Life: Capitalism's Motive Power

In today’s political climate Americans are more thoroughly confused than ever. In the 2008 elections Obama was elected by a large portion of voters long considered politically inactive. A year later these same Americans were utterly shocked when Obama followed through on his espoused ideological aims. There is also a mass of uncertainty in the realm of political issues. A tea party attendee may carry a sign that states, “Keep your hands off my medical care!” But when addressing the issue of financial reform, this same person is likely to say “we should do something about those Wall Street fat cats.”

Constituency shifts occur regularly between the right and left. Moreover, the two major parties have converged into one ideological pot. Lifelong republicans branch away from the party to join libertarian or “constitutional” parties. Claiming they are the “real” conservatives. Liberals join neo-conservative movements and juxtapose concepts of American patriotism with progressive ideas; such as the wholesale slaughter of American soldiers for proportionality in war: As if this is somehow American.

This confusion among serious minded Americans stems from the only alternatives presented to them: Either; a heavily regulated and controlled financial industry, or complete nationalization; a self destructive war or endless and unhindered terrorist attacks on our own soil; today’s semi-free, partially capitalistic, mixed economy - or total statism. There is no large support for any other alternatives. When people are given the choice of death by firing squad or death by slow torture it should be clear as to the reason for American’s difficulty in deliberation.

In the two major parties it is the democratic progressives that have continually accumulated numerous policy wins. The republicans have only accomplished slight speed bumps on the road to a larger socialist state. In any dispute between democrats and republicans, it is the democrats who are called “fiscally irresponsible,” but it is the republicans who are called “morally irresponsible.” The major opposition to Obamacare was that the bill was too big to understand and would lead to economic destruction. There were very few voices questioning the outright enslavement of doctors and the obliteration of individual rights.

Democrats have been long time supporters of a growing moral movement: environmentalism – which establishes as the moral that which is best for nature. The republicans have long been supporters of religion, which states the moral is that which God commands. In practice, the difference means that the democrats claim to hold the morality of reason, science and secularism, while the republicans hold the morality of supernaturalism and faith. In any debate it is the secular moralists vs. the religious zealots.

This has been the state of the fight for capitalism. The moral defenders are pitted as the irrational religious, while the ‘humanist/progressives’ hold reason and science as absolutes. For example, in regards to a complex scientific issue such as energy reform, to whom should the populace agree with - the religious moralists or the secular scientists? So has been the achievement of most of the democratic policy wins.

The democrats have won by moral default. They hold up to a nation of life lovers the ideal that voting for them is a vote for this life, reason and the future of science and technology. They are believed to be the only advocates of earthly motivations to live by.

Men yearn for motivations. And so long as a man desires to live he must take actions. In this there is no choice. As with all living organisms, there must be an acquisition of values in order to continue functioning. A single celled amoeba must obtain its food by surrounding and capturing its prey in accordance with its nature. A plant must photosynthesize sunlight into energy and absorb nutrients from the soil; if these living creatures do not do this, they perish.

The values these creatures seek are set automatically by their nature, and are determined by the type of entity that they are. For instance, a tiger could not survive by seeking the values a shark requires. Neither could a dog plant its feet into the ground and attempt to photosynthesize the sun’s light and absorb nutrients from the dirt. The same is true of man.

Men must seek values congruent with their nature. Man is not born with the knowledge necessary for life. In order to accomplish the continual process of survival and flourishing, men must take certain actions. To not act is a choice which will lead to the death of any organism. Much like a prey’s inability to act in the face of a predator leads to its death. In every hour of every day man is inundated with actions he must take. Upon waking he must decide to stay in bed or get up, eat breakfast or leave without it, work or beg.

This illustrates that every action, from talking to the beautiful woman in dance class to what shirt to wear for the big business meeting, implies choices that must be made. Even taking the action of inaction is a choice. As has already been indicated, animals make their basic choices based on their nature and instincts. A plant can grow towards the sun, but it cannot build a ditch to ensure it receives water. A man cannot absorb moisture and nutrients in the manner a plant can. But he can choose to use his unique tool of survival; reason, to build a ditch.

What then are the values a man should seek? Since man does not have the ability to automatically know what actions to take, what actions are right for him, he needs a guide: a compass that can help direct him to a correct course of actions. Man cannot act without a motivation to do so. A car cannot move or even start without a motive power, gasoline, so to humans are incapable of making decisions without motivations, or a motive power to act as their energy source. For machinery, motive power is its primary energy source. Steam was the motive power for boats in the 19th century, and oil for boats today. A motive power is the reason a machine can move. What then is man’s motive power?

Many individuals accept one or both of the two dominant ideologies in America today, Environmentalism and Religion. These two systems offer a ready-made guide to human actions. They claim to hold the right motive power for man.

Man requires a code for all of his values – i.e. an ethics (or morality). As philosopher Tara Smith puts it, “Ethics is a code of values whose purpose is to steer human beings to the achievements of the more concrete values that fuel an individual’s existence.”(Emphasis mine) Even the seemingly innocuous choice between cheerios and cyanide does not come automatically to a person; there must be a reference to all the values man ought to make.

There are various moral theories each offering their own version of what is the proper motive power that moves man. Three codes in existence today are utilitarianism, altruism, and egoism.

Utilitarianism offers the motive power of the “greatest good for the greatest number.” This theory advocates ensuring the actions of each individual are allotted towards the greatest good. When a person deliberates on a career the choice should be that career which provides the greatest good for the majority. It would be irrelevant whether a ‘selfish’ person wanted to enter the field of law enforcement if the majority decided there needed to be more teachers.

Utilitarianism is a variation of one of the oldest motive powers in human history - altruism. But altruism does not require merely a motive power in terms of good for the majority; altruism requires sacrifice to anyone. It is irrelevant to where a person’s rewards are distributed – whether to the old, the poor, or the handicapped person down the street – so long as the person creating the rewards does not receive them. Altruism literally means “other”-ism - the standard upon which all decisions should be made is what is good for other people. Moreover, this means everyone is a slave to any other person’s random need. If other peoples good is the standard of value, the motive power for each man, than any moocher with a cup in his hand requires the sacrifice of anyone capable of filling that cup. Utilitarianism discriminates upon the “others” saying the rewards should be a maximizing of the majority of peoples good. Altruism requires a person to give up any values to any person or thing; to the dipsomaniac, the bum, the enemy to humanity, any tree, rock, or pasture that supposedly needs something. As Dr. Peikoff explains, “altruism is not a synonym for kindness, generosity, or good will, but the doctrine that man should place others above self as the fundamental rule of life.”

There is, of course, never a rational basis to adhere to any of these moralities. Their defense usually boils down to some form of authoritarianism. People are told these moralities are correct because “God said so,” or it is the “will” of the majority, or our noumenel selves demand it as our duty, or the Fuehrer says so. Never are they expounded by the facts of reality. Thus David Hume’s statement that “an is does not imply an ought.” Moreover, these moralities are advocated as the only options available.

Egoism, the morality discovered and advocated by Ayn Rand, is that other alternative. Egoism should not be confused with hedonism, which is the morality that claims the motive power is that which maximizes pleasure. Rational egoism is the theory that advises taking actions which are in an individual’s best long-term interests. A person does not act in their own interests when they destroy their ability to live long-term, as in cases of subjective egoism (i.e. hedonism), wherein a person sacrifices others to self. Rand’s discovery is the idea of non-sacrifice. Opponents of egoism will point to such men today as Bernie Maddoff and Tiger Woods as crude egoists. Bernie Maddoff swindled millions of dollars from people and ended up losing his family, friends, self-respect, money, business, and freedom. Tiger Woods engaged in indiscriminate sex and alienated his wife, lost millions of dollars of endorsements, and lost the respect of most of the nation. It is absurd to proclaim these men were somehow acting egoistically; they in fact acted towards the destruction of all their values.

Life is not a onetime accomplishment. It is an ongoing process. Tiger Woods may have valued his wife enough to marry her, but marriage is not the end of a relationship, it’s the beginning. Certain actions need to be taken in order to maintain the relationship, trust being merely part of that equation. Much like a person wouldn’t try fixing their car by putting vinegar in the gas tank, so to a person shouldn’t undercut other values in their life by sabotaging them with a string of one night stands. When Bernie Maddoff was running a successful investment firm he had to work hard to ensure his customers were happy and would return for repeat business. Tiger Woods worked towards achieving success in golf from the age of three. These true successes do not occur overnight.

Egoism promulgates the idea that man’s proper motive power is his own life. That in the choices he ought to take are those choices which coincide with the values required by the type of being that he is. This would mean not taking actions congruent with the values of a dolphin, amoeba, or redwood, but that of the rational animal.

People living in close proximity, and engaging in beneficial activities require a social system to implement rules of actions that are to be tolerated or outlawed. Murder and theft are normally the first actions to be forbidden. When it comes to more ‘complex’ rules such as: private property, free expression, and freedom to pursue one’s own goals, people need a guide to help them decide. Men living together require rules or chaos will ensue. A system – such as feudalism, communism, fascism, or capitalism – is mandatory. The obvious problem is what rules are proper, and what principles are necessary to guide a society when establishing a social system.

It must be stressed that there must be social rules in any society. Even in a so-called “anarchist society,” eventually one group will rise up and enforce their social rules. Whether the rules are based on, slave to master, proletariat to bourgeois, or that of free men trading their goods for mutual gain and mutual benefit. These social rules must be more than mere taboos, they must be enforceable absolutes. For instance, throughout history, the social rule of property rights has been largely abnegated. That an individual be allowed to utilize and dispose of their property in any way they see fit. The degree this rule was allowed or outlawed is the degree to which that country and its citizens were prosperous – or impoverished. In almost all social systems some form of private property is allowed, if not merely de facto. Feudalism allowed for peasants to own some of their property that was unable to be fully controlled. In communist Russia small and private gardens in people’s backyards outgrew all of Russia’s massive ‘community’ farms.
The purpose of a government is to enforce the social rules believed to be correct by a society. A government is pure force. It serves no other function. A government cannot create, it can only dictate. It cannot produce, it can only command. However, this function is vital to a human civilization. There must be some societal norms which some entity must uphold. A government is that entity.

The type of social system a person, or nation, will advocate is based directly upon the motive power they hold. For someone who holds that the basic motive power for men should be the needs of others he will believe, implicitly at least, in some form of socialism. To hold that proper actions are those that benefit others at the expense of self (i.e. altruism and utilitarianism) inevitably means a country must force those who are not doing their part, to contribute. The same applies to rules against murder; people not respecting this rule must be forced to do so, because it has been established as morally wrong to murder. If sacrificing part of one’s possessions to others is morally right, then those who don’t must be made to do so. The reason Obamacare, or any welfare program in the last 100 years, has passed is because the majority of Americans believed it was right. It makes no difference that this last set of welfare programs woke some Americans up to the bankruptcy these bills will bring about; people needed them, and so something ought to be done about it.

Holding that man’s motive power is “the greatest good for the greatest number” means that person will advocate social rules which put this moral policy into effect. To say what is right is that which benefits the greatest good is to admit that there are no standards, and that man is subordinated to any two people who claim a need. There is no way to quantify or identify a “greater good” in actuality, greater good becomes whatever the “greatest number” says it is. If 51% of the population decides to take the other 49%’s property, this would be the enforceable social rules under this moral social system. This may occur in the form of income taxes, or in the act of a literal destruction of a minority of ‘undesirables’ within a society; the theory is the same, destruction and abnegation of the individual.

Egoism in morality leads to capitalism in politics. If each individual is their own sovereign entity, to which no one can rule, then this will lead a society to delegate government into the role of protector of the individual. This means recognition of each individual’s right to life, liberty, and property. This system has the distinguishing characteristic of recognizing that man’s motive power is his own life.

Respecting this motive power means recognizing the requirements of man qua man. This includes utilizing reason to solve the problem of survival through production, and enjoying the effects of one’s success. Whether the enjoyment is manifested in eating an extravagant meal with a loved one, listening to a symphony, or globetrotting in a private plane; the individual that created the rewards keeps them.

This is the purpose of the concept “Rights” (more specifically, individual rights); recognizing the fact that in order to survive each man must utilize his own tool for survival, means recognizing that each man has a fundamental right to choose which actions he thinks will lead to his success. This concept is also vital to understanding that a person has a sphere of rights that are limited. A Right is a concept which sets the terms for enforceable social conduct in a society based upon mans proper motive power. As Rand elucidated,

Rights are a moral concept – the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others – the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context – the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Laissez-faire capitalism respects these rights by banning the initiation of force among men – either direct or indirect – within a given geographical area. In this system all property is privately owned and government is strictly assigned to the protection of individual rights, and they are forbidden interference in the economic realm. This means that if a person wishes to convince others to buy their products they must create the best product available and offer it at the best price. They cannot force a person to purchase their products. Nor can they attain subsidies from the government. There are no subsidies, government creates no money. There are no special favors, government has no power to arbitrarily make new rules that must be obeyed. Objective law is the only king. Businesses cannot lobby, government can do nothing for them, but protect their rights as they do everyone else’s. Wal-Mart may become the richest corporation in America, but there are plenty of people who refuse to step foot in their stores – and there isn’t a thing Wal-Mart can do about it.

Capitalism allows each man to judge his own situation as he sees fit, allowing each to receive their due rewards. Every individual person is able to take actions, unhindered by outside forces. It allows everyone to decide which products or services they desire and gives them the ability to choose which path they deem proper to achieve their values. A person can decide to take actions to save money for the possibility of a medical emergency, or they can neglect to do this, but they will suffer the consequences of their own choices. Society will not fix the irrational decisions of each of its citizens. If someone decides to imbibe alcohol and watch television all day, they are perfectly free to do so, but they are not free to run to the government and ask them to use force on more responsible adults to pay for their irresponsibility. In a just society the population is encouraged to make rational decisions, if they don’t, they, and they alone, suffer the consequences.

Imagine a bank in a free society. This bank can enact policies to lend out money based on a person’s need, but if this policy leads to bankruptcy there can be no bailout by the government. Once these irrational policies catch up to them, they are done. At the same time, a company that provides great products that the majority of people want, and decides to compete by offering a free service with every purchase, they are allowed to do so. Even if this means their competitor must shut down. Each person keeps the rewards of their actions, and decides what to do with them. It is irrelevant whether the person is a janitor or if they represent the collected interests of many individuals that voted them to run their multi-billion dollar corporation.

Capitalism’s defenders give half-hearted defenses for advocating the system of private property and individual rights. Their defenses serve to undercut the core that allows the system to operate; selfish pursuit of ones values. These are normally counterproductive at best and absolutely devastating at worst. To say, for instance, that capitalism is the best system because it provides the greatest utility for the greatest number is to destroy the morality necessary for each person to pursue the values congruent with their nature. In other words, the defense goes, capitalism should be allowed, in spite of the depravity of its motivations, on the premise that it has the awesome ability to produce goods which brings happiness or pleasure to the greatest number of people. As Peikoff points out, “the essence of this argument is the claim that capitalism is justified by its ability to convert ‘man’s baseness’ to ‘noble ends.’ ‘Baseness’ here means egoism; nobility means altruism. And the justification of individual freedom in terms of its contribution to the welfare of society means collectivism.” He goes on to explain that the father of modern utilitarianism – to whom the above argument derives – John Stuart Mill, understood the contradiction in “trying to defend an individualist system by accepting the fundamental moral ideas of its opponents.” This led Mill to eventually proclaim his advocacy of socialism.

Men must be given explicit moral reasons to advocate capitalism. Much like the progressives have given people moral reasons to vote socialism into America piecemeal, so to must advocates of capitalism give moral reasons to scale government back to a point where its only job is to protect the individual. A motive power, a person’s moral code, is what gives energy to each person to make decisions in their daily deliberations. It is the fundamental reason that enables men to decide upon any particular action. The vast majority of proponents for capitalism point out every possible economic reason to fight for capitalism. It brings prosperity, they say. It allows for the free flow of goods and services, they proclaim. There have been thousands of books and articles that show all the economic reasons to establish a capitalist society. Even with all of this there is no massive movement towards unfettered capitalism; in fact the opposite is true. The choice is still between a mixed economy and a completely controlled economy.

Socialist and Communist countries are even beginning to adhere to the economic praise for capitalism. They are proclaiming countries should utilize freedom to achieve ‘progressive’ ends. When the supposed defenders of capitalism sound exactly like the enemies of capitalism, it is time to alter course.

When men join a cause or a war (intellectual or otherwise) they do so for purely moral reasons. No one has ever gone to war or advocated a revolutionary new ideal because their economist decreed this new regime’s economic policy would increase GDP by 25%. When someone goes to war, it’s because they were given a moral motivation to do so.

In 480 BC the Persian Empire, ruled by Xerxes proclaimed King of Kings, attempted to conquer the known world based on the moral ideal of Zoroastrianism. This was a view that split the world in to two parts: Those in the Persian empire of “light and truth,” and everyone else of “darkness and lies.” It is no wonder they voraciously attempted to bring “light and truth” to the world. America’s Founding Fathers fought purely for the moral reason of their “inalienable rights.” The rebellions over tea taxes (economic reasons) were only representational of the moral indignation held by the founders. In fact, previous taxes were much higher than the tea tax which set off the revolution. In 1860 America, the south was motivated by the collectivist moral ideology of states’ rights and white supremacy. That each state could justify any collectivist goal they desired – in this instance; chattel slavery. As Dr. John Lewis shows, the north and south were fundamentally skewed by two opposing motive powers. “Alexander H. Stephens, vice-president of the confederacy, knew it, and expounded upon this at the Georgia convention on March 21, 1861: ‘our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [from abolition]; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition.’” And from the north, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “’slavery is essential to the community, or it must be fatal to it, - there is no middle ground… War has flung the door wide open, and four million slaves stand ready to file through… What the peace which the south has broken was not doing, the war which she has instituted must secure.’” Right or wrong, these men had a motive power to fight for their cause.

Whether the men were ancient Persians, Athenians, Spartans or modern Americans, Japanese, or Germans, they have always, and will always, fight because of the morality they have discovered. The destructiveness of giving men only economic reasons to accept an idea is that it cedes the moral high ground to ones opponents. Like saying one should adhere to a diet of eating healthy foods, but fail to defend against assertions that health should not be purpose of a diet. Instead, the purpose should be the sugar farmer’s needs; therefore, advocate high sugar diets.

Prosperity is not the reason to accept capitalism. Freedom is the reason. No other system allows a motivation of one’s own life as an end in itself.

To win the fight for capitalism, an absolute acceptance of the moral reasons for it are more than necessary, it is mandatory. Most men yearn to live a moral life, simply witness the vehement outcries against capitalism; they are all moral. Capitalism should be advocated because it is the only moral social system that is consistent with the rights of man.

Those who fight for tomorrow live in it today. The fight ahead will be as tough as any revolution; albeit, hopefully a bloodless battle of ideas. Winning is not guaranteed merely because someone is right. However, to those people who choose to struggle for the promise of future values achieve those values during the struggle. No matter the outcome, merely the possibility of long-term values is worth an attempt at the enormous feat ahead. Men must make choices to live. Let us choose life.


Endnotes

1. Rand, Ayn. The Virtue Of Selfishness. (New York: Signet, 1964), 17-20

2. Ibid., 21-23

3. Smith, Tara. Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 23

4. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. October 9th, 2007. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/ (accessed August 7th, 2010).

5.Peikoff, Leonard. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. (New York: Penguin Group, 1991), 240

6. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Oct 29, 2004. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#io (accessed July 28, 2010).

7.Craig Biddle, “Capitalism and the Moral High Ground,” The Objective Standard Winter 2008-2009. Especially read pages 21 -22 for specific reasons that have been given as to why one should advocate a morality that requires enslavement of self to others.

8. Sowell, Thomas. Basic Economics. (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 168

9. Rand, Ayn. The Virtue Of Selfishness. (New York: Signet, 1964), 107-115

10. Ibid., 146 -149

11. Rand, Ayn. "What Is Capitalism?" In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, by Ayn Rand, 1-30. (New York: Signet, 1967)

12. Rand, Ayn. The Virtue Of Selfishness.( New York: Signet, 1964), 92

13. Armentano, Dominick T. Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1982. There has been an immense amount of literature destroying the myth that free markets create destructive monopolies of any type. This book investigates all major cases of antitrust in America since its inception in 1890, and showing them all to have falsely identified the problem. Other sources worthy of investigation are: 1) Greenspan, Alan. "Antitrust." In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, by Ayn Rand, 63-72. New York: Signet, 1967. 2) Branden, Nathaniel. "Common Fallacies About Capitalism." In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, by Ayn Rand, 73-100. New York: Signet, 1967. 3) Epstein, Alex. "Vindicating Capitalism: The Real History of the Standard Oil Company." The Objective Standard, 2008., 4)Daniels, Eric. "Antitrust with a Vengeance:The Obama Administration's Anti-Business Cudgel." The Objective Standard, 2009-2010: 21-29

14. Peikoff, Leonard. The Ominous Parallels. (New York: Meridian, 1982), 120

15. Lewis, John David. Nothing Less Than Victory. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 13-17

16Ibid. 143

Use It or Lose It

We find ourselves in a peculiar era today. There are many people still alive who can recall a time when America was the envy of the world. Millions of immigrants fled to our borders for the chance to work even a menial job here. Intellectuals, doctors, scientists, and businessmen of all flavors came in droves to the freest country earth has ever held. Yet, we look around today and all the hard work seems to be crumbling in on itself. There are American cargo ships that must prepare for the possibility of pirate attacks (yes, pirates!). The greatest military the world has ever witnessed is unwilling to do what is necessary to protect American vessels on the open seas. Our country currently has over-zealous followers to a demagogue that resorts to extremely derogatory language against any who oppose them. This, of course, is not new, but the fervor has increased to the point of classifying anyone who disagrees with the present administration as right wing extremists (or “teabaggers”), and clumps them with right wing terrorists. Consider what this could mean if someone disagrees with a political policy and is deemed a terrorist under the Patriot Act (especially if the act is expanded).

This is the same country that flooded the world with unimagined goods and services. This is also the country that ushered in an era of unfathomed prosperity. Today, the average person living below the poverty line owns: a television, a car, a refrigerator, shelter, has money for food, and dozens of other amenities never possible to the richest kings of old.

The question becomes how did we get from where we were to where we are? The answer is simple. The hard working people, who produced all the great values we now enjoy, never spoke up against a government that grew brick by brick around them. It is the old story of the boiling frog experiment. Put a frog in a boiling pot of water and it will immediately jump out. Put a frog in a pot of room temperature water and slowly turn up the heat, and it will boil to death. Well folks, it looks like today we are the frog and we’re boiling.

But it’s not too late.

There are a myriad of ways a government can grow to eventually dominate our lives. It inevitably starts with words like “temporary” or “public interest.” A temporary fix will always lead to more “temporary” fixes. Once the government fails, which it almost always does, it will clamor for more, and bigger, “temporary” fixes. Anything done in the name of the public interest or public good is even more dangerous, primarily, because there is no such thing as “public interest.” A public is merely a collection of individuals, each with their own wants, needs and desires. When someone says they are doing something for the “public interest,” ask them; “Well, who decides what that is?” The answer in some form or another ends up being, “I do.”

Medicare in the 60’s was instituted because it was said to be in the best interest of the elderly to not have to rely on private charity. Despite the glaring fact that elderly people who were incapable of paying for their own medical care were taken care of by private charity. Social Security was instituted because it was in the public interest to have a guaranteed retirement plan paid for by everyone together. It was in the best interest of the country to force banks to invest in risky communities they normally avoided (e.g. the Community Reinvestment Act). It was in the interest of America to appease terrorists abroad for decades. Look what appeasement has gained us. The trend continues today. We are told it is in the public interest to bailout big banks, and big automakers. They are too big to fail is the alleged theory. The government tried to tell us it was in our best interests to let them take over our health care industry. Finally, some individuals decided to speak up.

These are only a fraction of our government’s policies for the past sixty plus years. They got away with it because of one reason. Like the frog, the American people never realized they were being boiled alive. As our freedoms were being slowly expropriated, there was silence. The only voices heard were arguing over which freedoms to eliminate next, and how to do it.

Our most important freedom, which is being hampered by both the Right and the Left, is our intellectual freedom. Our freedom to speak out is our protection against the formulation of a tyranny. Our founding fathers had a definite structure to the constitution. The Bill of Rights is our first set of amendments, with our first amendment being strictly about intellectual freedoms; such as free speech. They understood that without these freedoms, none others are possible. Unfortunately, it has been those against individual rights who have spoken their minds the most. The men and women who attempt to corrupt the concept of rights and apply them to whatever they desire.

What else is the meaning of the right to medical care, housing, jobs, food and all the other supposed rights? This is the idea that some people have the right to anything so long as they need it. Who shall provide for their need? This is when a proper right – or a right that infringes nothing on anyone else – is corrupted to mean whatever someone wants it to mean. The people advocating these policies force one group of Americans to pay for the need of another group. They accomplish this by shouting for the biggest gun in the world; the American government. The fact that this group expropriates the wealth of some to give to another by the use of the government, elucidates their true belief; might is right.

The people who advocated these so-called rights were the main individuals in the political and intellectual forum. The hard working American’s who paid for these policies were too busy producing values, and living their lives, to bother looking up long enough to notice the devastation around them.

We see where this silence has led America.

It is now time for those who never spoke up to take a stand, or one day we will all wake up to a totalitarian dictatorship with access to the most advanced weaponry on the planet. To stand by indifferently, crying that this can never happen in America is all our enemies’ desire of us. They aren’t interested in our support. They have their minority of fervent followers. They merely want you out of their way; they’ll gladly take your indifference.

If you do not use your freedoms, you will lose them.

To arm ourselves intellectually will take time and hard work, but it’s worth it. It is much easier to stop a dictatorship from occurring in our country than it will be to overthrow it. One can begin by reading books, articles, blogs newspapers and whatever else is available to start understanding the issues. Listen to intellectuals to hear what all are saying. Find sources on the internet, podcasts, and other online writings of people spending their time fighting for their liberties. Understand this, not all ideas were created equal; tread carefully. Hard work this may be, but vital to our future.

Once armed, it is necessary to be prepared to shoot your enemies on sight. Don’t be afraid, stand up on principles, such as the principle of individual rights, and you will soon discover your intellectual enemies will crumble like a house of cards – assuming you have rational ideas of course. It is very likely you will take fire, and this is why building your intellectual ammunition is so vital. Remember, once that freedom is gone, we’ll never see it again.

If it is your goal to bring America back to our intellectual foundation it must start now. It must start with each one of you. It is in all of our self interests to learn what is occurring in America today and take a stand. There is no longer an easy way to win back our freedoms. The easy way ended over a century ago. Now, we must work towards our own bright future. But not to worry, there have been great thinkers of the past, and today, that you can rely on. They were and are men and women who have paved the way for the possibility of a future with freedom; mental giants all. And, once you expose the enemy for what they are, mental midgets with an inferiority complex, they will shy away from any and all rational responses. Reveal their disguise and fight back the torrent of evils, now, before it’s too late.

Letter to the editor of the Denver Post 12/08/09

Here is another letter I wrote to the open forum of the Denver Post. It is in regards to the article on sunday entitled: CSU Gun Ban is the Right Call.


This author makes several illogical statements to fuel his false conclusions. Point one, accidental shootings might occur if students are allowed concealed weapons (with a permit). This is equivalent to claiming we should ban driving on campus because students may get in accidents. Driving accidents do happen frequently and should be punished accordingly. Gun accidents from a licensed holder rarely happen, but should be punished if they do. Second point, shooting sprees are too rare to really worry about. This is no reason to take away any persons right to defend their life. When was the last time someone accidently shot thirty people? Third point, the killer probably wouldn’t run into a gun holder, especially considering the 21 year old law. This is a good reason to repeal the law banning 18 year olds from acquiring a license. The author raises one more point worthy of addressing. Rape victims don’t need to use guns, they should use pepper spray. The idea of worrying about the offender of a crime is not only silly, but evil.
In regards to the last sentence of students not fighting back; we will.

LTE to Denver Post 12/06/09

Here is another Letter to the Editor I wrote to the Denver Post in their Open Forum section (unpublished). The title of the article I addressed was "We all Pay the Price for Obesity, Diabetes."
The article is about the growing problem of diabetes and obesity in America.

The author never addresses an actual solution; he simply spews out arbitrary stats and hides his agenda behind his supposed ‘good intentions.’ After all, who wouldn’t want to lower diabetes in America, especially in our children? Yet, look closer and it is clear this author simply wishes to enforce the way he believes we should all live our lives. The fact that costs will go up – because of government mandates, Medicare and Medicaid – is why we must do something, as the author postulates. The author does allude to a personal responsibility we all have to ourselves, but fails to connect that idea to the principle of individual’s rights.

The fact that we are paying people to lead unhealthy lives is the real problem. Begin to rid our nation of the thousands of government intervention in the medical industry, and we will begin to see people take responsibility for their lives. Nothing will get people thinking more about their own health, than when it hits their pocketbooks.

Letter to the editor of the Denver Post 11/29/09

Below is a short LTE I wrote to the Denver Post in regards to THIS op-ed piece. The article is entitled "Salazar Right to Rebuff Critics." The article is about interior Secretary Ken Salazar position on the oil and gas industry, and critics pegging him as an anti-driller.

Be wary whenever you hear a politician claim what they are doing is for the “public good,” or for the good of the “taxpayer.” Salazar stated that trade groups don’t own public lands; taxpayers do. What exactly does that mean? Who specifically is the ‘taxpayer,’ and how does anyone know what’s best for them? An important thing to understand is that there is no such thing as a public. The public is merely made up of individuals. You cannot have a public commodity or a publicly own anything, because this concept “public” is simply an abstract term denoting a group of individuals. The question we must ask is if these policies help me as an individual?

By using this term “taxpayer” Salazar is asking for a free-for-all in his ability to trade political favors. After all, as long as he can say it is in the “public good” he can get away with almost anything. America’s constitution is designed to protect individual rights, not public rights; which is a contradiction in terms.

The Reality of Medical Care

People forget that words have specific meanings and that certain ideologies can accrue very real negative consequences; whether intended or not. The health care question is not merely what type of government takeover we want, but how much our government can fake reality. American’s today are so far disconnected from reality that their concept of rights, among other concepts such as medical coverage versus medical care, has been eroded to mean whatever politicians or intellectuals tell them it means.
Ignoring facts has deadly consequences. For example, many American’s are under the impression that other industrialized countries are far superior to America because they all have some form of single-payer government medical care. The idea that a whole country is ‘covered’ for medical services will not alter reality. Medical services are a limited resource and thus it is impossible for every person in a country to have access to their own MRI, CAT, or private doctor twenty-four hours a day. Rationing must take place. The possible choices historically are to either allow the government to ration in any way it sees fit, or to allow prices to ration objectively in a free society. Looking strictly at the practical results it is the latter option which has proven far superior.
In Canada, a country that has a single-payer system, the average time a person might wait from being referred by a general practitioner to actual treatment is over 17.7 weeks according to The Fraser Institute’s annual waiting list survey. Depending on where a Canadian patient resides the time could range anywhere from two to twenty-four weeks simply to receive a diagnosis using machinery such as MRI’s, CT’s or ultrasounds. Britain is no different, worse even. In 2002 the London Observer (3/3/02) published statistics illustrating cancer patients waiting over eight months for treatments, during which time cancer can become incurable. Even taking into account America’s heavily regulated medical industry, it usually only takes a few days to receive diagnosis and begin treatment.
The evidence that socialized medical care systems are deadly can be seen by simple investigations into any countries with socialized medicine. Yet, the country always damned, America, is the one country the entire world depends on for new medications, treatments, technological advances, and more.
Another absurdity often touted is that unchecked capitalism has allowed greedy business people to run up costs on innocent and unsuspecting customers. To believe this idea is to completely divorce oneself from reality. Our government is the single largest spender of medical services in America, totaling nearly half of all spending in the industry. The so-called ‘private’ companies are subject to thousands of federal and state mandates, regulations, oversights and more. To call this capitalism is an absolute abnegation of reality.
A more serious abnegation is American’s vast disconnect with reality in regards to the concept of rights. To believe that someone is born with a right to have unlimited access (or any access) to medical care; is to disregard the fact that medical care doesn’t grow in nature, and that someone will have to provide this service whether they want to or not. There can be no such thing as the right to enslave.
It is claimed that every American has the right to life; after all, it says so in the constitution. Once again, words have specific meanings and to negate the concept of rights is to destroy all of humankind’s progress so far. A right can only pertain to actions. A person has a right to pursue a career in order to make money so they can buy a house or pay for a health insurance plan that fits their needs. They do not have a right to a car, a house, health care, a cell phone, a trip to Fiji or any other such good or service which must be provided at the expense of someone else.
To those who say that many American’s are unable to afford health insurance; look at reality. American’s can most certainly afford medical care. Where do you think the government gets the money it spends? They get it from the American middle class taxpayer. Although, the rich do pay higher taxes, there are vastly more middle class American’s than there are rich ones, and the burden will assuredly fall to the middle. For those truly unable to afford insurance, they must rely solely on other people’s charity. Regarding this concept and its modern negation, consider two points.
First, there can only be a small minority of people who truly can’t afford healthcare in any country considering comprehensive single-payer health care. If a majority couldn’t afford medical care that country couldn’t afford a massive government takeover.
Second, this small minority must rely on private voluntary charity, which is abundant in a free society. In the 1960’s when Medicare and Medicaid were being pushed through congress, liberals did not claim that the elderly were not receiving medical care, because they were. Less fortunate elderly people should not have to rely on charity is what they claimed. Switching the meaning of a word doesn’t change reality. If some people receive a service at no cost to them, and paid for by others, this is charity. It doesn’t matter what name someone gives it. To assume the government taking money from one group of individuals and giving it to another is not forced charity is like saying a college student receiving most of their income from their parents is ‘self-reliant.’
Evading facts of reality doesn’t change anything. To continually push our country down the road of socialism and call this a good solution is to flat out ignore all the countries throughout history that have suffered under socialist ideology. It is time we advocate “change;” let’s try capitalism for once.

Reporting myself

Below is an e-mail I sent to the whitehouse in order to report myself for opposing Obama's new healthcare bill. Ari Armstrong and many others have written in, and so should you. Read here for more information.

Here is what I sent:

I am a 24 year old film student at the University of Colorado Denver. I want to turn myself in to whoever is in charge of your thought police. I have started a newspaper, a blog, and I am currently working on a video to infect the youth on campus of that nasty word which you have no right in uttering; truth. I will ensure that many young people are aware of what you are doing to their futures. Please inform me of where I need to go in order to turn myself in for the abhorrent crime of thinking.

Bad Science and Green Crazyness Isn't New

So, which is it; Global Cooling, Global Warming or Global Temperature Change?

Apparently, it is all three. In the 70's there was a huge uproar of what we should be doing to prevent the global cooling. Of course, we haven't cooled down, but we have obviously warmed up. Until, that is, the evidence that our whole world was warming up went away and now we are supposed to call it climate change. That seems quite ridiculous. Doesn't the global climate change constantly? Through the day, week, month, millenia? Of course it does, and history including very good science can even show us some of the changes, such as The medieval warming, the little ice age etc. Today we are worried about a temperature change not because anyone really cares what will happen to other people (the real damage will occur when they destroy technology), but because they wish to utilize the fear of average American's in order to take control over our lives. People are much more willing to give up certain liberties if they are convinced their lives and their families lives are at stake.

If you are unsure of my reasoning, below is a link to an article written in 1974 in TIME magazine. I want you to keep in mind that this is 1974 not 2009 and you will realize that the garbage we are being fed today is the same garbage they've been feeding us for over 30 years.

Time Magazine (1974): "Another Ice Age?"

The Real Hollywood Ten

The Hollywood Ten were humanitarian heroes. They were ten individuals, who were fired for holding certain beliefs, beliefs which just happened to be communist. These individuals were fired from top paying jobs that carried a great amount of respect. They were fired for the heroic deed of defying congress and their employers. This belief is common today in a world heavily influenced by leftist Hollywood, and it is also a load of baloney. The public is content with believing the farce put forth by Hollywood and other ‘intellectuals’ that these people were innocent victims accused merely of thinking. Whenever one mentions communists and a threat of losing a job there is an enormous uproar. ‘Witch-hunts’ they say. No one should be forced to say what their ideological viewpoints are to keep a job. Nonsense, of course they can.

When a businessperson opens up shop, puts their blood, sweat, tears, money, and more into their business; they have every right to decide who can and cannot work in their place of business. This is a fact many intellectuals of our time – and times past – wish to skew. To them, everyone has a ‘right’ to a job, even at the expense of the business owner. After all, it is the workers who are doing all of the ‘work.’

That’s one way of looking at it. Another way is this. When a business is opened up, the capital put forth; what is the first thing a businesswoman must do? Spend money. They must spend money on construction, or renting an office building, telephones, faxes, internet and more. They must also hire workers, and pay for advertisement. This is done before the proprietor sees one cent of profit. Many times an entrepreneur must take a loss for up to 5 years or more before seeing any returns. Yet the people still continuing to be paid are the workers, the companies that provide telephone service, internet service, cleaning service, and so on. Each of those companies receives money from the businessperson and is able to pay their workers. If a business does not pay its workers, it will inevitably lose those workers and go bankrupt.

To assume that workers in Hollywood should be any different is just the elitist attitude that is the major problem. The Hollywood Ten and any other worker is accepted and hired to work at a particular place of business on the basis of the business’s requirements. Businesses do not grow in nature. Men and women must start them and make them work. Since the entrepreneur is putting up all the risk, it is their right to hire whom they wish. If the owner chooses it is not in the best interests of their company to hire a person for any reason that is their choice. As the business owner, they will have to live by their choices. If the executives in charge of Hollywood during the 40s decided that having communists in their employ was detrimental to their success, they have every right, and obligation, to terminate their contracts.

A book entitled Ayn Rand and Song of Russia: Communism and Anti-communism in 1940’s Hollywood by Robert Mayhew, attempts to put the record straight as to the farce of intellectual deterrents put up over the last fifty plus years. Song of Russia is a movie produced in 1943 with such obvious propaganda as to show every Russian as a happy little peasant enjoying life in Stalinist Russia, and to show such things as these peasants enjoying a bountiful harvest. This at a time when even the Russian government admitted to an enormous famine which killed – according to their government – an estimated ten million people (many accounts say much more than this). It shows the two heroes of the movie dancing in a luxurious club, while in the real world millions were killed by maniacal dictatorship. It claimed the peasant farmers ‘owned’ their tractor, even though they lived in a place where no one owned anything. It presented the female lead, a peasant girl named Nadya, traveling from a small town into Moscow. While excluding the GPU agents and other massive obstacles to her progress of attaining a pass to enter Moscow.
In the book Mayhew succinctly covers the massive changes the script undertook, at the behest of many very dubious characters; as well as Ayn Rand’s testimony to the House Un-American Activities (HUAC) congressional board in 1947. The author introduces his book with a sentence told to Ayn Rand which motivated her throughout the rest of her days.

At a bon voyage party for Ayn Rand in January 1926, before she left Russia for
the United States, a gentlemen approached her and said: ‘When you get there,
tell them that Russia is a huge cemetery and that we are all dying.’ This is
what Ayn Rand spent her life attempting to proliferate to the world.

Today there are many claims presented as the atrocities the Hollywood Ten - and others who were supposedly prosecuted by congress during the three periods of the investigations towards Hollywood in 1947, 1951-52, 1953-55 - underwent. The claims touted are always the same; these ‘Ten’ and their comrades were heroes who were standing up for the Bill of Rights, for freedom of speech and more.

What these supposed advocates of freedom fail to acknowledge – or refuse to acknowledge – is the differentiation between the ideological and the physical. This is what is meant by the Bill of Rights. The idea of civil liberties i.e. free speech, free assembly etc applies and belongs only in the realm of ideas. Once those ideas cross into physical violence, they become null and void. What the HUAC (House Un-American Activities) was investigating was not merely what their ideological viewpoints were, but whether or not those under question were a card carrying member of the Communist Party. Indeed they carried cards. Being a member of the Communist Party meant much more than simply believing in what the communists believed, it meant adhering to their creed and law. It meant taking orders. It meant belonging to an organization of murder, violence, sabotage, and spying. This moves the individuals being investigated from the realm of ideas into criminal law. Moreover, those who were card carrying members also received their orders from a foreign government, which puts them in the realm of treason and military law. The Congressional hearings were correct in their condemnation.

To further elucidate this point I refer to Ayn Rand’s commentary on her HUAC testimony regarding communist membership.

Membership in the Communist Party is a formal act of joining a formal
organization whose aims, by its own admission, include acts of criminal
violence. Congress has no right to inquire into ideas or opinions, but has every
right to inquire into criminal activities. Belonging to a secret organization
that advocates criminal actions comes into the sphere of the criminal, not the
ideological…

As she further states, allowing members of the Communist Party is like saying it is ok for a certain religious sect to practice religious sacrifices. The members of that religious sect would be persecuted for murder. Their ideological backing would have no merit on the trial. The same logic applies to the HUAC hearings, although Congress seemed to pursue these villains with a half-hearted vigor.

The fact that the Hollywood Ten claimed they did not want to reveal their connection to the Party because they would lose their jobs, only indicates their perpetration of a fraud. It attests to the fact that they wished to conceal information from their employers, co-workers, customers and the general public. That people would not deal with them if they knew the truth only shows the gravity of their wrongs. By condemning Congress for not allowing the Hollywood Ten to commit their crimes is a mockery to the idea of individual rights and the Rule of Law. This is equivalent to a con artist saying to congress that if they force them to reveal their con then the jig is up for them and they will lose their livelihood.

The false idea being pushed around the intellectual forum today that these supposed heroes were fighting for their freedom of speech is ridiculous. Again, free speech wasn’t an issue. The issue was whether or not these people were in fact members of a party which would kill any of their own people to keep them quiet. Ironically enough, as these Ten were portraying their viewpoints of Stalinist Russia in American movies, an atrocity rarely heard of was being carried out by that evil dictator; the extermination of the Lubyanka Thousand. The Lubyanka was a Moscow headquarters of the Soviet secret police. Many innocent people were imprisoned, tortures, and killed there. The Lubyanka Thousand were the over one thousand writers murdered there.

A Supreme Let Down

As many American’s are aware, Supreme Court Judge David Souter is now retiring after 19 years. This gives President Barrack Obama the opportunity to exercise one of his most important executive powers; to appoint the next Supreme Court Justice. Obama has made it very clear his major requirements for the next Supreme Court choice. As he has said on a few occasions “We need someone who’s got the heart to recognize – the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges” This bold statement completely refutes the intent of our constitution.

Our framers specifically and painstakingly designed a state that is a ‘constitutionally restricted republic.’ Today, people believe our country is merely a democracy, yet they forget democracy is only one check on the overall state.

A problem with the way America’s state was designed begins to occur when we look at what a state really is.

Murray Rothbard succinctly covered many aspects of the state in his essay The Anatomy of the State. First, understanding the state is not us. This is a common misconception today, that ‘we are the government.’ This sad and ideological term ‘we’ has prevented citizens of a particular state to be unaware of the reality of political life. As Rothbard States: “If ‘we are the government.’ Then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also ‘voluntary’ on the part of the individual concerned.” As he further explains,

“under this reasoning any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not
murdered; instead, they must have ‘committed suicide,’ since they were the
government (which was democratically chosen), and therefore, anything the
government did to them was voluntary on their part.”

This reasoning seems ludicrous, but yet, it is completely in line with the common thinking of our time. It must be emphatically stated that we are not the government, and understand what the government is and its general purpose. A state is an organization that has a ubiquitous monopoly on force over a given geographical area. Moreover, it is the only organization which does not attain its monies by voluntary measures; its only means to attaining revenue is force.

There are only two ways a human may attain wealth; voluntary trade, or compulsion. Open hand, or the gun. The state only has one option available to it.

This then leads into the development of our own constitutionally restricted republic. Our founding fathers knew one thing, and that is, if a state is left unchecked it will trample individual rights, as per the states nature. Our founders began with the understanding that individual rights are not granted from god, society, king or any other means – but that individual rights are inalienable. Some may cite the Declaration of Independence’s statement: “That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” This seems to say that our founders believed our rights derived from god, or something outside of ourselves, yet this is not congruent with what our framers tried to convey. Merely a line before that ‘Creator’ line it states: “…assume the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” It is clear through the writings of our framers what they hoped future generations would retain, and that is our conception of our individual rights. Rights are a moral concept which serves as a transition from the principles which guide each and every one of us individually to the principles guiding our relationship with others. As Ayn Rand wrote, “the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.” Also in Atlas Shrugged the character John Galt explains, “the source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law but the law of identity. A is A and man is man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational.”

There is a disconnect, from what our founders intended, and what they in fact implemented in our constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States of America has the ultimate and last say in the interpretation of our constitution, and it is a part of the government. The masses may believe that the judicial branch of the government is separate from the other two, yet the members are chosen from the executive and legislative branches. This allows the federal government to pick the individuals who will be enforcing the rules they will create, which is like a professional basketball team picking the referee who will ref their games. The basketball team (and the politicians) will obviously pick those people who are most likely to call the game in their favor. So comes to fruition, once again, the battle between state power and social power.

In our system, the best check on this blatant flaw is our president picking the best person for our country. When we select a president to run for 4 years it should be known by the public that when the president chooses a Supreme Court Judge, it is a lifetime position. Justice John Paul Stevens all but wiped away the constitutions restrictions on the government’s ability to confiscate private property in “Kelo v. New London” – 30 years after President Ford appointed him.

When Obama speaks of choosing Judges based off of their ‘empathy’ he neglects the purpose of the judges. Obama, a former law professor, completely ignores the reasoning behind our lady justice being blindfolded. The reason Justice is blind, is that it matters not what a person’s skin tone is, what their social status, wealth, fame, handicap, political preferences, sexual preferences and more are. Only justice matters.

It is unfortunate but when Barack Obama chooses a judge it will be in complete accordance with his world views, which he has elucidated very clearly to the American people and we are still buying into what he is selling. The only factor that Obama cannot forestall (yet) is time. It takes a lot of time for judges to retire, or die. If our country can sound the alarms now, it just might be enough time to alter the course of the way our constitution is upheld for the next 30 years.

Regrettably, our current media is on the side of destroying our constitution. In the last Sunday Denver Post an article written by Michael Riley outlines the grievous errors in all of our judgments. Governor Bill Ritter and two freshman senators asked Obama to “Seriously Consider” appointing Secretary Ken Salazar to the U.S. Supreme Court. What did they and the article cite were Salazar’s qualifications? That he is a “Westerner who from hard-scrabble beginnings has risen to become one of the country’s most successful Latino politicians.” The people pushing Salazar mainly are explaining his heritage, his skin color and his ability to rise from nothing to political bureaucrat. The article also points out that politicians and interest groups have been weighing in on their judgeship pick since Souter announced his retirement. Here is how they wish to ‘weigh in’ on who should be picked, “an African-American, a Latino, a woman, a liberal, to balance the court’s conservatives or a moderate who would sway from the middle.” This erases the most important qualification, which is whether the new judge will uphold our constitution. The article does point out that Salazar has never served as a judge but that doesn’t matter because Obama will consider real world experience when he is making his big choice.

The question our politicians should be asking our judges is not whether they will have empathy for the people they judge over, but whether or not they will uphold the constitution which protects all of our individual rights. The biggest danger for our country is not merely how a judge will vote on this or that issue, but whether they will undermine the very concept of the rule of law. Our country was founded on this idea. The idea that ‘laws not men’ govern. Once we erode this concept, our very ability to live as free people is wiped away.

Water is a Toxic Pollutant?

Dr. Charles R. Anderson a materials physicist has posted a blog which logically links C02 being a pollutant to water being a pollutant. The problem is, as he points out, this logic isn’t actually very logical. Recently the EPA has claimed C02 is a pollutant. For those of you that remember science class in elementary school, we exhale C02 and plants ingest C02. As Dr. Anderson points out in his blog, the two of us kind of need each other. You may be wondering how he could come to the conclusion that based off the faulty logic of the EPA he has equated H20 is as much a pollutant as C02. Well, actually he shows how it more of a pollutant:

“Aside from the fact that the maximum absorption frequency for infrared radiation is somewhat different for CO2 and water vapor, their activities as greenhouse gases are very similar. Of course, water vapor has an effect which is about 18 to 20 times greater, owing largely to its about 100 times greater concentration in the atmosphere and its ability to form a wider range of dimers, trimers, and other forms to absorb infrared radiation across a broader spectrum than does CO2. So, if CO2 is a pollutant because it is a greenhouse gas, then so is water. We should next expect to see the EPA drawing up restrictions on the human use of water which may add to the water vapor concentration in the atmosphere. I would assume that this will mean no more farm irrigation and no more watering of lawns as a start. The formation of more lakes and ponds by man must also be stopped.”

He then explains the idea behind water being a toxin may be the problem. Lastly he concludes that the “EPA has taken the prize for the most irrational decleration of supposed science and economics ever.”

Honestly, that seems harder to believe, the government is responsible for some pretty irrational things. But, I’ll let you all decide whether you agree with Dr. Anderson or not. Read his full article HERE.

More Guns, Less Crime an interview with John Lott

Dr. John Lott interview

John Lott wrote the book More Guns, Less Crime. The book discusses the pertanent facts to gun ownership in America. Although, there are many anecdotal stories on both sides of the gun argument, Lott argues proper data is needed to infer decisions.
In an interview with John Lott he explicates his position on many of the dogmas perpetrated about guns in our politically correct climate:

Lott: Criminals are deterred by higher penalties. Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate—as more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates.

Lott defends his position by showing his study is the biggest crime study in American history. Covering over 18 years and including all 3,054 counties:
Lott: The analysis is based on data for all 3,054 counties in the United States during 18 years from 1977 to 1994

Lott’s analysis wipes away all of the prevalent beliefs made mainstream in our liberal media today. For example, the must believed ‘truth’ that most people are killed by someone they:

Lott: You are referring to the often-cited statistic that 58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances. However, what most people don't understand is that this "acquaintance murder" number also includes gang members killing other gang members, drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by customers they picked up for the first time, prostitutes and their clients, and so on. "Acquaintance" covers a wide range of relationships. The vast majority of murders are not committed by previously law-abiding citizens. Ninety percent of adult murderers have had criminal records as adults.

His books, and subsequently the in depth research has been almost completely ignored by the media. One day we may all have to pay the price for such ignorance.

Read the whole interview here.

Obama's Approval

Many Obama supporters would like to believe that their beloved is favored above all by Americans. Unfortunately for them this is not the case. Obama is the second least popular president in 40 years. These five presidents have rated higher than Obama at the end of the 100 day mark: Ronald Reagan with 67% approval, Jimmy Carter with 63%, George W. Bush with 62% Richard Nixon with 61%, and George H.W. Bush with 58%. Of course we're not hearing to much of this in the liberal media. After propping up this poster boy it would be wrong to actually begin reporting the news. Instead they ignore the facts and pretend that everything is just honky dory.

As The Washington Times explicates, the reason for this low rating is that Obama ran as a moderate, yet he has only governed our country from far left field. The people responsible for allowing this person into our most honored American office should at the very least admit their mistake. Obama was voted into office by claiming he was going to reduce government spending and reduce the size of the deficit. Blame was his biggest weapon. He blamed the economic crisis on the excessive deficit, and at no time did he say that increased deficit spending was the answer.

Although, most believe people rarely learn from their mistakes, one can hope that this mistake will wake people up to the dangers of where our society is moving along. Changes need to be made in the natural order of our thinking. Socialism or Capitalism. We all decide our future.

Gun Control Facts and Fallacies

Talking facts often lead to heated and unfounded debates among those who wish to enforce their lifestyles upon others. Gun control zealots often spout the rhetoric that because England has stricter gun control laws and lower murder rates than The United States, the gun laws obviously are the difference. However, one can easily compare Germany to Switzerland and discover that gun ownership is three times as high in Switzerland, yet the Swiss have a much lower murder rate. This is true in many other countries as well: Israel, New Zealand and Finland, for example. Rural Areas in the United States have higher rates of gun ownership, and lower murder rates. And, for the country as a whole, gun ownership doubled in the late 20th century followed by a decreasing murder rate. Stricter gun laws create more death. This is a simple fact, based upon dozens of empirical studies. These facts are rarely commentated on in the media, however.

The fallacious arguments continue. The media and anti-gun advocates argue guns serve only one purpose, to kill. This is true, but there is also a reason guns are considered “the great equalizer.” Many gun control advocates claim the atrocious shootings of Columbine, Virginia Tech, and more are caused by a lack of gun control laws. Once again this comes in direct conflict with facts and logic. It is gun free zones where American’s are the least safe. All of the following areas were gun free zones where the only person with a gun was the shooter: New York City Pizza shop (employee shot 15 times, two officers killed), The Amish West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania (5 children murdered), Columbine (killing 13 and injuring 23), Virginia Tech (32 killed and many injured), and finally Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas where Dr. Suzanne Gratia Hupp complied with the gun free zone law and placed her gun in her glove compartment before entering the restaurant (23 murdered, 20 injured –Dr. Hupp had to watch her parents being murdered, fully aware her gun was sitting in her glove compartment). These horrific tales are merely the beginning, and if American’s do not begin to understand the concept and morality behind the rights to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” we shall be doomed to repeat our past mistakes.

But, what about the children? Many people for and against gun laws explain their biggest problem with the debate is the fact that many children die in gun related incidents. To most this sounds like a great reason to ban guns, yet those willing to see facts will understand the illogic. Most children killed by guns are not merely toddlers who happened upon a loaded weapon lying around. The majority of those ‘children’ are members of teenage criminal gangs who purposefully terminate each other. Unfortunately, there are some children who do in fact die by gun related incidents, but fewer than die in bathtubs. I doubt anyone will advocate banning baths, or fire, knives, chairs, swimming pools, electric cords, or the biggest killer of children: vehicles.

Having a gun in the house will increase a family’s chance of being harmed is one of the most popular gun related dogmas. The reasoning behind this idea is that if a criminal breaks in and sees you holding a gun he is more likely to attack. Once again factual research tells us the exact opposite is true. People who have not resisted have gotten hurt twice as often as people who resisted with a firearm. Of course, those who resisted without a firearm got hurt the most.

People who are in favor of gun control laws because they believe stricter laws leads to less gun related deaths are not the problem. These individuals will easily be swayed once they read some facts on the matter. The problem lies with those who advocate and have the power to ignore such facts. Many books and studies have been released and are available to the public, yet the vast majority of people perpetuate the fallacious arguments. Books such as Pointblank by Gary Kleck, Gun and Violence by Joyce Lee Malcolm, and one of the most researched books, More Guns, Less Crimes by John lott; Mr. Lott analyzed 18 years of crime data from all 3,054 U.S. counties, and he discovered that there was nothing more decisive in lowering violent crime rates than the passage of ‘right-to-carry’ gun laws. In Counties with populations of 200,000 or more, the concealed-carry laws lead to an average drop in murder rates of 13 percent. Sadly, these facts are rarely discussed in gun control advocate circles. When John Lott attempted to give some of his initial studies to a gun control advocacy group, she refused. After the book was published, ABC contacted the leader of that group to garner her comments; she said the study was flawed. When Lott later phoned her to ask how she could say the study was flawed when she refused to even look at the study, she hung up. People who base their reasoning on unsound logic must deny all facts or their so-called ‘logic’ will crumble like a house of cards.

The evidence on the other side is just plain silly. One of the most cited studies was done in the New England Journal of Medicine back in ’93. This article claimed that guns in the home increase the risk of violence and death. The way they ‘discovered’ this was based on comparing people who were killed in their homes with a sample of similar people in the general population. Those who were killed at home owned guns more often than the others. This is equivalent to the fallacy of judging hospitals by their death rates. People who go into hospitals are more likely to die than people who don’t go to hospitals. Does this mean hospitals are dangerous? Or could it mean that people who go to hospitals already have health risks? Death rates are higher in world-class medical facilities than in the local county hospital, but the reason for this is people go to those hospitals with worse ailments than those who go to county hospitals. It is just as fallacious to assume that people with guns in their homes were in no more danger initially than those who do not have guns in their homes. Some of these people with guns in their houses were criminals to begin with and were killed by the police.

These facts continue on endlessly. Criminals are more likely to back off if they see a potential victim is carrying a weapon. Many school shootings were stopped by a person with a gun, schools such as: Edinboro, Pa., Appalachian Law School and Peal, Miss. Yet, only 1 percent of news stories pointed out the fact that the killers were stopped by a person with a gun. In one incident (Appalachian Law School in Grundy Va.,) an off duty Sherriff/law student got his gun out of his car and pointed it at the perpetrator who then raised his hands and dropped the gun. Fellow students then tackled the suspect. Upon a search of all the news stories reported it is almost always stated that the gunmen was merely ‘tackled by students,’ with no mention of the sheriff student. The idiocy behind believing a group of students simply ‘tackled’ an armed gunman is too much for words. One last fact worthy of mention is only 12 percent of bad guys purchase firearms from gun stores or pawn shops; according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

2nd Amendment rights are under attack. People here on campus, and all over the world, espouse the belief that we must increase gun control laws. Leaving guns in the hands of civilians is a dangerous undertaking they say. The majority of the population believes in the fallacy that ordinary people are too careless to own guns, and we’d be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals paid by the government. Herein lies our greatest danger. When a government has nothing to fear from its people, its people will be defenseless against their government.

Look to history for proof. The main tool for subjugating both slaves and free blacks in the South was disarmament. In Florida, patrols would search blacks’ homes for weapons and would confiscate them and punish the owners. In contrast, the North allowed blacks to own guns and they were able to sometimes defend themselves against racial mob violence. There are many atrocities throughout history which showcase the error in allowing government to control all weaponry: Stalin’s mass murders, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name a few. Imagine a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto holding off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with merely a handful of weapons. Then imagine 6 million Jews armed with rifles being herded into cattle cars; not likely.

Fortunately for us, our framers were intelligent enough to embed our right to defend ourselves in our Constitution. It may be hard to believe now that someday our government will force us to comply with their wishes, however, a free people can only make that mistake once. We must never forget the words of one of our greatest fore-fathers Benjamin Franklin when he said “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

April 22nd is Exploit the Earth Day

April 22nd should be exploit the Earth Day

Instead of the fanaticism associated with earth day, American’s especially should understand the fundamental need to transform the raw materials of the earth into life supporting/enhancing tools for our future. Environmentalism VS capitalism. These are the two choices open to western civilization, and we may be coming to the inevitable crossroads where only one can continue along its designated path. Unfortunately for human beings, only capitalism is meant for life on earth. The philosophy behind environmentalism is that nature has intrinsic value. In reality this equates to a man-hating ideology where human beings must not infringe on the supposed ‘rights’ of tree shrubs and caribou.

The mentality is anything done in nature is good, and anything done by man is bad. If beavers ravage trees its good because it is done in nature. If solar and sunspot activity effect the temperature of the earth it is good because it occurs in nature. If a virus comes along and wipes out a billion human beings it is lauded as the right thing. Yet, if human beings build oil refineries, dams, coal factories and more, it is condemned as immoral by environmentalism. Many readers may come to the conclusion that this writer is exaggerating and say that ‘they don’t really mean it.’ Don’t be so sure about that. Those who truly listen to the consistent advocates of environmentalism in the public light will come to realize the full determination these communal thinkers have. Philosopher Paul Taylor mentions “the ending of the human epoch on earth,” in his book Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. In David M. Graber’s review of Bill McKibben’s book The End of Nature Mr. Graber explicates the environmentalist view in all its grandiosity “Human happiness [is] not as important as a wild and healthy planet… Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.” The vernacular used by environmentalists leaves no room for doubt; they advocate an all out condemnation of humankind.

For those wishing to live their lives to the fullest of their capabilities will see themselves hindered in every respect by these so-called lovers of the earth. If a person chooses to ‘respect’ the environment and build a more eco-friendly and efficient form of energy producer, they would most assuredly choose nuclear. However, they would meet every obstacle imaginable by the green movement. Moreover, these greenites choose to ignore all relevant facts and come to their own conclusions when it comes to the environment. For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just ruled that C02 is a pollutant, and this ‘pollutant,’ which we are all made of and plants need to live, is condemned and shall be regulated as a pollutant. Sea levels will raise to catastrophic levels is their reasoning. Yet, if one were to do even the most modest amount of investigation it would become very clear this is not the case.

For one there is only a modest net loss in Greenland. Second, 90% of earth’s ice is in Antarctica. This is also where 80% of our fresh water comes from. The assertation that western Antarctica has suffered a loss of ice is very true, but eastern Antarctica is four times as large and getting colder. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic research has issued a report explicating the “significant cooling in recent decades.”

Many such facts can be easily unveiled if one were to be actually interested in the facts. There may be many environmentalist who believe in the green cause because it sounds like a good idea, and “who wouldn’t want to help mother earth?” Unfortunately, they may be unaware of the dire impacts these rulings and regulations may have on our world economy. It will mean many of the things we need to survive will increase in price and scarcity such as: gas, electricity, food, medical treatment, and more. Some may believe that an increase won’t be so bad. The problem is the ripple effects will be much more grandiose than anyone will be able to imagine. When oil reached 150 dollars a gallon this last summer many people were speaking of the dire consequences to the world economy, if we were to reach 200 dollars it could mean total devastation. Our world may not be able to survive the ‘help’ of these environmentalists.

Today, earth day, celebrate not the environmental movement, but celebrate the men and women of the mind. Celebrate those who wish to convert the raw materials around us into our houses, cars, groceries, oil, energy, computers, latte’s, fine dining and more. We should not condemn such people but applaud them for their commendable work in saving and enhancing all of our lives.

OIL VS Alternative Energy

Many claims are made by politicians, however most people would agree that very few are actually upheld. A lot of what a politician says, especially during an election period, is what people want to hear. This all makes sense from a politician’s standpoint, given their incentives and restraints. However, it is very dangerous to continue to take any politician just on their word. Studies and facts need to be taken into account. For example, a politician who proclaims they will bring down our dependency on foreign oil, while at the same time fight global warming by curbing c02 emissions, must change their stance when facts and reality will not coincide with such claims. The question we must ask ourselves is how a politician could possibly accomplish such a feat and how this agenda affects each of us.

On one hand, if we are attempting to decrease our foreign oil dependency it makes sense to increase America’s refining and drilling capabilities. This is not very plausible given the incentives and constraints which are given to American explorers and refiners of oil. So the solution for a politician is rather complex. A politician will have a hard time convincing extremist environmentalists, and many in the general public, that freeing up the energy market would actually create an increase of America’s energy supply and drop the price of gas and other products affected by oil. What a politician does instead of this is go for the oldest and most trusted of allies, blame. Pointing fingers at all the people who seem to be villains by merit of their actions, such as the greed of corporate CEOs. Politicians claim that while these companies are getting rich the constituents of a particular politician are being hit where it hurts them the most, their pocket books. Politicians point fingers at these CEOs and exclaim that these companies’ profits are too extreme to be mere ‘economics.’ In their minds, Americans having to pay ever increasing amounts of money at the pump, while oil companies make record breaking profits is simply unacceptable.

Many will claim that we must invest in alternative energy. While there is nothing wrong with individuals spending their own time and effort on a new type of energy, it is highly immoral to make taxpayers pick up a bill for someone’s political agenda. Many people claim this is the best way to secure our future. It is praiseworthy for those who wish to invent new ways to convert nature’s resources into energy. However, it is not praiseworthy to spend billions of dollars on futile endeavors not worth their weight in paper. The idea that crippling oil companies and forcing alternative energy to the forefront of our current economy is reminiscent of the broken window fallacy made famous in Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. The fallacy is when one claims that by the destruction of property, we actually create wealth. Its claim is that if a hoodlum were to throw a rock and break the window of a baker, it is not a bad thing, because now the baker, upon replacing his window for one hundred dollars will allow the man fixing his window to buy a new suit, which will give money to the tailor and so on. The fallacy is that the shopkeeper must now spend his hundred dollars on a new window, instead of on new shoes for himself, or new equipment (capital) to help his business. This misallocation of resources is the fallacy. And, it is no different than allowing the government to hinder oil companies from doing their job, while at the same time, giving millions or billions in subsidies to alternative energy advocates. We are simply rerouting precious resources. Confiscating hard earned money from taxpayers and handing the money to whomever has the most political pull at that moment.

An oil company is like any other company. It provides a product to a customer and asks for money in return; trading value for value. There is no gun involved. Therefore, there is no force. Men and women are free to purchase the product or not. There is no denying our need for energy, as individuals and as a society. The discovery and subsequent success of oil is due to its value to each of us as individuals, not because the company forced people to buy its product.

The claim that oil companies are cartels or monopolies is also a myth. The idea here is that these oil companies collude with each other to force us to purchase their products and force out any competition. The basis for this argument is that capitalism will inevitably lead to collusion or monopoly of some sort. Oil companies, like any individual, act in a self interested manner. If an oil executive decides it is in his best interest to collude with other oil companies in order to increase the demand for their product, it is their right to do so. The oil executive will soon discover, however, why such endeavors have failed throughout the history of capitalism.

The failure will begin simply. As all the oil companies in collusion raise prices above market level, some of the colluders will realize the opportunity for undercutting their fellow conspirators and making a profit. Once again, greed comes to the rescue. Each company will realize the opportunity and work to seize it. Businesses do not make money by simply raising prices; they make money by lowering prices, making the product available to more people, and by increasing output, quality and more. To understand this more just simply look to history. Standard Oil was accused of price collusion, predatory pricing and much more. The facts tell another story however. In 1869 the price of kerosene was 30 cents a gallon, and 28 years later the price decreased to 5.9 cents. People paying 30 cents in 1869 probably did not complain as prices began regularly dropping. Another classic example in more recent history is the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA). This company was able to gain and hold an actual monopoly. Did they raise prices? No. In fact, it lowered its prices dramatically. ALCOA was the only producer of ‘primary’ aluminum in America (there were foreign competitors). In 1887, aluminum was 5 dollars a pound and by 1941 it was 15 cents a pound. The reason ALCOA would drop prices when they had a monopoly, rather than increase, is simple; substitutions. ALCOA knew that if they were to raise prices their customers would simply purchase substitutes such as wood.

In a free market, would people have alternatives to oil if oil became a monopoly? Yes. If the market was free and open, and oil companies began to collude to increase prices, people would begin looking into alternative forms of energy. They would not need government to confiscate money from the population and feed it to alternative energy, because people would be motivated by profit. As prices rose above market level, investors would shift their money from oil to alternative energy, thusly creating true wealth. Economic fact: money flows to its most valued uses.

Although this scenario is possible it is actually unlikely. Oil companies would not increase prices, as ALCOA did not raise prices, because they know economics: raising prices above market level will bring in more competition that will drive down price. By freeing the oil companies, we would solve all problems. Oil companies would compete with one another by reducing prices and increasing quality. The end product would eventually be a cheaper and cleaner burning fuel.

These facts don’t stop oil executives from being attacked for making a profit. During this previous summer when the price of gas rose to 4 dollars a gallon, senators dragged oil executives to Capitol Hill in order to investigate ‘bad’ business practices. Senator Patrick Leahy claimed they wanted to identify the causes of the rising prices of oil. The problem was oil executives were not in charge of the price of oil, the market was, as is determined by supply and demand. Notice these executives were condemned for making large profits during this time and considered greedy and evil, but also notice that as prices dropped to almost 1 dollar a gallon across the country, there was no congressional hearing to praise these individuals for their hard work; nor, was there much in the media about the benevolence of these executives. This makes sense given politicians’ and the media’s incentives to be elected and receive high ratings. For nothing gets officials elected faster – or higher ratings - than enormous problems in our country.

So, what does the government do to help the problem? Create more problems. Refining and distributing oil involves millions of interactions. The government impedes these interactions every step of the way. I will very briefly outline three major aspects of oil and how government interferes.

DRILLING

America has large sections of its underground oil off limits to oil explorers, such as the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve and our coasts. This causes the U.S. to have to purchase more of its oil from outside of the country. If these sections were to be freed up to allow for oil exploration there would be a larger supply of world oil to help with the ever increasing global demand. This past summer saw huge profits for oil companies. These profits did not go directly into the executive’s pockets. The vast majority was reinvested into the oil industry. These oil companies were able to purchase new drilling equipment and more efficient rigs to transport their product more safely, among other investments.

REFINING

There have not been any new refineries built in America in over three decades. Inevitably, this causes much inefficiency in the older refineries still in existence. The reason for these inefficiencies is that the government has passed so many environmental laws, thereby making new refineries uneconomical, leading to the extinction of many old refineries. From 1990 to 2004, 50 out of 194 refineries were shut down. These regulations have caused the current refineries to produce at full capacity, due to high demand. This limits the contingency for catastrophe. Which make it nearly impossible to shift from one oil sector to another. When the government interferes with supply and demand the result is always the same. The oil companies are then unable to offset certain sectors during a time of crisis, the net effect is a spike in price. As full producing refineries are shut down due to unforeseen externalities, the only way supply and demand can correct themselves is through an increase in the price of oil.

Another unfortunate byproduct of a government that creates restraints (rather than incentives to build new refineries) is that there has been an overall decline in the actual capacity refineries can handle. While capacity has declined demand has increased. What this all equates to is a country that has less ability to create more supply as demand increases. When any problems occur where more oil is needed, we must turn to foreign supply.

DEMAND

As China and India have grown exponentially, it is obvious that global demand for oil will increase accordingly. As companies begin to adjust to the new demand, the price of oil will increase. In a free market, oil companies will simply increase output to make a higher profit by decreasing prices and meeting the new demand. In a market that is shackled by government, meeting consumer needs is much harder than in a free market.

Fortunately, American consumers are making smarter choices. For the first time in decades, trucks have lost their spot as the number one vehicle sold in America. This will trigger a decrease in oil consumption at home.

Profits allow oil companies to reinvest in the drilling and refining of oil, so long as the government doesn’t get in their way. Oil Companies receive a bad rap whenever something unwanted happens in the economy. However, the fact remains that American oil companies remain the most efficient oil producers in the world, despite the regulations and restraints imposed by the government. It is time for American voters to implore congress to step aside so that the professionals can do their jobs.