On nights like these, I break down and cry. During these nights, I put infants to shame, not in terms of volume or in tears shed; rather, I surrender my internal checks guarding emotional release and allow the tears to flow as they may. There has not been a single funeral during which I cry or a tragic event or act of war that has leveled me to the point of capitulation.
You see, I mourn in the wee hours of the morning for my country. Ronald Reagan, in his 1964 speech to the Republican National Convention ("A Time for Choosing"), could not have been more prescient regarding the threats we face from moral relativism in terms of economic, domestic, and foreign policy.
A) We have no issue in confiscating wealth to the government in order to ensconce more rigidly the poor, who would benefit considerably more from private capital investment than government welfare checks.
B) The Constitution of the United States [which, by the way, our Founders risked their very lives for on charges of treason (and many of them sanctified our supreme law of the land with their blood) in order to found a nation based upon the natural rights of man, from which life is lived more fully, liberty more responsibly employed under the natural tempering of reason, and the pursuit of happiness gladly sprinted after by Americans with an enterprising spirit] has been denigrated by our legislators, executives, and judiciary as something antiquated and ill-suited for the governance of a populace seeking more, not less nanny-state intervention.
C) There exists more moral equivalence today regarding Islamofascism than ever more; thanks to biases against ethnocentrism and for moral relativism, group decision (i.e. power) has become the highest good due to moral relativism's definition ("A is proper if X says so."). Ethnocentrists, due to the nature of our founding upon natural rights, are horrified by the Islamofascists abroad unjustifiably killing people; moral relativists have no defense for whatever visceral disgust they may feel due to the fact that, as one group considers such reckless slaughter permissible and moral, it is somehow moral. Due to moral relativism, there shall be peace... and peace only comes from one decision: that being to surrender.
Barack Obama does not wish to debate the implicit premise held by the Democratic Party that the organized is infallible and the individual misguided and selfish. The Democratic Congress does not wish to relinquish its hold upon socioeconomic power; it wishes to use the redistribution of wealth through fiat, endless governmental bureaucracies existing in direct violation of constitutional mandate, and lifetime appointments of left-wing ideologues to the Supreme Court in order to subvert the last vestiges of the natural rights coalition that has bound our nation together for the past two-plus centuries.
It is frightening to remember that governments have never voluntarily relinquished power. As George Santayana said, "Those who refuse to remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Einstein noted that the continuance of the same things while expecting different results constitutes insanity.
The citizenry has come to value security over liberty; if you remember your Ben Franklin quotes, those who value a little security over liberty deserve neither. Many have come to prefer to live on their knees than die on their feet bearing the purposefully-burdened weight of their convictions. Many have decided that life is so dear and sweet as to be worthy of purchase through slavery and chains, to be robbed of their liberty in order to live in forbearance.
Fortunately, there exist those who refuse to allow such cowards to speak for the rest of us. We will gladly choose the preservation of liberty under just law over the prospect of living our lives and coercing our posterity to live under barbarous and relativistic conditions. We understand that we have a rendezvous with destiny in order to preserve for our children this, our last best hope on earth, lest we sentence them to jump into the abyss of fascism and socialism due to the abominable mistakes of their fathers.
May God have mercy upon my country. Our children do not deserve to live under the oppressive burdens imposed upon them by their forefathers... matters such as social welfare entitlements, continued abuse and denial of Constitutional sovereignty, and the firm belief that liberty tempered by reason is the paradigm under which a society discovers the greatest amount of personal, economic, and political liberty for the greatest number.
Laissez-faire!
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
-Ben Franklin
Has the Democratic Party not become the party of masters and not enablers of human initiative? See here and here for prominent examples. Instead of individuals providing for themselves with the maximization of their God-given talents, they slobber upon themselves and cry out for wealth redistribution in order to lessen their work burden at the expense of further robbing of the wealthy by government!
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.'"
-Jeremiah 29:11-13
See? God is not calling for legislators to enable us! God is not calling upon government to provide for us! In order to prosper, we must remember this...
"The highway of the upright avoids evil; he who guards his way guards his life. Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
-Proverbs 16:17-18
We mustn't become so complacent as to believe that government and legislators will have the answers for us in "making the pie higher."
"To presume to have recourse to power and taxation, besides being oppressive and unjust, implies further the pernicious assumption that the organized is infallible and that mankind is incompetent."
-Frédéric Bastiat
Nevertheless, I must remember Christ's greatest and (frankly) most manly appeal in the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to his arrest and crucifixion:
"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
-Luke 22:42
These times shall certainly be interesting, but I pledge to my fellow countrymen one thing: I will not rest, I will not desist, I will not demur, I shall never be ashamed to call for the liberation of man from the bonds of corrupted nanny-state government and to instead call for the venturing of freed men into the light of natural rights, the augustness of the Constitution of the United States of America... and perhaps with divine intervention, individual-by-individual revelation regarding the infallibility of and truth that is the Word of God.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
What a terrible ranter I am! :-p
Mozilla Firefox (which I highly recommend for those of you viewing this on Internet Explorer... I pity you folks) holds a ridiculously high number of "favorite links" of mine, some having been on the list for over three years. While clearing away almost a third of them, I noticed this speech Obama delivered prior to his formal nomination and thought to myself: we simply cannot afford this guy.
"Thank you, Marilyn. It isn't right that you're working so hard and struggling so much just to pay your college tuition, and that's why we're here today - to talk about what we can do to make college affordable and help every American get a college education."
Really, is a college education the highest good? Is power the highest good? Is wealth the highest good? Can we in good conscience mandate away the fruits of production earned by others so that those who have not earned may further demonstrate ineptness and find themselves placed in situations where they are, frankly speaking, set up to fail? Could that possibly be morally justifiable?
...after all, for most (according to Charles Murray), college is a waste of time, particularly when so many jobs can be performed without, ahem, degrees. Certifications, perhaps? Frankly, the ever-increasing number of degree programs has cheapened to a significant extent the value of degrees "earned." Also, with the flood of individuals possessing and earning degrees since the post-WWII era, employers find less and less value in the degree itself, as college education has become misconstrued as a right rather than an economic enhancement paid for when the marginal costs are less than the marginal benefits accrued with the work involved in attaining that starched piece of paper.
If Bev Perdue, my North Carolina gubernatorial candidate for the Democratic Party, persists in pushing "free community college education" and Barack Obama persists in this "you don't deserve to work so hard!" bull, our education system will simply become even more of a mockery than it already is. Lowering the bar is almost always the preferred (if sneaky) option for those who cry that "failure is not an option." Ultimately, producers will be coerced to obscene degrees to subsidize mass failure thanks to the utopian ideals propounded by Perdue and Obama about an "educated" society.
"Thank you, Marilyn. It isn't right that you're working so hard and struggling so much just to pay your college tuition, and that's why we're here today - to talk about what we can do to make college affordable and help every American get a college education."
Really, is a college education the highest good? Is power the highest good? Is wealth the highest good? Can we in good conscience mandate away the fruits of production earned by others so that those who have not earned may further demonstrate ineptness and find themselves placed in situations where they are, frankly speaking, set up to fail? Could that possibly be morally justifiable?
...after all, for most (according to Charles Murray), college is a waste of time, particularly when so many jobs can be performed without, ahem, degrees. Certifications, perhaps? Frankly, the ever-increasing number of degree programs has cheapened to a significant extent the value of degrees "earned." Also, with the flood of individuals possessing and earning degrees since the post-WWII era, employers find less and less value in the degree itself, as college education has become misconstrued as a right rather than an economic enhancement paid for when the marginal costs are less than the marginal benefits accrued with the work involved in attaining that starched piece of paper.
If Bev Perdue, my North Carolina gubernatorial candidate for the Democratic Party, persists in pushing "free community college education" and Barack Obama persists in this "you don't deserve to work so hard!" bull, our education system will simply become even more of a mockery than it already is. Lowering the bar is almost always the preferred (if sneaky) option for those who cry that "failure is not an option." Ultimately, producers will be coerced to obscene degrees to subsidize mass failure thanks to the utopian ideals propounded by Perdue and Obama about an "educated" society.
...for kicks and giggles.
While I was reviewing some clips from the most recent debate between Senators Obama and McCain, I remembered that a grand little blog called Division of Labour existed... and found this!
When matters become so outright ridiculous that I am considering voting for Bob Barr (the Libertarian Party candidate) over the GOP candidate, you know this country is barreling down the highway to Hell. (Then again, that's blatant exaggeration. I've steadily progressed towards classical liberalism for two years now, especially in consideration of the extensive reading I've done... e.g. Mises, Hayek, Rand, Bastiat, Friedman, etc.)
...despite the disconcerted nature of the economic landscape, some things still remain the same: GO LONGHORNS!
John Stossel had a great piece in the Wall Street Journal on Friday. If you missed the editorializing and his special that aired at 10 PM that night, you deprived yourself of what may have been the most educational thing ABC has broadcasted this year on this side of... bleck, Desperate Housewives isn't that great.
Finally, a fast book recommendation: Ayn Rand's Anthem is a great antidote to the transformational collectivism proposed by Obama.
When matters become so outright ridiculous that I am considering voting for Bob Barr (the Libertarian Party candidate) over the GOP candidate, you know this country is barreling down the highway to Hell. (Then again, that's blatant exaggeration. I've steadily progressed towards classical liberalism for two years now, especially in consideration of the extensive reading I've done... e.g. Mises, Hayek, Rand, Bastiat, Friedman, etc.)
...despite the disconcerted nature of the economic landscape, some things still remain the same: GO LONGHORNS!
John Stossel had a great piece in the Wall Street Journal on Friday. If you missed the editorializing and his special that aired at 10 PM that night, you deprived yourself of what may have been the most educational thing ABC has broadcasted this year on this side of... bleck, Desperate Housewives isn't that great.
Finally, a fast book recommendation: Ayn Rand's Anthem is a great antidote to the transformational collectivism proposed by Obama.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Is it the end or the beginning?
Hearing the crashing of the markets through multiple floors, we have to question whether we are nearing the end of Keynesian economic preeminence in the United States or the extra-constitutional use of governmental powers to try and engineer a picking process of winners and losers. Sadly, if human history is any indication, the latter is becoming the case, although there are sane voices out there.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Power is never the highest good.
Irresponsible legislation, such as what we have chronicled here by a 1999 New York Times article, cannot fail to be the root cause of this financial crisis we have come to face. Guess who pushed this? C'mon, guess!
President William Jefferson Clinton.
Unfortunately, Congressional Republicans were in the majority at the time, so they must receive blame, also. Really gentlemen, you abandoned your principles that quickly?! At least the American Enterprise Institute covered the conservative planks by saying that the moves made by Congress and the President to artificially boost homeownership were, to say the least, risky.
When expediency overtakes principle in the consideration of policy, power is always evident as the primary motivation behind passage. Here, the President and the Republican majority in Congress at the time were in a power battle insofar as the Republicans regretted not having one of their own as POTUS while the President wanted his policy initiatives passed through prior to being lifted from his magic chair. Ergo, they resorted to earmarking and other corrupt practices while using Clinton as their convenient scapegoat.
No wonder the Republic is dead: those who claim to believe in it care nothing for being principled enough to legislate its continuation.
President William Jefferson Clinton.
Unfortunately, Congressional Republicans were in the majority at the time, so they must receive blame, also. Really gentlemen, you abandoned your principles that quickly?! At least the American Enterprise Institute covered the conservative planks by saying that the moves made by Congress and the President to artificially boost homeownership were, to say the least, risky.
When expediency overtakes principle in the consideration of policy, power is always evident as the primary motivation behind passage. Here, the President and the Republican majority in Congress at the time were in a power battle insofar as the Republicans regretted not having one of their own as POTUS while the President wanted his policy initiatives passed through prior to being lifted from his magic chair. Ergo, they resorted to earmarking and other corrupt practices while using Clinton as their convenient scapegoat.
No wonder the Republic is dead: those who claim to believe in it care nothing for being principled enough to legislate its continuation.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Deregulation makes sense.
Don't worry: I haven't forgotten this blog's existence... far from it. Over the past weeks, we have witnessed a financial tidal wave similar to what our forefathers have faced with the financial panics and business cycle depressions present throughout our nation's history. Over the past few months, we have seen multi-billion dollar write-downs of bad debt by such venerable financial institutions (which have gone noticeably kaput) as Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Washington Mutual, J.P. Morgan, et cetera. American International Group, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual... they are not autonomous anymore, having been swallowed up by bigger entities (e.g. J.P. Morgan and Bank of America), consolidated into the federal bureaucracy with the aid of taxpayer dollars (as in the cases of Fannie and Freddie), or allowed to file bankruptcy. Trillions of dollars in equities and loans have been brought to the brink, if not pushed over, and the livelihoods of billions have been damaged to some extent or another due to the fact that the ramifications of these implosions ripple across the world. Even now, many foreign banks that operate in the United States are lobbying for bailout funds in exchange for more "accountability" (i.e. harmful, continued over-regulation) by our government; as a consequence of the perceived need of these bailouts, China (our largest creditor) has commanded their national banks not to lend to the United States until matters are more satisfactorily resolved in pushing for a more secure financial system.
Who can blame China? With our extensive set of social welfare entitlements, business regulations, and long-term debt, our creditors ought not rely solely upon the vague promise of "the good faith and credit of the United States of America." Frankly, from my standpoint, this country wouldn't be meritorious of a dime; this country must learn to hack away the cords that bind us to our parasitic, unconstitutional, and uncalled-for "social justice" programs designed to con the taxpayer of what is rightfully his at the expense of "providing" for the needs of those deemed to "deserve" so-called aid based upon paradigms designed by vote-seeking politicians, not truly benevolent private individuals. Isn't there something grievously wrong when our country's firms seek aid from our "benevolent" government, more honestly recognized as the fount of our economic and social oppression, than from other lenders of private capital? Wherever does our august Constitution grant authorization for interference in private business matters, much less outright management of the private sector?
Damned right: nowhere. Laissez-faire, fools.
It incenses me that government has so extensively regulated our financial institutions to the point that, frankly, they cannot survive upon their own merits. In 1977, President Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which sought to increase homeownership in this country by artificially lowering market-set parameters for receiving credit, expanded even further by President Clinton in 1994 prior to the Republican assumption of Congressional majority. These enabled minorities to own homes when their credit ratings were not deemed sufficient for prime rates by banks and opened the door for middle-class Americans to own homes that were well beyond conventional metrics of affordability calculation (e.g. do not lend when home value exceeds 250-300% of annual income). Homeownership, according to those two leftists, ought to be a "right extended" to all Americans, which is literal subterfuge for "a 'positive freedom' legislated upon the masses by a legislature involving the implementation of misguided moral imperatives in violation of individual natural rights." (Okay, so perhaps a more clear-headed person would have a less obtuse construction... just tag along with me here!) Also, since the advent of the civil rights movement (i.e. the 1950s), non-discrimination laws have been in force that have increasingly led to the tradition of the following train of thought on the Left.
1) People are created equal.
2) People can have rights.
3) People ought not be judged due to their equality and rights.
4) Ergo, people ought to receive equal treatment and, at some point, equal outcomes.
Let us ask two questions.
Is homeownership a right? No; it is something purchased, then defended with property rights to the extent that the home in question is implicated in contracts.
Is credit a right? No; credit is based upon calculated risks upon the ability of an individual or group to pay back liabilities lent over a period of time at a rate of usury.
Nevertheless, your ever-benevolent politicians believe that they can impose such positive freedoms as homeownership and sub-market interest rates with government interference at the expense of the defense of negative freedoms, i.e. natural rights. Their moral imperatives, their vision(s) as the anointed one(s) as legislators cloud their unmistakably-clear duty to the citizenry of the United States of America to defend their natural rights, e.g. life, liberty, and property!
Let's go from micro to macro, as we have seen how Carter and Clinton have sparked and exacerbated the subprime situation with Constitutionally unauthorized governmental intervention: if you are a bank, such as Washington Mutual or Citigroup, how does such policy affect your operation?
Remember, credit and homeownership are not rights; rather, they are paid for with the productivity of men, both past and future, as well as collateralized with current assets. Prime rates are set by markets, where countless individual actors contribute information regarding the futility or success of lending credit at certain rates of usury, where it is utilized to facilitate Smith's invisible hand, setting prices of credit at points of equilibrium (or, for the sake of understanding, interest rate). Banks have to be discriminative in terms of whom they lend to; reputations are especially useful in determining the substance backing the statement, "Yes, I can pay back this loan at the stated terms."
The Left has failed the marketplace, as they have sought to do since at least the time of Marx (and well prior to then, stretching back to the genesis of any protectionist thought that halted the vast productivity advantages afforded by comparative advantage). Their imposition of positive freedoms have misled individuals to believe that they can afford loans well beyond their capability to pay while banks have been coerced to loan capital to individuals at rates below market value of credit risk, a.k.a. the prime rate. Government has been assumed to know better than any one individual the capability of that one individual to pay off their liabilities with current assets and future possibilities of production while robbing banks of their right to judge risks in reference to market norms and the circumstances of potential clients/debtors.
This is wrong, and you know it. Deregulation must begin today; otherwise, individuals and firms will continue to be screwed by irresponsible legislators, who shall in turn sink the financial credibility of this nation with their patently ridiculous regulations, bureaucracies, and social entitlement programs. This proposed $700 billion bailout will put taxpayer money at uncalled-for risk under unconstitutional provisions, eroding the boundaries that government is supposed to respect between it and the private sectors of businesses and individuals. Unfortunately, a bailout will probably pass without deregulation, costing America her credit, her pruners, her promise to her citizens regarding her willingness to preserve their self-evident freedoms, and (frighteningly enough) her life.
Who can blame China? With our extensive set of social welfare entitlements, business regulations, and long-term debt, our creditors ought not rely solely upon the vague promise of "the good faith and credit of the United States of America." Frankly, from my standpoint, this country wouldn't be meritorious of a dime; this country must learn to hack away the cords that bind us to our parasitic, unconstitutional, and uncalled-for "social justice" programs designed to con the taxpayer of what is rightfully his at the expense of "providing" for the needs of those deemed to "deserve" so-called aid based upon paradigms designed by vote-seeking politicians, not truly benevolent private individuals. Isn't there something grievously wrong when our country's firms seek aid from our "benevolent" government, more honestly recognized as the fount of our economic and social oppression, than from other lenders of private capital? Wherever does our august Constitution grant authorization for interference in private business matters, much less outright management of the private sector?
Damned right: nowhere. Laissez-faire, fools.
It incenses me that government has so extensively regulated our financial institutions to the point that, frankly, they cannot survive upon their own merits. In 1977, President Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which sought to increase homeownership in this country by artificially lowering market-set parameters for receiving credit, expanded even further by President Clinton in 1994 prior to the Republican assumption of Congressional majority. These enabled minorities to own homes when their credit ratings were not deemed sufficient for prime rates by banks and opened the door for middle-class Americans to own homes that were well beyond conventional metrics of affordability calculation (e.g. do not lend when home value exceeds 250-300% of annual income). Homeownership, according to those two leftists, ought to be a "right extended" to all Americans, which is literal subterfuge for "a 'positive freedom' legislated upon the masses by a legislature involving the implementation of misguided moral imperatives in violation of individual natural rights." (Okay, so perhaps a more clear-headed person would have a less obtuse construction... just tag along with me here!) Also, since the advent of the civil rights movement (i.e. the 1950s), non-discrimination laws have been in force that have increasingly led to the tradition of the following train of thought on the Left.
1) People are created equal.
2) People can have rights.
3) People ought not be judged due to their equality and rights.
4) Ergo, people ought to receive equal treatment and, at some point, equal outcomes.
Let us ask two questions.
Is homeownership a right? No; it is something purchased, then defended with property rights to the extent that the home in question is implicated in contracts.
Is credit a right? No; credit is based upon calculated risks upon the ability of an individual or group to pay back liabilities lent over a period of time at a rate of usury.
Nevertheless, your ever-benevolent politicians believe that they can impose such positive freedoms as homeownership and sub-market interest rates with government interference at the expense of the defense of negative freedoms, i.e. natural rights. Their moral imperatives, their vision(s) as the anointed one(s) as legislators cloud their unmistakably-clear duty to the citizenry of the United States of America to defend their natural rights, e.g. life, liberty, and property!
Let's go from micro to macro, as we have seen how Carter and Clinton have sparked and exacerbated the subprime situation with Constitutionally unauthorized governmental intervention: if you are a bank, such as Washington Mutual or Citigroup, how does such policy affect your operation?
Remember, credit and homeownership are not rights; rather, they are paid for with the productivity of men, both past and future, as well as collateralized with current assets. Prime rates are set by markets, where countless individual actors contribute information regarding the futility or success of lending credit at certain rates of usury, where it is utilized to facilitate Smith's invisible hand, setting prices of credit at points of equilibrium (or, for the sake of understanding, interest rate). Banks have to be discriminative in terms of whom they lend to; reputations are especially useful in determining the substance backing the statement, "Yes, I can pay back this loan at the stated terms."
The Left has failed the marketplace, as they have sought to do since at least the time of Marx (and well prior to then, stretching back to the genesis of any protectionist thought that halted the vast productivity advantages afforded by comparative advantage). Their imposition of positive freedoms have misled individuals to believe that they can afford loans well beyond their capability to pay while banks have been coerced to loan capital to individuals at rates below market value of credit risk, a.k.a. the prime rate. Government has been assumed to know better than any one individual the capability of that one individual to pay off their liabilities with current assets and future possibilities of production while robbing banks of their right to judge risks in reference to market norms and the circumstances of potential clients/debtors.
This is wrong, and you know it. Deregulation must begin today; otherwise, individuals and firms will continue to be screwed by irresponsible legislators, who shall in turn sink the financial credibility of this nation with their patently ridiculous regulations, bureaucracies, and social entitlement programs. This proposed $700 billion bailout will put taxpayer money at uncalled-for risk under unconstitutional provisions, eroding the boundaries that government is supposed to respect between it and the private sectors of businesses and individuals. Unfortunately, a bailout will probably pass without deregulation, costing America her credit, her pruners, her promise to her citizens regarding her willingness to preserve their self-evident freedoms, and (frighteningly enough) her life.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Word of the Day
SNOBaman- n. (pl. -s) a Constitution-raping San Francisco/Chicago leftist ignoramus who peddles any guilt narrative (regardless of validity) to shame the voting populace into voting for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
Mind you, not all Obama voters are SNOBamans, but a statistical 100% of SNOBamans are Obama fans and more likely than not will have significant influence upon economic, domestic, foreign, procedural and military policy.
One word: beware.
Mind you, not all Obama voters are SNOBamans, but a statistical 100% of SNOBamans are Obama fans and more likely than not will have significant influence upon economic, domestic, foreign, procedural and military policy.
One word: beware.
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