“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.”
By: Les Carpenter III
Rational Nation USA
In eighteen days it will be our nation’s 234th birthday. As we prepare to celebrate our unique and exceptional history, the nation is engaged in a great and profound battle for its very soul .We stand at the ultimate crossroads. The road we ultimately choose will determine whether this nation survives with our founding principals as the guiding light for future generations of free people.
After several days of visiting progressive blogs and contemplating their message and mission it became clear the battle lines have been drawn, and who is most responsible for drawing the invisible in the sand. It also became clear how profound and fundamental the differences are between progressives and conservatives or Libertarians.
While one can point to, and argue many specifics, the fundamental differences lie in the opposing values of individualism and collectivism. Our nation was founded on the belief in the rights of the individual not the collective. The Constitution was written to insure the rights of the individual would be protected against the tyranny of the majority or collective. The simple beauty of the experiment called America was that it became a nation of laws promulgated to protect the individual.
In so long as the individual respected the rights of all other individuals, and observed the laws enacted to protect the rights of all individuals society functioned well. Thus for the first time in history a nation was governed by laws and not by men. A truly radical and progressive system in the I800’s. It remains so today in the judgment of this publication.
I have stated the invisible line drawn in the sand by the progressives it is the line separating individualism from collectivism. The progressives ultimate goal is to bring collectivism to America in a way the Marxist Utopian ideal that government should take from those with the greatest means, and redistribute to those with the greatest need is achieved. Of course never attempting to identify and understand that at some point there will be few with means and a great number with extreme need.
The progressives desire to replace individualism with collectivism is nothing more than the desire to level the human playing field so everyone becomes entitled to that which their neighbor possess. Equal prosperity for all The issues of effort, ability, motivation, hard work, and perseverance are of no concern to the progressive or collectivist. Only the appearance of mass economic equality is important.
Of course the only way the progressive collectivist dream can be realized is through government oversight, deep taxation, and intrusive control over one’s personal and business life. The driving force behind the progressive collectivist is the desire and need for power. Power over anthers life and preferably over a nation.
The individualist is one who values his/her life and individuality. By their very nature they value liberty and understand it is right to value the right’s and liberties of their fellow men and women. They recognize that limiting the role of government results in the greatest liberty and ultimately prosperity for the general population and nation. The individualist also recognizes the inherent tendency for evil to exit with government.
The progressive collectivist by contrast sees people not as individuals but rather merely as a very small part of a greater whole. Their belief system says the individual is relatively unimportant and should set aside their desires and goals (sacrifice) to the goals and agreed upon desires of the larger society… The whole. It is then only natural the progressive collectivist belief system desires bigger and a more intrusive government. The progressive collectivist economic and social system requires large government to survive.
And so the battle between individualism and progressive collectivism will likely be the defining moment in our modern history. Either we will choose the road to individuality, liberty, and prosperity, or we will equivocate, abandon our reason and be lead down the road to collectivism, loss of liberty, reduced prosperity, or and as Hayek might say , down “The Road To Serfdom”
The Progressive collectivist will argue that because the populace has grown so must government also grow. I have no argument with this statement. However, once the proper role and scope of the federal government was set by our founding principals the cost per capita as a percentage of the total budget should be constant after adjustment for inflation. Programs falling outside the scope of the federal government is the responsibility of the state and or local government.
And so I am back. I will stand with the philosophy and principals of Jefferson , Ayn Rand, and all those on the side of reason, limited government, and who believe in our Constitution as written, and not how some libtards professor or lawyer wishes to interpret it.
I opened this op ed article with three of my favorite quotes by our third President Thomas Jefferson. His Jeffersonian logic stands as true and reasoned today as it did when he spoke the words. I shall, as stated above stand by these and I invite all who love liberty to stand by them as well.
I leave you with a quote from Bastiatarian (and here) left in my comment section a couple of days ago. It succinctly and accurately points out the variant collective threats facing us today.
Ah, yes, that’s a must read!
It’s sad and amazing that so many people think it can’t happen here. People seem to have such a knee-jerk reaction against holding up Nazi Germany as an example of what can happen, and pointing out the very clear parallels to what has been and is happening here, that even “conservatives” who should know better criticize people who make the comparison.
No, Barack Obama isn’t rounding up Jews and sending them to death camps, but that was only one of many evil and destructive things that Hitler did. I am absolutely sure that if Hitler had not been the head of a movement that slaughtered six million Jews, he would be an idol of the American left. Everything else he did fits perfectly into the “liberal” agenda.
Of course, Stalin and Mao were responsible for FAR more deaths than Hitler, but Hitler’s ideas and actions have been spun in a manner that attempts to trick people into believing that his philosophy was not the same as that embraced by Stalin and Mao. Basically, Stalin and Mao got better press, so they’re the darlings of the left, and Hitler has been portrayed as somehow being part of the “right,” as if he weren’t a totalitarian collectivist like Stalin and Mao.
The specific methods were very slightly different, but when it comes right down to it, there isn’t any meaningful difference in the political and social philosophies of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
All three of those beasts rose to power with a slogan of “hope” and “change” couched in the promise that the government was going to make everything all better. And the people got excited and supported them.
Oops.
It’s sad and amazing that so many people think it can’t happen here. People seem to have such a knee-jerk reaction against holding up Nazi Germany as an example of what can happen, and pointing out the very clear parallels to what has been and is happening here, that even “conservatives” who should know better criticize people who make the comparison.
No, Barack Obama isn’t rounding up Jews and sending them to death camps, but that was only one of many evil and destructive things that Hitler did. I am absolutely sure that if Hitler had not been the head of a movement that slaughtered six million Jews, he would be an idol of the American left. Everything else he did fits perfectly into the “liberal” agenda.
Of course, Stalin and Mao were responsible for FAR more deaths than Hitler, but Hitler’s ideas and actions have been spun in a manner that attempts to trick people into believing that his philosophy was not the same as that embraced by Stalin and Mao. Basically, Stalin and Mao got better press, so they’re the darlings of the left, and Hitler has been portrayed as somehow being part of the “right,” as if he weren’t a totalitarian collectivist like Stalin and Mao.
The specific methods were very slightly different, but when it comes right down to it, there isn’t any meaningful difference in the political and social philosophies of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
All three of those beasts rose to power with a slogan of “hope” and “change” couched in the promise that the government was going to make everything all better. And the people got excited and supported them.
Oops.
A special thanks goes out to my brother in Liberty. Tim at Left Coast Rebel, thank you my friend and together, along with all our Liberty loving brethren we will win this fight against tyranny.
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
ReplyDeleteProfound!!! nothing less…
Great post Les!
ReplyDeleteIt isn't that Hilter got worse press. It's because he lost the war. Stalin made Hilter look like an incompetent amatuer (seem familiar?) but because Stalin won and Hilter lost, Stalin's crimes were forgotten (or is that forgiven? UGH!).
ReplyDeleteThe Soviet-Nazi pact is why the Left demonized "Nazi" to the point that everybody in America cringed from being related to the movement. This was in 1930s and 40s, not modern day. Oh, it is still this way in modern Amerika? Whoda guessed.
ReplyDeleteThe Left, in their Communist mode, sold themselves to useful idiots here in the US by claiming to be the safer, better, alternative to joining Fascism. See, if you are poor and want to better yourself, you don't have to join fascism, which is nationalistic and scary, you can join Communism! Communism is Better and Nobler!
Well, that hit a stumbling block when the Nazi-Soviet pact was revealed. Then Communism, who had been "anti-war", coincidentally, then became pro-war after Pearl Harbor. Because by then, Hitler had attacked the Soviets. People gathered back around the Communist party, regardless of the fact that they felt betrayed by the alliance between Communists and Nazis, and felt reinvigorated under the war powers of America. The Communist Party gained back much of their influence, and more, after Pearl Harbor. Of course, to do so, they had to be even more vehemently anti-Nazi then they were "before when they were anti-Nazi but faking it". They had to be against the Nazis before they were for the Nazis, you see. And against the Nazis after they were for the Nazis too, especially after.
Ain't community organizing great. Next part up.
ReplyDeleteIn the days that have gone since we enunciated these statements so confidently I have had many occasions to see that this cataloging of people as either “right” or “left” has led to more confusion in American life than perhaps any other false concept. It sounds so simple and so right. By using this schematic device one puts the communists on the left and then one regards them as advanced liberals -after which it is easy to regard them as the enzyme necessary for progress.
Communists usurp the position of the left, but when one examines them in the light of what they really stand for, one sees them as the rankest kind of reactionaries and communism as the most reactionary backward leap in the long history of social movements. It is one which seeks to obliterate in one revolutionary wave two thousand years of man’s progress.
During my thirteen years of teaching at Hunter I was to repeat this semantic falsehood many times. I did not see the truth that people are not born “right” or “left” nor can they become “right” or “left” unless educated on the basis of a philosophy which is as carefully organized and as all-inclusive as communism.
[]
Since 1932 the Communist Party had publicized itself as the leading opponent of fascism. It had used the emotional appeal of anti-fascism to bring many people to the acceptance of communism, by posing communism and fascism as alternatives. Its propaganda machine ground out an endless stream of words, pictures, and cartoons. It played on intellectual, humanitarian, racial, and religious sensibilities until it succeeded to an amazing degree in conditioning America to recoil at the word fascist even when people did not know its meaning.
Today I marvel that the world communist movement was able to beat the drums against Germany and never once betray what the inner group knew well: that some of the same forces which gave Hitler his start had also started Lenin and his staff of revolutionists from Switzerland to St. Petersburg to begin the revolution which was to result in the Soviet totalitarian state.
There was not a hint that despite the propaganda of hate unleashed against Germany and Italy, communist representatives were meeting behind the scenes to do business with Italian and German fascists to whom they sold materiel and oil. There was not a hint that Soviet brass was meeting with German brass to redraw the map of Europe. There was no betrayal of these facts until one day they met openly to sign a contract for a new map of Europe — a treaty made by Molotov & Von Ribbentrop.
-Bella Dodd School of Darkness
The Left has been playing this Game of Kings for decades. Longer than anyone would normally imagine. Normally.