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.

My Commentary On State/Church Separation

What's hard to understand about "separation"?

By Thurman Hart/NJ Voices 
on July 03, 2008 at 2:07 PM, updated July 03, 2008 at 2:45 PM

A friend brought to my attention that State Senator Gerald Cardinale wants our kids to begin their school day by reciting part of the Declaration of Independence. My problem with it is that he seems to be thinking too small. Below is the entire preamble of the Declaration, with the part the Senator would omit in bold:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

You can read the whole thing here.

My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 07/03/08 at 10:55PM
This is an excellent piece. However, I couldn't disagree more concerning Mr. Hart's assertion that the highlighted part of the preamble is "the truly revolutionary part of the document." Not to diminish this part's historical importance, but the first, un-highlighted lines are the core of the American Revolution. Never before had a nation been founded on the moral premise of the supreme value of the individual possessing inalienable rights, with the government's role as protector of those rights, as opposed to being his ruler. It is the first part that validates the second.

Having said that, I agree that the mere memorized recitation of a small part of the Declaration without a full knowledge and understanding of the complete document in full context would be futile. I'm not saying that is Senator Cardinale's intention, but that would likely be the effect.

As to the issue of "separation", the Founders were deeply suspicious of organized religion, including Christianity and its multiple sects. They understood fully the inherent dangers to liberty of placing into the hands of people whose beliefs rest on faith rather than reason the coercive power of government. They saw that danger as not only a threat to the non-religious but to other religious sects lacking political power as well.

It is not against religion that the "wall of separation" was erected, but against religious tyranny. That "wall" is our only guarantor of the freedom to practice any religious belief, or no belief at all. Far from being an inhibiting force against religion, it has actually been a boon. This fact became clear early on in our history. As Brooke Allen writes in her book,Moral Minority, Our Skeptical Founding Fathers:

"Madison was noticing what was becoming a peculiarly American phenomenon: namely, that full religious freedom, protected by the Constitution, seemed actually to foster religion and fan its flames rather than to spread atheism, as its opponents had feared. There could be no doubt about it: Americans, especially in the once-skeptical Southern states, were becoming more and more pious. Religious freedom had created an explosion of thriving sects, just as free-market capitalism was creating an explosion of new wealth. But this, perhaps, was not quite what Madison and Jefferson had in mind."

In America, the practice of religion by one is no threat to any other. We owe the unfettered right to our own beliefs free from fear of persecution to that "wall of separation." As an athiest, I cannot understand how any religionist would want to begin chipping away at that safeguard with such nonsense as "faith-based initiatives." With Senator Obama now throwing his support behind that program, the assault against state/church separation has apparently gone bipartisan. (Never mind his "re-invention" ploy. Any scenario that involves public funds going to any religious organization means that some people will be forced to support, with their tax money, religious beliefs that they may or may not agree with. It represents a violation of the First Amendment, of inalienable individual rights, and of the wall of state-church separation. Period.)

There is not much of the Left's agenda that I can support. But one great value they have traditionally offered is as a steadfast guardian against political intrusion into the religious sphere. If Obama's action is a precursor of a breakdown of the Left's resolve, the consequences for America long term will not be good.


Other's Commentary:

Posted by blarneyboy on 07/04/08 at 3:42AM

Didn't the veterans' bill after WWII smash this separation of church and state concept to smithereens?

Massive federal money went from the feds to every religious college that wanted it, and is still going there.

ROTC on a religious school's campus also helps that religion. It fills classrooms with ROTC scholarship students and rents space for the gov't instructors and their supplies....like rifles. Does the 'wall' appear and disappear depending upon the circumstances or is the whole "separation" argument a bogus creation of the ACLU?

Lastly, the first moslem attack on the West for several centuries was repulsed by adamantly christian armies. Can a 'secular humanist' state or civilization fight off a moslem terrorist onslaught over a period of a century or two? Will our atheists in foxholes prevail? and why does the gov't pay for religious chaplains if there really is a 'wall" that you want to strengthen against support of religion?

And what will happen if Baptists and Catholic and Methodist clergy decide that sending their kids off to fight for an atheistic gov't, serving as the lapdog of international corporists, serves no purpose within the concept of a "just" war?

And look at the UK with its state religion cursed with empty churches. The chief judge is ready to apply Sharia law, because the moslems of the UK DO attend services, and sometimes plan bombings there.

This thoughtful article raises a lot of questions for a civilization trapped in a religious war. We may need an Augsburg Confession, though, to unify the West now, as the confession did in 1530 against the moslem military offensives, then. Theoretical discussions of a 'wall' are of little use if the West becomes subject to Sharia Law as massive population shifts continue with the aid of the democracies.



My Response:

Posted by Zemack on 07/05/08 at 8:25PM

The principle of church-state separation, more accurately called religion-state separation, is no mere floating abstract theoretical idea without connection to reality. It is an issue crucial to a free society, as the Founders clearly understood. It is as vitally relevant today as then, especially in light of the rise of the threat from totalitarian, imperialistic Islam. As Mr. Hart says, there isn't "anything going on today that suggests throwing away our history would be a good thing."

The "wall" does not, however, mean atheistic government. The intellectual package-deal implied in that idea sets up a false alternative. And this goes straight to the heart of those words in the Declaration that the senator wants recited in schools. The choice is not between atheistic government and religious (Christian, Islamic, or any other) government. The choice is between either a government with the power to impose a particular set of beliefs on its people, or a government that protects the right of its individual citizens to hold and act upon his own beliefs and judgements, free from coercive interference by others. "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..."

Government is a tool. Its proper function is to protect the inalienable rights of its people, as individuals, and that's all. Neither an atheistic government, nor a Christian one, nor an Islamic one is consistent with America's revolutionary founding principles. A government that acquires the power to impose a particular set of beliefs thus becomes a tool of any group that happens to seize political control. Therefore, our best protection against the imposition of Sharia (i.e., Islamic) law in America is to prevent our government from ever acquiring that power...i.e., to maintain that "wall of separation."

The battle today is not between Islam and Christianity. It is between theocratic tyranny and political freedom. Our soldiers are fighting not for an atheistic government or a Christian government, but for the freedom to hold his, and our, own personal beliefs and for a government that protects that freedom.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men."

These revolutionary words should be repeated, and understood, because we Americans...all of us...are fighting for, and defending, the same thing.



Others' Commentary:

Posted by blarneyboy on 07/05/08 at 1:43PM

Zemack, the Declaration of Independence is a wonderful document.

It is NOT a part of American law, though; however pleasing it may sound.

It may well be time for the religions of america to trump your wall with a declination to help corporists build their greedy empire. Let them send their own offspring to protect their investments abroad.

I wish them God's speed, if that's permitted.



Posted by richl on 07/05/08 at 2:04PM
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..."

Our Founding Fathers had a very specific intent in making the establishment of a religion an unconstitutional act, and a very specific definition of what that means. Most of them came from England where the government gave preference to and provided money and support for one of the Christian religions (the Anglican Church) and chose it as that country's "official" religion. They did not want the government establishing a national religion here. They wanted the government to stay out of religion, not for religious principles to be eliminated from government. Their desire was for the United States to be a nation with it's values and laws based on Christian principles, but did not want the government choosing one Christian religion (Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, etc.) over another and establish it as it's "official" religion.

The same Founding Fathers who wrote the First Amendment that prohibited the government from establishing a national religion also believed that allowing and encouraging public religious practice was not the same as establishing a religion. Establishing a religion would require a government-sponsored set of beliefs, rules which must be obeyed by everyone, official ministers to teach the selected doctrine and penalties for those who do not conform. Our Founding Fathers were men of faith and wanted Christianity to be included in every aspect of life. The intent of the First Amendment was never to separate Christianity and state. If that had been the intent, it would never have been ratified.

The Constitution guarantees everyone freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.

Liberal and politically correct interpretations have their intentions going in the wrong way. Government cannot influence or create religion NOT religion influences cannot reside in government priciples and buildings.


Posted by blarneyboy on 07/06/08 at 9:25AM

A particularly repugnant example of statist destruction of a religion is the New York Court's decision to force Catholic hospitals to pay for abortion coverage for their employees.

Kind of like asking Jews to contribute to the upkeep at Bergen-Belsen, and in a Catholic's view, no less depraved towards humanity.

I didn't hear of any atheists protesting this repudiation of a religious belief (Life, Liberty...... Thou shalt NOt Kill etc.) in a religious institution, by the government.



My Response:

Posted by Zemack on 07/06/08 at 10:15AM

Blarneyboy, you are certainly correct that the Declaration, technically speaking, is not part of American law.* But however imperfectly implemented in practice, it is (or was intended to be) the philosophical basis for that law. A nations legal framework, to be just and fair, must be based upon some set of ideas...of universal principles...that all people can relate to and that can be the basis for resolving disputes peacefully. The Declaration of Independence is America's set of universal principles.

Otherwise, you end up with what we have today in America...the "controlled anarchy" of countless pressure groups and special interests fighting for control of the apparatus of government in order to impose some law or regulation or judicial edict or whatnot that coercively benefits one group at the expense of another. It is the fact that we have largely abandoned the Founding principles as laid out in the Declaration that has led to this free-for-all. What replaced those principles is...nothing. No principles, no ideas, no guideposts of any kind.

The primary victim of all of this is the individual and his inalienable rights, the protection of which is the very purpose of the Declaration. Unless we rediscover and take seriously that our Founding document is the set of universal principles that our law should be based on, the expanding "cold civil war", and the "polarization", now gripping America will continue to degenerate into either a "hot" war, as in Weimer Germany, or outright dictatorship, or both.

So, Blarneyboy, I must ask this question, which I ask in all sincerity, because I don't want to misunderstand your position. When you say that "the Declaration of Independence is a wonderful document. It is NOT a part of American law, though; however pleasing it may sound," are you saying that the Declaration of Independence is irrelevant?

Just asking.

* [I have since been corrected on this. The Declaration is part of American law--in fact integral to it. See Timothy Sandefur, The Conscience of the Constitution, Chapter 1, Democracy and Freedom.]

Other's Comments:

Posted by blarneyboy on 07/06/08 at 6:52PM

Drericablair sums up the problems in Jersey accurately.

As the central gov't increases control over the individual and breaks us down into separate groups, it undermines the philosophy set forth in the declaration as a reflection of the natural law, not merely universal principles.


My Commentary:

Thomas Hart responded to my comments on his blog, which I much appreciated.

Here is an excerpt:

Mike Zemack was kind enough to post a thoughtful commentary on one of my posts at NJ Voices. Though his answer is almost two months old, I’d like to respond to it here –

As far as the separation of church and state go, however, I think we are in full agreement – and I think that is more important that quibbling over which part of the Declaration means what. Even if I love to do things like that.

Mike goes on to take to task one of the commenters on the original piece. He does a good job answering this tripe [from Blarneyboy]:


"Didn’t the veterans’ bill after WWII smash this separation of church and state concept to smithereens?

Massive federal money went from the feds to every religious college that wanted it, and is still going there."

Mike does a bang-up job on this:

"The 'wall' does not, however, mean atheistic government. The intellectual package-deal implied in that idea sets up a false alternative. And this goes straight to the heart of those words in the Declaration that the senator wants recited in schools. The choice is not between atheistic government and religious (Christian, Islamic, or any other) government. The choice is between either a government with the power to impose a particular set of beliefs on its people, or a government that protects the right of its individual citizens to hold and act upon his own beliefs and judgements, free from coercive interference by others."

Mr. Hart goes on to take apart Blarneyboy's reference to the "veterans’ bill after WWII" statement, which I want to republish here:

Veterans earn their educational benefits with their service. It is their right to use those benefits as they see fit – even if it means studying anarchist philosophy to justify destroying the government they once served. Even if it means studying the Bible, the Koran, or whatever scripture they want to study. Is the government promoting religion by allowing a veteran to study religion? No, they are promoting higher education. The veteran is choosing the field. That’s the end of that. Think of it the other way around – if a veteran wants to use his or her benefits to study religion, would a neutral government stop it? It hardly seems so.

Thomas Hart is one Christian who understands that any attempt to impose his religious beliefs on others would necessarily put his own freedom of religious faith and practice in jeopardy. The "Wall" is specifically designed to protect that freedom.

S/L: Mandate Birth Control Insurance Coverage for Women

Cost should not matter when deciding birth control

My commentary:

Posted by zemack July 25, 2011 at 11:39AM

“But it’s up to every woman to decide for herself whether or not to use birth control.” Who would disagree with that? But it’s also up to that woman to pay for it herself, not force others to pay through a compulsory insurance mandate. But, there are hundreds of benefit mandates forced upon our “private” health insurance across the nation. So, if a woman is forced to pay for some guy’s prostate cancer treatment of Viagra in the same way, why shouldn’t she demand he pay for her birth control? It seems only fair, right?

What’s unfair is for government to impose any mandates at all. Insurers and their customers have a moral right to contract freely with each other, to mutual benefit, without government interference. Government’s job is to enforce those health insurance contracts and prosecute fraud and breech of contract, not redistribute wealth through regulation and law. That is not only immoral, but is one of the prime reasons for out-of-control health costs. When each of us is forced to pay for everyone else’s healthcare, but not our own, then the incentive is to not give a hoot what our’s costs, but to simply pressure government to dump our costs on others. Socialism turns everyone into predators, not “brothers and sisters”.

Our health insurance system is a socialized system through and through. “Private” insurance is only nominally so, and is really an extension of government. It is far from anything resembling a free market, being more in the nature of economic fascism – i.e., socialism through the back door. Of course, we have real socialism in the system too, through Medicare, Medicaid, S-CHIP, and so on.

The S/L justifies this new mandate on the grounds of “public health” because “About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, which places a heavy strain on society.” But who switched the burden of unplanned pregnancies onto “society” – onto others through their taxes – in the first place? It was the statists themselves through government programs. To “fix” that problem, they propose to widen government control of medicine through our quasi-governmental insurance industry in the form of this new mandate.

No one is morally responsible for another’s health care needs, except as dictated by personal choices and actions – such as bringing a child into the world. Beyond that, the moral standards of individual rights, free markets, and a free society means every adult individual is responsible for his own healthcare needs only, until and unless he/she volunteers to give financial help to a neighbor or friend or even a stranger. No one’s unfilled needs places an automatic moral claim on the money or services of another, beyond private voluntary charity. Until we accept these moral truths, we will continue to build toward totalitarian socialism one brick at a time.

On income taxes and job creation, history debunks the Star-Ledger

On income taxes and job creation, history debunks GOP views, NJ Star-Ledger Sunday, July 17, 2011.

I've left the following comments:

July 17, 2011 at 1:12PM

Several corespondents have already pointed out the blatant context-dropping, selective use of facts, and outright falsehoods employed by the editors. Here are a few more:

 The 1950s economy limped along through three recessions. So anemic was it that JKF ran his 1960 presidential campaign on a promise to “get America moving again”. The 1960s featured accelerated growth after Kennedy cut tax rates from 91% to 70%.
 The Reagan tax cuts brought rates down from 70% to 28%. Tinkering by the Bush –Clinton--Bush administrations bounced those rates around between the upper 20s and upper 30s, but all three presidents left the bulk of the Reagan cuts essentially in place. Those cuts were a prime reason for the 1982-2000 economic boom that saw interest rates, inflation, and unemployment all trend steadily downward from double digits simultaneously – a feat that Keynesianists thought to be impossible. Clinton benefited enormously from that boom, especially after the 1994 Republicans aborted his statist schemes and pushed him to the “Right” on economic policy (ex. welfare reform, spending restrain, and capital gains tax cuts). Of course, as Melland points out, in retrospect the beginning of the housing bubble – of which Clinton and Bush share equal blame – “helped” Clinton also.
 The 2001-03 “tax cuts for the rich” vastly benefited the middle class, lowering the average family’s tax burden by tens of thousands of dollars over the past decade, even as those cuts were justly spread across all income brackets.
 But the Bush rate cuts – the most important aspect economically - were small. The benificial effects of those meager rate cuts were overwhelmed by other factors. The real reason for the sub-par economy of the 2000s was the terrorist attacks and subsequent onset of war, along with Bush’s large increase in government regulation, government spending and deficits, trade barriers, the draining away of investment resources to feed the government-induced housing bubble, and the subsequent bust.

The editors ridicule private job creators, as any statist who worships government must. But jobs come from somewhere – that somewhere is the energy and ability of business creators and growers. Government can not create real, productive jobs. It can only shift resources by force from some people to others, and then claim credit for the jobs “created” by the politically favored recipients of that largess but paid for by the killing of other jobs drained from those who finance government spending.

The polls may or may not favor tax hikes on the wealthy. But sound economic policy is not determined by public opinion polls, or the moral perversity of any hypocrite who beats the drum for higher taxes, but only on the other guy.

I can't pass up the chance to make a few remarks regarding this:

David_Hinderer_298 July 18, 2011 at 10:42AM
Follow

Tax increases would be an incentive for the rich to create jobs once to see their wealth dwindle. Raising taxes would provide some motivation. They are under no preassure to create jobs since they getting richer for not doing but collect interest from their investment.

I've seen this view before. Put simply, Hinderer is essentially saying that theft is good, because it will provide an "incentive" to go out and work hard to replace what has been stolen. I trust that if a burglar robbed Hinderer's home, he would not file charges. Instead, he would be thankful, since it would encourage him to work to replace the stolen goods!

Only a slave mentality would conceive of so hideous a rationalization for tax increases.

Rand/Jesus Flap and Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck Backtracks After Seeing AVN "Rand vs Jesus" Ad, by Eric Sapp

My initial response posted 07:11 PM on 6/15/2011:

" 'I think the vast majority of us will agree that Rand's vision of America where selfishnes­s is the greatest virtue and compassion and love of neighbor are some of the worst evils... this is not the America we want' - Eric Sapp.

"Anyone who would deny to his neighbor the moral right and sanction to work for the achievemen­t of his own selfish well-being and happiness can not claim the mantel of “compassio­n and love of neighbor”. Rand saw the predatory nature of altruism, and why it is the vital ethical tool of collectivi­sm. If selfishnes­s (properly understood­) is not a virtue, then preying upon others is. If it is right to place the interests of your neighbors before your own, then it is right to demand that your neighbors do the same for you. Altruism, as Rand discovered­, is an inverted morality that enshrines the unearned as a moral absolute. Socialists are desperate to defend their ethical standards against the rational Objectivis­t alternativ­e that is the philosohic­al foundation of capitalism­. That is why false alternativ­es such as the one embodied in the passage above are used to distract attention away from the true nature of Rand’s benevolent­, rights-res­pecting morality.”

Eric Sapp responds, posted 10:04 PM on 6/15/2011:

you are of course welcome to your opinion, and please keep shouting it loud and clear b/c you are making my point. But for me and most Americans, the whole love your neighbor as your self and there is no greater love than this, that a man would lay down his life for another and blessed are the meek and importance of a servant heart will be the values we at least aspire to hold up above love of self.

My rebuttal posted 11:08 AM on 6/18/2011:

"Thanks for responding­, Mr. Sapp. Yes, I’ll keep “shouting it loud and clear”, b/c as Ayn Rand said – and I think you would agree with her – the battle for America’s future is fundamenta­lly a moral one.

"My side is a tiny minority, as of now. And I agree that most Americans cleave consciousl­y to the 'servant heart' ethic. But the Rand/Jesus flap your side unleashed can only help my side by raising Rand’s profile. And I would argue that the Objectivis­t minority has a potent weapon working: Most Americans – Christians included – live their actual private lives more in tune to the Objectivis­t ethics; that is to say, as rights-res­pecting, rationally selfish individual­ists.

"In his time, Jesus’ ethics may have made some sense. But his ancient code does not jive with a nation born on the principle of the supremacy of EVERY individual­’s right to the pursuit of his own happiness. The 'meek' – the everyday man – did inherit the earth. It is called capitalism­.

"I believe that when Americans come to understand Ayn Rand’s moral message as the true validation of the Declaratio­n of Independen­ce, her code will become the dominant one. That will take time, of course, well beyond one election cycle. But time is on the side of better ideas, and when that day comes, that will be the end of the predatory welfare state, and the final realizatio­n of the Founding Fathers’ vision.

Let the moral battles begin."

MontanaSouth posted 02:59 PM on 6/16/2011 :

benevolent­? it is benevolent to view charity as an evil? Neither altruism or Rand's morality are realistic views in a world populated by human beings. It is not altrusitic to assist those whose circumstan­ces have put them at a disadvanta­ge. It is beneficial to society to help establish a strong working society with protection­s from the Greed is Good view of capitalism­

.

My response posted 03:43 PM on 6/17/2011:

"I will not let pass your framing the issue on a false premise – that altruism equates to benevolenc­e and charity and the rejection of the first means ipso facto a rejection of the second. They are not the same. Charity is rightfully a personal, private matter, properly offered only within the context of one’s overall hierarchy of values. Objectivis­m makes no blanket moral judgement concerning charity one way or the other, other than that it should be consistent with your overall long-term self-inter­est (properly understood­). This is, in my decades-lo­ng observatio­n, the way most people view charity.

"But the obsession with charity is a sideshow straw man held up for purposes of a misreprese­ntative smear campaign. The main issue is: Do you have a moral right to your own life, or does everyone else have first moral claim on you – and vice versa? You state that you reject both altruism and Rand’s morality as impractica­l. But what are you counting on when you demand “a strong working society” (the collective­) over “Greed is Good … capitalism­­” (individua­l self-deter­mination)? You are counting on altruism, which holds that the good of others is one’s only moral justificat­ion for living.

"Thank you for vindicatin­g my position concerning the correlatio­n between collectivi­sm and altruism. I reiterate my uncompromi­sing position: It is Rand’s rational selfishnes­s, not altruism, that is the benevolent­, rights-res­pecting morality – and, I might add, the practical one, if a free society is your goal.

GlennBeckReview, Media critic, blogger, posted 11:59 AM on 6/18/2011, in response to Mark Dohle (03:22 PM on 6/16/2011), who wrote, "The irony of all this...Ayn Rand spent her life smashing typical conservati­ve thought. Perhaps people will finally realize that her ideas are not conservati­ve (abortion, marriage, immigratio­n...look it up). The left always tried to pin her as a conservati­ve, but she is as far from them as she is from the left. Fascism and Socialism are both statism. Ayn Rand favored individual­ism, the opposite of statism."

Ayn Rand was a reactionar­y, like [Glenn] Beck.

My response posted 12:16 PM on 6/18/2011:

“There appears to be a typo: The term is revolution­ary (at least in regards to Rand) - in the same nature as the Founding Fathers. It is individual rights, not statism, that is new in history. The American Revolution has been under attack from statist reactionar­ies almost from the beginning.

"It is defenders of Judeo/Chri­stian ethics who are the reactionar­ies. Ayn Rand's moral revolution is needed to compliment the Founders' political revolution - and complete the American Revolution­.

"Ayn Rand is truly America's Last Founding Father!”

Sophiacherie posted 02:11 AM on 6/17/2011:

Did you know that Ayn Rand idolized a serial killer who murdered and dismembere­d a 12 year old girl and called him a "superman" because "other people don't exist for him and he doesn't see why they should" as she write in her diary?

My Response posted 09:58 PM on 6/17/2011

"Though this has nothing to do with Objectivis­m or the current debate, I’ll comment anyway. You are guilty of major context-dr­opping. Rand did not idolize a serial killer, but abstracted an apparent individual­ist character trait of [ William Edward] Hickman’s for the purpose of creating a profile for a potential novel (which was never written). She abhorred the depravity of his behavior, of course, and said so.

"Just as admiration for the intelligen­ce of a master thief doesn’t imply idolizatio­n of the actor or his crime nor invalidate the virtue of intelligen­ce, so it was with the 23-year-ol­d Ayn Rand in regard to Hickman.

"Context is always crucial, and it’s right there in its entirety in 'Journals of Ayn Rand'. It was 1928, and the youthful influence of Nietzsche was still there (the “superman” comment); an influence which she later officially rejected. One should take care to take isolated bits from never-inte­nded-for-p­ublication private journals and twist something ridiculous out of it. That statement is not an endorsemen­t of murder, as your quoting it absurdly implies. The totality of her published writing is an unequivoca­l condemnati­on of the initiation of physical force in human relationsh­ips, which she regarded as an unmitigate­d evil. How does that jive with idolizing a killer? To believe that is to put yourself in the market for the Brooklyn Bridge.

If you’re going to critique Objectivis­m, then just do it, if you can. Don’t resort to the cowardly ad hominum fallacy."

To clarify a bit further, Hickman is discussed extensively in "Journals" on pages 22, 27, 36-39, and 40-44. On page 22, I quote from editor David Harriman:

Hickman served as a model for Danny [Renahan, a charactor in Rand's "The Little Street"] only in strictly limited respects, which AR names in her notes. Danny does commit a crime in the story, but it is nothing like Hickman's. To guard against any misinterpretation, I quote her own statement regarding the relationship between her hero and Hickman:

"[My hero is] very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me."

A GOP Idea Comes Back to Bite, But...

...it's unfair to paint all Republicans with the same RomneyCare brush. That said, The Star-Ledger makes an important political point in the December 2010 editorial.

Republicans liked what they now decry in health care reform

My Commentary

zemack December 15, 2010 at 7:04PM

The Star-Ledger is partially right, here. The dirty little secret of the entire healthcare debate is that the centerpiece of the entire ObamaCare package is a gift from Republicans. What I disagree on is the characterization of today’s GOP opponents of the individual mandate as the “Right” – if by Right one means support for individual rights and a government limited to protecting those rights.

How is it that “Without [the individual mandate], millions of younger and healthier people will go without coverage, gambling that they won’t get sick — and knowing that if they do, the cost will be spread to the rest of us through higher premiums or Medicaid”?

“Higher premiums” are a result of government mandates that force insurers to cover “pre-existing conditions” and hospital emergency rooms to treat the uninsured without charge. Medicaid is a government program that forces taxpayers to cover “the poor”. The GOP supports all three, even though they necessitated the individual mandate. They call the court ruling “a great blow for personal liberty”, even though many of the same conservatives hailed RomneyCare in Massachusetts as a “free market solution”.

But, it’s obvious that neither the Republicans nor the conservatives even know what “liberty” means. If they did, they would fight to overturn all three mandates, and the privatization and eventual phaseout of Medicaid. These immoral government intrusions into healthcare violate the rights of insurers, hospitals, doctors, and all taxpayers, who are forced to involuntarily provide or pay for the healthcare of others. Without their elimination, the ObamaCare individual insurance mandate does indeed appear to “seem reasonable”, as the Editors put it.

The sad fact is, there is no Right in American politics today. The Democrats are far Left, and the Republicans are moderately Left, and both keep marching farther and farther Left. Thus, the so-called “political center” keeps moving Left as well, by default. Most Americans, though, still lean toward individualism, which is manifested in the Tea Party Movement and the recent election: even though the movement still lacks a coherent ideological framework. Unfortunately, there is no major party political voice for individual rights, yet.

The consequence of all of this is that totalitarian socialism in medicine is almost here, and the rest of the economy is following suit, by default of a Republican Party that has abandoned its principles. Government controls beget more government controls, which beget more government controls, as the statist beat goes on. This editorial proves the point.

Other's Commentary:

jrsyshorjohn December 15, 2010 at 8:58PM

Folks, it's all true that 'Obamacare' is a Repubican program (first proposed by then President Richard M. Nixon) that now is reviled by third millenium Republicans, but that's not the issue here.

As an inner city kid who spent 13 years being taught very well by the Sisters of Charity, I learned that every right carries with it a concomitant responsibility. For example, the right to drive carries with it the concomitant rsponsibility to purchase auto insurance. The sisters believe that access to health care is a basic human right. I fully agree. However, with that right comes the responsibility to participate in the system by purchasing health insurance, even if you are a healthy twenty something who thinks he or she is immortal.

Talk to anyone who works in an Emergency Room and let them tell you about the young uninsured delivered by EMS after some traumatic injury, and the huge hospital bills that follow. Who's paying for their care? The rest of us responsible citizens who understand that rights carry responsibilities. It's that simple.

zemack December 16, 2010 at 4:56PM


jrsyshorjohn

“Responsibility”… determined and imposed by whom? It’s crucially important to understand exactly what we are talking about, as the stakes are high. What you are saying, in essence, is: “To secure these rights, governments are instituted to trample these rights”!

Rights are a guarantee and a sanction to freedom of individual action in a social context. They are moral principles that govern human relationships, by banishing force as a means of associating with one another. They assure each individual the freedom to think and act upon his/her own judgement, free from coercive interference by other people, including those acting in the capacity of a government official. Rights are unconditional, so long as you respect, and refrain from violating, the same rights of others. Rights are not, however, a claim to material benefits that must be supplied by others. Nor do they impose any involuntary, unchosen obligation to act against your own beliefs. Rights protect you from these kinds of coercion. By definition, rights can not conflict, with the rights of one necessitating the violation of the rights of others. Rights, in other words, are unalienable and possessed equally and at all times by all individuals. Rights are not a gift of the state, society, or God, accompanied by arbitrary “responsibilities”. They do not pop into existence because of the assertions of any persons who happen to “believe that access to health care is a basic human right”. Individual rights are an unconditional, unalienable birthright of every human being, because he is a human being.

The correct wording is: “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men”.

The same principle of rights that protects an individual’s freedom of action, also defines the limits of that freedom. No one has a right to force some people to pay for the healthcare of another. No one has a right to force some people to provide medical treatment for another. No one has a right to force another person to buy health insurance. No one has a right to impose involuntary servitude on another human being. There is no price tag on rights. A “right” that imposes an unchosen obligation on some to provide unearned benefits to another is not a right at all – it is a privilege bestowed by a tyrannical government and paid for out of the exploitation of others. Sound familiar? Check your history. It’s a sad fact that, even in this day and age, we still can’t let go of some manifestation of the age-old scourge of slavery. Like a vampire, it keeps re-incarnating, returning in different forms that allow many to evade the truth of what they are advocating. Only a proper recognition of and understanding of individual rights will finally eradicate this dark human evil, once and for all.

For more on the relationship between individual rights and personal responsibility, read my post 5/11/09 post, Responsibility Depends on Individual Rights

The Constitution - It's About More than just Words

The following editorial was written in response to last January's Republican gimmick to open the 2011 session of the House of Representitives with a reading of the US Constitution. I use the term "gimmick" because ... well ... the GOP doesn't exactly have a good track record of living within its meaning.

Be that as it may, here is the editorial followed by exerpts from the comments section:

Reading of the Constitution should include every word

fpparent January 10, 2011 at 6:53AM

And if you knew anything about Consitutional history, you'll know that the 3/5 clause that liberals are so quick to judge has absolutely nothing to do with human value. It was a measure added to prevent slave owners from using those slaves to enhance their states' representation in Washington.

zemack January 10, 2011 at 6:49PM

Fpparent is right here. Slavery was wrong, not the 3/5 clause. That clause was a victory for anti-slavery factions – which couldn’t at the time muster the political strength to completely eradicate that ancient evil from American soil - because it limited the electoral power of the slave states. In essence, the South was not allowed to have its cake and also eat it. It was not allowed to accrue any political benefits from a segment of the population that at the same time was denied its individual rights – i.e., treated as less than fully human.

The 3/5 clause is politically irrelevant today, not because it’s shameful or unimportant, but because that particular manifestation of slavery no longer exists in America. Today, we partially enslave the productive members of society under an unconstitutional predatory welfare state.

zemack January 10, 2011 at 7:59PM

The Constitution is indeed an “imperfect document”. But that imperfection stemmed from the fact that it didn’t fully implement the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration is the philosophical foundation of America. The principles it laid down were unalienable individual rights possessed equally and at all times by all people and a government charged with the task of protecting those rights. Those rights were understood to be sanctions to freedom of action to pursue one’s own happiness, not an automatic claim to material benefits that must be provided by the forced labor and confiscation of the property of others.

Aside from the abolition of slavery, the constitutional change mechanism bestowed by the Founders was not employed to remove the imperfections so as to fully implement America’s Declaratory principles. Instead of moving America toward the fully free society envisioned by the Founders, the “living document” feature exploited those imperfections, such as the unfortunate wording of the Commerce Clause, eminent domain, and tolerance for tax-funded education, to completely eradicate the Founding principles, and instead push the nation steadily down the road to ever more omnipotent government.

The result is an “empty constitution” – one devoid of any guiding principles. But a free nation that abandons its core principles, as America has, will not remain free. The editors laud the “ever-changing rough draft of history”. But without the constraints of a constitution based upon rational political principles such as those laid down in the Declaration, a nation’s government is like a sociopath lacking morals or conscience. It is a rogue government, guided by nothing but the latest whims of any court, legislature, or electoral majority that chooses to reinterpret the “unfinished document” according to the political winds of the moment. The big winner in such a game is government power. The big loser is the individual.

America’s “living document” no longer protects our freedom because the “changes and scratch-outs and doodles in the margins” weren’t confined within the boundaries established by the Declaration of Independence – a document that in its essentials is a perfect one. It established the framework for a servant government that recognizes the supreme value of the individual – which each and every one of us is – and that “promotes the general welfare” by protecting individual rights from violation by fellow men and, most importantly, from the government itself. We're not quite at "rogue government" status yet, but we're getting there. We must rediscover and relearn our unique heritage, and bring our nation back within its bounds.

Wolves, Vultures, Consumers - and New Debit Card Regulations

Debit card changes swipe at consumers, by Chuck Jaffe @ MarketWatch.

In an otherwise mundane piece concerning the mechanics of debit card fees and the effect that new Federal regulations will have on them, Jaffe snuck this in:

Currently, legislation in both the House and Senate would at least delay the reform, and the rhetoric is flying on both sides. Since releasing the proposal, the Fed has received more than 11,000 comment letters. Financial institutions call the planned cut in swipe fees a “$12 billion gift to retailers,” while the retailers respond by suggesting that postponing the change would be akin to “another bailout” of the banking industry.

This is a battle between wolves and vultures for the last meat left on the carcass and, ladies and gentlemen, we’re the meat.

I get my back up when I see other Americans being treated this way. Keep in mind that we're not talking about fraud here. We're talking about fees for services "consumers" find valuable.

I've left the following brief comments:

Mr. Jaffe laments the “battle between wolves [retailers] and vultures [banks] for the last meat left on the carcass and, ladies and gentlemen, we’re the meat” – i.e., between the people that provide the outlets for products and services we desire and those who provide popular and convenient means of purchasing them. That privileged, superior elite – we “consumers” – are not vultures or wolves, of course. “We’re” entitled to cheaper fees than the lowly producers are willing to charge – imposed by regulatory fiat by our alleged protectors.

It’s a shame that the entitlement mentality has penetrated so deep that we can’t see the real wolves and vultures – those newly empowered “public servants” whose idea of “reasonable” ... supersedes the voluntary decisions of the private market participants: and newly empowered by virtue of the financial overhaul bill allegedly necessitated by a financial crises. “We” just want our cheaper fees, personal freedom of choice be damned.

Note that Jaffe acknowledges that the new regulations - which will, if enacted, result in "debit-card fees [being] sliced by up to 70%" - will encourage banks to replace the lost revenue elsewhere:

Consumers will pay for those benefits in the form of higher banking fees — bigger charges on use of ATMs outside your bank network, but also additional charges for online banking or paper statements and other conveniences. Consumers might see less-favorable interest rates (particularly on the accounts where they get reduced swipe-fee revenue, but also on loans), and fewer rewards programs.

Free checking accounts, already on the endangered species list, could become virtually extinct.

But, Jaffe doesn't question the practical wisdom of the Fed meddling in the debit fee arena - let alone the moral or legal right to interfere in what is a private, voluntary trade among merchants, banks, and consumers. He simply accepts as the given the regulations coming forth from government officials - like an unchallengeable law of nature - and simply convicts retailers and banks for the sin of reacting.

In our massively regulated financial industry, it's hard to tell what fees we are paying in response to what prior regulations. Jaffe quotes an expert as saying "You could make swipe fees a lot more transparent on the front end — and that would be seen as good — but if the banks and the retailers find other ways to hit you for a few hundred bucks that is less transparent, it would be hard to say you came out ahead.” The biggest cloud of all, however, is the government regulatory Leviathan - which was made even bigger and more complex by Obama's reform bill - another one of those legislative monstrosities that nobody even reads, let alone understands.

Talk about lack of transparency! It's a wonder our banking system even works at all.

Tax Credits and the Separation Issue

The state, religion and the U.S. Supreme Court
by Linda Stamato and Sanford M. Jaffe

"The First Amendment’s establishment clause, meant to protect religion against any intrusion by the state or, to put it another way, to ban government from the establishment of religion, has stood, despite challenges, until this decision, which allows the use of tax credits to pay for religious school tuition. Not, by the way, because the court had a close look at what the state of Arizona in this case was doing — aiding religious schools — but saying it didn’t have to look at that issue because those who were bringing the case had no standing to challenge it."

Why didn't "those who were bringing the case [have] no standing to challenge it"?

Today’s landmark decision [Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn] declared that the plaintiffs in the case lack standing to bring the challenge in the first instance because the program is funded by private contributions, not government funds.

“When Arizona taxpayers choose to contribute to [School Tuition Organizations], they spend their own money, not money the State has collected from respondents or from other taxpayers,” wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, for the 5-4 majority. “While the State, at the outset, affords the opportunity to create and contribute to [a School Tuition Organization], the tax credit system is implemented by private action and with no state intervention. Objecting taxpayers know that their fellow citizens, not the State, decide to contribute and in fact make the contribution.”

“Like contributions that lead to charitable tax deductions, contributions yielding [School Tuition Organization] tax credits are not owed to the State and, in fact, pass directly from taxpayers to private organizations. Respondents’ contrary position assumes that income should be treated as if it were government property even if it has not come into the tax collector’s hands. That premise finds no basis in standing jurisprudence,” continued Kennedy. (U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses Legal Challenge to Arizona School Choice Program)

It comes down to two fundamentally different views of concerning the relationship between the state and the individual - i.e., collectivism vs. individualism. The authors acknowledge this conflict, saying "It came down to determining whether the granting of a tax credit is the functional equivalent of collecting and spending tax money".

For their part, the court minority opinion holds:

[A]ssume a state wishes to subsidize the ownership of crucifixes in one of three ways. It could purchase them in bulk and distribute them; it could reimburse buyers with a check; or it could pay with a tax credit. ... Now, really — do taxpayers have less reason to complain if the state selects the last of these three options?

I've left the following comments:

zemack April 30, 2011 at 8:20AM

On tax credits, the authors are easily refuted on the facts. Who is "the tax payer"? It's the person who earned it. A person earns $100. He decides to take advantage of an education tax credit program. He spends it according to his own judgement. His tax liability is thus reduced by $100. He is simply not sending it to the government. No other taxpayer is involved. In the case of education tax credits, money spent on education doesn't change. What changes is who decides how it is spent. Follow the money: private taxpayer to private institution. The government is out of the loop. In what way are “the taxpayers” or the government subsidizing religion? They are not. Every dollar in question involves only the taxpayer that earned it.

There are two broader issues involved here, though. First, does the citizen’s life belong to the state, or is the state the servant of the citizens? Who has first claim on the nation’s earnings, and first responsibility for the education of the child? Is it those who earned the money, and those who brought the child into the world? Or, is it the state. The authors argue for the state, and thus support a totalitarian concept. That is the root of their position.

The second issue involves the church/state issue. Here, the authors are 100% correct. People have an unalienable right to their religious beliefs, including the right to believe in and practice no religion at all. Any tax funding of religion is a threat to that freedom. The corollary is that no one should be forced to support, through their taxes, religious ideas they may or may not agree with. The separation doctrine protects religion from government, and us from religion. Fair enough, and I concur.

So, why should I be forced to support, through my taxes, educational ideas that I may or may not agree with, or that “offend” me? I abhor the collectivist theories of John Dewey, which dominates modern progressive education. I believe in the individualist educational and epistemological philosophies of Maria Montessori and Ayn Rand. Why should I be forced to pay for Dewey? And why should I be forced to pay for the education of other people’s children, any more than be forced to pay for the religious training of those same children?

When government controls education, it controls what is taught and how it is taught. It controls the flow of ideas. The very convincing arguments in favor of the separation of church and state, clearly articulated by the authors, apply equally to education generally. Phasing out and abolishing the government-run public schools – i.e., the separation of school and state – follows logically from the church/state issue. The ultimate answer to the tax credit issue is to abolish education taxes altogether.

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.

My Objective Standard Article - Vouchers vs. Tax Credits

My article, Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits?, appears in this Spring’s addition of The Objective Standard. It seeks to move the parental school choice movement in the direction of less government control by embracing properly structured tax credits while rejecting any incarnation of government-funded private school vouchers. The idea of education tax credits has, of course, been around for a long time. What I’ve sought to do is pull together a plan that carries the idea to its full logical implications – in effect, bringing about the separation of education and state one parent, and one child, at a time.

Parental school choice has been a focus of mine for at least 20 years. My thinking on the subject has evolved over time, culminating in the plan I submit in the TOS piece. I believe that the time is right for this article. When I first latched on to it, the idea that all parents should be able to choose their children’s school through some manner of redirecting their education tax dollars was considered a fringe issue not worthy of much serious consideration, even though it had been more than 30 years since Milton Friedman launched the idea in the 1950s. Today, we see choice programs popping up around the nation. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie has endorsed the nation’s first statewide universal parental choice initiative.

The political winds are now at the backs of the choice movement. This is a good thing, up to a point. It represents the most serious challenge to the hegemony of the government’s virtual education monopoly at least in my lifetime, and probably ever. It is my view that the public school establishment is on the ropes, and major changes are on the way. The growing strength of the school choice movement is evidence of that. But, the movement needs more. Its current thrust could turn the promise of parental school choice into a disaster for the private school sector, and set back the cause of educational freedom by years, if not decades.

The school choice debate needs a healthy infusion of the argument from individual rights, with all that that implies. This article should help open the door wide to that infusion. I look forward to answering questions and objections concerning my plan, especially from those that may come from the reactionary defenders of the status quo.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the help I received in writing the TOS article. My daughter Christine and wife Kathy offered valuable proofreading services on my first draft submission to the editors. Though the final article was significantly revamped through the editing process and bore significant revisions in structure and content to the original version, their help should be acknowledged. I cannot overstate the assistance given to me by TOS’s Editor Craig Biddle and Assistant Editor Alan Germani. There are more questions and complexities to the idea of a tax credit-based transition to a free education market than can be dealt with in a short article. A short book could probably be written on the subject. In constructing my case I was often prone to wonder off into different directions which, though I thought important, tended to dilute my theme. Craig and Alan persistently and patiently kept me on message – to say nothing of the many important suggestions and guidance they offered.

I hope you enjoy the article.

Related Reading:

One Way to Help a Journalism Industry in Crisis: Make J-School History By Kevin D. Williamson

Another Empty Slap at Ayn Rand

In an otherwise interesting analysis of the evolving Tea Party Movement, Doyle McManus throws out this cheap shot:

"Tea party candidates Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky have both derided the unemployed as victims of their own laziness, a position that doesn't play well beyond the Ayn Rand right."

The utter disregard for the truth readily on display by the Anti-Ayn Rand Cult is tiresome, but I fired off this rebuttal anyway:

MikeZemack wrote on 07/28/2010 07:54:45 PM:

Where is the evidence that Ayn Rand ever endorsed a shallow, generalized viewpoint that “derided the unemployed as victims of their own laziness”? As a committed Objectivist, I could tell you that there isn’t any. It looks like a bit of guilt by association going on here. While laziness might be true of some of today’s unemployed, including the idle rich whom she disdained, Ayn Rand would have rightly viewed most as victims of disastrous government policies, although she would not hold them totally blameless if they supported the policies that led to their unemployment. She was a true champion of the middle class, which she viewed as “a country’s motor and lifeblood”.

As to “the Ayn Rand right”, there isn’t any. Today’s American right is dominated by the Christian conservatives and to a lessor extent the libertarians, both of whom stand philosophically opposed to Objectivism’s most important metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical essentials. It’s true that many on the right will wave the Ayn Rand banner when it suits them, cherry picking isolated out-of-context bits and pieces of her idea system. But you will learn little about her thinking by paying attention to Angle or Paul.

As to Mr. McManus and his ilk, ad hominem and straw man tactics are common methods of attacking Ayn Rand, because they dare not confront her ideas openly and honestly. This sort of empty, backhand slap at Ayn Rand is typical of those who simply can’t refute her ideas.

Economists Call for More Demand Stimulus

In an open letter entitled, GET AMERICA BACK TO WORK, 16 prominent economists called on the federal government to enact yet another "stimulus" package to spur "demand". This is supposed to make up for the lost purchasing power of the unemployed.

"The urgent need is for government to replace the lost purchasing power of the unemployed and their families and to employ other tax-cut and spending programs to boost demand. Making deficit reduction the first target, without addressing the chronic underlying deficiency of demand, is exactly the error of the 1930", they said, forgetting the lessons of the Great Depression - the crippling activist policies of the Hoover and FDR Administrations.

I've left the following comments:

4:32 pm, Jul 20, 2010

Zemack

I have a better idea. Instead of another government stimulus package, why not just legalize theft. Everyone can then be free to rob his neighbors, as long as he spends the loot. That would create plenty of "demand", be more efficient because it would cut out the bureaucratic middleman, and be more honest and straightforward than having our politicians do it for us.

Of course, that wouldn't work any better than government spending, for the same reason. Legitimate, private sector demand has a fundamentally different origin than "public demand".

As any honest consumer knows, you need to earn some money before you go to the store. Money must be made, before it can be spent. "Consumer spending" is really a trade between two producers - the buyer who earned the money, and the seller of goods and services. Private consumers add to the pie, before they take a slice.

Politicians who promote stimulus programs ignore or evade the first part of the trade that makes consumer spending possible - the earning part. This fact exposes the crucial difference between consumer spending and government (or government-induced) spending.

Every time the federal government creates another program to stimulate demand (or consumption), it does so - like a thief - by seizing the earnings and savings of the nation's productive citizens through taxation, deficit spending, or inflationary printing press money. Posturing politicians seek to make us more prosperous, through policies paid for out of our own money and financial nest eggs. Unlike private consumers, the government doesn't "earn" its money.

Stimulus always fails, for this very reason. Private consumers work for the money they spend, thus producing their own demand. Stimulus politicians - from liberals like Obama to psuedo-conservatives like Bush - do not create demand. They simply steal it.

The source of consumer spending is productive work. The source of government demand-side stimulus policies is economic plunder.

Of course, understanding this requires logic, or at least basic common sense. Keynes ignored both under his creation - macroeconomics, the field that studies economic activity without focussing on actual human beings - because he was fundamentally a statist. Politicians ignore both, and follow Keynes, because it satisfies their powerlust and craving for a pat on the back for "doing something". The economy gets damaged long term, but Keynes had the famous answer, the height of immoral irresponsibility: "In the long run, we are all dead."

"Consumer" Spending vs. Government Spending

Dublin's economy could teach U.S.

That's the Title of the NJ Star-Ledger's July 1, 2010 editorial imploring us to learn the lessons of the Irish government's attempt to pull that nation out of a recession. The Editorial Board writes:

"The Irish didn’t hesitate. In a let’s-get-this-over-with-quickly move, they slashed public spending and raised taxes, the standard recovery recipe of deficit hawks at the International Monetary Fund. The result? Even worse economic shrinkage."

Who knows what the complexities of the Irish economy are. Since the SL is in agreement with the Irish that taxes should go up, they've narrowed down the differences between the two countries to one of government spending. Now, there is no doubt that, when government spending consumes a quarter to a third (or more) of the nations economic output, changes in its budget expendatures are bound to have an effect on the economy. The Editors believe more government spending is the answer, because:

"[S]timulating the economy is the immediate problem and, inevitably, a key to dealing with the debt and deficits. Macroeconomists can lecture learnedly on the depressed housing and industrial real estate markets as a drag on the economy, but the heart of the economy is consumer spending — two-thirds of the economy in fact."

But, whatever the short-term economic effects of government spending cuts vs. juiced-up "stimulus" spending, the fact remains that human beings must produce the things they consume. Look around your house, or the local department of grocery store, and ask yourself if those thousands upon thousands of shelf items just materialize out of nothing. No, they didn't. Human beings produced them. Another fact is that government, by its very nature, produces nothing.

So-called government "stimulus packages" have never worked, and in fact hurt the economy. I've left the following comments, to briefly explain why that is and necessarily has to be the case.

zemack July 01, 2010 at 4:20PM
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Rather than the Editors of the Star-Ledger, who believe you can spend and consume your way to prosperity, I’d rather turn to some true economic experts to understand what’s needed to generate economic growth.

Gilligan … the Skipper too … the millionaire, and his wife … the movie star … the professor and Mary Ann: Remember them? They all knew better. When the SS Minnow ship-wrecked on that uninhabited island off of Hawaii in 1964, I don’t recall the hapless crew’s first thoughts being: Let’s see, how can we create food and shelter out of nothing, without any effort on our part?

I don’t recall the wealthy passenger Thurston B. Howell, III passing out stimulus checks to his fellow travelers so that they could rush out and spend their way to a vibrant Gilligan’s Island economy.

They understood that before consumption, you must have production. They understood that to have production, you need real people doing real thinking and real labor. And, that’s what they did. That silly little 1960s sitcom that as a teenager I loved so much was way to serious a show to allow the writers to run an episode that portrayed Mr. Howell assuming the role of banker, and telling everyone: “Stand still, and watch my millions shower you with prosperity!” It would have failed after one episode.

They did pretty well on that island, that rag tag group of economic experts. They worked. They had to. But suppose, in one episode, a looting gang of primitive savages invaded the island and began seizing their clothes, food, building materials, hunting weapons, etc., as well as their seed corn (their savings) that was set aside to plant the next harvest? Suppose those savages simply began consuming the stuff created by the ingenuity and hard work of the Gilligan Islanders? Would that have left the shipwrecked crew and passengers more prosperous, or poorer? Now you know why all attempts to stimulate “demand” through government spending always must fail, if prosperity rather than central planning is the goal. Those savages would have created plenty of “demand”, just like our president wants to do with government money.

What the stimulus champions ignore is the crucial difference between private and government “demand”. They stare blankly at statistics that allegedly show that “the heart of the economy is consumer spending”. But all they see is spending – money changing hands at the cash register. They gape at mid-stream, and miss the linkage between money and work. Consumer spending is not a transaction between a consumer and a producer. It is a trade between two producers.

As any honest “consumer” knows, you need to earn some money before you go to the store. Money must be made, before it can be spent. Every time the federal government creates another program to stimulate demand, it does so – like the savage - by seizing the earnings and savings of the nation’s productive through taxation, deficit spending, or printing press money. Private consumers work for the money they spend, thus creating their own demand. Politicians – from liberals like Obama and to conservatives like Bush – simply steal it. The source of consumer spending is productive work. The source of government spending is economic plunder.

Gilligan’s Island is a monument to economic common sense compared with much of what comes out of Washington and the academic ivory towers today. The best advice I can give to the Editors is, watch some Gilligan’s Island reruns. What’s needed is production, if “consumer demand” is the goal. Rein in the imperial bureaucracy (cut regulations), and liberate producers with massive spending and tax cuts. In other words, get the looting savages off of the island!

Oh, and one more thing. That looting band of savages that invaded Gilligan’s Island? Their leader had a name. You might recognize it. His name was Chief John Maynard Keynes.

There's more to it that I could go into. For a more in depth study of this subject, see George Reisman, Economic Recovery Requires Capital Accumulation, Not Government "Stimulus Packages" and Production versus Consumption

The Coming Rental Housing Crisis

In a 6/26/10 editorial, Stop dreaming: Home ownership is not for everyone, the Wall Street-bashing NJ Star-Ledger acknowledged that government policies brought about the financial crisis. They wrote:

"Owning your own home has been part of the American Dream for decades. But what if home ownership isn’t for everyone?

"Sheila Bair, president of the FDIC, had the guts to raise exactly that question recently before a group of nonprofit housing developers. Gutsy, and long overdue. As we’ve witnessed over the past few years, helping people buy homes they could not afford did them no favor and helped bring on our financial crisis."

I left the following comments:

zemack June 26, 2010 at 11:42AM
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So, the Star-Ledger wants us to “stop dreaming”. OK, then. Are American liberals ready to let go of their utopian dream of central economic planning?

The federal government’s affordable housing crusade began under FDR with the creation of agencies such as Fannie Mae, which killed off the originate-and-hold bank mortgage lending model in favor of originate-and-sell. Over the decades, through regulations, tax policies, government guarantees, political pressure, Federal Reserve monetary policies, and so on, layers upon layers of government interference was built up in the housing and mortgage markets. The purpose, as the Editors point out, was to expand homeownership.

The financial crisis we’re still not out of was the culmination of these government policies. I’m glad to see that acknowledged here. Never mind the irresponsible lenders and borrowers. They are culpable, but they are minor “moving parts” and are just convenient scapegoats. The private players represent merely the consequential face of this crisis. The fundamental cause was yet another failure of central economic planning. Without the government's housing and monetary policies, this crisis simply could not have happened.

I never cease to be astounded by how often the Star-ledger correctly identifies a problem, and then misses the obvious conclusion. The lessons of 150 years of central planning’s failures continues to multiply. So, do we get a call for an end to the government market interventions that the Editors finally admit was the cause of our problems? No, we get vastly expanded government control under the cover of “financial regulatory reform”. And do we get a call for an end to the homeownership crusade? No, trhe market distortions remain, and we get a call to make the same policy mistakes in the rental housing market!

To fix the problems the government itself caused, we reward the government with more power. The entire financial system right down to the consumer ATM transaction will be forced into a bureaucratic straightjacket under a powerful new central planning maze. The financial industry will be private in name only, as is typical under fascism. Then our brand new affordable rental housing crusade will establish the groundwork for yet another crisis that will not be allowed to go to waste. Then we will see de facto nationalization turn into outright nationalization, the final step and ultimate goal of the socialists.

The Editors dream on, and the nightmare approaches.

Dionne Defends the Concentration of Political Power

In this article, Whose Supreme Court is it?, EJ Dionne Jr. demonstrates the vital importance of understanding the diametrically opposed natures of economic and political power.

My commentary:

Zemack wrote:

To understand the sinister purpose behind those that attack the “concentration of economic power”, one must first understand the difference between economic and political power.

Economic power derives from the ability of a person or organization of persons (a corporation) to produce economic values. It is benign and benevolent, in and of itself. The economic power of a business, no matter how big, is granted only by the voluntary consent of those who buy its products, fill its job positions, or buy its shares. Economic power is non-coercive, but only in a free market.

Political power is the power of physical force, because government alone has the power of law. It can force you, literally at the point of a gun. The concentration of political power is the danger, and the only danger. That is why a constitution is needed to restrict government to use its monopoly on physical force - its power of the gun – to protect the individual rights of its citizens. All of them, including those “regular, average” folks associated with corporations. When government steps outside of those restrictions, it becomes the tool of special interests seeking the power of the gun – political power.

When “private corporations … dominate the state” and “buy government”, it is not economic power that is at work. It is political power. That alleged “concentration of economic power” is made possible by the very power progressives love, the alleged “right” of “our government's elected branches to legislate and regulate” at the behest of the special interests with the most political clout of the moment, which progressives call “the public interest”. To the progressives, corporations are not “the public interest”. Unions and wealthy individuals like George Soros are.

Since political domination of the economy is the goal of progressives, individuals who assert their First Amendment rights through corporations become the enemies of the state. When progressives seek to empower “the political system to protect itself against corruption” and attack “corporations virtually unlimited rights to spend money to influence elections”, it is seeking to protect the political elite from accountability to the people, the ones who disagree with them, and consolidate the concentration of political power.

This article is classic postmodernism, or the use of language as a weapon to cloud the issues to advance a statist agenda. Progressives seek to rein in the “concentration of economic power” in order to increase their own concentration of political power over “regular” people. The only system that can prevent benign economic power from being converted into malignant political power is laissez-faire capitalism (the separation of economics and state). The alternative is totalitarianism. That is the ultimate choice we face. It’s economic power and freedom, or political power and tyranny. Take your pick.

Upholding Objective Law

The US Supreme Court has just struck a blow for "limited government" by a surprising 9-0 vote. Bob Braun of the NJ Star-Ledger analyzed the decision in an article entitled U.S. Supreme Court removes 'bite' from law used against corrupt N.J. officials. His wrote:

Antonin Scalia went far beyond the progressive Ginsburg in wanting to strip the so-called "honest services" statute of its bite. He did it simply and clearly:

"It fails to define the conduct it prohibits," Scalia wrote in a concurring opinion.

That’s ground zero in constitutional law. The law must say what is illegal. The core of due process of law. Otherwise, anyone can be accused of anything and, if the prosecution is persuasive, anyone can be convicted, particularly by a jury prone to believe all officials are corrupt.

[N]othing beats Scalia’s analysis. "The statute," he wrote, "does not answer the question, `What is the criterion of guilt?’"

It’s got to be something other than election to public office.


I left the following supportive comments:

zemack June 28, 2010 at 4:52PM

Great article. It’s so refreshing to see a concrete issue analyzed in relation to fundamental ideas, an all too rare occurrence. In this case, both Mr. Braun and the US Supreme Court stood up for objective law.

When I heard prosecutors complain that this Court decision stripped them of their “flexibility”, I knew instinctively that the right decision was made, even before I familiarized myself with it. Lack of “flexibility” in prosecurorial matters by government officials is precisely what the American doctrine of “a government of laws and not of men” is intended to enshrine. Non-objective law means arbitrary government power, a basic tenet of a dictatorship.

Just as I cheered the court’s recent decision that removed restrictions on corporate and union campaign spending because it upheld the First Amendment, so I cheer this one. Both uphold critical fundamental principles vital to a free society.

Bob Braun has done a good job here presenting the essential aspects of the issue clearly and concisely.

More on NJ's Municipal Welfare

Trenton crowd's constitutionally incapable of property-tax reform, by Paul Mulshine

In this article Paul Mulshine discusses the idea of a property tax cap in NJ, and touches on the nature of Trenton's redistributionist state aid scheme.

I've left the following comments:

zemack June 23, 2010 at 8:53PM
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The core issue is much bigger than quibbling over which towns get how much state aid. The issue is the validity of state aid to municipalities as such, or what I call municipal welfare. On the face of it, it makes no sense to send income tax dollars to Trenton, in order to get it back in state aid checks. Of course, the real purpose is wealth redistribution.

Municipal welfare is wrong for the same reason any government-imposed redistributionist scheme is wrong. It is immoral, unconstitutional, and a violation of individual rights and the proper function of government. In addition, like all socialist schemes, it doesn’t work. The current incarnation of the municipal state aid scheme started in the 1970s with the court-pressured imposition of the income tax. Since then, income tax rates have soared, state budgets sank increasingly into the red, aid-fed municipal budgets swelled, and all the while, property taxes soared. And what are we left with? – Abbott districts that are so bad that even many liberals support letting parents get their kids out of Abbott schools via vouchers under the Opportunity Scholarship Act. Only socialism could pull that off.

"It’s not fair," [Assemblywoman Allison Littell McHose of Sussex County] said. "I think people finally understand that they are paying for their own school and they are paying for these Abbott districts on top of it."

No, it is not fair. The whole purpose of municipal welfare is just that. So, why not see that the Emperor has no clothes? Why not adopt a GOP platform plank to repeal municipal state aid, which now consumes more than half the state budget, along with the income tax that funds it? Come to think of it, if forcing people in one town to pay for the education of children in the next town is unfair, then why isn’t it just as unfair to force them to pay for the education of children on the next block?

But that would be another topic – free market capitalism. Republicans and conservatives just can’t seem to let go of socialism when it comes to education.

Robinson on Joe Barton Apology

A GOP chorus of Joe Bartons on the BP oil spill
The BP apologist is mainstream among conservative Republicans.
- By Eugene Robinson

Select quote:

"A group constituting roughly two-thirds of all Republicans in the House takes the position that President Obama was wrong to demand that BP set aside money to guarantee that those whose livelihoods are being ruined by the oil spill will be compensated. In other words, it's more important to kneel at the altar of radical conservative ideology than to feel any sense of compassion for one's fellow Americans. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how today's GOP rolls."


My commentary:

6/23/2010 5:08:21 PM

The whole point of having a civil court system is to establish an objective venue to settle damage claims. This is the best rights-protection the victims of BP’s well failure, and individuals generally, have. All sides get a hearing, and the facts dictate the outcome. In politics, political connections reign supreme over any facts. Whether the $20 billion represents a shakedown of BP or a protective shady deal cut between Obama and one of his campaign donors is beside the point. The real issue is the Executive Branch’s usurpation of the judicial system.

We are in dangerous territory, if justice is the goal. Considering the assault on the rule of law by this powerlust-driven administration, it is shamefully trivial for Obama Democrats and their supporters to babble about the GOP “favoring” oil companies. They claim to be the voice of “average” Americans, whom they derogatorily call “the little people”. Yet, they have no problem stripping them of their right to their day in court, and replacing that objective venue by throwing them into the world of political calculations.

Plenty of Gulf oil spill victims are going to be shafted if this deal leads to government officials doling out the cash, rather than judges and juries, which it probably will. And plenty of non-victims will be rolling in BP loot. In a court of law, each individual stands tall, win or lose. When power politics trumps justice, the un-politically connected become “the little people”. Mr. Robinson worries about ideas, or “radical conservative ideology”, which he doesn’t bother to name and refute. Meanwhile, he protects the real threat - arbitrary government power. He sees nothing wrong or un-American about a King – excuse me, a president – having the power to force a private company to hand over its money, oblivious to the danger that that precedent poses to all private companies into the future. So much for a government that protects our rights!

Today’s Left-Wing Washington rulers are throwing their fellow Americans under the bus, that they may gain a photo-op handing a check to favored victims. And then Mr. Robinson accuses Republicans, who at least have some semblance of respect for the constitutional separation of powers that protects us from the growth of tyranny, of having no “sense of compassion for one's fellow Americans.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how today's Democratic Left rolls.

Menendez: Rein in Wall Street

In this article, entitled It's time to protect consumers, rein in Wall Street, NJ Senator Robert Menendez touts the financial "reform" bill now before congress. On the premise that NJ residents are stupid and unthinking, he pins the blame for the financial crisis on a few Wall Street firms.

I've left the following comments:

In Senator Menendez's statist Emerald City fantasy world, the great and powerful Oz, exemplified by "Wall Street", has wreaked economic havoc. Nowhere is the role of government interference examined. Mr. Menendez wants us to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain – the government’s political and bureaucratic wizards who pull the levers that control the financial industry and manipulate the markets through such mechanisms as Fannie and Freddie, the FDIC, mark-to-market accounting rules, explicit and implicit mortgage guarantees, the government licensed and competition-protected rating agency cartel, the CRA, the FHA, affordable housing crusades, overt and covert pressures on banks to increase low-income lending by lowering loan standards, too-big-to-fail taxpayer bailout policies, the perverse inversion of normal market incentives through socialization-of-losses policies, and that mother of all culprits – that funny money machine called the Federal Reserve.

The politicians rig the system to get people who can't afford homes into homes. Under the government's bipartisan "affordable housing" crusades, a conveyor belt of sub-prime mortgages runs overtime from the Fed to Fannie and Freddie. Wreckless lenders and borrowers flourish, to the delight of politicians who tout rising homeownership rates. Fannie and Freddie spread toxic mortgages throughout the system via securitization. Quick buck artists overwhelm prudent heads on Wall Street, cashing in on the game the men behind the curtain created. The system collapses. Derivatives and "Wall Street" get scapegoated. The politicians move for de facto nationalization of the financial system to "protect" that mystical entity - consumers.

How do you bring socialism to a country that would never explicitly vote it in? We've seen this pattern before. It's brought in through the back door of fascism. In finance, energy, healthcare, and education, to name a few areas, totalitarian powers are being accrued to Washington. The government creates crisis after crisis, which are never allowed to go to waste. In the not to distant future, we will wake up to find that our major industries are private in name only. Every area of our lives will be controlled by a small clique of all-powerful wizards, who manipulate the levers that run the shell corporations that used to be our great industries.

The fascist wolf has been creeping toward our American house for decades. Under the Bush Administration, the wolf reached the door. Under the Obama Administration, the wolf has crashed through the door.

Menendez, Obama, and their ilk are selling us a bill if goods, and down the river to tyranny. It's time to pay attention to that man behind the curtain

.