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.