I’m still leaning heavily towards not voting in this election, and for the same reasons detailed here. There is only a single issue that stands out as a distinguishing characteristic between these clowns - self defense with deadly force.

The NRA, an organization I can no longer support due to their pragmatic indifference to property rights, is really hammering on the obvious anti-gun (read: anti-property rights) intentions of Obama. Here is a bullet list of their key points:

FACT: Barack Obama opposes four of the five Supreme Court justices who affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms. He voted against the confirmation of Alito and Roberts and he has stated he would not have appointed Thomas or Scalia.17

Sure he does. He wants justices that will legislate his collectivist agenda from the bench in spite of the constitution.

FACT: Barack Obama voted for an Illinois State Senate bill to ban and confiscate “assault weapons,” but the bill was so poorly crafted, it would have also banned most semi-auto and single and double barrel shotguns commonly used by sportsmen.18

I’m sure it was poorly crafted with full intent.

FACT: Barack Obama voted to allow reckless lawsuits designed to bankrupt the firearms industry.1

Sure he did. A subjective legal system is a handy tool for a man of which force is the preferred means to deal with men.

FACT: Barack Obama wants to re-impose the failed and discredited Clinton Gun Ban.15

No surprise here.

FACT: Barack Obama voted to ban almost all rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sport shooting.3

Yes, he is anti-gun - which means no guns, no ammo. An unarmed population is easier to control.

FACT: Barack Obama has endorsed a 500% increase in the federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition.9

FACT: Barack Obama has endorsed a complete ban on handgun ownership.2

FACT: Barack Obama supports local gun bans in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other cities.4

FACT: Barack Obama voted to uphold local gun bans and the criminal prosecution of people who use firearms in self-defense.5

FACT: Barack Obama supports gun owner licensing and gun registration.6

FACT: Barack Obama refused to sign a friend-of-the-court Brief in support of individual Second Amendment rights in the Heller case.

FACT: Barack Obama opposes Right to Carry laws.7

FACT: Barack Obama was a member of the Board of Directors of the Joyce Foundation, the leading source of funds for anti-gun organizations and “research.”8

FACT: Barack Obama supported a proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park, which would eliminate almost every gun store in America.9

FACT: Barack Obama voted not to notify gun owners when the state of Illinois did records searches on them.10

FACT: Barack Obama voted against a measure to lower the Firearms Owners Identification card age minimum from 21 to 18, a measure designed to assist young people in the military.11

FACT: Barack Obama favors a ban on standard capacity magazines.12

FACT: Barack Obama supports mandatory micro-stamping.13

FACT: Barack Obama supports mandatory waiting periods.2

FACT: Barack Obama supports repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment, which prohibits information on gun traces collected by the BATFE from being used in reckless lawsuits against firearm dealers and manufacturers.14

FACT: Barack Obama supports one-gun-a-month handgun purchase restrictions.16

FACT: Barack Obama supports a ban on inexpensive handguns.9

FACT: Barack Obama supports a ban on the resale of police issued firearms, even if the money is going to police departments for replacement equipment.9

FACT: Barack Obama supports mandatory firearm training requirements for all gun owners and a ban on gun ownership for persons under the age of 21.9

In a nation riddled with subjective law, a rogue court system who’ll trample the constitution at will, and a population of which the majority doesn’t properly respect rights, this is essentially the only issue that clearly distinguishes Obama from McCain.  If we’re going to be subjected to inadequate protection from people who’ll forcefully violate our rights in a system that only hints at a standard of justice, I want to be able to protect myself and my family by any means necessary.  I want to have the ability to issue deadly force at all times.

My life and the lives of my family are precious and irreplaceable.  One candidate conveys a clear intent to deny me the means to better protect myself, while at the same time promoting policies that will amplify those very threats. The other promotes policies just as vile, and shows disdain for individuals and freedom comparable to his opponent - but, he claims to support my right to self-defense.  With a few exceptions, his record supports the claim.
With either outcome, the sanctity of the individual will further erode into some collectivist variant.  With Either outcome, what’s left of Capitalism will take a tremendous blow.  With either outcome, the irrational philosophies of the majority will yet again have their way.  For the first time since 9/11 and only the second time in my adult life, I have a sense of fear.  I fear that the economic destruction resulting from years of pragmatic ignorance will inevitably become the fissure releasing decades of hatred, panic and misery that’s brewing within our divided population.  When/if that storm erupts, we’ll see savagery from men scrapping for survival that I can’t imagine.  Weapons won’t guarantee survival, but they will provide an increased odds.  The process of disarming us is well underway and this election could enable a substantial boost for such cause.

Pulling the lever for McCain won’t save Capitalism, it won’t rescue individualism, it won’t promote reason, and in fact it will perpetuate several vile mystical and tyrannical movements.  But, it may enable us to retain our right to self-defense and possibly shift the momentum of a movement that will certainly injure our republic.  A vote for McCain may enable us to survive long enough to see the day of reason.

Men of reason don’t rely on force for survival, but even Hank Rearden appreciated the value of gun ownership.  Is this sufficient motivation to cast a ballot?

Read the rest of this entry »

by Craig Biddle - Full article here.

As the 2008 presidential election nears, and while John McCain and Barack Obama struggle to distinguish themselves from each other in terms of particular promises and goals, it is instructive to observe that these candidates are indistinguishable in terms of fundamentals.

On the domestic front, McCain promises to “take on” the drug companies, as if those who produce and market the medicines that improve and save human lives must be fought; he promises to ration energy by means of a cap-and-trade scheme, as if the government has a moral or constitutional right to dictate how much energy a company may purchase or use; he promises to “battle” big oil, as if those who produce and deliver the lifeblood of civilization need to be defeated; he promises to “reform” Wall Street, as if those who finance the businesses that produce the goods and services on which our lives depend are thereby degenerate; he seeks to uphold the ban on drilling in ANWR, as if the government has a moral or constitutional right to prevent Americans from reshaping nature to suit their needs; and so on.

Obama promises to socialize health care (under the tired euphemism of “universal health care”), as if insurance companies, doctors, and patients have no right to use or dispose of their property or to contract with one another according to their own judgment; he promises to increase the minimum wage, as if employers and employees lack those same rights; he promises to pour taxpayer money into “alternative energy,” as if the government has a moral or constitutional right to confiscate money from productive citizens in order to subsidize tilting windmills; he promises to force oil companies to fund government handouts to Americans, as if the owners of oil companies have no right to their property or profits; he promises to bail out homeowners who cannot pay their mortgages, as if the government has a moral or constitutional right to make some people pay for the financial mistakes or hardships of others; he promises to “incentivize” students to do “community service” by offering them taxpayer-funded college tuition, as if the government has a moral or constitutional right to do so; and so on.

In regard to foreign policy, McCain promises to “respect the collective will of our democratic allies,” as if America has no moral right to defend her citizens according to her own best judgment; and he promises to finish the “mission” of making Iraq “a functioning democracy” even if it takes “one hundred years,” as if the U.S. government has a moral or constitutional right to sacrifice American soldiers to spread democracy abroad.1

Obama promises to uphold the idea that “America’s larger purpose in the world is to promote the spread of freedom. . . . dignity, and opportunity,” as if we have a moral responsibility to minister to the uncivilized and the unfortunate across the globe; and he promises to negotiate with jihadists who chant “Death to America,” as if Americans will be safe from these lunatics when the lunatics give Obama their word.2

Looking past the particular programs of McCain and Obama, and viewing their goals in terms of the purpose of government presumed by these goals, we can see that both candidates hold that the purpose of government is to manage the economy, to regulate businesses, to redistribute wealth, to bring freedom or democracy to foreigners, and to defer to the will of others on matters of American security.

But this is not the proper purpose of government. Nor is it the purpose that America’s founders had in mind when they formed this great country.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a great read illustrating the intellectual decline of America. Despite his shortcomings, an “extremist” such as Goldwater would be a breath of fresh air in todays stagnant political circus.

From Goldwater’s speech:

We must assure a society here which, while never abandoning the needy or forsaking the helpless [sigh], nurtures incentives and opportunities for the creative and the productive. We must know the whole good is the product of many single contributions.

And I cherish a day when our children once again will restore as heroes the sort of men and women who, unafraid and undaunted, pursue the truth, strive to cure disease, subdue and make fruitful our natural environment and produce the inventive engines of production, science, and technology.

This Nation, whose creative people have enhanced this entire span of history, should again thrive upon the greatness of all those things which we, we as individual citizens, can and should do. And during Republican years, this again will be a nation of men and women, of families proud of their role, jealous of their responsibilities, unlimited in their aspirations — a Nation where all who can will be self-reliant.

We Republicans see in our constitutional form of government the great framework which assures the orderly but dynamic fulfillment of the whole man, and we see the whole man as the great reason for instituting orderly government in the first place.

We see — We see in private property and in economy based upon and fostering private property, the one way to make government a durable ally of the whole man, rather than his determined enemy. We see in the sanctity of private property the only durable foundation for constitutional government in a free society. And — And beyond that, we see, in cherished diversity of ways, diversity of thoughts, of motives and accomplishments. We don’t seek to lead anyone’s life for him. We only seek — only seek to secure his rights, guarantee him opportunity — guarantee him opportunity to strive, with government performing only those needed and constitutionally sanctioned tasks which cannot otherwise be performed. [emphasis and dismay added]

And the best part…

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. [emphasis mine]

Here’s an overview of their new open-source browser Chrome. The cartoons are hilarious and the ones depicting frustration are acutely appropriate. Chrome looks to be potential for tremendous advance for web based technology.

If only Google would integrate a sound philosophy into their business model; one that doesn’t condone the trampling of property rights and clearly understands the proper role of Government. Given their record of casually using GovCo. as a business tool, it’s only a matter of time until I’ll no longer be able to leverage their incredible ingenuity in good conscience.

The tragic reality is they don’t need to hire GovCo. thugs to be successful, or even to dominate. They’re brilliant, innovative and have the requisite assets to achieve whatever they can imagine.

This ties into my larger amazement with how philosophically lacking individuals can be successful businessmen. My first thought is that Capitalism, even the fumes of it, create such economic opportunity that virtually anyone can profit from thought and action, and despite other moral shortcomings. Even a wealthy individual that became such honestly might steal if lacking the proper view of existence. More later.

Update: GovCo. is a neologism coined by Keith Larson, a local reality-minded talk-radio personality. Essentially it represents government acting beyond its proper scope, especially in a self-perpetuating manner, i.e., a government concerned with expanding itself (the way a private company would operate). As used above, I refer to Google hiring Government (via lobbying, taxes, who knows what else) to abuse its monopoly of the use of force as a means to some business (private) concern. Anytime a private enterprise leverages illegitimate Government power to violate rights of others, as if it were merely commissioning the services of another private company, the term GovCo. is fitting.

Of course it’s blatantly ironic to refer to our Government as an entity bound by the just laws of economics (existence, identity, causality etc.) - but this only adds to the sarcastic charm of the term.

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.

Via HBL, a wonderful new quote:

“Work; it all lies in that. Count on no one but yourself. Say to yourself that if you have talent your talent will open the most tightly closed doors, and that it will put you as high as you merit to go. And, above all things, refuse benefits from the government; never ask protection from the state; you will leave your manhood behind you if you do. The great law of life is to struggle. Nobody owes you anything. You will triumph necessarily if you are a power, and if you succumb do not complain, for your defeat is just. Then respect money; do not fall into the childish fashion of crying out, with the poets, against it; money is our courage and our liberty. We writers, who need to be free in order to say what we think, money makes us the intellectual leaders of the century–the only possible aristocracy.” - Emile Zola

By Ayn Rand - From ARI

A government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area.

Do men need such an institution—and why?

Since man’s mind is his basic tool of survival, his means of gaining knowledge to guide his actions-the basic condition he requires is the freedom to think and to act according to his rational judgment. This does not mean that a man must live alone and that a desert island is the environment best suited to his needs. Men can derive enormous benefits from dealing with one another. A social environment is most conducive to their successful survival—but only on certain conditions.

“The two great values to be gained from social existence are: knowledge and trade. Man is the only species that can transmit and expand his store of knowledge from generation to generation; the knowledge potentially available to man is greater than any one man could begin to acquire in his own lifespan; every man gains an incalculable benefit from the knowledge discovered by others. The second great benefit is the division of labor: it enables a man to devote his effort to a particular field of work and to trade with others who specialize in other fields. This form of cooperation allows all men who take part in it to achieve a greater knowledge, skill and productive return on their effort than they could achieve if each had to produce everything he needs, on a desert island or on a self-sustaining farm.

“But these very benefits indicate, delimit and define what kind of men can be of value to one another and in what kind of society: only rational, productive, independent men in a rational, productive, free society.” (“The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness)

A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment-a society that sets up a conflict between its edicts and the requirements of man’s nature—is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule. Such a society destroys all the values of human coexistence, has no possible justification and represents, not a source of benefits, but the deadliest threat to man’s survival. Life on a desert island is safer than and incomparably preferable to existence in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany.

If men are to live together in a peaceful, productive, rational society and deal with one another to mutual benefit, they must accept the basic social principle without which no moral or civilized society is possible: the principle of individual rights.

To recognize individual rights means to recognize and accept the conditions required by man’s nature for his proper survival.

Man’s rights can be violated only by the use of physical force. It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursuing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgment.

The precondition of a civilized society is the barring of physical force from social relationships—thus establishing the principle that if men wish to deal with one another, they may do so only by means of reason: by discussion, persuasion and voluntary, uncoerced agreement.

The necessary consequence of man’s right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.

If some “pacifist” society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug who decided to be immoral. Such a society would achieve the opposite of its intention: instead of abolishing evil, it would encourage and reward it.

If a society provided no organized protection against force, it would compel every citizen to go about armed, to turn his home into a fortress, to shoot any strangers approaching his door—or to join a protective gang of citizens who would fight other gangs, formed for the same purpose, and thus bring about the degeneration of that society into the chaos of gang-rule, i.e., rule by brute force, into perpetual tribal warfare of prehistoric savages.

The use of physical force—even its retaliatory use—cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens. Peaceful coexistence is impossible if a man has to live under the constant threat of force to be unleashed against him by any of his neighbors at any moment. Whether his neighbors’ intentions are good or bad, whether their judgment is rational or irrational, whether they are motivated by a sense of justice or by ignorance or by prejudice or by malice-the use of force against one man cannot be left to the arbitrary decision of another.

Visualize, for example, what would happen if a man missed his wallet, concluded that he had been robbed, broke into every house in the neighborhood to search it, and shot the first man who gave him a dirty look, taking the look to be a proof of guilt.

The retaliatory use of force requires objective rules of evidence to establish that a crime has been committed and to prove who committed it, as well as objective rules to define punishments and enforcement procedures. Men who attempt to prosecute crimes, without such rules, are a lynch mob. If a society left the retaliatory use of force in the hands of individual citizens, it would degenerate into mob rule, lynch law and an endless series of bloody private feuds or vendettas.

If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.

This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.

A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gus Van Horn has written a nice piece about the Australian governments plans to further meddle in the lives of its citizens to curb what it sees as an obesity problem.

It leads with the recent finding that, on the whole, Australians are more likely to be obese than Americans and then notes the “necessity” of the government taking action to combat this “problem”.

Why am I placing the term “problem” in quotes? Even if being overweight always doomed someone to poor health, what difference would it make to me, in a society where the government does not force me to pay for someone else’s carelessness (through socialized medicine in this case) whether someone else is overweight? It would be that person’s problem and not mine.

But under a mixed economy such as Australia’s, the opposite is true.

This integration depicts a cornerstone of the destructive spirit of collectivist governments. As I’ve mentioned before, true problems are (and can only be) created by government. Examine what threats to success and happiness currently loom in your mind. High gas prices, soaring health care costs, crappy schools churning out idiots, religious barbarians killing Americans, tax accounting, that toilet that always clogs, inflation - all issues enabled or severely amplified by illegitimate or improper government meddling. All would be completely non-existent if our government acted within and were restricted to its proper role.

Void of statism, the just laws of economics and physics would limit the potential destruction of virtually any level of stupidity to only affect the stupid individual. Of course those closely related to or dependent on the idiot may be impacted, but they’d typically be the extent of the range of impact. If an individual ignores the obvious risks of obesity, he trades the quality and duration of his life. The smoker, the drinker, the lazy, the addict - all capable of destroying themselves and those around them, but the scope of destruction is acutely restrained.

If I want a toilet with 50 gallon capacity, I pay the water bill. If I want to drive a massive 4WD vehicle, I pay for the gas. If I attempt to live beyond my financial means I pay the price. Conversely, If I don’t see it necessary to work in order to provide for myself or my family, I suffer the fate. If I don’t consider my future when managing my financing, I will be the one with no savings to retire on. If I don’t acknowledge the risk of wearing my seat belt, I am the one who could die. In a rational society, all individuals hold their success or peril with the gloves of freedom and justice.

Instead, a bloated government acting outside of its proper scope amplifies and spreads the detriment of what would typically be limited to self abatement. Like a lense filter which distorts and mangles anything which passes through it, improper government empowers the vices attributed to any scenario. When the institutional mindset sees individuals as merely means to the ends of others, one mans problems whether self-inflicted or not become thorns in the side of all. With this crutch in place, why not get fat, drunk, relaxed or high. Why not placate my passive urges and indulge on whatever whim comes to mind? Why restrict my egalitarianism views to mere fantasies, when I can force those edicts on all? Why limit my altruistic notions to only my destruction, when I can force them on others? The filter can amplify any vice into a nation crumbling mandate.

Not only does the filter amplify, it creates. Consider all the violence, theft and murder surrounding the drug culture. None of which would exist if individuals right to ingest what they please weren’t violated by government. The black market, and its inherently dangerous aura wouldn’t exist. Instead, you’d have economic opportunity for a huge market supplying consumers with a product there’s obviously a demand for. Consider our high gas prices, which are solely the result of environmental regulations and taxation. Consider our rising health care costs, the result of political tampering in the insurance market, a subjective legal system, and the market imbalances imparted by medicaid and medicare funded consumption and their phony economics. All courtesy of the GovCo. filter.

The filter has deformed our economy into massive and mandatory, all encompassing insurance policy - one with no acceptance criteria and virtually full coverage for anyone who happens into the state of need. Additionally, the individual products of the filter are mostly ones bred for dependence and offer unlimited opportunity for human stupidity. As long as one mans burden is another mans responsibility we’ll continue to chatter in an reciprocal loop of destruction which will lead to the end of America.

The phrase is extremely crude and I’m hesitant to use it, but its fitting - we are in a self-inflicted, recursive orgy of economic and philosophical destruction. The only avenue to freedom, happiness and prosperity is to discard the poisonous notion that men exist to serve others, and to fully accept the truth that individuals are sovereign entities with unwavering rights to life, liberty and property, and who’s purpose is their own happiness.

- 06.21.08 9:44PM : edited to replace über-curseword with standard vulgarity.

This is Gus Van Horn at his finest. He adeptly integrates the importance of rights, not compromising one’s principles, and the folly of animal rights proponents.

As illustrated here and here, I have always been one who develops deep attachment to pets. But, as irrational entities they have no rights, and therefore should be unquestionably subordinate to humans in every way. It is precisely their lack of rights which precludes any objective law pertaining to them other than those protecting domestic animals as property.