Ben Stein accuses Ron Paul of being an anti-semite

This clip is amazing for two reasons. First of all, Ben Stein comes off as a complete and total jackass. He can't refute a logical argument, so he responds with an ad hominem attack.

Second, notice who is in the middle frame? That's Shelia Jackson-Lee (my "representative" in Washington). And she can't even get a word in! That in and of itself is a notable event. It's often said in Houston that the most dangerous place in town is between Sheila Jackson-Lee and a microphone. (BTW...when I met Sheila at a town hall meeting in December she was nothing but gracious and polite to me. Despite our disagreements on just about everything, we at least had civil discourse.)

But back to Ben Stein. Stein first came to prominence as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, a noted anti-semite. I really don't understand why people this this guy is so intelligent. He knows next to nothing about economics and every time I see him on Fox Business or CNBC, he is arguing for big government, bailouts, Keynesian stimulus, and printing money out of thin air. He's an apologist for the state - not a free market thinker at all. And apparently he knows even less about human behavior and foreign policy.

Dick Morris. Radical? Extremist?

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I am on Dick Morris's emailing list. I like the old boy, in spite of his rather sordid political past and in spite of the fact that he and I are not exactly ideological twins. I have read four of his books to my profit and continue to follow his columns and remain interested in where his mind is going. Dick is a political animal who loves the game and knows how to play it. Perhaps when he was burned by the Clintons, or perhaps as a result of his personal failings, I'm not sure, but somewhere along the line he gained a political conscience. I find him well worth my time just about any time he drops something in my inbox.

The following is something I received from him about five days ago, right after the Senate had turned Benedict Arnold on the Republic and the Constitution by enacting the most anti-freedom, tyrannical legislation in our history. First, read his words, then afterwords I will comment.

If they beat us in the Senate, we will fight them in conference. If they beat us in conference, we will fight them in the House. If they beat us in the House over healthcare, we will fight them over cap and trade. We will fight them over immigration and amnesty. We will fight them over the deficit. We will fight them over the debt. And we will fight them in 2010. We will fight them in the House. We will fight them for Senate seats in Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and Arkansas. We will fight them in Colorado and North Dakota and California and Washington State. We will fight them in Illinois and in New Jersey. We will never, never, never, never give up! Our country is at stake!

All our defeats do is to teach us the futility of appealing to moderate Democrats and the necessity - the dire necessity - of replacing them with committed Republicans. There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat in Congress. There are simply those whose votes the leadership does not need in order to promote its socialist agenda.

We will not place our faith in the Nelsons or the Lincolns or the Liebermans or the Landrieus of the Senate. Nor in the Blue Dogs of the House. All we do when we depend on them is to permit them to raise their price and up the ante for their vote. We will place our faith only in the Republicans who oppose them and who will bring the collective insanity which has gripped Washington to an end.

But we will continue to fight each battle in Congress because it is only by blunting Obama's momentum and by demonstrating to the voters of America how their Democratic members of Congress are only automatic votes for socialism that we have a chance to triumph in 2010. And triumph we will. We can only hope that there is still a country to take back!

Stay with us! Help us! Fight with us!

Now that you have read that, I have a couple of questions, and because they are good questions I will also take the opportunity to answer them as good questions deserve good answers.

Question #1 - Is Dick Morris a right-wing extremist?
Answer - Hardly. Morris infamously worked for William Jefferson Clinton as a political strategist for years. He was the brains behind Bill's buffoonery.

Question #2 - Yeah, but that was then. This is now. Has he become a right-wing extremist?
Answer - Again, no. His views are quite moderate I assure you. He still thinks in terms of "government solutions" to societal ills. He still thinks in terms of doing government better and more efficiently as opposed to taking government out of the equation. He is, in short, a moderate statist . . . similar to George W. Bush.

What he is, however, is patriotic. He is also astute enough to realize that Barack Hussein Obama is not. He can see what this administration has done, and is doing to the Republic. He is awake enough to realize that with the enactment of legislation such as this the American idea, the American experiment, is over.

Look at these excerpts again:

"Our country is at stake!"

"There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat in Congress. There are simply those whose votes the leadership does not need in order to promote its socialist agenda."

"And triumph we will. We can only hope that there is still a country to take back!"

I can remember when this sort of rhetoric was reserved for radicals and extremists alone. No longer. There was a time when men like Dick Morris would have cringed at rhetoric such as this. Now they use it.

Constitution Class (Part 1/7) - Property and Your Rights

I received word today that Michael Badnarik, the 2004 Libertarian Party candidate for President, self-described iconoclast, and self-made expert on the Constitution, property rights, liberty and freedom, had a heart attack while at an event in Wisconsin. I thought this would be a good time to re-watch his classic 7 part series on the Constitution and liberty, available on Google Video.

Here is Part 1 which deals primarily with the concept of property and how property relates to liberty.

John Stossel - The Debate Is Over? Really?

Posted by James Spurgeon.

Scientific Accuracy (Trust Me On This One)

Posted by James Spurgeon.

In a hurry this morning. Let's see what I can put up quickly for the cause.

Science is a method of acquiring knowledge and information, not an infallible source of knowledge. No, really. Science is a method, not a source. Ironic, is it not, that while science itself would seem to require skepticism, many in the scientific community would like for us to drop all skepticism when it comes to their latest, greatest theories. In fact, those of us who remain skeptical are dubbed ignorant rubes or worse. Scientists, it would seem, no longer have to prove anything. We should just believe them.

To do this I have to assume that they are (a) unbiased, (b) infallible, (c) have my best interests at heart, and (d) are capable of rising above the interests of those who are funding them (usually government).

Wow.

Why should I give that much benefit of doubt to anyone? Are scientists super-human? Are they made from a better mold, cut from a finer cloth?

Really?

I like science and scientists, don't get me wrong. I am addicted to Discovery Science. I share with them an insatiable desire, that wanting to know. But, I have been around the block one too many times to just accept everything anyone says without question. History proves me right in this attitude.



Does it not?

Radical Theory Change in Science

Posted by James Spurgeon.

In light of the recent revelations about the doctoring of records and data by global warming scientists at East Anglia University for the stated purpose of shaping public opinion for the advancement of a political cause, and in the face of the arrogance of those on the Left who insist that we all believe their global warming theory because of "consensus" and because the evidence is in and the debate is now over, and because making this sentence even longer will probably succeed in annoying every English teacher I ever had, I dredged up this old post from my old blog to present it to you, here and now, still relatively fresh and relevant.

Professor McGrath is a scientist and Christian theologian. He has written several books including at least two answers to noted atheist Richard Dawkins. I found the following quotations in one of those books and used them as a catalyst for the post. Enjoy.

Alister McGrath brings up an interesting observation in Chapter three of his Dawkins' God--Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. In that chapter he has a section entitled "The Problem of Radical Theory Change in Science." Here is a quotation:

When I was learning physics at school, I gradually became aware of an awkward contradiction within what I was being taught. On the one hand, I was being assured that the theories of modern physics were completely reliable, the most secure form of knowledge that humanity could ever hope to possess. Yet every now and then, we would venture into a strange, twilight region in which it would be explained to us, in hushed, conspiratorial tones, that "physicists once used to believe this, but don't now." . . . At first, I thought that these old-fashioned views dated back to the sixteenth century. But the awful truth soon became clear. The acceptance of these new ideas dated from about forty years earlier. "Once" turned out to mean "quite recently."--Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, p.102, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

Yep. I've noticed that sort of thing myself. No, I'm no scientist, but I am a television nerd--which means I watch all the nerd channels. You know what they are--the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, NatGeo, Discovery Science, History International, etc. I watch shows dealing with astronomy, cosmology, dinosaurs, you name it. One cannot watch many of these programs without coming across statements like the one McGrath notes above. Scientific theories are always changing, always being revised, many being completely discarded and replaced. They are always getting it wrong.

Now is that a bad thing? Of course, not. Scientific discovery is a road paved with wrong ideas, but as we learn and discover further, we grow. Isn't that wonderful?

There's something else I've noted in the scientific community from watching those nifty little nerd channels. Scientists are always arguing with each other. They seldom all agree on their theories and some are even ridiculed for their ideas by their colleagues. Sometimes even, the ones who are ridiculed turn out to be right. Sometimes a scientist comes along who challenges the prevailing opinions, is ridiculed, but in the end, through his diligent experimentation and research, it turns out that he was right and he changes the face of science for a few decades (until the next guy comes along doing the same thing).

All of this is easily evident to the untutored layman like me. Yet at the same time it is astounding how arrogant the scientific community is. Imagine, for instance, a guy like Richard Dawkins. An intelligent man by all accounts, well-learned, articulate, funny, thorough, logical, Dawkins is also arrogant--arrogant to the point of expecting people to radically change their worldview because of a scientific theory. Of course, as McGrath points out, even if one were to accept the theory of evolution as genuine it does not then necessarily follow that one's theism or Christianity be discarded.

Nevertheless, here is Dawkins--who cannot prove his theory. He may be able to point to a mound of scientific evidence, yet the necessary proof is as of yet unproduced. But Dawkins ridicules those who do not accept the theory as fact, even though scientific theories have a way of being found wanting and, after being replaced by new and better ones, being cast upon the forgotten heaps of antiquated errors that litter the landscape of scientific history.

Please, guys. Keep studying, keep learning, keep discovering. I shall watch with an interested eye. But, at the same time, how about adding in a dash of humility to that theoretical cauldron? The stew you are offering will go down much better if you do.

A little more from McGrath:

Historians and philosophers of science have produced long lists of scientific theories, each of which was believed by one generation to be the best possible representation of reality, yet which were abandoned by later generations, in the light of new discoveries and increasingly precise measurements of what was already known. Some theories have proved remarkably stable; many have been radically modified, and others abandoned altogether.--Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, p.104, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

And:

Scientific theorizing is thus provisional. In other words, it offers what is believed to be the best account of the experimental observations currently available. Radical theory change takes place either when it is believed that there is a better explanation of what is currently known, or when new information comes to light which forces us to see what is presently known in a new light. Unless we know the future, it is impossible to take an absolute position on the question of whether any given theory is "right." What can be said--and, indeed, must be said--is that this is believed to be the best explanation currently available. History simply makes fools of those who argue that every aspect of the current theoretical situation is true for all time. The problem is that we don't know which of today's theories will be discarded as interesting failures by future generations.

If theories are thus subject to erosion, what of worldviews that are based upon them? . . .Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, p.104,5, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

Statists and Violence

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

What do Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Adolph Hitler, Fidel Castro, and numerous others all have in common?

Besides being twentieth century statists who saw government as the end-all solution to every human problem . . . they were all brutal murderers who (ab)used government to murder their own citizens on a very large scale.

They made Tim McVeigh look like a piker.

And what do Ted Kaczynski, Bill Ayres, the Black Panthers, and other sixties radicals have in common? They are all leftists who murdered people in the name of their revolutionary cause.

The Left has a long history of violence in the cause of its statist ideology and has murdered millions. Yet, let someone stand up for individual liberty and he is labeled an anarchist or a Timothy McVeigh by some idiot, leftist drone.

This is done for a reason. It is a tactic known as "poisoning the well" and is utilized by those who are losing the argument and cannot substantively promote their viewpoint.

This is why those of us who champion the individual against the collective are labeled with such epithets as racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. This is why all politicians on the right are mocked as stupid while all of the leftists are honored as being the smartest people in the room.

Poisoning the well. Obviously everyone who opposes tyrannical government is a murderer in the bud. We are all Timothy McVeighs.

By the same (il)logic then, all environmentalists are Ted Kaczynskis, everyone who supports government-run health care is a Hitler, and all who believe that it "takes a village" are Stalins, Lenins, and Maos.

Right?

Obama: Traitor to Sovereignty and Liberty?

Amdiral Mike Mullen on civilian casualties of war

I'm home at lunch watching Admiral Mike Mullen (Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff) speak to soon-to-be-deployed troops at Camp Lejeune. Addressing the subject of civilian casualties, he said that killing civilians is a "strategic failure" that makes an otherwise successful mission a failure.

Adm. Mullen: killing civilians is a moral failure, not a strategic one. There is no acceptable level of civilian casualties in war. Killing innocent people is wrong, and when indiscriminate weapons are used it is murder.

Texas Congressman almost gets it

Rep. Lamar Smith, a San Antonio-area Republican, recently said of ACORN:

Not a penny of taxpayer's dollars should go to fund an organization that time and again has abused federal funds and the American people's trust.

I agree with the gentleman from San Antonio. We should immediately stop funding the US Government, an organization run by criminals that constantly abuses federal funds and violates the American people's trust by violating our civil liberties; that spreads death and destruction throughout the world in the name of "democracy"; that steals from the poor through the printing of paper money; that places the ambition and materialistic desires of evil politicians above the liberty of the people; and which fails to fulfill the one moral and desirable function of government in a free society, which is to protect individual liberty.

Government - not capitalism - is the problem

One of my frustrations with today's so-called conservative leaders is that they too often concede the premise of an argument to our opponents on the left. For example, yesterday I had a conversation with a co-worker who qualified her endorsement of free market capitalism with a disclaimer that "we just need some rules that will keep people from being taken advantage of".

This is a position that I hear often, especially in the wake of recent corporate and financial scandals. The statement assumes that fraud and deceit are necessary characteristics of free markets – a patently false assumption that I rarely hear challenged. The only source of fraud and deceit in truly free markets comes from the government and the greedy politicians.

Capitalism

Capitalism is the process where people engage in mutually-beneficial transactions arrived at through peaceful cooperation with one another. In barter economies a farmer may trade a bushel of corn to his neighbor for ten gallons of milk. The price of a bushel of corn would be 10 gallons of milk; the price of a gallon of milk would be 1/10 a bushel of corn. These terms were arrived at through peaceful negotiation – not coercion. Nobody held a gun to their head. And the trade was mutually-beneficial. The corn farmer already had much more corn than he wanted, while the dairy famer's children can only drink so much milk.

Today we use money to determine the relative worth of goods and services. In our example a bushel of corn would be worth 10 times more dollars than a single gallon of milk. The use of money allows other capitalists and consumers to discern important information about the relative worth of all goods and services in the economy. Some capitalist will look at the price of corn, determine that he can produce it for less, and start planting corn. This drives down the market price of corn for everybody – which by definition means that producers of all other goods and services can now buy more corn. Everybody wins in true free market capitalism.

Did you notice what things were not necessary in the example? Fraud and deceit are most definitely not necessary for true free market capitalism. Sure they may exist, and should be dealt with appropriately by the legal system, but fraud and deceit are not required. And coercion is most definitely not a part of free markets. You are always at liberty to not transact, if the market price is higher than you want to pay.

Regulation

Let's look what happens now when the government gets its greedy hands involved and regulates the free market. Assume that the government taxes corn to raise money for the military. Corn farmers must pass that tax on to consumers by raising the price of corn; but they won't be able to pass on the entire tax because there are close substitute products for corn (other vegetables) that consumers could switch to. So the price of corn goes up and profits for the farmers go down. You will eat less corn because it's more expensive, and instead eat more Brussels sprouts. (You really don't like Brussels sprouts, but at least you can afford them without having to cut something else out of your budget.)

As for the farmers, the smallest farmer will now go out of business because he can't produce and sell corn at a profit under the new regime. The average farmer stays in business but can't make as much money as before. Corporate farms will also be hurt, but not as bad because they will be better able to absorb the price hit.

The government, which is collecting money despite being a net negative to society, sees the price of corn rise and is now outraged. It decides to regulate corn prices and sets up a blue-ribbon panel to study the issue. The panel, comprised of politicians from corn-producing states, Ivy League economists and CEOs of large corporate farming companies, decides that the market needs a federal regulator to ensure that prices are "fair" and that the food supply is "safe" for consumers.

The new Department of Corn is headed by the former CEO of GoldCorn Sacks, a large farming conglomerate with close political ties to the current administration. It recommends increased safety procedures for corn production and new rules for marketing of corn. All farmers must make significant capital investment to meet the new rules. Many small farmers simply retire rather than deal with the hassle and added expense. They would like to continue selling corn, and their neighbors would like to continue buying it, but the law is the law.

More Unintended Consequences

Meanwhile the price of corn has increased again to reflect the cost of the new regulation. The corporate farmers can easily afford the new regulations and pick up even more market share from the little guys. You have to eat even more Brussels sprouts and less corn due to the new pricing. Society in total loses because corn is more expensive relative to all other goods and services.

The government has funded its army, and is now exploring the possibility of setting up a similar tax and regulation system for milk. The proceeds of that tax will be used to buy food (corn, not Brussels sprouts, which everybody HATES) for the former corn farmers to eat. And some money will also be used to create job training programs so displaced agricultural workers can perform administrative tasks at the Department of Corn.

The representative who chaired the blue-ribbon committee received record campaign contributions from political action committees associated with Big Corn. It's an election year, and he will have a primary challenger, but should be able to outspend her thanks to these donations.

The biggest campaign issue looks to be whether or not to put tariffs on imported corn. Corn is primarily imported from the nation of Cornutopia, which due to a number of factors including soil conditions and weather, can produce only corn and nothing else. The Cornutopians are the most efficient producers of corn on Earth by necessity. But, imported corn is being sold at less than the market price of domestic corn, so the representative believes that allowing "unfettered free markets" would cause small American farmers to go out of business. He supports the tariff because, in his words, "I stand with the little guy – not the big corporations."

Winners and Losers

The former family corn farmer now depends entirely on the government for basic subsistence through food stamps and other welfare programs. Society as a whole is worse off: because of the increased price of corn, many people that would otherwise prefer the tasty yellow vegetable have to eat other, less appealing vegetables. (Chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy and…zucchini!)

The government has caused two things to happen. First it decreased the quality of life for society as a whole (because corn makes people happier than other vegetables). Then it made society poorer by taxing the corn that was consumed. So government was able to direct some of the people's money to itself, despite the fact that society as a whole was made worse off by government's actions.

Of course some people DID benefit from the new regulations. Big Corn certainly benefited because it now has less domestic competition. And after the elections, the tariff insulated corporate corn growers from Cornutopian corn as well. The politicians benefited because the campaign contributions ensured their entrenchment in office virtually indefinitely.

More Politics

The young representative – now considering a run for Senate in two years – was recently appointed to the House Committee for Foreign Relations. The Committee has pressured key trading partners (all countries in which GoldCorn Sacks has operations) to institute corn regulations as well. This will allegedly protect consumers globally from "dirty, unregulated corn" which countries like Cornutopia produce.

Cornutopia, now unable to sell its corn in the world's 10 largest markets and unable to grow any other crops, experiences extreme civil unrest, famine, and eventually a military coup. The democratically-elected government has been overthrown and replaced by a socialist dictator. The U.S. begins mobilizing it's army, which was initially funded by corn taxes, to fight the dictator. The plan is to install a new, hand-selected replacement (although "elections" will be held because the goal is to spread democracy, and the new leader has to be viewed as legitimate). The new soon-to-be democratically-elected leader has already agreed to force the recommendations of the U.S. Department of Corn upon the Cornutopian growers in exchange for half a billion dollars in foreign aid.

Because the war to spread democracy to Cornutopia is so expensive, and because we must support the troops at all costs, the legislature is now considering increasing taxes on all food products, including increasing the tax on corn. A dollar just doesn't go as far as it used to.

Summary

And all of this happened because in the beginning our "leaders" did not challenge the assertion that free market capitalism needs regulation to operate fairly. To summarize:

Free market capitalism: Cooperative, mutually-beneficial, peaceful, resources allocated based on the value that you provide to other people

Government regulation: Coercive, benefits only the politically connected, violent, resources allocated based on arbitrary decisions made by bureaucrats

So the next time somebody argues with you that we need more regulation because "free markets get out of control" or "we need somebody to make sure everything is done fairly" – be sure to challenge them!

Ron Paul discusses perpetual war on FOX Business

Ron Paul appeared on FOX Business Channel today to discuss President Obama's asinine Afghanistan policy and the very real possibility of perpetual war in the Middle East.

Global Warming - Scam of the New Millenium

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Not much time to write, but for a delicious holiday morsel, try this.

Apparently, some hackers broke into some computer files for the University of East Anglia and these files contained some pretty enlightening and embarrassing information about collusion and conspiracy within scientific and academic ranks to keep the global warming fires burning, as it were. In short, global warming is a scam and the lid has been blown.

Here is a sample from the above-linked article in the Wall Street Journal:

This is downright Orwellian. What the Post describes is not a vigorous debate but an attempt to suppress debate--to politicize the process of scientific inquiry so that it yields a predetermined result. This does not, in itself, prove the global warmists wrong. But it raises a glaring question: If they have the facts on their side, why do they need to resort to tactics of suppression and intimidation?

It is hard to see how this is anything less than a definitive refutation of the popular press's contention that global warmism is settled science--a contention that both the Times and the Post repeat in their articles on the revelations: "The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument," the Times claims. The Post leads its story by observing that "few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate," and that "nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal." (As blogger Tom Maguire notes, this actually overstates even the IPCC's conclusions.)

The press's view on global warming rests on an appeal to authority: the consensus among scientists that it is real, dangerous and man-caused. But the authority of scientists rests on the integrity of the scientific process, and a "consensus" based on the suppression of alternative hypotheses is, quite simply, a fraudulent one.

That guy is a lot more generous than I am.

Frauds. That is what they are. Frauds and liars and thieves.

Also, check out this.

And this.

And this.

And this.

And, of course, this.

I am so glad that with all the fraudulent religious, right-wing, Christian nutcases out there we can at least trust the scientific community to give us the truth.

What is Law?

The proper role of government in a free society is to defend individual rights. Governments do this through application of the law; without government there would be no law.

But what is the law? And by whose authority does government enforce laws? Frederic Bastiat provides the answer in his essay from 1848 entitled The Law.

Existence, faculties, assimilation — in other words, personality, liberty, property — this is man.

It is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all demagogue subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation.

It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws.

What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?

If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together, to extend, to organize a common force, to provide regularly for this defense. And what is property but an extension of our faculties?

Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated forces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual — for the same reason, the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes.

For this perversion of force would be, in one case as in the other, in contradiction to our premises. For who will dare to say that force has been given to us, not to defend our rights, but to annihilate the equal rights of our brethren? And if this be not true of every individual force, acting independently, how can it be true of the collective force, which is only the organized union of isolated forces?

Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense; it is the substitution of collective for individual forces, for the purpose of acting in the sphere in which they have a right to act, of doing what they have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties, and to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over all.

The Real Reason for War

Why do we have wars? Because it elevates the role of the state in our lives, of course. I mean what better way a tyrant like Carl Levin to increase the pressure of his jackboot on our throats than to help start a war, then use it as an excuse to raise taxes?

Of course maybe we should consider ourselves lucky that all the government wants from us is a figurative arm and a leg; the innocent women, children and other non-combatants on the other end of American bombs will sacrifice those things quite literally.

Deregulate marriage!

Posted by Allen Lewis

In 2005 the State of Texas Constitution was amended in an effort to ban gay marriage and same-sex civil unions. Article 1, Section 32 of the Texas Constitution reads:

Sec. 32.
(a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.
(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

Former attorney, US Senate candidate and current candidate for Texas Attorney General Barbara Ann Radnofsky believes that subsection b may actually ban all marriage in Texas.

Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.

She calls it a "massive mistake" and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem.

In my view, this would be glorious news for everybody that is truly concerned about the sanctity of marriage. The government has no moral right to regulate marriage. Citizens should not have to pay the state for a license granting the right to enter into any type of contract, marriage included. We should not have to ask the state's permission to get married. The government should not be involved in marriage in any way whatsoever.

The institution of marriage has been irreversibly harmed in this country, but it's not for the reasons commonly cited by many conservatives. The state has taken what should be a sacred contract between two people - something that has historically been sanctioned by a religious authority - and made it the domain of the government.

By placing marriage (or more succinctly, the right to marry) in the domain of the law, our government has served only to perpetuate the insulting notion that the state should regulate the most personal of choices in our lives. We should deregulate marriage immediately.

Judge Andrew Napolitano and Nullification

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I love the Tenth Amendment Center Blog. Like our friends over at the Repeal the 17th Amendment Blog, they are pretty well focused on one thing. I hope you will check them out from time to time as they raise consciousness on these important issues. I continue to look to the 10th amendment as the most viable cure available out there for out-of-control federal (or as Napolitano points out in the following video, national) government. Despite being a bit long, this clip is fabulous and enlightening. I viewed it at the aforementioned Tenth Amendment Center blog and liked it enough to want to put it here. It also serves as a good companion for the video in Allen's last post and together they make for a good introduction to Judge Napolitano. When Judge Napolitano begins his segments on constitutional law we will bring them to you as well.

Debra Medina on Freedom Watch

Posted by Allen Lewis

Debra Medina, who is running for Governor of Texas against two absolutely awful (but powerful) career politicians - Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison - appeared on Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano today.



I had the honor of working with Debra as a co-organizer on the 2008 Houston-area End the Fed rally. Debra is a true champion of liberty and freedom, unlike Governor Gardasil and Kay Bailout, who use the rhetoric of liberty when it suits them but govern and legislate, respectively, as leftists.

Walter Williams on Mao, Stalin, Lenin, and American Academia

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Professor Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and for several years served as the Chair of that department. His weekly columns appear in 140 newspapers nationwide.


Go here to see a list of books written by Walter E. Williams.

The following is a portion of his most recent column. Click here to read the entire thing.

Walter Williams: Alan Kors, University of Pennsylvania history professor, gave the evening's keynote address. What he revealed about the dereliction and character weakness of academics, intellectuals, media elites and politicians is by no means complimentary, but worse than that, dangerous. Professor Kors said that over the years, he has frequently asked students how many deaths were caused by Joseph Stalin and Mao Tsetung and their successors. Routinely, they gave numbers in the thousands. Kors says that's equivalent to saying the Nazis are responsible for the deaths of just a few hundred Jews. But here's the record: Nazis were responsible for the deaths of 20 million of their own people and those in nations they conquered. Between 1917 and 1983, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Tsetung and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese.

Professor Kors asks why are the horrors of Nazism so well known and widely condemned, but not those of socialism and communism? For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers. How much hunting down and seeking punishment for Stalinist and Maoist murderers? In Europe, especially Germany, hoisting the swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. It's acceptable to hoist and march under a flag emblazoned with the former USSR's hammer and sickle. Even in the U.S., it's acceptable to praise mass murderers, as Anita Dunn, President Obama's communications director, did in a commencement address for St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral where she said Mao Tsetung was one of her heroes. Whether it's the academic community, the media elite or politicians, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism -- a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined.

Academics, media elites and leftist politicians both in the U.S. and Europe protested the actions and military buildup of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the breakup of the Soviet Union. Recall the leftist hissy fit when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire and predicted that communism would wind up on the trash heap of history.

Professor Alan Kors did not say this but the reason why the world's leftists give the world's most horrible murderers a pass is because . . .

Well, don't you want to know why? To find out what Professor Williams's answer is, go to the column and read it.

Pelosi . . . Are You Serious?

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I found this at CNS News. Click here for the whole article.

After this short audio clip, I'll quote some from the news article.



Now from the news article:

Currently, each of the five health care overhaul proposals being considered in Congress would command every American adult to buy health insurance. Any person defying this mandate would be required to pay a penalty to the Internal Revenue Service.

In 1994, when the health care reform plan then being advanced by President Clinton called for mandating that all Americans buy health insurance, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office studied the issue and concluded:

“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

CNS News also sent the following questions to Pelosi's office:

“If it is the Speaker’s belief that there is a provision in the Constitution that does give Congress this power, does she believe the Constitution in any way limits the goods and services Congress can force an individual to purchase?" CNSNews.com asked. "If so, what is that limit?”

UPS, Teamsters, Federal Government vs. FedEx

Posted by James Spurgeon.

This particular video is pretty relevant for me because I am currently employed by FedEx.



Government picking winners and losers based on which corporation has the right ties and makes the right contributions to the right politicians is right out of Atlas Shrugged. It is disturbingly dirty on a number of levels.

Buy Insurance or Go To Jail

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

For the first time in the two hundred thirty-three years of the Republic, the federal government in Washington, D.C. is poised to mandate by law that citizens (subjects) purchase a commodity. Why has this never happened in the past? There is a simple answer. It is against the law. It is unconstitutional. That little wrinkle will not stop this government however. The House, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has already passed such legislation. They did it while you were enjoying your weekend last Saturday and, hopefully (in their minds), not paying attention.

Is this the kind of transparency Obama promised? Is this the kind of health care reform Obama promised? Witness this short video.



Then there is this video, also short.



Obama, of course, is complicit.



Besides not answering the question, and thus answering it by his silence, this is the most ridiculous argumentation imaginable. Does he apply this reasoning when it comes to welfare? providing of services for illegal aliens? This man's whole ideology and political career is based upon requiring a few responsible people to carry the load for those who are irresponsible. And, now he wants people to start being responsible or he is going to fine them?

But is it fair to send people to jail who refuse to buy a government-mandated commodity? Nancy Pelosi thinks so:






The thirteen colonies declared independence from the crown for lesser grievances.

Without Power, There Can Be No Corruption

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Early this morning I was browsing over on the Tenth Amendment blog and ran across a couple of quotational gems with a link. The link took me to Nolan Chart and an op-ed piece by Brian Irving of North Carolina. Brian is a libertarian with some great thoughts on the real source of political corruption and how to end it. I wrote and asked for his permission to reprint his op-ed piece here and now you have it, just as it appeared on his blog and at Nolan Chart. (I added the Lord of the Rings photo just for fun and because I am a LOTR nerd. Be sure to run your mouse over any photos you find on this blog.)

Welcome Guest Blogger Brian Irving.

Just as predictable as the media's "gotcha" coverage whenever a politician gets caught cheating or stealing is the inevitable call by political reform groups for more laws to prevent such abuse in the future and for "better" ways of financing campaigns. They ignore warning from our nations Founders' who understood that the more corrupt a State the more it legislates.

We certainly do need honest and moral people with integrity to run for office. We certainly should applaud and support those elected officials who are honest and keep their hands out of the cookie jar.

It's pointless and disingenuous however to propose that forcing taxpayers to fund political campaigns they don't agree with will promote honesty. Compelling anyone to pay for something they oppose is not just dishonest and corrupt, it is immoral.

Corruption stems not from lobbyists money but from taxpayer money. As long as government isn't limited in what it can spend your money on there will always be people who will find a way to get the politicians to spend it on them.

Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." The corollary to this is that without power there can be no corruption for the politician has nothing to sell.

The absolute corruption of absolute power is evident in North Carolina government. Taxpayer-funded elections would only further strengthen the absolute power of the Democrat-Republican duopoly that wields on iron grip on state government by manipulating the law to favor supporters, reward cronies and thwart any third party or independent candidate who challenges that control.

Government is no longer about protecting individual liberty and promoting personal responsibility, it's about "what's in it for me" and "how much can I get."

If you reduce government power and restore the concept of limited government our nation was founded on, you eliminate the opportunity for corruption. Of course, the major party duopoly is not interested in reducing their power. That is why North Carolina has the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation.

Any non-Demopublican or independent candidate must collect 80,000 or more signatures to qualify for the ballot. That takes time and money. Once they have climbed that mountain they can start running a campaign. That is, if they have not exhausted all their volunteers, resources and energy just getting to the starting line. It's like asking an athlete to run a marathon before entering 100 meter race.

Real campaign finance reform will begin the ballot box when Libertarians, Greens, Constitution and independent candidates can challenge the two-party state in a race without first having to have run a marathon.

Op Ed written for North Carolinians for Free & Proper Elections

I took the opportunity to link Brian's blog on our blogroll in the right column. Be sure to check him out.

Thomas Sowell on Bringing Down Health Care Costs

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Here is Thomas Sowell stating the obvious on what Obama Care will do to bring down the costs of medical care.

By Thomas Sowell
Although it is cheaper to buy a pint of milk than to buy a quart of milk, nobody considers that to be lowering the price of milk. Although it is cheaper to buy a lower quality of all sorts of goods than to buy a higher quality, nobody thinks of that as lowering the price of either lower or higher quality goods.

Yet, when it comes to medical care, there seems to be remarkably little attention paid to questions of both quantity and quality, in the rush to "bring down the cost of medical care."

There is no question that you can reduce the payments for medical care by having either a lower quantity or a lower quality of medical care. That has already been done in countries with government-run medical systems.

In the United States, the government has already reduced payments for patients on Medicare and Medicaid, with the result that some doctors no longer accept new patients with Medicare or Medicaid. That has not reduced the cost of medical care. It has reduced the availability of medical care, just as buying a pint of milk reduces the payment below what a quart of milk would cost.

Letting old people die instead of saving their lives will undoubtedly reduce medical payments considerably. But old people have that option already — and seldom choose to exercise it, despite clever people who talk about a "duty to die."

A government-run system will take that decision out of the hands of the elderly or their families, and thereby "bring down the cost of medical care." A stranger's death is much easier to take, especially if you are a bureaucrat making that decision in Washington.


At one time, in desperately poor societies, living on the edge of starvation, old people might be abandoned to their fate or even go off on their own to face death alone. But, in a society where huge flat-screen TVs are common, along with a thousand gadgets for amusement and entertainment, and where even most people living below the official poverty line own a car or truck, to talk about a "duty to die" so that younger people can live it up is obscene.

You can even save money by cutting down on medications to relieve pain, as is already being done in Britain's government-run medical system. You can save money by not having as many high-tech medical devices like CAT scans or MRIs, and not using the latest medications. Countries with government-run medical systems have less of all these things than the United States has.

But reducing these things is not "bringing down the cost of medical care." It is simply refusing to pay those costs — and taking the consequences.

For those who live by talking points, one of their biggest talking points is that Americans do not get any longer life span than people in other Western nations by all the additional money we spend on medical care.

Like so many clever things that are said, this argument depends on confusing very different things — namely, "health care" and "medical care." Medical care is a limited part of health care. What we do and don't do in the way we live our lives affects our health and our longevity, in many cases more so than what doctors can do to provide medical care.

Americans have higher rates of obesity, homicide and narcotics addiction than people in many other Western nations. There are severe limits on what doctors and medical care can do about that.

If we are serious about medical care — and we should be serious, since it is a matter of life and death — then we should have no time for clever statements that confuse instead of clarifying.

If we want to compare the effects of medical care, as such, in the United States with that in other countries with government-run medical systems, then we need to compare things where medical care is what matters most, such as survival rates of people with cancer. The United States has one of the highest rates of cancer survival in the world — and for some cancers, the number one rate of survival.

We also lead the world in creating new life-saving pharmaceutical drugs. But all of this can change — for the worse — if we listen to clever people who think they should be running our lives.

The last sentence sums the problem up rather nicely, I thought. Our problem is that there is a group of people who think it is their right to take charge of how the rest of us live our lives. They wish to control every aspect of it. It is about power. Our freedom is an assault on their power while their growing power means an assault on our freedom. Tell the oligarchy no.

Department of Homeland Security

Posted by Allen Lewis

One of the great failures of the George W. Bush administration - and there are many to choose from - was the wild expansion in the size, scope and power of the state. The Department of Homeland Security is a prime example. This agency (the third largest Cabinet department by headcount) has been a cesspool of waste, ineffectiveness and fraud since the day it was created. And now we find out that US "intelligence" agencies which fall under the purvey of DHS knew that Major Nidal Hasan was in electronic contact with al Queda in the months before his rampage at Fort Hood.

Like all government agencies, DHS is not subject to market forces. In a market system, when a firm fails to provide goods or services of adequate quality, it goes out of business. The incentive to succeed (with success defined by the customer) is clear, and the cost of failure is the immediate and complete withdrawal of resources to the firm by the market.

In the realm of government, failure is rewarded with additional resources, which are always stolen from the people through theft, legal plunder, and/or inflation. This is because a lot of politicians and moneyed special interests have a lot to lose if a government entity were to fail. Further, I categorically reject the idea that Americans have to give up their liberty to the state in order to secure liberty. DHS should be abolished immediately.

(Interesting bit of trivia: what was the last government agency to be abolished, and when did it happen. The answer is surprising, if not disheartening.)

Cal Thomas on the Tenth Amendment

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I thought this was worth mentioning because it is the first time that I have noticed any pundit on a national level bringing attention to the 10th Amendment and how it is supposed to protect the states from runaway federal government expansion. Here is Cal Thomas:

Can the Tenth Amendment Save Us?

By Cal Thomas

Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

The Framers created a limited government, thus ensuring individuals would have the opportunity to become all that their talents and persistence would allow. The Left has put aside the original Constitution in favor of a "living document" that they believe allows them to do whatever they want and demand more tax dollars with which to do it.

Can they be stopped? Some constitutional scholars think the Tenth Amendment offers the best opportunity. The Tenth Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In 1939, the Supreme Court began to dilute constitutional language so that it became open to broader interpretation. Rob Natelson, professor of Constitutional Law and Legal History at the University of Montana, has written that even before Franklin Roosevelt's court-packing scheme, it was changing the way the Constitution was interpreted, especially, "how the commerce and taxing powers were turned upside-down, the necessary and proper clauses and incidental powers, the false claim that the Supreme Court is conservative, how bad precedent leads to more bad court rulings, state elections as critical for constitutional activists, and more."

While during the last seven decades the court has tolerated the federal welfare state, Natelson says it has never, except in wartime, "authorized an expansion of the federal scope quite as large as what is being proposed now. And in recent years, both the Court and individual justices — even 'liberal' justices — have said repeatedly that there are boundaries beyond which Congress may not go." … "Chief Justice John Marshall once wrote that if Congress were to use its legitimate powers as a 'pretext' for assuming an unauthorized power, 'it would become the painful duty' of the Court 'to say that such an act was not the law of the land.'"

It would be nice to know now what those boundaries are and whether Congress is exceeding its powers as it prepares to alter one-sixth of our economy and change how we access health insurance and health care.

Natelson makes a fascinating argument in his essay, "Is ObamaCare Constitutional?" (www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/08/18/is-obamacare-constitutional), using the Court's Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. In Roe, he writes, the court struck down state abortion laws that "intruded into the doctor-patient relationship. But the intrusion invalidated in Roe was insignificant compared to the massive intervention contemplated by schemes such as HB3200. 'Global budgeting' and 'single-payer' plans go even further, and seem clearly to violate the Supreme Court's Substantive Due Process rules."

Constitutional Attorney John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, tells me, "Although the states surrendered many of their powers to the new federal government, they retained a residuary and inviolable sovereignty that is reflected throughout the Constitution's text. The Framers rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the States, and instead designed a system in which the State and federal governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people. The Court's jurisprudence makes clear that the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program."

Lawyers are busy writing language only they can understand which seeks to circumvent the intentions of the Founders. But it will be difficult to circumvent the last four words of the Tenth Amendment, which state unambiguously where ultimate power lies: "…or to the people."

Americans who believe their government should not be a giant ATM, dispensing money and benefits to people who have not earned them, and who want their country returned to its founding principles, must now exercise that power before it is taken from them. The Tenth Amendment is one place to begin. The streets are another. It worked for the Left. --Cal Thomas

It has become more and more clear that the solution to our problem in and with Washington does not lie in Washington at all and that the only way to check its burgeoning authoritarianism is at the state level. Our founders gave us protection from this and they did so, in part, in that great Tenth Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Who Made God?

Posted by Friar Rick.

Who Made God?

It is a question often asked by children but seldom asked by adults. It is a good question, nonetheless, for it presumes something which I would like to discuss in this post. What it presumes is known as causality or what you and I know intuitively as cause and effect.

How and why are questions we have been asking since we were old enough to speak. The very questions themselves demonstrate this intuitive knowledge of cause and effect within us. There is a reason for everything, and just as there is a reason for everything there is also a reason for everything that is . . . to be.

We know this both intuitively and by our experience. Every effect must have a sufficient cause. Things do not happen for no reason. Effects do not spontaneously come into being. There is a cause. How did this milk get on the table? It was spilled when a glass was knocked over. How did the glass get knocked over? It was knocked over by Jimmy's elbow when he was reaching for the mashed potatoes. How did the milk get in the glass? It was poured there by mom. Where did she get it? She got it from the gallon jug which was in the refrigerator. How did the jug get into the refrigerator? Dad brought it home from the store and put it there . . . and so on ad infinitum.

How long could we play that game? How far back does our chain of cause and effect go? That is the question at hand and the answer to that question is a valid, effective, and reasonable argument for the existence of God.

For the universe to exist there must be a sufficient cause outside of that universe to account for its existence.

Either that or you must confess that there is an infinite chain of cause and effect, that we could play our little game for eternity and never come to a first cause. But would that be logical? Theists contend that it is not and here is why.

I pose the question to those who might contend that there is no first cause, that our chain of cause and effect goes infinitely into the past. What caused that chain of events? Something did. An infinite series with no beginning involves a contradiction. It goes against the assumption that allows for the existence of the chain in the first place, to wit for every effect there is a cause.

We have a universe. That universe consists of matter and energy. It consists of space and it consists of time. What caused those?

While science cannot answer that, philosophy says that something must have caused them or they could not be.

And that is where it stands. Either you believe that matter is eternal, that it has always been, for it cannot have spontaneously generated, or you believe that there is an extramundane cause that brought it into being. The same for energy, time, space, and life, for none of those things can be explained as having been spontaneously generated without a cause.

An infinite chain of cause and effect is a logical absurdity. If a chain of three or four events cannot exist without a sufficient cause then no chain of events can exist without a sufficient cause, even if it is a chain of a million or a billion or a trillion events. As Charles Hodge put it,

"Nothing multiplied by infinity is nothing still. If we do not find the cause of our existence in ourselves, nor our parents in themselves, nor their progenitors in themselves, going back ad infinitum is only adding nothing to nothing. What the mind demands is a sufficient cause, and no approach to it is made by going back indefinitely from one effect to another. We are forced, therefore, by the laws of our rational nature, to assume the existence of a self-sufficient cause, i.e., a Being endued with power adequate to produce this ever-changing phenomenal world. In all ages thinking men have been forced to this conclusion. . . . The theistical argument is, that if everything in the world be contingent, this eternal and necessary Being must be an extramundane First Cause."

Which brings us back to our original question. Who made God? And the answer to that question is that no one did, for he is the uncaused First Cause. Without him nothing else in the universe makes sense. Without his existence, nothing else can exist. While everything in our universe is contingent, he is the Something standing outside that universe which is self-existent and contingent on nothing else.

Michael Moore, Capitalism, and Corporatism

Please welcome guest blogger Michael Labeit.

(The following is cross-posted, with permission, from EconomicPolicyJournal.com)

By Michael Labeit

The primary trailer to Michael Moore's latest hideously unwatchable “documentary” Capitalism: A Love Story features a narration of a series of events surrounding the financial crisis beginning in late 2008 and the federal government's particular method for addressing it with Moore ultimately proclaiming that “By spending just a few million dollars to buy Congress Wall Street was given billions.” No arguing with that proposition.

After just 22 seconds time Moore takes us to Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) of Ohio who laments the fact that

“Everything was being handled by the Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs...they [influential Wall Street firms] had Congress right where they wanted them...this was almost like an intelligence operation.”

Again, touché madam. Immediately after Kaptur's last words evacuate her, the screen swings to an unidentified man in front of a Condo Vultures logo who asserts categorically that “this is straight up capitalism,” an assertion that ends up sounding--perhaps inadvertently--like a conclusion, one inferred, consciously or not, from the previous claims within the trailer. It is here where our brief search for the nonsense ends.

I cannot possibly recount how many times I have encountered this ubiquitous fusion, one that is pervasive but usually implicit, embedded within both the makeshift and prepared arguments of academics, pundits and politicians. Moore invites us to commit it ourselves.

It's the error of mistaking corporatism for capitalism.

I find myself having to identify and explain the fundamental differences between capitalism and corporatism incessantly to everyone from shout-and-holler Bill Moyer lovers to scandalously sloppy PhD professors. Unfortunately, I tend to come across people, thanks to both misinformation and disinformation from school and the media, who are staggeringly impenetrable to valid, logical demonstrations. Arguing with some very easily becomes futile, hellishly so. Nevertheless, the distinction between capitalism and corporatism exists and it must be made public.

What is Capitalism?

Defining our terms is the first step we must take in order to prove capitalism/corporatism unionists wrong. Capitalism is a social system based upon the recognition of individual rights, including private property rights where all goods, both intermediate goods and final goods, are owned privately. The “rights” referred to above are ethical-legal principles that identify and sanction man's freedom of action strictly within a social context.

Under capitalism, each individual possesses the legally unalterable authority to support and sustain himself, to conduct himself in accordance with his own independent judgment, to control the material product of his mental and/or physical labour, and, in connection with these rights, each and every individual has the legal authority to be free from the initiation of physical force. The initiation of physical force, also known as aggression, refers to any act that disturbs or upsets the soundness or cohesion of a non-aggressor's body, his property, or ownership of his property. A man must think and act in order to survive; his survival requires both mental and physical activity. Rights recognize and sanction man's freedom to proceed with thinking and acting in his self-interest. Only the initiation of physical force can frustrate another’s attempt to take those actions condoned by his rights. A man is prevented from exercising his rights only from the coercion of another. Murder, assault, vandalism, and theft are apt examples. Such actions and all other examples of aggression are illegal under capitalism, period. Accordingly, all relationships under capitalism must be formed voluntarily between consenting adults. Furthermore, this absence of aggression that exists under capitalism allows for the formation of the free market, the vast network of voluntary exchanges of property titles to intermediate and final goods.

Government intervention is yet another exemplar of initiated force since it is the use of aggression to fulfill certain socio-economic objectives. As such, it contradicts the essential nature of a capitalist economy as a non-aggressive economy. An economy remains capitalist so long as the government, or any other agency for that matter, refrains from intervening coercively in the peaceful private lives of citizens. The implications of this fact are substantial: under pure capitalism there are no taxes, no price ceilings, no price floors, no product controls, no subsidies to either the rich or the poor, no public streets, no public schools, no public parks, no central banks, no wars of aggression, no immigration restrictions, etc. Government neither resorts to aggression under capitalism nor does it sanction its use by others, end of story.

What is Corporatism?

Corporatism shares no such description. It is a social system where the government intervenes aggressively into the economy, typically with political instruments that benefit large corporations and enterprises to the detriment of smaller businesses and private citizens. Such instruments include subsidies, tariffs, import quotas, exclusive production privileges such as licenses, anti-trust laws, and compulsory cartelization designs. All involve the initiation of physical force: subsidies come from taxes, tariffs are taxes, import quotas restrict trade, license schemes prohibit non-licensed producers from producing certain goods, anti-trust laws allow competitors to gain or retain market share through legal competition in court, and compulsory cartelization speaks for itself. Economists David Gordon and Thomas DiLorenzo elaborate well on the less-than-pleasant nature and history of corporatism and economic fascism here and here . Read Murray Rothbard’s analysis of government intervention for further reference here.

Similar to socialist governments, corporatist authorities seize control of land and capital goods when they feel it is necessary to do so without regard for private property rights. However, unlike socialist governments, corporatist states usually do not formally nationalize private sector firms, choosing instead to assume de facto control over them rather than de jure control. This difference however is procedural, one of style, not of essence, making it superficial--ancillary at best--and therefore fundamentally useless as an argumentative tool of fascists and socialists to distance themselves from each other. Corporatism is a system of institutionalized aggression. Between the complementary terms “capitalist” and “non-capitalist,” corporatism finds itself comfortably within the latter.

This means that the latest attempt by the federal government to save the financial industry by subsidizing failed or failing institutional investors and banks is an illustration of a corporatist, not a capitalist effort. Market forces have nothing to do with the Troubled Asset Relief Program or the misleading “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” These Congressional gems do not present themselves as intellectual dilemmas for capitalists, for advocates of the free market-–not whatsoever. Under capitalism, firms that do not satisfactorily satisfy consumer demand are made promptly to surrender their assets and their business influence. Financial capital is siphoned away from these unproductive enterprises and allocated toward those who have proven themselves capable of taking up the mantle of “producer.” I want at this moment to intrude the name Ludwig von Mises, the man who bluntly argues in his text Human Action that

Ownership of capital is a mandate entrusted to the owners, under the condition that it should be employed for the best possible satisfaction of the consumers. He who does not comply with this imposition forfeits his wealth and is relegated to a place in which his ineptitude no longer hurts people's well-being.

Conversely, the kinds of legislative bills, laden with underhanded plots to subsidize various politically-connected businesses and undertakings, which see the desk of our current president, and have appeared before to his immediate predecessor, are political tools meant deliberately to obstruct the operation of this most capitalistic profit and loss mechanism. Call it what you’d like but you may not call it “capitalism.” If you find yourself cursing the wretched collaboration of businessmen and statesmen, by all means proceed. I welcome it. However, if that’s the case it is not the free market system that you find so reprehensible.

A Plea for Scrupulousness

So as we see, the implicit argument made within Mr. Moore’s trailor, if it may be designated as such, is a non-sequitor. “Bailouts, influence by Wall Street firms, ergo capitalism” is not even worthy of scrutiny. The intended fulcrum of the argument has nothing whatsoever to do with the inference. Its poor quality is as flagrant as its careless ambitiousness; it reeks, with few reservations, of a willingness to jump to conclusions. Such casual “reasoning” is enough to put me on my guard and tells me what to expect from the rest of the film.

It all boils down to diligence versus sloppiness. To put it vulgarly, capitalism is not whatever America has, or whatever Washington does, or whatever the rich do. It has a very specific identity, as does corporatism. Failing to discriminate between the two makes it that much easier for the government to further extend its authority beyond already breached Constitutional bounds. Crises make for serendipitous occasions for propagandists and pseudo-intellectuals. An economically inclined public can hedge against this menace.

"Capitalism!?! Say that again, would you."

-Von Mises, Ludwig. Human Action. 4th ed. Irvington: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996. Print.

Michael Labeit is an economics major, a disgruntled army reservist, an aspiring freelance writer, and an amateur logician. He currently resides in the People's Republic of New York City and can be reached at logician179@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2009 EPJ Group LLC