Keep in mind that I am not responding in accordance with philosophical practices, i.e. searching out both sides of an argument to decide which has the more correct position. I have religious convictions on same-sex marriage, and my responses to these arguments are informed thereby. I don’t subscribe to the notion, common among the philosophically-oriented, that arguments based on religious faith are illegitimate and have no place in debates on public policy. To those who object thus I say, read the founding fathers.

Argument #1: Government should just get out of the marriage business altogether; it is the province of the Church, rather than the State.

How do you propose to accomplish this wish? It is a wish, meaning a desire for a certain object in spite of impossible odds that such object will ever really happen. One might as well wish for a billion dollar chunk of gold to drop out of the sky in one’s front yard. The problem with wishful thinking, especially in politics, is that it wastes a lot of time and energy. Politics, as Russell Kirk has expressed, is the Art of the Possible. Public policy is ordained in basically one of two ways, 1) by the voice of the people, or 2) by the will of the State. In which of these two avenues do we see the best possible chance for our wish to come true? The voice of the people is unstable, changing sometimes from day to day. And people have a tendency to group together with others of like mind. So getting everyone to agree on a plan to strip the State of its involvement in marriage would require that everyone suddenly agree, which is why this is classified as a wish.

Conservatives view the role of government in marriage as necessary to protect the legal contract that is marriage, and it’s result. The argument of the supporters of Prop8 in the case being argued before the Supreme Court today is essentially that the government’s role is the protection of the rights of the individuals intimately affected by a marriage, namely the two adult partners and any resulting children. with the primary focus on preserving generational continuity.

Liberals and Progressives have an entirely different argument. They believe that the government should take an active role in shaping social consciousness and molding the culture. They will oppose any efforts to remove the vehicle of the expressions of power.

The second option is to gather strength for your position, get elected and reelected enough to become powerful and influential, then just mandate the change. Of course this means that you will have to ignore the voices of all those who disagree with you. Are you prepared to become a righteous dictator?

Argument #2: If marriage is supposed to be about procreation, then we would also have to outlaw marriages by people over 55, and people who are unable to have children.

This is a classic throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater argument, and I was rather surprised to hear Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan express it in similar words. However, to be honest, marriage is not just about having children. It’s also about creating homes and societies based on respect, commitment, and preservation of the natural order. You may take two couples, one gay and one straight; they may both have love for each other (I would argue that homosexual attraction is not love in the real sense), exhibit respect and commitment, but one is still wrong because it violates the natural order, an order revealed in Nature by Nature’s God. In the beginning, God commanded all life to multiply and replenish the earth, setting in motion the perpetuation of the species. We see that even today in the natural instinct of every creature to pass on it’s genetic code through another generation. Gay marriage subverts that instinct.

Additionally, the argument that if we oppose marriage for gay couples because of inability to procreate, we must also oppose marriage for straight couples unable to have children due to physical problems or advanced age, indicates a profound misunderstanding of the position conservatives take. In fact, it is deeply flawed in two different ways. First, it suggests that gay marriage is morally equivalent to straight marriage, and thus you cannot be opposed to one without also being opposed to the other. That this is a false assumption on its face is self-evident. Second, the role of government in marriage is one of protecting rights within the marital union and of the children that result. It is not to enforce a mandate to actually have children.

The argument becomes plainly invalid when one considers that many childless couples have not known they were unable to bear children until after many years of marriage and trying. Are we therefore arguing that the government should screen marital candidates for fecundity in order to accomplish what this argument suggests is the conservative position? What about those couples who marry and put off childbearing, eventually deciding not to have children. Is the conservative argument therefore that the government should be able to penalize such couples for violation of social expectations? In light of these questions, it becomes easy to see that the argument is nothing more than a straw man.

These are just two of the more common arguments I have faced in the gay marriage debate. In the interest of space, I will break here and post a follow-up at a later date. Keep reading!

Mitt Romney

I’ve noticed several posts on Facebook recently that call out Mitt Romney for things he allegedly would have done, had he been elected, which would have rendered the election moot no matter who won. These folks are, of course, the same ones who insisted that Mitt Romney was no different than Barack Obama in matters of policy, and are usually libertarians angered by America’s rejection of their messiah, Ron Paul. For these misguided ideologues (is that redundant?), there is no tolerance of any deviation from the libertarian creed; no compromise is possible with people who have suffused, or even entirely replaced, religious faith with political dogma.

This is part 1 in a series of posts dealing with this recurrence of the Mitt Romney Derangement Syndrome that was so widespread among libertarians during the 2012 Presidential Campaign, and which is reappearing because of Romney’s upcoming speech to CPAC on Friday, March 15, 2013. This part deals with Mitt Romney’s positions on Gun Rights. One poster claimed that Mitt Romney supported “draconian gun control” and offered a two minute, forty-five second video clip from 2007 as proof. That video is below.

This video twists reality by the use of creative editing and the insertion of a definition of “crazies” that Mitt Romney didn’t say and didn’t intend. Considering the context, i.e. the Brady Bill and background checks, the intent was most likely a reference to guys like John Hinckley, Jr., who shot Ronald Reagan. The compiler of the video is putting words in Romney’s mouth, a logical fallacy called a straw-man. They assign an argument to Mitt Romney and then stand back and say, “See? We told you so!” It’s dishonest and completely devoid of intellectual integrity. And remember, these are some of the same folks who called Mitt Romney a flip-flopper. Hmm, Hypocrisy anyone?

Mitt Romney’s position on guns and the Second Amendment is quite clear:

“Let me speak very directly and candidly about where I stand. I support the Second Amendment as one of the most basic and fundamental rights of every American. It’s essential to our functioning as a free society, as are all the liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights…

“As president, I’ll honor the right of decent law abiding citizens to own and use firearms in defense of their families, their property and for all other lawful purposes, including the common defense.” (NRA-ILA – Sep 10, 2007)

Romney also defines “weapons of unusual lethality,” mentioned in the above video clip:

“When it comes to protecting the Second Amendment, I do not support any new gun laws including any new ban on semi-automatic firearms. As President, I will follow President Bush’s precedent of opposing any laws that go beyond the restrictions in place when I take office. The laws I do and will support include decades-old restrictions on weapons of unusual lethality like grenades, rocket launchers, fully automatic firearms and what are legally known as destructive devices and would include similar restrictions on new and exotic weapons of similar or even greater lethality. I am proud of my record of defending life and the Second Amendment.” (Mitt Romney, Dec. 30, 2007, 2008election.procon.org – Are more federal regulations on guns and ammunition needed?)

There are several other statements (with references) from Mitt Romney in speeches, articles and other media that clarify his position, here. Boiled down, it is this:

• The Second Amendment is a fundamental and individual right of all Americans, affirmed by the Supreme Court
• It is a cornerstone of our personal freedoms, and essential to a free society
• It is intended to provide for the common defense, among other purposes
• Individuals have the right to defend their homes and families
• The best solution to curb gun violence is to enforce the law, not to disarm law-abiding people
• Individual states should decide what gun laws exist

Additionally his record as governor is one of expanding gun rights for individuals. Here are some examples:

• In 2004, he signed Senate bill 2367 into law which provided for increasing the time a license is valid to six years, and reforms several other points of law in regards to guns and gun owners
• In 2005, he signed Senate bill 2255, which reformed the laws regarding muzzleloaders
• In 2005, he issued a proclamation declaring May 7, 2005 as “The Right to Bear Arms Day”
• In 2006, he signed House bill 4552, which allowed target pistol manufacturers to do business in Massachusetts, and exempted target pistols from the laws.

I’m really having a hard time finding anything that qualifies as “draconian gun control,” or indeed, anything that might be offensive to even libertarian sensibilities. It’s telling that some libertarians will condemn the main stream media for it’s blatant dishonesty and bias, until it comes to Mitt Romney. Most of the mythology surrounding Mitt Romney’s gun philosophy is the result of false stories printed by the Boston Globe, which was forever opposed to anything he did. Some very good documentation and refutation of these myths can be found here and here.  But suddenly the media is shining the light of gospel truth on an evil man. And not only do these people seem to believe the lies about Mitt Romney, they will participate in their propagation. In that pursuit however they, like the media, resort to logical fallacies, half-truths, and outright lies to make their point. They are radicals of nearly the same hue as those on the Left; they will brook no compromise, tolerate no dissent, and silence any opposition by any means available.

But persistence in research pays off. The truth needs to be known. Indeed, as George Orwell wrote, “In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” It’s too bad the Ron Paul Revolution is on the wrong side.

Barack Obama

The following was posted as a comment to one of Erick Erickson’s posts by a user called “lakeworthcane.” It’s so spot on that I felt it needed to be seen in as many places as possible.

“Having watched and listened to Obama for six or seven years now, I think the man has a cartoon-like idea of life in general. He’s dominated by his cynicism: seems to have come to believe that all of life is nothing more than talking bologna and shining it on. That’s all he’s ever done. That’s all he’s ever had to do. That’s all that those who’ve elected him on the state and federal levels have ever required of him.

Talk some crap: lies, truth, sense, nonsense. It doesn’t matter. Just stand in front of microphones, blather some sweet-sounding rhetoric, and wait for the accolades to come pouring in . . . as they inevitably do. His learned disrespect for people–especially those who most fervently support him–and his cynical view of life in general are overwhelming. He’s always got by with the stuff hay becomes when bulls are through with it. He thinks that’s what life is all about.

He breaks wind and waits for the applause and, astonishingly, it comes.

“Sequestration is good. Sequestration is bad. The debt is bad. We need to borrow more. Millions of hard-working Americans everywhere . . . blah, blah, blah.”

It’s as though he’s gleaned from his supporters that all he has to do is be African-American. He doesn’t actually have to do the jobs he’s been hired to do. He’s African-American, and he’s been elected senator and president, and that’s enough. That’s his and his supporters’ victory. He doesn’t have to take the jobs seriously.

I find myself thinking things like, “Okay, we have our African-American president. Woop-de-doo. Big deal. Now, if you don’t mind, could we please elect somebody who can actually do the job?” African-American, Latin-American, Asian-American, Bohemian-American (hi mom!), Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, man, woman, straight, gay: ultimately, it doesn’t matter. We need somebody in the office who can actually do the job. We need somebody who has a constructive, realistic plan: somebody who knows what to do, who can effectively change the parasitic, inept federal status quo.

It’s clear, after four-plus years, that Barack Obama can’t do it. He doesn’t have what it takes, and it’s equally clear that those who might most meaningfully say so–those most vocal, long-standing Obama supporters who’d finally point out that it’s a big, big mistake to elect our president to serve civil-rights ideals instead of to run the country–won’t dare. They didn’t want a president who can do the job the country more and more desperately needs. They wanted an African-American.

I don’t hold the man’s heritage or skin color against him. For crying out loud, who ultimately cares so very much about that? But I do fault him–and, more emphatically, those who voted for him–for his cynicism about the job: for apparently believing that his irresponsible attitude is good enough.

To be clear (because these days, I have to be, about such things): I don’t believe he’s irresponsible because he’s African-American. I believe he’s irresponsible because he’s Barack Obama: because Barack Obama is an irresponsible man, weak, vain, cowardly and cripplingly self-protective, and neither his skin color nor his heritage have anything to do with it. It’s his personality. He cannot do the job he was hired to do, he cannot admit it, and neither can those who support him. He has the brains, but he ain’t got the stones.

While I’m ranting and raving . . ..

Why is it that whenever Obama talks about funding shortfalls, he always targets services that help the population at large as those that will be cut or reduced? He always threatens us with fewer teachers, police, firefighters and healthcare workers.

Why not cut free plane rides and limousines for himself and congresspersons? Why not sell Air Force One? For that matter, why not sell the federal fleets of cars and planes? Why not cut health benefits for himself and congresspersons? Why not cut congressional and presidential salaries? Why not eliminate the White House dog, hair dressers and chefs? Why not cut secret-service protection? Why not cut congressional staffers and aids?

Why not pull Obama’s kids out of private school? Why should they get such expensive educations while so many others can’t afford it?

I could probably fill a thick book with a list of federal budget items that could be cut without sacrificing services to the public at large: pork projects and cushy pampering ad nausea. But when Obama threatens us with what we’ll lose if and when sequestration takes effect, it’s always what the public at large will lose. Neither Obama nor anybody in congress ever talks about what he or she is willing to lose: what sacrifices he or she is willing to make.

Do these people–these public servants–really care about those they so blithely consign to sacrifice? I think not, and that, to me, is the problem. Our political system is geared too heavily toward the politicians’ self-interest. Some self-interest is unavoidable. But when the system becomes totally structured around it, we get what we now have: a political system that serves the politicians–the wealthy, self-interested few–while the entire country flounders and bangs into walls . . . and Barack Obama, for all of his altruistic, idealistic blathering–that tired, worn-out litany that makes “enlightened” leftists weep and wring their hands with passionate moral superiority–is reinforcing the politicians’ self-interested status quo.”

The BSA has been extensively criticized for its prohibitions on gays, with critics calling it discriminatory, among other things. Of course, those critics never explain why being discriminatory about membership in a values-oriented private organization is wrong. Nor do they bother explaining why it isn’t discriminatory for Leftist organizations to exclude conservatives as leaders. But hypocrisy is not the point.

The BSA came under severe criticism when it was revealed in October of 2012 that Scouting officials had kept secret “perversion files” detailing child sex abuse by some Scout leaders. The 1,247 files contain details of Scoutmasters and other volunteers who had admitted to sexually abusing boys during Scout activities. Some of those who had earlier admitted to such abuse and been thrown out tried to come back in later on, but were rejected. The BSA’s biggest mistake was in not reporting the incidents to authorities. At least, that was the media’s viewpoint.

But if it hasn’t yet become clear, let me illuminate the underlying fact: the BSA already has a problem with gay scoutmasters, as the “perversion files” clearly demonstrate; these were men, not women, sexually preying on those boys. The files refer to numerous homosexual acts.

The gay movement will object, saying these were heterosexual pedophiles. But they ignore the indisputable fact that this was pedophilia by males directed toward younger males; same-sex pedophilia is still homosexuality. Just because these men haven’t come out of the closet doesn’t mean they aren’t gay.

But now, in the very shadow of the revelations of hundreds of cases of inappropriate homosexual behavior, the BSA is considering letting openly gay men serve as Scoutmasters. The phrase “fighting fire with gasoline” doesn’t quite do justice to the absurd notion that the BSA should openly accept people whose sexual preference is their primary social identifier. No reasonable person would think this was a move toward greater safety for the boys. But then, when was Leftism ever reasonable?

Some have suggested that the correct thing to do would be to allow the various councils to make their own decisions on whether to allow gays into their own troops, thinking that by decentralizing the question, each council could retain the character it desires. The proposal sounds good on the surface because it is reminiscent of the idea of federalism that worked for the American system of government.

However, those making this proposal fail to acknowledge that federalism did not create two antagonistic systems of government; it created one system with two different spheres of operation. Both parts of the system were supreme in their sphere, but shared a common goal. If the American Founders had created two systems of government that were forever contending with one another for power, they would have in essence created “a house divided against itself,” and its collapse would have been swift.

The Progressive plan is to do exactly that, to divide and conquer. They manipulated the elections of 2012 in part by setting one group of conservatives against another. There were Mitt Romney’s followers, who were opposed by many of the more traditional conservatives, both of which groups were opposed by Ron Paul’s movement.

But if Conservatives of all stripes can learn to put aside their differences and work together on this particular issue, we may see Scouting still around in another 100 years.

25 years ago I lived in Montreal, Quebec. I have long had a desire to return; to walk some of the same streets I knew, to visit the places and the people I loved, to taste life north of the border once again, but never considering any place but America my home. Now, I’m at least open to consider the possibility, especially after hearing this from the floor of the Canadian Parliament.

One of the best lines from the speech is this: “Many believe that the 2008 financial collapse and recession were the result of irresponsible behavior by business and banks.  In fact, this behavior was merely the symptom. The illness was massive government intervention to turn the mortgage business into a social program.” That pretty much sums up what Progressivism is busily engaged in: turning America into a gigantic social program.

Piers Morgan

The entirety of Piers Morgan’s argument for more gun control, as he himself points out in the interview, is about the last 4 mass murders in America. So, for people like Piers, the controversy is about the big events, the ones the media pay the most attention to.

The everyday, onesie-twosie shootings of kids on their front porches in Democratic strongholds like Chicago don’t mean a lot to people like Piers, even though many, many more people, indeed many, many more kids, die everyday as a result. But these single-victim shootings are rarely reported by the nightly news outlets.

Perhaps if mass shootings were to become commonplace enough to be ignored by the media, people like Piers Morgan could once more go on with their lives without being bothered about them, too.

Ron Paul

Ron Paul’s campaign has claimed that it has the bulk of support from military service personnel, more than all the other candidates combined, according to some sources. If true, that would represent a significant achievement for Ron Paul in terms of actual, financial support, not to mention the symbolic significance of having the largest cohort of military members supporting your non-interventionist foreign policy positions. You’ll forgive me, then, if I say it sounds too good to be true.

So, I took some time to analyze Ron Paul’s contribution statistics to see if the claim would stand up under scrutiny. After all, if the majority of the military is in the tank with Ron Paul, I’d like to know that going into the upcoming election season. What I found is revealing. I don’t want to give away the conclusion just yet, but I will say there is certainly a pattern that has emerged in the race for the Presidency that orbits Ron Paul’s campaign. I’ll explain shortly.

The campaign contribution figures for Ron Paul are available at opensecrets.org. Here are Paul’s top five donors, as reported by the Ron Paul campaign:

• US Army: $81,423
• US Air Force: $60,739
• US Navy: $58,267
• Google Inc: $34,191
• Microsoft Corp: $24,698

(Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00005906)

The figures have gone up since Jan. 6th, which was expected. However, there is something strange about the numbers. The military branches are the top three donor groups for Ron Paul.

Really? The top three?

Only one other candidate in the current campaign, including all those who have already dropped out, shows ANY donations from the military; Herman Cain received $9000 from the US Army. But Ron Paul’s top three donor groups are US military personnel? Isn’t that highly suspicious? Frankly, it doesn’t pass the smell test. Even the other Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, shows no donations from the military.

Gary Johnson actually provides a good control for analyzing Ron Paul’s claims. Johnson’s platform on the use of the military is not much different from Ron Paul’s, e.g. we should bring the troops home, become more non-interventionist, and refrain from “nation building.” Yet Johnson has no listed contributions from the military. None.

Have all the libertarians in the military agreed to support Ron Paul? Probably not. But let’s get to what the actual figures tell us. It’s very enlightening.

The figures don’t actually prove that Ron Paul has any given level of support from the military; they are aggregate numbers. They actually prove too much. From a statistical standpoint, the military donor groups are outliers; these military groups are his top three sources, which should indicate that military donors are very politically active. Yet none of these same sources are donating to any other candidates. That’s unusual at best. If true, it would indicate a monolithic support for Ron Paul among active military personnel that excludes all other candidates, which is a statistical improbability.

Could there be other reasons why military donations are not being collected by the Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich campaigns? According to the author of Liberty Reborn, there are four,

“First, active duty personnel stationed overseas will often have their spouses make donation for their household to candidates. These donations are then listed under the spouse’s information which is often times not military related. Secondly is that members of the military, from my personal experience, hate to be used as political pawns and when they donate to political candidates they often do not list their military service as their profession. Thirdly, military personnel, as I have been told by military personnel themselves, generally really hate to be used for political purposes thus they again do not like to list their service on donations made to military candidates so that their donations cannot be used in this manner. And fourthly (sic) is that there is a concerted effort by Ron Paul supporters in the military to make sure that their donations are listed as coming from military personnel in order to perpetuate this talking point for political gain.”

Since there is no way to tell how many persons actually made donations to Ron Paul (it could be as few as five, for all we know), the best we can do is calculate, based on the contribution numbers we have.

As of Jan. 6th, Ron Paul could have had financial support from no more than about 4.4% of active military personnel, based on campaign contributions. Today, if we assume a $1 per person contribution level, it’s still only 13.7%. Since 200,000+ $1 donations is unlikely, let’s assume a $10/person level. It’s still less than 1.4%. But that percentage is actually more in line with exit polling numbers, which indicate that only 2.5% of Ron Paul’s total votes in military-heavy South Carolina were military voters.

The numbers above show, regardless of the total amount, about 1.4% support for Ron Paul among active military personnel. Is it possible that a large percentage of the balance of military personnel are politically inactive or contributing under other occupations? Yes, that is possible.  Can we reasonably assume that the other 98.6% did not contribute to any of the other three candidates? Absolutely not, but this is what Ron Paul’s campaign and supporters have asked us to believe.

Additionally, the figures that Ron Paul’s campaign provided to the government show that a claim of “$150,000 in Q4 alone” is very high. As noted above, he had pulled in a total of $65,270 as of Jan 6th, 2012, which included data from Q4. These are his official statistics.

I promised at the beginning of this column that I would explain the pattern I found. With the evidence above, I have demonstrated how Ron Paul’s campaign is claiming much more support from the military than it actually has. This pattern is a microcosm of the bigger claim the Paul campaign has been making for weeks, i.e. that it has more delegates than any other candidate. In similar fashion, however, they use some rather fuzzy math to arrive at that conclusion, as well as reliance on a big hope that the campaign is decided in a brokered convention that goes well for Ron Paul.

At bottom, it doesn’t look like Ron Paul’s military support, active or otherwise, is as strong as he claims. His campaign and his supporters are asking us to believe things that are statistically  unlikely. The actual numbers tell the real story. But don’t expect that to change the endless loop the Paulbots are programmed to repeat.

Russell Kirk

“Ever since the end of the Second World War, the tendency of American public opinion has been more or less conservative. But there exists some danger that conservatives themselves might slip into a narrow ideology or quasi-ideology—even though, as H. Stuart Hughes wrote some forty years ago, ‘Conservatism is the negation of ideology.’” -Russell Kirk, The Errors of Ideology

Despite Dr. Kirk’s warning, the slide into “a narrow ideology” has been an ongoing trend for people who call themselves “conservative” in recent years. This hardening of the mind is likely the result of two external causes, 1) a natural response to the leftist ideologies that seem to be carrying the day in government and the media, and 2) a lack of knowledge and understanding of what being “conservative” actually means, according to the minds who have defined it, due largely to an educational system that has worked tirelessly to extinguish such knowledge.

The difficulty is getting people to understand that the antidote to the armed doctrines of Ideology is not more Ideology, but “non-ideology.” In 2007, Erick Erickson from RedState.com criticized Mitt Romney for having “no ideology.” From the ideologue’s perspective, this is unacceptable. At best, the ideological mind assumes there is no way to predict how a candidate will act in a given situation; at worst, the assumption is that the candidate will never measure up to the expectations of the ideologue’s “aggressive political righteousness.” Ideology, the companion to religious bigotry, grants adherents permission to exterminate any opposition that threatens the vision of hegemonic superiority.

In the conservative mind, having “no ideology” is preferable in every way to the alternative. Ann Coulter points out in her column that Ronald Reagan didn’t trounce Jimmy Carter by being an ideological firebrand. “Reagan beat the odds and took out an incumbent by waging a charm campaign to win over independents, moderates and undecideds.” Mitt Romney’s biggest obstacle to the Presidency is not average Americans, it’s Americans who have turned politics into religion, on both sides of the political spectrum.

Ideology is “the politics of passionate unreason.” The Ideologue can never be an effective force for uniting disparate groups of people, aptly demonstrated by the current occupant of the White House and contradicting his own grandiose claims. The Ideologue sees everyone outside of his or her political orthodoxy as an enemy. In contrast, Dr. Kirk points out that “Conservatives…have the habit of dining with the opposition,” preferring reconciliation to the building up of what Edmund Burke called the “antagonist world.”

The conservative is guided by Prudence, what Patrick Henry called “the Lamp of Experience.” But our past experiences have been systematically hidden from us by Leftist historians and journalists, and we are left groping in the dark. Thirty years ago, Russell Kirk worried that, “…since the end of the Second World War, the American public has looked with increasing favor upon the term ‘conservative.’ Public-opinion polls suggest that in politics, the majority of voters regard themselves as conservatives. Whether they well understand conservatives’ political principles may be another matter.”

I worry that, despite our general unfamiliarity with our predecessors’ experience, we think we have found a candle to light our way.  But we will realize only too late that what we have lit is a fuse.

Photo by James Kegley

“Collectivism doesn’t work because it’s based on a faulty economic premise. There is no such thing as a person’s ‘fair share’ of wealth. The gross national product is not a pizza that must be carefully divided because if I get too many slices, you have to eat the box. The economy is expandable and, in any practical sense, limitless.” — P. J. O’Rourke

O’Rourke’s comment is right on. The primary difference between collectivists of any stripe and those who favor a free market is whether they believe (or admit) that the economy can be expanded.

The collectivist belief that the economy is a zero-sum game always leads to some form of deprivation. At first, it may be only deprivation of a given commodity; if there are 1,000 loaves of bread available, but 1,500 people who want it, obviously some are going to have to go without. This is a microcosm of the larger economy, e.g. where there is a limited amount of resources, some people may get more than others.

Enter “Social Justice.”  Collectivism being egalitarian in its philosophies, it is unjust that one of the collective have more than another. The limited wealth must be divided up as equally as possible. As more and more members of the collective community make demands on the available resources, the amount being redistributed gets smaller and smaller unless a way is found to increase the portion of each member.(1)

Otherwise, the collectivist soon realizes that the only way to ensure that everyone gets a practical share of the economic pie is to reduce the number of people making demands. At some point the elimination of 500 mouths becomes justifiable in the mind of the collectivist and, ultimately, even necessary. Deprivation of existence is transferred from the commodity to the consumer. Collectivist economies claim to make no value judgments between consumers and commodities–either are of equal value to society. And because the consumer is of equal value with the commodity, and the consumer is the source of demand that exceeds the capacity of the system to provide the commodity, the consumer can be forcibly eliminated as a threat to society. In effect, one could argue that the commodity actually has more value than the consumer, and a value judgment is made.

Collectivist economies also create deprivation at another level. An individual has the right to obtain food, clothing, and shelter–the necessities to preserve life. Collectivist economies cannot meet these demands in every instance. What’s worse, individuals are prohibited by law from obtaining those necessities outside of the system (which has already failed to provide). Thus, collectivist systems deprive individuals of the basic right of self-preservation. The death of a certain portion of the population, either through active or passive government policy, is the natural result of a philosophical belief in a zero-sum economy.

What, then, is the purpose of a collectivist government? Can we say that a collectivist government protects the people? How can it, when it can casually eliminate them or simply let them starve as a matter of economic policy? What does such a government protect?

The answer is it doesn’t protect anything. Collectivist government’s raison d’être is the promotion and establishment of an imaginary society. Socialism, Communism, Marxism, etc. are all attempts at creating a new society based on social theory and untested principles. All the old institutions (the societal realities) must be destroyed to make way for the new.

But those old institutions have upheld society for generations and are, in varying degrees, directly responsible for the prosperity of society. When you take those old ways away and replace them with new ways that have not been tried, the process of wealth creation stops and everyone suffers…except, of course, for those who control the new system. They make out like the bandits they really are.

_____________________________________________

(1) Barack Obama believes he has found the secret to overcoming this fatal flaw of collectivist philosophy: if you own or control the printing presses that create bank notes, you should be able to print as many of them as you want. He doesn’t understand that in a healthy economy, those notes represent actual wealth, not abstract wealth.