WHY ARE LIBERALS ANGRY, DIFFICULT TO DEBATE AND PRONE TO INSULTING RHETORIC?

Alexis deTocqueville, writing of the activists of his day:

“The members of these associations respond to a watchword, like soldiers on duty; they profess the doctrine of passive obedience; say, rather, that in uniting together they at once abjure the exercise of their own judgment and free will; and the tyrannical control that these societies exercise is often far more insupportable than the authority possessed over society by the government which they attack. Their moral force is much diminished by these proceedings, and they lose the sacred character which always attaches to a struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. He who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility and who submits his will and even his thoughts to their control, how can he pretend that he wishes to be free?”

Health care is a right, background checks, freedom of choice, economic security, climate change, the common good – these are the modern watchwords which, like soldiers, liberals salute and obey with no regard to their own judgment or will.

That your liberal brethren have surrendered their freedom is the root of their violent objection when you declare that your own is not for sale.  Do they loathe being unfree?  Do they envy and resent that your free will and better judgment have empowered you to refuse to be equally unfree with them?

Yes and Yes.  Wouldn’t that make you scream in anger too?

Who owns the poor?

How much of a man’s life can he sell you?  How much do you want to own?

It’s time we stopped taking life from the poor.  We rob them of life by giving them someone else’s money for food and shelter.  Let them be free.  Free to fail.  Free to starve.  And free to succeed and to thrive.  That’s living; without the risk of failure, there is no success.

The progressive “givernment” does not want to poor to live, it wants them to survive, to subsist.  Oh, and vote.  Vote to keep progressive government in charge of the lives of their slaves . . . oops, I meant to type their ‘dependent class’ but I guess my keyboard made me type the truth.

Are they free? Do we know the answer?

Unconditional, anonymous, clerical ‘charity’ – the kind referred to as entitlements – enervate the human spirit and stultify initiative.  It is destructive.  It kills.

Stop the killing.

Papal Economics – FAIL

In his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) Pope Francis speaks of wealth as a thing to be shared while he ignores, rather assumes and takes for granted its having been created by the minds and labor of men. In the world he seems to imagine and advocate, there will be nothing to share but misery, equally distributed. Accumulating wealth is deemed immoral, and the highest calling is self-sacrifice with the aim of eliminating economic inequality. But, Your Excellency, if man is merely a syphon, where is the fount, what is the source of the bountiful cornucopia to be spread evenly among the masses?

Why does the Church preach destructiveness? Why do its congregants choose to ignore the evidence, dismiss all the lessons of history and blindly accept a worldview that a momentary peek at the rest of their lives would disprove? If you think your God wants you to be miserable and poor as you sacrifice for others, you’re reading your Bible upside down.

“Be fruitful and multiply.”

“The truth shall set you FREE.”

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Those are not commands to the lowly and meek. Those are words to LIVE by, whether you think Christ walked on water or not. Look carefully – unto YOU, as THYSELF. A man’s love for himself is offered as the highest standard; loving others as thyself is the measure of a man. To fritter away a life because the Pope decrees that “materialism” is sinful will feed no one and starve that life. We’re told to frown at lavish displays of wealth, to be shocked and shamed that some men have yachts while others starve. We’re meant to infer that sailing is to deprive someone of the food the boat’s price could have purchased, because they (intentionally?) forget that the boat was not delivered by unicorns. It was built, and is crewed, by men who buy their family’s food with their wages. (See also, Romney, Mitt – car elevators.)

The call of the Catholic God is for men to be extraordinary, each in his way and of his own free will. The win-win mutual benefit of voluntary trade motivated by each trader’s self-interest is the moral and just basis of capitalism. Absent force, men will not strive or yearn for an unknowable, ephemeral common good as defined by either Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan. How unfortunate that Pope Francis, speaking we’re told for God, calls for an end to, or at least curbs and limits on, an economic system based entirely on pursuit of mutual benefit via volitional interactions among men made, the Pope would tell us, in God’s image. Instead, he writes in favor of another, unnamed system that will only exist as a consequence of the forcible coercion of men to act against their will. That’s why we’re here – so that other guy can eat?

“Do unto others . . .” If you’re having money troubles, do you want your family, friends and neighbors to give unto you the URL or phone number for the welfare office. Or would you prefer they do unto you a personal gesture of goodwill and, when called for, a kick in the behind and a chance to feed yourself?

Wherefore art thou, Obama?

“Progressives” (and all of their liberal brethren) do not set out to destroy wealth, per se. Instead, they seek to control, monitor and regulate the creation of wealth. That way, covetous men who hate losing, and have the gall to get even by taking the fruit of other men’s labor, can rule over those who but for that taking would create it.

It goes like this. Call the progressive what you will – a liberal, a socialist, a statist, fascist, a lamp post or a social democrat – he inherently disdains, resents and fears that which is foreign to him, that thing he dared not attempt – wealth creation. He hates capitalism because it identifies winners – oh, and LOSERS, as well. Trial and ERROR is also called life, but he despairs and resents the error part of life; indeed, he begins to resent life itself.

We all learn about the pain of error early in life, and most of us avail ourselves of the right and power to improve, to minimize our errors and become imperfect yet self-reliant individuals who interact with our peers on rational terms with the understanding that win-win makes the world go ’round.

However, from that same experience, the trod upon, fatherless son of a nomadic mother, soon-to-be progressive concludes instead that without the help of, say, a sympathetic teacher who gives everyone a blue ribbon, there is invariably the odd man out, always someone who feels the pain of trial and error. And he yearns, he swears, to heal that pain. And from there he proceeds, adorned by blue ribbons, to the Harvard Law Review, and then to enlist the power of a state-sponsored NGO (non-government entity) to pay his bills so he can be, just by way of example, a benevolent community organizer barely making ends meet.

And, later, when that community organizer becomes the President of the United States, he and his cohorts conclude that his struggle and world view are vindicated, his worldview validated. “See, I’ve become wealthy without ever producing a thing, as have Bill, Hillary and Rahm. We beat the capitalists, and so might you, my subjects, after I use my power to make it illegal for you to suffer at the hands of winners.”

That conceit produces a horrendous agenda that destroys freedom and wealth creation. They proceed, little by little, rule-by-rule, to regulate and minimize pain until, eventually, there can be no more damned winners.*

Barack Obama is the personification of the last 75 years of American history. And America will become very ugly before she’s pretty again.

* Unless you count the men getting paid to make and enforce the rules – they’re called congressmen, Secretaries, lobbyists, staffers, Federal Reserve Governors and their beneficiaries known as bankers, journalists, and ‘private sector’ government contractors, and they have taken most of your money. Want it back?

Civil Discussion – Huh?

When did wanting to be free make you the bad guy? When Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death” did a crowd form to watch the hanging and divvy up his estate?

After a long, ultimately fruitless, attempt to dissuade a liberal thinker from advocating the use of state force to compel me to adopt his version of what’s right for my life and surrender control of my income to Barack Obama to feed the hungry, heal the sick and stop the rise of the oceans, I cursed. Whereupon I was asked to excuse myself from the dialogue, because I had breached the stated rules of the ‘civil discussion’ about matters of political thought.

My sign off is repeated below:

For the record, one last time:

A discussion in which one of the participants suggests that he or the state is justly possessed of the right to use force to coerce another man to act against his will or contrary to his interest (absent his having done so with regard to another man) does not qualify as a civil discussion, and I have no interest in giving that sort of discussion or any of its participants a moment’s further thought.

That you refrain from using profanity, while precious, does not change the evil premise of the discourse nor does it excuse the ugliness of your willingness, nay your promise, to enlist the state to use force to get your way, merely because a random number of people, comprising one more than 50% of those who showed up, pulled the same lever in the voting booth. Your irrational assertion that the outcome of an election justly endows you or the state with such power over other men is not supported by a second unsubstantiated assertion that your view of benevolence directed at the common good trumps my right to my life.

Now, depart from me or I shall once again fart in your general direction and taunt you yet again.  (OK, maybe that was pushing it, but cut me some slack.)

It is becoming unbearable to listen to the personal insults and the mockery of my wish to be free of other men’s illegitimate claims on my life. I have no quarrel with another man’s desire to help the poor or fund medical research the way he sees fit, I just ask that he stop putting the cost of his benevolence on my sons’ tabs. I ask for only one thing in return – the reciprocal favor, the right to be benevolent and alive on my terms without sending his children the bill. Seems fair, no?

Why is that so difficult for so many people to accept? Why am I greedy, heartless and evil for wanting everyone to dispose of his income as he pleases, whereas my former liberal friend wants sainthood for his willingness to use the IRS’s guns to confiscate “a fair share” of your neighbors’ money for the common good?

Life Imitates SNL

Several Democratic Senators have signed up to sponsor a bill that purports to allow the government to keep the promise it made when President Obama said “if you like it, you can keep it.”

So, in their imagination, the ACA (2000+ pages) gets ‘fixed’ with four pages that say, I paraphrase, “Insurance companies, the ones that cancelled your insurance because of the ACA’s rules and regulations, are allowed to (i) pretend to go back in time, (ii) undo all that they’ve done to comply with the ACA, (iii) ignore the laws of economics and physics, (iv) retroactively un-cancel your policy (but only if they really, really want to) and (v) in the future, if a company cancels your insurance, it must explain it to you in a letter, using 12pt fonts and no cursive, that states (a) it’s the company’s fault that you’re getting screwed and (b) the government is full of well-intentioned people.”  In other words, “Since the government can not deliver what we tried to force you to purchase in Law A, we will write new Law B to force the insurance companies to do what Law A made illegal for them to do.”

I’m not kidding. Read it yourself. Read the law (see link here) – it’s a 4 page PDF and only part of it is in cursive. (Ok, I made up the part about cursive and other font sizes may be granted an exception.)

These idiots believe that’s how the world works.  To make mountains move, the sun shine and render trillions of economic decisions and personal preferences superfluous, they wave the magic wand called An Act of Congress.  They have crushed (intentionally) the medical insurance business (not to mention medical services, drugs and device industries) by [not so] indirectly nationalizing them [can you say fascism?] and now that there is a little push back [their reelection race looks to be in jeopardy] they swoop in with a new and improved law that says “NEVER MIND” and honestly expect you to conclude that they have done something heroic and magnanimous that deserves your gratitude and applause.

They’re all Jackasses (including the elephants).

Below is the entire law in one screenshot.  Really.  It says:  “You can keep your coverage unless what we did in the ACA forced companies to choose not to sell that kind of coverage, and if they cancel any more policies they have to be ‘transparent’ and prove it was not the government’s fault.”

Election Review ’13

McAuliffe beats Cuccinelli by a mere 55,200 votes (2.5% – 48% to 45.5%) and we are meant to conclude that Cuccinelli’s policies are horribly unpopular, and the GOP must reject everything he stands for if they wish to win another election.  Let’s ponder a couple questions that brings to mind.

1. What does that tell us about the policies of McAuliffe?  His policy objectives are supported by a only a slightly larger number of voters.  They are comprised of less than half of all voters and an even smaller portion of the population, all of whom will have to abide by the laws based upon those policy preferences.  Is that reasonable, in light of #2 below:

2. Are the people who voted for Cuccinelli obliged to take their candidate’s defeat as their cue to slither away in shame, maybe forfeit their right to vote or express their now ‘defeated’ opinion ever again, renounce their values and salute their new master?

The consequences of losing an election or of voting for the loser are not meant to be the same as being vanquished in a war, notwithstanding the triumphant victory speeches of Chris Christie and Terry McAuliffe. The law isn’t meant to dictate our lives or our values. Elections, politics, having so much importance in our day-to-day lives is the curse our time, a symptom of the evil inherent in any society where some men exert power over any individual.  It is not moral or just to coerce a man to act against his will or self interests, as determined in his sole and absolute discretion, so long as he does not infringe or deny the same rights of any other man.

There is a distinction between ruling and governing. Pursuant to the US Constitution and, more importantly, the laws of nature on which it is based, men are, as a matter of inalienable right, free and self-governed, ruled not by other men but by laws administered by a state apparatus whose sole legitimate purpose is to preserve our right to our life, liberty and property. Instead we live as mere subjects of a state with an incomprehensible code of conduct that enervates the spirit and stymies initiative under the guise and pretense of making life fair or leveling the playing field.

But only if you comply. If the life of a vanquished, dispensable serf does not appeal to you, then join me and say ENOUGH. Will you own your life or not?

Why Are They So Triumphant?

Why the over the top celebrations at political rallies?

The guys in suits have been given the power to tell you how to live.  They celebrate that they’re better at manipulation and duplicity than their political opponents.  Anyone, even I, can do that if so inclined.

The guys in hats won a trophy signifying the achievement of excellence in competition.  Only a select few, not including I, with a commitment to develop a unique talent can accomplish that.

I respect one (the one that is out of my grasp) and loathe the other (the one I could have).

Don’t let them celebrate your life.  The trophies of your life are yours.Why do we let people we loathe, people who’s accomplishments are so base, write laws that dictate how we live?  Why do we let them dispose of more than 50% of what we earn collectively with government programs and transfers of our wealth?  Why do we pay them and then cheer them as they lord it over us, as they celebrate the power to control YOUR life’s product?

Ready for the Next Lie?

Remember the delay of the “Employer Mandate” – how everyone was told that delaying it was doing a favor to ‘big corporations.”

Think again.  Do a little research.  (Explanatory LINK here)

The employer mandate defines what is an acceptable, i.e. legal, insurance plan for employers with more than 50 full-time workers to provide – or face penalties.  The law stipulates minimum coverage benefits and maximum co-pay levels (as a percentage of the employee’s income).  Mark my words: when a large number of companies elect NOT to provide the government defined version of “affordable” insurance, you can bet that the Obama team will declare that the companies’ bottom line, their decision to “put profit ahead of people” will be the reason millions of people lose their employer-provided coverage, and are thereby forced to buy one of four, yes FOUR, plans available on the government run exchanges.  Jay Carney will tell us “The law didn’t tell those cheap corporations to stop offering insurance programs, those greedy bad apples decided that their employees’ health wasn’t worth the money” . . . “and the government is here to give those abandoned people what they deserve!!!”

My friends, every piece of this law works hand-in-glove with every other piece.  There aren’t one or a dozen really bad provisions, the entire law stinks because it’s based on the lie that everyone is entitled to a product or service that is:

(1) available in finite quantities,

(3) provided by the labor of other men and women, and

(2) “affordable” – not as defined by prices established via billions of voluntary exchanges among millions of people, but as defined by an all-knowing panel in Washington, DC.

Stop wondering if a program will “work” when it hinges on the injustice of forcing one person to work involuntarily for the benefit of another.  The only way such a crime will ‘work’ is if everyone is willing to be either (a) the thief or (b) the victim.

You have no other choice – thief or victim.

Or free.  It’s your call.