Fighting for the Right

A Time for Choosing

2008-10-28T02:21:00.004-04:00

On nights like these, I break down and cry. During these nights, I put infants to shame, not in terms of volume or in tears shed; rather, I surrender my internal checks guarding emotional release and allow the tears to flow as they may. There has not been a single funeral during which I cry or a tragic event or act of war that has leveled me to the point of capitulation.

You see, I mourn in the wee hours of the morning for my country. Ronald Reagan, in his 1964 speech to the Republican National Convention ("A Time for Choosing"), could not have been more prescient regarding the threats we face from moral relativism in terms of economic, domestic, and foreign policy.

A) We have no issue in confiscating wealth to the government in order to ensconce more rigidly the poor, who would benefit considerably more from private capital investment than government welfare checks.

B) The Constitution of the United States [which, by the way, our Founders risked their very lives for on charges of treason (and many of them sanctified our supreme law of the land with their blood) in order to found a nation based upon the natural rights of man, from which life is lived more fully, liberty more responsibly employed under the natural tempering of reason, and the pursuit of happiness gladly sprinted after by Americans with an enterprising spirit] has been denigrated by our legislators, executives, and judiciary as something antiquated and ill-suited for the governance of a populace seeking more, not less nanny-state intervention.

C) There exists more moral equivalence today regarding Islamofascism than ever more; thanks to biases against ethnocentrism and for moral relativism, group decision (i.e. power) has become the highest good due to moral relativism's definition ("A is proper if X says so."). Ethnocentrists, due to the nature of our founding upon natural rights, are horrified by the Islamofascists abroad unjustifiably killing people; moral relativists have no defense for whatever visceral disgust they may feel due to the fact that, as one group considers such reckless slaughter permissible and moral, it is somehow moral. Due to moral relativism, there shall be peace... and peace only comes from one decision: that being to surrender.

Barack Obama does not wish to debate the implicit premise held by the Democratic Party that the organized is infallible and the individual misguided and selfish. The Democratic Congress does not wish to relinquish its hold upon socioeconomic power; it wishes to use the redistribution of wealth through fiat, endless governmental bureaucracies existing in direct violation of constitutional mandate, and lifetime appointments of left-wing ideologues to the Supreme Court in order to subvert the last vestiges of the natural rights coalition that has bound our nation together for the past two-plus centuries.

It is frightening to remember that governments have never voluntarily relinquished power. As George Santayana said, "Those who refuse to remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Einstein noted that the continuance of the same things while expecting different results constitutes insanity.

The citizenry has come to value security over liberty; if you remember your Ben Franklin quotes, those who value a little security over liberty deserve neither. Many have come to prefer to live on their knees than die on their feet bearing the purposefully-burdened weight of their convictions. Many have decided that life is so dear and sweet as to be worthy of purchase through slavery and chains, to be robbed of their liberty in order to live in forbearance.

Fortunately, there exist those who refuse to allow such cowards to speak for the rest of us. We will gladly choose the preservation of liberty under just law over the prospect of living our lives and coercing our posterity to live under barbarous and relativistic conditions. We understand that we have a rendezvous with destiny in order to preserve for our children this, our last best hope on earth, lest we sentence them to jump into the abyss of fascism and socialism due to the abominable mistakes of their fathers.

May God have mercy upon my country. Our children do not deserve to live under the oppressive burdens imposed upon them by their forefathers... matters such as social welfare entitlements, continued abuse and denial of Constitutional sovereignty, and the firm belief that liberty tempered by reason is the paradigm under which a society discovers the greatest amount of personal, economic, and political liberty for the greatest number.

Laissez-faire!

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
-Ben Franklin

Has the Democratic Party not become the party of masters and not enablers of human initiative? See here and here for prominent examples. Instead of individuals providing for themselves with the maximization of their God-given talents, they slobber upon themselves and cry out for wealth redistribution in order to lessen their work burden at the expense of further robbing of the wealthy by government!

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.'"
-Jeremiah 29:11-13

See? God is not calling for legislators to enable us! God is not calling upon government to provide for us! In order to prosper, we must remember this...

"The highway of the upright avoids evil; he who guards his way guards his life. Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
-Proverbs 16:17-18

We mustn't become so complacent as to believe that government and legislators will have the answers for us in "making the pie higher."

"To presume to have recourse to power and taxation, besides being oppressive and unjust, implies further the pernicious assumption that the organized is infallible and that mankind is incompetent."
-Frédéric Bastiat

Nevertheless, I must remember Christ's greatest and (frankly) most manly appeal in the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to his arrest and crucifixion:

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
-Luke 22:42

These times shall certainly be interesting, but I pledge to my fellow countrymen one thing: I will not rest, I will not desist, I will not demur, I shall never be ashamed to call for the liberation of man from the bonds of corrupted nanny-state government and to instead call for the venturing of freed men into the light of natural rights, the augustness of the Constitution of the United States of America... and perhaps with divine intervention, individual-by-individual revelation regarding the infallibility of and truth that is the Word of God.

What a terrible ranter I am! :-p

2008-10-19T03:39:00.003-04:00

Mozilla Firefox (which I highly recommend for those of you viewing this on Internet Explorer... I pity you folks) holds a ridiculously high number of "favorite links" of mine, some having been on the list for over three years. While clearing away almost a third of them, I noticed this speech Obama delivered prior to his formal nomination and thought to myself: we simply cannot afford this guy.

"Thank you, Marilyn. It isn't right that you're working so hard and struggling so much just to pay your college tuition, and that's why we're here today - to talk about what we can do to make college affordable and help every American get a college education."

Really, is a college education the highest good? Is power the highest good? Is wealth the highest good? Can we in good conscience mandate away the fruits of production earned by others so that those who have not earned may further demonstrate ineptness and find themselves placed in situations where they are, frankly speaking, set up to fail? Could that possibly be morally justifiable?

...after all, for most (according to Charles Murray), college is a waste of time, particularly when so many jobs can be performed without, ahem, degrees. Certifications, perhaps? Frankly, the ever-increasing number of degree programs has cheapened to a significant extent the value of degrees "earned." Also, with the flood of individuals possessing and earning degrees since the post-WWII era, employers find less and less value in the degree itself, as college education has become misconstrued as a right rather than an economic enhancement paid for when the marginal costs are less than the marginal benefits accrued with the work involved in attaining that starched piece of paper.

If Bev Perdue, my North Carolina gubernatorial candidate for the Democratic Party, persists in pushing "free community college education" and Barack Obama persists in this "you don't deserve to work so hard!" bull, our education system will simply become even more of a mockery than it already is. Lowering the bar is almost always the preferred (if sneaky) option for those who cry that "failure is not an option." Ultimately, producers will be coerced to obscene degrees to subsidize mass failure thanks to the utopian ideals propounded by Perdue and Obama about an "educated" society.

...for kicks and giggles.

2008-10-19T03:16:00.002-04:00

While I was reviewing some clips from the most recent debate between Senators Obama and McCain, I remembered that a grand little blog called Division of Labour existed... and found this!

When matters become so outright ridiculous that I am considering voting for Bob Barr (the Libertarian Party candidate) over the GOP candidate, you know this country is barreling down the highway to Hell. (Then again, that's blatant exaggeration. I've steadily progressed towards classical liberalism for two years now, especially in consideration of the extensive reading I've done... e.g. Mises, Hayek, Rand, Bastiat, Friedman, etc.)

...despite the disconcerted nature of the economic landscape, some things still remain the same: GO LONGHORNS!

John Stossel had a great piece in the Wall Street Journal on Friday. If you missed the editorializing and his special that aired at 10 PM that night, you deprived yourself of what may have been the most educational thing ABC has broadcasted this year on this side of... bleck, Desperate Housewives isn't that great.

Finally, a fast book recommendation: Ayn Rand's Anthem is a great antidote to the transformational collectivism proposed by Obama.

Is it the end or the beginning?

2008-10-10T11:32:00.002-04:00

Hearing the crashing of the markets through multiple floors, we have to question whether we are nearing the end of Keynesian economic preeminence in the United States or the extra-constitutional use of governmental powers to try and engineer a picking process of winners and losers. Sadly, if human history is any indication, the latter is becoming the case, although there are sane voices out there.

Power is never the highest good.

2008-09-27T12:26:00.004-04:00

Irresponsible legislation, such as what we have chronicled here by a 1999 New York Times article, cannot fail to be the root cause of this financial crisis we have come to face. Guess who pushed this? C'mon, guess!

President William Jefferson Clinton.

Unfortunately, Congressional Republicans were in the majority at the time, so they must receive blame, also. Really gentlemen, you abandoned your principles that quickly?! At least the American Enterprise Institute covered the conservative planks by saying that the moves made by Congress and the President to artificially boost homeownership were, to say the least, risky.

When expediency overtakes principle in the consideration of policy, power is always evident as the primary motivation behind passage. Here, the President and the Republican majority in Congress at the time were in a power battle insofar as the Republicans regretted not having one of their own as POTUS while the President wanted his policy initiatives passed through prior to being lifted from his magic chair. Ergo, they resorted to earmarking and other corrupt practices while using Clinton as their convenient scapegoat.

No wonder the Republic is dead: those who claim to believe in it care nothing for being principled enough to legislate its continuation.

Deregulation makes sense.

2008-09-26T03:47:00.008-04:00

Don't worry: I haven't forgotten this blog's existence... far from it. Over the past weeks, we have witnessed a financial tidal wave similar to what our forefathers have faced with the financial panics and business cycle depressions present throughout our nation's history. Over the past few months, we have seen multi-billion dollar write-downs of bad debt by such venerable financial institutions (which have gone noticeably kaput) as Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Washington Mutual, J.P. Morgan, et cetera. American International Group, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual... they are not autonomous anymore, having been swallowed up by bigger entities (e.g. J.P. Morgan and Bank of America), consolidated into the federal bureaucracy with the aid of taxpayer dollars (as in the cases of Fannie and Freddie), or allowed to file bankruptcy. Trillions of dollars in equities and loans have been brought to the brink, if not pushed over, and the livelihoods of billions have been damaged to some extent or another due to the fact that the ramifications of these implosions ripple across the world. Even now, many foreign banks that operate in the United States are lobbying for bailout funds in exchange for more "accountability" (i.e. harmful, continued over-regulation) by our government; as a consequence of the perceived need of these bailouts, China (our largest creditor) has commanded their national banks not to lend to the United States until matters are more satisfactorily resolved in pushing for a more secure financial system.

Who can blame China? With our extensive set of social welfare entitlements, business regulations, and long-term debt, our creditors ought not rely solely upon the vague promise of "the good faith and credit of the United States of America." Frankly, from my standpoint, this country wouldn't be meritorious of a dime; this country must learn to hack away the cords that bind us to our parasitic, unconstitutional, and uncalled-for "social justice" programs designed to con the taxpayer of what is rightfully his at the expense of "providing" for the needs of those deemed to "deserve" so-called aid based upon paradigms designed by vote-seeking politicians, not truly benevolent private individuals. Isn't there something grievously wrong when our country's firms seek aid from our "benevolent" government, more honestly recognized as the fount of our economic and social oppression, than from other lenders of private capital? Wherever does our august Constitution grant authorization for interference in private business matters, much less outright management of the private sector?

Damned right: nowhere. Laissez-faire, fools.

It incenses me that government has so extensively regulated our financial institutions to the point that, frankly, they cannot survive upon their own merits. In 1977, President Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which sought to increase homeownership in this country by artificially lowering market-set parameters for receiving credit, expanded even further by President Clinton in 1994 prior to the Republican assumption of Congressional majority. These enabled minorities to own homes when their credit ratings were not deemed sufficient for prime rates by banks and opened the door for middle-class Americans to own homes that were well beyond conventional metrics of affordability calculation (e.g. do not lend when home value exceeds 250-300% of annual income). Homeownership, according to those two leftists, ought to be a "right extended" to all Americans, which is literal subterfuge for "a 'positive freedom' legislated upon the masses by a legislature involving the implementation of misguided moral imperatives in violation of individual natural rights." (Okay, so perhaps a more clear-headed person would have a less obtuse construction... just tag along with me here!) Also, since the advent of the civil rights movement (i.e. the 1950s), non-discrimination laws have been in force that have increasingly led to the tradition of the following train of thought on the Left.

1) People are created equal.
2) People can have rights.
3) People ought not be judged due to their equality and rights.
4) Ergo, people ought to receive equal treatment and, at some point, equal outcomes.

Let us ask two questions.

Is homeownership a right? No; it is something purchased, then defended with property rights to the extent that the home in question is implicated in contracts.

Is credit a right? No; credit is based upon calculated risks upon the ability of an individual or group to pay back liabilities lent over a period of time at a rate of usury.

Nevertheless, your ever-benevolent politicians believe that they can impose such positive freedoms as homeownership and sub-market interest rates with government interference at the expense of the defense of negative freedoms, i.e. natural rights. Their moral imperatives, their vision(s) as the anointed one(s) as legislators cloud their unmistakably-clear duty to the citizenry of the United States of America to defend their natural rights, e.g. life, liberty, and property!

Let's go from micro to macro, as we have seen how Carter and Clinton have sparked and exacerbated the subprime situation with Constitutionally unauthorized governmental intervention: if you are a bank, such as Washington Mutual or Citigroup, how does such policy affect your operation?

Remember, credit and homeownership are not rights; rather, they are paid for with the productivity of men, both past and future, as well as collateralized with current assets. Prime rates are set by markets, where countless individual actors contribute information regarding the futility or success of lending credit at certain rates of usury, where it is utilized to facilitate Smith's invisible hand, setting prices of credit at points of equilibrium (or, for the sake of understanding, interest rate). Banks have to be discriminative in terms of whom they lend to; reputations are especially useful in determining the substance backing the statement, "Yes, I can pay back this loan at the stated terms."

The Left has failed the marketplace, as they have sought to do since at least the time of Marx (and well prior to then, stretching back to the genesis of any protectionist thought that halted the vast productivity advantages afforded by comparative advantage). Their imposition of positive freedoms have misled individuals to believe that they can afford loans well beyond their capability to pay while banks have been coerced to loan capital to individuals at rates below market value of credit risk, a.k.a. the prime rate. Government has been assumed to know better than any one individual the capability of that one individual to pay off their liabilities with current assets and future possibilities of production while robbing banks of their right to judge risks in reference to market norms and the circumstances of potential clients/debtors.

This is wrong, and you know it. Deregulation must begin today; otherwise, individuals and firms will continue to be screwed by irresponsible legislators, who shall in turn sink the financial credibility of this nation with their patently ridiculous regulations, bureaucracies, and social entitlement programs. This proposed $700 billion bailout will put taxpayer money at uncalled-for risk under unconstitutional provisions, eroding the boundaries that government is supposed to respect between it and the private sectors of businesses and individuals. Unfortunately, a bailout will probably pass without deregulation, costing America her credit, her pruners, her promise to her citizens regarding her willingness to preserve their self-evident freedoms, and (frighteningly enough) her life.

Word of the Day

2008-09-08T14:13:00.003-04:00

SNOBaman- n. (pl. -s) a Constitution-raping San Francisco/Chicago leftist ignoramus who peddles any guilt narrative (regardless of validity) to shame the voting populace into voting for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

Mind you, not all Obama voters are SNOBamans, but a statistical 100% of SNOBamans are Obama fans and more likely than not will have significant influence upon economic, domestic, foreign, procedural and military policy.

One word: beware.

Flooring, golf, and faith: make a Venn diagram out of this!

2008-09-05T01:10:00.004-04:00

I could not have asked for a better dormitory than Umstead Hall here at East Carolina University. Certainly, it is convenient to any significant point of interest on campus. Granted, it is the EC Scholars/Honors/Teaching Fellows housing headquarters. As much as I despise not getting a considerable amount of mail in my box here as contrasted with my post office box twenty-five miles away, I even admire the mail room: simple, efficient, and concomitant with the lobby, which experienced a jump in its awesomeness quotient with the mounting of a new 50-inch Sharp high definition television.

However, on the second floor, where I happen to reside, exists my main reason for loving this place: the floor itself.

"Really, Dillon, that floor is just very old tile carpeted over!"

Of course it is! Do you really think that I've become that goofy by attending ECU over Wake Forest or Cornell?

As most of you know, I'm an avid golfer. I am, for all intents and purposes, a three handicapper who lights up any country club within fifty miles from home during the summer and shoots decently low numbers before winter foists itself upon my game, causing my handicap to rise in a dizzying fashion to double-digits due to maddening quirks, e.g. arthritis in my knees and finger joints. Putting is the strongest part of my game; if I am hunched over a forty-five foot putt on a contorted green and given five chances to hole out, I'll manage to drain at least the last one and leave at least two others inside of a four-foot radius.

It also happens that, despite my exceedingly filthy vernacular, I strive to follow God's Truth in the entirety of the Bible. As something of a moral absolutist, I consider the Bible my foremost source of guidance in terms of ethical behavior. My economic views (i.e. capitalism), for instance, are vindicated by it, despite the claims of the establishment churches today. There is considerable archaeological and historical authority attached to it, as the prophecies of God have been fulfilled consistently, time and time again, without failure in terms of occurrence. (Timing, however, is an entirely different manner; even Christians fail to remember that we act on God's time and not our own.)

That floor in Umstead Hall, as gum-splattered as it appears and cheaper than that Dum-Dum lollipop you stole at the five-and-dime store you went to as a young'n, is especially conducive to putting practice. It tests my patience and my concentration: people constantly come by and ask to attempt a putt from whatever distance I'm working on at the time or the tilt of the floor succeeds in exasperating me when attempting to roll dimpled Titleist orbs into a sidelined white cup. As of late, I've become very proficient at nailing the cup: on Wednesday night, I holed 14 out of 20 putts prior to quitting for the night on a ridiculously high note. However, as of this morning (yes, it is Friday morning), I haven't holed a single one since 12:10 or so. Absolutely, I've come very close indeed, smoothing seven balls within no more than a foot from the cup in one go-round. Nevertheless... not a one.

Considering how difficult a time I have had in being subservient to the will of God and not to my own vacillating whims and desires since arriving at East Carolina, I sincerely believe that tonight was an excellent metaphorical reference to the state of my faith. Simply put, it appears that I don't wish to engage in the investiture of my trust and spirit in God's omnipotent hands, despite knowing full well that doing so would significantly aid my maturity and progression in faith and performance.

Pray for me. That is all I can ask for.

Ridicule excellence?! What a great idea!

2008-09-04T01:00:00.005-04:00

Rarely do I consider Wednesdays memorable. After all, I am the quintessential Monday person; few wake up with the vigor I possess prior to sprinting to the toilet bank at Umstead Hall and preparing for, say, my business strategy course. However, Dr. Bassman, my socialist professor in HNRS 2116, succeeded in sealing the flavor of my day. The following is the exchange we had during an assignment where we were commissioned to disclose what we would wish for our loved ones to remember about us when at our funerals.

Dillon: "With all due frankness, I want the entire world to know that I am the biggest proponent of capitalism on this side of Ayn Rand. Also, the kids on the streets of Harlem can learn that I am an ardent admirer of Milton Friedman, Cookie Monster, and Rush Limbaugh--"

Dr. Bassman: "Excuse me, sir. Did you say Rush Limbaugh?"

Dillon: "Rush Limbaugh. Yes, sir."

(Dr. Bassman makes an indescribable facial expression.)

Dillon: "Eh... sorry sir? Pssht."

Dr. Bassman: "You might be dead sooner than you think."

Of course, he said that in jest, but I harbor serious doubts about the integrity of his purported principles of intellectual freedom and intellectual honesty when hearing from his past students, particularly EC Scholars and honors students. He has picked Shipler's The Working Poor and Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie for us to read, both being books that condemn capitalist tendencies towards "materialism," the former considerably more blatantly so than the latter. Nevertheless, I'll continue being the conservative libertarian firebrand in that class when the situation warrants such opinion. If our uniformed men and women are fighting unabashedly for liberty, life, property, and the Constitution, I ought to do my part and beat back socialism (de facto fascism) whenever possible.

My mother is the most fascinating and prescient woman in my life; I have punched Arab storekeepers and Mexican field hands for making snide remarks about her past. Sarah Palin is coming a close second; after relatively serious contemplation at Joyner Library prior to her magnificent dissertation upon the primacy of God and the principles this country was founded on, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to take appropriate action to spare her honor. For instance, I had a violent impulse when a prototypical Obama bandwagon rider pontificated that Sarah Palin had an ego the size of an elephant's arse while she was delivering her speech. Despite his considerable size advantage against me, I stormed to his door and considered knocking prior to turning away, remembering that argumentum ad hominem is used sparingly; it is never used legitimately when other arguments, e.g. policy ramification, are exhausted and empirically dead. Others have been patently ridiculous in engaging in argumentum ad hominem, attacking her credentials as a mother (particularly with regard to the current mess being brewed by the mainstream media with regard to her daughter's pregnancy), public official, and governor of the biggest state in the Union in terms of sheer size. Sure, she was somewhat overarching in terms of speech content, particularly stressing civil service's purported virtues. I disagreed with her entirely on the point of "energy independence," when she sounded more like my stage-one thinking stepfather and resembled less the critical thinking policymaker/economist, a la Thomas Sowell, Richard Rahn, or John Stossel. Nevertheless, she was in top form, simultaneously eloquent and brash in terms of appearance, rhetoric, and substance.

Fred Thompson, as many of my readers know, was my horse in the Republican Party primary. Consistently conservative, Southern-fried Reagan, United States Senator for the state of Tennessee, judge on Law & Order, tough admiral in The Hunt for Red October, and the list goes on... I haven't even mentioned that bombshell he wedded, Jeri Thompson. Those who were unfortunate enough to fall victim to the myth that he was a piss-poor campaigner who lacked "fire in the belly" (he did more events than McCain and Giuliani during the space of time he was in the race) or considered him deficient in terms of looks and business background (Romney), compromising ability (McCain), religious fervor (Huckabee), or heroism (Giuliani) did not get to experience his eloquence and charm. His oratorical performance Tuesday night, however, evoked tears and hand-clapping from me and monstrous uproars of approval from RNC delegates. If personal testimonies count to you, I will gladly submit that I was spellbound, as was the audience in St. Paul, with his recounting of the winding-yet-charming narrative that is John McCain's experience as both a war hero at the Hanoi Hilton and as a policymaker. His "fire in the belly" was on full display, his fervor with regard to the defense of our founding principles against socialists like Obama and Biden was easily proven, and his brilliantly-constructed and strikingly polite subliminal attacks against the Democratic slot of the ticket could not have been better embedded and more spectacularly received. Honestly, if not for the media in this country, he could certainly be my nominee for President of the United States.

Actually, if not for the mainstream media, Limbaugh, Palin, and Thompson wouldn't be so castigated. Limbaugh would be rightly recognized as an innovator of the talk radio format as well as communicator and modernizer of conservative principles. Palin could very possibly receive the adulation she so richly deserves from the American people instead of such snide and not-so-artful attacks as the one Us Weekly dished in their current issue while giving the Obama family red carpet cakewalk treatment. As for Thompson, history will vindicate the correctness of the principles he holds so dear: the ones of our founding. His fidelity to them is a striving affair, but his willingness to communicate to the Washington establishment and to the American people as a mass the necessity of a return to such ideals as Constitutional sovereignty, limited government, free-market capitalism, and individual freedom is certainly not subject to vacillation.

The asininity of the Left becomes more evident each day, with each story the mainstream media advances, with each policy proposal (of sorts) pushed by the public relations arm of the Obama/Biden campaign (wait, isn't that all the campaign is?), with each uncritical convert gained by the Obama camp, which just happens to be engrossed by messianic concepts, Marxism, and radical pro-globalism and anti-Americanism (evidenced by his apologizing for this great nation at Berlin's Victory Tower). Talents like Limbaugh, souls like Palin's, and principles like Thompson's are simply trashed, pimped only to denigrate their public perceptions and not to advance general debate over the legitimacy of the ideas that have/could drive this nation.

Ultimately, do we vindicate our self-evident principles or succumb to the myriad modes of confinement imposed by pragmatism? I'll leave that for your conscience to debate. The examples I posed took the first part of the bargain; I can only appeal to God for the strength to emulate the example that Christ set: to live and lay down life as testimony to the legitimacy of the Truth.

Working? Pssht! Never!

2008-09-03T02:28:00.006-04:00

What an interesting observation: the rich work harder and the poor work mainly towards the goal of subsistence! Before I launch into this, I am not shooting at Felix Salmon here; rather, I am generally disgusted with the mainstream media's silly pontifications with regard to the correlation of work to happiness.

Remember that observation? I laced it with all due sarcasm; frankly, it isn't a particularly earth-shattering revelation. One of the more irritating things I find in reading through economics-related materials is that too many commentators are content with sophistic rambling over whether working harder for more capital drives people closer to self-actualization than inactivity on the labor front. Very rarely do such learned individuals as economists take a deeper look into why the poor have assumed such a meager goal as bare sustenance for themselves while the wealthy seek to amass more capital for increased production.

In Austrian economics, incentives and deterrents are utterly critical in gauging the probabilities (oftentimes actualities) of action by an individual. After all, people respond to incentives, as eminent economists Ludwig von Mises and Greg Mankiw have noted. Many economists twiddle their thumbs and look at the sky in making sense of the phenomenon. The answer is surprisingly simple when one thinks even marginally beyond the superficial: as individuals respond to incentives and deterrents, work is usually postponed or shafted in favor of not having to do so as long as the perceived economic benefits stemming from not inputting labor as a result of often government-engineered externalities is greater than the marginal benefits and costs of renting out labor. For instance, in The Working Poor, sob stories are exhibited and exploited by the author to advance the patently ridiculous viewpoint that government, not private enterprise, should become more involved in mobilizing labor. To Shipler, the lack of applicability of the social mobility theory to many of the chronically unemployed and maligned (often by their own volition) is enough to warrant wholesale government intervention in the economy for the sake of the extreme minority. However, the savvy of the "economic underclass" of Shipler's is demonstrable in the stories he tells of individuals attempting to balance work with eligibility for welfare payments, attempting to (in my natural rights paradigm) unlawfully gain through Robin Hood the fruits of other people's labor while marginally supplementing it with their own, if at all. (Note here that these people are rational decision makers; they are thinking on the margin in terms of how many units of work versus inactivity will allow for the greatest allocation of pie to them.)

Of course, the wealthy are mentioned here as more stressed-out than ever before; their amassing of sums of capital for investment and consumption is not correlative to buying happiness. Isn't that even moderately subjective? Stress and happiness are by no means mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed. For myself, I thrive in pressure-packed environments, particularly when math or oratory is involved in the proceedings. Fairly noted here is the discouragement of the rich that ensues from the gross taxation of earnings by insidious government... or, more correctly, law, order, and its bureaucratic minions. Taxation always serves as a disincentive to greater investment, particularly when earnings, which are the legitimate fruits of labor and capital investment, are often swiped in bulk by Robin Hood (i.e. government) to become redistributed wealth in the hands of the less productive (who, by extension, are less meritorious of such windfalls). Ultimately, I dispute two things: one, stress and happiness are not mutually exclusive; two, the concept (not promoted by the article, thankfully) that taxation and redistribution of wealth are somehow beneficial to the advancement of market efficiency and societal development.

I'll leave the psychological analysis to those more predisposed to such; in the meantime, I shall return to Human Action by Ludwig von Mises.

Bad policy is often chocked with moral hazards.

2008-09-03T02:02:00.004-04:00

Very few central bankers will admit what Harvey Rosenblum so frankly stated to Steve Liesman in an interview conducted for CNBC: central banks, the Federal Reserve being one by a matter of definition, exist to generate and temper moral hazard. Moral hazard is, in this situation, the interference of government into private affairs insofar as the monopoly on power (i.e. government) insulates interests from accountability (i.e. losses) through assuming risk with taxpayer dollars and without taxpayers' consent. If one studies the history of banking consortia in the United States, one would realize that bankers have begged governments for such intermediaries since (at least) the time of Morgan and Rockefeller. The manipulation (i.e. debauchery) of the currency through fractional-reserve banking (de facto Federal Reserve and commercial bank policy) and silly interest rate vacillations (which are better set by Wall Street markets than banking czars in Washington) have enabled the government to become the prime beneficiary of the moral hazards they have legislated into existence. In essence, they can run up debts and not be overly concerned about paying them down, especially in consideration of the prolonged drumming-down of the unit of account's value relative to gold and other currencies. Also, banks can continue to record obscene profits due to unscrupulous lending practices, crying foul and for governmental intervention (i.e. influxes of taxpayer money and devalued currency) when their shady propositions turn sour. Whenever I hear Ben Bernanke these days, all I can think of is this magnificent slap-down of modern central banking by Ron Paul and how shifty the Federal Reserve chairman is.

Always remember this: the seemingly benign can very well be malicious; seemingly prescient and pioneering policy (e.g. the institution of central banking in the United States) is most certainly capable of having damnable consequences, despite the well-meaning intentions of policymakers.

Haphazard? Indeed.

2008-09-01T01:23:00.001-04:00

Big news: Sarah Palin, the best-looking and most competent woman in the Republican Party (sorry, Ms. Coulter) is switching her office from Juneau to (God willing) Washington. Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, et cetera (including myself) were highly enthused with Sen. McCain's selection for vice president. It beats Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, and Mitt Romney insofar as those three have significant drawbacks on the vote; Palin only serves to solidify and motivate the base while becoming a case in chasing history with regard to (very possibly) being the first woman vice president in history. How compelling is that storyline? While Obama and Biden admire her figure, I'll continue blasting the implausibility of their ideas and ruthlessly presenting the agenda of the right.

College never seems to fail in surprising me.

1) I don't understand how nine people can congregate around a Quija board and become emotionally aroused without someone calling "bullsh*t" (especially when I am not around to assume that noble responsibility).

2) There exists a particularly splendid group of folks over at College Hill Suites who never fail in reminding me that there is no shame in refining the nature of my Christ tracking here at East Carolina. I salute that core group of individuals for their willingness to transport my silly freshman hindquarters to an awesome church in Winterville. (Discovery Church is the one I speak of, though I am still itching to get to Open Door sometime before the end of the fall.)

3) My two socialistic honors professors aren't quite as patently ridiculous as I feared, though from what I have been informed by past students, the improprieties they assume in terms of grading can be especially damaging to one's academic reputation.

4) Joyner Library's study rooms have been invaluable thus far in sparing me from, frankly speaking, most of the hellish vicissitudes of social life, college edition.

Malanga hardly ever fails to serve as highly informative reading material, especially when the debate turns to whether or not tax rebates are redistributions of wealth. (They are.) If you want a refutation of Keynesian economics, you can start with Mises and Rothbard, then continue onward to guys like Tamny, Malanga, and myself. It is unfortunate that my extremely kind microeconomics teacher and his textbook's writer, Greg Mankiw, are so adamantly pro-Keynes, but it's quite alright: the real world often has to assume the role of purifying agent with regard to cleansing the mind of the inapplicable and naive dogmatic trash taught in college. Robin Hood-ing is inexcusable under any and all circumstances.

These cats are dipping into the goldfish bowl... unimpressively so.

2008-08-27T00:40:00.005-04:00

Remember T.E. "Crazyman" Scott, the man who is ardently against risking your money on the stock and commodity markets? Remarkably enough, "Marxist toilet paper" is a three-word phrase that is striking enough for a blog entry to gain notice with his pal/editor, Stephen Edds. (For the record, I'm going to retract that clause, though I still consider the propositions set forth Marxist in nature.) The entry in question could be considered a frontal attack upon whatever faculties of critical thought I possess.

The last time I checked, risk is inherent in anything we do, particularly when we discuss the investment of private capital. Scott preaches in the linked video that, in essence, we would be far better off to "avoid the fat cats" and stay away from stocks and commodities contracts. Of course, that could be done: one could do what Edison did after selling his telegraph machine to Western Union and stick some $40,000 in a mattress. However, what could one merit from that?

1) Security is relative, not absolute. The Federal Reserve is artificially inflating currency supply, reducing over time the potency of the savings of retirees. One could feel secure with the tangibility of cold, hard cash, but investment of capital is critical to drive returns. (Regarding the Federal Reserve: see my case against it and my unabashed admiration of the gold standard.) Return on investment is usually generated from the funding of entrepreneurial endeavors. Such endeavors bear risk. Risk is necessary in order to define, connect to, sell to, and establish markets. Such risk enables the employment of millions of people in the United States. Such risk-taking must have cast considerable worry upon Mr. Scott, who started a feed company after years working with Eastern Airlines... or anyone else, for that matter, who is a corporate upstart. As an entrepreneur, he is liable for losses if his balance sheet becomes insolvent. Publicly-traded corporations organize ownership through shares and corporate bonds in order to spread out risk in more manageable bits. As prices go higher per share, the perception of risk becomes a question of opportunity cost: does the shareholder sell now and take present gains for investment/consumption, or does the shareholder restrain himself and, with analysis, press on in thinking that future share value will rise? There is the risk of jumping ship too early and sinking with the ship. Trading tools such as limit orders allow individual shareholders to better strategize their participation in the markets: such orders allow him to set an entry/exit price for a marginal brokerage fee. Over time, stocks have proven far more effective at beating inflation in terms of performance than small-time entrepreneurship (where as many as 80% of businesses fail in the first five years, according to several governmentally-sponsored studies) or stark cash, which happens to lose real value due to Federal Reserve currency manipulation and fractional-reserve banking. Thanks to an unstable unit of account, the Edisonian method of hoarding simply isn't enough. Thanks to a variety of factors, much coming from the governmental end regarding business regulation and the corporate tax code, small business entrepreneurship isn't quite practical; indeed, there is an oversupply of "spirit" and an exceedingly sordid lack of practical know-how. Ergo, stocks are necessary for those without the entrepreneurial know-how and are looking for returns.

2) According to Scott, some 95% of investors lose money on the stock market. Ergo, people shouldn't play with stocks and 401ks because they will "lose money."

Wrong. Virtually 100% of investors lose money on the stock market. The same goes for those on the commodities futures markets. Scott's statistic-of-sorts is a hasty generalization: although there are winners and losers on the stock market, most people come out winners in the end when they are diligent and aware, which doesn't require too much skill beyond reading a simple balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, and some key statistics regarding the company's income and market niche. People aren't quite as dumb as they are portrayed to be; the fear, the risk of losing money is essential because failure is as important as success in capitalism insofar as it tells shareholders and corporations that their concepts and operations are not what the marketplace demands or is most efficient for production. You cannot mandate winning, not even for subsets of society or the economic ladder: it is futile, it is robbery, it is Robin Hooding, and it is impossible.

3) Scott states that the "fat cats" are secretive and love to manipulate the unenlightened, like you and I, into investing in order to rob us. Enron and Worldcom are two exceptions to this rule, of course... bad accounting will screw over any company. Some people simply shouldn't participate in investing in stocks because of a lack of education regarding economics and business principles, both subjects that are nowhere near as confounding (or as elitist, for that matter) as many cast them to be. Usually, brokers state that "past returns are no indicator of future results" in advertising in order to tell the unsuspecting the obvious. Chasing high returns for their sake alone is, of course, as dangerous as a walk around Walden Pond with Satan. Nevertheless, gunning for them is not impossible. Being privy to inside information is also unnecessary (and using such information is usually illegal) to making big returns. A knowledge of the fundamentals of economics, particularly supply and demand principles, as well as snippets of accounting (e.g. reading balance sheets and income statements) will take an investor far in generating judgments regarding transactions. After all, there is a plethora of material out and about (i.e. financial fundamentals, analyses, advice, etc.) that can be utilized to come to judgments regarding a company's viability. Ergo, there is relatively little secretiveness; otherwise, the market would punish it by not investing in the company's endeavors and spread suspicions that the operation is fly-by-night.

4) I do not know where the Biden connection is coming from within the Scott camp. Calling out similarities is fair game. Go to the entry they posted and see what I mean.

5) "We believe in capitalism and the encouragement of private businesses like Scott Pet Products. But what happens when they go public and they use the 'free capital' to develop an unfair advantage to bully private companies? These companies in many cases don’t run more efficiently than private companies, or run the companies with the best interests of minority shareholders or employees in mind."

Pssht. Capital is never free, for one: there are always costs associated with benefits. That's microeconomics fundamentals for you. Secondly, "bullying" is a loaded term: what Scott may consider "bullying" is simply the burgeoning of the market share of publicly-traded companies due to their efficiency as opposed to many private businesses' calls for parity. Finally, there is a remedy for the last sentence: stockholders pull out of companies they dislike and pool their capital where they believe it is better utilized. If employees feel they are treated unfairly, they can a) appeal to unions (though I hate them for reasons better suited for another entry), b) appeal to the legal system for redress, c) appeal to the employer, or d) leave for another job that will reward their time, productivity, and desire for advancement in more satisfying ways. The victim mentality just doesn't work here.

6) "As for Obama/Biden, if they support real Wall Street reform, we’ll support them. If McCain, Barr, Baldwin, Nader, McKinney or General Zod provides a real agenda of campaign reform, we’ll support them. Our mission is to protect the people from Wall Street. Does that make us Marxist? No, it makes us Americans."

The clause "...to protect the people from Wall Street" is Marxist, which is inherently economically fascist due to the sharp elimination of choice, initiative, potential, and capital under Marxist systems. Without Wall Street, risk would be far too burdensome for individuals; diversification of risk enables the investor of capital to minimize risk in certain economic sectors without being burned for over-specialization in one or two. Without Wall Street, those without entrepreneurial spirit and (to some degree) know-how would not have an option to outlet capital to. Americans don't need more protection from Wall Street; rather, they need more exposure to it, more education with regard to economics, and more discretion in terms of strategizing the allocation of capital to certain places, e.g. financial instruments like bonds, stocks, and futures contracts. To protect, to mandate Wall Street's existence away, to eliminate publicly-traded companies would only serve to minimize economic liberty, the one thing that my forefathers would be downright indignant with me for even contemplating proposing.

This is by no means a conclusive case against Scott's thesis: we're being manipulated by corporate America insofar as we are being conned into buying shares of public corporations and futures contracts of commodities and that we should halt immediately in order to "stick it to the man." However, I do not agree at all with the thought that there should be no risk whatsoever in investment; the transfers of risks between parties perceiving themselves less capable of holding them and those more accepting of risk at a certain price are what drive this economy. Those who use risk to educate themselves on their limits and their strategic paradigms as investors often find themselves far more capable of driving positive returns in the marketplace. Losers will learn and apply risk management less consistently than winners. Markets reward wise risk-taking. Ergo, such institutions as the CBOT and the NYSE should not be abolished; rather, people should do a far better job of educating themselves on the inherent risks of entrenching capital in such systems of investment instead of going upon blind faith. Economies without risk are unproductive, contracting, inherently nihilistic, and downright impossible to create, even with the redistribution of wealth from those with more capital to those with less.

Really, I thought these guys had bigger fish to fry than some college-age eighteen-year-old from rural North Carolina. Attention-whoring, after all, is not and has never been my forte.

Joegasm!

2008-08-23T19:27:00.003-04:00

Honestly, if John McCain cannot win this election against the "clean and articulate" race baiter and the "policy wonk," he will be the biggest implosion and the least-capitalized electoral opportunity for conservative-libertarian advancement since, at the very least, Bob Dole. Biden seems effervescent, vibrant, experienced, and eloquent... at time. Other times, he is a domineering and manipulative Washingtonian hack job, less conducive to Obama's rhetoric of "change" and the "politics of hope" than he is to charges of disingenuousness. For instance, he tried to nail Justice Clarence Thomas on a statement that sly Biden wrenched out of context.his revered "combativeness,", Obama has devolved from the transformational candidate of the "new politics" to the styles that have allowed politics to survive as the second-oldest institution in the world... one that is far too similar to the first (i.e. prostitution).

Those of you who like the McCain-Lieberman coalition ticket idea should certainly reconsider after this argument posed by Jim Geraghty on National Review Online. Certainly, those who are free-market conservative libertarians like myself will despise Lieberman, as he caucuses with the Democrats and has been heavily in favor of the expansion of entitlement programs throughout his tenure in the United States Senate. His preternatural disposition to Robin Hooding taxpayers and corporations (which involves going after the "fat cats" like T.E. Scott "educates" us through his asinine Marxist toilet paper) makes my skin crawl, as well as that of others who value liberty, life, and property. These shows of change and compromise by McCain are utterly superficial, in contrast to the bold consequences of all policy actions and the nature of how this campaign ought to be. The ramifications of bad policy are too awful to allow McCain to pick a practical socialist as his vice presidential candidate. After all, the last thing the GOP needs at the moment is a man as vice president who the Democrats can call out and say, "We've won the agenda war!"

This VP-stakes bull has to cease and desist. I'm going to throw in some currency speculation stuff in rather quickly. Silly Lawrence Summers is stating with reticence that inflation is going to be difficult to allow to spiral out of control with so much public wariness. Of course, the former Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton is wrong; even in good times, currency mismanagement can undermine economic growth and make capital growth possibilities more constricted, especially under superfluous new regulations concomitant with the current fiat currency stupidity. Stable currencies are paramount to economic growth; without stable units of account, one cannot effectively tabulate the magnitude of factors upon the economy as well as the degree of performance currently undergone. The Federal Reserve must go in order to allow this to occur; see my argument against its existence and the most practicable solution to the widespread currency debauchery.

Forgive me for not being more frequent. Metamucil isn't going to help. =)

The Left=Patently Ridiculous

2008-08-22T15:01:00.005-04:00

If anything is more straightforward and evident through the machinations of history and the laws of economics than the proposition that socialism is patently absurd in terms of implementation and logical discourse... bah humbug. Sure, there is an omnipotent and omniscient God and humans operate better under a system of liberty under proper law, but seriously, only the facetious or the ignorant could argue a case for socialism.

Yes, Paul Krugman is a dumbass. So is this guy, T.E. Scott, who is utterly ignorant of classical economics. Evidently, he is so enlightened in contrast to the rest of us that he can pontificate that markets don't work and that "95% of people lose their money on the stock market." No dip, Sherlock... losses and profits both occur in speculation because speculation is the mutually-consenting transfer of risk from a party less capable of bearing it to a party more willing to do so. Some tool he is, like MSNBC's Dan Abrams, who is getting shafted by the woman who makes me regret the Nineteenth Amendment, Rachel Maddow.

Meanwhile, John McCain has been renascent, taking aggressive shots at Barack Obama's silly economic policies. I don't agree entirely with it; after all, I prefer Bob Barr to any of the candidates in this election. Nevertheless, the radically left-wing Democratic Party is in for a rude awakening insofar as their potency is concerned; they are learning, slowly but surely, that strong and ideologically savvy minorities can shove boots up their collectivist hindquarters.

College move-in is patently ridiculous.

2008-08-15T21:47:00.001-04:00

Somehow, I survived today without too many tears from my mother and rants from my step-father.

You see, today was move-in day. Jason Ross, my good friend and roommate, also moved in today.

Considering packing, unpacking, organizational stuff, bureaucratic crap, et cetera et al, I have not posted and will not post until tomorrow.

May God bless you all. Thank you for your patience thus far.

My Succinct Case Against the Federal Reserve

2008-08-11T22:24:00.005-04:00

(I wrote this over a month ago in response to questions posed by my good friend, Hersh Patel, regarding the integrity of the financial system of the United States. Of course, I spent a considerable sum of time making this as comprehensible a case as possible. Read, critique... and, just perhaps, enjoy. Stuff like this only vindicates my desire for a finance-related career.)

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, instituted by FDR during the early 1930s to halt the bank runs occurring during that time, purportedly insures $100,000 per account held in subscribing banks. Bank runs in general are caused by insolvency, and when rumors of insolvency are out and about amongst the general population, people come in droves to retrieve their assets from their banks. However, when so many people come in, banks can't redeem all of their deposit demands! The link is just one example.

Now tell me: how can this be? How can't you get back what you have yourself deposited? Fractional-reserve banking is your culprit; however, I must get into some history and conceptual thinking to satisfactorily corroborate this.

At the beginning of civilization, barter was the predominant form of trade. Joe and Jack traded for goods they wanted with what they produced. Whenever they couldn't pull that off, they'd go to intermediaries to trade for goods that would be satisfactory in trade. Eventually, this was baffling and uneconomical time-wise, so items of limited supply and portability, such as gold and silver, were utilized as mediums of trade, which we call "money." They were limited, difficult to counterfeit after proper minting, and very easy to store and take around. They would get burdensome sometimes, however, and were frequent objects of theft; therefore, goldsmiths served as bankers, accepting the gold and silver and exchanging them for what we call warehouse receipts, entirely redeemable for the gold or silver in that person's vault. The depositor paid a storage fee to the goldsmith, received his gold, and walked away. Honest? Absolutely so.

Gold, however, is a fungible good, like money... for the record, gold and money are interchangeable in my lecture here. Gold has various degrees of purity, from 10K to 14K to 24K, but gold is gold. Depositors do not care if the gold in question is THEIR gold as long as it is of the same quality, unlike, say, loveseats and recliners. As only so much gold will be redeemed at one time, guardians of it will take the temptation of counterfeiting warehouse tickets and generating a profit with them by lending them at interest or speculating with them. Bailment law for all other fungible goods does not permit counterfeiting of such warehouse notes, but nineteenth-century British common law enables banks, under the Peel Act and judicial activism, to play with deposits as if deposits are the property of the bank (see Foley v. Hill and Others, House of Lords, 1848 under Lord Cottenham... yes, I do my legal research, too), and we haven't gotten around to straightening out that precedent. (That is why I sometimes dislike stare decisis, but, yes.) As these warehousers-turned-speculators play with these deposits with counterfeited tickets, indistinguishable from real tickets except when all of the tickets are redeemed and some are without their deposits at the expense of the counterfeiters, losses are bound to occur. These losses mount. People become antsy and want their tickets redeemed. Lo and behold, crap hits the fan and not all of the tickets, purportedly real and issued by the warehouser, can possibly be redeemed. The supply of warehouse tickets has been increased, but the real asset, gold, does not back each one of them totally, which legally constitutes fraud except when it comes to money, for the asinine reason that bailment law, wrongly for that matter, permits deposits to be treated as assets to the corporation rather than bailments, assets of other individuals under full-reserve guardianship by the corporation.

Let's continue. Hypothetically, BA and BB are two companies in existence; BA uses ABC Bank and BB uses CBA Bank. ABC Bank uses fractional-reserve banking, holding 10% in reserves while lending 90% out; CBA doesn't, using full-reserve banking. BA provides a check to BB, who presents it to CBA to be presented to ABC. Let's say it is a huge check, a check bigger than the total backed reserves of the bank. ABC becomes insolvent. A bank run wasn't necessary; it simply took another institution holding ABC accountable for expanding their money supply fraudulently and to the hilt. A cartel would prevent this... something that a central bank could provide.

Ultimately, the central bank comes in. Banks love the central bank because a) it will demand and receive the monopoly right to print money by government fiat, b) it can refuse to redeem warehouse tickets, e.g. paper money, in specie under legal fiat, and c) it enables them to engage in further fractional-reserve banking because, hey, the central bank does it to expand the money supply without basis. Money supply by central banks is necessary to pay government debts, since government provides no economic service that can be reciprocally paid for in a capitalistic economy... government would prefer to outlaw specie payments and make the currency produced sole legal tender via fiat rather than be held accountable for being monetarily insolvent and economically inviable.

FDR outlawed gold possession for some time, and Nixon halted all redemption of Federal Reserve Notes in specie.

Banks today, starting from the twelve main Federal Reserve banks downward, engage in fractional-reserve banking through the imposition of reserve requirements, usually rendered as a percentage of overall holdings. The Federal Reserve only has $300 billion in total assets, yet they have issued trillions upon trillions upon trillions of dollars in notes. Insidious, isn't it?

Only the Federal Reserve Note can be used as legal tender for all debts, public and private. (Search "Liberty Dollar" for an insurgent attempt to start an honest unit of account slammed by government because of the Federal Reserve and the Mint's legal monopoly upon currency and coin production.)

I think, at this point, we can disprove fractional-reserve banking's claims of validity. However, I still have to cover FDIC and "too big to fail." This will be comparatively quick; I had to give you some intellectual framework to get you to appreciate my viewpoint.

FDIC insures $100,000 per account, as I have already told you. However, it only holds 1 to 2% of the total it purports to "insure," which should sound suspicious right now. Insurable risks are random, homogeneous... because of this, such risks can be evaluated in terms of probability of occurrence using the laws of large numbers and actuarial skill. Business losses, on the other hand, are not insurable because if they were, moral hazard would come into play: businesses would simply default and accept "insurance" payments for their inviability or insolvency. Markets, or more properly, their participants, unlike sickness and random and unfortunate events (e.g. fire and burglary), are constantly influencing each other, so their losses are patently uninsurable because the participants are culpable for allowing crap to hit the fan. "Deposit insurance" is simply a sad racket, a racket that has the potential to hurt millions upon millions of lives because of the perception that deposits can be trusted at local banks with government backing that isn't all-there when local banks become insolvent due to fractional-reserve banking.

I hope you follow me thus far. I've been thinking and typing for two hours. I hope, for starters, that you've become more wary of the Federal Reserve, central banking in general, fractional-reserve banking, and the FDIC. I'll now get into "too big to fail."

"Too big to fail" is patently ridiculous in a capitalistic economy. Chrysler, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Bear Stearns... these firms were "too big to fail" and were bailed out with taxpayer dollars and/or corporate intervention. Government subsidizes losses with a safety net backed by fraudulent Federal Reserve Notes and taxpayer dollars funding unconstitutional purposes.

We establish the principle, but we have to dispel the pragmatism. How? Simple: it is ultimately more economically beneficial for a bust to occur QUICKLY (and painfully, of course... that should go without saying) than for it to be prolonged due to government subsidies and overall intervention. All of those New Deal-era institutions bailed out by government were inviable; had government not interfered via the Federal Reserve and Congress, the big bust would have been quick (and painful, of course), but recuperation would have occurred much more quickly because core capital, e.g. entrepreneurial, physical, and intellectual capital, is retained; only fiduciary capital has been lost. It would take less time to rectify and redevelop fiduciary capital rather than to suppress the development and utilization of all capital through a command and control mechanism such as government. Capital suppression over time, nagged by government subsidies and "solutions," only worsens and grows the problem due to the inhibition of normative capital formation processes, i.e. through private means and development, not through redistributed income taken from the population at large merely to serve certain subsets of persons and interests. It is ultimately better for a competitor to assume control of market share, physical capital, and mental capital rather than to worsen the problem with taxpayer dollars and bad socialist-inspired economic policy.

In all this time, I haven't mentioned the fact that taxpayers foot whatever debts are incurred. It's easier for a politician to give gifts, to bail individuals out, to be charitable in the interests of a few with the money of others rather than with their own. It is a shame that so many have become so naive to the threat these bailouts create: entitlements "bail out" all sectors of individuals while inhibiting the private sector in terms of business opportunities and investment, bailouts of companies only saddles individual taxpayers with hard-to-see debts, and inflation from the Federal Reserve stemming from fractional-reserve banking only eats away at the value of one's EARNED income and assets through diluting the value of the monetary medium (in our case, the dollar).

Shameful. For now, that should answer your question. Your next question should be this: how do we solve this? I credit Murray Rothbard's books and essays for enabling me to think along the lines that I have been thinking; you will probably find my arguments very similar to his. I will refer you to "The Case for Genuine Gold Dollar" by Rothbard, a highly educational article you can read free-of-charge. Scroll to the section "The Case for a Gold Dollar" and continue downward... that's around eight pages or so in Microsoft Word.

Escalating Tensions in the Caucasus

2008-08-11T01:52:00.006-04:00

Russia has been portrayed as the benevolent peace-keeper, seeking to aid the Georgian separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as so many possess Russian passports. Georgia, meanwhile, has been forcefully defended in taking (frankly, rather reckless) action against their obscenely larger invaders from the north, attempting to rein in their renegade provinces without foreign interference.

The fact that South Ossetian Georgians were granted Russian passports should be very disconcerting. Certainly, the region has been separatist for some time, but there exists a legitimate question: was Russia undermining Georgian national sovereignty by undertaking such action? When one considers the willingness of South Ossetia to join Russia and the existence of these passports, moral ambiguity comes into play. For instance, where is the line of demarcation between natural and contractual rights? Can the Georgian province secede, then join the Russian Federation... or is it a gross violation of Georgian political and territorial sovereignty to do so?

Oil also comes into the equation, as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline runs through Georgia. It is the only significant pipeline running to the West not controlled by Russian or Middle Eastern interests. Putin has proven himself much enamored of his petrodollar empire; reports have been made that the BTC pipeline has been bombed by the Russians. Perhaps this is a low-cost power play by the Kremlin to project force in terms of oil distribution, military prowess, and elementary geopolitics to quell desires of anti-Russian/Middle Eastern missile shields in Western Europe. This remains to be seen.

The Georgian president ordered attacks on South Ossetian civilian sectors. This has come under considerable fire by international observers, most vociferously by the Russians, as some sort of genocidal move. Personally, I am betting that such action was taken to quell internal dissent in the area by militant separatists. However, there is an intriguing storyline that could play out when one considers Georgia's petitioning for status within NATO: is Georgia simply looking for bigger and badder partners in confrontations with Russians in the Caucasus? Frankly, I doubt it, for there is little to no incentive for Georgian political leaders to subject their people to such a crass and shameful enterprise. Nevertheless, the thought remains in the back of my mind.

For now, I will tentatively settle the issue of culpability in favor of the Georgian side. However, I unequivocally reserve the right to change my mind as further information comes in from the front; admittedly, I have felt abysmally under-informed with regard to the current situation due to the especial sensitivity of the situation at hand. The escalation of Russian hostilities in the Caucasus is a serious matter of concern. Natural rights, self-determination, and the dangers of repeated history with Misha the Bear (i.e. a revival of the Soviet Union) stand at stake... complex issues indeed.

Pertaining to American Exceptionalism

2008-08-10T01:52:00.006-04:00

Two things earn my undivided attention each day: the Bible and the Constitution. Over the course of the school year, I brought a dilapidated copy of the Constitution published by the Heritage Foundation, worn from years of thumbing, dog-earing, and highlighting on a daily basis. These days, I have a leather-bound compendium of critical founding documents in my well-endowed private library; my routine of morning reading has not changed. During these glorious Southern evenings, I become captivated by the Holy Bible, generally reading over my Sunday school sermon and a passage from any of the following books: Leviticus, Proverbs, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Gospel of John, Romans, Hebrews, Revelation. Unlike most people, I hardly ever read for entertainment value (there are James Bond films for that); rather, I read for mental stimulation, for initiating analytical discourse upon concepts and conflicts sprouting from the works I read. The Holy Bible and the Constitution of the United States of America are the most integral texts of Western civilization, worthy of my consistent attention and reverence.

Why?

No, really. Why would someone make an especial point of reading two singularly "integral" things each day? What incentive drives an individual towards such a habit? What consequences does one expect to derive? Rush Limbaugh has unfailingly reminded me that "words mean things." The English language, though moderately convoluted grammatically, is the most liberal tongue in terms of accepting terms and definitions; without grammatical structure, terms, and definitions, oral discourse has no point. Those who are very close to me understand my appreciation for the precision of language; there are specific definitions I want to encompass and emotions I intend to evoke via connontation in speech (or, more often, writing). Ergo, "integral," preceded by the superlative modifier "most," in my description of the Bible and the Constitution as the cornerstones of Western civilization.

It so happens also that Rush Limbaugh (and, to be fair, diligent reading of history) taught me the significance of the concept that “ideas have consequences.” The three questions posed at the commencement of the paragraph prior are simple to answer, but they happen to convey greater significance in other applications. Such is economic theory: what is the impetus of human action and what consequences and externalities extend from such action over time? I read Scripture in order to fortify my innate constitution, to confirm again and again the omnipotence and omniscience of an awesome God in all affairs. It provides me perspective in my interactions with others, knowledge in terms of the tribulations time holds and the methods of coping with them, and security in being grounded in the indomitable truth, the Word of God. The Constitution is a confirmation of my sincere belief that this nation is a providential one, specially drawn with the finger of God to expand from sea to shining sea with the clear intention of pioneering the idea that free men prove more industrious, patriotic, loving, and successful than those in bondage to tyrants and fools. Our Founders possessed beautiful minds, receptive of new ideas (e.g. capitalism from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations), furiously endeared to the principle of liberty under law (passionately and eloquently defended by Frédéric Bastiat in The Law), and mindful of the necessity of governmental restriction to prevent tyranny, be it majoritarian, oligarchical, or dictatorial. Both works imbue man with core convictions: one in the love of God and the necessity of maximizing one's myriad talents, the other in enabling said maximization through the purported scaling-down of government's capacity to denigrate the primacy of man in God's creation.

The fruits of the two when properly adhered to, much less actually read and comprehended, are undeniably wondrous and munificent: good governance, prodigious wealth, expansive dominions, and long life, all attributable to the initiative of those individuals who unhesitatingly apply themselves in (Schumpeterian) creative self-destruction and principled scrupulousness.

Ignorance is as legitimate as knowledge in terms of being complicit in decision-making. Over the course of recorded history, societies consisting of individuals engaged in the sustenance of human bondage and those coerced to toil under such a condition have drilled startling rifts between themselves and the self-evident principles expounded by the Bible and the Constitution. Therefore, they have experienced considerable internal division, leading to wars, covetousness, impropriety… ultimately, the demise of said society comes to fruition.

Kenneth LeJeune, an upright American who I regard without reservation as my mentor, routinely discusses with me the demise of this grand republic. We are never at a loss for the primary culprit in this sordid abandonment of our fidelity to our founding principles for increasingly crass minds and craven hearts: ignorance. The lack of knowledge and understanding of what our nation is, upon what our nation stands, of the potentialities present in man (particularly Americans), of core things comprising an ideology we commonly term as “American exceptionalism,” explains so much with regard to our capitulation to the socialism, the victim mentality of the Democratic Party.

Socialism is the enforced equality of outcome by coercive agents (i.e. government). The victim mentality is the exaltation of the latent sufferer over those who transcend shame, degradation, and pain to emerge triumphantly from challenges. Senator Barack Obama has actively advocated for policies that discourage private property rights in favor of supposedly altruistic social aims, such as elevating purportedly overworked and struggling community college students playing victim cards with unearned and unmerited financial aid from taxpayers. Thanks to the shoddy example of Senator Obama and his ilk of complainers over college tuition (rising for reasons that are cogently outlined in this Wall Street Journal article), another generation of whiners is nascent through blissful ignorance embellished with “change” rhetoric. Textbooks undercut America’s heroism in campaigns for liberty in wars throughout the world, teachers morph into sickening advocates of collectivism and political correctness, and colleges stifle speech made by students in staunch opposition to the dissemination of such hateful punditry by the aforementioned and existing collegiate policy.

Unfortunately, there exist those who defend and perpetuate the emasculation of the principled rugged American through the welfare state’s education system. (By the way, that is a Facebook note written by Kayla Smith, who happens to be ideologically opposed to me; nevertheless, she’s a cool person. If you can’t access it, don’t worry… I’m dissecting the tenor of it below.) Public schools have proven utter failures in churning productive citizens; their mandated curricula and dogged suppression of drop-out rates often serve only to waste the valuable time of those more willing to trade their labor and brook the risks of unrealized potential for economic resources.

“Kids around our state [hers… South Carolina; this is rather hyperbolic yet conditionally applicable to government schools in general] are going to schools that are decrepit, old, and underfunded. Some of these schools have books from the 1940s on the shelves in their libraries. They have sewage backing up into their hallways. They have to wear their jackets in the winters because there is no heat. These conditions are NOT conducive to learning. Children can't learn in those types of environments.”

Remember my admittedly-long discourses earlier upon rugged American exceptionalism and, prior to that one, the preference of truth to fiction? Here, she argues that modernity is at a premium in public education and that it is shameful that still-legitimate yet somewhat-aged volumes stand on library shelves, that conditions such as temperatures unregulated by air conditioning are “NOT conducive to learning,” and connotes that sewage in hallways is a consistent issues in terms of hampering student productivity. “Children can’t learn in these types of environments.”

I don’t know about Ms. Smith, but I learned different things in government schools. For instance, as I’m autistic, I learned that I cannot learn like others; I must assume the initiative by almost always teaching and educating myself on what is (fully and tangentially) relevant to classroom endeavors. Also, I recognized that government employees (here, public education) are less motivated, less circumspect, and more corrupt than those in the private sector (especially in terms of bookkeeping, e.g. drop-out rates, rates of passage to successive grade levels, et cetera). Educating children becomes shortchanged as a priority by policymakers, principals, educators, and bureaucrats, substituted instead by the need to generate appealing statistics in order to apply for increasing government grants, funded by the taxpayer increasingly irritated with public school impotency. Instead of fostering informed and open-minded discourse, public universities seek favor with their tax-extorting benefactors in legislatures by hiring left-wing ideologues preaching the “superiority” of the collective to the “selfishness” of the individual and the need for “community” and “dependence” rather than relying upon the cultivation and use of our myriad God-given talents in this (unfortunately, somewhat-to-nominally) capitalist mode of production. The NEA (National Educators Association) has become increasingly active in causes tangential-to-irrelevant with advancing whatever virtue behind publically-subsidized education.

“The above qualifications of minimally adequate do not mention foreign languages or fine arts. Kids deserve more than just the ability to speak and write. They deserve more than just knowledge of math and science, and a fundamental knowledge of our political system completely shortchanges our kids.’

‘No wonder our country is lagging behind the rest of the world. Please take a stand on this. Our futures are at stake. We cannot continue to allow our politics to imprison our kids. We have to take action.”

This is wrong all over. Our kids deserve whatever they are willing to work for, whatever they are willing to achieve, and quite frankly, whatever the market is willing to support. Some subjects, like fine arts, may generate creativity and enhance some degree of critical thinking, but they are generally too subjective and abstract for marketability. Other matters, like civic education, are hijacked too often by left-wing ideologues more willing to push “wussification” (the victim mentality) or by students who are either a) turned off by the inherent corruption of political discourse or b) flat-out unwilling to apply their minds to the criticality of principled governance and non-plundering law to proper societal function. If it were not for the appeal of parents to have more control over their kids away from public schooling (as private schooling is made prohibitively expensive due to the desire for “free” education and a lack of tax breaks towards private education), kids could attend school and cover more material over more time, akin to what occurs abroad. The argument that we must not “allow our politics to imprison our kids” is a rhetorical ruse of transcendentalism; political economy, more specifically laissez-faire capitalism and privatization, holds the answer to the critical issue of K-12 education.

From “thou shalt not steal” to the strict-constructionist Constitution and Bill of Rights; from the rugged individualist American to the bearers and propagators of the victim mentality; from capitalism to socialism; from public education to the corruptive by-products of governments being charitable with extorted funds from others… we have covered a great deal of territory here, but the central theme is unmistakable: simply put, government needs to leave us the hell alone so we can maximize our God-given potential and become productive citizens, not societal leeches. What earns our attention, our time, our passion, our love is not the institutionalized, the collective, the victim, the patently ridiculous; the substantive, the persevering, the brave, the truth… such splendid things do.

With that, I’m going to read Hebrews 6 and meditate on that Scripture for a bit.

Turbulence and Swirling Coffee

2008-08-08T14:01:00.004-04:00

The euro has dropped significantly from its dizzying highs against the dollar in the past few days, having fell some two percent in the past two days alone on news of significantly slower-than-forecast growth estimates. In addition to this news, barrels of Brent North Sea crude have slipped to prices near $114 on a stronger dollar while a rapidly recovering Iraqi nation has demonstrated a willingness to explore and drill extensively for crude to sell on the market. Barack Obama has struck an extremely rich vein of economic discussion by finally noting that, indeed, there is a significant link between the degree of dollar strength and crude prices, in contrast to the current denial line held by the Federal Reserve and the Bush Administration, particularly Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. As ignorant as Barack Obama has proven himself to be on economic systems in the past, perhaps some of his renegade capitalist advisers (not his usual leftist ones, like Robert Reich) may have finally tugged his ears sufficiently to bring him to tie the dollar to oil.

What a significant day this has been thus far. I haven't even mentioned Brett Favre's move to the New York Jets or the onset of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing!

However, I do have something for you to watch closely: the republic of Georgia, over in the Caucasus region, has struck to retake renegade territory, but Russia has deployed air raids over Georgian airfields. Tanks are rolling in from Russia. The United States is attempting to mediate the conflict, but I have an innate disinclination to believe that such will be effective in quelling whatever Caucasian conflict arising. That region has proven very problematic due to ethnic intolerance by myriad groups and tyrannical and corrupt governments (most of them coming into existence after the collapse of the Soviet Union).

With that, let the games begin! I've got to get back to creating liquid tornadoes in my Starbucks iced coffee.

The Mounting Militancy of the Left

2008-08-08T01:38:00.002-04:00

Rush Limbaugh lambasts Sen. Barack Obama for negativity regarding this great nation.

The sickening nascence of Barack Obama's campaign has reached the level where, frankly, I am convinced that there must be a point of no return regarding the force of his personality: either he compels the socioeconomic moderates leftward or he repels the centrists, hurling them into the remarkably open arms of the (somewhat) right-wing candidate, John McCain.

Matt Brewer, a good friend of mine who never fails in keeping a mind occupied, sent me what is perhaps the most succinct, intriguing, and analytically ripe account of simulated conditions within a cult unified behind communitarian ideals. (Note: I earnestly ask you to read this before continuing further.)

The Narrative of the Third Wave

Senator Obama's campaign is, to put it particularly mildly, quirky. Allow me to render several examples for the benefit of my case.

1) On almost all civil aircraft originating from the United States, the stars and stripes are prominently displayed on the tail. Senator Obama, the last time I checked, is running for the Presidency of the United States of America. However, he has chosen to utilize his campaign logo and not the blood-soaked banner of the greatest nation on Earth on his plane.

2) The President of the United States has a unique seal and a unique podium, both traveling with him and heavily safeguarded wherever he goes. Senator Obama, in his anxiousness to emulate "presidential" trappings, commissioned a design of his own seal and podium.

3) Overseas trips are conducted by almost all high-ranking government officials in order to gain a broadened scope of the state of current international relations. Senator Obama, obviously, is a high-ranking elected official serving on behalf of taxpayers in Illinois, and to an almost-equal extent, the United States as a whole in what is hailed as the greatest deliberative body since the Roman Senate. According to ethical guidelines, Obama was not to make his overseas expeditions in late July campaign events, particularly with taxpayer funds; indeed, they were to be "fact-finding missions." Scrupulousness, however, succumbed to political expediency, a point best exemplified in a) his campaign's leaking of his Western Wall prayer to prominent Jerusalem papers and b) his Berlin photo-op stump speech before two hundred thousand foreigners, those who shall not be constitutionally capable of holding him electorally accountable.

4) It is a very rare political campaign indeed that becomes galvanized by a singular concept. The Ukranians sustained "The Orange Revolution" to combat purported governmental corruption by the ruling political coalition, primarily through the use of the color orange to symbolize justice. William Jennings Bryan rode his 1896 Democratic National Convention "Cross of Gold" speech to the nomination (and very nearly a general election victory) in passionately appealing to voters to use their capacities of imagery to see, then fight the "crucifixion" of farmers and the American public to William McKinley's gold standard, proposing bimetallism instead. Senator Obama has risen meteoritically through the employment of the intentionally vague construct "change" to trigger emotional catharsis, optimism in the power of the collective, and record-breaking political action. Ergo, considering his electoral successes with deploying vague concepts for mass consumption, he has no incentive to (and certainly has not to date) articulate concrete stances upon issues of the day.

5) At a campaign event yesterday in Elkhart, Indiana, Obama was posed with a question by a seven-year-old pertaining to his motivations in running for the office of the Presidency. His reply? "America, uh, is -- is no longer, uh, what it -- it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, 'I don't want that future for my children.'" In 2004: "The basic outlines of the government that we possess and our civic religion as a people is such that, potentially, at least, we could create a society that is the model for the world. It isn't right now." How about his wife's perspective? "Let me tell you something. For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change!" How about his (former, thrown-under-the-campaign-bus) pastor, Jeremiah Wright's, perception of matters? "Not God bless America, but God damn America!" "America's chickens have come home to roost!"

6) Senator Obama has been running a campaign based on the media-engineered perception that he is the quintessential post-racial, post-partisan candidate. His cross-sectional demographic appeal has been very strong, no doubt due to the moderate, "unity"-geared visions cast about the candidate as well as knowledge of his intrinsically leftist disposition. However, although he is 50% white, 42.5% Arab, and 7.5% African black (I reference this to Savage Politics for that tidbit of data), black support for the candidate during the primary season consistently reached 95% in certain states and in the nation as a whole. Minority support has reached super-majority levels for very long stretches of time. Several left-wing white voter demographics have been more moderate in supporting Obama over Senator Clinton in primaries, general figures often hovering north of 30% and sometimes approaching 45%. Such strong minority support, however, is striking to modern observers of electoral history insofar as the degree of solidarity of outstanding voter blocs (i.e. blacks, minorities in general, college students, young professionals) aligned behind a political candidate.

7) Never before has the old-guard media corps so doggedly globetrotted the world in pursuit of any presidential candidate. Never has a presidential candidate's family been so eagerly sought-after for interviews and photo opportunities by the mass media. Never has the journalistic establishment been so in lock-step with the Democratic Party, evidenced through contributions and measurable media bias towards the left.

From this point, I feel adequately prepared to make the following conclusion, as I have corroborated to a veritable and qualifiable extent Obama's quirky campaign.

The Democratic Party has engaged in globalist politics for many moons, most apparently since the era of malaise under President James Carter. Sustained geopolitical trends conflict with the best interests of the United States; the failed socialistic policies of foreign nations have found a home in American academia and governmental institutions, where they are implemented while those same foreign nations look ever closer at the blessings of capitalism to redeem their economies from the abysmal popular tyranny of the welfare state. Western Europe, the United Nations, and the Middle East have been stalwarts in opposition to United States intervention on behalf of our Israeli allies and our current extranational charge, Iraq. Obama loves to speak of how this nation has brought him to prominence from a purportedly obscure family (see the link to Savage Politics), yet cannot bring himself to tell a seven-year-old that he loves the United States of America... at least, the prodigious opportunities the country has provided him. Rhetoric has trumped action in this year's electoral balance insofar as the consequences of much of Senator Obama's action (if such could be termed as action) have been masked by the media; Senator McCain's actions have not received the glowing coverage once afforded to it during the Republican primary, where he was the least right-wing candidate in the running. The journalistic, governmental, academic, and minority demographics have never been so entranced by the intrigues of one candidate... not Clinton, not Reagan, not Eisenhower... one would have to reach back to Franklin D. Roosevelt for such a strong unilateral alignment. "Change" has become the predominant term of the election cycle and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future, as it possesses such broad and (paradoxically) superficially significant powers. Militant leftism has become open in the mainstream media, in the blogosphere, in many sectors of the electorate, et cetera. Obama claims to like "capitalism" in Business Week during a grilling session with Maria Bartiromo, but his legislative record and current campaign lingo indicate further wealth redistribution and entitlement policies in conjunction with further control of socioeconomic institutions via governmental and not private hands, such being integral to socialist ideology, Those who condemn Senator Obama as undefined, inexperienced, lacking principles and gumption, possessed by a manic mentality of victimhood are shot down with vigor and cannibalistic self-satisfaction by those who engage in tactics like "using the race card," "stance manipulation," "elitism," et cetera.

Anti-American fascism? You've got it in this campaign. Call me disingenuous or racist; frankly, I don't care anymore. The truth is on my side; the burden of proof in proving such allegations falls upon the accusers. They'll have a merry time attempting to legitimately establish themselves in such a case.

Disturbing Parallels

2008-08-07T18:10:00.000-04:00

Those trustworthy Beijing policemen poke about for shoe sizes, political affiliations, etc.

History unhesitatingly informs us that totalitarianism is especially dangerous to those unfortunate enough to live under such regimes. I don't think such a point can be more emphatically underscored. The residents of Beijing, the home of the 2008 Summer Olympics, have been riddled with security-obsessed policemen, often having their identity cards sequestered and being coerced to report visitors to precinct stations for "registration purposes." Many businessmen and tourists have been, to put it moderately, ticked off with the intensity of the proceedings; sentiments along the line of, "I wouldn't have come had I known matters were so maddening," have been consistently put forth by such dissatisfied parties. China has become liberalized in terms of economic viability, shedding many socialistic shackles like high taxes and total management of state agencies in order to boost economic growth.

However, to the northeast of China, North Korea remains a reclusive-yet-barbarous reminder of the horrors of authoritarianism. Pyongyang is filled with the destitute, the populace coerced to abide by happiness and politeness mandates in the face of further dictatorial fiats demeaning whatever prospects they many have for individual (and collective) economic advancement. Interaction with foreigners is taboo and the digestion of such state-vilifed doctrines as Christianity and capitalism is punishable by banishment to labor camps, summary execution, or ostracision to a China inhospitable to greater flows of impoverished and largely unskilled emigrants.

China has not reached the extremes of North Korea, though the current news coming from the country, such as attempting to scientifically make weather more conducive to Olympic competition and air quality more amenable to the common-sense preference of athletes (much less people-in-general) and the constant proclamations from on high to be polite and cooperative (probably against instinctual input) with nanny state police forces leaves me relatively apprehensive about the state of that nation. It so happens that I remember a fascist nation from the 1930s employing state capitalism to ensure an outward appearance of socioeconomic order to the rest of the world... one that even hosted a rendition of the Summer Olympics: Nazi Germany. The mandated halt to spitting on streets, an indigenous practice seen as especially hygenic, possesses a superficial similarity to the covering of "Juden unerwuenscht!" during Berlin '36 preparations, though the former is a cultural curiosity; the latter was de jure enforcement of the sickeningly anti-Semitic provisions of the 1935 Nuremburg Laws. Internet access has been heavily restricted by the Chinese as access to foreign radio channels (e.g. BBC) were forbidden to all within German borders upon the myriad pains of death at the hands of the Gestapo. Freedom of movement in China is highly restricted, dependent upon one's willingness to chance not to report one's presence at local police stations; Germans faced fewer restrictions upon travel as they did upon the transfer of currency (i.e. Reichsmarks) abroad, though those amongst the increasing number of names in the "black book" of the Gestapo (which included oppressed minorities and foreigners) were stalked, quarantined, and (euphemistically) "relocated" to distant parts of Nazi-occupied regions resemblant of the Soviet gulags.

Certainly, China has opened up considerably, especially in terms of access to the marketplace by citizens and international interests. However, in light of recent protests on behalf of Falun Gong and Tibetians and statutory restrictions upon individual liberty by the Chinese, this American shall persist in voicing deep and far-reaching concerns about the nature of the current regime. When one notes the aid China is administering to Muslim guerrillas in Africa and the Middle East, its apathy to the oppressed in Cuba and North Korea, and even its killing of hundreds of thousands of animals to "clear up" urban Beijing for the current Games, the lack of correlation between its relatively pro-community rhetoric and its actions becomes ever the more striking. Chinese bureaucrats and leaders shouldn't be surprised by America's growing distrust, particularly in terms of its wrongful encroachments on economic and natural rights fronts: appearances rarely, if ever, prove meritorious beyond the realm of "Miss America" contests.