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On Whether to Tear Down or Build Up
A recent article by Utah attorney Jerry Salcido touched on the battle many patriots face when they realize the magnitude of our awful situation: do we focus our time on outing conspiracies and pointing out corruption, or do we study and advocate correct principles to win people over to the cause of liberty?
Salcido’s article, also published here, elicited a flurry of responses both of support and opposition. Many commenters had a problem with his seeming abandonment of the fight to expose conspiratorial individuals, and felt that his advocacy for learning philosophy and principle instead of focusing on conspiracy and corruption was only aiding the enemy’s efforts by not joining in the fight against them.
John Birch Society President John McManus himself jumped into the fray, penning a rebuttal to Salcido’s article. Contesting Salcido’s central claim that conspiracy theories (and the effort to expose them) are counterproductive to the cause of liberty, McManus states:
The Redemption of the Republicans
Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican party, admits that his party has “screwed up”, while selectively pointing to some (of the many) errors made in the past couple of decades. While only a little surprising (after all, he didn’t make these statements while his own party was still in charge), this is a welcome first step in the process of redemption—a recognition of fault.
As recovering alcoholics, children who have stolen candy from a store, and repenting Christians all know, recognition is only the first step. What follows is (or, well, should be) a change in one’s behavior, bringing it in line with the standard being sought after. Only then will the recognition be seen as somewhat valid, rather than a feigned attempt to show contrition while lacking sincerity or any commitment to improve.
The Criminalization of the Citizenry
The centralization of power at the apex of the political pyramid requires placing other individuals at a lower level. This is done through the force of government and the imposition of laws, taxes, and regulations that turn otherwise sovereign and innocent individuals into a branded and targeted group of criminal citizens to be persecuted, fined, jailed, or otherwise punished.
In Atlas Shrugged, this pattern emerges when the imploding government is scrambling for resources to consume and redistribute. An array of new laws are passed whose primary (but unstated) goal is to artificially manufacture a scenario by which the government can legally acquire what it wants. At the conclusion of a showdown between a government agent and an individual who has become targeted by one such law, the government official openly explains the purpose behind such laws:
Punishing the Many to Protect the Few
Terrorists are not admittedly intelligent individuals, by and large, though they seem to consistently outsmart those who have been tasked with ensuring this nation’s safety. At least, one easily comes to this conclusion by casually observing the responses enacted by politicians and their bureaucratic minions following any sort of threat or actual attack.
What is terrorism? Stripped of its fear-inducing layer of propaganda, it is little more than an attempt to incite panic. One dictionary defines it as “the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature”. In this post, I’ll leave aside the blatantly obvious fact that most acts of alleged terrorism are actually retaliatory responses to our own aggressive meddling in others’ lives, and simply assume that the things we label as “terrorism” have no historical context and are purely meant to induce fear.
A New Year for Patriotism
America has long been on an IV drip of political poison, its vitality and well-being slowly being sapped as a result. This steady erosion of liberty has been augmented to an increased dosage in the past year under the rule and reign of Mr. Obama, his authoritarian Czars, and a socialist, statist Congress. From the outright nationalization of swaths of industries to the imposition of tens of thousands of pages of unconstitutional and oppressive legislation, this government has made clear that like a parasite, it aims to enlarge itself at the expense of its host.
For too long, the general public has tolerated this centralization of power and loss of liberty. Largely due to how slowly this process has occurred, many seem altogether unaware of how bad things really are. As Judge Andrew Napolitano has wisely noted:
GOED: Redistributing Utah’s Wealth
The following is an op-ed I wrote that was published in the Daily Herald today:
Republicans have rarely done a good job at identifying and rejecting socialism. Many seem to think that only Democrats enact such policies, and therefore anything passed by a fellow Republican must have some sort of basis in fiscal conservatism. Thus, conservative activists shake their fists in outrage at Obama’s stimuli, bailouts, and “spread the wealth around” administration, yet they ignore, excuse, or embrace similar policies being promoted in their midst.
For an example of this cognitive dissonance, one need look no further than the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) here in Utah. This agency has recently been in the news, with the board funneling nearly $2 million to a company owned by one of its own members, and the announcement of $4.4 million in incentives going to the company headed up by Fred Lampropoulos, the recent week-long Senate candidate.
The Hyper-Sexual Indoctrination of Children
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley writes of a dystopian future in which children are raised on sexual gratification and regular drug use as basic staples of entertainment and psychological well-being. So ingrained in the culture is this practice that the “brave new world” in which the characters live considers promiscuity a virtue.
The justification provided and encouraged by the government in the story is that “everybody belongs to everyone else”, thus reducing each individual to an objectified apparatus of sexual pleasure to be used for mutual and general benefit. The complete reversal in sexual mores can be best illustrated by the following passage from the book:
Stay the Course… of the Titanic
An op-ed posted yesterday in the Deseret News blew me away with its statist nonsense to such a degree that I could not help but formulate a rebuttal. Since my own op-ed was published in the paper so recently, and since I would rather not have this response be constrained to the word limit imposed by the paper, I will publish it here. I invite you to first sit down, distance yourself from any breakables, take a few calming breaths, and read the article before returning here for my comments.
The title and focus chosen by the author, one Eric Samuelsen of Provo, encourages the reader to “stay the course” with President Obama. As a preface and prelude to my own remarks, I first will bring in Lee Iacocca, himself no opponent of big government and bailouts, who nevertheless has recently remarked the following:
Why the New Anti-War Right is Wrong
Social networks buzzed last week with the publication of an article by Reihan Salam titled “The New Anti-War Right”, which praised the “conservative case for withdrawal [from Afghanistan]” promoted by Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah. The author went so far as to designate Chaffetz as the “beginning of a wave”—that wave being the swelling ranks of “the new Anti-War Right”.
Salam summarizes the situation by observing that “grassroots conservatives” are concerned that the military is “too hamstrung by concern about civilian casualties and political correctness to wage an effective military campaign”, despicably bundling a (noble) regard for innocent life with a widely despised concession to neutered language and protocol. Since when did conservatives show a complete disdain for innocent life?
Wall Street Drunk and Drinking More
The following is an op-ed I wrote that was published in the Deseret News this week:
Former President George Bush was wrong on many issues, but at least one of his comments was right on the money. At a private fundraiser in Houston in July 2008, during one of those many unscripted moments, Bush opined on some of the reasons behind the then-nascent economic decline. His simple summary was that “Wall Street got drunk”.
While metaphorically true in a sense, what he failed to mention was that the government was primarily responsible for supplying the cheap booze to the bankers. Wall Street did indeed get drunk on credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities, and easy money through artificially-controlled low interest rates. None of this would have been possible, however, without the Federal Reserve’s control over America’s paper-based monetary system and the existence of a fractional-reserve banking system which creates credit out of little more than thin air. Frat boys can’t get drunk without access to cheap (or free) beer, and bankers can’t compound investments and risky loans without a “lender of last resort” who is willing to finance the shenanigans.
Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires
The following article was first published at sgtdanger.com, the blog of my friend Drew Dangerfield, a non-commissioned officer in the Army currently deployed in Afghanistan.
An officer fighting in Afghanistan submitted a letter to the highest ranking defense official over the war, which reads in part:
We should honestly admit that our efforts over the last eight years have not led to the expected results. Huge material resources and considerable casualties did not produce a positive end result—stabilization of military-political situation in the country. The protracted character of the military struggle and the absence of any serious success, which could lead to a breakthrough in the entire strategic situation, led to the formation in the minds of the majority of the population of the mistrust in the abilities of the regime.
The experience of the past years clearly shows that the Afghan problem cannot be solved by military means only. We should decisively reject our illusions and undertake principally new steps, taking into account the lessons of the past, and the real situation in the country…
This frank assessment of the situation in Afghanistan came after several years of ongoing fighting to eradicate enemy forces determined to resist the military’s presence. Its plea for an entirely new direction, a study of relevant history, and an honest analysis of the progress and circumstances in the country they are occupying is most welcome.
Unfortunately, this letter was not written by any American soldier, nor by anybody in the coalition of forces currently fighting in Afghanistan. It was written over two decades ago by Colonel K. Tsagalov, addressing the newly-appointed Soviet defense minister, Dmitry Yazov.
How I Support the Troops
Drive around town for a few minutes, and chances are you’ll encounter a car emblazoned with a bumper sticker or magnet that encourages you to “Support Our Troops”. With almost 1.4 million active duty soldiers and close to the same number in the reserves, tens of millions of Americans are connected to a solider either through immediate or extended family ties, friendship, or some other close association.
If 1% of our population is in the military, then a whole lot more are inherently its supporters by virtue of the fact that a loved one’s life is being put in danger in its service. The emotional ties involved in such a relationship to the military and its campaigns have resulted in the slogan “Support Our Troops” becoming almost entirely synonymous with support for whatever campaign they are engaged in, and whatever policies come down from their commander-in-chief and his war-making subordinates. The slogan lacks any qualifiers, promises and encourages an endorsement of whatever action the troops are assigned, and perpetuates a blind allegiance to what has long become a mighty military machine.
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