"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery then unequal in freedom." - Alexis De Tocqueville
Equality as our founders meant it is commonly misunderstood and referred to as a quest for social policies.
Reading De Tocqueville's quote here, one can understand why. After all, we would rather be worse off and equal right.
You need to put the quote into context. In their time, people were born Nobel or common and in between. Meaning, you were born with different rules and rights depending on what level of society you were born into.
The American idea was to abolish this system of Nobility. For all men
to be equal under the law. Each person granted the equal rights as all
others under law.
This did not mean people should not be rich
whiles others poor. It had nothing to do with outcomes or wealth. It
meant that the rich must abide by the exact same laws as the poor. The
poor would be able to operate in the same system as the rich and have no
disadvantage under law.
It did not mean if you were born with
less that you could take from the rich until you had equal outcomes.
Because this would be unequal under law. The rich gets stolen from while
poor get to steal. This is not the equality they wanted.
It is important to understand this simple concept. For our American experiment & idea rests on it.
It is often thought that people get rich at the expense of others. This assumes a fatal flaw. That wealth is not created but is finite.
If wealth were finite (there is only one pie) then indeed the rich
would be at the expense of the poor. But it is not. It is limitless.
The fact is, in a free market, for a person to gain wealth, they must make others more wealthy.
You can only gain wealth in a free market through exchange. All
exchanges make both parties more wealthy or the exchange would not
happen.
So by simple definition, rich people only get that way
by making products and services that make others more wealthy. They
serve humanity by producing exactly what humanity desires. They create
new pies all the time, and while gaining huge portions for themselves
they must exchange huge portions to society.
There is no one pie to distribute amongst us all. There is limitless creation possible.
The state with its idiot leaders like Obama seek to stop the pie
creation and force the wealthy to distribute the current allotment of
pies to the rest of us. Instead of just letting them go on creating new
pies to exchange and make us all more wealthy. They seek to see us all
perfectly equal sharing only the one pie.
They (the state) are a
crime to society. Hindering the advancement of wealth for us all in a
quest to make us the same poor dogs, equal in our squander.
They point guns at the heads of those producing the most and say, "You have too much."
Well, those producing the most are the ones supplying the most wealth.
You have heard the the saying, "Don't bite the hand the feeds you?"
The state is constantly biting the hands that feed us in the name of fairness.
Walter Block wrote a blog post and posted a video at Lew Rockwell's Blog concerning abortion. He has tried to come up with a third way to discuss the issue. He wrote:
1. The unborn fetus is trespassing into the womb of the woman.
2. The rights of all fetuses are equal.
3. Therefore, the only right choice would be evicting the fetus. Killing it would be wrong.
Here is the video.
As a Christian, who is in the Libertarian camp, I must start with God's revelation. As a Christian, I must bow to the Lordship of Christ and His revelation first and foremost. Therefore, I find this argument most unhelpful. Although he imagines he is doing something different from the Pro-choice crowd, notice his stated premise that the fetus is trespassing into the womb. This premise is exactly the problem the Feminist movement has. Both thoughts are rejecting the created order.
It is the Creator of us all who has designed the creation. It is the Creator who has designed the family and how it is to come about and exist and perpetuate. Feminists have admittedly rejected the created order and have become irrational.
If Walter Block is going to argue for private property rights, does he not ground such a belief in the created order or natural law? Is this natural law or morality not established by the Creator? I realize that Libertarians make private property rights central in their political philosophy, but how do we do that to the exclusion of the family?
Several times throughout his video he mentions that this is a very complex issue. This seems to be synonymous with complicated. I'm sorry. There is nothing complex or complicated about the family. The nature of the family and how it is to be perpetuated is anything but difficult to understand. I'm not saying there are not difficult issues, but the basics I don't think are too difficult.
Now he does offer the case of rape as a violation of property rights into the woman's womb. The problem is that this is argued as a parallel for a normal situation of propagation. I hardly think there is any comparison. Another man's child that has invaded a family illegally and immorally through an heinous act should never be compared to the God given parameters.
To say the child is innocent does not mean it will by necessity have a free ride in this life. For instance, if a man driving down the street runs over my child playing in the street does not mean that I, the innocent dad, will somehow not pay for that accident. In the same way, one could argue that the child, though innocent of the act of rape, may end up being injured as a result of the crime committed by the rapist. But most in our nation, including Mr. Block, do not believe the innocent should pay for the crimes of their parents. So I will stop there for now.
Mr Block then uses a Utilitarian argument to save babies via technology. He also explains that the Prolife position is losing therefore we must do something different. But I can hardly understand how employing an ungrounded philosophical/utilitarian argument is a better route? When a culture rejects the created order, thereby suppressing the truth about its creator, from a Christian perspective, we should not turn to "reason" as some new ultimate authority to save us, but instead, expect the judgment of God. Is that not what we are seeing in our culture?
I respectfully disagree with Mr. Block. I think we must argue more persuasively by appealing to sound argumentation based in natural law. Our children are being raised in state schools which will always teach the morality of the State. Since the morality of the State is believed to be derived from itself and not the Creator, the suppression of the created order will only be further suppressed, creating a spiraling downward of rational thought and a populace easily controlled by the State.
If we are going to be practical or utilitarian, then perhaps the best and most practical way to reduce abortions is to rid our society of state schools.
For years I have wondered why we have not harnessed the energy in the oceans via their currents. Everybody knows that the potential energy in water far exceeds anything wind has to offer. Surely technology could advance in such a way that we could build some kind of turbine or perhaps something we have not even thought of as yet. Well, apparently, such technology has been advanced. Being a member of a utility company, I was given this article today. Read here for the full article.
In June, Ocean Power Technologies said it had successfully tested elements of its utility-scale PowerBuoy system in anticipation of bringing the initial phase of the project online later this year.
As envisioned, 10 buoys would be anchored to the ocean floor at
depths of 204 to 225 feet. They would convert the movement of waves into
electrical energy.
Now I was initially impressed. Using some kind of technology to convert motion into useable electrical energy, but then I read this.
“The 35-year term of the license demonstrates the commercial potential
of wave power, and this will support initiatives to secure financing for
the project,” he said in a statement.
Now the red flags go up. Secure financing for a project in the last century of great innovations & inventions would have meant private investments and risk from private citizens and companies. Not anymore. In today's "too big to fail" "no risk" mentality, this could only mean one source, and if it is from the government, then this technology is no better than wind. If you read this article, my suspicions have been half way vindicated.
This is one of the largest wave-energy projects announced to date, and leverages a grant from the Commonwealth of Australia.
Well, just read a few paragraphs more of the original article and see this.
The project will cost about $3.5 million a year to run, and produce
about 4,140 megawatt-hours, enough for 375 homes, according to the
company.
Now you may be thinking, "Wow! That's a lot of Mega-watts." But simply do the math that is not provided. The cost would be over $9,000 per year per household. Unless the average house they are speaking of is similar to Al Gore's...well...my electric bill may be high, but it is not that high. In fact, that would nearly quadruple my electric bill. Then again, for some people in New England or California, this may be the norm. But we live in an age of technology. Things should be getting cheaper, not more expensive.
To be fair, this is a short article and perhaps there is more information that is not stated. But just as burning corn is killing us in every way, and just as wind energy is a fraud, just as both are being subsidized, so this sounds like pure fraud. How else would this be affordable?
Well if you read this editorial, it turns out my red flags were spot on.
The regulatory process was only one hurdle. The development of wave
power has been subsidized heavily by the state and federal governments.
The company hopes that a utility eventually will finance or purchase the
Reedsport project, but for now it remains an unproven technology.
Ta Da! "Subsidized heavily." Need I say more, but I will. The editorial goes on to say,
The project’s total capacity of 1.5 megawatts is relatively small — the
Eugene Water & Electric Board’s Carmen-Smith hydroelectric plant
generates 72 times as much power — but the developer envisions expansion
to 50 megawatts. If wave power proves commercially viable, the U.S.
Department of Energy estimates wave sites have a total capacity of 2
trillion watts, or double the current world demand for electricity.
Wave power has significant advantages. The fuel is free, and it can be
used to generate electricity with no carbon dioxide emissions. Wind
power shares those advantages, but wind is more intermittent.
So my instincts were right. It is like wind. It produces nothing that we need, and the fuel is NOT FREE! like the bone head author thinks it is. This is yet another example of government fraud and corruption in which corporations rip off the tax-payer. True innovations come from the free-markets, not government frauds.
I wanted to add a few thoughts to my brother's recent post concerning the "freedom of association".
We live in a day where we assume that the "state" must exist and must do so in the fashion of coercion. In other words, we simply assume that if we didn't have the state government that forces all people to accept its authority by aggression and threat of violence, then people would never get along.
But is it really the case that if it were not for coercion we would all splinter into chaos? I would beg to differ. I would like to use an example of Protestant churches. So many see Protestant denominationalism as chaotic. But is it really? Is this not merely the exercise of the freedom to associate? What if a local church changes it core beliefs over time and the problem goes beyond restoration to its original beliefs? What if several members of this local church decided to break fellowship and start a new church that is consistent with the original beliefs? Is this really so bad? If you disagree, how do you plan to keep those disaffected members? Do you plan to use coercion by force? A Centralized power, think the medieval church, would by necessity use coercion by threat of violence and would do so via government officials while standing by innocently.
Perhaps another example might be better. I am a member of a local hockey association. We have voluntarily joined a multi-state hockey association which is also a part of national hockey association. What if we decided as a local association to leave the multi-state association? Perhaps the national hockey association may put pressure on other local associations to not play hockey with us. Or perhaps they may try to use free-market principles to bring us back into their larger association by providing a better product?
So often I am told that if it were not for the monopoly of government we would not have roads or bridges, etc. The real argument is against "brute individualism". We just can't exist on our own. My response to this canard is simple. There is no such thing as autonomous individualism. We all exist within some kind of system to which we are bound in some way. So Libertarianism doesn't mean some kind of chaotic free-for-all. One of the facets of Libertarianism is that we are free to associate and disassociate and all the consequences that follow.
Let me offer another example. Say I live on top of a Mountain. In order to get supplies I have to pass over a grouchy old man's private property. Let's say the grouchy old man never lets anyone pass over his private property, at least not for a ridiculous fee. Therefore, I would not be autonomously free. I would have to make some kind of agreement with the grouchy old man. But what if the grouchy old man doesn't make any agreement? To assume that I may use government's threat of violence would violate the very freedom I claim to believe. It would be a self-contradiction. The grouchy old man morally does not have to agree with some government official telling him I must have freedom to travel over his land.
Now you may be wondering, did I change the subject? No. My point is simple. We have freedom, but those freedoms are based in a world that the Creator made, not in some chaotic autonomous world in which I live by myself. The old man has the right to his private property. He has the right to associate with whom he chooses. A monopolistic government clearly violates his fundamental right to secede or associate. Now this may not seem "fair" to some of you, but we are talking about reality, not some government mandated dream.
In the end, in order for the grouchy old man to succeed in life, he must provide something for his neighbors and his neighbors, including me, must do likewise. This is all part of the freedom of association.
States
by their very nature are perpetually at war, not always against foreign
foes of course, but always against their own subjects.
What is the state's most fundamental purpose? The activity that without, it can not even exist, is extortion!
The state gains its very sustenance from the proceeds of its
extortion, which it pretties up by giving it a different name, called
taxation, and by driving to sanctify its Intrinsic crime as permissible and socially necessary. State propaganda, statish ideologies, and long established routines
combine to convince people that they have a legitimate obligation, even a
moral duty to pay taxes to the state that rules their society.
They fall into such erroneous moral reasoning because they are told
incessantly that the tribute they fork over is actually a kind of price
paid for essential services rendered and that in case of certain
services, such as protection from foreign and domestic, aggressors against
their right to life, liberty and property, only the government can
provide this service effectively.
They are not permitted to test
this claim by resorting to competing suppliers of law, order and
security, however, because the government enforces a monopoly over the
production and distribution over its alleged services and brings
violence to bear over its would be competitors. In so doing it reveals
the fraud over its impudent claims and gives proof that it is not your
genuine protector, but a mere protection racket!
All
governments are, as they must be, Oligarchies! Where a relatively small
number of people have discretion over how it's power will be brought to
bear.
The free market however, is the opposite of a state. It
is the system where the masses control all resources. Where the few
entrepreneurs and capital holders must listen to the masses and figure
out how to best serve them or they fail and disappear. It is a system
where the men with means and ideas must serve mankind better than
others. Constantly competing to serve others better, cheaper and more
innovative and provide the best service, for if they don't, others will.
They battle to bring you more for less. They battle to innovate at
their own risk to serve you, to try and get your constantly wavering
vote (your purchases) less they will loose their own money.
So here is one of the new commercials against Mitt Romney. To be honest, I couldn't care less about Big Right-Wing Government Mitt Romney, but I think this ad is a great teachable moment. One of the first claims is that while we peons are srcummaging around looking for pennies on the floor just so we can eat, the rich are living life high on the hog. Therefore the rich are evil. Why? What is the logical correlation. Well, it's the same old haves verses have nots argument. It totally plays on the emotions without a single shred of rational thought.
If we squeezed every penny from the rich and gave it away, would that solve our economic problems? Nope, but you are made to think so.
So the next quick argument is the tax rate. The evil Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than you do. The ad is so insidious, you are made to feel you actually pay more real taxes than he does, which is absurd. Just look at the number they offer on the screen with rational thinking and you will see Mitt pays millions of dollars in taxes more than the average shlub (all the while Harry Reid says he didn't pay any taxes, which is it?).
Then we are told the rich are going to get even more money from the government because they will pay less in taxes while we pay more. But let's get to the crux of this commercial.
The entire point of the commercial is simple. Hate the rich and tax them more. By doing this, we will all feel better about ourselves. So go ahead. Vote for Obama. Feel better about giving government the power to steal private property from someone else. You'll feel better. But I ask you, will it really make you feel better? Will it really solve those grocery bills? Will your life magically get better because someone else got screwed?
When in your life did allowing someone else to get screwed ever really help you? Unless of course you really believe the government's debt will really get paid down while they transfer the wealth of the rich into your pocket? Living in a dream world will sooner or later come to an end. It did for the Soviets. If we continue to follow this path, it will for us too.
