My 2000 Debate Appearance

My participation in the NJ Senatorial debate in 2000: Corzine/Franks.

Forward to about the 15 minute mark

NJ Senatorial Debate
10/20/2000

Marc Howard

Money a Focus In Last Debate In New Jersey

From the start, Mr. Corzine was put on the defensive about his campaign spending by Mr. Franks and the moderators, Roz Abrams of WABC and Marc Howard of WPVI.

A Refreshing Defense of Individualism

Actually, We're Not All In This Together, by Edward H. Crane, president and cofounder of the Cato Institute.

My commentary:

Ed Crane is right. No one can think for you. No one can acquire knowledge or skills for you. No one can exert the mental efforts required to make the neurological connections that make understanding possible in you own brain. No one can make the choice for you whether to initiate action or stagnate. No one can make the choice for you of what kinds of actions to take. Everything you are begins with self-motivation and self-discipline. The choice of whether to be honest or not, a parasite or not, a thug or not, self-supporting or not, is entirely an individualistic affair, no matter what advantages in terms of nurturing parents or the accumulated knowledge of mankind or other kinds of cooperative opportunities “society” makes available to you.

Collectivists see no difference between human beings. That is why collectivism in any of its manifestations must lead to the subordination of the thinking, self-supporting, honest, moral people to the lazy and the shiftless. The “We’re all in this together” philosophy is a philosophy by and for parasites and power-lusters – seekers of unearned material benefits and seekers of unearned greatness and “prestige”. It is the siren song of universal destitution and totalitarianism.

Some Fairness Toward Ayn Rand, From an Unlikely Source

The liberal Huffington Post, of all places, has published a relatively fair-minded piece on Ayn Rand, entitled The Real Rogue Warrior: Ayn Rand, Not Sarah Palin, by Michael Shermer. Here are a few excerpts:

"Despite the media frenzy surrounding Sarah Palin's autobiographical Going Rogue, the real rogue warrior making a political conservative comeback today is not Palin, but the Russian immigrant turned champion of American conservative principles, Ayn Rand.

"You can no more understand the right without Rand than you can understand it without Buckley, Goldwater, and Reagan. The dismissal of Rand by both the left and the right as mind candy for college kids is fatuous. It may be true that many of us (myself included) were first introduced to Rand in college, but that's when most of us are introduced to most of the philosophical and literary figures in history. So what?

"What are Rand's principles and which of her books should you read to understand the modern conservative movement? Start with Atlas Shrugged. According to a survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month club, readers ranked it #2 behind the Bible as the most influential book they had ever read. It is a murder mystery, not about the murder of a human body, but of the murder of the human spirit."

I addressed, in my comments below, Mr. Shermer's erroneous (in my view) contention that modern conservatism is a good surrogate for Ayn Rand's ideas. Though he did his best, Mr. Shermer doesn't seem to have a firm grasp of the many fundamental differences between Objectivism and conservatism. There are, too be sure, many areas of agreement, as well, especially in economics (although few, if any, conservatives would embrace full laissez-faire capitalism, or the separation of state and economics). That she is decribed as making a "political conservative comeback" is an indication of how much must still be learned about her.

There are some other errors in this piece, such as this quote from Burns:

"Rand intended her books to be a sort of scripture, and for all her emphasis on reason it is the emotional and psychological sides of her novels that make them timeless."

"Scripture" is an odd, and utterly wrong, description of a philosophy that has as a prime fundamental tenet to think for yourself.

Her books do have powerful emotional appeal, but if that is mainly what one gets out of her writing, then you're likely to ... as they say ... "outgrow Ayn Rand".

All in all, though, this is a decent piece that captures the the reason for Ayn Rand's enduring relevance.

Here are my brief comments:

Thank you, Mr. Shermer, for a pretty good article, although the appropriate term to describe Ayn Rand is not rogue, but radical. You make a crucial point all too often forgotten: “Criticism of the founder of a theory does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the theory.” I agree that Sarah Palin (who I am not a fan of) cannot hold a candle to Ayn Rand.

It should be pointed out that many people of various political persuasions in what today passes for the American "Right" - from conservative to libertarian to Republican to "Tea Partyers" - cherry-pick aspects of Rand’s ideas for their own purposes, while ignoring the rich depth of her comprehensive philosophy. Also, a large swath of American Conservatism abhors Ayn Rand for her secularism, social “liberalism”, and the challenge she hurls at Judeo-Christian morality through her ethics of rational self-interest.

You’ll learn little about Objectivism (Rand’s philosophy) by listening to conservatives. So, take some advice from an Objectivist husband, father, and grandfather who never “outgrew” Ayn Rand. If you’re seriously interested in understanding Rand’s enduring appeal, you’ll just have to study her works yourself, and exercise a cardinal virtue of the Objectivist ethics – your own independent judgement.

E. J. Dionne on the "Win for Government"

On Election Day, a win for government, by E.J. Dionne.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Excerpts:

Here's a story you may have missed because it flies in the face of the dreary conventional wisdom: When advocates of public programs take on the right-wing anti-government crowd directly, the government-haters lose.

This is what happened in two statewide referendums last week that got buried under all of the attention paid to the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey. In Maine, voters rejected a tax-limitation measure by a walloping 60 percent to 40 percent. In Washington state, a similar measure went down, 57 percent to 43 percent.

They lost in part because opponents of the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights measures (known as TABOR) did something that happens too rarely in the national debate: They made a case for what government does, why it's important and why cutbacks in public services can be harmful to citizens and the common good.

In Maine, one ad featured several taxpayers warning about what less government would mean in practice: "Our school budgets have already been cut. This would mean even less money for our classrooms. . . . Community health centers could be cut. People rely on them, especially now." A sympathetic-looking man then appeared on the screen to add: "My wife relies on our home nurse visits. What will we do?"

Here are my comments:

Zemack wrote:

One of the gimmicks statists use to promote their authoritarian agenda is to frame the important issue of the role of government as ... for or against. Thus we get catch phrases such as “the right-wing anti-government crowd”.

Of course, what today passes for the “Right” is a diverse array of frequently antagonistic elements such as Conservatives, Libertarians, and Religious Rightists. But that aside, the purpose of painting anyone who advocates any rollbacks or even restrictions on the further expansion of government power as “anti-government” is to obliterate any acknowledgement of the proper purpose and limits of government. So let’s get some clarification here.

A government is a unique institution. It and it alone possesses a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. This is as it should and must be. The apprehension and prosecution of domestic criminals and the protection of the nation from foreign military aggressors is the job of government (among certain other functions relating to human association), and that requires the organized use of force. No civilized society can exist without a government. Without government, society would quickly degenerate into mob rule and chaos. Government is a necessary good.

At the same time, government’s status as a vehicle of physical coercion also makes it the gravest threat to its citizens. To alleviate that potential threat, a government must be strictly contained, or limited. What standard defines the nature of those limits? The principle of inalienable individual rights. What is the method for implementing those limits? A constitution. This is the original American system. Rights, it should be remembered, are a guarantee and a sanction for freedom of action within the context of social organization (such as the right to freedom of speech, religious practice, and the earning and use of property). Rights are not an automatic entitlement to “home nurse visits” or any other product or service that must be provided by others.

So the choice is not, as Mr. Dionne suggests, between pro- and anti-government positions; or between a government of unlimited powers and anarchy. The choice is between a government limited to the protection of the rights of its citizens and a predatory government that is a tool of any political party, special interest pressure group, or voting block to be used to extract economic privileges at the expense of the rights and property of others.

The “win for government” is a loss for the revolutionary American system. Our nation - which was founded upon the principles of individual rights and limited, rights-protecting government – has degenerated into a chaotic political free-for-all of power-seekers competing for temporary control of the reigns of government’s unique powers of legalized coercion. The winner is any one or group laying temporary claim to the title of representative of that mystical historical siren song of all those who seek forcible domination over the lives, property, and productive work of others … the common good.

Today, the role of our government is being progressively inverted. Instead of protecting our lives, freedom, and property, it has become a major violator of our rights. Instead of protecting us from criminals, it is increasingly using its unique powers for what amounts to legalized criminal activities. I submit into evidence the former Bush Administration and the current runaway statism of the Obama Administration – especially the 2000 page House blueprint for totalitarian control of American medicine.

Growing government power and the consequent loss of individual liberty is a trend that has been going on for more than a century in America. Today, our government is breaking free of all constraints of the constitution and the rule of objective law. If not reversed, the consequences will be dire. Americans desperately need to rediscover the principles of individual rights and the proper role of government.

Where's the "Milestone"? Where's the "Change".

The New Jersey Star-Ledger has lauded the House of Representatives for its passage of the 1990 page health care "reform" bill, HR3962. They're calling it a Health care reform milestone!

It's no such thing. Here are my comments:


We’ve all heard the story of the fireman who starts fires, so that he can be the first on the scene to “save” lives and property. Well, in regard to American health care, the government is that fireman.

For the past 75 years, ever-increasing government interference into health care has led to a steady escalation of problems. The solution to the problems has always been more government interference. This has been mainly led by the openly socialist Democrats, but too often supported by Republicans (ex. – the HMO Act of 1973, SCHIP in 1997, and Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit).

The Editors themselves cite several examples of government-created problems. But once again, they don’t draw the obvious conclusions.

“When crisis hits, they land in emergency rooms, where steep costs drive up the health bill for all of us.”

Why do people who are unwilling or unable to pay their own way “drive up the health bill for all of us”? Because the government forces hospitals and doctors to treat all comers even if they can’t or won’t pay, whether the hospitals want to provide charitable care or not. This forces them to raise rates elsewhere, and causes states to tax the rest of us to subsidize the hospitals.

“For millions of middle-class families, the loss of a job has meant a loss in coverage.”

And exactly who created this absurd situation? The government did, by creating the third-party-payer health insurance system through its tax and regulatory policies, tying our insurance to our jobs.

“[The current bill] also ends the most obnoxious games that insurers play, like banning people with pre-existing conditions and imposing lifetime spending limits.”

“Pre-existing conditions” is a government-created condition, thanks to the aforementioned third-party-payer system, which forces you to find another insurer when you lose or change jobs – a situation that would not exist in a free market in which the patient/consumer actually owns his own policy. Did you ever wonder why you never hear of people losing their life insurance coverage because they contracted a life threatening illness or lost a job? It’s because people own their own policies, and they are guaranteed renewable. By contractual agreement, which is enforceable by the courts, the insurer cannot drop you as long as you pay your premiums (which is your responsibility, not your neighbor’s or other taxpayers).

Terms of contracts - such as “lifetime spending limits”, if any – are a matter between the insurance company and the customer. In our current system, the third party makes those decisions. Insurance companies can’t “impose” anything, at least not in a free market where there is real contractual freedom and competition (which, by the way, the government now forbids). They can only offer products for sale, which the consumers (which should be individuals spending their own earnings) are free to reject or accept. The most successful insurers in a free market would be those that are best at tailoring their products according to the needs and pocket books of the customers they seek.

Of course, if you don’t protect yourself and get sick, you must pay for your care out of pocket. You have no right to expect others to pay for it through government mandates on pre-existing conditions. But first, we need the freedom to take responsibility for our own lives, which only a free market can provide.

We need to get rid of the kinds of draconian government coercion that is crippling health care in this country, and restore the freedom of patients, providers, consumers, and insurers to contract directly and voluntarily with each other. Government has no right to dictate the contractual terms. Individual rights and personal responsibility are two sides of the same coin.

A true debate would begin with an examination of how we got to where we are today. Instead, we get an insane 2000 page blueprint for coercion to “fix” the problems created by government itself, and which is designed to ultimately fail, paving the way for a single-payer health care dictatorship.

The mawkish concern for the uninsured and the janitors and the “children [who] don't get the preventive care” is just a cover. The architects of this bill, and their supporters, are after power, and nothing else.

There’s no “milestone” here. There’s no “change”. There’s just another marker on the road to totalitarian government control of American medicine

Obama the "Moderate"?

After documenting numerous instances of the Left's supposed disenfranchisement with President Obama, the New Jersey Star-Ledger came to the following startling conclusion in its 10/7/09 editorial, entitled President Obama disappoints the left:

"Is this really the guy liberals voted for? Well, yes. The Democratic left idealized Obama as one of their own during the election campaign and made him the repository of the all liberal goals in limbo during the Bush and even Clinton years.

"But had they looked more closely at Obama’s record in the Illinois Senate — his litany of "present" votes on tough issues, for example — they’d have sensed that, down deep, Obama’s a fervent moderate."

I posted the following comments:

Obama a moderate? I’m tempted to exclaim: “You’ve got to be kidding!” Unfortunately, the Star-Ledger is not that far off of the mark, but only in the political sense. Ideologically, Obama is very far to the left of the “middle”. The fact that a major news outlet can seriously claim that a socialist can be an American moderate is simply an indication of just how far we have drifted toward statism in this country.

This column presented a good example of this on 9/23/09 in its support of Obama’s government takeover of the student loan market (Better Student Loans), a blatant federal power grab over higher education. The justification? The problems in the government’s very own subsidized student loan program. The editors presented Obama’s action to be the only alternative to the status quo, thus whitewashing the only real alternative to total government control – eliminating the student loan program and reestablishment of a free education credit market. Instead, the choice is between two variants of statism … government control through private banking proxies, or direct government control.

There is no debate about the morality or practicality of government-subsidized student lending, no examination of the role of government in creating the problems cited by the Star-Ledger, and no consideration for eliminating the problems caused by government by eliminating the government student loan program.

The same pattern is seen with regard to healthcare and the financial crises. In each case, massive government interference caused the problems, and increased government control is seen as the solution. The moderate “middle” has shifted so far to the Left that the political debate now revolves around how much socialism to accept now and how fast we get to full socialism. I submit in evidence the perverse political spectacle of the republicans now defending Medicare against democrat attempts to trim it (Steele’s "seniors' health care bill of rights"). Obama’s “moderation” serves his purposes well. He merely entertains all competing "alternatives", so long as they represent different paths to his central planning utopia.

Once you throw individual rights, limited rights-protecting constitutional republican government, and free market capitalism into the national debate … America’s founding ideals, the only actual alternative to statism … you expose Obama as the rabid far-Left statist that he really is.

Obama's 2009 School Speech - and Ayn Rand

Barack Obama's Education Speech: The Not-At-All Socialist Indoctrination, by Michael Scherer, Time

"At this point, most of the noise about Barack Obama wanting to indoctrinate school children in a back-to-school speech has mostly faded from view. Newt Gingrich has repudiated it. Historians (and White House aides) have pointed out that past Republican presidents--George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan--delivered the same sorts of messages. Some of those Republican leaders who made a stink over the President's plan--like Florida GOP chair Jim Greer--are getting a Labor Day grilling from their local press. [UPDATE: Greer now says, "It's a good speech."]

"Rather than any lefty, neo-socialist, communitarian brainwashing, President Obama's speech to your kids reads like a paean to individual striving and free market capitalism, the sort of thing that Ayn Rand and Barry Goldwater might have signed onto. At root, Obama's message is one of individual responsibility, a disquisition on the freedom of American youth to fail or succeed on their own tenacity and merits."

It looks like some conservatives have been snookered by this philosophically astute president. For my complete take on Obama's speech, click here


My Commentary:

President Obama gives some good practical advice. The problem is not in the “what”, but in the “what for?” Buried in the platitudes is the real message:

“And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

“You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You'll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

“We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that – if you quit on school – you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.”

There isn't a dictator that ever walked the face of the earth that wouldn't laud those words. The collectivist overtones are unmistakable. The president's message is fundamentally anti-American, running completely contrary to the individualist premise that this country was founded upon, and that unleashed the reason-driven, entrepreneurial energy of free people pursuing their own goals for the sake of their own happiness and their own lives as an end in themselves ... the energy that resulted in the astounding general rise in the standard and quality of living.

The president's purpose is not to advance his political agenda, per se. It is to establish the necessary prerequisite ideas for his (and any future socialist's) agenda, the servile population. Any leader attempting to inculcate in the young the sense of duty and service is a leader who wants and intends to rule their lives. The danger in Obama's message is clear to anyone who understands the power of ideas. Individualism leads to the United States of America. Collectivism leads to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia or any number of stagnant, poverty-ridden tribal societies – or to a socialist America.

As for who on the Right would applaud this speech, I don't know about Goldwater. Many conservatives uphold the altruist/service-to-the-country doctrine. But Ayn Rand championed the supreme value and rights of the individual to the pursuit of his own happiness, and a government as protector of those rights, not government as master. She would not have approved of Obama's message.

Other's comments:

As we all know, President Reagan also gave a speech to students in 1988. The full text can be found on this link:

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1988/111488c.htm

At one point, referring to a painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he mentions how there are some figures whose faces have not been filled in, they are only outlines. He goes on to say: "America is not yet complete, and it's up to each one of us to help complete it. And each one of you can place yourself in that painting. You can become one of the those immortal figures by helping to build and renew America."

Isn't this the same overall idea of helping our country as used by Obama in his speech? Mike, you need to use the same rod to measure both Obama's and Reagan's words in order to be fair. If you do, then both Reagan and Obama are anti-American and socialists by your standards. As I see it, their words reflect men concerned with encouraging children to grow as useful citizens, instead of being burdens to society. You dig into Obama's words, unearthing what is not there, to fit your pre-determined agenda.

In 1991, President George HW Bush addressed students at Alice Deal Jr High School. Towards the end he said: "Let me know how you're doing. Write me a letter — and I'm serious about this one — write me a letter about ways you can help us achieve our goals. I think you know the address." Obama tried the same thing this time, ahead of time, and was accused of being manipulative and engaging in government intrusion. (The link below will take you to the full text of President George HW Bush's address.)

http://blogs.erockford.com/applesauce/2009/09/06/heres-text-of-george-hw-bushs-speech-to-schoolchildren-18-years-ago/

Both speeches, Reagan's and Bush's brought controversy, especially President Bush's. The difference is that Bush's controversy, although hysterical at times, happened AFTER the speech. The hysteria over Obama's speech was an orchestrated, planned opposition for the sake of it.

I think that with Obama, a novel is being written where the title was written first, i.e., "Obama: a Socialist, Marxist, Communist, Not to Be Trusted Good-For-Nothing Dictator That Has Ruined Our Nation". The text is being written to fit the title with every word, every gesture, every move Obama makes or does not make. Believe me, the right wing will make sure the text fits that title, even if they have to make up the events, or stretch the truth until it is no longer recognizable. But, if it fits, it will go in. Sad, sad, sad.

My commentary:

48.2

adajam;

“You dig into Obama's words, unearthing what is not there, to fit your pre-determined agenda.”

I don't know what you think my “agenda” is, but let me say this. I give him more respect than you do. I take him at his word. President Obama and I have something important in common – philosophical astuteness. We are, however, on the opposite ends of the basic philosophical battleground – collectivism vs, individualism. Let me put it another way.

He speaks of “the country” and “the economy” as though they are mystical entities separate and distinct from the individual human beings that make it up. This is classic. They are to be the purpose and the focus to which the president urges the young “to set your own goals for your education”. But what are the “country” or the “economy” except the sum of the individual interests and efforts of its individual members? A pro-American message would be that the children's' own individual good, and only their own individual good, is the purpose of their education. When you focus on your own life as the purpose and end of your own actions – to make your own life the best and most fulfilling it can be by your own efforts for your own sake – it is the betterment of the country and the economy that you accomplish. That is because you are the country. You are the economy, just as is every other individual that comprises it.

Yet, in true collectivist form, the President attempts to inculcate in the young the sense of duty and service and a sense of smallness next to a cause larger than oneself – in this case, the “country” and the “economy”. (In fairness, so did McCain, whom I didn't vote for either.) Just for the record, I do not say he is a Nazi or a Communist. He is, however, a socialist. His operation tactic is to bring socialism through the back door of fascism. This is a decades long trend, which follows the bipartisan path from Wilson to FDR to Kennedy to Nixon to GW Bush. America is being pushed toward its own brand of national socialism, a “soft” tyranny without the brutality of the German Nazis.

Obama is not unique. Collectivism permeates both major parties to varying degrees. The collectivist mindset has been seeping into American culture for the past century or so, gradually supplanting the revolutionary individualist enlightenment premise of the Founding. It seeps into your own comments, with phrases like “overall idea of helping our country” and “encouraging children to grow as useful citizens” (“useful”, to whom?). It even creeps into Reagan's rhetoric. This is a very dangerous development, in my view. Ideas move history. Pretending that Obama didn't say what he said, or that he doesn't know what he is saying, does not change the facts of reality. He delivered a collectivist message. Collectivism is the philosophical root of all variants of socialism.

“The text”, you say, “is being written to fit the title with every word, every gesture, every move Obama makes or does not make.” Yes, the text is being written - by Obama himself. Collectivism threads through all of his rhetoric … and his policies. The president knows precisely what he is saying, and into what he wants to “re-make” the country. So do I.

Individualism, Collectivism, and "the Cause of Waste"

Amit Ghate has written a terrific piece, Misconstruing the Cause of Waste, which was published on Pajamas Media. He writes:

"Once again, the president has it backwards. But in flouting economics, he reveals his stance on a much deeper issue, one which is determining the fate of the country: individualism vs. collectivism.

"Individualism — the country’s founding idea — holds that each man is a moral end in himself.

"So how does this apply to waste? Waste, by definition, means 'spending to no avail or profit.' But observe that when men are free to pursue their own values, they’re incentivized to act carefully.

"Accordingly, under individualism, waste is minimized by each person, one transaction at a time. Indeed, the 'cost discipline' which free markets are so famous for emerges from this very fact.

"Contrast this to the collectivist approach favored by our current politicians. Under their view, the individual isn’t an end in himself, but merely a cog in the machine, a means to the group’s 'good.'

"The ramifications to waste are threefold. First, by prohibiting certain activities, government eliminates competition...Next, because it can confiscate our money to pay its bills, government has little incentive to control costs...Finally, because the government has usurped their prerogatives, individuals no longer decide what is worthwhile and what isn’t. Government forcibly disconnects the decision of what’s valuable from the people who actually pay for the values."

My Commentary:

32. Mike Zemack:

Amit Ghate has done a terrific job of exploding another of the many fallacious arguments against freedom in medicine. More importantly…and I know I’m not the first to acknowledge this…Mr. Ghate identifies the basic philosophical conflict that will determine the future direction of American healthcare and of America generally. Only capitalism is consonant with the premise that the sovereign individual is the standard of value, because it alone bans predatory force in human relations. All other social systems (including welfare statism and democracy) embody collectivism to some degree, with the rulers as omnipotent representatives of the collective. This cannot be stressed too often or too strongly. Collectivism is tyranny, and the only humane antipode to it is individualism.

I also have to address correspondent #2, Anonymous. His comments bring to mind a passage from Francisco’s “money speech” in Atlas Shrugged:

“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”

Anonymous condemns the money earned by the people who produce the valuable products and services without which there would be no healthcare debate. He demands “government intervention in the health care market” to grab by force for himself the “benefit from the advances in medical technology” so he doesn’t have to “line the pockets of these folks”… the very folks in the “private system that does not value human beings” who produce the goods that can keep Anonymous and his ilk healthy and alive.

Read Francisco’s money speech, then draw your own conclusions about the ethical character of Anonymous.

Also relevant to his comments is Harry Binswanger’s “The Dollar and the Gun”.




Aug 25, 2009 - 4:58 pm

Mulshine on Laffer

Steve Lonegan and the 'Laffer Curve', by Paul Mulshine of the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 05/21/09 at 7:25PM
I think Lonegan understands better than Christie a fundamental law of nature--production comes before consumption. His flat tax proposal is a recognition of this fact (although I would like to see the income tax abolished altogether). Despite misgivings, I will be voting for Lonegan largely on the basis of his strong statement that the progressive income tax is immoral..., which it certainly is.

As far as government spending goes, the only way to cut spending is to eliminate programs and departments. Making marginal cuts while leaving existing programs in place is the Corzine approach, and is worse than futile. The basis for deciding where to make structural cuts in government begins by reaffirming the original American concept of government, which is to protect individual rights. Therefor, one must distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate spending. Paying for the law courts, police, National Guard, arguably the fire and rescue squads, etc are proper. Use of the government's tax and spend powers to transfer wealth and earnings from those who earned it to those who didn't is both immoral and unconstitutional. None other than Barack Obama, a constitutional scholar, acknowledges as much. He said that the constitution provides for no "redistributive authority", which he called a "fundamental flaw"...no surprise there (from a 2001 interview on Chicago's public radio station WBEZ FM).

So eliminating redistributive state programs (in addition to regulatory agencies) would be not only moral but would be based upon strong constitutional grounds. All redistributive tax-and-spend government programs, including the entire welfare state, are unconstitutional...period. This provides a large target for the spending ax. Here again, I think Lonegan is best positioned, philosophically, to make real spending cuts.

As far as Laffer goes, I think his fundamental justification for cutting taxes...the "Laffer Curve"...amounts to an acceptance of the belief that the wealth of the nation belongs to government. Basing tax policy on the principle of maximizing government revenues is an acceptance of that left wing/collectivist notion. I'm reminded of the old saw that "republicans are the tax collectors for the welfare state".

I agree with gabe71's third paragraph above. Taxes, such as they are necessary to fund the proper functions of government, should be structured so as to minimize damage to production and trade. Rather than Laffer Curve reasoning, I prefer Milton Friedman's idea that "if you cut taxes and government's revenues rose, you haven't cut taxes enough."

On Obama's Christian Strategy

Conciliatory Fighting Words, by E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post, writing on President Obama's recent commencement address at Notre Dame University

My Commentary:

Zemack wrote:
President Obama’s political strategy is clear, a philosophical masterstroke, and devastating for capitalism and freedom. His grand strategy for remaking America into a nation ruled by the collective should be obvious to anyone who understands the power of ideas and of morality.

But to advocate socialism openly and honestly is and always has been a loser in America. After the tyranny, wars, and unprecedented mass murder wrought by the socialist regimes of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China, and the many smaller variants of the 20th century, socialism is dead as an intellectual force. Notice how Obama and the American Left run from the socialist label as from the plague, despite the obvious socialist (albeit through the fascist back door) underpinnings of their agenda. How, then, to pursue a socialist agenda in America?

Enter what one might call Obama’s “Christian Strategy”. The President, a philosophically astute man (unlike most of his GOP rivals), is and has been attempting to forge an alliance with Christianity based upon a common moral foundation…altruism. Unlike socialism, religion is a live and growing force in America, and Christianity is the dominant religion. Since socialism and Christianity share the same ethical premise…that the good consists of living for others or putting others above self…Obama’s brilliant strategy is to hitch his socialist agenda to Judeo-Christian ethics.

America was founded on the opposite ethical principle, though those principles were never explicitly defined until the 20th century. The Founding Fathers created a nation based upon the supreme value of the individual possessing the unalienable rights to his own life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. They rejected the tribal view that man must live for others (i.e., the collective). But it was philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand who comprehensively defined the philosophical underpinnings for the American Revolution. Through her classic novels The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged…and through her philosophy of Objectivism…she presents the moral case for the American Revolution and capitalism.

It is only Ayn Rand who provides the vital intellectual ammunition to counter the accelerating collectivist trend in America, and thus save our individual freedom, because she can defend the individual’s right to exist for his own sake…and prove it. She offers the anti-dote to the doctrine that “we are all our brother’s keepers”, the moral root of Obama’s policies and the root of all variants of socialism. If Obama is to be stopped, Capitalism must be discovered. For Capitalism to be discovered, our Founding principles must be rediscovered and fully understood. For our Founding principles to be fully understood, Ayn Rand and Objectivism must be discovered and embraced.

The President is right that we are at “a rare inflection point in history”. He intends to steer America away from its Founding ideals by hitching his car to the engine of Christianity. It remains to be seen how successful he will be. But Obama understands fully that morality is the key to the direction America will take. It’s time that Capitalism’s defenders understood that, too.

Dionne on "Extreme Individualism"

Old, True and Radical

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Thursday, January 22, 2009; Page A17

President Obama intends to use conservative values for progressive ends. He will cast extreme individualism as an infantile approach to politics that must be supplanted by a more adult sense of personal and collective responsibility. He will honor government's role in our democracy and not degrade it. He wants America to lead the world, but as much by example as by force.

And in trying to do all these things, he will confuse a lot of people.

One of the wondrous aspects of Obama's inaugural address is the extent to which those on the left and those on the right both claimed our new president as their own.

Many conservatives were eager to argue that Obama is destined to disappoint his friends on the left because the president who now wields power will be far more careful than the candidate who deployed rhetoric so ecstatically.

Their evidence included Obama's stout defense of old-fashioned values -- "honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism."

"These things are old," Obama declared. "These things are true." It was one of the most powerfully conservative sentiments ever to pass any president's lips.

But note the nature of that list: "Tolerance and curiosity," in particular, are values notoriously associated with the adventurous, with those who seek out the new and the novel. "Hard work" and "fair play" have long been invoked by egalitarians on behalf of the salt of the earth.

And Obama told us, straight out, the ends toward which he was conscripting the old virtues: "They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history."

That emphasis on progress pervaded what was in many ways a radical speech. Obama clearly broke with the conservative past, more recently associated with George W. Bush and more distantly with Ronald Reagan.

As he has done so often, Obama pronounced debates about the size of government irrelevant. What matters is "whether it works." Quietly but purposefully, he was overturning the Reagan revolution.

He announced the repeal of the Bush-Cheney approach to domestic security with these words: "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." And while celebrating America's power, he broke with the past again by saying "that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please."

Finally, American presidents rarely ask explicitly whether "the market is a force for good or ill." Obama acknowledged its "power to generate wealth and expand freedom" but warned that without regulation, the market could "spin out of control." He also counseled against rampant inequality, insisting that "the nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."

What makes Obama a radical, albeit of the careful and deliberate variety, is his effort to reverse the two kinds of extreme individualism that have permeated the American political soul for perhaps four decades.

He sets his face against the expressive individualism of the 1960s that defined "do your own thing" as the highest form of freedom. On the contrary, Obama speaks of responsibilities, of doing things for others, even of that classic bourgeois obligation, "a parent's willingness to nurture a child."

But he also rejects the economic individualism that took root in the 1980s. He specifically listed "the greed and irresponsibility on the part of some" as a cause for our economic distress. He discounted "the pleasures of riches and fame." He spoke of Americans not as consumers but as citizens. His references to freedom were glowing, but he emphasized our "duties" to preserve it far more than the rights it conveys.

This communitarian vision fits poorly with "the stale political arguments" between liberals and conservatives that Obama condemned, because they are really arguments between these two varieties of individualism. Their quarrel has been fierce not only because of how the two sides differ but also because they share so many assumptions. Family feuds and civil wars can be especially brutal.

For now, each side in the old debate can enlist aspects of Obama's rhetoric in their polemics against the other. But in associating our recent past with "childish things," in insisting that greatness is "never a given" and always "must be earned," Obama is challenging the very basis of their conflict.

It is a worthy fight. It will also be a hard fight to win because rights are so much easier to talk about than duties, and freedom's gifts are always more prized than its obligations.

My Commentary:

Zemack wrote:
President Obama's goals are much more ambitious than Mr. Dionne gives him credit for. It is not merely the Reagan Revolution that he wants to overturn, but the American Revolution.

The fundamental concept upon which America was founded is the principle of unalienable individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of each's own welfare and happiness. The term unalienable means that man's rights are inseparable from the individual person and is the standard upon which any free society must be based. It means that his rights do not have to be purchased on the installment plan of service, sacrifice, and duty imposed upon him by "ourselves" (some disembodied collective), the nation, the world, or any leader seeking the prestige of "greatness". Extreme individualism, the unfettered right to live one's life as one sees fit, is the natural consequence of the principle of unalienable rights.

The Founders sought to establish a nation in which extreme individualism can flourish. That is to say, a nation in which each individual is free to think and act on his own judgement (for better or worse), to set his own goals, to reap the rewards of his own productive work, to trade and contract freely and voluntarily with others, and to decide for himself when, whom, and in what capacity to help others.

Never mind Mr. Dionne's reference to the 1960s culture's "individualists" or "the greed and irresponsibility on the part of some". These are straw men. True individualists do not live their lives through others by, say, seeking to be different for the sake of being different. Nor does an individualist use others, through dishonesty, to advance his own interests. An individualist is someone who simply thinks for himself. The Founders recognized the individuality of each and every person, and founded a nation (despite certain flaws) to protect his right to exist.

In attacking "economic individualism", Mr. Dionne strikes directly at the heart of individual rights, particularly the right to life. If one cannot make his own decisions on personal economic matters, which concern his crucial property rights, then he is not free to work to advance his life...to pursue his happiness. The government's proper role in economic matters, as in all matters, is to protect everyone's unalienable individual rights. This means, for example, to protect against and prosecute fraud and deception, and to mediate disputes through the law courts. Otherwise, laissez-faire..."leave us alone"...is the only moral course for government to follow. Short of violating other's rights, which are rights to freedom of action, not to unearned material benefits produced or provided by others, each of us must be left free from governmental regulation (i.e., coercion).

America's founding principles, severely eroded already by decades of growing government power, will be under tremendous assault in the years to come. Barack Obama's (and his supporter’s) determination to silence the opposition by intimidation through such accusations as infantilism, dogmatism, extremism, and cynicism should not be allowed to shut down any debate.

The fundamental choice America faces is collectivism or individualism. Defenders of "extreme individualism"...or unalienable individual rights...have never been more desperately needed in America than they are right now.

Commentary 46- Mulshine on McCain

How the McCains really stick it to Joe Sixpack

Posted by Paul Mulshine October 17, 2008 12:59PM


Radley Balko of Reason Magazine has an interesting piece up on the politics of beer distributorships and how this has made John McCain a rich man.


"To be blunt, the entire industry is a farce. It's an artificial, anachronistic, government-created entity that's anti-competitive and full of lobbyists and special interests. It raises the cost of each bottle of beer you drink, though 'Joe Six Pack,' as McCain's running mate might put it, receives no value for the added cost."

Balko adds,

"What does the candidate lecturing Wall Street about greed think about the alcohol wholesaling industry? Is it fair? Should government be subsidizing (if not outright creating) an industry by forcing consumers to pay more for alcohol--for which they get little to no added value in return? And who's greedier, the family who exploits that system to amass a small fortune, or the brokers and traders McCain derides for pursuing profits in a free market?"

To which I can only add: Let us all hoist a beer in honor of Ron Paul, the only true adherent of the free market who ran for president this year and an opponent of rent-seeking behavior.

No wonder McCain hated him so much.


Other's Commentary:

Posted by hglindquist on 10/18/08 at 8:28AM
Ah so, a clear example of negative government intervention in the market ... in terms of market dynamics.

But control of the sale of alcohol is seen to be necessary for the collective good for a variety of reasons ... (there are other goods and services that are deemed to need to similar controls) ...

So the issue is the monopolistic nature of distributorships/wholesalers in those states that have the 3-tier system (explained in the articles you reference) ...

And there appears to have been some history as to why the 3-tier system was seen as a solution.

Which gets us to root of the economic problem: How do we control/pay for the costs that are directly tied to the consumption of alcohol -- for example, the devastating effect on families of alcoholism -- when they are not paid for out of the profits from the sale of alcohol for consumption? These costs are externalities like the dumping of mountaintops into fishing streams when mining. Cancer from second-hand smoke and earlier working with asbestos are other examples of externalities,

Quoting dear ol' Milton Friedman (my favorite quote of his): "'Free markets' is a very general term. There are all sorts of problems that will emerge. Free markets work best when the transaction between two individuals affects only those individuals. But that isn't the fact. The fact is that, most often, a transaction between you and me affects a third party. That is the source of all problems for government. That is the source of all pollution problems, of the inequality problem. There are some good economists like Gary Becker and Bob Lucas who are working on these issues. This reality ensures that the end of history will never come."

Aside, what it also assures is that there is no such thing as a "free market".

My personal view is that the more directly costs can be paid out of the profits that generated the costs, the more efficient (and effective) the market will be. But I am not an economist. On the other hand while Physicists can give a reasonable layperson explanation to the way atoms work, Economists have not been able to explain how free markets work ... in relation to reality ... and not even to themselves -- in my opinion.

In any case, you -- Mr. Mulshine -- are right in labeling Senator a McCain a hypocrite ... and pwc is right in questioning the Senator's character in regards to his treatment of his first wife.





My Commentary:

Mr. Mulshine's understanding of McCain as an enemy of free markets is right on. He is dangerous because he is a statist running under the free market banner...just as President Bush waved the free market banner while destroying it the last 8 years. I had decided that rather than vote for one of the two statist candidates, that I would abstain from voting for president this year...for the first time in my 4 decades as a registered voter. But maybe I'll write in Ron Paul, who Mr. Mulshine describes as "the only true adherent of the free market".

A free market is a crucial ingredient of capitalism, and of freedom. It is based on the recognition of individual rights, in which each individual is free to think and act on his own judgement, to associate and trade with others voluntarily to mutual advantage, in pursuit of his own goals, welfare, and happiness. Rights are a guide to freedom of action, not to the productive efforts of others (ex.-a home, food, health care, a job, etc.). Philosopher Ayn Rand described individual rights as "the means of subordinating society to moral law."

The concept of individual rights...including the all-important property rights, without which no other rights are possible...contains the answer to the problem of so-called "externalities". If the actions of one violates the rights of another...causes physical harm to another's person or property as objectively determined in a court of law...then the government may properly step in to require restitution to the injured party. Such would be the case of an individual or group of individuals (i.e., a corporation) polluting the property of another. In the case of second-hand smoke, as long as a non-smoker is free to leave an area occupied by smokers, his rights are not violated. It is solely the right of the property owner...ex., a restaurateur...to decide whether his establishment will allow smoking, and whether to segregate smokers from non-smokers.

The free market is not incompatible with government action to protect individual rights. Indeed, the protection of individual rights is the only proper function of government, and is vital to the functioning of a free market. The "free" in free market means to live one's life free from coercive interference (physical harm) by others, including by government officials and politicians, as well as criminals and the economic activities of others. The protection of rights, in a free society, is accomplished through objective laws against explicit types of behavior, or through the civil courts where grievances and disputes are resolved in an objective forum...and not through the arbitrary, dictatorial powers of government regulators.

Free market capitalism, properly understood, is the only practical and moral social system because it is the only system based on individual rights and a government limited to the job of protecting those rights. People can deal with each other in one of only two ways...by voluntary persuasion and logic, or by physical force. Under capitalism, rent-seeking pressure groups would not and can not exist because the government's power of economic interference on behalf of one private entity at the expense of others would not exist. The individual is protected against the predation of those seeking to trample his rights in the name of that mystic god of every power-luster...the "collective", or "common good".

It's either a free market, tyranny, or what we have today..a mixture of freedom and tyranny, in which tyranny steadily gains and freedom slowly recedes.

I choose free market capitalism.




Other's Commentary:

Posted by boobosie on 10/19/08 at 8:51AM
Free markets are responsible for the financial melt down on wall street. Tax payer protection is needed against the likes of fraudulent CEOS, bogus math gurus who eliminate risk, and unregulated credit default swaps.

Tariffs are needed to make the free market trade a level playing field.

Consumer protection is needed against the likes of "Joe the Plumber".

Free markets are great, for criminals.

Didn't your mommy ever tell you there is no 'free' lunch?




My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 10/19/08 at 9:46PM
On boobosie:

Free markets are responsible for the financial melt down on wall street.

Where do you see a free market in finances? You're committing the fallacy of equating the failures of private individuals and firms with a free market.

Who controls the money supply, the raw material of banking? The Fed

Who ended the gold standard? FDR, on the domestic front, by confiscating private gold currency and replacing it with fiat (i.e., counterfeit) paper. And Nixon, who closed the international gold window.

Who controls short-term interest rates? The Fed. (The Fed's inflationary policies and sudden tightening, based on control of money and interest rates, were largely responsible for the rampant 1920s stock market speculation and crash, as well as the recent housing boom and bust.)

The current crisis is rooted in the government's massive intervention in the housing and mortgage markets, beginning with FDR's "second bill of rights", which declared every family's "right" to own a home (which was reaffirmed in JFK's 1960 party platform.) Subsequent government policies were implemented to ensure that alleged "right." The home mortgage deduction; mortgage "insurers" (at taxpayer expense) FHA and FHLBB; the government-created quasi-private Fannie and Freddie that artificially created the mortgage resale "market."

Then when it was found that many low-income folks couldn't qualify for home loans, Carter created the CRA, to "encourage" lenders to extend loans to those folks. The government's extensive regulatory control over the banks was the club with which it enforced its "encouragement." Then when that wasn't enough, Clinton imposed "flexible" lending standards through the CRA, which led to no-doc and no-down-payment, or sub-prime, loans. But when banks that dove into these loans found that by restricting these gov.-mandated standards to just low-income folks they could run afoul of anti-discrimination laws, they had to extend these standards to all customers who wanted them. (Do not take this as a condemnation of low-income folks in general. It should be stressed that many low-income folks did purchase homes the old fashioned way...by saving for a down payment and then securing conventional loans. Many low-income, sub-prime borrowers continue to make their payments on time. And many of the defaulters are high earners.)

When it was found that Fannie and Freddie, the government-created giants with the implicit (now explicit) backing of Uncle Sam, wouldn't buy those sub-primes, Clinton, and later Bush, (and with the complicity of Congress) intervened to force them to. The flood gates were open for a virtual government-created conveyor belt of bad lending. CEOs like Mozilo of Countrywide latched on to the game with a vengeance.

It was Fannie and Freddie who pioneered the practice of bundling good and sub-prime loans together into Mortgage-Backed Securities (later emulated by many Wall Street firms) for sale to the public. The implicit taxpayer-guarantee created a false sense of safety for these securities. The "bubble mentality" of ever-rising home prices, fueled by the Fed's inflationary policies, took over from there.

The government's Federal Deposit "Insurance" and the "Too Big To Fail" bailout policy...as well as the Fed's lender of last resort status...has led to an atmosphere of reward without risk, or profit without loss. In a free market, the threat of having to face up to one's own failings is a built-in protector against the kind of system-wide catastrophe we are now seeing. The free market rewards long-term prudence and penalizes irrational, short-term lenders, investors, and borrowers (I don't let the irresponsible borrowers, which included outright speculators, off the hook. Without them, there would not have been a crisis.) When profits are privatized (as they should be), but losses are socialized (as they should not be), what kind of behavior does one expect to take hold?

The fact is that the heavily controlled and regulated financial industry was responding to the policies of its own government. The sound and prudent institutions that resisted the sub-prime mania were, for a time, placed at a competitive disadvantage, leading to a loss of business. (They are now in a very good position, once the economy turns around.) According to an article by Bloomberg's Michael Lewis (NY Post, 9/17/08), "if any of these men had behaved well and resisted the pressures and temptations of the moment, his firm would have, for several years, dramatically underperformed the competition. He probably would have lost his job." He was speaking of the Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers CEOs. What created a situation where prudence is penalized and imprudence is rewarded? The quick-buck charlatans who gained a position to bring down decades-old financial powerhouses were unleashed by market distortions created by government intervention.

I could go on and add to this already too-long post. The private lenders, borrowers, and investors that participated in this fiasco are part villain, part victim. But they are only the face of this crisis. Without government's massive interventions, the imprudent would have been weeded out by bankruptcy, foreclosure, and investment losses long before they could infect the whole system. One does not have to excuse the failures of private participants in order to understand that the government-created culture of homeownership entitlement and the policies they spawned are the real culprit here. It's a simple matter of cause and effect.

In a Money magazine interview (with Janice Revell, Sept. issue, I believe), Rep. Barney Frank made this startling statement: "But we have made a mistake in this society. The assumption that everybody can be a homeowner is wrong. We pushed and encouraged people into home ownership - people who, in some cases, weren't ready for it. You can't act on wishes that are unrealistic without having negative consequences."

That is about as close to an admission of the real cause as you will find in Washington. The free market is getting tried and convicted, where no free market exists. And along with it, our freedom.

I apologize for this long-winded post. But it was necessary. I could not let boobosie's unsubstantiated statement go unchallenged.


Other's Commentary

Posted by hglindquist on 10/19/08 at 9:53PM
OK, zemack, I am safely ensconced in my hotel room in New Haven ... the traffic backup getting onto I-95 South to NYC at I-91 was too long, so I "went to Yale" and phoned home that I was staying north for the night.

It was a gorgeous day out in Connecticut's fall foliage.

Now in rebuttal: It is common knowledge that profits have been used to avoid the payment of known externalities and to hide externalities from becoming known. The market has been able to use profit to protect itself from paying costs the profit-seeking generated. And I agree with you, it is a proper role for we the people through our government to investigate the potential for harm caused by any product and to impose laws and regulations that protect we the people from such harm.

You seem to forget that in your example of the right of a non-smoking employee to leave smoking area has only been recently established ... and that I have absolutely no protection from the concentrations of tobacco smoke that sometimes accost me as I exit a building ... and that the children of smokers are still at risk in far too many cases. It is because of the market's failure to address the issue adequately that government has had to intervene with laws and regulations, and still has a ways to go to adequately protect the non-smoker. So I am pleased that you agree that we the people through our government should continue to move in that direction ... but then you go back to the free market concept.

And we continually have examples of companies hiding the harmful side effects of their products so the cost of the harm does not have to paid out of the profits, or costs are delayed or minimized.

History has shown that here in this country we are more at risk from the active pursuit of cost suppression for profit maximization than we are from "the arbitrary, dictatorial powers of government regulators."

And "the collective or common good" is not some "mystic, undefinable god of every power-seeker" -- in my opinion. We can simply start by identifying those "things" the individual has a right to expect from his/her community, and in turn recognizes that his/her community has a right to expect participation from him/her. Or to put it another way, what do we expect to share in common as Americans?

Security may be a place to start. Do we not believe it is the roll of the collective community to defend the community -- which is its members -- from its enemies? Don't we all share in our common defense against our enemies, generally speaking?

So if I expect to be defended then I expect to participate in the defense. And if I expect to participate in the defense, then I expect to be defended. That makes sense, doesn't it?

But in any case ... I really do think this latest socialization of the losses by the market fundamentalists will put the concept of a "free market" on ice for another -- what? -- 70 years. Maybe longer if we don't turn this sucker (the meltdown) around pretty quick ... which -- I'm afraid -- is looking less and less likely every day.

In any case, Senator McCain is a hypocrite for taking his second wife's largess, and he is what we used to call a low-life for the way he treated his first wife -- in my opinion after reviewing the facts.

And yes, I believe in redemption. But apparently McCain hasn't repented.



My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 10/20/08 at 7:50PM
Hglindquist, 10/19/08

I hope you're enjoying you're trip to New England. My wife and I plan on some day making a trip up there.

I'll address one more point...the key point...to hopefully clarify my philosophical position.

And "the collective or common good" is not some "mystic, undefinable god of every power-seeker" -- in my opinion. We can simply start by identifying those "things" the individual has a right to expect from his/her community, and in turn recognizes that his/her community has a right to expect participation from him/her. Or to put it another way, what do we expect to share in common as Americans?

I reject the collectivist premise in the entire statement. I consider the notion of "The collective or common good" to be invalid for two reasons. First; human beings...every one of us...are autonomous individuals each possessing his own independent mind, or rational faculty, which is the means by which he guides his life. This is a metaphysical fact of nature. The fundamental choice that each of us faces is...to think or not. That is exclusively a choice of the individual, and only the individual. No one can do another's thinking, nor force another to think.

Second; the collectivist, or tribal, premise is un-American. A recognition of the validity of the first reason formed the basis for the Founders' creation of a nation that, for the first time in history, was based on the premise that the individual, not the group, is the supreme value upon which a society would be organized. And they recognized that certain fundamental requirements are required for such a society...the individual's unalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of one's own welfare and happiness...protected by a government which, for the first time, was explicitly deemed to be the peoples' servant rather than ruler.

Thus, there is no such thing as the "collective", or "common" good that is separate from the good of the individual...every independent individual. And since every individual possesses the same unalienable rights, equally, and at all times, and protected equally and at all times by the government, any private or public (i.e., governmental) action that violates the rights of even a single individual is not and can not be in the "common" good.

There is no such entity as a "community". The community is a number of individuals, as described above. The "community" has no right to expect anything out of any individual, and the individual has no right to expect anything out of the "community"...save one. That one "thing" that each of us owes the other individuals that make up a "community" is to respect, and to reframe from violating, their aforementioned individual rights...i.e., to avoid compelling another person to act against his own judgement and will. In a free society based on individual rights, anyone who initiates physical force against another is a criminal, and is subject to prosecution by the government. This same principle applies to government. The government is the protector of the individual's unalienable rights. Therefor, no one in the "community" may use the legalized force of government to violate the rights of other members of that community, no matter how big his majority or how small the minority. The same principles apply to a group of ten, a thousand, a million or 320 million. This is what is meant by the principle that "Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law."

The use of the term "the common or collective good" implies that the group or society or the community is the supreme value and can do whatever it wants to its individual members. It is always the justification for any rights-violating governmental action...and of all tyrannies. There is no "collective" good in a free society. There is only the necessity to ensure, via limited government, that each member is free to pursue his own good...which means to be free from human predators.

What do we... share in common as Americans? We share the right to think for ourselves, to act on our own judgement in the pursuit of our own individual well-being, to engage in voluntary and uncoerced association with one another, to engage in voluntary trade to mutual advantage, to engage in voluntary and uncoerced charity, and the obligation to respect the rights of all of our fellow community members. We share, in other words, the principles of free market capitalism. Or at least, as Americans, we should.

Commentary 44-Parker on Warren Interview

A public forum in a religious context has no place in politics

Kathleen Parker | Washington Post Writer's Group
August 21, 2008

At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister -- no matter how beloved -- is supremely wrong.

It is also un-American.

For the past several days, since mega-pastor Rick Warren interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain at his Saddleback Church, most political debate has focused on who won.

Was it the nuanced, thoughtful Obama, who may have convinced a few more skeptics that he isn't a Muslim? Or was it the direct, confident McCain, who breezes through town hall-style meetings the way Obama sinks three-pointers from the back court?

Suffice it to say, each of the candidates' usual supporters felt validated in their choices. McCain convinced and comforted with characteristic certitude those most at ease with certitude; Obama convinced and comforted with his characteristic intellectual ambivalence those most at ease with ambivalence.

The winner, of course, was Warren, who has managed to position himself as political arbiter in a nation founded on the separation of church and state.

The loser was America.

In his enormously successful book, The Purpose-Driven Life, Warren begins: "It's not about you." Agreed. And this criticism is not aimed at Christians, evangelicals, other believers or nonbelievers -- or at Warren, who is a good man with an exemplary record of selfless works. Few have walked the walk with as much determination or success.

This is about higher principles that are compromised every time we pretend we're not applying a religious test when we're really applying a religious test.

It is true that no one was forced to participate in the Saddleback Forum and that both McCain and Obama are free agents. Warren certainly has a right to invite whomever he wishes to his church and to ask them whatever they're willing to answer.

His format and questions were interesting and the answers more revealing than the usual debate menu provides. But does it not seem just a little bit odd to have McCain and Obama chatting individually with a preacher in a public forum about their positions on evil and their relationship with Jesus Christ?

The past few decades of public confession and Oprah-style therapy have prepared us perfectly for a televangelist probing politicians about their moral failings. The Warren Q&A wasn't an inquisition exactly, but viewers would be justified in squirming.

What is the right answer, after all? What happens to the one who gets evil wrong? What's a proper relationship with Jesus? What's next? Interrogations by rabbis, priests and imams? What candidate would dare decline on the basis of mere principle?

Both Obama and McCain gave "good" answers, but that's not the point. They shouldn't have been asked. Is the American electorate now better prepared to cast votes knowing that Obama believes that "Jesus Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him," or that McCain feels that he is "saved and forgiven"?

What does that mean, anyway? What does it prove? Nothing except that these men are willing to say whatever they must -- and what most Americans personally think is no one's business -- to win the highest office.

Warren tried to defuse criticism about staging the interviews in his church by saying that though "we" believe in the separation of church and state, "we" don't believe in the separation of faith and politics. Faith, he said, "is just a worldview, and everybody has some kind of worldview. It's important to know what they are."

Presumably "we" refers to Warren's church of fellow evangelicals. And while, yes, everybody has some kind of worldview, it shouldn't be necessary in a pluralistic nation of secular laws to publicly define that view in Christian code.

For the moment, let's set aside our curiosity about what Jesus might do in a given circumstance and wonder what our founding fathers would have done at Saddleback Church. What would have happened to Thomas Jefferson if he had responded as he wrote in 1781:

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Would the crowd at Saddleback have applauded and nodded through that one? Doubtful.

By today's new standard of pulpits in the public square, Jefferson -- the great advocate for religious freedom in America -- would have lost.



My Commentary:

We’ve come a long way since 1960, when JFK jumped through hoops to assure the nation that his Catholicism would not influence him in his capacity as president, thus re-affirming his commitment to church-state separation. Had Kennedy engaged in a Warren-type public interview with his priest, he would have been soundly defeated. We’ve come a long way indeed…in the wrong direction. Today we have a president who openly declares that America’s foreign policies are guided by his Christian beliefs.

That both 2008 major party candidates have agreed to this discussion with the influencial evangelical pastor Rick Warren highlights the growing cultural and political power of religion in America. Perhaps most significantly, Obama's presence here, as well as his previously announced support for so-called "faith-based initiatives," may signal the breakdown of the Left's commitment to preserving the wall of separation (one of the few areas of agreement, albeit a major one, that I have with them).

Kathleen Parker has hit a walk-off homerun here. To understand what the "wall" protects us from, one need only consider the consequences of the failure of the Founders to build a wall of separation between economics and state. America is no longer a free, capitalist nation, but a semi-free mixed economy, where an explosion of economic pressure groups battle for control of the government's ever-widening power over production, trade and commerce. Each is attempting to gain some economic advantage over all others by legislative force. The result is an ever-more-powerful state, and steadily shrinking individual freedom, in the field of economics.

Imagine now an explosion of religious pressure groups. Considering the fact that religious beliefs are based on faith, rather than reason, the consequences would be far graver than in the field of economics. At least economic pressure groups are open to rational argumentation. Religious groups would not be, having abandoned reason for faith. Religious beliefs, in essence, amount to-“It is so, because I say it is”. The Founders understood this, and explicitly disconnected religion from political power. A re-connection would lead to the same kind of bloodless civil war of pressure groups as in the economic realm, with religious factions fighting to impose their own particular creed on everyone else. The big loser, again, would be the individual and his rights.

Just as the endless array of economic special interests can now, to paraphrase Jefferson, "pick your pocket and break your leg," so to would the new array of religious pressure groups. Just as the state's growing taxing and regulatory power led to our dwindling economic freedom, so to would the state's growing power in the field of religion lead to an end to freedom in the field of ideas. An end to the "wall" would mean an end to the First Amendment, including religious freedom, which includes the right to hold no religious beliefs at all.

The Religious Right...i.e., political Christianity...is at least as great a threat to freedom in America as is the socialist left. Both lead to the same end- dictatorship.

I heartily applaud Ms. Parker's perceptive and insightful analysis of the Rick Warren interview.

Christianity and Socialism

Choosing a candidate isn't a single issue decision for bishops

Posted by John J. Myers March 04, 2008 10:42PM
Categories: Hot Topics, Politics
In an op ed essay on Monday, Joe Feuerherd, a former reporter for the National Catholic Reporter, argued that the nation's bishops are warning Catholics that they risk their salvation if they vote for the wrong candidate. And, he said, the bishops always seem to make opposition to abortion thelitmus test, almost to the exclusion of all other issues.

Today, knee-deep into election hype-steria, I am beginning to see an unfortunate repeat of the events of 2000 and 2004, when pundits, politicians, media in even some candidates for office sought to paint the Catholic bishops as bad guys manipulating parishioners into voting for a particular candidate based on one issue alone.


Already, commentators are pointing to a document from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops - "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" - as reason to claim that the Catholic Church is a one-issue only political interest group.

That simply is not true.

Over the past 30 years, every version of Faithful Citizenship has focused on the full spectrum of the church's concern for the problems and challenges of living in society today. At the center of this spectrum is the commitment to the sanctity and dignity of every human life - the only natural center from which to proceed. The church calls for Catholics to look at the "tough issues." The church has never issued a guide urging people to vote for one party or another, or one particular candidate.

With Faithful Citizenship, the bishops call on America's Catholic voters to judge issues and the candidates in the light of the transcendent truths of right and justice. The current version, finalized in November 2007, is explicit in this teaching:

"What faith teaches about the dignity of the human person and about the sacredness of every human life helps us see more clearly the same truths that also come to us through the gift of human reason. Because we are people of both faith and reason, it is appropriate and necessary for us to bring this essential truth about human life and dignity to the public square. We are called to practice Christ's commandment to 'love one another' (Jn. 113:34) and to protect the lives and dignity of all, especially the weak, the vulnerable, the voiceless."

Not convinced? Still think that the church is trying to slant people only to the abortion issue? How about this?

The Catholic bishops have spoken out against the war in Iraq, and called on the US government to begin to transition that country toward peace. They have called on the legislative and executive branches of our government to find a permanent and solid solution to adequate health care for the poor. They seek fair living wages for all workers and for access to decent affordable housing. They seek an end to the death penalty, racism and torture - acts that never can be justified. It's all in Faithful Citizenship.

Here in New Jersey, the Catholic bishops have been instrumental in helping to abolish the death penalty, in calling for adequate healthcare funding for the poor and affordable housing, in calling for access to quality education for the poor, for justice for victims of the modern-day slavery of human trafficking, and for immigration reform. Again, Faithful Citizenship echoes these themes.

If there is a one-issue focus at work here, it is this: all human life matters.

Too often, politics is a contest of powerful interests, partisan attacks, and nano-messages. Through Faithful Citizenship, the bishops call for a different kind of examination: one shaped by moral convictions of well-formed consciences and focused on the dignity of every human being, protection of the weak and vulnerable, and the common good.

That is an agenda that transcends political parties and campaign promises.

I have a problem with pundits, candidates and even the average person in the street bristling when a bishop speaks about the need for Catholics to make decisions about political issues based on the centrality of the dignity of human life. Political parties censure their members all the time for not toeing the line. The members comply and no one complains. But when a bishop reminds Catholics to reach back into their faith when deciding issues, or accepting the responsibility of public life, the clamor of false indignation is deafening.

What am I looking for? The same thing that every solid American citizen should be looking for. I seek a candidate who knows that every one of us alive today began life on a very elementary nature, and understands that all future rights to which each of us is entitled wouldn't mean a thing if this life were not allowed to develop.

I seek a candidate who is dedicated to nurturing a person's opportunity for growth from the moment of conception through birth, early childhood, education, years in the workforce, retirement, final years and natural passing.

I am looking for a candidate who will work to ensure that we do not accept short-term answers to problems, or quick fixes, or solutions that sweep problems under the rug and out of sight. Such expedient measures are done at a cost to human life and dignity.

Rather than damn the bishops, as some critics would, for "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," I urge everyone - Catholics and non-Catholics alike - to read the document and learn for themselves that it is an insightful and responsible challenge to look for the higher values in political life today.

Isn't this what America is all about?

John J. Myers is the archbishop of the Newark Archdiocese.


My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 03/11/08 at 4:25PM
Joe Feuerherd, in his February 24, 2004 article, condemns the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their "right-wing lurch." He then calls for "Universal Healthcare" and "social justice" ( a euphemism for coercive government exploitation of the productive members of society)." But on these issues, at least, Mr. Feuerherd and Mr. Myers are on the same page.

Mr. Myers calls on us to respect "the dignity of the human person and...the sacredness of every human life." Then he calls for "fair living wages for all workers and for access to decent affordable housing...[and] adequate healthcare funding for the poor and affordable housing,...[and] access to quality education for the poor."

How will these goals be attained? By the same means employed by every "humanitarian" who seeks to practice "charity" with other peoples tax money...by brute, physical force. Or, to use Mr. Myers' more polite terminology, through "the legislative and executive branches of our government."

What about the "dignity" of the job-producing businessman who will be compelled to pay his employees more than they are worth to him? Or the "dignity" of the low-skilled worker who will find himself priced out of a job? Or the "dignity" of the young entry-level worker who finds the economic ladder closed to him because the lower rungs have been kicked out by arbitrary, coercive government "living wage" edicts?

What about the "dignity" of all those who would be trapped into dependence on government, at the expense of the violation of the rights of their fellow citizens?

And what about the "dignity" of the self-reliant, productive citizens at all income levels who have provided for their own welfare by their own efforts only to see their earnings drained away for the unearned benefit of others through the legalized theft of income redistributionist "government funding" (an injustice that should be eliminated, not expanded)?

Mr. Myers' sop to "human reason" and "moral convictions" is a veneer. Reason and morality end when force, governmental or otherwise, becomes the means to any end. To call for an end to war, only to advocate the use of force by the "legislative and executive branches of our government" against its own citizens is, to be polite, a profound contradiction in one's "moral convictions". To talk of the "dignity of every human being" rings hollow to someone forced into "modern-day slavery" for the sake of "the weak, the vulnerable, the voiceless". All to be accomplished in the name of "the common good"...that sinister historical siren song of all those who seek forcible domination over the lives, property, and productive work of others.

There is no "different kind of examination" here. Mr. Myers, the Bishops, and their "Faithful Citizenship" agenda do not transcend politics. It is an alignment with the political Left...a tired old call for the tyranny of Socialism, the political system that turns everyone into either a slave or a moocher...or both. There is no dignity for the human being that has been stripped of his individual rights.

There is only one social system that is truly based on "the commitment to the sanctity and dignity of every human life", Capitalism (which does not exist in America today). It is the only system based on the individual's inalienable right to his life, and the derivative rights to his liberty, property, and the pursuit of his own welfare and happiness. It is the only system whose government is limited to the protection, not violation, of those rights of not only the "weak and vulnerable", but of all people...the able, the talented, the intelligent, the inventive, the productive, i.e., the life-givers... the strong and successful. It is the only system that protects men from exploitation by power-lusters and seekers of the unearned by banishing all use of physical force in human relationships, except in self-defense. As a consequence, it is the only social system that establishes the necessary conditions required to lift people out of poverty (and into a life of prosperity and dignity)...the freedom to engage in mutually advantageous production and trade.

If the bishops were truly committed to "the sanctity and dignity of every human life", it would embrace Capitalism, renounce the use of force by "the legislative and executive branches of our government", and leave care of the "the weak, the vulnerable, the voiceless"...i.e.,the truly helpless needy of which the bishops claim to champion... to the domain of voluntary, uncoerced charity.

Commentary 5

Pass the family leave insurance bill
Posted by Carla Katz December 12, 2007 11:32AM
Categories: Family & Kids, Hot Topics, Policy Watch, Politics, The Working Life
It's been a decade of drama--heated discussion, arguing, yelling and ultimately screaming from all sides of the family leave debate. Do we give working people in New Jersey some resources, and therefore the possibility, to allow them to take some time off to care for seriously ill family members or for a new child in their life? The answer, we hope, before this lame duck session ends, will soon be YES.

This last week has seen the worker-paid Family Leave Insurance bill ( A-3812/S-2249) morph, yet again, to reflect the competing arguments of the business lobby and the strong coalition of labor, seniors, community activist and parents. The original 10 weeks of leave bill has been effectively changed to 6 weeks to match California's family leave legislation and legislators have proposed amendments insuring against abuses and granting special rights to small business.

While compromise is expected in the bill-making process, the bill's sponsors, including Senator Steve Sweeney, and Governor Corzine, have drawn the line at excluding workers who are employed by smaller businesses. They are absolutely right. Small businesses are the least likely and often least able to provide paid time off of any kind and their employees suffer most when they need to be out to care for family members. They also represent nearly half the workforce. It would be the lowest paid, women and Latino workers who are the most likely to be hurt by such an exclusion and it's unfair.

On Thursday, the Assembly caucus is slated to discuss the bill and decide whether to move the bill forward for a vote. The debate has lasted a decade. The compromises have been made. It's time has come. Post the bill--and pass Family Leave Insurance.



EDITORIALS
Move on paid family leave act
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The viability of a very worthwhile paid family leave bill is being threatened by a relentless Chicken Little attack from the state's business community, which argues that passage would cause the sky to fall on scores of small companies and mom-and-pop operations across the state.

Whether the proposal continues to live could well be settled today when the Assembly's Democratic caucus takes up the issue and decides whether it should move forward.

For us, there is no question that it should.

It's hard to understand how those who espouse family values and profess to have compassion for working families could scuttle the measure. What's wrong with allowing a worker to take time off to care for a newborn, a newly adopted child or an ill relative?

Oddly enough, there are objections even though the program would not cost the state or businesses a dime and would impose no new requirements on companies employing fewer than 50 workers.

The program would be funded through a payroll de duction -- probably $1 or less a week. The money would be enough to allow a worker to receive two-thirds of his salary up to a maximum of $502 a week. Small businesses would have to allow for the paid leave program only if they already offer voluntary unpaid leave. Small firms would not be required to hold positions open. And workers planning to take a leave would have to give 30 days' no tice, providing employers plenty of time to find a replacement if necessary.

Another major objection centered on the length of the paid leave. Initially, workers were to get 12 weeks. That was reduced to 10 weeks, and now Gov. Jon Corzine and others are willing to whittle that down even further -- to six weeks.

Over the years, each at tempt to improve conditions for workers was met with dire predictions similar to those being voiced now by the business community. The 40-hour workweek and the minimum wage, it was said, would ruin the nation's economy. That forecast turned out to be as wrong as Chicken Little's.

Lawmakers need to recognize that today's workplace is considerably different from that of just a few decades ago. Workplace rules need to reflect that reality. A paid family leave program does just that.

MY RESPONSE

Posted by Zemack on 12/13/07 at 4:09PM
The "worker" who hopes to grab an unearned "paid family leave" at someone elses expense; the busy-body advocates who would use the coercive power of the state to impose their "insurance" scheme on everyone else; the disinterested citizen who doesn't much care because it will "only" cost one dollar per week [!?!] are all contributing to the growth of government power and the erosion of our freedom.

Taken in isolation, this bill won't cause the sky to fall. But the advance of statism in America is being fueled by the commulative weight of one government-imposed plan after another, each serving as the model and justification for the next, as the Star-Ledger itself points out in today's editorial reference to the 40 hour workweek and the minimum wage.

Every worker has the right to set aside his own money in a "rainy day fund" to cover unexpected leave time. Paid family leave do-gooders are free to set up private charitable funds based on voluntary contributions to assist others but have no right to compel participation through the taxing power of the state. The mawkish concern by the family leave advocates for the plight of "workers" is an emotional smokescreen that hides the real issue... the violation of each individual's right to manage his/her own financial affairs.

The Paid Family Leave Act is a further assault on individual rights and should be defeated. It's time to draw the line against statism.