The Left has lost the private sector

Although Republicans have their share of statists, too many, the Democratic Party and the Left in general are now associated closely with interventionist government. The Left was sure that the march of social democracy was such that collective concerns outweighed private interests, and that our era of abundance had ushered in the economy of free time, universal efforts for social justice and the end of capitalism. The idea of planning and markets as inseperable in the US has led to large, unfunded entitlement programs, failing public education, a too-close relationship between government and the Fed, politicized unions, State capitalism, tight, irrational and over-reaching regulations and a welfare state which doesn't effectively move the poor into the middle class. More and more Democrats are associated with these flaws and failures of Big Government.

As soon as Hurricane Sandy did its damage, politicans and statists of all stripes, mainly on the Left, were hailing the virtues of FEMA and Big Government and rebuking the "limited government" crowd as insensitive to social needs such as disaster relief which only, of course, Big Federal Government can provide. Ask the residents on Staten Island what they think about FEMA. Democrats are quick to embrace this Big Government narrative, so now they are facing the problems that the premature praise of government action has wrought. Chris Christie is likely wishing he had not kissed Obama quite so lovingly.

Big Government is failing at all levels, and Benghazi is a case in point that even our national security is threatened by a government that has grown too big, too secretive, too entangled in foreign affairs, and too powerful. The Afghanistan War, the "good war" as Obama called it, is a failure, but media will not properly report the failure because they're protecting Obama's image. Now that Romney will be President, perhaps media will tell the truth about Afghanistan and Pakistan so Romney can end these wars and get our troops home.

Romney has a big challenge lying ahead -- turning around this Leviathan while whittling it down to appropriate size. Will Romney meet this challenge? He has to, and the American people must insist on it. The Republican Party is best positioned to present a true opposition to statism, because no third party has shown any success so far. The success of the GOP in cutting government and creating the rational playing field for a free market depends on the American people not accepting anything less than limited government and a free market. The GOP's past history of free market rhetoric and statist governance can not be repeated. The two principles of limitations and liberty have been the heart of the American idea that's never been realized. It's time to realize the idea completely. The principles of equality and justice are part and parcel of limited government and a free market -- equal opportunity and justice for all, no favoritism, no protection of large corporations or unions or special interests, no power elite.

The Left has lost the private sector as it, the Left, has embraced interventionist government, and this is the cause of the downfall of the Democratic Party. It might not be apparent to everyone, but anyone paying attention has to realize the failures of Big Government and the need for limits on power. It will soon be painfully obvious, if we don't quickly change.

Why the election has to be about more than the candidates

I competely understand the skeptics who dismiss the importance of voting for Romney or Obama since they believe there's not a nickel's worth of difference between them. It could be that Romney is elected and congress is such that government does as it always does and expands its power and increases its cost to future American taxpayers, which means increasing the debt, but we have a say about that. 

Although practically every pundit in the world will proclaim the need to drop ideology and elect politicians who work together to get things done, the opposite is true. This election has to be about ideology -- a set of ideas. Will we continue with the set of ideas formulated in Europe over two centuries ago, social democracy, or will we implement a revolutionary set of ideas based on limited government and a free market? Contrary to what Obama repeats on the campaign trail, America has never operated under a limited government and a free market -- never. Relatively, our government has been more limited than it is now and the market more free than it is now, but government interventionism in the economy has been a reality since our beginning. Alexander Hamilton won the battle between limits and expansion of government power, so we developed a Merchant State for the start.

There have been many ups and downs but the power elite have always run the country for the most part. Of course, small and medium sized businesses have existed in economic liberty in many places at many times, but when government has wanted to make economic changes, it has made changes, and it has forced the country to make the changes. Regulations have piled up until businesses no longer have confidence enough to invest and expand, so we are in a quandary. Statism has shut down the American economy in ways that have caused long term unemployment with no sight of real recovery. The Fed is pumping 30 billion dollars into the economy each month just to keep it on life support, and this is after trillions of dollars of stimulus which were wasted.

Democrats are not focused on economic expansion and widespread prosperity -- they are focused on certain groups doing well, and they are focused on their ideas of fairness. Obama has taken efforts to spur economic growth in the green energy field and in auto manufacturing, but these efforts are influenced by his ideology regarding environmentalism and unionism. Obama's ideas are antithetical to free market principles, because government loses control of the economy in the free market, but if government continues to intervene in the economy it will collapse under the weight of the planning and interference. If our economy collapses, then there's no welfare state or anything else -- there's only panic and misery. We have to turn our nation around so that we're headed in the direction of economic growth -- it's the only way out of the conundrum we're in. This is not about voting for Romney -- it's about voting against statism and for economic freedom. The American people will have to keep Romney's feet to the fire, and congress's feet to the fire. It's up to us, not Romney. Obama obviously has to go, but we'll see about Romney.

Up with Chris Hayes 10/27/2012 -- a frightened and grasping Left

There are many intellectuals who recoil when they are categorized under the Leftist label, but the not-Right is quick to place a diverse group of Americans under the Rightist label. Hayes and company this morning on Up with Chris Hayes did their best to denigrate the Right and, thus, the Republican Party, accusing the Right of bringing abortion back into the national debate, for one thing. Actually the Left has brought abortion back in the spotlight so that they can scare women and secure the female vote for Barack Obama. The Left has found a couple of politicians on the Right who have said some outrageous things regarding abortion, and the Left has used these comments to smear the entire Right and Republican Party.

Hayes is becoming a master partisan skilled at broad smear campaigns, while he ignores the extremes on the Left, except when he tries to appear objective -- at the end of his show, Hayes played a clip of Robert Gibbs justifying the death of  a 16 year old American at the hands of the US military just because the 16 year old's father was a terrorist, also an American citizen killed by a US drone attack. Hayes was right to bring this up, but then he said he's sure Gibbs was caught up in the heat of an election and will surely apologize. No, Chris, Gibbs is a horrible political monster who will do and say anything to help Obama win, and even if he apologized, he wouldn't mean it. He was calm when he made the statement, and he made it with cold conviction, and there was no heat, just a simple question. Hayes can't imagine that someone on his team so close to his beloved President can be such a horrible, uncaring human being, but it's true.

The entire conversation on Up was confused. What the Left, and Hayes' panel, can't fathom is that Romney has momentum and is winning. They say that Romney could win the popular vote but not the electoral votes, and that momentum is an illusion, and that after all the ups and downs the race has leveled off, and that Romney isn't winning the swing states, and that undecideds will use their emotion and vote for Obama because he relates to them, and that women are afraid of Romney and his views on abortion, and this and that. The Left just can't accept that Romney is winning. It just can't happen. They say that conservatism is dying and this is why Romney is going to the center, yet they said nothing about the last two years when the Left has assured everyone that Obama is a moderate. Does this mean that liberalism/progressivism is dead, too?

The guy from the New Yorker got it half right, when the discussion moved to which side has the power, Right or Left -- he said that organized money has the power and it transcends Right and Left. I would take that further and say that organized power is winning, because money only represents power, and it's never just about the money. Our statist government system has built a feeding trough in DC and they've attracted the worst sorts in business, just the type that statists in DC can work with to rig the game and consolidate power. Big Finance corporations, GE, GM, they are all a part of an ever-expanding State machine, and businesses not large enough to compete against this State/Corporate/Military/Industrial machine are screwed, and Obama has been leading the way of organized power the last four years.

A faction on the Right, which has been smeared under the Rightist label protraying the entire Right as racists, homophobes and misogynists, doesn't care about social issues from a political perspective, but does care about limited government and  a free market. Organized power has captured the establishments of both the GOP and the Democratic Party, but a small group is fighting against this organized power, and they have the support of a growing part of the American people who are tired of government intervention. That's what this election is coming down to -- whether we continue with the welfare/warfare State, or whether we empower the private sector and implement a free market, ending overseas interventions and the economic interventions at home. Hayes was right when he said that Romney the personality doesn't matter -- it's the effort on the Right to limit government and create a free market that counts, and all those on the Right who continue the statist game will be pushed out of power, so Romney will lead a Right that's quickly becoming about more than finding a soft center place to help maintain statist power and control, and if Romney fights against this new movement on the Right, he'll pay for it. If the movement fails and dies out, then America will collapse under the burdens placed on it by statist mismanagement. Organized power leads to a failed economy, and that leads to loss of freedom, and that leads to the loss of America as a global influence for individual rights. The Left has nurtured a collectivist approach, and history shows this doesn't work. The social democratic influence over American government has led to the stagnation of our economy, and unless there is  revolutionary change, we can't survive on the present course.

There was not one word this morning addressing Obama's lies regarding Benghazi. This tells you all you need to know about Hayes's biased approach which ignores the sins of the Left and exaggerates the sins of the Right.

Update on Saturday, October 27, 2012 at 03:56PM by M. Farmer

http://tibormachan.rationalreview.com/2012/10/american-statism/

Obama said limited government and economic freedom don't work

It was about a year ago in Kansas that Obama gave his speech claiming that free market principles have never worked. Is there any wonder that our economy is stalled with a President in power who ridicules limited government and economic freedom? Obama characterized limited government and economic freedom as rugged individuals claiming that markets can do everything, just lower taxes, especially on the rich, and remove regulations and let her rip. Obama told his audience that this simple theory is appealing, but the only thing wrong with it is it doesn't work. It didn't work before FDR and it's never worked, Obama defiantly proclaimed.

Americans have to decide if we believe in limited government and economic freedom or not. There really is no choice in 2012 if you are someone who believes that government shouldn't intervene in the economy, because a vote for Obama is a vote for more intervention. Businesses of all sizes have let it be known that they aren't hiring and expanding because they don't know what's coming next from government nor do they know how much it will cost. The Left has tried to refute this by saying that there's no evidence government interventions have stalled the economy. The Left says the problem is demand, and that government must do more to stiimulate demand. Obama has poured billions upon billions of taxpayers' dollars into the economy to stimulate demand, and it hasn't worked. It has made the problem worse by increasing the debt. This is the same analysis of FDR's interventions by revisionist economic historians -- FDR's interventions prolonged the depression causing suffering to last a lot longer than it should have lasted. Japan's interventions into its big recession caused the recession to linger for more than a decade.

The choice regarding the economy in 2012 is between statist intervention in the economy or economic freedom. Which do you trust?

Transcend the political Right and Left with a new division between liberty and domination

MSNBC airs a series of propaganda pieces defending a powerful State starring Maddow, Matthews, Sharpton, Schultz, Hayes, and the rest. Today I saw one by Matthews which tips the hand of those who wish to dominate. Matthews says in his propaganda piece that the political realm is split between those who wish to deny liberty and violate rights and those who are fighting for liberty and rights, then he goes to explain that the rights he's talking about are gay rights, minority rights and women's rights, implying that the Right wants to violate the rights of these special interests and that the Left wants to ensure the rights of the special interests he listed.

This is obscurantism that's rampant on the Left, but as the title states, let's transcend Right and Left, because historically both Right and Left have sought to dominate through an interventionist government. Only government has the monopoly on coercion to violate the rights of the groups Matthews champions. A limited government that's prevented from intervening in the economy or in social issues doesn't block the progress of any individual and, in fact, protects the rights of all individuals. Matthews is talking about positive rights which an interventionist government will enforce through coercion, but he doesn' explain what should be done. I'm sure Matthews thinks that women should receive equal pay for equal work with equal qualifications, and so does just about everyone in the US, including most CEOs. In Matthews' world of State domination, companies would be forced to pay women equal salaries to men regardless of the differences between the individual men and women as long as they have the same job, and this is where interventionist government creates unintended consequences and violates the rights of one group, the owners, to establish positive rights for its favored group, in this case women. But this is just one example of obscurantism on the part of those wish to dominate.

The battle between domination and liberty is nothing new -- it's been around at least since the beginning of history. Alexander Rustow wrote on the subject years ago following WWII. Ever so often freedom fighters make progress moving beyond the control of the elite few in positions of power, then the forces of domination react and squash the freedom movements. The idea of America was the idea of liberty, but some of the Founders had different views regarding freedom than others, and the elite few won, thus creating a merchant state that allowed more freedom than before, certainly, but not as much freedom as many wanted. It seems that the few always wind up dominating the many, even when relative freedom is increased.

It was established by Locke and other philosophers of freedom that some government is necessary to protect the rights of life, liberty the pursuit of happiness, including the right to own property, of individuals. With the loopholes in the Constitution, though, such as the general welfare clause and interstate commerce clause, the proponents of elite domination have moved closer and closer to total statist management and control of the economy and practically every area of human concern. I propose the new division is between those who support freedom from interventionist government and those who support domination through an interventionist government. On the side of liberty, this allows alliances without accepting the full worldview of, or having conflict with, those to which one would ally. I might be a libertarian and someone else might be a conservative, but if we both believe that government should be limited to rights protections and resolving disputes in court and providing national security from foreign invasions, then we can resist domination without having to agree on abortion, drug use, homosexuality, etc. We can disagree on social or economic issues, yet agree that an interventionist government has no business interfering in the disagreements. We can disagree and yet agree to debate the issues and use persuasion to make our case.

On the other side, though, are the alliances of domination, and they are made up of special interests who want government to enforce their worldviews. There's little room for debate on this side, except the debate between the competing interests regarding which groups will coerce which other groups to establish their preferences. This side is rife with political divisions as groups fight to have their way, because any time one group successfuly intervenes and forces their preferences, it violates the preferences of some other group. Environmentalists might have their way in regulating some type of energy production out of existence, but it will likely cut the jobs of union members working in that particular field of energy production. An interventionist government is always deciding intentionally or unintentionally who wins and who loses, so the battle for control of decisions grows more fierce, and the most powerful end up winning, exactly the outcome that statists incorrectly project onto a free market.

In a free market, ideas, products and services compete with one another, and a limited government protects individuals as they enter the market and compete to the best of their ability. In a free market in which no power above is deciding winners and losers, everyone can find a place, because many will be needed as the economy and social space expands in dynamism. In an open and free society inspired by innovation and creativity many avenues will open for people to express themselves in their own creative ways, or just find a niche in which they are comfortable. This is doesn't mean that society will have no problems, it just means that in a open and free society people can respond more flexibly to the problems and find solutions more easily.

This division between the keepers of liberty and those who promote domination will transcend the petty politics of Right and Left, because the world is growing in sophistication and knowledge -- our dreams and the scope of our visions are getting bigger. Government becomes more petty, controlling, deceitful and corrupt -- the keepers of liberty won't be cramped in a statist system with unlimited powers that constantly attempt to limit our power.