not required to agree with me. These notes are included by me in an effort to 1. place the required material in proper context [Human Societies didn’t just appear…they evolved over time.]; 2. spark controversy and interest in the class; 3. and yes, to share with my students modern man’s latest attempts to explain the world around him. Most students enjoy the debate.

Of course, I find 21st Century science answers most compelling, but students are encouraged to share their views, to disagree with me or their classmates and to defend themselves. No one is ever ridiculed or belittled for any view they may hold whether I agree with them or not. And I don’t allow my students to bully one another, either.

I am first and foremost of lover of humanity and of ideas. No ideas under the sun are forbidden in my class. The evolution debate that took place in several of my classes was instigated by students. I was glad to participate, but it was not planned. I did share some of the books I’ve read with my students, including James Watson’s DNA. I explained some of the things we have uncovered since the completion of the human genome project in 2001. I did explain that we can “read DNA” and that in it we have found the proverbial “Missing Link.” I made the chapter explaining these studies available to any of my students who wished to read it, but I gave the supplemental reading materials to no one.

Since 1988, no student of mine has ever been penalized for any view—however irrational—they may hold. Students are tested on the objectives determined by MNPS, only. On opinion papers my students are graded on their ability to state their thesis, organize and present their evidence, argue their case, and write in coherent sentences.

I do not preach Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or atheism. I am a public school teacher. We study human ideas and institutions. It is not possible to teach a government course without teaching the philosophies that seeded those institutions and shaped our nation’s history. We study both the philosophies the Framers accepted and the ones they rejected. We study the contradictions and the compromises. It is not possible to truly understand the difference between Democrats and Republicans, liberals or conservatives, communists, socialists, mercantilists, or capitalists, without understanding the two competing philosophies at their core: Collectivism and Individualism. I don’t sneak my views into my lessons. I tell my students what I think when controversial topics arise, followed by, “in my opinion.” Most of my students know exactly where I stand by the end of the semester….apparently not, however, in the first week.

When students graduate my class, I believe they are better prepared to find their way on the US’ political stage than most college graduates.

Donn

Righteous Stone-throwing

When you write things like: If my enemy breaks into my house and threatens the people I love, I will kill him. I will not lose one second of sleep over the decision. I will not be sorry I did it, some people walk away thinking you relish the opportunity to blow other people away. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that I have never had to hurt anyone. Nobody has threatened me or my family. I don’t even own a weapon.

My point is simply that I have a right to self-defense, and given certain circumstances, I may have a moral obligation to kill. Contrast this understanding of justice and the legal, lethal use of force, with Old Testament mob justice and New Testament unconditional forgiveness, and know this: Most Americans with at least a middle school education are much wiser than Moses, Solomon, and Jesus.

Most Americans are decent people who mind their own business until some predator “gets all up in theirs.”

Everybody knows the famous New Testament story [John 8:3-11] when Jesus disarms a mob of stone-throwers who are about to carry out Old Testament justice on a woman accused of adultery. Jesus saved the woman by addressing the mob with the following conundrum: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Putting aside for now the fact that this story was not written by John and was in fact invented by men and added to the gospel centuries later [See Christopher Hitchens’ god is not Great, pp.120-22.]…

Jesus saved the woman, and that is a good thing. The problem with his approach, however, is that it sets a very bad precedent. That is: A man has no right to judge anyone unless he is perfect. If our justice system were based on Jesus’ teaching, the United States would crumble into anarchy. There would be no one qualified to be a prosecutor, judge, or jury. We would have no means to punish predators, no means to remove them from our neighborhoods, schools, or play grounds.

Jesus had a real opportunity to teach here…but failed utterly. I forgive his failure in this instance because disarming mobs of stone-throwers is at least a step in the right direction.

All stone-throwers are religionists. These are the only people on Earth who recognize the existence of “victimless crimes.” They call them sins. The religionists out there trying to create a perfect world where everybody meets their old book’s standard of morality are always the ones stoning people, flying planes into buildings, bombing abortion clinics, legislating to deny individual rights to people who happen to be gay. If you can’t convert the evil-doers, kill them or shackle them, but silence them. Righteous brutality?

The only people I throw stones at are the mob trying to stone me to death. I will not initiate the use of force against anybody, for any reason. The only justifiable use of force is retaliatory. I will use force only to defend my top shelf.

Family Matters

Happy birthday girls!

I love you,
Donn

Compassion

For months I struggled to define compassion. My initial thought was that compassion is proactive love, that is, a cause...Something we give someone to relieve their suffering. I knew I had erred. Love cannot be both a cause and an effect. I was sure love is a feeling, an effect, not a cause: It is my response to some other who shares the values I cherish.

Compassion, it seemed to me is a very different thing. Unlike love, compassion is something I feel for nameless strangers. And I feel it intensely and often…Me? Crying real tears for a couple weeping on television, begging for the safe return of their missing child; for the father in Kabul crying over the corpse of his wife; for the American G.I. holding a wounded Iraqi child in his arms, comforting her; for the family picking through the rubble of what was their home before the storm; for child cancer patients in their beds.

My “heart goes out” to these people. They’re all strangers. They’re all people I do not know and will likely never know. So, why am I crying? Is some remnant of my Christian upbringing in play here? Is my compassion for these people an expression of love? Is my compassion causing these tears?

I stumbled over the answer one afternoon walking into the Fuzzy Duck liquor store. There, lying on the sidewalk a few yards from the door was a filthy, homeless man looking pathetic, a bagged bottle between his legs. Here was human misery in the flesh and I felt nothing.

Do I have a duty to be compassionate?

As I drove home I began to list examples of human suffering I had witnessed either live or on television. I realized immediately I was placing each experience in one of two columns. One column was for the strangers who were suffering through no fault of their own; the other was for the people who had created their own miserable circumstances. My heart did not go out to the latter.

I do not feel compassion for the crack addict lying in the gutter, the slacker who deliberately fails my class, the gossip and liar who has no friends, the mother of the dead suicide bomber.

When I see good people suffering through no fault of their own…a cancer diagnosis, a natural disaster, etc. the result is my compassion. I feel for these people and to some extent I share their suffering. I’m quite helpless to stop these feelings from coming on when I have good reason. Nor can I feel them without good reason. Like love, I discovered, compassion is an effect, not a cause.

Finally, it was possible to conclude:

No man has a moral obligation to be compassionate. If choice is removed from the equation so too is morality.

No man has a right to my compassion. It is my choice—to do or not to do. If choice is removed from the equation, so too is compassion.