Yeah, he was a socialist.

I am just about to give up trying to convince people that most of the various -isms are divisive bunk, and that, really, the spectrum of -isms from authoritarianism to libertarianism boil down to a very simple principle: primacy of the state, versus primacy of the individual. But let us at the very least put to rest the idea that Nazis weren’t socialists. First of all, they called themselves socialists!  The Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiters Partei, NSDAP or National Socialist German Workers’ Party claimed to be an anti-capitalist, socialist party, and its party platform certainly reflected that.  But I’ve been told many times that what they called themselves and how they acted and what they said was not real socialism, so… Here is a ten-year-old article, which is, I think, just about the correct distance from the present to be more clearly separated from today’s tribal hysteria and concomitant “Democratic Socialism” blindness. The core argument is that Hitler called himself a socialist of a sort derived from Marx, and that his deviation from the USSR’s variety of socialism (“Jewish Marxism” in Hitler’s words) was in two key forks that made it, in Hitler’s opinion (as well as that of Mussolini, who wrote much on the subject) more workable.

1. National Socialism relied on geography and race to avoid the needlessly divisive self-destructive civil war as the Russians had suffered. Hitler felt that Germans shouldn’t fight Germans (like the way USA citizens are increasingly divided and opposed), so he elevated race above pure socialist dogma in an effort to unite more to his general cause. In Hitler’s words, “…find and travel the road from individualism to socialism without revolution.”
2. Recognizing private property rights is necessary to economic success and social unity. In Hitler’s own words (not from the article), “Socialism is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. …Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic.”  So Hitler socialists, like today’s Prius-driving, iPhone-toting, mocha Frappuccino-sipping Democratic Socialists, can have cool stuff.

I can understand some confusion, as Hitler had over the years said many things that could, in isolation, fuel the notion that he was anti-Marx; certainly he was anti- “Jewish Marxism.”  But I believe that’s only when viewing Hitler through a partisan lens. Because he made it abundantly clear in his own words that he was a socialist with rhetoric that should seem very familiar today. In a long critique of Mussolini’s newly-coined “fascism,” Hitler wrote of his own economic plan, “Point No. 13 in that program demands the nationalization of all public companies, in other words socialization, or what is known here as socialism.”

So let me be clear on this…  Mussolini was the fascist.  Mussolini coined the term and defined it exhaustively.  Hitler disagreed with many key parts of fascism, and called himself a socialist.   As of 1936, the German government dictated wages, prices, products, distribution channels…everything.  The “owners” of corporations were allowed to keep a percentage of profits as a motivator (a key reason their industries worked better than the soviets’), but, really, the “owners” were government employees.  …Just like everybody else. The principle behind it all was that the “common good” (as defined by Hitler) was everything, and the individual was just a cog in the government machinery.  Or, as Spock said, ““The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Doesn’t that sound good to modern socialists’ ears? The way people are redefining socialism and fascism along Democratic Party and Republican Party lines (or worse…”Right Wing” and “Left Wing.”  Both are on one bird, right?) is absurd.  Both of our entrenched, corrupt and anti-constitutional crony parties are increasingly authoritarian …and that should concern us all. To more or less summarize my argument, as well as that in the article and referenced book, I’ll end with Hitler’s own words, and let you think on where we are today, and why so many Americans admired the man back in the day: “The Germany of today is a National Socialist State.  The ideology that dominates us is in diametrical contradiction to that of Soviet Russia.  National Socialism is a doctrine that has reference exclusively to the German people.  Bolshevism lays stress on international mission.  We National Socialists believe a man can, in the long run, be happy only among his own people.  We are convinced the happiness and achievements of Europe are indissolubly tied up with the continuation of the system of independent and free national States. Bolshevism preaches the establishment of a world empire…” Yeah, well, OK…like today’s socialists, Hitler was also fine with changing the terms and rules as he went.  And like today’s socialists, and socialists everywhere forever, he also silenced opposition.

Too stupid to know we’re being stupid?

I’m pretty sure that my wisest, most clear-headed moments have been when I fully, accountably realized that I was being an idiot.

And I think the wisest of those moments resulted from somebody else pointing out to me that I was being an idiot…and I listened.

There is that saying, “A wise man learns more from a fool than a fool learns from a wise man.”

OK, so I hope the preceding was a sufficiently humble preface, since I’m about to call hundreds of millions of people idiots.

You see, having been to innumerable political forums where politicians outnumber regular folk; having participated in scores of public debates; having authored hundreds of articles published in major media and reading the angry retorts; having stood at the center of hundreds of protesters with a megaphone in my hand; having been to hundreds of public meetings where policy is purchased; being fairly well-acquainted with the best political minds in at least Indiana; and having warned everybody I know about our current national predicament when there was still time to fix it; I feel unusually well-qualified to make the following statement:

We The People, that arbitrary, abstract and problematic mob called a “nation,” in the Year of Our Lord 2017, are at least acting like idiots.

I’ll support that statement in four ways:

Number 1. Our society’s deceptive use of language, and level of conversation, has plummeted to embarrassing depths.

Here is a small excerpt from the “Federalist Papers” number 10, written by James Madison and published November 29, 1787:

“A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.  

…The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.”

Now, who in public life today thinks and talks like that?

Here, by way of comparison, is some of our current President’s writing (unedited and in full):

Written by Donald Trump on May 8 2013: “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure,it’s not your fault”

And another, perhaps more famous writing by the same person 31 May, 2017 said, in its entirety and verbatim, “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”

Number 2. We know everything about stupid stuff, and nothing about important stuff.

How much do I need to elaborate here? How many men can quote baseball stats back to ‘ought-five, yet can’t name our Vice President? How many women read thousand-page romance novels hours on end, and say they “don’t have time” to read the US Constitution (it takes about an hour)? Our kids lack basic life skills even after spending a quarter of their lifespan in classrooms.

Number 3. We’d never hire anybody else the way we hire politicians.

Let’s say you need to hire a janitor. But instead of reading applications, calling people in for interviews and checking references, you just sit back and see who puts up the best yard signs, billboards and TV ads. You’re not looking for qualifications in the conventional sense. No; you’re looking for the best odd$; you’re looking for who’$ got $upport.  You sure don’t want to hire somebody who “doesn’t have a chance,” right?  Ideology, principles, and certainly truth don’t matter, it’s the Show that counts.

“Give me the keys to your building and relax,” says one candidate, “I’m the Janitor You Can Trust!” Another candidate has run a great ground game, handing out literature and freebies to your other employees, with the slogan “Make Janitorial Services Great Again!”

There are lots of other candidates, of course; but all your interest goes to only the two Major Janitorial Candidates. The media tell you that you’d be a fool to waste your choice on other candidates, no matter their superior abilities and references, because the Major Janitorial Candidates are…well…they’re Major.

(oh, and they also contribute a large percentage of the media’s ad revenue)

When everything else these days can be “nonbinary,” only your choice of candidates must be from only the two given to you by …who exactly?

Interestingly, you never ask where all the money comes from for the expensive campaign materials and professional managers. If you exercised any curiosity at all, you’d realize that the people spending millions of dollars to get a job that pays a salary pittance have other reasons to get access to your building and all that’s inside.

We don’t think about anything else the way we think about politics.  I only wish I had as much faith in my “religion” as people have in their political idols.  I only wish I could be so lackadaisical in my daily life as we are with the power of money, police, prisons, spies and war.

Number 4. We have collectively and intentionally rejected that functional system of moral civil behaviors called “culture.”

No, what we call “multiculturalism” isn’t a culture – it’s divisiveness in the pretense of enlightenment. A functional culture doesn’t require an official, uniform religion, style of speech, dress, food or customs.  But it does require some basic commonality and uniformity in rules of behavior, consequences, methods of conflict resolution, and,  importantly, letting a stack-up of cars pass on the left instead of plugging your big fat black Cadillac Escalade with Hillary bumper stickers in the left lane matching speed with the blue Prius in the right lane going east on Hwy 46 toward Bloomington at 8mph BELOW THE SPEED LIMIT …for example.

Anyway…

I’ve for decades fought our corrupt political scheme; which is based entirely upon Special Deals for Special People.  But that corruption is just a reflection of our corrupt civilian culture.

Instead of looking for common ground, we’ve obsessively divided ourselves into opposing factions of LGBT versus straight, socialist versus fascist (as if either’s any !@#$ good at all), male versus female, poor versus middle class, and…more than at any time since I was just a kid…black versus white.

Why?

Do we not all want peace, prosperity, freedom and maybe a little love? Do we really LIKE the fearful, violent, hateful posture we’ve instead chosen?

Maybe we do prefer hate. I was recently told that because I’m a white Protestant male (a “WASP;” the West’s most reviled, and even self-loathing, minority), I should not even be allowed to speak.

Seriously.

So, you may think I’m about to propose a solution.

Sadly, no.  There is no solution to idiocy other than humility, and its beloved companion, accountability.  But that is a rare and precious thing.  It hardly ever happens in significant numbers.

America, as a culture, needs to realize that it’s being an idiot, and snap out of it.

But what are the odds of that actually happening?

I of course hope We The People will have a collective epiphany, and back away from the self-obsessed, hateful, prideful, self-destructive madness we’ve chosen, and plot a new course that in some way incorporates at least a little peace, prosperity, and (is it too much to ask?) freedom.

My hopes have alway exceeded my expectations.

Sigh…

Immigration or invasion?

I wrote this many years ago now; maybe a little after 2000 for Indiana Policy Review.  Immigration isn’t the issue du jour at present that it was at the time, but just wait…we ain’t seen nothin’ yet…

Laws are words; let’s get them straight. “Immigration” is when somebody lawfully moves from one place to another.  “Illegal aliens” are those who cross borders in violation of laws. Tens of millions of illegal aliens are, what; is “invasion” too strong a word?  Whatever it’s called; when it goes on for decades while we wait for federal action – or worse, when it’s caused by federal action, it’s stupid.

This July 4, let us remember that a truly federal government is allowed only a few powers.  Each state is otherwise just as sovereign as other states around the world such as France or China. Article 4, Section 16 of the Indiana Constitution reserves for the Indiana legislature all necessary powers of “a free and independent state.” Article 5, Section 12 says, “The Governor shall be commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and may call out such forces, to execute the laws, or to suppress insurrection, or to repel invasion.” Most people have no idea that states legally have so much might.

The U.S. Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 grants the U.S. Congress power, “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” The 14th Amendment to that contract says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,” because through the War Between the States it was assumed that each state had the right to determine who had rights of citizenship and who didn’t.  Of course, the proviso, “ . . . and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means that some are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; but the U.S. Constitution says nothing else about aliens, other than they can’t hold federal office.

Article I, Section 10 details the powers prohibited from the states, yet nothing limits any state’s authority over illegal aliens within its borders.  In fact, this section’s prohibition against states declaring war is restrained by, “ . . . unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”

Arizona’s S.B. 1070 has made news, but in fact Article II, Section 35 of the Arizona Constitution already specifically denies illegal aliens citizen rights. Article XVIII, Section 10 actually denies illegal aliens any employment rights.

So, by the existing laws (paying special attention to the federal 10th Amendment), states already have both the authority and power to maintain constitutional rights and order within their borders.  No new laws, no new powers are needed.

That said, our illegal alien problems aren’t about illegal aliens, their crimes or even the “Reconquista” nationalism of many.

Our problems, both with immigration and otherwise, are more fundamentally with socialism.

Even without its inevitable corruption and political oppression, socialism makes each citizen pay for others’ lifestyles, accidents, schooling and healthcare.  The collectivist hooks we stick into each other, even with the best of intentions, will tend to make us want our fellows to stay out of our wallets, cough up money from theirs, and die quickly, before Social Security checks start going to them at our expense.

The hooks make us care about what others eat, drink or smoke.  Hooks make us care about who others date, how others live and what others can and cannot own.  Socialism is inherently, demonstrably, nosy, jealous, covetous and antisocial.

The whole point of our constitutions is to prohibit this cold, starving, jealous existence, thank God.

But what most people gripe most about illegal aliens is that we have to pay for them!  That’s not their fault, that’s ours.  It’s also not a particularly valid fear, because aliens, illegal and otherwise, both contribute more to the economy than they take out, but are also necessary to make our Pyramid-Scheme social “safety net” programs work for even the short term.

They’re also willing labor that helps employers get around the laws that make “legal” labor impractical or impossible.  And they do pay payroll taxes.

We need more people paying payroll tax per retiree.  Our domestic-born population is shrinking, you know.  That’s bad math for both Social Security and Medicare.

And the overwhelming majority of the people pouring across our borders are doing so to find a better life.  They’re escaping war-torn, corrupt, drug-war-disrupted nations in hopes of raising their kids in peace and prosperity.  Wouldn’t you do the same?

Heck; we’re the ones who’ve messed up their country in most cases.  Our drug prohibitions, our “nation building,” our propping-up of dictators who’d otherwise fall…  This is the least harmful blowback we suffer from our international nannying, meddling and bullying.

And…isn’t immigration how this country, and its experiment in liberty started?

Unfortunately, we get exactly what we want…

Update:  Here’s a much more civilized version of what’s written below: http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100407/EDITORIAL/4070332 

Well, I got all agitated over a very bad idea from some very good folks, and sent a response to several people.  So I might as well air it out here.  In case you don’t know, Indiana HB 1065 acknowledges anti-constitutional “federal” and state firearms restrictions as law as it attempts to legalize what’s already legal by the clear wording of both state and federal constitutions.  It also, not incidentally, pushes aside property owners’ rights. 

It’s of course intended to be a positive step toward individual gun rights, but it’s yet another “incremental,” and “pragmatic” step backwards.  It is, in other words, why the good guys are losing, and why we’re quickly reverting to our ancient, crude and ruthless authoritarian default state.  Anyway, here’s pretty-much what I wrote a few days ago:

Indiana’s HB 1065 is a good example of everything bad…with us.

If we would only insist upon the constitutions, as written, then why in the world would we allow such a thing as HB 1065 to weaken the constitutional mandate? Have a look at Article I, Section 32 of our state constitution (https://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/indiana-constitution-book.pdf).

It is crystal clear:

“The people shall have a right to bear arms, for the defense of themselves and the State.”

Why water that down? Why not insist upon it?
We vote for friendly demisocialists like Mitch Daniels because we’re idiots (today’s note: I have nothing against Mitch; it’s the people who voted for him that bother me). We rally around anti-constitutional bills as though they’re our friends because we’re idiots. We cast aside those who’ve been right for those who’ve always been wrong, and we throw away the best laws ever written for blithering nonsense that’s never worked.
Do we really think that new laws are better because they’re new? Why do we think future politicians will pay any more attention to them than to the foundational law that is the very basis of the lawmaking process…and to which they already swore an oath of support?
There are no shortcuts. Either we return to the constitutions as written (even if we have to write new ones), or we’re done…as a nation and as a free people.
Words must mean what they say. We must mean what we say.

We must know what we want, and say what that is…
People who promise to obey a flag and then step on the constitutions are not just stupid idolaters; they’re marauding oppressors.
I’ve personally seen an angry mob fire a mayor and city council.  I’ve seen angry letter/email/phone call-wielding people pass bills, defeat bills, and even overturn laws.  Having twice had 2.5 million people tell me to buzz off and take my constitutions with me, I know where the real power lies.

I’ve met the enemy, and it’s us.   …Not our ideological foes…us.

We who claim to love liberty need no other enemies as long as we oppose what’s already been done on our behalf.
We can fix our problems anytime we want to. But we apparently don’t want to.
We rally around half-@$$ self-destructive nonsense and refuse to unite over what we really want.
Sigh… I tried.

But it’s not up to me.
I can only watch as otherwise intelligent people do the same dumb things over and over and say that it’s the only way to go. As we plunge headlong into failure and oppression, the rallying cry is “that’s just the way it is!”
Sigh…

The law is already written that would make you free.  If you compromise, you can only lose.

A Short History of Health Care: Let Doctors Be Doctors

I just ran across this on another website.  It’s a column I wrote for Indiana Policy Review a couple of years ago that seems more appropriate than ever now.

A Short History of Health Care: Let Doctors Be Doctors
By Andrew Horning

Healthcare is an odd business in that it has always been both expensive and unpleasant. Until the 1920s, the average doctor couldn’t even help with the average ailment. While medicine then included a range of arts like phrenology, acupuncture, homeopathy and allopathy it really was a coin-toss whether you’d be saved or killed by a doctor’s work.

Then the 20’s brought insulin, sulfa, other “miracle” drugs and sterile fields that meant, for the first time, that healthcare actually worked more often than not. From there, doctors, scientists and medical engineers really took off; rapid advancements increased life expectancies and decreased suffering. And because of increasing effectiveness and supply, healthcare was even becoming cheaper in real cost-benefit terms.

However, politicians had nothing at all to do with this, and that was apparently a problem. Teddy Roosevelt proposed a German-style, cradle-to-grave “socialized” healthcare system, but it was assailed as “the Prussian Menace” in those anti-German years before WWI, and Teddy’s scheme died. Even so, politicians wanting to seem compassionate started promoting socialized healthcare. The July 1919 issue of the Insurance Monitor made this prescient assertion: “The opportunities for fraud upset all statistical calculations. . . . Health and sickness are vague terms open to endless construction. Death is clearly defined, but to say what shall constitute such loss of health as will justify insurance compensation is no easy task.”

No matter. Between The Revenue Act of 1939’s health-related tax breaks, and 1943, when the War Labor Board excluded employer-paid health insurance from its wage freeze, American politicians charged into health care on their favorite horse, income tax.

In a nutshell, here’s what happened: Tax breaks for employer-paid health insurance meant that health insurance became a part of employment, and insurance became an integral part of healthcare. This inserted middlemen, which of course made everything more expensive. But who cared? The tax-subsidized, payroll-deducted cost was invisible enough that Americans started using insurance to pay for routine visits, dental checkups, eyeglasses and even plastic surgery. Group insurance offered large corporations better plans than small companies could muster, giving large corporations even greater advantages in hiring and competition than corporate laws already gave them. This also meant that the poor, or worse, the self employed, were even further distanced from the rich and incorporated in a very serious way. Obviously this created problems, but politicians never admit error, do they?

Four days before Tax Day, 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower established the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, giving government even more direct control over some of humanity’s most precious commodities. More political money and power meant more reasons for businesses to make campaign contributions and lobby. Of course, politicians at every level of government have used healthcare policy to reward their friends and punish their enemies. That’s their stock in trade.

Now tax money and policy is sifted and sorted through political appointees, immortal bureaucracies and defense-contract-style arrangements to feed a dwindling number of profit-starved insurance companies who then deny your claim. Doctors hire legions of workers to manage the regulatory, litigative, and insurance paperwork hassles; or leave private practice to become an employee within a clerically staffed healthcare corporation. So healthcare is still both expensive and unpleasant. But now it’s only because politicians, not doctors, are practicing medicine. Our healthcare injustices and vital statistics have decayed into an embarrassment at just the time when technology should make healthcare cheap, effective and available to all.

It is hard to imagine what politicians could have done to make our healthcare situation any worse.  Yet, according to a July 2006 Harris Poll, Americans rate the issue of healthcare well-behind Iraq, the economy, immigration and even gas prices.  Even more strangely, most people now think we must, to some degree and by some unspecified method, “socialize” healthcare just as Europe, Canada and other nations are now scrambling back toward free market reforms.  What are we thinking?

Can you imagine granting our corrupt politicians, already bought out by Big Pharma and other Big Corporations the power to determine what we do to, and with, our bodies?

Let politicians have their way with Iraq, the Colts and toll roads. Let them run lotteries and practice voodoo.  But please, let doctors do healthcare at last; they’ve earned the right.

RELATED POSTS:
https://wedeclare.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/can-politicians-even-define-health-care/
https://wedeclare.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/health-insurance%E2%80%A6or-healthcare%E2%80%A6choose-one/

Where are Samaritans when you need them?

I’ve had it with “religious leaders” spewing socialism.

If Satan has a Bible, I’m sure this is in it: that people should, with all the best intentions, delegate their own, personal role on earth, to politicians.

Where in the Bhagavad-Gita, Torah, Tipitaka, Bible or Koran could you find such evil sophistry?

Universal Healthcare isn’t charity – it is putting a gun to your neighbor to make him do what you won’t do yourself. Social Security isn’t caring for your mother – it’s the hole you personally push her, and your children, into to assuage guilt and allay fears. And you already know that “Homeland Security” has nothing to do with peace and liberty, right?

Our nation’s founders intended that citizens should defend themselves; not just against petty criminals, but against all enemies, foreign…and domestic, as citizen militias. They intended that our churches and voluntary associations, working without the armed aggression of politics, would comprise the departments of Health, Education and Welfare, so that the abstract and erratic junkyard dog we call “politics” would stay in the junkyard, restrained by the tall fence we call Rule of Law.

All of this required that individual citizens, personally, serve the needs of their neighbors; and that we remember, with cold chills, the true history and nature of politics, and people.

Imagine a man was just starting his Corvette after a sales call in northwest Houston, when he was beaten, stripped and left for dead where his car used to be. A TV preacher saw the man, and noted that he really should call 911, but this gave him a sermon idea, so he hurried on. A well-regarded politician saw the man, and said, “dang, I sure don’t want to be seen with a naked man!” And so he also scurried on. But a Mexican, fresh over the fence and scared, hauled the man into his rusty Corolla, took him to the hospital, and even gave his contact information to the ER admitting staff, just if he could be of any help at all, or could pay in any way, for the man’s care.

Who should we emulate? Are there any lessons, in any religion, that tell you otherwise?

An open letter to my fellow patriots

My liberty-loving friends, we have lost.  We had our chance, and we muffed it.   By focusing on only our favorite parts of our constitutions, we’ve thrown away the rest.  By demanding our rights while denying others theirs, we’ve lost them all.

Some claim that human rights transcend governments…but that is neither what history or our nature demonstrates in every era around the world.

Without constitutional rule of law here in the USA, you’ve got no rights to property, due process or even life, because without constitutions, there are no agreed-upon, legal, contractual or practical restraints upon political power.  And it’s the nature of political power to oppose individual rights, because it’s your neighbors’ nature to serve himself at your expense, by means of political power. 

Most of us have fought for one right while opposing another for decades.  Speech and sex activists typically oppose the constitutions’ religious freedom, while gun rights activists typically oppose the constitutions in moral, drug and lifestyle issues.  We demand our unconstitutional claims on other people’s incomes (Social Security, Medicare…when we’re trillions in debt.  We’re stealing from our grand kids, you know, and those programs will fail), and then whine that cops are driving tanks now.

We have stubbornly refused to unite over what it is that would serve us best (Rule of Law under our existing constitutions, as written), while our enemies represent no more than humanity’s ancient default state of oppression, slavery, genocide and war.  They win by our default in disunity.  We have torn ourselves apart and have nobody to blame but ourselves.  Our government is a global crony crime ring operating on spies and lies, and it’s by our collective free choice, dammit.

Sigh…

But let us not be bad sports.  Our side lost.  C’est ça.  Finito.  Now we must all Move On.

For years I have championed Rule of Law, but from now on, I want to be a Good Socialist.

Look at the positive side.  Authoritarians have always had the best uniforms.  Most people look good in a trim little cap, a neat military outfit with red epaulets and brass buttons.  And those shiny black boots sound so fetching as you’re running down side streets on a cold, rainy night, chasing down someone who just won’t fit in.

Think of the imagery.  Who else gathers thousands of cheering idolaters under triumphant banners and bold emblems?  Who else goose-steps a half-million troops with tanks and jet formations right through the heart of the capital?  What thrills!  Authoritarians have chutzpah! 

OK, I do so hope we don’t get stuck with a bad-hair ruler like the North Koreans got.  And murderous thugs like Che too often lack any cultural polish at all.  

But I, like Hitler and Mussolini, do enjoy fine cars, art, and well-choreographed young people.  I adore the martial music and stylized posters depicting gloriously happy workers.  I am ready to raise my arm in salute to our great Obama nation!

Dear friends, we must become the Übermensch; perfection in body, mind and… well, not spirit.  Who needs spirit when you have the state!

We must reject our fetish with freedom, and replace it with devotion to global citizenship.  We must grow past and even spurn the apron strings and umbilicus of “traditional” family ties and norms, in favor of service to the state!

No sacrifice is too great for this dream.  You may be asked to give your life, but the promise is no more sickness, no more poverty, no more homelessness, no more injustice.  You may have to report your mother to the authorities, but you’ll be rewarded with at least a strong likelihood of a warm embrace from the global collective, very soon … from each according to ability, to each according to need …

…however the state defines that.

Forget the tear-filled past with its tiresome clinging to “right” and “wrong.”  Forget the laws and old ways that held you back.  Forget humility and restraint.  Forget the chains and cages of individualism and family, and embrace the Power of Pride!

We are now building a human bridge over the troubled waters of humanity’s brutal past; to embark upon a wonderful voyage so buoyed by promises, that you’ll be jubilant and grateful to give your all, right up to your very last, bullet-riddled and tasered, choking gasp.

Join me, my friends.  Let us erase and even reverse the boundaries between nations and faiths and morality, and march triumphantly toward the cliffs of a new day…

…In matching outfits!

An Iconoclastic Hoosier’s Flag Day Rumination

I wrote this in 2006.  Things have only worsened since then:

The USA flag is a powerful symbol. It’s in outer space, on T-shirts and bumper stickers. Coffins have been draped with it.  It even flies in other nations.  It’s been burned in protest and praised in song.

When we pledge our allegiance to it, we intend to (or at least are expected to) formally revere what that symbol represents to us, and what makes this nation special to us.

You can understand why we’ve had a national Flag Day, officially declared by the US Congress, since 1945.  The symbol is powerful to those who love the USA; and to even those who detest what this nation is all about.

It’s that Pledge of Allegiance I want to talk about…

A few generations ago some promoted the idea that the author was a high school student named Frank E. Bellamy, born in Madison, Indiana. His pledge won a contest, got published and famous, while Frank became an injured war vet, a poor artist, and died young.

But in truth, a fired New York minister named Francis Bellamy, unrelated to Frank, but employed at The Youth’s Companion that published the pledge in 1892, claimed credit for it, and energetically promoted it.  An investigation in 1939 concluded that Francis really was the author.

This was not a happy conclusion for many at the time, because Francis Bellamy was, unlike the other Bellamy, a zealous global socialist who angrily opposed replacing his words “to my flag” with, “to the flag of the United States of America.” This apostate Bellamy would surely have opposed the addition of “under God” in 1953, had he still been alive.  He’d meant the promise of obedience to be universally applicable to all countries, all people, and free of any religion…except faith in government, of course.

The pledge’s origin matters.  I believe it explains why we have an oath to a symbol, and not to the constitution.

Until 1892, the only nationalistic oaths in America were oaths sworn by politicians and soldiers to preserve, protect and defend the constitution. Our nation’s founders knew what had happened to the Jews and early Christians who refused to make oaths to idols, or to “Lord Caesar.” They wanted no citizen oaths to a person or abstraction like those demanded by feudal lords, churches, or the King of England.

After all, no man is above the law, right?
That’s why the Oath of United States Citizenship clearly replaces oaths to people or abstractions with a dedication to the written contract that binds us as a nation:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”

What a great oath. A person could read the constitution and understand exactly, literally, what this oath entails because, despite what politicians tell us about that leash on their power, the constitution is very clear.

But how does one obey a flag?  Who gets to tell us what the flag commands?  To what end and degree must we obey it?  Are there any rules at all that apply?

It certainly seems contrary to the spirit of 1776.  And for any Christian or Muslim, can an oath of allegiance to a symbol be anything other than forbidden idolatry?  Why pledge to what was officially, until 1923, only a military banner?

Let’s go back 67 years before that first Pledge.

Modern Socialism, including the coining of the word “socialism,” started a generation before Marx and Engels with the Owenites in New Harmony, Indiana.  Robert Owen’s children later became very influential in Indiana government.  A little later, Terre Haute, Indiana’s Eugene Debs very successfully promoted this socialism through the early 1900s.

Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, et al., and of course Hitler (yes, he was a socialist – that’s why the original salute to the flag was replace by the hand over the heart) slightly tarnished the gleam on this Brave New World Order, but our government is now far more authoritarian than founding-fathers libertarian.  Even after repeated, inevitable failures of true socialism, it seems that Chinese Communist Party-style socialism (maybe even under the control of the CCP?) is the direction we’re headed.  We are, in other words, more 1984 than 1776.

Let’s be clear on this.  Socialism is the ideology responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths in the last century, and it’s not done yet.  Consider what you know of the words and symbols of socialism, and consider whether it bothers you that it was ardent supporters of this ideology that published and promoted our Pledge of Allegiance.

We should think hard about what we’re promising; and to whom. And the politicians we choose should keep their oaths of office.  And maybe we should even think about principled disobedience, instead of drilling allegiance to a flag into our kids?

As Erich Fromm wrote in, On Disobedience and Other Essays, “At this point in history the capacity to doubt, to criticize and to disobey may be all that stands between a future for mankind, and the end of civilization.”

Is it too much to ask that our words mean what they say, and that our actions fit our promises?

How about we dust off that old U.S.Constitution?

I could face the flag and pledge allegiance to that.

Important Distinction for a Pivotal Time

Here’s another old column that I think bears repeating:

As American wealth, liberty and opportunity bleed away, perhaps it’s time to consider the fact that government is an exacting science. There’s no scarcity of history, current events, verifiable facts and numbers to show simply and reproducibly what works in human governance, and what doesn’t.
For example, socialism sounds compassionate and progressive, but Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin (among many others) demonstrate how it really works.
And maybe Free Market economy has become outré, but look for an explosion of wealth anywhere at any time, and you’ll be seeing the positive side of human self-interest.
Sadly, few of us discuss government. Instead we read, listen, ingest, pay and vote for politics. That’s why we’re in trouble now.
Elections are coming up. Please discriminate between the personal pursuit of power (politics), and the noble art and science of getting along as a civil society (government).
Politics means yard signs, polls, endorsements, “name ID” and money galore. Government involves policy, laws, and the use and restraint of dangerous force.
Do you really want to hear more poll numbers? Don’t you want to know what a candidate thinks that government should do to you, your liberties and property? Shouldn’t you hear what candidates think about rights, prohibitions and the use of armed force? Wouldn’t you rather save the billions it costs to propel sound bites through TV screens and billboards, and instead vote from objective fact?
Then please do us all a favor; ignore the stuff shoved down your throat at great expense, and demand that our media and candidates replace the game of politics with the reality of government. Your children will thank you.

NewSpeak

I wrote this column in 2002.  But I think it’s still relevant:

The word “egregious” comes from a Latin root that means “outside the flock.” Originally, and for quite some time, “egregious” meant “illustrious,” or exceptionally good. But ours being a brave new world, “egregious” now means exceptionally bad.
The word never meant “average” or “centrist;” not even briefly.  It just flipped from one extreme to another with no stops in between – just like quantum physics.  This phenomenon is odd, but harmless in common speech.
Quantum political speech, however, is another matter.  In politics the stakes are wealth and poverty, life and death, peace and war.  And in politics, words are law.
“Federal” used to mean a limited, distributed trust between sovereign states.  What we call federal government now is actually its opposite; an all-powerful central force that should be called “unitary.”
“Liberal” used to describe our libertarian founders view of limited government; now the word means its exact opposite, socialism…government limited only by its ultimate collapse in starvation and violence.   “Conservative” used to mean a desire to keep status quo. But modern conservatives spend more money, and increase the size and scope of government to a degree and speed that “liberals” must surely envy.
JFK gave the rich their biggest tax cut ever.   In 1932, FDR called Hoover a socialist and campaigned for fiscal restraint.  The anti-communist Nixon was more socialist than Bill Clinton.  Republican Teddy Roosevelt was an anti-big-business tree-hugger.  And Democratic Senator Byrd of West Virginia is called “Sheets.” …You know why.
Every label, every stereotype, every concept of party we apply to American politics has flip-flopped in the most egregious manner.
So with all the talk about “Democracy” in Iraq, I’d like us to pause, take a cleansing breath, and think before we leap into yet another brave new meaning.
Alexander Hamilton wrote of the early USA, “We are now forming a republican form of government. Real liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy.”
Benjamin Franklin was more to the point, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.  Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”
I hope you know that we don’t live in a democracy.  Democratic elections are merely the method by which we select our proxies in a Republic.  And as any minority should know; real democracy, or majority rule, can mean slavery, Jim Crow, and that the angry mob gets its way.
After the democratic rise of Hitler, Mussolini, and a gaggle of tin-pot dictators around the globe, we really should ask ourselves which we’d rather have; democracy or liberty, because you can’t have both.  We should ask if it’ll be democracy, or rule of law, because you can’t have both.
And as we speak the word “democracy” in reverential tones, let’s remember that less than half of our eligible citizens vote.  So we may claim great wonders from our democratic process, but it’s only in ignorance of the real blessings of citizen freedom and might, and of all the wealth and opportunity made possible by a “liberal” form of government kept on a constitutional leash.

I wish we’d remember that the purpose of elections was never to simply hire politicians.  They hire themselves if you let them.

No, the purpose of elections is to fire politicians.  Elections are our power of peaceful revolution so that we don’t have to have…the other kind.

We need to invoke that power to restore the proper meaning of “liberty,” because even to the imperfect degree that we’d ever achieved it, liberty is what made the USA strong, prosperous, and egregious, in the best sense of that word.