Virtue of Selfishness - Individualism  

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  Date / Time: 11/28/2008 5:48 PM UTC

  Communist Manifesto by Marx

  You must understand the Marx point of view to understand how close we are in America to voting away all that made us special and unique.  Our form of capitalism with freedom to trade and protection from theft and fraud can not be compared to the extremes that Marx sees.  He wrote this in 1883 as part of the Communist Manifesto.
  
  The manifesto begins with a view of history that's summarized with this conclusion:

  The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

  Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

  The section goes on to argue that the class struggle under capitalism is between those who own the means of production, the ruling class or bourgeoisie, and those who labor for a wage, the working class or proletariat.

  The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It ... has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment” ... for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation ...
  
  However:  The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers.
  

  It is this concept of the transition from socialism to communism which many critics of the Manifesto, particularly during and after the Soviet era, have highlighted. Anarchists, liberals, and conservatives have all asked how an organization such as the revolutionary state could ever "wither away."
  
  In a related dispute, later Marxists make a separation between "socialism," which is a society ruled by workers, and "communism," which is a utopian classless society.

  
  10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto

  1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
  2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.  DONE
  3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.   (burdonsome death taxes)
  4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
  5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. (national banks, bailout of some not others)
  6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. (FCC, fairness doctrine, federal funding of interstate highways, transportation industry)
  7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. (intervention in farming, energy, federal lands, cap and emision fines)
  8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. (unions, right to work, minimum wage, right to living wage, economic justice)
  9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
  10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production. (public school monopoly, right to higher education, war on home schools, parental rights)

  We have an obligation to understand the agenda and to fight for the right to fail, to trade with whomever we please (short of national security), fair taxes, personal property.  We can't slumber.

  • Tags:
  • marxism
  • Obama
  • socialism
  • communism
  • liberal agenda
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• Original Air Date: 11/24/2008 3:00 AM UTC

  Why I believe Obama is a Marxist

  Language is a powerful weapon and America seems to be losing the war. Understanding the language of politics and political campaigns helps you understand the candidate, their ideology and their intent.
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  • Tags:
  • socialism
  • marxism
  • Obama
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• Date / Time: 11/22/2008 4:55 PM UTC

  A Time to Choose

  Ronald Reagan in his famous 1964 stump speech for Goldwater said:
  
  You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down--up to a man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order--or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
  
  I know that most Americans have the grit and the stamina to do what's right during these times. I urge you to protest these bailouts with every voice and choice that you have. I understand if you are working for a failing company, but unless you are at the top of the pyramid, your job isn't safe. And if the companies are overrun by tyrannical unions, then let them fail and regroup. I promise I will buy from farmer's markets, from flea markets and barter systems. I promise not to use a credit card from any bank that received bail out money. I promise that I won't buy from a union store. I promise that I will not vote for any congressman that votes YES on a taxpayer financed bailout.
  
  In a FREE market there are no guarantees that you won't fail, but if we give up our free market system, then we'll never succeed on our own terms. Did you know that a lawsuit was filed against 'e-harmony.com' as a civil rights issue...someone believed that their policy to not allow the option of men looking for men or women looking for women was discriminatory. This was a private company, not a government entity. They had lots of rules that followed their philosophy of lifetime partners. Before this could be settled in court, e-harmony.com settled for money and agreed to change their site. This force born of fear to stand up for what's right comes from evil. It's not right that we can't choose who to trade with. Civil rights has gotten out of hand and if you listen to the logic of our president-elect, then you'll understand how he'll turn our own values and guilt against us. We believe in fairness, but when fairness is dictated to us by another, then they've taken away not only my right to trade with whom I please, but the joy I could derive by being fair and generous. Is it wrong to share your peanut butter sandwich? Hell no, but is it wrong for someone else to demand half? Civil rights come about by people finding a way to change the will of the people, not by the force of our judicial system or our legislature. The government is to protect us from force, not impose it.
  
  John Galt a character in Atlas Shrugged said:
  
  You know that you can't give away everything and starve yourself. You've forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it's your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth.
  
  Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than its neighbors. ....I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others.
  
  To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.
  
  If you've understood what I've said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don't accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don't exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don't sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it.
  
  We must understand basic human rights but when a private company refuses service to you, isn't that their right too. We are a free people, and we have a right to open up a competing business across the street. Isn't that the better way? Let us not contribute to the madness, to the evil, to the chipping away of our dignity and our freedom. We must remove legislators from office who would serve a different ideal.
  • Tags:
  • galt
  • reagan
  • civil rights
  • freedom
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• Date / Time: 11/21/2008 7:43 PM UTC

  The Freedom to Fail

  As a first generation immigrant, refugee at that, I was taught that the greatest thing about America was that we had the freedom to try and if we failed, we could try again. I know that some of my parent's friends who came at the same era couldn't make it. Most did, but a few went back to Europe where the country would subsidize their housing and intervene in their daily lives. Most were older, widowed and we understood if the concept of "America" was too hard.
  
  Maybe America is only for the young and the brave who value freedom more than security. For the old men who remember a simpler time. Maybe America is only for those who value life and liberty and have enough rational selfishness to understand how to pursue happiness, and are willing to die to protect it. America wasn't just a place, a country, a land that stretches beyond what you can see or traverse in a lifetime. America was a hope, an ideal, a city on a hill.
  
  My father spent his youth as a Dutch POW in Japan. From the age of 19 to 24 he survived the trials of war in a prison camp. There was a democracy in the camp among prisoners and a pecking order. There was hard work, hunger, sickness and death at the hands of a people he barely knew. He became enamored with the American soldiers there. Some were his age, away from home and knew even less about the enemy than he did. He often feared for them more than for himself, for he thought they were naive, arrogant and brazen sometimes. They had a courage and a hope and a sense of freedom that walls of prison couldn't take away from them.
  
  I'm convinced that what my father witnessed in those young American POW's might have been a naivete of men who only knew freedom, who didn't cower to authority, who knew the strength and resolve of their military. Maybe that naivete is why we don't really see how much is being chipped away and eroding from the hillside. Americans have moved from the country and the cities to suburbia. I can still see the patchwork quilt when I visit small towns, and I believe it's still the majority of America, but somewhere in the malls and metropolis, in television and movies, music and culture there is a grayness that's unbecoming. It's the pallor of death I think. The way death slowly creeps from the extremities to the soul. A coldness that's removed from the real heart and soul of America.
  
  I don't know when it started. Maybe it was the war and how little America gave back to their soldiers. I've only known Vietnam, really and I think the crime of the war was television, and what the protesters did to our veterans. When protesters like William Ayers, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden and their like are raised above soldiers who gave them those freedoms, then where is the solidarity and pride in freedom and justice. When public opinion matters more than doing what's right, when we allow domestic terrorists in the name of protest, ignorance or cowardice to have a voice in politics, education and our culture, then what is America become?
  
  I know that we have over 300 million people in the US and over 200 million are over the age of 18 and could be eligible to vote. Only 61% did. I want to appeal to the 40% who didn't vote. The rational, the reasonable, the citizens both natural and naturalized who didn't vote. I believe they are part of the backbone of America. They are the independent souls who never asked the government for anything, who expect only freedom and don't complain about their situation. They are working hard and raising their families, happy to be free and never look to the government for anything. They may not have joined protests or movements, they just want to be left alone. The folks in rural towns and communities who don't need the media or polls to tell them how to vote or think or justify new rights from wrongs. I'm sure if you are reading this, you know many of those people.
  
  They won't join a movement, they won't attend a rally. They might be like Joe Wurzelbacher, who was minding his own business when a candidate came to his neighborhood. I see Joe as the John Doe of Meet John Doe from the 1941 Gary Cooper film. He does speak for every man and I do know so many who like Joe, have a little of that naivete that my father saw in Americans. Joe too is a veteran. Joe assumed that he was free, that his country was worth fighting for, and that no one could take that freedom from him, not really. He knew by instinct that Americans don't spread their wealth. Any American can be wealthy if you work hard and work smart. It's in every American's grasp, isn't it?
  
  Well, Joe, Dad, look what they're trying to do to our country. A group of radical and liberal professors, activists, community organizers, civil rights peddlers have started to eat away at the fabric of this great land. They teach entitlement instead of self reliance; they create mandates instead of charity and teaching common sense; they kill their unborn and toss away their young. They believe that a good job, health care and a living wage is a right, not a responsibility. These are men, not without reason, but without merit. It's a plague that will spread if it's not contained. America won't fail by force or by reason, but by a failure to act. We have a right to fail in America, but we have no right to let America fail.
  • Tags:
  • democracy
  • freedom
  • liberty
  • selfishness
  • the right to pursue
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• Date / Time: 11/18/2008 5:58 AM UTC

  Fear the day when Selfishness, like hate, becomes a crime.

  "You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against -- then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures.  We're after power and we mean it.  Your fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it.  There's no way to rule innocent men.  The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.  Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.  One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.  Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens?  What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt.  Now that's the system...that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll

  be easier to deal with."

   

      - Ayn Rand

  Selfishness has been maligned by society, by preachers, by parents and teachers.  Some would have you believe that all selfishness is bad and all selflessness is good.  That the selfish acts of a wall street investor which serve only one man must be innately evil, while the cowardly acts of a domestic terrorist who kills and damages to protest injustice to an enemy at war is valuable and good.

  Doesn’t the Bible even teach us that selfishness is bad?  The implications of selfishness inspire divergent views within religious, philosophical, psychological, ideological, economic and evolutionary contexts.  Aren’t the ‘enlightened’ ones purged of their selfishness and live only for the benefit and well being of others?
  

  
  Our society praises our president – elect, who would have you believe that he became a community organizer out of a sense of altruism, a higher purpose then the pursuit of money or self – interest.  He left college and moved to Chicago.  A man born in Hawaii, finishing college as a lawyer, does not choose the windy city out of concern for others.  He stuck out as unusual, as he applied for his first job as a community organizer.  A young man in his mid 20’s who had never known prejudice or poverty.  He jumped right in to work with people in the projects, joined a local church to understand the black community.
  

  
  I noticed an important fact after watching the Barack Obama biography so well played on national TV before the election.  The women interviewed spoke so well of him, and how he listened and helped them get funding for a community project.  But watch closely or you’ll miss it, these women were speaking of what he had done for them 20 years ago, how he empowered them, but guess what?  They were still in the projects.  He wasn’t, they were.  Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.  Beware of the selfless man who leaves his flock in poverty as he himself pursues his personal agenda.
  

  
  "If concern with poverty and human suffering were the collectivists' motive, they would have become champions of capitalism long ago; they would have discovered that it is the only political system capable of producing abundance."
  

  While I believe in a world of black and white where things are right and wrong, I don’t believe that selfishness or selflessness is either right or wrong, good or bad.  I hate grey, or as a better man put it, “be not lukewarm”.  We happen to be created as selfish creatures, that in fact is what the bible teaches.  ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  The bible implies that you love yourself.  In fact it somewhat requires that you understand how you love yourself, or you’ll not have a clue as to how you should love your neighbor.

   

  The statement, "love your neighbor as yourself" is not a command to love yourself. It is natural and normal to love yourself. The statement, "love your neighbor as yourself" is essentially saying treat other people as well as you treat yourself. The idea of loving yourself as a command of Scripture is not accurate. The Bible presumes that people already love themselves too much. 

   

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m very aware that the bible teaches that we are to take our eyes off ourselves and care for others, but that’s only possible if we understand and harness our selfishness.  If we deny or pretend that we aren’t selfish and succeed in the illusion of  selfless or collective purpose, we deny what’s true and we deny what God wants us to understand.

   

  I believe that Bill Gates was and maybe still is, though I wouldn’t be privy to that knowledge, but I believe his success came from being a very selfish man.  The few bios I’ve read and my own experience with DOS showed that he fought to own and profit from a solution that brought operating systems at a reasonable price to every piece of computer hardware developed.  He didn’t defraud anyone outside the law although he walked awfully close to that line in his rise.  His selfishness built an empire, his selfishness protected it from predators and now he’s semi-retired and one of the largest philanthropists on the planet.  He and his wife keenly invest in projects now, that are truly selfless and deserving of his fortune, he’s investing in education.  Not the education of the impoverished with utopian ideals that keep them in the projects, but the development and discovery of self realization in young people that allow them to claim their independence.

  • Tags:
  • selfishness
  • crime
  • collectivism
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• Original Air Date: 11/17/2008 4:00 AM UTC

  The responsibility of the Supreme Court to defend our Constitution

  Were you aware that there are several lawsuits in various stages of litigation that call Barack Obama's citizenship status into question? Apparently they've never come up with the documents to actually prove a Hawaii birth. If Obama is not eligible and the day the Supreme Court fails to acknowledge that fact, is the day the world discovers the Supreme Court became a co conspirator in the same guilty conspiracy.
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  • Tags:
  • Rand
  • Democracy
  • Liberty
  • Capitalism
  • Reagan
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• Date / Time: 11/14/2008 5:22 PM UTC

  Capitalism the obvious scapegoat

  In an article by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins from the Ayn Rand Center, it's apparant that the next administration and so many of our fellow Americans if not the rest of the world are blaming capitalism for our global economic crisis.
  
  

  "Speaking of the financial crisis, French president Nicolas Sarkozy recently said, “Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.”

  Sarkozy was echoing the views of many, including president-elect Obama, who assume that the financial crisis was caused by free markets--by “unbridled greed” unleashed by decades of deregulation and a “hands off” approach to the economy. And given this premise, the solution, they say, is obvious. To solve this crisis and prevent another one, we need a heavy dose of Uncle Sam’s elixir: government intervention. Whether it’s more bailouts, stricter regulation, a new round of nationalizations, or some other scheme, the only question since day one has been how, not whether, government is going to intervene."

  
  This should scare those of you independent enough to know that less government is better.  Other than the military, there is very little that the government does better than the private sector.  Look around at any of the government owned and operated enterprises and tell me that they can attract the cream of the crop to run an efficient operation.  If you look at around the unholy mixture of our economy with regulations and subsidies and overall intervention you couldn't even call what we've been doing capitalism.
  
  The authors go on to form a valid argument for the separation of State and Economics.  Reagan warned us that once government sets up a department, it rarely goes away.  Farm subsidies, welfare, social security.  Did you know that if I would have been able to control the SS payments, or at least the investment of those funds, I've made over my career by buying mutual funds I could have retired 10 years ago at double what SS is promising me at 72.  Do not fall for more government to help us out of our troubles.  Americans know exactly what to do and the Economic pundits, even on Fox Business are calling this a crisis.  The only "CRISIS" is that most Americans know that economy starts at home.  They are saving more, spending less, looking for other streams of income or job opportunities and are paying down their debt.  What a concept.  This is what will hurt the economy the most in the short term.... and it is EXACTLY what we should be doing for a healthier economy in the future.
  
  I won't be duped in thinking that capitalism is the root of all evil.  Evil is the root of evil and the government's only responsibility was to protect individual rights from violation by force or fraud.  They have failed to do their one and only job, lets not give them more responsibility.  I posted a blog in defense of the homeowners who have been duped by the corrupt and greedy practices of wall street magicians and charlatans and it's now time to let the oh so big and bad companies fail on their own demerits and take the economy back to a reasonable and sensible place.  Back where it belongs, in the hands of the American people who believe in the freedom to pursue happiness and prosperity and don't need anyone to manage their welfare.  Just keep us safe and we'll do the rest.
  
  
  
  
  • Tags:
  • capitalism
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