Category Archives: Republicans

The Criminal and The Human – A Rational Approach to Liberalism

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Desperation is pain expressed. Pain necessarily is totalitarian. It encompasses the whole of the person’s existence that experiences it. It demands the person’s full attention. It requires action. There is no free choice in the face of pain. There is only obedience. The person must find a way to stop the pain. Their continued existence depends on finding a way out. There is no `other’ in intense pain. There is no morality. There is no ideology. Rationality is meaningless. There is only the requirement to act immediately. The problem of pain may pose no solution. There may be no hope of surviving. The required action may have no goal other than a desire to stop the pain. The action may only find its termination in death. There may be no other way to return to the living, to the cessation of pain, to the place of rest and repose within existence – the place where the other can have significance.

When a person is in a fight for continued existence there is no `other’ that matters. There is only the imminence of pain. As pain increases the need to act increases. Conversely, the human capacity for the experience of the other decreases. The other as law, morality, concern, ideals, etc. loses its relevance to the person in pain. The self is necessarily projected to the absolute in intense, mortal pain until the self is extinguished in death and is no more. It is important to understand that there is a progression from extreme pain to repose in existence. In rest, the cessation of pain, we can be with others. We can attend to others. We can care. We can show concern. We can love. We can find meaning in being with others. We can sense the necessity of our collectivity, our shared identity, our debt to history via language.

These polarities, pain and repose in existence define our days as humans. There are perhaps those that for biological reasons we do not fully understand are not fully human. They have pathologies such as a serial killer that make them fundamentally different. They look human but they have no soul, no natural response to the other that most of us know and understand in our repose. Pathology, deviation from the norm is real but by definition it is not common. Therefore, it is not essentially human. It is more like a tornado or absolute non-recognition of human. It is totally oblivious to existence as human and owes no requirement for action to the human. It only follows its own necessity for action.

As human we exist in-between pain and repose. To the degree that we experience pain we resort to desperation. Thus, we become criminal. We become self-centered. We take advantage of others. We think more and more of ourselves. The other is sacrificed on the altar of me. The criminal by definition is totalitarian. The criminal is not obliged to act in any way other than its own desire. It has no ideology, no ideals, no concern for the other. It is us to the extent that we experience pain.

At this point, let me add that there is such a thing as phantom pain. There is the perception of threat that sets off all the alarms of pain, the adrenaline to fight or flee without any perceived pain by an outside observer. Anxiety may have no apparent reason to an outside observer. Phantom pain may have a biological component or imaginary. Biological pain that is not apparent to the outside observer can result from physical pathologies, deficiencies or deviation from norms that are purely cellular, hormonal, etc.. As human we have also have the capacity for imagination. Humans can project into the future. We can envision a future, an ideal and take actions to apprehend that future. This capacity also has the ability to deviate from a positive apprehension of the future to a negative apprehension of the future. We can dread the future. We can imagine that the future holds pain and despair. This may for example be at the psychological root of an addiction (not necessarily the physical, biological root of an addiction). We can project the future and apprehend it as negative, undesirable as pain. In this case, all the previously described dynamics of pain are present in the imminence of pain.

To the degree that we act, think, idealize from selfishness, from `me’ at the cost of the other, we express our capacity for suffering, for desperately attempting to alleviate pain. We are only concerned with our survival and not with anyone else’s survival. The driving instinct to self-survival blinds us to the plight of anyone else that may be suffering. For example, we may perceive that we are being taxed to death, threatening our ability to provide food and shelter to ourselves and our family. We may imagine that the future is bleak and we will be living on the street in freezing cold without food. We can do this all the while living in a comfortable 3000 square foot house with our family and a job that pays $75,000 a year. In the perception of this pain there is a need to act, to vote for politicians that we think will lower our taxes and thereby relieve our fears. However, the brute, realistic fact is that there are those that are living in freezing cold with no food. There are those dying in emergency rooms with no health care. There are those that are suffering in a real sense with real pain. The question becomes is my pain really more important than those that are much more apparently suffering?

The option to think this thought is not present for one that is in mortal pain but the possibility for suspension of one’s perceived pain is possible for less extreme situations. The possibility to suspend ones imagined fears for the sake of the other is part of human existence. This, for example, is envisioned in the act of Jesus dying for the sins of the world. We also have the capacity to “die for the sins of the world”. We can refuse to act automatically to our perceived pain and recognize the real pain of the other. We can judge our pain to be less important that the suffering, homeless child. This capacity is purely human.

We can do this because in our repose we can experience ourselves as community, as necessarily understanding ourselves with others. We certainly see proof of this necessity in language. Language fashions how we understand ourselves and the world. Language enables us project into the future, make sense of our past and even make sense of our present. Yet, we did not invent language. It was given as a gift. It already assumes a history, those that went before, those that forged words and thoughts that are essential tools we were freely given.

Aristotle said, “Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.” The reason he said this was because as humans in repose, as essentially a “we” we have the ability to defer to the other. We can make judgments that suspend our desires, our pain and act to relieve worse suffering of the other. This does not mean we always choose this course of action. Pain whether real or perceived pulls us under at times and causes us to act selfishly. This is also purely human. Many philosophers have traditionally thought of our necessary capacity for repose in existence as our higher self. What they mean by this is that we have the innate capacity for acting to relieve the suffering of the other. We can project this capacity into a future and act accordingly. We can think, fashion ideologies that reinforce our higher self. Conversely, we can fashion ideologies that project into the future to reinforce our fears and the need to act selfishly from our pain. We are the ultimate arbiters of how we envision our future. We can indulge our fears or we can hear the cries of the other. We can vote for politicians that we think will appease our suffering or we can vote for politicians that will ask us to sacrifice for the sake of the other. What is required in how we make these judgments is wisdom.

Wisdom is true judgment. Wisdom weighs all the elements of decision correctly. Wisdom is very difficult. For example, we may think all politicians are only out to alleviate their suffering by using politics to enrich themselves and not alleviate the suffering of others. This is the wisdom that true conservatism would teach us. Genuine conservation has the goal of conserving precious resources not for selfishly, perceived goals but for the good of society; so that suffering is addressed efficiently and effectively. When conservatism beats its chest to the Darwinian drum of Ayne Rand1, the Machiavellian war of all against all in defense of an isolated self, a “me” that conquers all and merely takes absolute pride in the destruction of the other for my sake, it sanctifies pain. It does not merely react blindly to pain but it fashions an altar to my right to act only for me even in repose. The question that should be raised here is not moral, altruistic, based on shoulds and shouldn’ts but based on wisdom – how we find ourselves in existence pitched between pain and repose.

As necessarily human we live in the regions of language and desperation, concern for the other and the absolutism of immanent pain and suffering. We are not pure unattached egos, gods free of necessity. We certainly have the capacity for absolute and even necessary selfishness as evidenced in mortal pain but we also have the necessary capacity for collectivity, being with others, love, compassion, concern even at our personal expense. Weighing the outcome of our vote in line with the necessity of our repose, our collective obligation may at times concede that a particular politician is acting for their own pain based reasons but the result of their policies may have opposite consequences. They may be individually, morally reprehensible but they may put programs in place that effectively address real suffering. They may also be individually, morally admirable but put programs in place that only protect their constituents perceived pain (i.e. taxes) while turning a blind eye to millions suffering without health care or basic needs. There are many permutations here but the point is that wisdom requires one to weigh the nuances such that the true outcome is obtained, the goal to alleviate suffering in this case2. Let me also state that this is not a simple matter of Republican or Democrat, it is a matter of recognizing who we are necessarily as humans and requiring that our actions are in line with our projected goals. I have used politics as an example but this discussion has extensions and impacts in many areas not simply civic responsibilities.

We are all accountable to ourselves, our higher selves, our essential capacity to defer ourselves for the other. Again, not due to some perceived altruism, moral obligation, demand from a god or an ideology but because to deny the suffering of the other is to deny the repose of our existence. We need not make repose bourgeois. Neither do we need to make our pain absolute as egoism. A guilty conscious is not called for here at all, only the clarity of wisdom and the actions that necessarily follows.

 

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1 While Ayne Rand stated “I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason” her “reason”s stopped at egoism and the economies of a pain based ideology and could never account for the an equally necessary “we” that is in every way just as much who we are as human as selfishness is in mortal pain. Reason without wisdom goes against who we are, how we find ourselves and fails to truly judge who we are, to see what is in front of us, to take into account the necessary ways we find ourselves in existence.

2 I have also made a similar case in another paper with regard to the free market war of all against all and multinational corporations versus the government. In this case, the interest of repose is best served by their mutual regulation and limitation (see http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/04/free-market-eitheror-government/).

The Latest Republican Attempt to Kill Health Care Reform

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Personally, I would have liked to have seen Lott stay in his position.  It would have been great for the Democrats.  Sort of like the gift of Dick Cheney that keeps on giving…

The majority leader of the Senate is elected by the majority party in the Senate when the term begins.

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Majority_Minority_Leaders.htm

The Democrats could not forcibly remove Trent Lott.  Only the Republicans could remove Trent Lott from the majority leadership of the Senate. 

“Political controversy ensued following remarks Lott made on December 5, 2002 at the 100th birthday party of Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond ran for President of the United States in 1948 on the Dixiecrat (or States’ Rights) ticket. Lott said: “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.”[3]

Thurmond had based his presidential campaign largely on an explicit racial segregation platform. Lott had attracted controversy before in issues relating to civil rights. As a Congressman, he voted against renewal of the Voting Rights Act, voted against the continuation of the Civil Rights Act and opposed making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday.[4] The Washington Post reported that Lott had made similar comments about Thurmond’s candidacy in a 1980 rally.[5] Lott gave an interview with Black Entertainment Television explaining himself and repudiating Thurmond’s former views.[6]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Lott

Trent Lott did not just resign because of what he said during Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party.  The Republicans did not support him after President Bush would not stand behind him.  Speculation about why President Bush did not stand behind him was because Trent Lott could not get his immigration reform through the Senate.

“President Bush distanced himself from Lott’s remarks, telling an audience the comments “do not reflect the spirit of our country.””

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21973397/

This is yet another ridiculous attempt by the Republicans to kill health care reform.

To Congressional Republicans: How Would Jesus Vote on Health Care Reform?

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Next time you spend time away from politics in prayer, think about this:

Jesus said and did much more about healing the sick than he said about taxes…

Healing the Sick:

1.Matthew 4:24 (Whole Chapter)

So his fame spread throughout all [Luke 2:2 ] Syria, and [ Matthew 4:23 ] they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and [Matthew 8:6 ] pains, [John 10:21 ] those oppressed by demons, [Matthew 17:15 ] epileptics, and [Matthew 9:2, 6] paralytics, and he healed them.

2.Matthew 8:14 (Whole Chapter)

[ Jesus Heals Many ] [For Matthew 8:14-16, Mark 1:29-34; Luke 4:38-41 ] And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw [1 Cor 9:5] his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever.

3.Matthew 8:16 (Whole Chapter)

That evening they brought to him many who were [Matthew 8:28, 33; Matthew 4:24 ] oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits [Matthew 8:8] with a word and healed all who were sick.

4.Matthew 10:8 (Whole Chapter)

[Matthew 11:5 ] Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, [Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13] cast out demons. [Isa 55:1; Acts 3:6; 20:33, 35] You received without paying; give without pay.

5.Matthew 14:14 (Whole Chapter)

When he went ashore he [Matthew 9:36] saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

6.Matthew 14:34 (Whole Chapter)

[ Jesus Heals the Sick in Gennesaret ] [For Matthew 14:34-36, Mark 6:53-56; John 6:24, 25 ] And when they had crossed over, they came to land at [Luke 5:1] Gennesaret.

7.Mark 1:34 (Whole Chapter)

[ Matt 4:23 ] And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And [Mark 3:11, 12; Acts 16:17, 18] he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

8.Mark 6:5 (Whole Chapter)

And [Mark 9:23; Gen 19:22 ] he could do no mighty work there, except that [ Mark 5:23] he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

8.Mark 6:13 (Whole Chapter)

[ Mark 6:12 ] And they cast out many demons and [James 5:14] anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.

9.Mark 6:53 (Whole Chapter)

[ Jesus Heals the Sick in Gennesaret ] [For Mark 6:53-56, Matt 14:34-36; John 6:24, 25 ] When they had crossed over, they came to land at [Luke 5:1] Gennesaret and moored to the shore.

10.Luke 4:40 (Whole Chapter)

Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and [ Mark 5:23] he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them.

11.Luke 10:9 (Whole Chapter)

Heal the sick in it and say to them, [Luke 10:11; Matt 3:2] ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’

12.Acts 5:16 (Whole Chapter)

The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, [Mark 16:17, 18] bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

13.Acts 28:8 (Whole Chapter)

It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery. And Paul visited him and [Acts 9:40; James 5:14, 15 ] prayed, and [ Mark 5:23] putting his hands on him healed him.

Paying Taxes:

Matthew 22:15-22

15 Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.

16 And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.

17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?

18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?

19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.

20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

21 They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

As a politician, which one are you doing more about?

 

War on Terrorism

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The implied assumption of a “war on terrorism” is that the war will destroy and annihilate terrorists not create more terrorist.  This old school thought ignores the lesson of history.  A nation can be fought and defeated in war but not an ideology.  To the degree that terrorism incorporates an ideology that forces a conflict between a person’s higher ideals and their daily life it cannot be fought with conventional methods of war.  War in a conventional sense will only intensify and perpetuate the proliferation of the ideology as we have seen.  To the credit of the Bush administration, they did come to see the need for nation building after they blundered into Iraq and Afghanistan (even though they denounced nation building in their election rhetoric).  Moreover, the current military strategy in Afghanistan is control and winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans – nation building. The conventional war failed but now the `war’ has taken some unconventional turns.  Most of all, England should understand the dark side of nation building – colonialism.

Being from the Deep South I certainly saw those that wanted to fight a `war’ against civil rights but the ideology at work in inequality and “all men are created equal” was not a battle that could be fought in conventional terms.  The real source of the conflict was a contradiction in our higher ideals and our daily life traditions (slavery and inequality).  While one can continually insist that a “square is a circle” and go to war against anyone that would suggest different, the inevitable conclusion is that a square is not a circle and when a genuine conflict between our higher ideals and our habits or traditions arise we may fight wars to defeat the dilemma but after much destruction we will find that the dilemma is still there but only worse. 

While I certainly agree that terrorists are criminal thugs.  It would be a fatal mistake to think that they are simply an isolated bunch of criminal thugs.  Whether we like it or not, terrorism has become an ideology of the oppressed, the holy war against the Great Satin.  It highlights Western exploitation and even the perceived cultural invasion of infidel behaviors and ideals.  In our country some would call this evil that promotes sinful behavior and ideas.  If we fail to see how terrorism has morphed from criminal behavior to an ideology that pits higher ideals against a real and perceived evil, we will make the mistake that history has made many times (England comes to mind).  The mistake of the Bush administration was in failing to see how international criminal behavior should be dealt with in a nation where there was no native, functioning justice system.  They drained the swamp to kill the alligator.  

In a nation with a functioning justice system, thugs can be dealt with on a much smaller level than war with laws and justice.  Laws and justice appeal to our higher ideals while criminal narcissism is anarchistic and ultimately self-destructive.  The forces of entropy at work in criminal behavior preclude the behavior from ever posing a collective threat to our higher ideals.  Thus criminal ideals (if there is such a thing) can never attract the masses in any such way as for example, the civil rights struggle did.  Criminal behavior destroys civil society and since humans are as much (if not more) a `they’ (i.e., language which manifest our historical being) as a `me’, we would have to deny ourselves to become complete narcissists and insist on our desires over and above anyone else’s desires (i.e., robbery, murder, rape…criminal behavior).      

On the international scene, if a country does not have a functioning government that can effectively enforce the “rule of law” the international terrorist poses a real problem.  This is where the Bush administration failed.  I am a strong advocate of the foreign aid, education, the United Nations, the international court and to some extent the IMF (International Monetary Fund).  These organizations offer the only real hope I can see to effectively deal with anarchistic nations that harbor criminal thugs (terrorists).  Ideally, they could be a surrogate nation of sorts until the country could support its own justice system.  However, practically the groups have failed (and we fail with them).  We also went to war with them as Bush so clearly demonstrated instead of demanding and providing resources to make these groups better.  War is knee jerk but most of the time not very smart.  In any case for future reference, the interim solution for rouge nations with terrorists should have been the CIA and perhaps Special Forces – small strategic strikes that would not effectively fan the flames of social discontent. 

Whenever and to the extent that we deny our own nations grander and higher ideas for justice and equality we force the tension up and thereby the recruitment of anti-American ideologies in the rest of the world.  When Bush proclaimed that we were going to avenge 911 by going after, killing, lynching, crusading against the terrorists, he may have just as well told the Islamic world that the terrorist were right – we are the Great Satin and join Al Qaeda to become human bombs.  What he should have stated in his rhetoric was that we were going to bring the international criminals to justice.  If we really believe in our justice system and think that it is a model for the world then I think we should bring them here and show the world.  If this is not possible then, as much as I detest it, I would favor covert operations. Instead, we have Dick Cheney declaring torture, illegal imprisonment, and denial of justice (i.e., in a fair and impartial justice system) as a model for the world to emulate.  Is this the great United States of America or just the Great Satin?  If we want to create more human bombs Bush and Cheney are doing a great job.  We need to live up to our higher ideals, demand the rest of the world live up to theirs and listen when we find that our higher ideals may not be the highest ideals.  While being belligerent and “killing all the terrorists” may make some feel good it only makes the problem worse and it is sheer madness to think a good outcome is possible with this strategy.

Some may write this off as mere liberal ridiculousness but I contend that at the heart of liberalism is a well thought and reasoned higher ideology that really has nothing to do with feel good morality or altruism but is just as rational for human social behavior as Darwin was for the natural world.  See http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/19/the-criminal-and-the-human-a-rational-approach-to-liberalism/

Free Market Either/Or Government?

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      After listening to some of the tea party people blog about the government and liberals being fascist, it occurred to me that one possible source for this could be the notion that what they perceive as a unilateral intervention by the government into the private sector is what they deem `fascist’ (I have dealt with the historical notion of fascism as it pertains to liberalism in another blog  http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/03/fascism-is-liberal-and-squares-are-circles/).  They have an emotive perception that liberals are fascist.  Conversely, let me state that while I would not think of many Republicans as historical fascists I certainly understand the emotion that results from feeling like you are being forced against your will to do something you totally detest.  I felt the emotion many times when Bush was president (In particular, especially when my tax dollars and our children were being forced into two, in my opinion, absurd wars that actually created terrorists more than diminished terrorism. see http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/08/war-on-terrorism/).  The feeling is that one is powerless to stop the perceived aggression against one’s higher ideals.  I have dealt with the notion of `higher ideals’ to some extent in the previously mentioned blog (also, see http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/19/the-criminal-and-the-human-a-rational-approach-to-liberalism/ ).  What is the higher ideal that is at work in the tea party folks? 

     I think it may be that they believe the `free market’ is the ultimate dispenser of justice and equality over and above the government.  I have also dealt with the notion of the `free market’ in another blog (http://mixermuse.com/blog/2009/12/23/why-i-am-not-a-conservative/)  `Free market’ as well as `government’ is a social, organizing dynamic.  If the metaphysic of the `free market’ is at work in the emotion of an individual (the meaning-bestowing, intention projecting, higher ideals of an individual), the perception of violation, sin or moral conflict is brought to the fore of the individual’s psyche when external interventions are perceived as threatening.  Thus, the emotional latent word `fascism’ seems to capture the dilemma succinctly for the tea party folks. 

     With the metaphysic of the `free market’ there is the idea that all external intervention is wrong.  I have heard many conservative commentators and economists that are lassie-faire draw heavily from the assumption that all intervention (by this government is implied) is disruptive of the implied and pre-understood `justice’ of the free market.  This brings the higher ideals of such an individual in conflict with the compelling need to subsidize these violations with their tax dollars.  Thus, we see the name calling, town hall yelling tea party phenomenon.

This is my answer to those folks:

     Not all intervention is fascist and not all “non-intervention” is free market.  Free market is full of intervention – intervention is another word for competition.  When a big business competes against a small business the small business will lose in a head to head competition because big business is always the “senior partner”.  On the other hand, government intervention is not always wrong as evidenced by the FDIC, NPS, NIST, NOAA, CDC, NIH, FAA, etc.  Why draw an abstract line between government and free market?  Why not look at it in terms of the dynamics of small and large? 

     Small companies can generate innovation and efficiency and so can small governments.  Large companies and governments can provide mass products and solutions at lower costs due to economies of scale.  However, large companies and governments can become fat and bureaucratic and drive out new competition and innovation.  If there are no other big companies that can do battle, then we get monopolies, multi-national corporations, “to big to fail”.  What is there to restrain corporate totalitarianism?  If there is no government that is big enough to intervene then what could possibly stop a corporate totalitarianism? 

     If the free market hits a snag and can’t solve the health care crisis do we keep trying to believe that the issues are only related to the lack of a truly free market; the market is not “pure” but contaminated by government intervention or can we honestly look at our metaphysic of “pure” vis-à-vis “free market”.   If we analyze the economic structures in terms of power structures ranging from small to large scales what we see is a sort of Machiavellian war of all against all; a Darwinian survival of the fittest; a perpetual revolution.  As long as these economies of scale are kept from devolving into totalitarianism the benefits to people, individuals, cultures and societies can be allowed to grow, diversify and thrive.   If the market is left to itself there really is no way for the small to perpetually overthrow the large.  David may have defeated Goliath once but without God to intervene the odds get much worse.  It is free market “religiosity” that makes one think the small can always keep the large in check.  What is needed is battle of the Goliaths.  Goliaths learned a long time ago that collusion (i.e., price fixing) is much better than battle.  If there were no government to intervene, regulate, make treaties, etc. the multi-national corporation would have no incentive to address anything such as a “health care” crisis.  They would simply continue to spin their propaganda about how wonderful they and the free market are while millions continue to die in emergency rooms and without any health care.  The “free market” can work well within limits but every market must have limits as they will not limit themselves in all cases. 

     The only agency that can limit and require intervention when necessary is the government.  The government is not an ideal solution.  It is merely another Goliath among the others.  However, since a democracy (not a fascist or communist state) has other dynamics and entropies at work it has the innate tendency against collusion and for battle.  When the battle is diminished, Wall Street will win every time.  If the government continually squashes other Goliaths, totalitarianism will reign supreme.  In either case, individuals lose.  The natural regulation of the market is not found in Adam Smith or Carl Marx but in-between.  Those that are pure free marketers or communists will effectively promote totalitarianism.  Diversity should not be thought merely in terms of an un-regulated, pure free market but in terms of the natural antipathy between government and business.  When one side of that equation dominates individuals lose.  It is ludicrous to think that Goliaths will not arise when humans are present but Davids do much better when Goliaths collide than when God walks away and lets the Goliaths decide.  I suppose this means God is not lassie-faire.

Fascism is Liberal and Squares are Circles

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George Santayana remarked that forgetting history was tantamount to repeating it.  I would add that re-writing history is also tantamount to repeating it.  How do you re-write history – simple, propaganda.  Propaganda is the art of equivocation.  If you have an ideology to promote and you minimize differences and maximizes similarities that reinforce your dogma then the only other thing you need to do is get people to believe it by repeating it enough.  If you can achieve this you can re-write history and start down the road of its horrific repetitions.  With regard to the assertion made in many posts I have read, the equivocation is this: Liberalism = Socialism = Totalitarianism = Evil.  The other unspoken equivocation is Conservatism = Capitalism = Nationalism = Good.  By “Nationalism” I mean, God/Good is on the side of the US (or more particularly – the Republican party since  liberals may or may not be Nationalistic as also Democrats can be liberal or conservative economically and/or socially – see how these equivocations break down when thought is applied).  I have no interest whatsoever in defending socialism only in preserving differences and preventing equivocation and dogmatic, homogenizing of history.  Additionally, I totally agree that this nonsense goes on from both sides!  I oppose it equally from the left too.

After doing some research I found a source of these equivocations to be a book by Jonah Goldberg called “Liberal Fascism”.  The Heritage Foundation and the National Review are promoting it.  Jonah Goldberg is a Fox news commentator and editor at the National Review.  He did go to college but I can’t find if he even got an undergraduate degree (??).  He is not a scholar and his work is at best considered right-wing propaganda by scholars (i.e., liberal, commie academics) oh, and also serious conservatives.  His book appeals to the same crowd as Ann [Reich] Coulter.  He also thinks the KKK came from liberalism.  Maybe we should round up these commie liberals and execute them or at least start a “black list” in the name of anti-fascism and love of God and country? – give me a f***ing break

 “Not without reason was Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism widely expected to be a bad book. As many predicted from the title, Goldberg does not content himself with rebuking those who call anyone who disagrees with them a fascist. Instead, he invents reasons of his own for calling anyone who disagrees with Jonah Goldberg a fascist.”

                                             January 28, 2008 Issue
                                             Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative

                                             Goldberg’s Trivial Pursuit

 http://amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_28/review.html

Myth: Hitler was a leftist.

Fact: Nearly all of Hitler’s beliefs placed him on the far right.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm

“Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere.” (p. 32)

                                                          Benito Mussolini, 1935, The Doctrine of Fascism, Firenze: Vallecchi Editore.

 Gosh, I guess that would explain why the first prisoners rounded up and sent to Dachau — the first Nazi death camp — were socialists and communists:

“Dachau is one of the first concentration camps the Nazis establish. The first prisoners arrive two days later. They are mainly Communists and Socialists and other political opponents of the Nazi party. Dachau is the only camp to remain in operation from 1933 until 1945.”

                                                   http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/12/liberal-fascism-preview.html

 For that matter, of course, there are still genuine fascists and proto-fascists with us today. They go by such names as the Aryan Nations, Christian Identity, or National Socialist Movement. And they’re all aligned, politically, to the far right.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/10/ultimate-newspeak.html

“National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with the democratic order.”

                                                                                                                          Hitler to Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, pg. 186

“Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production…. Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied – the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society….”

“The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality — thus it may be called the “ethic” State….”

                            In 1932 Mussolini wrote (with the help of Giovanni Gentile) and entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html

“And thus the Left is forced more and more to turn to Bolshevism. “In Bolshevism they see today the sole, the last possibility of preserving the present state of affairs. They realize quite accurately that the people is beaten so long as Brain and Hand can be kept apart. For alone neither Brain nor Hand can really oppose them. So long therefore as the Socialist idea is coined only by men who see in it a means for disintegrating a nation, so long can they rest in peace.”

“But it will be a sorry day for them when this Socialist idea is grasped by a Movement which unites with it the highest Nationalist pride, with Nationalist defiance, and thus places the Nation’s Brain, its intellectual workers, on this ground. Then this system will break up, and there would remain only one single means of salvation for its supporters: vis. to bring the catastrophe upon us before their own ruin, to destroy the Nation’s Brain, to bring it to the scaffold – to introduce Bolshevism.”

“So the Left neither can nor will help. On the contrary, their first lie compels them constantly to resort to new lies. There remains then the Right. And this party of the Right meant well, but it cannot do what it would because up to the present time it has failed to recognize a whole series of elementary principles.

“In the first place the Right still fails to recognize the danger. These gentlemen still persist in believing that it is a question of being elected to a Landtag or of posts as minister or secretaries. They think that the decision of a people’s destiny would mean at worst nothing more than some damage to their so-called bourgeois-economic existence. They have never grasped the fact that this decision threatens their heads. They have never yet understood that it is not necessary to be an enemy of the Jew for him to drag you one day on the Russian model to the scaffold. They do not see that it is quite enough to have a head on your shoulders and not to be a Jew: that will secure the scaffold for you. “

“In consequence their whole action today is so petty, so limited, so hesitating and pusillanimous. They would like to – but they can never decide on any great deed, because they fail to realize the greatness of the whole period. “

“And then there is another fundamental error: they have never got it clear in their own minds that there is a difference or how great a difference there is between the conception ‘National’ and the word ‘dynastic’ or ‘monarchistic.’ They do not understand that today it is more than ever necessary in our thoughts as Nationalists to avoid anything which might perhaps cause the individual to think that the National Idea was identical with petty everyday political views. They ought day by day to din into the ears of the masses: ‘We want to bury all the petty differences and to bring out into the light the big things, the things we have in common which bind us to one another. That should weld and fuse together those who have still a German heart and a love for their people in the fight against the common hereditary foe of all Aryans. How afterward we divide up this State, friends – we have no wish to dispute over that! The form of a State results from the essential character of a people, results from necessities which are so elementary and powerful that in time every individual will realize them without any disputation when once all Germany is united and free.’

“And finally they all fail to understand that we must on principle free ourselves from any class standpoint. It is of course very easy to call out to those on the Left, ‘You must not be proletarians, leave your class-madness,’ while you yourselves continue to call yourself ‘bourgeois.’ They should learn that in a single State there is only one supreme citizen-right, one supreme citizen-honor, and that is the right and the honor of honest work. They should further learn that the social idea must be the essential foundation for any State, otherwise no State can permanently endure. “

“Certainly a government needs power, it needs strength. It must, I might almost say, with brutal ruthlessness press through the ideas which it has recognized to be right, trusting to the actual authority of its strength in the State. But even with the most ruthless brutality it can ultimately prevail only if what it seeks to restore does truly correspond to the welfare of a whole people. “

“That the so-called enlightened absolutism of a Frederick the Great was possible depended solely on the fact that, though this man could undoubtedly have decided ‘arbitrarily’ the destiny – for good or ill – of his so-called ‘subject,’ he did not do so, but made his decisions influenced and supported by one thought alone, the welfare of his Prussian people. it was this fact only that led the people to tolerate willingly, nay joyfully, the dictatorship of the great king. “

“And the Right has further completely forgotten that democracy is fundamentally no German: it is Jewish. It has completely forgotten that this Jewish democracy with its majority decisions has always been without exception only a means towards the destruction of any existing Aryan leadership. The Right does not understand that directly every small question of profit or loss is regularly put before so-called ‘public opinion,’ he who knows how most skillfully to make this ‘public opinion’ serve his own interests becomes forthwith master in the State. And that can be achieved by the man who can lie most artfully, most infamously; and in the last resort he is not the German, he is, in Schopenauer’s words, ‘the great master in the art of lying’ – the Jew. “

“And finally it has been forgotten that the condition which must precede every act is the will and the courage to speak the truth – and that we do not see today either in the Right or in the Left. “

“There are only two possibilities in Germany; do not imagine that the people will forever go with the middle party, the party of compromises; one day it will turn to those who have most consistently foretold the coming ruin and have sought to dissociate themselves from it. And that party is either the Left: and then God help us! for it will lead us to complete destruction – to Bolshevism, or else it is a party of the Right which at the last, when the people is in utter despair, when it has lost all its spirit and has no longer any faith in anything, is determined for its part ruthlessly to seize the reins of power – that is the beginning of resistance of which I spoke a few minutes ago. Here, too, there can be no compromise – there are only two possibilities: either victory of the Aryan or annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew. “

“It is from the recognition of this fact, from recognizing it, I would say, in utter, dead earnestness, that there resulted the formation of our Movement. There are two principles which, when we founded the Movement, we engraved upon our hearts: first, to base it on the most sober recognition of the facts and second, to proclaim these facts with the most ruthless sincerity. “

“And this recognition of the facts discloses at once a whole series of the most important fundamental principles which must guide this young Movement which, we hope, is destined one day for greatness:

1. ‘National’ and ‘social’ are two identical conceptions. It was only the Jew who succeeded, through falsifying the social idea and turning it into Marxism, not only in divorcing the social idea from the national, but in actually representing them as utterly contradictory. That aim he has in fact achieved. At the founding of this Movement we formed the decision that we would give expression to this idea of ours of the identity of the two conceptions: despite all warnings, on the basis of what we had come to believe, on the basis of the sincerity of our will, we christened it ‘National Socialist.’ We said to ourselves that to be ‘national’ means above everything to act with a boundless and all-embracing love for the people and, if necessary, eve to die for it. And similarly to be ‘social’ means so to build up the State and the community of the people that every individual acts in the interest of the community of the people and must be to such an extent convinced of the goodness, of the honorable straightforwardness of this community of the people as to be ready to die for it.

“2. And then we said to ourselves: there are no such things as classes: they cannot be. Class means caste and caste means race. If there are castes in India, well and good; there it is possible, for there were formerly Aryans and dark aborigines. So it was in Egypt and Rome. But with us in Germany where everyone who is a German at all has the same blood, has the same eyes, and speaks the same language, here there can be no class, here there can be only a single people and beyond that nothing else. Certainly, we recognize, just as anyone must recognize, that there are different ‘occupations’ and ‘professions’ [Stände] – there is the Stand of the watchmakers, the Stand of the common laborers, the Stand of the painters or technicians, the Stand of the engineers, officials, etc. Stände there can be. But in the struggles which these Stände have amongst themselves for the equalization of their economic conditions, the conflict and the division must never be so great as to sunder the ties of race. “

“And if you say ‘But there must after all be a difference between honest creators and those who do nothing at all’ – certainly there must! That is the difference which lies in the performance of the conscientious work of the individual. Work must be the great connecting link, but at the same time the great factor which separates one man from another. The drone is the foe of us all. But the creators – it matters not whether they are brain workers or workers with the hand – they are the nobility of our State, they are the German people! “

“We understand under the term ‘work’ exclusively that activity which not only profits the individual but in no way harms the community, nay rather which contributes to for the community. “

“3. And in the third place it was clear to us that this particular view is based on an impulse which springs from our race and from our blood. We said to ourselves that race differs from race and, further, that each race in accordance with its fundamental demands shows externally certain specific tendencies, and these tendencies can perhaps be most clearly traced in their relation to the conception of work. The Aryan regards work as the foundation for the maintenance of the community of the people amongst its members. The Jew regards work as the means to the exploitation of other peoples. The Jew never works as a productive creator without the great aim of becoming the master. He works unproductively, using and enjoying other people’s work. And thus we understand the iron sentence which Mommsen once uttered: ‘The Jews is the ferment of decomposition in peoples,’ that means that the Jew destroys and must destroy because he completely lacks the conception of an activity which builds up the life of the community. And therefore it is beside the point whether the individual Jew is ‘decent’ or not. In himself he carries those characteristics which Nature has given him, and he cannot ever rid himself of those characteristics. And to us he is harmful. Whether he harms us consciously or unconsciously, that is not our affair. We have consciously to concern ourselves for the welfare of our own people. “

“4. And fourthly we were further persuaded that economic prosperity is inseparable from political freedom and that therefore that house of lies, ‘Internationalism,’ must immediately collapse. We recognized that freedom can eternally be only a consequence of power and that the source of power is the will. Consequently the will to power must be strengthened in a people with passionate ardor. And thus we realized, fifthly that …”

“5. We as National Socialists and members of the German Workers’ Party – a Party pledge to work – must be on principle the most fanatical Nationalists. We realized that the State can be for our people a paradise only if the people can hold sway therein freely as in a paradise: we realized that a slave state still never be a paradise, but only – always and for all time – a hell or a colony. “

“6. And then sixthly we grasped the fact that power in the last resort is possible only where there is strength, and that strength lies not in the dead weight of numbers but solely in energy. Even the smallest minority can achieve a might result if it is inspired by the most fiery, the most passionate will to act. World history has always been made by minorities. And lastly… “

“7. If one has realized a truth, that truth is valueless so long as there is lacking the indomitable will to turn this realization into action! “

“These were the foundations of our Movement – the truths on which it was based and which demonstrated its necessity. “

“For three years we have sought to realize these fundamental ideas. And of course a fight is and remains a fight. Stroking in very truth will not carry one far. Today the German people has been beaten by a quite other world, while in its domestic life it has lost all spirit; no longer has it any faith. But how will you give this people once more firm ground beneath its feet save by the passionate insistence on one definite, great, clear goal? “

“…thus we were the first to declare that this peace treaty was a crime. Then folk abused us as ‘agitators.’ We were the first to protest against the failure to present this treaty to the people before it was signed. Again we were called on the masses of the people not to surrender their arms, for the surrender of one’s arms would be nothing less than the beginning of enslavement. We were called, no, we were cried down as, ‘agitators.’ We were the first to say that this meant the loss of Upper Silesia. So it was, and still they called us ‘agitators.’ We declared at that time that compliance in the question of Upper Silesia must have as its consequence the awakening of a passionate greed which would demand the occupation of the Ruhr. We were cried down ceaselessly, again and again. And because we opposed the mad financial policy which today will lead to our collapse, what was it that we were called repeatedly once more? ‘Agitators.’ And today? “

“And finally we were also the first to point the people on any large scale to a danger which insinuated itself into our midst – a danger which millions failed to realize and which will nonetheless lead us all into ruin – the Jewish danger. And today people are saying yet again that we were ‘agitators.’ “

“I would like here to appeal to a greater than I, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his felling ‘as a man and a Christian; prevented him from being an anti-Semite. I say: my feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the Man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to the fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as sufferer but as fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through that passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and of adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have not duty to allow myself be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago – a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people. “

“Then indeed when Rome collapsed there were endless streams of new German bands flowing into the Empire from the North; but, if Germany collapses today, who is there to come after us? German blood upon this earth is on the way to gradual exhaustion unless we pull ourselves together and make ourselves free! “

“And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress which daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see it work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week it has only for its wage wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people is plundered and exploited. “

“And through the distress there is no doubt that the people has been aroused. Externally perhaps apathetic, but within there is ferment. And many may say, ‘It is an accursed crime to stir up passions in the people.’ And then I say to myself: Passion is already stirred through the rising tide of distress, and one day this passion will break out in one way or another: and now I would ask those who today call us ‘agitators’: ‘What then have you to give to the people as a faith to which it might cling?’

“Nothing at all, for you yourselves have no faith in your own prescriptions. “

“That is the mightiest thing which our Movement must create: for these widespread, seeking and straying masses a new Faith which will not fail them in this hour of confusion, to which they can pledge themselves, on which they can build so that they may at least find once again a place which may bring calm to their hearts.”

                                                        Adolf Hitler
                                                         Speech of April 12, 1921

http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111hit1.html

” 2. The danger to which Russia succumbed is always present for Germany. Only a bourgeois simpleton is capable of imagining that Bolshevism has been exorcised. With his superficial thinking he has no idea that this is an instinctive process; that is, the striving of the Jewish people for world domination, a process which is just as natural as the urge of the Anglo-Saxon to seize domination of the earth. And just as the Anglo-Saxon pursues this course in his own way and carries on the fight with his own weapons, likewise the Jew. He goes his way, the way of sneaking in among the nations and boring from within, and he fights with his weapons, with lies and slander, poison and corruption, intensifying the struggle to the point of bloodily exterminating his hated foes. In Russian Bolshevism we must see the attempt undertaken by the Jews in the twentieth century to achieve world domination. Just as in other epochs they strove to reach the same goal by other, though inwardly related processes. Their endeavor lies profoundly rooted in their essential nature. No more than another nation renounces of its own accord the pursuit of its impulse for the expansion of its power and way of life, but is compelled by outward circumstances or else succumbs to impotence due to the symptoms of old age, does the Jew break off his road to world dictatorship out of voluntary renunciation, or because he represses his eternal urge. He, too, will either be thrown back in his course by forces lying outside himself, or all his striving for world domination will be ended by his own dying out. But the impotence of nations, their own death from old age, arises from the abandonment of their blood purity. And this is a thing that the Jew preserves better than any other people on earth. And so he advances on his fatal road until another force comes forth to oppose him, and in a mighty struggle hurls the heaven-stormer back to Lucifer.

  Germany is today the next great war aim of Bolshevism. It requires all the force of a young missionary idea to raise our people up again, to free them from the snares of this international serpent, and to stop the inner contamination of our blood, in order that the forces of the nation thus set free can be thrown in to safeguard our nationality, and thus can prevent a repetition of the recent catastrophes down to the most distant future. If we pursue this aim, it is sheer lunacy to ally ourselves with a power whose master is the mortal enemy of our future. How can we expect to free our own people from the fetters of this poisonous embrace if we walk right into it? How shall we explain Bolshevism to the German worker as an accursed crime against humanity if we ally ourselves with the organizations of this spawn of hell, thus recognizing it in the larger sense? By what right shall we condemn a member of the broad masses for his sympathy with an outlook if the very leaders of the state choose the representatives of this outlook for allies?

  The fight against Jewish world Bolshevization requires a clear attitude toward Soviet Russia. thou cannot drive out the Devil with Beelsebub.
  If today even folkish circles rave about an alliance with Russia, they should just look around them in Germany and see whose support they find in their efforts. Or have folkish men lately begun to view an activity as beneficial to the German people which is recommended and promoted by the international Marxist press? Since when do folkish men fight with armor held out to them by a Jewish squire?

  There is one main charge that could be raised against the old German Reich with regard to its alliance policy: not, however, that it failed to maintain good relations with Russia, but only that it ruined its relations with everyone by continuous shilly-shallying, in the pathological weakness of trying to preserve world peace at any price.

I openly confess that even in the pre-War period I would have thought it sounder if Germany, renouncing her senseless colonial policy and renouncing her merchant marine and war fleet, had concluded an alliance with England against Russia, thus passing from a feeble global policy to a determined European policy of territorial acquisition on the continent.”

                                                    Mein Kampf
                                                    (1926)

http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111hit1.html

“What Hitler and Mussolini favored and promoted was a system where the State and private corporations served each other’s special interests, much like the situation in America today. They both stood for protecting private ownership from the social revolution, which sought to redistribute wealth and promote public ownership of the means of production.”

http://rationalrevolution.net/war/condition_of_modern_american_soc.htm

In 1932 Mussolini declared that the 20th century would be the “Fascist century” by stating:

“If it is admitted that the nineteenth century has been the century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy, it does not follow that the twentieth must also be the century of Liberalism, Socialism and Democracy. Political doctrines pass; peoples remain. It is to be expected that this century may be that of authority, a century of the “Right,” a Fascist century.”

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.”

— Benito Mussolini Fascist dictator of Italy

“We stand for the maintenance of private property… We shall protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible economic order.”

— Adolf Hitler

The fascists hated the socialists. I have many, many quotes from Hitler and Mussolini detesting the Russian socialists and the French liberals. The current American Nazi groups also hate liberals and recruit their clowns from the far right.  Nowdays, the far right is fond of calling Democrats socialists and fascists. The two are mutually exclusive.  You can’t have it both ways unless you just insist on being historical revisionists which by the way the Nazis were really, really good at.  Hitler called it propoganda.

It is precisely that Hitler was nationalistic that he confiscated property from the Jews.  The Jews were not Aryan and not only did not deserve property, they did not deserve to live according to the Nazis.  The property was not confiscated because Hitler was against private property.  Ever heard of the Volkswagen (folks wagen). Hitler loved it…still around today as a private company. Communism (new word – not socialism) thought nationalism was the reason why wars were fought and class systems were founded.

Go ahead and call liberals fascists – just remember that if you participate in propaganda to further your cause you are part of the condemnation to come for forgetting history yet once again!

Nearly Every Member of Congress Voted for Intervention in Iraq?

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“I keep reading posts that say the war in Iraq was all the Republicans fault. My memory says that nearly every member in Congress (Democrats included) voted to declare war in Iraq.”

                                                                                                                                                   A Blogger

It was not “nearly every member of Congress” – Generally, Republicans favored it and Democrates did not but enough Democrates favored it to get it through.

United States House of Representatives

Party                                       Ayes                Nays

Republican                                215                    6

Democratic                                 82                 126

Independent                                  0                     1

TOTALS                                    297                 133
 

United States Senate

Party                                         Ayes                Nays

Republican                                    48                      1

Democratic                                   29                     21

Independent                                    0                       1

TOTALS                                       77                     23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Resolution_to_Authorize_the_Use_of_United_States_Armed_Forces_Against_Iraq

How I Really Feel About Contemporary Republicans

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For those of us that are proudly left of liberal the density of the last eight years slowly passes as a dark, soulless sludge.  We have never recognized ourselves in the reactionary slogans of the Republicans.  We only see their own narcissistic, dark dreams personified when they begrudge liberals or the left.  We still do not see president-elect Obama as a leftist ticket to power.  He is certainly a refreshing break from the dark mandrills of the right.  He offers the possibility for balance and sense as opposed to endless, self-righteous pontifications.  Since Reagan with the exception of Clinton, many of us felt the repulsiveness and alienation that the Republicans should be feeling now.  We have not been a part of the national debate only a pin-up cartoon of the right.  We know that the follies and decaying ideologies of the right would cave into their own dust and blow away but the stench of their rotten ideas reeked nausea in our entrails.  President-elect Obama is not left.  His stated ideology is not even liberal.  He is actually a centrist.  The thought of “centrist” has been hijacked for too many years by those that would make it ever so increasing right of the chest beating, never extreme enough right.

 Yep, Republicans are scared to death about the dark awakening.  They have lorded over the destruction of the middle class and did a brilliant job of getting folks to believe we were all “middle class” while things just kept getting tighter and tighter for those making under 100k/year.  They cut taxes? – how would you know if you make under 100K/year? – all the while health care has gone up, insurance, mortgages, food, gas for way too long, college tuition and we hung on like rats on a sinking ship, telling ourselves we were “middle class”, while the well to do bailed out and went to their favorite private island.  They killed our children and told us it was for freedom.  We were not middle class; we were duped, robbed, mugged and made to feel grateful for it.  Their children never pay the “ultimate price”.  Now the veil has been torn and the obvious can no longer be denied.  Their PR wears thin.  Their philosophy fails and they can no longer peddle their wares on the street.  They lost the election and every time they bellow and moan about the liberals, the evil government, socialism, they only show their clay feet and remind us of their legacy of tragedy.  All these vile terms they hurl look good compared to their bankrupt ideology.  Their violent sneers are all over the blogosphere. Their insults amuse.  They have yet to see the repercussions of their demise as they retreat back into their caverns to eat their own.  They only rattle their chains when they preach to their choir.  Only when they see their own dark face in all they now despise will they find the possibility for redemption.  “Class Warfare” is their term to remind them of their deepest fear – that average folks may wake and rise from their Darwinian oblivion.

Why I Am Not a Conservative

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There is nothing inherently evil about government and nothing inherently good about private business.  Those that would insist on either can only do so based on dogmatic, immutable and therefore, un-falsifiable, ideological grounds.  Once an ideology is calcified into a meta-ideology of this sort no contrarian, empirical event can dislodge it.  A meta-ideology can only re-prove itself.  It becomes an object of faith and ultimately requires violence to maintain it. 

The necessary condition that determines the merit of government or private business is vigilance.  Government and private business is actually an organizational continuum from large to small.  Those that deem big government as evil also deem small government as good.  Those that deem big business as evil deem small business as good.  A powerful government is like a monopoly.  It can determine the “free market” cost of its products and services. It can also determine its cost of materials (i.e., negotiating mass purchases) and salaries (i.e., forbidding collective bargaining and unions, outsourcing, relocating) based on its economies of scale.  This inherent organizational capacity actually diminishes viable competition.  While governments generally can’t go global, multinational corporations are global.  To the degree that a multinational corporation is global, it can subsidize its many business ventures vis-à-vis its enormous capital resources.  This results in decreased competition in the market.  For example, when a government subsidizes agriculture it makes it much harder for other countries to compete on equal footing and therefore, minimizes the possibility for viable competition.  Likewise, when the availability of capital is subsidized by corporations with huge reserves of capital it can leverage itself to such an extent that it can offer its products at a much lower cost than other competitors.  Thus, for example, mortgages can be cheaper in all the countries that it competes in than mere regional companies.  Economies of scale are what make anything such as a “free market” only possible as a meta-theology.  The “free market” left to itself will not encourage competition – it will stifle it. 

If the values implied by the use of the word “free” are innovation and increased value for the consumer then the more successful a corporation is and the larger it becomes the less meaningful these implications are and, in the worst case, the word “free” becomes only a bankrupt ideal.  The disadvantages of economies of scale in government or big business are the loss of efficiency and therefore, vigilance.  To the degree that inefficiency grows in an organization, bureaucracy grows and organizational entropy increases.  Diversity is suppressed and conformity is encouraged.  In this case, the organizational dynamic is reductionary and is aimed at self-preservation rather than innovation.  Conserving the inertia of the organization reduces the need for responsiveness to conditions outside the organization.  Responsiveness is vigilance.  Increasing organizational vigilance increases value to the consumer.  To the degree that an organization is enmeshed within itself also decreases value to the consumer and simultaneously makes competitive entry more difficult.  The result is a monopoly.  Furthermore, when a few large multi-national corporations determine a market segment without limitations the dynamics of a traditional single corporation monopoly equally apply to the market segment.  Competition decreases and inefficiencies increase.

Historically, such super-structures will collapse in on itself whether it is a government or a multi-national corporation but not before much misery and even tragedy has been expended.  The question that must be brought to the fore is, can we influence structures that are created by us to intervene before the natural death of our super-structures to prevent its cataclysmic havoc or do we adopt a lassie-faire approach in adherence to a non-retractable mega-ideology?     Government regulations can be implemented to protect the integrity of a governmental super-structure (self-protection) or to break down super-structure tendencies in multi-national corporations and increase competition and innovation in the market.  If government regulations stifle competition and innovation then, in a democracy, voters regulate the regulators by getting rid of them or, if not a democracy, then revolution. 

Revolution is the natural consequence for an oppressive government, super-structure to die.  However, the human cost is enormous.  Democracies intervene before this natural consequence is allowed to play itself out.  Democracy proves that it is possible to intervene and stifle the inertial effect of our government, super-structures.  Likewise, sound regulations whether on a national or international level can intervene in the natural death of a multi-national corporation.

 It would be sheer pessimism to insist that regulation cannot reduce the fallout from the natural death of global monopolies.  What this position really demonstrates is a mindless adherence to the meta-ideology of a mythical “free market”.  In this case, pessimism assumes nothing can be done to intervene in global monopolies and resulting economic catastrophes.  Lassie-faire hides an economic fatalism under the unquestioned metaphysic of a “free market”.  Pessimism always protects its underlying, unquestioned metaphysic.  If there is no underlying metaphysic then it is simply nihilism and pessimism is itself meaningless.  Unabated nihilism may rarely lead to creation but most typically results in infantile narcissism.  The only practical, alternative course of action is to intervene in the natural course of the market to prevent its global, cataclysmic demise. 

                Another inequality built into the global market is the varying temporalities of capital acquisition.  Multi-national corporations that are imbued with its own guiding value for self-preservation tend to make major decisions with its guiding principle favoring short term capital gain versus long term capital gain.  Ventures like research and development into fundamental new technologies are long term capital ventures.  If a large company can see a viable way to preserve itself by reducing this type of research and development, it will generally choose to do so.  This is how the auto industry in the United States has lost its way.  Instead of pursuing alternative energy for cars, they spent their time leveraging their current gasoline based technology and simultaneously trying to intervene in government regulations to preserve their existence.  Long term fundamental research into new technologies can never be equally competitive with short term capital gains for multi-national corporations.  If the natural tendency to realize short term capital gain in the market is not overcome and intervention does not occur then research and development is put off until it is too late.  The temporality of this type of research and development cannot be made to realize short term capital as other alternate strategies. 

                In medicine government has proven that public funding can offset the inherent inequities in long term research and development.  The government has used grants successfully for many years to introduce fundamentally new technologies into the market.  This technique can be generalized into energy and other pressing needs.  While this is not government intervention in the form of regulation it is a pro-reactive government intervention.

                The last point that needs to be made here is the crash course that traditional conservatism set us on.  Conservatives want “free market”, lassie-faire capitalism.  They also want less government.  This means less government intervention.  As has been pointed out smaller is good in terms of efficiency and innovation but in terms of checks and balances for multi-nationally corporations (or super-structures) less government intervention means the market is left to implode unimpeded from time to time.  Since the market is global and corporations can and will expand beyond the borders of a country, a policy of non-intervention and small government will not favor any particular country.  Capital and wealth can freely flow out to other countries beyond our borders as has been the case in recent years.  To insist that a “free market” thrive as conservatives would like is simultaneously to give up the notion to maintain our government’s status and ultimately, our self-preservation.  To insist that we are always going to be the best at every major undertaking and therefore always prolonging the existence of our government is to ignore the lessons of history and demonstrates another meta-ideology.  In the practical world, both conservative positions cannot be simultaneously held without sacrificing one.  While we do not want to condemn our country to oblivion we also do not want the government of the United States to take on the super-structure, inefficiencies previously discussed.  A global market owes no allegiance to a country.  The only way out is not to conserve but to intervene wisely.

Freedom Handout

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While the notion of freedom is a high and lofty ideal, exactly what it means and how it gets implemented demands thought prior to action.  Otherwise, we may find ourselves defending a “freedom” that is nothing other than a self-serving delusion and stuck in a quagmire while the body bag count goes up.  Did anyone give us a “freedom handout” when we wanted it?  We wanted it bad enough to make great sacrifices.  We had a resolve that included the vast majority of people in the colonies.  We did not have to convince a lot of “traitors to humanity on the left” (a convenient way of dismissing the majority without thought) to break away from England.  We do not need to lose our idealism but we do need to get real.   If we try to fight every battle for freedom for every one we may end up losing the war and ourselves in the process.  The resolve we had to implement our freedom did not depend on any “freedom handout”.  We would not have appreciated it if it had been given to us from another country.  The call of freedom is the call for self-responsibility.  Anytime someone is given something they did not earn they take it for granted.  If it comes cheap it goes cheap.  This does not mean we condone brutal, self-serving aggression when we see it.  It does mean that we have a realistic understanding of what freedom means and how it has value.  Knee-jerk reaction is not what makes freedom real.  A “freedom handout” does make freedom real.   To make freedom real a majority of people must thoughtfully resolve to make it their own no matter what the consequences.   Our resolve does not effortlessly apply to everyone, everywhere.  This is magical thinking (or no thinking at all).  Our anger and indignation does not create a resolve for freedom in other countries.  It only gives us an occasion for own angry, narcissistic catharsis while we sacrifice our young and cheapen the value of freedom.

Note: While I would not want to minimize the involvement of France, Spain and Holland in the Revolutionary War I would point out that the resolve of the colonies was already demonstrated and forged in the three years it took for France to get involved (four for Spain and Holland).  Washington himself was totally surprised by the fortunate, “Divine Providence” of these countries involvement.  In any case, I think if those countries had initially invaded England to give the colonies “freedom” my point would have failed.  As it is their involvement years later for their own reasons does not negate the patriots resolve.  I might also add that “freedom” in the case of the Revolutionary War may also have more meat on it than simply a lofty ideal (i.e., taxation without representation, etc.).