Leftists are in denial. Sundry media chumps, politicians, even center-left leaning friends and acquaintances are adamantly opposed to tossing out the labels Fascism or Socialism. The thought of explicitly naming the deadly fact that they so earnestly long for is very unpopular and met with passionate challenges to justify such declarations.

Have we really become what they dream of, yet dread to name? I think this question by Myrhaf explicitly drives home the point:

If the state is firing CEO’s and telling businesses how much in bonuses they can get, how is this not fascism? At what point does a mixed economy that is heading toward fascism actually cross the line to fascism?

Driven by the primacy of consciousness, where reality is only a arbitrary product subject to their mental discretion, so long as they don’t call a spade a spade it can remain any object of their choosing. Such evasion enables them to still consider the irrational altruist-collectivist-keynesian nightmare that America has devolved into as a progressive society of hope, so long as they don’t label it with any unbecoming title. Conforming to their moral code, altruism, collectivists seek all the essential aspects of Socialism, but implicit, lingering filaments of reason and rationality demand that they stop short of its full embodiment. They realize that the whole charade rests on the fuel of individual freedom. They want the benefits of freedom but also to wrangle it with statist power, to enjoy the prosperity of Capitalism but under the control of tyranny, to have their cake and eat it too.

Historical fact places them within a precarious quagmire - fact vs. wish. The brutal and undeniable record of statism has ingrained negative connotations in the minds of most luke-warm leftists such that explicitly applying Fascist, Socialist and Communist labels to America would present very uncomfortable contradictions - ones that would be impossible to evade.

As a result, they must try to find a way to camouflage the attack, both to the victims and themselves. One tactic is to think up a lofty title wreaking of sincere benevolence - Universal Health Care, Smart Start, Paycheck Fairness etc. - the other is to debate inessential technicalities in order to persuade that our version of collectivism isn’t pure, or represents a unique approach to establishing stagnant misery.

Societies are in constant movement either towards or away from freedom - in almost all cases away. If we’re not moving towards freedom and the individual, i.e. prosperity, we’re heading towards statism and the collective, i.e. misery. Since this country has long abandoned the former, only the latter remains as our final destination.

Does America more closely resemble laissez faire Capitalism or Fascism? I think without any question the latter.

Gun owners continue to shoot their own feet - this time in Texas.

While it may seem like a positive advancement at face value, the Texas Senate bill is an unjust effort - as are all similar measures. Any law that trumps property rights can only lead to the inevitable erosion of self-defense rights, since firearms are, in fact, a specific type of property.

When employees are hired they voluntarily agree to a specific set of terms set forth by the employer. Unfortunately, many employers include irrational guidelines pertaining to firearms on their premises, however, the sanctity of property rights demand that we respect those guidelines.

As an individual in a free society, we can accept those tenets or refuse and seek employment elsewhere.

For government to encroach upon a property owner’s wishes, within the context of a voluntary relationship according to voluntary terms, is an unjust trampling of the American essence. Telling a property owner that he must allow weapons on his property is no different in principle than telling a restaurant owner he must not allow them - both destroy property rights.

Such bills are short-sided attempts which in effect chop down the tree to get to the apple.

Well-intentioned proponents of these measures claim that employees have property rights that trump those of the employer.

…your property rights end at my car doors. That car is MY property, not yours.

It is your property, but it’s subject to my terms when you’re on my property. You are free to accept and accommodate (or violate, as I’ve done in the past), or you may refuse and seek employment elsewhere.

If you don’t want to chance what could be in your employee’s cars on your property, you have a remedy. Don’t allow any parking on your property. However, your property rights should not dictate what can be in those cars since the interior is NOT YOUR PROPERTY AND SHOULD NOT BE SUBJECT TO YOUR CONTROL.

That’s certainly one option. Or, you could rely on contract law and property rights by simply specifying restrictive covenants in an employment contract.

However, your property rights should not dictate what can be in those cars since the interior is NOT YOUR PROPERTY AND SHOULD NOT BE SUBJECT TO YOUR CONTROL.

Like I said above, if the restriction is “no firearms”, then the context is irrelevant. “No firearms” doesn’t mean “no firearms except for where you have an emotional (or even practical) justification for them”, it means “no firearms”, regardless of how you rationalize it.

Keep in mind, I completely disagree with these types of restrictions, but I’m much more adamantly opposed to using government force to counter them in a way that can only injure the cause of freedom.

Property rights must adhere to a hierarchy to some degree - a chain of command amongst voluntary participants - where each link (acting as a host) possesses the right to impose restrictions on the next (acting as the guest) according to voluntary terms.

An example of the same principle taking place one step down the chain could entail you and a co-worker driving to lunch in your car. You would be fully justified in restricting him from getting in your car with a bag of cocaine (or a copy of The Communist Manifesto) in his pocket despite the fact that the coat he’s wearing is his property. He can either choose to accept your rules, or abstain from the ride or even the relationship. What he can’t do however, is hire government to force you to allow him in your car with whatever he chooses, just because he chooses it.

I urge any freedom loving individual who values his right to self-defense to strongly oppose any legality that disrespects our rights to life, liberty or property.

UPDATED: To add thoughts resulting from the comments here.

In yet another inevitable attempt to regulate existence, thermal imaging cameras can now be used to detect any citizens who insist on using more energy than nanny-state environmentalist deem appropriate.

Thermal imaging cameras are being used to create colour-coded maps which will enable council officers to identify offenders and pay them a visit to educate them about the harm to the environment and measures they can take.

Perhaps council officers could benefit from certain education as well - namely the concepts of man’s rights to life, liberty and property, private property.

‘We do a lot on domestic energy conservation already and realised it would be useful to see if any of the homes which were particularly hot were properties where people had not insulated their lofts.

‘We were also able to look at very cold properties and think we might have picked up people on low incomes who are not heating their homes because they cannot afford to.’

This new statist weapon is not only useful in cracking down on subjective-law criminals, but also for identifying wealth redistribution targets - an egalitarian swiss-army knife, if you will.

Lib Dem group leader Stuart Beadle added: ‘Cameras are in place all over today and we have to accept them. So long as the right guidelines are in place and it will bring benefits, I think the scheme is a good thing.’

Of course, we must remind ourselves that these planes, cameras and all the logistics involved are metaphysical facts and must be conformed to as such. And, according to Beadle this is a good scheme, although he neglects to mention whose standard of value his assessment is based on. I doubt the individual who rightfully produced the wealth to pay for such technical luxuries as heat and electricity will appreciate the pestilence of government enviro-thugs offering their “friendly advice”.

Altruist-collectivist-environmentalist-nanny-statism - such is the manner by which a society implodes into stagnant misery. Hatred of life, hatred of man, hatred of wealth, and hatred of reality is the moral of this story.

I urge everyone to abstain from showing support, or even projecting an indifferent consideration, of the anti-life, anti-man, anti-capitalist “Earth Hour” movement.

As rational alternatives, I suggest these counter-movements that celebrate life, man, reason, capitalism, prosperity and joy.

• Alternative to Earth Hour
• Edison Hour on Facebook
• Human Achievement Hour

Unfortunately I stumbled upon this gem by Alan Blinder, which is either satirical journalism at its best or just another delusional leftist rant. His purpose is to challenge the purportedly mouth-breathing notion that Obama is socialist.

Considering an objective summary of Obama’s words, positions, history and actions, how anyone could question this fact is perplexing.

Ever since President Barack Obama released the budget last month, we have been hearing a fusillade of criticism claiming that the president, contrary to previous advertising, is not a centrist, but a “leftie” intent on leading the country down the path of socialism.

Let’s see. Socialism means public ownership and control of businesses, right? So which industries does the president propose to nationalize?

The short answer is all of them - I would venture to guess. But, he’s smart enough to know that such a transition cannot be thrown on the country in one fell swoop, so he’ll push just up to the point of chaos, back-peddle a bit, reposition, repeat. This is the standard tactic of prudency for aspiring tyrants.

Right off the bat we see Mr. Blinders obtuse definition of Socialism which he seems to be using in an extremely narrow sense. Are we to assume that by his standard a nation that is fully Socialized save one Grocery store in some American town is not Socialist?

A more accurate gauge is to evaluate the extent that a nation considers individual rights as sacred pillars of freedom.

Socialism is the sacrifice of the individual to the collective. To the extent that such notion is a nation’s guiding premise, that country is Socialized. No, America isn’t fully Socialized. And no, Obama hasn’t yet prescribed full Socialization, but the very nature of such a society is recursive and self-perpetuating. Controls breed controls - and once the the footing is compromised, the path is downhill unless the fundamental philosophical thrust of the nation is altered.

Banking? Well, no. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner has made it clear that he opposes nationalizing banks, despite much outcry from the political left — and even some from the right — to do just that.

Again, no - banks aren’t fully nationalized, but the wedge is well in place. This, and the most recent administration have redistributed looted wealth in the form of subsidies to corporations. The subsidies came with invasive stipulations. The subsidies weren’t optional, but mandatory. Even if a slave owner limits his restrictive tenets to only a few prohibitions, he’s still in control.

What about health care? Doesn’t Mr. Obama want “socialized medicine”? No. He wants to reform the current system so that it costs less and covers more people. Disgracefully, the United States is the only advanced nation in the world that fails to cover every citizen — even though we spend vastly more on health care than other nations.

Some reformers want the U.S. to adopt a single-payer system like other countries, such as “socialist” Canada and England — which run firmly capitalist economies, by the way. But regardless of whether single-payer is a good idea, it’s not Mr. Obama’s. His health-insurance reform plan emphasizes choice (keeping what you have if you like it), greater efficiency (partly by utilizing information technology), and portability (your health coverage will follow you from job to job). Which part of that is socialist?

Exactly how can he reform it without violating the rights of all parties involved? What’s disgraceful is that America has sunk into the altruist-collectivist abyss so far as to condone and prescribe threatening one man’s life to support another - by force. And exactly why do you think we spend more? Because we’re already subsidizing the parasites in this country who won’t support themselves. Doing so on a wider and more explicit scale will only drive costs up and value down, not to mention the crippling effect that nationalization will have on the competitive and creative forces of innovation. To the extent that a man is rational, he will not work under compulsion.

As far as England and Canada (or any country in the world) being Capitalist, surely you jest Mr. Blinder?

As the law now stands, when a family that does not itemize deductions on its tax return donates $100 to its favorite charity, the donation costs the family $100. But when an itemizing family in the 25% bracket donates $100, it costs them only $75 after tax. And when an itemizer in the 35% bracket donates $100, the after-tax cost is only $65. Thus the richer you are, the less it costs. Is it socialistic to say that seems a little backwards?

Not necessarily socialist, but it’s preposterous to imply that an individual who diligently complies and attempts to wrangle our nightmarish tax code shouldn’t be rewarded. This is the same line of thought that claims it’s an injustice for an individual who doesn’t pay taxes to not get a tax refund.

So where does all this leave us on the road to socialism? If Mr. Obama is able to get all of these proposals through Congress, the U.S. will have a fully private banking system, propped up with temporary government support; a uniquely American health-care system that covers virtually everyone; and a somewhat more progressive income tax.

If this is socialism, then let’s make the most of it.

Fully private eh? Except for thousands of pages of regulations, a mandatory phony currency, and that pesky Federal Reserve pulling the strings that drive the whole show. Temporary huh? Would that be “income tax” temporary, or “public education” temporary? Uniquely American? Except that it’s rooted in the same poisonous altruist-collective nonsense that leads every subscribing country to stagnant mediocrity, poverty and ultimately destruction. Our particular blend of the freedom/statism concoction may be non-essentially unique, but the course will lead to the only possible destination - misery.

Mr. Blinder, if you prefer not to call our president a Socialist, how about this? He’s a collectivist thug that stands to contradict and trample every founding principle of America. Does not using the “S” word make you feel better?

His ideals, like yours, represent the cloudy, contradictory fog of nonsense that has the greatest nation in the history of mankind circling the drain.

• Is this the end of America?: Helicopter Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve is dropping trillions of fresh paper dollars on the world economy, the President of the United States is cracking jokes on late night comedy shows, his energy minister is threatening a trade war over carbon emissions, his treasury secretary is dithering over a banking reform program amid rising concerns over his competence and a monumentally dysfunctional U.S. Congress is launching another public jihad against corporations and bankers.
• House passes bill taxing fat AIG and other bonuses Denouncing a “squandering of the people’s money”… (There certainly has been a squandering, but not by AIG…)

Our pop-culture president recently went through the dog-and-pony show experience of Leno. We’re now beginning to see that given the opportunity (predicament) to improvise outside of a teleprompter’s demands, this man will reveal his true character.

It began with the president joking about how bad a bowler he is.

Toward the end of his approximately 40-minute taping on the “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” Obama talked about how he’d gotten better at bowling and had been practicing in the White House bowling alley.

“I bowled a 129,” he told Leno.

“That’s very good, Mr. President,” Leno said sarcastically.

But then came the foot-in-mouth moment: “It’s like the Special Olympics or something,” the president said. [emphasis mine]

< sacrastic-response >
Um, like… yea Barack… that shit’s funny yo.
< / sarcastic-response >

Are you kidding me?

Should we consider this notion as enlightened, compassionate or progressive? Does it represent his earnest respect for hope or change? What caliber of intellect carries around such a childish insensitive notion? This ignorant and tasteless blurt is just one candid snippet of the mind that will likely lead America to a much darker time.

Loosen your belt America, we’re just getting started.

This read is astonishing.

This raises a truly alarming question: can capitalism and democracy survive side by side?
[edited for relevant concision]

His conclusive question is valid, but not for the misguided notions he presents.

The answer is clearly no, Democracy and Capitalism are not compatible.

Capitalism is a system based on individual rights where Government acts to protect such rights as the sole agent of retaliatory force.

Democracy is mob-rule. Whether the gangs involved are political parties, lobby groups or grassroots organizations - they are all competing to condone and prescribe illegitimate government force to achieve their ends. Such goals can only be achieved by encroaching on other individuals right to life, liberty or property and cannot be accomplished under a system where said rights are sovereign.

The author seems to resort to the tired old false dichotomy of Keynesian meddling vs. full Statism, i.e., Socialism/Fascism vs. Communism - neither is the path to Capitalism and the prosperity that results.

America is not and was not constructed as a Democracy but rather a Constitutional Republic. To borrow Ayn Rand’s words -

The American system is a constitutionally limited republic, restricted to the protection of individual rights. In such a system, majority rule is applicable only to lesser details, such as the selection of certain personnel. But the majority has no say over the basic principles governing the government. It has no power to ask for or gain the infringement of individual rights.

Also, contrary to his apparent penchant for central planning, Keynesian madness is precisely the tactic (facilitated by a phony currency) responsible for all previous, current and our impending economic turmoil because it involves wholesale trumping of individual values, choices and accountability and the attempt to evade reality in a economic context.

I’ll end with the thoughts of Myrhaf:

The only solution to the entire crisis is the one thing our statist politicians cannot tolerate: individual rights. Get the state out of the economy and let free individuals dispose of their property according to their best judgment. No, Obama and his buddies want no talk of individual rights; they want the people to think of themselves as part of a collective controlled by the state.

Mob violence is a perfect manifestation of Obama’s collectivist vision of man’s nature. His altruist-collectivist-statist premises have no room for free, rational individuals trading peacefully with one another without interference from their masters in Washington, D.C.

As part of a promotion at audible.com, several books are on sale including the unabridged version of Atlas Shrugged.

I highly recommend the audio book version. Not only has it proven to be a very convenient format for enjoying the story, but also a way to share the story with others. I keep the stack of 50 CD’s in a case that I leave in my car and occasionally will put on my desk at work. I’ve loaned it out on two separate occasions - both of which were facilitated by the format of the media.

To get this life-changing novel for $4.95 is a incredible value.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, I just realized that you must be a member to get the sale price. This fact was conveniently excluded from their add as well as the site. Still a great deal if you were to join for 3 months (minimum) @ $7.95/month, which would allow you three books at no additional charge plus the sale price on Atlas. Essentially, one could get 4 books for $28.80 total.