The Beginning of The End of America

There has been a movement since the 1930's to change America. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democratic Party used the Great Depression to begin a progressive takeover of the country. This takeover came in the form of higher taxes and price controls.

Today, we see the Democratic Party, the ideological left, using the same tactics. Progressives, despite the name, believes capitalism is the root of all evil. They believe government should either own or place tight controls on all businesses, no matter if it's large or small. Some might liken their goals and tactics closer to those of Karl Marx. In either case, the result is always failure.

Reply to a Salon Progressive

It's been a long time since I read something that demanded answering in detail. I just read, Piketty shrugged: How the French economist dashed libertarians’ Ayn Randian fantasies. The first thing that stood out was that despite referring frequently to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, it's obvious he never read the book. It's also clear he doesn't understand libertarians.

Parramore wrote:

To understand the libertarian view of inequality, let’s turn to Milton Friedman, one of America’s most famous and influential makers of free market mythology. Friedman decreed that economic policy should focus on freedom, and not equality.

Right off I have to address the fact he called the free market a mythology. Friedman and libertarians believe the focus is on liberty as well as freedom. Also freedom doesn't mean you get to harm your neighbor. The progressive's focus on equality is a waste of time because it's unachievable. No matter how hard government tries it can never make us equal. The best government can do is give us equal opportunity to be the best we can and treat us equally under the law.

Economic Truths

Today we hear a lot about economic and social justice. There seems to always be talk of raising the minimum wage in order to have it keep up with inflation. We hear about the great wealth divide where the gap between wealthy and poor widens. This is spoken as if there is a limited numbers of dollars and if one person gets wealthy they must be taking it from someone at the bottom. This is a fallacy.

Today we have a global market. There is massive trade between countries. Goods and services are exchanged between countries. I could give you the total global accumulated wealth, but that changes daily. The amount of a country's currency changes daily. The USA is creating $84 billion a month. This doesn't include dollars created out of thin air that is loaned to banks. Even if that currency is temporary, it becomes temporally a part of total currency. Gold and other commodities are converted to cash through Rehypothification in the form of bonds.

Each day wealth is taken and returned to the government. Currently the death tax (estate tax) is 40% of assets above $5.5 million. When the government takes that money it's often returned to the economy in various ways. Eventually that money becomes available to be earned once more. To be sure, this isn't in support of the death tax, but just an explanation of how currency moves. This does show, especially under the current taxing system, rich cannot accumulate wealth to the point that the poor can have no chance of moving to the middle class.

Death isn't the only way that wealth trickles down to the poor. Much of the wealth lies with business – be it small or large. Most businesses are always looking to expand. They will spend money on building facilities in which to produce more products or services. When expansion happens more workers are hired. Careful thought is given to the number of employees needed. In order to make that decision they must look to see how much of their budget can be set aside for labor. They then look at the labor market and decide what is the lowest wage that can be offered and attract the necessary labor. Skilled labor always comes at a premium, while manual labor is usually easier to find.

Knowing History—The Pledge of Allegiance

The Pledge of Allegiance is something I thought little about as I stood in my grammar school class each day repeating the phrase. My only thoughts were that my nation was something about which to take great pride. I feel no differently today. The only difference today is that I often have to seek out corrections to history as taught by our schools and perpetuated by the different political ideologies. The simple Pledge of Allegiance is one of those things.

Where did the pledge originate?

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist, Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy (1855-1931). It was originally published in The Youth's Companion on September 8, 1892. Bellamy had hoped the pledge would be used by citizens in any country. Years after the Civil War had ended the nation was still divided. This was an attempt to bring the nation together under one flag.

The pledge in its original form:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Political Ideology Diagram 2013

This is another revision to my ideology graphic. I believe this one more accurately reflects what we have today. Some might be confused by where I placed the perceived moderate. I believe most people fall in that category even though they might think they are more to the left. Most people are sadly driven by party instead of personal beliefs. Most people vote for whom they believe cares the most for them.

Because the US Constitution by which all other laws are measured, that should be the moderate. Because too many people no longer care about the Constitution, I have placed it on the edge of moderation. The Kennedy administration is a good point to begin the modern moderate. He seemed to try to adhere to the Constitution, while his party might have been more progressive. Because of the FDR period it was impossible to move Kennedy farther to the right because of his connection to the Democratic Party.

Life of Julia Without Government

Obama released his slide show of Life of Julia and all the things government has done for her. I tried to show how her life might be better without government.

View the Tea Party Tempest slide show of Julia

This is a graphic is now included in the slide show.

Atlas Shrugged Pt. 1 The Movie.

It's not often that I take the time to write a movie review. When Atlas Shrugged part 1 came out It didn't show any place close. Last night I finally had the chance to see the movie. I have to admit I had trepidations. I knew they had set the movie in the modern area. I also knew it would be an impossible task to make to reproduce the book on the silver screen.

For decades the people holding the movie rights had waited for the right production company. I, like many, had begun to think we would never see the movie come to light. There were high expectations, and I must admit they were met as far as I'm concerned.

The characters were well developed, as was the plot. I do wonder if a movie viewer who hasn't read the book will understand all the plots. If they didn't, I believe in coming segments they will begin to see why the world was crumbling.

The Power of Individualism

I find it a waste of time to debate the differences between socialism and communism. For me they are all just varying levels of the same thing. I am with those that believe you have the right to run your country as you see fit. The United States was founded on individualism, so no part of our federal Constitution allows for socialism. I want the right to be as rich as I can, or to be as poor as I want. No part of me understands anyone’s willingness to give up freedom.

Once you hand over all power to government, you have no hopes of ever getting it back, short of revolution. Government will not stop with a little power, they will chip away until they have it all and you have no rights left. If you think you can have only a little socialism on the federal level, you are fooling yourself . Some might think that letting government have all the power is fine, but you never know when you will get a government that is malevolent. I think people too easily forget what happened in Germany.

Is The Political Left Evil?

Those of us that follow the political world tend to find any position other than our own evil. So I ask, is the left evil? The clear answer is no. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t evil within all ideologies. I find most of the people have a good heart. They care about others. They worry about those without housing, food, and health-care. Those are not bad things.

What the left often gets wrong about the right; is that we worry about the same things. It’s only how we wish to solve these problems that differs. We on the right believe that the poor are best severed when the rest prosper. Through the free-market system we have made the American poor some of the richest people in the world.

Those on the left run around shouting that the rich need to pay more. If we confiscated the wealth of anyone possessing more than a million dollars, we couldn’t even pay off the current national debt.

I wonder how many people on the left would be willing to give up the simplest things so that the poor around the world could eat properly. If people were told that giving up cell phones would end world hunger and poverty, would they? I dare say they wouldn’t.

On the other hand, are the people on the right greedy? Sure, maybe some, but most humans are. What makes people on the political right different is they are realist. We know that confiscating wealth will do little to solve all the problems the left holds dear. Since the 50’s we have each year put more and more money into education, yet test scores continue to drop.

What is evil, are the power mongers that will use the good hearts of the people on the left to further political ambitions. For decades those in power on the left have been promising black Americans prosperity, yet it has never come. The best those of us on the right can promise anyone is equality.

Who Are The Progressives?

For the past 100 years the progressive movement has pushed and clawed its way into control of the Unites States. Franklin D. Roosevelt brought the progressive movement into prominence. His progressive polices catapulted the United States into the worst economic period in history. While the rest of the world experienced a recession, or even a depression, only in the USA is it known as the Great Depression.
During the period known as the Great Depression, the USA witnessed the largest expansion of government in history. FDR perpetuated the depression so that he could push an progressive agenda. People looked upon FDR as if he was a savior when he began the jobs programs. Those people built parks, bridges and roads. While those things aren’t bad, they did little to provide permanent work.

It was only after World War 2 that the depression ended. For the next twenty years the USA saw prosperity never before experienced. That prosperity was kick-started by a drastic cut in taxes. Taxes needed to fund the war had been pushed even higher than the progressive tax of FDR. The war taxes were just, but the reduction of those taxes are what propelled us into the roaring 50’s, just as the reduction of taxes propelled the nation into the roaring 20’s.