Obama is the Heartland. Obama is the nation. He’s the everyman and the man who is everything. He is the alpha and the omega, Obama is the One. He will stop the rise of the oceans, save us from our racism, and fight against the bankers and the moneylenders who have ruined our nation.
That’s not similar at all to anything ever.
Nope. Never. We’ve never seen stuff like this before.
Never mind that the fascist Hitler fought a war against communist Stalin, and killed leftists domestically — Obama is apparently uniquely able to bridge this ideological divide with a single word.
Oh, wait, so two dictators bent on state control of the means of production, redistribution of wealth for their own chosen people, the “greater good”, the destruction of anyone and any means necessary to achieve it, the destruction of personal liberty, and the fact that they were both socialists. After all, the National German Socialist Worker’s Party (Nazis) were fighting the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They take up almost the exact same space on the far left – that’s why they fought each other in their respective countries, and part (but not even close to all) of why they fought each other as nations.
It’s also the state motto of Wisconsin, so unless Kristol et. al. are willing to concede that Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state’s 6 million residents are abiding the communist/fascist threat, the attack on Obama falls a bit flat.
Some on the left tried to make a similarly anachronistic claim about then-presidential candidate John McCain’s slogan in 2008, “Country First,” noting that it was similar to slogans used by American fascists in the 1930s, especially aviator Charles Lindbergh’s America First Committee. But that claim was as hollow and reaching as the charges against Obama’s current slogan are.
In the modern discussion, there’s the “blame America first” group on the left, that does, in fact, blame America for all the world’s problems. McCain’s group might like America First or Country First because it sounds good. Thing is, was McCain raised by American fascists and their sympathizers? Did he brag about hanging out with them in college? Did he put them in his senate staff? See, that’s the big difference. There’s info that supports the right’s claim, there’s no info that supports the left’s. Not a surprise.
Economist Milton Friedman debating and discussing economic issues with Icelanders & Icelandic socialist types in Iceland. Interesting to see how the same things come about again and again.
Both names ring a bell. Bill Moyers, author of this piece of garbage, sounded familiar. Saul Alinsky we’ve written about before here at The Patriot Perspective. Saul Alinsky has had somewhat of a resurgence in recent years as people began to take note of the institutions and movements he created in his lifetime and with his writing, specifically, “Rules for Radicals” – a primer on how to organize revolutionary movements and dedicated to Satan.
Alinsky’s book has several bullet points, designed along the lines of Machiavelli’s The Prince (but Mac wrote his book for different reasons). Unlike Mac, who may well have written the entirety of the Prince and the Discourses as satire or criticism of rulers of the time, Alinsky’s book is out-and-out revolutionary. Taken without the context of his life and deeds as an organizer, what he wrote could also be parody; but sadly, it is not.
1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”
2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat…. [and] the collapse of communication.
3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time….”
8. “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.”
11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside… every positive has its negative.”
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…
“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…’
“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.”
From his “purpose”:
“A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage — the political paradise of communism.” p.10
Now, Bill Moyers, whose name seemed familiar, I had to go look up. That’s where I was reminded that Moyers used to work for PBS, and worked for LBJ as press secretary.
"I'll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." -- Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One according Ronald Kessler's Book, "Inside The White House"
Y’know, that racist guy who instituted social programs to make voters dependent on his party.
The Alinsky that those of us not on the left know is the one that ex-communist-revolutionary David Horowitz’s Discover the Networks outlines:
The ultimate goal, said Alinsky, is not to arrive at compromise or peaceful coexistence, but rather to “crush the opposition,” bit by bit.[57] “A People’s Organization is dedicated to eternal war,” said Alinsky. “… A war is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play.… When you have war, it means that neither side can agree on anything…. In our war against the social menaces of mankind there can be no compromise. It is life or death.”[58]
Alinsky is every bit the bad guy the right portrays him to be. He was a community agitator pushing for destruction of the current system, replacement with a dictatorship which would be every bit as much “of the people” as Lenin and Stalin were, and ultimately, so he said, replacement with utopian communism. Of course, that’s never worked in the history of mankind, but what’s to stop them from trying to transmute dog shit into gold by waving their copy of Das Kapital around?
Bill Moyer’s piece, titled “Saul Alinsky, Who?” is a vapid, useful idiot’s defense of Alinsky, combined with idiotic accusations against the right (and all those who oppose Alinsky – mostly critical of Gingrich, but Moyers mostly directs his insults at “the crowd”):
In the case of Saul Alinsky, most of the crowd knows nothing about the target except that they’re supposed to hate him. And why not? There’s the strange foreign name — obviously an alien. One of them. And a socialist at that. What’s a socialist? Don’t know — but Obama’s one, isn’t he? Barack Hussein Obama, Saul Alinsky — bingo! Two peas in a pod, and a sinister, subversive pod at that.
Moyers, if you weren’t the product of decades of mindless condescension to people smarter than you (that is to say… everyone), the whole post would’ve consisted of Boxxy:
But since he really means it, time to Fisk this motha out.
Much of the crowd knows plenty about Saul Alinsky. Remember there was this guy with a TV show on CNN and then on FOX who talked about Alinsky quite a bit:
There’s the strange foreign name — obviously an alien. One of them.
Really, Moyers? It’s a different name. So what? So are Ayaan Hirsi, Wafa Sultan, Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, Dinesh D’Souza, and Ayn Rand. Those are all somewhat peculiar sounding names. Moyers’ accusation of xenophobia is a trite attempt to blast the right for xenophobia and racism – the right isn’t xenophobic or racist. The left, however…
The comments echo Moyers’ ignorance:
As one can at least assume from his name, Alinsky was Jewish, not Israeli, Jewish American, making him the perfect right wing boogeyman.
Yep… the “Jewish part” is what really makes them go bonkers
Moyers continues:
And a socialist at that. What’s a socialist? Don’t know -
Yes, do know, Moyers. A socialist advocates state control or coercion of the means of capital, including increased control over the people. They advocate expanded government. We could get into different brands of socialism, how they ultimately reduce the individual to one of “the people” to be ruled by the socialist party leaders, etc., but I’ll let this guy summarize it in a sentence and then move on:
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
- Winston Churchill
but Obama’s one, isn’t he? Barack Hussein Obama, Saul Alinsky — bingo! Two peas in a pod, and a sinister, subversive pod at that.
Yes, Obama’s a socialist. He favors socialist policies. Newsweek even said we’re all socialists. Obama could say he’s a Gummi Bear from Gummi Glen, but judging by his actions and the lack of bouncing and Gummiberry juice at the White House, he’s not a Gummi Bear. His actions certainly support him being a socialist, though.
Obama was trained by the Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in Chicago and worked for an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, whose modus operandi for the creation of ‘a more just and democratic society’ is rooted firmly in the Alinsky method. As The Nation magazine puts it, ‘Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing…’ In fact, for several years Obama himself taught workshops on the Alinsky method.
So, yes. But not because they have names that aren’t simple, bland, WASPy American names. Like Bill.
Saul Alinsky was a proud, self-professed radical. Just look at the titles of two of his books – Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals. But a communist or socialist he was not.
Alinsky himself stated that though he worked with Communists for years, he never officially joined; nor did he join any groups he founded. So card-carrying Communist or Socialist, no. But communist or socialist, out to destroy and redistribute the means of capital, to take from the Haves, mobilize the Have-a-Little Want-More middle class and the Have-Nots against them, absolutely.
While Alinsky endorsed ruthlessness in waging war against the enemy, he was nonetheless mindful that certain approaches were more likely to win the hearts and minds of the people whose support would be crucial to the organizers’ ultimate victory. Above all, he taught that in order to succeed, the organizer and his People’s Organization needed to target their message toward the middle class. “Mankind,” said Alinsky, “has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.”[60] He explained that in America, the Have-a-Little, Want-Mores (i.e., members of the middle class) were the most numerous and therefore of the utmost importance.[61] Said Alinsky: “Torn between upholding the status quo to protect the little they have, yet wanting change so they can get more, they [the middle class] become split personalities… Thermopolitically they are tepid and rooted in inertia. Today in Western society and particularly in the United States they comprise the majority of our population.”[62]
Alinsky stressed that organizers and their followers needed to take care, when first unveiling their particular crusade for “change,” not to alienate the middle class with any type of crude language, defiant demeanor, or menacing appearance that suggested radicalism or a disrespect for middle class mores and traditions. For this very reason, he disliked the hippies and counterculture activists of the 1960s. As Richard Poe puts it: “Alinsky scolded the Sixties Left for scaring off potential converts in Middle America. True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.”
In his book Radical in Chief, Stanley Kurtz describes Alinsky as “a cross between a democratic socialist and a communist fellow traveler.” But Alinsky carefully avoiding drawing any attention to that fact. Writes Kurtz:
“He was smart enough to avoid Marxist language in public…. Instead of calling for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, Alinsky and his followers talk about ‘confronting power.’ Instead of advocating socialist revolution, they demand ‘radical social change.’ Instead of demanding attacks on capitalists, they go after ‘targets’ or ‘enemies.’”
Furthermore:
To counter that materialism, Alinsky favored a socialist alternative. He characterized his noble radical (read: “revolutionary”) as a social reformer who “places human rights far above property rights”; who favors “universal, free public education”; who “insists on full employment for economic security” but stipulates also that people’s tasks should “be such as to satisfy the creative desires within all men”; who “will fight conservatives” everywhere; and who “will fight privilege and power, whether it be inherited or acquired,” and “whether it be political or financial or organized creed.”[7] Alinsky maintained that radicals, finding themselves “adrift in the stormy sea of capitalism,”[8] sought “to advance from the jungle of laissez-faire capitalism to a world worthy of the name of human civilization.”[9] “They hope for a future,” he said, “where the means of production will be owned by all of the people instead of just a comparative handful.”[10] In short, they wanted socialism.
Moyers concludes, directing much of his diatribe at Newt when he’s not busy insulting everyone not on the left:
Alinsky died, suddenly, in1972. At the time, he was planning to mount a campaign to organize white, middle class Americans into a national movement for progressive change, a movement he vowed to take into the halls of Congress and — his words — “the boardrooms of the mega-corporations.”
Maybe that’s why Newt Gingrich has been slandering Alinsky’s name. Maybe he’s afraid, afraid that the very white folks he’s been rousing to frenzy will discover who Saul Alinsky was — a patriot in a long line of patriots, who scorned the malignant narcissism of duplicitous politicians and taught everyday Americans to think for themselves and fight together for a better life. That’s the American way, and any good historian would know it.
Yeah, sure. He’s a patriot. A “patriot” who started organizing by organizing a scamming racket skipping out on checks and hanging out with gangsters. A patriot who motivates those who want to improve their lives by directing them to rage against those with capital and those who’ve earned their wealth. A patriot whose objectives were to tear down, not to build – and never to allow anyone to build:
Alinsky warned the organizer to be on guard against the possibility that the enemy might offer him “a constructive alternative” aimed at resolving the conflict. Said Alinsky, “You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying, ‘You’re right — we don’t know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us.’”[59] Such capitulation by the enemy would have the effect of diffusing the righteous indignation of the People’s Organization, whose very identity is inextricably woven into the fight for long-denied justice; i.e., whose struggle and identity are synonymous. If the perceived oppressor surrenders or extends a hand of friendship in an effort to end the conflict, the crusade of the People’s Organization is jeopardized. This cannot be permitted. Eternal war, by definition, must never end.
This is where it fails, as every socialist leftist revolutionary movement does. The problem is that there is no such thing as “the masses” or “the people”. There are individual citizens. There is no “big business” there are individual citizens. There also is no “middle class”, “lower class” or “upper class”.
Individual citizens who do care about the future of their country, their fellow citizens, and ultimately the world, are often those who have bettered their lives. Those who have done something for themselves and want to do for others.
As an example, Mr. Tod’s Pie Factory and his struggle to make his business successful is not the story of a “have not” taking from the “haves” or a “have-a-little” shoving “have-nots” down to make himself a “have”. It’s a man with a business who wants to improve his life, improve his business, improve what he’s built. Along the way, he hires other people on their way up (or catches them on their way down), and he helps out big evil megacorporations like Alinsky and Moyers would like to destroy… to help out his community by representing something they like. He makes things better, and he does so by making a product people want to buy at a price they want, improving his own lot in life and enjoying his passion for baking and making people happy all the while simultaneously helping everyone around him by engaging in successful commerce.
Alinsky and Moyers would smash the windows of his bakery.
Children of the Revolution
China’s ‘princelings,’ the offspring of the communist party elite, are embracing the trappings of wealth and privilege—raising uncomfortable questions for their elders.
By JEREMY PAGE
One evening early this year, a red Ferrari pulled up at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Beijing, and the son of one of China’s top leaders stepped out, dressed in a tuxedo.
Bo Guagua, 23, was expected. He had a dinner appointment with a daughter of the then-ambassador, Jon Huntsman.
The car, though, was a surprise. The driver’s father, Bo Xilai, was in the midst of a controversial campaign to revive the spirit of Mao Zedong through mass renditions of old revolutionary anthems, known as “red singing.” He had ordered students and officials to work stints on farms to reconnect with the countryside. His son, meanwhile, was driving a car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and as red as the Chinese flag, in a country where the average household income last year was about $3,300.
The episode, related by several people familiar with it, is symptomatic of a challenge facing the Chinese Communist Party as it tries to maintain its legitimacy in an increasingly diverse, well-informed and demanding society. The offspring of party leaders, often called “princelings,” are becoming more conspicuous, through both their expanding business interests and their evident appetite for luxury, at a time when public anger is rising over reports of official corruption and abuse of power.
State-controlled media portray China’s leaders as living by the austere Communist values they publicly espouse. But as scions of the political aristocracy carve out lucrative roles in business and embrace the trappings of wealth, their increasingly high profile is raising uncomfortable questions for a party that justifies its monopoly on power by pointing to its origins as a movement of workers and peasants.
SiriusXM conservative radio host Andrew Wilkow has a phrase that he uses that applies quite well here:
Socialism is for the people, not the socialist.
What it means is that the socialist who rules will live how he likes, enjoying the trappings of being the ruling class (since he is), and that the people will have their wealth redistributed. Of course the socialist will have to take the people’s money in order to finance his own way of life, and no cost is too high, as the socialist is there to serve the people – and the people would of course want the socialist to have anything he wishes at their expense, so he can keep providing them with the glorious utopia he promises.
Rife’s rearry rough at the top for those tasked with running sociarist workers’ paradises, no matter if they’re Chinese, American, or North Korean.
For those who’ve missed it, the Occupy Wall Street crowd is rife with sex assaults. There are a myriad of reasons – doe-eyed protestor girls who don’t think anything can happen to them and live in a fantasy world where things like socialism work, statist-authoritarian leftists who want to predate on free citizens certainly aren’t above being sexual predators, close quarters with anonymous tent-mates, and an overall abundance of naïvety and a fundamentally flawed understanding of how humans work.
OWS Organizer talking about numerous rapes:
Discussing a rape at 1:25 “That might have stayed inside the camp.”
“I can’t imagine that a rape would happen here”, says the attractive young lady who was felt up in the middle of the night by a complete stranger. Unbelievable.
Video of interview here. (Update: Video of interview was there. Deleted by whoever uploaded it. Strange.)
There have been multiple incidents of assault, drug dealing and drug use, rape and attempted rape, according to conversations with numerous protesters. And the problem, they say, is getting worse.
In the past several weeks, the cluster of tents at the west end of the park — the farthest section from the bustle of working groups and activity near Broadway — has grown increasingly dangerous, many say. The sanitation team has reported finding needles in tents, and reports of crack and crystal meth use have surfaced. But the most serious concern most protesters say, is the risk of assault, especially for women and at night.
…
“We are convinced [the rise in crime] is being partly manufactured by the authorities,” Zetah said. “A lot of people who have ended up in the park have said that the police told them: ‘Take it to Zuccotti.’ “
Yup, the police are the cause of all the violence. Project much?
Yesterday New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg alleged that Occupy Wall Street participants at Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park) are chasing criminals out of the park instead of reporting them to police. In reality, Occupy Wall Street has its own well-trained internal security force, but this team does not substitute for the police when it comes to criminal activity that threatens our community or local residents.
Oh, except OWS lies – they don’t report rapes. From the NY Post:
Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park battened down the hatches yesterday as the early October snow turned their tents into igloos, but the close quarters also made easy pickings for one predator.
A sex fiend barged into a woman’s tent and sexually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.
“Pervert! Pervert! Get the f–k out!” said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.
“They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave,” said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.
She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.
“We don’t tell anyone,” she said. “We handle it internally. I said too much already.”
According to Teamster Union boss Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters are now a part of an army that is in a direct position to give war to the Tea Party. My question is for what reason? For what purpose? Hear is a video with Mr. Hoffa’s exact words:
Ok, there you go, pretty straight forward I would think. An army, for Obama, against the Tea Party. Als,o for a very nice rundown and op-ed of Mr. Hoffa’s words I would direct you to The Conservative Crusader Blog. Are normal Americans ready for what is coming? The Leftist in the United States are poised for a final showdown. They want to collapse the system and put in place a “fundamentally changed” America, one where wealth redistribution, segregation by voting block, a command economy, cradle to grave welfare, and perpetual serfdom, for those of us who do work, will be the norm. Is that the type of country anyone is ready to live in?
Mr. Williams from the Conservation Crusader certainly believes that we are headed towards civil war. Taxpayers, Veterans, entrepreneurs versus, Unions, illegal aliens, class warfare indoctrinated minorities, as well as representatives of the federal government itself. Are you ready? They sure seems to be….
For the record, I belong to a private sector union, at least as private as can one be I suppose. Since democrats have been in power I can attest to the increase in Union power and all forms of social justice that the leftist preach. For instance a “safety” bill was signed into law in 2008 which prohibits a man from working for then 6 days at a time for “safety reasons.” In practice it forced my industry to hire more workers they wouldn’t other wise need to cover shortfalls in manpower, it also forces me to miss two days of work without any type of compensation. So in turn, the union receives more dues for more workers because the industry is forced to hire more people, at the same time it makes me two, possibly 3 days less pay in any given pay period. So this is another example of how elements of the leftist movement in the United States work. Legislative efforts made to force business to comply with law and regulation that is deemed necessary for safety reasons, but in practice reduces the actual pay of individuals, usually the lower level workers, while the union’s treasury feasts off the law. Which the union in turn gives some of that money back to Democrat election coffers.
It’s a never-ending cycle, wait a second it might be ending sooner than we all think if the policies in place today are allowed to continue too much farther into the future. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I’ll be on the side of those who stand for the Constitution.
The most effective way of making everybody serve the single system of ends toward which the social plan is directed is to make everybody believe in those ends. To make a totalitarian system function efficiently, it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the same ends. It is essential that hte people should come to regard them as their own ends. Although the beliefs must be chosen for the people and imposed upon them, they must become their beliefs, a generally accepted creed which makes the individuals as far as possible act spontaneously in the way the planner wants. If the feeling of oppression in totalitarian countries is in general much less acute than most people in liberal countries imagine, this is because the totalitarian governments succeed to a high degree in making people think as they want them to.
This is, of course, brought about by the various forms of propaganda. Its technique is now so familiar that we need say little about it.
The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they, or at least the best among them, have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before. The people are made to transfer their allegiance from the old gods to the new under the pretense that the new gods really are what their sound instinct had always told them but what before they had only dimly seen. And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning. Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of the meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regime are expressed.
The worst sufferer in this respect is, of course, the word “liberty.” It is a word used as freely in totalitarian states as elsewhere. Indeed, it could almost be said – and it should serve as a warning to us to be on our guard against all the tempters who promise us New Liberties for Old – that wherever liberty as we understand it has been destroyed, this has almost always been done in the name of some new freedom promised to the people. Even among us we have “planners for freedom” who promise us a “collective freedom for the group,” the nature of which may be gathered from the fact that its advocate finds it necessary to assure us that “naturally the advent of all planned freedom does not mean that all [sic] earlier forms of freedom must be abolished.” Dr. Karl Mannheim, from whose work these sentences are taken, at least warns us that “a conception of freedom modelled on the preceding age is an obstacle to any real understanding of the problem.” But his use of the word “freedom” is as misleading as it is in the mouth of totalitarian politicians. Like their freedom, the “collective freedom” he offers us is not the freedom of the members of society but the unlimited freedom of the planner to do with society what he pleases. It is the confusion of freedom with power carried to the extreme.
A simple example is universal single-payer health care. It’s to provide freedom from the evil insurance companies. It provides “freedoms” as quoted here in remarks by a speaker at a press conference by Nancy Pelosi:
The new law has not only given me the freedom to stay covered, but has also freed me and my family from the fear that an insurer could drop me at any moment or limit me to go without treatment.
The “freedom to stay covered” is at the expense of someone else – at the expense of the individuals who make up an insurance company, or at the expense of the individual taxpayer. Their freedom is traded for this patient’s priviledge. Being “free” from “fear” that he could be dropped means that the insurer, or taxpayer, is now enslaved to his treatment. He is now a guaranteed recipient of the labor of individuals, whether those individuals who also purchase insurance from a company, and now face increased premiums because of this government-protected claimant, or he is dependant on the taxpayer to cover his bill. Ultimately, he is “free” only insomuch as he takes from someone else.
He is not free to choose a less expensive company, or free to go to a non-profit charity that would look out for his special case and would desire to help him – he is “free” by shackling others to his needs. That is not freedom – that is parasitism enforced by the state. Person A now must pay for Person B’s medical needs because Person B is “free” from the costs.
Hayek continues on pg 175:
In this particular case the perversion of the meaning of the word has, of course, been well prepared by a long line of German philosophers and, not least, by many of the theoreticians of socialism. But “freedom” or “liberty” are by no means the only words whose meaning has been changed into their opposites to make them serve as instruments of totalitarian propaganda. We have already seen how the same happens to “justice” and “law,” “right” and “equality.” The list could be extended until it includes almost all moral and political terms in general use.
This is a major, major point. This is why “liberals” today are intolerant, closed-minded people. Virtually every aspect of who they are is the exact opposite of what they are. They fight for “social justice” which is just redistribution, they fight for “human rights” that include health care, and even food – which cannot be rights – as they come at the expense of others. They call themselves progressives, but they don’t progress towards greater liberty for the individual, they progress towards greater power for what the state “must do on your behalf“. This is regressive, towards the totalitarianism of dictatorships and kings, not towards the greater well-being of the individual. Liberal in Hayek’s day meant closer to what libertarian or even conservative means today. Not what libertarian or conservative is demonized as by the political left/progressives, but what they actually are.
It is for this reason that conservative author/radio host Mark Levin refers almost exclusively to the left as statists, as their main function is to expand government to their own ends. Also note that there are right-wing, or socially traditionalist/conservative statists, who are often simply a different brand of moralist from the leftist statist. The leftist statist wants you to stop drinking and smoking for your health and because it’s good for you, the rightist statist wants you to stop drinking and smoking because it’s “fiend intemperance”. The leftist statist will force you to drive a hybrid car because of his Gaia-worship, the rightist statist will force businesses to close on Sunday to keep the Sabbath holy.
A major difference is that a rightward traditionalist in America, a mindset which often goes hand in hand with the moralist, can still be reminded that a reason the country was founded, and indeed the 1st Amendment was written, was to escape state-mandated religion. The leftist, by contrast, believes that history started last week, and will reject the past as outmoded and obsolete in their own quest for power and The Greater Good. As Thomas Sowell writes in his book “The Vision of the Anointed”:
“For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.”
Returning to Hayek, pg 175:
If one has not one’s self experienced this process, it is difficult to appreciate the magnitude of this change of the meaning of words, the confusion which it causes, and the barriers to any rational discussion which it creates. It has to be seen to be understood how, if one of two brothers embraces the new faith, after a short while he appears to speak a different language which makes any real communication between them impossible. And the confusion becomes worse because this change of meaning of the words describing political ideals is not a single event but a continuous process, a technique employed conciously or unconciously to direct the people. Gradually, as this process continues, the whole language becomes despoiled, and words become empty shells deprived of any definite meaning, as capable of denoting one thing as its opposite and used solely for the emotional associations which still adhere to them.
To sidetrack a while from the explicitly political, using a pop culture reference as an example, you can see how freedom has changed. Most of the readers of this blog will know who this is. On the off chance we have some very young readers or very old readers, this is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots – the good guy Transformers.
His motto: “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.”
(Movie Review): And when Optimus Prime, the chief good Transformer, declares that “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings,” we know we’re in a Bush-era universe.
(OP): if the reviewers had done maybe 10 minutes of online research (say, on the Teletraan-1 wikia), they’d know that Prime has been spouting his line since before Bush’s dad was president. Moreover, what is so bad about freedom being a basic right? Isn’t that in the hugging Declaration of Independence? What is so quintessentially “Bush” about it?
(SD): Pretty much a case of people shooting words off before doing proper research, and an annoyingly over-liberal mindset. I mean, I don’t care for Bush, to put it lightly, but I also don’t wedge my political views into whatever I type/write.
(S): I can see how that line might be used by the likes of Bush to justify a war like Iraq (the lie that the war is all about human freedom rather than oil).
(PTP): Technically we were in a Regan-era universe when it was written, which isn’t all that much better…
(OP): Maybe, but I still don’t see how the motto that encapsulates democracy would be reduced to represent someone’s biased view of the Bush administration.
(D): I’d be hard pressed to vote for a president who didn’t believe in the basic right of freedom. I mean there’s liberal, and then there’s blindedly liberal. Gah.
(TNG): I don’t really get why anyone would think that “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” is a particularly conservative viewpoint. Definitions of exactly what freedom means may differ within the political spectrum but I don’t think you’d find many democrats arguing against freedom as a basic human right.
Liberals=progressives=statists, specifically here, anti-Bush statists, who are competing for the same space as state controllers. Thus Freedom=Bush talking point. Freedom=bad, to liberals, who are really progressives, who are really leftist-statists. Also thus the word liberal, which is supposed to mean accepting of others, is now explicitly anti-freedom (even just in this discussion). Liberal has gone so far as to also include Reagan and all non-leftist statists, thus even the original quote by Optimus Prime waaay back in about 1984 is rejected as being related to Reagan, Republicans, and therefore to a Liberal is a Bad Thing.
According to the leftist-statist, when Bush says freedom, it means ruthless oppression, even if it is freeing a nation from an actual ruthless oppressor. Don’t bother them with the facts. Criticism of a poor operational plan and shoddy intelligence (that leftist-statists agreed on) turned into a rejection of freedom in its entirety. Leftist rejection of Bush-era domestic policies (that pretty much only targeted terrorists, but that should definitely be questioned in Constitutional interests) including the Patriot Act turned into Bush hates freedom. This year when the Patriot Act was renewed by Barack Obama, without any of the reforms that were complained about during the Bush-era… well, Obama is still a good-guy to the leftist-statist, because he’s their guy there for The Greater Good.
Liberal is anti-freedom, freedom is oppression, progressive is statist.
Even the notions of left and right are reversed. In France in 1789, at the French Assembly, the rebels who resisted the state sat on the left, while the supporters of the state sat on the right. Except the French state was a monarchical state that didn’t represent the people, and had subjects, not citizens. A rebel to the French state would be resisting tyranny.
The United States, by contrast, were formed by the people, for the people, and of the people. The government was explicity designed to respond to the citizenry, and to be accountable to the citizenry. The Constitution itself was a charter document designed to constrain any government to the initial agreement that the citizens had made when they settled on a government. Consider first that the Declaration of Independence was a rejection of tyranny that called for the people to institute a government from the people, then consider that a government, instituted by the citizenry who choose their government, is how the democratic republic set up by the Constitution was designed.
Thomas Paine explains in concrete terms what a Constitution is:
But it will be first necessary to define what is meant by a Constitution. It is not sufficient that we adopt the word; we must fix also a standard signification to it.
A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not an ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced in a visible form, there is none. A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting its government. It is the body of elements, to which you can refer, and quote article by article; and which contains the principles on which the government shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organised, the powers it shall have, the mode of elections, the duration of Parliaments, or by what other name such bodies may be called; the powers which the executive part of the government shall have; and in fine, everything that relates to the complete organisation of a civil government, and the principles on which it shall act, and by which it shall be bound. A constitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.
The Constitution is static. It is what the government is based on, and the laws that the government, in order to remain legitimate and existing upon the consent of the people, must adhere to. Being on the left in the US and rejecting the established Constitutional order is rejecting a truly classically radical liberal document that enshines the rights and liberties of all citizens. Being on the left is pushing for statism. Being a conservative who wishes to conserve Constitutional principles is being a classical liberal, a radical libertarian – one who is opposed to the idea of a controlling state.
Religious liberalism and conservatism became injected into political liberalism and conservatism, as well as social liberalism and conservatism – but there is a wide gulf between what one preaches in one’s private or even public life, and what one inflicts through force of government. Conservative has come to mean statist-religious, liberal to mean statist-humanist/statist-Gaia-or-Science-worshipper.
In this, the leftist-progressive-statist has changed the entire discussion by changing the meaning of words. For another example: the religious-statist who would use force of government rather than persuasion has changed the word conservative to also mean moralist authoritarian – a term the leftist-statist is very much willing to embrace, as it drives people into their camp – to accept the “freedom from religion” that then turns into trying to destroy the religions of others – which is explicitly illiberal. Another example: fascism was a brand of statist totalitarianism wherein the economic means of production were controlled by the state, but not always wholly owned. Communists attacked fascists, with whom they were competing for the same leftist anti-capitalist statist-totalitarian space on the political spectrum, and accused fascists of being capitalist. Fascism, descended from national socialism as opposed to communist international socialism, suddenly became its opposite, when the two are nary a hair’s breadth apart. Yet the modern leftist-statist who favors socialism as an economic means to his Greater Good, will accuse someone who opposes them of being a national socialist.
Paine set up concretely what a Constitution is. Those who support it, must support it for what it is. It is a compact between we the citizen and those citizens we choose to serve us. Words do mean something. Our Constitution was established as a document that can change through the amendment process, but it is not to be manipulated until freedom means slavery. But that is precisely what the leftist-statist has embraced (as well as the rightist-statist to a lesser degree). George Orwell summed much of this up with his coining of the term “Newspeak” in his book “1984″ several years after The Road to Serfdom had been published. As Orwell says in “1984″:
By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
Sadly, Orwell himself was a democratic socialist, basically a theory of benevolent socialism, but that can be the subject for another tl;dr post.
Lest I forget, the other Hayek:
Eventually I’ll just end up with pictures of chicks from Vienna to represent the Austrian School.
Conservative talk SiriusXM radio host Andrew Wilkow has a phrase he likes to use when referring to people who receive more from the government than they pay in: zero-liability voters. It applies to those 50-something percent of people who either don’t pay taxes, or who receive back what they paid, or receive tax money to begin with.
It makes a direct, simple point, that’s easy to understand, and illustrates the stark difference between the taxpayer and the (another Wilkow term here) recipient class – those who receive more from government than they pay in. As everyone should know, government has no money of its own. The woman screaming for “Obama money” doesn’t realize that government has no money – the government only has the money that it taxes from the citizen (or in the old days, that it got from taxes and tariffs on imports, which is also from the citizen).
I don’t think there truly is such thing as a “zero-liability voter”. That makes it seem as though they get off free for ultimately destructive actions – which they don’t. It also doesn’t quite represent the loss that voter is in for when the bill they’re running up comes due.
Every voter who is on welfare is subject to the dictates of government. Every voter who is on disability or social security or otherwise receiving from the government, whether or not they put in originally, is subject to the dictates of the government. In that manner to begin with, they have some interest. The normal point about the zero-liability voter is that their interest is solely in granting themselves more benefits at the expense of productive members of society. This is fairly well true, but the recipient who keeps asking for more and more is ultimately liable to the economy and to the markets. 51% can vote to confiscate the rest of the 49%’s wealth, but when there is no more, they are still ultimately liable. When economic ruin in Greece comes to bear, they ultimately pay for their recipient status.
The grasshopper can get welfare from the ant, but when winter comes and the ant can’t eat, no one can.
That’s a little bit long-term to look at for the average short-sighted welfare schlub. So functionally, the zero-liability voter still exists in the short term, except…
There are costs which have an effect on everyone. Gas is a simple example. If a welfare recipient votes for someone whose policies continue to increase costs of gasoline and diesel fuel, it increases the costs of everything moved by truck, boat, barge, or plane. Which is pretty much everything – unless you’re buying from the Amish.
Been spending most our lives living in an Amish Paradise...
If you’re a welfare recipient who’s getting $500/week, your $500 isn’t going to go as far when the products you buy, shipped by truck, go up 30%. You can vote yourself more money, but even that takes time – and in the meantime, poor decisions are hitting your fixed pocketbook. If you actually try to do something while you’re on welfare, like take care of your children, you’ll see your dollar not go as far – milk and diapers for your kids will go up, and your check will stay the same for a long while. Even if you’re buying everything at party stores – heck, especially if you’re from a locale where the only way to shop is buying things at party stores – your dollar won’t go as far.
The zero-liability voter is ultimately liable for their voting decisions. They aren’t just redistributing wealth from rich to themselves, they’re voting for a system that penalizes success. Rather quickly, that comes back to haunt them in the form of lack of goods and services. The government may keep issuing them $500/week to be on welfare, but if the government’s monetary policies have reduced that dollar to a tenth of its original value, or if the government’s redistribution schemes have hurt businesses so that cost of living is dramatically increased, that $500 doesn’t go as far.
Beyond this, the taxes that government puts on businesses are ultimately paid by the consumer. To give an example, the government charges a “gas guzzler” tax on cars that get below a certain MPG rating.
See that window sticker? The business isn’t paying that $1300 – the customer is.
See those gas prices today? The business isn’t paying the 18c federal tax and the state tax that may go up to 45c more. The customer is.
These are just visible examples (though tax isn’t listed on gas, so it’s obfuscated). The average welfare recipient probably doesn’t plan on buying a new car, nor do they often even own a car. But the expenses paid in taxes are still passed onto them.
If bread, milk, beer and eggs that the welfare recipient does buy are subject to higher taxes, their $500 doesn’t go as far. If the state raises property taxes to try to cover the entitlements they hand out to the recipient class, the laundromat, tattoo parlor, barber shop, or corner store is going to have to raise their prices. If the state outspends itself and has to call on the fedgov for help, the bailout the feds give comes from other states being taxed. The higher tax in Kansas causes the beef producer to raise his prices, which means higher beef prices in Michigan. The higher tax in Florida causes the orange grower to raise his prices, which means higher orange juice prices in Massachussetts. The higher tax in Texas means the oil producer has to raise his prices, which means the fuel used to ship everything to Wisconsin costs more.
Every time taxes are raised, the business owner simply passes the costs on to the consumer. Businesses are run by revenue that they get from sales of goods or services. They don’t just have huge piles of money laying around.
It doesn't work this way, people.
To give an example, Ford doesn’t just have a pile of money to make cars. They have factories – the means of production, and they buy parts, then they assemble the cars, then they sell them. The cars, the parts, and the contracts on sales are all part of their revenue stream. They need money to buy parts, they need money to pay workers to assemble the cars, and they get the money to do those two things with the sales of the cars. They will have some money laying around, but it’s there to finance future expansions of business, or there to pay bonuses to employees, or to act as a war chest for acquisitions or to weather tough financial times. It isn’t just magically there.
And even if or when they do have money sitting around, they don’t use it to pay taxes – they raise the costs of their end products to make you pay for them.
Ultimately, even that $500/week welfare schlub is paying for it with reduced quality of living since that $500 won’t go as far.
Now, does the zero-liability voter think this through? No. Does the zero-liability voter have, as Joe Biden would say “skin in the game”? No. Does the zero-liability voter care? Probably not. Even though the zero-liability voter isn’t held accountable for their actions, as is Wilkow’s point, will that zero-liability voter ultimately be held accountable by the laws of economics? Absolutely.
As is evidenced in Greece and Wisconsin, and as has been evidenced throughout history, no amount of protesting, burning people alive, or stomping around with Che t-shirts and copies of Das Kapital is going to bring back prosperity. (Or honey… Their blog was written by Keynesians who believe in sacrifice.)
To finish this off, Milton Friedman’s points on the Power of the Market – Welfare:
The fact of the matter is this: Mubarak is a socialist dictator, and his ruling party espouses socialist ideology. The revolution in Egypt is a direct result of the failure of authoritarian socialist ideology and policy. For over fifty years, the ruling political clique in Egypt has espoused a home-grown form of Arab nationalist socialism.
Arab nationalism. And a socialist dictator. Combine ethnic nationalism with socialism and you get the predictable.
It’s still unwise to support anti-Mubarak forces when the predictable replacement is going to be the proto-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, but once there’s some degree of stability, well, stability really is the only reason to support Mubarak anymore.
This reminded me that I have a copy of President Saddam Hussein’s Address on Iraq’s National Day 1983, and President Saddam Hussein’s Speech on the 6th Anniversary of the Day of the Days The Great Victory Day 8 August 1994, and his roughly 50 page treatise “One Trench or Two“. All are drier reads than the country they hail from, but they are about pan-Arab nationalism and the idea of central control/rulership. Basically, arab national socialism.
Sometimes you can judge a dictator book by its cover.
Richard Little at American Thinker points out the specifics with regards to Egypt and how it applies there. Broadly, national socialism and centralized control don’t work anywhere. Even with cultural differences (including the basic lack of a future tense in Arabic), education level differences, and economic developmental differences, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work in Europe – where the wise nations are pulling away from their road to socialism before they implode like Greece; it doesn’t work in the US, where individual states like California are imploding from their own policies. It doesn’t work anywhere it’s tried.
Whether the central control be with a dictator or a committee of bureaucrats, it’s all coercive force that works against the will of the individual – the individual who knows their own needs better than any self-appointed super-genius, tyrant or king.
Kudos to the Egyptian people for trying to shrug it off. Hopefully they don’t end up replacing it with the Muslim Brotherhood – who will do the same, but with the added dictates of sharia law.
ShortTimer
JBH
