Saturday, November 14, 2015

Collectivism and the Liberal Manifesto: Major Principles

 
 
"Liberalism's offer to the adolescent and young adult is far from benign. Collectivism does not consist in mere mannerisms but is instead a permanent and defining social architecture, dangerous to liberty precisely because its principles are in direct opposition to it. Given modern liberalism's dominance in the contemporary world scene and its growing presence in western culture over the past century, it will be useful to ask again what collectivism has to offer the adolescent, whose further development requires a worldview that both inspires allegiance and resonates with his emerging identity."

After observing the recent student marches across the country demanding free college tuition and debt forgiveness, "safe spaces" free from the tyranny of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, the bullying by students to force the resignation of college administrators and teachers, one needs to understand the collectivist principles and mindset behind the anti-individualist movement that is a direct threat to Personal Liberty and Freedom.

The Liberal Manifesto: Major Principles

1. The citizens of a modern nation are, in effect, the children of a parental government; they are members of a very large family with enforceable obligations to each other. These obligations are not defined by traditional individualist western social conventions, nor by mutual consent based on moral imperatives, but are instead prescribed by liberal intellectuals and politicians through legislation, judicial decisions and the canons of political correctness.

2. The individual's relationship to government should resemble his original relationship to his parents, or the fiduciary relationship between guardian and ward. The state is a proper source from which to gratify the longings of the people for various forms of surrogate parental care. The care should encompass the entire life span from cradle to grave. It should consist of various forms of economic, social and political assistance, protection and indulgence in every major sector of life. Self-reliance and the role of individual responsibility should be diminished in favor of collective care-taking administered by the state.

3. This relationship between government and the governed properly diminishes the sovereignty of the individual in favor of the state.  As a political entity, the state is superior to the individual.  Moreover, the individual can not exist without the state. 

4. The people will be better off under the direction of government programs than if they care of themselves through cooperative arrangements of their own.  Because most citizens are not competent to run their own lives effectively they need government guidance to do what is good for them. Collective remedies coordinated by the state are nearly always preferable to those initiated by individuals on a voluntary basis.

5. Socialism and its variants with far reaching power vested in centralized government is the proper political foundation for an ordered society. Collectivism is the proper political philosophy for an ordered society. Government coercion is needed to ensure that the activities of the people achieve politically appropriate ends. Traditional property and contract rights and other protections on individual liberty against encroachment by the state must be subordinated to this collective process. 

6. It is not necessary that a good life be earned through diligent individual effort, voluntary cooperation with others, or conduct consistent with traditional moral values.  Instead, a good life is a government entitlement owed to each citizen regardless of the nature and quality of his acts and their usefulness to others. Material assets under the control of the government are to be distributed to those deemed in need of them. The beneficiaries of government handouts are entitled to them and owe no debt of gratitude to the persons who fund them.

7. Voluntary cooperation based on the consent of the parties in a transaction is not an especially important ideal and may be overridden by the coercive apparatus of the government.  Consent of all parties is not morally or legally necessary to complete a transfer of material assets for welfare purposes or to alter an individual or group's circumstances in the name of social justice. In fact, collectivist concepts of justice require that redistribution of power and social status as well as material assets should be effected regardless of the objections of those who possessed these goods prior to their transfer to others. In these cases collectivist definitions of distributive and social justice should override older considerations of earned benefits, just title, freedom of exchange, due process, rights of association and historical precedent.

8. The natural and acquired inclinations of moral persons to cooperate with each other in a framework of laws governing property rights and contracts are not the primary basis for an orderly society.  Rather, a large government regulatory apparatus, analogous to the authority of parents in a family, is needed to exercise control of the citizenry and to ensure that social justice is achieved. Where legal disputes emerge, court decisions should be determined in accordance with collectivist ideals.  Outcomes in social matters should be judged  by whether or not they promote material and social equality, aid the disadvantaged, enhance diversity, reduce envy, protect self-esteem and mitigate disparities in social status, among other considerations.

9.  Altruism is better understood as a virtue of the state, a socialized function or collective expression of the General Will embodied in government programs. Voluntary acts of compassion and charity by private individuals or groups are always inferior to the welfare activities of the state, cannot be substituted for the state's welfare machinery, and cannot meet the welfare needs of the people.  Massive welfare programs administered by the state at taxpayer expense are necessary to meet the needs of the disadvantaged.

10. An individual's destructive actions against himself or others are not primarily the consequence of his personal choices, values, goals or other mental and emotional processes occurring in his own mind, but are instead caused by negative influences impinging upon him from his culture. He should therefore not be held responsible for his bad actions.  Rather, he and others should be encouraged to view his actions as the collective fault of a society that has in some way oppressed, neglected, deprived or exploited him.

11. Traditional ideas about the separateness and sovereignty of the individual are invalid.  Although his is a physically separate entity, and individual's political significance derives from his membership in a collective; the collective is the primary economic, social and political unit, not the individual.  Rights formerly held to reside in the individual, such as property rights in his person and possessions, are not longer primary but are to be subordinated to the people as understood by government officials takes precedence over the rights of the individual and may properly displace older ideals of liberty and procedural justice whenever necessary. Claims to personal sovereignty and the right to have a life of one's own are selfish and therefor morally wrong.

12. Materials subsides are to be paid to persons designated by the state and based on need, suffering or inequality, not on merit or desert. Reparations to persons deemed by the state to have been wronged may be made by forcible transfers of property from other persons who are assigned responsibility for injuries or disadvantage even though they have personally done no wrong. In general, rights to life, liberty and property enshrined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights should be set aside in favor of whatever collective rights are asserted by the state.

13. Human nature is highly malleable.  Not only can it be molded to accommodate collectivist ideals without contradicting that nature and without adverse consequences, but adherence to collective ideals will improve human nature. Government programs based on social science research can and should alter behavior toward politically approved ends.  Liberal insights are superior to traditional conservative beliefs, in part because liberal policy makers are intellectually superior to conservatives and other opponents.

14. Prescriptions on how to act and how not to act should not be based on the distilled ethical and moral wisdom of the centuries but should instead be decided by liberal intellectuals and promulgated through the canons of political correctness or evolved through the creation of alternative lifestyles in a spirit of cultural diversity.  Many behaviors traditionally counted as offensive, immoral, or illegal should now be deemed acceptable.  Behaviors of this type are not to be judged in regard to their moral or ethical implications or by their tendency to disrupt social order, but should instead by explained by the motivations behind them and understood as expressions of human freedom, healthy absence of inhibition, progressive morality, or defensive reactions to adverse social influences. Sexual freedom, in particular, should be given wide latitude among consenting adults even if its exercise results in extramarital pregnancies and single parent families, increases the incidence of sexually transmitted disease, violates traditional marriage vows, invades stable unions or destroys family integrity.

15. Established traditions of decency and courtesy are unduly restrictive given modern liberal insights. Traditional courtesies may also be rejected because they support class distinctions that oppose the liberal ideal of social equality.

16. In general, traditional social ideals, ethical standards and prohibitions of conscience are to be regarded as outmoded, opposed to the evolution of progressive social codes, and not applicable to modern social systems. In fact, there are not objective grounds on which to favor one set of societal arrangements over another. Traditional moral and ethical codes such as the Golden Rule may be rewritten ad libitum in view of insights gained from contemporary relativistic and multicultural constructs. 

17. Traditional moral, ethical and legal codes have not been promulgated for such reasonable purposes as ensuring social order or promoting good will or human happiness, not have they been based on a rational understanding of human nature and the conditions of human existence.  Instead, they are essentially political constructs created for manipulative purposes by persons who seek power over others.  Equality before the law, for example, is a fiction even as an ideal and represents an apparently ethical cover for what is in fact the exploitation of certain subgroups such as women and ethnic or racial minorities.

18. Good character as an embodiment of certain virtues is not an important ideal.  Individual dispositions to behave with honesty, integrity, responsibility, self-direction, mutuality and dependability in interactions with others are not to be especially valued or praised. More generally, one should avoid judging the actions of another person based on standards of ethics, morals or virtue.  Condemning the behavior of another person on grounds of right and wrong or good and evil is harsh, mean-spirited and judgemental and may diminish self-esteem, but this criticism of others by liberals should not itself be subjected to disapproval because it is needed to achieve social justice.  Economic, social or political disadvantages should be sought for as explanations for bad behavior by any definition, and such explanations are to be understood as excuses for that behavior.  Because such hardship and disadvantage are caused by other persons and other factors, the individual committing the bad act should receive sympathy, not blame.  Society's primary response to such actions should be to treat or rehabilitate the offender, not to punish him or require him to make restitution for his wrongdoing.  Persons who have been disadvantaged  should not be held to ordinary legal duties or obligations if such responsibilities would be burdensome to them.

19. These considerations also apply to alleged good and evil behavior between nations and among religious and ethnic groups, including various types of terrorist acts that inflict devastating injury and death on apparently innocent persons.  Moral and ethical judgements about what individuals or groups do on the international scene should be withheld pending further analysis of their motives and the economic, social and political context in which the acts occur.

20. In the interest of social justice, it is the duty of the state to determine which groups or classes of  persons suffer from deficits in material security and in social and political status and to cure these deficits through government initiatives. The state should provide benefits to persons of its choosing based on perceived need, or on certain types of inequality, or on past, present, or ancestral hardship.  Traditional concepts of merit and desert are themselves unjust, fraudulent and injurious to the sensibilities of those who are unfairly blamed for wrong doing, self-neglect, laziness or other self-defeating tendencies.  These tendencies, if present, should not be condemned as weakness, immaturity, irresponsibility or moral turpitude.

21. More generally, time-honored conceptions of justice as reflected in common sense, ethical philosophy, judicial practice and the history of political thought are invalid.  It is not true, for example, that a person should be rewarded or punished in proportion to the good or evil he causes.  It is also not true that the outcome of a transaction is fair just because the processes that lead to its completion are fair and the decisions made by the parties to the transaction are informed, voluntary and competent.  Instead, justice must be based on considerations of need, inequality, disadvantage and suffering.  An outcome that leaves one or more parties to transaction in a disadvantaged, unequal, or needy state is unjust by definition. To satisfy need, remove inequality and eliminate and compensate for suffering, it is proper to take economic goods from persons who own them according to older standards of just title and give them to persons or groups now deemed deserving by government officials. It is also proper to lower the social and/or political status of certain persons and elevate the social and political status of certain other persons based on considerations of need, equality, disadvantage and suffering.  Adjustments of this type are proper even if those demoted in their status have not committed and social or political wrongs.  The ideal of equalizing disparities in status justifies the realignment.

22. Traditional ideals of self-determination, self-responsibility and self-reliance are invalid.  These concepts are illusory anyway, since the manner in which any one person conducts himself cannot be attributed to particular characteristics that differentiate him from others.  What appears to be virtuous effort or moral integrity, for example, is merely a complex result of societal influences, expressed through the individual.  His own effort, talent, ingenuity, risk taking, persistence, courage, or other apparent personal contributions to his success, including those he sustains in the face of hardship are illusory. (Obama: You didn't build that.) Furthermore, the fruits of an individual's labors should be shared with others without compensation because his talents, virtues and abilities are actually collective assets belonging to the population as a whole, and his achievements are more reasonably attributed to the collective process from which he benefits.

23. Economic activity should be to a great extent be carefully controlled by government.  Where the means of production are not owned outright by the state, they should be closely regulated despite burdensome administrative costs, interference with prior ownership and contractual agreements, or negative effects on allocation of resources and incentives to economic activity. Adverse effects on the freedom with which individuals can run their economic lives, even when severe, are appropriate concessions to the ideals of government regulation, especially where redistribution of material wealth is concerned.  Likewise, the distribution of what is produced should be strongly influenced by government, as should the nature of what is produced, the persons who do the producing, the sale price at which products are offered, and the margins of profit enjoyed at each state between production and consumption. Competition at all levels of economic activity, including that arise from innovation, is unduly harsh, demands excessively hard work, and may cause financial and other hardships through job loss, business failure and career change. Comprehensive government protections are needed to mitigate these dangers. It is well known that capitalists and the rich rise to wealth and power on the backs of the poor.  The policy that wealth should be passed on to the heirs of one's choice wrongfully deprives others of material goods to which they are entitled by collectivist principles.

24. Every individual is born into the world with a legally enforceable obligation to take care of an indefinite number of persons whom he will never meet and with whom he will establish no voluntary association or agreement.  He will be entitled to only a portion of the fruits of his own labor, and that percentage will be determined by government policy.  Citizenship in a collectivist society properly implies that as soon as an adolescent makes the transition to adulthood, a substantial portion of his time, effort and ability becomes rightfully indentured to others.  The persons to whom he is obligated will be identified for him by the state according to their membership in a group or class deemed deserving.  The more economically productive one is, the greater his liability to others.  This system is designed to combat the greed that causes productive persons to want to keep what they earn.

25. The primary purpose of politics is the creation of an ideal collective society run by a liberal elite committed to a just redistribution of economic, social, and political goods.  This redistribution is to be achieved along egalitarian lines using the coercive power of the state. Traditional negative (Jeffersonian) Rights that protect individual liberty through guarantees of freedom from encroachment by others should not limit the state's actions and must instead yield to positive rights that guarantee freedom from material need and from disadvantages in social status and political power. Government enforced entitlements are to be the primary means to these ends.

26. The traditional social institutions of marriage and family are not very important in the dynamics of social progress and should yield to progressive alternative lifestyles.  The traditional bond of marriage is too restrictive and does not allow for more diverse social and sexual experience, including the self-discovery that comes from relating to a variety of partners. Similarly, children do not need parents who are deeply committed to each other or to an intact traditional family.  If a child needs attention, love, affection, guidance, protection, training, education, medical care, socialization and acculturation, these needs can be met by daycare facilities, village programs, summer camps, neighbors, sitters, teachers, social workers and other staff in public schools.  Moral and ethical values and the family's racial, ethnic and cultural traditions can be acquired from these and other sources and do not have to be taught by parents or extended family.  Finally, traditional religious training instills a narrow, prejudicial and judgemental view of morality and culture and should be replaced by more enlightened secular philosophies, especially those that promote cultural diversity. Morality and ethics should be seen as evolving value systems subject to progressive insights. There are no moral absolutes for human relating, nor is it possible to make a valid argument for the superiority of one moral code over another.

Based on these considerations, the question of whether modern liberalism prepares the emerging adult to live in freedom must be answered in the negative.  Far from an interest in preparing its children for lives of genuine liberty based on personal autonomy, self-reliance and cooperation by consent, the liberal agenda promotes an uncritical childlike accommodation to the rules, regulations and expropriations essential to the collectivist state and and equally childlike dependency on a society that likens itself to an all embracing family.  Mature competence is achieved only with difficulty, if at all, under these conditions. By the very nature of its operations, every government program comes with an increase in the state's power and a decrease in the domain of individual freedom: the will of the government officials is substituted for that of the individual citizen whenever and wherever a government program tells him what he may or may not do. With directives for nearly every conceivable situation, the programs of modern government constantly interfere with the individual's most immediate experience of personal freedom: that of making his own decisions at the countless choice points of daily living.  These intrusions undermine his growth to competence by extending the dependency of childhood well into his adult years and even for the duration of his life.  More specifically, the collectivist society diminishes the young adult's opportunities for continued development of autonomy, initiative and industry; subordinates this personal sovereignty to the authority of the collective; and defines him politically by his obligations to the state.
 
- Lyle H. Rossiter, JR., M.D.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Therapeutic Alienation in Black America

"The nut of the issue is that these people want neither justice nor healing. What people like this are seeking is, sadly, not what they claim to be seeking. They seek one thing: indignation for its own sake.

"And that means that the alienation that they are expressing is disconnected from current reality. We can only truly understand black America’s past forty years, its present, and its prospects for the future if we grasp that this kind of disconnection is very common, can have seismic effects upon the fate of a group, and can inhabit even the most brilliant of minds.

However, people do not behave this way to seek money or power. The reason this way of thinking has such a foothold in black American ideology is pain.

To black leaders a hundred years ago, the [Mizzou] episode would have looked as anthropologically baffling as sacrificing virgins. There was, however, one area of shared understanding between black leaders of yore and the [Mizzou] protesters. Centuries of slavery and segregation left a stain on the black American psyche, as well-known to blacks in 1903 as 2015. There are so very many books and articles exploring the damage that the White Man did to black Americans’ self-esteem that I will assume that even people far to the left of me will not even begin to dispute this simple proposition. That insecurity about being black is why this kind of alienation for its own sake— curiously exaggerated, melodramatic, and heedless of reason— is so attractive to so many black Americans today. It assuages a person who is quietly unsure that they are worthy or okay, by giving them something or someone to always feel better than. They seek this because slavery and segregation left black America with a hole in its soul— and why would it have not? But the fact remains that there is little connection between today’s America and their alienation . It survives on its own steam.

This is therapeutic alienation: alienation unconnected to, or vastly disproportionate to, real-life stimulus, but maintained because it reinforces one’s sense of psychological legitimacy, via defining oneself against an oppressor characterized as eternally depraved.

Therapeutic alienation is, itself, blind to race, and it was hardly unknown before the late 1960s. Alienation has always sometimes been as much theatrical as proactive. Therapeutic alienation can be as white as Anton Chekhov’s Masha in The Seagull, “in mourning for her life ” mostly because it is an endlessly interesting way of being. Therapeutic alienation is the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Even those most sympathetic to the countercultural movement of the sixties know that there was a goodly amount of performance for its own sake involved. It’s part of how human beings are.

Therefore, the question at hand is why therapeutic alienation acquired such a hold on black America only in the sixties. Insecurity alone could not have been the reason. Therapeutic alienation was not as widespread or influential in black America in 1903, or 1943, or even 1963, the year of the March on Washington— at which times black people had plenty of clear and present reasons to feel insecure. Back in the day, the idea that it was progressive to obsessively tabulate black failure and propose that the only solution was for whites to become blind to race was rare to unknown in leading black ideology. Those who purported that blacks were incapable of surmounting the obstacles were generally tarred as defeatist— witness the reaction of much of the black punditocracy to Richard Wright’s work. Most blacks were more interested in fighting the concrete barrier of legalized discrimination than the abstract psychological happenstance of racism.

Two new conditions were necessary for alienation among blacks to so often drift from its moorings in the concrete and become the abstract, hazy “race thing” that whites just “don’t get.”

One condition was that blacks had to be prepared to embrace therapeutic alienation, and ironically, this could only have been when conditions improved for blacks. When racism was omnipresent and overt, it would have been psychological suicide for blacks to go around exaggerating what was an all-too-real problem." John McWhorter, Winning The Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America

Monday, November 9, 2015

Natural Law, Free Will and the Non-Aggression Principle

In this essay I will explain my viewpoint on root problems and real solutions using knowledge I gained through research including Mark Passio's talk on Natural Law, Free Will and Personal Responsibility, which incorporates the concept of balancing the masculine and feminine through Care, Knowledge, and Courage (Emotions, Thoughts, Actions = Trinity). These concepts will also address the issue of Unjust Laws, which manifests in tyrannical government edicts like The War on Drugs. One of the examples I will use will be the the much discussed problems in the black and minority community and why these problems persist and continue to get worse, not better. My contention: Taking away moral agency, which is a tenant of Natural Law that people make choices and act out behaviors because every person possess Free Will, implies that blacks and minorities are unable to succeed by their merit alone, and puts all the blame on external factors such as Institutionalized Racism, White Privilege, and Cultural Hegemony which is included in the dogma of Critical Race Theory. 

The working definition of Natural Law is "The body of universal, non man-made, binding, and immutable Laws which act as the governing dynamic for the consequences of human behavior (conscience)". This includes The Non Regression Principle (Sacred Feminine and the Golden Rule) and the principle that Freedom and Morality are directly proportional. The truth of Natural Law is that there is Right and Wrong action, Good and Evil, Moral and Immoral choices.  Facts and principles are not subjective, but objective and universal. To accept Natural Law as the First Principle of the universe means that moral relativism is a erroneous belief. For example, when you initiate violent action against another person and/or their personal property and cause them harm you are violating the Non Aggression Principle and behaving immorally.  Behavior --> Was something harmed? --> Yes --> What it yours? --> No --> That is a Wrong Action. Behavior is the Action of Free Will.


Balance and harmony in the Macro (society, community) and Micro (Self) levels of existence is the absence of contradiction between Emotions, Thoughts and Actions. This is the balance between the Sacred Masculine and Sacred Feminine, or the balance between the Left brain and Right brain. When the two hemispheres are out of balance you see extremism in Emotion, Thought and Actions. 



When there are problems manifested in the world most people can describe the symptoms and the "prison" in accurate detail. They can tell you how it works very well, but they can't tell you why the problems are happening.  When asked, "Why?" there are incorrect answers and assumptions.  In the case of the crime, poverty, fatherlessness, family breakdown, and strife in the black community the answer most people profess is "Systemic Racism" and oppression by the "White Patriarchy", but that is not the root cause. How do you solve a problem?

1) Recognize that there IS a problem. Fear-based denial of the problem must be first dealt with and conquered. Recognize change first starts at the Micro (Self) level then aggregates into the Macro (Community, Society) level. Recognizing a problem requires Self ReFlection ("to look at again"), which includes pain, suffering, and and conscious thought. The majority of the time, the problems that manifest in people's lives are not due to external factors, but may lie within themselves and their own immoral actions. This is having a "Conscience", which means "with knowledge". There are no cop-outs or excuses for immoral behavior. When one lives in fear-based denial one can have the mindset, "I have suffered, so therefore I shall cause suffering." This may or may not be a conscious thought, but it manifests in different mental and physical ways. Cycles of systemic suffering and violence are caused by Willful Ignorance with Knowledge and SelfReflection being the key to correcting the cycle. 

2) Recognize the symptoms being displayed are merely effects of underlying causes. Therefore, instead of simply trying to treat the symptoms, make an accurate diagnosis. ("Dia" = through, by way of, "Gnosis" = knowledge)  We co-create our shared reality in the aggregate.  Individual choices either based in Harmony or opposition to Natural Law influence the quality of the shared experience.  This dynamic acts as a perfect expression of the Principle of Correspondence: "As above, so below.  As below, so above."  For a change to take place numbers are required (majority of people that recognize, diagnose and treat the problem). 

3) Through knowledge acquired via accurate diagnosis, take required Action necessary to rectify the causal factors which led to the manifestation of the problem.

As an example, how can "systemic racism" as a nebulous cause, especially as defined in Critical Race Theory, be rectified to solve the literal causal factors which led to the manifested Reality? As people say, Change Starts at Home. How can diagnosing the problem as a Macro, "Racism", be accurate? How can Critical Race Theory be a behavioral symptom when it is a Theory (a Perception, not a Truth). 

So, what is Critical Race Theory? Critical Race Theory "recognizes that racism is ingrained in the fabric and system of U.S. society.  The individual racist need not EXIST to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture." CRT came from Critical Theory and Radical Feminism and borrows from such European philosophers and radical Marxists such as Gramsci, Derrida, Reich, and Marcuse to name a few. White Privilege is "white people, by virtue of the fact that they are white have a privileged position in American Culture." 

The three main hypotheses of Critical Race Theory:
1) Racism is ordinary, not aberrational.  This falsely assumes that Evil (racism) is ordinary and the norm, not Good. Evil is not necessary. The only people who believe that Evil must exist in order for people to recognize the Good are self-loathing and lack self-respect. Claiming that racism is an ordinary state of experiencing life as a minority encourages blacks to distrust and blame whites.  It caters to those who embrace only emotional rhetoric (Right Brain imbalance) and not empirical facts. Critical race theory also serves as a guilt mechanism for whites in order to extract apologies for "invisible" wrongs that they can not perceive due to "White Privilege". 

2) "Interest Convergence" is when racism advances the interests of both white "elites" and white "working class people" so large segments of society don't do anything to "eradicate" it. This is another false assumption based in a false Reality, for it again, generalizes a whole 'race' of people which is disingenuous and dangerous. This tenant of CRT is based on Gramsci's theory of Cultural Hegemony and belief in Historicism. Cultural Hegemony states that cultural values of the bourgeois are based on folklore, popular culture and religion, therefore those needed to be deconstructed and the the proletariat create their own separate culture. Historicism is the theory that the knowledge of the world is not derived from our relation to objective reality, but rather from social relations between the bearers of those concepts. As a result there is no such thing as "human nature" or "natural law", which segways to the third tenant: 

3) Race is a "social construction", which purports that race is a product of social "thought" and "relations", not objective, inherent, or fixed.  Race corresponds to no biological or genetic reality.  This last tenet completely obliterates the entire Left Brain Hemisphere (the Sacred Masculine) and is an example of extreme Right Brain (Feminine) Pathological Imbalance. There can be no truth or balance in a theory if one side of the Brain is completely ignored.  For more reading on genetics and differences between race, refer to Taboo by John Entine and The Bell Curve by Charles Murray. 


Nature versus Nurture? What is the nature of a human being? That is akin to asking 'What is the nature of of a Coffee Pot?' or 'What is the nature of a laptop computer?' Human nature is not inherently Evil or Good, just like a coffee pot or laptop is not inherently Evil or Good. Instead, we should consider the operating conditions, or the environment in which human beings exist, which influences behavior to a great extent, thus creating the 'human condition'. We can use the analogy that human beings are similar to computers, in that human beings are 'programmable'. Good in --> Good out.  Garbage in --> Garbage out.  What gets put into a person's mind via its environment (culture) becomes their programming and determines behavior (output).  If the human being has a erroneous "file system" (traumatic childhood, harmful environment growing up during the formative years), a bad "operating system" (culture), and a bad "software program" (rigid and dogmatic beliefs), their "output" (behavior) onto the "screen" of life will also be bad and will contribute to the deteriorating conditions on a mass scale.  Like a computer, the behavior of a human being will largely depend upon its programming, which is the quality of the information put into it which enables it to process and create efficiently. 

So, who is ultimately responsible, at fault, or deserving of blame for a violation of the Non Aggression Principle and Natural Law which resulted in the harm of others? When viewed in the perspective of Natural Law and Behavior it becomes impossible to blame something like "White Privilege", "Critical Race Theory", or "The Patriarchy" because those concepts do not, and can not wield personal responsibility or moral culpability, and they never will.  Personal responsibility lies with the individual.  For example, John Q decides to take heroin. By taking heroin, John's behavior is not forced upon him by "racism" but by personal choice.  Choices have consequences. Now, we can not say John's behavior is a violation of the Non Aggression Principle because his choice to do heroin harms only himself, not others.  You can argue that if John abuses heroin that causes collateral damage by affecting his family, relationships, and well being, but it is not the initiation of Force. But if John physically abuses his son, that is the initiation of Force against another person and that is morally Wrong. As well, if John is high on heroin and steals or vandalizes someone else's property, that in the initiation of Force and is morally Wrong.  We can have a discussion at a later time as to what Morally Right disciplinary action should be taken with John to prevent him from initiating violence on others.

Therefore, what if the State puts John in a cage (jail) for breaking a "law" that dictates that smoking Cannabis is illegal? Based on our example of John we agree that by smoking Cannabis he is not violating the NAP so being jailed for Cannabis is Morally Wrong. The State has the power to arbitrarily dictate punishments and enforce Morally Unjust laws, which affect every citizen, not just blacks and minorities.  So, the War on Drugs and many other government laws are not Racist, but Morally Unjust. Once one applies Natural Law and the NAP to problems, the causes and effects become much clearer and easier to determine.

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Is "Institutionalized Racism" the Problem in the Black Community? Part 1: The Family

I now would like to address the contention that black & minority socioeconomic problems are due to "Racism" and that the Criminal Justice System is "Racist". 

When one blames Racism (white supremacy) for the issues in the black and minority community such as poverty, crime, poor education, high incarceration rates, one implies several things:

1) One is taking away moral agency for an entire group of peoples and the fact that people make choices because of Free Will, which implies that blacks and minorities are unable to suceed by their own merits

2) It ignores other massive influential factors and imputs into an extremely complicated socioeconomic issue such as single parent homes and an epidemic of fatherlessness.

3) The fact that unjust laws (not racist laws) such as prohibition create abusive enforcers and incentivize arrests and imprisonment for every citizen.  The War on Drugs is not inherently "racist". 

First, I am going to address problems with the Family and fatherlessness. 

Virtually every major social pathology, violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, and teen pregnancy is strongly associated with fatherlessness.  A majority of prisoners, juvenile deliquents, high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. [1] The prevalency of deliquency among children from broken homes is 10-15% higher. [2]  An estimated 70 percent of the juveniles in state reform institutions, 72 percent of adolescent murderers, and 60 percent of America's rapists grew up without fathers.[3] These statistics apply for all races. The connection of social pathologies with fatherless homes is so strong that some researchers have concluded that the likelihood of children's involvement in crime is determined by the extent of both parents' involvement in their children's lives, rather than income or race. [4]

To address the black community specifically, "Unfortunately, many in the black community embraced the liberal/progressive social scientist view, that all the aforementioned negative outcomes are results of external factors, like systematic racism, discriminatory laws, an unjust criminal justice system, and glass ceilings in the marketplace to name a few.

While those factors would have been undeniable in our Nations’ not too distant past, and I cannot deny that they still exist in some small pockets of our society. Never the less; to zero in on them in our post-civil rights era with complete disregard of the glaring internal factors (family breakdown) is socially dishonest and scientifically lazy." [5]

According to government statistics, 72 percent of African-American children are born to unmarried mothers.  Compared with 17 percent of Asians, 29 percent of whites, 53 percent of Hispanics and 66 percent of Native Americans were born to unwed mothers in 2008. Nearly 5 million black children, or 54 per cent, live in a one-parent, matriarchal family.

"A report from the Institute for American Values Center for Marriage and Families notes that over the past 50 years, “the percentage of black families headed by married couples declined from 78 percent to 34 percent.”

In the 30 years from 1950 to 1980, households headed by black women who never married jumped from 3.8 per thousand to 69.7 per thousand." [6] 

Linda Chavez, the former head of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission argues that the “chief cause of poverty today among blacks is no longer racism: it is the breakdown of the traditional family.” Many studies have shown that single parent households are more likely to be in poverty or close to it because of the splitting of incomes to 2 households instead of 1 family household. 

Juan Williams, often accused of “blaming the poor” states: “They say this answer puts pressure on the poor. They say this with a straight face, even though nearly 70 percent of black children are born to single women, damning a high number of them to poverty, bad schools, and bad influences. They say this knowing that in 1964, in a far more hostile and racist America, 82 per cent of black households had both parents in place and close to half of those households owned a business.” [7]

Distinguised black economist Walter Williams said, "It does the poor no favors to blame their problems on racism, which has been diminishing as the pathologies got worse. In 1940, the black illegitimacy rate was around 14 percent. Now, it’s 75 percent. In 1870, right after slavery, 70 to 80 percent of black families were intact. Now only 30 percent of black kids live in two-parent families. Some 51 percent of homicide victims are black, as are 95 percent of their killers. You can’t blame this on white people. The rotten schools black kids attend are mostly in cities where black adults are in control and spending a lot of taxpayers’ money on those schools.” [8]

Faced with these sobering facts it is disingenious to deny the effect of fatherlessness and illegitimacy on the black community and it does more harm than good to ignore these facts because of "Policital Correctness".  I will continue this essay in a subsequent email.

For further research and reading on fatherlessness:

1. http://www.fathersforlife.org/fatherhood/fatherlessness_table_contents.htm

2. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st267?pg=3

References: 

1. Father Facts (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: National Fatherhood Initiative, 1996); Cynthia Daniels, ed., Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness in America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).

2. L. Edward Wells and Joseph H. Rankin, “Families and Delinquence: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Broken Homes,” Social Problems, vol. 38, no. 1 (1991).

3. Allen Beck, Susan Kline and Lawrence Greenfield, Survey of Youth in Custody 1987 (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, September 1988; Dewey Cornell et al., “Characteristics of Adolescents Charged with Homicide,” Behavioral Sciences and the Law, vol. 5, 1987, pages 11-23; Nicholas Davidson, “Life Without Father,” Policy Review, 1990.

4. Elaine Ciulla Kamarck and William Galston, Putting Children First: A Progressive Family Policy for the 1990s, 1990, Progressive Policy Institute.

5. http://thyblackman.com/2012/06/16/fatherlessness-the-disease-thats-decimated-the-black-community-now-threatens-the-whole-nation/

6. http://www.reengageinc.org/research/IAV_Brief6.pdf

7. "Studies reflect the Damage of the One Parent Fatherless Family", http://www.commdiginews.com/life/studies-reflect-the-damage-of-the-one-parent-fatherless-family-17573/

8. "Walter Williams", http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/vita.html

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Cultural Marxism: Converting "Dissidents"

"We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn towards those that disagree with us." - Lenin

[http://rlv.zcache.com/thought_police_poster-rdc71cfdb00c2442489eeb8f5a2eb68b6_vpoez_8byvr_512.jpg]

Robert Jay Lifton, studied the dynamics of POW brainwashing in the Korean War and in Chinese camps. He identified a sequence of 10 factors that would reliably break down the personality and rebuild it in the image of the brain washers (Cultural Marxists, today). As a thought experiment, think about the idea of supposed "White Guilt" and "Institutionalized Racism" that is being pushed right now as a "fact".

1. Assault on identity - It's wrong for whites to have any white "pride" or be proud of European heritage because of capitalism, slavery, and colonialism. All positive accomplishments are negated.
2. Guilt - Constantly remind whites about the horrors perpetrated by the colonialists & slave owners in America's past and blame them for poverty and crime in minority communities.
3. Self-betrayal - The person begins to accept the guilt from being constantly reminded of it and surrounded by others who have already confessed.
4. Breaking point - The person finally succumbs to the mental assault and horrible feelings of guilt. They will do and say anything to relieve the pain.
5. Leniency - Now the person has suffered and agonized long enough, they deserve a short reprieve. A reward for suffering.
6. The compulsion to confess - The person is supported by the community to "come out" and "own" his/her "guilt" and be accepted.
7. The channeling of guilt - It's "noble" to admit guilt and now they see it in others.
8. Re-education, logical dishonoring - The person is now taught Critical Race Theory as fact, and embrace the illogical education they previously rejected.
9.  Progress and Harmony
10. Final confession and rebirth 

I don't believe it can be any clearer than that.  We can now use this model to examine the way Progressive Cultural Marxists have pushed "Sexism", "Islamophobia", "Homophobia", "Xenophobia" and "Racism" as mental and psychological disorders.  Now, we all know there are small percentages of people who do truly hate, but it's ridiculous to claim it as a country-wide and world-wide psychological problem.

If you dare to dissent and deny that these problems exist as endemic, you WILL be labeled as a thought criminal and mentally ill by the Cultural Marxists.  They will lie, ridicule, slander, insult, and scorn you until your courage wanes and your dissident spirit is broken. Then they will attempt to use the 10 brainwashing tactics to reform you, because they believe you to be pathologically deranged.

We have to know that these, along with Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" and the Cloward-Piven strategy are being used at every single point, every aspect in life by these insane Marxists that want to "Fundamentally Change" America as we know it.  Once you see how they do it, and see behind their "tolerance" and "diversity" double-speak, you will understand this is a fight for the very soul of America and its people.  We must continue to be mentally strong and resilient in the face on non-stop attempts to break our spirit and relinquish our core virtues, values, and morals (even the Law & Constitution).

To a logical Libertarian conservative or just a regular person who values personal freedom, wants to be left alone, respects others choices and doesn't want to "change" anyone's belief system and thus is not in the thrall of the "progressive" mindset, this mentality is frightening and dangerous.  To us, we think, "Who in their right mind could want to police peoples' very thoughts? Who desires more control over peoples lives? How can they not just see and understand the facts I'm presenting"  Below is a review of the book, The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness.

"For years I have tried to discuss rationally with liberals/socialists. The only result I could get was to doubt my arguments, no matter how solid they were, because reason didn't seem powerful enough to move them. I could see that the liberal agenda was economically unsound and even against the basic facts of human nature. Just when I was giving up any possibility of ever understanding the liberal mind and its irrational assaults on reason and human nature, I came across Dr. Rossiter's book.
For the first time I could confirm a long held impression that liberals have some problem in their way of thinking. The Liberal Mind convincingly states that what appears to be just normal people worried about real social and political problems is in fact a neurosis which manifests itself in trying to manipulate those who just want to live their lives autonomously and cooperatively by attacking their freedom. Dr. Rossiter gives a complete description of signs, symptoms and causes of this neurosis. And a didactical one, for he emphasizes and repeats key concepts all through the book, so that when introducing new concepts the fundamentals are never out of sight.

Anyone who still understands man as an autonomous and cooperative being must read this book. The Liberal Mind is a wonderful guide through the sophisms the liberal neurosis creates in the mind of those affected by it, even if the liberal agenda has already dominated the mentality of almost a whole country. "
These are people who literally want to control what you choose to think and do, while at the same time claiming they are the "tolerant" ones, fighting for the freedoms of the oppressed, poor, and minorities.

The Liberal Mind is the first in-depth examination of the major political madness of our time: The radical left’s efforts to regulate the people from cradle to grave. To rescue us from our troubled lives, the liberal agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions. Radical liberalism thus assaults the foundations of civilized freedom. Given its irrational goals, coercive methods and historical failures, and given its perverse effects on character development, there can be no question of the radical agenda's madness. Only an irrational agenda would advocate a systematic destruction of the foundations on which ordered liberty depends. Only an irrational man would want the state to run his life for him rather than create secure conditions in which he can run his own life. Only an irrational agenda would deliberately undermine the citizen’s growth to competence by having the state adopt him. Only irrational thinking would trade individual liberty for government coercion, sacrificing the pride of self-reliance for welfare dependency. Only a madman would look at a community of free people cooperating by choice and see a society of victims exploited by villains. [From The Liberal Mind; The Psychological Causes of Political Madness by Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., MD]

[Relevant Links]

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Lower Taxes = Higher Revenue (No, really!): The Laffer Curve

Fact: People change their behavior based on actions.
So, what really happens when taxes are lowered? Based on the propaganda from the "Left" and "Progressives", you would think that raising taxes significantly would generate more revenue and that would be the logical step in a stagnant economy and a large deficit.  In fact, the exact opposite is true.  The Laffer Curve is a simple economic model with proven positive historical economic results. 

1) The basic premise is: Less (Average) Taxes = More Output  > More Output = More Revenue
According to the Laffer Curve, there is a "sweet spot" to maximize revenue (see graph).  Raising taxes too much penalizes participation in taxed activities (working, starting a business, investing, spending, etc.) and increases the need for expenditures (unemployment, medicare, social services, etc.)
2) A high tax rate on a small tax base, the top 10% percentile, (and what progressive democratic "socialists" label the evil 1%) generates LESS revenue.
A lower tax rate on a large tax base generates MORE revenue.

"Supply-side economics was never just about slashing tax rates. As Laffer told me in a recent interview: “We also emphasized sound money, free trade and deregulation. It was a package of reforms to clear away the obstacles to increased economic output.” [2]

Lets give a few examples.
A) The Harding-Coolidge tax cuts in 1920. This cut the tax rate on the highest-income bracket through to the lowest-income bracket. This increased the GDP, unemployment decreased thus putting more workers in the tax-base, and improved everyone's general quality of life significantly.
[http://www.heritage.org/~/media/images/reports/2004/bg1765/figure5.ashx]

B) Kennedy tax cuts in 1964. In the 4 years following JFK's tax cuts, the top tax bracket went from 94% > 70%, as well as lowering taxes for all other brackets as well.  The government revenue increased 9% annually and at a faster rate. 

[http://www.heritage.org/~/media/images/reports/2004/bg1765/figure7.ashx]

C) Regan tax cuts.  During the 1980's the country was suffering from Stagflation, which is high inflation, high interest rates, and high unemployment.  Reducing income taxes and capital gains taxes in 1981 helped launch what we now appreciate as one of the greatest and longest periods of wealth creation in world history.

"Prior to the tax cut, the economy was choking on high inflation, high Interest rates, and high unemployment. All three of these economic bellwethers dropped sharply after the tax cuts. The unemployment rate, which peaked at 9.7 percent in 1982, began a steady decline, reaching 7.0 percent by 1986 and 5.3 percent when Reagan left office in January 1989.

Inflation-adjusted revenue growth dramatically improved. Over the four years prior to 1983, federal income tax revenue declined at an average rate of 2.8 percent per year, and total government income tax revenue declined at an annual rate of 2.6 percent. Between 1983 and 1986, federal income tax revenue increased by 2.7 percent annually, and total government income tax revenue increased by 3.5 percent annually.
The most controversial portion of Reagan's tax revolution was reducing the highest marginal income tax rate from 70 percent (when he took office in 1981) to 28 percent in 1988. However, Internal Revenue Service data reveal that tax collections from the wealthy, as measured by personal income taxes paid by top percentile earners, increased between 1980 and 1988--despite significantly lower tax rates."

Reducing capital gains taxes in 1997 further increased asset values, productivity, and private sector capital investments than in the previous decade starting in 1987.
During periods of tax increases, budget offices consistently over-estimate revenues because they fail to consider economic feedback effects incorporated in the Laffer Curve. 

"Seldom in economics does real life conform so conveniently to theory as this capital gains example does to the Laffer Curve. Lower tax rates change people's economic behavior and stimulate economic growth, which can create more--not less--tax revenues."
 Sources:
1. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/06/the-laffer-curve-past-present-and-future
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-laffer-curve-at-40-still-looks-good/2014/12/26/4cded164-853d-11e4-a702-fa31ff4ae98e_story.html
3.  Supply-Side Economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply-side_economics

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Socratic Dialogue: Socialism is Theft



A: I believe in Socialism and equality, yes! We need to make Wall Street and greedy corporations pay their Fair Share so the majority of the population doesn't suffer while the 1% have basically all the wealth in America. It's completely unfair!
Q: So, as an example, you believe it is acceptable to approach a rich stranger and force them to give you an amount of money you deem "fair" so you can spread it around to people who you think deserve it? Even if they don't work or produce anything of value? Just because they are unequal in wealth?
A: I've always loved Robin Hood, so yes, I agree. It's a morally grey area.  Morality is relative, it's my personal opinion.
A: I wouldn't personally steal from you!  I would actually help you, you're my friend. You're also not a millionaire or a billionaire! There is no reason to take your stuff, you're not the 1%.
Q: But theft is wrong. Stealing from me isn't any different than stealing from anyone else.
A: Most people think stealing is always wrong.  I think it's usually wrong but it all depends on the circumstances.
Q: So if we make up the rules as we go along, murder, rape, theft; all can be justified depending on the circumstances at the time.
A: No! Murder is always wrong! Rape is always wrong! It's never OK to harm another person, but theft isn't as bad as murder or rape.
Q: What if the outcome of a theft caused death or bodily harm?
A: Well, I guess you wouldn't be able to know the final outcome until it actually occurred.
Q: So, knowing the outcome of theft is uncertain, would it not be correct to say that it is always wrong?
A: I guess you are right. We don't know with one hundred percent certainty what the consequences of our actions will be.
-------------------------------------------------------
Q: The Golden Rule is a classic example of a normative principle: We should do to others what we would want others to do to us. Since I do not want my neighbor to steal my car, then it is wrong for me to steal her car. Since I would want people to feed me if I was starving, then I should help feed starving people. Using this same reasoning, I can theoretically determine whether any possible action is right or wrong. So, based on the Golden Rule, it would also be wrong for me to lie to, harass, victimize, assault, or kill others. The Golden Rule is an example of a normative theory that establishes a single principle against which we judge all actions.
A: But I think we need to transcend the idea of right and wrong.  People make their own choices.
Q: But if you want to live in a functioning society, not chaos, isn't it true people need to agree on "principles" and "rules" in how to go about their daily lives?
A: Following your line of reasoning, correct.
Q: Otherwise there would be no "civilization".
A: Yes, I guess it would be quite messy, actually. You can't really call chaos or hunter gatherer groups "civilization" in the modern sense.
Q: So if you believe in the Golden Rule, you logically have to agree that stealing is wrong, otherwise you disagree with the Golden Rule (do unto others).
A: Yes, I see.
Q: You can agree that in order for large societies to function there must be an agreement on some kind of Ethics that everyone *should* abide by. Otherwise you will be punished for disobeying the cultural agreements of The Golden Rule and Private Property Rights.
A: Logically you are making sense. I am following you.
Q: The other side of the coin is chaos and no civilization, where no one can agree on any Ethics or Moral code. So, to take the argument further, is there any circumstance where it is allowed to take someone else's property? As an example, if a person borrowed money and entered into a voluntary contract with another person or entity and never paid it back, then yes, it would be allowed because they violated the contract.
A: How about certain circumstances? What is a person was starving to death and needed to steal food from someone  or a store in order survive?
Q: Ethically, the person who is starving and on the verge of death is functioning at the basest level of existence, so he is compelled to act unethically in order to survive.  This, however, does not change the definition of said ethics and morals.
A: Ok, that makes sense.
Q: So the next question is how do we compromise and find solutions in a society that are ethical and moral?
A: I'm unsure. Laws?
Q: We know from our conversation that stealing is wrong.  It does not matter if the person is rich or poor.  The ethics don't change from person to person.
A: Based on your line of reasoning...yes.
Q: So, we must come up with solutions that do not violate these principles.  Saying "Take all the money from rich people and give it to the poor" isn't ethical or logical.  And when you accept that then there are no vague arguments for generalized redistribution of wealth based on subjective ethics or morality. So, to reiterate, 1) stealing is wrong, and 2) ethics do not change from person to person or situation to situation.  That is true equality because everyone is treated equally, or they are not.  And also, based on reasoning we can now come to an agreement on what laws are "just" and "unjust".
A: Yes.
Q: The world is a complicated place, we both agree.  The next logical step is how does a society deal with people who violate these principles and violate the Golden Rule?
A: Not sure.
Q: We can now discuss further, since we have both agreed on what these concepts are.
A: Yes.
Q: You stated earlier that you were a socialist and also that you believed stealing was justified in certain circumstances. So, based on these principles, if you agree with them, you can not believe in a socialist government because it is based on redistribution of wealth and property by force (theft).
A: Ok, but based on your argument isn't it also wrong to let people die from health complications because they can not afford health care?
Q: Hold on, we're not quite there yet!  So, how does a society take care of the indigent in an ethical way?  If we both agree on the Golden Rule, the solution can not be taking a wealthy person's money by force just because they happen to be wealthy.  If we believe in equality, we must treat everyone the same.  And this is where we get problems because society at present is not working in an ethical or equal way.
A:  Based on your argument, yes.  Based on my feelings, I think the wealthy need to pay more than they currently do, and I have wealthy friends and family.
Q: Ok, but those are your feelings, not logic.
A: Ok, right!  But some people starve and some people are so rich! There is no equilibrium!
Q:  This is where the conversation begins about equality. What is equality? Can people in society ever really be equal?  The answer is no. So if you look at equality, we start with some very simple examples.  Some people are born beautiful and they have that advantage and become models or actors. Some people are tall and athletic and have advantages in sports or physical pursuits.  Some people are born with high IQ's, or blind, deaf, poor, short, disabled, etc.
A: Sure, sure!
Q:  So we know that humanity in the most simplistic sense is not equal in advantages and traits and circumstance.  Some are at the top percentile, like geniuses, the majority of us are just average, and the small percentage at the bottom are more disadvantaged for whatever reason.
A:  True, we all have our strengths and weaknesses.
Q:  So, would it be fair and ethical to take the eyes from someone and give them to a blind person just because you wanted everyone to be equal?  It's a yes or no question.
A:  That would not be ethical, no.
Q:  So if we follow the same logic, would it be fair to take the wealth and property of someone like Bill Gates, who in the top percentile invented amazing products that have value, and give it to people who happen to have less just for the sake of equality?
A:  I see what you are saying, ok.
Q:  So I take it that your answer is no, it's not ethical to do that.  So, it's unethical to take someone else's eyes or money or beauty or intelligence and try to redistribute it.  It's ethically wrong and it's also impossible in most cases!  So logically we have concluded that the world and humanity is inherently unfair and not equal, and it's unethical to attempt to make it so by force.
A:  I see now.
Q:  This is where we have a fundamental misunderstanding at present with one group of people who believe it is "right" to take from others by force and give it to the rest.  And another group who, when faced with these dilemmas know it's unethical.  So we have come to the conclusion that we live in an unfair world.  Now how do we deal with this?
A:  Not sure! But I follow you.
Q:  So, ethically we now know socialism, at its core, and with all the emotional rhetoric is inherently unethical in its foundational principles.
A:  Yes, based on our conversation, yes!  I guess I don't really identify as a socialist, I just like some of the ideas.  The idea of taking care of everyone is a very good idea.
Q: Yes, the basis of socialism is what I said previously, you just like the rhetoric and the emotional aspect of altruism, not the logic.  The "idea" of taking care of each other is a great and noble desire.
A:  Right, so how do we go about taking care of one another? By force, or not?
Q:  Before I continue I must say that the majority of people who are against socialism know the ethical arguments, even if they can't articulate it like I just did.  They just know it's wrong and unfair.  They aren't "right wing nut jobs who hate the poor". They understand that their beliefs and the socialist model are not compatible, even if they can't articulate it in economic jargon.
A: Yeah.
Q: Ok, so for the most part, the majority of Christians are not socialist because they believe in the Golden Rule and the 10 Commandments so they are not crazy zealots either, like a lot of the progressive "left" would have everyone believe.  This is a huge misunderstanding and a reason why the two camps fight and don't philosophically get along.  The are diametrically opposed like magnets.
A: Yep.
Q:  So you can't have a cohesive society when the people can't agree on basic right and wrong.  It will eventually self-destruct from within.  We can discuss economics and corporations next time.
A: Goodnight!

Friday, October 23, 2015

Bernie Sanders: Reading Past the Campaign Slogans (Part 3)

"All power struggles need to create a "bad guy" to justify retaining their positions of power."

[Image source: http://bluestarchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Occupy_Wall_Street.jpg]
In the "us-vs-them" mentality, especially in politics, Right-vs-Left, Democrat-vs-Republican, Rich-vs-Poor, the disagreements and anger serve as a tool to divide and incite mistrust, and treats the public (you) as a means to and end: votes for political and ideological power.  As Kant rightly said, "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only".  This moral philosophy seems to fall on deaf ears in our current political climate, rife with identity politics and corruption.

Bernard Sanders is using you, preying on your hatred for the "Rich 1 Percent" in order to secure your vote and legislate via his numerous "Acts" a socialist ideology in place of what should be a free market with limited government, otherwise called a Constitutional Republic.  Continuing with the sentiments and frustration that spurred Occupy Wallstreet, Sanders' main campaign platform calls for the Rich 1% and Wall Street to pay their "Fair Share".  But what does this actually mean? Calling things by their proper names is the beginning of wisdom.

Sanders said, "The fairest way to reduce wealth inequality and to rebuild the disappearing middle class, preserve our democracy, is to enact a progressive estate tax on multi-millionaires and billionaires," and "Our nation cannot survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little. We need a tax system which asks the business class to pay it's fair share of taxes." 

At face value, these statements seem perfectly logical and hit a nerve with the majority of Americans.  But: What is fair? What is equality? Logically we all know nobody is exactly equal to another.  Some people have greater intelligence, or greater beauty.  Some people are born extremely tall or athletic, giving them advantages in sports.  Some people are geniuses who invent amazing and profitable inventions.  We know that not everyone can be exceptional, and in reality the majority of us are destined to be perfectly average. For the in depth scientific study on this topic, see The Bell Curve. 

This rhetoric implies that the rich are evil.  It implies the rich and business class prey upon the lower and middle class by cheating, lying, and stealing to create their wealth.  This is pure propaganda created to incite anger, resentment, frustration, and indignation at a group of people in America that for the most part, created their wealth by hard work, ingenuity, delayed gratification, intelligence, smart investments, and creating products and services that have value.  Now, if a wealthy person makes money but doesn't produce anything of value that is stealing.  You have to ask yourself, did all the people in the say, top richest 10% of society make all their money by stealing it from the bottom 90%? No! They created value and provided services that the market and consumers demanded.  Communism preyed on the hatred and resentment of the rich Bourgeoisie, which is the class of people or the "other" that you are allowed to hate and despise.  So why not just steal from the Bourgeoisie to reduce inequality if all they do is steal from us? The faulty logic says, "I am poor because someone else is rich." This is a ridiculous zero-sum argument and lacks basic economic understanding of how markets and government actually function.  Politicians like Sanders promise to take rich peoples' money and redistribute it to the "underclass" - this is simply a bribe for your vote.  So when people say Sanders is a Communist, even though they are technically incorrect, they're not far off. 

"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." - F.A. Hayek. For further reading: The Road to Serfdom - Hayek

Thursday, October 22, 2015

On Liberty

Reading my philosophy book, I came across this great passage from John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty", written in 1859. 

"The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mindkind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty or action of any of their number, is self-protection.  That the only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised ove any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.   His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise or even right.  These are good reasons for remostrating with him or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise.  To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else.  The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."

The man who wrote this (a white, British, male!) also wrote another work, a century ahead of its time , "The Subjection of Women" (1869), for women's emancipation and continued to extend his argument in "On Liberty" to include women.

John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham were "Utilitarian". The principe of utility maintains that there is only one way to determine whether something is right or wrong, good or bad, and that is by considering its usefulness or "utility" in bringing about pleasant results.  An action is right if it brings about more happiness than any other possible action; it is wrong if some other possible action could have produced more happiness.  Utilitarianism is a "teleological theory", that is, any theory that evaluates the rightness and wrongness of an action by the consequences likey to result from it.

Moral & Intellectual Virtues



Moral Virtues

This is the case with the other moral qualities.  They are, in the main, means or point of balance between two extremes, each extreme being a vice either of excess or defect.  Modesty is thus the mean between pride (resulting from too much vanity) and humility (resulting from too little); ambition, between greed (excess) and sloth (defect); and so forth. 

It is in the nature of moral qualities that they are destroyed by deficiency and excess, just as we can see (since we have to use the evidence of visible facts to throw light on what is invisible) in the case of bodil health and strength.  For both excessive and insufficient exercise destroy one's health, and both eating and drinking too much or too little destroy health, whereas the right quanitiy produces, increases and preserves it.  So it is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues.  The man who shuns and fears everything and stands up to nothing becomes a coward; the man who is afraid of nothing at all, but marches up to every danger, becomes foolhardy.  Similarly, the man who indulges in every pleasure and refrains from none becomes licentious; but if a man behaves like a boor and turns his back on every pleasure, he is a case of insensibility.  Thus temperance and courage are destroyed by excess and deficiency and preserved by the mean. (Book II, ii)

We have now said enough to show that moral virtue is a mean, and in what sense it is so: that it is a mean between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency, and that it is such because it aims at hitting the mean point in feelings and actions.  For this reason it is a difficult business to be good; because in any given case it is difficult to find the mid-point--for instance, not everyone can find the center of a circle; only the man who knows how. So too it is easy to get angry--anyone can do that--or to give and spend money; but to feel or act towards the right person to the right extent at the right time for the right reason in the right way-- that is NOT easy, and it is not everyone that can do it.  Hence to do these things well is a rare, laudable and fine achievement. (Book II, ix). --Aristotle (Ethics).   

Although much of the Nicomachean Ethics is dvoted to the analysis of this docrine of the "golden mean" (as it has come to be called), Aristotle's most memorable illustration of it is to be found not in the Nicomachean Ethics but in his Rhetoric, in the description of the three main stages of life as represented in the Youthful Man, The Man in His Prime, and the Elderly Man.  In terms of major virtues, the Youthful Man represents excess, The Main in His Prime represents the mean, and the Elderly Man the defect. 

Intellectual Virtues

If the mean is a relative thing that differs for different people (and even for the same people in different situations), so that no precise rules can be laid down as to what it might be at any one time, how does one go about determining it? Aristotle replies that it requires knowledge and wisdom, and thus to attain happiness we need to attend not only to the moral virtues but to the intellectual virtues (prudence, foresight, wisdom).

However, what Aristotle now says about the attainment of these intellectual virtues is discouraging, for it soon becomes apparent that if he is right, only few of us can hope to achieve true happiness.  For the perfection of the intellectual virtues, although indispensable in keeping the passions in check, is described as having a value and purpose all its own. The goodness of intellect that makes possible the goodness of character, which brings happiness, is itself, intrinsically finer and higher than anything else available to us. 

*Does this mean the "good life" is only available to the very few? (those who have intellect, health, family, wealth)
*Does this mean there is only one true road to happiness?
*Doesn't a carpenter, a reformer, a teacher, a clerk, a farmer deserve to attain true happiness?

Apparently, the happiness the virtuous man is to seek is not anyone else's but his own.  I am obliged, says Aristotle, to look after only myself.  Aristotle does indeed instruct us in altruistic virtues such as honesty, generosity, friendship, etc. but their justification is not that they will increase the general happiness but that these things are desirable for the individual to have.

Yet we can see that if it is true that in order to attain happiness one must cultivate and realize certain potentialities, then such happiness can only be obtained by attending to oneself.  And if such happiness if realized, society could not help but benefit.

Whose good ought I choose in case of conflict?

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Bernie Sanders: Reading Past the Campaign Slogans (Part 2)




1. Minimum Wage: "Wednesday, July 22, 2015, Sanders introduced a bill to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour over a period of five years, called the "Pay Workers a Living Wage Act." You can view the press release here, the summary here, and the full bill here.

This bill proposes the follow wage adjustments:

+ Minimum wage - $9 in 2016, $10.50 in 2017, $12.00 in 2018, $13.50 in 2019, and $15 in 2020.
+ Tipped min wage - $3.15 in 2016, then increased $1.50 each year until matching standard minimum.
+ Youth min wage - can be no less than $3.00 less the standard minimum.
Business are expected to adjust their finances to cover this cost." (Source)

Question: Why does no one mention the elephant in the room? Inflation. 

1972: Dollar removed from gold standard
Average costs:
Car: $4,500
Home: $40,000
Gallon of gas: $.36
Visit to the doctors: $25.00
Average nominal salary: $8,424


Today: [price || percentage increase]
Car: $32,495[5] || 722%
Home: $208,000[7] || 520%
Gallon of gas: $3.48[8] || 966%
Visit to the doctors: $220[9] || 880%
Average nominal salary: $49,486[10] || 587%

http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/02/history-u-s-dollar-inflation-infographic/ 

"So let's take this claim apart. Suppose some menial job is now offering $15 dollars an hour. That does increase the employment pool because more people will want to apply for it. But what that really means is that some people who would have never dreamed of doing that job, because they were too overqualified for it, now don't really care about that, they just want the $15/hr. So, now the low-skilled people who would normally be competing among themselves, are now competing with much more educated high-skilled people for the same job. And so the people who are the most vunerable, who have the least skills are even LESS likely to find entry jobs. How does this help the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder?" -Tom Woods

Inflation Calculator

So, if the buying power of the dollar has decreased, yet the Federal Government wants to mandate a higher minimum wage without taking into consideration how inflation affects the economy (a hidden tax), this will force businesses to raise the cost to produce goods and provide services.  These cost increases affect the lower-income and middle-class the most.  Higher Minimum Wage + Higher Costs for Goods = No Significant Net Benefit.  As well, mandating a minimum wage increase will deter many companies that hire those employees to cut back on hiring new employees who have little skills and need those jobs the most.