Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Liberty Or Death?

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."

Patrick Henry (1736-1799)

So here is yet ANOTHER Founding Father's prescience that we have not taken to heart.

Or listened to.

Actually we, as a people, as THE PEOPLE, have listened less and less over the centuries to the wisdom, advice and pleadings of the Founding Fathers.

We have given up our liberties little by little for what we have thought to be protection and security. It has been a mistake.

What are we faced with now? Is the gubment using the Constitution to restrain the people? YES!

Take this "mandate" debate over what has been called "health care."

Mandate - according to Oxford, as a noun, means, "an official order or authorization."
And as a verb, "1. give (someone) authority to act in a certain way, 2. compulsory."

The Founding Fathers had a whole lot of problems with the "authority" of gubment. They REALLY had a whole lot of problems with a "compulsory" gubment. And they REALLY, REALLY had a whole lot of problems with the "official orders" of gubment.

All that caused an American Revolution! And what was installed instead? A gubment restrained by the people!

So, if there is a "mandate" to purchase the gubment's "health care," when that is determined to be "Constitutional," and I fear it will, there will be ASSUMED the "Constitutional" authorization to act in a compulsory manner.

How? They, the ubiquitous THEY, can deny any aspect of any part of the program to anybody they determine unfit to receive it! If you are too old (and no longer contribute via your taxes) you can be denied a necessary, but "expensive," diagnosis or treatment. If you are too fat you can be denied a necessary, but "expensive," diagnosis or treatment, until you meet the gubment's weight criteria. If you smoke or drink or use "unapproved" drugs, you can be denied a necessary, but "expensive," diagnosis and treatment until you quit. And if you have smoked too long and are too far gone with your ailment, well, have a nice day.

"THEY" have been given the authority to do so!

DO YOU THINK I AM OFF THE MARK? DO YOU THINK I AM A WAY-OUT-THERE PARANOID?

Think again.

And how far does this authority go? There is a mandate! It goes as far as "they" say it goes. So, if it is "Constitutional" that we have to buy the gubment's "health insurance," excluding and preventing all other types of insurance, inside the country and out, it is also "Constitutional" for the gubment to demand that we can no longer buy Twinkies.

SIMILARLY, THEREFORE, IT IS "CONSTITUTIONAL" FOR THE GUBMENT TO DEMAND THAT WE DO BUY TWINKIES! OR HAVE TO BUY GUBMENT-APPROVED, PRE-PACKAGED FOODS. OR SOYLENT GREEN...

If "health care" is somehow determined to be "Constitutional," we are done as the country envisioned, fought for and set up by our Founding Fathers. Period.

There will be NO Constitution. There will be no restraint. We will be without liberty.

Remember Patrick Henry's famous line? That came at the END of a really great speech. You should read it.

Where is Patrick Henry when you need him?

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Growing Naturally

"Never was capitalism imposed on life as a system, or at all. It grew out of life, not all at once but gradually, and is therefore one of the great natural designs. When it was found and identified by such men as Adam Smith, who wrote its bible, and Karl Marx, who wrote its obituary too soon, it was already working."

Garet Garrett (1878 - 1954)

Two key words in that statement above: grew and natural.

Historically it grew where it had opportunity. Where would that have been? Where markets and voluntary exchange had more and more given opportunity. Where there was less and less dictatorial control.

SUCH IS STILL THE CASE TODAY!

And natural? That means what? It means not contrived, or caused, or made by humankind! It is something normal or expected.

CAPITALISM HAPPENED NATURALLY BECAUSE OF HUMAN NATURE!

We are always trying to improve our position in the world and our condition in life!
We are always
trying to improve our status in life, socially and otherwise.
We are always trying to create a better mouse trap than the one we are peddling now and sell more of them.
We are always trying provide a better service, or differentiate ourselves from our competition. We do so out of selfish desire for profit! Why profit? Because profit tells us how well we're doing! It allows us to grow and expand, hire others, open another location or otherwise extend ourselves more so to the buying public. And we do those things, take those risks, in hopes of yet more profit!

Why? Because of our natural desire to improve our personal position in the world and our condition in life!

This is a natural cycle!!

CAPITALISM is a natural system! It is a free system, one of voluntary markets and invisible hands diverting resources and deriving efficiencies nobody can plan. As such it CANNOT be imposed! It is a virtuous system - the scum bags and users in the market place are ground out by those who offer their wares (goods and services) in more honest, and fewer using-of-others ways.

AND WHERE ALLOWED TO GROW, UNFETTERED BY NATIONAL POLITICS AND VISIBLE, REGULATORY HANDS, IT DOES. AND WHERE CAPITALISM DOES GROW, IT IMPROVES THE LIVES OF EVERYONE LIVING WHERE IT THRIVES.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Corruption And Despotism

“There is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”

Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790)

What is despotism? According to Oxford, it is ruling with absolute power, especially exercising it in an oppressive way.

Then what does Franklin mean?

Franklin considered the intrusion of gubment into our lives as corrupting.

As individuals we would become corrupted. As states we would become corrupted. As a society we would become corrupted. And our gubment, federal and otherwise, would become corrupted.

His word is "the people." WE ARE THE PEOPLE!! AND WE ARE BECOMING CORRUPTED!!

There is a reason the Founding Fathers sought to break from the despotism of England. They sought to create a society based on individualism, a society with freedoms for its citizenry, the people, to act and not be so acted upon, with abilities to do and create and become!

There is only one economic system that can combine with such a free political system. Only a free-market system, with free and voluntary enterprise, can act with such a political system.

Every day we are delivering our founded freedoms over to the Nannie Gubment to do for us better than we can do for ourselves.

WHY should we feed our own children when school will do it?
WHY should we go to a bank for a home loan or student loan when the gubment will do it?
WHY should we provide our own retirement when the "system" will do it?
WHY should we choose a car to drive when the gubment will make it and do it?
WHY should we select our own light bulbs, for crying out loud, when Nannie will do it?

WE ARE TURNING OURSELVES OVER TO A FOURTH BRANCH OF GUBMENT! THE ADMINISTRATIVE BRANCH!!

How many millions of people are employed, in all levels of gubment, to administer the millions of laws and regulations that they create to impose upon our lives?

And how many of these regulations have criminal penalties attached? Who can possibly know all these regulations? Nobody. THAT is despotism.

Think quickly - name something in your house that is NOT regulated by Nannie Gubment?

NAME IT!!

This is creeping despotism. This is creeping CORRUPTION!

This would frighten the bejeebies out of the Founding Fathers.

My favorite line from the Declaration of Independence, which I quote very often is this: "He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance."

Is that not what we have allowed to happen and are allowing to happen more and more every day?

And this has made us and is making us CORRUPT. Not my word, Franklin's word!

We need more free enterprise and freeDOM. FreeDOM to act more for ourselves and not to be so acted upon.

We need to get away from Pogo's Declaration of Despotism, who said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Low Morality Or High Morality?

"Force always attracts men of low morality."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

When someone wants to spend a lifetime in gubment, it is about force.

When someone in gubment does continual end runs around the Constitution to "get things accomplished," it is about force.

When gubment programs are implemented that leave a citizenry with no choice, it is about force.

The corollary to Dr. Einstein's statement is that force does not attract men of high morality.

Why not?

Because of the law of attraction! Light cleaves unto light, love gravitates toward love, cleanliness desires to be clean, and the godly seek God.

It can be no other way.

FREE ENTERPRISE CAN NEVER FORCE! By definition. It is free.

How can freedom be imposed, instituted by law, or forced onto a society by dictatorship? That's like saying that truth shackles.

This is what prompts classical liberals*, like Alan Greenspan, to say that "capitalism and free enterprise ... holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues, not vices. It is this superlative moral system that the welfare statists propose to improve upon by means of preventative law, snooping bureaucrats and the chronic goad of fear."

The preventative law and the goad of fear is ALWAYS the way of those with low morality.

Health "care" anyone?


* Our vernacular would call a classical liberal a conservative...

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

A Definite Major Purpose

"You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for."

Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)

If you have never heard of Napoleon Hill, you should get to know him. His book, Think and Grow Rich, is one of the best-selling books of all time, selling over 20 million copies.

Before I even begin, do you think that anyone "occupying" a park somewhere, demanding this and that be provided by other people, would understand a word of that quote above? That lack of understanding is PRECISELY why they are "occupying" a park and demanding freebies from others!

Note: there are no "freebies," just as there is no free lunch. Everything costs somebody something.

Hill got started at the age of 13, writing as a reporter for a small town newspaper in rural Virginia. Just consider that!

He considered it the greatest event of his life to have been assigned, in 1908, to interview Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie, most don't realize, was probably as rich in his era as two or three Gates or Buffets would be today. He was incredibly powerful. And Carnegie thought that the process of success could be put into a simple formula that anyone could implement and achieve.

Carnegie was very impressed with the young Napoleon Hill and suggested that he interview 500 very successful people to try to discover and boil down that formula for all to see. You would recognize most of the names on his interview list - many of the most successful and powerful people the country has ever known.

Working quickly Hill published his findings in 1925 in a multi-volume study series called The Laws of Success. That was followed in 1941 by another multi-volume home study course called Mental Dynamite. Hill later called his success teachings "The Philosophy of Achievement," traveling to deliver it in talks to people nationwide. He thought strongly that the freedoms provided by democracy and capitalism were the essential building blocks in a person's ability to achieve. So too, by the way, did Carnegie!

His main challenge to his readers and followers was to have them identify what he called a "Definite Major Purpose," and to have them ask themselves what they truly believed. Hill thought that about 98% of people had no idea what they believed, which put success out of their reach!

You can read about the "secrets" of achievement in the compilation of Hill's formula in the book, Think and Grow Rich today. I highly, highly recommend that you do!

And like most good things, it won't be easy, but it will be worth it.