By ROBERT J. SAMUELSON Posted 09/29/2009 06:11 PM ET
What’s driving the great health debate of 2009 is not a popular clamor for universal insurance.
“Many Americans are balking again at the prospect of health care reform,” writes pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center.
A new Wall Street Journal poll found 41% of respondents opposed to President Obama’s proposals and 39% in favor (the rest were undecided). The underlying driver is politicians’ psychological quest for glory.
Liberty is Moral
Just a quick announcement here.
We will now be submitting everything from Morality101.net to Propeller.com and have formed a new Propeller Group called Liberty is Moral, in which our friends from Morality101, Digg, Facebook and Twitter can participate and submit their own favorites and articles as well.
Digg.com was our favorite social website for quite a long time, but slid way downhill as a result of eliminating shouts and sharing, shunting those off to Facebook and Twitter. In our view The workarounds were quite useless, just wasting too much of our time with duplications. So we’ve moved to Propeller as our “social” site for most future submissions.
This group uses admin approval for membership. We’ll plan to keep the spammers, personal attackers, and the adamant ObamaBots, No-Birthers and Collectivists out of the loop, but perhaps there will be a few who can engage in open-minded and productive discourse with our basically conservative / libertarian group.
We hope for a forum with real drive for both discussion of, and action toward, the virtues of liberty, capitalism, the free market, and progress toward true freedom.
If the shoe fits, wear it, come join us!
Thanks from Tasine and Striker101
Where is Liberty?
Given that every instance of collectivism…
Requires the Force of Government to initiate, regulate and administer; and
Eliiminates all rights of all individuals to determine and act in whatever they perceive as being in their individual best interest, and steals from the citizens whatever monies government, not the individual, deems necessary and appropriate, and
Eliminates the natural benefits of competition and choices always best provided by a truly free market, and
Sacrifices and removes all individual alternatives and incentives toward maximizing one’s life, then
Insist on an answer to this one Question:
The above was my reply to a TownHall post in Digg this morning, listing 10 questions to ask those who are pushing for, in this instance, Obamacare. The questions were great, designed to show any collectivist all the fallacies in this ruse but, as usual, missed the main point.
I have become simply exhausted and exasperated with every debate over so-called health-care or any other collectivist program deteriorating into a debate over
For many moons now, I have been writing about Morality, and more lately expanding to discussion of the Force and Sacrifice, as these are the basis of all governments, which have nothing to “give” except that which they steal from their citizens. This morality is not about some high-faluting worship of some lord or allah. It is simply our natural rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
This is clear and concise in our Declaration of Independence, yet so dispised and distorted and shredded within our Constitution. Over these 230 years, the collectivist / communist set have diligently set out to subvert these basic principles into a pity-pity society in which moral free market capitalism is said to be the villan, and that individual heights are to be subordinated to some nebulous “greater good”, productivity and self-reliance are less important than sloth, and the supreme “moral” value is to sacrifice one’s own life to anyone from anywhere merely because they hold out their hands and say “oh, pity me”.
According to the collectivists, each man, having his own mind and the unique human characteristic of being able to THINK, is now somehow to be denied that treasured characteristic and his mind deferred to any unknown other, who cannot prove and is not required to prove any superiority of Mind over You, the individual.
The brainless immoral collectivist “ethic” has now gained the foothold sought for at least the last century, and has set America on it’s long winding path to economic and moral devastation. America is leading the path to worldwide self-destruction, to such extent that we must question now whether humanity can survive.
You wonder why life has become poorer and holds little but nonsense and drudgery? You wonder why “Atlas Shrugged”? Well, at least we’ve got you wondering — the rest us up to You!
A is A, and Socialism by any Other Name…
that Obamacare isn’t socialism ignores socialism’s essential nature. Technical definitions aside, socialism is a form of collectivism, the doctrine that holds that the standard of value is the group, to which the individual is subordinate and can be sacrificed on any group whim, as represented by the state. Communism, Nazism, welfare statism, fascism, democracy, and socialism are all manifestations of collectivism. The sacrifice of individual rights under a statist regime is the political essence of collectivism, and that is exactly the nature of Obama’s health care plan.
But to advocate socialism openly and honestly is and always has been a loser in America. After the tyranny, wars, and unprecedented mass murder wrought by the socialist regimes of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China, and the many smaller variants of the 20th century, socialism is dead as an intellectual force. That is why the champions of socialized medicine run from the socialist label as from the plague.
As the great Aristotle said; A is A. And socialism is socialism. We are headed toward totalitarian socialism in America, and have been for the past century. Under Obama, the trend is accelerating. But he is an empty suit, simply cashing in on the trend…the collectivists preferred method of American socialization…the back door of fascism. Step by step, through programs such as the Veterans Administration, Medicare, a myriad of government controls and taxes, etc., total government control of medicine (and, in fact, the entire economy) is and has been advancing in America…long before Bush-Obama socialism appeared on the American scene.
The fascist method was explained by a former leader of a major Western nation some time ago:
“The party is all-embracing…” said Adolf Hitler upon taking power, “Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good…This is Socialism- not such trifles as the private possession of the means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape. Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over all, regardless of whether they are owners or workers…Our Socialism goes far deeper…[the people] have entered a new relation…What are ownership and income to that? Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings.” (From Herman Rauschning’s The Voice of Destruction, as quoted in The Ominous Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff, page 231-232.)
We will maintain our illusion of privacy, while the state, through the medical bureaucracy, exercises total control over the medical and business decisions of patients, insurers, and providers alike. Doctors won’t be technical employees of the state (the communist brand of collectivism), at least not initially. But, fascism is socialism…and so is Obamacare…whether Mr. Schwalb, President Obama, or Bill O’Reilly want to call it that or not. Obamacare will “range men firmly within a [health care] discipline they cannot escape.” The medical bureaucracy will be “all-embracing”, and the people will be socialized…sooner (if the democrats have their way) or later (if the current GOP has its way).
The only antipode to collectivism/socialism is individualism/free market capitalism…the system based upon America’s founding principles of unalienable individual rights and textconstitution republican government…long absent from American health care.
Deflation Vs. Inflation: The Great Debate Rages On – Marc Courtenay — Seeking Alpha.
“Suppressed during the war, wages and prices exploded. Autoworkers, steelworkers and others went on strike for higher pay. In 1946 and 1947, consumer prices rose 8.5% and 14.4%, respectively.
I have wasted most of this past 13 months on Digg.com, in futile jousting with immoral collectivists who do not and will not understand the morality of the personal right to life of each individual on this planet, who seek to use the Force of government to negate our right to property, and don’t give one rip about the objective of happiness. Our right to property is now diverted from sustaining our life and enhancing our happiness, and is now instead being ripped from our hands (stolen) toward furthering the immoral goals of collectivism via Force.
Much time was simply wasted, trying to avoid reading trivia completely irrelevant to the ongoing economic collapse, and even more trivia wading thru irrelevant comments often nothing more than ignorant abusive blurbs consisting of nothing more than FU, FTW. While we still hang onto the thread of freedom of speech, having to deal with such ignorance wastes everyone’s time and energy for naught.
During this period we have been clobbered by the burst housing bubble, bailouts serving only to increase the national debt, to the election of a non-citizen communist who now purports to be the president of this new USSA, to an infinitely broad “stimulus bill” which we have now seen serving only to increase the already impossible mountain of national debt. This cannot be funded because the Federal Reserve cannot find buyers for the T-bills and T-bonds, thus Government cannot pay it’s bills nor even fund the bailouts and stimulus. This is a GOOD thing, although we doubt the liberals and socialists and collectivists will not understand this just yet!
So what has this to do with Digg? Well, just yesterday Digg ended it’s Shout feature, which was the way we could pass good articles to our friends. Digg now suggests Facebook and Twitter be used to compensate. Now I don’t know that you feel this way, but having to play KissyFace and Tweeting is not my idea of useful productive time on the internet, so you’ll not find me there. If someone knows an equally active social website devoted to active and serious discussion of philosophical political issues and ideas, PLEASE comment and let me know.
But worse with Digg is it’s now blatant attempts to promote bleeding heart crap and to conceal or even delete anything relevant to true Liberty and the current actions of Government seeking to destroy that last vestage of Freedom. For that reason alone, I am done with Digg.com. I may submit more (of Morality101) articles to Digg, but will not be otherwise participating. I see no compelling reason that Digg will survive these fatal mistakes. Leave that to the collectivists to have a mutual admiration society and continue to scheme how to gain more powers to Force.
I hope to convert this blogger into THE major forum for the serious ongoing discussion mentioned. I wlll need your help to accomplish this, there is too much for me to learn about doing this and so I need the collaboration of others. I barely know how to “Submit” an article here via WordPress, much less to set up the tools for good interaction between us.
So, requested action(s)
Leave your comments HERE, don’t even bother with Digg anymore.
by Your Liberties April 7, 2009
A domestic uprising is becoming more of a reality as our rights are threatened by the epic failure that is socialism. It’s common knowledge that our country is struggling within its own borders. Conservatives and liberals are at each others throats, and although there was much talk about bipartisanship we have yet to see any inclination this will happen with the democrats holding the majority. The real question is how bad do things have to get before actions overpower negotiation.
The economy is still garbage, the unemployment rate is 8.5%, and there is active legislation to suppress rights and liberties afforded to us by our founding fathers. This administration is an embarrassment to society, and society will only take so much before it fights back. Attempts at negotiation with have proved fruitless, Ann Coulter said it best herself.
Political debate with liberals is basically impossible in America today because liberals are calling names while conservatives are trying to make arguments.
Its no secret that the financial stability of our country is in jeopardy. The massive amount of money being poured into the financial sector has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is our pockets. Its likely going to come from pockets of Americans not yet old enough to have a voice. Funding the bailouts is like stealing from piggy banks. There is not an American out there who is not feeling the effect of stupid liberals trying to level the playing field. Our country was founded around capitalism; keep your filthy hands to yourself. Obama, in his infinite wisdom was was quoted saying
I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.
The only people this is good for is the lazy liberals who have refused to apply themselves and expect to dig in my pocket for “change”. Try it again and you will pull back a bloody stump.
The national unemployment rate is hovering around 8.5% the highest rate since 1983. With this many misplaced workers tension is mounting between unemployed citizens and the marxists who think its their job to run this country. To all Karl following morons who put faith into big government and our current administration, we have news for you, we were given the right by men much wiser than all of you collectively to take you down a peg or two.
A country not focused on free enterprise is doomed to fail, and your unwillingness to admit that will be your demise. Every public asset has roots in free enterprise, and therefor every argument you can make for socialism is weak. If you do not stop force feeding us your agenda we will have no choice but to take a defensive stance, and by defensive I mean smear your sorry excuse for an opinion back to London where it came from. This is not a threat, it is a promise, one that I am allowed to make if you continue to violate my rights.
I am an American, DO NOT TREAD ON ME!
By noreply@blogger.com (Edward Cline) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog
Were you alive in Aristotle‘s time, had attended his lectures at the Academy, and had read his works, as well, would you have grasped the importance of those works to your existence? Would you have evaluated his contribution to the lives of other men and gasped in unbounded gratitude? Would you have understood the scope and breadth of his bequest to posterity? Could you have projected how his philosophy would influence the actions of men yet unborn, and what effect his ideas would have on their lives? Could you have projected the consequences of his work, such as skyscrapers, or robots exploring Mars, or microscopic cameras and lasers eradicating cancer, or genetically perfected crops, or communications through radio waves?
Could you have imagined a tableau like Raphael’s “The School of Athens,” in the hall of philosophers, with Aristotle and Plato, deep in conversation, striding from beneath the arch, one pointing upward to the heavens, the other gesturing to the earth? Would you have rejected Plato, and venerated Aristotle?
After the eclipse of ancient Greece, and following the interim of ancient Rome before the heavy, impenetrable curtain of the Dark Ages fell to hide the Greco-Roman millennium from the knowledge and sight of men, it took another millennium for them to rediscover Aristotle. The ruins and artifacts of his and Rome’s civilizations lay buried or weed-grown and crumbling in the chaotic, terrifying landscape of the Dark Ages, presenting a paradox and mystery to men who did not understand the source and significance of those ruins and artifacts. His works were salvaged and preserved by a culture, Islam, which ultimately, logically, had to reject them. Aristotle’s rediscovery in the Middle Ages made possible the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution — and America.
In a dramatically telescoped way, Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged, is experiencing the same rediscovery in the 21st century. It was the most important book of the 20th century, published in New York City in 1957. Although its sales success has been steady and almost without precedent since its publication, until now the novel was ignored, relegated to the cultural sidelines, and deprecated by the cultural establishment. As far as modern philosophers and intellectuals were concerned, it did not exist as a work worthy of serious attention, or exist at all in their minds. It was, and still is, invariably dismissed by critics, leftists, collectivists of every stripe, and most academics as a badly written, unfeeling, hateful, overlong screed posing as a work of literature. Or, it was studiously ignored.
It has taken little over half a century for men to rediscover it and the significance of Rand’s mind and work. Men are gasping, if not in grateful appreciation, then in simple astonishment in the knowledge that she was right. The parallels between the events in the novel and those in the real world have become too obvious for even the novel’s detractors to ignore. They still hurry to denigrate it, but their protests sound peevishly feeble. Hardly a week goes by without Atlas Shrugged being discussed in newspapers, magazines, on the air, or on the Internet. (The latest mention, in the Drudge Report, can be seen here.) The instances are too numerous to cite here. The catalyst for the rediscovery is the current moral and economic crisis for which government actions are only the symptom. What men will do about it remains to be seen.
In an intellectual and philosophic sense, the works of Aristotle acted as a “prime mover” of human culture and civilization. Without them, no Renaissance and Enlightenment would have been possible. Their rediscovery and advocacy by the men of those periods accelerated human progress in terms of a mastery of the physical world, which manifested itself in the Industrial Revolution. But, as Rand herself so succinctly and eloquently observed in her numerous articles and speeches, the Aristotelian influence went only so far, because the skeleton hands of the philosophy of altruism and unreason remained clutched firmly to men’s notion of morality and men did not bother to throw them off. They believed that microwave ovens and cars could coexist with a morality that condemned the ovens and cars, as well as themselves.
Also in an intellectual and philosophic sense, Atlas Shrugged is acting as a “prime mover,” reemerging from behind its curtain of unrecognized existence as something to fear or to reexamine. Men are learning now that the philosophy which made possible their earthly well-being is irreconcilable with its antipode, which makes possible their recurring moral crises. Atlas Shrugged demonstrates that. They are beginning to see that contentment with their pragmatic, unstated “rapprochement” between the opposites can only lead to tyranny, destruction and death, to a condition of existence, as Rand once put it, worse than that of the Dark Ages, for if a partial application to reason fueled the rapid material progress of man, its total absence will cause an even more rapid collapse into anarchic savagery. And reason is what the world’s intellectuals and political leaders are asking men to abandon.
That is what we are beginning to witness now, here in America and abroad.
Atlas Shrugged is about the necessity of a full, unreserved commitment to reason, capitalism and freedom versus a careless, unthinking defaulting to mysticism, “duty,“ slavery and misery. Its theme is the role of the mind in man’s existence. It dramatizes what happens when the rational mind withdraws its power from a society that wishes to both enslave it and kill it. When statist laws and physical force become the “moral” norm in any society, rational minds, which do not take orders or obey edicts, begin to hide, vanish, and go on strike. Just as they did in the Dark Ages. Just as the heroes do in the novel.
In the broadest historic and philosophic sense, the American Revolution was a form of such a strike. As an historic event, it was unprecedented. Its “No, thank you!” was flung in the face of Crown tyranny. Unlike the heroes of Atlas Shrugged, however, the American revolutionaries had to fight a war to win their freedom from that tyranny. Someone has remarked that the novel was America’s second declaration of independence, a completion of the principles present in the first Declaration. That document contains the beginnings of a philosophy which ought to have been explicated, but which was merely implied. Given the enormity of their accomplishment, however, there is neither profit nor point in gainsaying its authors for what they did not do.
For the Founders, because of their circumstances and the means at their disposal, it was necessary to risk the fortunes of a violent separation, which could have ended with defeat and execution in their attempt to dissolve the political bonds which they realized were ensuring their enslavement. In our time, it will become necessary to repudiate and dissolve the bonds of a philosophy which is ensuring our own incremental enslavement. It will require the ratification of a consistent philosophy of reason, one which corrects even Aristotle’s errors. Once that is done, the execrable politics based on a morality of selflessness and sacrifice now robbing us of our own lives, fortunes and sacred honor, will dissolve, as well.
In 1782, replying to James Monroe about calls for Jefferson to abandon plans to retire from public service and return to his personal life, Jefferson wrote:
“In this country…since the present government has been established the point has been settled by uniform, pointed and multiplied precedents, offices of every kind, and given by every power, have been daily and hourly declined and resigned from the Declaration of Independence to this moment….If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less right in himself than one of his neighbors or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery and not that liberty which the Bill of Rights has made inviolable and for the preservation of which our government has been charged. Nothing could so completely divest us of that liberty as the establishment of the opinion that the state has a perpetual right to the services of all its members. This to men of certain ways of thinking would be to annihilate the blessing of existence; to contradict the giver of life who gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness, and certainly to such it were better that they had never been born….”
Had he pursued the thought further, Jefferson might have concluded that neither the state nor society nor “others” had any right or claim to the services of any of its members. Had he done that, and in deference to his incomparable stature as a political thinker and child of the Enlightenment, Jefferson would have attained the heights of Aristotle and his philosophical heir.
One hundred and seventy-five years later, Rand, in Atlas Shrugged, completed that thought:
In the wake of the current political and economic crisis, there are several questions that I have asked that I would assume are also being asked by those who value freedom and individual rights. The questions take the following related forms: Isn’t it obvious to people that what Obama is doing is not going to work in the sense of bringing about economic recovery, e.g. you can’t borrow your way out of debt and you can’t encourage production by punishing producers? Don’t people grasp the implications of these monumental violations of our rights and the loss of freedom? Why don’t people see the connection between history and what is happening now – virtually everything that is happening has happened before in some form? In other words, there is an intense frustration that the consequences of the government’s policies should be obvious to anyone who cares to think about it – yet, every day it is obvious that it is not obvious.
Doubtful that this will wake up very many, yet this is very helpful in understanding the why’s and wherefore’s.
