Remember Our Forefathers

Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category

This is a repost from last Constitution Day. With the current political climate being what it is, I think it is still valid. – CL

Two Hundred and Twenty Two years ago, the greatest document ever written for the Defense of Liberty was crafted in the stale, hot air of Convention Hall in Philadelphia. One year later, with the Ratification by New Hampshire, the table was set for the indefinite protection of Life, Liberty, and Property.

Oh my, how we have fallen from grace.

As Constitution Day comes to a close, we should all remind ourselves of how frail our Liberty truly is. As we have seen over the last century and a half, it seems even as if the smoothest of tongues uttered by the most eloquent of demagogues can convince the Devil to sell his Soul to God. John Philpot Curran, an 18th century Irish lawyer, once said:

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

Truer words are but rarely ever spoken.

I have long believed the utterance of John Adams that “Liberty once lost, is lost forever.” But can that really be true? Can the Souls of Men after having been lost, whether by conquer or complacency, truly be left to suffer the chains of oppression in perpetuity? It cannot be. For that to be the case, we must accept that the fire of Freedom that burns deep within Man is easily quelled and difficult to fan. How then have people throughout history relinquished themselves of the shackles that once bound them? How did we arrive at 1776?

As we reflect upon our current state, we can draw painful similarities to the torments which afflicted the Colonies: Oppressive taxation, inability to attain Redress of Grievances, the “swarms of Officers to harass our People,” the keeping “among us, in times of Peace, Standing Armies,” the “cutting off of our Trade” with parts of the world,  etc. We who have not learned our history have most certainly been doomed to its repetition. Only, this time around, bloody conflict is not necessary. For we hold within the grip of our own hands and hearts the Power to restore our full and complete Liberty. The Power of Government is only granted but by the Consent of We the People. By our Consent!

Almost half a millennium ago, a young French lawyer by the name of Etienne de la Boetie, supplied those oppressed with the most powerful lesson ever to be learned:

[They] who domineer over you [have]… indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon [them] to destroy you. Where [have they] acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can [they] have so many arms to beat you with, if [they do] not borrow them from you? …How do [they] have any power over you except through you? What could [they] do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, …if you were not traitors to yourselves? …From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant[s] to topple [them] over, but simply that you support [them] no longer; then you will behold [them], like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of [their] own weight and break into pieces.

If the Power of Government truly is conferred solely by the Consent of the Governed, then this most certainly is the solution. Only through this exercise can we regain our Liberty. Through Amendment X, and the just Right of Nullification practiced within the bounds of the Amendment, we can resolve to rid ourselves of the overbearing “Colossus”, the Leviathan, the long, unconstitutional arm of the federal Government.

Do not let the cowards, the puppets of the despotic regime, insult your intelligence by convincing you that you “have been born with [a saddle] on [your] back, [and] a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride [you] legitimately…” Anyone who would put the interests of a federal Government above the interests of Liberty is nothing more than a leech, a rent-seeker intent upon gaining off of your enslavement. Mind not the coward who would sell you to his overlord for his own material wellbeing; for he is nothing more than an indentured servant, whether he knows it or not.

Today, as I write this, I feel the fire inside being fanned by the knowledge that 35 States are currently working on legislation aimed at nullifying some form of federal involvement within the workings of their respective Sovereignty’s. 35! Perhaps, you say, they are for nothing more than show. Perhaps. However, the fact that enough People have been inspired to demand some sort of action on their own behalf means that eyes are finally being opened. Perhaps, I say, the complacent have been awoken from their slumber.

How do [they] have any power over you except through you?

Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed.

Perhaps, I say, the tide is turning.

As our Country has gradually collapsed around us under the weight of its own burdens, our State has followed suit. At the brink of bankruptcy, the current administration has made promises to return New Jersey to some sense – probably limited at best – of fiscal responsibility. Kudos for that. The challenge for Mr. Christie and his people is where and where not to make cuts. (Personally, I say cut it all, but then again, that’s probably why I would never be elected governor.) Now, enter the New Jersey Education Association.

Envision yourself working for a company. Now envision that company performing just above average in comparison to the 49 other companies that exist in your line of business. Envision further that your performance, while rising about 5 years ago, has  gone down over the last 2 years. Now envision what would happen if you asked your boss, or your shareholders for a raise. Envision being asked to leave the room immediately while some shareholders look at you with disgust, some shareholders shake their heads in disbelief, and others can do nothing other than laugh that the request was made at all.

In our imaginary scenario, you were the NJEA and its members, and the shareholders were we taxpayers. For the NJEA, demanding reward while providing mediocrity has been its legacy, and now it seems as though that legacy has thankfully come to a long overdue impasse. Oh yeah, one point we forgot to mention in our scenario above: your company has received quite possibly the highest funding per capita of the entire collection of 50 participants. Still think you deserve that raise?

If you were a teacher in New Jersey you would.

I have read a whole lot of complaining from that segment of this State’s population as of late. I have even helped a good friend of mine respond to some light attacks from teachers after he posted a very reasoned and well-thought response to their complaints on Facebook. It is beginning to become a real mess here in the Garden State.

Obviously the complaints have centered around pay, however they have been made under the guise of “funding cuts”. As if we are to believe that those teachers will be unable to perform the same duties that they do now without additional funding. Laughable. So allow me to make a suggestion to those who are so concerned with the “performance of their students”:

If you are so concerned with the performance of your students, and genuinely believe that your performance is deserving of higher compensation, then support the privatization of education.

Of course that would mean the potential loss of your union overlords’ ability to extort massive sums from the taxpayer, however it would probably make you feel a hell of a lot better about your ability to make a difference in the lives of your students in addition to earning you a larger remuneration for your efforts. Follow my logic…

In the real world, when a business performs successfully, it garners more patrons. Because it has more patrons, it can sell more of its services and therefore increase its income. Because it can increase its income, the laborers of that business tend to be paid more in relation to the total increase in revenue. It’s a win-win for all parties involved: the patrons receive what they feel is a higher level of service, therefore they are willing to buy more of or pay more for the services rendered by the business, therefore the business is more profitable, and finally because the business is more profitable the laborers are more well-paid than they would be if they worked for the company we used in the example earlier in this article.

By privatizing education, this scenario can easily become a reality. When parents have the right to choose where their children will be educated, they will choose the facility that teaches their children as close as possible to their values and that performs at the highest level. As with every other good and service in a market economy, people will pay the most for what they perceive as the highest value for their dollar. With regard to education, this principle is even more clearly displayed when we witness how many people are will to absorb the exorbitant tax burden that public schools place upon them and still pay additional tuitions to send their children to private/parochial schools.

It’s a no-brainer people. It should be even easier to comprehend for those who deal in education. It appears as though the only impediment to this future success for all parties involved, both parents/students and teachers, is the greed inherent in the ability to soak the taxpayer without having to produce the results.

So, what do you teachers say?

The True Slave-master, The State

In the preceding article of this series, I sought out to explain how quite impossible “wage slavery” in a capitalist system is by the very fact that employment is a voluntary institution. If employment is voluntary, and the wages are then set by the agreement of terms between employee and employer, no such “slavery” can possibly exist.

In a capitalist system, that is.

Qualifying statements such as that, are extremely important when we consider the magnitude and depth – shallow as it may be – of the claims of “wage slavery.” The importance stems from the third point, which I gently touched upon in the previous article:

• That if a wage is not necessarily high enough to maintain a person’s ideal standard of living, it is only so because the cost of living is so high due to government, not capitalism.

The true genesis of the theory of “wage slavery” exists within that very sentence. The phony “philosophers” have promulgated this fallacy through trickery and deception. A person is a “slave” to their “wage” if and only if they feel that their “wage” does not provide them an adequate level of self-satisfaction and happiness. This condition, as highly subjective as it is, is then not only a product of employment, but also a product of goods. What this bogus “theory” works its way down to is a person’s inability to satisfy their desires for certain goods, deemed - conscientiously and inappropriately I might add – the fault of their inability to earn the requisite wages to purchase those goods. And according to those most beneficent social planners, that fault lies squarely in the hands of the greedy capitalist, aka the employer who entered into the voluntary contract with the worker.

The real question is begging to be asked and answered. Why are the wages being paid to the employee not enough to satisfy the desire to purchase? The answer: the State and its myriad regulations which exist to increase the costs of production, to burden and strangle the business owner / potential employer,  to make the usage of land exorbitantly expensive, to starve out competition and shield the profits of the privileged few, etc. Therein lies the genesis of “wage slavery,” the Government.

First off, let’s start with the actual “wage” itself. When you get your check, whether it be every week or every other week, you see two numbers which should slap you in the face every time. Gross and Net. Gross is what you’ve earned, Net is what the Government allows you to keep. That cannot be blamed on capitalism. Think you should be paid more than what you now receive regardless? Simple, abolish the payroll tax; you will keep 6% more of your money and the employer will have 6% more that they can devote to wages. That’s right, not only are you fleeced, but your employer is being bent over as well. That cannot be blamed on capitalism.

Let’s move on to lodging. Landownership is probably the most burdensome endeavor a citizen of this country can involve their-self in (if not the most, second only to business ownership). The sad fact of the matter is, you never truly own anything, the State does. If you are lucky enough to purchase a dwelling, and lucky enough to see that loan through to its end, you will still be paying rent for the rest of your life: it’s called Property Tax. Some will say that the property tax is really only a fee to pay for services rendered by the State. To that I will say, you are partially correct, and even that partial correctness is a topic for another day. But what about the 70% makeup of the property tax: the school tax? Explain how that service is rendered to people who don’t have children, whose children are not old enough to attend school, or whose children have graduated. It is nothing more than additional burden placed upon the already weighted shoulders of the citizen.

Then there is how the State tells you what you can and cannot do with your own property, and how it taxes to death the utilities that you require to keep your house warm, lit up, and supplied with water. And all these things do not just affect the person who wants to buy a house, they work to the detriment of the person who must rent a place to live. The renter must pay the mortgage, the property tax, and the utilities as well. It just so happens that the majority of rentals come in the form of multi-unit dwellings, which substantially lowers the cost per unit, but whose costs would still be lower without the interference of the State. All of this cannot be blamed on capitalism.

Next, lets look at goods, where I will take the liberty of using a favorite reference of mine to adequately prove my point. In 2008, the world price of sugar per pound was $.1792, whereas in the United States it was $.545. That is a 300% increase in the price of sugar, and why? Because the Federal Government bestows monopoly privilege upon US sugar companies by artificially raising the price on foreign sugar through tariffs and other measures. Now if you think that sugar is the only industry where this type of behavior allows certain select cronies to engorge themselves at the expense of the greater public, you are sadly mistaken. And no, that is not capitalism, that is mercantilism (see here, Cultural Dictionary). Beyond simple tariffs, the Federal Government, as well as individual State governments, take part in a host of regulatory measures which make the production of goods more expensive than they would be absent those governments. None of which can be blamed on capitalism.

In a purely capitalist society, an individual could choose freely who they wished to purchase goods from, whether they be foreign or domestic. In that society, the agreed upon terms of employment, specifically the payment for labor, would be exactly what the employee receives, not a substantially lesser amount for arbitrary purposes. Also, in that society, the purchase or rent of land for dwelling would not be so burdened and therefore be much more affordable.

So if employment is voluntary, the terms of employment set by the willing parties, and if the expenses of life are burdened by Government rather than Capitalism, which leg is left for the theory of “wage slavery” to stand upon?

In my post yesterday, I took up the banner of States’ Rights against the enemies of Liberty and of our Republic. Soon after re-reading the post and ensuing dialogue with the econ professor in the comments section, I realized that there is much more that I could have said in response to the fallacious claims made against nullification. So, in this work, I propose to do so.

The proponents of the unlimited power of a strong national government have long demeaned the Rights of individual States to assert their Sovereignty and protect the Liberty of their individual inhabitants. The propaganda that those enemies of the Republic have disseminated has been widespread. From the earliest part of our national history, by the infamous Chief Justice John Marshall, to the infiltrating of our young hearts and minds with the Pledge of Allegiance (one nation under God, indivisible), the distortion of the most fundamental Right granted to us in order to protect We the People from the despotic rule of a centralized power has over and over again been the victim of a gruesome attempted murder. The patient is on life-support, so there’s still time left to save her.

Liberty that is. But the hours grow long, and the opposition is as fiercely determined to prevent State reclamation of Sovereignty as it is completely ignorant of the founding principles of this country. A simple Google search for bits on “nullification” will show for you the hacks, similar to the one I wrote about yesterday, parroting the Big Government party line on States’ Rights: they don’t exist. Those drones, the easily replaceable pawns of centralized power, are really not the problem though, for they are only a symptom. The true issue at hand is the  Government itself, which has brainwashed generations upon generations of Americans through the public education system and mandated curricula. But that is a case to deal with on another day; today we deal with the only savior for our Liberty, the just cause of nullification.

Going forward, if you ever hear someone belittle nullification as the talk of “crazies”, I’d like you to ask that person, if you can of course, how crazy do they think Thomas Jefferson and James Madison really were. And I do mean that James Madison, considered by most to be the Father of the Constitution, and that Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the greatest American defender of the Liberty of mankind. Because if the foundation for States’ Rights was not laid down firmly enough in the Constitutional Convention notes, the Ratification Debates, the Federalist Papers, and finally, the Bill of Rights, well then I do believe that the Kentucky (1798 and 1799) and Virginia Resolutions can speak on behalf of all the rest.

The Kentucky Resolutions, written anonymously by Thomas Jefferson (who only made public his authorship years later due to his being the Vice President at the time), have some of the most eloquent and beautiful writings on the true nature of the Union. Take this from the Resolution of 1798:

Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

…

That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitutions, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, our prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”;

What more need be said than that? From the pen of the man who crafted the document which freed the Thirteen Colonies from the oppression of a Tyrant. But that is not all. From the Resolution of 1799:

That if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, annihilation of the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy:… That although this commonwealth as a party to the federal compact; will bow to the laws of the Union, yet it does at the same time declare, that it will not now, nor ever hereafter, cease to oppose in a constitutional manner, every attempt from what quarter soever offered, to violate that compact;

…

AND FINALLY, in order that no pretexts or arguments may be drawn from a supposed acquiescence on the part of this commonwealth in the constitutionality of those laws, and be thereby used as precedents for similar future violations of federal compact;

Just for good measure, enjoy some James Madison:

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.

If States’ Rights, as so spectacularly articulated above, are the obsession of ‘nuts’ and ‘crackpots’, then I will gladly wear the badge of a ‘nut’ and a ‘crackpot’. The truth of the matter though, is that those who advocate for the Rights of the Several States are not crazy nor deluded; It is those who seek to suppress those Rights that are either delusional and uneducated, or, in some cases, so evil as to try to pin down the souls of the Mass of People, and extract from them their Just and Right Liberty.

For those who deny the idea of States’ Rights, I say that there is ample evidence from the early history of this nation, just prior to its inception, that shows the main concern in replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution was cession of the Rights enjoyed by the States over to a omnipotent national Government. The fear was so real that it threatened the ratification, and prompted ‘Publius’ to address the nature of the new compact in Federalist 39, thereby cementing in the minds of the People the assurance that the Several States, although party to the contract, still retained the Sovereignty not ceded as part of that contract. That Sovereignty was promised to us, and no government thug can take that away from us.

Now, more than ever, we need to make use of the Right of nullification. As the Supreme Court in recent history has deferred the judgments of constitutionality on laws passed by Congress back upon the lap of the Congress, it has, as Jefferson put it, stopped just short of despotism. And as Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers: “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.”

Nullification is a part of our heritage. It is our Right, and it is about time that we make use of it!

The following is the abbreviated introduction to a project in the works. This is the first part in what I plan to be a series exposing what I feel is the foundation for the average person’s sympathies to collectivist thought.

The theory of wage slavery can best be summed up as the idea that people are bound to servitude under the capitalist system by the wages that they are paid which are, according to Marx and his followers, necessarily below the market value for their labor. This concept is excellent for igniting the clash of Marxian classes, however, I would like to pose the question of whether or not it can actually be accepted as a truth. In order to thoroughly shatter this fallacy, I am going to propose the following:

• That a person cannot be a slave to a wage in a capitalist society, as employment in a free society is voluntary.
• That because employment is voluntary, the wage cannot be below market value if the laborer accepts it. The acceptance is the setting of market value.
• That if a wage is not necessarily high enough to maintain a person’s ideal standard of living, it is only so because the cost of living is so high due to government, not capitalism.
• That historical criticisms of wage and chattel slavery are no indictment of capitalism, but rather indictments of government.
• That any lack of accessibility to the means of production is fostered by government regulation, not individual hoarding.

Once those conclusions are understood, it will be impossible to further propagate such a fallacious idea. Even more, when one understands those conclusions, it is easy to see that the theory was advanced with malicious intent in order to fit the designs of certain so-called philosophers. It is these social philosophers who have, throughout the course of history, tried to enact their own selfish designs upon the mass of people.

The first fallacy of their proposed social reorganization, collectivism, is that it is egalitarian: for how can a society which elevates mere mortals to the status of “surrogate decision-makers” (as Thomas Sowell aptly put it) – people whose position it is to make the social decisions on behalf of an entire society – be considered a society of equals? If a certain preordained few are to make decisions concerning entire masses, and especially if those masses are not in agreement with every decision made, how can those who have no say be thought to be on the same level as those who have the final say? To the rational mind, collectivism cannot be egalitarian. Then, when taken in conjunction with Ludwig von Mises‘ damning work on the socialist calculation problem, and Friedrich A. von Hayek’s work on the “Pretense of Knowledge”, it becomes even more obvious that the evil put forth by the so-called philosophers is nothing more than a pitiful attempt to control the masses for their own self-aggrandizement.

But we need not delve into the deep nature of the beast, nor, for our intents and purposes, do we need to pronounce further the brilliant works already put forth by Mises and Hayek. I will not pretend to be on the level of those giants of economics and philosophy. I will use my simple mind to shatter the fangs of fallacy, the fallacy which paves the path for the average person to sympathize with the collectivist design, the fallacy of wage slavery.