Is This What Suicide Feels Like?

On January 26, 1837, Abraham Lincoln addressed the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, on the subject of "The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions." Much of what he said has great pertinence for the U.S. citizen on this date in 2008.

Listen.

"We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed, race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; it is ours only to transmit these--the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation--to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

"How then shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of anger? by what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer: If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

The might of the U.S.'s military and industrial capabilities makes it virtually invulnerable to external foes. However, if we are the author and finisher of our own destruction, who is left to stop it?

"As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Despite President-elect Obama's self-aggrandizement and apparent self-delusion about being like Abraham Lincoln, he is no Abraham Lincoln. "Father Abraham", as he was known, cherished and preserved the U.S. Constitution and respected the limits of the federal government. He would not have tolerated -- let alone promoted -- an activist Federal court, and he loved and preserved life, even the life the weakest of the common citizen.

(c)2008 Richard D. Cushing

[Invite your friends and relatives to read this blog if you believe in what it has to say. Thank you.]

Operating according to principles - Part I

Some have charged that liberal politicians "have no principles." The charge is usually stated something like this: "How on earth can so-and-so do such a thing? Doesn't he have any principles?"

However, I beg to differ with those that allege such things against liberals in our government!

Liberal politicians, in general, act according to a solid set of principles with an history dating back to the 19th century (at least).

In this post, I will try to bring forth some quotations out of the past that might shed some light on just how principled are the actions and words of those defamed liberal politicos. Let us begin.


On the Matter of Classes, Races, Minorities, and Their Struggles

While the American conservative approach to classes, races, minorities and the challenges they face is to give equal opportunity to them all insomuch as it lies within the government's power to do so, the liberal politicians in this nation seem to operate by another principle.

So much of the liberal politicians' rhetoric, so many of the liberal politicians' public policy, appears to be predicated upon pitting "rich" against "poor", "Black" against "White", "the minority" against "the majority", and so forth. They do this to obtain leverage, votes, and (of course) power.

On the one hand, the conservative principle was well articulated by Abraham Lincoln when he said, "That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise."

On the other hand, the principle that most clearly articulates the apparent thought processes behind liberal rhetoric and political action is this: "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles."[1]

Obama draws the following distinction as the the difference between the "rich" and the "poor": "Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes, directly facing each other...."[2] Another way he positions this dichotomy is as the struggle between "Wall Street" and "Main Street." You will find that rhetoric used by other liberals in Congress, like Barney Franks, Chris Dodd, or Joe Biden is similar.

It was a Republican -- Abraham Lincoln -- that first freed the slaves from individual ownership.

It is ongoing liberal Democrat public policy that keeps minorities in the U.S. today enslaved, by and large, to programs that reduce their incentive to industry, commerce, and self-improvement. It is a further shame that such public policies and such ongoing "class warfare" is frequently encouraged by liberal-minded, power-hungry leadership within the minority communities themselves.


On Free-Trade and the Free Market System

Here, too, liberals have a general principle to which they adhere: "...Free Trade. In one word, ...exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."[3]

Liberals, unfortunately, believe that in a market exchange, there must a "winner" and a "loser". They believe that the market exchange is a zero-sum action. If the "seller" gets a +1 out of the deal, the "buyer" must have gotten a -1 out of the deal. Indulge me in recounting an incident that, I believe, shows this is not the case.

A few years ago, I had two young sons. These boys wanted to earn some money, so they took on a couple of newspaper routes. They worked diligently -- getting up at 4:30 AM day after day -- for many months and saved their money. (This, by the way, is called "creating capital.")

When each of them had saved somewhat more than $100, they wanted me to take them down to let them buy new bicycles. Of course, I did so.

They shopped and shopped until each had found the bicycle that suited them and their budget. After they had made their purchases -- swapped their hard-earned cash for the bicycles of their choice -- I asked them: "Who just 'won' in the deal you just transacted? Did Pep Boys (where they had made their purchase) 'win', or did you?"

They both took a moment to think, then the younger of the two (maybe 10 or 11 at the time) replied: "We both 'won'."

I replied, "You're right! You each wanted the bicycle more than you wanted the cash. That is to say, you placed a higher value on the bicycle than the cash. However, Pep Boys wanted the cash more than they wanted the bicycles. They placed a higher value on the cash than on the bicycles. Everyone involved got their own view of higher value in the transaction."

There was no "exploitation" occurring in this transaction!

"Free trade" simply assumes that there is an equally powerful self-interest on each side of a given transaction. As long as there is no force and no coercion involved in the transaction, then each of the participants will (logically) make the decision that they believe is in their own self-interest. Self-interest is to take the option that gives the choosing party the maximum value as a result of the exchange. That decision could be, for example, to not accept the deal offered by the other party. That, too, may be a "free trade" or "free market" outcome.

Of course, if liberals could not define "free markets" and "free trade" as exploitive, how could they find the fodder they require for creating and renewing antagonisms between classes, races, and minorities? This redefinition of the "evils" of an unfettered economy is essential to their creation and maintenance of a "power base" predicated on "class warfare."


On Too Much Success

Back in the late 1990's, when Microsoft Corporation was being pursued by various state prosecutors for alleged abuses in the marketplace, one of Microsoft's lead product engineers was quoted with regard to the charges. I cannot now quote him exactly, but allow the liberty of paraphrasing his statements:

Apparently, success in the U.S. is like a dog race. At the beginning of the race, the goal of all the dogs is to catch the rabbit. However, if anyone actually catches the rabbit, they want to stop the race and start it over again.

One of the things that liberal principles cannot countenance is too much success! Their principle is captured as follows: "...there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. "[4]

"Too much civilization" means to liberals that Americans should not be allowed to have, through their own sweat, toil and sacrifice, an economy that causes other peoples to be envious. This thought persists even though no nation in the history of the world has spent more of their own son's precious blood nor put more of their own nation's capital at risk for the liberty of other peoples.

"Too much means of subsistence" is construed by liberals to mean that Americans should not be permitted to have and maintain an industrial and economic infrastructure that consumes 25% (or whatever number) of the world's present active supply of petroleum-based energy. More than this, the liberals have carried this further to say that we do not even have the right to use America's own known energy reserves to supply our needs.

And, "too much industry, [and] too much commerce" is the liberal principle to be applied any time they want to apply confiscatory taxes to tear down industry and commerce.

It has been a good year for Exxon-Mobil, there's no doubt about it! They are one of the companies that happened to be in the right industry at the right time to make better-than-average profits. The liberals appear to be appalled at the $11.7 billion reported on the firms 10Q.

However, allow me to point out some other numbers that the liberals do not talk about when they discuss Exxon-Mobil:

• Exxon-Mobil has nearly $267 billion invested in their operations. Many of these assets are at risk world-wide because they must work in nations with tenuous or even hostile governments. With this investment at risk, their present profits represent a 19% return-on-assets.
  
• In the three-month period reported on their 10Q, Exxon-Mobil paid $10,526,000,000 in income taxes. That breaks down to: $115,700,000 per day in income taxes; $4,800,000 per hour in income taxes; $80,000 per minute in income taxes; or $1,334 every second in income taxes! Still, the liberals want to extract more and more from this and similar companies while driving them to take additional capital risks by spending more money further exploring areas with doubtful reserves or investing heavily in "alternative energy" development.

It seems apparent that Exxon-Mobil is better managed than Fannie-Mae and Freddy-Mac, which were run mostly by liberal Democrat appointees. One thing we have not witnessed in those two firms is "too much success".

[To be continued]

-- Richard

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1888
[2] Marx and Engels, ibid
[3] Marx and Engels, ibid
[4] Marx and Engels, ibid

On Racism -- falsely so-called

Several months ago, one of my co-workers told me that he and his wife had been enjoying their subscription to NetFlix. As part of that enjoyment, he went on to say, they had watched together a documentary concerning the lack of fresh vegetables in a Black neighborhood in some major city (I do not now recall the specifics).

The creators of the piece documented what seemed to be a long and arduous trip from this Black neighborhood to the "nearest place" from which to buy good quality "fresh vegetables." The clear intent of exploring the details of the bus ride, encompassing multiple transfers from bus to bus, was to show just how tragically difficult it was for anyone living in this nearly all-Black neighborhood to get any quality fresh vegetables.

After telling me this story, my co-worker suggested -- as was clearly the intent of the documentary -- that there must be some kind of "conspiracy" to deprive this Black neighborhood of quality fresh vegetables.

I was taken aback with incredulity: I could not believe that my bright young co-worker had really been taken in by this apparent masterpiece of deceptive reasoning.

"Do you mean to say," I asked, "that you actually believe that somebody -- or some group of somebodies -- really decided that no one was going to sell fresh vegetables in this particular neighborhood simply because the neighborhood is predominantly Black?"

"Look!" I proclaimed, "This was no racist decision that businesses would not sell fresh vegetables in this particular Black neighborhood. If there were a market for fresh vegetables in the neighborhood covered in the documentary, then someone would be meeting the demands of that market. Clearly, the reason there are no quality fresh vegetables available in the Black neighborhood depicted is because there is no market for quality fresh vegetables in that particular neighborhood."

I find it amazing how readily charges of "racism" can arise. More significantly, I find it amazing how gullible many are to believe these charges of racism without giving careful consideration -- or any consideration at all -- to the underlying facts leading to the accusation.

There is a parallel here: In this current election cycle, McCain and the Republicans have been, on numerous occasions, charged with "racism" without the slightest consideration for the facts underlying the statements or circumstances that led to the charge. This charge arises, often from Barack Obama himself, simply because the Democrat candidate is Black, and for no other apparent reason.

It would bode well for our nation, and show signs of considerable maturity, if members of the press (particularly) and (more importantly) individuals who plan to VOTE would consider the facts at hand before latching onto that "racist" alibi for that to which they have no legitimate reply.