“It’s only absurd if you don’t take into consideration the history of this country.” That is one of those points that is supposed to send me running for cover lest I be found guilty of political incorrectness. I not only do not shrink at the statement, I am highly offended at it.

That is a Mob phrase. What does it even mean? What is the history of this country that excuse all racist and racialist behavior when committed by protected group? Racism is racism is racism.

What makes me, an American who is white, guilty for the crimes perpetrated by slave-holders and their 18th and 19th century American apologists? Most of my ancestors were poor immigrants while slavery still existed here with no ties to slavery or slave-holding, but even if they were slave-holders I am no more guilty of such crimes than I would be guilty of a murder committed by a forbear.

I am so offended by the historical excuse for racism that I don’t even want to discuss it with the one who uses that excuse. Once a person shows themselves to be so far gone as to accept such an idea unquestioningly, I do not have hope in the usefulness of any argument no matter how rational. Mere words cannot dislodge such poisonous thinking. Still I cannot let it slide. Let us examine the history of the United states that so condemns us or in debts us to future and present racist slights.

Slavery was not a unique condition to the Colonies or to the United States. There is no locale on this Earth that does not have slavery in its past. There is nearly no so-called race of people who has not been on either end of the master/slave relationship. In fact, the very word slave is actually derived from the word for slav or slavic people, because of the mass enslavement of the slavic peoples of eastern europe by western europeans. The history of the world is a history of enslavement and captivation of the weak by the strong. The enslavement of far away eastern europeans of the middle-ages was only replaced by the enserfment of local peoples by the strong nobilities. Slavery, although condemnable, was not unique or unusual to the United States or its founding British ex-colonies.

Given the slave condition of even advanced societies like the Roman Republic and later Empire, the Greek democracies, Ottoman Empire, the various Chinese dynasties, and on and on, the question should not be about what made the United States a nation that accepted slavery within its borders. The question should be about what made the United States gradually, then abruptly abandon the practice and acceptance of slavery.

At the time of the founding of the United States, there were 8 slave states and 5 free states a direct carry-over in condition from the free and slave British colonies. By 1821 the ratio was 50/50 with 12 slave states and 12 free states. By 1861, the count was 15 slave states to 19 free states. While gaining some ground in territories like Nevada and New Mexico, slavery had made no ground in the new states for over 20 years prior to the civil war. Why?

The abolitionist movements can trace its roots clearly back to the founding of the nation right with the very authors of the constitution. Some of the greatest points of debate over the establishment of the constitution were the sunsetting of the slave importation trade, slave counting in representation, and the entering of subsequent states as free or slave states. The issue between those of moral conscience and slave-holders was so contentious that it nearly brought down the nacent constitution. While the suffering of the African slaves would go on with signing of the constitution, the seeds of slavery’s destruction were sown there at the convention.

Even the three fifths clause is an example of the abolitionist bent in the document. It was the anti-slavery position to not count the black slaves at all. The anti-slavery founders wanted to state to the world the condition of the black person in the United States.

Anti-slavery founders like Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, others wrote on the subject of abolition to the public at large and to fellow pro-slavery founders as well. When one examines the sliding acceptance of slavery by George Washington, first against his mind for efficiency coming from his military background, and then against his moral conscience, one can see the influence of letters from Benjamin Franklin advising against the moral depravity of slavery. The last decade of Washington’s life was spent partially devising a method to free his slaves acquired by him previously and carried by Martha’s inherited estate. To the young he gave educational trusts and to the old he gave pensions so that they could be self-reliant and not re-enslaved when they found themselves with no means to provide for themselves.

Abolitionism spread throughout the states and territories like a fire of right and freedom. The Republican Party was founded because of the pro-choice stance of the waining WIG Party on the issue of slavery. Lincoln’s house divided speech was given at the podium of 1858 Republican State Convention. Lincoln’s speech is eloquent to this day:

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it…

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

He knew of the division and the contradiction of slavery in the free United States of America. His hope that it would not destroy was expressed:

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.

He could not have foreseen in 1858 the wave of support that would ascend him to the presidency against the favored candidate, Stephen Douglas. Millions of voters supported the anti-slavery candidate over the pro-slavery one. Because of that support, against his hope that the Union would not be dissolved, states dissolved their ties to the Union and seceded.

It is often expressed ignorantly or subversively that the Civil War was fought not over slavery but over secession. It is hard to express how angry that dismissal makes me. Read the “Declaration of Causes of Seceding States”. They could not be clearer as to their reason for secession. From Georgia:

For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery…

…The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies…anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state.

From South Carolina:

[The constitutional] ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized…

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

From Mississippi:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

The blood of pro and anti-slavery forces washed over the nation. Whole entire war tactics, from the use of artillery, machine gun emplacements, submarine blockades, etc, were invented over the issue of slavery. The right of free Americans to Habeas Corpus established in the Magna Carta 1215 was suspended because of the issue of slavery and it resulting war. The United States nearly killed itself over the issue of slavery.

It is deplorable disrespect for the dead to reject what the fought over. Their blood sanctified that war. In Lincoln’s words:

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

It was the war over slavery that allowed the president to declare the slaves of the states in rebellion to be free.

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

The civil war was fought over the issue of slavery. The southern states seceded over slavery and fought reunion over slavery. Approximately 650,000 people combined died from either side of the fight. 2.5 million Union soldiers mobilized against the south because of abolition separating the states. 750,000 to 1.25 million secessionist soldiers mobilized over the issue of slavery. No nation in the history of this world has ever fought such a war over the freedom of its minorities. None.

This nation has paid dearly for its moral high-ground on the issue of race. We fought our bloodiest war, we amended our founding document, we enacted legislation, we did whatever we could to redeem ourselves from the issue of race and our history. That the president would dare create ”African Americans for Obama” initiative in his campaign is not only racist, it is a slight against those who have died over the issue. It is a slight against those who lived through the worst years holding to their moral indignation over an institution and racism that they had no hope of dispelling in their time.

Barak Obama should rightfully be condemned for his racist campaign strategy.

Whatever their goal of stopping their products from being distributed for free, these bills do not accomplish this. These bills will hurt far more than the likes of The Pirate Bay and Torrentz. To begin with, these bills for the information super highway are like thousands of checkpoints on our physical highways stopping all traffic checking for a few car thieves. The bills go further, because anyone may accuse anyone else of copyright infringement and the default of the site being accused will be guilty and liable of fines and lawsuits until that site proves otherwise.

If you are a company who doesn’t like a competitor’s google ranking, you can accuse them of infringement and have them embroiled in legal defenses and potential shutdown until they disprove the allegation. The language in the bill is broad enough that the Justice Department of any presidency may define it however they would like. If you are a small carpet cleaning business that has worked hard on getting a good search engine ranking, your competitor can destroy you because you were using a single image that you did not know was copyrighted.

Review sections of product websites could be shutdown because product makers could claim copyright infringement as their cruddy products are rightly criticized by consumers. Social networking sites could be embroiled in lawsuits until they setup content filtration or member banning for supposed public use of even the names of companies. Google, Yahoo, and Bing could be forced to remove ads, listing, organic search results, and more when they are ruled liable for any search results they come back with.

The whole passage of these bills is information D-Day.

So, are the “artists” responsible, or is it just their distribution channels who are to blame? It doesn’t matter. That a ditzy hollywood starlet has no clue what Disney is doing on her behalf is unfortunate, but it means nothing. The effect is the same, because her employers, the ones with the cash to pay her, and her union, the Screen Actors Guild, are the ones setting the rules and passing their bill on to congress to claim as their own.

Most bills are not technically written by Congress People or Senators. The technical legal language is written mostly by whomever is doing the lobbying. Bills often come pre-drafted, and the less-than-adept legislator simply puts his or her name on the bill as the author who will seek sponsorship from other legislators. This was true of much of Obamacare, Campaign Finance Reform, and even going way back to the creation of the Federal Reserve System. While many bills are written straight from the desks of conniving or foolish legislators, a lot of legislation is written by lobbyists from the private sector, even Socialist or often Fascist (both Marxist) legislation.

Why would “capitalists” go for this stuff or even participate in the creation of it? They simply see the writing on the wall. They see that the trend of government is to further and further control economies and they see that there is limited seating at the table of control, so they try to beat others to one of those limited seats. It the old adage: If you are not at a seat at the table, you are on the menu. These entertainment companies see an opportunity of profiting by a seat at the table of greater restrictions on economies.

It is a social taboo to use the label Fascist. So often, that label is used by people that are ill-educated or even crazy. The label brings up images of Itallian “black shirts”, swastika armbands bands, and concentration camps. People forget, however, that fascism with well-defined political philosophy before its supporters committed their atrocities.

Make no mistake, these two bills are Fascism and not just Socialism. They are not seeking that the government take on ownership of the websites, et al that are said to infringe on copyrights. Marxism is government control of markets and socialism is the government confiscation and ownership route to that control. Fascism is the government regulation and private ownership route to government control of markets. These two bills are Fascism and the Hollywood, Music, and News industry fools who so easily slander everyone with the Fascist label also easily accept the fascism of those who sell the distribution of their content.

Please view the following video for more education:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Were the label of liberal, in the Madisonian tradition, not so mutated to mean its opposite, I would be conservative, conserving classical american liberalism. The label has been long-destroyed by subversive, mal-contents, to where we must bid it adeu. The next label I want to use is Libertarian, because it was originally a replacement for the lost label of liberal. Yet again, I cannot use it, because it has also been captured by reformed leftists, who have come from the dark fiscal side, while holding onto their social permissivism. So much of libertarianism is really just repackaged objectivism which I object to. So, what do I have left?

I come from the direction that the label, at that moment of pinning it on yourself, should be a teaching moment. Conservative is too general to help with this. So, again, what do I call myself? I will not start with hyphenated conservatism, because it implies that there is something that must be modified about conservatism when that is not the case. For instance, one need not attach compassionate to conservative, since letting people hold on to their freedom and inspiring them to make something of themselves is more compassionate than any alternative. So, I am a consequentialist when I am being conservative. That is that best, most descriptive label.

People are born free. They must choose for themselves and between themselves without interference by a third party who cannot point to a direct interest. If I have dealings with a restaurant, a car manufacturer, etc. that do not concern anyone else because it is my life and my money that is doing the dealing, then no one may insert themselves in the middle of this deal to “protect me”. If I a make a bad deal, then I will accept the consequence. I am of sound mind and I am an adult.

This is conservative in the Burkean sense, because history and the civil society tell me what it means to be of “sound mind”. The culture, created over the eons of man’s dealing with man are rules and definitions that are only codified into law after the civil society creates the underlying culture of the laws. The reason, that a conservative must be a social one is that societies are build socially. A conservative smells the foul oder of social subversion a mile off without having to define why, because of the civil society that has taught the conservative.

For me, unfortunately “you’ll know it when you see it” is not enough of a label to fight socialist subversion. You must counter the subversion, because it is aimed at muddying the culture that creates civil societies. Every moment must be a teachable one to counter the muddied culture. I am a conservative and that means consequentialism.

Consequentialism is at the heart of the Declaration of Independence, because it’s authors made only reference to natural law, knowing that they were going against the written laws. Those natural laws that were trampled, were consequentialist laws. The king could not simply insert himself into the lives of free men, he needed their representation to do anything with and to them, but also, no matter how much submission he would get from representatives, there were lines that could not be crossed no matter what. All of those lines were consequentialist lines. So many times, people will confuse the montra of “no taxation without representation” as being what the declaration was about. This is just not true, it was about the liberation of individual sovereignty from the state, which is a consequentialist argument in the sense that individual sovereignty is derived from the freedom to deal without interference of third parties.

The constitution is also consequentialist in that it enumerates powers agreed to and reserves the rest of the powers to individuals. The constitution does not grant to the state anymore than individuals granted to it on the day of its ratification. In a says, the constitution is a statement of those powers that relinquished by individuals whom were all free to do so. These enumerated powers relinquished unto the federal government by the individuals whom did so by their natural sovereignty represent a barrier that, when breached, is an intrusion of the sovereign minority of one. State constitutions are this way as well.

If I am a free-roaming creature on the plains of Earth, encountered by others, anything taken from me without my consent through consequentialist dealing is an act of agression. That I am powerless to overcome the agression is no disqualifier that it is still agression. Mandating anything on me where I do not impose my will on others, even if it is seen to be in my best interest, is as much an act of agression as two people taking from one by force.

I am a consequentialist, because I recognize force can only be applied where parties are directly effecting others by their dealings whom have not been involved in the dealings. I am consequentialist, but from now on, maybe I will just say I am a conservative to help the brand be understood as the consequentialism that it must be.

You can hear this argument carry out between John Stossel and Charlie Rengel, where the conversation ended with, “Hey, the constitution only made me 3/5 of a guy.” Ask the person to show the codification of slavery in the constitution further than that, they will not be able to and they will not try to. It is a week position that must have terminal argumentation to back it up, or in other words arguments designed to close argument. In the Rengel example, he pulls out the trump card that he thought Stossel would back away from as though it were a landmine. If Stossel continued to argue the actual origin of the 3/5 clause and why it was in the constitution and how the constitution actually had written within it the demise of the overseas slave-trade, then he would have stepped on the landmine. It is much easier for listeners to understand that 3/5 means not whole than to get that same listener to understand that it was the slavery supporter’s position to count slaves as whole rather than not at all as the abolitionists wanted the constitution to reflect the reality of a slave in the south.

This nature of terminal arguments is why leftists rely on them so much. How often will you hear a conservative end an argument with sweeping accusations of racism or that the constitution established racism? Essentially, these kinds of terminal arguments put the conservative in the position of holding ground against a slowly slipping tug-of-war. This kind of argument puts the conservative in a position of being for the small, shriveled thing while the other side continues to call itself progressive. Holding ground is losing ground. Conservatives must define what it is that they are conserving in order to take ground rather than slowly concede it.

“What are you trying to conserve?” must be the question that is constantly answered. The answer to that question is Individual Liberty, Constitutional Enumeration of Power, State Sovereignty, Civil Society, and all those things that can be called the Virtue of the republic.

Charles Montesquieu talked of Virtue as the sustanance of the Republic. Without virtue citizens become like slaves who must make every argument for each morsel of license from the ever, now, mutating Republic. The people will “riot on the public spoils, and its strength is only the power of a few, and the licence of many”. The evidence of this rioting on spoils can be heard by the virtue-less citizen who calls for undefined Obama-money. The strength of the controlling few is evident in the ever-expanding bureaucracies who control more and more of the lives of the many.

The virtue of a Republic is derived from religious virtue, those things that could be called Judeo-Christian values in the case of the American Republic, but though they are derived from religious values, Republican Virtue is a separate set from religious virtues. Where the religious virtue of respecting property holds one blameless before god, the republican virtue of the same sustains the republic. Where the religious virtues of self-reliance and individual charity one to another make moral imperfect people before god, the republican virtues of the same sustain the republic.

What are you trying to conserve? Without the enumeration of powers in the constitution, states become nothing more than regional administrations and individual rights become dispensations of those who would be our betters rather than our equals.

What are you trying to conserve? Without personal property, the hours of a person’s life are owned by others who may confiscate the value of those hours at will—that person is a slave and a cog in a system that owns his time.

What are we trying to conserve? If you take from one and give to another the natural consequences of choices are ignored and allowed to build until they bring down the whole.

Where a leftist will give terminal arguments, the conservative must give reason and discussion. If you pile on reason and discussion, the piling terminal arguments are made transparent and the leftist loses credibility and the conservative wins the argument.

The first result of a moderate fire going through a forest with dry enough grass and green enough trees will be a complete burn off of the undergrowth while the trees are left standing. The trees might have some recovery and adjustment to do, but they are free from immediate future fire danger due to the lack of dry tinder recently burned off. The trees are free to continue to grow taller of wider and the undergrowth and saplings are gone. When a forest has been completely obliterated, trees and all, it is from a fire of greater intensity with greater kindling to fuel the larger destruction of the larger trees.

In a free society, government regulations are like these more moderate forest fires. The regulations burn through the small businesses and enterprises alik, but leave the enterprises standing and free to thrive in the new environment of devastation. This analogy is evident from the costs of compliance figures of new regulations and the profit margins a business has to survive the unknowns that the future brings.

All businesses have to plan for unknowns and accomodate them as quickly as possible and with the least losses possible when the unknowns become known. The future, to any entrepreneur is a source of hope and energy, but it is also a source of fear. When economies go south, costs for materials rise, and other surprises happen, the business owner or director has to adjust drawing on the built funds of formerly successful years. The business has to whether the storm with strength of former profits.

Regulations enter markets like moderate fires because of the costs that they force all to bare. Regulations are just like rising materials costs. If a business makes bean bag chairs and a new regulation regulates that fire retardants be added to the batting, what costs does that business now have to bare? They have to bare discovery of the new regulations, the cost of the retardants or the badding with the retardants added, the cost of risk of non-compliance, and the cost of not being able to maintain the customer’s desired price.

Discovery is expensive. The cost of discovering what the regulations even mean down to the level of the final product is the cost of attorneys, accountants, and fines resulting from the bad advice of  attorneys and accountants who proved to not be omnipotent. That discovery cost is not a cost that can be recovered on its own. It has to be rolled into the losses born by former profits or rolled into the cost of products or services.

For one section of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, FEI (Financial Executives International) found the average cost of compliance to be $1.7 million in 2007. Now, add that to the average cost of the rest of Sarbanes-Oxley. Of course that is cost born by evil bankers and speculators, so it’s alright, except for the fact that the cost is passed along in the form of lower investment gains and higher fees. When your 401K takes a dip it is not totally from a bad market, it also comes from the cost of regulations.

Once the regulations are discovered and the discovery is tacked on the end of the aggregate bill for the bean bag chair example, the business will have to find materials suppliers who have discovered as fast as they have and at a competitive price. Suppliers that meet that description will be fewer, making the supply of the badding lower driving up the price. So, the regulation had the same effect on the market that a devastating low crop yield of cotton would have. The scarcity of compliant badding is artificial scarcity.

The business may risk non-compliance because the cost of compliance is so great. This could cost more, however, since many regulatory fines are per-incidence, meaning exponentially high to a successful business. Some non-compliance can even bring prison time. In the case of regulation, it is not easier to ask for forgiveness.

The ultimate cost is the loss of customers, because the customers had no inside-baseball understanding of why you suddenly started raising the cost of your bean bag chairs. Costs cannot be born by the customers forever since customers will not buy at any price. Even if some knowledgeable customers knew why the bean bags jumped in price, the same customers may not have the money to buy at that price no matter how understanding they are.

If the bean bag company could not take the loss with previous year profits and could not pass the cost to customers, the business is burnt away. Where a larger business could whether the onslaught longer and more effectively, the smaller business is gone. The small business was the promising sapling growing from a single seed and seeking to grow to great heights or the lush grass satisfied with small stature and deep roots. The regulation forest fire burnt out the grass and saplings and left the mature trees to grow another year and root themselves ever deeper.

When a moderate fire goes through a forest, the smaller growth is reduced to carbon and other component fertilizers for the forest that often benefit the larger trees in the aftermath. Markets are no different in that the destruction of small businesses leaves gaps that can be filled by ever-growing enterprises with better lobbyists and larger teams of attorneys and accountants. Regulation helps big business, it doesn’t hurt it.

The word compromise has more than one meaning. It can mean to make concessions on either side of a debate, true. Another meaning of compromise is to weaken something like a ship or state security. When either side of the argument have some common ground than the concession to get to the common ground fits in the first compromise definition. When both sides are incompatible it is the weakening of the whole. Abraham Lincoln understood this when he decried the expansion of slavery to the new states calling the compromise a house divided.

We are facing a similar division of the house. We are stuck between the side of the founding principles of individual liberty and responsibility and the side of state control and the recession of individual liberty. Where state control is, there individual liberty cannot be also. We need compromise with this unconstrained vision of statist leftists like the Hindenburg needed compromise. We need compromise like the Titanic. We need compromise like Pearl Harbor.

These elitist fools in Washington who go out from our states, supposedly representing us, compromising with that which will corrode the whole have got to go. This is not compromise like Madison compromising in the apportionment in the congress and the senate. This is compromise like a breach in the hull, like static electricity on a hydrogen zeppelin, it is compromise like enemy radio silence before an attack on your whole Pacific naval force.

We are through compromising with socialism, because it is not compromise in the first sense. It is really incremental Marxism. It is the devil with his toe in the door. If compromise is needed to get things done, then it should be pure gridlock. If republicans or any other politicians do that they will be Heroes. If not, they will be unemployed.

In this Heritage Center speech by Evan Sayet, comedian, commentator, and former writer for Politically Incorrect with Bill Mayr, the concept of Liberalism (with a capital “L”) not being liberal at all is well covered. It is not about the liberation of individual sovereignty from the coercion of the state. The Progressive-Liberalism movement is merely a permissivism movement. It is neither liberal, nor progressive.

Evan Sayet calls modern Liberalism “a cult of indiscriminateness” or in other words a movement surrounding the concept that everything classically moral is immoral. He says that this comes from a core belief in the systemization of discrimination by former generations, making all moral standards immoral on the grounds that they could only have been arrived at by discrimination against behavior, belief, or difference. So, the only standard to judge something immoral is whether it has any legacy tradition.

Thus, in the 60′s you got, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” Anyone over 30 is set in the old ways. John Lennin’s song, Imagine, comes straight out of this core belief. If there is nothing like a heaven, nations, religion, and all the people are living for today then there can be no moral codes that come from discrimination. What do you have to fight for if you have nothing to believe in. There is no wrong or right, because you can only arrive at wrong and right declarations through discrimination. And the only way that one can be discriminate is if one has beliefs. If you don’t believe in anything, then you don’t discriminate against anything.

The reason that an ideology as objectively condemnable as socialism and communism or actually marxism will not be condemned by a left that witnessed with the rest of us Tiananmen Square, gulag prison camps, Stalinist show trials, and the Berlin Wall is that what is immoral to us in the west is only immoral because of some unfairness from the west inspired by discrimination. To accept condemnation of the obviously objectionable evils of the world is simply to concede to the discrimination of our society. Terrorists only terrorize because of what we did to them. Cuba only communized because of the capitalist tourism that took advantage of their island. Abortion is moral because it gives power to the woman who is disadvantaged by sexist society. There is no ambiguity in a feminist who is against the war in Afghanistan.

This speech finally put a voice to the one thing I have been trying to identify about the left. They are permissivists not liberals, that is true, but it is that they belong the cult of indiscriminateness that makes indiscriminately permissive. This means, in a constitutionally defined small federal government nation like ours, they can but only be for the opposite of statist centralized government. That is why “Yes We Can” chanted by millions does not invoke even the slightest irony that it had nothing to do with what those chanters could do but what a handful would do to further state control with government takeovers of private companies, the co-option of the healthcare industry, and nationalization of the banking industry.

Sure there was media about some of their pranks that they pull, one of which caught some attention when they impersonated the US Chamber of Commerce to announce support for legislation on global warming. This is just about the extent of their fame.

They are like the Jerky Boys of political activism, scheduling fake press conferences and conventions in the name of organizations they have judged to be worthy of their ridicule. Of course the only evil they ever see is stereo-typically corporate evil. One of their big pranks is to impersonate an insurance company giving a lecture on the benefit of “golden skeletons” in the closet. Their hidden cameras only get a fairly mild reaction out of one person praising the lecture. In this meeting of evil corporate types, most of the reactions are from skepticism to contempt for the lecture topic.

This whole documentary is more about these two loser comedians and what lengths they will go to make fools out of themselves. It’s more like a comedy central audition tape than a documentary.

The only part that really got my eyr more than my pity was a part where they try to trace back the “corporate greed” to economist Milton Friedman. I can understand leftists not agreeing with Milton Friedman, but they can never be honest about their disagreement. Friedman was a true liberal, in a classical scottish enlightenment sense. He was a disciple of Adam Smith and believed that greater economic freedom is true freedom. If these two, and other leftists for that matter, were honest they would admit that their disdain for Friedman is that he argued against the state.

In their introduction to Friedman and why they don’t like him, they show two images that represent freedom. One is an African descended slave breaking shackles from his wrists in an arch over his head. The other, representing Friedman’s brand of freedom, is a person in a suit being showered with money. This is the part where these two mildly humorous comedians took on more of a doltish quality.

What is it that made the slave in the first photo not free prior to breaking his shackles? The slave was said to be owned by another person, true. The slave could not travel, marry, or do anything else that the master would not want. But for what purpose? The slave master wanted the slave’s labor without having to pay him or give him any other freedom that would inconvenience the master.

Who is the more common modern slave? and why is he or she not free? If a person has the product of his labor confiscated by manipulative taxation, taxation that will only be alleviated if “proper” behaviors are exhibited, is that person free? If the receipt of the product your labor is withheld from you and goes to another to whom it does not rightfully belong except through the power of the state to tax and coerce compliance, are you not a slave with bronze shackles?

The supposed examples of Friedman’s brand of freedom, in the documentary, are companies like IBM that gave technical support to the NAZI government during Hitlers reign. This technical support earned IBM a “golden skeleton” in their closet, because even though Jews were murdered with their corporate help, they got a lot of money for it. This is where most leftists often get confused.

The NAZI government was merely another off-shoot of Marxism. NAtional ZIosialisten is the full abbreviated name of the NA.ZI. party. They believed that government control of private industry could only be attained, first, by destruction of the maligned middlemen jewish minority and second, by the consolidation of the private industry through regulation and unionization.

They were roughly following “Il Doulche” Benito Mussolini, who believed that communism, while having good and praiseworthy goals of destroying corporate power and subduing the masses, was fundamentally flawed in its approach of trying to own directly the means of production on an international scale. Mussolini received great praise by contemporary progressives during the 20’s and early 30’s for his belief that the same socialist goals could be achieved on a national rather than international scale through government control rather than ownership of the means of production.

That Friedman could be pointed to as an example of big business greed is pure stupidity and/or ignorance. First of all, Friedman disliked large companies like IBM and believed that diverse small business was the preferred result of diverse individual economic freedom. The proof that he was right is in a simple thought experiment.

When government regulates the Vaccine industry to use certain equipment, perform certain types of studies, etc, etc, who is it that can produce with such obstacles? Will it be small chemistry labs with big ideas and slim wallets or will it be politically connected fat cats who will hire for a pittance the big idea chemist with the large corporate legacy wealth? The greater the regulation, the bigger legal compliance departments, the more expensive the production, the bigger the corporation needed to bring e vaccine to market.

Milton Friedman understood the power of the free market to be better way in that instance, because the loss part of the profit and loss free market would discipline the big idea chemist to make a vaccine that did not harm the customer. This is the famous invisible hand at work in the economy of private individuals freely dealing with one another. To represent this with an image of suited man being showered with money is sophistry or stupidity and given who we are talking about, it is probably the latter.

Take the present economy created by the mortgage crisis. The Yes Men would have us believe that it was corporate greed that got us into this mess and only regulation can save us. It may have been corporate greed, but it was also government and political greed. Prior to 2001 there was no such thing as greed, right? Greed is just this recent innovation that we must regulate away.

Obviously, to say that greed is some new innovation is a purposefully absurd point, but it points out the absurdity of the argument that the present circumstance was because of greed. Thomas Sowell, another Hoover institute fellow of Milton Friedman, who has carried the banner for free markets since Friedman’s passing, is fond of making the point that a person could be the greediest person in the world without adding to his fortune another dime. Why? That person needs a vehicle for his greed to benefit him.

The Housing Boom and Bust a bestselling book by professor Sowell points out that government regulation gave the greed of speculators and lenders a vehicle that a free market would not have done. Another thought experiment: if I lend money to people who cannot pay me back over and over again, am I stupid or greedy? What will be the penalty of doing this? In a natural free market scenario that is stupid and will carry the penalty that I would not be in the lending business for long since I will lose all of my seed money, as I should.

When the government charters companies to take the risk off my hands so I only get profit and no loss then coerces me through government fiat to lend to exactly those types of people who can’t afford to pay it back, am I stupid or greedy? Well, probably greedy, but not stupid. I would have been doing exactly what was beneficial for me to do with a broken profit and loss system. When there is loss in the profit and loss system, which Milton Friedman was fond of pointing out, it is exactly those kinds of people who would stop at nothing to make a buck at anther’s expense who lose their power.

I say “lose their power”, because most of us forget why we call it the scottish enlightenment. From what were the scottish academies enlightened? They were part of the emergence from the serfdom of Europe.

It was the Lord who thought the peasant class had not enough sense to manage affairs. The Lords set themselves up as the enlightened and through force coerced the masses tho comply. They set prices, negotiated pay, dictated benefits or work, and on and on. Yes the peasants were ignorant, but they were kept ignorant by the laws and the situation laid down by the Lords. If you were a peasant who did not comply or even just excelled in your production, the Lord would, under authority of a king or queen, confiscate, punish, execute.

It was another Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek, who believed that the more economies move away from a free profit and loss model the more we are on a similar “Road to Serfdom” as he named a very famous book on the subject. With regulation and well-positioned big business using corrupt governments to help kill off their weaker, less-connected competition, how is Hayek wrong? He wasn’t wrong at all.

Go back and read the above paragraphs where I talked about life prior to the Scottish enlightenment and prior to the destruction of feudalism. How much of it parallels or modern society. The “kings” are the elected officials who are empowered by the ignorant masses to create bureaucracies to regulate. The “lords” are the various bureaucratic institutions empowered by the politicians to penalize, manipulate, and dominate those not politically connected. Who are the serfs? We are.

So why do the Yes Men get my ayr so much? Well it is really not them. They are just useful idiots. They really are about as intellectual as the mushrooms with which they recreate. It is the ignorance that gets me angry. Why is it that freedom is the one that is getting such hatred aimed at it by people like the Yes Men? Freedom is the only way out of the serfdom we have all allowed to become our lives.

The uninformed objection is as simple as it gets. Blacks are a whole person and therefore the fraction was racist because it didn’t define blacks as a whole person. The no-less ignorant student then goes home thinking that he/she has learned about a great sin of our nation’s past and promptly forgets about it during after-school game time.

Some time later in life that same ignorant student will hear a politician, pundit, or other ignoramous refer to the famous fraction and recall back to when they heard it the first time and formulated an uninformed opinion. Now their uninformed opinion attracts them to the ignorant commentator or candidate who reminded them of it. Continuing to think themselves smart and well versed in at least the basics of America’s fundamental sins, they are again distracted only to repeat the cycle some time in the future. On and on this goes with the person never realizing that the whole premise was a three fifths lie.

Why don’t they just think? How did the fraction even come about? It came about because of a compromise. Some in the convention wanted blacks to count as whole people and others wanted them to not count at all. What the ignorant fool politicians and poor students do not understand today is that it was the anti-slavery delegates who argued for blacks to not count at all.

The pro-slavery delegates wanted blacks to remain slaves, but wanted them to count in the apportionment of representatives in the congress. That would have meant that a state with a large slave population with not only no property owning rights but actually being the property of those with rights to own property and vote, would still have those slaves counted the same as free people. Imagine, where the issue of slavery would become an issue ripping at the thread of the nation in congress after congress what would have happened to further the cause of the pro-slavers if they had more representatives in congress counting those with no civil and free rights.

The argument of the delegates in the constitutional convention who aimed to have blacks not counted at all, zero fifths of a person, was not to make a philosophical statement about blacks and whites. Their argument was to have the constitution declare to the world the evil reality of the plight of the black slave in the former colonies. The pro-slavers wanted no statement in the constitution of any kind regarding their plight. They wanted the benefits of the free labor to the wealthy slave owners, as well as the benefit of their numbers to apportion them power in the congress. It was a great victory to get that 1 whole person down to three fifths.

The world reading about the new American constitution could see plainly that some had fought to make the slave-holding states less powerful by declaring more truly the reality of life in some of the former colonies for black people. The only tragedy of the three fifths apportionment was, given slavery could not be abolished in he convention without losing states in the union, that truer statement could not be made, that blacks in early American states were not people to those who considered them property of other men.

Specifically in the world of public education, media narratives of financially smitten educators abound. Congress comes back from recess for emergency funding to support the budgets of locally run districts. The president gives speech after speech with backdrops of teachers in an effort to get wide support for the plight of the starved teachers.

Many states and school districts have managed their affairs into the toilet. As a result of that and the economic environment, money for the public schools is said to be tight. You and I can, through our local school boards, attempt to fix our local problems, but we cannot effect one bit the decisions of some far off locally run education system. Yet, the argument from the president and other socialists is that we must pay for those far off districts and boards none the less.

Obama says that our kids will not get the education that they desperately need, because the sainted teachers will not have the money to come back and teach this year. Our kids will suffer without an education. In the spirit of this gushers and bailouts presidency and congress, we must give whatever our hopes are for our money to pay for the aims and designs on our money for the teachers and their unions. This is nothing but another bailout for those communities that have screwed themselves over with bad management on the backs of those who haven’t.

What is the point?

The national debt, contributed to by this bailout mentality is climbing and climbing. The deficit is rising. The private sector is shrinking. The government mentality is to consume and consume the surplus and non-surplus of the private sector and put off the payment to an undefined later date. Well who is going to pay later?

The debt and deficit will be reconciled by higher taxes and inflated-away savings values. Those are the only two ways this can be resolved. Unless there is an epidemic that kills off the current working generations, the current working generations will pay in shrunken retirements and shrunken pay before they retire. Still, they are not the only ones that will have to pay. The ones that will supposedly suffer by the lack of teachers are the ones who will pay later for debt today.

Anyone who has lived in a country with runaway inflation can tell you of the value of an education in such an environment. Yes, you may have a slightly larger edge over those who don’t have an education, but it is an edge that makes you king of the trash heap. Education in a hyper-inflation environment has very little effect on your ability to raise yourself out of poverty. There are no examples in history where people in mass could do anything but leave their country or revolt  to change their personal situations in mass when presented with such a circumstance.

So, again, what’s the point? If bailouts like the current one for local education lead to monetary collapse, one cannot raise by any means himself from such a collapse, what is the point of having an education payed for by bailouts?

Imagine that social mobility from incapable and poor to capable and well off is an old-time water wheel. As new water runs down stream past the paddles, the wheel turns. The part of the wheel that was under water is soon the part at the apex of the rotation. When there is freedom in the system, with a stable currency and manageable expenses, each part of the wheel can one day be at its own apex.

The American dream is that from even underwater means, one can rise to his or her own apex. We can be successful with that talent and hard work with which we have been blessed to possess or perform. That mobility it provided by a system with freedom in the rotation of the shaft on which our wheel turns.

When hyper-inflation kicks in, runaway taxation ensues, and the other burdens caused by the bailout mindset become evident, the rotation of our water wheel stops as though a tree branch is thrust in the spokes or the bearings have seized up. No amount of running water can push the wheel. You can work hard, you can work smart, you can educate yourself, but nothing pushes your wheel. You remain underwater. Underwater becomes your apex.

So, what is the point of bailing out education systems that will educate for a future where education does nothing to push your wheel? We might as well all be illiterate in the rice fields.