Posts Tagged ‘elite’
Thursday, June 20th, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, government is the only place where the worse job you do, the more job security you have. Union bosses would be wise to rip a page from the political elite’s handbook. For screwing your employer even the much vaunted unions have nothing on bureaucrats and politicians. Government under their watch is the most inept facet of our civilization. We all know it. We all want better, but all we get is more laws, poorer results and more taxes. Unless we step in and solve the underlying problem… our society and indeed our civilization itself is doomed.
Politicians claim a minor problem is a crisis, they propose some legal “solution” for that “crisis,” the law makes matters far worse, making a new need for another law to rectify the problems created by the first. They pass another omnibus law and lo and behold the problem grows exponentially. Now it actually has become a crisis and lawmakers propose a new comprehensive law… From this simple example we can see that the poorer the results of their governance the more desire we have of their services.
Some might say that a carpenter always sees every problem as needing a hammer, a logger believes a chain saw is the perfect tool for building stuff and a plumber is of the opinion that every problem can be solved with pump pliers. In the case of politicians they see every problem as needing a legal solution. Each seeing problems and solutions through the eyes of his occupation. If the solution doesn’t fix the problem it is because the wrong tool is being used… is the logic. This would hold water better, if laws that don’t function were removed from the books, but once a law always a law. How much is the US government spending this year on the mohair subsidy? You know, the one to protect our vital access to World War One Army uniforms…
I think the problem is more pernicious even than that. If we believe that politicians are human beings, and that human beings are indeed rational in most cases, then we can conclude that politicians are rational. If they are rational then they must see that the worse they make society the more need there is of their services. Unless politicians are the dumbest people this must be true. Since they claim to be much smarter than you and I, with the knowledge that their laws generally make matters worse, then why would they continue to pass them? Self interest, or to be more precise, egoism.
If laws were the be all end all of civil tranquility, then why is society so much more roiled now, with our millions of pages of laws, regulations and ordinances, than it was at the turn of the Twentieth Century, when people self regulated? As the pernicious laws pile up and up, outcomes get worse, the politicians chime in with the old sophist song, “Government has a valid role to play in making people’s lives better.” Knowing in their hearts that every word of it is tripe. Clearly, it is not law that is the source of wealth, happiness or love, law only subtly protects property if it is right and seizes that property, if it is being used by an egoist. Human history shows unequivocally, that law is most often a source of oppression, theft and murder by those who wield it, against those who do not.
We have a system where the worse our leaders do the more we need them, the elite know this and use it against us, and we suffer in a myriad of ways because of it. The answer is not to give the elite more authority, to continue down the road to serfdom… it is to take back the workings of government. Do away with bad laws, that don’t have a function, make matters worse or unreasonably infringe on the Rights of the people. We must think and do for ourselves! To have eyes and not to see is a shame, to have ears and not to hear is a tragedy, but to have a mind and not use it is criminal.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
Tags: bureacrat, capitalism, civil ills, economics, economy, elite, government, government spending, incentive, International Capitalist Party, jobs, Law, market system, media, meritocracy, omnibus, pernicious incentive, rational maximiser, redistribution, regulation, society, Sophistry, tax, tyranny, World Government
Posted in economy, International Power, Law, media, philosophy, polictics of class envy, Societal Myth | No Comments »
Monday, June 10th, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the European Union and all the countries within it, are in an economic death spiral, and unless they break out of it, there will be a generational depression to pay for it. If you think this is hyperbole, then recall the Greek, Spanish and Italian economic catastrophes. Add to them the Cypriot banking seizure of customer’s assets to pay bank’s liabilities. Take into consideration the negative economic growth in Europe, the festering religious animosity that is rapidly becoming sepsis, the growing welfare state, and the budget deficits that follow, and there is only one conclusion that can logically be reached… Europe is headed for a historic crash… drawing the World with it.
At this point the elite in Europe have only one belief, socialism, in whatever flavor that nation favors. From the two main schisms, the Mediterranean model with one breadwinner and the Scandinavian model where it’s, everyone in… welfare states. There are sub sects of this, Britain’s Labor government is one example of a socialist convention, that fit’s neither the Mediterranean nor the Scandinavian models. Within these governments there are a small sub faction of laissez faire capitalists but they are overwhelmed by the vast majority of socialist factions. Most people in Europe believe in the hands on state, instead of the hands off state.
They all have only one plan of growth, Keynesian, this same plan has failed so spectacularly every time it has been tried, it should be called the Edsel plan. The group think we see in the media, political elites and the academic elites on this subject is remarkable. I am certain that many papers will be written on this phenomenon, in the years to come, but today we have to deal with it. The group’s answer is always to print more and spend more… cut tomorrow. Printing and spending has achieved many notable economic milestones… none of them good. Hyper inflation, stagnant economies, high unemployment, more oppressive government, the list goes on and on. What the Keynesians forget is that not all spending is equal.
What is needed to improve economic outlooks in any nation is, a total overhaul of the regulatory, taxation and standardization schemes, (Japan should take heed by the way). In the last part, standardization, Europe is way ahead of it’s rivals. Unfortunately in the areas of taxation, and regulation Europe is strangling itself. If, for example, Budgets must be balanced and could not be in deficit for more then three years in a row and that the debt must be paid back within three years, taxes could be lowered. If that were done, taxes could be simplified to a Europe wide percent sales tax system, (or value added system), each country collecting it’s own taxes, and then paying a portion to the European Union… taxation would become less a barrier to business. If regulation were simplified and overhauled, regulated sick time, vacations, hiring and firing rules, etc, the friction these laws impose on doing business would be lifted. Lastly, if the welfare laws were limited, more people, who are perfectly able to work, would move into the workforce, generating even more extrinsic economic growth and cutting the need for high budgets.
The death spiral can be escaped but it will not be easy. Today, the group think way to lower the huge debt burden the welfare state has imposed on Europe, is by “austerity.” Which is, cutting spending and raising taxes. Cutting spending is what they need to do, raising taxes will inevitably undo any good the lowering of spending accomplishes. Moreover, it makes the public believe that taxes will be higher in the future, (Because they will be), and the people will react accordingly, to protect their assets instead of spending or investing them. Cut spending, simplify and cut taxes, simplify regulation and move immigrants from welfare to work. To accomplish these goals, commissions could be set up to pour over every line of regulation on the books in Europe, then, every month submit a suggestion paper of those that should be removed, to the various parliaments. In America, when we make ad hoc committees for this type of thing, we call them blue ribbon panels, this one should be a permanent fixture in every government. Maybe in Europe you can call them red tape panels. Nevertheless Europe has a great deal of work to do to become more of a Meritocracy. Let’s pray and hope they get started, before it’s too late.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
Tags: anti capitalist, capitalism, capitalist, communist, constitution, corruption, economics, economy, elite, european recession, European riots, european union, government, government spending, group, group think, incentive, International Capitalist Party, jobs, market system, media, meritocracy, politics, progressive, rational maximiser, recession, redistribution, regulation, riots, socialist, Sophistry, tyranny, unrest
Posted in economy, Group Politics, Law, media, philosophy, polictics of class envy, Societal Myth | No Comments »
Sunday, May 26th, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the primary election system for President in the United States, is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The bastardized system we now have, to decide who will represent either of the two major political parties in the US, insures the will of the people is not met. Such a system, one that undermines the people’s wants and needs in favor of the Elite’s preferences, is one that is in great need of renovation. To continue with such a flawed method, is to perpetuate the horrible election options we have had for the last few decades, along with ever lower voter turnout.
Today the Presidential candidates have different elections in various States at assorted times. The system is such that if a candidate that the Elite don’t like, wins the first State, the Elite have sufficient time to undermine his or her candidacy to get their man in. This insures the Elite’s candidate gets both the Democrat and Republican candidacy. The Elite cannot loose, and the people cannot win.
We are given the illusion of fair elections by this fatally flawed system when in fact we have very little say. Take the last election. Mitt Romney, who by all accounts is a decent and good person, was the least liked by the Republican electorate. Yet he won the primary. Other candidates, like Michele Bachman was far better liked and even won the initial straw poll. That initial win put her in the crosshairs of the media and political elite however. They pulled out all the stops to vilify her at every turn, undermining her candidacy to the point of making her a laughing stock.
In 2008 Hillary Clinton was the most qualified on the Democratic side, yet she was crushed under the wheel of the unbiased media and the political Elite, in favor of Barok Obama. As it turns out the candidacy of Obama was terribly flawed. Had he gotten even a smidgen of scrutiny by the unbiased media, he couldn’t have won a single State. The media gave his drug use a pass, they ignored his associations with domestic terrorists, they gave his lack of experience no mention, Obama’s anti American pastor Jeremiah Wright was glossed over, they never reported on his questionable birthplace, they overlooked his overtly communist leanings and they pilloried anyone who brought these flaws up. Compare Obama’s treatment at the hands of the unbiased media to the treatment Herman Cain got.
When you have a system that insures the Elite’s selection of both candidates in both parties, you have a system that is set up to protect the interests of the Elite, at cost to the interests of the people. Such a system is tilted in favor of candidates that have the political leaning of the Elite… in academia, media, culture, politics and wealth. The interests of the people to have limited government is undermined, so the power of government can be exploited, to protect the interests of the Elite. The result is that we have elected representatives that are unilateral in their political view, progressive. The unbiased media decry that there are any politicians who have a different political view and take every opportunity to paint the non-progressives as extremists and anti American.
The answer to this dilemma, is to have a primary election in June or July, where every State votes at the same time. This would curtail the Elite’s ability to push the primary election to their man. Such a system which would essentially mirror the November election, giving power to the people, and removing that power from the Elite. To continue with a system, one that empowers a small faction of the population to have outsized influence on the outcome of elections, is to anoint that faction an oligarchy. Modern history shows this to be the case. Once government is essentially an oligarchy, the machinations of government can be used to do such things as… leave soldiers to die if it is politically expedient, lie under oath without real consequence, use the taxing power of government to suppress their political opponents, mislabel their political opponents as enemies, tap the phones of the press to suppress distribution of information, send guns to drug lords while vilifying the Second Amendment for it, and act above their own laws while ignoring the Constitution. Such a system cannot be said to lead to tyranny, because it is in fact tyranny, disguised as democracy. No matter the quality of the sheep’s pelt the wolf in it is insatiable.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
Tags: anti capitalist, capitalism, communist, constitution, corruption, democrat, economics, economy, elite, exploiting the power of government, government, government spending, group, incentive, irs, jobs, Law, left behind, market system, media, meritocracy, oligarchy, perjury, political expediency, primary election, redistribution, regulation, republican, second amendment, socialist, society, wolf in sheeps clothing
Posted in economy, Group Politics, Law, media, Mercy, philosophy | No Comments »
Thursday, May 16th, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, President Obama has presided over the most scandal ridden administration since the founding of the United States. His scandals are not only regular but they are profoundly perverse. No other president in my lifetime has had such critical lapses of judgment, if they are lapses of judgment. Nixon had Watergate, Reagan had Iran Contra, Clinton had Lewinsky, Bush had Valery Plame, none of them rising to the least of Obama’s scandals. Our republic is put in greater and greater danger every time a new one comes to light and there are no consequences. If we want to continue to live in a free country, it is up to us to force our government to follow the law, else our grandchildren will consider us villains.
Fast and Furious has been forgotten by the complicit media. In my blog, Fast and Furious a Despicable act of War, I point out that while the administration was shipping hundreds of high powered guns into Mexico, so they would show up at crime scenes, Obama was vilifying the Second Amendment… because US guns were showing up at Mexican crime scenes! This immoral tactic to undermine a Right enumerated in the Bill of Rights directly led to the deaths of at least 300 Mexicans! The only media to do even a cursory examination was Univision. When the Congress asked for records, Obama claimed Executive privilege, which is only applicable for direct communications between the President himself and his staff. This either proves he had knowledge of the program or he is fraudulently using Executive Privilege.
Billions of dollars of graft were handed out to Obama’s political backers in the stimulus bill. Remember Solyndra? Or any of the other boondoggles of the stimulus bill? Literally billions of dollars of taxpayer money was shoveled out to political backers of this President. Had there been a truly unbiased media, this would have been bigger than Watergate, but it was ignored and covered up by the complicit press.
Benghazi is being swept under the rug as you read this. The newest scandals have put Benghazi on the back burner and the press won’t even mention it now. The media have forgotten it in favor of the latest scandals. One point to make here is that Obama claims there wasn’t enough time to send troops. This presupposes he had foreknowledge of the attack and it’s intended duration. The only way he could have had that knowledge is if he were in on planning the attack. Otherwise, he couldn’t have known if there was time or not. Ordering the military to stand down, and not immediately sending relief troops in, is, at the very least, dereliction of duty. So what was it, was Obama in on the planning of the attack, or simply derelict in his duty?
Now we have the IRS using the power of the taxing authority to attack Obama’s political foes. Could there be a more pernicious use of a Federal agency than to use the power of bureaucracy to hobble your political enemies? We are being told that it was a low level staffer. If that is true then why has there never been an example of a progressive organization targeted? If low level staffers are so poorly supervised they can use their power to target a political faction they personally disagree with, surely some low level staffer is conservative, and would have targeted a liberal organization. The very fact none have ever been targeted, shows the orders to target conservatives and then leak the information to Obama’s political allies, came from the top.
As I wrote in my blog, The Frog and the Scorpion, the unbiased media that has been carrying Obama across the pond of public opinion, is feeling the first sting of the scorpion’s tail, now that it has been reviled that the Obama administration has been looking into the phone records of the Associated Press. Holder is claiming the Associated Press is under scrutiny because of a dangerous leak of classified information, but has recused himself of any involvement, (for plausible deniability no doubt). The unbiased media have been claiming lately, who cares if you or I are surveilled as long as you are doing nothing wrong, so I ask, what has the AP to worry about?
There are far more scandals but my space is limited, while the Obama administration’s penchant for abusing power for crass political gain is unlimited. Obama’s main defense is the incompetence defense. He could not have known about these things because the government is too big and Obama is too inept. Yet this faction wants to manage every aspect of every American’s life? Really! Who really believes this President is so bungling he is unaware of anything going on in his administration? Only a fool would believe that. Obama makes sure he has plausible deniability whenever he is undermining a basic Right, enumerated in Our Bill of Rights, he is totally oblivious when his stimulus grants billions of dollars to his backers, he was too tired to stay abreast when one of our Ambassadors was under siege, he only learned about the IRS scandal when he read the papers that morning, despite earlier briefings on the issue, moreover he claims he is outraged by it! Our republic is disintegrating around our head and ears under this President. To not see it is to be blind, deaf and stupid. Boy… do we need a Fourth Branch!
Sincerely,
John Pepin
Tags: ap phone records, benghazi, constitution, corruption, economics, economy, elite, evil, fast and furious, government, government spending, group, health care, incentive, incompetence defense, International Capitalist Party, irs, Law, media, Obama, politicians, politics, progressive, regulation, scandal, socialist, solyndra, stimulus, tax, Tea Party
Posted in economy, International Power, Law, media, Mercy, philosophy, polictics of class envy, Societal Myth | No Comments »
Monday, May 13th, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, just as those who consider themselves to be the only sane person on the planet, are insane, those that consider themselves to be the only enlightened people on the planet, are truly unenlightened. These two groups of people have many attributes in common. They both have the hubris to believe they presume to know better than everybody else, they feel they must take matters into their own hands, often resorting to violence and both deny the human right of self determination. The threat both groups represent is that they feel they have a moral imperative to do what they believe they must do. In the case of the insane, they sometimes go into theaters and shoot up the place, in the case of the unenlightened, they overthrow governments and install tyrannies. The one threatens only a few while the other threaten all of mankind.
Throughout history we have faced those who presumed they had a duty to protect us from ourselves. They have taken many forms, the dreaded inquisitor of the Dark Ages, the despot, the revolutionary and the eugenicist are but a few. They have all done their part to keep churn in the affairs of Mankind. The common thread is the hubris to believe they know better than everyone else. The rest of us, who have not been enlightened, must be controlled for our own good… else we might think wrongly, worship wrongly, have wrong government, warm the planet, or breed wrongly. They deny self determination, are materialists, and know better than all the rest of humanity… because they believe they do.
Another common thread is that the insane and the presumptuous are amoral. They don’t feel compelled by human mores and traditions. They are psychopaths and sociopaths. Why should they allow others to do as they please when the hubristic and the insane know better? If you or I say something they disagree with, they appoint themselves to shut down our free speech, if you or I want to do something they don’t like, they outlaw that action, if you or I have property they want, they are greedy enough to take that property by force.
The violence the insane and the self righteous visit on humanity takes many forms. It can be as mundane as censoring the opinions of others to chopping off the head of an infidel with a scimitar. Those who believe themselves to be enlightened are the quickest to resort to violence… especially when they claim to be nonviolent. As history has shown, those that seek revolution disdain violence by others and so call themselves nonviolent, but are happy to use violence to further their own agenda. Only people who eschew violence themselves can reasonably be called nonviolent. Those that willingly and happily use violence themselves, but decry it in others, are dangerously delusional hypocrites.
One way to instantly tell the insane and presumptuous from the average person, is that their proscriptions are always for the rest of mankind… never themselves. They seek to shut down the free speech of others, but freak out if their free speech is impeded, they seize control of the language to forward their goals, they call for shared sacrifice, while they live in luxury, their own life is precious, but the lives of others are valueless, the list is endless but is tied together with a common bow, they don’t lead by example, they lead by the nose. They do unto others that which they would never want done unto themselves.
Neither of these groups in human society can be eliminated. They are as human as the need to eat and sleep. Moreover we do ourselves a disservice by trying to eliminate the hubristic and the insane. To do so makes us just as guilty of self appointed grandeur as them. As I have pointed out in past blogs… the ends does NOT justify the means, the means TAINTS the ends.
The answer to the question of, “how to keep society from succumbing to the self appointed gods and lunatics,” is to recognize them when we see them, then deny them the power they seek over us and our fellows. When we ignore their censoring the thoughts and words of others, we participate in their shutting off debate, when we agree with the rantings of sociopaths, we empower them, and most of all, when we react out of fear, we are giving legitimacy to violence as a means to control society. To stop the next Pol Pot or Adam Lanza, we must understand that they don’t act alone, they have help. Pol Pot had the help of brainwashed children and Adam Lanza had the help of everyone who turned a blind eye to his insanity. We must grow ourselves, recognizing them, standing against violence and we must refuse to be taken in by a charismatic sociopath, but most of all, we must lead by example. Else we become the sponsors of our own oppression.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
Tags: control, education, elite, free speech, government, government spending, group, hubris, incentive, insane, International Capitalist Party, Law, Lawyers, lead by example, lead by the nose, Liberty, media, politicians, politics, presumtion, progressive, psychopath, redistribution, regulation, self appointed, sociopath, tyranny, violence
Posted in Group Politics, Law, media, Mercy, philosophy, polictics of class envy | No Comments »
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, if my government lies to me it is called politics, but if I lie to my government, it is a felony. I am held to a higher standard of action than government officials. When officials who can lie to the public with no repercussions, they have no incentive to tell the truth, especially when the truth is embarrassing or politically inconvenient. We, on the other hand, must tell the whole truth whenever we are questioned by our government, else we face heavy sanctions including jail, no matter how embarrassing, inconvenient or self incriminating. Citizens have a relationship with the government. Whenever one party to a relationship abuses the other, without consequence, the relationship is degrading. Lying is a form of abuse. When the relationship is a marital one, we have a case of spousal abuse, when the relationship is economic, we have a case of fraud or slavery, when the relationship is political, we have a case of oppression.
Thomas Jefferson said, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” This simply means when government can do anything it pleases, because it has no fear of the reaction of the people, that government has no limit on it’s actions. When government fears the reaction of the people those actions are limited by the will of the people. Government that has no limit on it’s actions is the definition of despotic. The explanation of liberty is the limit on the actions of the government by the will of the people. Government that can lie to the people, about the most important debates of the day without consequence, is showing it has no fear of the people, but when the people are jailed for far less, we clearly have reason to fear our government… This, by Jefferson’s own statement, is tyranny.
Benghazi is a perfect example of this. As it has become clear, the lying tour of the media by Susan Rice was total fiction, told without consequence to the American people, to protect the President’s reelection. The President was derelict in his duty, not only to protect those in his staff, but when they came under attack he told the military to stand down. The attack went on for nine hours, and we are lied to again, that the military could not get assets into the area soon enough to make a difference. Now it has come to light that there were military assets available but were told to stand down. Had the few brave Navy Seals followed that order by the President’s staff, every man and woman in that CIA house, would have died in the attack. Abusing whistle blowers is only icing on the cake. The Congressional hearing will turn out to be mere window dressing, furthering the cover up and giving it legitimacy, the President will again get away with something, that if you or I did we would go to jail for.
The Fast and Furious cover up is another egregious example. Eric Holder has been proven to have lied to Congress about it, with no real repercussion, other than a toothless contempt citation. President Obama claimed he had no knowledge of the operation, that intentionally put guns in the hands of Mexican drug lords, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Mexican citizens and at least one American. Which the president then exploited to undermine the Second Amendment until the truth came out. When Congress tried to get documents on it the President used executive privilege. Since Executive privilege can only be used in cases of the president’s personal interactions with his staff, it’s use proves Obama had knowledge of the operation, else the use of executive privilege is itself a lie without consequence.
The complete disconnect began when Al Gore was caught blatantly violating Campaign finance laws, and his reply was, “There is no over riding legal authority…” Bill Clinton was praised by the unbiased media for lying. We were told that everyone lies about sex and that lies are a helpful social mechanism to protect hurt feelings. This puts the beginning of the down fall around 1992. So, what we have, is a government in America that is abusive, lies without consequence and is therefore, by Thomas Jefferson’s definition, tyrannical. Our government seeks to further water down the ability of the American citizenry to force our will on our government, by making millions of people, who have no real stake in the country… voters, by amnesty. The American people are lulled to sleep by the media that engage in the old sophist tactic, of changing the subject, whenever their guy gets in trouble. We are at the same place that Rome was during the reign of August Caesar. The department of Homeland security is the praetorian guard in all but name, and we pile on, pillorying anyone who rings the alarm bell.
Rome was a republic for 900 years before it became a tyranny, and was a tyranny for 150 years. Therefore, we can estimate Rome’s fall to be 17% of the republican era. America was a republic for 200 years. Using the same number, 17%, we can estimate America’s total collapse to be 34 years or so from 1992, which puts it around 2026… Time is running short and the trend is accelerating. Unless we do something about it. Demand from you representative a special prosecutor to look into Benghazi and Fast and Furious… Else, participate in the destruction of liberty in the World, perhaps for generations, what kind of villain does that make us for allowing it to happen?
Sincerely,
John Pepin
Tags: benghazi, constitution, dhs, elite, fall of america, fall of Rome, government, incentive, International Capitalist Party, Law, Liberty, lies, media, Obama, perjury, politicians, politics, praetorian guard, rational maximiser, regulation, Rome, society, Sophistry, thomas jefferson, tyranny
Posted in International Power, Law, media, Mercy, philosophy | No Comments »
Monday, May 6th, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, charity cannot come at the point of a gun it must come from the heart, else it is not charity, it is robbery. At first glance this doesn’t seem to be a very controversial stance, but if we look into it a bit, we see that this basic, common sense statement is politically charged. That such an intuitive position could be politically charged, shows the total lack of wisdom in our society and how far politics has encroached into our lives, politicizing that which should not be political. If this encroachment is allowed to continue, our society, children and our very spirits will inevitably suffer.
For charity to be charity it must be given freely. As I pointed out, if you are coerced into giving someone alms by the threat of violence, it cannot be called charity. The moment the threat of violence enters the equation we are talking about robbery. Robbery can never be charity they are fundamentally different actions. To confuse the two is either stupidity or a means to confound. If it is mere stupidity, simply pointing out the error would be enough to rectify it, but if it is a sinister means to confuse then it cannot be stopped by merely pointing out the folly of it, in fact, logic will garner character assaults and ad homonym attacks.
We give alms to the poor not only for them but for us as well. Giving to the less fortunate is a form of exercise for the spirit. All three parts of a fully actualized human being, must be exercised, else they atrophy. We understand this when it comes to physical and mental exercise, but the most neglected part of the human being today, is the spiritual part. Charity is a good way to exercise the spirit. When charity is turned to robbery, it ceases to be charity and the good that charity bestows on the giver and the receiver is not only lost, it is undermined. We become less charitable when we equate charity to robbery. This has the pernicious effect of weakening our spirit and at the same time it builds resentment to the needy. From this we see the negative effects are not only on individuals but on society as well.
The welfare state is predicated on robbing one to give to another. If you don’t think taxes are taken at the point of a gun… try not paying them. This is what makes the statement, “Charity cannot come at the point of a gun it must come from the heart, else it is not charity, it is robbery,” politically charged. Those that use our natural sense of compassion for those less fortunate, to turn charity into robbery, are tricking us into turning charity into robbery, with all the negative consequences this brings. These people get to seize the moral high road even as they take the low road. They are Thrasymachus’ heirs. They seek to appear just while actually being unjust. Are we to assume that famine would exist if the State didn’t coerce money from some to redistribute to others? This question is answered by history, and history is clear, in a capitalist society, charity is available more and more but is needed less and less. In the socialist society however, where charity is robbery, charity is needed more and more, until eventually all need charity, and none is charitable.
Those who point out, using taxes to pay for charitable endeavors turns charity into robbery, are vilified as heartless and mean, by the unbiased media, the Elite and those who have fallen for the deception. But, the reality is that those who seek to use robbery for charity, are the ones who are the villains. They weaken our spirits, create resentment for the poor, confuse reality with rhetoric, lower the lot of Mankind and use unjust means to unjust ends… while trying to appear just. To these people logic and common sense are an anathema. These villains undermine the philosophy of a rational maximizer and turn him into an egoist. Rational maximizers, or to use Tocqueville’s term, people who are self interested rightly understood, are rationally charitable, because they know the benefits, both personal and societal will come back tenfold, while the egoist has no such wisdom, they resent the poor, they may be strong physically and mentally, but they are spiritual weaklings. All societies are well served when the people are charitable, making us spiritually strong, strengthening societal ties, and giving us a stake in the society we live in. Rational maximizers keep charity in their hearts and are sharp enough to see sophist rhetoric when they see it. The question then becomes, “Are you a rational maximizer… or have you fallen for the deception?”
Sincerely,
John Pepin
Tags: anti capitalist, capitalism, capitalist, charity, charity as robbery, communist, constitution, corruption, economics, economy, elite, government, government spending, group, incentive, International Capitalist Party, Law, market system, media, meritocracy, rational maximiser, redistribution, regulation, self interested rightly understood, sophist, Sophistry, tax, taxes, Tocqueville
Posted in economy, Group Politics, Law, media, Mercy, philosophy, polictics of class envy, Societal Myth | No Comments »
Thursday, May 2nd, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, when a millionaire stands in front of me and claims he is going to hurt the rich and help me, I know I am being lied to. Carneades said, people are like animals, each striving for his or her own best interests, and so true justice cannot exist, because for a person to be truly just they must damage their own interests. In the case of a rich man telling me how he is going to damage the rich to help me, he must be lying, because to do that he would have to do damage to his own self interests, and no man, rich or poor would do that. This is a lesson to all those who tend to believe it when a millionaire claims he is going to tax the rich and help the poor. The rich politician only seeks to appear that he is taxing the rich when in fact his goal is to protect the rich. If a majority of us don’t learn this lesson we will continually be disappointed at the economic results of our votes.
Obama is a case in point, he claims to be against the rich and for the poor. But his latest poll numbers show that he is loved, by the very rich he is so intent on taxing to death, and not liked so much by those he claims he is trying to help. The higher the income the higher Obama’s poll numbers. If the results of his tax increases were so damaging to the rich, why do they love him so, and, if his policies are so geared to helping the poor, why do we like him less? A brief look at the results of Obama’s policies will make the point.
The uber rich are doing very well indeed under the Obama regime. Despite Warren Buffet’s claim that his tax rate is lower than his secretary’s, his taxes have not gone up, but his secretary’s have. The Obama administration handed the billionaire investor a tidy windfall when Obama vetoed the Keystone oil pipeline. The oil didn’t go unused it is traveling to Texas in Warren Buffet’s trains. Increasing the carbon footprint of the oil, increasing the danger of a major spill if a train were to derail, driving up the cost of that oil and eliminating the thousands of jobs that would have been created if the pipeline had gone through. In this one case, we see clearly that despite the rhetoric, Obama damaged the interests of the little guy and gave a hand up to the uber rich guy.
The money printing of the Federal reserve is another manifestation of Obama’s policies helping the uber rich and hurting the little guy. The 40 billion dollars a month the FED is printing to buy mortgage loans, to drive down the cost of mortgages, could make 40 thousand people millionaires every month! Add to that the 45 billion Bernanke is printing to buy treasuries and the total would be 85 thousand people made millionaires a month! Think of how this would stimulate the economy! If the FED did a random drawing of 85 thousand people a month, and cut them a check for a million dollars each, the economy would boom overnight. But instead, the FED is buying treasuries and mortgage loans… lining the pockets of the rich with the printed money.
Obama care’s tsunami of taxes and regulation will wash away any economic gain from all the money printing. This is the dirty little secret that economists don’t tell you. Obama care will destroy the American economy and everyone in business knows it. The regulations alone will drive up the cost of labor so much that many businesses will have to lay people off. The confiscatory taxes will drive many out of business altogether. The reason so many firms have been cutting labor and ratcheting up productivity, is that they know the ones who have the lowest labor cost as a percentage of the total cost of production, will be the only ones to survive. Those that have not cut to the bone will be pulled out to sea and drowned by Obama’s tsunami.
Obama’s claims to help the working man have come with policies that damage working people’s interests and helped the uber rich. Money printing to “stimulate” the economy into creating jobs, has only made the rich richer, and the tsunami of Obama care will swamp our economy, eliminating jobs just when we need them most. If we want to live in liberty and freedom it is imperative we learn to recognize shysters when we see them. Clearly we have not, but I am hopeful that the Obama administration has gone a long way, to teaching this generation to recognize one when they see one. So, now you know too, that when a rich person stands in front of you and claims he or she is going to hurt the rich and help you… you are being lied to.
Sincerely
John Pepin
Tags: economics, economy, education, elite, government, government spending, group, health care, incentive, International Capitalist Party, jobs, keystone pipeline, liars, loabor cost, media, meritocracy, Obama, obama care, politicians, politics, poverty, rational maximiser, recession, redistribution, regulation, shystaers, stimulus, uber rich, vote, working man
Posted in economy, Group Politics, media, Mercy, philosophy, polictics of class envy | No Comments »
Monday, April 29th, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, every human being has intrinsic worth, no matter his or her mental status, race, age, religion or any other arbitrary definition. We are more than a sophisticated explosive delivery device, more than a machine that deludes itself with a notion of self awareness, and we are far more than animals to be herded by someone who thinks he is farmer to the rest. To attribute to others, less than person hood, is to deny one’s own person hood. Therefore, anyone who considers other human beings to be less than spiritual beings with intrinsic worth, is subhuman. Unless we learn this and hold it tight we risk becoming cows for someone to milk and slaughter.
Justice is a concept that can be hard to define. As a result most people have a distorted idea of what justice is. Many people’s concept of justice is subjective not objective. A subjective notion of justice is dependent on the perspective of the observer, objective justice is unchanging, no matter the observer’s perspective. Those who espouse different levels of justice, dependent on the person, are using subjective justice and thereby are being unjust themselves. Those that apply the same attributes, worth and rights to all, are just. It follows then, that to be unjust is to forfeit justice, while to be just is to deserve justice, this is the basis of criminal law. Those that forfeit justice deserve none while those that espouse and attribute justice to all deserve justice themselves. Any other consideration is sophistry.
Many times in the past have human beings been designated as less than human. Everyone knows of the Nazi atrocities. These crimes against humanity were only made possible by the philosophy that human beings are no more than animals. That it is in our best interest to cull the herd occasionally and the enlightened must be hard hearted enough to do it. Every crime against humanity has it’s roots in this twisted philosophy. The mass starvation of millions of people by Mao’s Red Guard, were justified in this way, the Nazi slaughter of Gypsies, Jews and Slavs were justified by this philosophy, China’s one child policy is contingent on this spurious notion, and the eugenics movement is based in this perverted misunderstanding of the nature of humanity.
Eugenics has as storied history in the United States as it does England and Germany. Many people in these countries were sterilized against their will by the edict of bureaucrats and judges. Human beings were denied their basic humanity by government officials, who believed that they have the God like ability, to decide who should breed and who should not. The evil of the eugenics movement led directly to the evil of abortion and population control. The same people who funded and shilled for the eugenics movement, Rockefeller, Margret Sanger, HG Wells, Dr. Mengele, President Wilson, Charles Darwin, President Hoover, and other well known notables, would breed us into Eloi and Morlocks.
A person who denies humanity to another for whatever reason also denies his or her own humanity. If the congenital nature of man is evil then all man are evil, if human beings are nothing more than machines that evolved to have the delusion of self awareness, then everyone, even those that propose this perverted philosophy, are as well. I cannot claim everyone else is less than human and claim I am human. That is an impossibility. So, we can safely say that those who deny humanity to others are in their own way subhuman, even if the philosophy they promote is incorrect, they are subject to it. They have self identified as subhuman by their own philosophy.
Slavery, abortion, population control, eugenics, and even redistribution are all forms of injustice called justice, and require as a prerequisite, the denial of someone else’s basic human worth. Denial of the value of every human being is the slippery slope that leads to these evils and more. We are human beings and all of us have individual worth outside our value to any collective or group. To maintain that personal humanity, we must accept the individual value of every other human being, rejecting the spurious notion of collective this or that, for the evil it is and the injustice it creates. If we are rational maximisers we will accept the basic worth of humanity in general and the individual in particular. To do otherwise, is to deny our very own humanity, subjecting us to our own injustice. In other words… We have accepted that we are merely cows, and the implications.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
Tags: abortion, anti capitalist, collectivism, communist, constitution, corruption, education, elite, eloi, eugenics, evil, famine, government, group, holocaust, human value, human worth, incentive, International Capitalist Party, justice, Law, Mao, market system, media, meritocracy, morlock, one child policy, politics, rational maximiser, redistribution, slavery, socialist, society, sophist, Sophistry, Stalin, the value of the individual, the worth of a human being
Posted in economy, Group Politics, International Power, Law, media, Mercy, philosophy, polictics of class envy, Societal Myth | No Comments »
Thursday, April 25th, 2013
Dear Friends,
It seems to me, if we truly want to change the World for the better, we must exhibit the change we want to see. Most of us would like the World to be a better place, but we are stymied at the magnitude of the task, so we placidly go along. We long for a planet where courtesy is common, where the elite follow their own rules, where children are safe and where people are free. We seek these things for us and our children but the World keeps going further and further off the rails. The answer is not violence or to coerce virtue in others but to act as we would have others act and be the change we want to see in others. If we continue down the road we are on, it will be sooner rather than later, when the government will be all powerful. The Elite will rule without oversight and corruption will flow from government like water over Niagara falls.
In the society we live in, the Elite pass more and more laws, but follow the Constitution less and less. The examples they set for us are uniformly bad. They call us greedy, for wanting to hold on to money we have earned by the sweat of our brow, even as they seize more and more of our wealth through taxation and money printing, throwing it away on pork that carry their names. We are told we have to sacrifice, while the president lavishes himself and his family with multimillion dollar vacations, at taxpayer expense. The Elite demand we give up guns even as they buy billions of rounds of ammo and thousands of armored cars to patrol our streets. We are told that we must be watched by a camera on every street corner and submit to our homes being searched without warrant, for our own good, while they cover their actions in a veil of secrecy. The cultural, societal and political elite attack morality as old fashioned while they promote immorality as enlightened, and the unbiased media see no irony in this at all. The instances of bad examples from the elite would fill volumes. Clearly, the examples we have from our elite, are uniformly negative and counter productive to a well ordered society, and we are reaping the reward.
Confucius said, “The sage kings ruled by force of personality.” He went on to say that if the sage kings wanted the people to be more pious, they were more pious themselves, if they wanted the people to be less greedy, they dampened their own rapine, and when the sage kings wanted the people to work harder, they worked harder themselves. This was a central tenet in Confucius’ philosophy. That good leaders lead by example. Since our leaders are bad examples we must be the good examples in society and thereby be the leaders our society needs. Corruption doesn’t stop at national boarders… bad examples are a problem in every nation of men on Earth.
The problem with hypocrisy, isn’t that it doesn’t garner a reaction, it is that the reaction is disgust. The beauty of good examples is that they are magnetic. We are repelled by the hypocrisy of the elite but as we follow their example we engage in hypocrisy ourselves. When we tell our children to be virtuous, but they see us following our leaders and behaving badly, they see our hypocrisy and ignore our entreaties to goodness. Our children are far removed from the elite however, and the media is full of stories of the “good life” for our children to follow, and they do. We prove the truth of this by our very own actions, teaching our children that morals and virtue are for suckers, and repel them by being corrupt, when we should be drawing them in with good examples. Our society suffers, our civilization suffers, our government grows despotic and, worst of all, our children suffer.
Since we cannot expect our political elite to set good examples, and indeed they must want corruption in our society, as shown by their actions, we must set the example. If we follow the Sage kings of ancient China we will show those around us that virtue can be lived. Our good example will draw people to follow us, while the corrupt elite repel them. The hypocrisy of the elite will repulse our children and our good examples will make them far more inclined to be civil, courteous, hard working and honest… if they see it modeled in us. So, smile at strangers, stop and let the car waiting in, tip the waitstaff well, be honest in business, and most of all, follow the golden rule… Do unto others as you would have them do unto you! The change will not be fast, it took generations to get to where we are, and many will struggle against us. But if we want change in the World, we must be the change we seek. Unless we do, no one else will, and if we do, positive change will eventually come.
Remember, Fight the power… by being the power that will be!
Sincerely,
John Pepin
Tags: bad examples, be what you seek, confucius, constitution, corruption, economics, economy, education, elite, evil, good, good examples, government, government spending, group, incentive, International Capitalist Party, market system, media, meritocracy, Obama, politics, rational maximiser, set a good example, society
Posted in economy, Law, media, Mercy, philosophy, polictics of class envy, Societal Myth | No Comments »