Analog Politicians

ANALOG POLITICIANS  (new lexicon)

 In the food business we apply the term analog to describe a product that looks tastes and smells like the real thing, but is made up of another substance entirely.  You have likely consumed a surimi analog known in the US as imitation crab meat.  Two to three million tons of surimi are produced annually worldwide.  Producers of surimi analogs go to extreme lengths to get the color, texture, sweetness, saltiness, size, and aroma just right. When used as an ingredient you are likely to never know that you swallowed an imitation.

Surimi analogs look, walk, and talk like a duck but they are not the real thing.

The point is,  Analog is good word to use to describe politicians who appear, for all practical purposes, to represent an ideology but are in fact a synthesis of fake ingredients colored and flavored and texturized in order to sell for a higher price.  That is to say they are not really made from the stuff they have lead you to believe.

Our President is an Analog American.  He has gone to extreme lengths to convince Americans that he is made up of the right ingredients when in fact he is made up of entirely different stuff altogether.  

Consider some of the ingredients of a Real American compared to an Analog American:

Real Americans believe our country is uniquely special        Analog Americans believe all countries                                                                                                                 are special

Real Americans believe this is the land of opportunity         Analog Americans believe this is a land of                                                                                                             oppression

Real Americans believe in voluntary teamwork                     Analog Americans believe in forced                                                                                                                         coercion

Real Americans believe in charity                                             Analog Americans believe in                                                                                                                                     redistribution

Real Americans believe in free enterprise                              Analog Americans believe in rules and                                                                                                                     regulation

Real Americans believe in justice                                             Analog Americans believe in social justice

Real Americans believe in property rights                              Analog Americans believe in collective                                                                                                                   rights

Real Americans believe in individual liberty                           Analog Americans believe in bureaucratic                                                                                                             liberty

Real Americans believe in individual merit                             Analog Americans believe in group                                                                                                                         identity

Real Americans believe in cultural assimilation                     Analog Americans believe in forced multi-                                                                                                             culturism

Real Americans believe opportunity produces wealth         Analog Americans believe government                                                                                                                   creates wealth

Real Americans believe government should be local            Analog Americans believe locals can’t be                                                                                                               trusted

There was a time when the great majority of Republicans and Democrats all believed like Real Americans,  then came a time when most Republicans and a few Blue Dog Democrats believed like Real Americans, now we are in a time when only a few Republicans and virtually no Democrats believe like Real Americans.   

As we approach election time, ask yourself this question:

Am I about to vote for an Analog American, one who looks like the right taste, texture, color, level of sweetness and level of saltiness but is not really the genuine article?

Fear, Resilience, and Liberty

I awoke this morning with a revelation and the sense of exhilaration that comes with having solved a mystery that has plagued my (simple) mind for countless months.

The question that seemed to have no answer was this:  How is it possible that that some of my friends and family do not suffer from the visceral fear I have that we are allowing our country to be destroyed? 

In discussing political candidate choices and policy decisions, we are rarely on the same page; most often we are just not reading from the same playbook. For years I have been convinced that we have done such a poor job as a society of teaching the philosophy of economics that if we could only somehow educate people on the difference between, say, Keynes and Freidman , all would be well.


The revelation was this:

Dinner table debates about economic philosophy are rarely satisfying precisely because most US citizens who have derived their well-being from our system of free enterprise are incapable of imagining anything other than this country being wealthy, or they themselves being comfortable and secure.  In other words - our system of contract law, free markets, property rights and limited government has worked so well, and rewarded so many people so well, that a lot of our citizens are cerebrally incapable of believing that things could go bad.  If you don’t understand why things have gone well, how can you understand why things could go bad?

Can you imagine a USA where the government is incapable of assisting the poor?
Can you imagine a USA incapable of defending itself or its allies?
Can you imagine a USA that is not in a position of world leadership?
Can you imagine a USA where the populace is so concerned with eking out a living that they have no time, energy, or money to devote to popular causes like global warming, endangered species, or environmental pollution?

These concepts are nearly impossible to envision, and because we can’t even envision them they generate little discomfort, and certainly no visceral fear. After all we have been immune for generations from truly troublesome times.  The last Americans who lived with visceral fear for their country and the American way of life are just about gone (WWII vets and families).


Well, you might say, "what about those of us who lived through the “Cold War”?", we were certainly afraid. Yes, we were afraid, we practiced hiding under your desk during school drills, and our neighbors built underground bunkers in their back yards. We were afraid of a nuclear holocaust. I believe that our fear was backstopped and limited.  The American economy was on an unparalleled upswing, generating wealth unforeseen in human history. We had taken on and defeated two fundamental global attempts at destroying personal liberty, and the surviving heroes were still among us, working, going to church, and raising families. We were diligent and resilient and most importantly a portion of our population still carried the scars of battle and lived with the visceral fear of losing their freedoms. These veterans carried our fear and formed the base for our cultural memory which endured for decades.

Gone nearly completely now is our fear of survival, fading fast is our fear of failing as a society, and only a glimmer exists that our form of republican government (as constituted) is an ideal and an example for all of humanity.

Visceral fear for the well- being of our country is just not widely felt. Those who do feel it deeply and poignantly are at the sharp end of the spear and now close to a minority.  In the main they are the warriors waging an economic battle every day for the survival of their small business, the economist philosophers who understand human behavior and history, the brave politicians fighting a tough battle for the restoration and preservation of founding principles, and the in-service patriots valiantly defending our country, communities and the rule of law (if you were left out, please accept my apology).


The USA’s ability to thrive since its founding was based on our incredible resilience, our resilience was based on our economic vitality and our economic vitality was derived from our constitutional foundation of personal liberty. Until a deep sense of fear for the loss of our liberties, and fear for our children and grandchildren's economic future is felt by a majority, we will continue to see America become more fragile.  

Democracy in the Middle East- I think not!

I started this blog to explore my own, and the beliefs of Americans in general, about liberty and what liberty means in our Representative Republic called the United States of America.

Fundamentally rooted in the founding and development of our system of governance is the concept of Individual Liberty.  This is what made and makes us unique among the nations.  This is the basis of the seemingly arrogant notion that we are exceptional. No other nation is founded on the premise that the Individual is preeminent at that she/he loans his/her power to the government,  regardless of race, religion, or creed. 

The belief that the individual is supreme and endowed with rights by their creator has been under attack in America and slowly transformed into a belief that groups are more important than individuals, whether racial groups, gender groups, religious groups, socio-economic groups, sexually oriented groups, or "whatever" groups,  our policies and governance today have become centered around group identity. Politicians are successfully dividing the American Dream into american dream(s). Your power and portion of success in society depends on which group you belong to.  This is a result of the progress of progressivism (sorry).

Against this back drop and drama of the American political scene we have the specter of transnational progressivism and the naive belief that "democracy" is a cure for all oppressed peoples.  We especially like to dream about what a wonderful world it would be if middle eastern Muslim dictatorships could be turned in to democracies.. 

The hard cold reality we will increasingly face is that Muslim nations are fundamentally Islam, and Islam represents a strict code of conduct and punishment as well as a spiritual system of belief.  The only successful examples of Islamic Democracy have been in nations where the military had suppressed core tenets of Islamic belief (see Turkey). (Turkey is now regressing from liberty).

The Arab Spring, Islamic Democracy, whatever you call it, it is not about individual liberty, nor is it about justice, most depressing of all is the increase in the repression of women that will accompany increased sharia implementation and compliance.

Watching media coverage of events as they have unfolded  in Arab nations, and the commentaries made by White House officials, leading progressive Republicans like Lindsay Graham and John McCain, or leading progressive Democrats like John Kerry could almost convince you that good outcomes were possible for the citizens in these Muslim dominated cultures.  

Most Americans would equate the toppling of dictatorships with an increase in democracy.

Most Americans probably think most Muslims are moderate in their views and cherish the same values that Americans hold.

America and Americans will be wrong. This week the truth began to shine through the nearly impenetrable clouds of progressive hope.  We helped to "free" Libya only to see our ambassador, a representative of "democracy" brutally murdered by adherents of Islam in a coordinated terrorist commando raid consisting of overwhelming force and committed to killing Americans specifically because the spread of democratic ideals, particularly the ideal of individual liberty, is Satan's creation.  

Our progressive politicians and appointed bureaucrats denied a systematic ideological attack, and instead proffered the excuse that the attack was the result of the anarchy of mob violence.  After all, aren't we mostly loved?

Our response to the truth will be further obfuscation and rationalization as more Americans are killed and brutalized by the march of Islam unwittingly guided by Trans National Progressive Americans and Europeans. 

BOOK of the MONTH

Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy by Andrew C. McCarthy

Before the night is through...

a roster of distinguished speakers will have presented their case for the nomination of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as the Republican Party candidates for running the executive branch of our government.  Noticeably absent from these oratories, with the singular exception of Rand Paul, are libertarian leaning public figures.

Mainstream Republicans must figure they are too extreme and scary for mainstream Americans.  They might say things like "legalize drugs" or "leave choice to the states" or "shrink the military".

Yet, buried within the subtext of each and every speech given thus far are the precepts of fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, smaller government, and opportunity that are the hallmarks of classic liberal economic thought.  I heard it from women, Black, White, Hispanic, and Indian.  I also heard it from men, and between the two they covered nearly all of the spectrum of judeo/christian religious belief and even one who grew up Sikh.

A great portion of tea party philosophy has gone mainstream, assimilated, and slipped in the back door disguised as common sense.  AT LAST.

We are at a point in this nation where all of our desires to quibble must take a recess, while we focus on saving our republic from the ash heap of failed experiments in political theory.

Our fate is tied to economics, and our population is mainly ignorant of primal cause and effect.  Too many of our brethren believe in the notion that the smartest of us must decide for the rest of us and that if we just create the right rules, everything will be fine.  We have followed this course now for a century and the end result of the incessant creep of progressivism is that today in America we are nearly bankrupt in every conceivable sense of the word,  our economy, our governance, our education, and most importantly our well of eternal optimism as represented in the hopes and dreams of our young people.  This is the result of the slow and inexorable decline of liberty for one hundred years!

We must elect leaders who believe in the power of each individual to make her own choices, who believe that the combined potential power of 300 million Americans each making their own decisions in their own interest, so far surpasses the potential wisdom of elite central planners that the comparison is laughable.

We must elect leaders who believe in the principle of equal justice and equal opportunity, not social justice and not selective opportunity. Social engineering as a concept has long outlived any semblance of usefulness, and has now reached such a position of predominance in our society we no longer even perceive it's cumulative corrosive effect.

If you think you understand economics, I'll wager 10 to 1, you have a confused notion, probably influenced by the drinkers of Keynesian Kool-Aid who have propounded the notion that positive interference in the market by the government can right the ship of free enterprise. It is a false hope, proven time and time again in the annals of history.  Look it up.  Your country is depending on you making informed decisions at this time of extreme peril.


Old Whig Book of the Month:  Financial Fiasco by Johan Norberg  - How America's infatuation with homeownership and easy money created the economic crisis.

American's Blind Spot - Understanding Liberty

You know about your blind spot, right?  Even with perfect vision and without cataracts there is is point  in your vision where you are unable to detect what is really there. Try this test to prove it to yourself:

If you are a Republican close your left eye, move your face to within a hands width from the screen, and focus on the R.  Now slowly back away from the screen while staying focused with your right eye on the R.  You will see the D disappear.



      R                                  Liberty                                  D 


If you are a Democrat, close your Right eye, move your face to within a hands width of the screen, and focus on the D.  Now slowly back away from the screen while staying focused with your left eye on the D.  You will see the R disappear.

Note: Before either the R or D disappeared,   Liberty went missing.


Psychologically an example of this blind spot is manifest in today's American politics by both the left and right whenever the subject of Women's Rights/Abortion and/or/all of the above are discussed or become our focus.  If the issue is Liberty, the right spins until it is about protecting the unborn and they therefore have to impose their morals, and the left spins about taking away hard earned "women's" rights.

The sanctimonious tending of the evangelical right is transformed by the left leaning media into hate, the dialogue spins out of control and Americans are caught in the blind spot, once again missing the proverbial forest for the trees.  We have to stop obsessing about lessor evils unless and until we get our house in order.

The focus of every voting generation of Americans alive today needs to remain with "laser" like attention on reducing our national debt and increasing our global competitiveness. Very little else matters, all the rest of the visceral appeals and rationalizations out there, are, or are close to, evasive chaff ejected by nominally well meaning but wrong minded personalities seeking gain for themselves, their party, or a special interest group.

We are perhaps more vulnerable today as a Republic than ever before, yet we don't see it because European debt problems coupled with aggressive Federal Reserve and Central Bank tactics, and China and India's lack of a better alternative for their cash, have flooded the US with currency, driving up demand for US debt and equities.  American's listen to the daily ticker and say to themselves:  well the stock market is strong, things must be improving.

And then we are distracted:  Syria, Iran, North Korea, Mexico,  "gun runner", voter ID,  and a million other issues which are peripheral to the main issue of getting our fiscal house in order take up our time, money and attention,.

The President is paralyzed by the specter of losing popularity by making any choice, and so continues to vote "present".  The Senate refuses to make tough choices, and has decided that voting "present" seems to work for the President and so will not pass a constitutionally mandated budget.  The House is attempting to act responsibly, but getting chewed up and spit out by most of the media who sincerely want the President to succeed, and are hell bent on bending the curve in his direction,  even at the cost of the experiment we call America.  We have become so accustomed to our wealth and invincibility we have lost sight of the basic concepts that made us who we are.

There are no more bucks to pass.  Total US debt per citizen exceeds $182,000, and remember only half of the US citizenship pays taxes.  http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The need for bold solutions and actions is upon us now,  up close, personal and frightening.

For America to succeed in remaining the champion of the world in Human Rights, Ecology, or any other endeavor, we must remain the leading economy,  producing enough wealth to enable continued innovation in every field.  Taxing more won't do it and cutting spending won't do it alone.  The Prime Factor is growth.

The US and Europe now have political economies.  Major investors today make bets on what will be the latest political decree, not what is the most efficient utilization of assets.   We have moved from making economic policy to making political economy.  This is just plain wrong.

We need: Tax Reform,  Education Reform,  Energy Reform,  Labor Reform,  Legal Reform,  Judicial Reform, Environmental Reform and Legislative Reform.   The answer to competitiveness is faster and flatter.  The key to faster and flatter is Individual Liberty.  No technocratic bureaucracy can match the speed of the market, nor the combined intelligence of 300 million individual Americans making their own decisions.

With both eyes open and focused, and  knowing about our "blind spots",  America can continue to improve the world,  no other system in history has shown itself as capable.

We're stupid about the economy

The morph of James Carville's "it's the economy stupid" rant has gone down in history as one of the most adroit synopsis of political clime in recent memory.

 "We're stupid about the economy" is my title for this blog.

The economic conditions in this country are at the absolute forefront of the minds of Americans.  Politicians are clamoring for a perch on the precipitous wall of economic recovery.   Economists have trumpeted we are on the way to recovery, just one more bend in the road and everything will be OK. Pundits are braying "do more" or complaining about "the do nothing congress" in the feverish belief that if only the government could and would act everything would be fine at last.  The "working class" feels besieged and betrayed as the best laid plans of the brightest advisers and administrators yield woefully little benefit, and in fact have begun to erode what little economic security remains through food and fuel inflation.  Indicators of economic performance are justly suspect, the reciprocal of unemployment numbers do not indicate how much of our population is employed, just as "core" inflation numbers do not represent the actual increase in the cost of living.

Most of America now expects and anticipates and hopes that the latest scheme to "fix" the economy by applying the best and brightest minds will lift the rampant sense of dispair.  We just have to have the "right people". Some believe we need a former successful business exec, others like economist Paul Krugman firmly espouse that we just didn't spend enough money to create the necessary jolt to the nations cardiac system.

This faith on the part of Americans, that we can apply evolved thought processes to solve macro socioeconomic problems is based on the fact that in virtually every other arena of science or technology, we have proven ourselves extraordinarily capable of arriving at new and innovative solutions given enough time, money, and brainpower.  So, if we can solve all those other challenges, why should it be any different for an economic challenge.  This is the paradigm in which we are stuck.  This is the universe in which we bang our collective heads against the stars.

The problem you see, is not one of coming to grasp with mathematical or technical solutions.  The problem is our very conceit in believing that we are capable of solving macro socioeconomic problems.  The very simple, almost unbelievable concept, that human enterprise freed of all but the basic governance needed for the protection of private property, and contract, will over the course of time yield the greatest benefit to all of society is really hard for most people to swallow.  The concept for politicians that they can be a hero by stepping aside rather than actively interfering is anathema to their training.  You may have heard an executive in private enterprise protecting a star performer by getting obstacles out of their way.  A hero politician would do this today for our economy instead of promising future programs.

This nation does a very poor job of educating our populace about economics, and what we do teach follows the precept of most other sciences.  We teach economics today with the notion that we understand the combined micro economic decision tree of over 300 million Americans interacting with several billion more people in hundreds of countries around the globe. F. A.  Hayek called it the "fatal conceit".

We're stupid about the economy and woefully ignorant of the unintended consequences of our executive rule making, legislative directives, and administrative arrogance.  Unless and until we pledge to stop the spiral of conceit we will continually sabotage our own success.

I have attached a link to the Cato Institute website.  In this link John A. Allison outlines his view of the causes of our Great Recession.  John was the CEO of BB&T Bank, one of the top 10 banks in the country and I think the only bank and one the few CEO's with courage and compassion enough to talk plainly about the state of our politics.  He outlines his dissertation beginning with the FDIC.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/catosletter/catosletterv10n1.pdf

Steve

Who is the middle class in America today?

I would almost rather hear another commercial for an ED or RA drug than hear another politician telling me how this or that will help or hurt the "middle class".  Why is it that the benefits or harm going to accrue to the middle class don't ring true to me, when, after all, I always considered myself to be pure unadulterated middle class.

My folks and their folks were from small towns on the Great Plains. My family bought their first house when I was about five, and we had a TV and second car by the time I was ten.  My mom was the housekeeper, I attended public school, belonged to Cub and Boy Scouts, and we always traveled back to the farm in South Dakota on holidays. My dad traveled long and hard selling foodstuffs across a couple of states, often for most of the week.

The AHA moment crystallized for me this morning, I'm more than a little slow.  The reason current political arguments for or about the middle class don't ring true for me is that I AM A REMNANT of what was the "middle class" in America for about 200 years.  The "middle class" politicians talk about today are the people who depend on the intervention, support, coercion, or employment by government to sustain their livelihoods.  I belong to the remnant class.

The REMNANT CLASS is herewith defined:  Those descendants of the farmers, shopkeepers, small business owners and employees who built this country and who are still not dependent on government, unions, or major corporations for the livelihood of themselves or their immediate family. 

I'm afraid there ain't many of us left.

At age 56, I feel like a dinosaur and a relic, living on the fringe of the redefinition of the American Dream. I'm mostly independent but not wealthy, and my libertarian political views are pure anathema to a few of my friends, some of my family, and a lot of my acquaintances.  The plain truth is while 100 years ago most people in America were in my shoes, each decade for last 10 we have become more and more dependent upon government.

Take the names of five couples or ten people you know and run their life situations through these questions to determine their independence from government.  Do they or their immediate families:

• Work for a national or multinational corporation with over 1000 employees?
• Receive a farm subsidy or price support?
• Belong to a union, receive a union pension, or work for a union in a state with compulsory or coercive union laws?
• Receive social security, medicare, or medicaid and depend on it for primary health and welfare?
• Receive unemployment compensation?
• Work for a unit of federal, state, or local government?
• Live in government subsidized housing or receive food stamps?
• Receive subsidized education benefits or government grants?
• Work for a company that provides a substantial portion of it's goods or services to government?
• Work in a heavily regulated industry?

The "middle class" most politicians work so hard to protect today belong to the above groups, who recycle the power and money granted  them through the mill of big government, lobbyists, unions, and NGO's constantly churning out ever more dependence on the protection, special status, tax favor, subsidization, and regulation that only government with it's coercive power can effect. 

We are fast approaching another election when the voters must decide if the current path of policy in this country is helpful or harmful to our future.  Those who enjoyed the luxury of voting single issue politics in the past need to embrace a larger concept this time around.  That concept is personal liberty and it is diametrically opposed to crony capitalism, big government, and forced union membership.

American capitalism, personal liberty and economic freedom will all its faults, has spread justice and wealth across the globe. 

The world cannot afford a Remnant America.

  

  

The problem with Majority Opinion

" The conception that Government should be guided by majority opinion

 makes sense only if that opinion is independent of government."

  F.A. Hayek

Why is it that no matter how hard we try to correct our economy, it seems beyond hope.  Many Americans are filled with a sense of hopelessness,  they have been conditioned and educated to believe that our big benevolent institutions of government know what is wrong, and possess the tools to correct what is wrong. After all, since the 1930's we have been hard fixed on a course of imposing corrective measures on our economy and society through the implementation of scores of remedial laws and corresponding rules and regulation.

It is no coincidence that these seemingly hopeless times correspond with about half of our voting populace being dependent upon their relationship with government for their livelihood.

Whether you are a corn farmer, employee of a major bank, Detroit autoworker, engineer for GE, work for a NGO, retired and on Social Security and Medicare, receiving government assistance, or employed by a national, state, or local unit of government, you are dependent upon government and consequently vote to further your benefit.

This phenomena of majority government dependence exactly coincides with the crisis of governance we are currently experiencing.  To repeat Hayek:

 " The conception that Government should be guided by majority opinion

 makes sense only if that opinion is independent of government."

The seeds for this fundamental change in the makeup of our society were sown in the 1930's, watered and fertilized by zealous protectors of "social justice" over the course of 80 years, and have now sprouted.  It has taken so long for this transition that generational memories have been lost.  When my parents were born very few adult Americans relied on the benevolence of government for their livelihoods, they were independent of government.  

It is often said we are at a great tipping point.  If the American experiment with Individual Liberty in the form of a Democratic Republic is to continue its reign as the Worlds most desirable form of government,  the interest of the majority must be unbound from the government.

Steve

Social Engineering

Name nearly any major issue we face today, whether it be joblessness, state deficits, federal deficits, unfunded liabilities, social unrest, the mortgage crisis, health care costs, or the unsustainability of Medicare or Social Security, and the answers to solve these problems will rest on the principles of Individual Liberty. The solutions may not come about as fast as some people will desire, but they will be forged in the time tested crucible of experience.

We have seen in each of these issues, that the answers provided by principles that rest on a concept of "social justice" will so increase the bureaucracy devoted to defining the problem, devising a solution, and managing the outcome, that the bureaucracy itself will become an impediment to a truly "just" solution. Impediments to genuine solutions will exist because infinite rules and controls will be introduced to correct or prevent the occurrence of events seen as unfavorable to the "defined" solution.

Time after bloody time, we painfully relearn the lesson that no matter how smart the technocrats/politicians/leaders we place in charge are, men are simply incapable of taking into account the myriad unintended consequences of their actions.  Sometimes we come close and prevent major damage.  Most of the time we wreak havoc on the economy and our culture by chipping away at Liberty.

Here is the typical sequence of events as illustrated by the housing debacle:

We decide as a society that it is a good idea if most of the population owns a home, we have seen through innumerable studies that homeowners are far more likely to raise law-abiding children, cost society less, and contribute more to their communities.

Lawmakers then propose and pass legislation reducing the cost of home ownership.

Bureaucrats then determine the implementation of the law via the guarantee of loans, the reduction of equity required,  reduction of banking reserve requirements for those willing to make the new loans, and not least the coercion of private banking enterprises through the granting of privilege to expand their operations.

The huge new amount of debt instruments introduced into the economy find most buyers willing to take only the best and consequently, in order to sell the higher risk mortgages, financiers bundle batches into combined classes of risk.

The sheer volume of these new debt instruments becomes so large that the degree of separation between ultimate lender and borrower becomes infinite and the huge volumes necessitate international trade and whole new classes of financial instruments are created to enable the market to absorb the volume.

When the whole program crashes, Americans are aghast.  How could this happen?  Where were the regulators?

If have followed the underlying logic so far, you can apply similar reasoning and eventual outcomes to virtually every major social program.  To reiterate:  Society defines a goal,  legislators enable the goal,  bureaucrats interpret the legislation and enforce its implementation.  The major problem then occurs when the coercive power of government is used in the absence of that power being specifically granted by the society that defined the original goal.  In other words the politicians hand off the rule making responsibility to the executive branch.


Ultimately your Individual Liberty was reduced because your elected officials and their appointed technicians
obligated you for the failure of their policy implementation.


Who could argue that greater home ownership was not an admirable objective?

Greater home ownership was and is desirable.  The important point is we must let the general increase in wealth generated by policies which encourage free enterprise, individual liberty, and rule of law drive our social aims.

Steve

Steve Jobs R.I.P.

How many Wall Street Protestors are sporting IPHONES?

Everyone who today laments the passing of this billionaire genus entrepreneur, take pause and pray that his passing does not coincidentally mark the end of the society that enabled his contributions to the world. We are fast laying down rules and requirements that stifle innovation of any kind.

I'm not kidding. Ask yourself how many Jobs today are hindered by the the forces of coercion from bringing to the marketplace stunning new ways of thinking, doing and acting. If you answer "probably not many", you are correct.  The point is that the fragile unknowable resource that is human innovation is easily squelched by a well meaning society intent on correcting some perceived injustice.

The crucial point is that is doesn't take a lot of Steve Jobs to immeasurably improve the world.

Another crucial point is that we cannot know who, when, where or in what field of endeavor innovation will spring forth. It is not a plannable, controllable, governable event. It cannot be "stimulated" by government.  Pure brilliant innovation can best be be fostered and stimulated by the protection of.......you guessed it,  INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.  So stop blaming the rich, stop protesting social injustice, stop bestowing privilege on classes of people and corporations through laws that only protect or privilege some of us. Law must apply equally to all. 

Start protesting the loss of Individual Liberty,  start protesting unequal application of Law, start protesting social engineering,  start protesting laws that enable labor unions to force people to join them in order to be able to work.

If you loved and admired what Steve Jobs brought to the world, you must protect our country's ability to nurture success.  

Lessons in the Inevitable

It is a sad and ironical note that just as the last members of the generation that prevailed in World War II are passing, America is being lead by "good intention" down the same road that well meaning Germans and Italians trod prior to that war.

It shouldn't really be a surprise, the same miscalculation by a well meaning populace was made in the run up to WWI.

They both began with subtle creeping restrictions on Individual Liberty and the fostering of an attitude of contempt for capitalism.

Typically these developments and corresponding arguments were couched in terms which were deliberately redefined in order to engender hope,  Liberty became "freedom from need", "freedom from want", "freedom from oppression", "freedom from sickness" and so on.

Central economic planning, (a necessary precursor to central political planning) became the paradigm, along with systematic dismissal of belief in the free market system by the educated elite, especially the economists.  It became to be accepted that specialists and uniquely intelligent leaders could better determine the use of a nations resources than the obscure and often unintelligible forces of the market.

It paid well for big capitalists to support the concept,  monopolies and oligopolies were strengthened.  It also paid well for organized labor too be in support of restrictive and protective policies,  they could command higher wages.  The intelligentsia were in higher demand due a to greater need to rationalize, organize, and deploy resources.  Scientists and engineers became the chief implementers of policy.

Full employment was touted as the mission. Since it is, from a practical standpoint,  impossible for men to be smart enough to plan the deployment of labor and resources in order to bring about full employment, the only means left to fulfill the promise is an emergency.  That eventuality, in most cases, will be war.

Different sparks precipitated the two wars, yet the hard cold rarely stated reality is that these wars were fought over the basic differences in principle between Individual Liberty and Collectivism.

The disturbing fundamental is that the slow inexorable creep of collectivism eventually undermined the virtues of Liberty until a new social order was suddenly, though inevitably, accepted and embraced by the majority, who could then effectively silence the minority.

By the time this had happened there was no turning back.

Let there be no mistake in your mind, the seemingly small acceptable sacrifices in Individual Liberty that we are making for the "Greater Good" are cumulatively corrosive.  The restrictions on Liberty being promulgated at an ever increasing pace against States, Business Enterprises, Farmers, Local Government, and Individuals will conclude as all collectivist experiments have, and that is in explosive tumult.

Steve

Keynesian Stimulation

It seems as if no amount of Keynesian stimulus can revive our economic crisis.

Try as we might, corporate bailouts, loans to foreign banks, surreal Federal Reserve interest rates, cash for clunkers, huge injections of cash into state governments, loans and grants to favored green energy initiatives, extensions of unemployment insurance, boosts to welfare programs, and tax cuts or extensions have all failed to yank our economy out of it's doldrums.

Democrats want more spending, Republicans want fewer taxes.  Same old story.

What if we have a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the current malaise?  What if in our adherence to paradigm we have missed an essential element?  Could it be that our "Western Society" has evolved so far from the basic concept of Liberty, that most of us don't really understand what the macro impact of societal "improvements" ultimately mean to the welfare of civilization?

I think we are being dragged kicking and screaming to a startling revelation.

 Here it is, I'm going to say it:   Liberty is on Strike.

 The slow inexorable creep of collectivism as a bulwark against capitalism,  has paralyzed   the creativity and innovation of individuals on a large scale.  Sure the major corporations have been immensely profitable,  they sleep with the authorities, and man the writing desks of legislation.  We have reached a stage where arbitrary use of authority has stifled the innovation of not only individuals, but of small companies, small institutions, and even state and local governments. In the main we do not recognize we have lost Liberty because it has happened at a turtles pace.

What was your reaction to the news "Armed Federal Agents Storm Gibson Guitars"?

Did you think or say "well, Gibson must have done something wrong."  Most likely that was your response.
We are deeply ingrained with the belief that our government at a fundamental level is just.  In fact we continue to grant the government more and more discretionary power to bureaucratically correct "injustice".

This power grant carries a license to exercise coercion.  The arbitrary use of which rains tears upon the bright light of Lady Liberty's torch.


Steve

Liberty in History

Liberty didn't begin with the signing of the Declaration, nor did it begin with the drafting and ratification of the Constitution.

Liberty's written roots begin with the basic individualism tenets sown by Christians, Greeks, and Romans from Erasmus and Montaigne, Cicero and Tacitus, to Pericles and Thucydides, classic later expansions and refinements of import were undertaken by Cobden and Bright, Adam Smith and Hume, Locke and Milton.  Perhaps the heights of illustration and illumination took place in the writings of Tocqueville and Lord Acton followed by von Mises and Hayek.

The chief point is that a lot of civilizations have obtained some level of Individual Freedom only to lose it over time through reckless legislative fiddling with it's underlying principles.  In most cases the primary motive was to correct some perceived social injustice, in all cases the result was some form of socialism and consequent loss of the spontaneous developments needed to sustain long term societal success.

Successful societies can live with a prescribed level of coercion by government, understood and agreed to at the outset.  Successful societies cannot thrive with arbitrary coercion, it will eventually erode the very foundation that enabled success.....Individual Liberty.

Defining Terminlogy

The American Heritage Dictionary

Republican Party n.   One of the two primary political parties of the United States, organized in 1854 to oppose slavery.

Democratic Party n.  One of the two major political parties in the United States, owing it's origin to a split in the Democratic Republican Party under Andrew Jackson in 1828.

Democratic Republican Party n. A political party in the United States that was opposed to the Federalist Party and was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1792 and dissolved in 1828.

Federalist Party n. A U.S. political party founded in 1787 to advocate the establishment of a strong federal government and the adoption by the states of the Constitution.  The party gained prominence in the 1790's under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton.

Tory n. 3. often tory, A supporter of traditional political and social institutions against the forces of democratization or reform; a political conservative.

Whig n. 1. a member of an 18th and 19th century British political party that was opposed to the Tories. 2. A supporter of the war against England during the American Revolution. 3. A 19th century American political party formed to oppose the Democratic Party and favoring high tariffs and a loose interpretation of the Constitution.

Liberalism n. 2.a. A political theory founded on the natural goodness of human beings and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority.

Socialism n. 1.a. A social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community.  2. The building of the base material for communism under the dictatorship of the proletariat in Marxist-Leninist theory.

Communism n. 2. a. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.

Conservatism n. 1. The inclination, especially in politics to maintain the traditional or existing order. 2. A political philosophy or attitude expressing respect for traditional institutions, distrust of governmental activism, and distrust of sudden change in the established order.

As you read through these definitions you could probably identify your own beliefs in several, which often contained contrary bits of data,  and you may have also been able to conclusively decide certain beliefs did not fit your own whatsoever.  Hence the problem today.  We have no clear current definition for the belief set by which most Americans can identify, leading to almost 40% who maintain they are "independent" and only 20% within each major party who identify themselves as being at the outlying edges of left or right.

Americans of most stripes can embrace the term "liberty", and I believe it is only through understanding the definition of the term which entails it's historical reference, economic consequence, and political relevance can we reach agreement on what it truly means to be an American.

Special Interests

The greatest threat faced by our Republic is the three way cabal of special interests, politicians and courts.  These are the enemies of individual liberty.

If you think that one or the other of the major parties is less guilty, you haven't done your homework.

Here are the top 10 special interest expenditures since 1989:

ActBlue $55,059,076,  American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $45,792,853  AT&T Inc $41,660,104, National Assn of Realtors $40,020,510, Service Employees International Union $37,130,289, National Education Assn $36,433,425, American Assn for Justice $34,094,421, Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $33,824,355,  Laborers Union $31,415,067, American Federation of Teachers $31,342,403.

Of this roughly $350 million dollars 85% was given to Democrats.  What about ATT or the Realtors?  They split their donations right down the middle giving equal amounts to both parties.  What about those evil fat cats on Wall Street?

Goldman Sachs gave 60% of their $21 million to Democrats.  Well how about Microsoft and General Electric? evenly split.

Look it up on opensecrets.org

The point of this exercise is to disabuse the notion that Big Corporations give to Republicans.  They give to the politicians that will see things their way,  same as the unions do.  

So now we have the big companies + organized labor + politicians operating in concert against who?

Against competition, that's who.  If you pass a law that satisfies big corps and labor, you can bet they have stifled competition for jobs and innovation AND the politicians have corralled funding for their next run.The result is less freedom and higher cost to the American public.

Think not Democrat or Republican.  Think Progressivism or Liberty.  Progressives are found in both parties.

Liberty lost before

To fully understand, appreciate, and make choices in our current political climate you must educate yourself primarily about two conflicting schools of thought in the field of Socio-economics.  Here are a few suggestions.

Classic Liberal - Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Milton Freidman

Progressive - John Maynard Keynes is probably sufficient.

We are at a tipping point in the American experiment with Liberty.  Your choices in the next round of elections could very well determine the fate of our nation.

Our ability to lead the world in innovation, ecology, art, liberty, justice, and standard of living hangs in the balance by the thread of economic growth.  Everybody knows it, everybody says it.  

The key question you must answer:  Do I believe that a well meaning group of highly educated professional politicians can effectively allocate the resources of a nation to achieve greater prosperity for all?  Or do I believe that the job of government is to protect us from physical harm, administer justice without regard to race, creed, religion or economic status, foster an environment conducive to business and industry,  and keep our nation competitive on a global scale?

With the single exception of the US,  all of the once great nations in the western world over the last 400 years slowly and inexorably made the wrong choice.  England, France, Germany, Spain, Russia all chose a path that weakened their economies, compromised individual liberty, and cost them first place. 

Study Up!

"To grant no more freedom........"

"To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use."  F.A. Hayek