Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The Paranoid Center

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jesse Walker
Date:

__._,_.___

Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic

Messages in this topic (1)

Recent Activity:

Visit Your Group

Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use

__,_._,___

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

Is Libertarianism Extreme?

Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Is Libertarianism Extreme?
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Statists oftentimes accuse libertarians of holding extreme views. One reason for that is that since we have all been born and raised in a society based on welfare and warfare, the libertarian philosophy, which stands in opposition to socialism, interventionism, and imperialism, seems extreme to statists.

Consider, for example, the right to keep one's own money and decide what to do with it. To a libertarian, that's just as normal as, say, the right to decide what which books to read or the right to attend church or not. When a person earns his money by offering goods and services to others, the money belongs to him. Why shouldn't he be free to keep it?

But to the statist, the notion that a person has a right to the fruits of his earnings is extreme. In his eyes, it's perfectly normal that people's income is subject to the superior authority of government to seize whatever percentage of the income it wants.

Consider charity. Libertarians believe that people should be free to decide whether or not to give their money away to charity. Statists, on the other hand, go ballistic over such a suggestion, saying that that's extreme. Since modern-day Americans have been born and raised in a society based on the welfare state, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, they see any deviation from that notion as extreme.

Consider the warfare state, including the vast military-industrial complex, the CIA, the NSA, the empire of foreign military bases, the war on terrorism, the national-security state apparatus, torture, assassination, kangaroo military tribunals, or indefinite incarceration in military prisons or concentration camps.

Statists see nothing abnormal about any of that. That is their world, the world in which they were born and raised.

But to libertarians, it's the exact opposite. Libertarians view all that militarism and imperialism as an aberrant way of life. To us, a normal society would be one based on a limited-government, constitutional republic, one without a vast permanent military and intelligence apparatus.

Consider paper money and the Federal Reserve System. For libertarians, it's a no-brainer. Let the free market determine the best media of exchange, whether it be gold and silver coins or anything else. Moreover, ditch the Federal Reserve, which is nothing more than central planning, a form of monetary socialism.

Statists immediately recoil against such ideas, arguing that they're just too extreme. Again, since they've been born and raised under a regime of paper money and a central bank, the notion that society would be better off without them is considered too extreme.

Consider public schooling, or more appropriately called government schooling, which includes government-licensed private schools. Libertarians say: Let's totally separate school and state in the way our ancestors separated church and state. Let's end all state involvement in education.

Statists go bonkers over that one, especially given that they are products of the public-school system, where, not so coincidentally, they were inculcated with the notion that statism is normal and that it actually constitutes "freedom."

Consider drug laws. Libertarians ask: Why shouldn't a person be free to ingest anything he wants, no matter how unhealthy or dangerous the substance might be?

That question shocks the statists. Having been brought up during the era of the drug war, the notion that society shouldn't have any drug laws is, well, just so extreme. Of course, the government should have the authority to punish people for ingesting non-approved items, the statists say, for otherwise everyone would go on drugs.

Given that we've all been born and raised under a welfare-warfare state and, further, the fact that the public schools and government-approved schools indoctrinate children into believe that statism is normal and constitutes "freedom," it's not surprising that statists would look upon libertarianism as extreme.

But what if today's American statists and today's American libertarians were transported back in time to, say, 1885 America. That's the era in which Americans lived without income taxation and the IRS, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, foreign aid, drug laws, torture, a welfare state, a warfare state, public schooling, a military-industrial complex, an empire of foreign military bases, drug laws, and public schooling.

Obviously, in that case the statist would be considered extreme by most everyone else, given the near universal rejection of statism by our American ancestors.

Or to make the point another way: If today's American statists and today's American libertarians were to be transported to, say, North Korea today, the North Koreans would join up with the American statists in labeling libertarians as extreme, given that that North Koreans have also been born and raised under statism and believe in in it as fervently as today's American statists do.

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-08-22.asp

Romney-Ryan perpetuate the welfare-warfare state

Romney-Ryan perpetuate the welfare-warfare state
Murray Sabrin
August 22nd, 2012

In an op-ed, " Romney-Ryan worldview: Reaganism on steroids," Joseph Chubman, leader of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, makes more economic fallacies and historical inaccuracies than you can shake a stick at. President Reagan's fiscal conservatism was all rhetoric. Spending skyrocketed under the Gipper and taxes, especially payroll taxes, were hiked to "save" Social Security.

Mr. Chubman asserts that a Romney-Ryan administration would "starve the beast"the federal government– and hollow out both Social Security and Medicare. Under Rep. Ryan's budget plan federal spending increases as far as the eye can see and the budget is not balanced for the next twenty years. This is hardly a "starve the beast" approach to the federal budget.

In addition, Romney-Ryan would "protect" both Social Security and Medicare with more government intervention instead of calling for the phasing out the two largest Ponzi schemes in the history of the country. Both programs are financially unsustainable and are losing propositions for future generations.

One of the nation's leading experts on intergenerational accounting economics professor Laurence Kiotlikoff had this to say about Social Security: "This massive Ponzi scheme has not only driven our country broke, it's also wiped out national saving. In 1950 our national saving rate was 15 percent. Last year it was 1 percent. Unfortunately, last year was no anomaly. National saving has been declining, with some temporary upticks, for 60 years."

In short, FDR's legacy is a massive swindle that Romney-Ryan wants to perpetuate and Mr. Chubman defends unequivocally.

Savings are necessary for investment. And investments in capital goods create wealthand jobs. Increasing taxes on savings will lower living standards for the very people Mr. Chubman claims need more government funds to survive. This assertion is disingenuous. As Ludwig von Mises remarked: "The characteristic mark of economic history under capitalism is unceasing economic progress, a steady increase in the quantity of capital goods available, and a continuous trend toward an improvement in the general standard of living." In short, more capital investment, more prosperity.

As far as taxes are concerned, Mr. Chubman makes the following statement about both President Reagan and President George W. Bush, namely, that they allowed the wealthy to abandon "their fair and rightful obligations to support the less fortunate through the redistribution of their earnings." Mr. Chubman forgets to mention that shill for capitalism, President Bill Clinton, signed legislation to cut capital gains and increase the estate tax exemption in 1997.

As economist Ludwig von Mises observed, "Nothing is more calculated to make a demagogue popular than a constantly reiterated demand for heavy taxes on the rich. Capital levies and high income taxes on the larger incomes are extraordinarily popular with the masses, who do not have to pay them."

According to Mr. Chubman, a portion of the income of the "rich" must be confiscated --a euphemism for stolen -- to help the less fortunate among us. This unethical approach to taxation is at the heart of the welfare-warfare state that has caused the real federal deficit to balloon to an astonishing $222 trillion.

And one of the most astute observers of the American economy, Peter Drucker concluded, "government has proved incompetent at solving social problems," and called for nothing less than the abolition of the welfare and the expansion of the nonprofit sector to help the less fortunate among us.

If Mr. Chubman's economic illiteracy was not enough, his misinterpretation of history is another weak link in his argument for expanding the unethical welfare state. According to Mr. Chubman, FDR saved the country from economic ruin with the New Deal. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First, the depression that began in 1929 was the result of the Federal Reserve's easy money policies that ignited both a stock market boom and real estate boom. When the FED "tightened" monetary policy in 1929 to prevent the economy from overheating, prices crashed. President Hoover then went on a spending spree to prop up (stimulate) the economy even though that was the wrong medicine. The result, massive unemployment and a contracting economy for four years.

FDR ran as a fiscal conservative in 1932 and won in a landslide. As Gregory Bresiger recounts, "FDR, who was credited as the first major American politician to support a social security system, nevertheless had campaigned in 1932 in favor of limited government. He bitterly criticized Herbert Hoover's huge deficits. On the campaign trial he promised to roll back, not expand, the size of the federal government." As FDR said, "For three long years I have been going up and down this country preaching that government – federal government, state and local – costs too much. I shall not stop that preaching. "

After FDR took office in March 1933, he and his left-wing "brain trust" went to work to impose a collectivist agenda on America. They basically succeeded. America has become a mixed economy, a welfare-warfare state with trillion dollar deficits, extensive business regulations that are driving factories and thus jobs off shore and an overseas empire that is morally untenable.

The Romney-Ryan agenda perpetuate the very policies Mr. Chubman embraces, the failed welfare state. America needs a makeover; it is called limited government, free enterprise and a vibrant nonprofit sector.

http://murraysabrin.com/?p=1299

Fwd: New comment on "The Ridiculous Rise of Ayn Rand"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Atlas Shrugged
Date: Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Subject: New comment on "The Ridiculous Rise of Ayn Rand"
To: Bruce Majors <majors.bruce@gmail.com>

LinkedIn Groups

Group: Atlas Shrugged
Discussion: The Ridiculous Rise of Ayn Rand

I just posted two comments there:

1)

"Rand's "thought," such as it is, boils down to two propositions. One is
that selfishness is the highest of moral virtues. The other is that the
masses, above all resentful of success, are parasites living off the
hard work of capitalists far superior to them in every way."

Ayn Rand used "selfishness" as a synonym for rational self-interest in her works. This is unusual in its use, but taking her use of the word out-of-context is not a substantial argument.

Rand did not think that most people were parasites. She actually thought that most people in a substantially free society were producers as they must be. She did think that there were a substantial minority of people who used the force of government to grant their special interests favors at the cost of most Americans. These people she regarded as parasites. When most of the people are not producers any more, society quickly begins to collapse, as depicted in Atlas Shrugged. Unfortunately, when government becomes too big to be protective of individual rights, it will necessarily become the captive tool of parasitical special interests. Government shenanigans become too complex for most of the people to follow and understand, so the special interests take over, as they largely have now.

2)

"Selfishness, by contrast, is not psychologically interesting; Rand's
understanding of human behavior has no room for the complex, the
unexpected, or the paradoxical."

Rand was a very strong proponent of individuality. Individuals are complex and highly differentiated. As such the needs of individuals must forever confound the ability of central planners to even know what individuals need and when they need it. Our individual values are unknown to them and even if they knew them, there would be no way rule of law could deliver our values to us. It is in the robust and rich private sector that each of us can pursue our self-chosen values in voluntary cooperation with others and hope to achieve our personal happiness. It is only in the private sector that the values of each of us do not have to come into conflict. In the private sector, live and let live is the rule. In the government sector, the rule is the use of force to get what some special interest wants from others, at least once the limited functions of government to protect individual rights are satisfied. Constitution mandated such an individual rights protecting limited government, prior to more than a 100 years of unbelievably expansive and convoluted re-interpretations by government to expand its powers virtually without limit.
Posted by Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.

Like this comment » Comment » Stop Following Discussion »

NEW

Now you can comment by replying to this email.

You are receiving Group Discussion emails. Unsubscribe.

JP A Happy Augury

A Happy Augury

A news ticker that might not have caught the attention of many was run by a TV channel that read, "Noor al Ameen Mangal (DCO Lahore) ordered immediate suspension of Dr. Sajid for negligence of duty on receiving complaints against him" (words to that effect). A happy augury that portends well for the good governance. Now-a-days one doesn't come across many officers exercising their powers in censuring their juniors to improve the administration. I was praising Mr. Mangal's such taking of disciplinary action with a friend of mine who, lo and behold, had something shocking for me on such an episode. "Forget it Jafri, soon some MPA or MNA will come to his rescue and the doctor will not only be reinstated but also given some still more lucrative assignment".

Mr. Mangal, I pray it doesn't happen so. You are doing fine. You were again physically present today at the well where three brothers lost their lives and ordered the arrest of the owner of the well. I hope the people over you let you perform your duties DUTIFULLY – a word alien to many in our civil administration.

Mr. Mangal, I am sure you heard of the phrase , "To catch a thief set a thief". There are far too many "thieves" around. Though it is not impossible for a determined person to catch them all but it is certainly an uphill task. Why not set a thief to catch a thief? The immediate superior officer of a defaulting official should also be held responsible for the acts of omission and the commission of his subordinate. This way all seniors shall take care of their juniors. Such close supervision by the immediate superiors over their juniors will certainly yield the desired results.

God be with you.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)