Great post by Myrhaf as a part of his series on the evasion festival in Denver:

Biden said we are losing the American dream. Right — we are. Why is that? Why was the American dream strong in the 19th century and now it is in trouble? Could it possibly be the growth of the welfare state? Could it be that replacing individualism with collectivism destroys the American dream? Could it be that everything the Democrats stand for destroys the American dream?

The dream has been hijacked by a complex rebellion against reality which aims to fulfill a desire to enjoy the benefits of an exciting and fulfilling life without the requisite costs of thought, action and justice. In the last 50 years the left discovered that, courtesy of the deadly combo of altruism and non-objective law, they could hack into the law of causality. They realized swinging the altruistic (mob-rule) club hard enough could indeed create a scenario where one can wallow in convenient passivity while the energy and productivity of others provides the means. As long as the wallowers and their henchmen didn’t push too hard the producers would retain their desire to live, and would stay in the game despite the gun in their side.

I see it daily - intelligent and creative men who are driven to think, produce and succeed who think nothing about the maze of theft they’re herded through along the way. If only they had the clarity of mind to stop supporting their own destroyers.

The Democrats are a party of ignorant altruists. At this late date, you have to be stupid to want more government control over the economy and to think it will work. There has been much stupidity on display for the last three days. I think deep down the more intelligent Democrats understand that socialism will not work, but they evade in order to keep the impracticality of socialism unclear and undefined.

I think a large percentage have an intuitive sense that full Socialism won’t work, but see “Socialism-Lite” (slightly more statist than our current system) as the answer. I think what’s unclear and undefined are the exact ingredients of the “lite” version. They know they want to control everything, but in order for their project to continue they realize they must show some restraint. They’re constantly prancing along the line that represents the breaking point. The more nihilist variants disrespect or disregard the threshold. They subscribe to the mindset in full, but don’t have the sense to realize that a shrugging by Atlas would end the game. The more “practical” segment has enough sense to keep “extremists” in line because they realize the producers must be alive and participating in order for the whole production to work.

Great video by Penn & Teller:

I’m slowing becoming a big P&T fan.

Book review: Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, by Ayn Rand (from HBL)

She wrote the book because she was confounded by the fact that young people blamed every societal ill on capitalism, which was hardly surprising since they had not lived under any other system. Socialism and communism, at the time she was writing, had legions of promoters and defenders, but capitalist ideals seemed to be trampled on everywhere and held up as evil. An American immigrant who had witnessed the economic misery and attacks on individual dignity that defined communist Russia, Rand had at an early age resolved to be capitalism’s defender.

…

Most of the ‘anti-capitalists’ of today actually know little about the system into which they were born. They have eyes only for some actors within it (such as large companies) and their apparent greed, while being blind to the fantastic freedoms and prosperity they have inherited. Free markets, they believe, will mean a ‘race to the bottom’ of greater and greater exploitation of workers. Such arguments fail to notice that the sweatshop workers in developing countries who make goods sold in the rich world have usually arrived there by choice, leaving behind back-breaking lives of rural poverty. Their wages may be a pittance, but they represent the beginnings of a way out; their conditions look bad, but are little different to those endured by our grandparents or great-grandparents when their countries were industrialising.

The usual accusation levelled at Rand and her followers is of extremism. A more intelligent view is that she was a supreme rationalist who valued personal freedom to the highest degree.

Capitalism for her was not just a system for people to get richer, but was the only system in which people were free to act according to their best interests. Today, because we take our comfortable lives for granted, we take capitalism for granted as well. [emphasis added]

I’m shocked to see such an accurate and objective review of Rand outside of the core Objectivist media circles.  This is a very good thing. If you only read one article this week, this should be it.

The preemptive race card is already being tossed out by the Kindergarten Party (HT) at the notion of an Obama loss.  An especially pathetic example is this garbage by Jacob Weisberg - the collectivist editor at Slate.com.

This is the second (that I’ve noticed) race-baiting read on Slate in the past few weeks - at least they’re consistent.  Weisberg alternates between two distinct tactics - 1) smear McCain based on age and his (alleged) lack of collectivist enlightenment, and 2) smear anyone even glancing at the thought of not pulling the Obama lever as a Klan member.

Both tactics are transparent, illogical and void of intellectual merit - standard leftist prattling.  A few quotes…

Obama has built a crack political operation, raised record sums, and inspired millions with his eloquence and vision. McCain has struggled with a fractious campaign team, lacks clarity and discipline, and remains a stranger to charisma. Yet at the moment, the two of them appear to be tied. What gives?

Hmmm… perhaps it could be that while McCain is just as bad, he manages to maintain a slightly more resilient cloak over his vision (i.e., his desire to destroy virtually every freedom that led to the greatness of our nation).  They both prescribe compulsory compassion and sacrifice as the answer.  Both are fully willing, and unfortunately capable, of inflicting massive economic destruction as they trample rights in their quest to reform and pressure (force by gunpoint) their altruist vision on America.

If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn’t ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin.

Or, considering older whites statistically are the most educated and wealthy, maybe A) they see through the bullshit of his entire campaign, or B) they realize that his socialized welfare-state vision cost money, and they’re the ones who’ll be paying for it.

Many have discoursed on what an Obama victory could mean for America. We would finally be able to see our legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism in the rearview mirror. Our kids would grow up thinking of prejudice as a nonfactor in their lives. The rest of the world would embrace a less fearful and more open post-post-9/11 America. But does it not follow that an Obama defeat would signify the opposite? If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world’s judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn’t put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.

Sorry Jacob, putting a individual of a particular race into office won’t resolve the philosophical cancer at the root of racism.  Buying votes through class-warfare and income redistribution bribery will only breed more non-thinking idiots prone to taking intellectual shortcuts.

Racism is an intellectual shortcut driven by laziness or stupidity.  A collectivist takes the quick and easy route in dealing with others by choosing to derive elements of their character by group-based inheritance.  Unfortunately, just as inheritance in object-oriented programming, not all attributes are guaranteed to withstand becoming concrete from abstraction.  As Ayn Rand wrote:

A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race—and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.

Invoking or establishing the awareness to deal with another human as an individual requires one to have the philosophic underpinnings needed to see men as individuals who should be valued according to their minds.  Considering the philosophic bankruptcy of our world and the deliberate indoctrination resulting from near universal acceptance of the collectivist mindset, most people stand little chance to hold a fundamental appreciation of individual sovereignty.

Objectivism is the only school of thought that involves such appreciation and applies it consistently.

The only way to eliminate racist ignorance will be for Americans to (re)discover the value of the individual.  To celebrate a charming vote-buying champion with the phony symbolism of monumental achievement does nothing more than perpetuate the group-think mentality responsible for the ignorance they wish to defeat.

If we continue on our present path our children will grow up thinking of freedom as a myth.  In a nation riddled with government meddling we’ll have equal opportunity for sure - very little of it.   Since collectivists deny reason (causality, justice etc.) and derive self-esteem from the sum opinion of others, Jacob’s emphasis on the world’s opinion seems fitting.

As a brief tangent, I find it important to distinguish racism, a broad implementation of collectivism, from stereotyping, a classification or initial conclusion based on social or cultural patterns.  If I drive through a rough part of town and see a group of shady characters, I absolutely assume many conclusions based on stereotypes.  Extending well beyond race (which the criteria for such conclusions could but doesn’t necessarily include), any attribute that pertains to the setting or an entity within is considered. This is not intellectual laziness.  This is thoughtful perception - especially when such stereotypes include a premise of significant profit or loss to the beholder.  A individualist-minded observer would realize that any one of those thugs *could* represent the epitome of reasonable ingenuity - despite the odds.

You may or may not agree with Obama’s policy prescriptions, but they are, by and large, serious attempts to deal with the biggest issues we face: a failing health care system, oil dependency, income stagnation, and climate change. To the rest of the world, a rejection of the promise he represents wouldn’t just be an odd choice by the United States. It would be taken for what it would be: sign and symptom of a nation’s historical decline.

What Jacob fails to understand (or care about) is that none of those “big issues” are responsibilities of a government within its proper scope.  The fact that the US has deluded itself into thinking otherwise is the real symptom of the historical decline he misdiagnosed.

Weisberg and others contend that racism will play a large role in the election.  Whether they actually believe that, or conveniently commission its use for the root of a variety of tactics, I don’t know.  I’d guess they don’t either, but they have to luxury to play the card from both sides of the deck, so it doesn’t matter.  They can use it both to paint non-leftist whites as unenlightened, mouth-breathing, Fascist cavemen (as some voters certainly are), and as a form of denigration, regardless of legitimacy, to guilt others into not being “one of those guys.”

This double edge sword represents a textbook Argument from Intimidation - “only a racist wouldn’t support Obama.”

While any objective individual will attest, especially one living in the south, that caveman racism is certainly still alive any well - I think the fact that Obama is an avowed Socialist scares off many more whites that does his race.  As Myrhaf wrote

I firmly believe Obama is the least American, most European presidential candidate ever. This little man has no idea what made America great. His vision of America’s ideals is exactly what is destroying American liberty and individual rights.

Indeed he is absolutely against every ideal that brought about the American splendor.  To Obama, accountability is a term only applicable in the pragmatic context of denigrating republicans or big business, justice is only valid in the wretched context of “social justice”, and freedom is a diet-life clobbered by pragmatic, feel-good statism bent on the wholesale violation of individual rights.

Our quality of life is a direct result of individuals who valued personal achievement.  Obama publicly promotes witholding personal achievement and its wretched materialist nature, and that self-esteem is merely a derivation of one’s ability to become a spoke in the collective wheel.

Sure, there are idiots who wouldn’t vote for a person of a different race even if he were the perfect embodiment of their political philosophy, but shouldn’t spitting in the face of reason, rights, and freedom cost B.O. a few votes?

Contained in this excellent post by Gus Van Horn commenting on the notion of sacrifice as a virtue.  His piece is tangential to an Obama quote from a recent interview by super-thumper Rick Warren:

“Americans’ greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.”

As Gus noted, B.O. just thinks we’re too selfish.  If we want to live up to the world’s expectations all we need to do is toss our selfish priorities aside and follow Barack.  He can lead us to the glory of full sacrifice.

I especially like the point Gus made about charity:

I, who non-sacrificially donate money to charity, find it presumptuous [for another] to impute altruism to my actions and a huge leap for him to do so on behalf of millions of others.

Including this observation:

There can be many valid, non-sacrificial reasons to donate to a whole slew of charities. To have a personal, selfish interest in doing so would, I have a hunch, make one more inclined to give generously than if one merely felt an annoying obligation to do so. This is part of why some religions have to demand a ten percent cut of their followers’ incomes: They took self-interest out of the equation long ago.

Indeed, if writing a weekly check (or setting up direct deposit for technically advanced believers) gave one a sense of worthy investment, why stop at 10%?

He then conveys:

America is moral because its political system comes closest to allowing all men the freedom to act on their own best judgement to further their own lives while harming nobody else. In other words, America is moral because she is fundamentally selfish.

Read the whole thing.

I’m on hold with the IRS.  I’ve been on hold now for over 45 minutes (after a 15 minute waste of life yesterday).

I have to do this - otherwise I can’t beg them to send confirmation that they received my form 2553 - an S Corp Election.

If I don’t have confirmation of this form, I can’t complete the documentation required to prove how much money I made.  They need verification of full compliance with their perpetual muggings, and without such proof they’ll seize my assets and eventually arrest and incarcerate me.

While I’m on hold I hear happy music and repetitive recordings -

“Our representatives are still helping other customers… please continue to hold.”

Going well beyond its proper scope as a protector of rights, government has instead grown to be the bastion of theft.  They force me by gunpoint to alter the way I live and work so that I can then adequately prove to them they they are confiscating (by force) the proper portion of my earnings and savings; which they’ll then use to promote ideas I abhor, comfort people I don’t know, and support individuals who represent the sum opposite of every premise I hold.

For them to refer to me as one of their “customers” is an evasion of immense proportions.  I can’t believe this is what America has come to.

After over and hour “Mrs. Hummond”  came on the line.  She was a clearly soft-spoken woman whose tone implied she wasn’t part of the problem.  Her initial greeting included her id number, 1715508, and some ending phrase that included the word “customer”.  My nearly suicidal mood mandated I mention that I certainly was not her “customer”.  She didn’t like my tone and told me to “clean it up”.  I maturely resisted the urge to unleash the fury I foster towards the entity she represents, but figured it would only land me right back in the call queue.  I explained to her the problem, faxed her confirmation of my compliance and she “escalated” my claim to be resolved in 15 business days.

This lady was polite, well-spoken and seemingly effective.  It’s easy to grant the appropriate disrespect to sloppy, rude or incompetent “customer service” representatives, and highlight their inadequacy can be very fulfilling at times.  Mrs. Hummond on the other hand was hard not to like.

She was professional, she was nice, she was assuring - but, she is part of the system.  She is a spoke in a gigantically evil machine of destruction.  Her participation sanctions the premise of their cause.  Worst case, she is an altruist-collectivist that agrees with compulsory taxation, income redistribution and the welfare-state.   Given the average intellectual savvy of our population, that’s very likely.  Or, she could be the type that’s evaded the underlying premises entirely - a hard-working individual who’s never given it much thought.

Does her philosophical alliance to the underlying premises of the cause matter?  Regardless… she is part of it.

I can think of one very compelling reason to show cordial respect to a gangster’s secretary.

A very cuisine-savvy friend introduced me to Aria a few years back. I’ve had a bottle of 2002 staring at me for almost two years. I finally popped the top last night and it was well worth the wait. To me a good Port is what most people want wine to taste like. I’ve never felt the need or the desire to become a connoisseur of wine, one who’s able to distinguish gustatory subtleties - but Ports, especially this one, throw the flavor right up in your face - there’s no way you could miss it unless you guzzle it like a fool. The finish of Aria is all any fan of Hazelnut could ask for.

If you enjoy any sipping beverage - Aria should be on your list to try.

Unfortunately, my footprint seems to have gone down from 12.8 to 10.8.  I’m not certain, but It must be due to the fact that I work from home more lately.

Your Footprint 32.097	Country Average 20.4	World Target 2

An interesting note from the quiz - I was only one question into the quiz (the sq. footage of my home) before my footprint was too big for a single earth. The threshold that broke the one earth barrier was a home >2500 sq.ft. - very close to the US average home sq. footage according to 2007 standards.  That’s right, the average American home is too big for (purported) environmental sustenance.

According the the greens, the moral approach to life is to renounce the material benefits of centuries of thought and productivity.  They vary in their means to such end according to the negligible degree to which they enjoy life.  Those who hate life essentially want the utter destruction of technology and industry at best, the extinction of man at worse.  Those who cling to a remnant of joy in living want you to go through the motions of living without necessarily feeling alive.  These are the ones who promote “green living” as a necessary sacrifice that can be ‘fun for the whole family’.  Sacrifice, according to both camps is the underlying tenet.  To them, individuals are merely spokes in the wheel - regardless of whether the wheel is a town, a country, or a globe.

However, a rational man’s purpose is his own happiness in accordance with his rational values.

Value is an inherently human concept both by the fact that it presupposes choice (volition), which only man has, and courtesy of the notion that it is only human life that can be the basis of such judgment.  The earth has no value outside of its facilitation of mans needs.  Man must use natural resources to survive.  To insist that man live void of natural resources, or even to guilt man into sacrificing elements of his life where he finds value for the sake of non-living material objects, is to sacrifice the living to the non-living.  To hire a governing body to force man to do such is pure evil.

Contrary to the guilt that these nihilistic man-haters intend to conjure, I’m proud of my “footprint”.   A token of my productivity and a tribute to man’s mind - I intend to increase it to the extent of my existence.

I have no desire to live under their diet-life terms.

Social Security Is Morally Bankrupt

By Alex Epstein

August 14 marks Social Security’s 73rd birthday–placing it eight years past standard retirement age. But, despite the program’s $10-trillion-plus dollar shortfall, no politician dares to suggest that this disastrous program be phased out and retired; all agree on one absolute: Social Security must be saved. While the program may have financial problems, virtually everyone believes that some form of mandatory government-run retirement program is morally necessary.

But is it?

Social Security is commonly portrayed as benefiting most, if not all, Americans by providing them “risk-free” financial security in old age.

This is a fraud.

Under Social Security, lower- and middle-class individuals are forced to pay a significant portion of their gross income–approximately 12 percent–for the alleged purpose of securing their retirement. That money is not saved or invested, but transferred directly to the program’s current beneficiaries–with the “promise” that when current taxpayers get old, the income of future taxpayers will be transferred to them. Since this scheme creates no wealth, any benefits one person receives in excess of his payments necessarily come at the expense of others.

Under Social Security, every aspect of the government’s “promise” to provide financial security is at the mercy of political whim. The government can change how much of an individual’s money it takes–it has increased the payroll tax 17 times since 1935. The government can spend his money on anything it wants–observe the long-time practice of spending any annual Social Security surplus on other entitlement programs. The government can change when (and therefore if) it chooses to pay him benefits and how much they consist of–witness the current proposals to raise the age cutoff or lower future benefits. Under Social Security, whether an individual gets twice as much from others as was taken from him, or half as much, or nothing at all, is entirely at the discretion of politicians. He cannot count on Social Security for anything–except a massive drain on his income.

If Social Security did not exist–if the individual were free to use that 12 percent of his income as he chose–his ability to better his future would be incomparably greater. He could save for his retirement with a diversified, long-term, productive investment in stocks or bonds. Or he could reasonably choose not to devote all 12 percent to retirement. He might plan to work far past the age of 65. He might plan to live more comfortably when he is young and more modestly in old age. He might choose to invest in his own productivity through additional education or starting a business.

How much, when, and in what form one should provide for retirement is highly individual–and is properly left to the individual’s free judgment and action. Social Security deprives the young of this freedom, and thus makes them less able to plan for the future, less able to provide for their retirement, less able to buy homes, less able to enjoy their most vital years, less able to invest in themselves. And yet Social Security’s advocates continue to push it as moral. Why?

The answer lies in the program’s ideal of “universal coverage”–the idea that, as a New York Times editorial preached, “all old people must have the dignity of financial security”–regardless of how irresponsibly they have acted. On this premise, since some would not save adequately on their own, everyone must be forced into some sort of “guaranteed” collective plan–no matter how irrational. Observe that Social Security’s wholesale harm to those who would use their income responsibly is justified in the name of those who would not. The rational and responsible are shackled and throttled for the sake of the irrational and irresponsible.

Those who wish to devote their wealth to saving the irresponsible from the consequences of their own actions should be free to do so through private charity, but to loot the savings of untold millions of innocent, responsible, hard-working young people in the name of such a goal is a monstrous injustice.

Social Security in any form is morally irredeemable. We should be debating, not how to save Social Security, but how to end it–how to phase it out so as to best protect both the rights of those who have paid into it, and those who are forced to pay for it today. This will be a painful task. But it will make possible a world in which Americans enjoy far greater freedom to secure their own futures.